Almalieque wrote:
I would state that most social arguments are at least based on "my religion". The reality is, as you stated, there is probably a complete history of thinking behind it all.
Not "probably". "Is". The religious person knows them. The person reacting to that person often does not and thus simplifies it to "it's because of his religion". But that's a failure on the part of the second person to understand the first. And assuming our objective is to try to reduce the incidences of violent religious acts, it would seem to be critically important to delve farther than just blaming it on religion.
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In reference to the violence, you cannot deny that the propaganda videos aren't saying "in the name of....".
What propaganda videos? The ones that *you* have seen? The snippets of those videos that have been translated and put on some web site or shown on a news program? This is what I'm talking about. I guarantee you that no one is going off and joining a jihadist organization solely because he saw a video that just told him to kill infidels in the name of Islam because... religion! No one. Ever. Years of learning a religion first are required. Then years of some perceived authority figure within that religious framework teaching a particular (violent in this case) version of the religion is required. Then, finally, you can point to others around that person, tell him that they're bad because they violate a large swath of already accepted assumptions, and spur him to action with inspiring videos.
You're looking at the very tiny tail end of a much larger and longer process.
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Whether or not there are feelings of justifications based on perceived logic is irrelevant as it often gets lost in the videos.
Only to those whose entire understanding is the videos and calls to violence contained within. That's you, btw. Not the guys actually answering that call.
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This is how and why people who denounce those acts simplify their cause to "it's my religion".
Yes. Because you don't see the whole picture. This is my entire point. By simplifying it down like that, you are missing the really important parts and focusing on the least important.
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My point was that their logic isn't about "their religion", but it is often expressed as such for either simplicity (for the more complicated reasons) or out of laziness (typical social beliefs to avoid having an actual argument).
Again, that's not really correct. The expressions that you are exposed to, usually by a media that wants you to react just as you are reacting, simplifies it down to religion. That's the point. The terrorist does not do this. The media that wants you to react in the most basic negative way to the terrorist does. And while that's fine with regard to motivating people to oppose terrorism, it's a terrible method to use if we want to learn why the terrorist does what he does.
He doesn't do it because of his religion. It's far more complex than that.
Edited, Jan 14th 2015 3:46pm by gbaji