We aren't starting them, and that is a problem with us. Just look at this thread and the responses. All a bunch of 'stick your head in the sand' responses and 'all religions are the same'. No progress will be made with that mentality.

At least you are getting something fairly modern, even if the body count still is trivial in comparison and its localized to Ireland. Also being described as 'political' and 'nationalistic' and not what we're talking about 'religious'.

Please, if anything destabilized the Middle East it was pulling out of Iraq leaving a power vacuum for ISIS. Thanks Obama. What a waste of lives and time.

That said I'd agree about sending the refugees to the White House. At least during the Obama administration.

Going to keep repeating this over and over too I see.

Pearls. If you can't give examples then you are wasting my time.

When it takes nearly a minute to scroll through the list... yeah.

Give me a number then. Further lets assume 75% of the deaths on the list are in one way or another inaccurate, bs, lies or whatever. So we've got 5,000 deaths compared to... what do you got? Also helps if you have a number from THIS year and not some guy who killed some people last year.

And that is a BIG problem with Islam. It has numerous verses of violence and oppression. They haven't had reformations that sanitize these verses.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110911119848561282

"Likewise, statistical analysis of Hezbollah activists in Lebanon showed that those who lived above the poverty line or had higher education were more likely to join the Hezbollah. Lest their research be dismissed as an attack on Islam, the economists showed that extremist Israeli Jewish settlers of Gush Emunim were overwhelmingly from better-paid occupations."

I apologize for my briefness and use of links but I'm being dogpiled by sheep.

Localised to the UK, London and other cities were bombed many times.
Also the IRA got assistance from outside Ireland, such as from US Citizens.

As for 'political' and 'nationalistic' , once you look at the circumstances behind the events in the middle east its obvious that Religion is no more than a tool. A highly effective tool, no doubt, but a tool neither the less.

As basic at saying its a religious war, it can also be said its an elect group using those oppressed and disaffected by another elect group to increase their power. Religion is just the tool.

Except its isn't basic, its complex.

Actually, my post to RwareHall this morning reminded of some numbers so I seeked them back, you're in for some "combination" ;)

*** Muslim population in France ***

An amount of 7,5% of French muslims was estimated in 2010. Of course, as 100% factual stats like this are nearly impossible to make without resorting to some kind privacy-breaking laws (like in some countries where your religion is specified on your ID card).
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nombre_de_musulmans_par_pays

*** Amount of "devout" muslim French prisoners ***

Last October, the socialist French Minister of Justice (Urvoas) was interviewed by the biggest political radio host (Bourdin) and he said that on a total of 68.000 prisoners, 27.000 were doing the ramadan. Ethnic/Religious stats are forbidden so like my job as a school cook (cf. an old post in this thread), it's the best way to have a quick estimation. In percentage, that makes nearly 40% of the carceral population.
https://twitter.com/JJBourdin_RMC/status/791170172770025472

*** Logical Combination ***

Here's a report of the French assembly (so you can't get more official than that) for the budget of prisons for 2015.

In this report you can find a citation of a French-Iranian sociologist who goes even further by saying Muslims constitute the majority of prisoners while they're only 7-8% of the French global population (numbers from 2004 but he he wrote a new book on prisons this year).
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/budget/plf2015/a2267-tVI.asp

"L’absence de statistique officielle ne doit pas empêcher de regarder la réalité en face, telle qu’elle est vécue au quotidien par les acteurs de terrain et évaluée par les observateurs. Ainsi, dès 2004, M. Farhad Khosrokhavar constatait dans son livre L’islam dans les prisons que « les musulmans forment la majorité de la population carcérale, leur taux dépassant souvent les 50 %, avoisinant parfois les 70 %, voire les 80 % dans les prisons poches des "banlieues", soit huit prisonniers sur dix », tout en relevant que les musulmans ne représentaient, à l’extérieur des prisons, que 7 à 8 % de la population vivant en France (8). On peut ainsi estimer qu’environ 60% de la population carcérale, soit 40 000 détenus, peuvent être considérés comme de religion ou de culture musulmane."

===>>>
===>>>
Thus while Babark or people from other countries only see the "good" side of Islam in terms of spirituality or art like that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOpSiN66GTQ
On the other side, like in France and Belgium (as our societies are close), the muslim population is definitely problematic so that's the reality check-up for people from other countries who thinks we're exagerating.

I've never said that the Muslim world doesn't have major problems. My point is, and always has been, that to claim that these problems are somehow uniquely specific to the nature of the Islamic religion itself in a way that it wouldn't be to others (such as Judeo-Christian or Hindu religions) is false. Any religion, including Islam, can be distorted to suit violent agendas. The idea that the Islamic religion is the only one, or intrinsically the MOST violent one, is what I consider foolish and blind thinking- i.e. it seems to me, that some people want to push the idea that being a good muslim means being a bad person.

Also, I'm kind of sad that you posted the most commercialised rendition of that music available, but I suppose it's nice that even Coca Cola is increasing awareness of it :D.

Yup, that's why I find important that rather than discussing theology with quotes from the Quran or the Hadiths, it's more effective (and practical) to replace the context of "one side" of Islam within the context of a region/country as it's lived and "applied" (and how it's perceived) differently if you're living in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Senegal or Belgium.

PS: Yup, I was quite surprised when I discovered the "Coke Studio Pakistan" series some years ago, I found the mix between Coca-Cola and traditional music quite odd and amusing as it's two separate worlds. :) Anyway, if you say there are more traditional versions, I'll look them up as I'm always interested in world music.

I'll just say this. I'm aware of enough history to say that many wars and devastation occur as a result of religion that it is foolhardy to just blame Muslims. Beyond the crusades, you also had the Roman conquest, the Holy Roman Empire, etc. You've also had sects and spinoff religions fight. You've had China involved in conquest. So you are not going to convince me that Muslims are inherently more violent because of their religion. Especially if one thinks of "Western intervention" as a Christian-based conquest. Remember British expansion, that the British conquered India, what is now Iraq et al. How many died in that process? Were those deaths humane? Are any deaths in war? I can just imagine how people feel when their country is bombed; when innocents and civilians in their country die. This does not justify attacks on Western civilians, but I can see how some might consider it tit-for-tat.

@catpower1980 Here's where I agree with you. It's certainly more than terrorism. Culture-clash is a serious thing. I don't believe the idea of taking in a million refugees makes a lot of sense. It certainly would make sense for other Islamic nations, if possible, to absorb them as the cultures in question are more similar and thus they might fit in better, but do any of these nations have the resources for so many? It might make more sense to resolve the war. As it is, you have the Syrian regime (supported by Russia) and you have various rebel groups (including some supported by the U.S. and the West as well as the sectarian groups). It seems that part is at a relative impasse and I don't see a lot of will to resolve it. Instead we have this stopgap measure of taking in refugees.

It's funny how some talk of necessary reformation of Islam, yet I don't see Western Christian nations refrain from war. I recall a recent Christian Presidential candidate (Pat Robertson) publicly speak of his support to assassinate the Democratically elected leader of Venezuela (Chavez) to stop the spread of evil Socialism. Does Christianity need more "reformation" too?

What's clear is that within any group there are extremes. Where I think a number of people are crossing the line is by categorizing all Muslims as the extreme...

This is beyond the immigration issue which is quite different than the one in the U.S. Europe is at least attempting to document your immigrants while the U.S. allows somewhere around 4% of it's population to be undocumented people who entered the country illegally and has made no real attempt to change that for almost 4 decades through both Democrat and Republican leaderships. With Democrats now trying to use the laissez faire attitude as a selling point for the Latino vote while declaring any attempt to secure our Southern border as "racist". Meanwhile the Republicans are likely using it as a problem which needs to be solved, yet the best they seemingly can come up with is "build a wall".

In the case of Europe, immigration is your choice; the choice of your governments. I don't think it would be that unreasonable for some countries to say they have had enough and admit the process isn't working very well. Especially if the employment numbers for refugees are as low as reported. Poor people become desperate and desperate people have a higher tendency toward crime.

Re my example of Zoroastrians: I know that the Arab conquerors initially weren't keen on conversions, but that wasn't due to some modern notion of "tolerance", it was because Islam in its origins was something like a tribal religion of the Arabs and because non-Muslims had to pay the poll tax, so the Arab conquerors had an economic interest in keeping many non-Muslims around so that Muslims could live as an economic elite, profiting from the rents of dominated populations. Later, Islam's universalism came more to the fore and gradually many non-Muslims converted to Islam...mostly because of the very real material benefits in doing so (not a unique process by the way, Christianization of the Roman empire in the 4th/5th century was similar in some ways). The crucial point for me is that non-Muslims were never really treated as equals in Islamic polities, but suffered from all manner of legal discrimination. Again this is not unique, and in medieval times the Islamic world was probably more tolerant of diversity than most of Latin Christendom. The problem I have with Islam is that many, many Muslims seem never to have gotten away from that kind of Islamic supremacism though...and that's confirmed by the PEW survey I mentioned. When more than 50% of Muslims in some Islamic countries (and not marginal countries, but large, populous states like Pakistan or Egypt - and btw in Egypt the electoral success of the Muslim brothers confirmed how widespread those attitudes are) think "apostates" ought to be killed or non-Muslims should be subjected to Sharia, that's simply not compatible with modern notions of tolerance. I'm sorry, but as long as there isn't a serious attempt at reforming Islam and getting rid of its problematic aspects, I'll remain wary of the religion and its adherents (though certainly there are many decent and humane Muslims...but that's not the point).

I suppose many of IS' foot soldiers aren't really that knowledgable about religion, but their leadership probably is...their self-declared caliph al-Baghadi supposedly has a doctorate in Islamic studies, and IS members have produced learned tractates about things like how slavery is in accordance with Islamic law. And I'm convinced many of them really do believe that they're in some kind of apocalyptical battle and doing God's work (there was an interesting article about this a while ago...iirc "What ISIS really wants"). It may seem bizarre to most modern Westerners, but I think we should take their beliefs seriously.

EDIT: Here's the article I mentioned: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
You're looking at this too much from an exclusively American perspective...personally I find the American religious right deeply unpleasant and think it's good its influence is in decline; I also think many Americans have a far too uncritical attitude about military interventions...so there certainly is need for "reform" about that. But none of this exists to the same degree in Europe, and none of this can explain away the very real problems in large parts of the Muslim world and among many Muslim immigrant communities.

You still don't get that separation of Church and State thing do you.

That isn't the case in much of the Islamic world.

The facts say otherwise. Christianity has changed and molded itself to fit the times. Islam has not. Your post suits nothing more than making you feel better about your religion.

Crusades and generally, religious wars, died off after the middle ages, just so you know. Only Jihadists are around to this day/age and only Islam is (still stuck in) middle ages. Also, most modern religions are tolerant and accepting to others, while muslims in lands of dominance, banish, abuse, even torture and execute, other religious members. A woman even has to cover her head in order to visit a muslim country, unless she wants to be arrested, or worse; only recently a German politician dared to visit such a place, dressed as she would in European grounds. No one should be more "equal" than others; equality is either for all, or for none. Same goes for tolerance. At least, concerning sane and logical people. Respect should be mutual, never one sided. Ultimately, "One's behavior, should be an indication, as to how others should treat them in return, in retrospect". You can't have someone killing you and violating your home, while you pretend all else do the same and even try to fight for their rights, where and when it is them who oppress the rights of others (existential ones, first and foremost, even worse, at that).

Since you mentioned chinese... Do you have any idea, that asian religions are among the most peaceful ones ever? Buddhism is all about love and compassion, other esoteric sects are about philosophy, meditation, inner balance, betterment of the individual on any levels of life and morality, or even religions of the left hand paths, such as sex religious, human-centered religions and stuff like that. Confucius brought wisdom and virtue in ancient China, as well. Yet, always and without fail, whenever muslim communities approach the vicinity of them, always wild conflicts arise, even armed ones. Just sit down and think for a second; "Just what did muslims do, in order to turn peaceful, harmless and philosophers of an individual, into violent fighters against them"?

Finally, as i said, by researching spirituality, you reveal much info about culture, history, customs, mentality, philosophy and other priceless fields of knowledge, such as sociology aspects and shed light into hidden stuff. There is no bliss in this type of ignorance. And while i respect somehow the anarchist creed "undo all religions" (so as for conflict to stop), exactly as all their other objectives, all are fairy tales and utopia drugs. Religion is interwoven inside humans since the dawn of time. It never ceased to exist and it is never going to. So, go out and study about them all, in order to know what the future has in store. "The key for the future lies in the past". "History repeats itself in full circles". "People keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again". You want to avoid a mistake that can cost you your life, or the life of your very own culture and civilization, you gotta learn everything about anything that can potentially bring it. Unless you rode on that "no-border" "everyone-brothers" braindead, no way back, illusion; in which case, RIP in advance.

But these problems do not live in a vacuum. It seems pretty obvious that Western intervention has had a major role in extremist "recruitment". And let's be fair, it is not just America, but Britain doesn't seem to be much of an unwilling partner and one has to wonder how much has to do with past "colonization" efforts.

Is this really a problem born of Muslim extremism? Or was this problem born of Western (Christian) intervention throughout the 1900's to present? Extremism seems to grow from real or perceived slights and marginalization. How much of this is the child of Western meddling for the past 120 years or more? And I'm not trying to debate where it started, just pointing out that blaming this all on the Muslim religion is rather obviously short-sighted as is claiming how "reformed" Christianity has been. Does anyone remember some of the Christian efforts to "reform and educate" Africa to turn them away from their "heathen" religions?

Since 1900, how many "Christian" countries have had their governments overthrown by Muslims vs. how many have had Western nations overthrow "Muslim" rule? I don't think the answer is in line with your idea that Muslims have this goal to take over the world that they have been pursuing since their inception...

And I agree about conflict between immigrant communities and Western communities. As much as any culture is different, there are going to be issues. But I also don't think that "citing" Western media sources about the "Truth about ISIS (or IS) or Muslims" is very authoritative either.

In short, I don't think it's fair to talk of just one-side of this at least two-sided issue. And your insistence that the whole religion must reform itself to match Western values seems rather partisan.

Personally I'm opposed to Western military interventions in the Islamic world (apart from Afghanistan, that was justified after 9/11)...I was against the Iraq war in 2003, against intervention in Libya in 2011 and against Western meddling in Syria. What I would like to see is Western disengagement from the Islamic world as much as possible, i.e. reduce Islamic immigration to the West to the absolute minimum and stop direct Western military interventions in the region as both policies have proved to be mostly negative in their consequences. But unfortunately that's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Buddhism, Hinduism - except when it came to India and the British occupation. There was far more going on than just Gandhi's peaceful protests and there was a reason Pakistan needed to "spin off".
China - and that explains the historical conflicts with Japan, their attitudes toward Taiwan, support for North Vietnam or North Korea.
Christianity - I think you need to look more carefully especially at actions in Africa and Christian reform movements. Maybe South Africa?

I think if you look more objectively on historical events, you will find issues regardless of religion. I don't think there is such a "scoreboard" for religious peacefulness...
I'm with you there. I'm actually a bit hopeful with Trump on this issue. The fact that the Neocons like Bill Kristol were encouraging people to vote for Hillary makes me think he pitched his "Project for a New American Century" style of regime change to him and got rejected. Only time will tell, but some level of disengagement seems consistent with his "America First" ideology.

Edit: Even the bit about Afghanistan. I recall we made demands of the Taliban that they "turn over" Bin Laden and their response was essentially that it wasn't within their power to do so. Seemingly, they were willing to negotiate on allowing us to go after Bin Laden, but instead we chose to go to war with the whole country instead.

Christianity did horrible atrocities. You even forgot the crowning achievements; Holy Inquisition in europe and the missionaries in Americas, in which they wiped off priceless, ancient cultures and undid their civilizations (especially concerning religious heritage) fundamentally, razing them to the ground. But once again, this one stayed in the past and isn't likely to ever repeat itself; especially in modern age.

Even today, still, Christianity is drowned in various scandals, even sex, monetary and political scandals, all the way to various illegal actions. Yet you missed the point. You again forget to COMPARE and CONTRAST. In places like afganistan, girls as early as 6 years, are religiously married off to 50+ old men, even clerics, in exchange for some food or money. In one side, it is the exception, the abnormality, the punishable by all laws, divine and human. In the other side, even their prophet was married off to his 9 years old niece and daily, couples of 30+ old men and underage brides, set foot to Europe, as "refugees".

You don't think that something exists doesn't mean it doesn't, though. Ostrich thing is nasty habit. But this is your head and all, you can put it wherever you want, as long as you don't drag my head next to yours, because i will need it some more years firmly attached to exactly where it is right now.

I don't defend anyone, i am merely researching data and presenting opinions, won't say facts, since those are in dispute. Besides, i am not a christian and i even hate them, they too harmed me once when i trusted and sought them out for guidance, betraying my faith and kindness as a person for countless years. But i like using scales to measure things. I never take in something indiscriminately, unless properly/carefully inspected beforehand (not even free games!), especially if it can spell my doom. Yes, you have to carefully inspect the donkey at its teeth ALWAYS; and this is no rude or inhumane. "I think, ergo i exist". Ponder over that, for a while.

I really hope Trump will go through with that; I'm concerned because there seem to be many anti-Iran hawks around Trump...I don't like the regime in Teheran, but a "preemptive" war against Iran would be a catastrophe in my opinion.