I can't believe that people are just realizing that the media focuses almost exclusively on western events

Which is terrible and kinda cynic, but I doubt it will ever change

"No, I'm saying that singling out religion can easily become scapegoating them. And THAT is an issue. But as always, it depends on the context. See my last point."
Right, it's a slippery slope.

"There are always rogue variables, also whether they love their families or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is their ideology, whether they feel alienated or disenfranchsied (so far the investigations into these people seems to indicate a correlation here, as radical ideologies generally seem to fall on fertile soil with such people)."

Yes I actually agree but crucially the rogue variables are so insignificant in these cases that it isn't worth talking about to the same extent as the religious. Your argument that there is context in everything is true, but it honestly just seems like semantics in the cases we are divulging in (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2879272/One-teenage-Austrian-poster-girls-ran-away-join-ISIS-killed-conflict-says.html , http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/isis-hunt-three-british-schoolgirls-5199581). You can play this variable game ad infinitum just like you can with objectivity in morality- there's a spectrum and common sense. I mean let's take this example where we can discern the variables- where there is a mixture that is worth discussing just as you'd hope - http://www.ocregister.com/articles/dandach-655150-poem-register.html

This guy isn't disenfranchised by anything in society but for his self-made religious identity, so much so, that he was happy to give up his life of opportunity to changing his name to "The Sacrificer", risk getting persecuted, flying across half the world and offering himself as a martyr. If ever there was a case that the Islamic doctrine found in the Hadiths and the Koran itself is harmful and contagious, it is here. The guy has lived his whole life in Orange County, yet he can mirror the rhetoric of Islamic scholars and fundamentalist Islamic groups to an alarming degree.

So what are the rogue variables here? This guy may have had some kind of psychopathology so as for him to read the texts religiously and there are some personality types which are attracted to taking ideology at a face value. And his mother seems to be disconnected from the reality of the situation saying "If he weren't a Muslim, he would be deemed innocent!", perhaps suggesting she's a bit of a fruitcake. His dad seems to be absent from his immediate life as well. You could draw from this "Well hey, religion here isn't the real issue, he's just found a convincing ideology in which he can channel whichever personality disorders he has." And that would actually be true if he did have obvious psycho-pathological problems- we just don't know.

But even if that point were to be conceded, it must be remembered that he still wouldn't be doing exactly what he was doing but for his religion. Religion is still the main issue. The guy wanted to avenge the prophet, he wanted to become a martyr and go to paradise. If we just changed the defining variable, religion, from Islam to Christianity the situation would be different. He might have done someone like joining the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church. Again, if we replaced his upbringing with that of Tibetan Buddhism he'd sooner find solace in compassion.

The Holy Bible is essentially not as bad of a book as the Quran because it's so broad and interpretative, self-contradictory and tempered. Jesus was a hippie, Mohammad a warlord. Yes, timing and historical reasons has something to do with it but what is emphasized within a religion is the example of it's progenitor and the main focusing points in scripture- these are the constant variables. It is entirely correct to say that Islam throughout it's history has promoted violence, from it's very inception to all the Jihad over the centuries. It spread to the ends of the earth in direct opposition to secular values and it was through the sword. People like to say Christianity's Crusades were the equivalent of it, led by maniac Popes and rapacious knights but that's not all true. The Crusades were partly a defensive mechanism against 400 Years of conquest by Seljuk Turks that had conquered Palestine and most of the Byzantinian Empire i.e. Asia Minor- places that had been Christian since St. Paul. I mean we can also talk about Sharia Law and how many people in Muslim majority countries believe in it but this all seems like a sidetrack to your main point.

So look we actually agree, only it seems we are interpreting religious problems differently, you as infinitely complex and german law student-ish and me as lazy and reductionist and I don't think we are going to adjudicate anything here, but I'm just about done hahah thinking about this has sucked the fun out of my sunday afternoon. But yeah importantly we agree that this brand of global Jihad comes from a backward ideology from more than a thousand years ago and is directly responsible for the terrorism we have seen practiced in particular by ISIS. We should not lose this fact within the frame of an intellectual discussion by concerns of scapegoating or inflaming all the peaceful adherents of Islam.

This is going nowhere tbh

Yo I watched this video tonight, never heard of this guy before then, but he summed up the whole problem with arguing against 'Islam' in so general a way on an interview with Fox (surprisngly they let somebody talk sense for once, out of character, despite the insistent ignorance from the anchors):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PzusSqcotDw

The world would be a much safer, cleaner, respectful, loving place if we all followed one simple rule. Submit to Allah. That's all there is to it, I can't wait till religion is the foundation of society once again.

If we all just followed one religion and believed in one god this wouldn't be happening, open your hearts to Allah. See you in the brave new world!

Paradise is open to us all except bum boys of course.

"If we all just followed one religion and believed in one god this wouldn't be happening, open your hearts to Allah. See you in the brave new world!"

---'Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.'--

Anal buggery is the work of the devil, back to hell with you!

yo piglet I think you might wanna hit up some paragraphs for those walls you got goin

aaand we're back to being dumb

...what am I saying that is dumb? asked pig for divides because it fucks up my tablet, and I quoted a verse from the bible that was relevant to tuna's one religion one god jest.

not u dude

it's what Jesse and Josh would want, cant be 100% serious all the time

On a serious note, everyone over here in England is on edge, the words "we're next" keep popping up, and obviously the EDL are using it as an opportunity to spread some blind hatred.

hahah sorry about that user! i like to make it a big block just to fuck with people

Im going straight to me local mosque to pray it doesn't Tuna.