I was responding to Liva and showing from experience that adherents to a faith don't always follow the tenants of that faith, thus giving it a bad name.

you wrote nothing wrong, Sticks

we need a wider perspective as well as talk about this atrocity, these things are not mutually exclusive, the opposite, they aid our understanding

if you only wanted to respond to Livia then send her a pm

Did you look for for a wider perspective on the NZ thread?

Death Toll now is Sadly 321 , at this time.

I did

and who appointed you a censor on this thread? :think:

While we're seeking a wider perspective regarding the Islamists that slaughtered these people, let's bear in mind that the most wanted terrorists in the world right now are almost exclusively Muslim and no amount of focus on the fact that some Christians/Jews/Hindus etc. also do bad things can satisfactorily explain why Islamists brought about this monstrous, murderous carnage, other than they want to drag everyone back to the dark ages.

Maybe you can post it for me as I am struggling to find any post where you are trying to excuse the terrorist in question on that occasion and claim a wider perspective

I found this posted by you though, and it applies equally on here as there



don't worry about my head

worry about your own conscience

calling out terrorism is the honest thing to do, not burying your head in the sand and pretending it's something else

Since when trying to understand how religion drives people to terrorism is excusing it?

Still not relevant.
If one person is a murderer at 19, it doesn't mean we should overlook other murders committed by 19 year olds.

That's true if I was advocating overlooking. But I'm not.

its not religion per se, its extremism and I don't think we need to dig too deep to understand that

We need to dig deep enough to cut it off at its roots. In this case promote such a reading of Islam which invalidates killing of non-believers

The Total is now 359 that have died

One of the bombers in the Sri Lankan Easter Sunday attacks studied in the UK and Australia, the country’s deputy defence minister revealed on Wednesday.

“We believe one of the suicide bombers studied in the UK and then later on did his postgraduate in Australia, before coming back to settle in Sri Lanka,” said Ruwan Wijewardene, without naming the suspect. He said one of the bombers was a woman.

He told a press conference in the capital, Colombo, that most of the suicide bombers were “well-educated and come from middle or upper-middle class,” adding that they were “financially quite independent.” Some held law degrees,” he added.

Mr Wijewardene’s comments came as the police confirmed that the death toll for Sunday’s massacre had risen to 359.

The attacks were claimed on Tuesday by the Islamic State militant group, which did not give any evidence to support its claim. If true, it would make it one of the worst attacks linked to the group outside Iraq and Syria.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...er-studied-uk/


all well educated, that throws a spanner in the works doesn't it

If only you felt the same about other kinds of terrorists, but it looks like it's just the Muslims you're trying to understand. and what makes me laugh about your attempts to minimise what happened, is that the kind of fundamentalists who carried out these attacks would be outraged if they thought a gay man was speaking up for them.

We? Who is this 'we' of which you speak?

You surely mean that moderate Muslims need to dig deep. Unless you're thinking of intervening in a religion you know little or nothing about.

Of course it has to be led by moderate Muslims.
I said we, bc I see the involvement of European and US intelligence agencies in this too. I'm sure WE, the West, have plenty of Islam scholars etc to be involved. We are talking about Western Muslims too.

Livia, as a lawyer you can do better than trot out demagogy that trying to understand an issue means excusing it. So crime profilers and criminologists approve of crime bc they spend their time trying to understand? Geez

The rest of your post is just nonsense, not even trying to answer it.

Yes I'm a lawyer. That's about all you know about me. You're neither a profiler not a criminologist I'd be willing to bet. You think that the intelligence services should be in involved in helping Muslims understand their own holy book.

Why is the rest of my post nonsense? To me, and maybe I'm alone in this, you do seem to be making excuses for them, and as you're a gay man, that surprises me.

Of course intelligence services should be involved. They have people on the ground. We need to use local influencers etc to reach as many as possible.

Again, let me state it cleary: I do not support their actions and do not excuse them. Not just as a gay man, but as a human being.
I'm not a profiler or criminologist, but that's the bend I have when it comes to any issue, trying to understand. Understand why. I can't help it :shrug:

The intelligence services are not staffed with social workers. They're already undermanned and overstretched and now you think they should do outreach work? It would be wonderful if we could actually get somewhere by negotiation, or by preaching a kinder Islam... but Islamic terrorists despise us, and they certainly don't want anything from us, so personally, I think that the Muslim faith needs to think of a way of combating the violence.

Some people will be beyond reach and those should be taken out of the equation: captured or killed. But vast majority, including potential recruits should be reached one way or another.
The intelligence services should get more money anyway, but in this case it also makes economic sense. It'd be cheaper than fighting wars.
I'd trust the intelligence community to run this, deploying all the tools of the trade: from propaganda through influence all the way to assassination.
Of course Quran and its reading is only part of the problem. There are also political motivations at play. Hitting at financial resources and those who fund them is another.
But as far the masses go it's Quran and its interpretation, followed by political grievances.