Smoking increases the chances of long cancer
Islam increses the chances of violence
Ok, the two statements are not the same: The first statement can be scientifically "proven", the second, even though it's a weaker version of your original argument, cannot. Not only is the second statement non-scientific (in the sense of being non-falsifiable), but you've explicitly rejected droid's call to cast your argument in a rigorous, logically consistent way. One of the reasons, it seems to me, that droid is getting so annoyed with you is that you are difficult to argue with, not because your arguments are strong, but because you don't seem to understand them.
For instance, "Islam increases the chances of violence": what does that mean? Upthread I tried to prompt you into adopting a different line, that Islam was necessary but not causal to Islamic terrorism. Islam increases the chances of Islamic terrorism -- I don't think anyone can disagree with that (tautology). But how do you know Islam increases the chances of violence? Can you run isolated experiments, as scientists investigating the results of smoking have done? You can not -- you can only make inferrences, and as such you should be
extremely careful, not because you might upset the feelings of Islamofascists but because it is highly likely that you are wrong, are using faulty logic, are subject to all sorts of confirmation biases, are ignoring silent evidence and are a victim of epistemic arrogance.It might seem unimportant, but the fact that you can go from "Islam causes violence" to "Islam increases violence" in the same thread is highly dubious from my perspective. And let me remind you, I certainly don't put criticism of regressive Muslim movements beyond the pale. I just want you to present a position I can agree or disagree with.
"Islam increases violence". What is "Islam"? This statement really needs to be unpacked over several threads, yet you show little appreciation for the fact that "Islam" is not any one thing, but many. We need not get into the many modern sects, denominations, movements, schools, borderline heresies and so on, to know that "Islam" is a very broad church. Does traditionally apolitical Shia quietism cause violence? Do the Tekke, the Sufi brotherhoods in Turkey cause vioence? Doesn't seem to be true in either case (in fact, quite the opposite in Iraq). Even this weaker staments needs to be heavily qualified, if you want to make a generalisation I can agree with. One also must be careful not to confuse (as you do throughout this thread) the ethnic with the religious. You put forward the (horrific) stories of Fadela Amara and Samira Bellil, with whom I'm sure we're all already familiar. You observe (or assert) mistreatment of women generally by "Muslims", both in the Netherlands and in majority Muslim countries. But I have no faith that you understand the distinction between what it is to be a "Muslim" and a Muslim. It's something, as I've just said, that the fundamentalists understand very well. I've already linked to the work of Philip Jenkins, who shows that only approximately 5% of French Muslims attend mosque regularly, which he describes as an "almost Anglican sense of detatchment". I have to wonder, the people battering women in your examples, are they battering them
because they are Muslims (as you seem to be suggesting)? Are they battering them
and they are Muslims (but the two are unconnected, like the praying survivors of the storm)? Or are they battering them and yet they are not even Muslims, but simply come from a community with an origin in a Muslim majority country? It isn't clear, even if your figures are correct.
My problem is not that I don't want to insult poor little immigrants, but that your argument is self-referential:
we know Islam is violent, because we see Muslims committing acts of violence, and we know Muslims commit acts of violence because Islam is violent! I understand now that you are Dutch and that some of the confusion is because English is not your first language, but I want you to know that it's the inconsistencies in your argument that I'm attacking, and the (misguided and incorrect) way you apply these to "Islam", not you personally.