is ISIS evil?

Miss_Leah wrote: By continuing the dichotomy of good/evil, we're continuing to justify violence on both sides.

Not if you use my definition of evil, posted above, which considers both sides as integral to its definition

Adder wrote:

Miss_Leah wrote: By continuing the dichotomy of good/evil, we're continuing to justify violence on both sides.

Not if you use my definition of evil, posted above, which considers both sides as integral to its definition

I happen to agree with you, Adder

I believe that there is universal human morality/experience. But I think that it requires deep thought and consideration to isolate, and this particular discussion is on the heavy side of subjective.

Miss_Leah wrote:

OB1Shinobi wrote:

Miss_Leah wrote:

OB1Shinobi wrote:

Miss_Leah wrote: I'm not convinced we could, though. Morality is almost completely subjective.

ok well then as an experiment, try to imagine a scenario where a five year old child is sexually assaulted and tortured to death in front of his or her family, in such a way that it can be understood as an act of goodness

pretend that youre a writer and your masterpiece depends on justifying this act - not just explaining it, but actually making it into a good and righteous thing to do

If we're playing pretend, ok then.

Let's say that this child was a member of a primary culture where part of their yearly fertility ritual requires the sacrifice of a particularly valuable member of the tribe. In this case, an innocent child. He (she?) is subjected to a ritualized sex act as a reenactment of the local mythology, followed by dismemberment and burial in the fields in front of the entire village. They all believe that this sacrifice will assure a harvest that will feed them for the coming year.

Now, I'm playing pretend here of course, but in that case, what seems to us a barbarous act to us is actually a necessary and righteous ritual to them.

excellent, i figured thats where youd go with it

now, what makes this act "good"?
why is it "good" when its done this way but it would be "evil" if it were done another way?

you yourself just made it "good", now please explain why it is so

Well, the act is regarded by one group as "good" because it brings the favour of the powers that be to give them sustenance and the security of survival. Whereas someone from another culture would see it as rape, torture and murder of a child. It's the same act, with two very different moral outcomes.

The difference is how it's perceived by the person who is hearing about it/seeing it, etc. That's what I mean by morally subjective. Using the example that Brenna posted, we see ISIS/ISIL/Da'esh as evil for the cruel acts that they perform to terrorize us and the non-believers among them. They see us as the evil Empire out to get them and squash their ancient traditions with our modern godless ways.

Obviously, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here and taking things to extremes.

so youre saying that the reason this act could be considered "good" is because an outside observer could justify it?
that the "good" of it has nothing to do with the motives and understanding of the actors, but of the perception of the observers?

before even asking "is Is evil, it has to be established if "evil" even makes sense

i say that it does, and i suggested this exercise to demonstrate it

for the moment it is not relevant if "calling them evil wont help"

i put forward an idea about analyzing situations and extracting the underlying principles and the recurring themes

i think maybe some people are not being honest

if the reason that youre saying "IS is not evil" is because you think that calling them evil "wont help", then youre fudging the truth

your position isnt really that they arent evil, but that it would be unwise politic to say so outright

what to do about IS isnt even a conversation that i am havin right now

the usa is a big place, and i am american every bit as much as charles mansen and gw bush

saying that "america" is evil because of the actions of cm and gwb would be an unfair oversimplification

i am not saying we should be over simplifying

but youre not making the world a better place by refusing to use a word because you dont like it

evil
1. profoundly immoral and malevolant

thats IS

at least that definitely is certain individuals within IS

even if you could make the case of moral relativity you cannot say that they are not "profoundly malevolent"

what to do about it is a totally different conversation

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as for what they believe - they are burning girls alive for refusing to be sexual property
i consider it perfectly reasonable possibility that they lie as well

Subjective and relative are not the same thing. Nothing about morality being subjective (and it is) implies it being relative.
Moral judgements are always and without exception products of a subject, someone who makes the judgement. Every proposed framework of morality relies upon subjects to uphold it, yet almost none of them claim that every moral opinion is as valid or valuable as any other. Absent a subject, no moral proposition would be made, much like no other proposition could be either. That doesn't mean that everything any subject thinks on a matter has any, let alone equal weight.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/08/middleeast/isis-rape-theology-soldiers-rape-women-to-make-them-muslim/

"In ISIS territory, Yazidi women can be bought and sold for money, bartered for weapons, even given as a gift; but this is not a simple commercial transaction -- ISIS has made rape and slavery part and parcel of its -- brutal -- theology.

"ISIS fighters told us, 'This is the rule of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and we must do it,'" Noor explains. "[They said] 'Anyone who doesn't convert to Islam, we will kill the males and marry the girls. They are the spoils of war. '"

In its online English magazine, Dabiq, ISIS lays out its justification for its brutality against the Yazidis on religious grounds:
"Enslaving the families of the kuffar [unbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah [Islamic law] that if anyone were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Qur'an and the narrations of the Prophet."

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If the girls are already pregnant when they are captured, they are forced to have an abortion

from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/isis-brides-secret-world-jihad-western-women-syria

Umm Umar did not enjoy her childhood in Britain. “Man I hated UK so much,” she told me the first time we spoke. She grew up in a part of the country where there were few migrants, and even fewer Muslims. Other kids often beat her up at school when she was small, she said, and spat at her on the bus when she was older. She was desperately lonely and alienated.

Like most of the girls I spoke to, Umm Umar’s marriage to an Isis fighter in Syria had largely been a pragmatic affair. “Life without a mahram [close male relative] here can get quite difficult,” she told me. She had been matched with a fighter who was British Bangladeshi, just like her. His family were even from the same village in Bangladesh, she told me, relishing the coincidence of fate that had brought them together. He had been “so so sweet and caring”, but had been killed just a couple of months earlier. She was now the wife of a shaheed [martyr] and was being honoured. She seemed proud of her husband’s success, and never spoke a word of grief or sadness. Another western woman in Syria I spoke to – Umm Zahra – was almost envious when she discussed Umm Umar’s status. “U dnt hav 2 pay 4 ANYTHING if u r wife of a shaheed,” she told me. But she was careful not to seem discontented. All women, she promised me, were looked after. “U will still get money each month.”

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Melanie Smith of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue calls the “caliphate utopian ideal” one of the common “key pull factors” that draw women over.

They imagine a world in which there is little poverty and inequality, governed with perfect fairness under clear-cut, divine laws that work to the advantage of all. It is a vision that makes no allowances for the ambiguity and variety of traditional Islamic legal interpretations, or for the disorder of real life.

But there are also “push factors”, says Smith, that drive women away from their homes in the west: often loneliness and alienation. Isis propaganda is designed to appeal to people who feel like outsiders in their own homes. “Islam began as something strange and it will revert to being strange,” reads a hadith [teaching] that is popular among Isis supporters online, “so give glad tidings to the strangers.”

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Umm Kulthum was fixated on stories of Muslim oppression. Her social media accounts were a montage of Muslim suffering – Syrian children killed by Bashar al-Assad; Palestinian youths burned alive by Israelis. For Umm Kulthum, this justified almost any brutality in return. She felt all Muslims had a duty to “protect their siblings in Islam”; she was convinced that only violent jihadists took this seriously. “Jihad is our right even as just human beings, not Muslims,” she said once. “Do we not have the right to defend ourselves?” For all her hostility to the west, her western education had helped to shape her. Like the other women, she used the language of “human rights” and “girl power”. She shared stories of women in niqabs, with weapons, charging into battle.

Special contempt was reserved for Muslims who she thought were colluding with the west by failing to support violent jihad. Such people are known in Isis circles as “coconuts” – brown on the outside, white on the inside. The word has its roots in the anti-colonial movements of the 20th century. When I mentioned I had non-Muslim friends, Umm Kulthum was stern. “Habibti,” she wrote, “do not take kafir as your friend.” Umm Umar was pitying: “U have to understand that these kuffar are our enemies,” she wrote to me. “And they will never stop fighting us until we follow their … way.” Others were harsher. After the shootings of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Umm Abbas retweeted: “and muslims think that the west cares about them. you are a joke by Allah.”

i acknowledge that it is complicated

there is a lot of idealism and many of the soldiers and women are doing what they think is right

but look, when ISIS itself says "Enslaving the families of the kuffar [unbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah [Islamic law] that if anyone were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Qur'an and the narrations of the Prophet."

you have to realize that if you are not muslim, and maybe even if your are not their idea of muslim, you and your family are the kuffar they're talking about

and they are doing exactly what that quote suggests they would do, and they will do it to you and to the people that you love, if and when they can

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also it looks to me like their long term plan is to raise an army of soldiers

thats why there is such a premium on getting women - its about the babies, who will be raised and trained as daesh fighters from birth

if you think that they are a pain in the arse now, wait till you see what they become in 20-30 years

from http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-is-gaining-momentum-in-the-worst-possible-way-2015-6

"The Times, citing interviews with residents, notes that ISIS "is offering reliable, if harsh, security; providing jobs in decimated economies; and projecting a rare sense of order in a region overwhelmed by conflict."

And by doing so, the group is increasingly winning over reluctant civilians.

"It is not our life, all the violence and fighting and death," a laborer from Raqqa told The Times. "But they got rid of the tyranny of the Arab rulers."

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from: http://upfront.scholastic.com/issues/01_11_16/can-isis-be-stopped/

"ISIS’s stated ambition is to re-establish an Islamic caliphate like the ones that ruled the Middle East and North Africa in past centuries. But recently it’s also made it clear that it intends to wage a holy war with the West. After the attacks in France, ISIS issued a warning: The events were merely the “first of [a coming] storm.”

"In December 2013, ISIS pushed back into Iraq, conquering territory about the size of Great Britain. ISIS terrorized regions under its control, forcing Christians and religious minorities to convert or die, and selling thousands into slavery. It seized oil refineries and stole $425 million from Iraq’s central bank. Six months later, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared all land under its occupation the new caliphate of the Islamic State.

In many ways, ISIS has functioned as a real, organized state. It has proved adept at financing itself by selling oil, collecting kidnapping ransoms, and heavily taxing people within its territory.
Through sophisticated social media programs targeting disaffected Muslims around the globe, ISIS has attracted thousands of recruits worldwide—including an estimated 4,000 Westerners, about 250 of them American."

"While most experts believe ending the Syrian war is key to stopping ISIS, tensions run high over how to do it...
The challenge of getting American leaders to agree on how to fight ISIS is dwarfed by the problem of uniting the international community against it. The countries that met in Vienna want to stop the war in Syria, lay the foundations for a new government, and tackle ISIS. But among the parties involved, there’s huge disagreement over critical issues, particularly relating to Syria.
Chief among them: the fate of Syrian President Assad. Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that Assad, his longtime ally, be part of any future Syrian government. The Shiite government of Iran also supports Assad.
For the U.S. and regional Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, however, keeping Assad in power is out of the question. The U.S. blames Assad for atrocities committed against Syria’s people—including the use of chemical weapons and the relentless bombing of Syrian cities by his own air force."

“ISIS has a story about what the war is: Muslims versus everyone else, especially Christians,” Wood says. Simply crushing ISIS militarily might generate sympathy for them among angry Muslims around the world, he explains."

In my opinion, they dont see themselves as evil, they belive that what they are doing is the rigth path as the West thougth with church by burning "heretics".
But they are making the same mistakes that we did, and i belive in a few years they will learn that as we did a long time ago.
ISIS is a cancer because they are destroying the west by spreading fear across Europe and America, Countries like UK want to leave UN because of the refugees and emigration, the extreme parties in Germany, France and USA are gaining power, i fear for the future of the world, a 3 world war aproachs, it will be the end of Earth as we know it. It seems a bit dark tougth but if we dont change this situation, this thougth will became reallity.

It's not just ISIS.

According to the Muslim Group of USA and Canada, Imam Hamza Sodagar, “Is deemed a role model by young Muslims all around the world,” having studied Islamic issues for 14 years and spoken at innumerable events globally.

Sodagar’s prominent role in influencing potentially millions of young Muslims make his remarks all the more chilling.

“If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things,” states Sodagar in the video clip.

“One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest.”

“Second – burn them to death.”

“Third – throw ’em off a cliff.”

“Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that.”

“Fifth – a combination of the above,” concludes Sodagar, citing the Hadiths as his source.

“This is something that’s there,” he emphasizes.

It's possible that this religion wasn't always like this. As seen throughout various old cities with churches who bear the cross as well as the moon, Russian and German royalty armor with arabic writing and Islamic symbols on them. Christianity and Islam was once practically the same religion that was part of a larger society or civilization that spanned the entire globe as shown by the same megaliths left everywhere that is now missing from history which was replaced with a history that pits the two against each other. The time and events throughout Antiquity occured 1000 years LATER than we are taught, everything in the 'old' history actually happened much more recently but as of right now we'll probably never know what really happened because all the ancient texts and books 'translated' by the 'historians' we base everything on were magically burned or destroyed.

You can cite all the same digusting aspects of the Inquisition and burnings by the churches, violence between churches and it's the same with the other religions, nations, blah blah blah. It really makes you wonder, I used to think that ohh it's always been like this and it's part of the dualistic nature of reality and all that other pretty spritual jargain, but other information has been sitting in the dark for centuries and more and more is coming out today with the internet that goes way beyond what is streamlined into our school books.

Unfortunately I think we're too far into this to turn around or try to make ammends. The Muslim refugees will not assimilate in Europe or the US, the Islamic countries will not forget or forgive what has been done to them and the West will not forgive and forget what they have done to them too. Bloody and barbaric times are going to follow, I think it's all staged and it's all part of the agenda of global elites to consolidate more power and control. Albert Pike's third world war. As for ISIS specifically, I think it's very easy to see now that they could be Obama's proxy army. Give real assault weapons and military grade hardware to radicals without a background check, what a hypocrite.