DAESH is about religious membership

[Pete at Home]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Western officials would probably do best to refrain from weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate altogether. Barack Obama himself drifted into takfiri waters when he claimed that the Islamic State was “not Islamic”—the irony being that he, as the non-Muslim son of a Muslim, may himself be classified as an apostate, and yet is now practicing takfir against Muslims. Non-Muslims’ practicing takfir elicits chuckles from jihadists (“Like a pig covered in feces giving hygiene advice to others,” one tweeted).

I suspect that most Muslims appreciated Obama’s sentiment: the president was standing with them against both Baghdadi and non-Muslim chauvinists trying to implicate them in crimes. But most Muslims aren’t susceptible to joining jihad. The ones who are susceptible will only have had their suspicions confirmed: the United States lies about religion to serve its purposes.

Good article.  I'm increasingly a fan of the Atlantic.

[TheDeamon]

But with 1 billion adherents, even a 0.01% extremism rate(1 in 1,000) You would still end up with a million militant extremists.

Of course, this is in relation of the U.S. having a standing Active Duty Military force that probably remains over a million members strong, out of a population of "only" 330 million, and the reserve components grow the numbers further.

[Pete at Home]

But with 1 billion adherents,

say what? 

You're talking about Islam.  Islam, like Christianity, is a family of religions.  A Quaker is not a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.  A Sufi Muslim is NOT a member of the Califate/slavery/amputation restoration cult of which DAESH is a subset.

[TheDeamon]

But with 1 billion adherents,

say what? 

You're talking about Islam.  Islam, like Christianity, is a family of religions.  A Quaker is not a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.  A Sufi Muslim is NOT a member of the Califate/slavery/amputation restoration cult of which DAESH is a subset.

...but those other sects are typically prime recruiting grounds for DAESH to seek converts from. Westboro and a lot of other fundamentalist sects on the Christian side do the same thing, they aren't looking for atheists to convert(although they'll take them), they're looking for other Christians they can bring into their take on things.

[Pete at Home]

But with 1 billion adherents,

say what? 

You're talking about Islam.  Islam, like Christianity, is a family of religions.  A Quaker is not a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.  A Sufi Muslim is NOT a member of the Califate/slavery/amputation restoration cult of which DAESH is a subset.

...but those other sects are typically prime recruiting grounds for DAESH to seek converts from. Westboro and a lot of other fundamentalist sects on the Christian side do the same thing, they aren't looking for atheists to convert(although they'll take them), they're looking for other Christians they can bring into their take on things.

On the contrary, some of ISIS' best recruiters are former Christians and former Atheists, just as Torquemada's conversion from Judaism to what passed for Christianity in Isabella's Spain proved a boon to the inquisition.  Jesus, poking fun of some of the nastier Pharisee sects, told them that "You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are."  New converts to nut-ass cults of any general religious category have always been among the most devout and fanatical ones.