"That is why I see Islam as a dangerous ideology. That no matter where you go, no matter how materially content they are, they are much more prone (as a percent) than believers in other religions to violence and intolerance. "

I really don't see how you can say that, given the almost total lack of "ideological" violence from American Muslims. In the Western world in general we only see attacks when they are connected in some way to the Middle East or places like Pakistan. Christians on the other hand, we've committed atrocities everywhere, and we create ours spontaneously, we don't need someone associated with a terrorist group halfway across the world to organize us.

We have a solid history of beheading and dismembering people here in America. We have our militia culture, our racist organization culture, even in minority circles. Every other nut wants to be infamous, and is dying for an excuse to do violence, and usually goes ahead with or without one. Face it, America is all about infamy.

The fact that Muslims here HAVEN'T taken advantage of a wealth of excuses to do so foils your point, I think. To me, the sound odds dictate that we WOULD have some sort of homegrown Islamic terrorism movement here. We haven't, though, and to me that says the opposite of your blog.

Bakerstreet: Belief in something is only one step. 

To use your argument (which I agree with) American Muslims are "fat and happy" like most Americans. They BELIEVE differently than the rest of society but they other conditions necessary to convert belief into action aren't there IMO.

If Muslims made up a larger % of the population and their standard of living was poorer, I think things would be very different. One of the things from the Pew study that was very interesting is that American Muslims are doing well economically.

I wrote this awhile ago and I think it's apt here:

Name of terrorist responsible for the slaughter in Bali? Noordin Mohamed

The guy who walked into LAX and started shooting people a couple years ago? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet

The guy who killed the famous Dutch movie director? Mohamed Bouyeri

The infamous DC sniper? John Allen Mohamed

And of course, we can't forget the gentleman in charge of the 9/11 attack -- Mohamed Atta

This is why I get irritated in these debates when people want to try to argue that it's not really Islam. It's just that bad things are done by the impoverished or whatever. No. It's Islam. Islam the ideology causes its zealots to go on murderous rampages to kill the infidels.  The list I put above is by no means complete. But I think I cover a goodly chunk of the well known acts of murderous terrorist violence.  I could have gone and looked up the names of various Suicide bombers in Israel but that would be too easy. You know, like Asif Mohammed Hanif who not that long ago blew himself up in a Tel Aviv bar (and he was a Brit btw, not even a desperate Palestinian - flew all the way from UK to do the deed).

Islam, particularly wahhabism Islam, incites an abnormally large % of its followers into violence against non-believers. It's not because they're poor. It's because they've been brainwashed by this poisonous ideology. 

People aren't running around murdering people in the name of Christianty or other religions in numbers that can remotely be considered significant. 

American Muslims are, for the reasons I mentioned above, less apt to take their beliefs and turn them into violent actions but that significant numbers of them hold beliefs that lead to very grotesque results is not something that can be dismissed as "red neck" thinking.

 

what was that in france last year



how many of these so called christians were doing it in the name of christ or god

and i am not saying that non of them did it

the cathilics did the cruisades in the name of christ

but i do not think of the cathilic church as being christian

i think of it as being the roman empire or what is left of it

You say this but what are you basing it on? There are no first-world predominately Muslim countries to compare with states like the US, Britain, Japan or Germany. Third-world Christian states like Rwanda have no more noble histories than Muslim states like the Sudan.

Is it just a hunch? I would have thought economic factors would be a major player in this sort of comparison, as they are in most qualifiers of violence.

You say this but what are you basing it on? There are no first-world predominately Muslim countries to compare with states like the US, Britain, Japan or Germany.

Wrong, cacto. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen? These are oil rich countries and they are not impoverished countries. Even Iraq is substantially more advanced than countries like Rwanda or the Sudan.

Is it an accident that some of the most violent Muslims come out of Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries in the world? 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

The poverty card is BS. These people aren't terrorists because their poor. They're often poor because they make terror and destruction their primary industries rather than constructive industries.

Bahrain : GDP per capita: $25,300
Yemen: GDP per capita: $900
Saudi Arabia: GDP per capita: $13,800

And for comparative purposes:

US: GDP per capita: $43,500
Australia: GDP per capita: $32,900
Germany: GDP per capita: $31,400
Japan: GDP per capita: $33,100
Singapore: GDP per capita: $30,900

As you can see from the figures Bahrain comes closest in GDP to first world states like the US, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Australia, but it's still a fair way behind on lots of other indicators like infant mortality (Singapore 2.3 deaths/1000, Bahrain 16.18/1000). You can compare these figures and others at your leisure thanks to the great work of the CIA and their world factbook - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/ba.html

In summary calling those places first world seems like an exaggeration to me.



The poverty card isn't BS, it's a reality. And it's also a reality that poor nations tend to be more violent - that has a lot to do with good governance but even more to do with unemployment and inadequate opportunity. Having large portions of the young adult male population unemployed can be directly correlated to rises in gang and militia violence - East Timor is a good example of that, but Saudi Arabia has that problem as well.

But is it because they come from a country with a GDP above 15k a person (an odd criteria for first-world but there you go) or because they live in a repressive tyranny which fosters the highly xenophobic and aggressive philosophy called Wahhabbism?

I believe your correlation is backwards, cacto: poverty doesn't cause violence, but rather violence impoverishes a culture. I apologize for including Yemen; I was led to believe it was more prosperous. I'll take the hit on that one (and I congratulate you for discovering Google), but the income in the other two nations, while not outlandish, is certainly sustainable (Bahrain's per capita income exceeds that of many regions in the US, including the one where I currently live, so to call it Third World would be in error).

i think this is a catch 22

[

Oooh, snap! hehehe. Actually I've written a few papers on social, economic and geopolitical factors on democratisation and development in the Middle East, so this is something I didn't need to google to know a little about.



Hmmm, I'm not sure we're talking about the same things here. From my perspective first world is a term used to describe a society that is post-industrial, high-tech, urbanised, economically diverse and in general good health (ie infant mortality, mortality in general, death rates for avoidable infections etc are low). A second-world area is a term once used to describe the soviet republics but I reckon can be just as handily reworked to describe those that are in between first and thirld world. And third-world? They're regions which are pre-industrial or pre-organised industrial (ie pre-legislated industry), possess limited technology and infrastructure, are economically non diverse and generally impoverished in monetary terms, skills, and health.

Where you live could easily fit into third world, although if it's around Bahrain's level I think that's probably stretching it.

I think the real problem with your argument is that it doesn't work at the origin level. For your argument to work Australia should be a failure - much of its initial territory was seized or warred over and it was settled by violent criminals, so in theory that should have crippled it from the start. Instead with an increase in economic success and political freedoms the violence decreased dramatically. Of course the counter example is the great depression, where the democratic states mostly saw a decrease in violence, but if you look towards dictatorships and weak governments of the same period (like China and Germany) violence increased dramtically and for the worse. So it seems likely to me that democracy is a help in decreasing rates of violent intent. And no middle eastern Muslim terrorist-producing country is a democracy in the Westminster or even American model.

Cacto: It's been pretty well established at this point that poverty is not the cause. The 9/11 hijackers were hardly impoverished.  The first world trade center bombers were not impoverished.  The airport shooter wasn't impoverished. Etc.

Sure. But how can we narrow it down to Islam as the cause if we cannot find a baseline where religion is the only distinguishing factor? I was trying to point out with my African example that at the points where religion is the main distinguishing factor there is no difference - religion didn't stop the Tutsi and Hutu from being violent just as it didn't stop the Sudanese.

I was led to believe by many (including a brother and sis in law who lived in Oz for years) that many of the criminals were not violent criminals, but rather political prisoners that Britain didn't want returning to her shores. Is this wrong?

For your conclusion to disprove my assertion, you would have to show that Australia remained violent as her prosperity increased. I'd be interested in the numbers, truthfully. I believe that the harshness of the land forced the settlers to work rather than engage in senseless violence and that the resultant work ethic is what built Australia. Which leads us into a whole new area.

And you know I couldn't resist the google dig!

Oh yeah and Brad - I've heard that Richard Dawkins has written a book about how religions can cause violence. I'm not sure what it's called but you might find him interesting considering your views on Islam.