A remarkable meltdown. A rant to remember

[BaalChatzaf]

This poor fellow has woken up to the fact that his religion is a fraud  -  a snare and a delusion.

 

[jts]

This video is critical of Islam and of Muhammad. It belongs in the garbage pile.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, jts said:

This video is critical of Islam and of Muhammad. It belongs in the garbage pile.

 

Islam in its unreformed basic state  is a threat to human life on this planet.  And Mohammed was a prurient  psychopath. 

[jts]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

This poor fellow has woken up to the fact that his religion is a fraud  -  a snare and a delusion.

 

How do you know the English translation is correct?  Maybe this is a joke. Does anyone here know enough Arabic (or whatever language that is) to tell whether the English translation is real?

Even if the English translation is real, that guy could be an actor and the video could still be a joke.

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Islam in its unreformed basic state  is a threat to human life on this planet.

Bob,

This identifies the problem correctly: "unreformed basic state."

Those who are interested in solving the problem will try to figure out how to encourage reformation rather than just throw stones.

I'm not sure about the book. It seemed like standard Islam bashing on the surface. There was something in it, though, that resonated with that dude. It would be interesting to try to figure out what that something is.

From the emotion I saw, the video dude obviously did not go off like that because someone said bad things about Mohammed. That happens all the time and that man lives in a culture where he is taught that Mohammed bashing is what infidels and Satan do. So something got to him. That he accepted the bad things said about Mohammed while living in that culture is an effect, not a cause.

One of the main reasons I abhor the bigoted approach to Islam is epistemological. All the nasty "superior us against the inferior them" rhetoric keeps people on our side from using their brains and trying to discover that kind of resonance so we can actually do something about the threat. And on the other end, the targeted people, bigotry does not convince them of anything except someone hates them by default just because they exist. Bigotry is piss-poor persuasion on all fronts and ultimately leads the cowards among us to perpetrate violence against easy civilian targets (and generally in the deep of the night). A radical wing of Islam already does that. We don't need to encourage it on our side.

Now here's the curious thing. The guy who wrote that book did the nasty bigoted rhetoric approach from what I gleaned on looking at it on Amazon, and even still, there is something in the way he did it that triggered the man in the video. That "something" is worth looking into.

Something worked and I guarantee it was not the bigotry part. There's something in the Muslim psyche that the author zeroed in on, dinged real hard and it flipped a switch. He did this either by design or by accident, but the result is in the video. Even though the video dude was one man, a very small sample size, it's still a result (presuming he is not acting, and he didn't look like he was acting to me). That resonance, not run-of-the-mill bigotry, is what we should seek to identify, then use.

We need results, not just nasty spite to feel less afraid.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

This identifies the problem correctly: "unreformed basic state."

Those who are interested in solving the problem will try to figure out how to encourage reformation rather than just throw stones.

I'm not sure about the book. It seemed like standard Islam bashing on the surface. There was something in it, though, that resonated with that dude. It would be interesting to try to figure out what that something is.

From the emotion I saw, the video dude obviously did not go off like that because someone said bad things about Mohammed. That happens all the time and that man lives in a culture where he is taught that Mohammed bashing is what infidels and Satan do. So something got to him. That he accepted the bad things said about Mohammed while living in that culture is an effect, not a cause.

One of the main reasons I abhor the bigoted approach to Islam is epistemological. All the nasty "superior us against the inferior them" rhetoric keeps people on our side from using their brains and trying to discover that kind of resonance so we can actually do something about the threat. And on the other end, the targeted people, bigotry does not convince them of anything except someone hates them by default just because they exist. Bigotry is piss-poor persuasion on all fronts and ultimately leads the cowards among us to perpetrate violence against easy civilian targets (and generally in the deep of the night). A radical wing of Islam already does that. We don't need to encourage it on our side.

Now here's the curious thing. The guy who wrote that book did the nasty bigoted rhetoric approach from what I gleaned on looking at it on Amazon, and even still, there is something in the way he did it that triggered the man in the video. That "something" is worth looking into.

Something worked and I guarantee it was not the bigotry part. There's something in the Muslim psyche that the author zeroed in on, dinged real hard and it flipped a switch. He did this either by design or by accident, but the result is in the video. Even though the video dude was one man, a very small sample size, it's still a result (presuming he is not acting, and he didn't look like he was acting to me). That resonance, not run-of-the-mill bigotry, is what we should seek to identify, then use.

We need results, not just nasty spite to feel less afraid.

Michael

I never read the book that provoked this poor  miserable man to such anger.  If you want to read a reasonable  intellectually fair book on Islam read Graeme Wood   "The Way of Strangers".  Wood  takes the view that  Islamic extremists are NOT demons.  There is something in the religion that causes these otherwise normal intelligent people to regard  the extreme nasty behavior that Islamic doctrine -requires-  to be both right and necessary.   If something is making otherwise normal humans behave in an insane or wicked fashion that it behooves us to find out what that something is.  If we do not know causes, then we cannot change outcomes. Sam Harris  had Graeme Wood on his podcast for over an hour and Graeme Wood  relates his interviews with people who have joined ISIS.  He ev even has  interview an American who has become a front line ISIS operative and leader.  Wood  is remarkable in his clear headedness and fair mindedness. And he has done more to identify what is wrong  than all the bigots combined.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gdpyzwOOYY&feature=youtu.be

and a description of the book:  

https://www.amazon.com/Way-Strangers-Encounters-Islamic-State/dp/0812988752/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

The youtube thingy  is audio only and runs over hour.  Normally I do not listen to podcasts that long but this one really opened my eyes and ears.

Also I trust Sam Harris'  judgement.  He is one of the most reasonable, fair minded  humane people  I have come across in recent decades.

If you listen you can decide for yourself.  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

If you want to read a reasonable  intellectually fair book on Islam read Graeme Wood   "The Way of Strangers".

Bob,

Actually I'm not all that interested in anyone explaining Islam to me. I read the Quran. I'm not interested in Sam Harris's view, either. All of these people are talking to people like you and me. And that will never solve the threat of radical Islam.

Somebody has to talk to Muslims and convince them. Now that will solve the problem.

For example, how many Muslims have Woods and Harris converted to a reform mindset or the attitude of the man in the video? I don't know for sure, but I bet that number is zero or close to it.

So what use are their explanations to solving the threat problem? What use?

None. That's what. They are preachers for an ingroup choir, not problem solvers in the world at large. They are people spouting syllogisms at a charging bear and perplexed why that doesn't work. (A couple of bear dogs that don't even speak English is a far better way of communicating with the bear.  )

I appreciate the referrals, and I am sure these authors have intelligent things to say, but I'm interested in the persuasion part. How to persuade Muslims. Everybody talks about the religion of Islam, but the religion part is basically the same the world over in all religions (cosmology with a spiritual dimension, morality decreed by the divine, inconsistencies, etc.). 

The persuasion stuff is where the solution lies. That means getting inside the head of Muslims in a way they can be persuaded. 

If we are going to prevent a dirty bomb from going off in a crowded city one day, we better get serious about solving the problem in reality. That means killing the radical Islamists who are fighting (which President Trump is now doing) and persuading the Muslims in general, which few even think is necessary. 

Somehow Sheindlin (the author of The People vs. Muhammad - Psychological Analysis) persuaded one Muslim to convert (the video dude), and with a hard sell of Muhammad bashing at that. I got an ebook copy and I will go through it looking precisely for his approach trying to imagine a Muslim reading it. Like I said, the content on first blush is run of the mill anti-Islam stuff you can get all over the Internet, so that part is not so interesting. The resonance and persuasion angle is my interest.

If I find something good, I will post it.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

If you want to read a reasonable  intellectually fair book on Islam read Graeme Wood...

Bob,

I just listened to about 55 minutes of the video below and couldn't take it anymore.

I stopped when one military person asked Wood what was the core vulnerability of ISIS and Wood basically said we have to outwait them because there is nothing we can do.

It made me want to vomit.

Granted, Wood mentioned the end-times nature of ISIS etc., etc., etc. But when asked what changed the minds of those who walked away from the Islamist state, he said he hopes there will be more of them.

Well, that's helpful.

In other words, he doesn't know (and doesn't seem to care all that much). Yet he knows it happens.

Dayaamm!

Doesn't he want to know if there is a way we can help this happen more often? Apparently not.

One dude in this discussion gushed about what a genius Al Baghdadi is. And he did so in a fully admiring tone of voice. For God's sake...

Even though this discussion is a little over two years old, I just saw a bunch of dudes sitting around a table trying to figure out a way to keep a lid on ISIS to keep it to a manageable size, but with the subtext of keeping the Endless War for Profit running smoothly.

That's my first impression of Wood--a tool for the ruling class globalists and their Endless War for Profit scam. Maybe it will get better over time.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

I just listened to about 55 minutes of the video below and couldn't take it anymore.

I stopped when one military person asked Wood what was the core vulnerability of ISIS and Wood basically said we have to outwait them because there is nothing we can do.

It made me want to vomit.

Granted, Wood mentioned the end-times nature of ISIS etc., etc., etc. But when asked what changed the minds of those who walked away from the Islamist state, he said he hopes there will be more of them.

Well, that's helpful.

In other words, he doesn't know (and doesn't seem to care all that much). Yet he knows it happens.

Dayaamm!

Doesn't he want to know if there is a way we can help this happen more often? Apparently not.

One dude in this discussion gushed about what a genius Al Baghdadi is. And he did so in a fully admiring tone of voice. For God's sake...

Even though this discussion is a little over two years old, I just saw a bunch of dudes sitting around a table trying to figure out a way to keep a lid on ISIS to keep it to a manageable size, but with the subtext of keeping the Endless War for Profit running smoothly.

That's my first impression of Wood--a tool for the ruling class globalists and their Endless War for Profit scam. Maybe it will get better over time.

Michael

If we fight them, and there is little doubt we will,  then there will be not only collateral damage,  but vast collateral damage.  If I were convinced there is no use talking to these folks or in anyway dissuading them  well then I say go the whole distance to make sure the job is done.   Kill them all and let God bury the bodies.  If we nuke the Middle East we use weapons that do not know  who is being burned or blown to bits. And the fallout will not care when it blows over Israel.  A cannon ball don't pay no mind, to who was gentile and who was kind, and it don't care 'bout the folks behind, all on a sunny morning. 

Fortunately (for me) I am in no position to decide such things.   What may happen is that the Europeans finally get a craw full of Muslim based misery and they start to load up the freight cars.  Question:  should the U.S. join them in the loading up process? 

It is too bad you didn't listen to the part in the Sam Harris interview,  about John Georgelas  who became a Jihadi  while  working in the basement of his father,  a neurosurgeon.  John Georgelas  was not nitwit. He worked his way up the ranks and became in important ISIS leader   He was a brilliant young man who was led into evil and insanity by the promises of the Q'ran. He was known as Yahyah to his ISIS followers  and was finally killed along with all the little children in the house were he was staying when the drones struck (he had done overseas into the thick of fighting by that time).  I hope you see why there is no avoiding the collateral  deaths  if we go all the way and use  force.  As I said,  if I were fully convinced that reason and threat will not deter these folks I would press the red button without a moment's hesitation.  If rational persuasion and rational threat do not avail then we shall have a blood bath. 

[Brant Gaede]

Some people hardly know what they are talking about.

--Brant

they have little sense of their own ignorance self-made into expertise

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Fortunately (for me) I am in no position to decide such things.

I'll say.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Some people hardly know what they are talking about.

I'll say.

To be fair, a further comment. Bob said:

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

 If rational persuasion and rational threat do not avail then we shall have a blood bath.

I don't think he has read a word I wrote. I talk about covert persuasion that addresses and communicates with the underbelly of the mind and he comes back as if I am talking about syllogisms.

Then he talks about nuking a billion and a half people.

And then claims he's the rational one.

Dayaamm!

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

17 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I'll say.

To be fair, a further comment. Bob said:

I don't think he has read a word I wrote. I talk about covert persuasion that addresses and communicates with the underbelly of the mind and he comes back as if I am talking about syllogisms.

Then he talks about nuking a billion and a half people.

And then claims he's the rational one.

Dayaamm!

Michael

Destructive weapons,  not necessarily nuclear weapons.  Nuclear weapons  have the problem of fallout.  If we cannot defend ourselves by non-violent means then it follows (syllogism alert!)   the we either resort to violent means  to defend ourselves  or not defend ourselves.  See if you can squeeze between the horns of this dilemma.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

See if you can squeeze between the horns of this dilemma.

Bob,

OK.

You propose genocide, right?

 

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

OK.

You propose genocide, right?

 

Michael

I don't propose it  and I would really like to find some way to avoid.  But those God Damned Jihadis don't make it easy to be reasonable.   The only real solution which avoids massive bloodshed if for the majority of Muslims to modify their religion sufficiently that it can coexist with a secular order and where the majority of Muslims being normal reasonable human beings will purge the extremists from their midst  and no longer provide safe cover to the crazies.   But how to make that happen???   Damned if I know how. 

[Brant Gaede]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Destructive weapons,  not necessarily nuclear weapons.  Nuclear weapons  have the problem of fallout.  If we cannot defend ourselves by non-violent means then it follows (syllogism alert!)   the we either resort to violent means  to defend ourselves  or not defend ourselves.  See if you can squeeze between the horns of this dilemma.

There are all kinds of forceful means and some are violent. Qua violence there are different levels and types.

You can't escape your basic binary uselessness because binary is all you've got.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

13 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I don't propose it  and I would really like to find some way to avoid.  But those God Damned Jihadis don't make it easy to be reasonable.   The only real solution which avoids massive bloodshed if for the majority of Muslims to modify their religion sufficiently that it can coexist with a secular order and where the majority of Muslims being normal reasonable human beings will purge the extremists from their midst  and no longer provide safe cover to the crazies.   But how to make that happen???   Damned if I know how. 

This is tautological know-nothingness.

You are not making available to the public weal anything of value. The world is a ball of geo-political forces and powers sometimes stable and sometimes not.

The United States has no moral or ethical stature to justify killing off hundreds of millions of Moslems. No such stature has ever or will even devolve upon any country or its government.

Move or stay where you are--whichever you think is safest.

--Brant

[jts]

58 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I don't propose it  and I would really like to find some way to avoid.  But those God Damned Jihadis don't make it easy to be reasonable.   The only real solution which avoids massive bloodshed if for the majority of Muslims to modify their religion sufficiently that it can coexist with a secular order and where the majority of Muslims being normal reasonable human beings will purge the extremists from their midst  and no longer provide safe cover to the crazies.   But how to make that happen???   Damned if I know how. 

1.  The moderate Muslims are not likely to oppose the extreme Muslims. The reason why is the extreme Muslims have Islamic Holy Writ on their side and the moderate Muslims have no answer to that.

2.  About modifying Islam. How would you modify Islam? Rewrite the Koran? Say Muhammad didn't mean what he said? Let us imagine that you succeeded in modifying Islam, even tho that would be a huge task. Then your modified Islam would be a denomination and the original Islam would remain. And your modified Islam would have no superhuman authority.

3.  Whatever you do, don't tell the truth about Islam and about Muhammad. That offends Muslims. You must never in any circumstance offend Muslims. You can do violence to them and nuke them but never offend them.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

How quickly people who hate and fear walk away from the persuasion battlefield.

They lose the war, not because the other side beat them. They refused to fight.

Then they complain when the blood runs...

(You have to use your brain to understand and deploy persuasion. That gives most people headaches.  )

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

On 6/19/2017 at 2:33 PM, jts said:

1.  The moderate Muslims are not likely to oppose the extreme Muslims. The reason why is the extreme Muslims have Islamic Holy Writ on their side and the moderate Muslims have no answer to that.

2.  About modifying Islam. How would you modify Islam? Rewrite the Koran? Say Muhammad didn't mean what he said? Let us imagine that you succeeded in modifying Islam, even tho that would be a huge task. Then your modified Islam would be a denomination and the original Islam would remain. And your modified Islam would have no superhuman authority.

3.  Whatever you do, don't tell the truth about Islam and about Muhammad. That offends Muslims. You must never in any circumstance offend Muslims. You can do violence to them and nuke them but never offend them.

 

referring to #2.  Not re-write but reinterpret.  That is how Judaism modified itself during the Babylonian Dispersion and that is how it has further modified itself over the ages.   Rabbinic opinion  leads to interpreting scripture rather than taking it literally.  If you want to see an excellent essay on re-interpreting Holy Write  please see  Galilleo's letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (of the House of Medici).  Galilleo pointed out then when a biblical or gospel verse taken literally contradicted  a verified physical fact, the Church Fathers reinterpreted the verse  in such a way that the contradiction disappeared or was logically resolved.  At any given stage   the scriptures were rescued from contradiction with observable fact. 

The problem is that the religious fanatics of Islam refuse to even consider this possibility and large number of habitual Muslims do not want to get into a tangle with the Imams  or argue with the Ulima.   Those few Muslims who propose the reasonable step  of re-interpretation publically  are in danger of  being killed. 

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: . . . . Galileo pointed out then when a biblical or gospel verse taken literally contradicted a verified physical fact, the Church Fathers reinterpreted the verse in such a way that the contradiction disappeared or was logically resolved.  At any given stage the scriptures were rescued from contradiction with observable fact. The problem is that the religious fanatics of Islam refuse to even consider this possibility and large number of habitual Muslims do not want to get into a tangle with the Imams or argue with the Ulima. Those few Muslims who propose the reasonable step of re-interpretation publically are in danger of being killed. end quote

Well said! That is the reasoning that should be done by free world Muslims to take the politics and totalitarianism out of Islam and the Koran. That intellectual trend, if initiated and done by more prosperous Islamists, could hasten the day Islam joins the ranks of other world religions.

But as it stands Islam is going down a path of self-annihilation as it tries to murder the unbelievers. At a minimum Islam WILL BE contained and avoided by the civilized world. The number of countries (other than Islamic countries,) that will allow Islamic immigration will shrink to zero. I don’t see an Islamic extinction but some countries like Russia, China, India, OR America might push the nuclear button to wipe specific regions off the map. Some sorts of large, or frequent explosive or biological acts of terrorism could bring that level of retaliation about.

I suppose Christianity, Hinduism, etc., were just as barbaric at times in their history but we grew out of it. Islam is getting worse.

Peter