80 confirmed dead.
Hollande vows France will remain strong as the state of emergency is extended for three months.
Agreed to an extent. But that’s not all. Besides mainstream disdain for religious people and ideals, there is a much deeper problem. I can’t give it a name but as a contrast of experience while I get sometimes treated as a curiosity for wearing “typical Jewish garb” when I visit Paris on business and while I’ve experienced typical muttering from French expat housewives in my neighborhood in Tokyo for the same, it isn’t universal since my French boss & coworkers are all good with me.
OTOH my friends of Muslim heritage in Paris all tell me to avoid certain areas for my own safety and the presence of armed troops outside synagogues, Jewish schools, etc. while reassuring to me is also a grim reminder that there are Muslims in France who actively seek to kill Jews.
So here is the problem as I see it and yes it’s related to Lacism and general western versions of the same: the urge to believe that everyone is the same, that the secularism sand thought systems like what @Mindysan33 talks about here and elsewhere apply in totem when thinking about non western cultures & peoples. That is to say the refusal to understand that Islam is a broad and separate culture operating by different rules, that it isn’t “just a religion like Christianity”. This way of thinking is in fact heretical to western liberal thought. “We” in the west and western aligned cultures need to get over this.
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There were a number of very bad years in the 1970s and 1980s. Humanity is as full of mass murderers as ever. I think 2016 will easily catch up to even 1988, if it hasn’t already.
This site has some good graphs for visualizing this information: http://www.datagraver.com/case/people-killed-by-terrorism-per-year-in-western-europe-1970-2015
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Greenland is looking nice.
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It’s not just terrorism. 2016 is flat out shit for lots of other reasons too. Politically it’s a dumpster fire and cultural icons are dropping like flies.
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Yeah, I’m really discouraged.
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A number of years ago I was on my way to the Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica. I was slightly delayed and when I arrived it was a scene of chaos. Stalls and tables were overturned. I remember a bloody limb sticking out from under some tent flap. It was horrifying.
“What happened?” I asked.
“A terrorist!” I was told. “He plowed right through here!”
Turns out, it was a very old man who pushed the gas rather than the break and panicked. It was no less terrible but without knowing facts, making any assumption to a reason for a thing like this only engenders more fear.
EDIT: UPDATE 8:20 P.M.: Speaking to BLM-TV, regional council president Christian Estrosi said that the attacker fired shots into the crowd and police later found the truck to be “loaded with weapons,” including firearms and grenades.
Sometimes, it’s an old confused man. Other times, it is actually a terrorist.
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That’s not always a bad thing.
Not fucking again. 
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You better be careful! Someone might mistake you for a poststructuralist! 
They tend to agree with you about these notions of a strong sense of religiosity being seen as a challenge to western, liberal, secular thought and hence are regularly attacked. Again, I know you won’t agree with this, but I see it as part and parcel of western imperialism/colonialism, etc.
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Yes we disagree. In large part because “religiosity” isn’t what I’m talking about anyway.
I was talking about the last part, specifically, but okay. But I was agreeing with you that modern liberal secular society can be rather intolerant.
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“Tolerance is our paramount value. Unless you think differently from us”
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Yes. I agree with that. It’s why I’m not a huge fan of the new atheism movement, generally speaking. Enforced secularism is no better than enforced faith. I don’t want enforced anything.
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Going off-topic a little (and sorry it’s in this thread) but what you say touched me.
I’ll admit to having made a deliberate choice to switch from quiet agnosticism to what I think you mean be the “new atheism” movement.
Or more specifically the anti-anti-science movement, which is pretty close.
I have made up my mind that ‘tolerance’ of certain beliefs does not belong in the 21st century, and biting my lip in the face of vaccine woo, dangerous homeopaths, climate change denialism and other archaic and harmful beliefs (including “cultural” and “religious” ones) is now an ethically wrong behaviour for myself. “All that is required for evil to triumph…” etc.
Yes, this can make me a prick at parties - but I feel that calling out someone whose words and beliefs make the world a worse place - and telling them their opinion is not acceptable is now a social duty. Just like we should regret not calling out a racist, sexist, homophobe or other bigot in the same context.
I do want enforced something. I’m a strong believer in enforced education.
(I’m opening up here and sharing, not challenging you - I just used your personal share as a jumping off point to share my own, different moral position)
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I agree, to an extent. Some people do this specifically so they can feel morally superior to the person they are calling out (not that I’m saying you’re doing that, but you know what I mean).
I sort of feel like we’ve ended up (as a society) in this downward spiral of ever trumping morality. We constantly have to show everyone else around us how much better, more correct, more… whatever… we are than THOSE people over there. Often we don’t even actually try to find out about THOSE people, just make assumptions. We all do this, because we’re human, and fallible, etc.
I’ve never found that rolling my eyes and calling out another’s real or perceived stupidity has been helpful. The constant reminder makes others pretty antagonistic towards us, and hence unwilling to figure out a way to accommodate the modern world in some way (which most faiths have ways of doing, as evidenced by the way that they historically have).
But then again, I too, value education, free thought, and the ability to call out bad behavior in others, including those behaviors which, as you rightly point out, can be dangerous for others. But it’s a fine line between calling out and being actively exclusive of theist belief systems.
Specifically, the new atheist movement (Dawkins, et al) has had a recent tendency to be employed as an actively Islamophobic movement rather than just a movement promoting secularism/atheism. It has this very evangelical tendency which turns me off. But that’s not all atheists, obviously.
So, I don’t know… It’s a rather difficult subject. I agree we should call out bigotry and work to have a society that rests on democratic values and inclusiveness - but where do you draw the line? Do we actively shut out those who wear their faith on their sleeves (or in their dress)? And if we do, aren’t we just making assumptions based on outward appearances? But what about when doctrine contradicts our efforts to be more inclusive?
[ETA] Let me also add that the modern, secular world was built on the dismantling of the old one, meaning that the ways that individuals used to interact with their society and work out modes of well being have been dismantled, often by force (either of the state or through the brutality of the market). This has never been an easy or uncontested process. While this meant the end of the old, feudal order, and freeing up people to make new choices, it created a lot of instability, too. I think this is part of the reason why we still have religion, because it’s a connection to the past, a support system, and a means of creating meaning in a world that now rests on something that can be hard to understand. So there is that aspect, too.
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#FightforWesternCivilization is trending on Twitter. ISIS can blow up a major holy site in Mecca and stick mainly to killing Muslims and people’s first instinct is still flocking to tribalism like flies to shit.
ETA:
https://twitter.com/whitewolfgeist/status/753806011819888640
Great idea. Let’s start a holy war. This will end well.
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Nope, and it’s a narrow edge to walk, but I do try to make a point of clearly phrasing the difference between ‘this is not actually true’ and ‘you’re a dickhead’. 
As some of the “advice for arguing” posts I’ve seen recently suggest, after a certain point you are just debating for the benefit of the audience. Though it sounds vain - I think that sort approach did work (over time) in getting loud racists & sexists to pull their head in in mixed company. I may not convince the target of anything today, but maybe making them think twice about bringing up toxic stuff again will help slow its spread.
I try (though can’t say I always succeed) to leave the non-harmful stuff alone. I don’t go out of my way to pick on believers until they touch genuinely harmful stuff. I don’t sneer at the churches when viewed as just a social club or anything. Heck, even the current pope seems like a mensch. But I’ll go toe-to-toe with a Bronze-age literalist who is going against modern scientific medicine or fact.
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It’s like you can say this over and over again, and you still get this stupid shit. I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m really not.
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