General News Multiple terrorist attacks at Belgian airport and metro station

If this is the case, do they not consider the possibility that the religion they were born into, and that they consider to be the one in the world that's true, is too big a coincidence? With education should come wisdom and critical thinking, not just practical life skills.

 

@gravechild - Not like IRA, obviously. Worse. ISIS said earlier today that this is just the beginning. If I remember correctly, IRA was associated with few thousand bombings in the years of the conflict in Britain. 30 years worth of time. Something tells me ISIS will try and top that record.

 

Believe it or not but the typical suicide bomber comes from upper-middle class to high class family and has a university degree. Education does not guarantee wisdom and critical thinking. Natural sciences can be taught without any mentioning of god or philosophy.

If your proposition that education would challenge peoples' religious views then nearly all university graduates should be atheists. This is not the case. The university does not really seem to affect peoples' religious views.

 

Likewise, radical Islam wouldn't be nearly so prevalent if the West had kept their noses out of the Middle East. Osama himself cited things like support for Israel and Saudi Arabia as reasons for the attacks against Americans, and some rumors exist about the US funding ISIS to destabilize the region.

 

Prepare for more artists paying tribute by making touching works to honor the dead, people repeating what a tragedy this was in social media and world leaders saying how coward this attack was...and nothing else being done to stop these attacks.

 

So it makes perfect sense to attack Belgium, France, Spain and countless of other countries which do not support US foreign policy and who don't support Israel.

It's difficult to say what would be the impact if there was no US intervention. Clearly the collapse of despotic regimes that kept islamic fundamentalists at bay played a big part. However, these people hated the West even before that. Islam has been at war with the west since the armies of Mohammed crossed the borders of the Byzantine empire 1400 years ago. It is also notable that none of these extremist groups have laid out any terms for ending the violence other than the total submission of the west. The republicans during the Northern Ireland conflict vowed to end the violence if Northern Ireland joined the Republic of Ireland. ISIS vowed to stop the violence only after the islamic banner is victorious in all countries.

 

I'd say the roots go back to European colonialism, and before (the Crusades are still fresh in many minds). And I'm not even sure you can lump all Islamic groups together, since they often have different aims and spend as much time fighting one another as they do the West... they are far from being unified, constantly splintering, etc.

 

Are you serious? You do know that Palestine, Egypt and pretty much whole of the Mesopotamia was Christian before the Muslims came and conquered it. Crusades were nothing more but an attempt to reclaim the Holy city and secure the passage of the pilgrims. Check the link I provided.

A few words about colonialism then. Europeans "occupied" the Middle East for a couple of decades after the end of the WWI when the Turks who had colonized the area for about 400 years were forced out. Egypt which was under the British influence a bit longer was actually governed by an Egyptian ruler. The British didn't meddle with their internal affairs.

Furthermore, if the colonialism is the reason then why not all the former colonies and protectorates of the British and the French send suicide bombers to Europe? Why is it only islamic countries?

What all the Islamic groups have in common with is their hatred of the West. Some are more intense and some less but absolutely none views the west favorably or even neutrally.

 

Even smart people can be brainwashed if a claim is so instilled in them that it's perceived in the same way any other fact is perceived.

 

Old Testament? Try modern era:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_religious_terrorism

I would say that European Christians have been far less tolerant of Muslims and Jews, than the other way around, and some of the only times when all three were able to coexist peacefully was under foreign rule (Sicily, Spain, Byzantine). If you weren't Christian, you were screwed (and if you weren't the right type of Christian, same thing).

Of course, you didn't have things like nation states back then, pan-Arabism, or the internet...

 

What is your point? You don't even have to be brainwashed. Growing up to certain values and norms can be sufficient to accept things that are completely alien to us. Would anything convince you to abandon the western values of equality, human rights and freedom? I don't think so. Western value system is not universal or natural. Rather, it is a curious historical deviance from the norm. Yet, you will not change it because you grew up to those values.

 

I'd say they had just as much to do with seeking wealth and glory than religion alone. After all, they often didn't discern between non-Catholic Christians, Muslims, or Jews, and with Franks, Normans, and other Europeans at the top of the social hierarchy.

Supposedly, many conquered peoples actually preferred Arab rule to Byzantine, and there's a story of Jews opening the city gates of Toledo, for the Muslims to storm easily.

Why? They're united by Islam. Arguably, they've had some of the longest and most tense relations with Europeans, plus they're in a place where they're capable of flexing their muscles. Not so with the indigenous of the Americas, or non-Islamic Africa, who are largely Christian or follow folk religions.

Christianity was never a dominant religion in the Middle East, and when you take various sects like Arianism, Gnosticism, and Macrionism, it's obvious they were never unified.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't give free pass to some modern day Jews either. There are some serious nutjobs in Israel. In certain areas you are pelted with rocks if you make the mistake of driving a car during the sabbath. Lucky for the world that Judaism is ethnospecific (meaning to become a Jew you need to born from a Jewish mother) and thus non-expansionist religion unlike Christianity and Islam. If they were we would be fucked on that front too.

Tolerance is kind of a relative concept. Under the Ottoman rule Christians and Jews were granted some rights IF they paid a special religious tax. Failure to pay the tax could result in either in forced conversion or being sold to slavery. Furthermore, the Ottomans forcefully took levies of Christian boys and girls as slaves either to the Janissary guard or the sultan's harem. Furthermore, the Islamic law did not warrant full protection to the Dhimmi (non-believers who paid the religious tax) as killing a dhimmi would not be as serious crime as killing a fellow muslim. Jews and Christians were not considered exactly first class citizens by anyone there. Also, Dhimmis could not take all professions but were restricted to the selected few reserved for the Dhimmis.

The tolerance of Jews in Europe varied greatly with time and place. The fact that there are still Jews in Europe tells a lot. It's not clear that Christians and Jews were strictly better off in Muslim lands than Jews and Muslims in Christian lands. There is not so much literary evidence of how Jews and Christians were treated in Muslim lands as there is how religious minorities were treated in Europe.

 

Jews, yes, but I credit that survival with their resilience, and specialized niche in the European economies. Outside of Islamic-held lands, ie Ottoman Empire, were Muslims allowed to flourish? They were pretty much given the choice to convert, be expelled, or die, in Christian Iberia. Even now, things aren't looking too great with bans on burqas in France.

One Israeli visitor was shocked at how open some Jewish Americans were in places like NYC, Miami, and Boston, since wearing religious clothing can get you less-than-friendly service.

 

I can only imagine how many "zero tolerance policy" violations there are in this thread...

 

Sorry to say but this all in incorrect. My dad is an Islamic scholar and I would be qualified to give lectures etc. I have memorized and studied the context of the Quran and can tell you it does not promote violence. It clearly gives authority to self-defence and its verses talking about warfare have historical context behind them. They are not universal orders and they always contain verses that give them clear guidelines.

"All bombers are muslims", thats also untrue. Remember Breivik and others? You should check up some statistics. And on the other hand it is sometimes understandable (not acceptable) that people want to revenge when you attack their country (Iraq, Afganistan). ISIS and other extreme groups are composed of less than 300 000 people, you know how big procentage that is from all muslims? thats 0.001%. So according to you, rest of us are absolute illiterate idiots. Also big number of scholars wrote letter to ISIS leader (letter to al baghdadi) to condemn everything they do etc. So please stop spreading this nonsense.

I pray for the victims of this tragedy and their families. Not acceptable. Also nothing to do with real Islam.

 

The fact is that when people respond to attacks like this with lines such as "ISIS has nothing to do with Islam", they're saying it to protect the Muslims who are just trying to live their lives and don't in any way condone the terrorist attacks and the violent interpretation of Islam that ISIS espouses. That said, the statement in quotes is false: ISIS has everything to do with Islam. That doesn't mean that ISIS is in line with the beliefs of the majority of Muslims, but they are an Islamic sect who follow a violent interpretation of their religion.

The problem is, coming down on all Muslims does not solve the issue. As we have seen, these terrorists tend not to be recent migrants but rather Europeans of Middle Eastern descent born and raised in Europe who have grown up in segregated "ghettos"--these are the types of people that ISIS tries to recruit. Making Muslims the enemy in Europe is only going to provide more people for ISIS to target. What needs to happen is integration of Middle Eastern immigrants and Muslims into society, not separation into these poor neighborhoods that lead to unemployment, disillusionment, and ISIS recruitment fodder.

As for the issue of whether or not Islam "truly condones" terrorism: the issue is complicated. The majority of Muslims will tell you it does not. They will tell you that the terrorists are misinterpreting certain lines and concepts of the Qur'an (as well as the Hadith). However, the terrorists will tell you that their interpretation is 100% correct and the only interpretation to follow. Their beliefs are just one among many. It doesn't mean they're right, but it also doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. Their beliefs are appealing to certain people and they are effective (as we have seen with these repeated terrorist attacks). No, coming down on all Muslims is not the solution. But neither is pretending that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. There is a problem with terrorism in Europe right now, and it is political, social, and religious: it's all tied together. You cannot ignore part of it to solve the entire problem.

Edit: Of course this response #40 so it will get buried in the thread. *sigh*