• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Islamic terrorism and the silent majority.

Feops

New member
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
829
MBTI Type
INTx
Right, so, I'm not going to pretend to have a balanced perspective on this. What I see is through casual visits to some of the more major news sites like CBC, CNN, or BBC.

It seems that every other day something has been blown up - a hotel, a police station, a grade school, with the intent of causing as much damage as possible with a blast against civilian targets, tourists, and businessmen. Sometimes a particular group takes credit, but other times none do.

Religion is usually cited as the cause. Religion removes the fear of death from the attackers and provides justification to hurt those people. It's a hardline stance that allows no negotiation.

Something which has interested me however, was the bit of reporting done in the post-9/11 environment that went on to explain that these people are a vast minority. The majority of practitioners do not feel this hate, this compulsion. Moderates if you will. It was a refreshing if brief respite from the constant drone of "blah blah hate the west blah kill you blah".

Now here's where I start to lose focus. If they are the majority, a majority opposed to such actions, why are they such a silent majority? Why is there no focused backlash against this behavior internally? Tempers are very quick to flare over slights to islamic culture from the west, but the opposite, hate against the west, seems to be handled only in very muted, diplomatic tones.

I get the sense that I'm missing a lot of the picture. I'd like to read some books on this. If anyone can recommend some good reading with a balanced and experienced persective, I'd be grateful. Or if anyone has an opinion themselves I'd also love to hear it.
 

Alwar

The Architect
Joined
Jun 19, 2009
Messages
922
MBTI Type
INTP
According to the CIA, Islamic "terrorism" is blowback from the shenanigans the US and others pull in Muslim homelands and they predicted a long time ago attacks would come. Chalmers Johnson even wrote a book about it called "Blowback" based on their analysis. Suicide attacks are nothing new or unique to Muslims. The Japanese had kamikazes for example. It seems more to do with desperation.
 

metaphours

cast shadows
Joined
Jun 16, 2009
Messages
1,194
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
I know exactly what you mean man. My parents are stationed in an Islamic country and I go to an international school and I know a lot of muslims and a lot of them don't feel hateful towards the States in any way. But when the aspect of extremism comes up, they like completely avoid discussion and I'm just like wtf hah, but yeah what he said
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Or if anyone has an opinion themselves I'd also love to hear it.

The problem is that the Koran teaches jihad and martyrdom. It teaches domination of dhimmi and the conversion or killing of infidels.

And the Koran is the word of Allah.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Yesterday we had two well executed mass murders carried out by the Islamists. And yet the Islamic majority remain silent.

Silence means assent.
 

JivinJeffJones

New member
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
3,702
MBTI Type
INFP
My impression is that there is a silent minority who genuinely hate this sort of thing and would oppose it if they felt safe to, and a silent majority who really don't care that much about what's done by extremists so long as they themselves are free to enjoy the benefits of the West.
 

metaphours

cast shadows
Joined
Jun 16, 2009
Messages
1,194
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4w5
The problem is that the Koran teaches jihad and martyrdom. It teaches domination of dhimmi and the conversion or killing of infidels.

And the Koran is the word of Allah.

its spelled Quran
 

Lateralus

New member
Joined
May 18, 2007
Messages
6,262
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
3w4
Muslims used to have the most powerful empire on the planet, an empire 'given' to them by Allah. But that empire went into decline. I've known many Muslims who, instead of viewing this decline as just another part of human history, really take it personally. It's like they have injured pride, as a group.

I'm not saying all Muslims feel this way, but this feeling is more common than many non-Muslims realize. They don't actively support terrorism, but they don't feel outrage over it, either.
 

nozflubber

DoubleplusUngoodNonperson
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
2,078
MBTI Type
Hype
I think the silent majority, or moderates, in this matter don't want to talk about it because they fear counter-persecution against them. They KNOW islamic extremism just straight up LOOKS BAD, like pure EVIL, and they probably feel like talking about it openly will get them lumped in with them.... so they don't tell you their feelings on the matter, whatever they may be.

Muslims in this country are basically so worried about getting rounded up into concentration camps from our terrified government and populus, that they themselves are terrified. They don't even want to THINK about what ilsamic fundamentalism means in the real world, and can you blame them? if you were a stranger in this land, a land that looks at you with scorn and dubiousness in its eye, would you be comfortable talking about it?
 

swordpath

New member
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
10,547
MBTI Type
ISTx
Enneagram
5w6
Like Vic said, the Quran teaches what they practice... Islam is a religion of violence. Are all Muslims violent people though? No. I think it's shown in any religion that the followers will pick and choose their methods of worship according to what's comfortable to them. Even if you are promised an eternal reward for martyrdom, a lot of people would be hesitant to adopt the life of a militant. A majority of people desire peace and not to stir up turmoil.
 

Fingers Superstar

New member
Joined
Nov 16, 2007
Messages
34
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
8
The problem is that the Koran teaches jihad and martyrdom. It teaches domination of dhimmi and the conversion or killing of infidels.

And the Koran is the word of Allah.

I'm not a Muslim, I'm not inclined to religion in any way, but i've got to say the bible is full of genocide incest and rape. The old testament god was a raving loony, technically you could use it to justify all sorts of things.
 

Eiddy

Pronounced eye-ee-dee
Joined
Apr 20, 2009
Messages
757
MBTI Type
DEAD
Enneagram
1w2
I'm not a Muslim, I'm not inclined to religion in any way, but i've got to say the bible is full of genocide incest and rape. The old testament god was a raving loony, technically you could use it to justify all sorts of things.

+ 1
 

A Schnitzel

WTF is this dude saying?
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
1,155
MBTI Type
INTP
Like Vic said, the Quran teaches what they practice... Islam is a religion of violence. Are all Muslims violent people though? No. I think it's shown in any religion that the followers will pick and choose their methods of worship according to what's comfortable to them. Even if you are promised an eternal reward for martyrdom, a lot of people would be hesitant to adopt the life of a militant. A majority of people desire peace and not to stir up turmoil.

By reading the Bible, especially the old testament it's pretty easy to assume that Christianity and Judaism are also religions of violence.
 

swordpath

New member
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
10,547
MBTI Type
ISTx
Enneagram
5w6
By reading the Bible, especially the old testament it's pretty easy to assume that Christianity and Judaism are also religions of violence.
Not if you understand the relation of the old testament to the new testament.
 

onemoretime

Dreaming the life
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Messages
4,455
MBTI Type
3h50
For various reasons, Muslim nations also have a massive surplus of young men, which has a high correlation with violence in society (guys who can't get any and are frustrated tend to be a little punchy).

The ones who tend to be suicide bombers are the "losers" in society and had already been somewhat marginalized in the first place. This goes along with the common reaction of "I never knew he was capable of such a thing" - they never knew because they never got to know him.

The silent majority does nothing because they aren't paying attention.
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
The relationship between Christianity and violence is a rather complicated and paradoxical issue.
 

Alwar

The Architect
Joined
Jun 19, 2009
Messages
922
MBTI Type
INTP
Most of the violence of Christianity is in the past, though a few pockets still exist, mostly in the United States. Some in Africa.
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Most of the violence of Christianity is in the past, though a few pockets still exist, mostly in the United States. Some in Africa.

Well that's probably more to due with historical developments within the Western world(among which being atomic weapons).
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
Concerning Christianity......

"Chivalry supported conflicting responses to Christ's death: either a desire to take revenge against those who killed him or a willingness to forgive his persecutors....I call the first response sacrificial, because it calls for the taking of life to avenge the loss of another and thus perpetuating cyclical violence. I call the second response antisacrificial, because it opposes the taking of life and seeks to bring the cycle of violence to a halt. Chivalry, I argue, not only made both responses available to knights and to their modern descendents but validated a third response, self-sacrifice, that conflated prowess and piety and blurred the lines between sacrifice and antisacrifice."
-- Allen Franzten Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War pg.3

Of course the concepts of "sacrifice" "anti-sacrifice" "self-sacrifice" used here is based upon the work of Anthropologist René Girard.

Perhaps we need to reframe the question being asked here.
 
Top