[Merged] General Criticism of Islam/Islamophobia Topics

[Belgian thought]

You claimed to know about the more recent developments. You said my sources were lacking. That's why I asked you if you had anything to back up what you said. You say you have a better source, so present it.

Place your evidence, as you did with those links - justify them. Simple really.

 

[marplots]

Are there terrorist Jihadists passing along coded messages on this forum? It would explain some of the stuff posted. Like, "God" could be code for "Allah," and "Intelligent Design" could mean, "Kill all the unbelievers."

If I were a Jihadist, that's how I'd do it. Slippery like an eel, using the very resources of the mighty JREF forum against itself. I suspect this is the reasoning behind banning cat pictures. Just common sense, that.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Place your evidence, as you did with those links - justify them. Simple really.

You're the one who claimed to know about the more recent developments, based on what you said here:

Three sites do not make an argument. Two are nearly over ten years old, do you know the results of the 'awakenings'?

My (women) friends in Turkey will tell you that in that last five years, revisionism is far, far away. And one of the other was before 'The Arab Spring'.

I'm willing to admit that I was wrong and that my sources are outdated. If you have better knowledge of the outcome of the Islamic reform movement in Turkey, then correct me by presenting a better source. That's all I'm asking.

I found and posted this one earlier in the thread:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_movements_within_Islam

 

[Frozenwolf150]

I think that if The Demon-Haunted World and The God Delusion became widely read in the Muslim world, it (and by extension the world as a whole) would be a lot better off.

What do you think?

That depends. Did you at any time in your life believe in any religion? If yes, then can you think back to that time? Do you remember what it might have taken to convince you to change your mind, to reexamine your beliefs, and to walk away from your faith? Religion can't simply be switched on or off, and I don't think reading a couple of books is going to make such a major change in one's life. Epiphany comes from trauma. I know I didn't give up my own beliefs in an instant. It took years of disillusionment, lapsed exposure, and questioning. And I live in a free society, so I had opportunities a lot of people living in the Islamic world do not.

Change and reform can't be imposed. They have to start from within.

 

[hgus]

Okay, if it was true, would it be acceptable or not?

Of course not! I believe in freedom of religion. That makes this unacceptable. I also find It deeply disturbing when christians reject their children just because they leave the church. (Jehovas witnesses) or when atheist judge a man to a lifetime in jail for promoting religion. (North Korea)

The problem is not confined to the muslim world. I believe that, at present, it is a bigger problem there than elsewhere, but again I believe it to be more of a societal problem then a religious problem. If you dispute this, please explain why, historically, the christian world have been more intolerant than the islamic world.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Suepertmateaphobe.

Show me your empathy...

I am demonstrating empathy. I've shown understanding of your motivations. It's not phobic to not be interested in a topic. If no one criticizes your 'scriptures' you're being ignored, not irrationally labeled.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Salafism is certainly a backward, anti-modern, and dangerous subset of Islam, and I think it's pretty fair to dislike or even hate it.

I keep hearing on this thread accusations that anyone who does hates all Muslims.

I couldn't find any posts that could reasonably be described as accusing someone who dislikes or hates Salafism of hating all Muslims. But I'm getting old. Would you kindly direct me to the post you had in mind when you made this claim, please?

 

[Mister Agenda]

Okay, if it was true, would it be acceptable or not?

Of course it wouldn't.

 

[Humes fork]

That depends. Did you at any time in your life believe in any religion? If yes, then can you think back to that time? Do you remember what it might have taken to convince you to change your mind, to reexamine your beliefs, and to walk away from your faith? Religion can't simply be switched on or off, and I don't think reading a couple of books is going to make such a major change in one's life. Epiphany comes from trauma. I know I didn't give up my own beliefs in an instant. It took years of disillusionment, lapsed exposure, and questioning. And I live in a free society, so I had opportunities a lot of people living in the Islamic world do not.

I was never religious.

Change and reform can't be imposed. They have to start from within.

But it wouldn't be imposed by spreading books. The books would serve as a basis for intellectual reform. And the two books in question have a record of making people skeptics, and many of those abandon religious faith.

Despite that I'm regularly accused of hating Muslims, I'm the only one who has proposed anything to emancipate the Muslim world. The "enlightened" non-Islamophobes here would apparently prefer that the Muslim world is kept in ignorance and stagnation.

 

[A'isha]

Read that book and you'll understand what I mean (it is explained there also why unided Human Reason has a much more important status in Christianity).
In spite of centuries now of exposure to Modernity the 'gates of the ijtihad' remain (almost) closed, the medieval Islamic jurisprudence (which in large parts is not considered immutable) is still with us, almost untouched. What reasons are there to expect renouncing inerrancy in the quran?

I want to revisit this, to show both the gaping flaws in your argument, and to show you yet again why you should stop referencing crap sources like this and start reading some real works on the subject.

In your quote of his book, Reilly writes:

When Muhammad Ali as-Sanusi (1787–1859) attempted to reopen the gates to ijtihad, he was rebuked in a typical fatwa by the mufti of Cairo, who said, “For no one denies the fact that the dignity of ijtihad has long disappeared and that at the present time no man has attained this degree of learning. He who believed himself to be a mujtahid [a scholar qualified to exercise ijtihad] would be under the influence of his hallucinations and of the devil.”

The implication being, of course, that as-Sanusi was one guy who attempted to challenge the orthodoxy that "the gates of ijtihad" had been closed, and was shut down by higher religious authority, and so ijtihad was and remains closed off as a source for Islamic jurisprudence (and, therefore, that "Reason" remains closed off to Muslims as a whole - "The door to ijtihad was shut so decisively that even efforts to open it in the nineteenth century were rebuked", Reilly writes in the first sentence of that paragraph you quoted, but oddly left out).

The problem is that all of that is almost entirely untrue. As Reilly obliquely acknowledged in another part of the paragraph you quote above that you, oddly, also don't include, Muhammad Ali as-Sanusi wasn't just some guy, but was known as the Grand Sanusi. And the reason he's known as the "Grand Sanusi" is because he was a famed Sufi and follower of the Maliki madh'hab who studied and taught at both Mecca and Al-Azhar, and founded the Sanusiyyah Order in Cyrenaica (today's Libya). The Sanusiyyah became the dominant political and religious force in Libya and the Sudan, with a university in Jaghbub, Libya that rivaled Cairo's famed Al-Azhar, and remained that way until Muammar Ghaddafi overthrew the King of Libya, Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi, in 1969, shutting down the university in Jaghbub (which Gaddhafi razed completely in 1988).

As-Sanusi's views on ijtihad were not those of a lone revolutionary voice vainly struggling to restore the long-discarded practice of ijtihad in the face of Muslim orthodoxy refusing to allow it. He was a respected and influential scholar, who simply added his own voice to those of many other scholars over the centuries who formed a particular subet of thought regarding ijtihad in Islamic jurisprudence. His main work on the subject, Iqaz al-wasnan fi 'l-'amal bi'l-hadith wa'l-Qur`an, draws heavily on Ibn Taymiyyah's own work on the subject - the lengthy introduction to the Iqaz is a lengthy quote of virtually the entire text of Ibn Taymiyyah's Raf' al-malam 'an al-a`immat al-a'lam, in which Ibn Taymiyyah asserts that the founders of the four madh'hab, and even the four Rightly Guided caliphs, were fallible human beings, and that absolute reliance on and adherence to their rulings (taqlid) is problematic and that Muslims need to approach the sources of law (the Qur'an and the ahadith) directly themselves in order to discern God's commands as revealed through the Prophet Muhammad.

As-Sanusi, however, didn't go quite as far as Ibn Taymiyyah in asserting the problematic fallibility of the imams of the four madahib, but his statements did antagonize three Egyptian scholars. The strongest condemnation came from Muhammad Ahmad 'Illaysh (a scholar at Al-Azhar who was not the "mufti of Cairo" like Reilly asserts, but simply the mufti in Cairo of the Maliki madh'hab). 'Illaysh's fatwa addressed as-Sanusi's teacher, the influential Sufi scholar Ahmad ibn Idris al-Fasi (whose views of ijtihad shared and inspired as-Sanusi's own) as well as as-Sanusi himself, and focused on a number of practices of the Sanusiyyah that 'Illaysh judged to be deviations from the Maliki madh'hab that as-Sanusi claimed to adhere to. 'Illaysh's argument specifically regarding as-Sanui's teachings about ijtihad was that no one following the imams of the madahib was capable of applying ijtihad to contest the rulings of those four men, because they not only were the last ones who were knowledgeable enough to be considered mujtahids, but that the superior knowledge which allowed the imams to be mujtahids came not just from their intellect, but from direct revelation from God.

However, given as-Sanusi's own power and influence in the region, 'Illaysh's fatwa didn't do much to quash as-Sanusi's teachings on ijtihad or prevent its spread outside of the Maliki community in Egypt. And despite Reilly's implication (and 'Illaysh's assertion), such a concept was far from universal even among the orthodox Classical Islam of the four madh'hab - each of the four schools has a different perspective on ijtihad and mujtahids than the Maliki one put forth by 'Illaysh. The most striking difference comes from, of all schools, the conservative Hanbali madh'hab, which (at times stridently) disagreed with the other three schools that the most open and independent form of ijtihad was ever restricted (the other schools have always accepted other, more restricted forms of ijtihad). The Hanbali even argue that, far from there never having been any more mujtahids since the imams of the four schools, that there can never be a period in which there aren't mujtahids, and that ijtihad is an obligatory duty (fard/wajib) of the 'ummah. [EDIT: And this is just among the four Sunni schools...ijtihad has always been a major aspect of Shia jurisprudence.]

As I said in my post above, this presents quite the pickle for Reilly's (and metacristi's) thesis that the "backwards" and ill-suited-to-modernity nature of Islam results from the abandonment of Reason as symbolized by the rejection of ijtihad, and that the restoration of ijtihad would represent the return of "Reason" to the "Muslim mind" and the modernization and reform of Islam. Because the driving force for ijtihad in Sunni Islamic jurisprudence has been the most illiberal of the madahib, and the most prominent voices speaking about the importance and necessity of ijtihad have been the most fundamentalist Islamic ones - Rudolph Peters even noted "[t]his is no coincidence as the concept of idjtihād [sic] is structurally related to fundamentalism." [EDIT: This, of course, makes Reilly's paragraph following the one you quoted, where he describes the Hanbali rejection of "the application of philosophical thought" and the criticism of the "anti-Reason" Ash'arite use of Aristotelian logic to attack the "pro-Reason" Mu'tazilites even more ironic.]

This means that, contrary to Reilly's assertion that "[t]he door to ijtihad was shut so decisively that even efforts to open it in the nineteenth century were rebuked" and implication that as-Sanusi made the one and only effort in Islam to "reopen" that door but was shut down, the "door" was plenty open both before and after as-Sanusi, and he was hardly a lone voice on ijtihad. The Ibn Taymiyyah, for instance, so heavily quoted by as-Sanusi on the topic of ijtihad and so influential on the current fundamentalist Salafiyyah movement, was a Hanbali who merely expanded on his madh'hab's view of ijtihad. Same for the direct founder of the current fundamentalist Salafiyyah movement, al-Wahhab. Muhammad bin Ali ash-Shawkani (1759 to 1834) was a Zaydi Shia who converted to Sunnism and served as chief judge (qadhi al-qudhah) of Yemen from 1795 until his death, and who formulated his own ideas of ijtihad and the path of al-salaf al-salih (the pious ancestors) that drew on his Shia influences but that were so close to the Hanbali teachings on those matters that he's highly esteemed in Saudi Arabia even today. Perhaps most (in)famously, Osama Bin Laden, who wasn't any kind of scholar, took the concept of ijtihad farther than even any of the above people and promoted a form of "lay ijtihad" that (unlike even how as-Sanusi and ash-Shawkani argued) said basically anyone could decide on matters of Islamic jurisprudence without any formal schooling in the subject whatsoever. And that's just a tiny sample.

And that's why I laugh at anyone who says stuff like "the 'gates of ijtihad' were closed in Islam centuries ago and that's why the Muslim Mind^TM rejects 'Reason' and Islam can never be reformed and is doomed to remain backwards and anti-modern".

 

[Chaos]

But it wouldn't be imposed by spreading books. The books would serve as a basis for intellectual reform. And the two books in question have a record of making people skeptics, and many of those abandon religious faith.

Really? And if the reform doesn´t take off the way you think it will? After all, these books didn´t exactly weed out the fundies in the US, either.

Despite that I'm regularly accused of hating Muslims,

Despite that you regularly demonstrate your hatred for Islam and accuse all those who consider themselves Muslims of practicing everything about Islam that you hate...

I'm the only one who has proposed anything to emancipate the Muslim world.

You´ve proposed that "the Muslim worlds" stop being the Muslim worlds and become the Atheist world. Which, of course, could in no way at all possibly indicate any dislike of Muslims on your part, right?

The "enlightened" non-Islamophobes here would apparently prefer that the Muslim world is kept in ignorance and stagnation.

The non-Islamophobes here do not stick their fingers in their ears and shout "la la la I´m not listening" whenever confronted with information that suggests that "the Muslim world" might be more complicated and less barbaric than they think. "The Muslim world" is perfectly capable of enlightening itself without the "help" of someone who persistently refuses to educate himself on anything to do with "the Muslim world" beyond crude strawmen.

 

[Humes fork]

Really? And if the reform doesn´t take off the way you think it will? After all, these books didn´t exactly weed out the fundies in the US, either.

What makes you think that I sympathize with the "fundies in the US"?

And in what way might my proposal to seed reform not "take off the way I think it will"?

Despite that you regularly demonstrate your hatred for Islam

Define "hatred" and how do I demonstrate it?

and accuse all those who consider themselves Muslims of practicing everything about Islam that you hate...

Where do I do that?

You´ve proposed that "the Muslim worlds" stop being the Muslim worlds and become the Atheist world. Which, of course, could in no way at all possibly indicate any dislike of Muslims on your part, right?

It is correct that I propose that the "Muslim world" stops being the Muslim world. But I alos propose that the "Christian world" stops being the Christian world, and so on, in as much as these belief systems maintain false beliefs and infringe on the freedom of the general public. I think all of those, indeed the entire world, should become the skeptic world.

How this is hatred I fail to see. It is the utmost compassion.

The non-Islamophobes here do not stick their fingers in their ears and shout "la la la I´m not listening" whenever confronted with information that suggests that "the Muslim world" might be more complicated and less barbaric than they think. "The Muslim world" is perfectly capable of enlightening itself without the "help" of someone who persistently refuses to educate himself on anything to do with "the Muslim world" beyond crude strawmen.

Again this demonstrates I'm the compassionate one. I put people above the maintenance of cultural traditions.

And the two books I mentioned are each individually way more educating that the Quran will ever be.

 

[Dcdrac]

Christian fundies have no issues with inflicting their medieval world views on the rest of us either when they use the Internet.

 

[Chaos]

What makes you think that I sympathize with the "fundies in the US"?[/qoute]

I don´t suppose you´re ever going to show me where I claimed you did?

This conversation would be a lot less frustrating if you adressed what people write, not some ridiculous crap you´re making up

And in what way might my proposal to seed reform not "take off the way I think it will"?

It might, for example, not make Muslims stop being what you think they are.

Define "hatred" and how do I demonstrate it?

If you don´t know what hatred is, I can´t help you. Look it up in a dictionary or something.

You´re demonstrating it, for example, by starting thread after thread about how Islam is bad, by ignoring everything A´isha and others say that doesn´t give you an excuse to keep claiming Islam is bad, and by refusing to adress anything that challenges your claims in any meaningful way.

Where do I do that?

Everywhere you equate "Islam" with the worst things any group considering themselves Muslims practices, and where you keep presenting Muslims (like "the Muslim world") as one monolithic entity which believes and practices exactly what you claim they believe and practice.

It is correct that I propose that the "Muslim world" stops being the Muslim world. But I alos propose that the "Christian world" stops being the Christian world, and so on, in as much as these belief systems maintain false beliefs and infringe on the freedom of the general public. I think all of those, indeed the entire world, should become the skeptic world.

In other words, you seek to destroy their culture.

How this is hatred I fail to see. It is the utmost compassion.

Just like any fanatic fails to see their hatred of other religions and cultures for what it is.

Again this demonstrates I'm the compassionate one. I put people above the maintenance of cultural traditions.

You put conformity with YOUR bigoted world-view above the free will of others to maintain the culture they wish to maintain.

And the two books I mentioned are each individually way more educating that the Quran will ever be.

By which you mean that you agree with them... although I find it hard to believe that you have read and understood "The Demon-Haunted World" - certainly Sagan´s message has failed to penetrate your mind.

 

[Belz...]

What makes you think that I sympathize with the "fundies in the US"?

What does this even have to do with what Chaos posted ?

 

[A'isha]

Earlier this year, there was yet another one of the interminable "Sam Harris says Islamophobia doesn't exist" threads that get posted on here on a regular basis (you know, very much like this one) that I ended up rereading today for an unimportant reason. In it, the claim that no comedians make fun Islam was put forward, which I'd forgotten about.

So, I'd like to share with you a site I found a few months ago: Islamica News, basically a Muslim version of The Onion.

Some of my favorites (there are a lot more that I really laughed at, but I think I put too many as it is!) from that site:

10 Shocking, Lesser Known Signs of the Day of Judgement

2. Dajjal’s [A'isha: this guy] Younger Brother, Larry, will follow him everywhere he goes, cackling incessantly.

[...]

5. After his resurrection, Isa’s (as) first miracle will be ridding the world of Candy Crush invites.

After Ramadan, Liberal Muslims Eagerly Flock Back To Sinful Ways

‘Black Sheep’ Muslims, or ‘Haramees’ as they are referred to by their holier peers, usually face a readjustment period which falls in the two weeks after Ramadan.

“The week after Ramadan is strange,” says twenty two year old Musa Hathout. “It’s like ‘O man, I’m eating. Then it’s like, ‘Oh [crap], I’m cursing… and then it’s like “HOLY [freak]! I’m sippin on whiskey all up in da club and not payin my taxes.’ But not necessarily in that order.”

[...]

Sixteen year old Aisha Siddiqui feels guilty for not being as disciplined now that the holy month is over. “The other day I was thinking, man that Christina Aguilera is so messed up. But then I realized that I’m not the most perfect person in the world either. I mean last month I overslept a tahajood prayer. Cast me away with the rest of the crackheads.”

Siddiqui was given a wedgy shortly thereafter by her own mother.

As the haramees flock back to the nightclubs and their music, the aura of yet another Ramadan fades away.

Expressing his sentiments of the holy month being over, Musa Hathout says, “All that fasting made me hungry, ya know what I’m sayin.”

Man Blames Everything on Jews

ISRAEL, IN – Witnesses stood in awe this morning when a 47 year old Egyptian man by the name of Habib Yawari lunged into a verbal assault at an area gas station.

“The damn thing wouldn’t take my credit card,” exclaimed Yawari, “They wanted to make me late, I know it! It’s all because of the Jews!”

This marks the fifteenth incident this month where Yawari has blamed his misfortunes on the children of Israel. From having his credit declined to stubbing his pinky toe, Yawari seems to find a correlation between Jews and everything going bad in his life.

World’s Worst Muslim Found

“He sometimes shows up to the masjid just before congregation and holds up the jamaat while we wait for him. He doesn’t even pray, he just shows up to make us wait on him. I hate that,” stated one local man.

When asked for comment on his misguided behavior, Mufasa replied, “Gotta love me. I’m still better than the world’s best non-Muslim.”

The world’s best non-Muslim, Stanley Thompson of Milwaukee, Wisconsin was unavailable for comment.

Muslim Nerds Translate Quran to Klingon

“Not counting Shias, there are about a dozen Muslim Klingons in the world,” he stated. “Percentage-wise, that’s a great number compared to all Klingons out there but it’s not enough for a meetup or conference. Even if we tossed in the Shias we’re looking at 18 tops.”

“Plus, many folks couldn’t get their parent or legal guardian’s permission,” explained the 47-year old single man, allowing his gaze to drift momentarily and reflect on the choices that led him to this point in life. He was supposed to be a doctor. Why couldn’t he get his life together?

Analogy Derails Friday Khutba

“He started his speech by saying that we should focus our lives on building a house for the hereafter,” stated one eyewitness. “He explained each deed is a brick and we need to thoughtful with our actions.”

Many claim approximately five minutes into the sermon, the Imam continued to mention the house metaphor and things got progressively more confused.

He referenced items such as the “total cost of ownership, including heating and repairs” as a factor to consider when building their “hereafter house.” The Imam also stressed the importance of having an “unfinished basement with a walkout” and urged worshippers to pay “particular attention to the toilets and properly caulking the bath tub.”

[...]

“I thought I saw where he was going with it,” stated another confused worshipper, “but then he went off on whether or not it’s a renters market and talking about Trulias and Zillows. I think he was actually asking us whether or not he should bid on a foreclosure.”

10 Steps to Getting a Second Wife

Step 2. Drop Hints

Tell her how much you love her and casually joke that you can “only handle one wife” to get a read on the situation. Mention how much you’d love to spend the whole day watching TV with her while “someone else” makes you a sandwich. Offer to help load the dishwasher by marrying another woman. If any of this backfires, use “just kidding” as the ideal way to backtrack.

[...]


Step 6. Confusion

Where is she? You got home from work hours ago. What are you going to do? This was a terrible idea. Call her mother, call her friends, stalk her Facebook. You have to find her and make this right. Oh my God, did she take the kids?

[...]

Step 8. Acceptance

It’s finally sinking in. She’s not coming back. The pantry and the refrigerator are empty. Congratulations, you’ve doubled your weight. How did you pull this off in college? Time to hunt rodents and burn your furniture stay warm. It’s going to be a long, cold winter. God, you miss her.

Convert with Lazy Eye Has Trouble Lowering His Gaze: At Least One Eye Going to Burn in Hell

Wallace, who is of Hispanic and Irish descent, has Amblyopia, (also known as “lazy eye”), a condition in which one eye has decreased vision and mobility. The disorder makes it difficult for him to lower his gaze when in presence of the opposite sex, a requirement of both men and women of the Muslim faith.

[...]

“The Imam at my mosque gets angry with me,” say the 25-year-old Muslim newbie. “He’s like ‘Brother lower your gaze,’ or ‘Take a picture, it will last longer.’ I think it’s obvious he isn’t familiar with my condition.”

 

[Frozenwolf150]

I was never religious.

Then maybe, just maybe, you need to admit that you will never understand firsthand how difficult and painful it can be for someone to abandon the religious faith they were raised into.

But it wouldn't be imposed by spreading books. The books would serve as a basis for intellectual reform. And the two books in question have a record of making people skeptics, and many of those abandon religious faith.

Where exactly have these books accomplished the things you claim? Do you have statistics of how many people have been converted by The God Delusion?

Despite that I'm regularly accused of hating Muslims,

Perhaps then it's time to stop blindly posting random tweets about, "Muslim extremist X commits an atrocity, therefore this represents what all Muslims are like." Those tend to send the wrong message.

I'm the only one who has proposed anything to emancipate the Muslim world.

Are you sure about that?

The "enlightened" non-Islamophobes here would apparently prefer that the Muslim world is kept in ignorance and stagnation.

Do you have a quote of when anyone asserted that?

 

[Humes fork]

I don´t suppose you´re ever going to show me where I claimed you did?

Why then did you use them as a counter-argument against me?

This conversation would be a lot less frustrating if you adressed what people write, not some ridiculous crap you´re making up

Ditto.

It might, for example, not make Muslims stop being what you think they are.

Maybe they'd lead to a greater appreciation and support for skepticism, science, and secularism in the Muslim world. That's what I'd hope.

If you don´t know what hatred is, I can´t help you. Look it up in a dictionary or something.

So I'm accused of being a hater, I ask the accusers to show me where I display it, and get some variant of them not being able to show it. Same old pattern repeating itself.

If this forum had any serious moderation, such baseless slander would not be tolerated. The accusers would have to put up the evidence or retract (or get a warning). But alas, that's not how it works here.

You´re demonstrating it, for example, by starting thread after thread about how Islam is bad, by ignoring everything A´isha and others say that doesn´t give you an excuse to keep claiming Islam is bad, and by refusing to adress anything that challenges your claims in any meaningful way.

Blah blah blah...

Everywhere you equate "Islam" with the worst things any group considering themselves Muslims practices, and where you keep presenting Muslims (like "the Muslim world") as one monolithic entity which believes and practices exactly what you claim they believe and practice.

You show me where.

In other words, you seek to destroy their culture.

Do you think European cultures were destroyed by the Enlightenment?

Do you realize what you in effect are saying? Skepticism, science and secularism are for white Europeans. Middle Easterners should be kept in dysfunctional and cruel social systems and laws. And yet I'm the one accused of being a hateful racist.

Just like any fanatic fails to see their hatred of other religions and cultures for what it is.

I don't hate. I simply put human well-being above cultural and religious practices.

You put conformity with YOUR bigoted world-view above the free will of others to maintain the culture they wish to maintain.

Cultures that risk extinction because of the free flow of thought and information ought to go extinct.

A tweet, of course retweeted by Richard Dawkins, sums it up:

My culture condemns stoning people to death, yours condones it. My culture IS BETTER, and it is not anythingphobic of me to point that out.

By which you mean that you agree with them... although I find it hard to believe that you have read and understood "The Demon-Haunted World" - certainly Sagan´s message has failed to penetrate your mind.

What of Sagan's message have I missed?

 

[A'isha]

Everywhere you equate "Islam" with the worst things any group considering themselves Muslims practices, and where you keep presenting Muslims (like "the Muslim world") as one monolithic entity which believes and practices exactly what you claim they believe and practice.

You show me where.

[...]

A tweet, of course retweeted by Richard Dawkins, sums it up:

My culture condemns stoning people to death, yours condones it. My culture IS BETTER, and it is not anythingphobic of me to point that out.

 

[Chaos]

Why then did you use them as a counter-argument against me?

I didn´t. Show me where I did.

Quoting the part where I pointed out your idea didn´t work on them doesn´t cut it, though.

Maybe they'd lead to a greater appreciation and support for skepticism, science, and secularism in the Muslim world. That's what I'd hope.

The only things Dawkins´ book will lead to is even less support for skepticism and secularism. After all, if the guy you tout as a model skeptic and atheist (because, why else use his book?) is such an insufferable bigoted jackass, why would anyone want to become like him?

And Sagan? I imagine he´d be horrified if he knew someone is using him to support eradicating an entire culture.

So I'm accused of being a hater, I ask the accusers to show me where I display it, and get some variant of them not being able to show it. Same old pattern repeating itself.

Stop playing stupid. You know exactly what hatred is.

If this forum had any serious moderation, such baseless slander would not be tolerated. The accusers would have to put up the evidence or retract (or get a warning). But alas, that's not how it works here.

If this forum had the kind of moderation you consider "serious", you´d be out of here for your constant attacks, your name-calling and your habit of making up crap about your opponents.

Blah blah blah...

You demanded evidence. I provided it. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "la la la I´m not listening" doesn´t change that. Try acting like a skeptic for a change.

You show me where.

So you can post "Blah blah blah..." again and simply ignore the evidence? No... YOU show, just once, that you have the least idea of what skepticism means. I´m not jumping through your hoops just to have it all handwaved away.

Do you think European cultures were destroyed by the Enlightenment?

In order for that to be comparable, European cultures would have to no longer be Christian now... however they still are. So maybe you would like to pick a comparison instead that is actually valid?

Do you realize what you in effect are saying? Skepticism, science and secularism are for white Europeans. Middle Easterners should be kept in dysfunctional and cruel social systems and laws. And yet I'm the one accused of being a hateful racist.

No. I am saying that these things are for those who want them, including of course Middle Easterners. They are NOT to be rammed down peoples´ throats against their will - and DAMN STRAIGHT I´ll accuse anything who advocates that of being a hateful racist, and a narrow-minded bigot as well.

I don't hate.

Q.E.D.

I simply put human well-being above cultural and religious practices.

You put your clueless, fact-free ideology above the free will and self-determination of other people.

Cultures that risk extinction because of the free flow of thought and information ought to go extinct.

A tweet, of course retweeted by Richard Dawkins, sums it up:

As A´isha point out... Q.E.D.

What of Sagan's message have I missed?

If you use his book to support eradicating the Muslim world´s culture... everything. Starting with the idea that you should study a culture or religion THROROUGHLY before you criticize it - in its entirety, not just the bits and pieces that support you.