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[XXSockXX]

This debate about religion is pretty pointless. It is very easy to use religion to justify violence, so easy in fact that I personally believe the world would be much better without it.

Both islam and christianity have historically been used to justify wars and all sort of violence. Currently it appears that islamist violence is the most prevalent type of religiously motivated violence worldwide, with the vast majority of victims being other muslims.

However islam and christianity are structually very different and have developed very differently in the past centuries. Christianity tends to have central authorities (american christianity seems a more sectarian exception) and has lost secular authority in most countries. Islam has no central authority (and the historical ones were quite weak to begin with) and does tend to not differentiate between secular and religious authority.

The current wave of violence in islamic countries (that is carried over to the west in the form of terrorism) is IMHO completely rooted in conflicts arising in the post-colonial age, i.e. the power vacuum in most asian and african states and the Israel-Palestine question.

On the issue of multiculturalism - does anyone have a practical example of multiculturalism working anywhere? (And by multiculturalism I mean several different cultures co-existing peacefully within a single society, without one culture being overwhelmingly dominant.)

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

On the issue of multiculturalism - does anyone have a practical example of multiculturalism working anywhere? (And by multiculturalism I mean several different cultures co-existing peacefully within a single society, without one culture being overwhelmingly dominant.)

What about Hawaii? It does have a unique blend of mainland American and native Hawaiian culture. Both cultures are well-accepted and generally pretty compatible. But maybe I'm just seeing it through the rose-tinted glasses of a tourist.

[GlyphGryph]

My workplace. Well, at least as far as national culture goes, we all work and socialize together despite being from countries around the world (only around 30% are locals). There's obviously a corporate culture we've all been absorbed into, but we also have a number of "culture" events where people get to share stuff from back home that are always fun.

If you mean on a larger societal level than a workplace, New York and Auckland probably qualify. Of course, any place will quickly get it's own "local" culture that ties it's multi-culture together in some way, but that doesn't change the fact that big international cities are often full of very different people living very different lives in very different cultural bubbles, yet interacting successfully.

[misko27]

Spoiler: My last comment of the discussion of religion. A response to the Ukranian and XXSocksXX (click to show/hide)

Remember the Crusades?  Both Bible and Quran have existed unchanged since then.

You mean that Crusades that finally stroke Islam back after they forceislamizied dozens of Christian  countries? After they sacked Rome? Unfortunalely crusades started way to late... Now, Europe is repeating that mistake once again.

First off, let's be honest. The crusades we almost in every single circumstance a abysmal failure. They were designed largely to reclaim the Holy land, which they failed at. Most ended in treaties. In one the french king was kidnapped. They also persecuted many Non-conformist Christians and led to the extreme weakening of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. They also succeeded at getting many french children sold as slaves. Islam in Europe went down for reasons almost totally unrelated to the Crusades, and much later. The Ottoman empire fell for unrelated reasons, and it was weakening for a while, and it's territory eaten by Austria (Which worked out so well for them).

This debate about religion is pretty pointless. It is very easy to use religion to justify violence, so easy in fact that I personally believe the world would be much better without it.

The same argument can be made for many things. Sex causes a awful lot of violence. So does living. And this is ignoring the Billions of people who have religion and are perfectly fine. You cannot argue with that many people.

Also, I advise this thread move from this topic as soon as can be attempted.


New York? Yeah we seem to have a handle on that whole culture thing.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

After those very same countries were forced into Christianity? Islamic/Moorish Spain was possibly the place to be in Dark Age Europe if you wanted a decent life.

You wanna say that Christans should have waited until Muslims force convert the whole Europe and don't do Crusades?  Crusades were a joint self defense of Christian countries not an unprovoked attack like Muslims love to claim


I think long term multiculturalism is impossible, cultures will either blend together forming some new culture, or one culture will assimilate another, or they'll go to some kind of war to destruction

[XXSockXX]

Maybe I should have been more precise and said country or state instead of society. Workplaces and cities seem too much a micro-example to me. Hawaii is also part of a larger society (the US) where clearly a dominant "main" culture exists.

Also I think there is a huge difference in discussing multiculturalism in countries that have been founded by immigrants and are largely populated by those (the Americas and Australia) and countries that have (apart from historical minorities) become somewhat multicultural in the last century (France, UK) or the last decades (Germany, Italy, Scandinavia).

misko27:
I didn't mean to start a further debate about religion with my rant, just wanted to point out that debating which religion is more violent is not very helpful. As I said, I believe that most violence today that is justified with islam has quite secular roots.

[misko27]

After those very same countries were forced into Christianity? Islamic/Moorish Spain was possibly the place to be in Dark Age Europe if you wanted a decent life.

You wanna say that Christans should have waited until Muslims force convert the whole Europe and don't do Crusades?  Crusades were a joint self defense of Christian countries not an unprovoked attack like Muslims love to claim

You are wrong. Pay attention to what I said earlier. It was a move to solidify the power of the Catholic Church and Weaken the Orthodox Byzantine Empire disguised as a attempt to reclaim the Holy Lands. Which they failed at. Repeatedly. I cannot be more blunt. The fall of Islam in Europe was not intentional, it came as a result of decay in the Ottoman Empire.

To quote John Adams

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

[GlyphGryph]

Maybe I should have been more precise and said country or state instead of society. Workplaces and cities seem too much a micro-example to me. Hawaii is also part of a larger society (the US) where clearly a dominant "main" culture exists.

Also I think there is a huge difference in discussing multiculturalism in countries that have been founded by immigrants and are largely populated by those (the Americas and Australia) and countries that have (apart from historical minorities) become somewhat multicultural in the last century (France, UK) or the last decades (Germany, Italy, Scandinavia).

So... you want an example, barring all the examples that work? I've really got no idea what you're asking for here. You asked for an example of multiculturalism working - I provided it. The only difference between the places I named and the places you named are the fact that, yes, the places I named have a much better reason to be open to multicultural societies than other places.

This indicates, to me, that the only real barrier for success on the multicultural front is from the people who desperately want to avoid multiculturalism.

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

I cannot be more blunt. The fall of Islam in Europe was not intentional, it came as a result of decay in the Ottoman Empire.

Yes and no. The Reconquista in Spain and the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy were deliberate moves by Catholic Spanish kings and the Byzantine emperors, respectively, to drive the Muslims out of those parts of Europe, which they successfully accomplished. The Crusades in the East were, by and large, failures and the Muslims continued to dominate southeastern Europe into the 1900's. In fact, Turkey (successor to the Muslim Ottoman Empire) still clings to Islam's last foothold in Europe: Eastern Thrace.

[MonkeyHead]

After those very same countries were forced into Christianity? Islamic/Moorish Spain was possibly the place to be in Dark Age Europe if you wanted a decent life.

You wanna say that Christans should have waited until Muslims force convert the whole Europe and don't do Crusades?  Crusades were a joint self defense of Christian countries not an unprovoked attack like Muslims love to claim

No, thats not what I want to say - and I am baffled as to how you feel thats the point I was making. What I am saying is that Islaam may have been thrust upon nations in Europe in the middle ages, just as Christianity was thrust upon them beforehand, and Roman Pagan religions before that, and so on and so on back to the original precursor tribal ideals held in prehistory. At no point did I mention the crusades, nor am I well enough informed to make any point about them other than based on gut instinct and conjecture - something I am sure as shit not going to do.

[XXSockXX]

So... you want an example, barring all the examples that work? I've really got no idea what you're asking for here. You asked for an example of multiculturalism working - I provided it. The only difference between the places I named and the places you named are the fact that, yes, the places I named have a much better reason to be open to multicultural societies than other places.

Well.. I was asking half-rhetorically. I am sceptical of multiculturalism (as I am generally sceptical of the human ability to co-exist peacefully). I think that what most people cite as examples of multiculturalism are not really examples that work on a larger scale. Of course you can have a multicultural workplace. But you are probably all using the same language and there is only so much cultural conflict that can arise on a workplace. A city can be multicultural, but in my experience there usually is some kind of segregation, where most minorities have their own quarters.
IMHO a society consisting of people with immigrant backgrounds is not really multicultural, as there is a main culture into which all people assimilate more or less.

Integration is handled quite differently in the US anyway, there is no social security, so immigrants have to learn the language and find a job. In fact legal immigrants to the US are often highly qualified. In Europe, immigrants are often poorly educated, are elligible to welfare benefits and thus under much less pressure to assimilate into the main culture. This leads to all sorts of problems, like 3rd generation immigrants not being able to speak the language of the country they live in, and because of that struggling with education and finding work.

Assimilation is in an european context often seen as the opposite of multiculturalism, and is frowned upon by parts of society, most notably leftist politicians who think that assimilation is nationalist and immigrants themselves (often coming from highly nationalist countries), who don't want to give up their cultural/national identity.

[Loud Whispers]

While the debate about who was worse in the past is, unless it relates to modern issues of nationalism or multiculturalism it's probably best to leave it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

oh boy

one of these threads

i'll just

stay far away

what's safe nuclear blast distance?

i'll stay that.

I'm tempted to put a new rule in the OP:
Don't be that forumite who's only contribution is an attempt at creating a disastrous self-fulfilling prophecy.

I generally choose to realize the Bible was created by Human beings, and all their 2000 yr-old prejudices.

The explanation I've heard for the mess in the OT is that the guys writing about it only new of God's wrathful nature, whereas the Jesus-era Christians focused more on the whole good moral life part. Considering the likelihood of Jesus's [non]existence, it's a very real possibility Christianity was the product of several writers who looked at Paganism and Judaism and sought to make a better system.
This is what makes it different from Islam, in that one has angry genocidal rampages [rainbows are God's way of saying pwned] and the other gives very clear instructions saying it's perfectly fine to do [x horrible things] to [x horrible people].
The Muslims I know just don't follow the Qur'an closely at all, supplementing secular morals with muslim beliefs.

[Frumple]

Yeah... my understanding's fairly limited, but "perfectly fine" isn't exactly the word I'd use in that sentence LW. From what I do understand, the strictures regarding that sort of thing are actually fairly strict, both in implementation and in what counts as sufficient justification. There's apparently a reason the theology of Islam had a major influence on the concept of just war in western thought, though I'd have to go back digging (and gods know I don't want to do that. Even cursory searches to remind myself of a few things is probably pinging gods know how many warning flags for some asshole data miner) to remember the specifics.

But yeah... if muslim folks were actually following their holy texts (which hey, isn't just the Qu'ran), they'd be pretty peaceful (especially until provoked). There's at least one passage among the Hadith that flat out forbids violence, and a few in the Qu'ran that's pretty strongly against it as well (especially against other abrahamic religions). Can say that about a lot of religions that get tangled up in societal issues, unfortunately.

[LordSlowpoke]

But yeah... if muslim folks were actually following their holy texts (which hey, isn't just the Qu'ran), they'd be pretty peaceful (especially until provoked). There's at least one passage among the Hadith that flat out forbids violence, and a few in the Qu'ran that's pretty strongly against it as well (especially against other abrahamic religions). Can say that about a lot of religions that get tangled up in societal issues, unfortunately.

Pardon me~

If there's something I learned about the religion you're speaking of, it's that Muslim scholars generally prefer parts of the Qur'an (transliterations ahoy!) that are written further rather than before, because it happens to be contradicting itself at times. Your non-violent parts might be located near the beginning, and prior to the entrance of the printing press I expect that the chronology may have been shuffled a bit to some rulers benefit (they wouldn't change the words, I guess). All this talk about religions makes me hope you're all secretly master theologians who actually know what they're talking about else this really will be full of gentle trainwrecks. That part I'm getting out of my system before it actually turns into a thread rule.

[Frumple]

Ha. Nah, no master theologian, just taught a bit by a couple of 'em that had a certain degree of appreciation of the GIGO concept applied to religious texts. And yeah, a fair bit of what I picked up was that was one of the major directions of interpretation... but not the only one, y'know?

I've always been personally a little mystified about folks' insistence on interpreting such things in the least constructive method available, heh, but that's neither here nor there.