Hey Pakistan stop being dicks!

[Brian37]

The problem with dicks is that they tend to remain dickish.

Some yes, but Christianity was once dickish to the same extent, still has some dicks in it, but those dicks have been put on a leash and cannot be as dickish as far too much of the east still is.

[DramaQueen]

We should promote Baha'i faith :p

[Mister Agenda]

YES IT DOES

Please take this into evolutionary context.

Please take this into historical context. Who divided up the Middle East to suit themselves? Who installed the Shah of Iran? Who put Saddam in power? Who backed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan? Who was still supplying pro-Islamist children's schoolbooks to Afghanistan into the nineties? Who props up the Wahabbist Saudi government with their military? Who deposed Saddam and the Baathist party and drove (literally) a million Sunni Baathists out of Iraq (and largely into Syria)? Guess where a lot of them are now.

If Islam had never been concocted, the dominant religion of the region would most likely be Orthodox Christianity, and we would most likely have at least 90% of the same problems with the poor countries in the area which the West has exploited for resources and played like chess pieces for more than a century.

Holy books are weapons, and the people that read them and justify their morality from them run governments and make laws.

Yes, sure they are, and sure they do. If you think it matters much which supposedly holy book it is, or that without one those same people wouldn't be able to come up with justifications to get the populations of their countries to go along with their ambitions, you underestimate the ideology-generating prowess of human beings who want what other people have.

The number one most effective way to reduce the religiosity of a people is to make them educated, prosperous, and secure. Give them that, and they'll mostly disentangle their government from religion over a few decades.

Make them ignorant, impoverished, and desperate (which could easily be mistaken for our goal in the Middle East) and you'll get the opposite. An Enlightenment requires a modicum of peace and security that I don't think can really be imposed from outside, though war is not at all hard to come by from outside.

[Brian37]

YES IT DOES

Please take this into evolutionary context.

Please take this into historical context. Who divided up the Middle East to suit themselves? Who installed the Shah of Iran? Who put Saddam in power? Who backed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan? Who was still supplying pro-Islamist children's schoolbooks to Afghanistan into the nineties? Who props up the Wahabbist Saudi government with their military? Who deposed Saddam and the Baathist party and drove (literally) a million Sunni Baathists out of Iraq (and largely into Syria)? Guess where a lot of them are now.

If Islam had never been concocted, the dominant religion of the region would most likely be Orthodox Christianity, and we would most likely have at least 90% of the same problems with the poor countries in the area which the West has exploited for resources and played like chess pieces for more than a century.

Holy books are weapons, and the people that read them and justify their morality from them run governments and make laws.

Yes, sure they are, and sure they do. If you think it matters much which supposedly holy book it is, or that without one those same people wouldn't be able to come up with justifications to get the populations of their countries to go along with their ambitions, you underestimate the ideology-generating prowess of human beings who want what other people have.

The number one most effective way to reduce the religiosity of a people is to make them educated, prosperous, and secure. Give them that, and they'll mostly disentangle their government from religion over a few decades.

Make them ignorant, impoverished, and desperate (which could easily be mistaken for our goal in the Middle East) and you'll get the opposite. An Enlightenment requires a modicum of peace and security that I don't think can really be imposed from outside, though war is not at all hard to come by from outside.

Right holy books are weapons. And yes lack of education and poverty contribute to more fundy mindset. I am well aware of the right wing revisionist history and attacks on science and lack of education in America. Which is why I also say it isn't just Islam, but our species evolution which unfortunately far to much clings to false perceptions.

I refuse to use political correctness to coddle the insecurities of assholes.

---

Yes education is the key, NOT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!

[FatAndFaithless]

I wouldn't say it's political correctness to criticize the West's interventions in the Middle East as well as the rather hideous history and teachings of Islam. I think it's when one of the two parts is ignored or indemnified that the problems begin. Yes, Islam is shitty, but so is a lot of the West's past antics in the middle east. One doesn't justify the other, but they certainly both have huge influence in the history of the region, and it would be unwise to criticize only one of them without addressing the other.

So when people like Reza Aslan or Obama say that the current ISIS conflict "has nothing to do with Islam", obviously they're wrong. But also when some neo-cons or far right folks say that Islam is the evil that has caused all of the conflict in the middle east, they're blatantly ignoring the last century of geopolitics largely driven by the West. It's a two-part problem, and both parts need to be addressed without ignoring the other.

[Brian37]

I am telling you, we are right in blasting Islam, but for the same reason Christianity needed to be raked over the coals to put a leash on it.

The more humans understand that religion and politics are really nothing more than excuses to gain power and get resources, we will have more world peace. Our common condition should be our focus, the rest needs to be put on the back burner even if it does not go away.

[Chas]

This has nothing to do with Islam, but only the sensibilities of the Pakistani culture.

Their culture has every bit as much right to exist as our Western imperialist milieu.

I don't think cultures have any rights at all, let alone a right to exist.

[JesusHChrist]

Hence my (what I thought was over the top) sarcasm...

[FatAndFaithless]

This has nothing to do with Islam

I think that's a bit oversimplistic. it would be like saying the abortion clinic bombings and huge anti-homosexual social stigmas in the deep south have nothing to do with christianity. Did they directly and soley receive their motiviation from their religion alone? No of course not, their local culture and family upbringing and social reinforcement certainly plays a part, but those cultural ideas can and are formed upon ideas that are either promoted or vastly reinforced by their Christianity. Religion and culture are entwined in a lot of places, and to excise one part of the problem as "having nothing to do with it" is a bit of a step too far.

---

Hence my (what I thought was over the top) sarcasm...

Welp, fuck me I didn't see that part, heh. Forgive me Jesus!

[JesusHChrist]

Hence my (what I thought was over the top) sarcasm...

Welp, fuck me I didn't see that part, heh. Forgive me Jesus!

You are forgiven my child.

Jesus decided not to use a smiley this time and, has happened before, was misunderstood, e.g. "blessed are the meek" was ACTUALLY "blessed are the cheesemakers", lo verily Jesus does love cheese!

Jesus was attempting to parody the currently in vogue cultural relativism that all cultures, beliefs, behaviors are equal and we just don't understand Islam!