Brussels Zaventem airport rocked by two explosions

[Kurioxan]

things like Syria must not be intervened with.

I have been saying this for quite a long time tbh, non-interventionism and isolationism is likely better. The whole concept of star treks prime directive. let underdeveloped cultures sort their own shit and reach the conclusions that they need to reach until they develop.
The west took quite a while to get there, most parts of Asia as well, so this is the normal route. Leave them alone, close their borders and let them sort their shit themselves.
You cant force change into others, they need to reach it themselves. All we do is shift power to those who want it, ignoring important geopolitical issues and antagonising them towards us.

[Mayhem]

Considering you just want your already held opinion confirmed, I'd probably say go with him. That is an opinion piece after all.

Wait, you´re serious about this? You actually think the destabilization of the middle east through out the past 20 years and beyond had no influence on the creation of ISIS? What is your explanation for ISIS?

[XangXu]

I am a proud atheist and have NO problem with other ppl being religious. The problem with every conviction, be it religious or not, is that they all come with their own versions of terrorism....catholics burnt witches, jews bomb muslims in Israel and muslims bomb counties they're jealous of....welcome to earth. it has never been different...and probably never will be....unless we invent a mindcontroling supercomputer and get a Matrix sequel

We have convinced people all over the world that Smoking is health hazard and should be discouraged. Why can't we do the same with religion by relentless tv ads, talks in schools? They should even put warnings on the fronts of churches letting people know the effects of religion, ala smoking.

[Acidbaron]

And that makes it better?

Immigration has failed, that just proves it even more.

Immigration has failed for several reasons if you are capable to look beyond "ohh different culture reasons!", i'll gladly take time to describe it since i was originally raised in a miner town which means very immigrant heavy backgrounds and a very diverse background from all over the continent.

[Sama-81]

Wow you guys... Islam by itself is nothing. It's just words. Sure they are as much muslims as peaceful muslims are (thanks for actually making that distinction btw). But just because they do something for a religion doesn't mean the religion wants it. I could go and slaughter a dozen people in the local shopping mall and when they ask me, I'll go "I did it for Sama-81 of MMO-C forums!". Did you ask for it? Nope. Does it make you a bad person? Nope.

Why do you think it's okay to blame a religion by association? They're using Islam as a TOOL. Even Muslim leaders say they're not actually doing this for Islam. They even go as far as saying they're not Muslims. They can call themselves the Mickey Mouse Fan Club as far as some Muslim leaders are concerned. But that doesn't mean that Disney endorsed them. You cannot possibly listen to what a criminal terrorist organisation says and believe it on face value? Over what other, actual religious leaders have to say about it?

Noone said the religion wants anything, apart from you. At least I didn't, I'm simply clarifying that it wants just that - nothing. It's not more than a rather vague construct, and is thus obviously not inherently peaceful, nor inherently violent. ISIS and the like do what they do however, since they believe it's the will of Allah, as per the tennants of the religion (as they interpret them). Since islam is a construct open for interpretation, and there is no valid interpretative prerogative attached to it, they are in fact in every sense of the word as much muslims, following islam, as those that are peaceful. They do not "use" the religion, they follow it. Again, as they interpret it, naturally, an interpretation every bit as valid as these "muslim leaders" you are talking about (implying that there aren't "muslim leaders" advocating terrorism as well).

Which makes islam itself being something that needs to be discussed, particularly so by muslims themselves. Or, at the least, the organized religion in it's entirety, which is largely in a rather dire state compared to the others, which in turn leaves a lot of nourishment for entities like ISIS to grow in. It is, due to this, perfectly fine, to say that islam is a far bigger problem than that posed by religion in a general sense (although the same problem applies to them all, in varying degrees). One can argue for focusing on all of them instead of just islam, of course, but pretending that there isn't valid arguments for the former is beyond silly.

[Skroe]

So we are going to lynch every Muslim we see, or are we going to stop funding ISIS. I am confused.

Nobody funds ISIS except ISIS.

The US, Saudi Arabia and others fund other rebel (or terrorists in SA's case) groups in Syria/Iraq, but not ISIS.

Saying "we fund ISIS" is as sloppy and as intellectually dishonest as the old canard about the US funding the Taliban in the 1980s (even though the Taliban didn't exist until the very end, after the US cut off aid, and the US funded the mujaheddin, most of which became the Northern alliance and only some of which became the Taliban). I know it creates some kind of logical full-circle indictment, the kind of what goes-around-comes-around fable westerners love, but it just doesn't work like that.

The US is spending $6 billion a year trying to kill ISIS for crying out loud.

[AeneasBK]

I wonder what a world would be like if Religions didn't exist...

We'd probably be killing ourselves between the Bieber fans and non-Bieber fans...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go_XII

[Deleted]

You can be angry and annoyed. But you're better than taking the easy route and hating on billions of people that had nothing to do with what happens just now. You are better than that. That's why you can't just blame every Muslim for these things. Because you're better than IS. It's not a very comforting thought in times like these, but in all the anger, you cannot let it get a hold of you. Lest you become as uncivilised as IS is.

I don't hold them all responsible.. but I also won't fool my self thinking only 100 or 1000 people are behind all of this.
I know there are millions of people that hate the west and want nothing more then to destroy our way of life.
These millions can't do anything seeing there are a lot more sane people here in the west that will fight it but if they keep growing (and it was also shown extremism is growing) it might be an issue in the future.

[XangXu]

I'd rather deists pretend to be theists than have more actual theists, honestly.

The majority of Muslims working with Isis, ready to snap, are already doing this. It is a tactic.

[Mayhem]

I didn't say it was, but then taking the leap and saying the US is therefore responsible for anything ISIS does IS apologism.

Who said the US is repsonsible for what ISIS does?

[Slant]

Christians evolved beyond actually believing in Christianity. That's why we look at people who hate gays as "Radicals" even when it's pretty plainly spelled out in the bible that you should hate gays. Most Christians now only vaguely believe in Christianity, or anything the bible teaches.

Yep, enlightenment. When we realised science is having a much bigger effect on our lives than communion.

[Kuntantee]

While I kinda agree with you, this time is important for us to oppose these thoughts as much as we can. Once we give in and stop arguing for sanity, we'll return to a place where it's okay to condemn an entire people for their beliefs. So I'm just another forum idiot talking about bullshit like this, but at least I can try to talk meaningful bullshit and perhaps just convince ONE person to rethink their stance. If that's all I achieve this year, it's better than if I just sat back and watched this show go to shits.

If there is one thing I learned in this forum, that's people's stance on Muslims. Good luck on your online crusade, but it is highly likely to be failure.

[Slant]

And till then we wait and get blown up every few months because we don't stand in line with their believes.
Seems like we get the great end of this deal.

It's a shitty deal, I cannot deny that. But what is the alternative? What is it that people really want to do? I see a lot of fear and anger, but I see no solutions. Any some are actually thinking about just blowing every Muslim up. Oh, they're not speaking it, but the anger tells them that killing Muslims is okay. Going down that road will throw us all back a century in development, even the west.

[Everwake]

Muslims gonna Muslim.

[Deleted]

If there is one thing I learned in this forum, that's people's stance on Muslims. Good luck on your online crusade, but it is highly likely to be failure.

And you can really blame them?
Why don't you go lookup what happened between Muslims and the west in the past 10 years.

[Acidbaron]

These folks in question were born into atheist families or what? Probably only a tiny percent.

Yes, just like those from muslim background are also only a minority of them that radicalize. My point was simply to state that radicalization has more reasons then just there being a doctrine they can follow.


Side note looking on my facebook right now, muslims denouncing it, stating they aren't part of them. On the other spectrum messages from dutch school kids cheering on the attacks in brussels, classy guess that's what you get if you let people like wilders take a stage.

[XangXu]

Yep, enlightenment. When we realised science is having a much bigger effect on our lives than communion.

But Christianity, for the most part, teaches its followers to value life.

From what I've heard of the Muslim faith, it does not. From what I've heard, most of it teaches its followers to disrespect mortal laws because Mortal Laws don't matter.

[Kurioxan]

I wonder what a world would be like if Religions didn't exist...

We'd probably be killing ourselves between the Bieber fans and non-Bieber fans...

Spoken as someone who is used to the western religious behaviour (I.e. nonexistent) and never met an actual religious believer, whose religion impacts their every day life, their decisions, their social circles, their views on the world and behaviour.
Its not comparable, at all.

[Deleted]

It's a shitty deal, I cannot deny that. But what is the alternative? What is it that people really want to do? I see a lot of fear and anger, but I see no solutions. Any some are actually thinking about just blowing every Muslim up. Oh, they're not speaking it, but the anger tells them that killing Muslims is okay. Going down that road will throw us all back a century in development, even the west.

Because there are no solutions.
You have a group of people (1.3 billion) that are living in the stone age (the biggest % of these people just want to live in peace and be left alone).
A small % of these people want the rest of the world to change to their believes and views.

So you can go full at it and have a "war" which a lot of people on this forum seem to want.
Or you can do nothing like you say.

Both are very shitty deals for us but at least for one of them we would be trying to make a difference.
I can understand why people want the 1st one.

[GennGreymane]

Spoken as someone who is used to the western religious behaviour (I.e. nonexistent) and never met an actual religious believer, whose religion impacts their every day life, their decisions, their social circles, their views on the world and behaviour.
Its not comparable, at all.

The US has a lot of that.