David Cameron copies Ben Affleck's approach to Islamic violence

[DeistPaladin]

I've said before that even if only 10% of Muslims were extremists, that's still too many.

[Ben Davis]

yeah, are you supposed to be countering me with this. How does this help you again.

...because it demonstrates that any generalisation regarding muslim support for extremists is wrong. A generalisation must necessarily be representative of the overwhelming majority to have any validity at all and the majority of british muslims do not support extremism. That fact should be recognised when dealing with extremism in the UK. That doesn't mean we ignore the influence from countries where the majority of muslims DO support extremism but it does mean that careful consideration of national demographics must be included in the analysis.

And are you saying 20-30% in support of extremism isn't a large proportion,

I agree, it is a large proportion. I referred to it as "worrying" (and that may be an understatement) but a large proportion still doesn't serve a generalisation of british muslims. Balance is needed to make sure that our views are truly representative of the situation.

I wasn't sure on the figures but I would even say those are conservative.

That's why I included the sources used by ReligionOfPeace & Daniel Pipes as they would likely support an anti-islamic position and be anything other than conservative. As it happens, they also used some of the stats from the NOP and ICM polls so there's a set of shared references.

Tell me again, what of what I said was gonads, because you haven't specified. You just went on a rant.

Your statements regarding the behaviour of british muslims (e.g. FGM, terrorism, being removed from their social responsibilities) included no balance. You didn't point out that the majority of british muslims oppose these ideas and that the largest muslim bodies in the UK have publically condemned extremism and terrorist actions. I was addressing that lack of balance.

And your second one from Channel 4, a source I wouldn't trust as you'll see why, suggests it around 30% in favour of Sharia. Whilst trying to butter people up to the idea, arguing Sharia isn't all that bad............I'm not joking, have you read these links ?

Of course I read the links. I don't necessarily agree with all the C4 analysis, it just gave me an easy reference point for the stats. It's the data that's my focus, not the window-dressing.

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I've said before that even if only 10% of Muslims were extremists, that's still too many.

I agree.

[Lemonvariable72]

I think that maybe there is a dimension to this that we are forgetting. That is that in most western countries, your free to choose what you want to think. I'm going to use a personal friend as a example for this. His name was Mohammed and he was from Bangladesh. Now one day he simply made a off hand remark about how in his home country they didn't sell alcohol. Now nearly a year later it occurs to me, that in any culture that religion plays such a central in the society, that people are told what to think, and not allowed to think otherwise.
Luckily this didn't seem to be the case with him, as he was very articulate well educated, not to mention he stated several times that they'd basically have to shoot him to make him go back.
But not everyone handles that sort of adjustment the same. Some people after years of being told what to think come over and are totally enamoured with this freedom of thought, but others are scared and what to take the old ways with them. Some people don't want to think and want to be told what to think. Personally I find the idea of someone thinking for me terrifying.

[Lao Shizi]

I don't base my opinion of Muslims on what I see in the news, I base it on my own personal experience. I have known many Muslims throughout my life. My college roommates were 2 Iranians, and a Pakistani. They were great friends to me, and never once tried to kill me, or convert me. I had several women from Somalia who worked with me when I was a store manager. They were kind, funny, and generous to a fault. They never once tried to kill me or convert me. I could go on, but it's sufficient to say that what I see in the news does not match my experience. I don't blame all Christians for the Oklahoma city bombing, or Westboro Baptist, or the Christian Identity movement, or the Klan. I don't blame all Buddhists for the actions of the Sinhalese. Because blaming an entire demographic for the actions of a minority of that demographic would be, well, stupid.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I don't base my opinion of Muslims on what I see in the news, I base it on my own personal experience. I have known many Muslims throughout my life. My college roommates were 2 Iranians, and a Pakistani. They were great friends to me, and never once tried to kill me, or convert me. I had several women from Somalia who worked with me when I was a store manager. They were kind, funny, and generous to a fault. They never once tried to kill me or convert me. I could go on, but it's sufficient to say that what I see in the news does not match my experience. I don't blame all Christians for the Oklahoma city bombing, or Westboro Baptist, or the Christian Identity movement, or the Klan. I don't blame all Buddhists for the actions of the Sinhalese. Because blaming an entire demographic for the actions of a minority of that demographic would be, well, stupid.

Kudos to you.

My experience is very much similar.

[DeistPaladin]

I'm perfectly fine with the idea that most Christians and Muslims are good people who want to believe their religion and their god are also good. Yet, I oppose Islam and Christianity because of the potential danger in each case.

The fundamentalist is the one who follows scripture and takes its religion to its logical conclusion. The moderate is just one who waters their faith down with modernity, conscience and other foreign elements. Therefore, these religions can be expected to produce a number of fundies per moderates. What the ratio is exactly is difficult to say but if even 10% turn fundy, that's a problem.

The problem does seem to be worse in countries where the religion becomes a dominant part of the population. In the USA, Christianity has become a serious problem, held in check only by our constitution. It interferes with the science education of our children, certain forms of scientific research (such as stem cells) and social issues. I can tell you from having visited Indonesia, a moderate Muslim country, Christians there are terrified, literally terrified, of Islamic violence and discriminatory laws.

I'm not familiar enough with psychology to know why that is. Perhaps it's a group or mob mentality. When you live in a country where secularism is ascendant, there may be the tendency toward moderation (as with Christians in the UK and elsewhere in Europe where their beliefs seem mild, almost deistic, in comparison to their average counterparts in America). Those who live in the UK can correct me on this point if I'm wrong.

[Anomalocaris]

I've said before that even if only 10% of Muslims were extremists, that's still too many.

Define extremist.

I doubt 10% of any large Muslim society without immediate external pressure would be prepared to strap on a bomb or saw off a head with a Bowie knife.

I doubt even in Muslim societies subject to great external pressure, like those in Gaza or west bank, would you actually find 10% willing to do these things.

What I think you are finding is the small percentage who are willing to do those things have a strong tendency to leave the Muslim society in which they previously lived, find out others of like mind to themselves, and congregate at places where violence is in the offing and form ad hoc groups with high percentage of fanatics. Where these groups bubble up, they are locally powerful because their numbers are locally large and they relish force and violence.

As to large Muslim societies condoning or not objecting to violence towards minorities, that is hardly a fault unique to Muslims. How many good old christain whites tried to stop the popular spectator sport of lynching niggers in the American South just 50 years ago? Appearently these lynchings were often attended by thousands who not part of the Klan, some of these popular good old American lynchings were gruesome beyond any I've seen by ISIS (Victims were hung from chains and raised and lowered repeated into a barn fire while alive, or preganant women in their deaththroes on the scaffold had their fetus cut out), and postcards, actually mailed and postmarked, were issued commemorating the lynching with grisly pictures of dead victims.

Were all those whites who attended lynchings and had barbacure afterwards extremists?

[Cyberman]

This has got to be the first and only time that Ben Affleck and DynoRod Dave have appeared in the same sentence outside of the MI6 surveillance report.

[Anomalocaris]

This has got to be the first and only time that Ben Affleck and DynoRod Dave have appeared in the same sentence outside of the MI6 surveillance report.

Exactly what would MI6 survey to place those two in the same sentence? Who is suspected of involvement in The Iron Lady II?

[Cyberman]

I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you.