Reply With QuoteWeird. I would like it if both Iraq and the US had less openly religious leadership, but I am afraid that you might have linked this story because your God is better than their God.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/03/africa/youth.php
After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.
In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.
"I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us," said Sara Sami, a high school student in Basra. "Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don't deserve to be rulers."
Weird. I would like it if both Iraq and the US had less openly religious leadership, but I am afraid that you might have linked this story because your God is better than their God.
I'm an atheist. And you're an idiot. Why does it matter why the story gets linked if the development is objectively good?
Maybe the fastest zero-to-someone-being-called-an-idiot in P&R history that didn't involve Dirt. Nice work, fellas.
Interesting article, Rollory. Thanks for the link.
Perhaps because you provided zero context for the post, and just trusted that people reading it would somehow, maybe via osmosis by pushing our faces up against our monitors, divine your point of view.Originally Posted by Rollory
I bet you could find 40 young people in five American cities that would say the same thing about Catholicism. And some of us would view that as 'objectively good'.
But the world needs less propaganda, of any stripe, not more.
More listening. Less talking.
I'm not sure why Rollory needed to provide context or a point of view. It was an interesting article. Maybe Rollory's point was simply to let people know that he found an interesting article and that we should read the article and come to our own conclusions. The thread title is essentially a quote from the article and is in fact in the section of the article Rollory directly quoted in his first post.
This is especially ridiculous here on QT3, where posting a link and a few lines from a story to start a thread is commonplace.
Some kids talking about local islamic events driving them to atheism is propaganda now? Would you say this if this were about 40 Scientologists?
Why did he have to present his point of view, rather than just provide a link to an interesting article and let people focus on the article and form their own thoughts?
Not every post has to immediately be about the person who posted.
P&R: Guilty until contextualized!
Huh. Anyways, that's really interesting.
Well, plainly, because news stories aren't neutral. And just because Rollory thinks it's interesting, doesn't mean everyone else will. Even if your intent is to 'just provide an interesting link' it's going to say something about who you are and what you think, whether you mean it to or not. The apparent consequence, here, of Rollory not giving any context, is he leaves himself open to looking like he's bashing Islam (judging by Stroker's post).
I don't give a fuck if people provide more context for their posts. People on this board mistake soundbite for thinking, and propaganda for analysis, all the time. I was specifically responding to Rollory, who went from Zero to You're An Idiot in 15 seconds.
Rollory didn't provide any clue to what he thinks is interesting about the article. And when Stroker (perhaps unwisely) filled in the blank, Rollory called him an idiot.
Edit: Yeah, Wholly comes close to describing what I'm on about. There's an easy way to avoid that: provide some commentary.
I do that regularly in the Games forum because otherwise people immediately jump on me about Nintendo regardless of what the article is about.
Iraq was already largely secular under Saddam. This news is hardly surprising.
I'm interested in the reinterpretation of Islam that Turkey is trying. I don't know if it will catch on in the Middle East, but it might be a good step in the right direction.
H.
You're damn right I bash Islam. I could go into why I think it's objectively and measurably bad for any society that adopts it, particularly in a technological civilization, but that's beside the point of this particular thread (or, at least, the point I thought I was making in posting in the first place).
The article is about people in an area overrun with violent religious extremists rejecting it wholesale. "It" being the violence and extremism. There's nothing there about "my god is better", unless you want to define a vague amorphous "can't we all just get along" lowest-common-denominator philosophy as a god. The only conclusions that can be drawn about my views from the fact of my posting this are entirely negative: specifically, that I think chopping off heads is bad, and *not* chopping off heads and *not* listening to people who advocate it is good.
What I think doesn't matter as far as interpreting and judging the statements the article makes. Stroker was absolutely an idiot to start tossing claims like that around, and anybody trying to justify such is equally an idiot.
I have seen that described elsewhere as likely to be the Islamic equivalent of Unitarianism. Still, the very attempt is hopeful.
What is the reinterpretation?
They're ditching all the Hadiths - the stories about and sayings of Muhammad - and going to a strictly-the-Koran approach.
Ah, here we go. They are revisiting the Hadiths for current validity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7264903.stm
Okay. Well, I wasn't trying to justify Stroker's post, only explain it. And you've called two people in this thread idiots, without merit, in my opinion. So, thanks. Now I know what to expect from you.
That's just part of Rollory's charm. He's warm and fuzzy and huggable and agreeable like a landmine.
I qualified my post with the word "might", you're just a big meanie.
fnord
Last edited by Rimbo; 03-04-2008 at 10:01 AM. Reason: nevermind, the horse is dead and beaten enough already
Fuck those atheists, and their "present the facts and let people make up their own minds" bullshit. I'm so sick of those guys and their lack of proselytizing.
I agree. How I interpret this, with my uneducated eyes: In general when secular states do go fundamentalist, it's part of a younger generation's movement or popular uprising; but even (assuming we hadn't been involved) a fundamentalist popular uprising against Saddam would have been prevented by the schism between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq. Since we took that away from them by deposing him ourselves, we're seeing instead the kind of disaffected, anti-religious youth movement like we've seen under Bush here in the USA.
So basically, they're inventing Protestant Islam. They're Lutherans.
40 interviews! Clearly, there's a sea-change about views of religion going on.
Also, "Islam is objectively bad" is funny.
What's the sample set here? Iran?I agree. How I interpret this, with my uneducated eyes: In general when secular states do go fundamentalist, it's part of a younger generation's movement or popular uprising; but even (assuming we hadn't been involved) a fundamentalist popular uprising against Saddam would have been prevented by the schism between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq. Since we took that away from them by deposing him ourselves, we're seeing instead the kind of disaffected, anti-religious youth movement like we've seen under Bush here in the USA.
Well, to be fair, this is pretty much exactly why Islamic countries have been backward since the 18th century - the lack of a Reformation and ensuing Age of Reason that allowed Western society to move forward as secular societies while still embracing faith. A re-examination of Islam from a modern perspective is a good thing, and Turkey's one of the best places for it to happen due to its Western underpinning and long history as protector of the Muslim faith.
Pretty much. My comment that it was an "uneducated" point of view was not exactly false modesty. :)
All religions are objectively bad.
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