Source
r/atheism•
NvidiaUser0123

What is a good answe to people who are writing "religion has nothing to do with terror"?

After France/Paris facebook is full of "It's terrorims - not a religion", "Real Muslims are not doing something like that", "Let's not put every single muslims in the same ..."

I see many of these messages. My problem is that I see many friends who are starting protecting muslims with a weird logic. They are telling me that we have to protect the 'real' muslims from these IS terrorists, that is why we have to take them all here to europe. I just don't know what to answer. It's fine if people do not hate muslims or other religions, but how can you start protecting them now?

Posted Nov 14, 2015, 8:50 PM UTC

219
BurtonDesqueAnti-Theist•

The obvious response is "The terrorists say otherwise. Who are you to say they're lying about their motivation?"

2
blinkme123•

One direction you could go is to try to first reassure them that you know that not all Muslims do/condone this type of thing, but then try to convince (a tall task, I know) them that they drastically underestimate the number of muslims that don't - citing, for example, this pew report

1
CalmlyBallisticSecular Humanist•

The legitimacy of the belief didn't matter to me. There are large groups of Muslims fleeting to Europe to escape the same exact perpetrators of the attacks last night. There are Muslims who have integrated well into secular Europe and we should absolutely be keeping a closer eye on those who aren't.

1
MeeHungLowe•

How do you tell the difference when those that have evil intent are specifically trying to conceal that true intent? Or if the insurgents are the sons of well-meaning refugees?

1
CalmlyBallisticSecular Humanist•

How do you tell it for the preexisting citizens?

1
MeeHungLowe•

You can't - which was my point. You said:

There are Muslims who have integrated well into secular Europe and we should absolutely be keeping a closer eye on those who aren't.

My point is that this provides no safety.

1
CalmlyBallisticSecular Humanist•

By the ones that fail to integrate: not registering to vote, not attending public school, not being, for lack of a better word, civil.

1
Pelo1968•

It's not the reason for terror it's a way to unify despondent people who then do terror.

1
Rickleskilly•

Religion has everything to do with terror because it is the ideology that forges the terroristic into a single united deadly weapon.

1
liverpoolrob•

So why do all these terror attacks get committed by religious people?

1
NvidiaUser0123OP•

On that I get always the answer that 'non religious people are also killing each other/murdering - are now all of them bad? Is then "no religion" a bad thing?'

And many other weird things 'you know Hitler insert name whatever was also an Atheist, are now all of them bad?'

So this is not gonna work.

1
liverpoolrob•

You just continue by asking for an example of a single terror attack committed by an atheist. Just one and anyone using an arguement invoking godwins law should be mocked mercilessly

1
IswittAtheist•

The difference is that, if you read into historical events of nonreligious leaders terrorizing people, you won't find nearly anyone who did it because of nonreligion. Of course nonreligious people murder each other. And so do religious people, often not for religious reasons. But when you start invoking an unprovable, unseen entity for the reasoning behind your murder (like Daesh just did or like Christians did during the crusades) then we start to see a pattern.

1
Jim-JonesStrong Atheist•

Religion is spread by four basic methods:

  1. Deceit
  2. Fear
  3. Torture
  4. Murder

It is always thus.

1
sit_up_straightDe-Facto Atheist•

I'd ignore it for now, but in general you can just ask for evidence

1
NvidiaUser0123OP•

Evidence for what? They will just tell me that these people are not religious or that these people are not real muslims. Because "real" muslims are peaceful. So always if I point at one who is "bad" then they will say "no, this is not the real islam, he is not one of us"

1
sit_up_straightDe-Facto Atheist•

All claims are worthless without support. You'll likely get into an argument no matter what you say. If religious people are defined in such a way that violence automatically disqualifies them, the definition is useless in this context.

1
IswittAtheist•

If someone is putting all followers of Islam/Muslims in the same boat, they are being stupid. And it is being truthful that Islam is not the only religion out which terrorists come. Pick any religion or denomination thereof and you'll probably find someone who terrorized someone else. The point should be that religions, particularly those with holy books specifically saying to carry out terror, are at fault. Islam breeds terror, whether some go to that length or not.

1
culturalappropriator•

Ask them if they know that Mohammed was a warlord. All Muslims aren't terrorists but a frightening number of them believe that blasphemy should be punishable by death, that homosexuality should be illegal and that adultery should be punishable by law. These are not values compatible with Western civilization. My Facebook feed after the Charlie Hebdo incident was full of my friends back home, who are moderate Muslims, saying the cartoonists deserved what they got. Just because someone isn't a terrorist doesn't mean they aren't extremists.

0