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Bogans… :gabriel:

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‘calm’… :man_facepalming:

It’s a difficult one, but there was almost a justification that after a cartoon picture was drawn (I’ve not seen it, but I’m under no illusion that it wasn’t deeply offensive), that retaliation by gunfire was a proportionate response.

I didn’t feel there was enough widespread condemnation at the time. The “je suis Charlie” slogan took on an alternative slant in some parts, almost belittling and justifying the event

There wasn’t enough condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo massacre? I’m not sure what you’ve been watching/reading but I saw nothing but condemnation.

Oh the left is well hypocritical on this.

We suck up to Islam all the time. I understand why, to avoid racism, but we almost never hold Islamic theocracy to account. Utterly silent on bigotry within Islam.

Now that there’s been an horrific racist attack in NZ they are all over Twitter trying to no platform every single commentator whose ever criticized Islam, it’s embarrassing. We on the Left literally argue that Islam is not responsible for Jihad but Douglas Murray or Majid Nawaz are somehow responsible for what happened in Christchurch. Intellectual fuckwitery.

We on the left are just as bad as the Right on this stuff, albeit we do it with better intentions.

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I honestly think there’s serious intellectual dishonesty going on when people say that the terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. As with Christianity, there is scriptural justification for violence. Sure, there are plenty of lovely, peaceful parts of these books too. But herein lies the problem with religion, most of them have good bits and some really horrible, evil violence and bigotry too.

What riles me is how religious people so often wanna be like, “oh they’re not a true/real Muslim/Christian” when someone is inspired to do something awful because of their faith, but when it comes to someone setting up a soup kitchen for the homeless, then that’s definitely due to how wonderful the religion is and how it makes people do great things.

Fuck out. Own the good and the bad, be honest about the nature of religion.

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Absolutely.

Sadly Islam is in a trickier place than Christianity. Firstly, Christianity has been through it’s secularization, whereas Islam really hasn’t, and Christians have the Gospels to override the Old Testament, which is the really bad book. The Koran doesn’t have such a thing, and it’s worst passages are actually considered more important than the nice bits tucked away towards the backend of the book. How to secularize Islam if no one is allowed to even mention say gender segregation without being called a racist:(

I’m quite disappointed in the Left. I’ve just been chatting to someone on the Left along the lines of my above post, and have been told I am echoing Trump and must sympathise with the terrorists views, so there’s the gagging tape in use. This silencing of criticism is in my opinion one of the main drivers of extremist racism, and right now the Left is having a full mental breakdown.

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I find the left far more scary and dangerous when it comes to issues like this.

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When there is a christian or islamist terrorist attack it is more down to try to prove a political point rather than a religious one. That’s how i see it.

I am glad to read this discussion.
I am quite liberal despite my outspoken views, however I always get concerned when people don’t like to address issues we have with Islam.
Every religion has a group of extremists but Islamic extremists start from scripture to the intrinsic desire to mould the world as per it’s vision to reluctance to adapt to any new society.
Compound that with the feeling of being mistreated in middle East surfaced by poverty, makes Islamic extremists all the more threatening compared to others.

This makes having a diversified society bit difficult because members of society would feel indifferent about Muslims.
Almost every country now have Nationalist extremists now and it’s a new political tool to manipulate masses. Japan, Vietnam, US, India, and now evidently Australia/NZ, almost every country now have nationalist extremists who go about countering Islamic presence the wrong way.

So true. Left’s unwillingness to address the issue is partly responsible for extremists to want to take matters their own hands

In regards the bible, in the old testament a lot of messed up stuff happens, and even God kills a lot of innocents and it’s chalked up to his infinite wisdom and justice. However Jesus in the new testament said he was the new law and he never taught violence whatsoever. On the contrary he taught that you should love your enemy. So yeh I’m not denying that violence is committed in the name of the bible and Christianity, just that said violence being committed is a clear misinterpretation of the bible.

As far as the Koran is concerned, I don’t know anything about it, I’ve never read it tbh. However I’ve often wondered if the violence committed in the name of that book is also due to misinterpretation, because it’s clear a large majority of Muslims are peaceful and only the extremists seem to follow the death to all infidels thing that may or may not even be in the Koran as far as I know lol.

The extremists see their holy book as the literal word of god, and that’s where the majority of the problem starts.

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Which extremists, all of them?

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This is an interesting article that may provoke some kind of thought, and surprise some people possibly.

You guys are of course free to criticise Islam or any other religion. Go right ahead. But if we are to decrease the threat of these kinds of attacks, we have to criticise and analyse properly.

Demonising Muslims hasn’t really worked has it? Neither has decrying white nationalists as Nazis and virgins (as fun or as easy it might be to do either).

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Tldr please

To be clear on my position, I do not think that religion is the sole cause of the things we’re talking about here. There are usually other geopolitical factors at play, and they’re often as important as religion, if not more.

But I don’t think that it’s right to act like religion and the relevant scripture is not in any way contributory. And while Islam might be more prevalent right now, I’m not singling them out, Christianity deserves scrutiny absolutely. Christianity has been a factor in some of the most heinous acts committed throughout history.

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Oh yeah, totally agreed. Numerous horrors have been committed in the name of these faiths.

@Trion basically, interestingly, the more islamist/religious you are, the LESS likely you are of being a terrorist. (There’s better evidence for this than the article above, and I’ll post when I can find it again)

I think these are 2 different groups of people, and 2 different problems within Islam (these problems are linked, mind).

But deffo speak out against aggressive segregation if you want. I’ve made it clear many a time that in this day and age people go too far with that nonsense, and I’ve spoken out against stuff like that many a time. So I’ll never call you a racist for that.

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On the topic of whether the left call things out, I’ve seen a fair bit regarding this:

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Good article. They use religion as pretext.

Personally I have mixed views on teaching the T in LGBT in schools, but you’re right…it is a bit rich that Lefties on mass have failed to comment on this. Extraordinary woke except for when it involves minority communities and then it’s look the other way. Likewise the Christian preacher who was arrested in Southgate, London last week for preaching and today a 10 year old girl has been sexually molested by a transgender woman in a woman’s toilet in Scotland. The left will be silent as a mouse. We’re a bunch of well intentioned twats.

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