As an outsider looking in....

[ishimonster]

This

All of those religions have significant radicals that aim to either kill or subjugate others.

Go to Burma. Go to Pakistan and India.

Go hang out in front of an abortion clinic with a pro-choice sign in Kansas.

What is the solution to this one religion that fits the "significant" percentage bill?

Do you blame Christianity when an abortion clinic gets shot or bombed?

"Buddhism" has inspired massacres across Southeast Asia. What about the Westboro Baptist Church calling the Orlando shooter a gift from god? All religions can be distorted and used for some political means. ISIS is not Islam. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world hate ISIS. It is so wrong to continue to circulate this false narrative about a religion that quite frankly most people in this country know nothing about.

[TerpEagle]

I was afraid that is where you were going. It is so intellectually dishonest to equate the crazy guy who claims Jesus told him to blow up an abortion clinic and is universally derided by Christians for his actions to the sophisticated, organized armies of Islamic militant terrorists and the million plus Muslims who support or sympathize with their ideology and aims. There are Muslim theocracies in which you can be killed for being gay! I'm not going to go back and forth with you on this all afternoon. I think your comparison is, at best, a Mr. Fantastic-like stretch. You can have the last word, though.

So it's only religious impetus for evil acts if it's Islam but that's absurd if it's Christianity?

Violence in the name of either religion is denounced by the vast majority of associated believers.

And I totally agree that Islamic theocracies are not a good thing, just like any other theocracy - it gives a society divine justification to do whatever it wants. I find it ironic that Saudi Arabia has been one of our allies for decades and public beheading are is a legal practice but as a nation we're appalled that ISIS does it.

Luckily there are really no Christian theocracies because when there were, we had things like the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. Hopefully, Islamic and other theocracies some to an end soon as well. My fear is that demonizing Islam will lead to more Christian-theocratic societies and if that happens we'll be truly fucked with a Holy War.

In the end, it's a political movement using religion to consolidate and wield power. The religion itself (aside from general problems with religion and how people use it to justify) is not the real problem, it's the abuse of it. But having the "enemy" demonize it is part of the abuse - it reinforces who the political power wants the enemy to be which is needed to meet their ends.

[Riccardo]

I ever say that?

It never has to do with access to guns. It's always something else.

How preposterous to address the problem that fucking nut jobs have such easy access to guns.

No. Just like it's always guns and never Islamic terrorism. It's always something else. Sure access to guns helps them but no access won't stop them, e.g. Boston Marathon attack. How preposterous to address the problem of ISLAMIC TERRORISTs

[ishimonster]

You have no idea

THIS ^^^

the difference is those people coming here WANTED to be here, they wanted to be in America and all that was possible with that.

Now you have a lot of people in this country, whether they were born here or not that simply don't want to be Americans, they want to fly their countries (or ancestors country) flag, burn ours, make their own laws, have their own courts.

Basically what you are starting to have is instead of a melting pot of cultures, you have pockets of cultures that really don't want to be Americans.

To me, that is what has changed.

Of the sacrifices people make to come to this country. They leave behind their entire families, throw away their livelihood, and risk everything just to "be an American." Living in Kansas I'm sure you have some great first hand knowledge about immigrants and their attitudes. In my experience though, everything you said above is blatantly false. Who is trying to make their own laws and have their own courts?

The real difference between immigrants back then and immigrants now is that immigrants back then had the same face as you.

[Eagle Road]

Of the sacrifices people make to come to this country. They leave behind their entire families, throw away their livelihood, and risk everything just to "be an American." Living in Kansas I'm sure you have some great first hand knowledge about immigrants and their attitudes. In my experience though, everything you said above is blatantly false. Who is trying to make their own laws and have their own courts?

The real difference between immigrants back then and immigrants now is that immigrants back then had the same face as you.

BULLSHIT, YOU know nothing about me, my Grandparents were immigrants, aside from that I left Philly area 25 years ago after the Gov. put me out of business, left my family and son behind, because I knew I could do better for them out here, and have, had 800.00 in my pocket, not the same, but don't tell me about hardship.

No, my story does not compare in any way with some of the people I have run across in my travels, but if you think I was was silver spoon feed spoiled entitled brat, you have missed the mark considerably.

You taking a swipe at me for being a racist is also an untruth, I help lots of people that look and sound nothing like me, try again.

You must live under a rock, never heard of Sharia laws? Or tribal courts that are trying to be set up?

[Riccardo]

Yes sense of proportion is totally out of whack

To your earlier point, yes if a christian fundamentalist kills someone by bombing an abortion clinic, they should be considered christian terrorists. But the fact that you only found 1 such case in the US for 2015 tells the story.

How many were killed by islamic terrorists in 2015? I bet even you would be shocked. And look at the 10 year trend - yeah gun control is the problem, not islamic terror

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...daily-chart-12

[TerpEagle]

To your earlier point, yes if a christian fundamentalist kills someone by bombing an abortion clinic, they should be considered christian terrorists. But the fact that you only found 1 such case in the US for 2015 tells the story.

How many were killed by islamic terrorists in 2015? I bet even you would be shocked. And look at the 10 year trend - yeah gun control is the problem, not islamic terror

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...daily-chart-12

So how do you stop or control Islamic terror? Supply regimes with weapons and let them loose on civilians once they've served their purpose? Support dictators in majority Muslim nations that oppress their people to the point of revolution? Engage in wars of choice and under false pretenses? Ally with a dictatorship that holds public beheadings?

Or do you want to go the anti-Constitution route and trash the 1st and 4th Amendments?

A real way to reduce violence, especially gun violence, is to limit the number of guns in the hands of people that shouldn't have them. The effective way to do that is to curb the ease in which guns get into society period.

But that's a preposterous idea. Let's demonize an entire religion because that will convince the radicals to knock it off.

[TerpEagle]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graph...daily-chart-12

What could have caused the noticeable increase beginning in 2003?

[Riccardo]

That was a blip and started going down

The real increase started 2011. Must be Obama's fault

[Riccardo]

Heres a crazy idea

Instead of your "can't do anything about islamic terror so just pretend it doesn't exist " tack, how about both? Fight islamic terror (i.e. ISIS, not islam) where it exists, do a better job screening immigrants into this country, do a better job rooting out dome stick terrorists, and make it more difficult for these nuts to get guns.

[TerpEagle]

The real increase started 2011. Must be Obama's fault

There was virtually none in Iraq or the Middle East before 2003. There is a specific event in 2003 that began to destabilize the area. Can you name it?

And funnily enough, the US remained a strong ally with Saudia Arabia through it all, even though they are a dictatorship that finances terror, manipulates resources and beheads people.

2011 was the result of the Arab Spring once things finally all fell apart.

This is all really a political problem, religion is simply the tool being used to reach political ends.

[McCarthy12]

What about the Westboro Baptist Church calling the Orlando shooter a gift from god?

The apparent inability of (mostly younger) people these days to differentiate between calling someone a name and killing them scares me more than a Trump presidency.