Yes, yes. We know. But Buddhist Myanmar is just as bad. And, honestly, I think there are pockets of the United States Bible Belt where people would be all too happy to implement the kind of violence and oppression that these countries use, as long as it was done in the name of "Christianity." Religious zealotry tends to lead to savagery. These countries have more fundamentalists than most, but fundamentalism -- and all its moronic, violent tendencies are not unique to Islam.
I miss the long and interesting conversation that used to be at the top of this page in response to a similar comment I left. Still don't understand why it was deleted so many years after it began.
To quote and then paraphrase Sam Harris: the problem with Islamic fundamentalism is the fundamentals of Islam. While granted the Old Testament contains some of the worst books ever written in human history, Christianity has somewhat reformed. Certain flavors of Buddhism can provide a rationale for kamikaze attacks, but in most the logical path to justifying suicide bombing is a tortured one. And the more crazy Jain fundamentalists get... the *less* we have to worry about them.
The Protestant movement across Europe took centuries and many Wars were fought....many thousands died in attempts to break away from the Catholic church and the rigid dogma of medieval Catholicism. Reform was achieved with the blood of ppl who wanted freedom from religion.
Something that Muslims coming to the west really have no cultural understanding of. The reformers in their countries failed and were silenced or killed.
Islamic migrants need to be made to understand how rigid their religion is and that reform is an essential process. But as usual the men who threaten violence against others are allowed to make everyone else look the other way.
Look at what happened in Iran recently...girls died in the streets for having the courage to say NO and yet western journalists still mock critics and label them 'islamophobic'
I did not mean to compare entire states to the most oppressive Islamic regimes, but I really don't think it is a stretch in 2019 to say that there are certain places in the US where you can find an appreciable percentage of the population that is every bit as backwards, fundamentalist, and savage as you'd find in the worst Muslim countries. The US states are too big to assign those characteristics generally, but there are counties where fundamentalism is rampant. Gay conversion therapy, science denial, literal worship of weapons, and a sincere belief that Donald freaking Trump is the second coming of Christ. (I am not making that up. I spoke to one of these people and I still can't get over it.) I honestly think if these people had their way, they'd be happy to stone gays, immigrants, and atheists to death. And as a final clarification: I am not suggesting this is true of all southerners, Trump supporters, or religious people. But there are pockets where it's prevalent.
"I honestly think if these people had their way, they'd be happy to stone gays, immigrants, and atheists to death".
Surely, there are some people who would do this. The question is - what percent? In the United States, probably less than 1%. In some other countries it is much higher. In Belgium, of course, the level of psychopathy is off the charts.
I was just gonna say this. I don't think that's related to religion jmellor--that's related to human nature. There are plenty of people who promote violence because of politics, cultural/racial reasons, or just because that's their personality. Fundamentalism doesn't just have to be a religious thing.
Yes, but religion is the most dangerous because it provides such a sense of moral superiority. Thinking God is on your side will empower you to do all manner of unconscionable things.
Most Islamic countries deny ppl the right to practice another religion and a number of Islamic countries require citizens to be Muslim.
Also Islam clearly practices Apartheid against women and girls who are forced to dress a certain way, denied many basic rights including the right to choose who they marry.
Even laws against pork or alcohol are basic forms of oppression
And criticism of Islam is fiercely punished...even by death is some Islamic countries.
I'm guessing you are a man who enjoys being able to dominate women?
y'all think that muslim countries are like Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, I'm from Morocco I'm a girl and we dress as we want we have alcohol and pork for non muslims. In Casablanca we have jews, muslim and some christians
This is litterally an unbelievable figure. Society there has been more and more secular since at least 40 years, and as of now any figure above 90% would look very suspicious to me. Now, 99.8 ??? Come on...
In most of these countries the religion you profess has more to do with who your parents were than any actual beliefs you hold. But, having been to Tunisia a couple years ago, it's still a pretty religious and conservative place. It was much more like Saudi Arabia than I was expecting it to be.
@BolyiaAnna Lebanon is 45% Christian. Yet as long as we're splitting, the majority of Christians in Lebanon comprise Maronite Christians, along with Melkite Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox, as well as a good percentage of Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, Roman Catholic, Latin, Evangelical Protestantism, Syriac Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholics and Coptic Orthodox (mainly Egyptian Expatriates)
You should have mentioned people of the Druze, Isma'ili and Alawite faiths, which are all branches of Islam.
Last but not least a very small minority of the Bahai followers
Lol missed a few obvious ones like Syria, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, which I would have gotten if I had thought of them. Got 27/48. I was impressed how I got Mauritania, though.
Arab isn't exactly the same thing as Muslim. Did you get Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Mauritania? They all have "Islamic Republic" in their official country names. And none of them are Arab.
There are millions of Arab Christians in nearly all Arab countries so I never understood why people saw "Arab" and "Muslim" as being synonymous...or they're just ignorant I guess
Is this a serious question? Christian Arabs are a tiny minority, there's no majority non-Muslim Arab country, Arabic is the holy language of Islam and you don't see many non-Arab inscriptions on mosques. The association is obvious ...
@kalbahamut Scratch Mauritania out. Mauritania's a part of the Arab League, The official language of Mauritania is Arabic and the majority speak Arabic with a northwest African (Twareg) accent, even though a lot speak Berber. It still is a an Arab country.
honestly i think the percentages would drop especially in southeast asia and the balkans since they are focus areas for christian missionaries, arabia and north africa would stay stable, sub saharan africa would also drop from christian missionaries, maybe the stan countries too, but it'll probably rise in percentage somewhere
Did anything new happen to Turkey? Like, did they change their census data or the way they classify religious groups? Last time I took this quiz, I think they were pretty close to the top of the list with around 99% (although I could be misremembering).
Seems plausible. A very small percentage (under 1%) of Turkish citizens are Christian, Jewish, or some other religion. The majority of the gap between the 89% cited here and 100 are various flavors of agnostic, atheist, deist, irreligious, secularist, or "none," but these people usually had observant Muslim parents or grandparents or great grandparents, and a lot of polls done in this area of the world would count all of those people as Muslim, too. The Wikipedia article may have switched to a different source that used different categorizations.
The Maldives is a smaller and more homogenous country with fewer resident expats. To gain Saudi citizenship you must be Muslim, if you are born to Muslim parents in Saudi Arabia you are by default a Muslim, and apostasy is still punishable by death there, so, I assume the 2% that are non-Muslim are all expats.
This irritates me as well about JetPunk leaving out Palestine from their list of recognised countries. I read somewhere that the reason was the territory of Palestine is disputed. But Kosovo is also disputed AND with less international recognition by UN member states. At least if Kosovo is recognised by JetPunk, they should recognise Palestine. Or if they don't recognise Palestine, they should also not recognise Kosovo.
That's not the reason. The reason is that Palestine is not a sovereign country. Kosovo is. International recognition is one component of sovereignty, but far from the only one.
Missed out on two: Sierra Leone and... Saudi Arabia (can you believe it?). It was also surprising to see Africa's most populated country as a Muslim majority country.
To quote and then paraphrase Sam Harris: the problem with Islamic fundamentalism is the fundamentals of Islam. While granted the Old Testament contains some of the worst books ever written in human history, Christianity has somewhat reformed. Certain flavors of Buddhism can provide a rationale for kamikaze attacks, but in most the logical path to justifying suicide bombing is a tortured one. And the more crazy Jain fundamentalists get... the *less* we have to worry about them.
The Protestant movement across Europe took centuries and many Wars were fought....many thousands died in attempts to break away from the Catholic church and the rigid dogma of medieval Catholicism. Reform was achieved with the blood of ppl who wanted freedom from religion.
Something that Muslims coming to the west really have no cultural understanding of. The reformers in their countries failed and were silenced or killed.
Islamic migrants need to be made to understand how rigid their religion is and that reform is an essential process. But as usual the men who threaten violence against others are allowed to make everyone else look the other way.
Look at what happened in Iran recently...girls died in the streets for having the courage to say NO and yet western journalists still mock critics and label them 'islamophobic'
PS: I have lived in Saudi Arabia as a westerner
Surely, there are some people who would do this. The question is - what percent? In the United States, probably less than 1%. In some other countries it is much higher. In Belgium, of course, the level of psychopathy is off the charts.
Most Islamic countries deny ppl the right to practice another religion and a number of Islamic countries require citizens to be Muslim.
Also Islam clearly practices Apartheid against women and girls who are forced to dress a certain way, denied many basic rights including the right to choose who they marry.
Even laws against pork or alcohol are basic forms of oppression
And criticism of Islam is fiercely punished...even by death is some Islamic countries.
I'm guessing you are a man who enjoys being able to dominate women?
This is litterally an unbelievable figure. Society there has been more and more secular since at least 40 years, and as of now any figure above 90% would look very suspicious to me. Now, 99.8 ??? Come on...
You should have mentioned people of the Druze, Isma'ili and Alawite faiths, which are all branches of Islam.
Last but not least a very small minority of the Bahai followers
5/48
Damn.
forgot saudi arabia...