(March 31, 2016 at 2:22 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(March 31, 2016 at 12:33 pm)Amine Wrote: I'm not talking about meeting a few Muslims. I'm talking about living in a culture where Islam is dominant. That's when it can cease to have any exotic appeal. You'd hate it. Think Christianity is bad? How about you venture beyond the county line and fuck off to Pakistan where you can live among adherents of the religion of peace.
I lived in Iran for four years and Saudi Arabia for most of one. Pretty sure I've got the background to make informed comments on the matter. And I found the people there to be great, in both countries. SA's governance, of course, is shitty, but under the shah's regime in Iran, the law was secular and the people held many of our values.
How about you? What experiences in Muslim countries informs your opinion?
That's nice that you have that to wave around at people, I bet you're just beside yourself. I've never been to one and don't plan on going any time soon. While I'm sure there are plenty of nice, nonpsychopathic people there, the beliefs of individuals don't often show bad consequences until seen at the group level. You could go visit the Westboro Baptist Church like Louie Thoreaux and live with them for a couple of weeks and realize that they're actually a pretty friendly bunch. They just have some batshit insane ideas about reality. Luckily, they are tiny. If they weren't, they'd still be the same people, but the governance, of course, would be shitty. And by the way, how'd that whole thing with the Shah in Iran go again? Radical Islam ushered in under massive popular support, if I recall? We tried, though, huh?
