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Related to the earlier discussion about where ISIS gets its weapons, I wanted to share this great in-depth article from The Atlantic about the motivations of ISIS. Then In order to provide a more nuanced view of ISIS, here is criticism of that Atlantic article from thinkprogress.org.
From the Atlantic:
The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse.
We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.
The thinkprogress.org criticism by one of the primary sources cited in the Atlantic article:
One of the oft-mentioned criticisms of The Atlantic piece is that it echoed the inaccurate belief that since ISIS’s theology draws upon Islamic texts to justify its horrendous practices, it is an inevitable product of Islam. Haykel didn’t say whether or not he thought Wood’s article says as much, but when ThinkProgress asked him directly whether Islamic texts and theology necessitate the creation of groups like ISIS, he was unequivocal.
“No,” he said. “I think that ISIS is a product of very contingent, contextual, historical factors. There is nothing predetermined in Islam that would lead to ISIS.”
He was similarly unambiguous when responding to the related critique that Muslims who disavow ISIS are somehow deluded or not “real” Muslims.
“I consider people … who have criticized ISIS to be fully within the Islamic tradition, and in no way ‘less Muslim’ than ISIS,” he said. “I mean, that’s absurd.”
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:59AM
It is amazing how often theology is just plain gotten wrong. Just a day ago we had an article of Locusts and the whole site went St. John the Divine with the Book of Revelations. Interesting was the names, Apollyon, being one of them. Retraining and new employment for Greek gods? Lots of Christians seem blissfully unaware they they, too, worship Allah. The word means "lord" and it is the god of Abraham, the g-d of the jews, the God of the Christians, and the God of Islam. But enough of that! Eschatology! End of days! Left Behindedness! I always thought this was a Christian obsession. A Muslim version? Brought about by the New Crusades? Hmmm. Well, at least it is not as crazy as that "rapture" stuff dreamed up by the Millerites in 1840's America.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:06AM
does this babble have some meaning or was it just posted to drive more traffic via comments?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:20AM
Yes.
(Score: 5, Touché) by aristarchus on Thursday April 30 2015, @07:30AM
Babble? Did you perhaps mean "tower of Babel"? It is in the neighborhood. And yes, my post did have meaning. I will indulge you and try to explain, since apparently it eluded your grasp.
The claim is made in the Atlantic article that the views of ISIS are actually in line with Muslim theology. I think that apocalyptic fantasies are much more a Christian thing, and often are the result of totally wacked interpretations of scripture or bird entrials. My prime example is the "rapture", an idea that at the end of the world, the faithful would rise up into the air and meet, you know, the Jesus dude. But this has no basis in actually Christianity, and is in fact the creation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites [wikipedia.org] William Miller who predicted the end of the world would occur in 1843. He was wrong. Of course, some wacked out preacher repeats the same scam every few years or so. When I hear of apocalypism in Islam, I am suspicious. Not a dominant theme in the Muslim faith. So what are the people who are claiming it is trying to do? Weapons of mass deception all over again?
I hope this helps explain my point to you. I am sorry that I presumed so much and accidentally wrote above you grade reading level. By the way, for future reference, what would that be, so I can try to be more clear to you in the future?
At Your Service,
Aristarchus, philosopher
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 01 2015, @12:53PM
No, it's much older. Michael Stifel [wikipedia.org] already predicted Judgement Day for 1533.
And of course the book of revelation, and thus the idea as such, is very much older; I however have no idea when people started to take it literally.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:26AM
The two religions are not separate entities. One heavily influenced the other which was also influenced heavily by Judaism.
And it is complete and utter BS that belief in such things does not create these monsters.
Aside from the fact that history proves me right unequivocally, if you get a bunch of mouth breathers to believe that an invisible man controls everything and nothing you do makes any difference except where he is concerned it is not too long before all SORTS of things become justified. That rational argument and evidence are not at all required to make important decisions or, for example, decide who lives or dies or is horribly tortured until they confess of croak.
And again, history is littered with this.
Don't pretend religion does not cause this...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by KilroySmith on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:46AM
wouldn't happen in societies where religion was completely absent? That this isn't more a characteristic of mankind than it is of religion?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:55PM
> this isn't more a characteristic of mankind than it is of religion?
I think it is an inevitable result of physics.
It is simply impossible to have complete knowledge about much in our lives. We don't have the time and brain size to have perfect knowledge about even really simple things - to have perfect knowledge of a complex topic would require brains so enormous that they would be limited by the speed of life - like signal propagation delays in an integrated circuit.
Consequently we must all operate on assumptions are difficult to prove and in many cases they are unprovable. And that is the seed of religion. For example, Bill Maher is beyond atheism to the point of anti-theism having made the movie religulous. [splcenter.org] But he is deep in the anti-vaxxer cult. [scienceblogs.com] All he has done is chosen one kind of faith over another.
That seems hypocritical of Maher, but I say it is normal. His particular faith is a spectacle so it is easy to make fun of him for it. But anyone who only operated on knowledge they had proven with 100% certainty would never get anything done in their life at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 30 2015, @07:15PM
Anti-thesim is a reaction to the outdated, hypocritical and ridiculous role religion plays in modern society.
You can believe whatever you want on your own time but when it starts to have serious consequences on those who don't, a line in the sand must be drawn and someone has to advocate for evidenced-based policy and other matters.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 30 2015, @07:10PM
Irrelevant. The constant brainwashing people into anti-rational thought causes such events.
Other forms of mass brainwashing can do this also but not as well as religion which specifically plays on a feature (weakness) of the brain making it susceptible to such things. The major religions also form a common platform so that groups of irrational individuals can find common ground.
ISIS is an extreme example but there are others that are "less extreme" but have taken more lives. For example the ex-Pope's views on condoms in africa...
Nice try chum, but no cigar. Believe whatever you want but do not try to escape the fact that feeding people on nonsense does nothing but makes some of them irrational and prone to do stupid things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:51PM
That's all selection bias.
How many people have had their lives saved by religion? For example, how many catholic hospitals are there? In the US alone at least 1 in 9 acute care hospital beds is in a catholic hospital. If you attribute deaths to the religion and not individuals claiming the religion for their own purposes, then you have to do the same for lives saved.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:22PM
Another hypocrite?
How many would have be "saved" by an evidence based approach that did not rely on accepting complete bollocks?
And speaking of selection bias, how about your wonderful self selection bias?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @03:48AM
> How many would have be "saved" by an evidence based approach that did not rely on accepting complete bollocks?
What are you going on about? Catholic hospitals are some of the best hospitals out there. They are one of the few remaining non-profit groups of hospitals.
Are you so blinded by your anti-theism that you think they don't apply evidence-based medicine?
> And speaking of selection bias, how about your wonderful self selection bias?
Sorry I have no fucking clue what you mean by that. How about having a conversation with the people who are actually here instead of just the voices inside your head? hhhm?
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Friday May 01 2015, @08:45PM
As per usual there is no arguing with "faith".
IOW The believe in something without evidence and in practice with evidence to the contrary.
But you'll show me when you go to "heaven" and I end up in "hell" right?
This conversation is done...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @10:03PM
> As per usual there is no arguing with "faith".
Hey dumbfuck, I am an atheist born and will always be.
What I am not is blinded by my own ignorance of the world I live in.
The only faith here is your own now disproven belief in your own infalliability. The irony is rich.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @10:52PM
Wow. Mr crazy pants goes ad hominem in multiple posts, saying that I am wrong because I am religious and offers no actual support for his own position, I call him out for it and I get the flamebait mod?
10:1 odds the modder is mr crazy pants himself, having utterly lost the debate he resorts to the ego-soothing illegitimate mod smack-down.
I am always disappointed when people live down to the worst stereotypes. You disgrace real atheists with that shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @05:12AM
How many people have had their lives saved by religion?
Yes, but their souls were lost. Your life may be saved in a Catholic hospitial, but since they are not Christian, you will burn in eternal hellfire! Both you and your inflamed appendix! Unbeliever! Why did not not cure this through prayer?
(Take away, for the slower Soylentils, of which there seem to be more lately, with severely impaired sarcasm detectors: medicine saves lives. Nice of religion to fund it, but it's kind of a crapshoot whether it does or not. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @03:02PM
> Nice of religion to fund it, but it's kind of a crapshoot whether it does or not.
No religion of any significant size lasts unless it provides significant social benefit. Even those little cults provide value to their members. They burn out becuase the downsides exceed the upsides. But anything that lasts long-term is a net positive otherwise it falls apart or evolves into something that is a net good. It isn't like being religous turns people into mindless destructive zombies. I get the feeling a lot of the zero-EQ people on this site have this simple-minded and utterly uneducated view of how religion works. As someone who was born an atheist and will always be an atheist I feel you idiots are fucking it up for me. If you can't understand what you criticize you have no business opening your trap.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @09:34PM
No one is saying the world would be perfect without religion, but if people voluntarily gave up one irrational cause of violence, that would show that they are thinking about the issue, and I would think such violence would go down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @10:45PM
> And it is complete and utter BS that belief in such things does not create these monsters.
> Aside from the fact that history proves me right unequivocally,
Yeah that's rational. One thing we know is that human monsters happen all the time regardless of religion: Khmer rouge, cultural revolution, tuskegee syphilis experiments, etc.
The fact that some monsters use religion to excuse their inhumanity doesn't mean religion caused it any more than video games cause some people to go on killing sprees or S&M pornography creates rapists. A far more reasonable explanation is that people seek out tools that they can use and sick people will use the tools their tools for sick purposes.
> Don't pretend religion does not cause this...
Don't pretend that people are simplistic zombies...
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday April 30 2015, @11:59AM
Allah. The word means "lord"
No it doesn't. It is two words, al (the) lah (god) and literally means 'the god'. You can see this repetition clearly in the Shahada (the first half of which literally translates a 'there is no god but the god', but is often partially translated as 'there is no god by Allah').
sudo mod me up