2 explosions in Manchester Arena - CONFIRMED Fatalities.

[Mayhem]

Anti-theism isn't atheism.

That's nice... he described himself as what? Seriously, are you going to spin this any further to pretend to be right? The thing is, extremists don't need legitimacy because they create it for themselves. Extremists come in all shapes and forms and exist within every religion and without any religion. Buddhist extremists, where in their religion is it ok to kill/hurt other people?

[Freighter]

That sounds like a load of bullshit you came up with to rationalize atrocities committed by people who share your philosophy.

I don't share any philosophy with anti-theists, atheists or people who are into anti-religion.

[Deleted]

I don't share any philosophy with anti-theists, atheists or people who are into anti-religion.

So let me get this straight...a tiny millitant extremist islamic group is representative of the other 99% of Muslims who universally condemn it?

You, however, have nothing to do with other atheists. Double-standard much?

[Freighter]

So let me get this straight...a tiny millitant extremist islamic group is representative of the other 99% of Muslims who universally condemn it?

You, however, have nothing to do with other atheists. Double-standard much?

I'm not an atheist. So, how do I share philosophy with them?

[StayTuned]

So let me get this straight...a tiny millitant extremist islamic group is representative of the other 99% of Muslims who universally condemn it?

You, however, have nothing to do with other atheists. Double-standard much?

They don't universally condemn it, though. 99% of the Muslims living in the West? I can buy that number. 99% of the Muslims worldwide ? Naw I think we're dealing with different numbers here.

[downnola]

Atheism isn't an ideology. Anti-theism and anti-religious sentiments are behind those attacks on the religious people.

I said people will try to argue that it is, not that I think it's an ideology. It really depends on what instance of religious persecution you're referring to when you're trying to nail down motives. When people go on anti-atheist rants, they're usually referring to Stalinism/Maoism/Third Reich. I was thinking of those instances specifically in my post.

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The stated reason his sister gave is that he was motivated by the death of Muslim children in Syria.

Who did? And what does this have to do with my post?

[Benitora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2010/0...d_guilt_o.html

Here, not the case i was looking for but i have not more time to search google.

Not to butt into a conversation here, but if the worst a "Extreme Atheist" can do is to place some comic strips in a place where people pray, then I would not really pay much attention to that extreme.

God forbid someone is insulted right?

On topic:
It's horrible what has happened in Manchester, and I wish I could do something outside of monetary aid.
Wish we could stop these attacks from happening at all, but with how the world is working at current, it's something that may just happen more often than I'd like to admit.

[cyberglum]

On topic:
It's horrible what has happened in Manchester, and I wish I could do something outside of monetary aid.
Wish we could stop these attacks from happening at all, but with how the world is working at current, it's something that may just happen more often than I'd like to admit.

Good idea, little bored of Freighter pulling the debate around and around in circles with no apparent point just to demonstrate he/she did some political-social course.

So, how do we approach the problem domestically? I eluded earlier in the thread that Mosques in the UK be vetted and monitored in some way. How would we all feel about that and do you think it would be justified...or even constructive?

[Endus]

So, how do we approach the problem domestically? I eluded earlier in the thread that Mosques in the UK be vetted and monitored in some way. How would we all feel about that and do you think it would be justified...or even constructive?

It's probably going to cause more issues than it could ever solve.

If those mosques are friendly, then this kind of monitoring will be seen as invasive and distrusting, and will sour relations with Muslims groups who weren't an issue in the first place.

And even if they ARE preaching stuff you find troublesome, you're going to run into two really important problems;
First, it's free speech, for the most part. You DISAGREE with it, even think it's terrible, but "the West are infidels who must be defeated" isn't measurably "worse" than "the gays are sinners and will burn in hell" or whatnot. If you've already got hate speech laws, and the speech in question violates them, there you go. If not, this is exactly what free speech laws are meant to protect, not to mention freedom of religion.

Second, if they're already hostile and preaching antagonistic messages, they aren't gonna cooperate with that monitoring. At best, you'll drive it further underground, and further worsen already strained relations, making it even less likely that any member of the mosque will warn anyone about anything, because you've made them your enemies. So not only is it unlikely you'll get anything, you've made it LESS likely anyone will warn the police about it from the inside.

You need to break that cycle, not reinforce it. Hell, the last 30 years with the IRA is a really good example that should be immediately relevant to Brits; they didn't resolve that by monitoring Catholic churches and stepping up vetting. They resolved it by going to negotiating tables and trying to find a way through the hostility. And it worked. That people were mocking the "what about the IRA" stuff early in this very thread is a clear example of how far things have gone in that time frame; I've vacationed in Britain, as a kid, at a time when the IRA were actively blowing up hotels. It's a big reason we mostly stayed in B&Bs. So this isn't even a hypothetical, to me. I've lived through this shift.

[Deleted]

Good idea, little bored of Freighter pulling the debate around and around in circles with no apparent point just to demonstrate he/she did some political-social course.

So, how do we approach the problem domestically? I eluded earlier in the thread that Mosques in the UK be vetted and monitored in some way. How would we all feel about that and do you think it would be justified...or even constructive?

We really really cant. Especially in Europe. The problem is here to stay. It's clear now to everyone that we cannot actively prevent everything from happening. The main issue is due to the fact that a single kitchen knife can do untold damage in the right situation. We can't prevent that.
This whole situation should not have happened to begin with, now it's too late to look for solutions. Now we try to contain the damage as best as we can until it goes away somehow.

[Deleted]

So, how do we approach the problem domestically? I eluded earlier in the thread that Mosques in the UK be vetted and monitored in some way. How would we all feel about that and do you think it would be justified...or even constructive?

The mosque this bomber went to banned him and reported him for his views. So no.

Our security forces have even said that the best information they get is people informing not mass spying.

[Kontinuum]

Ariana Grande has promised that she will return to Manchester following the terror attack there to spend time with her fans and to "have a benefit concert in honour of and to raise money for the victims and their family."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a7758491.html

[Freighter]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a7758491.html

Inc second attack on her concert.

[Deleted]

Inc second attack on her concert.

lol no, they will increase security 1000x to show that everything is normal now

[Kallisto]

They don't universally condemn it, though. 99% of the Muslims living in the West? I can buy that number. 99% of the Muslims worldwide ? Naw I think we're dealing with different numbers here.

Some are just trying to live their lives, you don't need people going out of their way to condemn everything if they're just your average person, we never asked the Irish to bend over backwards to condemn the IRA, we didn't ask unionists to condemn UVF and other unionist terror groups, we didn't ask right wingers to bend over backwards and condemn Brevik, but somehow other muslims must bend over backwards to condemn every little attack from ISIS and those inspired by them. When it comes to worldwide let's be honest here many countries in the 3rd world regardless of religion are run by dictators and kept in perpetual pre modern standards.

But if we're going to humour the term "Muslims must always come out and condemn Terrorism even if other groups were never expected to." then there are many links we can find to show it happens a lot.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/sh...errorism-stats
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-london-attack
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...qzc/edit#gid=0
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/364227...terror-attack/ (Right wing newspaper since people might just go lol guardian)
https://muslimscondemn.com/

[StayTuned]

Some are just trying to live their lives, you don't need people going out of their way to condemn everything if they're just your average person, we never asked the Irish to bend over backwards to condemn the IRA, we didn't ask unionists to condemn UVF and other unionist terror groups, we didn't ask right wingers to bend over backwards and condemn Brevik, but somehow other muslims must bend over backwards to condemn every little attack from ISIS and those inspired by them. When it comes to worldwide let's be honest here many countries in the 3rd world regardless of religion are run by dictators and kept in perpetual pre modern standards.

But if we're going to humour the term "Muslims must always come out and condemn Terrorism even if other groups were never expected to." then there are many links we can find to show it happens a lot.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/sh...errorism-stats
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-london-attack
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...qzc/edit#gid=0
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/364227...terror-attack/ (Right wing newspaper since people might just go lol guardian)
https://muslimscondemn.com/

I know that many actually condemn it. And many others just cannot be bothered by it. Fine with me. Moderate Muslims as lovely as moderate Christians or Jews. It's the extremism that makes me want to avoid them.

But I also know that there are those who support it. Actively or nonetheless passively. Not even the majority, but even if it's 20%, or just 10%, we're talking about huge numbers considering how many Muslims there are.

If the Irish were a religion of billions and you had literally four countries full of IRA supporters, you'd be rethinking your stance on this.

[Ianus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRPzkB5mr1U just wanna ask endus what did this moderate moderate imam said????????????? muslims flooded by extremism how???? when they are so peaceful.. someone said fucking truth..

[Deleted]

They don't universally condemn it, though. 99% of the Muslims living in the West? I can buy that number. 99% of the Muslims worldwide ? Naw I think we're dealing with different numbers here.

Maybe look at the numbers. Work out how many radicals there are in Indonesia.

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Some are just trying to live their lives, you don't need people going out of their way to condemn everything if they're just your average person

Will any one condemn this:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ke-al-mansoura

Probably not I'm guessing. Which is how you get tit-for-tat terrorism.

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If the Irish were a religion of billions and you had literally four countries full of IRA supporters, you'd be rethinking your stance on this.

The IRA were part of a pan-european terrorist collective that included ETA and various other organizations. It was actually a lot more organized than modern Extremist Islamist groups are.

It is interesting how people too young to remember the Troubles keep saying "Oh the IRA were different to ISIS because...blah blah blah". It might look like that in retrosepct but at the time they were seen as the devil incarnate.

Bear this horrible thought in mind: in twenty years you will be looking at ISIS as something quaint and old-fashioned when the next, greater, threat emerges.

[Endus]

I know that many actually condemn it. And many others just cannot be bothered by it. Fine with me. Moderate Muslims as lovely as moderate Christians or Jews. It's the extremism that makes me want to avoid them.

But I also know that there are those who support it. Actively or nonetheless passively. Not even the majority, but even if it's 20%, or just 10%, we're talking about huge numbers considering how many Muslims there are.

If the Irish were a religion of billions and you had literally four countries full of IRA supporters, you'd be rethinking your stance on this.

Not particularly. Since you forget that Ireland was "full of IRA supporters", in this same comparison.

The worst offender, here, is ISIS, yes? Well, the most recent estimates I can find put their force numbers at 15,000-20,000, a massive drop from their peak at over 100,000; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7184886.html

The US military's force strength is 1.3 million soldiers. And that's just the USA, not any of its allies.

And how effective is ISIS? They're losing about 15,000 troops for every one the USA loses; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7226061.html

They are actively being crushed, already. If you mean other nations like Saudi Arabia, then you need to take a step back, because Saudi Arabia is an ally, not an enemy. However much you may dislike their internal politics. And I do dislike them, for whatever that's worth. But they're not a hostile threat.

So no. You're not dealing with potentially billions of angry Muslims. You're dealing with a handful who're stuck in the Middle East and have no real capacity to strike with any strength at all. Which is why they're resorting to coward tactics like suicide bombing a concert; because they're so incredibly weak, and they hope that the shock value of such attacks will convince the Western world to back off.

This isn't a significant threat. Maybe it's that I grew up during the end of the Cold War, and our worries weren't a risk of terrorism lower than our risk of being trampled to death by cattle, it was two superpowers with their fingers hovering over the fire buttons on tactical long-range nukes. But this shit going on today, and I will repeat again that the personal tragedy experienced by the families of the victims is no less for any of this, is just not that big a deal. Tragic, yes, in the same way that a landslide that killed 30 people is tragic. But that doesn't mean we need to lose our minds about this stuff. We don't need to claim that "mountains are trying to kill us all".

[ParanoiD84]

Not particularly. Since you forget that Ireland was "full of IRA supporters", in this same comparison.

The worst offender, here, is ISIS, yes? Well, the most recent estimates I can find put their force numbers at 15,000-20,000, a massive drop from their peak at over 100,000; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7184886.html

The US military's force strength is 1.3 million soldiers. And that's just the USA, not any of its allies.

And how effective is ISIS? They're losing about 15,000 troops for every one the USA loses; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7226061.html

They are actively being crushed, already. If you mean other nations like Saudi Arabia, then you need to take a step back, because Saudi Arabia is an ally, not an enemy. However much you may dislike their internal politics. And I do dislike them, for whatever that's worth. But they're not a hostile threat.

So no. You're not dealing with potentially billions of angry Muslims. You're dealing with a handful who're stuck in the Middle East and have no real capacity to strike with any strength at all. Which is why they're resorting to coward tactics like suicide bombing a concert; because they're so incredibly weak, and they hope that the shock value of such attacks will convince the Western world to back off.

This isn't a significant threat. Maybe it's that I grew up during the end of the Cold War, and our worries weren't a risk of terrorism lower than our risk of being trampled to death by cattle, it was two superpowers with their fingers hovering over the fire buttons on tactical long-range nukes. But this shit going on today, and I will repeat again that the personal tragedy experienced by the families of the victims is no less for any of this, is just not that big a deal. Tragic, yes, in the same way that a landslide that killed 30 people is tragic. But that doesn't mean we need to lose our minds about this stuff. We don't need to claim that "mountains are trying to kill us all".

Well said, yeah isis is weak as hell atm desperate and weak. You cant stop all attacks but we are doing a very good job stopping planned attacks on a regular basis.