In Between the Sheets - Ian McEwan
That Glimpse of Truth (Short Story Collection) - David Miller (Ed)

Both great - if you like short stories - the second in particular.

What am I, a priest? ;) Of course, we all hate all sorts of things. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. I have no problem with that. We just don't get to take the moral high ground over others if our motivations are based more on the fact that we hate the other team rather than that they've committed a foul. I already said earlier I don't like any form of religion, but seeing as this discussion pits two religions I don't like (but don't hate either) against each other, I feel I can blow my whistle without fear of favour.

Can one reasonably or legitimately prefer less plurality of ethnicity, religion, politics, and so on? — Bitter Crank

One can legitimately prefer anything and be legitimately liked or disliked for it. But laws affect everyone, so if you want to enforce preferences on society that affect those you'd rather not have around, be prepared for a fight.

Ah, TGW spreading his romantic memes around again.
I am the beast of philo-so-phee, say what you like, once you say it like me.

The hashtags and the accusations that your interlocutors lack empathy fall flat when you give the impression of someone who hates Islam more than he hates violence. Which brings to mind Nigel Farage's recent objection to Trump's response to Assad's chemical attack, which included the line "Whatever Assad’s sins, he is secular." Subtext: "But, he's only killing Islamists. Shut up and let him get on with it." How very Christian of you, Nigel.

Edit: (Notice Farage putting himself in moral equivalence with an Islamist who would object to military action against ISIS on the grounds "Whatever ISIS's sins, they are Muslim." But there it is, the Islamists and their counterparts on the other side, the Islamophobes, are selective in their moral outrage because they are more interested in being outraged than being moral.)

There's not as it stands, which is odd, we know. Anyway, if you blank your post content then write "delete @[any mod name] we'll get rid of it.

When you have nothing of value left to contribute, get a YouTube pundit to contribute it for you. When that fails, try a hashtag.

Yes, we know being religious shouldn't give you a free pass on doing bad stuff. Sign me up! But wrapping that platitude in vaguely apocalyptic warnings concerning Islam and capping it with some unintentionally ironic hot air about continuing to not solve the problem being only solved by talking openly about solving the problem...The End...doesn't exactly advance the debate here does it? (My favorite bit of silliness was "Buckle up for infinite strife!")

We know the kind of tomfoolery that results from having no compassion and also being close-minded, and also what results from the angelic inverse, but what do you get when someone is both close-minded and highly compassionate?...these are the sad roots of the portrayal of the left's Islam problem. — VagabondSpectre

Well said, but to complete the logical tetrad, who would the open-minded non-compassionate be?

*Suddenly paranoid - turning off web cam now*

I don't like any religion by the way... — Benkei

Me either, so it's odd to be in the position of "defending" one. I have curbed my anti-theism a bit though. Secular liberal consumer societies are no panacea.

I don't see the relevance of any of this. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Qur'an did say beating your wife was just fine. The Bible says it's OK to stone a child for being a bit cheeky. Are we worried that Christians are actually going to do that? These books were not made for enlightened eyes, which in the west concerning wife beating have not been that enlightened until very recently. See below. (Some dastardly Muslim must have sneaked the Qu'ran into American living rooms...)




Anyway, yes, the holy books have horrible aspects to them, all of them. I'm not going to defend them. But I will keep pointing out the obvious that most Christians and Muslims will find ways to do the exact opposite to what's in the books for good or for ill when it suits them, so scanning them in order to find evidence that Christians or Muslims are generally bad (or good) is fairly pointless.

The only practical suggestion I've seen from Ali is that Western governments ought to promote Christianity as a defence against Islam. Personally I think that's a terrible idea — andrewk

I don't see how this would improve things either, particularly as the most violent countries in the world, as I mentioned before, are Christian, and in Africa where Ali comes from according to the same set of statistics I quoted earlier the top ten most violent countries in Africa are all majority Christian. Both Rwanda and Burundi are Christian too. Need I go on. I don't think these countries are violent because they are Christian, but Christian critics of Islam who claim that that religion is more violent than theirs either need to readjust their prejudices or be hoist with their own petard.

I do agree with Ali on much of what she says above about radical Islam. It's the conflation of radical Islam with Islam that I have a problem with.

Yes. And I only hate some of them.

I like this Pope, so that must have been a long time ago. Maybe we can stick to the last five years, which is about as far back as my memory goes..?

Sorry if you hate Christians...but its true. — Mongrel

What a silly thing to say. Most of my family are Christians. But quote me on anything I've said that suggests I do. Go ahead.

(And while you're at it let me know if you actually agree or disagree with the points I made above).

(

Sunni Islam doesn't have the same flexibility Christianity has. Muslims are not free to take scripture figuratively. You disagreed with that. Did you change your mind? — Mongrel

No, I didn't, I said "To the extent that they don't that would be a problem". But it's not the decisive element here.)

What percentage of Americans profess to take the Bible literally? And what does it matter? Does it mean they condone the rape of virgins etc? No, obviously not. So what do you mean by flexibility? It would be great if you took into consideration the obvious fact that religion cannot function without hypocrisy and often gets on just fine with the highest levels of it.

Anyway, the debate as set out in the OP is over whether Islam is a more violent religion than Christianity. And that leads to the question of whether you can blame religion primarily for violence or whether other factors are more to blame. If we are to blame religion primarily then Christianity could easily be considered the most violent religion as, judging by murder rates, the most violent countries in the world are Christian. But these countries also happen to be poor, suffer from political instability and severe social problems. And these seem a more sensible set of criteria on which to lay the responsibility no matter what religion we are discussing.

What in that do you disagree with?

I took a stance and provided evidence for it. I've conceded from the beginning that religion has some part to play in all this, but I've said that focusing on its inherent characteristics is misguided because the part those play is relatively small as can be seen by comparing situations where other sociocultural factors have changed but the religion remains the same, or where the religion is different but other factors are the same. Where is our point of disagreement from your perspective?

To the extent that they don't that would be a problem. But I would be highly surprised if any of your Muslim neighbours would not be willing to condemn sex slavery if you asked them. And again, religion is not the primary factor in sex slavery; countries of all religions have terrible records here. Same with violence in general. My position has been that the religious element is small beans in comparison to other factors. And that's borne out by the evidence.

What did I make up? Obviously, I don't think Christians condone the rape of virgins. So, what?

I was being rational. Sensible Muslims avoid taking moral lessons from questionable verses in the Quran as much as sensible Christians do from the Bible.

I'm not going to do all your work for you in this discussion seeing as you've been the laziest poster here and provided hardly a thesis not to mind evidence for it. All you've furnished us apart from your disgust of Islam is your disgust for a variety of crimes which we all find disgusting and which we're all against regardless of the causes. So, where do you actually stand? What is your point? Is it that religion, specifically Islam, is a decisive factor in the occurrence of sex slavery worldwide? In murder rates? In wife-beating rates? In violence in general? What? State your position then provide some evidence to back it up.

Maybe and maybe it's tricky for Christians to condemn the rape of virgins after a battle because Moses commanded it. Or maybe you haven't talked to many real life Muslims.

Anyway, let's not leave out Hinduism:

"In January 2010, the supreme court of India stated that India is "becoming a hub" for large-scale child prostitution rackets. It suggested setting up of a special investigating agency to tackle the growing problem.

An article about the Rescue Foundation in New Internationalist magazine states that "according to Save the Children India, clients now prefer 10- to 12-year-old girls".
...
In 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development estimated that there are around 2.8 million sex workers in India, with 35.47 percent of them entering the trade before the age of 18 years."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slavery#Present_day

So, is it the religions to blame here, or something else?

Other major sex trafficking hubs include Thailand and Cambodia, which are Buddhist. Tell me again how it's the religion that's the deciding factor here?

The issue here is sexual violence, against minors in particular, which considering your facetious reply and your consistently empty posts, you don't actually seem to take very seriously. And yes sexual abuse against women and girls is sanctioned in places in the Bible, but seeing as I'm satirizing your thesis not forwarding my own, I'm not obliged to dig that up.

Or maybe you should become a Christian. The Philippines also happens to be one of the world's major sex tourism centres.

"Government and NGO estimates in 2007 on the number of women trafficked ranged from 300,000 to 400,000 and the number of children trafficked ranged from 60,000 to 100,000"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_Philippines

Well, if the thesis is that the allegedly heinous nature of Islam as revealed in its holy texts is what makes the difference in terms of violence, particularly in comparison to the more benign nature of Christianity, then Catholic Philippines must be a far safer place to be compared to its similarly developed ASEAN neighbour, Muslim Indonesia. Odd then when you look at the statistics that the murder rate in the Philippines is twenty times higher than in Indonesia (and four times higher than Malaysia). Quick, let's all convert to Islam!

And to be clear, I didn't see the anti-semitism in the first place or the intended point (couldn't see the relevance). Until Timeline clarified. And then it should have been over and back to talking about Emmet Till. But, whatever.

There are specific and general reasons your comments appear extremely anti-semitic. — Hanover

If what Timeline said appears extremely anti-semitic, there's not much left over for actual anti-semites to say is there? I can think of lots of examples of extreme anti-semitism, which I'd rather not repeat. Let's try to get our adverbs in order at least.

Can you explain why this is so. I think Lisa Whittington's painting is much closer to conveying the horrendous brutality of what happened to Emmett Till, for sure — Cavacava

Well, you answered it yourself. That aspect is salient for me. Of course, I may be missing something in Shulz's painting, but I just don't feel it.

Presumably they find value and fulfillment in writing about pessimism. — darthbarracuda

Exactly.

It's telling, to me at least, that the ending of the first season of True Detective was the way it was. It ended on a "positive" and "hopeful" note. People were sucked into the show because of its novel pessimism and cathartic nature but ultimately there was an expectation that it would end in an affirmative vindication of life. And that's exactly what it did, and this is exactly why it's ultimately shallow. Without a good reason to affirm life and existence in general, the act of affirmation becomes a bitch-slap cop-out. — darthbarracuda

Yes, it went from the nihilistic to the romantic pretty quick at the end. It was never all that deep intellectually - you're not going to get that on TV - but in terms of mood, it was there until the silly ending. Anyway, by giving anything a name, you're already searching for meaning. And Ligotti, Zapffe, Benatar et al write (or wrote) books on the subject. That takes time, effort and great commitment. Why bother?

The real nihilists we've never heard of. They did nothing and are dead or dying.

Fair enough, I'm no spokesman for liberalism or any other -ism on this one.

"Cultural appropriation" is a sloppily employed term. It's in a sense the very opposite of what is a real problem, cultural domination. When a minority culture appropriates from a majority culture, that's more likely to have negative effects on the former than the latter. And when the appropriation flows the other way, it seems odd to also call it bad for the minority culture unless there is some element of exploitation, perversion, or ridicule etc. involved. In which case, it would be cultural misappropriation. Like if a majority culture were to take a native culture's sacred ceremonial dance and make it into some kind of trivial fad that served to denigrate it, that would be misappropriation. White hip hop artists and rappers on the other hand are just culturally appropriating. And then you have everything in between including this painting, which unless someone can show me how it exploits, perverts or ridicules the tragedy it depicts, I don't see a problem with.

("How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back" is a much better work of art though imo).

The religious motivation of course can be important and, no, it's not all the West's fault; but, yes, to focus on the religion itself in terms of what it's supposed to mean as if that was somehow the reason for the bad things that are done in its name is to miss the point and in a dangerous way (as it would be to ignore religious motivations entirely on the basis that it's not supposed to mean anything objectionable) as @jamalrob pointed out. As I said above, in terms of evaluations there are only the plausible and less plausible; religion X (where X is a major Abrahamic religion at least) is not inherently peaceful or violent, it's how it's used in context that matters. The goal then should be to work to create a context that fosters its peaceful rather than its violent use. So, to claim that the problem is that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity is not only to make a claim that is not supported by evidence (show me a study where levels of violence in majority Islamic countries are found to be significantly higher than those in majority Christian countries where other socio-cultural variables are accounted for) but also to prevent yourself from having any hope of finding a solution. Which is fine only for those who don't really want one.

It's only one more step before you realize that as there is no absolute indisputable meaning of religion X (just shades of plausibility with regard to interpretations) evaluating religions as better or worse based on what's written in their holy books gets you virtually nowhere in terms of understanding why some of their adherents do horrible things (and there is no disputing the horror of some of the things done in the name of Islam today). So, as religion functions primarily as a force of social cohesion and strength in numbers (to put it crudely) rather than as a font of ethical instruction, the way to chip away at its radical elements is to work to create conditions of engagement with the non-radical elements in order to strengthen the latter at the expense of the former. Denigrating the religion en masse by attacking its core texts is likely to have exactly the opposite effect, which makes it not only a destructive strategy but a self-defeating one. But maybe some (not you) don't want to solve the problem and are content to vent.

And all this guff about the New Testament. Isn't it gun-toting, hyper-capitalist Republicans who claim to be Jesus's biggest fans? Are they just bad readers? If you think that what makes the difference in broad terms is what's actually written in the holy books then you just don't understand how religion functions.

(So, go after the religionists and go after them hard, but focus on the religion and you'll end up alienating people who it would be better to have on your side).

No wonder some don't want to talk about history as it demonstrates unequivocally that the religion itself is not the primary issue; it's the socio-cultural context in which the religion is put to work that matters most (as @VagabondSpectre has pointed out). What's left over is pretty small beans by comparison.

I've been told it's the most efficient form of government and most productive of all possible. — Question

Who told you that and what kind of tattoos did he have?

Obviously when I say "fascism" I have in mind something very different from what the Nazis perverted into their own ideology. — Question

Maybe you better make clear what that is. Which fascist regimes would fall under your definition? And since radical nationalism, aggression and human rights abuses are part and parcel of fascism, how was the Nazis employment of it in principle perverse?

[Cross-posted with csal]

I'm better at playing the violin than a dog. — Marchesk

I'm not, unfortunately.

Yes, I was going to ask too: Are humans bad at philosophy compared to who or what? By what yardstick do we measure the skilful or unskilful carrying out of philosophy except the humans that do and have done it? It's like saying humans are bad at reasoning. No, we're very bloody good at it actually compared to every other life form we know of.

Edit: (Maybe it's a trivial point as the OP does address the more sensible question as to why we make the mistakes we do when philosophizing. Still, it irks me slightly.)