Ten days ago, the Intelligent Design promoter V. J. Torley wrote an essay at the ID site Uncommon Descent claiming that all was not well in Denmark. His piece, “Is something rotten in the state of Denmark?,” was written to refute my own claim that, despite being a largely atheistic and almost totally secular country, Denmark (Torley forgot that I always add Sweden here), is a highly moral, well-functioning society, proving that you don’t need God to be good.
My conclusions were based largely the work of sociologist Phil Zuckerman (see here, here, and here, for example), who surveyed Sweden and Denmark for their religiosity, and other work by people like Greg Paul showing that Sweden and Denmark are, using a basket of sociological indices, highly successful societies. This is a general conclusion of other workers as well; in fact, among first-world countries (and I suspect across the world as well), the degree of religiosity of a nation is negatively associated with its well being: the more religious the country, the less “successful” it is as a society. My own explanation is that religiosity arises from poor social conditions, as when the state won’t give you medical care or take care of you when you’re old.
But let’s leave my speculations aside. One response of the religious when faced with these facts is to claim that countries like Denmark and Sweden are showing residual religiosity—a societal well being derived from their historically Christian past, which gave rise to present-day morality, even among atheists.. That’s all well and good, but fails to explain the correlation mentioned above—for, if anything, residual religiosity should erod with time, and so one would not expect the least religious countries to still be the ones that are better off.
The other response, that of V. J. Torley, is to assert that countries like Denmark and Sweden aren’t that well off after all. His entire post can be summed up by his quote:
Perhaps Coyne might be interested to read an eye-opening article by Carol Brown over at American Thinkeron what is happening in Denmark. Ms. Brown paints a terrifying portrait of a society which is falling apart under the influence of religiously motivated violence. Crime in Denmark has exploded, and street gangs “have taken over large parts of Danish towns and cities”. There are numerous “no go” zones where even the police are afraid to venture. Is this Coyne’s idea of a successful secular society?
Some morals to be drawn from Brown’s article:
1. Not all forms of religion are good; some are toxic.
2. Nature abhors a vacuum. Secularism is powerless to drive out toxic forms of religion.
3. The only proven way to drive out toxic forms of religion, and keep them out, is with wholesome forms of religion.
You can guess what’s going on here. Brown’s piece describes a rise in crime in Denmark due to an incursion of Muslim immigrants, causing violence, the rise of thuggish Muslim street gangs and, Brown claims, a complete dissolution of Danish society. If ever a piece was Islamophobic, and I hate using that term, it’s Brown’s (and by default, Torley’s). Just read Brown’s piece to see the kind of scare-mongering it paints, and the general bias against Muslims. The implication is that Muslims can never be peacefully integrated into Western society, and so must either be expelled or prohibited from immigrating.
And really, are Christianity and Catholicism the things we need to stave off Islam? Are they more “wholesome” than secular societies? And how does it work, exactly? How does “wholesome” religion stave off “toxic” religion? Does the pervasiveness of, say, Catholicism, make Muslims less violent? And why is atheism impotent to do this?
All that Torley’s article proves is that Islam appears to create more problems in a single European country than do other faiths. It does not demonstrate that countries with no faith are “less wholesome” than religious ones. In fact, the higher well0-being of countries like Denmark and Sweden (and most of northern Europe, which is also largely atheistic) before Muslim immigration refutes Torley’s implication that “wholesome” religion is good for a country.
In the present state of the world, Islam is, I agree, a more toxic faith than many others, perhaps the most toxic faith. But that doesn’t mean that its excesses can be defanged by some kind of bigoted prohibition of Muslim immigration or, God forbid, the forcible conversion of Muslims into Christians (would Torley like some kind of reverse ISIS?). The solution is simply to enforce civil law and Enlightenment values, and to insist that Muslims cannot practice dysfunctional social behaviors in a Western society. It’s worked in the U.S., after all. Sadly, rather than trying to integrate Muslims into their culture, Denmark may be capitulating to their religious demands, scared that what happened with the publication of the anti-Muslim Danish cartoons will happen again. This, I suspect—and not atheism—is what’s behind the rise in violent crime in Denmark.
But the notion that atheistic states are falling apart is bogus. Statistics show that while violent crimes have indeed risen in the last 7 years in Denmark, the total crime rate has stayed about the same there. (Violent crimes, by the way have also risen in one other place: Luxembourg, a state far more religious than Denmark!) And in Sweden, another place where atheism should be unable to stave off Islamic violence, both violent and nonviolent crimes have stayed pretty level. In fact, throughout Europe, crime rates are either staying level or falling.
Biochemist Larry Moran mentioned Torley’s claims four days ago on his website Sandwalk, and a number of commenters (and Moran himself) testified to the moral health of Denmark. Now these are impressions, but the only evidence for the moral disintegration of Denmark is the unique rise in violent crime in that nation compared to other European states. Yet if atheism simply fails to stave off Islamic violence, violent crime should be rising all over the nonbelieving states of northern Europe: in places like Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and France (which has a higher proportion of atheists than Denmark). All of these places have experienced an increase in their Muslim population, but crime isn’t rising.
Torley is wrong. If the increase in violent crime in Denmark reflects Muslim immigration, I doubt that means that only wholesome religion can prevent that crime. I ssupect instead that the Danes are simply less insistent on the integration of Muslims into their society. Unfortunately, I can’t speak to (or support) that hypothesis. All I know is that Torley is basing his promotion of “wholesome” religions (presumably Christianity) on a single statistic, a statistic that fails to support his thesis when you look to other atheistic countries beyond Denmark.
So here’s my prediction: if Greg Paul redid his 2008 survey showing that the less religious countries in Europe were better off (using his 25 indices of societal health), he would get the same results today.
an eye-opening article by Carol Brown over at American Thinker
That’s the clincher right there. American Thinker is the outlet that makes WorldNetDaily look almost sane. Anyone who thinks to rely on an article from American Thinker for their supportive information is already in deep trouble.
The actual sources are one level deeper, at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/ which I somehow suspect to be one of those “think tanks” mainly obsessed with inventing ways to confirm their preconceived notions.
You’re probably right. It’s not a “think tank” I’ve ever heard of (and I’ve heard of most of them, mainly the nuttier ones). But I’ve come across rank craziness in American Thinker many a time and oft: it’s a hub for science denial.
It was there that I came across a commenter confused as to why those greenhouse gases dem libruls were talking about didn’t just leak off into space through the hole in the ozone layer.
A little Googling turns up an article on climate change in The American Thinker” by Fred Singer who not only denies climate change but also ozone depletion by CFLs and the relation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. A perfect example of the kind of crap that that outfit publishes. Not surprising that it would publish crap by Torley, an evolution denier. It’s nothing but a right wing scandal sheet and about as reliable as the Star supermarket tabloid.
From my own experience, you’re being kind to it. 🙂
Important question : do your fingers go through it’s sheets?
Even the shittiest scandal rags can perform a useful function. In an emergency.
Hmmm. As opposed to think tanks guided by skepticism, here we have a stink tank guided by septicism.
I was just in Denmark last weekend. Total chaos. They completely screwed up my order at a pub. It’s anarchy.
Oh, that’s too borg.
⏞
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But did you try to climb Carl’s Berg?
The whole population’s all hopped up on gluhwein.
I’d just note that the rise of crime rates across Europe has coincided with the financial crisis.
Well, that does it. I’m joining the church and getting me a gun. Yeehaw…
If google/linkedin don’t lie you’re a Dane from around Århus, right? Have you seen any of those neighbourhoods where the police dare not tread?
Because I live in Copenhagen between Nørrebro, Hells Angels HQ, Ungdomshus and some vague muslim clubs, and I ain’t heard nothing ’bout them.
Yup, from Skanderborg very close to Århus where I lived for approx. 10 years.
The fire department had some trouble in one neighbourhood some years back, but not anymore to the best of my knowledge.
I’ve never heard of a single instance or place where the police dare not go.
Just one small point here, there IS a small but (if ignored) growing correlation between Islam (the ideology) itself and crime. Some imams (see MEMRI videos on youtube) openly state that non-Muslims are valid targets of rape, theft, etc as ‘jizya’ while Islam re-conquers Europe. Some places in Malmo, etc even have white women wearing the hijab to avoid getting raped, police cannot enter there anymore. Large numbers of Muslims want sharia. This is not Islamophobic. If we can’t talk about this openly, it will worsen. Sam Harris and very others on the American left are speaking about Islam openly and honestly (no wonder Greenwald, etc are calling him racist to shut him up). This is one of the reasons why right-wing parties are leading in polls across Europe at the moment. It is already illegal in Sweden to criticize immigration.
Having said that, most immigrants of all religions and cultures are productive, and the main reasons for high crime are socio-economic backwardness and lack of education.
Of course it is not illegal to criticize immigration in Sweden. One of our political parties does that all the time. Never heard of white women in Malmö wearing hijabs to avoid being raped, what’s you source? Yes, there are some problem areas in Malmö, but you exaggerate quite a lot.
I was about to ask, I don’t come in Malmö that often, but I’ve never heard my colleagues from the other side of the bridge indicate that they’re in fear of their wellbeing.
Likewise criticising immigration.
Sources for Swedish law:
1. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=171_1397928246
2. http://www.eutimes.net/2014/04/sweden-passes-law-that-will-prosecute-people-for-criticizing-immigration/
3. http://www.europeandailynews.org/2014/04/14/sweden-new-law-to-make-it-easier-to-prosecute-those-who-insult-immigrants-politicians/
For goodness sake, you’ve just linked to a couple of extreme rightwing sites and a Liveleak item blabbing about “the Jewish media onslaught against Swedish folk” and youtube clips stating “1 in 4 Swedish females will be raped by a muslim”. Now I need to take a shower.
If you want to be taken seriously, try linking to the actual law for instance. I see nothing there implying immigrants, only about general insults on the internet. But I hope some Swede here can give an accurate translation.
(For the record, if it’s a restriction on freedom of speech, I’m against it, but let’s not start interpreting just yet.)
Something is wrong with the text describing the outcome, I had to go to the protocol to see that KU17 is accepted. [ http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Kammaren/Protokoll/_H10999/ ]
So Norlén’s talk [see the protocol] makes it clear that KU17 have two purposes, and is initiated by the exponential explosion of internet “attacks, slander and insult”:
– To move current prosecution from the responsibility of the individual to the justice system. This means practically that the cost will be taken by the state, and symbolically that the state police the area.
Sweden has already laws against molestation and defamation. Nothing is changed there.
– To help international justice by removing the protection of in Sweden published material used abroad as being swedish and with swedish law support (freedom of speech protection, say).
It is a harmonization with international laws, as I understand it. Nothing is changed there.
To sum up, the usual right wing extremist painting of special privilege/prosecution adopted from christianism.
Yes, in as much international law infringes on free speech, this will encroach a little on use. Sweden can no longer be used as a protected source for material defaming others.
FWIW, Sweden has adopted infringements before, such as no longer allowing “hate speech”. This is much less of a free speech problem.
Ugh! I just had a long, drawn-out exchange with an American who insisted that London has been divided up into Sharia no-go zones.
When I challenged him on it, he linked to the Daily Mail and a load of right-wing sites, many of them in the US.
I gave up as he was as immune to evidence as a theist.
While I have often (jokingly) referred to the Great Wen (London) as a “living argument for thermonuclear revocation of planning consent”, I go there often enough to call “bullshit” on such claims. There are dangerous areas in many (most) cities. But that is general crime, not god-squaddy crime. I’m more careful on entering Gulf States, some parts of Dar, some parts of my home town. But that’s general caution, not fear of god-squaddies.
It made no difference that I actually live in London, in the middle of a large Bangladeshi community.
Or that I spend a lot of time around Whitechapel. No, because Anjem Choudary and a small gang of Islamist numpties protested against the Muslim restaurateurs on Brick Lane selling alcohol to their guests, Whitechapel is a no-go area for non-Muslims. He had the links to at least four blogs that said so.
I think you are describing the typical behavior, and it seems repeated here. So ugh indeed.
“Some places in Malmo, etc even have white women wearing the hijab to avoid getting raped, police cannot enter there anymore. ”
To repeat myself from my longish comment:
This is pure made up baloney.
Malmö has no more problems with criminality than say Stockholm or Göteborg. It has no areas where police can’t enter, or no enforced hijabs, or other unsubstantiated rumors on crime.
The largest problem is organized crime, which has learned new tricks in the last decade. Since Malmö is smaller, three effects seem to exist:
1. Malmö has more unemployed.
2. Malmö has as high crime rate as Stockholm, but as a smaller city it should be expected to have a smaller rat.
2. The size makes the crime concentrated to the city core instead of spread out, and it is thus more visible.
What people feel about the crime rate and what it actually is, seems uncoupled. I get all this from up to date research (2012):
http://www.bra.se/download/18.1ff479c3135e8540b29800010627/1337840587209/2012_SULE_Slutredovisning_5_2_1.pdf
“Some places in Malmo, etc even have white women wearing the hijab to avoid getting raped, police cannot enter there anymore. ”
To repeat myself from my longish comment:
This is pure made up baloney.
Malmö has no more problems with criminality than say Stockholm or Göteborg. It has no areas where police can’t enter, or no enforced hijabs, or other unsubstantiated rumors on crime.
The largest problem is organized crime, which has learned new tricks in the last decade. Since Malmö is smaller, three effects seem to exist:
1. Malmö has more unemployed.
2. Malmö has as high crime rate as Stockholm, but as a smaller city it should be expected to have a smaller rat.
2. The size makes the crime concentrated to the city core instead of spread out, and it is thus more visible.
What people feel about the crime rate and what it actually is, seems uncoupled. I get all this from up to date research (2012):
http://www.bra.se/download/18.1ff479c3135e8540b29800010627/1337840587209/2012_SULE_Slutredovisning_5_2_1.pdf
Closer to home, I would note that as the U.S. has become increasingly secular over the past few decades, many indicators of social instability have gone down. For instance, the teen pregnancy rate now is less than half what it was in 1960. Coincidentally (?), that was roughly when the Supremes ruled mandatory prayer and Bible lessons in public schools unconstitutional.
1960 . .. about the time that the Pill started to become readily available. Coincidence? I bet not.
Question for those who were adult at the time : how many married mothers at the time got a prescription. … And gave it to their daughters? Unknown, common, or the norm?
This chart seems to indicate that in the 2010s, the Danish murder rate was still about one fifth the US one.
So if the rate has exploded, that explosion has been from “really really much more peaceful than the most religious western democracy” to only “much more peaceful than the most religious western democracy.”
The only thing I admire about articles such as the UD one is their cajones. You’re going to describe a recent history of immigration of very religious people into a nonreligious country. You’re going to tell me this is correlated with a rise in crime. And then you have the guts to try and convince me this shows that the nonreligious baseline had a violence problem? That takes guts. Not a lot of brains, but some guts.
So if the rate has exploded, that explosion has been from “really really much more peaceful than the most religious western democracy” to only “much more peaceful than the most religious western democracy.
Well, it’s what you’d expect from a “conclusions first” approach. When there’s no real major crime problem in Denmark, lie, exaggerate, and distort anything vaguely sounding like one. Never let facts get in the way of your really good narrative.
The only thing I admire about articles such as the UD one is their cajones.
Does it really take guts to be intuitively stupid, though? Anybody can cook up a self-serving narrative out of even the flimsiest “evidence”. An ability to restrain yourself from sticking fingers in your ears and going “La La La La La” when you hear the bits you don’t like is what takes guts. Torley is a dime a dozen; no psychologist on cognitive dissonance and lazy system 2 workings would even notice him.
For another comparison, consider that in 2012 people in New York City were celebrating the fact that they had a day without a murder. One day.
The Netherlands has around double the population of New York City and the majority of days go past without a murder.
New York City were celebrating the fact that they had a day without a murder. One dayQuick! Call out the NRAtional Guard! Such unconstitutional events must not be allowed!
Denmark in chaos? Maybe not.
The only chaos I noticed there on a recent visit was alcohol-induced on mid-summer’s weekend. And that’s nothing new whatsoever.
Did you see this??
No, what?
Yeah, and malaria confers some resistance to sickle cell anemia…
I know, it’s the other way around.
“…religiosity arises from poor social conditions, as when the state won’t give you medical care or take care of you when you’re old.”
Isn’t this what is happening in the United States now? The religious right gaining power, no medicare, low minimum wage and majority of wealth held by 1% of the population.
Actually, I find this a little suspicious, and I’ll explain why. Most of the problems you list (“no medicare, low minimum wage and majority of wealth held by 1% of the population”) seem to be caused by excessive reliance on privatization and the “invisible hand” of total free economics, including removing regulation and other checks against big businesses that want to test their limits for the sake of shareholder’s profits. So this kind of materialism is driving the social problems and making society more dysfunctional.
As they do so, however, we’re predicting an increased turning towards religion and religious influence, as per the idea that social dysfunction leads people to adopt religion (say, as a palliative). Religion usually spurns materialism and contrasts it with spiritualism, claiming to bring personal fulfilment and meaningful relationships for higher causes. The values of these two goals, if the research linked below are to be believed, are usually opposite:
http://www.bellagioinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Bellagio-Kasser.pdf
So, you have two apparently antithetical forces – excessive business and economic control for materialistic ends, and the presence of religious groups for people seeking spiritualistic alternatives – seemingly working for mutual benefit, and both tend to be promoted by conservatives. To what extent is this an odd coincidence, and to what extent is it meaningful, even possibly by design? What do unrestrained big business and religion have in common that make them show up more often than not in the same political camp?
If I were to answer my own questions, I’d currently suggest they both naturally occur out of a dogmatic mindset that is generated by and preys on national (even nationalistic) and personal insecurities, which in turn grows from a “typical” profile of conservativism (tends to be more friendly to authoritarianism and conformity, stronger fear of death than liberals, etc.). I suspect this is incomplete, though.
One of the main barriers to personal wellbeing is materialist.Although Kasser says “There are numerous barriers to personal wellbeing, social justice, and ecological sustainability in the twenty-first century.”
The economy has a huge impact on the lower-socioeconomic classes (wages, prices). The 1% with 90% of the wealth cannot spend enough to keep the economy going and the personal wellbeing of 99% decrease dramatically. I think that’s what we are heading for.
“One of the main barriers to personal wellbeing is materialist.”
I gathered. That’s why I found it odd that materialism and spiritualism seemingly co-exist in at least some conservative politics, much less that the current scenario suggests a mutual benefit for both forces at the expense of societal function.
“The economy has a huge impact on the lower-socioeconomic classes (wages, prices). The 1% with 90% of the wealth cannot spend enough to keep the economy going…”
Part of the problem seems to me to be that the 1% have little to no interest in changing the system. The current one is the one that made and is making them rich. Unfortunately, that coincides with a system that tries for endless growth (or at least the pretence of such) rather than for sustainability, which in the long-term is what societies need.
“the personal wellbeing of 99% decrease dramatically. I think that’s what we are heading for.”
At present, yes. The most likely chance for reversal seems to me to be some pretty bold social movement among the electorate. It would have to gain significant enough numbers of members to become a legitimate force in its own right and calling shenanigans on the status quo more often.
Ah well, hope springs eternal…
“And really, are Christianity and Catholicism the things we need to stave off Islam? ”
Well, cowpox prevented smallpox, so maybe so. Still, it’s better to get neither.
And if this were the 1970s and 1980s, exactly which wholesome religion could we call upon to stem the widespread violence and terrorism in Northern Ireland?
Well, it was mainly a local outbreak and eventually the population developed an immunity. So it sorta worked.
“The solution is simply to enforce civil law and Enlightenment values, and to insist that Muslims cannot practice dysfunctional social behaviors in a Western society. ”
That hasn’t worked too well. Even fundamentalist Christians aren’t too keen on enlightenment values in the US. And a number of very westernized Muslims have been involved in terrorist activities. The sad truth is that the society you live in is dominated by the friends and family you hang out with.
Any society with a large and growing population of people with such regressive values is in danger, because they insulate themselves from moderating influences.
If I were king of some country, I would consider banning immigration from Muslim countries, and this isn’t bigotry…it’s holding people accountable for the ideas they hold.
I completely disagree. I think the history of muslim immigration into the US and Canada shows that these populations largely adopt the values of the host country after a couple of generations. What you’re seeing in Denmark is related to it being 1st generation immigration from violent or religious fundamentalist countries. I expect their grandkids will be just as Dane as anyone else.
It’s a shopowners “no Irish need apply” because that shopowner feels that local Irish immigrants have a reputation for violence or theft. And yeah, that’s bigotry.
Want to know what non-bigotry looks like? It looks like evaluating a request for immigration based on criteria such as the individual’s past rate of crime or violence, rather than the country of origin or religion they belong to.
I have no statistics at hand, but I remember reading that a large percentage of immigrant criminals are second generation.
They are. I’m currently preparing an article on why people join DAESH (ISIL), and many are second or third generation Muslims whose parents have successfully integrated.
What proportion of your population (under consideration ) are 1st, 2nd, 3rd …. generation immigrants? If 1.5% are 1st generation immigrants and they commit 2% of crimes … where do you target your crime-fighting resources? If 70% of your number of crimes is committed by under-average income people, where do you target your resources? If 90% by value of your crimes are done by people earning 3x average income, where …
Rational crime management is highly political.
“It’s a shopowners “no Irish need apply” ”
You’re making the Islamophobia fallacy.
It’s a truism that people with stupid ideas have stupid ideas. Irish don’t necessarily have stupid ideas.
“individual’s past rate of crime or violence”
No, let’s find out what their views are on separation of church and state, the relationship between science and religion, and whether they think that people should be killed for what they believe.
One of these things is not like the other…
I live (or want to live) in a free country, I want my neighbor to be allowed to have different ideas on separation of church and state and on the relationship of science and religion. And I want my immigration policy to reflect that you will not be excluded based on your religious or political ideology…so long as you are willin to operate within the law.
Now your last statement is a bit different. Of course I think it’s reasonable to deny immigration to people who believe they have a right to exercise vigilante justice. But you figure that out on an individual basis. It is bigoted to say “you come from Saudi Arabia? Oh, sorry, you don’t get in because you think people should be killed for what they believe.” But that is what you advocated doing above.
Think about this: if Denmark had adopted your “if I were king” policy, they would never have allowed Hirsi Ali to immigrate, because she came from a muslim country. Do you really think that’s a good outcome? Or do you accept that the Hirsi Ali case demonstrates the importance of evaluating immigrants as individuals, rather than just on country of origin?
” And I want my immigration policy to reflect that you will not be excluded based on your religious or political ideology…so long as you are willin to operate within the law.”
Gah, that’s why liberals are so helpless when confronted with these radical ideologies. It’s like sheep allowing the wolf into their flock as long as they don’t eat anyone. These people will work to get the laws changed in their favor, using liberal “live and let live” attitudes against them.
“would never have allowed Hirsi Ali to immigrate, because she came from a muslim country. Do you really think that’s a good outcome?”
I’m pretty OK with that and she probably would be too…I’ve already observed that she’s a bit of a hypocrite.
But I don’t think she’s a Muslim anymore. I guess I’d allow in apostates, but it’s hard to come up with a reliable way to verify apostate status.
These people will work to get the laws changed in their favor, using liberal “live and let live” attitudes against them.
That is their right. That is one of the main points of democracy: to allow the citizens to change the laws in their favor. If you don’t allow the citizens to do that, what sort of democracy do you have?
You seem to be advocating something like McCarthyism – we can’t let those communists (muslims) participate in government or politics, because they might advocate for communism (islam)! Oh, the horror! Yes they might advocate for communist (islamic) government policies – that is their right. That is what democracy is all about.
Obviously I don’t think highly of your opinion. I don’t think anyone really supports democracy as an ideology if their support of it stops at letting people who agree with them on laws and policies decide what those laws are going to say. The truth of whether you support it is if you support people you disagree with being able to have and wield political power, to change laws, and so on (after being duly elected, of course).
I guess I’d allow in apostates, but it’s hard to come up with a reliable way to verify apostate status.
So you are retracting your support of “no people from muslim countries need apply,” and changing it to “no muslims need apply.” That’s still in my opinion a bigoted policy.
Perhaps what bothers me most is the sheer senslessness of the discrimination you support. Immigration systems already review individual cases. Your policy would actually require immigrations officials to use less information than they currently use to make evaluate whether a candidate should be allowed to immigrate. And that doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
I agree and disagree. Yes we want a generally liberal immigration policy. But, the West has spent several centuries working out, at great cost, a reasonable approach to organizing society. We came from feudalism and the domination by god-kings and a universal church. Over time we decided that reason, science, and democracy were the way to go. It seems to me the Muslim middle east is still stuck to some degree in tribal and undemocratic forms of government. The infusion of large numbers of people with fundamentalist, Islamic backgrounds would be a self inflicted wound. If numbers are held low so that assimilation is less painful, it might well serve all sides of the equation. Sharia law is not something I could accept.
Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and if Islam is a stupid idea, is Catholicism smart? Eric is correct–“the history of muslim immigration into the US and Canada shows that these populations largely adopt the values of the host country after a couple of generations.” I’ll back that on a personal level, since I happen to be the son of a Muslim immigrant.
Anti-Catholic prejudice was active in this country until quite recently. JFK had to endure questions from the press about whether his supposed allegiance to Pope would prevent him from serving his country. The idea that Catholics are a potential fifth column willing to override the laws of their host country isn’t a far cry from believing Muslims will ignore the constitution in favor of the Koran. We should certainly be picky about the individuals we let into this country, but barring them on the basis of religion is un-American.
“Most Muslims are not fundamentalists”
The data contradict your statement.
There are least 1.67 billion Muslims on earth. If even a tenth of these were fundamentalist in the sense that Al Qaeda or Isis are, the world would be a graveyard. Your assertion is easily rejected.
Islamofascism, which is present in any large Muslim community, maybe causing Islamophobia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAivyEazJQ0
And a documentary…
The website (notAblog ) owner strongly prefers that commenters LINK to external material, rather than embed it. There is a menu item at left indicating Da Roolz.
This embedding happens unintentionally, automatically. I’ve been a victim of it too.
As Diana Mac Pherson pointed out to me, for videos you’ll have to leave the ‘http://’ out, if you do not want to embed automatically.
That being said, I think those 2 videos are highly to the point, informative, and very scary. (I think that Jerry would agree there, since it was accepted as comment).
Both videos give informed opinions of muslims or former muslims, which make them kind of authoritative in my humble opinion.
As a former inhabitant of Belgium, I can vouch for the first video. It is really not made up. As for the second, there is too much to give a short comment, but I’d advise to watch it, I think it is worthwhile.
The comparison and likeliness of Nazism and Radical Islam is somehow eerie, the ‘Jew hatred’ is really unsettling. I must admit I have a weak spot for Jews, so many of our great scientists and philosophers were Jews (in a proportion much greater than their part of the general population), from de Spinoza to Einstein [not to mention our own Jerry), Jews have been one of the greatest assets to ‘Western’ civilisation, well, to be more precise, civilisation in general. I think their tradition of literacy may have something to do with that, but we’re digressing here.
On the other hand, I fully agree that the “denial by the West” and the supposed disintegration (very arguable), is not because secular societies lack a ‘benign’ religion, it is because of the fear of the accusation of racism and bigotry, which are considered -rightly so- great sins (again in my modest opinion).
What is one to do if your secularism, multiculturalism, democracy, female equality, science and other positives resulting directly or indirectly from the Enlightenment are used to destroy it? I have no definite answer about the best strategy, but the first thing is to get rid of denial.
Radical Islam is poised to destroy the values mentioned above and the 3 basic scriptures of Islam (Qur’an, Hadith and Sira) are not really accommodative to ‘moderate’ Islam, to put it mildly. That is a fact we have to face.
Christianity was ‘tamed’ by the Enlightenment, Islam was not and is not (yet?).
Whether we like it or not, that is how the cards have been dealt. And we should deal with it. Of course the obvious question is ‘how?’.
“Of course the obvious question is ‘how?’.”
I think your important point, getting rid of denial, almost answers this question. At least it could be the case that once the danger is recognized without the rose tint of political correctness, timely interventions will become the norm, in the form of immediate repudiation of the ideologues. Hopefully, this willingness to deal with small issue as they come up might head off larger problems.
These arguments of faux moral decay remind me of the soviet propaganda that taught the West was in a continual state of class warfare.
Although in that case, given the rising economic inequality and correlating increase in social dysfunction in the US (especially in recent decades), you could argue the Soviets at least had a grain of a point. Hypocritical though that point was revealed to be by the unfolding of history; I doubt most of the Soviet leaders were exactly restrained when it came to social equality and healthy function.
recently the TrueChristian twit Cal Thomas claimed that any place that allowed same sex marriage was full of “social anarchy”. I would not be surprised that we see him switch to “moral anarchy” because that can be made ever so vague.
Given that New Zealand came #1 in Harvard’s s social progress survey, which correlated results from multiple international surveys, and same-sex marriage is legal here, and most of the other top countries in the survey also, it seems clear to me he’s wrong.
That’s a badly written sentence, but you’re all smart enough to get the point.
That UD article is not a serious attempt at anything except propoganda for their sheep.
Doesn’t it stand for Untelligent Design?
I think it must.
Uncommonly Dense is the normal interpretation.
In New Zealand, ID is the acronym for Intellectually Disabled. An unfortunate insult to intellectually disabled people, but otherwise appropriate.
Denmark is one of the best functioning countries. An explanation might be that people trust each other. Recently, this has been argued in the book ‘Trust’, by Gert Tinggaard Svendsen. Trust between strangers might be the consequence of social and political internal stability, of some 1000 years in Denmark.
The US seems to be dysfunctional , see the review of the book Trust in Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/keldjensen/2014/06/22/trust-a-fragile-but-wealth-building-commodity/
The crescendo that needs acknowledgement is:
“And how does it work, exactly?”
Torley doth protest too much, methinks. Misdirected, erroneously justified complaints are useful for personal journals stuffed in a dusty drawer. The reality is that when a religion, any religion, supports some immorally vicious ideas, that support cannot be ignored, or worse claimed to be unjustified based on another wholly arbitrary religious code.
Years ago I read a book on conspiracy theories which was written by a psychologist who had visited areas where “Satanic panic” was in full force. Rumors of teenagers recruited by devil worshipers who were encouraging animal killings, kidnapping, and even murder were spreading throughout areas, sometimes aided and abetted by law enforcement and educators who should have known better.
The psycholoigist argued that once people had gone off in the irrational mode of conspiracy-thinking, it was pointless to stave off the resulting panic with calm, reasoned facts. That wasn’t going to work. No, the most effective way to fight a conspiracy theory was by substituting another conspiracy theory, preferably about the first one. To wit: “There is a group of people in our midst who are spreading false rumors of Satanic crimes because they want to cause fear and gain power — we must not let them do this to us.”
It sounds to me as if Torley and Brown are making the same kind of point — which is a version of the Little People Argument. “Don’t try to reason with them, they can’t reason: instead, help them pick out a less stupid/ less dangerous delusion.” It’s condescending and in my opinion short-sighted.
Funny you should mention conspiracy theories. I was just looking at the title and reimagining it with the words “conspiracy theory” substituted for “religion” to show how ludicrous the argument is:
“A 9/11 truther claims that Denmark is in moral chaos because it lacks “wholesome conspiracy theory” to stave off “toxic conspiracy theory” (aka chemtrails)”
I didn’t think of it in terms of the Little People argument, though. I was thinking of the implication that “wholesome religion can replace and reduce toxic religion, so therefore it must be true religion and, whaddoyaknow, it’s the one that I happen to follow”. Yeah, because the litmus test for whether something is nonsense or not is whether it turns people into peace-loving hippies.
Now that you point it out, though, the Little People aspect of it bothers me more. It’s not only that such people seemingly jump to the assumption that we have to practically consider whether people are unable to handle the truth and should be given a noble lie. Heck, I’m near-cynical myself when it comes to people’s psychology, so I can at least see their argument’s logic and where they’re coming from. No, it’s the underlying tone of approval for this state of affairs that really has me worried. It’s like hearing a community discuss a tragedy and then suddenly veer off into the glorification and vindication of such pointless pain rather than actually try to pretend to want to alleviate it.
The underlying approval is not for the pain, but the irrationality. You’re not going to make Little People more reasonable (“secularism fails”) — you can only guide them towards being irrational in a less toxic way.
To use Greta Christina’s metaphor, it’s like dealing with a group of people who claim to be getting messages from their toasters telling them to “kill” — and then contrasting this with a group of people who claim to be getting messages from their toasters telling them to “love one another.” My, isn’t the second group more reasonable than the first? Isn’t that the way to go? Tell the first group that they misheard their toaster’s commands.
On what basis? And do we really want to encourage and then deal with a large number of people who think toasters give advice? That seems like a toxic situation (and an accident forever just waiting to happen) in and of itself. Like religion and religious faith.
Jerry’s right. Don’t give up on treating people as equals.
“The underlying approval is not for the pain, but the irrationality.”
Sorry if my example wasn’t clear. I wasn’t referring to some idea that the Little People are in pain themselves, or the proponents of the Little People argument either. My analogy was to point out that, in both cases (the Little People and the tragedy), the way the situation is framed seems completely opposite to what I would expect.
If you tell me there’s some poor sap who won’t/can’t believe that global warming is happening because he sees conspiracies everywhere, you might persuade me to act on the psychologist’s behalf and stage a counter-conspiracy to get over this handicap, but I’d hate every second of it because it seems to me to be a terrible position to be in, and I’d bail if a better strategy presented itself. I’d see the tendency to believe in conspiracies, like the tendency to think in terms of talking toasters, as a regrettable handicap, just as I’d see that the pain in the tragedy is something to alleviate as soon as possible, and failure to alleviate it as a bad thing. Both of them are things I might concede are practical concerns, but I still see grit and grime on them.
What the Little People position seems to me to be doing is reframing the conspiracy nut’s handicap as no big deal, or even as something noble. It’s similar to the glorifying-tragedy crowd because they reclassify a negative as a positive. This is why I say that the tone in which the Little People argument is presented worries me (apart from the other problems we’ve already mentioned). They don’t seem to realize what a cynical, unpleasant, and intellectually damning indictment it actually is. On the contrary!
Ah, I get it now, yes. It’s counter-intuitive — sort of like how “faith” reclassifies a negative (lack of evidence) as a positive (lack of evidence!!!) or bumping “we can’t be 100% sure of our conclusions” into “we can’t be sure of anything so all beliefs are on even ground.”
Pretty much, yes. It’s either doublespeak in action or an equally extreme sign of disturbing foolishness.
Aarhus was pleasant enough when I was there a few years ago. I was told by our (American) host that there was some problems with integration and what not on the part of some immigrants, but nothing severe …
Here’s something I never hear mentioned: large parts of the Muslim world [the Near East, North Africa] were once part of the Byzantine Empire, which was, in its day, the greatest Christian power on Earth–much stronger than anything in Western Europe. Yet this did not prevent it from being conquered by Muslims, and its Cathedral of Hagia Sofia–the largest Christian Church in the world–turned into a mosque. Do Christians have an explanation for why God allowed this to happen? Why didn’t their faith save them?
The Byzantines were fundamentally weakened because they were first conquered by other Christians. Thank the Western-European Christians of the Fourth Crusade, who decided to sack Constantinople in 1204 instead of conquering Jerusalem. Western Europeans thought the Byzantines were the wrong sort of Christian, since they were Orthodox and not Catholic.
Despite the meaning of “catholic “.
Wasn’t it the relatively secular merchant power of Venice that diverted the crusaders to Constantinople? More a matter of state-backed piracy (like most of the US’s wars) than religious rivalry.
”All of these places have experienced an increase in their Muslim population, but crime isn’t rising.” This is completely false. The crime in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, you name it, has risen terribly. Unfortunately, this is due to the mass-invasion of young men and women, mostly from the African peninsula and the Middle East. For instance, Sweden is today Europe’s capital of rape. There is not a week going by without shooting somebody to death in Gothenburg, the 2nd largest city of Sweden. Gangs are burning cars and the police and fire men dare not enter the places where immigrants are living. You are right that most Scandinavian people are atheists. However, their national traditions and cultures have been ‘thrown out of the window’, together with the once religious tradition. This cultural vacuum has made it possible for the ‘new Swedes’, as they’re called in Sweden, to run over the whole country where nobody is safe anymore. It’s a very sad situation in Scandinavia today. It’s NOT what it was some 20 years ago.
Sweden is incidentally also quite advanced and insisting when it comes to equality. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/12/sweden-election-political-party-feminist-initiative)
My perspective on the rape numbers and statistic includes a speculation that they, in contrast to other nations, might have a lower tolerance for rape and still a relatively high desire for the system to react against it. In other words, you hear about rape in Sweden because people refuse to keep quit about it. In other countries people get raped with a devilish frequency, but going to the cops? Nope.
http://www.dst.dk/pukora/epub/upload/17950/krim.pdf
Page 66, tabel 1.01, crime 1952-2012, Denmark, reports of crime as a general has gone down according to the statistics.
Regarding some claims being “completely false”.
I haven’t checked the overall statistics, but reflections from browsing the statistics on the three large cities in Sweden, I would think the following effects apply:
– Societies all over the world are getting more functional. Religiosity and crime rates are dropping from such an effect.
– Societies all over the world is much more rapidly getting urbanized. Crime rates are elevated by such effects, most organized crime (outside of slavery and drug production) is an urban business.
We are at a moment in history where urbanization effects may overpower some of the effects of (non-guaranteed but observable) overall progress toward more functional societies.
If urbanization, not religion, is the big threat re crimes, changed behavior and, dare I say it, diversity of behavior, should we prohibit cities? That is the analog to what “they are not like us” extremists want to do with relocation, I think.*
*Especially galling since humans have always moved about, way before we invented cities. That is perhaps the one consistent trait of modern humans, much as I hate to say it (a boring pillar idea of much humdrum scifi).
From a technocrats point of view, increased functionality might be argued with some success, but power and wealth seems to be congealing and concentrating and active membership in politics are on a decline when it comes to participation in political parties. These points could be said to be a decrease in functionality.
Locally in Sweden they recently had a motterfåckingly beautiful test of their democracy as they managed to sidestep collaborating with sverigedemokraterna when collaboration could have meant that the government could have survived the election.
What this sums up to I don’t really know, but I see that story as a pro-function argument.
With regards to mobility I’m currently without a good source, but before cities and after “hunter / gatherer, farms was the life for many people.
I’ve heard many variations of “people from the interior of Mallorca lived and died without ever seeing the sea”. Moving about was dangerous and calling it a consistent trait is quite bold.
Did the majority of people in the first millennia and middle ages move more than a few days walk from home? (no need for an answer)
Your rhetorical question: “Should cities be banned?” I agree with the pathos of it. Ownership of a nation and a peoples property rights to the squarekilometres that constitutes said nation is a handicapped feeling when all was born after the creation of it and none participated in laying the “foundation of the house”.
Banning a religion or, dare I say it, skin colour, is foolish when problems have so many other and at times larger factors.
Sigh. To yet again repeat myself from my longish comment:
This is pure made up baloney.
Malmö has no more problems with criminality than say Stockholm or Göteborg. It has no areas where police can’t enter, or no enforced hijabs, or other unsubstantiated rumors on crime.
The largest problem is organized crime, which has learned new tricks in the last decade. Since Malmö is smaller, three effects seem to exist:
1. Malmö has more unemployed.
2. Malmö has as high crime rate as Stockholm, but as a smaller city it should be expected to have a smaller rat.
2. The size makes the crime concentrated to the city core instead of spread out, and it is thus more visible.
What people feel about the crime rate and what it actually is, seems uncoupled. I get all this from up to date research (2012):
http://www.bra.se/download/18.1ff479c3135e8540b29800010627/1337840587209/2012_SULE_Slutredovisning_5_2_1.pdf
“the ‘new Swedes’, as they’re called in Sweden,”.
Do you live in Sweden? I have never heard the concept. (I googled it, and “nysvenskar” is a fascist movement.)
Though I would suspect that extremists could use it (unheard), analogously as some invented “new atheists” for same old, same old. This is same old too, Sweden has have a large influx of immigrants for a long time now. That is what we do, in the name of secular equality: share.
Really, what is it with you, the ones making extremist comments? Are you really believing someone else will take you seriously?
My concern, as an atheist, is that few, outside the christian community, seem to grasp that there IS a problem with Islam.
Sometimes, they only people who seem willing to fight for our nation, and our society, are religious.
Furthermore, one wonders that, given that passivity, if the aggressively expansionist Imams play their game intelligently, over a time measured in generations, using subtle encroachment rather than bombs and bombast, they couldn’t do incredible damage to western civilization.
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This doesn’t dissuade me (the anti-atheistic article that is). Denmark is still atop my list of backup countries should the USA go to shit.
As a danish wannabe socialworker living as a neighbour to one of the places that, under local law, has been classified as a “Ghetto”, several times.
We do have our version of Ukip or Sverigedemokraterna,our teaparty light and we do have what I’d call a us vs. them feeling still on the rise. Moral chaos might not be the most stupid frame to put on that situation.
But I’ll give a homespun lecture on why we are in a chaotic situation if needs be and someone is willing to fill my coffee cup, it includes a perspective on the existential choice and how creating a constitution in 1849 needs an update in order to make the people decide how they want to live.
The chaos should be viewed in full historical context and it should be noted that siblings around here in the “ghetto” are able to walk hand in hand and take the bus without much worry, how teens say “sir” without needing to, how adults say goodmorning to strangers and smile, how the stores give credit without trouble.
Lastly it should not be ignored that in the local old folks home Hijabs are worn by caretakers and the recidents smile and seem to thrive.
First, immigration is beneficial to Europe. OECD reported 2013, in its first attempt to estimate it, that on average Europe nets a lot of money on it. I calculated that Sweden, earning more than most, nets ~ 1 -3 % of the GDP that way.
Second, while immigration is observably beneficial, taking in persons escaping wars or other problems is likely less so as they on average has a lot less resources with (money, education).
Sweden, and perhaps Denmark, accepts more such persons than most. Not as much as the nations close to the wars in Syria and Iraq or other places, but relatively much as distant destinations.
Apparently such individuals take longer until the earn money compared to Canada (say). Maybe attesting to that Canada accepts multiculturalism while Sweden say it does but aim for integration rather than acceptance. (That is, if I understand the stated governmental policies correctly.)
Third, the thread claims Malmö has problems. It has no more problems with criminality than say Stockholm or Göteborg. It has no areas where police can’t enter, or no enforced hijab wearing, or other unsubstantiated rumors about crimes.
The largest problem is organized crime, which has learned new tricks in the last decade. Since Malmö is smaller, three effects seem to exist:
1. Malmö has more unemployed.
2. Malmö has as high crime rate as Stockholm, but as a smaller city it should be expected to have a smaller rate.
2. The size makes the crime concentrated to the city core instead of spread out, and it is thus more visible.
What people feel about the crime rate and what it actually is, seems uncoupled. I get all this from up to date research (2012):
http://www.bra.se/download/18.1ff479c3135e8540b29800010627/1337840587209/2012_SULE_Slutredovisning_5_2_1.pdf
Real world evidence means nothing to such people. If they can’t invent their own evidence, they deny the need for evidence.
To them, Denmark is in moral chaos because – atheists! Why? because – god! End of argument.
So here we go, Torley is implicitly setting up a religious confrontation of good religion, bad religion. Centuries of this tired old game and he has learnt nothing.
And basing it all on a flaky premise is about what you would expect, irrational manipulation.
Violence has no master, it can rear it’s ugly head whenever a perceived asymmetry occurs, valid or otherwise.
Religiously motivated violence is just violence by any other name and it’s psychological underpinning, motivations is the same in most humans.. psychopaths the exception. In other words how do you know it is religiously motivated and not any other number of reasons disguised as religious, e.g. destitute, racism, political, in short the movement of molecules in a disfranchised head.
Elements of Islam toxic? yes
Is Torley using this? yes
Are other religions toxic? yes
Am I intolerant of religion? hell yeah!
but I have ointment for that.