Profiling Religions

[FunctionalAtheist]

I've heard a number of people recently start talking about profiling religions as a means of reducing "terrorism" threats in the wake of the Paris attack.

What say you?

I am against it for the most part. What we are talking about is discrimination against individuals, when it is a particular flavor of a particular religion that threatens us.

On the other hand, a religion is not a person. It does not have rights, etc. This is very different from saying that religious persons do not have rights.

We should accept all muslims who wish to live in western society with open arms; but with the explicit understanding that NO RELIGION has authority in government or law.

 

[Penumbra]

I've heard a number of people recently start talking about profiling religions as a means of reducing "terrorism" threats in the wake of the Paris attack.

What say you?

I would prefer that those whose job it is to seek out and prevent acts of terrorism, use methods based on statistics or other empirical means, that have the highest rate of success.

If men between the ages of 16 and 45, traveling alone or in other all-male groups, for instance, happen to have higher rates of terrorism than grandmas or families with young kids, then so be it, I think. Direct the bulk of observational resources where they have the best chance of saving lives.

 

[Sha'irullah]

I approve of this sort of behavior. Profiling is good and allows many policemen's work to be easier. Islam is already a dangerous religion so I don't see why we should kid ourselves about it and pretend it is something it is not. From personal experience I would say women should be a bigger target for investigation since they hold the most radical views.
Profiling if ever used should be handled carefully and not resort to childish bullying. Personally I think sanctions on Islamic countries should be made along with ceasing involvement in them as well as communication.

 

[Sunstone]

I would say women should be a bigger target for investigation since they hold the most radical views.

Just curious, but why do you suppose it might be women who hold the most radical views? I mean, assuming it is.

 

[outhouse]

I've heard a number of people recently start talking about profiling religions as a means of reducing "terrorism" threats in the wake of the Paris attack.

What say you?

Why not?

We need to figure out why one religion is producing more terrorist then the rest.


If one religion refuses to play nice with themselves, and that sectarian violence spills out to the whole world, maybe they should be profiled.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Just curious, but why do you suppose it might be women who hold the most radical views? I mean, assuming it is.

Personal experience says they do and research says that women hold higher religiosity than men. Simple as that. I did not know of this until way later and thought it was a new experience but apparently it isn't.

 

[outhouse]

Ultimately, there is no preventing attacks

I find this completely and utterly false. We can prevent attacks. Maybe you just don't like the possible processes involved?

There is no solving the problem.

I want to say Ridiculous, is that over the top?

 

[Penumbra]

I approve of this sort of behavior. Profiling is good and allows many policemen's work to be easier. Islam is already a dangerous religion so I don't see why we should kid ourselves about it and pretend it is something it is not. From personal experience I would say women should be a bigger target for investigation since they hold the most radical views.
Profiling if ever used should be handled carefully and not resort to childish bullying. Personally I think sanctions on Islamic countries should be made along with ceasing involvement in them as well as communication.

Just curious, but why do you suppose it might be women who hold the most radical views? I mean, assuming it is.

Personal experience says they do and research says that women hold higher religiosity than men. Simple as that. I did not know of this until way later and thought it was a new experience but apparently it isn't.

Religiosity is not the same as radicalism.

 

[outhouse]

In the name of political correctness and multiculturalism, should we not do as much as we really can to prevent these attacks?

Yes we should. These terrorist prey on our weakness and many attacks we were on the verge of solving, and some we have stopped ahead of time.

To me it is insanity to lay down and say please attack us, were open and vulnerable.

Are we going to continue our normal security measures and risk the death of our own countrymen

Exactly we are at war with religious terrorist, be prepared and do what you can to stop as many possible attacks as possible.

 

[outhouse]

Religiosity is not the same as radicalism.

Correct. "But"

A certain religion is creating more terrorist then any other religion. And its my opinion it is because of a few issues.

One they have been murdering each other over sectarian violence since the formation of the religion. Its rather quite absurd they have no control or organization, or government to correct their problems. Because they are so internally divided. This makes the religion similar to the wild wild west because it does not have the ability to police itself.

Second. The line between a moderate muslim and a terrorist is very very thin, and this does change from one specific geographic location to the next.

But an example would be in Africa moderates are selling them selves to terrorist organization for as little as 50$ and a cell phone.


I would love to see reform to get the religion back to pre 1100 BC when they were the global leader in education and knowledge.

 

[Sunstone]

Ultimately, there is no preventing attacks. Adversity will be with humanity as long as it exists. There will always be something that is opposed to what we value. There is no solving the problem.

The problem can be ameliorate, even if it cannot be completely eliminated. Moreover, the notion that there is no preventing attacks is empirically false, since some attacks have been prevented. Like most major problems, it's realistic to suppose we can do something to reduce the incidental rate of them occurring.

 

[outhouse]

ameliorate

That was a $27 word lol had to look it up.

 

[Ultimatum]

It it incredibly naive to suppose that calling a witch hunt on a group of humans is not going to be abused. History has proven time and again that whenever humans call such hunts, overzealousness and self-righteousness catch those who have done nothing wrong in the crossfire. Further, witch hunts increase hostilities and tensions by reinforcing "us vs them" mentalities.

An "Us vs Them (Extremists)" is exactly what we want. It is also, unless you live under a rock, what has been shown for, internationally, over the weekend by the marching crowds at the Place de la Nation in Paris. We want these extremists to be held accountable for their ideological threat to our modern, Western societies.

I'd be careful with that language there, though perhaps you truly do favor starting a third world war.

That's a very intense assumption.

Ultimately, there is no preventing attacks. Adversity will be with humanity as long as it exists. There will always be something that is opposed to what we value. There is no solving the problem. What you do becomes a question of personal values and virtues. At this point, all I will say is to avoid letting negative, base emotions like fear make you loose sight of your values and virtues. That happens very often in response to things like this, and it is... distressing to watch.

So, because there is nothing we can do to prevent these attacks, let us just sit back and accept the slaughter of dozens of countrymen at the hands of an imaginary deity? This is awful home policy in any country.
We can do something to prevent these attacks in the future and we need to make sure that we are opposing terrorism by upping security measures. For the sake of our countrymen.

So? Al-Qaeda said the flag of Islam would be displayed from the White House. This obviously has not happened.

Are you willing to take that risk in this instance? I am not a gambler of others' lives, so I, verily, would not.

Standing up to these terrorists and showing them we are not afraid is a step in fighting them (another step is reducing social climates that favor terrorism).

The Paris marches, although a good response from the people (the leaders of countries were there simply because of peer pressure), will most likely not solve anything in the name of terrorism.

However, acting out of fear is never good, and doing some of the things we do to innocent Muslims is exactly what groups like ISIS wants to happen. It shows that we are so afraid of them that we are willing to trample the rights of our own citizens who are Muslims. The more oppression these groups face, the more likely individuals are to turn extremist.

We are not afraid of ISIS. We are afraid of their actions on home soil. And why is this something to be brushed under the carpet? ISIS are fighting a losing battle!
We are not discriminating against innocent Muslims, we are discriminating against extremist Muslims. There is a difference. And again, I will reiterate my point: If you have done nothing wrong and have kept the laws of the land under your belt, then there are no repercussions to fear.

The LA and Ferguson riots speak volumes on how this oppression can turn people very violent, as well as that we have to look at terrorism, extremism, and other acts of extreme violence as a whole and find trends, patterns, and through these finding the solutions that the military, police, and surveillance have not provided. Afterall, the UK did not achieve peace with the IRA by profiling the Irish. We may never have peace with Muslim extremist, but we can work to reduce the number of Western defectors and to reduce some of the animosity they have towards us. Terrorism has always been with us, and the best anyone of us can do is to show we are not afraid and to not cower in fear and demand the rights of the innocent be suspended. There are many steps needed to reduce terrorism and threats overall. Needlessly harassing innocent Muslims is not one of them.

Let me ask you, then, what is your solution to preventing an attack on my country's grounds? Our safety levels are at "Severe" at the moment--after the announcement by ISIS. Do you honestly think that letting people through our airport gates willy-nilly, without checks, is fair on my people?

 

[Laika]

No. Profiling doesn't work as it wildly over-estimates the accuracy of our understanding of psychology. In the past century, Psychology has advanced from electrocuting people to filling them with drugs. There is still a debate over whether Freud actually "cured" anyone with the talking cure. Even if this was possible to profile people (and I suspect it might be), at this point we're in such a dark age that it would be little better than the Salem Witch Trials; accusation and counter-accusation.

If you're really interested, the Study Below gives an in-depth overview of psychological approaches to understanding extremism and the problems with each approach:

The Mind of the Terrorist: A Review and Critique of Psychological Approaches
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/re...mmeracademy/instructors /The Terrost mind.pdf

Also, the potential for mass survialliance has increased exponentially since the days of Hitler, Stalin or McCarthy. Facebook is practically a database of personal information and has been used to create personality profiles, including political leanings;

BBC News - Facebook 'likes' predict personality

The Facebook likes were fed into algorithms and matched with the information from the personality tests.


The algorithms proved 88% accurate for determining male sexuality, 95% accurate in distinguishing African-American from Caucasian-American and 85% for differentiating Republican from Democrat.


Christians and Muslims were correctly classified in 82% of cases and relationship status and substance abuse was predicted with an accuracy between 65% and 73%.

85% accuracy for a Republican or Democrat split is pretty high- but that still means out a 100 people- you'll get 15 false positives. It is probably a hell of a lot easier to profile democrats or republicans because they are so common; Fascists, Communists, Anarchists, Islamic Fundamentalists who will represent a fraction of the general population and there will be little or no data on them. How do you tell the difference between a Muslim and a Islamic Fundamentalist? There is no "one-size fits all" for political or religious extremism, nor is there a single path to Terrorism or violence. It's no easier that predicting murder, rape, arson, etc- but given it has an ideological motivation, it's easy to fall for the illusion of understanding by attributing the motive to the idea. Profiling a religion or even a political ideology as potentially extremist under-estimates the sheer diversity of interpretations of beliefs.


In the 20th century, people denounced their friends and family members to the government. Today, it would be far worse because the amount of information in public circulation is so much greater. Here's a comparison between the Mass Surveillance by the Stasi and the National Security Agency:

Stasi versus NSA

Profiling is (almost certainly) a wild goose chase and will sacrifice people's freedoms for the illusion of security.

 

[HonestJoe]

I've heard a number of people recently start talking about profiling religions as a means of reducing "terrorism" threats in the wake of the Paris attack.

I'm surprised nobody else has asked you exactly what you mean by this. The phrase "profiling religions" isn't very specific and could cover a whole range of policies. I'd have to know exactly what is being proposed before reaching a conclusion on it.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Religiosity is not the same as radicalism.

Well lets take an examination into why this statement is false and entirely unintelligent in light of academic studies on religion. . .

Radicalism implies that a person is letting their beliefs, convictions exceed normal limits or become out of control. This is how people use the term radicalism and especially in religion. I assume you are using the same definition.

Now, Islam when being practiced properly by a Muslim is inherently violent, barbaric and dangerous. It is no different than a death cult for the most part except it has noticeable doctrine and is an actual religion. This makes it very inbetweenish in terms of religion and cult.

Now then, if a Muslim is violent he/she is just practicing their religion to its fullest extent and is not being a radical just a devote Muslim. Religiosity as used in many studies can refer to the prevalence of religion in a society or the prevalence of it in the individual.

I present Example A:

Both PEW and Gallup have done wonderful research on religiosity in regard to society and individual polling. This is how religiosity can be used in studies as it only implies the relevance of religion in particular circumstances.

. . . henceforth your entire argument is fallacious, nonsensical and scores 100/100 (1/1 if reduced) on the LOL Meter.

 

[Riverwolf]

Pointless deaths in the name of multiculturalism, you say?
So you would rather have people mercilessly and pointlessly killed over conducting simple, and harmless checks that will not get anyone killed?
I appreciate your response.
Also, look at this political compass and note 'Fascism'.

If you knew anything about politics, you would know that purposeful profiling, in the name of national security, would not qualify a country as a 'fascist' state. How dare you use this comparison.

These sorts of scales are multi-dimensional; things don't just slide around neatly from one to another on other scales in the real world; they pop here and there and can exist on two points at once. Hence my own economic label, socio-capitalist, and my personal (conceptually untested) political label, anarcho-federalist.

No, purposeful profiling would not qualify a country as a fascist state in itself. However, profiling an entire group of people based on a collective personal choice is a very slippery slope to one, or at least a similar situation, as it carries a "guilty by association until proven innocent" implication. Why not profile people like me who play Doom, because the Columbine shooters played Doom?

"National security" is a fine concept in its own, when applied fairly and justly. But this kind of profiling has the potential to lead into something horrible. Far as I can tell, the US was in the most danger of becoming an Orwellian regime during the Postwar years, particularly during the McCarthy era. That's how I dare use the comparison, and even if the word "fascist" is an unfairly applied buzzword which I will retract if demonstrated to be so, I stand by the statement that profiling like this is a slippery slope to a controlling form of government that I do not support, because it would be far more dangerous than a terrorist group.

Besides, I fear lack of personal autonomy more than I fear death. I believe very, VERY strongly in innocence until proven guilty. I believe that it is better the guilty go free, than the innocent be punished. This sort of profiling would punish the innocent needlessly, because far, far more would happen than just stops at security checks, which, by the way, are not harmless.

 

[Riverwolf]

And, as I have said plenty of times before, if you have done nothing wrong then what is there to fear?

Said the Spanish Inquisition.

 

[Ultimatum]

These sorts of scales are multi-dimensional; things don't just slide around neatly from one to another on other scales in the real world; they pop here and there and can exist on two points at once. Hence my own economic label, socio-capitalist, and my personal (conceptually untested) political label, anarcho-federalist.

I understand that the compass doesn't determine one to be in a certain position in determination of applying singular policy, but you did state the contrary.

No, purposeful profiling would not qualify a country as a fascist state in itself. However, profiling an entire group of people based on a collective personal choice is a very slippery slope to one, or at least a similar situation, as it carries a "guilty by association until proven innocent" implication. Why not profile people like me who play Doom, because the Columbine shooters played Doom?

That is your view on the topic. I prefer the "innocent until proven guilty" vibe. And this should be encouraged.

"National security" is a fine concept in its own, when applied fairly and justly. But this kind of profiling has the potential to lead into something horrible. Far as I can tell, the US was in the most danger of becoming an Orwellian regime during the Postwar years, particularly during the McCarthy era. That's how I dare use the comparison, and even if the word "fascist" is an unfairly applied buzzword which I will retract if demonstrated to be so, I stand by the statement that profiling like this is a slippery slope to a controlling form of government that I do not support, because it would be far more dangerous than a terrorist group.

I understand the concerns in this post. However, Europe is on high alert for terrorist attacks thanks to this recent massacre. As a result of such, security needs to be upped and, I believe, we need to tighten controls inside our airports and at our ports. And I'm not advocating mass-profiling for Muslims, but profiling nonetheless; as a means to curb terrorism.

Besides, I fear lack of personal autonomy more than I fear death. I believe very, VERY strongly in innocence until proven guilty. I believe that it is better the guilty go free, than the innocent be punished. This sort of profiling would punish the innocent needlessly, because far, far more would happen than just stops at security checks, which, by the way, are not harmless.

I also believe in innocent until proven guilty. You are generalising "profiling" as something I would not advocate.
profiling n.- the use of these characteristics to determine whether a person may be engaged in illegal activity.
In this case, I would strongly advocate these tougher checks, at least in these times of severe security measures, at airports and ports.

 

[Riverwolf]

I understand that the compass doesn't determine one to be in a certain position in determination of applying singular policy, but you did state the contrary.

I don't believe I did. Could you, who perhaps may be more knowledgeable of the intricacies of political science than I am, show me how?

And I'm not advocating mass-profiling for Muslims, but profiling nonetheless; as a means to curb terrorism.

Okay, then.

You are generalising "profiling" as something I would not advocate.

For the record:

...However, profiling an entire group of people based on a collective personal choice is a very slippery slope to one, or at least a similar situation, as it carries a "guilty by association until proven innocent" implication....

...But this kind of profiling has the potential to lead into something horrible. ... I stand by the statement that profiling like this is a slippery slope to a controlling form of government that I do not support, because it would be far more dangerous than a terrorist group.

...This sort of profiling would punish the innocent needlessly, because far, far more would happen than just stops at security checks, which, by the way, are not harmless.

I was being very specific on the type of profiling presented in the OP, which was about profiling religions; i.e., mass profiling of Muslims, and theoretically other religions that our culture has deemed "terrorist". Profiling as a conceptual tool can be either a good or bad thing depending on how it's done, just like all tools.

The fact that you were citing "multiculturalism" and "political correctness", as if they were the primary arguments you were fighting, made it look like you were in advocacy of mass-profiling of Muslims, or at least Middle-Easterners. Though admittedly, the wording you were using was very confusing, so I very well could have completely misunderstood.