IS/IS: religion or politics?

quisquose · **#21** by **quisquose** » Oct 09, 2014 7:20 am

hackenslash wrote:Religion pretty much is politics.

igorfrankensteen · **#22** by **igorfrankensteen** » Oct 11, 2014 9:04 am

Oh heck. Everything is politics, and vice versa.

tuco · **#23** by **tuco** » Oct 11, 2014 11:00 am

I would say that everything what aims to influence people is politics.

edit: To expand. If I, for example, recycle I am not doing politics. However, if I try to influence others to recycle I am.

epepke · **#24** by **epepke** » Oct 11, 2014 3:17 pm

tuco wrote:If I was to follow the logic of "there is no distinction between politics and religion" I would need to conclude that militant atheism or active anti-theism is religion which is of course absurd, or?

Then follow the logic.

Politics is sometimes not religious, but that is a very recent and local idea dating from about the middle of the 16th Century in Europe. That didn't happen everywhere or every when, and even where and when it has happened, it's only partial.

Religion, however, is always political.

I believe there are good reasons not to sound like Islamophobic but that's for another debate.

There are good reasons not to hate Muslims. "Islamophobic" is another kettle of worms, because the category is constructed to conflate criticism of Islam with hatred of Muslims.

Attempts not to appear Islamophobic, on the other hand, often manifest themselves as a cover for prejudice and stereotypy held by the person making the effort. Putting on a show is an extremely common way to divert attention away from what one really believes, and it's a common way of resolving cognitive dissonance and discomfort. I'd say that overall it's probably more common than honesty, especially in the kind of people who make a habit of it, that is, political people. I think it would be quite naïve to disregard this. Selectively disregarding it, which happens a lot, is more than naïve.

As to your reductio ad absurdum, yes, I think that people like Peezus Myers can be considered religious, and so can their manifestation of atheism. For him, atheism specifically connotes an adherence to beliefs that are not different in any important way at all from sets of beliefs maintained through religion. Some might prefer words like "ideology," but that very quickly gets into wibble. Note the Peezus also hates categorizations of atheism, which he calls "dictionary atheism," that do not have these connotations. Furthermore, the given justification for these beliefs as rational is used as a cover for emotional reasons.

Having said that, what people are really looking for when they say that IS etc. are political and not religious is a rhetorical trick intended to shift discussion toward an idea of politics that is naïve, superficial, and probably wrong. And that usually turns out to be something like, if it weren't for the big bad ol' US or the West, everything would be great and they'd all be off running pig farms. And so Islam, including their extremist Sunni/Wahhabi interpretation of it, comes off as smelling like a rose. But roses have thorns, too, and it's a fairly safe bet that something that calls itself the Islamic State has a lot to do with religion.

tuco · **#25** by **tuco** » Oct 11, 2014 3:55 pm

Westerners are probably as sensitive to "freedom" as Muslims are sensitive to "dignity". Cultural differences. I am not here to argue who is right and who is wrong as that would be pointless. Also, I am not here to debate the so-called Islamophobia for reason stated. Let me just say that from where I sit it is not too smart to attack their "dignity". It is not smart because its counterproductive. This I do not need to tell diplomats, just here.

On the topic. To my knowledge there is no single decent Islamic scholar who would approve of methods and goals of Islamic State.

Oeditor · **#26** by **Oeditor** » Oct 11, 2014 4:31 pm

tuco wrote:To my knowledge there is no single decent Islamic scholar who would approve of methods and goals of Islamic State.

However, had you been alive in Mohammed's time there'd have been a "perfect" one, surely.

igorfrankensteen · **#27** by **igorfrankensteen** » Oct 11, 2014 4:51 pm

Very good post at 24, epepke. My only sort of disagreement with it, is that I think it needs to go a skosh further in some of it's turns.

I have a couple of my typical conceptual views to suggest for consideration in this.

They each have to do with essential human behavioral traits I see acted out everywhere around me.

A) everyone has their favorite screwdriver. Their favorite tool set. You know the saying, about how to a guy with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail? That's the human trait I'm getting at here.

B) people like to simplify their conceptualization of problems they are trying to solve, through sorting techniques and labeling, and are prone to over-simplify and over generalize and to resist accepting real complexity.

In this particular subject matter, A) means two things:

1. that everyone trying to deal with it would be wise to watch out for this tendency within themselves, and try NOT to skew their viewpoint and seek a solution that fits their favorite methods.

2. because existing actors within the events are already exhibiting this behavior, each is making the events themselves appear to be all about what the participants favorite methods are.

I'm suggesting that part of why it IS so hard to separate the politics from the religion in this and vice versa, is that all the POLITICIANS are using THEIR favorite tool, politics, and all the RELIGIOUS people are using THEIR favorite tool, Religion (and many of us here like to use OUR favorite tool, intellectualization). Because of this, you can actually have two IS fighters, side by side, both shooting and hacking everyone in their path, and both shouting the same chants, but at the core, one of them is all about politics, and the other is all about religion. Because one is subverting religion to accomplish political goals, and the other is subverting politics to accomplish religious goals. By the way, this is why it is so common in history to see upheavals of apparently fanatically unified peoples, devolve into civil war shortly after completing a successful revolution.

B) has the result that those of us who are trying to understand and deal with the threats here, are susceptible to failing to do so, because we are too eager to find a narrow definition of it all, so that we can drop ONE BIG BOMB on the "bad guys" and be done with it.

The thing is, that there are a lot of problems in this existence which are just plain difficult, convoluted, and as complicated to deal with as a sea of under-floor mainframe cables. The solutions to them have to be equally complicated, and require a degree of patience and persistence which few have the perspicacity and will to carry off, largely because we, as a species have a habit of praising and celebrating the One Good Bomb solutions over the Carefully Sorted and Re-Knit patchworks.

tuco · **#28** by **tuco** » Oct 11, 2014 5:08 pm

Oeditor wrote:
tuco wrote:To my knowledge there is no single decent Islamic scholar who would approve of methods and goals of Islamic State.
However, had you been alive in Mohammed's time there'd have been a "perfect" one, surely.

I just hope that now you understand why debate/info/news about IS are primarily in "Politics" and not in "Islam" section of the forum.

Oeditor wrote:It's nice to know that the quite extreme goings-on in Syria, Iraq and Nigeria are, evidently, nothing to do with Islam. Otherwise, I would have thought, at least some of the knowledgeable people here would have found something about them to discuss. Or are they, like me, just world-weary with it all to the point of being rendered almost speechless?

Oeditor · **#29** by **Oeditor** » Oct 11, 2014 7:28 pm

tuco wrote:
Oeditor wrote:
tuco wrote:To my knowledge there is no single decent Islamic scholar who would approve of methods and goals of Islamic State.
However, had you been alive in Mohammed's time there'd have been a "perfect" one, surely.

I just hope that now you understand why debate/info/news about IS are primarily in "Politics" and not in "Islam" section of the forum.

Because "it's nothing to do with Islam"?

epepke · **#30** by **epepke** » Oct 11, 2014 7:52 pm

igorfrankensteen wrote:Very good post at 24, epepke. My only sort of disagreement with it, is that I think it needs to go a skosh further in some of it's turns.

Fair comment. I'm actually pretty short of snark these days, because I got banned from Quora for pointing out certain entirely obvious things that the California Hot Tub monoculture doesn't want spoken.

A) everyone has their favorite screwdriver. Their favorite tool set. You know the saying, about how to a guy with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail? That's the human trait I'm getting at here.

B) people like to simplify their conceptualization of problems they are trying to solve, through sorting techniques and labeling, and are prone to over-simplify and over generalize and to resist accepting real complexity.

Yes, entirely, and I want to add a C. Something I wrote on Facebook with respect to the Ben Affleck/Bill Maher debacle:

Here's another I haven't seen. If you expect anything but the grossest generalizations in a five-minute video clip or even on television, that's stupid and insane. You aren't going to get it. Unless it's something like the multi-part miniseries on the Civil War put out by TBS, which was excellent.

This is why people write books.

1. that everyone trying to deal with it would be wise to watch out for this tendency within themselves, and try NOT to skew their viewpoint and seek a solution that fits their favorite methods.

2. because existing actors within the events are already exhibiting this behavior, each is making the events themselves appear to be all about what the participants favorite methods are.

Both big ones, and I'll add 3. Because of things about the brain recently discovered by Cognitive Science, people do this without even being aware of it.

tuco · **#31** by **tuco** » Oct 11, 2014 9:40 pm

Oeditor wrote:
tuco wrote:
Oeditor wrote:
tuco wrote:To my knowledge there is no single decent Islamic scholar who would approve of methods and goals of Islamic State.
However, had you been alive in Mohammed's time there'd have been a "perfect" one, surely.

I just hope that now you understand why debate/info/news about IS are primarily in "Politics" and not in "Islam" section of the forum.
Because "it's nothing to do with Islam"?

The key word here is "primarily" but how many "because" you want? ;)

Seriously now.

There is no question in my mind that certain aspects of the so-called Islamic State are related to Islam and debate over such aspects should belong to appropriate section - Islam. So why there is no entry about the so-called Islamic State under Islam? I dunno .. perhaps because everyone here is ignorant of such aspects? There are no knowledgeable people here you speak of or if there are they prefer to be silent.

Most stuff we debate here we gather from news and encompasses much more than Islam. In this sense "Islam" is subcategory of "Politics" and thus debates are placed in appropriate section of the forum.

I would say its not hard to understand but apparently it is :P

Oeditor · **#32** by **Oeditor** » Oct 12, 2014 11:31 am

tuco wrote:Most stuff we debate here we gather from news and encompasses much more than Islam. In this sense "Islam" is subcategory of "Politics" and thus debates are placed in appropriate section of the forum.

I would say its not hard to understand but apparently it is

Whereas for purposes of discussion Islam is located here as a subcategory of "Theism" which is in turn a subcategory of "Belief and Non-belief". As such, it would seem appropriate to at least attempt to uncover the motivation behind the murderous manics doing so much harm. They claim to be motivated by religion: assuming that they are not lying, then I was hoping that people who have commented knowledgeably about Islam in the past might voice an opinion on that. Is it, as Robert Spencer claims, an authentic interpretation of Islam? Or is it, as so many Western politicians rush to say, nothing to do with Islam? Surely understanding their motives is appropriate to attempting to deal with them.
As I see it, ISIS's motivations are religious while the responses of Cameron etc. are denial of that for political reasons.

Clive Durdle · **#33** by **Clive Durdle** » Oct 12, 2014 11:57 am

Frances Pryor in Home discusses religion and politics in stone age Britain. It seems the main institution was the family and the local tribe. These slowly got institutionalised into allegedly separate worlds of religion and politics, with big gods and states and empires and technologies.

So what do we have now? Groups of people with sets of beliefs and technologies willing to fight together whilst shouting god is great.

Why not get really post modern about it and have rival armies of Nike and Coca Cola fighting it out with IS?

Do IS fighters wear Calvin Klein or use Linx?

tuco · **#34** by **tuco** » Oct 12, 2014 1:43 pm

Oeditor wrote:
tuco wrote:Most stuff we debate here we gather from news and encompasses much more than Islam. In this sense "Islam" is subcategory of "Politics" and thus debates are placed in appropriate section of the forum.

I would say its not hard to understand but apparently it is :P
Whereas for purposes of discussion Islam is located here as a subcategory of "Theism" which is in turn a subcategory of "Belief and Non-belief". As such, it would seem appropriate to at least attempt to uncover the motivation behind the murderous manics doing so much harm. They claim to be motivated by religion: assuming that they are not lying, then I was hoping that people who have commented knowledgeably about Islam in the past might voice an opinion on that. Is it, as Robert Spencer claims, an authentic interpretation of Islam? Or is it, as so many Western politicians rush to say, nothing to do with Islam? Surely understanding their motives is appropriate to attempting to deal with them.
As I see it, ISIS's motivations are religious while the responses of Cameron etc. are denial of that for political reasons.

As I told you before you are free to start any topic of your interest. So go ahead and start one in appropriate section of the forum to uncover the motivation behind the murderous manics. That you are ignorant of Islam does not mean others are. Though, over the years here I do not remember any knowledgeable posts about Islam. What else do you want escapes me.

Oeditor · **#35** by **Oeditor** » Oct 12, 2014 3:59 pm

tuco wrote:As I told you before you are free to start any topic of your interest. So go ahead and start one in appropriate section of the forum to uncover the motivation behind the murderous manics.

You are so kind!

epepke · **#36** by **epepke** » Oct 12, 2014 4:19 pm

Clive Durdle wrote:Do IS fighters wear Calvin Klein or use Linx?

Calvin Klein is for Calvinists.

To be slightly less flippant, yes. Early Britain was clannish, as was everywhere. It's still clannish when you get to IS. IS is Sunni, not Shia, and quite a lot of the problems affecting Iraq since forever were Shia versus Sunni, and that's leaving out the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. And it isn't even really just Sunni, though of course it is Sunni, but they're the cultural descendants of a group that declared personal allegiance to Osama bin Laden, so that's another way of looking at the clan structure. In the middle you can put Wahhabism in there somewhere between bin Laden and Sunni in general. A lot of this stuff boils down to Wahhabism, and it's a pretty good general target. Of course, Wahhabists think that "Wahhabi" is an insulting term and want to be called Salafis, but of course, the term "Salafi" legitimizes theirs as the one true original Islam, so anybody who goes for that gets to shut the fuck up about all of Islam getting smeared.

At every level, it's all religious and all political, and it's all the politics of religion and the religion of politics. People who were interested could break it down and doubtless construct a fascinating story, but it's very unlikely that it would distill the sectarian religion out of it entirely.

Of course, that isn't what people want to do. What they want to do is paint a story where it's all because of the US with Florida sticking out like a penis and call everyone who doesn't superglue their tongues to their puckered sphincters "Islamophobes." That's the "proper" level of discourse.

tuco · **#37** by **tuco** » Oct 12, 2014 4:44 pm

Oeditor wrote:
tuco wrote:As I told you before you are free to start any topic of your interest. So go ahead and start one in appropriate section of the forum to uncover the motivation behind the murderous manics.
You are so kind!

Oh you want to talk to me? Not interested no more I am not that kind.

Clive Durdle · **#38** by **Clive Durdle** » Oct 12, 2014 5:32 pm

Clans with rpg's and more allahakhbas than the other lot?

Sometimes I wish they would be so purist that they would believe guns are haram and bullets can't harm them as an earlier caliphate did!

DavidMcC · **#39** by **DavidMcC** » Oct 12, 2014 6:18 pm

hackenslash wrote:Religion pretty much is politics.

In "political Islam" (which includes ISIS and Al Qaida), it is, for sure. However, Sufi muslims tend to see it as a personal thing.

Clive Durdle · **#40** by **Clive Durdle** » Oct 12, 2014 6:21 pm

Both and fascism actually

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ht-fascism

Without knowing or caring, Kurds protesting against the world’s willingness to let Kobani fall to Islamic State have inflamed two acute causes of western discomfort. They had no hesitation in describing radical Islam as “fascism” and seeing Kobani as our generation’s Guernica. They were equally quick to ask the “international community” a question it does not want to hear: for how many more years will it allow one of the world’s largest and most persecuted ethnic groups to live without a state of its own?

Surely the Kurds have more claim to a state than "Palestinians", who actually do not have any ethnic or specific religious or linguistic identity.

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