Rifmaster wrote:It is certain that after the breakup of Yugoslavia, all the nations started becoming more religious, my theory is that it's because people couldn't accept that we are all genetically the same, so they had to find a way to herd up with the folks that fought beside them in the war. A lot of people used religion to achieve this, slowly becoming more and more radical in their beliefs.
In the times of hardship people tend to become more religious, no matter what the religion is and yes, religion is a good glue to keep the herd together. In a way religion is a method of dealing
(or just accepting) with difficulties that are not dependent on our actions.
I was asking about financial status of that family partially because I believe they were still worse than before war, even if better than their average neighbour.
Rifmaster wrote:So they just either called themselves Croats (this doesn't happen anymore) or simply muslims. Nowadays the correct term is Bosniak, and muslim is purely a religious thing.
So again, at some point religion was important to group identity, and I guess it still is. That's why it is hard to ignore it.
Rifmaster wrote:They are Bosnians, and mostly they study in Bosnia. Religion teachers are certainly not the ones that are going to turn you into an ISIS militant. They could totally turn you into a conservative muslim though (which i think is bad on it's own). And then, after your prayer in the mosque, you start talking with the wrong people who are probably only there to recruit you into some isolated hardcore muslim community, and before you know it you're in ISIS. That's what the guy with the ISIS family told me anyway.
That sounds credible. Good for you probably (meaning lesser evil). I have seen reports about placing foreign-trained imams in mosques. I guess, since you have native imams, recruitment is somewhat more difficult.
Rifmaster wrote:I find it very difficult to talk about anything meaningful with muslims who take the religion seriously, I just feel like they bring God into everything, I can't even talk about music because they don't listen to it. Would have 5 Christian friends over 5 equally religious muslim friends any day of the week.
Have to disagree.
I have been in Tunisia (2007), pre-revolution, and Turkey (2009) and had none to little problems interacting with local people. Though my expectation was to encounter cultural differences so I easily blamed all difficulties on that. It is more difficult to accept that your neighbour has a different culture.
Then again tourist zones easily can have different (sub)culture, because livelihood of people there depends on ensuring pleasant stay of guests.
Couple years ago I was In Russia and stayed in a hired flat with another engineer working on the same project for a few days. He was a muslim. We talked a lot about life style in different places of the world and about Chinese slowly colonizing eastern parts of Russia. We had absolutely no problem finding an interesting subject to talk.
Though I guess you could not talk with myself about music too much. It's just less interesting to me.
I recall also meeting a Dutch family somewhere near Balaton lake in Hungary. We stopped in the rest area because of a traffic jam. We were driving back home, they were driving to Turkey to visit their family. They shared with us and with other people a watermelon, we had a nice talk about travelling, working abroad and about how Turkish PM, Erdogan is seen in Europe.
And another two-part story:
Couple years ago I was in Mostar in one of restaurants with beautiful view at the rebuilt Old Bridge. I noticed in the menu the only kind of beer was non-alcoholic one so I asked the waitress why is it so. She told me that in this part of town alcohol is forbidden, because there is Turkish consulate nearby and in general this is Muslim part of the town but they of course can sell me normal alcoholic beer, of the same make as non-alcoholic one. As a driver I still chose the alcohol free version though.
Couple years later we were in Ulcinj in another restaurant with a beautiful view. I knew this part of Montenegro is inhabited mostly by Albanians and they are mostly Muslims. I noticed they had no problems listing all the alcoholic drinks in the menu. Seeing the crew was quite relaxed and in talkative mood I told them the story from Mostar and then asked how it is possible that here they have absolutely no problem with alcohol, in a place where majority is Muslim while in Mostar it was sold from under the counter. The reply was that in Bosnia they are more strict about religion and in Montenegro they are more relaxed about religious regulations.
Rifmaster wrote:The government islam thing sounds a bit conspiracy theorish to me. Also muslims who take their religion seriously only really want shariah law anyway so I don't see why the current governments would ever want more Islam in their countries in that regard.
It is weird. but I can't really see sensible reasons to why governments are discouraging natural growth of local population and encourage immigration. Sharia law is not a problem, why it would be. It might be a problem to subjects, but not to overlords. Not really related to Islam though. It's more about whom democratically elected governments are actually representing.
Also:
Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote:Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
