BF2S Forums Religions of the world Thread

Larssen wrote:

As far as conflicts go we often misidentify the problem, and our judgment has been clouded by the last twenty years in particular. It's as though everyone forgot about the Lord's Resistance Army in Africa, a distinctly self-styled 'christian' militia, who really outdid even ISIS in brutality throughout the 90s.

Anyway, to get to the point, if you reference the literature there's no pattern in muslim countries or muslim minorities in conflict that deviates from patterns we find in any other conflict. The (civil) wars in question always have diverse material, social, political issues at the heart of them. On top of that is always an ideological top layer, be it nationalism, religion, ethnic identity, often an amalgamation of the three but whatever lends itself easiest to organisation and mobilisation within a community to address the aformentioned issues - each manifesting their own style of fundamentalists.

Having said so I do feel there are certain aspects to Islamic societies that may incentivise fundamentalist behaviour a little more than other religions. It is particularly dogmatic, very ritualistic, strict and rigid in all sorts of behavioural & societal norms and can even be so in dress codes (and it is, in many muslim communities), can be invective ... it swallows up and shapes all aspects of the identity of its followers in a way I don't recognise in any other religion, with a rather unhealthy focus on the 'perfect time' that was the age of Muhammad. It doesn't help either that the religion is completely decentralised and that there is no authority that effectively defines acceptable theology. Which has allowed Islam to be deployed quite easily for nationalist and extremist purposes, which (ab)use its familial and culturally binding qualities and its organisational network for their own ends.

Anyway, the more dogmatic and prescribing aspects within the religious community do not seem to make it easy for its followers to integrate or assimilate anywhere, in any sort of timeframe. In fact in many places it remains a culture/community apart like some immovable group that is often self-policing for people who break out, any non-acceptance also only incentivising further retreat into that identity. It remains a fact that there are relatively many fundamentalists, even an entire country completely dominated by fundamentalism (saudi arabia), which is a problem that can't be ignored or waved away only through a lens of negative western influences.

uziq wrote:

indian women born into lower castes, especially dalits, are treated as less-than-human. stonings, group rapes, murder, honour killings, etc. are very common in rural areas or village life. violence against women is systemic in indian culture.

the caste system means people are treated as objects, regardless. tens of millions of women are consigned to an oblivion of being treated as literally 'untouchables', kept in poverty, privation, desperation, etc., with no hope of ever improving their lives.

women are treated as second-class citizens in india. every family wants a boy. look at the rates of abortion or child mortality, especially for females. female daughters are literally malnourished, underfed, if there is a boy sibling in the picture. they are spared costly education, particularly if there is a boy sibling in the picture. women are forced to marry at their parents' choosing, and treated as a bargaining chip in status/dowry negotiations.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Larssen wrote:

As far as conflicts go we often misidentify the problem, and our judgment has been clouded by the last twenty years in particular. It's as though everyone forgot about the Lord's Resistance Army in Africa, a distinctly self-styled 'christian' militia, who really outdid even ISIS in brutality throughout the 90s.

Anyway, to get to the point, if you reference the literature there's no pattern in muslim countries or muslim minorities in conflict that deviates from patterns we find in any other conflict. The (civil) wars in question always have diverse material, social, political issues at the heart of them. On top of that is always an ideological top layer, be it nationalism, religion, ethnic identity, often an amalgamation of the three but whatever lends itself easiest to organisation and mobilisation within a community to address the aformentioned issues - each manifesting their own style of fundamentalists.

Having said so I do feel there are certain aspects to Islamic societies that may incentivise fundamentalist behaviour a little more than other religions. It is particularly dogmatic, very ritualistic, strict and rigid in all sorts of behavioural & societal norms and can even be so in dress codes (and it is, in many muslim communities), can be invective ... it swallows up and shapes all aspects of the identity of its followers in a way I don't recognise in any other religion, with a rather unhealthy focus on the 'perfect time' that was the age of Muhammad. It doesn't help either that the religion is completely decentralised and that there is no authority that effectively defines acceptable theology. Which has allowed Islam to be deployed quite easily for nationalist and extremist purposes, which (ab)use its familial and culturally binding qualities and its organisational network for their own ends.

Anyway, the more dogmatic and prescribing aspects within the religious community do not seem to make it easy for its followers to integrate or assimilate anywhere, in any sort of timeframe. In fact in many places it remains a culture/community apart like some immovable group that is often self-policing for people who break out, any non-acceptance also only incentivising further retreat into that identity. It remains a fact that there are relatively many fundamentalists, even an entire country completely dominated by fundamentalism (saudi arabia), which is a problem that can't be ignored or waved away only through a lens of negative western influences.

So we should in fact treat Islam with a level of repression that other minority groups in the west aren't affected by due to their ability to live in common with their host societies?

Maybe sometime in the morning Uzique can find the Native American Charlie Hebdo style attack over the Atlanta Braves symbol that I don't remember.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-11-12 15:19:06)

SuperJail Warden wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Conflict between indigenous America and the expansionist US wasn't exactly bloodless on either side, was it.

You might as well bring up the Crusades too at this point. There is an equal amount of people alive who fought in either of those conflicts and the Native Americans aren't killing anyone over it today.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Conflict between indigenous America and the expansionist US wasn't exactly bloodless on either side, was it.

You might as well bring up the Crusades too at this point. There is an equal amount of people alive who fought in either of those conflicts and the Native Americans aren't killing anyone over it today.

The Indian Wars are regarded as having ended west of the Mississippi in 1924. It's not inconceivable that someone is alive today who was alive then, is it? And certainly families living the impact to this day, or with living memory of stories told by those who were there. And even the crusades are carried on by oral histories.

Indigenous Americans also endure elevated levels of police scrutiny and brutality and high rates of incarceration. In recent, high-profile history, Standing Rock. I'm sure your vapid troll response would be to demand why NLM isn't taking to the streets en masse to counter-protest against BLM.

Dilbert's and your own endless deflections to Muslim extremism remind me a bit of US apologists bringing up some indian massacre of a white settlement as if that makes their bigotry OK.

Aside:

How Jimmy Carter lost Iran
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mad … lost-iran/

South Carolina is considering closing its 'marry-your-rapist' loophole that allows girls under 16 to marry if they are pregnant and have a parent’s consent. Visiting the record office in Spartanburg County, Ellie finds 16 child marriages in the county in the last decade. In ten of those cases, the groom could have been prosecuted under statutory rape laws.

One of these marriages was between teenager Keri, then 15, and Paul, then 24. When Keri became pregnant, Paul agreed to marry her and help look after the baby in order to avoid prison. This raises a central question for Ellie: whose rights are more important: the underage, pregnant girl or the unborn, potentially fatherless baby?

Ellie also travels to Georgia to meet 17-year-old Zion. She married at 16, and her groom David was just two years older than her, so Zion didn’t need to use the marry-your-rapist loophole, and nor was her groom at risk of prosecution for statutory rape. Many campaigners want to change Georgia’s minimum marriage age to 18, but Zion is convinced that this would have meant the end of her and David’s family, as they would have been forced to live apart for two years.

But not all child marriages end in family harmony. Often it breaks families apart, as Ellie finds out in Idaho. Here, a case involving conflicting laws, religious beliefs and ideas of parental responsibility left two men in prison and a family at war. In Idaho, child marriage laws require a court order from a judge, but in the state of Missouri only the consent of one parent is needed. So when Heather became pregnant at 14, and without consulting her mother, Heather's father drove her across the USA to marry her 24-year-old rapist.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Oh shut up you fucking cuck.


Isolated cases of complex laws will never make up for the fact that women in Islam are fundamentally secondary to men. Nothing will change that women have worse times in Islamic countries than they have anywhere else.


The fundamentalist Muslims your heart breaks for want to exterminate your way of life. A Pole or cracker from South Carolina isn't going to stone a girl to death for fucking you without a license from her dad and the local Bishop. Some dumb Pole isn't going to behead your grandmother because someone made a joke about Jesus at a high school.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Oh shut up you fucking cuck.


Isolated cases of complex laws will never make up for the fact that women in Islam are fundamentally secondary to men. Nothing will change that women have worse times in Islamic countries than they have anywhere else.


The fundamentalist Muslims your heart breaks for want to exterminate your way of life. A Pole or cracker from South Carolina isn't going to stone a girl to death for fucking you without a license from her dad and the local Bishop. Some dumb Pole isn't going to behead your grandmother because someone made a joke about Jesus at a high school.

Women in Christianity are fundamentally second to men as well. Notice your response will include the argument that culture and society will dictate how closely the word of God is followed, and as such, in most western democracies the word of God plays second fiddle to the cultural and societal norms. The same holds true for Islam, and it has been something uzi and others have highlighted to you many times.

How do you square people like Amy Coney Barrett, a Supreme Court Judge who prescribes to a version of Christianity whose doctrine literally says that women are secondary to men, with your criticism of Islam as practiced in isolated places like Afghanistan?

You live a sheltered life. You're like people in bumfuck Idaho that pretend they know about the world because fox News tells them that black people are rioting in Portland, and then use that myopic view to inform your worldview. For a guy that is seemingly as well-read as you are, you need to get a fucking clue.

Maybe your appreciation of video games, with their facile representations of order and society, and your escapism into fantasy realms of GoT have negatively impacted your ability to apply real world logic to real world problems.

Here we are again, rehashing a debate between Sam Huntington and Edward Said, 40 years later on the bf2s message boards.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Can you name me a country that is not Muslim that executes people for "adultery"?