quas wrote:But I understand more than you do, because I can and have seen things. It's just that it's impossible for me to describe these to myself in simple words, much less convey them to you in a quantifiable, numerable data sort of way that demand from me.

Yes, yes. Of course.

quas wrote:For example, I can tell within seconds of meeting a person whether or not he/she is a psychopath, highly intelligent or just look intelligent but actually not very, trustworthy or not, etc. But I can't explain exactly what is it about that person that reveals so much to me instantly.

Anecdotes! More anecdotes. That's what we need, here.

quas wrote:Modern science has revealed that the gaydar exist, you can tell someone's gay by the tension in their underlying facial muscles. But most people who have functioning gaydar instinctly know this already, even before the scientific papers come out.

Of course. Amazing grace!

quas wrote:From my observation is that people who are very much drawn to those hateful stuff (because of my lack of understand in psychology, I couldn't tell whether they are violent because of nature or nurture) are drawn to Islam like moths to a flame. My sixth sense is telling me that if say Christianity had been the majority religion here, then it wouldn't have been as effective for the local politicians to use it to spread hateful and violent propaganda.

Thank goodness for your Special Sauce!

quas wrote:What I've described to you so far is that, Islam is not just being used to spread violent jihad, but it's become the perfect conduit for spreading ANY sort of hatred, even if it's hatred that doesn't have anything to do with the religion.

You said that, already. You have a special way of sensing it!

quas wrote:No where in the quran or the hadiths can you find commandments to hate chinese Indonesians living in the 21st century. Books written centuries ago simply cannot have that sort of information.

Only the very wise can see it.

quas wrote:My goal in telling you all this is perhaps someone far more knowledgeable than me can add on this, explain it better to you, and ultimately advance your understanding and mine on this.

Naturally.

Exactly what do you need Cito?

My observation, in a nutshell, is that there are certain personality types (violent, sadistic, hateful, psychopathic kinds) drawn to the ideology that we only know as Islam and Islam today has become the perfect conduit for these people to channel their aggression and hatred, even for things outside of the original religious context. I posit that there are certain elements, innate qualities, unique only to Islam, that makes it more effective than any other religion for sowing and propagating hatred, because thus far, there's no other religion that's been as effective at doing that. (This you can easily dispute by coming up with examples where other religions have been more or equally as effective at being a vehicle for propagating hateful politics. You haven't done that thus far.) My observations are derived from reviewing thousands of social media interactions and news articles from a country where the politicians are currently heavily utilising Islam in modern socio-political context (even if it's in a political context that's vastly different than what's prescribed in the quran/hadithts!) As aforementioned, Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international organisation that aspired to set up an Islamic global caliphate and they have always told their followers to abstain from voting, boycotting the election en masse, but in the local political context here the Indonesian branch of Hizbut tahrir are getting its followers to campaign and vote for Muslim political candidates that will certainly rule in a modern western democratic fashion. It's not that the most politically aggressive form of Islam has evolved to become more benign, it's because the Muslim* politicians are campaigning using malicious, hateful stuff. Islam is as hateful as ever, and it's hatred has only evolved to become more relevant to modern day socio-politics. Trump or the white supremacist neo-nazi neo-fascism movement would have been more successful if they had Islam on their side. Or maybe they have that already, they have borrowed certain elements from Islam for their campaigning strategies. I don't know.

*Or non-Muslim actually. Some of these politicians have Christian friends and even siblings. These guys have been photographed drinking wine and champagnes. They have wives and daughters who do not wear head veils. So if they are Muslims, they must have been the least practicing, most liberal kinds. For all you know, they could have been atheists.

quas wrote:Exactly what do you need Cito?

It's not about what I need. You're promoting a very general thesis about Islam without much obvious success. I can see you have a low opinion of the way politics and religion mix in your society. Perhaps you should try to go live in another society for awhile, for example, one in western Europe having a significant Muslim population, and combine those observations with ones you claim to have made. In some sectors in Europe, significant hatred is directed AT muslims rather than coming FROM them. These politicians, like the AfD in Germany, might love what you have to say, depending a bit on the shade of your skin. The AfD are not a majority party, at least, not yet. I'm just saying that your distaste of Islam seems to emerge from a perspective on politics, rather than one based on study of religious principles. I'm only saying that it might just be politics and not religion that tends to brings out people's hateful tendencies, just as it is doing in the cases you're citing. Since you're making this mistake so persistently, it appears to be borne of a crank theory in search of a villain. What would you lose by focusing on people's hateful politics, instead of on religion, which is mainly silly and vacuous when it functions as a social lubricant.

quas wrote:Exactly what do you need Cito?

My observation, in a nutshell, is that there are certain personality types (violent, sadistic, hateful, psychopathic kinds) drawn to the career that we only know as banking and banking today has become the perfect conduit for these people to channel their aggression and hatred, even for things outside of the original professional context. I posit that there are certain elements, innate qualities, unique only to banking, that makes it more effective than any other profession for sowing and propagating hatred, because thus far, there's no other profession that's been as effective at doing that. (This you can easily dispute by coming up with examples where other professions have been more or equally as effective at being a vehicle for propagating hateful politics. You haven't done that thus far.) My observations are derived from reviewing thousands of social media interactions and news articles from a country where the politicians are currently heavily utilising banking in modern socio-political context (even if it's in a political context that's vastly different than what's prescribed in the micro/macro economic literature!) As aforementioned, Deutsche Bank is an international organisation that aspired to set up a global banking empire and they have always told their bankers to abstain from voting, boycotting the election en masse, but in the local political context here the Indonesian branch of Deutsche Bank are getting its bankers to campaign and vote for financial sector political candidates that will certainly rule in a modern western democratic fashion. It's not that the most politically aggressive form of banking has evolved to become more benign, it's because the financial sector politicians are campaigning using malicious, hateful stuff. Banking is as hateful as ever, and it's hatred has only evolved to become more relevant to modern day socio-politics. Trump or the white supremacist neo-nazi neo-fascism movement would have been more successful if they had banking on their side. Or maybe they have that already, they have borrowed certain elements from banking for their campaigning strategies. I don't know.

Substituted a few words in here and your diatribe makes as much sense as the original. What you describe is basic human behaviour and is nothing particular to Islam as a religion. There is no special sauce in Islam.

Cito di Pense wrote:Perhaps you should try to go live in another society for awhile, for example, one in western Europe having a significant Muslim population, and combine those observations with ones you claim to have made. In some sectors in Europe, significant hatred is directed AT muslims rather than coming FROM them. These politicians, like the AfD in Germany, might love what you have to say, depending a bit on the shade of your skin. The AfD are not a majority party, at least, not yet.

And European political parties like the AfD are enjoying very limited success, because... they are not using religion as a conduit to propagate their hateful politics. And they are not doing that because... Christianity isn't that effective when it comes to propagating hateful politics. Maybe it was long-long time ago, in certain circumstances, but these days it's not since most Christians these days aren't devout/practicing, and that's probably because the religion isn't that good at enforcing devotion, isn't that effective at enforcing tribalism and shared identity within its community of believers.

felltoearth wrote:Substituted a few words in here and your diatribe makes as much sense as the original. What you describe is basic human behaviour and is nothing particular to Islam as a religion. There is no special sauce in Islam.

What would it take to convince you?

quas wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Perhaps you should try to go live in another society for awhile, for example, one in western Europe having a significant Muslim population, and combine those observations with ones you claim to have made. In some sectors in Europe, significant hatred is directed AT muslims rather than coming FROM them. These politicians, like the AfD in Germany, might love what you have to say, depending a bit on the shade of your skin. The AfD are not a majority party, at least, not yet.

And European political parties like the AfD are enjoying very limited success, because... they are not using religion as a conduit to propagate their hateful politics. And they are not doing that because... Christianity isn't that effective when it comes to propagating hateful politics. Maybe it was long-long time ago, in certain circumstances, but these days it's not since most Christians these days aren't devout/practicing, and that's probably because the religion isn't that good at enforcing devotion, isn't that effective at enforcing tribalism and shared identity within its community of believers.

You're still just treating religion (and Islam in particular) as an ideology with Special Sauce™. You're welcome to your ideology, too, so have fun with that. As somebody else said, your discourse is like that of other believers. In fact, the marker there is your proselytizing, "What would it take to convince you?" Sill working on those innate qualities, I guess.

quas wrote:the religion isn't that good at enforcing devotion, isn't that effective at enforcing tribalism and shared identity within its community of believers.

All a matter of degree, then. Those innate qualities are everywhere, I guess, but in some places they're just more effective than in other places. Chalk that one up to ugly politics. You might try breaking your social media habit and getting out a bit more.

aban57 wrote:You speak like a believer. In the real world, we observe reality, and then make deductions based on what we observed. Not the other way around.

But what do you observe? What do you see really? Do you or can you see what I see? I told you in great details what I saw, backed up with numerous news articles to corroborate my claims, and you wouldn't believe me, simply citing lack of evidence. So, I ask "what would it take to convince you?" hoping that maybe I can find the evidence that you would need, but you wouldn't entertain that at all, and start with the ad-hominem name-calling "believer". So who is the believer here?

Cito di Pense wrote:All a matter of degree, then. Those innate qualities are everywhere, I guess, but in some places they're just more effective than in other places. Chalk that one up to ugly politics. You might try breaking your social media habit and getting out a bit more.

They're more effective when Islam is the majority religion. Saying it's just ugly politics doesn't make sense, because ugly politics are everywhere, and it's not very effective when it's not piggybacking on Islam.

aban57 wrote:The problem here is that the pseudo-evidence you provided have been debunked and proven false.

Debunked and proven false how?

quas wrote: Christianity isn't that effective when it comes to propagating hateful politics.

You keep on demonstrating that you don't know what you're talking about.
Ever heard of the abortion clinic bombings? Anders Breivik? Christianity induced homophobia in Africa?

quas wrote:There are certain innate elements unique only to Islam that differentiates it from other religions, and these innate qualities are inherently hateful and violent and/or allow, or even encourage, its followers to be more hateful and violent by enforcing tribalism and conformity more so than any other religion on this planet.

Hateful and violent qualities do not differentiate the Muslim religion from the Christian. The question you need to ask yourself is why do so many Muslims take heed of them today while Christians ignore their biblical equivalents. Right now I'm thinking of such exhortations as stoning women who get raped in a village they don't live in to death and telling women to unconditionally obey their husbands. There are hundreds of other absurd verses in the Bible that practically no Christian even knows about today.

quas wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Substituted a few words in here and your diatribe makes as much sense as the original. What you describe is basic human behaviour and is nothing particular to Islam as a religion. There is no special sauce in Islam.

What would it take to convince you?

Convince me of what exactly? The terrible people do terrible things? That religion in general gives good cover for this?

quas wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:All a matter of degree, then. Those innate qualities are everywhere, I guess, but in some places they're just more effective than in other places. Chalk that one up to ugly politics. You might try breaking your social media habit and getting out a bit more.

They're more effective when Islam is the majority religion. Saying it's just ugly politics doesn't make sense, because ugly politics are everywhere, and it's not very effective when it's not piggybacking on Islam.

For fuck's sake, quas. Everything political is more effective when there's a political majority. Check in at the Department of Tautology Department down the hall and through the corridor. You keep saying Islam is better at promulgating extreme hatred, but what is that? Got any measures for 'extreme'? It's extreme relative to something else, so you end up with extreme politics.

Hermit wrote:The question you need to ask yourself is why do so many Muslims take heed of them today while Christians ignore their biblical equivalents.

"So many" is a relative consideration, too. If you think one is too many, then Christianity is not excused, either. That's the whole point of questioning what quas is on about. Anybody can try to say so-and-so is worse than someone else. When is too much just too fucking much? I guess we've reached that point, huh?

Hermit wrote:Hateful and violent qualities do not differentiate the Muslim religion from the Christian.

Shoulda stopped there. Christanity was oppressive and violent at one time, but there was nobody around who wasn't afraid to say so, and there weren't any self-designated "enlightened societies" with a warrant to criticise "the primitive folks". Christanity was not de-clawed from without.