Atheists & Agnostics
Related: About this forumEnough about Islam: Why religion is not the most useful way to understand ISIS
A new article about ISIS in The Atlantic has reignited the perennial debate over the relationship between jihadist terrorism and the religion of Islam.
The article, by Graeme Wood, repeatedly emphasizes the “Islamic” in Islamic State, calling out what it describes as “well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature.”
“The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic.Very Islamic,” Wood writes.
The Ku Klux Klan is also white. Very white. The problem with framing discussions of extremism in this manner is that, for many people, it extends into causality and a too-intimate merging of a mainstream demographic with the identity-based extremists who claim to be its exclusive guardians.
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/02/18-enough-about-islam-berger
Full disclaimer: I think this article is ripe goatshit.
The last paragraph above starts the slide into mumbo-jumbo. Here is a hint "islam" is a religion, not a demographic. One would think that a fellow at the hideous brookings institute would at least get that right.
The very first comment makes this point:
It is self-evident that physical characteristics (eg. being white) is fundamentally different from ideas (eg. religion).
The KKK analogy is misguided: being white does not make you a racist. It does not follow that the more white you are the more racist you are. Some whites are racist and adhere to the preaching of the KKK. But those beliefs are not a function of being white. As evidence: non-whites can also adhere to the beliefs of the KKK, though presumably this would profoundly impair their interests.
The opposite is true for ideas. Fervency in religious principles does logically lead to someone enacting those principles in practice. And the better someone is at adhering to the tenets of those principles, the more fundamentalist those behaviours become.
Consequently, the ideas in question matter. If the religious doctrines are benign then the most zealous adherent will only become more so.
And of course, to great social cost, the opposite is painfully and spectacularly true.
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ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)a place where serious scholars could cogitate, think, and research.
Boy, was I wrong. There are some decent ones, Rand, Carnegie, for ex, but most of them are simply promoters of a cause, typically ultra-conservative.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)But this:
I tend to think fundamentalism inspires violence more through rigourous authoritarianism enforced with an unquestionable religious text, idol, etc., than with simply what the doctrines profess. Otherwise, you can't make it to the depths of severe extremism: your group will splinter long before that.
I do believe that religion both provides motive and disguise for fundamentalism. It is a common thread in so many events now, and that cannot be ignored. It is a driving force behind this extremism.
I would also say that religious fundamentalism can be exploited in a non-religious manner, as has been shown in the US, where our politicians become ever more fundamentalist every day, from right-wingers to Democrats who must invoke god and patriotism with every other word. It serves them very well to control a chunk of the population by controlling the church, and tying a central authority to uber-nationalism. There may be some evidence of this as far as funding of ISIL and connections to the Saudis, or energy financeers. I don't know.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)for getting religion totally out of anything to do with politics. Whether it is politics in the Middle East or here in the US, or any other country, there is no place for the two to be combined.
I am not sure that in the US, religious fundamentalism is exploited in a "non-religious" manner. I think that the fundamentalists are trying to move the US into a theocracy, and the politicians are just as religious-minded as the fundies. Although I will be the first to admit that an atheist has an impossible row to hoe in getting elected, there are plenty of politicians who are not trotting god out every time they talk. Obama is an example of that.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)It is a type of religiosity, contrasted with "liberal" religiosity, or perhaps more clearly as a religious ideology opposed to modernity through strict adherence to a literal interpretation of religious texts.
The term has come to have a broader meaning of strict adherence to the basic principles of any subject or discipline, but that is a secondary meaning used to correlate such behavior to that of religious fundamentalists, and is generally used as a pejorative.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)It's not politicians who are exploiting religion for gains, it's the religious forcing the politicians to pay them lip service.
Cartoonist
(7,317 posts)It is important for the religious powers that be to not admit any negativity about faith. Even when it is as obvious as the goatee on a goat, any evil that originates from their book must be directed elsewhere. Irrelevant anologies must be constructed and ultimate responsibility must be denied.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts).... find they can live happily and get along really well WITHOUT religion, religion counters with "Oh no you can't!" You get it from non-fundies, but that IS the motivation for ALL fundies.
It's the freakout from religion losing its hold.
