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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Bohandas]

But yea, why does every time someone starts talking about the inherent problems of Islam, someone always does the ~well what about all those awful religions/creeds/political groups/sandals/etc, why aren't you talking about them too? Thats problematic~ thing and do whatever they can do to shift the discussion away from the fact that Islam is driving force behind incredibly massive waves of violence, terrorism and war right now, and that it has constantly been like this (though at different levels) for the recent decades? This isn't even something thats discussed only by non-Muslims either, there are many Muslims who admit to this and call for a new Islamic movement that distances themselves from the warlike intolerant Islam that seems to dominate the most vocal groups in the religion, or is met with passive, silent support from others, either in the form of the strange sense of masochistic ~progressiveness~ that tolerates intolerance and that has infected every layer of western society, or actual intent in subjugating everything in favor of an Islamic view.

Well, there's this oft-linked article arguing that it may have something to do with the fact that both sides of the Islamism debate act as the opposing side's primary outgroup: Islamophobes act as the Progressives' outgroup, and vice versa. The debate is supposedly such an incestuous affair that the actual Islamists out there are rendered into featureless bogeymen or political hobbyhorses that have no connection with reality---hence the characteristic acts of exaggeration or dismissal perpetrated by each party, respectively.

That's just one theory, though, and there are probably more nuanced ones. Like, for example, there's this absolutely brilliant article that I'm reading right now...

I disagree with some of the terminology of that article. The "suspicious" axis would be better labeled "paranoid".

Basically the social justice movement is almost like a communicable form of paranoid schizophrenia, complete with delusions of persecution and the sense of vast faceless conspiracies lurking just betond the edge of preception. (The Islamophobes and radical islamofascists are like people who have somehow "caught" insanity too, though the islamofascists delusions are more of a grandiose variety and the Islamophobes delusionary bogeyman is actually merely the mispreception of several real conspiracies as being both a single monolithic entity and several orders of magnitude larger than they really are.)

I serendipitously found out today that there's actually a name for the phenomenon I described here, "folie a deux"

[Orange Wizard]

Wouldn't that be a folie a beaucoup?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

plusieurs

[Orange Wizard]

Yeah, but beaucoup is used in reference to people (i.e. many people), whereas plusieurs is not. Unless that once French class I took ~4 years ago has failed me.

[Arcvasti]

Yeah, but beaucoup is used in reference to people (i.e. many people), whereas plusieurs is not. Unless that once French class I took ~4 years ago has failed me.

Yeah, nope. "Beaucoup" translates best as "Lots". "Plusieurs" is more like "Many". Its the difference between saying "The folly of lots" as opposed to "The folly of many". One sounds less awkward. You can use "Beaucoup" with regard to people, but usually with people after it. "Il y a beaucoup de personnes qui vient au volcan cette samedi" works, but you can't have it stand alone as well. "Plusieurs ont pris l'oppertunite de visite la volcan cette samedi" works, even though there's no mention of people anywhere.

[Sheb]

Not really, plusieurs translate better as "several". Anyway, the slighly awkward turn of phrase is cute. <3

[Askot Bokbondeler]

my french isnt great, or passable, but the wikipedia page uses plusieurs

The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be called folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie en famille or even folie à plusieurs

[TD1]

A friend of mine today, who happens to be rather Christian, sent a message saying something, very nearly to the word, "I can't stand someone not knowing the truth, ask me any questions you have on Christianity, I'll answer them or give them to a guy who's better than me at these things." I politely turned him down of course, but it just made me realise how often when someone is trying to convince you of something about you to faith they always refer you to someone "better at explaining it" than they are. Not many people do that in other arguments - there's references, facts, figures, even the odd quote, but people rarely tell you to speak to their Physics teacher about quantum mechanics, whereas in religious discussion it seems to me it happens all the time.

Can't think of a reason why, though it may be that I'm being thick again, heh.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i think the reason is people tend to try and solve the argument on the spot rather than delay the discussion, so they'd rather research the topic and send you links. talking about online discussions of course.
religious people do often state they're gonna ask about it to their preacher, but usually it comes off as a way to withdraw from the discussion and rarely come back with a reply(perhaps because the discussion moved on, or somebody else already gave the same answer). the secular alternative would be "i'll research the subject further and come back with a reply" i guess

[Adragis]

Or because the average person doesn't know everything ever.

[Loud Whispers]

Making arguments takes time, skill or practice - not a lot of people have an abundance in one of the three

Wait, what the fuck, is three actually spelt like that?

[TempAcc]

Well, this is why I encourage people to study their religion properly if they want to talk to other people about it. Sadly, most people take "studying your religion" as only reading its sacred texts and the opinion of scholars and other figures who are in favor of it, while disregarding refutations and arguments against it.

Its very easy to not understand people who dislike "X" when all you've learned about "X" seems positively great to you.

[Graknorke]

Or because the average person doesn't know everything ever.

We have the internet. You could find material on just about any question you might have.

[Adragis]

Or because the average person doesn't know everything ever.

We have the internet. You could find material on just about any question you might have.

Which is rather useless during arguments of opinion.

[Graknorke]

If your opinion isn't based on facts then what is there to argue about?