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I'm not surprised you'd suggest the most intrusive and expensive methods imaginable.

What do surveillance cameras do? Suicide bombers don't care one way or the other, nor would an average terrorist care whether they were personally detained by authorities if they could not evade capture. They can make a political statement either way appears to be their idea of things (the political statement may be absurd or fall on deaf ears, but that's another problem entirely).

I'm sure that increasing law enforcement resources and investigations would be useful, but the question is more how they would be empowered and what missions they were given to carry out. At present we give them a lot of disparate missions that can intrude on personal liberties with minimal or no appreciable gains. Certainly relative to the actual costs presented by terrorist action, much less by seeking to address the root causes of terrorism rather than simply tackle the symptoms.

How about ignoring them?

A leader of either the US, Russia or China needs to declare open war on Islam, bomb Masques and nuke most of the middle east with no regard for civilian casualties, then turn them self in as a genocidal mad man so that the world can benefit from them doing what needs to be done without having to condone it or accept it as necessary.

…Are you being serious?

If so, you do realize that terrorism is not a purely Muslim, nor even purely religious, tactic. Terrorism has been used by thousands of movements from thousands of different eras and backgrounds throughout history. Bombing the entirety of the Middle East and wiping out an entire race would do nothing but take away (sort of) one hotbed of political unrest. Then you have the problem of Muslims here in the States who will be pretty angry about the blatant slaughter, who would then find someone to blame.

So I sincerely hope you're being facetious here Andrew. ^.^

Pretty sure he is channeling someone else there. I suppose he could always surprise us. And Genghis Khan supposedly did want to depopulate large swathes of Asia to have room for his army's horses to graze. So that approach has been considered at least, if not taken.

As far as I'm concerned, terrorism is simply politically motivated criminal action. Robbing someone's house imposes fear and victimization costs in the same method that blowing up a building does. It is simple enough to adapt police tactics and methods while looking for political methods of resolving disputes such that you can neutralize sources of recruitment or related forms of activism and the cell withers and dies on its own accord. Without attacking the roots, it is much of like the police arresting a corner drug dealer without working to shut down the open air market on which he is operating. Another head will be there the next day and they will have to start all over.

Clearly I need to explain myself. Non-movement terrorism can never be stopped. The lone person who goes off the deep end, well that's unavoidable. The only kind of terrorism that you can fight is that which is tied to an ideology (be it political, religious, etc…) I did jump to talking about Islamic terrorism, but only because that is the most relevant and pertinent example of a terrorist movement in modern society.

That said, when confronted with a violent movement, you're only options are to surrender to their demands, subvert their membership, or destroy them completely. I had once hoped that the best solution might be to promote moderate Islam to a point where the religion basically polices itself, however I was convinced otherwise (and now believe that the religion itself is at the core of the violence and aggression) by several factors:

1) My personal interactions with Muslims (don't you rely on this though. This is personal testimony and shouldn't have any sway on anyone other than the person experiencing it first hand.)

2) The long history of terrorism in the name of Islam (It didn't start with 9/11). http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Atta…

3) Muslims in modernized nations are becoming more radical, not less. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/yourview/1540929/…

4) The blatant pro-violence propaganda that Middle Eastern governments are showing to their children.
[youtube kkNE__TiMZo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkNE__TiMZo youtube]

5) The racist undertones of Islam, as well as the horrible way it treats women. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1277737/

I therefore have come to view Islam as a disease, and think that a war against terrorist organizations or countries avoids seeing the real problem. The real problem is Islam. And it can not be fought without admitting that Islam, is the real problem. Of course once this is said out loud, many otherwise moderate Muslims will radicalize. I realize how non-politically correct my views here are. Feel free to attempt to change my mind, after all this is a debate forum.

[youtube y9dXGJ2rYdA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9dXGJ2rYdA youtube]

I made an error. The second video was meant to be this.

[youtube y9dXGJ2rYdA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9dXGJ2rYdA youtube]

I think Liberty's point (and mine) on the features globally of terrorist movements was left unaddressed here. Not all terrorist organisations are Muslim in nature both now and historically, only the most well known to Western observers (ie, the US) This is to say nothing of random lone wolf nutcases who could be anything at all and I fully admit will never be adequately controlled in any society (free or otherwise).

But as examples: Tamil Tigers, FARC, IRA, KKK, Anarchists of the late 19th century, etc. I'm pretty sure you are not suggesting that we deal with these organisations in the same manner. If you are, I stand corrected, but I think my concern is that in general such organisations, even the Muslim ones, are explicitly political in their actions, not religious and that while accommodation with all such groups may be unwise and impossible and some violent conflict inevitable, leaving unaddressed potentially legitimate political gripes (often as simple as: you dropped a bomb on my neighbour's house, f**k you!) tends to perpetuate violent action rather than resolve it. Hamas' ridiculous bitterness toward Israel is in large measure perpetuated by public Palestinian and popular perception of Israeli (and by extension American) intransigence toward peaceful solutions. It's possible that modest accommodations on settlements or economic starvation would cut a lot of the fluff out of this message and give legitimacy to more moderate factions who could make better deals than we would ever get out of Hamas. But I see little evidence that there is a willingness to try or to acknowledge that some complaints might be legitimate. These people aren't wandering off to Yemen or Pakistan on a hajj, they're going there because they're pissed about something. It's obvious if you listen to their rhetoric when they are caught or detained. They justify the rage as religiously ordained or some holy crusade in which they are special warriors. But in fact they're mostly annoyed that we're using drones to blow up some guy's hut or wedding ceremony on the other side of the world that they can see as a cultural brother.

Further, I don't see how killing (deliberately exterminating) hundreds of millions of people is a wise and cost-effective course of action anyway. We've already directly, more precisely through chaotic regime changes or supporting brutal regimes indirectly, killed potentially millions of Muslims in the Middle East over the course of a few decades. That doesn't seem to have gotten us many gains. I submit this course of action is probably ill-thought out as a result.

You are correct that telling people that their way of life or chosen faith is abominable will result in radical consequences. "New Atheists" run into that all the time when they tell off Christianists for example. They re-entrench. They don't change or engage because telling people that they are hateful tends to piss them off. Moderate changes that are necessary to purge this reaction will have to happen within Islam's legalistic dogma itself, and indeed, in some places already have (Turkey, Indonesia, and most American or Canadian Muslims, and even, to some extent, Iran and parts of Africa, other than Somalia or the Sudan).

Further, historically the most effective methods globally and empirically speaking of dealing with terrorist cells of any kind (including some which were "cultish" or otherwise religious in nature) have been
1) Police or internal security action. Rounding up the players and penalizing them as common thugs or criminals and hence cutting them off from rallying popular support.
2) Movement reforms to a semi or fully legitimate political player. (IRA, Muslim Brotherhood, PLO) and uses its political leverage to attain its goals instead of violence.

Military action, up to and including brutal reprisals, or boredom of actual members (effectively what killed off many East European Marxist cells operating in Europe) are lagging way behind these but they're basically in a tie as marginally useless.

Domestic terrorism from political groups is completely different from Islamic terrorism. The reason I say that is because when an ideology is tied to an ethnicity or religion, then it no longer has to spread by convincing others, it can simply out breed them, which is exactly what Muslims are doing by taking advantage of the freedoms and the welfare states that they neither agree with or do anything to support respectively.

I'm typically all for open conversation and discourse. We can all agree to disagree until one of us picks up a rock and throws it. In this day and age radicals have no problem with distorting reality to serve a political cause. Where once an atrocity was necessary to cause an outcry, now merely the perception of one is valid.

The truth must be the arbiter. Either Pakistan is a terrorist state or Israel is an oppressive regime. Which is which? The facts are what's important. When the MAJORITY of Muslims believe that the 9/11 attacks were either orchestrated by the US government or the Jews, then what's the difference in appeasing them and killing them? Won't they chose to believe whatever story they want to either way? But unlike the small terrorist groups that have acted out in the past, Islam is the religion of 1 / 5 of the worlds population.

Where we can afford to try appeasement and social pressure with smaller groups (why restrict personal freedom with a police state to crack down on a relative few?) if the Muslims are not stopped they will become a majority with all the kids they're raising off your and my dime, and then will use their numbers to vote us into oppression.

I don't subscribe to the idea that either Pakistan must be a terrorist state or Israel must be a repressive regime. That strikes me as a false dichotomy in a situation that's far more complex. Much repression in Israel for example might be entirely legitimate responses to perceptions of, and indeed actual, aggressions, even if these responses maybe ill thought out or ineffective. Likewise, Pakistan's government has legitimate security concerns with India or, eventually, Iran and Afghanistan which have impeded a great deal of our own perceived national interests in the region but which don't quite rise to the level (always) of perpetrating and sponsoring terrorist activity.

Many Muslims probably feel that way because of the resulting actions of American governments since 9-11 which have conveniently seen fit to bomb and attack Muslim nations and peoples. It is probable that this was seen, as I suspect in some cases it was seen, as legitimate. Much of the reason they can believe that at all however is a lack of education. There aren't many Muslim countries with universal education and literacy. I'm fairly certain that highly educated Muslims who hold radical ideologies don't believe that 9-11 was an inside job. The reason being: that their recruitment of other highly educated people suffered tremendously in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 and only picked back up when we began instituting harsh responses like indefinite detentions, torture and so on. Afghanistan likewise did not become a complete mess until we pumped troops in to prop up the "elected" government. Simply attacking Taliban strongholds was perceived, to some extent, as legitimate status quo by many Afghans.

IRA and the Muslim Brotherhood were international terrorism agents. IRA raised lots of money over here for example. I'm assuming you mean international ideologies that attack in multiple fronts like Al Qaeda, in which case we have some parallels with European Marxist or anarchist movements throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. These were international and intensely ideological. As for breeding and population bomb theories. I'm not a big fan of population trends because they have this habit of stopping abruptly as the population acculturates (this has happened with immigrant populations to Western societies for centuries and is happening in societies that are "Westernizing", ie, India or East Asia and including many Muslim nations). And besides, there are plenty of radical (and some not so radical) Christians having kids too.

Islam may be the population of 1/5 of the world but radical Islamist populations who actively subscribe and participate in the whole "House of War/House of God" dialectic do not account or even appeal to nearly that many right now. I think you are correct to be concerned of what would happen if we mobilized the entire Muslim population in that fashion if a tiny fraction of it has accomplished this much chaos and confusion about how to handle it.

[youtube R9C7WY8NiHY&feature=PlayList&p=E24D0C86124F4A7F&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9C7WY8NiHY&feature=PlayList&p=E24D0C86124F4A7F&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1 youtube]

I recommend you watch this video. An education is no barrier when countries like the UK have state funded Islamic schools.

I mainly agree with Sun Tzu, but I would like to add (and, in a way, merely emphasize) Sun Tzu's point that bombing them into quasi-extinction will do little for our overall problem. There are lots of Muslims in the world that don't live in the Middle East. Furthermore, there are many people in the Middle East that don't subscribe to Islam. You're talking about having to basically nuke the entire world.

I have an idea- let's just outlaw people. Problem solved. >.>

I didn't say an education was a barrier to radicalism. I said that holding random uneducated beliefs like "9-11 was an inside job" in response to a polling question was (just as it is here, where you get something like 15-20% of the population that answers the same way). The behaviors and motivations of radical behavior in advanced societies are more complex than you are giving them credit for. For example, they're usually responsive to external political forces that do not appear to have normal avenues of turning aside. For example, there is no credible anti-war demonstration method in the US as it is (particularly for Arabs or Muslims) and voting for and electing the supposed "anti-war" moderately "pro-Muslim" candidate did nothing as far as altering the policies of this government toward Muslims in their home countries.

How would you suppose you would react under those circumstances? Would that not be frustrating?

Unfortunately a lot of what Andrew says is true, as is his ideas about how to combat terrorism.

You have to fight fire with fire, and in this case you have to fight the insanity of Islam with equal and opposite insanity, and the only way to do that is out and out total war against all of Islam without regard to collateral damage. Not nice, but then again war is not nice, nor is it fair or clean. The way Islam is fighting all of the world – and yes they are folks – is the dirtiest and most evil way of waging a war as they show no respect for their enemy nor any compassion for their own warriors – that is very plainly evident in the advent of females and children utilized as suicide/homicide bombers. If we continue to be the nice guys in this war, we will lose. I know that this is a very disgusting statement, for no other reason than it turns may stomach to say this, so do not condemn me for it. I have had a son and a nephew over there for multiple tours and I myself have been in a war against an enemy with like mindedness as these Islamists are. There is no nice way to fight a war. WW1 and WW2 showed us that, and when we tried to be the nice guy in Viet Nam we were ostracized for it.

It is either total war or total surrender.

With this insane enemy there is no in between.

What part of we're bombing people and killing innocent civilians means we are playing as the "nice guys". Those things happen in war. It's not like we went in and are trying to play paddy cake with everybody. I'm not an idiot, so don't pretend you are either by presuming that something like COIN, essentially graduate level warfare which includes complex political and economic moves in addition to bombs and bullets, is somehow "playing nice guy". People still die. Sometimes when they're not supposed to and sometimes when they deserve to (in combat or as legitimate targets).

But announcing your plan amounts to committing genocide instead of "playing nice guy" is madness. There's a huge difference between that and a war.

Again you miss the point entirely.

Islam has declared total war on anyone who does not adhere to the Islamic way of life. They send their people out to murder innocent people and yet you do not condemn that?

I am sure that you would rather surrender to Islam (that is the english translation of the word Islam, by the way, meaning all who inhabit this universe should surrender to that cult) than fight for your way of life . . . I know, harsh accusation, but your defense of this cult would warrant that harshness. I merely point out facts and you will always continue to condemn me for speaking the truth.

Nuff said.

"Islam" is not waging war on us. "Islam" is a religion. It is a set of religious precepts. It cannot make war upon anyone. The people ascribing to the precepts can, and that is what is going on. But even with that said, not all the people who claim to follow Islam have denounced us. There are many Muslims here in the 'States that are peaceful, contributing members of society. Some of our best doctors and lawyers are Muslim. Furthermore, there are significantly more "moderates" than "radicals", though the numbers on the side of the latter are going up, mostly due to our actions.

Also, you have to factor in cultural norms- in an area of the world (practically everywhere but the US) where violence is seen as the traditional quickest means to an end, you have to understand that violence will be used. That cannot be changed overnight. People will do what their culture has taught them to do. Any amount of attempted (forced) "education" will do nothing but provide an impetus for resentment and another focal point for ire from those you are trying to "educate." In any case- with this cultural backdrop of clan warfare and violence, it is not unforeseen that homes will be fought over. With perceived wrongs (on Osama bin Laden's side, our occupation of Saudi Arabian territory and our meddling in the affairs of that part of the world) as a catalyst, you'll begin to see retribution. In the minds of many of the initial radicals, our actions were akin to someone we disliked coming in and camping in the Vatican or our church building and using it for purposes of warfare. Not cool. So the knee-jerk reaction was to get rid of the usurpers via violence, which they tried.

Of course, we all know how that went over. It didn't work very well. And that's pretty sad. When somebody repeatedly warns you that they want you gone, then they finally have to get your attention via more forceful means…then you just exacerbate the problem…well, it doesn't make very much sense.

In any case- with all that said, I would like to make one more point- the fact that there are many innocent people in the Middle East. We cannot just nuke them. We cannot. There are women and children there, not to mention Christians and moderate Muslims (oh, and Jews who we all love or detest but who would get some sort of blowback from all this). Killing all of them would be a war crime of the largest magnititude, pure and simple. So yus.

Islam has not declared war.

Al Qaeda has (and its affiliates have). I condemn that yes. I fully support attacking it with the best resources we can. That may and does at times include military force. I oppose most of our present military actions because they are counterproductive in this mission.

What I also oppose is people contorting the mission into a culture war. The people who would want to turn the US into a caliphate is a very minute subset of Islam. "They", as a whole, are not attacking us because "they hate our freedoms" or some bs like that. I support fighting people on our terms rather than the terms they want us to fight on and on understanding our enemies so that we may know why they fight and resist. I do not think you have made an attempt to do this. Try reading the Qu'ran. You'd get more out of it than the fortune cookie attempt to tell me what "Islam" means.

Btw, as an atheist, I have no desire to surrender to anybody's religion, so no thanks. I study "you people", but you're all kind of nuts.

You are not pointing out some strange new set of facts here. I've seen these arguments hundreds of times by now. They are insipid and foolish and they convert some of the darkest motivations of our own unto others when in fact the most principle motivation of our enemies is one that we might find some great agreement on (we only wish to be left alone).

I thus condemn your statements because they are terrible motivations and inaccurate assessments. If you want to persist in believing you have a mantra of truth go ahead and keep repeating it to yourself. It does nothing for anybody here. I can get an actual cogent argument out of Andrew when he disagrees with me on this one.

I'm just gonna keep letting the evidence do my talking for me.

[youtube 9qt_Q06wI8o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qt_Q06wI8o youtube]

And here's another.

[youtube QRy-Ep3KOng http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRy-Ep3KOng youtube]

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/28627

And this is more or less the perspective I've been following on this mess http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/06/jih…

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/12/pre…

Also that one.

And especially this one.
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2010/04/arg…

More or less what I'm seeing in these videos is the coverage of tea party rallies. You can very easily find the most radical and ridiculous person to say something and give a quote. That's not to say, like with tea parties, that there are not radical and ridiculous views involved with many Muslims, in particular those of a more hardline stance, and that these views are not sometimes the impetus for action.

But it's a kind of the most uncomplicated survey of what motivates and informs their world and it reminds me very of the presumption that "all tea partiers are racists" when it shows up.

You know, sometimes that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Though it could be related to my having a horrible day today. :@

I am told that profiling is justified by the following statement;

"If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, has feathers like a duck, and swims like a duck, then it sure ain't a swan!"

If you apply that to Islam, then Islam is a cult. By definition a cult is not a religion.

Just thought I would throw that in here for grins & giggles to see how many of you would throw your support to a cult.

Definition of "cult": •followers of an exclusive system of religious beliefs and practices.

By this definition, Christianity is also a cult.

Except for the surveys I linked to earlier that show how most Muslims (even in western states) really feel. Oh and Tea Partiers don't:

fly planes into buildings

Strap bombs to little kids

or do this:

President of a country Calls for jihad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1IWbu4ky0o

Wide spread censorship http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd9lYFBFL14

Kill girls for getting an education http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yTKM0DMrGc

Oh now this one. This one's 'special' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJ8Rbgiox4

Oh and here's quite a few more horrible things on video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgpHHoIvU2I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoGJP02CtPA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2IHnWY-i6Y

Evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence. No amount of multicultural b**ls**t will make what you WANT to be reality BE reality. Islam is evil, simple as that.

Look at the response I just made to SunTzuSays up a bit with a ton of links. Ask yourself, what other religion does that?

How many Muslims do you actually know?

I think my problem is that you've taken a subject of radicalism which applies to a subset of people (for example that BBC report you linked also indicated that the British Intelligence services had estimated around 2,000 actual extremists in their home population, out of some millions of Muslims or peoples from Muslim countries) and applied it to billions of people. That's why I made the tea party analogy. A common perception of people is one that paints all tea partiers as racists and extremist morons because there's a very vocal handful of nut jobs who get all the media attention.

Historically, I'm not convinced that there are not parallels in Christianity, or not parallels ongoing in a few cases. It's history with women, abuse of power, censorship, calls for war/blood is not very pure either. So if you're going to ask "what religion does that", I'd have to say lots of them have. That's a pretty weak argument. Islam hasn't even had a lengthy history of it. It's a fairly recent development. (there is a lengthy set of scholarship and theology going back to its founding which could be viewed in this light, but this again is true of most major religious views).

In social science circles the word "cult" has no meaning. So it's "definition" does not exclude religions or quasi-religions or whatever it is you are attempting to portray Islam as. It does have a popular meaning of the term but so far as people who study the subject are concerned the popular meaning is basically "whatever religious views and practices I don't agree with".

By that logic to me any religion is a cult.

In any case, by your logic, we should attempt to antagonize and exterminate anybody who subscribes to Islam; all Muslims. And this would somehow remove the scourge of systematic terrorism.

Meanwhile. You've ignored that terrorism has been used historically as asymmetric warfare by various non Muslim groups. Sometimes effectively to achieve or sustain various goals, but often not. It will continue to be used under the conditions that these Muslim groups share with those other groups. The issue is not religion. It's systemic conditions under which religion may be abused and which are currently pervasive in many Islamic countries (but not all), and which are further aggravated in Western countries by Western perceptions of ALL Muslims (such as those you apparently have) and subsequent state actions against Muslim nations which perpetuate these conditions.

But yeah. Basically you'll just have to outlaw people if that's your view.

Good luck with that.

http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politic…

As to the actual points

1) Suicide bombing was used routinely by anarchists, first modern use was a successful assassination attempt on the Czar. The method was also routine in connection with the Japanese in ww2 and the NVA/VC in the Vietnam War. Tamil Tigers also used them in Sri Lanka. It's hardly a peculiarly Muslim trick. This often included using children or women as weapons in war. War is not clean and pretty, especially when it's asymmetric. It is cruel.

2) Fly planes into buildings. You mean like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_plane_cr…. Or this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck. Tactics of terrorists are not synonymous with ideological commitments or religious sentiments. The reason they hijack or bomb airplanes and try to kill people is because it gets the most attention. Speaking of bombing or hijacking airplanes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_85… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-United_…

3) Censorship. So what exactly does the FCC do again? How about Europe, or Soviet Russia or the Great Firewall of China? Again, widespread censorship and fear are not simple tools of the Muslim. They are used because they are "proven" commodities for controlling a population by attempting to control ideas and the flow of ideas.

4) Killing girls for getting an education is a local ignorant peasant tradition, much like female genital mutilation in parts of Africa which is somehow become attached with religious significance. And teenage arranged marriages for that matter. I think you would find that a widespread view of the Islamic world would allow women to go to school, and to hold professional jobs, even serve in elected offices. It's really Saudi Arabia and the Taliban that are insane on that point. Even Iran has no issue with women getting an education. Islam hardly has a great record toward women or feminism in particular, I agree. But neither has Christianity. Nor local custom been immune from adopting a new vernacular to defend it.

Gaddafi called for jihad against Switzerland after they arrested and seized his son in 2008 (context is important). Obviously there was a reasonable cause for doing so (assault). His primary weapon hasn't been violence against the Swiss. And is so identified in the link you posted as an attempt at an economic boycott, he even identified the work like that of Al Qaeda as a crime. I agree he's nuts. But that's hardly because he's some sort of religious nut who wants to kill and slaughter Swiss people. That's because he's a self-appointed dictator who rules by fear and is not used to his inner circle being accountable to laws (see any study of corrupt nations at the UN not paying their parking tickets in NYC).

Perhaps one way to stop the Muslim extremists from attacking us would be to completely cut off any aid (financial or military) to any country in the Middle East (including Israel).

Let them fight it out for themselves as they have been doing for all of eternity. Either they will figure out how to fix their problems themselves or they will blow themselves up. Either way, they end up leaving us alone.

Agree. (y)

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8947-LA-Atheis…

Or is it a cult when you use violence against those who try to leave?

No it's a cult because it's a religion. The term "cult" as I said, has no real meaning other than to impart a sense that the organisation is unpleasant by your reckoning, ie, to be derogatory toward the group, its members, or its aims.

Whether or not there is supposed a clear right of entry and exit by members or potential members of that organisation is indifferent to the "distinction" between "cult" and "religion". Social ostracizing affected by religious self-exclusion is little different than issuing threats or acts of physical aggression in so far as it penalizes members who wish to leave.

Woah woah woah. Social exclusion works on the basis of individuals choosing not to interact with someone. So long as there is no threat of force involved there is nothing wrong with that. No Christian should be forced not to exclude me from a Christian group. I'm a non-believer they should have that right (even if those a** hats in the supreme court think otherwise.)

There is a CLEAR distinction between openly disapproving of something and threatening violence against it. Maybe others have attempted to distort and blend the line between a cult and a legitimate religion, but thankfully my understanding and my opinions don't require that Websters agree with me. My definition of a cult as a group that uses force as a means of perpetuating its beliefs is my position of where the line should be drawn and I stand by it. Oh and Islam is a f**king evil cult.

Social exclusion when removing oneself from a group that requires certain behavior to belong to it is not necessarily a self-imposed problem. In many areas or locations, it's a serious cost which can have far larger ramifications than threats of violence or a few people shoving and menacing you. Such people can be detained for those actions in most free countries and are rarely demonstrative of an entire group of people. People cannot be detained for excluding you from choices of employment, education, or housing as easily on that basis that they don't approve of your religious choices, or lack thereof, with the exception of an entire community making such things more or less compulsory through social coercion. They can be punished for such things where the state has a will to do so. Though I'm in agreement that I'm not sure the state should either.

Cults have no distinct Websters definition or any meaningful scholarly definition either that distinguishes them from other religious practices. There is no blur because there is no line. Even the "false practices/worship/beliefs" definition of a cult is pretty broad since most religions teach an exclusivity of belief and do not accept religious particularity very well (this includes some Muslim sects toward one another just as easily as it might include Muslims in general toward anyone else).
Cult:
1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
7. the members of such a religion or sect.
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

There is no definition which implies a "cult" must use violence or repression or any other means that somehow distinguishes it from mainstream religious practices in order to maintain membership. The only definition that exists which you are using is "I disagree with them and their practices".

To the extent that these are practices used by Muslims that you have identified, I would agree they are abhorrent and vile behavior. But my contention is that they are generally blown up and out of proportion relative to the actual problem, ie that ALL or even MOST Muslims must inherently behave in this way, which is more the thinking of the people who are doing such things to begin with and not the thinking of mainstream Islamic jurisprudence, and especially that your contentions lack context (ie, that other mainstream Western religious bodies have their own agents who have or continue to do likewise with threats and condemnation).

First off, if it were true that I'm simply using the term 'cult' to describe beliefs I disagree with, then I'd use it to describe ALL beliefs that I disagree with (which I don't.) perhaps when I state plainly what I mean by the word 'cult' you should take what I say at face value instead of attempting to redefine my position for me (classic straw man.)

Secondly, The clear distinction between Islam and say Christianity, is that the majority of it's practitioners DO support violence and/or force in the name of their religion. Go out and meet some Muslims.

I have met some Muslims. I asked that a while ago.

My concern is that you're conflating the attention paid to a minority of Muslims who adhere to a particular strain of Islamic thought (or what they think is a strain of Islamic thought) with everybody else who calls themselves a Muslim. This would be like extrapolating the behavior of all Christians from that of the Amish or Pentecostals, which is come to think of it a common method of attack by atheists. It's absurd on its face because it is dismissive of the actual argument. Ie, that people come to these strains of Islamic thought for a reason. And it is not "to become a better Muslim by killing heretics". They want to strike at somebody and somebody Islamic gives them a mission. This is no different from any other form of control because it is a common historical refrain of all nations, many leaders of movements, and especially religions to make such demands of their flocks and, as such, abolishing Islam will do nothing to abolish terrorism.

Further, abolishing Islam will not be achieved by killing all the people who adhere to it in a great and purifying holocaust. It is a set of complex ideas and jurisprudence thought with hundreds of years of scholarship behind it (theological scholarship, but still). Attacking an idea with bombs and bullets as you have suggested will get you nowhere. You have to have a better idea to kill the idea, just as we had to "defeat" communism. Some have suggested Christianity or multiculturalism would work. I'm skeptical of both approaches, but as long as people are willing to argue instead of kill, I think we're getting somewhere. In general the argument is internal to the Islamic world and needs to take place, primarily, there. Our interventions are not helping. If anything they are making more people mad and driving them to radical behavior (as you suggest would be desirable).

Here's a video of the man admitting that he is no longer a follower of Islam, and all the mental backflips the cleric goes through in order to say that no he shouldn't be put to death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xz8Z6KqR3w

This is right before a crowd attacked him and when he was arrested (to keep him form being hung) they gathered around the jail house until he "returned to the faith."

Islam 's founding doctrine is so evil that it CAN NOT undergo a transformation into a multicultural religion. It would have to become Deism that is Islam in name only, and at that point it's actually easier just to take the shortcut of convincing individuals to reject Islam all together. However, as long as majority Islamic states continue to exist any individuals capable or willing to make such a change will be hunted down.

We need to bomb their societies into complete 'submission.' I'm dead serious.

When you advocate "bombing them into submission" you do realize what you are saying? You are saying "Kill them all, every man, woman and child, because a relatively few Muslims hold a position that happens to be a bit radical. Regardless of age or even religion, just bomb them all to hell because we disagree with them."

How is that right:? How will that change their minds?

History has proven that you cannot bomb/kill/terrorize a population into submission. It has never worked, and it never will. The only thing we would gain by your approach would be a larger tombstone when the rest of the Muslim population of the world (and, I would hope, a large majority of other ethnic and religious groups) stood up and denounced America and the people who started the mess.

My contention has been that its not the societies that are the problem. You may want to consider that Islam itself is not a monolithic set of ideas, in the same manner that Christianity is not. Salafism for example is very different from Muslims who cohere around ijithad.

Tell that to the Japanese.

I've never stated that all Muslims are bad. however I AM saying that the societies are the problem. And I have yet to hear you present any evidence or make any argument showing moderate Islam within the borders of Middle eastern countries holding any power or influence.

"I therefore have come to view Islam as a disease, and think that a war against terrorist organizations or countries avoids seeing the real problem. The real problem is Islam. And it can not be fought without admitting that Islam, is the real problem. " – that sounded pretty much like a condemnation of Islam and thereby all Muslims to me. Perhaps your argument has more nuance somewhere, but I haven't seen it. You've been hammering away with the same portraits of radicals as though they're universally valid.

Holding power or influence….yes. How about those Egyptians and Saudis. I don't see how us propping up radicals has any bearing on how Islamic countries run themselves. Surely that's irrelevant to the discussion. I'd argue that we've seen evidence that there are moderate Muslims in Iran, though they do not hold power there. That's one of the places that ijithad is popular in fact (Iran for example has a separate and secular Constitution, though it has some shortcuts on how it can be interpreted). Most of the clerics that were indirectly linked above with more moderate views are from Egypt or Turkey, and parts of Africa (particularly Western Africa, Somalia's a mess anyway.

Turkey definitely counts against your argument both geographically and fundamentally. Indonesia is Muslim and therefore valid to my point about all Muslims and Islam in general, though if you're somehow now becoming geographic, I think you're losing some potency on the argument that it is ISLAM that's the problem. Other than the provicne of Aceh (where the churches video you posted was from), it's governed quite moderately, almost secular in fact, particularly relative to Suharto. If the argument becomes geographic, then I'd say it's better to let it burn internally. Because they're far better at killing each other than they are at killing us. Step back and there won't be much reason to try to kill us at all.

My argument would be more that the problem is political and ideological rather than religious. These societies are structured in a way which you find abhorrent, and which I find occasionally and potentially dangerous to our own, both physically and philosophically. But they are structured that way because of who has power and how they have seized it (and who opposed that seizure) and less because of internal consistencies in Islam. Much custom that is supposedly commanded by religion is not in fact commanded by religion (genetic mutilation, child brides, etc). It is commanded by some ******* with a hat that says he's important. If they can get people to do those things to themselves, what difference is it to get them to do something to someone else? But the point is that awe can be manipulated in this way by almost anyone in this way and has been routinely in history. My contention has been thus less about Islam and more about the features that Islamic radicals have borrowed from other radicals to make their attacks and messages. You're not making terrorism go away by making Muslims go away because the root cause isn't religious, it's political ideology. Therefore the question that you demand an answer for seems pointless. The same features that you decry in these harsh Islamic societies can be found quite easily by looking elsewhere on the globe. Colombia or Sri Lanka for example. To some extent even Mexico. Oppression of the people tends to make them mad. Sometimes giving them a reason to kill results in killing as a result. All we're arguing over is the match.

i think the best way to stop terrorism is by stopping its causes .. regardless of your strong opinion against Islam i cant imagine that your proposing that Muslims are born with psychological disorders that demands them to kill .. if its civilians that are killed in terrorist bombing (which i know that most of the time its) then i must say as a human and more importantly as a Muslim the doers of such acts must be condemned a thousand times if possible ( too bad it isn't possible to condemned a dead man) .. and no matter how many people say that islam promote and encourages terrorism .. it will never be true .. as i can confidently say in my religion if you commit suicide you go to hell and if you kill an innocent man you go to hell .. the only 4 cases that your death is accounted martyrdom is if u die in the cause of your honor .. your family .. your country .. your money .. but then again you must ask your self why are America, the UK and Israel targeted !!

as for the answer of the question i agree with otter_limits .. i know that the US sends a lot of help and money and that they aid countries in the middle east but you know what people here are not thankful for that .. you know why because never the less America supports Israel further more with finance and weapons and by unjustified decisions in the united nations that makes it easy for them to kill our people and take our land and claim it theirs .. if America stopped interfering with the crisis between the Israel and Palestine and withdrew its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan .. i strongly believe that terrorist attacks on America will seize for ever.

i am very open minded if you think am wrong my e-mail is: "ma-friends4ever@hotmail.com" .. i'd love to know how you people think .. may be you'll prove me wrong and i will change my religion and then you might save the world apparently