Paris Attacks

[SirBlaziken]

It's not that i'm telling people to take the entire topic and shove it to PM's, i'm telling people to take their accusations and fighting to PM's. I am also not blind to the oppression that you just brought up (And was brought throughout the debate. Feel free to discuss it here, but if you're going to flat out attack someone else (as Umbreon allegedly did to Raven), take it to pm's and save us all the trouble, as if this was meant to turn into a full on debate, a topic would've been made there.

Than again, i'm apparently bissfully ignorant, so what do I know?

[Lord Raven]

Oppression is the wrong word, read carefully.

I addressed the personal attack as a misconception as well.  I would have rather cleared up the misconceptions in public rather than seeing someone try to call me out like that, because it's relevant.  Not a hard concept.  You don't need to keep dwelling on it.

[SirBlaziken]

Oppression is the wrong word, read carefully.

I addressed the personal attack as a misconception as well.  I would have rather cleared up the misconceptions in public rather than seeing someone try to call me out like that, because it's relevant.  Not a hard concept.  You don't need to keep dwelling on it.

The part about oppression was referring to what sylar said. Nonetheless that makes more sense than what I thought, thank you for clearing that up. Now we can all carry on this discussion like civilized people, right? Right? might not happen, but I can hope.

[Turner]

You're comparing religion to a magical frog thing.  You're already not very credible with this point right now, but this is not the point.  The fact that you think I am victim-blaming here - which I am not doing, and I'm not even doing it subtley because I have definitely watched the way I worded it here - is also a misconception.

Religion is not inherently delusional, and people get touchy because you use incredibly loaded words.  There's a difference between not believing in it and outright declaring it is the incorrect way to do it.

Whether you like it or not, there is no such thing as God or Allah or anything of the sort. That much is fact and until you can prove otherwise it will remain as fact. If you choose to believe in something, that is your choice but that does not make it real and you can't expect to be treated differently just because you happen to 'really believe it'. Believing in something that is not real is a delusion by definition, you can look that up in the dictionary if you want.

There have been shootings everywhere around the US and in the west by the way, and they have taken more lives as a whole than terrorist attacks.  There's no outrage over this unless the victim is not white.  Again, there is far more sympathy for the white male.

From over here, all the sympathy on the Trayvon Martin case was with Trayvon, Mark Duggan's shooting by a white police officer instigated riots all over London and the rest of the country. When Michael Brown's shooting was reported here there was mass disgust for the American police forces. Jean Charles de Menezes' shooting was seen as a blight on the UK police force too (And that wasn't long after a terrorist attack). I'm not saying the UK is perfect or devoid of racism or islamophobia, but the US is a lot more blatant about it. Some of the sentiments of the US press and political figures would cause public outcry here, and that's because we have a much larger proportion of Islamic immigrants crammed into a much smaller place.

I think there's a bit of a difference between isolated incidences of shootings in the context of racially motivated street violence and outright pre-planned terrorist attacks using military grade weapons and explosives driven by specific political goals. If the driving factor behind terrorist attacks really was Islamophobic propaganda then there would be a lot more ISIS attacks on US home soil than there have been.

The fact is that ISIS and any other extremists will take whatever opportunities they can get to blow up or gun down a bunch of Westerners regardless of their country's political propaganda. Thanks to the Schengen Area, it's easy for terrorists to stay mobile in the EU without raising much suspicion and when you have certain countries being a soft-touch on immigration or otherwise unable to protect their borders adequately due to economic collapse, it's easy as pie to get from Syria to a major Western-European capital without detection.

You say that the ISIS attacks are happening because of Islamophobic sentiment, yet there's simply no way to prove that and all the evidence points to the contrary. ISIS themselves have told the West why they're carrying out attacks:

"If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way, however it may be,"

"Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-urges-more-attacks-on-western-disbelievers-9749512.html

This is literally a direct quote from an ISIS spokesperson. The two factors here are pretty clear:

1) Military coalition in Syria
2) Disbelieving in Islam

At the very worst, Islamophobic headlines are provocative but as outlined by the ISIS goals they're inconsequential to whether or not they make targets. If you were to remove all Islamophobia from the West it wouldn't make any difference.

We can't suddenly start believing in Islam so I'd prefer to go to the next best thing and pull out of Syria. Unfortunately that is well out of the public's hands, it didn't work with the Iraq war despite the fact that everyone was against it. Defense is big money and the ethics of the public doesn't make bank in post-recession Britain.

[Lord Raven]

Whether you like it or not, there is no such thing as God or Allah or anything of the sort. That much is fact and until you can prove otherwise it will remain as fact. If you choose to believe in something, that is your choice but that does not make it real and you can't expect to be treated differently just because you happen to 'really believe it'. Believing in something that is not real is a delusion by definition, you can look that up in the dictionary if you want.

You can't prove it wrong either.  You can't prove it either way.  You're, at this point, shoving your views down the throats of the billions of people who worship anything when you haven't given any proof towards the non-existence of god.  There's also no empirical proof towards this either.

You can argue details in the Bible but that's not the only definition of god.  Let's not call an entire group of religious people delusional over your own personal beliefs either way.

Regardless, this has very little to do with anything and it's going to be cyclic as hell.  Can you admit that religion is almost equally synonymous with culture especially in the Middle East?  Because that matters more than what the religion is about.

black shootings in the US

These were only attended to when riots occurred.  Until then it was not reported.  These are also not the only incidents, they're just the ones that went viral.

Baltimore shells out millions of dollars every year to cover up this crap in the form of settlements.  The masses still end up siding with the injustice regardless of what you've seen.  BBC may not pick a side but not everyone watches BBC over here, and the way America has handled it is only an example of what I'm talking about.  Differing reactions throughout the rest of the world are not uncommon especially since they probably weren't reported in the same way.

This also fails to fix the social issues that minority neighborhoods feel, which is poverty caused in many, many ways by unstable education facilities.  Shootings make it easy to attach a face to the incident, but they also end up only punishing those in charge instead of actually reforming those areas in disrepair.  It definitely doesn't stop it.

things about islamophobia

That's not my point.  My point was

- America lends aid to these people then cuts it off
- They attack us back at some point
- We attack back using the pretense of "islam is a religion of terror" and inciting that kind of fear among the masses
- They attack back, propagating a "the west demeans us" kind of viewpoint to their people and gaining support through radicalism
- etc etc etc

This level of vitriol towards Islam itself is what gives ISIS power.  ISIS doesn't care about Islamophobia, basically only about power and they nurture our islamophobia to bring up support.  It's sickening that people back ISIS, but we give them fodder to do it.  And our current media backlash and inevitable crap that we will give islamic nations as a result will further this sentiment.

You can say my reaction is knee-jerk to events that have not happened yet, but neither side is willing to stop giving any sort of -phobic fodder to feed to their people.  I'm not saying these attacks are a direct result of Islamophobia, so much as the fact that the West is generally incredibly arrogant towards the handling of eastern ideals.  This kind of mentality has led to Japan's ass backwards imperialism throughout the 20th century, it's led to things like the Cold War, and it's led to tons of strife throughout the middle east.  At the very least, this is why the people are willing and able to attack, and twist religion into it and bam you have a perfect storm of hatred that allows a cycle of vitriol that has been well controlled by two governments whose aim is ultimately power and nothing to help their people.

That's my point here.  There obviously are much greater powers at work, but I'm talking about the most basic and fundamental ways in which this should not affect public sentiments at all, as well as propaganda that will further this rift between eastern and western nations.  Not condemning them is not a solution because terrorism is not something you take lying down, but spreading fear and war to a populace is not the best way to cope with this either.

I'm mainly arguing that I've seen a myriad of reactions that are sickening from people themselves and media outlets.  Based on precedent I have no hope for this to ever be resolved in a rational way.

It does seem that there is some good coming out of this though, namely the people absolutely blasting the guys trying to push an Islamophobic agenda and things to that extent, and that's what I'd like to see.  As it stands, if there's more of this then I'll gladly eat my words because I'd rather be wrong about this.  You can't really change how people who are already ignorant think over a short period of time anyway, but as it stands that sort of attitude has been basically ingrained in our society which vindicates these wars that ultimately accomplish nothing.

Furthermore, we live in developed countries (though no healthcare here smh) that have seemed to gradually embrace progressive ideals, so in theory it is much easier for the west to stop propagating this nonsense than it is for the east.  Especially since we don't live in fear of a state that takes away our right to free expression.

[Turner]

You can't prove it wrong either.  You can't prove it either way.  You're, at this point, shoving your views down the throats of the billions of people who worship anything when you haven't given any proof towards the non-existence of god.  There's also no empirical proof towards this either.

You can argue details in the Bible but that's not the only definition of god.  Let's not call an entire group of religious people delusional over your own personal beliefs either way.

This is just silly though and this very argument has been had around the internet thousands of times with the same outcome every time. You can't 'prove' a negative, you can't prove that I don't have an invisible unicorn that defies the laws of the universe next to me right now.

The fact is though, we make judgements on real life based on proven science. We don't lead our lives making allowances for what 'might' be the case or what we can't prove doesn't exist. If there is a religion that is driving people to kill en masse then it absolutely has to be challenged, it has to be scrutinized and it has to be openly criticized and we have to provide an environment where people can do this freely without fear of their safety.

When people look at Charlie Hebdo or any other satirical publication making fun of religion and call it Islamophobic or any other religion-phobic then they are doing far more damage justifying these kinds of attacks by treating religion like some kind of inherent characteristic akin to race or sexuality. Culture is no different in this respect.

- America lends aid to these people then cuts it off
- They attack us back at some point
- We attack back using the pretense of "islam is a religion of terror" and inciting that kind of fear among the masses
- They attack back, propagating a "the west demeans us" kind of viewpoint to their people and gaining support through radicalism
- etc etc etc

This level of vitriol towards Islam itself is what gives ISIS power.  ISIS doesn't care about Islamophobia, basically only about power and they nurture our islamophobia to bring up support.  It's sickening that people back ISIS, but we give them fodder to do it.  And our current media backlash and inevitable crap that we will give islamic nations as a result will further this sentiment.

This isn't about America though. This is an attack on Paris, in Europe. America's anti-islamic media has little to do with this.

It does seem that there is some good coming out of this though, namely the people absolutely blasting the guys trying to push an Islamophobic agenda and things to that extent, and that's what I'd like to see.  As it stands, if there's more of this then I'll gladly eat my words because I'd rather be wrong about this. 

I don't think that kind of mentality is doing much good though. On the internet I see most people put off by the ludicrous claims by those extreme apologists who equate religion to race or sexuality and victim blame those murdered in terrorists attacks. In real life I don't think the Islamophobes have had their minds changed, rather that they're unable to voice their opinions without being called racist (Or worse, having their personal details shared publically). Sure, some of these people are absolutely bigots, but you can't say that violence doesn't solve anything and then in the same breath aggressively treat them as lesser human beings, all you do is drive them underground and alienate them from society which just breeds more hate and more extremism.

Especially since we don't live in fear of a state that takes away our right to free expression.

Well the Islamic State hasn't officially taken away our right to free expression but given their attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a shooting at a public event literally called "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression" in Denmark. I'd say that we are definitely living in fear of a state who intends to take away exactly that, no thanks to the people who will subtly excuse those attacks by blaming the victims before addressing the real problem.

[the bread dragon]

we're all in agreement that the biggest issue with these attacks is the lack of media coverage its given missouri right

/imnotserious

[Lord Raven]

This is just silly though and this very argument has been had around the internet thousands of times with the same outcome every time. You can't 'prove' a negative, you can't prove that I don't have an invisible unicorn that defies the laws of the universe next to me right now.

What does it mean "you can't prove a negative"?  This argument has been around the internet thousands of times and I have never seen it reach a reasonable conclusion beyond one side yelling at the other at some point due to being outnumbered.

You're getting the compatibility of science and faith confused with their ability to coexist.  You can't apply scientific principles to faith and vice-versa.

The fact is though, we make judgements on real life based on proven science. We don't lead our lives making allowances for what 'might' be the case or what we can't prove doesn't exist.

Billions of people will disagree.

If there is a religion that is driving people to kill en masse then it absolutely has to be challenged, it has to be scrutinized and it has to be openly criticized and we have to provide an environment where people can do this freely without fear of their safety.

When people look at Charlie Hebdo or any other satirical publication making fun of religion and call it Islamophobic or any other religion-phobic then they are doing far more damage justifying these kinds of attacks by treating religion like some kind of inherent characteristic akin to race or sexuality. Culture is no different in this respect.

I am not advocating that Islam or any of the major religions are free of criticism.  So this is irrelevant.  Interpretations of these things have led this to happen, but it's also an incredibly small fraction of people who are doing this.

The scripture is to blame as well as the education.  This does not inherently mean the followers of said religion truly actually believe in all of this, considering religion has not been abolished from the world.

This isn't about America though. This is an attack on Paris, in Europe. America's anti-islamic media has little to do with this.

The hell it does, unless you're going to say America's influence on things is irrelevant.  Many of these things became viral after their initial reports, and the viral part is what led to Europe reporting it which was inherently sided towards the people defending the victims.

The idea is that nobody cares about "random black person dies due to police brutality" despite it happening at a relatively high rate.  Unless people speak up and there's riots that make it a big deal; by that point it makes it into your news.

I don't think that kind of mentality is doing much good though. On the internet I see most people put off by the ludicrous claims by those extreme apologists who equate religion to race or sexuality and victim blame those murdered in terrorists attacks. In real life I don't think the Islamophobes have had their minds changed, rather that they're unable to voice their opinions without being called racist (Or worse, having their personal details shared publically). Sure, some of these people are absolutely bigots, but you can't say that violence doesn't solve anything and then in the same breath aggressively treat them as lesser human beings, all you do is drive them underground and alienate them from society which just breeds more hate and more extremism.

Well luckily I'm not calling racists and bigots lesser human beings.  I'm calling them part of the problem.

Well the Islamic State hasn't officially taken away our right to free expression but given their attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a shooting at a public event literally called "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression" in Denmark. I'd say that we are definitely living in fear of a state who intends to take away exactly that, no thanks to the people who will subtly excuse those attacks by blaming the victims before addressing the real problem.

You're again bringing up the "subtly" excuse part while ignore the fact that I am not victim blaming in any of this.  Nothing subtly excusing this.  I don't even think it's wrong to portray Mohammed even if it gets backlash from the Islamic community, but the difference is that this one religion isn't the cause of anything.

I'm not sure if you're interpreting things I'm saying as victim blaming because from my understanding the majority of people were on Hebdo's side as well as the Denmark cartoonists.  Being pissed off is one thing which is reasonable, attacking them is completely unreasonable.  We agree here.  We both also agree that the attacks on France were unwarranted.

Just because it's unwarranted doesn't mean they don't make sense, though.  Making sense of the situation allows us to get to the core of the problem which is people utilizing religion for power, creating an "us vs them" mentality to garner support and further send others to a spiral of ignorance.  Which only furthers this mentality.  I'm not really even talking about the political and war side of this; it's basically the media and social side to this, and frankly it's not as bad as what I was expecting given the reaction of many athletes as of late to the tragedy.

[SirBlaziken]

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. -Albert Einstein

This sums it up for me.

[Lord Raven]

I know that you're trying to agree with me there, but that's not really an argument.

[SirBlaziken]

I wasn't trying to agree, I was just saying how I view it. Agreeing with you is just a bit of a side effect.

[Milsap]

The default argument I've seen once again is "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim."

They seem to forget that ISIS (Or whatever they want to be called this week) have killed more Muslims than anybody else; a few months ago they bombed a mosque.

We can't blame an entire religion for this, the same way we can't blame all Germans for WWII.

[Shaymin]

The default argument I've seen once again is "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim."

i legit hate that kind of view. the ira weren't muslim. people who bomb abortion clinics in the usa aren't muslim.

[Lord Raven]

The default argument I've seen once again is "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim."

The latter is not true.

[Kerou 犠牲]

French Jets have dropped bombs in Raqqa

Great response well done lads