North Korea threatens to commit suicide

[Zakharra]

  /facepalm

I totally misread that. Multi-tasking is not your friend sometimes! I'll work on that tomorrow when I have some time to do searches.

[kylie]

Um, I sort of kicked off a hijack there.  If it's better to relocate the Islam stuff, I won't mind.

I'm still very skeptical of the assertion that a majority "hundreds of millions" of Muslims are calling for bombings, etc.  I think that is confusing the actions of a minority, with a sense of injustice and/or insecurity among some many millions at some level. 

Zak, I do think you're correct when you gather that lots of people have a certain level of sympathy toward the few who do go and blow things up.  We could say much the same about the Christian right in American politics, speaking generally.  People waving signs about "God sent the killer" to the abortion clinic, etc.  In both cases, relatively few violent actors.  Likewise: a minority among conservatives staving off gay marriage by insisting on hateful hyper-manliness and towing out the same old claims about "weak" minorities and unrealistic pedophile drama.   

As for embassy attacks.  It only takes one good crowd of highly motivated people to stone, etc. a building on their own turf.  What is required is for them to feel its their turf (very important), and that they demand for apparently unfair guests to take notice they've done something locally explosive (this is also for local consumption, not entirely a message to the embassy).  Meanwhile: Western police forces have variously smacked, tear gassed, or incarcerated and harassed many protestors at things like the Republican National Convention and G-8 summits.  Many of these people are non-violent, but the police claim they must do it for the protection of property and order.  The people's taxes can pay for illegal actions of the police later.  Now, who's to say "democracy in the streets" is more just when a culture expects only the police forces to show anger?  Show me that popular protests in the streets of the Middle East, particularly the ones with fires and violence (not just the right-wing orchestrated burning of American flags), are all about groundswells of support for Al Qaeda, etc.  I suspect they have more to do with gross inequalities.  My bet is the really violent ones have generally met with brutal state responses: gas, guns, and cages.

Yes, there is more generalized upset and antipathy toward the US/West from many people in states grossly disrupted by social impacts of "modernity" aka shock exposure to Western business (Saudi Arabia).  Or those where the US has sponsored tyrants (Iran) or thrown fuel on the fire of regional wars (Afghanistan) for decades.  Not to mention the legacy of colonialism (say, Algeria) or foreign military aid for an evolving occupation (Palestine). 

Despite all that, I don't see clear evidence that so many people are really calling for outright violence.  It seems to me you're actually concerned about antipathy - or yes, in some cases, sympathy - toward people whose violence is often for symbolic ends.  That is not the same picture as so many people demanding violence or even believing it's useful or desirable.  I also don't see a clear overlap between your millions of people and any platform to forcefully convert the West.  Quite a few could say, "Your policies killed my father [insert appropriate figure(s) here]" or have clearly said "Get your troops/paws off my country/women."  Sometimes frustrating, yes, but hardly what you suggest.

As far as people feeling upset or antipathy and expressing that in what are culturally strong ways: Fires and scuffles in the streets over there...  Much the same as calls for murder over here.  And often, for wholesale treatment of little-known foreign regimes as "Nazis."  They're both displays for internal and insider politics, too.  They don't reflect what most of the speakers actually would do themselves.  These outpourings can hint at what is bothering people about their world, though.  If you take some quiet time to look at the history of all the screaming.  If you assume most people or too many people are screaming for that, then you'll miss it.  And then, it's easy to issue blank checks for more of those policies that make still more people justly upset, and a few mad.

Just one book review from 1999, but much of it seems pertinent.  Fewer Christian group bombings, perhaps.  But all the same sort of calling for death and mayhem.  The same as the few on the far end of the Islamic spectrum, that is.  It is not all the Christians nor all the Muslims, nor most as far as I can tell.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SOR/is_2_60/ai_55208526/

[HairyHeretic]

The percentage of Muslim to Christian terrorists on the scale of Al'qadaa isn;t the same. There are far more terrorists than Christians.

I'll presume that you mean more muslim terrorists than christian ones. As to that, I don't know. The fact that most christian terrorists seem to be active along nationalist rather than religious lines doesn't mean that they don't exist though.

The muslims are much more violent too. Whe was the last time you heard of a Christian group taking credit for a abombing?

I spent 20 years growing up in Northern Ireland. I've heard christian terrorists taking credit for bombings on a weekly basis. And for shootings. For punishment beatings that left people crippled.

Of one making calls for it's followers to mnurder and kill the infidel? Of calls for holy war?  I haven't and if there were, you8 can bet the US news would pick up on that real quick.

I've mentioned the National Liberation Front of Tripura before. They're a terrorist group in India whose stated aim is for an independent Christian homeland. Does that constitute holy war to you?

There are too many violent acts of the NLFT to list but most involve kidnappings, extortion, mass murders, rapes, bombings and forced gunpoint conversions. NLFT seeks to severe all ties to the indigenous culture and religion of the state. Their militants have been known to shut down Hindu and Buddhist orphanages, hospitals, temples and schools as well as a establishing a ban on Hindi movies. In essence, they are the Christian equivalent of the Taliban. One attack of the many attacks that the population of Tripura has suffered under since 1989 is described below:

On December 4th, 2000, Christians converts under the direction of Missionaries, desecrated an ashram (Hindu religious retreat) set up by murdered Hindu leader Shanti Kumar Tripura. . They desecrated Hindu idols and destroyed photos of the slain religious leader revered by both Hindu tribals and Bengalis. The Christian converts also raped two female devotees and brutally attacked two men who had come to the ashram for puja (religious rituals).

The next day, Christian converts brutally desecrated another ashram at Jirania Khola and forced the inmates to stop all Hindu rituals and practices at gunpoint. A group of seven armed converted Christian terrorists barged into the ashram and threatened the 150 Hindus with dire consequences if they continued to perform Hindu rites at the ashram. The terrorists fled only after a large group of locals rushed to the ashram.

Due to threats by violent Missionaries and their Christian converts, altogether 11 ashrams, schools and orphanages set up by the murdered Hindu leader in various parts of the state have been forcibly closed down by the Christian fundamentalist terrorist organization known as “National Liberation Front of Tripura” (NLFT).

Sounds like it to me.

True. They don't.  I don't think any religious law should be folllowed. In either civil or secular courts of law. Religion has no place in setting up the laws of a government since not everyone follows the same religion.

It may surprise you, but I agree. The law should treat everyone equally.

If it is done legally, I have less of a problem in that.  Please check with some muslims if you can. I do not know any where I live. Please ask them if it says that, in a literal sense. Ie, what a Taliban, Terrorist/radical would believe.

I can only ask them what they believe. They might be able to guess how a radical would interpret things, but there's no gaurantee that they would know.

 

So? The fact that 700 years ago the Christian kingdoms were doing that has nothing to do with right now. Or does religion have a grace period for violent actions?

'From it's founding until it reaches about 1700 years of age, this (insert religion) is expected and can follow a path of violence to further it's goals.'

You are the one who brought up the point that christianity had outgrown its violent past, not me. I simply pointed out that at a similar point in its development, christianity was quite happily slaughtering all round it.

I know Chrisitanity did some brutal things in it's past. The First Crusade was one of the worst. Along with the Inquisition and the Spanish conquest of Central/South america. Thankfully that time is past and I hope it never comes again. Islam is NOT past that point. Why should they be given a pass because   when Christianity was1400 years of age, it was doing close to the same thing?

Why should a religion be blanket denigrated for the behaviour of those who would twist its beliefs to suit their own agenda?

Those who commit acts of terror should be brought to justice and punished for it. Those who bomb, and murder, and attempt to force their beliefs onto others through intimidation and violence should be dealt with under the law, and face justice for their activities.

But I do not believe that any group ... religious, ethnic, political, or whatever ... should be demonised for the activities of a handfull.