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> By reinforcing the idea that Islam is a threat to the pluralism of Western society, we're also reinforcing extremists' narrative about a clash of civilization.

> the only winning move is not to play. That is, treat terrorist attacks as normal crimes and let the police handle it.

Generally I agree, but I think it needs to be portrayed as peace-loving people of all religions against homicidal maniacs of all religions.

1: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...

>peace-loving people of all religions against homicidal maniacs of all religions

I completely agree! But it's not as if every religion is equal. It'd be strange to say that, for instance, Jainism, has (or had) anywhere near the violence (even proportionally) that, say, Christianity or Judaism has (or had).

It reminds me of programming or tooling debates, where someone jumps in with "well pick the right tool for the right job" or "all software has bugs". It feels somewhat dishonest to imply that no group has a larger problem. And I don't mean terrorism -- that's small enough in raw numbers to not matter -- I mean overall social views like what's described here[1]. Reading those numbers, am I wrong to think it's a clash of civilization?

Again, I'm asking in all honesty, no intention to offend, troll or provoke. I thank you all for your responses.

> it's not as if every religion is equal. It'd be strange to say that, for instance, Jainism, has (or had) anywhere near the violence (even proportionally) that, say, Christianity or Judaism has (or had).

Lacking data, I'd guess that violence is proportional to power and not to the religious teachings. Janists don't control any large armies (yet). But if a Janist PM of India nuked Pakistan, would you be shocked?

> It feels somewhat dishonest to imply that no group has a larger problem. And I don't mean terrorism -- that's small enough in raw numbers to not matter -- I mean overall social views ...

It's impossible that every group has equal problems, of course, but many other factors may determine the social views, as an example: Is the group concentrated in a certain region? I'll bet Mormons have a stronger belief in democracy and civil rights than (pick some religion concentrated in a non-democratic country). Is the group disproportionately poor or rich? Old or young? Well or poorly educated? Does it have a political structure that lends itself to certain types of behavior (for example, I don't know about religions, but for nations democratic structures generally yield more peaceful behavior)? etc.

Think of it from a scientific basis: Can we control for other factors and isolate behavior down to religion? It seems almost impossible. And what is religion? Scripture? Teachings? The local clergy? Family? Personal beliefs - even those change. Within religions, there is enormous variety in observance and belief; very few if any blindly accept all their religion's teachings. It seems impossible to paint the individuals with a broad brush.

And regardless, I think it's unjust to judge any individual based on anything but their own actions. It's not right to guess what they might do and condemn them for it.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_and_Mormonism

>unjust to judge any individual based on anything but their own actions. It's not right to guess what they might do and condemn them for it.

I'm not suggesting condemning anyone. Just condemning their views and making it publicly unacceptable, and perhaps letting that provide some advice to immigration policy. Similar to how the Mormon church was let know in no uncertain terms that racial discrimination was not OK, despite their religion.[1]

A blanket ban (based on what, like you say, professed religion?) is extremely uncomfortable for exactly the reasons you lay out. But so is pretending there's nothing objectionable and that there's just a few people here and there that have "extreme" views.

My only point in this whole thread is that the reason a lot of people might be leaning right is that the left politicians I've seen don't seem to be willing to admit there might be belief issues. No need to condemn anyone, just condemn certain views. Note some ideas are not OK, and that the US or EU's values need to win out.

> But so is pretending there's nothing objectionable and that there's just a few people here and there that have "extreme" views.

I'm not pretending; it's just a few. Just because I disagree doesn't mean I'm pretending - maybe you're wrong.

Can you point to one U.S. immigrant who has stoned another American for adultery (referring to your other post)? Do you have any data of such problems actually existing? It's obviously absurd to claim these things will happen.

I think you are wrong about "belief issues"; it's just an alarmist response to normal human behavior based on a very simplistic model. People in poor, undemocratic countries have less understanding of these things than people brought up in the West. But the U.S. has been integrating those people for hundreds of years - Europe wasn't always a bastion of liberty and democracy - and almost all Americans descend from immigrants from (then) non-democratic countries. I would guess.

Have some faith in the values of democracy, liberty, and tolerance: They do have very broad appeal and are adopted by nations world-wide, from Japan to Indonesia to India to Botswana to Brazil. You might recall many Mideast countries recently had revolts pushing for those things. Finally, most immigrants know the U.S. stands for freedom and choose it.

FWIW I don't entirely disagree with your conclusion. But:

>it's just a few

Going off the percentage numbers from Pew and the demos from Wikipedia, I get these numbers for those in favour of death for apostasy: 50M in Egypt. 53M in Bangladesh. Around 110M in Pakistan. That's 200M people right there -- how can that be a "few" in any meaning of the word?

Egypt was one of those countries with revolutions, wasn't it? Jordan is rated the most free or democratic among Arab countries, yet over half the population is in favour of death for leaving a religion.

Unless these numbers are totally wrong (and I'd love to hear that), I'm not sure this is just alarmist. But at any right, it should explain why these right wing politicians are getting support. Someone looks at these surveys, sees these numbers. Then a leader gets on the TV says there's zero problem with Islam, that it's all peaceful people, and only a few extremists. So are the surveys/research simply and utterly wrong?

Maybe it does not matter, and people that migrate will drop those views, or the ones without those views are the only ones that want to come. But I think plenty of people view it dishonest to claim there's no issue with those beliefs in the first place.

Again, thank you for explaining. This thread has given me some points to consider even if I don't agree.

sbmassey 3651 days ago

That is not a winning move, unless you are actually able to prevent the terrorist attacks, which seems unlikely unless you treat Islam differently to other religions

kiba 3651 days ago

Of course it is.

Those terrorists thrive on our own radicalization and fear.

Every time someone shoot up an mosque, they win. Every time a politicians talked about banning Muslims from an entire country, they win. Anything they could do to create a 'us-versus-them' divide further their narratives and aims.

The only thing we can do is move on, continue our lives as if they are not a threat at all, and let the police handle their duties.

Quite frankly, there are lot of other things that kill people more than Islamic terrorism.

You're right that terrorism is irrelevant as far as numbers. I do dislike how terrorism is used as a rallying cry. It's not a big enough thing to draw any conclusions; it's almost entirely an appeal to emotion.

But at what point are the views of a group or religion a problem? Suppose a hundred million members around the world are in favour of death for leaving the group. Is that enough for western countries to say hey, that's not acceptable? To note that there may be a serious incompatibilities in beliefs?

> Suppose a hundred million members around the world are in favour of death for leaving the group

I'm not sure hypotheticals help here; it's hard to address issues that lack the dimensions of reality.

> Is that enough for western countries to say hey, that's not acceptable? To note that there may be a serious incompatibilities in beliefs?

In another post you said you didn't mean to troll, but I'll say that this question seems like one.

Again, I'm not sure what this question would mean in reality. Each individual has their own beliefs; democracies outlaw certain behavior; I don't see what their religion has to do with it. A person either follows the law or not, regardless of their religion. We can't imprison or punish people based on some prediction of future behavior, and that prediction based purely on religion would be absurd. Maybe we should imprison all poor people, who commit crimes at a higher rate, or all men under the age of 30 - imagine how much lower the crime rate would be then! Also, all politicians.

1: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...

Well I wanted to keep it more hypothetical to avoid offense - if we can agree in theory then that's enough for me. If we disagree that religion can be sharply criticized in any case then the data doesn't matter. It's also HN so I'm trying to be a bit more cautious; dang has been gracious enough not to kill the thread outright.

Here's Pew Research on the topic[1] I'm going off. According to this, 74% of Egyptian Muslims favour sharia. Of those, 81% support stoning for adultery, and 86% for death for apostasy. Egypt has 80M Muslims, so that's around 50M people in one country alone, that believe in death for leaving the religion.

I'm not saying anyone should be punished. Just that some groups, overall, seem to have many members with views opposite what the country wants. Is this not a fair subject to discuss when talking about integrating hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, into another country?

I am uncomfortable with a blanket ban on a particular religion, because it's not accurate enough. But to pretend there's absolutely no signal at all doesn't seem good either. I'm don't agree we should just assume everyone will put such extreme personal views aside.

Thank you for excusing my poor phrasing.

I don't see where you address my points about dealing with individuals, not groups.

Generation after generation, many immigrants to the U.S. have come from poor, backward countries and brought beliefs that would horrify you (and me). The Americans who had came before had the same reaction to them you do. But don't worry: In a generation or two, the descendants of those new immigrants will say the same thing about the next group.

> to pretend there's absolutely no signal at all doesn't seem good either

Copied from a response to another post of yours:

many other factors may determine the social views, as an example: Is the group concentrated in a certain region? I'll bet Mormons have a stronger belief in democracy and civil rights than (pick some religion concentrated in a non-democratic country). Is the group disproportionately poor or rich? Old or young? Well or poorly educated? Does it have a political structure that lends itself to certain types of behavior (for example, I don't know about religions, but for nations democratic structures generally yield more peaceful behavior)? etc.

You seem like you understand data; projecting from a survey of Egyptians to the likely behavior of every U.S. immigrant of a certain religion seems like an incredible stretch.