Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

I think we've just found the source of much unnecessary bile! Fortunately, if I'm right, it is a result of a misunderstanding, and thus easy to excise with this one brief side-track for meta-discussion!

I'm sorry if the following seems basic or pedantic, it is NOT because I am imagining a mocking tone as I write, but rather because I am trying to be very, very, clear, so we can more rapidly move beyond the venom to a more productive part of the conversation. And I'm not trying to be dogmatic about forms of argument, either, I'm just trying to explain where I think the conversation got derailed, so we can get it back on track.

(You are obviously free to disagree with anything here, and I suspect that even then we could together make the conversation productive again.)

My thoughts stem from this statement you made:

I never offer my own opinions before I cite facts and refute falsehoods. If we cannot agree with basic facts then what is the point? Many people just like to ignore hem and make them up.

I've noticed that most conversations do not really proceed as:

1) fact
2) fact
...
n) fact
n+1) concluding opinion.

Instead most are more naturally something like:

Alice: thesis
Bob: agreement

or alternatively:

Alice: thesis
Bob: disagreement, presented with counter-thesis
Alice: exploration of the nature of disagreement
Bob: presentation of his supporting facts
Alice: presentation of her supporting facts
Bob: conclusion, or agreement to disagree

The facts don't actually come in until both sides have satisfactorily established the central point of disagreement.

Which facts, if any, are needed to resolve a disagreement depend on the exact nature of that dispute, which cannot be known until each party's position is fully understood by the other.

It's true not only in formal debates, but even in the most mundane disagreements that we have every day, such as the following two:

Fact-based dispute:

Alice: Nice weather we're having. (thesis)
Bob: No, it's cloudy. (disagreement, with counter-thesis)
Alice: No it isn't, look out the window. (provides evidence)
Bob: Oh, you're right! It was cloudy when I came inside. (conclusion, with the explanation for source of disagreement now clear to both A and B.)

There was a disagreement about which facts were correct. Hence objective data clears up the disagreement easily.

Value-based dispute:

Alice: Nice weather we're having. (thesis)
Bob: Nah, I prefer cloudy weather to sunny. (disagreement, with counter-thesis)
Alice: OK, That's cool. (conclusion)

Alice likes sun, Bob doesn't, everyone can still be happy. Therefore the conclusion is: "peacefully agree to disagree." No factual information can "settle" this dispute, therefore no data needs to be provided.

If both parties have an interest in exploring the different values, they can probe further:

...
Alice: Why do you prefer cloudy weather? Everyone I know loves it!
Bob: I have skin cancer, I'm supposed to stay out of the sun.
Alice: Oh, that makes sense. I'll go out on my own, then.

The value difference has been clarified, it has an understandable cause, which may or may not be universally generalizable. Each party remains free to decide whether the others' values are also applicable to themselves, and everyone can still remain civil, whether or not they agree.



But expecting that one should present all evidence prior to or along with the revelation of a thesis drives the discussion to take a different form:

Alice: The sun is shining.
Bob: Oh is it?
Alice: It's 85 degrees out.
Bob: Yes... (waiting for the point, agreeing to move the conversation along, or because he doesn't care yet)
Alice: There's a light breeze.
Bob: ... OK (still waiting)
Alice: We should go outside.
Bob: You can go if you like, I'll stay here.
Alice: WTF! I just gave you all sorts of data that today is a wonderful day to be outside! And you provided absolutely no data in your counterargument, you even agreed with the temperature I cited! Why don't you agree with my conclusion! Are you an idiot, or are you insisting on being willfully ignorant, in treating as irrelevant all the information I've provided, and you've already agreed with!?
Bob: (thinking to self) WTF just happened there!? Is Alice crazy?

The fact that the core of the dispute lies not in anything related to external facts, but instead in a difference in how Bob judges the value of sunny days, is forced to remain entirely hidden until after Alice has arrived at at a set of (structurally!) uninformed conclusions concerning Bob's thought process. It isn't known at that point whether Bob's reason is generalizable, or even valid at all. He could just be a jerk, or he could have skin cancer. He hasn't yet expressed any support for his stance, merely the stance itself. He starts out wondering what Alice was going on about, and then suddenly wonders why she wants him to go outside, and at that point that she becomes upset.

(Now that I mention this, this Bob and Alice sound like I recently-divorced couple I know ... hmmm.)

And I'm going to emphasize this: The problem is not because Alice or Bob isn't smart, or one of them is not trying to understand the other view, or is biased! The structure of the argument alone drives toward that outcome. Ill-will is not required to create violent disagreement, even over minor, easily surmountable, differences of opinion, when both parties think they're talking about different aspects of the same idea. Alice sincerely believes she has provided all the evidence Bob could possibly want, and that a failure to agree with her conclusion can only be evidence that Bob is unreasonable.

And if one requires her to provide all her evidence first, that's all she can think. She really has provided all the evidence that she believes could possibly be needed, given what she is forced to assume about Bob, in choosing which facts are pertinent to present.

[Now, offline, we know that tone is also used to clarify what Alice and Bob mean. But in type, the tone is provided in the mind of the reader, not the writer. So here, on iTulip, it is extremely easy to mis-read initial tone. If you're looking for sarcasm, you can find it, whether it was intended by the writer or not. And sarcasm begets sarcasm ... and you get the idea. Everything can easily spiral out of control. If the conflicting theses are shown early, this can be caught and fixed early as well ("Oh, I thought we were disagreeing about X, but it's really Y!" Haha). But if the conflicting theses aren't shown until the end, the full emotional conflagration is already well underway before the thesis and/or counter thesis ever even gets out. And you have yet another pointless shouting match.]


It's certainly possible to restrict conversations to the type in the last Alice/Bob example, but it appears to unnecessarily drive discussions toward confrontation and anger. It also means that disagreements are often going to end in at best confusion, and at worst pre-judgement.

It seems to me that this is what's happened in this thread, and most likely also in the prior discussions you and I have had, gwynedd1. I confess that whenever I have conversed with you, I've found it exceedingly difficult to follow your arguments, which tended to iteratively escalate sarcasm, and I think I've finally found out why! As soon as you here made it explicit in your last post that you never present your actual opinion until the end, several posts from much earlier started to make sense to me. At the time, my thinking was more like Bob's last response to Alice:

"WTF is going on here!? Why is he insisting on pointing out irrelevant details that have no context in anyone's thesis? Should I let this point slide because it's not germane to where my own argument needs to go, just to move the conversation along, or is this one something I actually need to contest?"

It all seemed like it was about being argumentative for its own sake, and I never knew whether a point I disagreed with was worth disputing, because I didn't know if it was central or tangential to where the argument was going. I think I just wound up giving up, and just stopped responding, last time around. But now I that I understand that the whole confusion was just an artifact of the structure you chose for your argument, I'd be willing to give that topic another go again as well. (If I recall right, it started out amiably enough, before the feedback loop of sarcasm got started.)


Don't get me wrong, I agree that there is definitely a place for the: "data, data, data, conclusion" format. I use it too, but in my case it's only useful when I don't have the benefit of dialogue, such as writing something up for publication, or some other one-way communication. In that setting, one has no choice but to make assumptions about what ideas the reader might be willing to accept as obvious, and what pieces of thinking requires support. And the reader can always skip ahead to the conclusion, to see where it's all going if they want, which they can't do when an argument unfolds in a dialogue over several posts. To me it really is a far less ideal form to force on a dialogue, where making assumptions about the reader is neither necessary, nor conducive to making a case for one's view, nor helpful in remaining civil.


Instead, I like to begin conversations (or enter into existing conversations) with a statement that lays out what I think (not pretending to have proven it) rather than throwing in data without first providing the context of my thesis. I don't believe that this indicates ignorance of evidence that might support or disprove my views. Instead, I hold that it is the format that makes it easiest for readers to follow the argument, and that it is therefore the best one for me to use. Lay out the full scope of the argument, so that people can see which points are worth challenging. Then talk back and forth a few times about those.

I'm not saying you have to use that approach, I just wanted to make explicit what I do and why. If you still prefer to use your style, I'll continue to muddle through and do my best to follow your arguments. Now that I (think I) understand where you're coming from, I hope I'll be better able to do so. (If you think I'm way off base in my diagnosis, please let me know that as well.)

So now that I've clarified why I start with thesis statements, I hope that we can finally dispense with all the "you didn't provide any upfront evidence, you must be ignorant or an idiot" invective, and actually have a civil conversation.

You game to try?

If so, feel free to try again in addressing my thesis, summarized in this post. (The whole post is the "thesis", and is up for discussion. I'm not claiming that it is "done", or perfect, or fully supported by evidence within that post alone, just that this line of reasoning seems to me to point to the conclusion near the end. Given its length, it is easy to see why adding all the evidence in one go would have made it far more unwieldy, if not entirely unreadable.)

I notice that your earlier response contains almost exclusively assumptions of my motivations, and insults concerning them. I'd like to chalk this (along with any prior conflicts we may have had) up to misunderstandings due to our differing argument structures, and try to get beyond that.

If you don't feel you have the time for that, I'll start us off by (gently) disagreeing with one of the assumptions that appears to have come up. To my mind, not one part of my argument relies on a supporter of it being "liberal." The argument DOES pertain to being an atheist, or other form of non-christian. But that has nothing at all to do with being a liberal. Ayn Rand was an extremely outspoken atheist, and a devoted adherent to her philosophy should be just as able to consider my case as a leftist-pinko liberal would. If I've given examples that appear to lean one way, such as references to Trump's followers, those are not meant to be consequential aspects of the example, but incidental ones. (In other words, I'd be just as upset if a Democrat started arguing that we need a test favoring one religion over another, and managed to attract a horde of followers with THAT. The only reason I didn't use that example is because I didn't happen to see one. But I don't think liberals are immune to pro-religious bias, either.

That's why I genuinely don't see why this needs to involve any left/right discussion at all, instead of a purely religious/secular discussion. Throwing out the "liberal scum" argument really is a red herring. It's the establishment of a preferred religion that I am objecting to here. That's what a religious test does:

"A religious test for entry to the US is not consistent with remaining a secular state." I would expect that statement to be a point of agreement for secular conservatives, centrists, and liberals, and I am genuinely interested in why you, who have earlier in this thread self-identified as a practicing secularist, appear to disagree.

The only thing I can think of is that we might disagree on the definition of "secularist"? I'm not yet sure how that might be either, but I'm eager to hear your views, now without the baggage of several cycles of misunderstanding, if we can pull that off.

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

The dominance of Christian populations waves and wanes across our history and is waning before your very eyes. You and your grandchildren get to experience life in a more secular America. That's a seperate topic than the fate of the dispossessed.

I wish I shared your optimism about the future waning of religiosity, Woodsman.

As you say, it's waxed and waned before. If I had to guess, I'd say a few years of intensifying fear of Islamist terrorism is exactly the sort of thing that could turn those declining numbers around, and most especially in the more extremist subset.

Got any encouraging data for me? It'd be nice to have a solid reason to change my mind.

Ultimately, though, there can't be any data solid enough to serve, in either direction. One's opinion must boil down to a question of how people in the future might react to events that we can't even know will happen. That means the answer will always be more a statement of one's personal mood, than something trendlines will predict.

Unless you've got a magic ball that will tell us the next exogenous shock? ;)

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

I think we've just found the source of much unnecessary bile! Fortunately, if I'm right, it is a result of a misunderstanding, and thus easy to excise with this one brief side-track for meta-discussion!

I'm sorry if the following seems basic or pedantic, it is NOT because I am imagining a mocking tone as I write, but rather because I am trying to be very, very, clear, so we can more rapidly move beyond the venom to a more productive part of the conversation. And I'm not trying to be dogmatic about forms of argument, either, I'm just trying to explain where I think the conversation got derailed, so we can get it back on track.

(You are obviously free to disagree with anything here, and I suspect that even then we could together make the conversation productive again.)

My thoughts stem from this statement you made:



I've noticed that most conversations do not really proceed as:


Instead most are more naturally something like:


or alternatively:

The facts don't actually come in until both sides have satisfactorily established the central point of disagreement.

Most intellectuals do this and most intellectuals are good at showing intellect rather than resolving issues with empirical methods.
So if we cannot look at the text or agree on that the violence has a contextual nature to it, then is a religious debate on beliefs which lead to nowhere, and that is where most conversations go. Two people need to agree with using facts and empirical methods to establish them . If only 10% of the population is willing to do that, then indeed 1 out of a 100 conversations will buck the usual trend. There are in fact 3 kinds interactions I classify. I see mudsling and political chants meant to channel the prevailing opinions among the faithful , and sling hateful invective against their enemies in an emotional struggle. The others are word smith games already mentioned like spelling, logical fallacies and beautifully crafted arguments with a false premise or ignorance of the facts. And then there are the ones I typically like to engage in.

When using simplistic arguments like violence in text , the notions of violence have been studied for years. 3 and 4 year olds cannot sequence or contextualize the violence in fairy tales. Beyond that people do. People don't generally become violent by watching violence occur. Films of violent storms are very violent , but they do not contextually show reward. Only in the context of when the violent act leads to reward like Islamic and Christan martyrdom does violence show causal links . However one is one resolved with suicide hot lines while the other is resolved with a police state. That's in the data. And anecdotally I see this as part of the suicide of a culture. If we cannot agree on this, no arguments are worth having.

Which facts, if any, are needed to resolve a disagreement depend on the exact nature of that dispute, which cannot be known until each party's position is fully understood by the other.

It's true not only in formal debates, but even in the most mundane disagreements that we have every day, such as the following two:

Fact-based dispute:

There was a disagreement about which facts were correct. Hence objective data clears up the disagreement easily.

Value-based dispute:

Alice likes sun, Bob doesn't, everyone can still be happy. Therefore the conclusion is: "peacefully agree to disagree." No factual information can "settle" this dispute, therefore no data needs to be provided.

If both parties have an interest in exploring the different values, they can probe further:


The value difference has been clarified, it has an understandable cause, which may or may not be universally generalizable. Each party remains free to decide whether the others' values are also applicable to themselves, and everyone can still remain civil, whether or not they agree.

I don't think the onus is on one to prove that violence in any two contexts is the same. Unless one believes there are no concepts of self defense, retaliation, revenge, escalation , and justifications etc the, burden of proof is always on them and yet I was the one digging through the texts. It is also ridicules to take a single sections of text in say Leviticus. Even Islam does not randomly stone. Its conditional, not random violence.

But expecting that one should present all evidence prior to or along with the revelation of a thesis drives the discussion to take a different form:

Then its a belief, which is fine, but not superior in quality to religious beliefs. Contextually speaking in a debate about religion their is no superiority of beliefs against them.

The fact that the core of the dispute lies not in anything related to external facts, but instead in a difference in how Bob judges the value of sunny days, is forced to remain entirely hidden until after Alice has arrived at at a set of (structurally!) uninformed conclusions concerning Bob's thought process. It isn't known at that point whether Bob's reason is generalizable, or even valid at all. He could just be a jerk, or he could have skin cancer. He hasn't yet expressed any support for his stance, merely the stance itself. He starts out wondering what Alice was going on about, and then suddenly wonders why she wants him to go outside, and at that point that she becomes upset.

(Now that I mention this, this Bob and Alice sound like I recently-divorced couple I know ... hmmm.)

And I'm going to emphasize this: The problem is not because Alice or Bob isn't smart, or one of them is not trying to understand the other view, or is biased! The structure of the argument alone drives toward that outcome. Ill-will is not required to create violent disagreement, even over minor, easily surmountable, differences of opinion, when both parties think they're talking about different aspects of the same idea. Alice sincerely believes she has provided all the evidence Bob could possibly want, and that a failure to agree with her conclusion can only be evidence that Bob is unreasonable.

And if one requires her to provide all her evidence first, that's all she can think. She really has provided all the evidence that she believes could possibly be needed, given what she is forced to assume about Bob, in choosing which facts are pertinent to present.

[Now, offline, we know that tone is also used to clarify what Alice and Bob mean. But in type, the tone is provided in the mind of the reader, not the writer. So here, on iTulip, it is extremely easy to mis-read initial tone. If you're looking for sarcasm, you can find it, whether it was intended by the writer or not. And sarcasm begets sarcasm ... and you get the idea. Everything can easily spiral out of control. If the conflicting theses are shown early, this can be caught and fixed early as well ("Oh, I thought we were disagreeing about X, but it's really Y!" Haha). But if the conflicting theses aren't shown until the end, the full emotional conflagration is already well underway before the thesis and/or counter thesis ever even gets out. And you have yet another pointless shouting match.]


It's certainly possible to restrict conversations to the type in the last Alice/Bob example, but it appears to unnecessarily drive discussions toward confrontation and anger. It also means that disagreements are often going to end in at best confusion, and at worst pre-judgement.

It seems to me that this is what's happened in this thread, and most likely also in the prior discussions you and I have had, gwynedd1. I confess that whenever I have conversed with you, I've found it exceedingly difficult to follow your arguments, which tended to iteratively escalate sarcasm, and I think I've finally found out why! As soon as you here made it explicit in your last post that you never present your actual opinion until the end, several posts from much earlier started to make sense to me. At the time, my thinking was more like Bob's last response to Alice:

Well let me clarify . I should say that I do present opinions that I consider obvious such as how I started:

"Well one important difference. Christianity is a horrible warlord's religion. The Catholic policy to keep scriptures away from the lay people was wise. Literate Christians are often apt to find it to be a pacifist religion without the special guidance of a violent interpretation . Basically you need a very specific school of interpretation."

Then I got this insulting and contemptible rubbish :

"That's quite an interesting assertion. Tell me more about the "very specific school of interpretation" needed to take away a violent interpretation of an otherwise peaceful verse such as:"

Wherein I then discover that I need to defend the sky being blue, by my estimation . However if an opinion is challenged, then naturally, the only method to proceed must be the facts. People often assume they know what they are . The bible does not say "God helps those who help themselves". It does not say "second coming of Christ" , it does not teach following the ten commandments( the so called Beatitudes being more accurate) and so on. When I challenge those assumptions with facts and they are ignored, one can expect ridicule. Using words to say words in a religions don't matter is prima facie evidence of self conflicting junk worthy only of ridicule. I have heard an argument that guns are too dangerous in the house and that god will protect me anyway. That's the sort argument I was facing, logically unsupportable with no facts.

"WTF is going on here!? Why is he insisting on pointing out irrelevant details that have no context in anyone's thesis? Should I let this point slide because it's not germane to where my own argument needs to go, just to move the conversation along, or is this one something I actually need to contest?"

It all seemed like it was about being argumentative for its own sake, and I never knew whether a point I disagreed with was worth disputing, because I didn't know if it was central or tangential to where the argument was going. I think I just wound up giving up, and just stopped responding, last time around. But now I that I understand that the whole confusion was just an artifact of the structure you chose for your argument, I'd be willing to give that topic another go again as well. (If I recall right, it started out amiably enough, before the feedback loop of sarcasm got started.)

That may be so on my part, but by my observation its because people don't know the subject matter. Tangential arguments are ones that stray from the material, not ones dig into the premise.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that there is definitely a place for the: "data, data, data, conclusion" format. I use it too, but in my case it's only useful when I don't have the benefit of dialogue, such as writing something up for publication, or some other one-way communication. In that setting, one has no choice but to make assumptions about what ideas the reader might be willing to accept as obvious, and what pieces of thinking requires support. And the reader can always skip ahead to the conclusion, to see where it's all going if they want, which they can't do when an argument unfolds in a dialogue over several posts. To me it really is a far less ideal form to force on a dialogue, where making assumptions about the reader is neither necessary, nor conducive to making a case for one's view, nor helpful in remaining civil.

If you don't go into the facts and data you will be wrong. What's the point? Unless that is its not a serious issue then fine. Global warfare between two civilizations is a serious issue to me so details are important. Its all the same doe not cut it for me. This is not even anything like we have seen . We have never secularism and lay Christianity meet Islam. "Its all the same"..? Yes I see these things said all the time which isn't 15 minutes worth of basic fact checking.

Instead, I like to begin conversations (or enter into existing conversations) with a statement that lays out what I think (not pretending to have proven it) rather than throwing in data without first providing the context of my thesis. I don't believe that this indicates ignorance of evidence that might support or disprove my views. Instead, I hold that it is the format that makes it easiest for readers to follow the argument, and that it is therefore the best one for me to use. Lay out the full scope of the argument, so that people can see which points are worth challenging. Then talk back and forth a few times about those.

I'm not saying you have to use that approach, I just wanted to make explicit what I do and why. If you still prefer to use your style, I'll continue to muddle through and do my best to follow your arguments. Now that I (think I) understand where you're coming from, I hope I'll be better able to do so. (If you think I'm way off base in my diagnosis, please let me know that as well.)

So now that I've clarified why I start with thesis statements, I hope that we can finally dispense with all the "you didn't provide any upfront evidence, you must be ignorant or an idiot" invective, and actually have a civil conversation.

You game to try?

If so, feel free to try again in addressing my thesis, summarized in this post. (The whole post is the "thesis", and is up for discussion. I'm not claiming that it is "done", or perfect, or fully supported by evidence within that post alone, just that this line of reasoning seems to me to point to the conclusion near the end. Given its length, it is easy to see why adding all the evidence in one go would have made it far more unwieldy, if not entirely unreadable.)

Your argument seemed to be monotheism in itself as is that is some dialectically proven evil in itself. The big bang is monism, so is first cause and I think therefore I am philosophies . It simply isn't the same. Judaism has few followers for a reason, just like the Parsee. Thus Judaism has a quality like non proselytizing. Proselytizing also has a quality. Lay Christianity will present so much opposition to violence due to its fundamental text the violent proselytization it creates is opposed by all the others. its not virulent in nature. Islam is but it meets it own tribalism and virulence. Bring that into secular and Christian, liberal society and its nothing but a pile of meat with a police state immune response. Only way Christianity does this is if one can monopolize and screen access, which isn't fundamentally Christan anymore. Now granted the authority inherent might be a problem since Islam itself was so bereft of its own history and material splendor , it built its authority on the preexisting Jewish and Christian traditions. What ever that divine authority fear might be, Islam is its realization....holy war.

I notice that your earlier response contains almost exclusively assumptions of my motivations, and insults concerning them. I'd like to chalk this (along with any prior conflicts we may have had) up to misunderstandings due to our differing argument structures, and try to get beyond that.

If you don't feel you have the time for that, I'll start us off by (gently) disagreeing with one of the assumptions that appears to have come up. To my mind, not one part of my argument relies on a supporter of it being "liberal." The argument DOES pertain to being an atheist, or other form of non-christian. But that has nothing at all to do with being a liberal. Ayn Rand was an extremely outspoken atheist, and a devoted adherent to her philosophy should be just as able to consider my case as a leftist-pinko liberal would. If I've given examples that appear to lean one way, such as references to Trump's followers, those are not meant to be consequential aspects of the example, but incidental ones. (In other words, I'd be just as upset if a Democrat started arguing that we need a test favoring one religion over another, and managed to attract a horde of followers with THAT. The only reason I didn't use that example is because I didn't happen to see one. But I don't think liberals are immune to pro-religious bias, either.

What I mean by ultra-liberalism is a self contradictory religion all its own that all things can be tolerated. Its eerily similar to a gnostic, self hating approach...

That's why I genuinely don't see why this needs to involve any left/right discussion at all, instead of a purely religious/secular discussion. Throwing out the "liberal scum" argument really is a red herring. It's the establishment of a preferred religion that I am objecting to here. That's what a religious test does:

"A religious test for entry to the US is not consistent with remaining a secular state." I would expect that statement to be a point of agreement for secular conservatives, centrists, and liberals, and I am genuinely interested in why you, who have earlier in this thread self-identified as a practicing secularist, appear to disagree.

The only thing I can think of is that we might disagree on the definition of "secularist"? I'm not yet sure how that might be either, but I'm eager to hear your views, now without the baggage of several cycles of misunderstanding, if we can pull that off.

Again the US can be described as stemming from classical liberalism from a Greek philosophic rebirth , combined with European eclectic Christian culture. Our secular society has many of the passive virtues of Christianity like racial equality, and abiding moral laws, and Greek ones with the pursuit of personal enlightenment and progress. Islam is not only another shoot off the stump of Judaism that has no virtues of tolerance, but it also lacks the earthy pursuit of progress since it was not watered and fertilized with classical Greek and classical enlightenment. If it is not protected it will be destroyed.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

If anyone would like to start over...this is where I would start.


http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/11/modern-money-and-the-altruistic-gene.html#more-3645

In (extremely) simplified form, the guidance system described by Wilson is this: Human societies are composed of individuals who are dominated (at any given moment) by one or the other of two genetic traits—the “selfish gene” or the “altruistic gene”. The selfish gene leads individuals to take actions benefitting their personal selves. The altruistic gene leads individuals to take actions benefitting the social group to which they belong.

Now I create cultures all the time. I have made yogurt, cheese, wine , sour sauerkraut, and use the same wild yeast from hard cider to make bread. I have a substance and I have a culture. When I create the conditions for sauerkraut , certain organism can out compete others but they do so by making it even more advantageous for its own kind. Lactic acid bacteria fends off its competitors with acidity. Like organism tend not to destroy themselves however in this balance of conquest and altruism. Humans as an individual might me very interesting beings , however 1 cell out of 10 trillion is a bit more systemic. Also once by the billions, personality can cancel itself out leaving very primitive group dynamics. We are much more like these cultures than one might be led to believe.

The interplay between these two genetic traits creates the following dynamic of social evolution: Within a given social group, the selfish gene will always competitively dominate (and defeat) the altruistic gene. However, when there is competition between two social groups, the group with the most active altruistic genes will always dominate and defeat the group with the most active selfish genes. In terms of reproductive success then, natural selection is continuously choosing the selfish gene of individuals within any group while, at the same time, it is choosing the altruistic gene in groups that out-compete other groups. The tension and interplay between these two competitive dynamics is what guides the course of human history.

Christianity is an altruistic gene while Islam is a conquest and submission gene. One might want to take note that Islam is a region of peace . which come from the same root as submission, aka peace from submission. If we important a force willing to exploit the altruism of others into symbiosis , then I see hope. However the world of Islam does not appear to have developed this culture, well. Their tribalism, open ended translations and so own does not appear to me to have found altruistic slaves like the West has forming into a symbiosis in many cases. We se this in our multiculturalism already. The altruism within these clans is more and more being exploited by the identity with its sub groups. This is what we call nepotism, when the altruism is appropriated not for the general society but the clan. We end up cooperating ironically to enrage in conflict, brothers in war. This does not lead to universal prosperity as WWII proved.

I can tell you that if my ingredients of out of balance , there tends to be warfare between my culture and the invading organism of the environment and then and my product suffers. We are changing that balance rapidly in the US and I doubt very much people understand the product of their creation. One of those as I have mention is police state as the state attempts to appropriate what tribalism is trying to appropriate, at best, or that apparatus will be acquired, as we see all the time, by one of the tribes to conquer the others it considers alien.

[santafe2]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Ya know I suppose this debate did make me learn something. It forced me to unpack so many boxes from the attic , I was able to finally answer the question of what happened to American Liberalism. Classical Liberalism is Greek. We imported Christianity from Europe and is thus an import . The renewal of Greek classical cultural is the foundation of American liberalism. You have convinced me that Christianity is indeed related to this threat. Christian contribution to liberalism has created a sort of self hating concept that I have seen before in "slay the flesh" and self flagellation and guilt and to extreme ends to hatred of the material world. That's modern liberalism . However I concede probably not as one might intend. The secular, self hating gnostic approach of Christian heritage(and now I am quite sure it has influenced it) will not destroy us through violence. It will just passively accept it.


My narrow scope was on direct violence. However as a contextual threat , I concede its inimical influence on destroying Classical Liberalism which had the stones to defend itself.

To quote you, "Yeah I think that is pretty overstated."

[santafe2]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Christianity is an altruistic gene while Islam is a conquest and submission gene.

Yup, altruism on the left and conquest on the right...of course.

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

If anyone would like to start over...this is where I would start.


http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/11/modern-money-and-the-altruistic-gene.html#more-3645

In (extremely) simplified form, the guidance system described by Wilson is this: Human societies are composed of individuals who are dominated (at any given moment) by one or the other of two genetic traits—the “selfish gene” or the “altruistic gene”. The selfish gene leads individuals to take actions benefitting their personal selves. The altruistic gene leads individuals to take actions benefitting the social group to which they belong.

Now I create cultures all the time. I have made yogurt, cheese, wine , sour sauerkraut, and use the same wild yeast from hard cider to make bread. I have a substance and I have a culture. When I create the conditions for sauerkraut , certain organism can out compete others but they do so by making it even more advantageous for its own kind. Lactic acid bacteria fends off its competitors with acidity. Like organism tend not to destroy themselves however in this balance of conquest and altruism. Humans as an individual might me very interesting beings , however 1 cell out of 10 trillion is a bit more systemic. Also once by the billions, personality can cancel itself out leaving very primitive group dynamics. We are much more like these cultures than one might be led to believe.

The interplay between these two genetic traits creates the following dynamic of social evolution: Within a given social group, the selfish gene will always competitively dominate (and defeat) the altruistic gene. However, when there is competition between two social groups, the group with the most active altruistic genes will always dominate and defeat the group with the most active selfish genes. In terms of reproductive success then, natural selection is continuously choosing the selfish gene of individuals within any group while, at the same time, it is choosing the altruistic gene in groups that out-compete other groups. The tension and interplay between these two competitive dynamics is what guides the course of human history.

Christianity is an altruistic gene while Islam is a conquest and submission gene. One might want to take note that Islam is a region of peace . which come from the same root as submission, aka peace from submission. If we important a force willing to exploit the altruism of others into symbiosis , then I see hope. However the world of Islam does not appear to have developed this culture, well. Their tribalism, open ended translations and so own does not appear to me to have found altruistic slaves like the West has forming into a symbiosis in many cases. We se this in our multiculturalism already. The altruism within these clans is more and more being exploited by the identity with its sub groups. This is what we call nepotism, when the altruism is appropriated not for the general society but the clan. We end up cooperating ironically to enrage in conflict, brothers in war. This does not lead to universal prosperity as WWII proved.

I can tell you that if my ingredients of out of balance , there tends to be warfare between my culture and the invading organism of the environment and then and my product suffers. We are changing that balance rapidly in the US and I doubt very much people understand the product of their creation. One of those as I have mention is police state as the state attempts to appropriate what tribalism is trying to appropriate, at best, or that apparatus will be acquired, as we see all the time, by one of the tribes to conquer the others it considers alien.

I don't have time tonight, anymore, to give you a full answer, but I wanted to let you know that I will be addressing this more fully soon.

For the moment, I'll just say that whether Christianity is altruistic or not, the case for the sustaining the establishment clause of the first ammendment does not require altruism at all. Rather, the founding fathers felt that avoiding the tyranny of the majority rests in enlightened SELF-interest. We protect minority opinions NOT because we like THEM, but because it helps US to do so, when one looks at the bigger picture, and in longer time horizons.

That's why the origins of altruism are not germane. That motivation is simply absent from the argument entirely. Yes, some people have since generalized the founding fathers' reasoning into meaningless platitudes, but those have nothing to do with why the clause exists. THAT was SELF-interest, which still applies.

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

If anyone would like to start over...this is where I would start.


http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/11/modern-money-and-the-altruistic-gene.html#more-3645

In (extremely) simplified form, the guidance system described by Wilson is this: Human societies are composed of individuals who are dominated (at any given moment) by one or the other of two genetic traits—the “selfish gene” or the “altruistic gene”. The selfish gene leads individuals to take actions benefitting their personal selves. The altruistic gene leads individuals to take actions benefitting the social group to which they belong.

Now I create cultures all the time. I have made yogurt, cheese, wine , sour sauerkraut, and use the same wild yeast from hard cider to make bread. I have a substance and I have a culture. When I create the conditions for sauerkraut , certain organism can out compete others but they do so by making it even more advantageous for its own kind. Lactic acid bacteria fends off its competitors with acidity. Like organism tend not to destroy themselves however in this balance of conquest and altruism. Humans as an individual might me very interesting beings , however 1 cell out of 10 trillion is a bit more systemic. Also once by the billions, personality can cancel itself out leaving very primitive group dynamics. We are much more like these cultures than one might be led to believe.

The interplay between these two genetic traits creates the following dynamic of social evolution: Within a given social group, the selfish gene will always competitively dominate (and defeat) the altruistic gene. However, when there is competition between two social groups, the group with the most active altruistic genes will always dominate and defeat the group with the most active selfish genes. In terms of reproductive success then, natural selection is continuously choosing the selfish gene of individuals within any group while, at the same time, it is choosing the altruistic gene in groups that out-compete other groups. The tension and interplay between these two competitive dynamics is what guides the course of human history.

Christianity is an altruistic gene while Islam is a conquest and submission gene. One might want to take note that Islam is a region of peace . which come from the same root as submission, aka peace from submission. If we important a force willing to exploit the altruism of others into symbiosis , then I see hope. However the world of Islam does not appear to have developed this culture, well. Their tribalism, open ended translations and so own does not appear to me to have found altruistic slaves like the West has forming into a symbiosis in many cases. We se this in our multiculturalism already. The altruism within these clans is more and more being exploited by the identity with its sub groups. This is what we call nepotism, when the altruism is appropriated not for the general society but the clan. We end up cooperating ironically to enrage in conflict, brothers in war. This does not lead to universal prosperity as WWII proved.

I can tell you that if my ingredients of out of balance , there tends to be warfare between my culture and the invading organism of the environment and then and my product suffers. We are changing that balance rapidly in the US and I doubt very much people understand the product of their creation. One of those as I have mention is police state as the state attempts to appropriate what tribalism is trying to appropriate, at best, or that apparatus will be acquired, as we see all the time, by one of the tribes to conquer the others it considers alien.

I don't have time tonight, anymore, to give you a full answer, but I wanted to thank you for starting over, and let you know that I will be addressing this more fully soon.

For the moment, I'll just say that whether Christianity is altruistic or not, the case for the sustaining the establishment clause of the first ammendment does not require altruism at all. Rather, the founding fathers felt a motivation to avoid the tyranny of the majority rested in enlightened SELF-interest. We protect minority opinions NOT because we like THEM, but because it helps US to do so, when one looks at the bigger picture, or to longer time horizons.

That's why I keep insisting that the origins of altruism are not germane. That motivation is simply absent from the argument entirely. Yes, some people have since generalized the founding fathers' reasoning into meaningless platitudes (which you may have confronted earlier) but those have nothing to do with why the clause exists. That was self-interest, which still applies under the threat of terrorism.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Yup, altruism on the left and conquest on the right...of course.

So in other words all one has to do is find a single example that supposedly represents an ideology?

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

To quote you, "Yeah I think that is pretty overstated."

Oh you quoted me? That mean you agree with everything I said.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

I don't have time tonight, anymore, to give you a full answer, but I wanted to thank you for starting over, and let you know that I will be addressing this more fully soon.

For the moment, I'll just say that whether Christianity is altruistic or not, the case for the sustaining the establishment clause of the first ammendment does not require altruism at all. Rather, the founding fathers felt a motivation to avoid the tyranny of the majority rested in enlightened SELF-interest. We protect minority opinions NOT because we like THEM, but because it helps US to do so, when one looks at the bigger picture, or to longer time horizons.

That's why I keep insisting that the origins of altruism are not germane. That motivation is simply absent from the argument entirely. Yes, some people have since generalized the founding fathers' reasoning into meaningless platitudes (which you may have confronted earlier) but those have nothing to do with why the clause exists. That was self-interest, which still applies under the threat of terrorism.

Well lets put it this way, if we used the same sort of scepticism of the evolution of Christianity as we did criminal cases , I wonder if anyone would be in jail. Its pretty simple really. Christianity was a pacifist, altruistic religion( earthly reward wise anyway). Its easy to find in recorded history. Its easy to find in the ideology by reading it. Eventually it was consumed by the warlord Constantine, the true founder of medieval Christendom. Its again , not seriously in dispute by anyone but the lazy and ignorant. The eventual reformation was because the monopoly of the priesthood was broken. Once ordinary people had access to the scriptures, it began to be pacified as a doctrine. Crusaders are quite ridiculous in the light of any text. That is to say the so called Reformation was Christian fundamentalist one in great contrast to Constantine's . It is not up to me to prove this. Its generally accepted and easily proved. There is no dispute that the Reformation was based upon altering the Christian world to the bible having more authority than the Pope because that was what the fundamental doctrine of Martin Luther( will we also dispute this or will we just say Luther just stands for anything because its words than can be twisted into anything?). Historians would say this, not "Christians".


A fundamental problem is that Christianity merely teaches selflessness to inherently selfish people. The best teachers are typically the ones with the best students in the first place. Christianity I grant you is a mostly failed ideology because of bad students, for quite a similar reason why we can't teach dogs to read. We are selfish, superstitious , hypocritical, paranoid and full of appetite. I have little fear of the doctrine, but I can fear bad students of anything. Bad students of Darwin also justify their actions by killing and dominating.

C Murder
http://genius.com/C-murder-survival-...fittest-lyrics

See any relation to ideology and that he is serving a prison sentence for murder? Well not here because we are so open minded....


With Islam the last thing we need is fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism more or less Christianity in the age of Constantine. People are wondering why the same thing cannot be done with Islam as with Christianity. Well, the Church, and its Constantine version of it, had its authority stripped from it. Good luck stripping away Muhammad 's authority from Islam. One might want to look at non fundamentalist Islam, the Abbasid Caliphate for inspiration. There we will find , once again Greek thought left from Seleucid/Persian origins. That was wiped out by Mongols, the sort of people we are told not to fear since they were not particularly religious. If we want to have anything in common with the Islamic world, Greek philosophy and mathematics is actually possible. However that is Islamic adulteration, in quite the opposite direction.

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Well lets put it this way, if we used the same sort of scepticism of the evolution of Christianity as we did criminal cases , I wonder if anyone would be in jail. Its pretty simple really. Christianity was a pacifist, altruistic religion( earthly reward wise anyway). Its easy to find in recorded history. Its easy to find in the ideology by reading it. Eventually it was consumed by the warlord Constantine, the true founder of medieval Christendom. Its again , not seriously in dispute by anyone but the lazy and ignorant. The eventual reformation was because the monopoly of the priesthood was broken. Once ordinary people had access to the scriptures, it began to be pacified as a doctrine. Crusaders are quite ridiculous in the light of any text. That is to say the so called Reformation was Christian fundamentalist one in great contrast to Constantine's . It is not up to me to prove this. Its generally accepted and easily proved. There is no dispute that the Reformation was based upon altering the Christian world to the bible having more authority than the Pope because that was what the fundamental doctrine of Martin Luther( will we also dispute this or will we just say Luther just stands for anything because its words than can be twisted into anything?). Historians would say this, not "Christians".


A fundamental problem is that Christianity merely teaches selflessness to inherently selfish people. The best teachers are typically the ones with the best students in the first place. Christianity I grant you is a mostly failed ideology because of bad students, for quite a similar reason why we can't teach dogs to read. We are selfish, superstitious , hypocritical, paranoid and full of appetite. I have little fear of the doctrine, but I can fear bad students of anything. Bad students of Darwin also justify their actions by killing and dominating.

C Murder
http://genius.com/C-murder-survival-...fittest-lyrics

See any relation to ideology and that he is serving a prison sentence for murder? Well not here because we are so open minded....


With Islam the last thing we need is fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism more or less Christianity in the age of Constantine. People are wondering why the same thing cannot be done with Islam as with Christianity. Well, the Church, and its Constantine version of it, had its authority stripped from it. Good luck stripping away Muhammad 's authority from Islam. One might want to look at non fundamentalist Islam, the Abbasid Caliphate for inspiration. There we will find , once again Greek thought left from Seleucid/Persian origins. That was wiped out by Mongols, the sort of people we are told not to fear since they were not particularly religious. If we want to have anything in common with the Islamic world, Greek philosophy and mathematics is actually possible. However that is Islamic adulteration, in quite the opposite direction.

I'm honestly quite confused, gwenedd1.

We said we were starting fresh, and I am glad we did. But all of the above arguments still seem to be against DSpencer's position, and not mine (which I will say again, has an entirely different basis). Furthermore, HE left the conversation a while ago, and I see no reason why I should be expected to defend a position I don't hold. If his view is the only one you want to discuss, or if DSpencer is the only partner you'd like to engage, just let me know, and we can stop going in circles.

I am really not contesting what you are saying above, mostly because I agree with a much of it, and the few points where I don't, I still don't see it as pertinent to the question I thought we were discussing, which was "Should we allow people of all religions in this country?" If answered negatively, this question would require examining whether the cost/benefit analysis of the first amendment's establishment clause required re-evaluation. It's that cost/benefit analysis that I would argue indicates that we are still better off with an open society than a partially closed-off one, even if terrorism DOES rise by a limited amount. It's not an ideological stance at all, just a run-the-numbers, how-much-risk-for-how-much-reward sort of an argument.

All of our freedoms come with risks, and many of them in American blood. The right to not be illegally searched must serve as an impediment to police work at times, and I can only imagine that at least on occasion, a criminal gets away and commits murder because of it. Our society has decided that the cost is very small, compared to the benefit, so we have retained that amendment.

The freedom to bear arms, to consume alcohol, even the freedom to drive a car, all cost lives, but are retained nonetheless. They are valued (by our broader society, if not each member) as being "worth" the death toll associated with them. The right to drink went away when the national value system shifted, and came back later when it shifted again. Data certainly played a role in this, but changing values did too.

To some, keeping government out of any and all religious questions will be worth one level of terrorism, to another group, a different level. A lot of this value judgement will depend on whether one associates one's own identity with the "majority" religion, or some other position. So parties can reasonably disagree here without at least one side having to be an idiot or an ignoramus.

The last statistic I heard (and we can get into which statistics are relevant or believable if you're interested in talking about this at all, since I still haven't managed to convince you it is pertinent) is that the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is ~ 1/4 the chance of being hit by lightning.

I went out in the last big storm to check the mail, and didn't think twice about it. I'm sure that must have increased my odds considerably of getting hit. Off the cuff, maybe a factor of, say 10? or more. But getting the mail was more important to me. And at least for me, a state free of an established religion is worth a whole lot more than the convenience of checking my mail on a whim.

The reason is that of all the risks we face in life, getting hit by lightning is still extremely small, compared to say, driving my car to the store. I'm not terrorized by driving, getting the mail, or getting hit by lightning, and I really don't see a reason to be terrorized by people whose sole purpose is to incite that (by definition irrational) over-response.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having. If you'd rather argue with DSpencer some more, you'll have to convince him to reply to you again.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

I'm honestly quite confused, gwenedd1.

We said we were starting fresh, and I am glad we did. But all of the above arguments still seem to be against DSpencer's position, and not mine (which I will say again, has an entirely different basis). Furthermore, HE left the conversation a while ago, and I see no reason why I should be expected to defend a position I don't hold. If his view is the only one you want to discuss, or if DSpencer is the only partner you'd like to engage, just let me know, and we can stop going in circles.

I am really not contesting what you are saying above, mostly because I agree with a much of it, and the few points where I don't, I still don't see it as pertinent to the question I thought we were discussing, which was "Should we allow people of all religions in this country?" If answered negatively, this question would require examining whether the cost/benefit analysis of the first amendment's establishment clause required re-evaluation. It's that cost/benefit analysis that I would argue indicates that we are still better off with an open society than a partially closed-off one, even if terrorism DOES rise by a limited amount. It's not an ideological stance at all, just a run-the-numbers, how-much-risk-for-how-much-reward sort of an argument.

That is easy to answer. A country should follow its own self interest, and the will of the people. Most American do not want to import Islam. Most Americans are also against attacking Islamic countries, especially ones that had no relation to 9/11.

All of our freedoms come with risks, and many of them in American blood. The right to not be illegally searched must serve as an impediment to police work at times, and I can only imagine that at least on occasion, a criminal gets away and commits murder because of it. Our society has decided that the cost is very small, compared to the benefit, so we have retained that amendment.

Those that come to the US have nothing to do with our freedom. If we Balkanize , people will give it up voluntarily....and I suspect some people will love this.

The freedom to bear arms, to consume alcohol, even the freedom to drive a car, all cost lives, but are retained nonetheless. They are valued (by our broader society, if not each member) as being "worth" the death toll associated with them. The right to drink went away when the national value system shifted, and came back later when it shifted again. Data certainly played a role in this, but changing values did too.

How will that be retained when half the people decide Sharia law is best? We have institutions that slow pure democratic rule, not prevent it over the long run. I simply don't understand why people think they will retain freedom living next to people that don't agree with them.Its very important what citizens think. Importing people who don't is like voting yourself out of office. Want more Christians who want an hour of bible study in public school?

To some, keeping government out of any and all religious questions will be worth one level of terrorism, to another group, a different level. A lot of this value judgement will depend on whether one associates one's own identity with the "majority" religion, or some other position. So parties can reasonably disagree here without at least one side having to be an idiot or an ignoramus.

Well again who decides? Shouldn't that be the people who live here?

The last statistic I heard (and we can get into which statistics are relevant or believable if you're interested in talking about this at all, since I still haven't managed to convince you it is pertinent) is that the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is ~ 1/4 the chance of being hit by lightning.

And a 100% chance after the lightening strike that we will become engaged in a foreign war, have the Patriot act pasted in haste and so on. If you think we will all just have cooler heads with statistics then you have your own religion not based on reality. That is beside the fact that in Europe and the US they just go on Welfare. Again, these are just the facts.

http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/refugees-...welfare-jihad/

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., told WND that while many of the Somali transplants have been hard-working citizens, the experiment has been costly for her state. And too many Somalis remain dependent on public assistance.

I went out in the last big storm to check the mail, and didn't think twice about it. I'm sure that must have increased my odds considerably of getting hit. Off the cuff, maybe a factor of, say 10? or more. But getting the mail was more important to me. And at least for me, a state free of an established religion is worth a whole lot more than the convenience of checking my mail on a whim.

Well I am sure some Ukrainians did the same thing until they one day realized they had a volatile mix of sizable minorities and temporally forgot how wonderful diversity is. Now their country is hell on earth. We are not talking about 1-2% . Its when they become a threat to each other.

The reason is that of all the risks we face in life, getting hit by lightning is still extremely small, compared to say, driving my car to the store. I'm not terrorized by driving, getting the mail, or getting hit by lightning, and I really don't see a reason to be terrorized by people whose sole purpose is to incite that (by definition irrational) over-response.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having. If you'd rather argue with DSpencer some more, you'll have to convince him to reply to you again.

My society is nothing like I remember before 9/11 , nothing at all. I think I might rather have one with him. How can I argue against gradualism? No, one drop of blood never killed anyone. All we have to do is consider a gallon as separate drops of blood and its harmless. I thought I had a narrow scope. Yours is how it affected you yesterday.


https://muslimstatistics.wordpress.c...f-apostates-2/

In moderate states only 5-20% think people should be killed for leaving Islam. That is an ideal American point of view isn't it?

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

The main thrust of your argument seems to rest on these parts of your answer:

That is easy to answer. A country should follow its own self interest, and the will of the people. Most American do not want to import Islam. Most Americans are also against attacking Islamic countries, especially ones that had no relation to 9/11.

How will that be retained when half the people decide Sharia law is best? We have institutions that slow pure democratic rule, not prevent it over the long run. I simply don't understand why people think they will retain freedom living next to people that don't agree with them.Its very important what citizens think. Importing people who don't is like voting yourself out of office. Want more Christians who want an hour of bible study in public school?

Well again who decides? Shouldn't that be the people who live here?

So, just to be clear on what we are now talking about, do the following five paragraphs represent an accurate description of your views? If not, please help me express your view on these points in a way that is both clear, and fair. One way to do so would be to re-post the same text, showing additions and {redactions}, so that it is very clear what part of my characterization you disagree with. We can reserve commentary for afterwards, so we're sure what we're discussing.



This response appears to be saying that you disagree with the founding fathers, and believe that there is NO threat from what they referred to as "the tyranny of the majority," as long as that majority is christian, and not muslim.

You express concern over christian influence in schools, saying "want more Christians who want an hour of bible study in public schools?"

The response seems to require the implication that the Bill of Rights, which was created to prevent the tyranny of the majority, is ineffective at doing so (since muslims, once in a majority, could impose "Sharia law") in the long run.

To solve this problem, you want to weaken or remove a portion of the Bill of Rights, the first amendment's establishment clause. (This would be required to create a religious test for entry to the US.)

You also propose to ensure Muslims never gain influence in the first place, by banning their entry, to protect a space where American values can thrive.

[Techdread]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

No he thinks your silly,
This Abrahamic religion is less violent than that one and forgetting over a thousand years of human history.