World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[mas]

Just got home from shopping. Just seen this on TV. I don't understand why humans do this to each other. This day for me sucks. First my family and I had a funeral for my uncle and had to say goodbye and now this crap.

[Pulsar_t]

It's ISIS they have a murderous ideology and a big pool of recruits throughout the world. They downed an airliner a few weeks ago, killed dozens in Beirut last night and now this. They're upping their disgusting game.

[Gunstar Green]

There have been several shootings in Paris on several districs at once and several bombings at the same time. At least 60 dead, reports of over 100 people being kept hostage in a discothéque.

Damn

Over a hundred dead reported now with many more in critical condition. Horrifying.

[Ack]

153 victims now according to CNN.

A girl I went to high school with lives in Paris, near some of the areas that were hit. She managed to get in touch with her mother and told her she was hunkered down in her apartment listening to gunfire.

[Key-Glyph]

Do we have any Racketboys or other Racketfriends in that area? This is horrifying and I hope everyone's loved ones are safe.

[BoringSupreez]

Let's see if this wakes some people up. Islam is a religion of violence and has no place in civilized society. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

[Sload Soap]

Let's see if this wakes some people up. Islam is a religion of violence and has no place in civilized society. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Don't be a butthead. ISIS might have Islam in their name but no rational Muslim condones these attacks and others like them.

[MrPopo]

Let's see if this wakes some people up. Islam is a religion of violence and has no place in civilized society. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Don't be a butthead. ISIS might have Islam in their name but no rational Muslim condones these attacks and others like them.

It's just like how the Westboro Baptist Church proves that Christianity is a religion of intolerance and hatred.

[Blu]

This is so saddening. First the Hebdo shootings days after we got back from our Honeymoon in Paris.

I shared this post at the time:

...I walked around the 11th the day after Christmas with my wife. I had no idea that Charlie Hebdo was nearby, but I did walk along Richard Lenoir, Beaumarchais, and Voltaire, roads the terrorists all likely traversed in their fleeing moments. It's eerie to think we walked past and were so close to now hallowed ground.

All of the retro video game stores I visited while are along the road where the discotheque, Bataclan, is. It's really close to the former offices of Charlie Hebdo. My wife and I had spent the better half of an afternoon in a French salon in the 11th arrondissement, Atelier 7. An apprentice stylist who needed to work on someone with long hair, generously offered to give her a free cut if we were willing to give our time. After the haircut, we walked up and down those streets looking at all the games and walking in the stores.

For example, this is in Place Des Vosges, maybe 5 minutes walk from where this happened.

Shortly after charming this bird, my wife got her haircut, then we went off to the retro stores. People can relate to the hunt and checking out your retro gaming stores in your neighborhood. I bought Sonic 1 & 2 for Master System for my in those stores. It seems so insignificant, so stupid to think about that compared to the tragedies that unfolded there. There's nothing I can do but hope that the people we casually walked by on that winter day are safe and that their families are safe. It's simply heartbreaking to see this and also know, that at one point, I know those streets. I have warm memories of that neighborhood. I don't know those streets particularly well, but we were there, living in the moment as two tourists in a beautiful city known as Paris.

[Erik_Twice]

Let's see if this wakes some people up. Islam is a religion of violence and has no place in civilized society. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Don't be a butthead. ISIS might have Islam in their name but no rational Muslim condones these attacks and others like them.

I'm not on board with either statement but I believe there is a grain of truth to both them.

First, studies and reports show that a huge percentage Muslims of the world and a small but very significant part of Muslims in France, the UK and other Western countries do condone and support this kind of attacks as well as death for leaving the religion and blasphemy.

I can't find the report I wanted, but, for example, the Pew Research Center shows this stuff like this is extremely common:

gsi2-chp1-9.png (17.35 KiB) Viewed 764 times

Here's one on the support of terrorist groups:

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Here's one of their reports on the attitude of European muslims (Pew Report on Muslim Americans). How many European muslims support suicide bombings and similar acts of violence in defense of Islam?

64% of Muslims in France believed it could never be justified, 19% believed it could be justified rarely, 10% sometimes, and 6% thought it could be justified often.
70% of Muslims in Britain believed it could never be justified, 9% believed it could be justified rarely, 12% sometimes, and 3% thought it could be justified often.

Claiming that these people are not "rational Muslims" is a no true Scotsman. They are as Muslim and as rational as the Crusaders were Christian. I think that trying to picture these nasty elements as unrepresentative just leads to whitewashing. There's a lot of shit in Islam and I think we shouldn't deny that.

Still, I don't think Islam has to be this nasty, like other religions it can soften and secularize itself over time, progressing to something less oppresive and better. After all, if Christinaity could stop advocating for killing the infidel there's no reason why Islam can't. Economic and specially socio-political development is key as it is not chance that its most radical aspects are so directly linked with a lack of education and poverty.