teknoman2

in a single player rpg like Mass Effect, the first time i play as male (which i am) and make choices based on what i would do if i was in that situation. the second time i play as female and do the exactly opposite choices. in a mmo i always play female because if i have to stare at the back of my character for hours, it may as well be a character with a pretty butt. in all other cases i simply don't care about the sex/gender of the character unless it is somehow relevant to the plot.

Sadly I'd say that is not unique to Islam, but is rather common in many positions of power. it's not about people in positions of power, it's the shop owners, the restaurant owners, taxi drivers and pretty much everyone who lives and works in a place full of tourists. they are all polite, educated, friendly and such, but the moment you step out of the area of touristic interest, you see that everyone is polite and friendly to each other but totally hostile to the outsider and as for education, most don't know much of anything besides reading and writing with mannerisms that look like those of someone who never lived in a civilized environment before. at least this is what he saw back in the 50s when he lived there and some who have been there more recently claim that they had the same experience as soon as they left the tourist friendly zone.

as i said, my grandfather lived for years in the middle east when he was young and he read it because it was necessary for living without getting into trouble due to ignorance. he still has a copy written in arabic and most of what i know is from my discussions with him on the subject. some of what i say is what my grandfather said to me about islam and some are educated guesses based on what i know. fact 1: islam teaches that there is no free will, allah decides everything so your actions are by his will (the description of it is more extensive and detailed with exceptions and examples but that's the general rule) fact 2: studies show that taking any action without feeling the pressure of having to take responsibility for it, removes most if not all inhibitions. deduction: Muhammad had an understanding of human psychology and how to use it to manipulate the minds of his followers. Thank you for sharing where your perspective comes from. I'd challenge your facts. They are really more interpretations and opinions. based on what my grandfather said, what we usually see is the public face of islamic culture, designed to look peaceful and inviting and is the face adopted by diplomats and people in tourist rich areas. the moment you step out of the tourist zones, you see a very different behavior by the people and the other face of their culture - the one underneath the mask.

the police stops a guy in the street and tells him that they have been tailing him for the last 400km and that he was the only driver who has not committed a single infraction on the way, not even a minor one, so they will award him with a prize of 5000 euros. they ask him what he plans to do with the money and he says "i'll use it to get a driver's licence" his wife noticed his blunder and tried to cover it up by saying "don't mind his ramblings, he's drunk" meanwhile her father in the back seat who was hard of hearing and didn't know what was happening shouted "i told you it was a bad idea to make the trip in a stolen car"

as i said, my grandfather lived for years in the middle east when he was young and he read it because it was necessary for living without getting into trouble due to ignorance. he still has a copy written in arabic and most of what i know is from my discussions with him on the subject. some of what i say is what my grandfather said to me about islam and some are educated guesses based on what i know. fact 1: islam teaches that there is no free will, allah decides everything so your actions are by his will (the description of it is more extensive and detailed with exceptions and examples but that's the general rule) fact 2: studies show that taking any action without feeling the pressure of having to take responsibility for it, removes most if not all inhibitions. deduction: Muhammad had an understanding of human psychology and how to use it to manipulate the minds of his followers.

Uh huh. well, i judge Muhammad for making the brainwashing machine called islam but what may seem as a generalization on the people who follow that faith, is more of a comment on what that faith demands of them and how these demands force on those who come to the west a choice between compliance with their faith and casting off part of their faith for integration into a society that rejects most of what their faith asks/permits.ISIS acts exactly like Muhammad did, 1300 years ago. Which makes Muhammad a both progressive and pragmatic leader of his time.ISIS is not in any way progressive or pragmatic? They are an aberration of the Islamic scripture, they are utterly brutal and anachronistic. Their interpretation of Islam has no place in the year 2017 and the only way to address these concerns is to annihilate them. The good news about most ISIS fighters is there belief in martyrdom means they generally fight to the death which means its much easier to address the ISIS residual impact from countries where they are active in I must be misunderstanding you about saying "ISIS is progressive group" "Which makes Muhammad a [progressive] leader OF HIS TIME" His time was 1300 years ago though. in a certain way though, he was progressive! other religions used only the most primal means of control and manipulation of the faithful: fear of god. but fear works only as long as ignorance is the norm. Muhammad used a pretty well thought out array of psychological tricks that messed with the minds of the followers in much deeper level than simple fear. he absolved faithful of all responsibility for any action they committed as long as it was against infidels and freedom without responsibility breeds evil as demonstrated by modern psychologists. he used tricks similar to what Hittler later used to weed out dissidents. he used mass psychology of the kind that governments and corporations use today to turn what was considered morally and/or legally reprehensible to the new, universally accepted normality; and more. under that point of view, he was many centuries ahead of his time

Uh huh. well, i judge Muhammad for making the brainwashing machine called islam but what may seem as a generalization on the people who follow that faith, is more of a comment on what that faith demands of them and how these demands force on those who come to the west a choice between compliance with their faith and casting off part of their faith for integration into a society that rejects most of what their faith asks/permits. ISIS acts exactly like Muhammad did, 1300 years ago. Which makes Muhammad a both progressive and pragmatic leader of his time. ISIS is not in any way progressive or pragmatic? They are an aberration of the Islamic scripture, they are utterly brutal and anachronistic. Their interpretation of Islam has no place in the year 2017 and the only way to address these concerns is to annihilate them. The good news about most ISIS fighters is there belief in martyrdom means they generally fight to the death which means its much easier to address the ISIS residual impact from countries where they are active in I must be misunderstanding you about saying "ISIS is progressive group" ISIS does not interpret anything, it follows the quran word for word as it was meant to be followed when written in the 7th century. others may use interpretations to diminish the anachronisms of islam, ISIS just rolls with the vanilla version. this form of extremism will just keep happening until somebody scraps the old version and makes a remake and convinces people that the remake is to be followed as the original.

in most religions "god told us to do X" is purposefully left abstract so they can shape it depending on the situation. jesus said "love your neigbor" but he never said anything about the guys in the next town. it's left up to interpretation whether they are neighbors or not. islam on the other hand is very precise and detailed love your fellow muslim but not the infidel. if you meet infidels do the following 1. try to convert them of their own will 2. force them to convert by enslaving them 3. if conquest is not possible, settle in their lands and outbreed them 4. if all else fails, just start killing them until they submit and convert or are exterminated.

what's the difference in pronunciation between chinese and japanese the chinese are like the "ah, ah, ah" before the sneeze and the japanese are the sneeze itself.

well, a brief summary of islam would be "live like the prophet did". the problem is that many (ISIS being the best example) take that extremely literally.

Uh huh. well, i judge Muhammad for making the brainwashing machine called islam but what may seem as a generalization on the people who follow that faith, is more of a comment on what that faith demands of them and how these demands force on those who come to the west a choice between compliance with their faith and casting off part of their faith for integration into a society that rejects most of what their faith asks/permits.

speaking of guns, im probably the only guy who went to the army and due to circumstances never got to fire a gun. the first 2 weeks we had no guns after these 2 weeks we got guns and were supposed to practice shooting 3 times during basic training. before our first excursion to the range i sprained my ankle so i was out for a week. when the time for the next visit to the range came, i was on patrol duty around the camp so i could not go. at the time of the third and last visit i was on leave. after the boot camp i was assigned to electronic warfare because i studied IT even though i dropped out (too lazy to go to class after the second year. now i'm still trying to figure out if i regret not taking the degree or not) and while we had guns, we never took them out of the gun locker. 12 months of having a gun and not a single shot fired. my brother on the other hand, because of his electrical engineer degree, was sent for a year in a tank battalion to help with maintenance and he got the pleasure to go to the firing range to see them shoot from up close and even took part in joint exercises where the people on foot would fire at targets while using the tanks as cover

as i said: i don't judge people, i'm just stating facts about what the doctrine of islam is and while i have no way to verify their authenticity, there are a bunch of data suggesting that the majority of muslims are convinced that following the quran to the letter is the best way of life and all should embrace it. bridges can be built but considering how vastly different western and islamic cultures are, doing it requires a vast amount of mutual concessions... so many in fact that one or the other will quite possibly lose its identity.

the people in ISIS do not follow an interpretation of the quran, they follow it literally word by word, as was intended to be followed when the religion was established. if Muhammad was alive today, he would probably consider any muslim who did not show support for ISIS an apostate. anyway, a common problem with all discussions is that people try to interpret things from their point of view. when we see ISIS, we see a group of extremists who kill innocent people all over the place and who are committed to violence and war using a skewed version of their faith as an excuse, while the rest of that faith's followers say "islam is the religion of peace". when a muslim sees ISIS however, he sees a group of islamic purists who chose to promote the teachings of Muhammad and seek to bring the prophesied peace to the world by eradicating through violence all other "fake" religions. the quran by the way is not a sort of theological treatise that teaches the tenets of islamic faith to the believers or potential converts through stories, anecdotes and allegories, but a very detailed description of Muhammad's ideals over everything, his way of life and also contains a very detailed set of laws and their respective punishment for breaking them (sharia), written with the intention of complete uniformity of the faithful with no room for any free choice or thought of any kind. there are rules about when to wake up, when to work, when to pray, how long should your beard be, how to groom it, what to eat and when, what you should like and hate, how you should treat your children, your animals, your wives, your parents, your neighbors and so on and so forth

http://imgur.com/a/Bn8Yk

maybe they are not all the same but they all willingly follow the same religion, knowing that it teaches violence and war. what i paint in one color is the religion itself and not the people who can and many do choose not to follow it to the letter. when they wrote most things in the bible back when the christian religion was established, they meant them literally because that was how things were back then, but as times changed the words remained the same but they were presented as allegories to be interpreted with the interpretation changing according to the time and place to keep the basics intact while bringing them in line with the world around them. same thing more or less happens with all religions when they wrote most things in the quran they too meant them literally based on the time and place it was written but unlike others, the quran was adamant that the words of the prophet are the one and only truth just as they have been written and there is no room for interpretation. so nobody bothered to change anything to bring it in line with the way the world changed and the few that tried were quickly shut down, so now we have people who are intellectually stuck in the past because a book tells them to. as i said in the funny pics thread, blindly following an ideology of whatever nature is a recipe for disaster... and blind obedience is another of islam's teachings

and what that profile may be? because as far as i know, those who join ISIS come from all walks of life. integrated muslims who were born and raised in France and had a master's degree were as willing to go to Syria and join the jihad as the Iraqi child who's parents died in a US bombing. girls who were raised in the safety and freedom of the west, went willingly to a place they knew all too well had no regard for their life beyond the use of their wombs to give birth to more jihadists when their mothers were desperate to get away from there and to live in a place where they were not treated like merchandise. after 100 years of progress, the people of Turkey are all too eager to embrace Erdogan's ideal of recreating the theocratic kingdom their country once was. in my opinion there is this profile for those who get radicalized: anyone that prioritizes his faith in his religion over everything else, regardless of his socio-economic standing or level of education.

this is what happens when you become part of a hive mind ideology: you lose your ability to think rationally.Mhm. Good thing that the right wing has always stood in for individual freedom. right or left is irrelevant. blindly following an ideology (be it political, social or religious) like a zerg can lead to big trouble for both you and those around you.

Except they are not the exception, given that there are millions of people already living peacefully in the west. Realistically there are very few extremists compared the 1.8 billion Muslims in the world. You are making assumptions that have no basis in fact. a few million to almost 2 billion is a very small percentage. and yes the extremists are also a small percentage but the overwhelming majority are the so called moderates: those who will not dirty their hands with terrorism but who also do not disapprove of it as long as the victims are not fellow muslims. and as i said, as long as the monolithic structure of islam that requires from its followers to stay mentally and socially stuck to 1000AD does not change, any moderate or integrated muslim has the potential to become an extremist just by going to the wrong mosque.

this is what happens when you become part of a hive mind ideology: you lose your ability to think rationally.

there is a difference: christianity today is not what it was 1000 years ago. it evolved with the times and over time it both shaped and got shaped by the culture that has become our way of life today in the west, so christians today are completely different than christians back then. islam on the other hand has reshaped the culture of every place it has spread to but, like a monolith, it has changed very little if at all in the last 1000 years and by extend there was little to no change in the mentality of it's followers who still behave like its the 11th century AD. just to point out the sophistry in your reply though, i don't remember ever referencing islamic actions that are ancient history as a comparison to what another religion does today (like "the catholics did the crusades 1000 years ago, so its fine if muslims do their jihad now"). i speak of their actions today and explain where the origin of these actions can be found within their religion and how it came to be. the "god guides my actions because they are righteous" (or deus vult for short) was a key element of crusade propaganda, despite the fact that christian religion teaches free will, so you'll get no argument from me on that, however while for crusaders it was a convenient lie, for muslims it was a core tenet of their faith. comparing the actions of a group of ancient ignorant people who were deceived into going against the teachings of their faith for the profit of some kings and bishops, to the same actions made by modern people who knowingly follow a religion that was meticulously crafted for the purpose of raising fanatical soldiers, is like comparing the drunk driver who lost control of his car in the rain and killed a pedestrian to a professional sniper/hitman. some choose not to follow the warmongering teachings of their religion and instead keep a more private approach to their religious practices, thus integrating into the society they live in but they are the exception. as long as its not the religion itself to change from being a "list of people to kill" and evolve along with the times, the majority will be made of the extremists who kill the people on the list and the moderates who silently nod in agreement, with those who truly seek a peaceful coexistence being a marginalized minority.

Hahaha. So any examples aren't valid because "that was then and this is now", and obviously a mob doing it on the street is so much worse than a kangaroo court issuing a sentence with no recourse. And of course, if it didn't happen in the UK, France or the US, it's not a valid example either, because they aren't really Christians if it's "the most hardcore Catholic nation in the world" (by the way, that would be the Vatican, actually). You sure you don't want me to find an example where attackers were literally tapdancing on a cracker? Because I mean, it's not such an arbitrary prerequisite considering everything else that's enough for you to splain any other occurrences away. Careful though, keep the hand-waving up and you'll pull a muscle. As for your stance regarding "the incompatibility of Islam with the West", I take it this is your expert opinion after thoroughly researching the issue and studying the myriad different interpretations of fiqh, yes? Perhaps you'd care to share some citations, specific fatwas by Islamic scholars living perfectly well-adjusted lives in the West that help support your assertion? Failing that, you can provide hard figures that show that the millions of Muslims living in the West are actually failing to abide by the laws of their respective countries of residence, and bowing only to sharia. And by the way: toleration does not involve "accomodating whatever because muh cultural heritage". Toleration is based on and demands respect for secular law, and secular law supersedes religious doctrine whenever the two come in conflict. Read up, bro. The West isn't going to become a neo-Caliphate if you blink. i can't provide citations of the islamic scholars you speak of. most of those who i have seen speak, spoke about how medieval-like is the social mentality of islamic countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia and how the rest of the world left them behind. and i can tell you of hundreds of examples of well adjusted muslims who were born, raised and educated under the best conditions the countries they lived in offered, and who left these countries to join ISIS Sweden has entire areas that have become a sort of unofficial independent countries where local authorities have no control and sharia is the only acceptable law. similar attempts are happening in england with neighborhoods being labeled as "sharia zones" as the overwhelming majority of their population are of middle eastern origin. to fair though, i don't blame them for doing it. they just follow their religious doctrine as taught to them by their priests. the biggest problem is the "muh heritage" people who have flooded the media and encourage that behavior while discouraging the voicing of any concern about the result of "unchecked tolerance". it was a mind trick invented by Muhammad as a means to make the killing of his enemies guilt free for his followers. "you had no say in the matter, allah guided your sword through that man's chest because he decided it was time for that man to die" the problem fot the islamic world started when theology scholars decided to apply that to literally everything. "the wood you throw in the fire does not burn because of the fire, but because allah decided at that very moment that it must burn". in short these scholars brainwashed everyone into thinking that allah is like an AI game master in a D&D game who can make decisions in real time about everything that happens at any given moment and humans are the NPCs in the game who act according to these decisions without choice or will of their own.