[Merged] General Criticism of Islam/Islamophobia Topics

[Humes fork]

If Christianity is really a religion of peace, then why aren't Christian extremists avowed pacifists?

I guess you'll have to ask that to those who claim Christianity is a religion of peace.

 

[A'isha]

That question is seriously the Islamophobic equivalent of the Creationists' "If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Checkmate, Evolution Apologists!"

 

[A'isha]

I guess you'll have to ask that to those who claim Christianity is a religion of peace.

Oh, like Robert Spencer?

Okay, do you have any example of Muslim extremists ("extremists" being defined as someone who follows the religious texts and traditions very strictly) who are avowed pacifists?

A) That's not the definition of "extremist", that's merely the definition of "devout".

B) Google is your friend.

 

[metacristi]

If Christianity is really a religion of peace, then why aren't Christian extremists avowed pacifists?

Wafa Sultan summarizes the comparison of Christianity and islam with

The problem with Christians is they aren't as good as Jesus. But thank God most Muslims are better than Muhammad.

There has always been a tendency in Christianity to interpret the Old Testament and the Jewish Law symbolically (even more today, except the literalist circles) and the New Testament is relatively benign (this is also the conclusion of secular academic biblical criticism by the way, you have to be Reza Aslan & other muslims to reiterate again Reimarus' long discarded thesis that Jesus held violence in high esteem).

Finally all religions have their important shortcomings, no one denies this. The real problem is that islam has almost all of them and add also many more to the extent that even after 1400 years and centuries of exposure to Modernity even well intended people & a lot of generous efforts can do little to bring it in the 21st century.

 

[Humes fork]

Oh, like Robert Spencer?

Sure. Ask him. Why do you ask me?

A) That's not the definition of "extremist", that's merely the definition of "devout".

Of course it is the definition of extremist. Someone who follows the Islamic rules and tradition very strictly can be considered extreme in adherence. This applies not just to Islam or religion. A libertarian takes the liberal tradition ("liberals" understood it the European meaning of the word) to the extreme.

B) Google is your friend.

The Wiki entry suggests it has some appeal in heterodox Islamic groups. Not much within mainstream Islam.

 

[hgus]

Politically incorrect thought of the minute: If Islam really is a religion of peace as claimed by its apologists, then why aren't Muslim extremists avowed pacifists?

First I must say that I do not believe any religion is a religion of peace. A few sect are pacifists but they are the exception. Humans are very, very ill suited to be pacifists and they, the faithful, will read their holy books in a way that suits them.

But the point is silly. There are plenty of devote muslims that are peaceful, but you do not hear about them because peaceful people do not make the news! Duh!

 

[Humes fork]

A'isha: It baffles me that you are not outraged at Chaos who thinks that skepticism and secularism and science is for white Europeans only and would "destroy" the culture (sic!) of the Muslim world.

 

[A'isha]

Wafa Sultan summarizes the comparison of Christianity and islam with

Wafa Sultan is a hate-filled loon so bigoted that even Daniel Pearl's father felt the need to publicly call her out on her ********.

There has always been a tendency in Christianity to interpret the Old Testament symbolically (even more today, except the literalist circles)

I live in Alabama. I can tell you all about these "literalist circles", trust me.

and the New Testament is relatively benign (this is also the conclusion of secular academic biblical criticism by the way, you have to be Reza Aslan & other muslims to reiterate again Reimarus' long discarded thesis that Jesus held violence in high esteem).

Wait, you actually believe that you have to be Muslim to think that Jesus was a revolutionary figure? Yeah, no. The idea that Jesus was a revolutionary figure, even a violent one, has been a topic of much discussion since long long long after Reimarus and long before Aslan. See, for instance, S. G. F. Brandon's Jesus and the Zealots, Joel Carmichael's The Death of Jesus, and Robert Eisenman's James the Brother of Jesus, all of which describe a Jesus very much like Aslan's.

 

[A'isha]

Of course it is the definition of extremist. Someone who follows the Islamic rules and tradition very strictly can be considered extreme in adherence. This applies not just to Islam or religion. A libertarian takes the liberal tradition ("liberals" understood it the European meaning of the word) to the extreme.

Extremism is not represented by strict adherence to an ideology, but by zealousness and fanaticism for an ideology. The Hasids follow Jewish religious rules and tradition very strictly, but they're (mostly) merely devout; the Kahanists, on the other hand, are extremists.

The Wiki entry suggests it has some appeal in heterodox Islamic groups. Not much within mainstream Islam.

You reject Muslim pacifists as "heterodox" and outside of mainstream Islam, but are so quick to embrace the equally heterodox salafists as representative of that mainstream.

Which has been my problem with your views of Islam all along, really.

A'isha: It baffles me that you are not outraged at Chaos who thinks that skepticism and secularism and science is for white Europeans only and would "destroy" the culture (sic!) of the Muslim world.

Well, that's because I don't feel the need to get outraged based on your strawman version of Chaos' position.

 

[metacristi]

You're missing the point. Nobody is saying stoning is okay. The objection to the tweet from Dawkins is that he's equating Islam with the worst practices of any group considering themselves Muslims. In other words, Dawkins is implying that all Muslims condone stoning, which is a false generalization.

Still we have stoning and even slavery* (see Mauritania, even Sudan) practiced on a scale which can only worry an external viewer. Could it be something with the basics of this religion? Obviously Dawkins is grown enough to not draw your conclusion and his concern is fully legitimate.

Honestly when I see tweets like "Here we go again. White bigot thinks he can speak on behalf of Muslim women. @RichardDawkins @tmolatedi" (a muslim woman criticizes Dawkins for daring to talk about the discrimination of women in islam, a part which is in the 'immutable' quran) I cannot stop thinking of those girls indoctrinated in Nazi Germany who declared after the war 'We were not aware of not being free at the time, on the contrary we thought we enjoyed the greatest possible freedom'...

Obviously rational people should have not stood passive in the case of hitler and indeed neither should they do that in the case of islam now. Dawkins is right all the way (a feminist revolution coming entirely from inside is unlikely at the present in islam, it is our duty to try at least to 'catalyse' one).


*by the way where are the black descendants of the black slaves of islam (for muslims took at least as many slaves as during the Atlantic trade). Where is the afro culture there? Across the Atlantic there are at least 30 millions of decendants now. The answer is not so difficult to give of course if we remember that muslims used to castrate the males (many died) and the black were considered the 'worst of creatures'...In spite of this we still hear about an 'enlightened' islam in whose dominion, allegedly, even the treatment of slaves was 'more humane'.

 

[A'isha]

Still we have stoning and even slavery (see Mauritania, even Sudan) practiced on a scale which can only worry an external viewer. Could it be something with the basics of this religion?

As with FGM/C, since it also happens both in other places that are not Muslim, and doesn't happen in other places that are Muslim, I'm gonna say "no".

If stoning ever starts taking place in my country, for instance, it's not gonna be the Muslims that are doing it.

Honestly when I see tweets like "Here we go again. White bigot thinks he can speak on behalf of Muslim women. @RichardDawkins @tmolatedi" (a muslim woman criticizes Dawkins for daring to talk about the discrimination of women in islam, a part which is in the 'immutable' quran).

Because Dawkins, like all the so-called "critics of Islam", actually doesn't give a **** about discrimination against women, and is merely seizing on a convenient club with which to bash Islam.

(a feminist revolution coming entirely from inside is unlikely at the present in islam, it is our duty to try at least to 'catalyse' one).

One is coming entirely from inside at the present, and it didn't need yours or Dawkins' bigoted, insulting faux-"catalyzing" to do it.

 

[metacristi]

Why this tone though? Bigot? I do not think so...

As about those American Christian literalists you have to take also in account the context in which they appeared, via dissent to the ideas of Enlightenment back to some of the initial ideas of the protestant Reformation (Sola Scriptura). However a large part of American protestants never returned there* probably also because a literalist interpretation of Scripture has never been in the basic tenets of Christianity (the Old Testament especially, after all Marcion rejected it altogether and the pro-orthodox author of the Epistle of Barnabas interpret it symbolically big time). Finally I bet even many of his coreligionists wouldn't agree with him. It's not exactly the same with the situation in islam where there is actually strong scriptural justification for such practices and little room to avoid them except via using unaided Human Reason in spite of the Islamic tenets. The other link is broken.


*by the way even the American literalists never returned for example to the determinism of the fathers of Christian Reformation (who rejected the orthodox idea of free will), human reason is considered important enough although of course methodological supernaturalism replaces methodological naturalism (unlike islam, especially sunni, where Reason has not yet been rehabilitated; the problem is of course that there is little logic inside the basic tenets of islam to give unaided Human Reason precedence over core traditions, al-Ghazali succeeded so easily to convince the Islamic world exactly because of that)

 

[A'isha]

*by the way where are the black descendants of the black slaves of islam (for muslims took at least as many slaves as during the Atlantic trade). Where is the afro culture there?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/01/11/AR2005032403999.html

Unlike most Iraqis, whose faces come in shades from olive to a pale winter white, Youssef has skin the color of dark chocolate. She has African features and short, tightly curled hair that she straightens and wears in a soft bouffant. Growing up in Basra, the port city 260 miles southeast of Baghdad, she lived with her aunt while her mother worked as a cook and maid in the homes of one of the city's wealthiest light-skinned families.
ad_icon

In the United States, Youssef's dark skin would classify her as black or African American. In Iraq, where distinctions are based on family and tribe rather than race, she is simply an Iraqi.

The number of dark-skinned people like Youssef in Iraq today is unknown. Their origins, however, are better understood, if little-discussed: They are the legacy of slavery throughout the Middle East.

[...]

Though centuries have passed since the first Africans, called Zanj, arrived in Iraq, some African traditions still persist here. Youssef, 43, a doctoral candidate in theater and acting at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts, is writing her dissertation about healing ceremonies that are conducted exclusively by a community of dark-skinned Iraqis in Basra. Youssef said she considers the ceremonies -- which involve elaborate costumes, dancing, and words sung in Swahili and Arabic -- to be dramatic performances.

 

[DC]

Still we have stoning and even slavery* (see Mauritania, even Sudan) practiced on a scale which can only worry an external viewer. Could it be something with the basics of this religion? Obviously Dawkins is grown enough to not draw your conclusion and his concern is fully legitimate.

Honestly when I see tweets like "Here we go again. White bigot thinks he can speak on behalf of Muslim women. @RichardDawkins @tmolatedi" (a muslim woman criticizes Dawkins for daring to talk about the discrimination of women in islam, a part which is in the 'immutable' quran) I cannot stop thinking of those girls indoctrinated in Nazi Germany who declared after the war 'We were not aware of not being free at the time, on the contrary we thought we enjoyed the greatest possible freedom'...

Obviously rational people should have not stood passive in the case of hitler and indeed neither should they do that in the case of islam now. Dawkins is right all the way (a feminist revolution coming entirely from inside is unlikely at the present in islam, it is our duty to try at least to 'catalyse' one).


*by the way where are the black descendants of the black slaves of islam (for muslims took at least as many slaves as during the Atlantic trade). Where is the afro culture there? Across the Atlantic there are at least 30 millions of decendants now. The answer is not so difficult to give of course if we remember that muslims used to castrate the males (many died) and the black were considered the 'worst of creatures'...In spite of this we still hear about an 'enlightened' islam in whose dominion, allegedly, even the treatment of slaves was 'more humane'.

oh clearly an Islamic problem.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#mediaviewer/File:Modern_incidence_of_slavery.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#mediaviewer/File:Map3.3Trafficking_compressed.jpg

why are you guys forcing people to defend this dumb religion......
stop lying about it. and we could expose it as the idiocy it is as it is done with christianity and judaism.

 

[Belgian thought]

What is the source of the sexism so prevalent in Islamic countries? It can't be the Qur'an. I've read it, and it is remarkably free of sexism for a book written ca. CE 700. In fact, for some number of centuries, women in the Islamic world enjoyed far greater protection under the law than did women in western Christendom. So, what happened? How is it that "Islamists," such as the Taliban, are so antagonistic toward women?

Hmm... 'remarkably free of sexism'. So not completely free then? Which means that post enlightened theories, laws and practices in some countries have managed to improve on the word of 'god'.

Yet this book (and the others too), whose teachings and rules are now bettered in some countries, must be given a remarkable if not complete form of respect.

Why?

 

[A'isha]

Why this tone though? Bigot? I do not think so...

Approvingly citing people like Wafa Sultan and Ali Sina? Repeating bizarre nonsense like your claims about slavery in the Islamic world (by the way, if you're really interested in learning the actual story of the African diaspora in the Islamic world, you can start here)? Making ridiculous statements about how "Reason" has been lost from the "Muslim mind" and that any kind of reform in Islam is impossible?

As about those American Christian literalists you have to take also in account the context in which they appeared, via dissent to the ideas of Enlightenment back to some of the initial ideas of the protestant Reformation (Sola Scriptura).

Really? And why, precisely, is that? Do you even understand the history and development of fundamentalist evangelical and pentecostal Protestantism in the United States?

However a large part of American protestants never returned there* probably also because a literalist interpretation of Scripture has never been in the basic tenets of Christianity (the Old Testament especially, after all Marcion rejected it altogether and the pro-orthodox author of the Epistle of Barnabas interpret it symbolically big time).

I suppose it's comforting to know that you make incorrect broad-brush assertions about the One True Monolithic nature of Christianity the way you do about Islam.

Finally I bet even many of his coreligionists wouldn't agree with him.

Ah. So you don't understand the history and development of fundamentalist evangelical and pentecostal Protestantism in the United States. Or anything about the dangerous antics of a politically active segment of that denomination over here and their comments about stoning gays and their desire to institute the Biblical laws calling for execution of gays, blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of "unchastity before marriage," "incorrigible" juvenile delinquents, and adulterers.

The good news, of course, is that when their candidates for political office (for one of the two major parties here in America, not a minor fringe party, in case you weren't aware of the specifics of our political system) say in books titled things like God's Law - The Only Political Solution that the death penalty for rebellious children must be instituted in America, we can rest assured knowing that parents won't simply have the authority to just kill their children on their own, but instead "must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children".

Again, if stoning ever starts taking place in my country, it's not gonna be the Muslims that are doing it.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

The Wiki entry suggests it has some appeal in heterodox Islamic groups. Not much within mainstream Islam.

Weren't you just asking for examples of "extremists" who are pacifists? In other words, outside of mainstream Islam? Extremes go both ways.

 

[Belz...]

Another example of moderator pro-Islamic bias

No. What is going on is that your anti-muslim bias is so strong that you think anyone that's in any way disagreeing with you must, by definition, be pro-muslim. No. You are the extremist, not them.

 

[Belz...]

Politically incorrect thought of the minute: If Islam really is a religion of peace as claimed by its apologists, then why aren't Muslim extremists avowed pacifists?

...because they're extremists ?

A'isha: It baffles me that you are not outraged at Chaos who thinks that skepticism and secularism and science is for white Europeans only and would "destroy" the culture (sic!) of the Muslim world.

 

[Dcdrac]

The curriculum detailed in this article seems extreme too

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27681560