is ISIS evil?

the following is a rant

i appreciate your post Vraell and this isnt an argument against you, its just a rant

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In my opinion, they dont see themselves as evil, they belive that what they are doing is the rigth path...

this comes up a lot and i find it very frustrating; this idea that people have to "see themselves as evil" in order to be evil

i understand that people join daesh for different reasons, and plenty of them are understandable and relatable reasons in and of themselves

and maybe the word "evil" should not to be used lightly; perhaps it should only be used in very extreme cases, and can never be justification for committing evil ourselves

ok, i can agree to that kind of restraint

and maybe sometimes we should label the behavior and not the person; instead of saying "these people are evil", we could day "these people are doing evil things"

ok, i can agree to make that distinction

but there comes a point, or there should come a point, where the justifications do not matter anymore; where there is no longer any absolvement found in the circumstances or self image of the person acting

"following orders" didnt justify the way that the jews were treated in the concentration camps, and "following the will of Allah" and all the other rhetoric used by deash, does not justify what they are doing to the Yazidis , for example. Read the article and then explain to me that "how they see themselves" actually matters, please, because im not seeing it

if you murder my son and rape my daughter, i dont care how you see yourself
i dont agree with this idea that people who commit the most horrific acts of violence against the helpless and the random bystander, are somehow not evil because "they dont see themselves as evil"

does it matter if they see themselves as good?
and do you think they really do? would an evil person say "yes i am evil"?
maybe, but just as likely, no
maybe theyd lie to themself first
maybe the habit of believing ones own lies and justifications is one of the things that turns people evil, or opens the door for that to happen

but hey, maybe they actually are good people just, you know, "in their own way"

but that would mean that there are different kinds of "good people" - there are the kinds of "good people" who dont want to chop off anyone's head, and then there are the kinds of "good people" who do want to chop off people's heads

if that is the case, then maybe those of us "good people" who DONT chop off heads, really should hope to get rid of the "good people" who DO chop off heads, just as a matter of the fact that we dont want our own heads to be chopped off?

rant over

Lightstrider wrote: ...

So, i dont quite get the obama reference, but i do agree with some of the points you raised

From what my professor taught us in Intro Religion, Muhammad was dedicated to peace as far as possible

he was a good fighter and commander, but he really tried to co-exist peacefully, and was very merciful to those he battled against when he won, which he usually did.

he was an extremely ethical person all around, according to what I was taught

the division in Islam happened when he died and his will vanished
it would have named a successor, and he had a lifetime of being an administrator and civic leader, so its not like he didnt have a will and this was all a surprise; he had a will and someone stole it

accusations were made, sides were chosen, (Sunni and Shia) and certain Muslims have been pretty much at the throats of certain other Muslims ever since

but i want to respond to the following ideas

It's not just ISIS...
Sodagar’s prominent role in influencing potentially millions of young Muslims make his remarks all the more chilling...

Unfortunately I think we're too far into this to turn around or try to make amends. 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...

i disagree, at the level of fundamental world views, with a lot of the politicians and the various "talking heads" here in the States who frame the issues as being "evil jihadis who hate us good Americans for our freedoms, and must be destroyed if we are to have peace"

obviously people have reasons for the things that they do, and we need to be really thorough, and objective, and honest about understanding those reasons (although there is a point where people are doing what they do because that is just what they want to do) and no one-dimension solution is likely to work

offering a one-dimension solution is usually a great indicator that the one proposing doesnt really understand the problem

on the one hand i see what i could call "narrow minded" positions and solutions
these are from people who, from what i can tell actually want to be blind to the possibility of any valid claim among those we consider the bad guys

which of course isnt going to do us any good, because there were many many forces at play here, and some of them go back by thousands of years and some by hundreds and some by decades, and you cant simplify that into "we are good and they are evil"

but!

i also see a trend among what could be called "open minded" people, who seem to think that talking honestly about the ones on "the other side" who are actively committed to violence, is tantamount to being a war monger

really, this is a topic that involves all of us

it has multiple facets and no one answer applies to all, but there are some definite facts and realities that need to be acknowledged, and one of them is that "radical Islam" is a real problem

i dont like saying that because i dont agree with most of the folks who have been saying it for these years, but its a fair enough term for something that is definitely happening, and its not going to make things better by acting like people who talk about it are just crazy war pigs

this guy is fcking crazy



if i call him a terrorist it is because he has earned that title by the brutality that he has instigated

2 - well, yes, but also no, i think
no one is going to change Ibrahim Awad's mind (ibrahim awad, aka abu bakr al-bagdhadi, the leader of daesh, but i dont think we should call him abu bakr)
many of those who follow him are not going to change their views either, and there are many people in the Muslim world who fall into this category.

but there will always be people who can go either way depending on what they see, and i think it needs to be understood on our side, really understood, that we are "at war" only with those who are "at war" with us

and we should be looking honestly at all of the conditions which make violence seem appealing and asking ourselves what can be done that addresses these conditions without increasing the violence on our own side

undoubtedly there are solutions which dont involve bombs or bullets, and we need to be pursuing those as well

and maybe we could frame this into an opportunity to really resolve some long standing issues by looking at them honestly, and being willing to concede and cooperate when and where that is reasonable

certainly we should try

3- i think that we have different ideas on who "the elites" are and what they want
maybe i need to read some of what you read, maybe not, i dont know
but i do know that there are folks on all sides of this who benefit from the violence

"war profiteers" is a very broad term, and i would guess that a huge portion of those in office, have ties to at least one industry or group which can fall into the category

and so another important (and difficult) component to the overall goal would be to not let such folks totally hijack the conversation, because they will frame it in a way that hedges out any peaceful resolutions wherever possible

Good post, I was just ranting too btw. I also remember reading that after Muhammed died, every single one of the members of his bloodline were assassinated and that after that, with all the at each other's throats nothing was ever settled.

Dichotomies are not evil, but we have to be careful when using them. Because both sides are inseparable: by them evil, we're calling ourselves good. Can we truly do that?...
Does that mean that *we* are inherently good?...
If they are evil, we are good. And should we really be throwing stones in this glass house? Our cultural misdeeds are not as extreme, but to call ourselves blameless is hypocrisy...

well, "we" are an even larger group than "they" are in this case, and i dont want you to misunderstand me and think that I am just assuming that everyone on "our side" is "good"

so, there is no assumption that "we are blameless"
but its something of a fallacy to say that taking a non negotiable stance against genocide and rape is the same thing as declaring oneself as blameless

my position is that what they are doing is evil, NOT that America is perfect

and, do we have to be perfect in order to have the moral authority to take a non negotiable stance against genocide and rape?

these are not rhetorical questions; do we have to be perfect, or how perfect do we have to be to take such a stance?
are we already good enough to take such a stance, and if not, what would we have to do in order to be so?
would taking such a stance not actually increase our goodness?

you can open the "we cant police the world" can of worms, but its not appropriate in this instance because daesh have declared war against the western world, which is us, so ignoring them is actually not a responsible option

The point I'm trying to make is that merely labeling them as evil won't help...
Does that not just create more of the "us vs them" mentality to label *them* as evil?...
But by labelling them as evil, we're creating a dichotomy...

well, as you said;

Dichotomies are not evil, but we have to be careful when using them

i hate to keep using the same words and phrases but theres only so many words that mean "genocide" and "rape" and thats what we're talking about

so there is more than one dichotomy going on here, and the one that i am pointing out is one between those who justify such activities and those who don't. and in the case of daesh, not only do they justify and celebrate such activities, but they have clearly demonstrated that it is their intention to wreak as much havoc as they can against westerners and non-muslims

so its not a dichotomy that i am imposing, it is one that is being imposed upon us, whether we like it or no

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

What are we doing to end the cycle of violence? Or are we contributing to it?

my point is that they are not open to compromise or peaceful coexistence; we are not dealing with a group of people who have a reasonable (or negotiable) set of pragmatic objectives; their stated intention is to create a caliphate which rules over all muslims, and to instigate an apocalyptic war between those muslims and the rest of the world

The line I draw is by calling a group of people evil.
Who are we to judge whether those people are "evil"?

we are thinking and judging animals who are responsible for our own well being and also for our own influence in and on the world. where the comment above suggests that we would be adding to the evil in the world by judging, i submit to you that we would add evil to the world by seeing what is happening and NOT judging it

They believe that they're righteous and we're evil, which is how they justify doing horrific things to fellow human beings.

there is a huge difference in the nature of "evils" that "we" justify compared to daesh
we accepted a long time ago that it is not tolerable to use the kinds of methods they are using, so we do actually have a moral high ground

I agree that the deeds are the things we should be reviling...
I'm not arguing that they are doing horrific things. They are...

ok, do you agree that they should be stopped?

Their actions are purposefully used to cause anger and terror and hatred...

which means they should be stopped

by pointing a finger at them and accusing "evil", we're becoming what they are: a polarizing force.

they are the polarizing force; we are not creating the polarity by recognizing thatit is being imposed upon "us"

The line I draw is by calling a group of people evil. They do evil things, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're evil.

well batman would disagree

evil is something we all have the potential to manifest out of ourselves; its a place within the psyche of each one of us, and it is actually a rather damaging experience, psychologically, to dwell there for any length of time

to manifest the evil out of our own beings on a regular basis does actually make us evil

are we irredeemable?
im not saying that

is it evil?
yes, i think so

Behind all of the horrific deeds are human beings who are most likely lost, misguided, unhappy.

which is one of the many tragedies of evil; that often its perpetrators are first victims themselves in some way

but it is a force that builds momentum; as the perpetrators victimize more and more, more perpetrators are created, and the cycle wont stop of its own volition, it has to be stopped from an outside agent

Because evil is easy to condemn and crusade against...
...which is how we justify invading their country with soldiers, dropping bombs on them, and persecuting people of the same religion in our own and other "non-evil" countries.

i am only talking about daesh

daesh doesnt have a country; they are invaders who use brutality to illegally conquer other peoples countries

also, i am not advocating mistreatment of all muslims; the issue of exactly how to handle internal domestic security is complicated and valid but it is a separate issue from this discussion

What are we doing to end the cycle of violence? Or are we contributing to it?

well that is an excellent question; how do you suggest the cycle of violence be ended?

To compare: (I hate bringing up nazis in an online discussion, lol) If we look at the horrific things that many nazi soldiers did back in WWII, they could be called evil. But were the individual people who engaged in these behaviours evil. or were they simply acting under orders because they had to comply or perish? Was it survival? Were Germans evil? We sure said the Germans were evil.

well we might make a distinction between the soldiers battling in the field and the ones who ran the concentration camps, and certainly that is a fair distinction in many instances
but even allowing for this, the nazis (and the germans collectively) were complicit in a campaign that we are perfectly right to label as evil when we have access to the full scope of hitlers designs

does thatmake them all individually evil?

well they are individually complicit in a great evil, and whether calling them evil or calling them only complicit, the important thing was that they were stopped

andif it took a "the nazis are evil" campaign to rally the needed support, then that campaign was certainly justifiable considering what they were doing

i would add that it is totally inappropriate to talk about what the nazis did without spending a great deal of attention on the specific details of life in concentration camps

im not saying that you have done this, i am saying that those who dont like the word "evil" need to understand the actions that the word is to describe

i mean obviously there are people who bandy the word lightly and claim that every thing which they personally dislike is evil, but the word exists because of a state of being which celebrates the infliction of abject suffering on the helpless

its a real component of the human experience, and identifying it for what it is, is not the same thing as perpetuating it

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.

i was hoping you would stick with this experiment until its conclusion but it looks like you werent happy with where it was going?

im not battling you, but i DO believe that my claim was valid when i said.

OB1Shinobi wrote: here's what we could do: we could produce 100 examples of specific instances of "evil" and see what they all have in common

100 hundred events which can be studied and reviewed, and which we would all agree would be "evil" if we believed that there were any such thing as evil to begin with

and also 100 acts that we could all agree are "good" (because I assume that we all believe there is such a thing as good? even though that could by definition also mean there must be such a thing as evil, by the logic used in your post?) and we can examine each of these 200 acts and say "what do all of these 100 have in common which are different from these other 100? why are they different; what makes them different?"

and i mean this could actually take years if we really were serious

and with that process i believe that we could actually come up with a fairly reliable definition and likely a set of definitive criteria by which to judge, at the very least to judge our own selves, with some confidence

and i feel that i was on the way to demonstrating my case

if you consider the justification that you used to make the example "good"
first of all you actually admit that there is such a thing as good simply in the act of accepting the challenge, if there was no good then there would be no way to make this act good

so you actually do understand what good is and you believe in it, and by definition you also understabd evil, even if you object to the word

but consider the adjustments you had to make

what were the themes underneath them?
not from an observers perspective, but from the perspectives of the ones doing them?

what about the soldier who jumps on top of a grenade to keep it from killing his fellows?

or the father who works for thirty years at the same factory doing the same job that he doesnt even like but it pays his families bills and puts his kids in college?

or the little kid at the diner who decides that wants to pay for the food of the police officers he sees at the next table?

we all recognize that there is goodness in these actions

why?
what are the recurring themes?
what insight do they give about the nature of "goodness"?