Tuesday, December 8, 2015

ISIS or Voltaire

ISIS is defined as the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or simply Islamic State, is a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist Islamic extremist militant group."  ISIS is known for their intent to change others' beliefs. Voltaire, based upon that essay prompt, is also trying to change people's beliefs. He was vying for people to see a more realistic approach rather than a philosophical one. I'm not saying Voltaire is a member of ISIS....but they have a lot in common....hmmm.... (just kidding) But really: both ISIS and Voltaire are trying to change the way people see things, except that ISIS is violent and Voltaire is not. :)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This doesn't relate to this post specifically, but it relates to ISIS, so I'll post it here. As I mentioned today in class, ISIS has actually set up schools in order to instill their ideals in children's minds early on. This is the same kind of concept with the Jesuits. The Jesuits would set up these reductions (mission camps) in various places in order to convert indiginous peoples. They would also, like ISIS, set up schools and edicate children. Also mentioned, the Jesuits did not aim to have the indigenous people, or even children, adopt their European lifestyles--only their Christian ideals. This is really, from my understanding, similiar to what ISIS is doing; however, ISIS seems like they do care how people live. After all, they don't even have a real religious source to base their ideals off of. (The Jesuits had the Bible). Surely, the Koran does not teach what ISIS is practicing. I'm not trying to justify the bad things the Jesuits did, but I do think they are more tolerant than ISIS. It's weird to compare ISIS to the Jesuits since ISIS is currently the evil in the world, but when you do compare the two, there are some similiarities.

Unknown said...

ISIS is such a popular topic of discussion due to its extreme impact recently. ISIS relates to my presentation topic as well so I just want to go a little more into depth about it. Candide puts a strong emphasis on his dislikes of slavery among the Ottoman Turks. I can't even imagine how he would feel about ISIS if he were still living. ISIS is constantly captivating human beings, especially women and children. These prisoners/slaves are often put into human trafficking which is a very apparent form of slavery in itself. Upon looking at different articles for my presentation, I came across one that talked about how an ISIS chief's slave (a 16 year old) opened up about what she was put through. The chief apparently beat her and raped her. He also says she personally saw him do the same to another hostage, an American taken captive in 2013. She said that he treated them so badly and was constantly telling them to forget about their families because ISIS had already killed them. I am appalled that this kind of activity is going on. I can't believe that a girl not very far from my age, went through this for a long period of time. I can't even imagine going through that for any period of time.