True, but when's the last time a group of Christians walked into a major city, screamed "Praise the lord!" and then killed over a hundred civilians? The number of terrorist attacks committed by Muslims exceeds that of other extremist groups by an enormous order of magnitude. Do Christians do horrible things too sometimes? Yes, but it's barely detectable in comparison.
Eklipse, you told me it is ridiculous to talk about the Domino effect to explain how we finally came to the current situation in the Middle East, well saying that Muslims are commiting more terrorist attacks compared to Christians without explaining why and the social/economic origin of it and just thinking because it is inherent of their religion is also utterly ridiculous.
The rise of terrorism in the name of Islam is quite recent, during centuries Islamic civilizations were seen as far more advanced compared to the Christian ones.
Just as an historical aside, during the Darkest Ages of Europe, elsewhere a civilization was shining for its technological, cultural and economic advances.
At the meantime, in Europe, barbarians from the north had overrun much of Europe and the classical civilization of Greece and Rome had gone into eclipse.
At this period Islamic Spain became a bridge by which the scientific, technological, and philosophical legacy of the Abbasid period, along with the achievements of al-Andalus itself, passed into Europe. Astronomy, Mathemathics, Social Sciences, Geography the Muslims were far advanced in every field during this period. Most of the European christians scholars of that period went to Toledo, Cordoba and Bagdad schools and universities, to have the opportunity to attend some classes of the most famous islamic scholars such as Arzachel (Maths), Al Bitruji (Astronomy), Avenzoar (Medicine), Ibn Hazm (Physics), or Al Idrisi (Geography).
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Nowadays, the best example of their legacy are the arabic origin words in science such as: Algebra, Altair and Betelgeuse (in Astronomy), Algorithm, Alkaline (in chemistry), Elixir, Cipher, and the list goes on.
Later, when the Ottoman Empire finally arose and conquered most of the remaining part of the Byzantine Empire and unified most of the Muslim World, this Caliphate was an example of tolerance for Europe: territories and communities were divided into Millet, like the Millet of the Jews or the Millet of Ortodox Christians, each of the millet having one representing leader of his community in the "Sublime Porte" of Constantinople. At the meantime in Iberia, Christian powers were ruthlessly killing hundred of thousand of Moriscos or Spanish Muslims and expelling the remaining Muslims and Ashkenazi Jews from Spain.
These are just some examples of what Enlightened Islamic civilizations could achieve, and this also proves to you and people that are still having a bad image about Islam, that it is certainly not worse nor better than the Christian faith. Both have the same origin, and actually quite close in many aspects.
Now the origin and the rise of terrorism among the Muslim societies, everything startedm for what I read, with the rise of Wahhabism (a very radical and obscurantist Islamic movement) in the Arabian peninsula in the 19th century onwards and finally helped by the British forces (I guess you heard of Lawrence of Arabia?) supporting the Al Saud family during their conquest of Arabia against the Ottoman Empire.
Nowadays Wahhabists are destroying their own nation's culture, profaning and destroynig Mosques and Saint's and Muhammad friends and family's tombs and sanctuaries.
The holy city of Mecca is disfigured by gigantic luxury hotels and the entire ancient city has been destroyed, the poors are removed far from the city, contradicting with the Islamic values very much similar to the Christian ones about misery and helping out people in need.
Wahhabism and Radical Islam originates from both the Colonial inteference and intrusion bringing this movement to the leading position whereas it was a minority before.The mix of Wahhabism and the perversion of the Sauds and other Arabian chieftains by the money they accumulated with the oil industry and a unregulated capitalist economy, led to the situation we have today.
The transformation of Arabia under the Sauds did more harm than anything to Islam, as Arabia gathers the most holy and important places and institutions in the Muslim World. It's like if the Vatican was led by a very extreme movement such as the Opus Dei, and perverting the Catholics with values of the past. Remember the Crusades? It was led by a fanatic pope calling a massive army to free Jerusalem and sanctioned by the Catholic Church, Crusades and Jihad are here very similar.
No. Those who commit terrorism are fully responsible. They have the final choice in their actions. The things western powers have done in the Middle East was horrible, but only rarely do the "victims" take revenge on politicians who ordered the destruction. They target civilians who had nothing to do with it.
No? We arent guilty of the current situation of the Middle East? This is pure hypocrisy. I explained earlier how colonialism destabilized the region particularly with Arabia, now about the US intervention in Iraq, yes it did more harm than anything, half of the country is out of control, and ISIS rose in Iraq without the US and NATO army lifting a finger, the worst thing is that it is now known that the ISIS army is led by many ancient generals of Saddam Hussein that were never worried, stopped nor arrested by the US army in Iraq.
You cant neglect the fact that the Western Powers led by the US are now responsible for the tragic current situation in the MIddle East.
George W Bush preached to attack Iraq upon a lie (that Saddam hid nuclear weapons), so things were screwed since the beginning, since the US intevened for bad reasons that werent fully supported by the UN council: remember about France and Germany refusing to collaborate? Many nations were actually hostile of any intervention, but well the US did not care at all because as the superpower they are they could handle it alone, now see the results of it after 12 years of US presence in Iraq, congrats! So yeah I blame more the Western powers (colonial powers of France and Britain, and the neo imperialistic American superpower) than the poor Muslims and other communities of the Middle East suffering the most of this insane war.
The police and military aren't omni-present. If I don't have weapons to defend myself what am I supposed to do when an armed criminal, who doesn't give a crap about the law to start with and obtained his weapon on the black market, busts down my door? Hide in my closet? No thank you.
I still maintain guns should not be allowed for civilians, only trained and professional forces should have weapons. This could possibly avoid in your state Eklipse some of the many tragedies that happened this recent years about mass slaughtering in schools, theaters, universities, or some tragedies that happened with children that accidentaly took the father's gun and shot their brothers or sister or themselves without knowing about the dangers because they are kids. If you see what I mean. This domestic accidents or massacres by civilians (not endoctrinated ones by Islam or criminals) never happened in Europe (or at least in France). Now Vormulak tell me more about your figures, I am really interesting to see how guns are more efficient.
Edited 11/16/2015 21:02:13
