World's Happiest People? You Gotta Be Kidding!

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I've done my homework on the life and times of the prophet Mohammed, read much of his teaching, laws and goals for Islam.

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So who did you get to help you in interpreting the information? When I was in Tanzania a Muslim friend of mine explained to me that it would not be Islam to force his views on anyone else. No, I'm not saying that all Muslims are peaceful and tolerant, but that "Muslim" is a very broad category, and it is dangerous to base your views on a religion on what happens to make it onto the news.[This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 10-04-2003]

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The Capitol city of terrorism is Mecca where the prophet Mohammed declared war on the planet commanding his followers to take up the sword and go all the way to global conquest just as he himself did to impose his religion on the people of his land.

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Where in the world does this come from? Who says that the followers of Mohammed have to conquor the world? Are you taking verses from the Quran out of context? Are you reading literature by some extremist minority? If the latter, is this group Muslim or Christian?

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II.161: Surely those who disbelieve and die while they are disbelievers, these it is on whom is the curse of Allah and the angels and men all;

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IX. 5-6: Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them.

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IV.76: Those who believe fight in the cause of God.

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IV.74: Let those who fight in the cause of God who barter the life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever fights on God's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We will give him a handsome reward.

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VIII.39-42: Say to the Infidels: if they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's.

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Oh, good heavens! I can find verses like this in the Christian Bible! But you'll accuse me of misinterpreting or taking the verses out of context. Which is what I'm accusing you of doing. Besides just digging up random verses, or taking the statements of extremist organizations, what evidence do you have that it is part of generally accepted Islamic teaching to wage violent war on the West for world domination?

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Anyhow, methinks Nigerians not happiness world champs and at least some who've read the facts objectively have gained some knowledge by this thread. That's my summarization and time to move on for me.

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What is that? You made some assertions, failed to back up most of them, and the rest were refuted, and now you are just going to move on? You still haven't demostrated with "objective facts" that the Nigerians are not the happiest people on earth. Worse is the assertion that you made in your first post:

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This "happiness report" sponsored by the world community is just another example of how in the name of religion, tyranny, holocaust and destruction is being tolerated by global powers that be as well as apologists of Islam all the way down to some folks right here on EvC who fail to see the escalating threat this ideology poses to the planet.

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Actually, you haven't presented any facts about Nigeria. You cited only one article about about a state government official calling for the murder of a reporter about a year ago. You haven't presented any evidence that the majority of Nigerians are constantly undergoing the sort of deprivations and threats you are talking about, or that the majority of Nigerians feel that they are so unsecure that they cannot be happy, not, and this is important, you have failed to demonstrate that the Nigerians lack the sort of emotional mechanisms to cope with the situation they find themselves in. I don't know how to measure how "happy" a people are, but happiness has a lot to do with expectations and a general feeling of security. I have no reason to doubt that the Nigerians, as a whole, are a happy people.The only other thing you did was to cite a few verses of the Quran out of context to support your assertion that Islam poses a threat to the world. In post 74 of this thread, shrafinator listed verses that could lead one to the same conclusions about Christianity. On one or two other threads (I forget which ones) someone posted verses taken from the Quran that would lead one to believe that Islam is a tolerant, peaceful religion. Simply taking a few verses and pointing to the words and deeds of a few extremists is meaningless outside of the context of what the majority of Muslims believe and what they want. You have not presented any "facts" that would lead me to believe that the majority of Muslims, or even a significant minority, believe that the whole world should be forcibly converted through warfare.As far as "my generation" goes, how old do you think I am?And why should you waste any more time on this thread? You made some very definite assertions about Nigeria and about Islam that can be considered defamatory. You should either back them up or you should admit that you, perhaps, said more than you meant in your excitement.

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The other approach might be to find other surveys of "happiness" that have been made. What is it that correlates with happiness. We all suspect that material wealth is not well correlated with happiness. Is living in a peaceful country? I imagine it is, as you do. However, maybe it doesn't correlate well. If that were true in other surveys then the results of this survey aren't so surprising.

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You make some good points. But there are some interesting aspects that this thread can help to bring up. One is a point I alluded to in my previous post, namely the importance of coping mechanisms. I spent some years in Tanzania among people who were very poor, and where the mortality rate, especially the infant mortality rate, was quite high by Western standards. You, I, and many others would find it somewhat unpleasant to live in these conditions, but the locals had to live with it, and they dealt with it - they would prefer things to be different, of course, but they accepted how they live as a part of life. At the same time, I do know that many Nigerians, and other people, are definitely unhappy in the US. Our way of life, especially the lack of very close communities, and the more materialistic aspects of our culture is unpleasant to many people.

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I have certainly read a bunch of anecdotal stuff were individuals marvel at how happy impoverished, downtrodden people are.

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To come back to my experience in Tanzania, people were very poor, as I said. But most of the people managed to get by. I, personally, saw very little of the most horrifying abject kind of povery - I see more of it here, where I live in the US (I live in a poor part of town). As I alluded to (although it may not have been clear), I doubt that the majority of Nigerians are directly affected by the dire poverty and war that buzsaw was talking about. Plus, I didn't read the study myself, but I also suspect that the researchers may have avoided, for reasons of personal safety as well as logistics, the very worst parts of the country.

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We might also, as you seem to suggest, examine who the people were who made this survey, do we think they have a specific axe to grind? Why do we? (other than simple paranoia) Motive? What good does it do to give results like this?

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A good question, but since I don't do surveys of this sort, I'm probably not the best person to comment on this. But I think that we all want people to be happy. But how to make people happy? What is it that makes people happy? Now when we get a surprising result like this, there can be two explanations. One is that our "measurement of happiness" is off. But this is good to know, since if we want to study happiness we need to be able to measure it more accurately. The second explanation is that the factors that enter into a person being happy are different than what we think it is. This, too, is good to know. Without reading the survey myself, I suspect that both of these ideas are in play here.

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I did the thread because I felt that people should be aware that some of these scientific studies may not be all that scientific or factual.

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You did not discuss any of the science, however. But I repeat myself.

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1. The context out of which I cited from the Quran nor the life and practices of the prophet himself in no way change anything stated in the quotes.
4. Shraf resorted to meanspirited insultive responses and I simply refuse to respond to such. I don't need that and neither would you.

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Shrafinator did exactly the same thing you did - posted a collection of quotes from a religious text that makes the religion in question seem violent and dangerous. The point is that one cannot simply collect a few quotations and make judgements based on them; one must look at what the majority of believers actually believe, how they actually act, and recognize when the faith in question is actually a quite heterogenous mix of different peoples and beliefs.

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2. None of my statements were falsely deflamatory. Where were your responses to the contrary when they were posted or thereafter to refute them?

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Since some implications of your statements is that Islam is by nature a violent religion bent on world domination and so Muslims are dangerous people, which are not true, I would consider such statements defamatory.

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My apologies for assuming your age to be young.

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No apologies necessary. I am just becoming aware of how young the majority of people on these types of message boards are.

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I'm sure we are all aware of the social sciences. However, I don't think anyone has actually discussed the science behind this survey (or whatever).

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It may well be very accurate. It may be junk science.

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I haven't seen a scarp posted to pick either side.

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This is precisely my intended point. I apologize if I wasn't clear.