What is the point of it? What was the aim? What was the beneficial outcome? Why did someone go to all that trouble? This is not like a US warship parked in Yemen, or a US military barracks in the Middle East, or even the financial center of the U.S. in New York. There is some line of weird thinking that might lead us to those kinds of acts. But a publlic square in Uganda? What the hell does that mean?
Are these followers of Islam, or not? People in leadership all over the world like to say, "This is not really Islam," or, "This is not faith, this is a few criminals pretending to be holy." Etc.
Enlighten me.
9 comments:
Gee, I wish I could remember more of my logic course. Let's see: Major premise - "Some terrorists say they're motivated by Islam"; Minor premise: "Akmad is a terrorist who says he is acting in accord with Islam"; therefore, (implied conclusion) "Islam is a religion of terrorism." I think that's what they called an invalid syllogism. Let's try this: "The KKK says it's a Christian organization"; "The KKK committed acts terrorism"; therefore, "Christianity is a terrorist religion." Oops.
Sparty: Thanks for the contribution.
Anyone else?
I want to reserve a further comment until others have a chance. I hope someone takes the opportunity.
I like Sparty's analogy. The situation is that the Islamic fundamentalists are in a powerless position. The predominantly Judeo-Christian western world has all the power. They resort to isolated acts of violence to fight back. I'm not saying it's the right way to go about it, but they get attention.
Assuming that you have the logic right, I will support the conclusion from the KKK syllogism. However, I think the thing is backwards:
Christianity is a violent organization.
The KKK says it is Christian.
Therefore, KKK is violent.
Surely you recognize the illogic of my KKK/Christianity syllogism. I don't remember enough detail from the logic course (it was a long, long time ago) but I remember studying not only the construction of valid and invalid syllogisms but also a whole list of fallacies. I can't remember the various categories but your major premise is an example of one of them - or perhaps it's the reasoning that led you to your major premise. I think you spend too much time trying to fit religion and the "religious" into fixed categories.
I think I do, too. :) What distresses me most, I guess, is how readily violence is done in the name of godliness. Now, being a heathen myself ...
I thought maybe others would be moved to comment.
My memory just kicked in - partially. I think one fallacy was "generalization" and another was "simplification." Damn, I wish I hadn't sold that book.
I don't know a lot about the art of logic but it seems to me that all the presentations I 've seen here so far don't consider diversity, individualism or the other part of any group.
Thought this coincidental(or is it) that the password for me to publish my first comment was"borerpar".
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