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S.J.WI choose to believe the main cause is indeed occupation and invasion. Other studies have shown this as well.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/10/18/its-the-occupation-stupid/
I think saying it's all because of Islam is way too simplified. There are alot more factors that go into terrorism than just religion.
This paper sums up causes of terrorism relatively nicely.
https://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/butler-issue-25.pdf
But to bring up your point to buddhism. I think that's the exception and not the rule. Every other religion has violence in it. It's human nature to want to be better than other people and assert your dominance. If you took away religion, I believe these tendencies would still exist. Atheists still commit terrorism but from your stand point there should be no reason for them to commit terrorism because they don't worship a god.
onenerdykidIt is a fundamental fact that if you remove occupation and invasion from the equation, Islamic violence & terrorism will continue to exist. The concepts of jihad and martyrdom predate any occupation in the Middle East by hundreds and hundreds of years. They are not a product of occupation or invasion but rather are the root cause of the violence. Adding an invasion and/or an occupation is only exacerbating the violence that underlines their belief system. Islamists and jihadists will still be murdering cartoonists and calling for their deaths long after any occupation is over. What horrible foreign policy mistake did Denmark make that led to their cartoonists being murdered? None- their deaths were purely caused by Islamic fanaticism. These are inescapable truths (yes actually true things) that your first source (again by Pape) fails to take into consideration. You both are ignoring huge amounts of evidence in order to defend your position and no one should do that.
There are other, mainly Asian, religions that have non-violence at their core. The most non-violent one is Jainism, whose followers are so opposed to violence that they don't kill anything. They only eat fruits & nuts and cover their mouths with cloth so they don't accidentally inhale any bugs. When they become more "fundamental" they only become more peaceful. The point I am making with both of these religions is that actions stem from beliefs. If you truly believe X, then you act accordingly to X. If your religion has jihad & martyrdom at its core fundamental belief structure, then its faithful adherents act in violent and suicidal ways. If your religion has peace and non-violence at its core, then its easy to see why its faithful adherents will not become violent. This is why if you put Islamists in Tibet or Jains in the Middle East, the situations in each area will be totally different from now.
I have never made the claim that atheists cannot be terrorists but rather that the doctrine of Islam promotes terrorism (along with peace and other contradictory claims). Atheism does not promote terrorism or reject it- it only says that I don't believe in God. If someone says they are an atheist, it does not tell you anything about their ethical beliefs. It contains no rules for how to conduct your life- that education comes from somewhere else and I do believe that such an education is needed. So yes of course an atheist can become a terrorist, but their violent actions do not stem from atheism. Whereas an Islamist's violent actions do stem from their belief in Islam because Islam promotes and encourages such behavior. Action follows belief and that is ultimately the problem with Islam and other ideologies that promote & encourage violence.
cobra_commanderSo you're just another post-modern progressive who chooses to view the world through horse blinders that fit your preconceived narrative.
You're not alone, and it is hardly limited to the SMJWs of the world. The blinders just point different directions.
Tell me, how many Islamic countries have you been to? Have you been to a place where people are publicly executed for homosexuality? Where women are charged with defiling the men who raped them?
These are not fringe groups doing this. It's the fucking governments. We can talk about the peaceful intentions of moderate Islam all we want, yet for some reason, when a country becomes predominantly Muslim the radicals seem to be followed more than the moderates.
cobra_commanderAre you fucking high?
There is plenty of terrorism and violence in Indonesia.
Dude fucking stop you have no fucking clear what you're talking about.
Your mother must be embarrassed
S.J.WAnd sure Islam is scary in the wrong hands, but that's such a small percentage, why do people worry about it? People should be more worried about the muslims who sympathise with terrorism, than the actual terrorism part themselves. Which is indeed a relatively big part of Islam depending on which country you look at.
onenerdykidSure he used studies, but as JD rightly notes, he's clearly viewing the data through his own agenda/filter and drawing conclusions from the data that support his views. In order to think Pape is speaking factually, you have to completely discount the motives given to us by the terrorists themselves. That is an incredibly huge mistake. Additionally, does Pape have any explanation for why the same Islamists/organizations murder cartoonists, satirists, and authors? There is no foreign policy blunder that can be even remotely linked to those deaths.
To your second point, are we still hating the Germans for killing our grandfathers? Or the Japanese? Or the British for trying to subject their way of life upon us? We waged war against these countries, often killed thousands upon thousands of their civilians, yet now we are close allies with them. We don't send in suicide squads and blow up their civilians in retribution for the deaths they caused us. Likewise, they don't do the same to us. War is one thing, a religious death cult promoting martyrdom & jihad is another. This is why if you remove the USA's foreign policy blunders from the equation, you will still have an ISIS or an Al-Qaeda or random Islamists doing what they do.
And just because I believe the above, it doesn't mean that I support things like the Iraq War or how we are exactly handling the current conflict. Just because I think Islam is huge collection of shitty, contradictory ideas, it doesn't follow that the only course of action is to drop bombs on civilians.
louie.miragsAdam Kokesh puts it best, "Governments of developed countries that occupy and intrude on developing nations cause terrorism. People resent having their societies taken over by foreign militaries, and after seeing their families killed and their way of life destroyed, resentment can become so great as to drive people to horrific violence. Foreign occupations cause such despair that victims often find their lives worth so little as to be easily sacrificed in resistance."
onenerdykidThis only makes sense if you:
1. don't understand that violent actions stem from violent beliefs
2. completely ignore the motives & reasonings the terrorists actually give us for their actions
He still can't begin to explain how Tibet has not fallen into the same shit show as the Middle East because he misses the first point above. Tibetan Buddhists do not believe that violence is the solution, so they (by and large) don't resort to terrorism in response to their occupation & invasion. There are very few exceptions to this and it shows that people act a certain way when they believe a certain idea. When your fundamental ideas involve altruism & non-violence, you end up with a different response to those who have jihad & martyrdom as their fundamental ideas.
onenerdykidThis only makes sense if you:
1. don't understand that violent actions stem from violent beliefs
2. completely ignore the motives & reasonings the terrorists actually give us for their actions
He still can't begin to explain how Tibet has not fallen into the same shit show as the Middle East because he misses the first point above. Tibetan Buddhists do not believe that violence is the solution, so they (by and large) don't resort to terrorism in response to their occupation & invasion. There are very few exceptions to this and it shows that people act a certain way when they believe a certain idea. When your fundamental ideas involve altruism & non-violence, you end up with a different response to those who have jihad & martyrdom as their fundamental ideas.
cobra_commanderI have also never met any Muslim from a predominately Islamic Country that didn't have a fundamental hatred for Isreal; even those students and professionals in the United States. This is a real problem.
vailsux.comThis is such a load of garbage. Buddhists in Tibet have violently revolted a number of times and manage to self immolate on a somewhat often basis. Their Buddhist friends over in Myanmar certainly put their Islamic counterparts to shame when it comes to violence.
Why are they so violent in Myanmar? Look at the example you quoted before this.
onenerdykidBuddhist terrorist = bad Buddhist, in so far as his actions run contrary to his ideology
Islamic terrorist = good Muslim, in so far as his actions are completely justified by his ideology.
If you truly believe the tenants of your faith, you will not act contrary to them. However, if you don't truly believe in the tenants of your faith, you will not act according to your faith. All of the above examples demonstrate this.
S.J.Whttps://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4481625/Norris_MuslimIntegration.pdf?sequence=1
S.J.WThis paper sums up causes of terrorism relatively nicely.
https://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/butler-issue-25.pdf
vailsux.comYou're assuming that if you truly believe in something it will dictate how you behave or act.
Just because someone uses religion as a rationalization for their actions doesn't mean that is why they did it.
vailsux.comThis is such a load of garbage.
I'm Mormon bitch!
vailsux.comYou're assuming that if you truly believe in something it will dictate how you behave or act.
J.D.Um, yes. This is called "basic common sense".
J.D.I mean, that's a pretty fucking awful thing and horribly ignorant thing to say; that any country, particularly Israel, should be "wiped off the face of the Earth". So I'm not sure what to tell you.
J.D.I mean, that's a pretty fucking awful thing and horribly ignorant thing to say; that any country, particularly Israel, should be "wiped off the face of the Earth". So I'm not sure what to tell you.
S.J.Wyou mean like how Israel is trying to wipe out Palestine?
cobra_commanderIsreal is trying to suppress terrorist groups that indiscriminately attack civilians and kidnap Palastinian civilians, especially children, to use as human shields.
It's not like their are any other Arab states that think their should be a Palestinian state... at least Isreal calls them Palestinians. Most Arab states don't.
Ski_Alotthis just isn't true
S.J.Wyou mean like how Israel is trying to wipe out Palestine?
S.J.Wyou mean like how Israel is trying to wipe out Palestine?
CampeadorI think it was actually J.D. who posted an excellent podcast about the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict a year or so ago.
Essentially, the gist was that if the Palestinians had the ability to wipe Israel off the map (with nuclear weapons and the like), there is no question that they'd do so in a heartbeat. Israel actually has the power to wipe Palestine off the map, and yet they don't.
onenerdykidFor all of the shit going on between Palestine and Israel, JD and Campeador's points are totally true. Neither is in the clear when it comes to human rights, but at least Israel is showing far more restraint when it comes to using violence/weapons within their means/what they actually possess. Palestine has explicitly expressed that it if it gets the proper means to wipe Israel off the map, it will not hesitate. Israel, on the other hand, has the means to do this (many times over) to Palestine, yet does not. This also strengthens the argument should Palestine stop attacking Israel, Israel would be able to live peacefully next to Palestine. And it's very clear that if Israel stopped attacking Palestine altogether, Palestine would still be hostile to Israel. For fuck's sake, even Palestinian children's cartoons are full of blatant anti-Semitism and calls for wiping out all of Israel.
Charlie_KellyBut why would Palestinians ever stop attacking Israel? They have been slowly getting displaced from their homeland for decades by a people who really weren't there first. It's almost like some form of social-gentrification. You see the same thing happen with the American Indians. They were here first, we slowly displaced them, and that led to wars and the killing of more Indians. Of course the U.S. could have completely wiped out the indigenous population whenever they wanted and didn't, but I'd hardly call that showing "restraint"...Do you really think people being forced by a foreign invader will go quietly into the night? Look at a map, Palestinians are being "forced" from the communities GRANTED to them throughout all the treating done between themselves and Israel. The communities left (short of Gaza and a few other isolated areas) are being infiltrated with Israeli homeowners and developers. Why would any Palestinian want to live among people who are slowly taking their homeland from them? Once again I ask, why would they ever go quietly into the night when they feel so much has been unfairly taken from them?
J.D.Because you want a whole country wiped off the face of the Earth. That's pretty terrible. Particularly given the historical context involved with the Jews, and the desire on the part of multiple actors throughout history to wipe them off the face of the Earth, and the fact that there are actual legitimate political parties in good standing in surrounding countries that do, in fact, propose carrying out a new holocaust.
So yeah, I consider your viewpoint there morally abhorrent.
As for it motivating your behaviour, first, individual subjective anecdotes have basically no argumentative value. However, I'd bet it does in fact motivate your behaviour. I'd bet that view influences your voting decisions, influences the sort of things you spend your time and energy on politically, possibly influences your charitable giving, if you give any money to charity.
The fact that you're not over there actively killing Israelis speaks to the absence of certain beliefs that might incline you towards doing so if you held them - first, you could believe that killing infidels is moral, second that paradise exists in the afterlife and that this world is merely a stepping stone to getting there, third that if you die in the process of killing infidels, you will be martyred, and martyrdom is the best way to paradise, fourth that your family will celebrate your action as they too are certain that you are in paradise and will be showered with gifts by your community (who will honour your memory), and so on. If you held those beliefs, you might very well be spurred to violent action. It's not hard to understand why someone who really believes all of that might think that blowing themselves up in a crowd of civilians is a good idea.
Everyone's beliefs motivate their actions. Some people believe that homeopathy is a legitimate way to further their own health, and so subscribe to homeopathic remedies. Others (myself included) think it's snake oil peddled by frauds, and so do not waste money and time on placebos. This goes for literally everything. Suggesting that peoples' beliefs don't directly impact how they behave is insane.
CampeadorI think it was actually J.D. who posted an excellent podcast about the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict a year or so ago.
Essentially, the gist was that if the Palestinians had the ability to wipe Israel off the map (with nuclear weapons and the like), there is no question that they'd do so in a heartbeat. Israel actually has the power to wipe Palestine off the map, and yet they don't.
onenerdykidThese terrorists are giving us explicit reasons for their actions, often quoting the exact scripture from the Qur'an or Hadith or both, and yet people say "oh no, you don't mean that. You really did it because of our foreign policy mistakes". I can only imagine the frustration on the side of the terrorists. They keep giving us their reasons for killing people and we try to find other motives for their actions.
CampeadorJesus never went to America. Joseph Smith was a pedophile.
May as well be a Scientologist, at least they've got a nice center in LA. You polygamist freaks all congregate around a god forsaken salt lake in the middle of the desert because no one else can stand you.
Hmmmm a bunch of delusional polygamists out in the desert that worship a pedophile prophet... What other religion does that remind you of?
It's alright though, I appreciate you and your "brothers" coming around to provide me with more firewood every once in a while, sorry I mean the book of mormon.
vailsux.comThey use Islam to justify their attacks, but no terrorist gets his start by reading the scriptures and realizing, "oh fuck if I am a good Muslim I gotta blow shit up in the name of Allah" There is a path to radicalization and to solve the problem you gotta look past mirage of religion.
vailsux.comK, I don't think you're listening to what the people who commit terrorist acts are actually saying. Their motives are usually retribution for U.S. involvement in some foreign country. Everyone from bin laden to the tsarnaev brothers are literally on the record giving this exact reason for why they did what they did. They use Islam to justify their attacks, but no terrorist gets his start by reading the scriptures and realizing, "oh fuck if I am a good Muslim I gotta blow shit up in the name of Allah" There is a path to radicalization and to solve the problem you gotta look past mirage of religion.
J.D.Yeah, nothing you just posted was accurate. I'm not "generalizing" anything about 2 billion people. I'm reading the Quran and the Hadiths, noticing that (unsurprisingly for centuries-old religious texts) they contain some absolutely terrible ideas, and noticing that a subset of those 2 billion people are following those terrible ideas to the letter, and then telling everyone that that is precisely what they are doing.
If you're actually taking the view that what people believe, in terms of religion or otherwise, doesn't translate into behaviour then there's no point in talking to you because that's so divorced from reality you might as well be trying to tell me the Earth is flat. But then, if you can't tell the difference between generalizing about all 2 billion Muslims on the planet and criticizing the articles of faith themselves, maybe that ship has already sailed.
Nuance, man. It's important. Especially for someone who apparently holds strong opinions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict... yikes.
S.J.WDoesn't seem to be much terrorism in Indonesia and that's a predominantly muslim nation. Indonesia is actually safer than the US... But I'm sure that's just because religion is not a strict guidelines, but rather open to your own interpretation. If I wanted to go all Jihadi John, I could justify that through the Koran. Same if I wanted to go all peace loving I could also justify that through the Koran. This is religion 101, you can have groups like ISIS who take literal meaning to passages, while ignoring others. Or you could have followers take a more guided approach to their religion while ignoring passages of violence, or ignoring passages of peace.
But you seem to be ignoring the study i posted by Harvard which found that Muslims in the west have pretty much the same values as conservative christians.
S-S-KI'm going to have to call you out on Indonesia not having much terrorism and it being safer than the US...
I work for a company that does business all over the world (oh good for me) and earlier this year we were working on two massive quotes with a very likely customer out of Indonesia. We had some managers and sales people out there hashing out details when they were ordered to leave the area asap. Sadly we are still in the quoting process and are hindered by the terrorism threats in the area.
You're right about Indonesia being predominantly muslim, but I would feel much safer living in the US. That goes for the other predominantly muslim countries, I don't think I would feel comfortable/safe living in any of them.
I think that peace map you posted doesn't have any meaning in this Islamic terrorism discussion. It probably includes completely unrelated peace/war/military/violence metrics that have nothing to do with what we are talking about...
vailsux.comDo you know what feels good? Not giving a fuck and reading this garbage. Scientology might have a nice center in LA, but we got the best snow on earth so you can fuck right the fuck off. The mormons are into weird shit and I don't care.
Watch your ass though, them polygamists are freaky and they might just stop by and convert your wife or girlfriend.
Charlie_KellyBut why would Palestinians ever stop attacking Israel? They have been slowly getting displaced from their homeland for decades by a people who really weren't there first.
CampeadorIt's not their "homeland". "Palestinians" are an odd assortment of mostly Arabs and some Syrians, who moved to the area to work for the Jews who started settling back there in the 1920s. "Palestine" is a name that dates back to Alexander the Great. After which time is was known as Judaea, until Hadrian changed the name to Syria Palestina as punishment against the Jews for the Bar Kokhba revolt. There is some disagreement on the name, but it is generally believed that "Palestine" is a derivative of "Philistia", the Philistines being the biblical rivals of the Jews.
There is no genetic or ethnic difference between "Palestinians" and their Arab brothers to the south and east.
During the latter years of the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Land was a backwater with a very low population of a few hundred thousand.
IV. Palestine: Arab / Jewish Population (1914 - 1946)
Year Jews Arabs
1914 60,000 731,000
1918* 59,000 688,000
1922 83,790 668,258
1931 174,606 858,708
1941 474,102 1,111,398
1944 554,000 1,211,000
1946 608,225 1,237,334
http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000636#chart2
So as you can see, only about 668,000 Muslims could be in any sense displaced from their homeland. Furthermore, Jerusalem had a much higher Jewish population (and even a higher Christian population at certain points) than Muslim population during the decades leading up to 1948.
The cause of "Palestine" is a farce that conceals the true motive of the terrorists; the violent spread of Islam towards the establishment of the global caliphate. Hamas and ISIS are one in the same. Muslims are great at displacing, murdering, and subjugating other populations whenever they come into contact, but they sure do like to play the victim when the tables are turned on them.
S.J.WYes, the map also includes gun violence, mass shootings,etc,etc. The point I was making is terrorism is such a boogeyman scare tactic politicians use to justify infringing on our rights. But in the 2010's there has been eight terrorist attacks so far. Compare that to 74 terrorist attacks in America in the 2010's.
S-S-KI'm going to have to call you out on Indonesia not having much terrorism and it being safer than the US...
I work for a company that does business all over the world (oh good for me) and earlier this year we were working on two massive quotes with a very likely customer out of Indonesia. We had some managers and sales people out there hashing out details when they were ordered to leave the area asap. Sadly we are still in the quoting process and are hindered by the terrorism threats in the area.
You're right about Indonesia being predominantly muslim, but I would feel much safer living in the US. That goes for the other predominantly muslim countries, I don't think I would feel comfortable/safe living in any of them.
I think that peace map you posted doesn't have any meaning in this Islamic terrorism discussion. It probably includes completely unrelated peace/war/military/violence metrics that have nothing to do with what we are talking about...
.MASSHOLE.I have a feeling this case is going to get a LOT uglier.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/06/02/donald-trump-preyed-on-victims-of-the-financial-crisis-the-new-york-attorney-general-says/
CampeadorNot really, it's a civil case with few merits.
The poor Clintonites are grasping at straws. This sorry excuse for a NY attorney general, Scheiderman, is a featherweight. I wonder if his orders are coming from DeBlasio, Cuomo, or perhaps even Soros?
Now an actual interesting story would be how the State Department under Clinton contributed over fifty million dollars of taxpayer money to the owner of Laureate International (a fraudulent for-profit education company), while Bill was being paid 16.5 million dollars as "honorary chancellor".
