France under attack....

[Xant]

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[Admerius]

I tried my best to contribute in a civil manner to this, but I always got so worked up and angry at this situation... I actually found myself arguing for reevaluating nuclear deterrence policy due to recent events. So I'll let these quotes do the talking instead...

Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of God, but they want us to keep using the word “God” as though we knew what we were talking about.  And they do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the God of their fathers, because tolerance, perhaps above all else, is sacred.  To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world – to say, for instance, that the Bible and Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish – is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it.  But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness.  We must finally recognize the price we paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance.

There is, of course, much that is wise and consoling and beautiful in our religious books.  But words of wisdom and consolation and beauty abound in the pages of Shakespeare, Virgil, and Homer as well, and no one ever murdered strangers by the thousands because of the inspiration he found there.  The belief that certain books were written by God (who, for reasons difficult to fathom, made Shakespeare a far better writer than himself) leaves us powerless to address the most potent source of human conflict, past and present.  How is it that the absurdity of this idea does not bring us, hourly, to our knees?  It is safe to say that few of us would have thought so many people could believe such a thing, if they did not actually believe it.  Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him.  Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98.  Could anything – anything – be more ridiculous?  And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.

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[Angantyr]

I was actually just about to post some Sam Harris. I recommend reading his books or watching some of his lectures or debates.

[Xant]

"Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98.  Could anything – anything – be more ridiculous?  And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in."

This is well put, and something I've thought about myself. The enormous absurdity of the "religious situation" is mindblowing.

[Angantyr]

[Leshma]

Khomeini didn't reform the islam in Iran, he was democratically elected there because he was expressing the views of the people there. France was right to protect him for the autoritarian regime in Iran, as his only culpability at that time was his political opposition.

West was right to support rebel groups in Syria (now part of ISIS) because they were expressing the view of people there. West was right to protect them from the authoritarian regime in Syria (Bashar al-Assad). And here we are today. Should I dig though posts when Assad was the bad guy supported by Putin and good old West was trying to help rebels thus bringing them freedom and democracy from a bloody tyrant?

If you want to bring down totalitarian regime, you better make sure something even worse does not replace it. Washing hands afterwards and saying "none of our business yo" won't work because some of your actions are well documented.

Not sure about Assad but Reza Pahlavi (ze tyrant who was ended by TIME's man of the year) was secular muslim lel What the fuck is secular muslim, someone would say? Someone like Overdriven I guess.

Khomeini was the game changer in the middle east, he brought up Sharia law from its grave. He is the forefather of Bin Laden and rest of them.

After all, for USA this is just business.

[Butan]

The enormous absurdity of the "religious situation" is mindblowing.

Cant agree more. Here's to a world devoid of religion. At least we will kill each other for things that we have tangible proof, like resources and stupidity 

[Oberyn]

Completely irrelevant to this discussion, but Homer actually was an inspiration for people to kill thousands of others. The Iliad most definitely motivated Alexander and all the other hellenes to conquer and rule the largest empire in his area of the known world at the time. It's kind of a bloody, violent tale, and the gods play a central role. It could even be argued that it motivated the romans as well, not least through the creation of their own founding myth by Virgil, tying them to Troy and it's exiles. Today no one takes these tales seriously beyond academic and historical curiosity, but they were just as important, central and "true" to these people as the abrahamic religions are to people today.

[Xant]

Cant agree more. Here's to a world devoid of religion. At least we will kill each other for things that we have tangible proof, like resources and stupidity 

Yes, if people must be killed, then it's better to do it over resources than over imaginary sky creatures.

[Grytviken]

If you want to bring down totalitarian regime, you better make sure something even worse does not replace it. you kill them all
After all, for USA this is just business.

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[Dede]

Look at the Youtube comments. He just reposted some random guys words from the commentsection into this thread.

Though it's not entirely wrong...
They shoutet "Şehi.tler ölmez, vatan bölünmez", it means something like"Martyrs never die, our land/nation will not be divided".
This is a frequently used slogan in remembrance for the fallen soldiers in turkey. You might hear this in almost every football match.
It has nothing to do with the terrorist attacks in Paris, but with the bombings and terrorist attacks happening in Turkey(mostly committed by Pkk Terrorists).
It was also a protest against the hypocrisy on how some tragic events get so much attention, while others are totally ignored.

Without a doubt, this was disrespectful...

[Xant]

Though it's not entirely wrong...
They shoutet "Şehi.tler ölmez, vatan bölünmez", it means something like"Martyrs never die, our land/nation will not be divided".
This is a frequently used slogan in remembrance for the fallen soldiers in turkey. You might hear this in almost every football match.
It has nothing to do with the terrorist attacks in Paris, but with the bombings and terrorist attacks happening in Turkey(mostly committed by Pkk Terrorists).
It was also a protest against the hypocrisy on how some tragic events get so much attention, while others are totally ignored.

Without a doubt, this was disrespectful...

Shouting that is even worse than shouting "Allahu akbar."

How do you know it has nothing to do with terrorist attacks in Paris? Why were they booing and then shouting that during the one minute silence for the attacks, then? Why did they choose that exact moment for it if it has nothing to do with the attacks?
How do you know it was a "protest against hypocrisy"? What hypocrisy?

[Rhekimos]

Respecting the dead was hypocrisy? The game isn't going to start for one minute anyhow, the least you could do is shut up for the duration.

[Oberyn]

They can't even respect symbolic gestures for their own dead by terrorist attacks, what makes you think they would for french people?
Anyways, this is like the perfect microcosm. Stupid fucking ignorant dhimmi leftists like pepe and "moderate" muslims like Dede making endless excuses for barbaric islamists. Really Dede, it was a "protest"? And when they did the same thing after the Ankara bombings, what was that in protest of? Disengenuous piece of shit. You're either an idiot or a liar.

[ecorcheur_brokar]

West was right to support rebel groups in Syria (now part of ISIS) because they were expressing the view of people there. West was right to protect them from the authoritarian regime in Syria (Bashar al-Assad). And here we are today. Should I dig though posts when Assad was the bad guy supported by Putin and good old West was trying to help rebels thus bringing them freedom and democracy from a bloody tyrant?

Yet Iranian muslims are not planning bombing in the west (unless we shoot down their civil plane). And there's a difference between "supporting" (read give weapons) and give political refuge. As long as we impose by force our view to an entire region, there will be no peace. Why were there such a massive upheaval in Syria if it's not because of the population discontent? But might aswell have muslim population angry about the islamic governement they asked for than against the West that "protect" them against their will

Of course secularism and cherry picking in religions is preferable to people following violent parts of their faith. But the thing I don't understand is how people can still believe in a religion they have to cherry pick and say "but its metaphorical" and "God works in mysterious ways". I prefer argumenting religion with fundementalists because it is clear what they follow and they truely believe in their religion. People that cherry pick their religions on the other hand just make up shit as time goes and are slippery as fuck and will twist and interpret their holy scriptures in anyway just to make excuses to believe in their religion.

Fundementalists are ignoring part of the text too. What did Isis do of those parts?

Do the members of ISIS believe, literally, “Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God?” Of course not. Nor would they interpret literally, “God is the light of the heavens and the earth,” or any number of other passages from the Quran that the so-called “literalists” are compelled to either ignore or read as some kind of metaphor or allegory. I’d like to see ISIS offer a “literal” interpretation of the ḥadīth that says that when God loves a person, He “becomes the ear with which he hears, the eye with which he sees, the hand with which he grasps, and the foot with which he walks.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/what-muslims-really-want-isis-atlantic/386156/?utm_source=SFFB
Whoever you're talking religion with, will say half is metaphorical and the other is concrete because there's no other way to deal with texts that contradict themselves.

There's a simple explanation that takes history into account. The Renaissance and the Reformation never hit the Islamic world and never influenced their political states, most Islamic countries have been consistently authoritarian states for 100's or 1000's of years. The Turks continue to be the only secular Muslim majority state because they had closer ties to Europe, and of course their conquest states, Bosnia and Kosovo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_secularism
About half of muslims countries are secular. And during a certain period of time during baathism or arab nationalism, the major part of the muslim population was living in secular states.