Masked gunmen opened fire Wednesday in the offices of a satirical newspaper in Paris that has faced previous threats for Muslim-related cartoons, killing at least 12 people before escaping in what France’s president described as a terrorist attack.
French officials immediately raised the country’s terrorism alert to its highest level after the shooting at the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, where staff members and police were among the dead.
Across Paris, security was stepped at media outlets, transportation hubs and other sites as a massive manhunt was underway for the suspected assailants.
The weekly had drawn repeated threats for its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed and other sketches and articles on Muslim figures.
French President Francois Hollande called the shooting a “terrorist attack without a doubt,” but authorities had no immediate comment on possible suspects or motives.
Two of the dead are French policemen, one of whom was executed outside on the streets of Paris at point blank range. The magazine was attacked in 2011 because of its satirical cartoons depicting Muslim leaders. The editor of Charlie Hebdo is among the dead and was on ISIS’s version of a most wanted list.
What is to keep the USA from becoming the next stop for these terrorists? Even if these are caught, how many wait to fill their shoes?
I rather like to reprove those non-believers who make gratuitous, insulting comments about my faith. What purpose do those negative comments serve other than to try deliberately to hurt others? It is rude behavior and reflects badly upon the character of the commentator.
No revenge here a la Charlie Hebdo. We learned our lessons about that evil centuries ago. Just reproval for attempted hurt….and prayers for the souls of the non-believers.
“…give a little, get a little….”?
Exactly, when Mr. Bentley gives, I like to ensure that he gets.
Cargo — Looks like North Korean hackers may have closed the comments for the open thread. Add Dr. Ben Carson to your Repub list and O’Malley of Maryland to your Dem list.
@SteveThomas,
The hadiths (plural) are NOT Muhammad’s commentary on the Quran. The collections of hadiths are stories of those who did (and did not) interact with the prophet, and their recollections be they personal or told to them by someone else about how Muhammad acted or what he said in a particular situation. The hadiths are about Muhammad, they do not come directly from him. There is a plethora of here say accounts about what Muhammad did or said here or there hundreds of years ago. Hadiths are nothing more than a collection of “eyewitness” accounts of the prophet’s words and actions that were passed down orally and eventually written down by a number of people who may or may not have inserted their own biases along the way. Some hadiths have been discounted as false outright, some are seen as true by some schools of thought but not others. There are 5 different schools of thought regarding the hadiths, and each group of scholars cannot come to a consensus with one another on which hadith is either true or fabricated. Quranists discount all hadiths as having no standing as they feel all basically gossip, elaborated, or downright false. Certain sects/countries/tribes adhere to particular hadiths they consider to be true. Perhaps all of them are false which is what many Quranists consider to be the case. But the hadiths did not originate until after the death of Muhammad.
That’s why I keep coming back to “Moon’s Place”- the diversity of voices and the depth of knowledge spread amongst the participants.
@Steve Thomas I was just reporting on what the op-ed piece said. I make no claim as to what the Koran says or doesn’t say- I’ve never read it. But I do appreciate the info from you on the Hadith (or hadiths, as DB says). I wasn’t ignoring them- I’d never heard of them. I learned something today from you and DB and I thank you both for that.
I find the info from DB very interesting and clarifying. My feeling is that the whole terrorism mindset is initiated by socioeconomic and personal factors and religion is used to bolster and justify that mindset rather than religion being the initiator of the mindset. Religious writings, whether they come from the Koran, the Bible, the hadiths or the Book Of Mormon, are written loosely enough that they allow, even invite, radical and sometimes violent interpretations- but those are warped interpretations. In my mind, these violent interpretations don’t reflect negatively on the particular religious writings but on the individuals that have allowed their inadequacies and hatred to morph into violence.
@Steve Thomas
“wussified?” I like that. So many variations, so little time!
@Wolve
It’s his opinion.
I don’t think Rick intentionally singled you out to insult.
You assume you are right and he assumes he is right. That doesn’t mean either of you are.
People have no qualms about telling me the error of my ways. I think that is rude. It is rude to intrude personally in other people’s faith beliefs.
I am not agreeing with Rick. I am simply saying if it’s rude for him to make fun of people it’s equally rude for religious people to comment about people who don’t share their beliefs.
Very much appreciate DB’s contribution. The Western interactions with Islam has become one of the two or three overriding challenges of our time. There’s a lot of heated discussion, but nowhere near enough knowledge brought to bear on the topic.
MM: it doesn’t take long for any spiritual thought to be hijacked by political forces who attempt to use it to advance their secular ambitions. The Quran, the Bible, you name it. Having said that, whereas Christianity purports to be in but not of this world, Islam has never shied away from a complete melding of secular and spiritual spheres. That perhaps makes it much more vulnerable to being manipulated and debased by secular political leaders for their own purposes. The French magazine, Le Point, had an article on Islam immediately post-9/11 in which they made the point that global Islam is very much de-centralized – that there is no hierarchical theocratic system in which one can find definitive resolution of doctrinal differences. It’s every Imam for himself, to a degree. Thus, someone like bin-Laden or Zawahiri can purport to be a source of violent doctrine and there is no Pope to speak to the faithful and call bullshit on him.
Protestantism sort of has the same problem in some sects, don’t you think?
“What purpose do those negative comments serve other than to try deliberately to hurt others? It is rude behavior and reflects badly upon the character of the commentator. ”
The comments are intended more to provoke thought than to insult.
Rick, I think your comments are healthy on a blog that is for adults. Yes, they sometimes take one’s breath away but they are thought provoking. I use the flip side to justify your comments. If you could only see some of the comments some people make at me, especially on Facebook. I give non-believers as much right to express themselves as I do believers. This notion that only the believers get any press is just wrong. I have friends of both persuasions.
I guess I don’t understand why Wolve feels insulted. I didn’t think you were talking to anyone specifically. Why does Wolve feel he is more insulted than say, Steve, who I know to be a very devote person. Why wasn’t Elena insulted? Elena wears a big old Star of David. Why wasn’t I insulted? I have been known to talk to an invisible man in the sky at times. I would say that at least half of the people here on this blog have some religious beliefs.
@Scout I understand the inclination to separate Islam from the other religions in light of the violence perpetrated in its name recently (20-30 year time frame), but it seems to me that the major difference is that Islamic violence is more recent and Christian and other religious violence was mostly more in the past.
I’m certainly no religious scholar, but I think that if you look at the arc of history, many religions have been strongly secularized. Mormons wanted their own country to practice their religion (partly because of persecution, but that’s also how many Islamists feel) and killed those in their way. Most are familiar with the Christian manipulations of governments, from Catholicism in Europe and on and on. Most religions deploy missionaries and would ideally like to populate the world with their sect, as the Islamists do.
Similarly, many Christian religions are very decentralized and have lots of room for interpretative control (or manipulation, if you prefer). Presbyterianism comes to mind. Buddhism appears to be very individually centered. I’ll leave it to the scholars, but it doesn’t appear to me that Islam stands out in this regard.
I think we have to make a conscious effort to not single out Islam, as much as we might want to due to the violence perpetrated in its name. This will only serve as fodder for the hatred and violence that the miscreants wish to spread.
We could make a thread out of a lot of those ideas…enough threads to keep us busy debating for months.
I think what makes Islam stand out as particularly violent is that the rest of the religions have calmed down. Islam hasn’t.
I wasn’t tallking to him particularly. I think somewhere in his subconscious he knows that his faith is ridiculous, and he gets angry when I point it out.
Or, he feels he’s fighting the good fight and working to prevent Lucider, through me, from corrupting souls to eternal damnation. I believed that stuff until I was 19 or so. Thought life was a struggle between good and evil, and the whole point of the thing was to give glory to a particular God, who apparently mines our existence for tribute to himself.
What made you do a 180?
Probably I just outgrew Christianity. I noticed the parallels between what i was living, and science-fiction shows where some people are trying to live life according to remnants of older cultures, and rationalizing and justifying silly things – I noticed finally that i was engaged in the same thing.
Also i started doing a little research into translation issues and noticed how wacky many Christians’ interpretation of the bible is. such as Hades, aka hell, the unending fire of torment. In the original Hebrew, they are talking about the name of a particular garbage dump. Rather clearly, the author (ostensibly Jesus) is saying, eternal life, or your corpse burns and that’s the end of you. Somehow it became this wildly imagined picture of “eternal damnation”.
Consciously, when i was 19, i sat down in the library with a copy of Betrand Russell’s “Why I Am not a Christian” and one of CS Lewis’ “Screwtape” books, and read a bit of both. It was obvious to me that Russell, who I’d been tought would burn in hell for his lack of faith, loved people and cared about humanity. And obvious that Lewis didn’t, and was in fact a cranky douchebag whose writing had no intrinsic value. On a conscious level I decided that night that i was no longer formally Christian or religious.
Interesting metamorphosis. It sounds like some of it was rather sudden.
@ RB: interesting exercise to read in opposition Russell and Lewis. Most 19 year olds would not have thought of that, I’m sure. Your are certainly correct that Russell loved people. He was a regular tomcat, God bless him (if one can say that about him).
@MM and Moon – yes, quite right about decentralization among Protestant sects. That’s why there are so many of them. The underlying theological differences are, to outsiders, obscure and seemingly trivial.
I say it was rude and intended to be an insult. Such insulting statements have no place in an adult interface, whether aimed at a religion or religion as a whole or at someone else’s denominational differences within a particular faith. I submit that to claim that previous insults of a similar nature aimed at oneself should create license for others to lace conversation with such insults serves only to create more anger and does nothing for comity.
Mr. Bentley, you are becoming unpleasant again. A simple apology for your prior rudeness would have sufficed. To the contrary, perhaps it is YOU who is growing nervous about what happens after death and are trying to reassure yourself that the Creator doesn’t exist. Myself, I have faith — but you…you seem to be rather desperate in you atheistic chatter. Deep down you don’t know for sure, do you? Perhaps some doubt creeping in…….?
Moon, that’s my whole point- you say “what makes Islam stand out as particularly violent…” I’m saying that it’s not Islam that’s violent, it’s the individuals and groups misusing it that are violent. They could just as easily be using the Bible to justify their hatred and killing. It’s not the religion, it’s the bad guys.
Agreed, MM. Many people would disagree with us though and blame the prophet or the words of the Koran. Obviously they are overlooking some of the rhetoric in the Bible.
Faith is personal but expressed in a group. Fundamentalists (Islamic, Christian or Atheists) are not happy when they see other faiths expressed. It offends them. Fringes of fundamentalism are always violent fueled by this unhappiness at the disorder and chaos of encountering religious diversity.
However, that is not the only point of religious conflict. I see Calvanist/Reform view of the depravity of mankind flows strongly through the religious right. The religious left has a strong counter that all people are created in the image of a loving God. These two faith viewpoints are in conflict when making public policy or deciding how much mercy is needed for justice.
Neither point of faith needs to be part of public policy. Public policy needs to be based on the standards of society.
OOH, great intro, Moon- which came first- the chicken or the egg. Public policy is partly based on religious teachings, and religious teachings are based on public policy that came out of evolutionary reactions to larger groups and the rules for living that developed to deal with civilization. It’s all pretty intertwined.
“I posit that Mr. Bentley should refrain from making insulting comments about those of religious faith under the specious guise that he is only seeking to provoke thought.”
Regardless of what my primary conscious or subconscious motivations are, it is inherently insulting to you to discuss religion objectively. No apologies from me.
“The thoughts he has provoked here are not kindly ones. ”
It’s all relative. From the standpoint of someone who thinks religion is absurd and childish, I’m actually pretty moderate and conciliatory.
“Nor do they make one inclined to discuss any other subjects with him in the face of such openly expressed bigotry.”
Bigotry? Come on now. No one’s persecuting Christians in this country, nor would I advocate that anyone do so.
“Ergo, his only result is to restrict conversation — which was probably the same reaction on your part when others to whom you have referred made negative remarks about your personal level of religiosity.”
Now, that’s obviously not true.
“Mr. Bentley, you are becoming unpleasant again.”
Did I ever stop? Obviously I’m an irritant. But a mild one, I think.
Scout, thank you. Having read some Russell in an English class, and with my faith starting to dissipate, I gave Lewis a chance – some of the people in my church were into the Screwtape books, I’d heard them talk about how good they were. They seemed hareful and insular to me, actually quite the opposite of Christian theology.
I haven’t read Russell’s “Why I Am not a Christian” for decades, and am not sure how it would read to a younger person today. But it did have an effect on me. It brought home the absurdity of organized religion, and of putting the “God” label onto the great unknown with the pretense that something’s been accomplished in that action. The childish nature of this, of saying “God did it” to explain the unknown.
middleman touches on the evolutionary purpose of religion. There was a great episode of “Through the Wormhole” (actually, nearly every episode of that show is great) on that topic, which speculated on whether other life forms in the universe would be likely to be religious if they have consciousness. It’s here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zGbrsMlCII
Upshot is yeah, there does appear to be benefit to a species from religious belief. Particularly – and this matches up to common sense belief – it makes people less selfish and more egalitarian.
What many have mentioned here about Islam becoming more radicalized of late is very true. During the past 30 to 40 years, Islam has been hijacked by hardliners and has indeed changed. Even here in the US and Canada, there has been an insidious infiltration of radical Islamic views taking place. A documentary that gives a snapshot of those changes that have occurred is called “Me and the Mosque”. You can find it on youtube. It’s only 1 hour, but very informative. However since the documentary in 2005, the pendulum is swinging in the other direction in many cities here in the US. But I will say that Islam is unfortunately still bound by sect/country/culture. This is NOT because of what Muhammad wanted, but because STILL in this day and age tribal affiliations are paramount in so many middle eastern, Asian, south Asian countries.
I would think the issue is not that Muslims are on average more hardline/idiotic than previous decades. I would think the problem is that in the information age it’s easier for the brain-dead dummies who would embrace “jihad” to connect with each other and to feed each other propoganda, and to keep a community going.
Similar to the way the Internet has enabled pedophiles to form underground communities and to make and maintain connections.
I think modern technology has probably been a contributing factor in making people more idiotic.
Ignorance is a really scary thing. Look at Faux News.
What I can’t wrap my feeble head around is the phenomenon of middle class people (and families!) leaving western countries and joining up with ISIS. I get the disenfranchised, the prior criminals, the unstable- but relatively stable working people joining a known murderous, backwards, hateful, misogynistic group like ISIS baffles me.
Most of the educated people from the ISIS controlled areas have left- the doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc., but these people flock in. This is the scary part to me, and the core issue we really need to counter.
What the heck is going on with the press and the White House?
Today White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said it was “inaccurate” to use the phrase “radical Islam.”
“I’m describing a reason why we have not chosen to use that label because it doesn’t seem to accurately describe what had happened.”
They’re WAITING for an investigation before calling it an act of terrorism.
WTF?
But earlier accounts show that they condemned it as an “act of terrorism.”
Of course, President Obama may just be living up to an earlier statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPKf5IUGn_Y
IS ANYONE in the White House competent enough even to put out a coherent message?
The Administration is trying an intelligent move to separate ISIS and Al Quaeda from Islam. Unfortunately, our own people won’t let them execute on this. But it is the right approach. There needs to be a counter-theme out there that these murderers are in no way Muslim or Islamic in any authentic sense. If that line could be hammered home in social media, conventional media and opinion fora, it would provide a counter-weight to extremists using Islam as a lure to bring in impressionable, ignorant young people.
@ Scout,
I agree with what you said. It is the right approach. So…therefore the Administration should say “We the Administration wholly agree that the murderous examples of those who falsely appear or desire to appear as adherents to Islam are false. We denounce their acts as nothing more than murder of innocents which is contrary to Islam. Their acts are wrong in accordance to the Quran and numerous hadiths and to all that Islam represents, and at no point in the terroristic rampage was Allah present, or Islam adequately represented.
@Scout,
Would that be so hard to say?
I think, essentially, that’s what they’re saying. I hope they can get past our own domestic ignorances and prejudices to build on that theme globally.
Going back to my comment (#32) and CS’s (#49) re reports that unarmed police arrived on the scene.
We are well over the fold in this thread, but when I first saw this meme about unarmed police (it started here with Cargo’s #19) something smelled fishy. As I noted, I have spent a lot of time in France going back to 1970, and I never was particularly struck by the lack of heat on French Gendarmerie. Au contraire. It sort of seemed like someone was trying to conflate domestic US gun issues into this horrible scenario in Paris (and perhaps conflating London Bobbies traditional practice of not carrying sidearms into the equation). So I asked where it came from, and Cargo rejoined with “reports” about unarmed “flics” arriving on bicycles. I allowed as how it may be the case that the occasion Paris cop on his day off may not be carrying a gun, but that is not standard practice.
I see now as my French reading catches up with me (Le Figaro in this case) that the first cops on the scene were indeed on bicycles, but that they were armed and that they engaged the shooters. So where does this report of unarmed cops come from. Best I can figure, it comes from Fox News. Someone is just making things up. My bets are on Fox, based on their generally fact-reckless coverage over the past week. Do you have better information than that Cargo?