Is Islam really a violent religion?

[Zander]

Quite frankly, we simply can't know how many people have been killed in the name of religion, all religions, over the span of recorded time. -- Mike Irwin

But it was your contention, "Otherwise rational people, and some truly irrational people, acting in the name of their God, have probably been responsible for more murder, carnage, and mayhem than any other singular reason.", to which I responded. I'm curious as to whether you actually believe it or not. Your contention gets tossed rather casually into discussions like this. There is only one problem with that...it just isn't true.

But, since you said demonstrably, please demonstrate with hard figures.

In our discussions on gun control, we commonly estimate that more than 100 million people were murdered by the tyrants, dictators and totalitarians of socialist and communist regimes in the last century alone. As late as 1800, there were less than one billion people on this planet. My point should be pretty clear, but I'll put detail to my estimates if you will.

Funny that lendringser should say "religion in general", and in trying to refute him, you wind up using the phrase "religion of the state". -- Tamara

You're plenty smart enough to know a figure of speech when you see one.

I'd submit that communism or fascism or national socialism or what-have-you are, for all practical purposes, religions.

Of course, you are free to submit anything you like...including a tortured definition.

 

[buzz_knox]

This thread has had over 150 posts in it (counting this one) and still remains thoughtful and relatively courteous, despite being on one of the most contentious subjects. Congrats, folks.

 

[Marko Kloos]

In our discussions on gun control, we commonly estimate that more than 100 million people were murdered by the tyrants, dictators and totalitarians of socialist and communist regimes in the last century alone.

Look, Zander, I know the point you're trying to make, because these discussions have come up on TFL before. You're basically alluding that a declared "secular" government, by the fact that it explicitly rejects religion as a guiding factor in matters of State, tends to be ruthless and violent because it lacks the values and behavioral restrictions of religion.

That argument, however, loses a lot of steam when you consider that the corollary is not automatically true. Governments which implicitly identify themselves with a religion do not, and historically haven't automatically refrained from killing people en masse. Since history has many incidents of theocracies, Christian or otherwise, which have killed people by the score, your argument against secular regimes loses its point.

Now you can at best try to argue that

a.) secular regimes are more prone to genocide than religious ones, or

b.) only certain religions have violent theocracies in their history, or

c.) theocratic tendencies for mass murder are a thing of the past, or

d.) secular governments are worse than theocracies becausse they rack up a higher body count.

What you cannot argue, however, is that theocracies, or declared religiously affiliated governments, have never engaged in mass killings of any kind, whether on their own citizenry or others.

Furthermore, secular regimes are hardly ever truly and explicitly anti-religion, with the possible exception of the old Soviet Union. Hitler secured the cooperation of the church in Germany, and many historians think that the silent accompliceship of the Lutheran and Catholic churches was partially caused by their anti-semitism...in other words, they weren't sad to see the Jews being persecuted. Individual priests who spoke out against the Nazis, like Niemoller and Von Galen, were the exception. Fascism was unique in that it co-opted religious and mythical themes, and the Nazis always paid lip service to religion, which is why they sought the cooperation of the church instead of disbanding it.
Secular tyrannies always replaced religion with a mysticism of their own. For Hitler, it was a strange amalgamate of nationalism and Norse mythology. The Soviets merely replaced "the will of God" with "the good of the State". Both National Socialism and Stalinist Communism took advantage of the natural human gravitation to mysticism by sharing many characteristics with religion: infallible and unquestionable doctrines, ritualism, mass gatherings, hierarchical and patriarchal structure, and repression of dissent.

The point here is that secular tyrannies have racked up massive body counts thanks to Joe Stalin et. al., but they never went out and killed for the explicit sake of secularism, whereas the majority of theocratic warfare has been for the explicit sake of religion.

George Carlin says that the wrong answer to the God question has been the leading cause of death in history. Even if you disagree and start counting bodies between religious and secular warfare, the fact remains that there has been a *lot* of religious warfare in human history specifically over who has the right religion.

The main question of the thread starter was "Is Islam inherently violent?". All religions, Islam included, have bred violence for the explicit sake of either advancing their own faith or eradicating another. To pretend otherwise, or to chant "My religion breeds less violent loonies than yours", is a pointless contest. All mainstream religions disassociate themselves from killing innocents, including Islam. Trying to pretend that the lunatic fringe somehow speaks for the entire religion is a pointless exercise, because that tactic can be used against any religion...and even secularism. Arguing in that fashion only ends in a monotone exchange of "Did too!/Did not!", as everybody scours the Holy Book of the other religion (of which they rarely have any in-depth knowledge) for evidence that "proves" the inherent violence of that religion. When the tactic is then reversed, they say, "You're taking that out of context!"

Unless we have an Imam and an ordained minister debating the issue of "What the Bible/Qu'ran really says", it's pointless to debate holy texts based on their cursory and superficial knowledge, whether you're talking Bible or Qu'ran.

 

[Bahadur]

ahenry:

Not necessarily. Remember I am not coming down on any side in this debate, so take this as its intended. The greater the number of incidences that show a correlation increase the likelihood of causation. Allow me to provide a true illustration. If every time walk out into bright sunlight from more subdued lighting, I sneeze, I can begin to suspect there is causation from the sunlight*. Not necessarily something I can prove, but when it happens with such regularity and such certainty that I can reliably predict it, there is a good chance there is causation there.
So while it is true that one cannot necessarily say that two events equal causation, repetition of those two events over and over and over again can reliably indicate that there is actually causation.

Not so. First of all, even if A and B have high correlations, if you can come up with yet another element - C - that has higher correlations to B than A does, than (by your logic) C causes B is more likely than B causes A.

So, for example, if there is a high correlations between radical Islam and violence, you could assume that maybe radical Islam causes violence. But if you find, for example, that high poverty (or severe repression by government or whatever else) has higher correlations to violence, then by your logic, high poverty is more likely to cause violence than Islam.

Furthermore, you leave out the possibility that A and B might have a high correlations, not because there is a causal relationship, but because another factor - say, D - may be causing BOTH, thus creating the correlations between the first two.

For example, let's assume that radical Islam and violence has a high correlations. But if it turns out that, say, being located in the Middle East and having a repressive government CAUSES both radical Islam and violence, then we can have a situation in which there might be perfect correlations between radical Islam and violence (because both are caused by another set of factors), yet not have a causal relationship.

In the instance, it would be correct to state that radical Islam and violence are both symptoms of another causal factor (Middle East, rather than South America, repressive government, poverty, etc.), but it would be wrong to cite radical Islam as the causal factor for violence.

You can disprove the notion that Islam "causes" terrorism by disproving 1) necessity (that Islam is necessary for terrorism) and 2) sufficiency (that Islam is enough to cause terrorism).

So, for 1), we find a Christian society with lots of terrorism. Columbia. For 2) we find a Muslim society without terrorism (or no more than any non-Muslim society) Malaysia.

In fact, when we do a study of terrorism, we often find correlational conditions that has nothing to do with the specific factor of Islam: poverty, government repression, no or little history of legal mechanisms of dissent, low literacy rate, religious/spiritual extremism (not just Islam, but Jewish, Christian, pagan, or whatever) and so forth that perhaps show much greater correlational strength than "Islam."

lendringser:

Islam hasn't had its renaissance yet, and it's badly overdue for one.

Yes! More specifically, what made the Renaissance possible was the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent secularization of society (not that people are less religious, but rather the divorce between the religious and government authorities). What Islam badly needs is a kind of Reformation.

That is not to suggest that some Muslim sects do not believe in that seperation of "Church and State." Some do. However, because of specific historical-social conditions, they have not been able to "impose" that view on many Muslim socities.

cuchulain:

quote:
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Where did these social conditions come from? Interesting how a society suffused with a certain mind-set that affects all aspects of its behavior, by its own choice and design, is not to be implicated in that society's problems.
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What about the abject poverty in Christian South America?

Exactly. Ever notice how nation-states with unstable borders, poverty, low literacy, rapacious government, ethnic tensions are often those that had been colonized by another power for a long period of time?

Zander:

quote:
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Here we have a correlation between blacks and a high incidence of crime. There is, however, no established causation - that being blacks causes criminality. -- Bahadur
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Is this supposed to be some semblance of a conclusion reached by the scientific method?!? You skipped a step trying to make your point.

Statistics [real, violent-crime ones] show that the average black in our society is much more likely to commit a violent crime than any other racial/ethnic/blah-blah-blah individual we can list.

Nope. That's NOT what the statistics show (what's an "average black" anyway). The stats do not determine the likelihood of a particular individual's actions. What the statistics show, however, is that there is a greater likelihood of a random group of (say) 1,000 blacks having more criminals than a similar group of 1,000 whites. Again, correlations!

Now, what happens if we find out that the correlations between "low income people living in concentrations (meaning "ghettos") and crime is substantially higher than "black" and crime?

Here is a thought: if we find that blacks, Hispanics, Asians and whites all have different crime rates in general, but that these groups living in "ghettos" have similar or identical crime rates, what does that say about which is more likely to be merely correlational and which more likely to be causal?

In spite of your prostestations, correlations become causations...conclusions drawn from them are entirely valid; and no amount of PC-driven meandering will change it.

"PC-driven meander" is merely a personal attack, and you know it.

Equating correlations with causation is a fallacy - and has been recognized as such LONG before political-correctness was ever conceived.

Let me give you yet another example.

Let's say that EVERYTIME *you* see a bird dropping from the sky to hide under a tree, you get soaked with water (by rain). Meaning, there is a PERFECT correlations between the bird's action and you getting wet. Does that mean the bird's action CAUSES the phenomenon of you getting wet?

Or is the causal factor (rain) actually making both happen, in which case the two might correlate perfectly, yet one is not causal to the other (rain is the causal factor)?

 

[Zander]

There is an undeniable correlation. -- cuchulainn

But not sufficient to prove causation.

How do you think causation is proven?

 

[Tamara]

Zander,

Equivocate all you wish.

The only reason that Arnald-Amalric didn't bag as many as Schickelgruber or Dzugashvili is because he didn't have machine guns or gas chambers and had to slaughter his religious foes the old-fashioned way, one at a time.

As for, say, Russkie communism or German national socialism not being religions, well: they had a doctrine to answer all their questions, they had a man in a funny hat to tell them what to do, they could gather in throngs at symbolism-laden ceremonies to feel the spirit of the nation/god flow through them. They largely filled the same societal functions.

 

[Tamara]

lendringser,

George Carlin says that the wrong answer to the God question has been the leading cause of death in history. Even if you disagree and start counting bodies between religious and secular warfare,

Heck, if you want to look at it through the lens of strict biblical interpretation, the worst mass-murderer in history wiped out 25% of the Earth's population due to the wrong answer to the "God question".

 

[Mike Irwin]

"it just isn't true."

I'll ask you AGAIN, Zander.

Please PROVE that it's not true.

You can only SPECULATE that it's not true.

So, 100 million killed by tyrants, socialists, etc., in the past 100 years. How many before that? Who knows.

Now, compare and contrast that with what, nearly 6,000 years of recorded human history. In light of that....

Please provide for us the number of Hittites massacred by Pharonic Egyptians in their religious wars.

Please tell us how many were killed in the expansion of the Persian empire where the Persian religion was brutally forced on those who didn't follow it?

Please provide for us the number of Egyptians massacred during the upheavals surrounding Akhenaten's repression of polythiesm in Egypt, and the similar civil unrest following Akhenaten's death and the return to the old ways.

Please provide for us the number of daily sacrifices made up to the Incan, Aztec, Olmec, etc. gods in the New World prior to the Spanish stamping those practices out.

Please gives us the total number of New World natives killed by the Spanish while they were engaged in "spreading the Christian faith."

Please provide a tally of people who died as the result of the Crusades. On both sides.

Please provide a tally of the people who died during the Germanic-Christian invasions of Russia and the Baltic States.

Tally for us the total number of individuals killed over the past 3,000 years as the result of religiously-motivated violence in Asia. Don't think there has been much? Think again.

You also automatically assume that totaliarian regimes are secular. Once again, as I noted, I, and some others, hold that even supposedly "secular" states are religions unto themselves.

When you replace the concept of the omnipotent God with the omnipotent state, just how different is it? It's not.

Since you're contesting a statement that I've already stipulated is difficult, if not impossible, to prove and open to interpretation, but at the same time stating unequivocally that YOUR position is, in fact, true, it's up to you to prove your position beyond reasonable doubt.

But, simply because we don't know how many people died in the situations I've noted above, or the literally thousands of other similar incidents over what, nearly 6,000 years of recorded human history, we'll never know which one of us is correct.

You may be correct, I may be correct.

But at least I'm allowing for the possibility that I may be wrong, not screeching absolutes with absolute no way to prove them.

As for the defintion of religion, you need to expand your horizons beyond the etherial.

Let's take, for example, Confucianism. A recognized religion in the world spectrum. Unlike most religions it has no overt etherial Gods.

Yet, it fulfills all of the qualities of a religion, namely that it is “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.â€

In that sense, please tell me how Nazis or Communism is any different than a religion? They are both causes, principles, and/or systems of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. As with many other forms of religion, they attempted to supplant the dominate religions (Christianity in both cases) with a new set of values, that of the omnipotence of the state. Marx himself said that religion is the opiate of the masses, and yet sought to replace religion with a set of beliefs that was, in fact, little different that what he despised. Interesting connundrum.

Let’s take it from the other direction, then... Would states run under religious principles be, in fact, non-religious simply because the foundation of the government is based in religion?

 

[Mike Irwin]

Funny, this is a first...

Tamara and I agreeing on a point...

 

[Marko Kloos]

Marx himself said that religion is the opiate of the masses...

It's pretty clear that Marx' statement precedes the invention of television.

 

[Tamara]

Mike Irwin,

There's the oddities of an internet discussion forum for you; I've always thought that we agreed more often than not...

 

[ahenry]

Bahadur,

Said by ahenry:
The greater the number of incidences that show a correlation increase the likelihood of causation.
Said by Bahadur:
Not so.

Oh come off it. You can live in whatever academia bubble you wish, but in the real world where decisions actually have to be made, the greater the instances of correlation between two issues, the higher the likelihood of causation between those two. Period. I appreciate your nifty little instruction on statistical analysis but the fact of the matter remains that what I said is true. To use your A, B, C example, the more often A and B occur the less often C is always taking place. For instance you might have A and B and C (as you mentioned), then you have A and B and G, soon followed by A and B and D, afterwards followed up with A and B and K, and so on and so forth. Statistically, variables other than A and B become less and less significant as the number of instances of A and B go up. I‘m sure you can see what I am saying here, that the more often two incidences occur the less often a third (or fourth or whatever) variable will turn out to be the actual cause of those two incidences. For you to argue this point sorta makes you look foolish. Think carefully and I know you will understand. You have aptly demonstrated your intelligence in the past. Don’t let your inability to be incorrect about something cloud your thinking.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"There's the oddities of an internet discussion forum for you; I've always thought that we agreed more often than not..."

NO! NOT TRUE NOT TRUE! LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!

 

[SodaPop]

Unless we have an Imam and an ordained minister debating the issue of "What the Bible/Qu'ran really says", it's pointless to debate holy texts based on their cursory and superficial knowledge, whether you're talking Bible or Qu'ran.

That's pretty ignorant. You're the one that keeps referring to the verse as promoting violence. You've been referring to the same verse for the last couple years on TFL and now THR.


Nobody knows the Bible except an ordained minister? Nobody knows the Koran except an Imam? I think History teachers know more about religious texts than most religious leaders. Religious leaders rarely know the history of their religions. That's half the fun of watching Tamara beat up on all the bible beaters.


I guess your an ordained minister....... I never would have guessed.

 

[cuchulainn]

Zander: But not sufficient to prove causation.

How do you think causation is proven?

You don't, actually. You gather all the possible causes (all the things correlated) and demonstrate one by one that each is not the cause. What’s left has a high probability of being the cause, but even that might not be certain.

However, untested correlation never proves causation. Never. Period. Even 100% correlation does not prove causation. As Badahur pointed out, the two correlated things can both be caused by something else (rain causes the birds’ flight and your wet hair). Sometimes the observed correlation is simply associated somehow (If you have 10 kids all born 9 months after you and your wife went on camping trips, the camping correlates 100% with your wife's pregnancies, but camping is neither the cause nor a second effect).

Then, after isolating the probable cause, to reach further certainty, you must repeat the experiment and typically get others to repeat the experiment.

For example, using Badahur's example of birds and getting wet. You'd remove the birds. Most likely, you'd find the effect (getting wet) still existed without the birds, so you'd determine the birds were not the cause and move onto something else. However, it is possible that you might unknowingly remove the birds during a drought -- that's where the repeatability comes in. Over time with repeated bird experiments, it would become apparent that the bird removal worked sometimes but usually did not, and that too would be an indication that the birds were not the cause.

To even further eliminate the birds as cause, you might try the opposite experiment -- you'd force the birds to fly under the trees or at least observe them. Over time you'd find that sometimes the birds fly under the trees but you don't get wet.

Of course, there is always the possibility that there is more than one cause -- perhaps, after years of experimentation, you find that you get wet when A) those ugly grey clouds are in the sky, B) the law sprinklers are on and C) the neighbor's prankster son is holding a hose.

And then there is the possibility that you wrongly removed the cause. Perhaps your experiment sets off a chain of causes that negate the cause you were trying to find.

ahenry: in the real world where decisions actually have to be made, the greater the instances of correlation between two issues, the higher the likelihood of causation between those two. Period.

Not exactly. What you are getting at is that it is reasonable to test the highly-correlative things first. But no matter how much bird flight correlates to your wet hair, it will never be the likely cause. 100% correlation between bird flight and your wet hair does not increase the likelihood of birds as cause. You are confusing your reasonably heightened suspicion with likelihood.

 

[Marko Kloos]

That's pretty ignorant. Your the one that keeps referring to the verse as promoting violence. You've been referring to the same verse for the last couple years on TFL and now THR.

I don't use the Bible to strengthen my argument (how could I, since I don't believe in its infallibility or divine origin?), only to refute someone else's statement. Every time I quote Bible verse, it is to contradict someone who states that no such command or statement exists in the Bible. Invariably, such a quote will be followed up by someone who attempts to put the quote "in context". This is especially evident with Bible verses that are prima facie contradictory to the claimed nature of Christian belief. For example, I'd use the bible quote:

"Samar'ia shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open." (Hosea 13:16)

to refute someone who says that killing unborn children is always against God's will, since this quote indicates that God did, at times, command the killing of unborn children. Invariably, someone will come along who will explain to me that I am taking the quote out of context, and they will attempt to properly interpret it for me.

This is what I mean by "learned scholars"...anyone using the Qu'ran to bolster the argument that certain passages support the inherent violent nature of Islam needs to ask an Imam about the excerpt in question and make sure it is not "taken out of context". Bible or Qu'ran quotes, due to their interpretative nature, make very poor bases for arguments. Anyone can read the Bible or the Qu'ran, but Christians point out to me constantly that I lack the proper spiritual insight into the Bible, and therefore cannot interpret the quotes in their proper context. I would assume that any learned Islamic cleric will tell you exactly the same about the Qu'ran if you quote willy-nilly from it without having the proper spiritual insight. I am merely making the case that if a Christian disputes the prima facie meaning of Bible verses based on improper interpretation, they cannot turn around and attempt to bolster their argument with Qu'ran excerpts.

 

[Drjones]

EVERYONE:

A warm, heartfelt "THANK YOU" for keeping this civil and keeping it on The High Road for THREE long pages so far!!!

Wow.

So many great points here, so much information...

You have given me (and hopefully everyone else here) MUCH to ponder.

Lots of food for thought.

Yum!


Thank you!!!

Drjones

 

[ahenry]

100% correlation between bird flight and your wet hair does not increase the likelihood of birds as cause.

It increases the reasonableness of supposing that there is causation. Which is what I have said from the beginning, your attempt to say I said otherwise notwithstanding. I did not say it proved causation, only that the likelihood there is causation there is increased.

 

[cuchulainn]

I did not say it proved causation,

And I did not say you said that.

only that the likelihood there is causation there is increased.

rather I was pointing out to you that you are confusing your reasonable suspicion with likelihood.

The birds are 100% correlated, so your suspicion is reasonable. Nonetheless, the likelihood of the birds being the cause remains zero.

 

[SodaPop]

I am merely making the case that if a Christian disputes the prima facie meaning of Bible verses based on improper interpretation, they cannot turn around and attempt to bolster their argument with Qu'ran excerpts.

You mean Pat Robertson?

but Christians point out to me constantly that I lack the proper spiritual insight into the Bible, and therefore cannot interpret the quotes in their proper context. I would assume that any learned Islamic cleric will tell you exactly the same about the Qu'ran if you quote willy-nilly from it without having the proper spiritual insight.

Right, and I'm sure you kow the Bible has gone threw more translations than the Qu'ran. The New Testament has gone threw four (I think). The Bible "IS" harder to understand from from just text, which blows holes in so many Christian denominations in this Country.

I know the type your talking about......

 

[BigG]

Well this certainly is the HIGH road. What are you guys smoking?

 

[MeekandMild]

lendringser, Even without Hitler (though Nazism was a secular movement) I think that if you crunch the numbers and count the Red Chinese, Soviet, Khymer Rouge victims they easily exceed all the theistic victims in modern history.

 

[cuchulainn]

Meek,

I'm still interested in hearing about your theory that the medieval Christians "relearned genocidal warfar" from medieval Islam -- in other words, that the atrocities committed by Christians were the fault of Islam.

 

[MeekandMild]

Hound of Ulster: You're on my ignore list after that series of abusive PMs. I don't read your messages.

 

[Bahadur]

ahenry:

Oh come off it. You can live in whatever academia bubble you wish...

That sounds surprisingly like a personal attack...

, but in the real world where decisions actually have to be made,

Are you suggesting that somehow laws of logic or the method of scientific inquiry is not applicable to "the real world"?

the greater the instances of correlation between two issues, the higher the likelihood of causation between those two. Period.

No, not period. If you think that, you are grossly mistaken. See below.

I appreciate your nifty little instruction on statistical analysis but the fact of the matter remains that what I said is true.

You can repeat yourself in circular fashion umpteen times, but unless you demonstrate it in a logical fashion, you are not going to get others to just "accept it" because you say so (repeatedly).

For you to argue this point sorta makes you look foolish.

To you, maybe. You look pretty damn foolish to me for claiming "the greater the instances of correlation between two issues, the higher the likelihood of causation between those two" which is not always true (in my bird-wet example, the correlations is 100%, but the casuality is ZERO, because another factor is causing both - and that third factor has 100% casuality with both). But I repeat what someone else already explained to you rather kindly.

Think carefully and I know you will understand.

I think YOU need to UNDERSTAND the difference between "a reasonable suspicion" and "likelihood" as someone else pointed out. This isn't just semantics - there is a very specific and scientifically relevant difference.

You have aptly demonstrated your intelligence in the past. Don’t let your inability to be incorrect about something cloud your thinking.

What's with the authoritative-sounding condescension? I let my arguments speak for me. I don't purport to evaluate your intelligence or how you demonstrate it - you demonstrate it (or lack thereof) just fine on your own with the strength or weakness of YOUR arguments.