Well, I think Islam is terrible, for one. Also totally false. And there are no excuses to be made for the terrorists, or the Taiban's manners, regardless of the political stress they've been under.
I never one said teh actions of teh terrorists or other assholes is morally justified. Just not 'hurr hurr, barbaric religion is why, thats it! Hurr hurr' especailly the highly decentralized nature of islam.
Problem is, especially after the afgan mission, the word 'taliban' has become very very loose. Your no longer dealing with a bunch of former theocratic rulers. Even when it was a theocracy, it was freaking bi-polar. As i said before, Nir Rosen wrote extensivily on this. What i am stating is no longer a fringe view either. Time magazene did a report on the different faces of the taliban. Some 'taliban' are often drug dealers, random warlords, or anyone who would have any reason to be pissed at NATO troops. INCLUDING but not exclusivly, religious extremists.
Also ask yourself this, what kind of place was afganistan in BEFORE the taliban came into power? Pre-taliban aftanistan was crappy as hell. The leftwing government that took control before it's overthrow in teh 1980's was highly secular, brought centralization, increased standard of living, outlawed burqas and bearts. It wasn't anti-religious, just highly secular but authoritarian(bad) But hey, dirty commies right? So overthrow, which wasn't so bad, because that was probably 1 time in the history of the afgan world, and to a lesster degree muslim world that was highly pro-american. Who knows what kind of government would come out had they stuck around. But for practical reasons well...they couldn't. So it decended into choas. Even insane government can often times be more acceptable than chaos. Thats how they got elected. Whats worse, they admitted their ignorance of islam, which is why they call themselves the 'talib'(students) yet still wanted to create an islamic government (Huh?) they were selling drugs to the west because tehy had the notion "hey, you can sell drugs to infidels, not muslims" but then they invited some Wahahabi scholars to get advice, and the scholar said "selling drugs and alchohol is strictly prohibited....to ANYONE!" Oh noes the talbian thought, now we are in a pickle. They don't ahve much to export. so they continued anyway. If anything, they were a bunch of dumb asses.
To bring clarrification to teh pro-american/anti-american arguement. Though it's obvious where teh radicals are in regards to opinions of the west, the rest of the muslmi world is actually disinterested or pro-american.
My mother told me that when she was growing up, all she knew of politics was that "America was the good guy, Russia teh bad guy"(pakistan was an american ally in the cold war)
That'd be the big stuff. As for the world getting more radicalized, we hear stories like this every generation. There's always an increasing amount of conflict and natural disasters and whatever paving the way for the second coming or WW3 or some other conflagration. I'm unconvinced.
Not her point, she had a broader arguement. To make it more simple, ill put it like this: For a long time, the narrative of the world really was: Hey nazi's are bad. Hey, capitalism vs communism! Western europe vs eastern! And the waves hit all parts of the world, as your well aware. Everyone aligned themselves, to a lesser or greater degree to this conflict. The religious folk tended to be more 'pro-west', including the muslims. Secular folk were more pro-communist(Hitchens himself i think STILL holds attachments to communism, though certainly he isn't a communist anymore)
Communism collapsed. The capitalist/communist devide isn't something worth rallying for anymore. . Now with globalization, everyone wants a piece of identity and sense of collectivism in an increasingly globalized world, they think their cultures and identiy are threatened, or are dissatisfied with their current situation and look back to past glories. Such as Stalin getting popular again and the remilitarization of russia in memory of being a world power, islamic fundamentalism and thinking they can create anotehr islamic golden age, persian nationlists(often anti-islamic due to it's origins in arabia) who support a nuclear Iran out a desire for the return of the persian empire with less then friendly view of both the west and arab world. The rise of neo-colonialism. And i already talked about the hindu nationalists etc.
Im not talking about world war 3. If you think about it, todays wars are all done economically. Killling is done slowly. It looks worse when you have soldiers slaughtering people than having them starve to death by having the IMF put governments in debt, or by ecnomic sanctions. Depending on who ends up on top, we will see more americans starting to have empty stomachs like other nations across the sea. It's already happening. Obama or bush or McCain can't stop the inevitable. I hope to god or dawkins i can finish my education as quickly as possible and get good work experience before ##### really hits the fan and im deemed unhelpful for society and starve to death. Your both drs, you will always be in demand, your fine.
The world isn't evolving like neo-athiests say it is, there are worse things in the world than just religious thought. While focusssing on a bunch of ignorant dessert barbarians who occasional get lucky and pull off a 9/11, people forget about bigger threats, like how the food willb e ripped from their tables as china is becoming more powerful, aggressive, taking control over resoarces in africa. But thats less catchy then the headline "terrorist blow up bus!"
And I really, really am not concerned about the rise of "militant atheism" which as far as I can tell is just dispensing with the customary polite neglect shown to goofy ideas when they are religious in origin (oh, I need to summon the elevator for you because it's Sabbath? Of course. Here you go.) but educate me if there are training camps springing up.
I actually agree with you. The masses are too busy watching american idol and masturbating to jenna jameson to really have this become a real movement. It's isolated to upper-middle class americans and europians who, as you said before, are not breeding nearly as quickly as poor uneducated europian/immigrant families. And people who are even AWARE of hitchens and harrris usually read books. Literacy is high, but book reading is on the decline, unless it's harry potter.
I may come off as incoherent, and spell bad, but i actually do read books, and am SOMEWHAT informed.
And to your credit, so are you.
The theat of militant athiest however is less military but more so in lending legitamacy to neo-colonialism. Is that out of the big names of neo-athiesm, sam harris and hitchens are very much neo-colonialists, about spreading the cultural superiority of the west through armies, as well as lending ideas to the rise of europian fascism. Hitchens is more restrained in supporting the rise of fascist parties, even condeming(afterall, he has friends in the middle eas and has visited) but still contributes to some of their ideas. Dawkins for sure is repulsed at the political ideas of his two brothers in ideology, and dennet seems to not comment on geo-politics as much. Even sam harris's objections to the war were more about how ineffective it is rather than a sense of wrong/right, while hitchens was a huge cheerleader of it all.
I have family in pakistan, i really don't want to see them becoming refugees because of some paranoid fear.
I wanted to discuss this more, but also, neo-athiesm seems to oddly fall into check with extreme nationalism. I remember reading dawkins saying how religion takes away loyalty toward country and queen. But isn't the concept of loyalty to country just as irrational as religious collectivism?
Check out the complete Palinisms (and remember, they have a complete Bidenisms too!).
*"I think it's appalling and a violation of our freedom of the press."
—Speaking about the negative media coverage of Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward, Boise, Idaho, May 21, 2010
"Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!"
"Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")"
I hear Dr. Laura isn't a dr of psychology or psychiatry. What is the Dr. Title from?