Comments

1. Katherine Woo says

   February 14, 2015 at 5:24 pm

   But Karen Armstrong assured us that Muslims would never attack random Jews because “many of them are Semites themselves.”

2. maxdwolf says

   February 15, 2015 at 12:59 am

   Katherine, I’m afraid I’ll need a citation on that before I’ll believe you.

3. Van Pelt says

   February 15, 2015 at 1:37 am

   It’s too early to tell whether the violence are done by a Muslim or not.

   Either way, we can’t blame entire Muslims for an act of one person, just as atheists shouldn’t be blamed for Hicks. Whatever motive, be it religious or irreligious, we should take that murder is murder no matter what.

   The Muslims have been suffering enough violence against them just because the radical few among them are doing something this stupid. And atheists should not let others use Hicks to double down on them when debating religious violence. Bigots will take advantage of either incidents to enact more violence and hate on both atheists and Muslims. It’s a vicious cycle and it has to stop.

   We’ve went from Sydney to Charlie Hebdo to Chapel Hill to now this in 2015. Let’s stop pointing fingers at other communities and have the most rational, educated people among Muslim & atheist to collaborate and fight hate.

4. Ray Moscow says

   February 15, 2015 at 2:08 am

   Maxdwolf: see here: http://www.nieuwwij.nl/english/karen-armstrong-nothing-islam-violent-christianity/

5. Dave Ricks says

   February 15, 2015 at 8:57 pm

   Van Pelt, I support what you want, to have “the most rational, educated people among Muslim & atheist to collaborate and fight hate.” And to do that, we need some simple distinctions between:

   • Islam versus Islamism as ideas
   • Muslims versus Islamists as people

   In Ray Moscow’s link, Karen Armstrong says religion is the gin in the cocktail of politics and warfare:

   My message is not that religion has nothing to do with violence. It has always been implicated in it, and trying to take religion out of politics and warfare would have been like taking the gin out of the cocktail. It is inextricably intertwined.

   Then Armstrong says the cocktail has nothing to do with the gin:

   The supermarket attack in Paris was about Palestine, about Isis. It had nothing to do with antisemitism; many of them are Semites themselves.

   Armstrong will never speak clearly in terms of my two bullets above. But you can, so go forth.