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Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects Motivated By Religion, Say Two U.S. Officials

To be fair, from a historical perspective, Islam is about where the church was in the mid 1500's.
Breaking into groups according to subset beliefs, The Church of England and Lutherans splitting off
from the Roman Catholic church.
The next 100 years, would have the great Armada, and the 30 years war, and a decline in the
absolute power of the Church of Rome.
It would take another 200 years before the Pope was not seen as a major player on the Europe stage.
Napoleon, told his Ambassador to Rome, to "treat with the Pope as if he had a 200,000 man Army".
The problem I see, with Islam, is that violence appears to be acceptable Tenant of their Faith.
I know almost nothing about Islam, so mine is an outside observers opinion.
Then technology has sped up their timeline by a couple of hundred years. Good news! :)


I'd hazard a guess the people fighting the 30 years war accepted violence as an "acceptable Tenant of their Faith", too.
 
It's a stupid comparison that atheists try to use all the time, as if they think it's a "powerful" statement or something. It's just ridiculous. Christians killing in the name of christianity is pretty rare, other than those who suffer from a mental derangement. That is NOT the case with Islamic terrorism. They are NOT all insane. There is the crux of the problem.

And I should add that the comparison is completely invalid with the 1300s because the times were completely different. ALL people were brutal to one another generally. That was the way life was back then. People killing people for stupid superstitious reasons.
People killing people on a large scale hasn't changed a damn bit. Only the reasons we (Christians) use for killing have changed.
 
People killing people on a large scale hasn't changed a damn bit. Only the reasons we (Christians) use for killing have changed.

The only reason for that is that Christianity has been tempered by secular society and effectively neutered, whereas Islam has not yet. There was a time when radical Christians acted just as badly as radical Muslims.
 
We have had christian terrorism recently as well. Adam lanza was a christian and attended catholic school.

Did Lanza cite religion as a motivation. You seem to be making the old mistake of conflating the actions of someone who happens to be religious with the actions of someone using religon as a motivation.

Also, even if he was religious, he did not receive anything close to public support for his actions
 
When Muslims get to the point where the Christians were in the late 1300's let me know.

So you're basically dismissing these acts, and their relation to religion, based on the acts of Christians from 700 years ago?

Logic seems rather lacking in this, to put it mildly
 
I don't think so.

It certainly is, and is nothing more than an attempt at Tu quoque.


It's similar to people in European countries trying to compare us to them. It doesn't fit because the background is much different and our culture newer, even if we did borrow a lot from them.

What? How does that make sense, in the context of a discussion, where the point of interest is the motivation for terrorist attacks. Also, it's assuming, without evidence, that all religions are the same and will follow the same path of development. When we know ideologies are not the same and do not follow the same path of development
 

I read an interesting opinion piece in one of my Canadian newpapers this morning in which the author noted that some writings of well regarded 20th century Islamists contain doctrinaire teachings about "armed jihad" against non-believers/non-Muslims and these teachings are promoted and spread among Muslim youth. Islamic clerics now may speak against terrorism, but they do not speak against the doctrine of armed jihad and in fact many preach that if you are not actively involved in armed jihad you are not truly Muslim - "this supreme sacrifice is the responsibility of all Muslims".

It must be very hard for some young Muslims to come to grips with Islamic teachings of a religion of peace and yet be exhorted to prove their faith in that religion through armed jihad.
 
People killing people on a large scale hasn't changed a damn bit. Only the reasons we (Christians) use for killing have changed.

Faulty equivocation. Killing an insurgent isn't the same thing as shooting a little girl in the face for trying to go to school
 
I read an interesting opinion piece in one of my Canadian newpapers this morning in which the author noted that some writings of well regarded 20th century Islamists contain doctrinaire teachings about "armed jihad" against non-believers/non-Muslims and these teachings are promoted and spread among Muslim youth. Islamic clerics now may speak against terrorism, but they do not speak against the doctrine of armed jihad and in fact many preach that if you are not actively involved in armed jihad you are not truly Muslim - "this supreme sacrifice is the responsibility of all Muslims".

It must be very hard for some young Muslims to come to grips with Islamic teachings of a religion of peace and yet be exhorted to prove their faith in that religion through armed jihad.

Such fundamentalism is pretty common in the islamic world. Hell, one could even say radicals that support terrorism are common in the islamic world (though they are a clear minority.

Though for some reason, people like to pretend that such things are a constant across cultures, and that the popular support AQ gets is the same as the outright disdain leveled at a person like Rudolph
 
The only reason for that is that Christianity has been tempered by secular society and effectively neutered, whereas Islam has not yet. There was a time when radical Christians acted just as badly as radical Muslims.
You'll get no argument from me on that.
 
So you're basically dismissing these acts, and their relation to religion, based on the acts of Christians from 700 years ago?

Logic seems rather lacking in this, to put it mildly
Dismissing them? I'm not sure what you mean by that.
 
Dismissing them? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

that you seemed to dismiss the act and their connection to a religion by going "but Christianity"
 
It certainly is, and is nothing more than an attempt at Tu quoque.
Unfortunately for you this isn't a formal debate. There's plenty of justification for bringing up past actions of Christians and Christian countries, too, for that matter if they've used their religion as a reason for war. And, yes, it was widely accepted.


What? How does that make sense, in the context of a discussion, where the point of interest is the motivation for terrorist attacks. Also, it's assuming, without evidence, that all religions are the same and will follow the same path of development. When we know ideologies are not the same and do not follow the same path of development
And what would you classify as "terrorism" in the 1300's? Don't be silly. It's a discussion about violence in the name of religion and the Christians certainly have a long and sordid history of it which only ended a couple of centuries ago --- and that's assuming you don't count the Irish-British war as religion, which to some extent it was. If you count that it didn't end until just a few decades ago.
 
that you seemed to dismiss the act and their connection to a religion by going "but Christianity"
And it was just as ugly and violent when Christians did it as it is now when Muslims do it. That the Western world has eschewed military power and violence (well, to some extent anyway) in favor of economic power doesn't change much since they're not part of our Western world.
 
Unfortunately for you this isn't a formal debate.

Informal or not your logic would still be based on a faulty premise

There's plenty of justification for bringing up past actions of Christians and Christian countries, too, for that matter if they've used their religion as a reason for war. And, yes, it was widely accepted.

Was, that hardly works to address an issue in the present, especially in the manner you are presenting it

Writer: "these attacks were motivated by islam"

your response: "but christianity"

Note the fact that the later doesn't address the former, in formal debate or not

And what would you classify as "terrorism" in the 1300's? Don't be silly

My response didn't concern defining terrorism in the 1300's. It dealt with the fact that your statement doesn't address the thing under discussion, it attempts to shift attention away from the thing being discussed


It's a discussion about violence in the name of religion and the Christians certainly have a long and sordid history of it which only ended a couple of centuries ago

Right, but citing it doesn't address the fact that there is a high level of violence in Islam today


and that's assuming you don't count the Irish-British war as religion, which to some extent it was.

It's not even comparable, being that religion was heavily tied into national identity, and neither the irish or english viewed themselves as soldiers in their church working to extend the power and influence of such. It was about Irish independence, and English territorial claims
 
And it was just as ugly and violent when Christians did it as it is now when Muslims do it.

And that addresses the issue how? Right, you're doing nothing more than going "but the christians" Like I said, it's nothing more than a Tu quoque.


That the Western world has eschewed military power and violence (well, to some extent anyway) in favor of economic power doesn't change much since they're not part of our Western world.

So it doesn't matter that they are randomly killing people for shaving beards and shooting grils in the face because they have a different base value system?

What relativist malarkey
 
You'll get no argument from me on that.

Unfortunately, you get a lot of arguments from Christians. It's like the former reprobate yelling about all the bad things kids today do, ignoring all the bad things they used to do themselves.
 
Informal or not your logic would still be based on a faulty premise
No so. It establishes a pattern of religious violence.


Was, that hardly works to address an issue in the present, especially in the manner you are presenting it

Writer: "these attacks were motivated by islam"

your response: "but christianity"

Note the fact that the later doesn't address the former, in formal debate or not
Of course it's relevant, see above.


My response didn't concern defining terrorism in the 1300's. It dealt with the fact that your statement doesn't address the thing under discussion, it attempts to shift attention away from the thing being discussed
I thought we were talking about religious violence? Specifically, we were talking about religious violence leading to terrorism as opposed to conventional war. The question is pertinent and I would guess that raids on villages near borders was somewhat common in most violent disagreements of those times - and even recent times, for that matter. Burning fields and houses was about as close as you can get to "old fashioned" or archaic terrorism.


Right, but citing it doesn't address the fact that there is a high level of violence in Islam today
Islam is not a part of the Western world nor the Christian world. To me, that means we can't judge them by our Western Christian standards.


((PS: We don't treat them as Western Christians so how can we judge them that way?))


It's not even comparable, being that religion was heavily tied into national identity, and neither the irish or english viewed themselves as soldiers in their church working to extend the power and influence of such. It was about Irish independence, and English territorial claims
If you say so. But there was certainly religious discrimination on both sides of the line. Whether you want to believe it or not I'm sure that played a significant part in the continuation of the war.
 
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And that addresses the issue how? Right, you're doing nothing more than going "but the christians" Like I said, it's nothing more than a Tu quoque.




So it doesn't matter that they are randomly killing people for shaving beards and shooting grils in the face because they have a different base value system?

What relativist malarkey

The only escape hatched for the terminally tolerant muslim appologist is that 800 years ago, Christianity also killed people blindly in the name of faith during the times of the Inquisition and the crusades.

for such people, it doesn't matter if it was 800 years ago, 1000 years ago or yesterday. time and changes don't matter and nothing can ever be forgiven. everything goes as long as you can make a pretend defense for Islam.
 
No, not really. I suppose that the only remotely comforting fact here is that they appear to have been working alone and not as part of a larger terrorist plot. We've got homegrown religious crazies too. Joy.
Well, thats debatable considering they were "inspired" by Al Qaeda's "Inspire" website.

Who knows how many other young men in this country have been or will be "inspired" from that website.

After all, that is the point of the website. Which is why I really don't have a problem with drone attack on that monster, Anwar al-Awlaki.

Take a look at all the lone wolf terrorists he inspired already...

Fort Hood shooter
Christmas Day "Underwear Bomber"
Sharif Mobley
Times Square bomber
Stabbing of British former minister Stephen Timms
Seattle Weekly cartoonist death threat
British passenger plane plot
Cargo planes bomb plot.

Anwar al-Awlaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even in a remote village in Alaska....

By the time he moved to Alaska in 2006, Paul Rockwood, Jr. was an ardent follower of the American-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who he met at a Virginia mosque in late 2001....<snip>

During those Anchorage visits, Rockwood met the undercover operative and discussed buying electronics and downloading schematics of cell phones to make bomb detonators. At one meeting, he said he was getting ready to relocate to the mainland and had plans to steal a cache of explosives in Boston—where he grew up—that would help him go operational....read
FBI — In Alaska, A Domestic Terrorist with a Deadly Plan


Yes, taking out al Awlaki was a good thing.
 
No so. It establishes a pattern of religious violence.

right, 800 years ago and in an instance where religious violence was never claimed as unique to one religion. What was claimed is that modern islam contained a higher propensity for it





I thought we were talking about religious violence?

We were actually talking about an attack done in the name of the islamic religion and for some reason you felt a need to try and shift attention to acts that happens almost a 1000 years ago, in an attempt to draw some type of equivalency between the two

Specifically, we were talking about religious violence leading to terrorism as opposed to conventional war. The question is pertinent and I would guess that raids on villages near borders was somewhat common in most violent disagreements of those times - and even recent times, for that matter. Burning fields and houses was about as close as you can get to "old fashioned" or archaic terrorism.

How would examples from 800 years ago, that no one denied existing, be relevant to a discussion about the Boston bombing?




Islam is not a part of the Western world nor the Christian world.

I'm not sure how that would excuse anything, unless you are suggesting they are incapable of acting like civilized human beings. But the Chinese and Indians are not part of the western christian world, and have been able to manage fine.

To me, that means we can't judge them by our Western Christian standards.

Why? People from the non western world manage not to shoot girls in the face for going to school everyday. They're not primitive animals


((PS: We don't treat them as Western Christians so how can we judge them that way?))

What does that even mean?


If you say so. But there was certainly religious discrimination on both sides of the line. Whether you want to believe it or not I'm sure that played a significant part in the continuation of the war.

No one was shooting girls in the face for going to school, beating people for listening to music, and they were not fighting to establish a religious state. All rather key differences that undermine the comparison
 
Islam is not a part of the Western world nor the Christian world. To me, that means we can't judge them by our Western Christian standards.


((PS: We don't treat them as Western Christians so how can we judge them that way?))


If you say so. But there was certainly religious discrimination on both sides of the line. Whether you want to believe it or not I'm sure that played a significant part in the continuation of the war.

So by this mentality, we should:

a) deport all muslims because they don't belong in the West. Ok.
b) allow voodoo practicing africans to chop and mutilate women and people in general because we don't treat them as western Christians and so, how can we judge them?
c) not condemn any form of religious intollerance and failure, except when it comes to Christianity.

Dude, you're so far out there its hard to imagine how you think. The rules are simple. Religious or not, when you come into a country as a immigrant, you obey its laws and are judged by those laws. Simple. Doesn't matter what religion you are or not.
The reason most of the world wants to emulate the west is because its the best in providing good quality of life and opportunities. You dont' see people rushing to immigrate in Egypt or Chechnya or anywhere else now don't you?
 
I am sorry, but this is not "about Islam".

Sure, from what we know at this point, Tamerlan Tsarnaev "got Mohammed" recently, and his "motivation" was pretty much supplied by the radical Islamists operating around his ancestral Chechnya.

But what was more important here: Islam per se, or the specific interpretation popular in a given area, among a particular group of people, or the ethnic self-identification (historically connected to Islam)?

Have you ever heard about a Tatar "radical Islamic" terrorist? (They are the largest Muslim group in Russia). Turkish? Indonesian? (Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, period). How about them awful unfriendly Iranians - to stay balanced? Their homeland had been dragged back into the Dark Ages in our living memory, and yet not a single one among the multitude of brainwashed Iranian youths had decided to go and kill a bunch of women and children on the streets of London or Boston.

Ever wondered why not?

Religion does not exist all by itself, hanging in the air. It is a part of the broader culture.

Reading the Koran does not make you a homicidal maniac. Just like reading Marx does not turn you into a Pol Pot automatically, or listening to Wagner does not make you a Nazi. It all depends.

I have read the Koran, and have endured a heroic Teutonic opera or two - as a favor to my better half, mostly. I am ready to admit that the Koran is a poetic masterpiece, and Wagner was a bloody genius (although not to my taste, not even close). Interestingly, neither experience had induced me to kill anyone.

How about we try and treat murderers as murderers, and everyone else (even Muslims) as, like, not murderers?

Too much to ask?
 
I am sorry, but this is not "about Islam".

Sure, from what we know at this point, Tamerlan Tsarnaev "got Mohammed" recently, and his "motivation" was pretty much supplied by the radical Islamists operating around his ancestral Chechnya.

But what was more important here: Islam per se, or the specific interpretation popular in a given area, among a particular group of people, or the ethnic self-identification (historically connected to Islam)?

Have you ever heard about a Tatar "radical Islamic" terrorist? (They are the largest Muslim group in Russia). Turkish? Indonesian? (Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, period). How about them awful unfriendly Iranians - to stay balanced? Their homeland had been dragged back into the Dark Ages in our living memory, and yet not a single one among the multitude of brainwashed Iranian youths had decided to go and kill a bunch of women and children on the streets of London or Boston.

Ever wondered why not?

Religion does not exist all by itself, hanging in the air. It is a part of the broader culture.

Reading the Koran does not make you a homicidal maniac. Just like reading Marx does not turn you into a Pol Pot automatically, or listening to Wagner does not make you a Nazi. It all depends.

I have read the Koran, and have endured a heroic Teutonic opera or two - as a favor to my better half, mostly. I am ready to admit that the Koran is a poetic masterpiece, and Wagner was a bloody genius (although not to my taste, not even close). Interestingly, neither experience had induced me to kill anyone.

How about we try and treat murderers as murderers, and everyone else (even Muslims) as, like, not murderers?

Too much to ask?

I don't think anyone is suggesting all Muslims are terrorists, just the issues in the Islamic world are rather widespread. And while I agree, the influences goes beyond the religion, the religion is serving as the political ideology of these movements and individuals. So you can't exactly divorce it from their actions (or compare it to a simple piece of poetry)..
 
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