Islam, majority religion in Belgium in decades ?

No. There is a psychological divide among human beings that can be seen in every socially recognized group on the planet. There are those who believe that doctrine/rules/principles should be protected and followed (conservative) and those who believe that doctrine/rules/principles should be adapted (liberal).

For some Islam is a doctrine that is meant to be followed to the letter, a political ideology to be used as a foundation for society for everyone to follow (or be forced).
For others Islam is a social identity, a recognized group that an individual belongs to that fulfills social and emotional needs.

If you ask me I consider the second group to be ignorant and naive and by taking to lightly to the identity (and use it just to fulfill what I consider egoistic emotions) they empower the bad apples. But at least I recognize that they are there. If you have ANY intention to deal with the problems with Islam, this is the first fact to accept.

You're missing a large group that are somewhere between conservative and liberal (many so called "moderate" muslims). The fact that we, as a society, accept many of the rahter extreme views of Islam is troubling. We're even seeing sharia courts spreading, first with no real power, but this quietly changed and Britain now have 5 sharia courts with full power to rule on civil cases.

You can try to downplay it all you want, but innocent teenagers dressing up in goth clothing just isn't comparable. Goth's doesnt commit honor killings because someone didnt follow their "etiquette" or "laws".
 
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You're missing a large group that are somewhere between conservative and liberal (many so called "moderate" muslims).

Not really, just didn't mention them. There's a greyzone indeed. But they tend to belong in the "I do not care" zone.

The fact that we, as a society, accept many of the rahter extreme views of Islam is troubling. We're even seeing sharia courts spreading, first with no real power, but this quietly changed and Britain now have 5 sharia courts with full power to rule on civil cases.

There is no "we". Every European state is divided like I mentioned above, with the principled and the adaptive. There is a great amount of different agendas and ideologies here that creates a complete mess as result. I personally consider the British example to be a scarecrow for everybody else.

You can try to downplay it all you want, but innocent teenagers dressing up in goth clothing just isn't comparable. Goth's doesnt commit honor killings because someone didnt follow their "etiquette" or "laws".

The problem is that you treat two completely different cultures as one.

I use a perspective known as intersectionalism in which many different elements of society and culture collide and for a complete analysis you need to check these different elements one by one rather than trying to meld things together. What I talked about is western individualism and in that realm goths and europeans joining the wahabbi and wear burqas isn't just compareable they are the same. What you talk about is honor culture, something completely different.
 
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I don't treat it as "one" but i do concentrate on the problems rather than what's neutral and isnt a problem at all with Islam - what most of the swedish media seems to think we should concentrate on and neglect that there are also are problems. I do agree that that there are slight differences between the european states, Sweden seems to adapt the Brittish view though, we're just lagging behind a bit.
 
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I don't treat it as "one" but i do concentrate on the problems rather than what's neutral and isnt a problem at all with Islam - what most of the swedish media seems to think we should concentrate on and neglect that there are also are problems. I do agree that that there are slight differences between the european states, Sweden seems to adapt the Brittish view though, we're just lagging behind a bit.

If someone address issues with the European opinion, the issues are ignored because people are instead intrigued by the stupidity of claiming about 50 different governments have the same opinion. Furthermore, one would see it as even more odd that actions carried out by Irish Republican Army or the Red Army Faction are accurate representations of European Tradition.

To be heard and respected as more than a loon, accuracy is important. That requires the ability to understand both the different branches of Islam and how they meld with nation-specific or region-specific traditions, habits and history. I previously mentioned the Wahabbi for example. I have never been accused of "islamophobia" or similar just because I said that Wahabbi is a vulgar tradition and it's modern interpretions naive or ignorant, seen as vulgar among even mainstream muslims.

If someone still accuse me for being islamophobic I accuse them in return for overgeneralizing muslims when they can't see the difference between the muslim edition of Word of Faith vs mainstream protestantism.

If you see Islam as a problem the first step you should take as far as I concern is to actually educate yourself about the diversity among muslims. As far as I concern all religion is either barbaric or naively stupid and it helps to see the difference, but at least you can talk with stupid and convince them in the long run and they are by average more reasonable.
 
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If you see Islam as a problem the first step you should take as far as I concern is to actually educate yourself about the diversity among muslims. As far as I concern all religion is either barbaric or naively stupid (snip)
Ummm, Perfesser, how come you get to do sweeping generalizations one sentence after giving your student the frowny face for doing the same thing?
 
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Ummm, Perfesser, how come you get to do sweeping generalizations one sentence after giving your student the frowny face for doing the same thing?

A movement that goes from barbaric to naively stupid have great diversity.
 
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Funny, I'd group barbaric and stupid together; I don't see much of a distance between them!! However, I consider ivory tower academics to be naive as well!! :)
 
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Funny, I'd group barbaric and stupid together; I don't see much of a distance between them!!

Some go to war to defend old texts and creeds or at least declare it loud and proud with fire and brimstone, others keep the identity but pick and choose what they associate with it based on what feels good. You belong to the second group.

However, I consider ivory tower academics to be naive as well!! :)

Labeling and polarizing against fictional outgroups increases your sense of entitativity among those who you identify as your ingroup which help you to decrease uncertainty. This provides a temporary alternative to reducing uncertainty to actually knowing what you talk about.
 
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A movement that goes from barbaric to naively stupid have great diversity.
And yet, somehow the entire spectrum you offer is negative. I seem to remember you pronouncing that sort of negative generalization to be a bad thing, perfesser. But your sweeping negative generalization is completely different from vurt's sweeping negative generalization because...ummm...well...cuz you're ejimakated, dammit. Got it!
 
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And yet, somehow the entire spectrum you offer is negative. I seem to remember you pronouncing that sort of negative generalization to be a bad thing, perfesser. But your sweeping negative generalization is completely different from vurt's sweeping negative generalization because…ummm…well…cuz you're ejimakated, dammit. Got it!

Your opinion that it's negative is not just subjective, it have no impact on whether or not the spectrum is true or false. The spectrum might be simplified but yet includes a much wider group of humanity than previous stereotypes presented in this thread and it also treats people the same regardless what group they associate themselves with, which makes the spectrum less polarizing than the alternatives.

Scripture is the objective foundation here, it's content is objectively verifiable. Not only can it be read to the letter, the history circulating the scripture is available as well. From such fact there's just the question how people behave in relationship with the scripture, they either follow it as much as they can or ignore it and make up their own opinion about what's in it, or they are somewhere on that spectrum. Even this ignorance have been researched and analyzed and presented with hard data that people in the later group simply have no idea about the religion they identify with.

Given it's content though the latter is preferable. I sooner have people make up that it brings a message of love and/or peace than people taking it's call to destroy one another as divine commandment.

It took me years of studying various disciplines to even begin to understand why people behave this way but at this point I understand not only what they gain from it, I also understand how the message of "love" and "peace" becomes violent based on very simple psychological mechanisms.

The only difference between Christianity and Islam is the enforced adaptation for the former. It lacks government support, worldwide. It is dead.
 
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Hmm... I see Jemy as offering the most complete argument here so I will be critical (or just nitpicky) of him (or her).

While the traditionally Christian nations have "lost their faith" please do not believe that governments have stopped pushing Christianity. Most of sub-Saharan Africa is governed by Christianity and it is held higher than government or tradition. Other nations like the Philippines or Armenia are also comparably Christian to a high medieval era European monarchy. Support has waned in some areas, and others, like South America, it is the unwritten law.

These myriad nations are not particularly less than those under direct control by Islamic elements. (Although true direct control be religious leaders only brings Iran to mind.)

I agree with your idea that rule by ideology, whether religion or the psuedo-science (or nonsense) supporting nationalism, is very dangerous. I don't think governments appreciate this kind of epiphany, however, because it relegates them to being merely servants of the people, and politicians like to think that what they do is really awesome and that they should be able to tell people what to do because they are just powerful people.

But under what banner should the people unite?
 
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While the traditionally Christian nations have "lost their faith" please do not believe that governments have stopped pushing Christianity. Most of sub-Saharan Africa is governed by Christianity and it is held higher than government or tradition. Other nations like the Philippines or Armenia are also comparably Christian to a high medieval era European monarchy. Support has waned in some areas, and others, like South America, it is the unwritten law.

These myriad nations are not particularly less than those under direct control by Islamic elements. (Although true direct control be religious leaders only brings Iran to mind.)

I agree with your idea that rule by ideology, whether religion or the psuedo-science (or nonsense) supporting nationalism, is very dangerous. I don't think governments appreciate this kind of epiphany, however, because it relegates them to being merely servants of the people, and politicians like to think that what they do is really awesome and that they should be able to tell people what to do because they are just powerful people.

I grant you sub-saharan africa. The nations with history connected to Europe have no more official authority on how Christianity should be followed or scripture interpreted. This is tied to the history around the 30-year war that broke up the idea of a religious authority. The catholics still have a religious authority but only if you choose to be a part of that religion. They have no official power to enforce any law.

The protestant monarchies fell one by one and were converted to democracies. After World War II the state-churches had to give up their authority in favor of religious freedom. Ironically this meant the reestablishment of the catholic church in many of the now "protestant" countries as well as "acceptance" of Judaism and now various islamic groups. We are in an era now when even the deeply religious understand that without secularism their freedom to practice their religion is bye bye.

The American south is a different affair. It's not that they have government support to enforce religious rule, it's just that the people interpreting the laws and the people who elect them tend to be highly religious, but even in the deep south you will get objections if you quote bible passages that doesn't fit peoples taste. Also you have phenomenons like the Mega Churches that ride on capitalism to carve out new domains of power. Unfortuntely you have a strong history-revisionist movements and a broken school system so the legal system is undoing itself simply thanks to people disbelieving it's existence.

That said, the replacement for religious authorities is this fleeting identity where "true christian" have as much coherence as "true american". People load it's content with their own subjective opinions, very few read scripture and even those who do are called things like "bible-thumpers" or "zealots" by the "mainstream christianity".

In comparison there are "muslim strongholds", official government-like authority structures who claim to stand for "Islam", but just like the Catholic Church they are just authority-structures with human beings enforcing their own opinions. Like Christianity, these strongholds disagree, they are strongly tied to nationalism and local traditions and there are many dissidents who, based on different Islamic interpretions, question their rule.

But under what banner should the people unite?

My suggestion; humanity. I have given it some thought during the past years after studying how group-identity works. I believe that it is possible to see "humanity" as your group, considering those who support "humanity" as friends and those who attack "humanity" as your enemies. Of course, I am not the only one who came up with that idea, the following animation explains the idea well, including some of it's scientific foundation; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g

The important part I believe is that I do not say "human", I refer to no single human being. The reason is that as long as a person try to work for humanity (or humankind) they have no affiliation to minor subgroups, their affiliation is to the inclusive ideologies of the world, those who wish to connect, grow and build, rather than divide and reject. By accepting humanity as your group you actually gain most of the cognitive benefits of belonging to a group, but skip many of the sideeffects. You can even solve the "without god" issue and you do believe something larger than any local government.

And yeah…
beliefsbasechart.jpg
 
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I've known enough humans to know that's not going to end well.

There are no group on the planet that escapes that problem and it's just a matter what you focus on at the end. We usually distort our view on the in-group and see just the nice stuff and ignore the bad while we ignore good stuff in other groups. Doing the same for humanity is just as honest as doing it for a portion of it.

Here's another very scientific worldmap;
worldmapgood.jpg
 
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No, his comment is clear and wrong. While some Christian men may be circumcised (often at birth in certain hospitals) it is NOT and NEVER has been a part of Christian belief, doctrine, or tradition!!

In the early 19th century the practice did become customary in a group of predominantly English-speaking Christian countries and one or two is still practiced by the overhwelming majority (75% in the US for example - higher when excluding descendents of families which immigrated after 1900.) I could see how someone living in the US in particular might missasociate the practice's normalcy with Christian tradition - though it is perhaps a good instinct to want to use analogs that are products of culture and custom whose origins are outside of the faith often associated with that culture.

Female genital mutilation is also a practice which predates islam by at least one thousand years (circumcized female mummies found dating back to 485 BC). In cultures where it was practiced, one particular line in the quoran is interpreted by those who support it as being pro-female circumcision; that is to say the interpretation is shaped by existing cultural patterns and convenience.

In the history of Christian societies there is a practice that makes a more appropriately analog to this - that of slavery. Whether slavery was seen to be justified or even to be encouraged by the teachings of Christianity was largely a reflection of its presence and importance to the individual societies it took root in. Northern and Southern US churches prior to the civil war demonstrate this phenomenon; its easier to interpret things to describe what you're already doing as moral and even more tempting if it describes you as morally superior for doing it. And just as there were some abolitionist churches in the Southern US who spoke out against the institution at great risk, there are Muslim clerics and scholars in some of the regions where FGM is most prevalent who have issued fatwas against it despite knowing that it would mean death threats.
 
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There are no group on the planet that escapes that problem and it's just a matter what you focus on at the end. We usually distort our view on the in-group and see just the nice stuff and ignore the bad while we ignore good stuff in other groups. Doing the same for humanity is just as honest as doing it for a portion of it.

Here's another very scientific worldmap;
worldmapgood.jpg

I see clearly now that JemyM is really quite racist. Your little map clearly shows that you think there aren't any nice Antarticans.
 
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I see clearly now that JemyM is really quite racist. Your little map clearly shows that you think there aren't any nice Antarticans.

The Antarticans aren't to be considered human. They are animals which would be best captured and used for free labor.
 
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How about some practical application. I've spent time some time immersed with Indian Muslims in college and in Africa, and western Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang.

But I'm be consulting for a healthcare conference coming up this summer/fall and we have some people presenting research from the Middle East, which I am least familiar with. So here is the question: are Bahraini Muslims more conservative or liberal in general? This question especially relates to food since I am in China and all food is cooked in a place bathed daily in pork products, not to mention the possibility of dog, frog, 100 types of shellfish, and tiny bits of mystery meat thrown into everything to reassure guests you aren't being stingy.
 
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