The only Buddhist region in Europe
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It's more an instance of convergence and mutual influence. Hellenistic philosophy (read: immediately after Socrates) went down a few different lines. The one with the largest influence in the West was the Academic line, concerned with empirical observations and theory making.
But another major line was about how to live well, and focused primarily on ethics and the virtues. Today, the most well known school in this line is Stoicism, and this approach to philosophy really has a lot of overlap with Buddhism. The Bactrians were extremely well primed to be receptive of some "wisdom from the East" (like the type Pythagoras was supposed to have received) that covered a lot of the same topics as Hellenistic philosophy.
By the time Buddhism was meaningfully re-introduced to European academics (starting around the 17th century, but culminating with Schopenhaur in the 19th), several writers once again remarked on the similarities between the Hellenistic and Buddhist traditions.
Realized this when I was talking about it with an Indian Colleague and when I mention the principals of materialism she immediately recognized elements of her own religion.
Buddhism arrived in China via the Greek Bactrian kingdom
{{citation-needed}}. Buddhism arrived in the geographic region currently encompassed by the modern Chinese state via multiple routes over more than a thousand years including innumerable exchanges through the overall Tarim Basin (Xinjiang) or "silk road" area via modern Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan but also via Tibet and by sea through Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and probably some sporadic oceanic contact with South Asia and Buddhist kingdoms in Indonesia). Tajikistan in particular is only slightly archaeologically investigated to date owing to its remote location, poor infrastructure, geopolitical challenges and IIRC the use of mines during 20th century military conflicts. In short, like any other set of ideas it probably arrived in waves of migration, monkly pilgrimages, exchanges, and instances of official diplomacy. There are records of Buddhism being preached to China by the geographically proximal Yuezhi people as early as 2BCE. Classical Chinese history teaches that Buddhism "came to China" in 67CE. Hellenistic artistic styles are, to my knowledge, never mentioned.
Buddha as depicted in East Asia is wearing Greek robes
The robes are not Greek, they are Buddhist. Buddhism was established in the sixth century BCE. We can read that in Buddhist tradition monks are only allowed a robe and a begging bowl, and that the historical Buddha also set forth a tradition that discouraged iconography as improper worship of likeness (idolatry). This may be because Buddha composed his philosophy in reaction to the prevailing religious environment, where he had previously partaken in such habits which were and remain deeply culturally entrenched.
In short, Greco-Buddhist art is influential because it is, in a sense, the first major period with any voluminous production of "Buddhist art" (a notion decidedly not Buddhist), and in any event, the Hellenistic style robes primarily only affects Mahayana art, and the modern geographical scope of China also encompasses an endemic Vajrayana philosophy, Theravada, and Tibetan. Even within Mahayana artistic tradition in China, I don't see how a cursory inspection of - for example - robes depicted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Buddhist_sculpture or https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Buddhist_sculptu... could conclude they're all Greek-influenced. Such a claim is tenuous at best.
there are elements of Greek philosophy in Buddhism as practiced in East Asia.
I have never heard anyone make this claim. If we flip the claim, as Buddhist jataka tales are known to Christianity, the reverse could also be said: "elements of Indian philosophy in Christianity as practiced in Europe". Such a statement, outside of tangential academic arguments, is broadly untrue.
I'm past the window for editing my original comment but if the mods don't mind, it would be great to qualify my original comment with the response.
Most people have never heard of, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanzhao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srivijaya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_S%C6%A1n https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajall_Shams_al-Din_Omar (forbear of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paduka_Pahala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanzhou#History etc.
After traveling broadly my biggest recommendation is to visit the Museum of World Religions in Taipei, Taiwan. It's a real gem.
I know this isn't a great answer, but "yes and no" -- it is certainly true that the Proto-Indo-Europeans brought with them Rigvedic religion. But that religion itself was syncretized with other beliefs across Central Asia and South Asia over quite a long period of time. While it is often dramatized as a "violent" invasion (no doubt reminiscent of later "violent" "Aryan" invasions), the truth is more bland, which is that the nomadic Indo-Aryans and their ancestors had a rich level of cultural exchange with more settled civilizations. Some of it by the sword, but some of it otherwise.
Pretty sure they are indigenous and I would think their religion would qualify as an “indigenous religion”?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_the_S%C3%A...
The Decline of the Sámi People’s Indigenous Religion http://www.laits.utexas.edu/sami/diehtu/siida/christian/decl...
I understand that there is economic struggle as in many other parts of the world. But I was really surprised by the general lack of actual people against the large swaths of land.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.74...
People that don’t know about hackers assign similar ill intentions to hackers, much in the same way as pick up artists.
But at HN we know that a hacker (criminal) is not a hacker (curious techie). The same goes for pick up artists (womanizers that are systematic about it with questionable ethics). You have a lot more pick up artists (men not being able to find relationships for years and deciding to fix that problem).
Both groups have members in them that do stupid and/or criminal things which is unfortunate.
Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross. I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement but seriously go take a look. And I'm sure someone will jump in with like "but it's not manipulation just acknowledging reality/it's empowering for shy nerds/whatever" and ok sure sure sure but no.
I get it. When identity, sex and romance are concerned then emotions in oneself can run high. I definitely see it in my own comments. I feel closely to 3 groups which are: pick up artists, hackers and feminists. I am not alone in this, though definitely not a "majority". Whenever any of them are blanket statement attacked without any nuance, I offer a different perspective. I mostly have this with feminism since the idea of a pick up artist isn't used that often in Europe.
> Go take a look.
I did:
* Double Your Dating (the page on humor is cool, "attraction is not a choice", don't remember anything else)
* Juggler Method (learned about disqualification -- aka not taking things too seriously but then more methodically -- and statement of intent -- aka answering "why are you talking to me?" <-- and answering that truthfully and respectfully)
* Mystery Method (high level overview, peacocking and getting yourself in a sociable mood, discarded the rest -- no negging, no routines, Mystery Method is tricky, I had to read this very critically since he seems a bit deluded and IMO most people that read this book read it in the wrong way and start to become negging routine people. IMO, not a good thing. When I read this book I followed a course on ethics because being sharp on that subject is required.)
* Pickup 101 (lots of playfulness and improv)
* RSD (mostly Tim's stuff, which is high energy optimistic positivity, didn't connect with the rest, Tyler seems too "Cartman-like" to me)
Communities I've been part of:
* Almost all Dutch communities (had friendships with some of the members, mostly spiritual or super down to earth types)
* I've been to the 21 Convention in Stockholm (in 2008, which was the time where this was an active thing in my life)
That's the stuff I connected with. I read much more stuff that I didn't connect with. Some companies are deeply misogynist, but the participants aren't (well some are). The participants are the majority of the whole culture, a culture that's mostly silent (and a few loud people that then goes on to have all the media portrayals).
I've seen a few things happen in people their development path:
* Some people become misogynistic while they weren't at first
* Some people came in misogynistic and "sharpen their ways"
* Some people become spiritual (a subset even celibate), because they realize it's not about finding love and so on
* Some people develop a lot of hobbies and start to learn how to enjoy life (I love this group, you can tell they get a lot out of it)
* Some people find a relationship
* And finally there are some people that are still stuck with their old problem after years
I have no numbers, but to insinuate that most pick up artists are misogynistic requires that you've been in the seduction community and spoke to all kinds of people from all walks of life that did not take the center stage and did not appear in the media. Because it's those people that make up the 99% of the culture.
> many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism.
Another thing: US and EU differ. My perspective is EU, I make no claims about the US since I only know the "media side" from there. And yea, that's not a great side to see.
> Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross.
No it's not. Before I did this, I was too serious with people. I still am. Now I am aware of it and can account for that. This means that people have more positive experiences with me. Moreover, it taught me more about empathy from an emotional point of view (through meditation, the most life changing thing I've experienced). Being optimistic, being positive, empathetic and doing meditation all came because I took a few pages from the pick up artist playbook. There's a lot in their playbook, these were the most important things that I took from it. I do agree that there are gross/manipulative ideas in there. I did my best to filter those out. I see a lot of men do that (and unfortunately also a sizeable group that didn't and straight up got culted into some pickup company's philosophy).
In other words: it depends, it's more nuanced, it's not inherently anything because reality is more complex than that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...
Slightly off topic, but this is even more so the case when children have to watch the abuse (due to living in a small house). Some kids will never be able to develop normally.
Source: I knew a lot of broken kids when I was their age.
Nothing he is accused of is illegal, it may be reprehensible but I don't demand moral consistency of those that entertain me, just adherence to the social contract of law.
Do you realise if you want to be morally consistent like that then the only limiting factor is your ignorance? By that I mean its likely A LOT of the content you currently consume or products you use/buy are unethical in some way but you just don't know they are.
I'd like to suggest that if you're not trying to fog-bust your ignorance by personally auditing all your supply chains actively then that is also ethically inconsistent. To permit your own ignorance suggests that its more about how people perceive you to be supporting unethical brands (once the lack of ethics becomes clear) as opposed to one actually caring about the ethics. I'd suggest your phrasing here backs that up.
Idk, that's just too exhausting a mentality for me to handle tbh. I don't think its my job to force everyone in the world to conform to my precise standards, I think there's value in being able to trade with those I wouldn't consider friend.
I mean lets spin it another way, you think the people Bald meets in his videos are all "good people"? A lot of them likely have issues in one way or another but we can celebrate that they're friendly and hospitable and that Bald is going out there and showing us that part of the world which we typically wouldn't see. Lets not forget that its likely that Bald is probably one of the more progressive individuals in his videos. I think that context matters a bit.
The implication being that every single supply chain is bad (e.g. cobalt mining in DRC) but we conveniently just don't uncover everything because we'd have to drop too much. We're terrified (to an extent) to accept the negative impact our existence has in this world so pursue a dream of moral purity to escape that harrowing reality.
Bald is a sex tourist so we'll never watch his channel but where is our cobalt mined from? As long as we don't know (our ignorance gives us plausible deniability) we can keep buying products that indirectly kill children while still showing everyone how good we are by not watching Bald's content. I think there's a hypocrisy here because I think relatively speaking Bald is acceptable but to purge him and just permit the rest (because the subjects are more boring or more distant) I think is bullshit.
It seems that in order to function one must come to terms with the fact that existence is a moral balancing act and that we all do immoral things. I accept that I own many things that likely caused others suffering. I have had a fascination with the DRC for a number of years and am acutely aware of what goes on there, yet I bought a new phone last year and a laptop the year before that. I accept the hypocrisy. But I am still glad people share information about what happens there. Whilst most of us will ignore it, some person or people better than me may be able to use that information to enact some positive change. At least the conversation can occur.
It is also a harsh reality that the less abstracted the situation, the easier it is for humans to face up to their own sense of morality. For whatever reason having intimate knowledge of a person is more impactful than hearing that an item you purchased was manufactured using some material that was mined by a nameless individual thousands of miles away. Right or wrong, we attach more weight to our judgements of others when a more direct connection can be made. It seems to me unrealistic to ignore that humans operate in this way.
Ultimately the intention of my original comment was not to tell people what to do, nor to judge, nor to demonstrate virtue. I was just sharing information so others could also make an informed decision. I chose not to watch his channel based on my own personal moral compass and my own boundaries of inconvenience.
Sex in which “consent” is derived through a combination of cash payment and coercive threats is illegal on at least one and often two independent bases in most jurisdictions.
It's about as surprising as someone visiting Amsterdam and having the audacity to smoke weed or single guys doing what single guys do when they visit SE Asia.
"Oh, you'd like a taster? Well how about the time when Vorkuta boasts of forcing a young hitchhiker to give him a blowjob in exchange for $6. On the threat that if she did not comply he might leave her in the middle of nowhere as they were travelling alone in a car on some deserted highway somewhere in the FSU. You can only imagine how scared she must have been."
From the previously linked: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...
(1) He’s a proud rapist who is actively legitimizing and normalizing rape.
(2) He thinks its cool to pretend to be a rapist and normalize rape, even though he isn’t himself a rapist.
While there’s a big difference if you are, say, prosecuting rape, both are reasonable grounds on which someone might decide not to support a creator’s output.
Southeast Europe is usually thought to be Greece, Albania, Croatia and the rest of the Balkan countries.
But there is also the fact that Europe continues far to the east of those parts, so there is another southeast corner somewhere else.
EDIT: now it has been corrected, thank you!
By the way Tatarstan, another country in the Russian Federation even is officially a "sovereign state integrated with Russia". There even are such things as citizenship and constitution of Tatarstan.
I think it's been wrongfully misconstrued as irrational by people who don't really understand the religion, inside and out.
For a good historical look at Christianity, I'd recommend people look into the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast, the NT Pod podcast, or, for the old testament, the writings of Mark S. Smith (you can also find lectures of his on Youtube).
Even secular thoughts like simulation theory agree in some sort of force that is outside of the material space-time universe we exist in.
From a layperson's point of view, are the astrophysicists that much different than a priestly caste?
I believe the physicists, but I don't think that by itself makes me a particularly rigorous thinker. In the ancient world I probably would have believed the priests, because it was what made sense to people.
And for better or for worse we have lots of evidence that people can reject science and still enjoy its benefits. It's not like refusing to believe in the Big Bang gets you blacklisted from using rockets or microchips, or rejecting evolution means you can't get vaccinated.
I have yet to see an astrophysicists burn you on a cross because you don't "believe" in the big bang.
"Belief in creation by God" is not mutually exclusive with believing that the Big Bang model correctly describes the structure and evolution of the universe. Belief in creation by God is not another option among an array of cosmological models, since it is not even a scientific model.
Anyway, I'm trying to understand what you mean my there not being a difference in leaps of faith required…
"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. […] By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."
Perhaps there are scientists that depend on a certain model not being proven incorrect for their own research to be viable, then, they might hope for something that they do not see. If (<- not biconditional ;p) that model stands on a solid basis they might even have confidence and some assurance about its truth. Is this somewhat what you mean?
In any case, I don't think that believing that a certain cosmological model is correct requires someone to be confident with regards to it. The currently predominant model might not be 100% right and that's perfectly fine. Thus, "belief in other cosmologies" might not require one to have faith while the verse quoted above states that it is through faith that someone understands that God is behind the creation.
(Unless you want to say that confidence in the scientific method is required for belief in a scientific model, but then, confidence in history (or God!) might be required on the other side as well, and so on).
Then, at least 1 more leap of faith is required, wouldn't you say? I'm not sure, tbh. :-)
But then, faith being involved in a process is not necessarily wrong (nor necessarily good).
The premise of Christianity is "revelation". That a higher power revealed knowledge to humans that is not knowable by any other means.
That there is revealed knowledge has meant that Christians spend much of their time thinking about and working out the implications of their revealed knowledge and trying to fit it into the rest of the world.
How rational you find Christianity depends on willing you are to accept it's premise. If you are then it is completely rational. If you aren't then it is nothing but castles built in the clouds.
The eastern christianity still recognises sin, but treats it more like a disease, the priest is more of a doctor.
I find this more appealing from a philosophical point of view, yet I lack any reason to believe.
Many religions and philosophers understand the idea that humans are not basically good people. They are generally self centered and not sacrificial. So to say that Catholicism or Christianity is strange for placing emphasis on our "fallenness" is a little unfair IMHO.
The daily struggle of a Christian is to strive to rid one's self of their sinful desires (selfish / evil) and live as Christ commands. This a continual process, and one that cannot be stopped. If one just "gets tired" of being a Christian, and lives differently, then they are in danger of losing their salvation.
I only go into this detail to illustrate that there is more to "Catholic guilt" than a flippant "critique".
Thanks for your perspective. You're certainly selling it better than the Catholic Church is. (You won't be surprised to hear that I'm not buying into the whole thing either way.)
How is this not a vehicle of control? It steers you in the direction of behaving the way Christianity prescribes for fear of the ultimate bad consequence which is losing your salvation.
You mean by 99.9% of the people. I have no doubt there is everything one may need to get enlightened in Christianity also but Christians have seemingly done amazing job obscuring that. And I can't recognize Christianity as rational because it requires you to just believe all the way through (in Buddhism as I know it believing is considered harmful, you are meant to experience it yourself and even then you are considered a fool if you start believing).
I am relying on a rather common and uninformed understanding of Buddhism here, so I may be way off base.
EDIT: I had to look it up, but I guess European culture has contained some sort of belief in reincarnation (Plato's Republic, Book X / Myth of Er). I don't suppose this belief has much traction anymore, despite the strong influence of Plato (or Greek philosophy in general) on Christianity.
Reincarnation was the only thing to come into my mind when I heard "buddhism" when I was a schoolboy. I had zero idea of what else is Buddhism about back then. Later, as I learnt more I found out (or came to an opinion) "reincarnation" itself is a fairly unimportant concept. Perhaps it is only there to attract/repel public and to be another target for becoming indifferent to as you progress.
It may also be beneficial to imagine you being reincarnated in a particular realm of existence and contemplating what you would experience. Imagine you are going to heaven where you are going to live millennia never forgetting... that you are going to hell after that, inevitably, like for real, and try to come in peace with that. That would be an exercise.
Agree on the rest, but not sure about that. Buddhism is well known for inconsistencies.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
I feel poetic inconsistencies/contradictions are the ancient world's equivalent of clickbait.
- Hell and heaven realms where you can get reincarnated into if you've lived an especially bad or good life
- Various gods and demons
- A timeline spanning trillions of years and hundreds of Buddhas
- "Celestial Buddhas" that came from space
- Enlightenment is now impossible in this world because it's too corrupt. If you chant enough, this or that Buddha will reincarnate you into their personal realm where you can become enlightened.
The majority of Buddhists in the world believe and teach these things. The modern secular western Buddhist community is sort of like a Theravada-lite in my opinion. Theravada already doesn't have a lot of the above, but they do have reincarnation, different realms, magic powers, etc. In the west the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path are emphasized while chanting, ritual, etc. as well as supernatural beliefs are downplayed.
So when you say that Buddhism is rational and consistent, you're referring to a westernized version of it. In my opinion, what Siddhartha Gautama actually taught, or at least what early Buddhism seems to have been, is somewhat close to the pared-down westernized version of Buddhism, just in a Hindu context and belief system due to the time and location of the teachings. But this set of teachings is NOT the same as the religion of Buddhism as practiced by most Buddhists.
All that being said, something real is in the core teachings. You don't have to take anyone's word for it. You don't have to have faith in anything. Just learn to look inside, and see for yourself.
I don't know much about Daoism and Buddhism, but I know a guy who compliments people in the West who claim to be Daoists on their excellent Chinese. Most of them don't get the joke (it seems many important texts have never been translated).
Concerning Buddhism, don't certain sub-branches of Zen buddhism come quite close to the Western "no magic" version?
In first millennium China, Buddhist monasteries owned up to 20% of the country's land. Enormous tracts of forest were cut down to supply the wood to build monasteries, temples, towers, and more. Buddhist monasteries even owned slaves to work their lands.
For much of this period, certificates of Buddhist monk-hood were sold by the state or sub-state actors like dukes and princesses to quickly raise money. These certificates got one out of forced labor, which was often used to build Buddhist structures. (Forced labor was a common state inducement for all sorts of reasons in this time.) The explosion of "monks" led to crackdowns, stripping those who couldn't recite sutras or hadn't shaved their head of their privilege. Those with certificates were often exempt from certain taxes, though this privilege was only certain for those at imperial monasteries.
Sources:
"Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History From the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries" By Jacques Gernet
"The Buddha's Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia" By Johan Elverskog
The hells (there are many cold hot and cold hells) and heavens and other realms of the dharmaic cosmology are important metaphors making a lot of philosophical/psychological sense. You can easily tell where are you supposed to reincarnate if you are sufficiently self-aware. Once you practice enough you can become more or less free from the tendencies of your mind which are meant to put you there or there and this will improve your overall health, mood and productivity. You can even realize that you already are living in particular realm actually despite living in the same world everybody else is from the physical point of view.
> Enlightenment is now impossible in this world because it's too corrupt. If you chant enough, this or that Buddha will reincarnate you into their personal realm where you can become enlightened.
Also makes sense: it indeed is very hard (if at all possible) to become completely free from how your neural system is preconditioned to react to what happens around. And if you feel bad about this you better chant than panic or do unpleasant things other religions followers might believe they should to do.
Also, no matter how much mythology does Buddhism contain, that comes packed with very practical and objective goodies, readily available to everybody interested. Buddhists would teach you to maintain mental health and wouldn't label you a heretic if you ignore parts of the teachings or interpret them your own way (unless you start propagating your unorthodox views too aggressively). Isn't this nice?
What you're saying is sort of like reducing Christianity to "love thy neighbor" and wondering why that didn't catch on wherever people are nice.
I'm in a Buddhist country right now, and I really dig it, and I'm learning all kinds of awesome things about how people live -- but I'm not sure I'd say the locals are more rational than the Europeans. Nor would I say the Europeans are necessarily more rational than anybody else... maybe "performative rationalism" would be a good term?
A lot of irrational things happen at the cultural and state level in Europe, with an iron thumb of redundancy keeping those silly states in check.
I guess there are group of people who believe in Buddhism as philosophy rather than religion. Although comparatively speaking still very minor.
Are you sure? Perhaps you ought to read about Sokushinbutsu[0].
Weird.
In Germany, to a far lesser degree than eg the US. Cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany
UPD And also we have Bavaria :)
There is a cross in every classroom because the previous sentence was an obvious lie.
True neutrality/freedom of religion would let people make personal choices about religous clothing. I'm not surprised that France has something so ridiculous but I'm somewhat disappointed that Germany would also fail to understand this
https://www.dw.com/en/the-opaque-financing-of-germanys-churc...
People who're upset about people abandoning old traditions in favour of imported ones should probably aim their ire at their own grandparents, for embracing U.S. and British rock'n'roll culture, rather than local traditions.
It's not like the majority stopped going to church because someone else built a mosque.
Also, we need to get history back as an major part of the curriculum - societies start doing dumb stuff when they forget their own past.
It has never happened that two people were chatting about “European culture and values” and had the khanate of Kazan in mind.
If someone is worried that Arab Muslims, or for that matter Arab Christians, will not assimilate into European culture and are incompatible with European values, how is it even remotely relevant that there is a tiny federal subject in what is technically European Russia where there's a lot of Muslims?
Only someone entirely unfamiliar with Europe would think this makes any difference. If you want to talk about Islam, focus instead on Bosnia, in the heart of Europe. While definitely not without their issues, comparing Bosniaks and Assyrians show that culture is more relevant than religion when it comes to integration.
That said, to address the point that started the discussion, I think it's just silly to use "there exists some Muslim country somewhere else" as some kind of gotcha against German critics of Islam. The Ottomans were milling around Vienna for a long time, that's a whole lot closer than either Bosnia or Kazan.
Consider Russia: are they, or are they not "European"? Is the Orthodox Church European?
That you think the answer is so simple, or that anyone who thinks differently is "nobody" is part of why it is so unsettled.
I happen to be Orthodox, and having lived in Russia I can say that the answer varies depending on context. Most of the time Europe is the "other". European standard means high quality, "My brother works in Europe", a "European car" etc. Even when contrasting Russia with very exotic cultures most people wouldn't see Russia as part of Europe, they just say "Japan is different from Russia", not "from Europe". And I'm not sure it's a very meaningful question either.
What is clear is that there are very few cases where people would consider Kazan European. I haven't been there, but I highly doubt they feel very European, in any sense. And there are exactly 0 cases where anyone ever would find it _representative_ of "Europe", and that is what we are discussing here.
It simply doesn't make sense to say "There are Muslims in Kazan and that is technically Europe so anyone objecting to Arab Muslims in Munich is wrong". That's just a silly argument.
I've also lived in Jordan and I can tell you that Muslims there don't feel any particular connection with those in Kazan. Circassians may perhaps feel differently, I don't know.
Religious geography has a similar influence as a legacy of history and empire.
And so, the distinctions between geographic Europe, EU Europe, Nato Europe, and Catholic/Protestant Europe are extremely relevant.
Which, in the interest of not fucking up language more than it already is, IMO shows that the definition that sticks out should be aligned -- or rather, newfangled BS as it is, re -aligned! -- with the other ones.
For those who didn't get what I'm talking about: The current "geographical definition of Europe" is a weird recent ("early-PC-era"?) invention. When I went to school, I learned in Geography that the highest mountain in Europe is Mont Blanc; nowadays, many sources claim it's Mt Elbrus. Yeah, and Turkey and Israel compete in the Eurovision Song Contest... Fricking Australia does! Just because you call something European doesn't actually make it European.
I still prefer the geographic definition, but this is a close second.
As far as I'm concerned, Moscow is in Europe.
In terms of genetics, the R1b haplogroup spread from that region, and is the most common haplogroup among modern Europeans.
So, if you're European or European-descended, many of your ancestors lived there a few thousand years ago. And the language you just wrote in traces its ancestry back to that region (as does German)
EDIT: The point of what I wrote is just that the ethno-linguistic composition of regions is very fluid, and drawing lines around a region and saying "this is what German is" (or whatever) is just a dumb exercise when you put it in historical context. (My own ancestors include many in Alsace, so I'm keenly aware of this -- what's "French"? what's "German"?). Essentialism is dumb.
Right, because Islam is an old religion and has been a part of Europe (and other continents) for centuries; these native Muslim communities are in general well-integrated and have a rich history; they have nothing to do with ISIS-style extremism. There are peaceful Muslim communities often react immediately when a crime is committed in the name of their religion.
Left, because "all cultures are equal" it's a convenient lie t with no connection to reality. There are toxic, terrible cultures where some members mutilate others, for example. Sometimes these atrocities are related to religion, sometimes not. Whether we allow some of these customs to take root in Western societies should be a matter of public debate, not a political decision that future generations will have to deal with.
Yes, I mean both. There are some cultures with a strong aspect of physical violence that is almost a defining factor (for the members of these groups). Taken together, these aspects sometimes far outweigh the positive ones.
> Do you think there is nothing left to improve in Western culture?
There is a lot to learn from. A bigger concern is that Western culture and related values are extremely invasive and try to dominate all other cultures so there is less and less of originality left with everything getting westernized. But we must not be afraid of criticizing these aspects of any culture that involve violence against others (this could be anyone - outsiders, other tribes, family members of given gender etc.).
It is funny to see the right wing politics trying to preserve this national Spanish heritage that they came up with.
Not to mention the Muslim Balkans.
I bet there are many other examples.
With regard to Islam in geographical Europe, yes there is Tatarstan (and bits of adjacent regions), but Muscovy conquered that Muslim power in the mid 16th century and subsequently made it very clear that while Islam exists there, it is only at the mercy of Christian rulers. Historically, during the tsarist era Muslims were forbidden from trying to convert the Christian population.
Perhaps a better example of "Muslims have been in Europe for a long time" (excepting Ottoman converts, as they are seen as forced conversions/uninvited guests/traitors by nationalist demagogues) would be those Tatars (same name as the Kazan Tatars but not closely related) who settled in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but again their impact on the surrounding culture was minuscule, and ultimately they assimilated into the Slavic-speaking Christian population.