What's the best way to improve Muslims?

Many of us agree that Islam is currently too extremist.

Moderate Muslims seem to be the minority and are chastised, isolated by their brethren.

However, in order to reduce terrorism, many of us agree Islam must be moderated.

So how do we convince Muslims to moderate their faith?

 

The key is to ignore them, and keep them in their lands.

 

The current extremists are basically impossible to moderate. We can kill some of them when we get the chance. The area where we have the greatest impact today is the terrorists groups 10-15 years in the future, i.e. those who at the moment aren't terrorists at all. Those can be swayed by some combination of kindness, respect and treating them basically like anyone else.

Some argue that peaceful methods don't work, and I can see where they're coming from, given that a full fledged terrorist probably won't stop if we're nice. However, peaceful strategies just work on a larger time scale. The peaceful strategy against ISIS is not "letting them do whatever now", it's would have been "not invading the Middle East in the early 2000s". The peaceful strategy possible to deploy today is not deployed against ISIS, but against the groups who think our attacks on ISIS are unfair (especially on civilians) and who might organise against us in the coming decade or so.

 

Don't bring them here. Shun them until they take care of their ****.

 

Liberals from around the world should flock to the ME to explain to them the error of their ways.

 

All of the above would insult them.

 

Why would we want to change them? Apparently they are culturally enriching the West.

 

I basically agree. Its impossible to change religious nuts.

 

This is certainly the best answer, liberals are the most suitable teachers (many are pedagogues and academics) they also have thurough understanding of "peace and love", they're usually pacifists, sensitive to the feelings of others, innately inclusivist, embrace diversity and very tolerant, these would be the ideal people to send to places where Islamic extremists abound.

 

NONE of the posts you've done with me would indicate that!

 

Then religion is dangerous, and people should just ADMIT that, for once.

 

True, but many would come back home missing something*.

*Their heads.

 

It isn't our job to do so. It's theirs.

 

Our bombs create more terrorists down the road - we need to also try to win this war ideologically - that will mean condemning faith itself of course - so yes, belief in Jesus will be an indirect casualty of this war - but that's a price we are going to have to pay.

 

since we need their oil for a good economy we have to do what President Trump suggests, and ban them and build walls like israel does.

 

If our bombs create more terrorists, then the world would be overpopulated with Nazis.

You need to stop presuming a leftist talking point is a fact.

 

Nonsense - they believe in insane stuff like Mohammad "splitting the moon", and magic invisible Jinns (could be living in my nose), so their beliefs are as insane as the Christian beliefs. It can't be that hard to defeat people who are so delusional that they actually believe in magic invisible beings like Jinns (or "angels", or "demons", or "Satan", etc.) WE have logic, reason, science, and common sense on our side, they don't. We will win this war.

 

Nonsense - because unlike WWII, this is a terrorist war! The British terrorists didn't live in areas that we could just bomb (they lived among us) - no, we must win this war by taking on faith. Faith drives the Jihadist to believe he'll get 72 virgins by blowing himself up - FACTS Mohammad does not have, only faith. Christians believe that faith is GOOD....that attitude needs to go.

 

This from the same poster who thinks bombing terrorist camps help terrorists.

Derp.

 

The only way to deal with them is to outlaw their religion, and imprison their members for belonging to a terrorist organization.

sans that, just complete ostracism which is what I do. They're not welcome in my house, not welcome to work with me, not welcome in my presence, not welcome at all.

 

You operate on faith every day. You simply live in denial of it.

 

Did we bomb them there? No? Then non sequitur.

So your war is against Christians too. Sweet. You're badly outnumbered.

 

Exactly what do you mean by winning the war ideologically? I think we should balance our goals by how achievable they are. The most pressing matter is to stop people from blowing each other up, and for that, we don't need to deconvert them from faith altogether, it would be enough to have them be moderates, and I find that to be much more achievable on a geographic scale.

In fact, I believe that in general, condemnation of faith is more likely to polarise humanity. I think we need to focus on those who are on the verge of becoming terrorists (similar arguments can be made about other bad religious things). What would be their reaction of condemnation of faith? I find it very unlikely that they will simply drop their beliefs (and thousands of years of philosophy, rhetoric and psychology tends to agree with me). Instead, I think it's more likely that they will conclude that our view are incompatible with theirs, and they become more likely to radicalise.

I think "winning" the war ideologically frames the issue as an us-vs-them conflict, and that makes it very hard for people to switch sides (or to stay moderate).

 

Long-term bombing terrorists and KILLING INNOCENT CIVILIANS certainly does back-fire on us. And our bombs are not "smart" enough to know a terrorist from a currently non-terrorist Muslim, so we can't kill out way out of THIS war.

The "nones" in America DOUBLED in one generation, so it's not as hard as you might think, and they didn't even have a good an internet (the internet is kryptonite to faith) "way" back then. You seem to think that discrediting beliefs that are unscientific and involve talking snakes, talking donkeys, and magic flying horses with wings (Qur'an) is going to be an impossible task - it won't be.

 

Encourage moderate Muslims to modernize Islam. They need a reformation.

It's hard to live in the 7th century when the rest of the world is 1,400 years more advanced.