[Merged] General Criticism of Islam/Islamophobia Topics

[Frozenwolf150]

A tweet for everyone to chew on:

[qimg]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bni3c64CUAAwJVG.jpg:large[/qimg]

Yes, as everyone knows:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10040455#post10040455

 

[rtved]

That is funny - secular Muslim country, I should add, I find the same contradiction when people say secular Christian country - (you is secular or you ain't).

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secular.

Yes it is thrown about by some 'Wouldn't it be nice if...?' a la Tony Blair solution. You cannot be a religious state and secularist. Stop biting on this biscuit.

Actually there is no contradiction. A country is deemed secular if it's laws are secular eventhough people adhere to religion of their choice.

 

[rtved]

No, actually, they weren't "recorded". That was the problem, and why the later efforts at collation happened. You know, why the entire discipline of ʻilm al-ḥadith was developed in the first place, because sorting out what was a purportedly authentic tradition from a later interpolation became too difficult because ahadith weren't recorded. I suggest you read Jonathan Brown's Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World [EDIT: Or, if you're feeling particularly ambitious, his The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Ḥadith Canon.]

No need to seek nonmuslim views .There are hadiths that mention about recordings in scrolls.

That's nice.

No, It is not nice .Erdogan won mandate while he was promoting sharia law.

Unfortunately for him,

fortunately for the free world.

and contrary to your assertions, he so far hasn't been able to, and is not likely to be able to, any more than Morsi could.

My assertion was he wanted to bring sharia.That he was unable to do it is because of secular Army.

You mean they were in the process before the massive protests of tens of millions of Egyptians against Morsi led to the military crackdown.

The protestors were against Morsi bringing sharia law and their numbers were far less.

The egyptian army cracked down on islamic brotherhood because they were trying to Islamize Laws.

Which means that, contrary to your implication, there is indeed "something" that can prevent a single elected ruler from unilaterally imposing shari'ah.

You seem to read some minds and more and draw some false conclusions apart from throwing some wild allegations.I didn't imply anything. I said Morsi was on the verge of imposing sharia in egypt.He also won referendum for sharia law.

That something is Army and nothing else. The will of egyptian people (since most of them are muslim) is sharia law which was negated by ARMY. That some thing is army and not the secular character of ordinary egyptian muslims.

Yes. And I pointed out to you al-Azhar's position on child marriage, which was exactly "major Islamic country theologians say[ing] that some Important Muslim practices of Muhammad (sunna) are not suitable for modern times", just like you asked for.

I would love to see them say that.Let them declare what Muhammad did was wrong.

 

[Dcdrac]

Some people want the adherents of Islam to answer for the actions of others who they have never met the standard of responsibility I see in this thread being laid at the door of Muslims is unreasonable, it can be applied to all religions they all have objectionable elements and extreme followers or extremists influenced by those religions.

I am giving a call on this all I have seen in this thread is not real criticism it barely dressed up bigotry.

 

[metacristi]

Some people want the adherents of Islam to answer for the actions of others who they have never met the standard of responsibility I see in this thread being laid at the door of Muslims is unreasonable, it can be applied to all religions they all have objectionable elements and extreme followers or extremists influenced by those religions.

I am giving a call on this all I have seen in this thread is not real criticism it barely dressed up bigotry.

The other Abrahamic religions (having also problematic cores) have learned something from the lessons of history. Thus leaders of Christianity for example apologized publicly for the Inquisition, the Crusades and even for the Conquistadors. In islam still no one condemned unequivocally the early muslim conquests (actually they are presented as something good via the educational system in the muslim countries, not to mention the religious education), the discrminiation of the dhimmis or the major waves of jihad launched along the centuries.

Sadly the self criticism, absolutely necessary for a true progress, is entirely missing in the muslim world (where 'What external forces did that to us?' is the standard approach to inside problems) and this is a consequence of the basics of islam with its insistence on the 'perfection' of islam and Muhammad (by the way the so called 'western progressives' only encourage the perpetuation of this via their rosy depiction of islam, in reality the progress in the islamic communities is modest at best and, much more important, there is little reason to think that at least a partial return to the discriminatory past is improbable).

Secondly the basics of Christianity makes relatively easy to condemn Inquisition and so on (what is rejected is practices of the Chruch in the past not the core basics) whilst in islam this is far from being trivial (both the aggressive jihad and the discrimination of the dhimmis have strong justification in basics tenets of the religion and Muhammad deeds). Thirdly the theology of islam (unlike Christianity and Judaism) strongly inhibit the use of unaided Human Reason in religious matters and this defect is still widely with us, making difficult a real progress. It's not that simple as you think for Salafist islam is rather 'undiluted' islam and not something alien to the basics of this religion, in reality the salafists do not 'hijack' anything.

What islam needs is a rehabilitation of Human Reason and a change in the religious educational system to the extent that people become capable to confront not only Islamic jurisprudence and Hadith (done on a rather modest scale even today) but also the quran itself (source of important problems 'imported' in sharia; around 20 percent of sharia comes from the quran). In other words the creation of a liberal islam on a par with liberal Christianity, a process validated by History. I'm afraid the attempts to claim that this is 'bigotry' and 'islamophobia' can only show the poverty in argumentation of some people, real counterarguments do not need this approach.

 

[Humes fork]

Do all–or even most–Muslims agree?

Tell me, Humes fork, when conservative Christian politician for one of the US's main political party questio. Whether a rape is "legitimate" because the woman got pregnant, do you condemn Christianity as fundamentally incompatible with Western society and advocate that the US be "forcibly secularized"?

Yes, I advocate that the US should be a secular state, which to a very large extent it already is.

When I say "secular" or "forcibly secularized", I advocate that the state should be secular, that is, separated from religion. I do not advocate (which you want me to do) state atheism, or that the state should enforce that all citizens be atheists.

 

[Dcdrac]

All Islam is, in this thread frankly is the same old easy target, all the other religions all display the same issues three is nothing novel about Islam in that respect.

Enforced secularism is just as bad and just as wrong as enforced religion.

 

[Humes fork]

Note to my detractors: I don't view all Muslims as extremists, far from it! However, Islamic theology certainly leads in a specific direction. While it might be true that most Muslims prefer a modern life, those who really take the religion seriously are in risk of becoming Jihadists. Who do you think would win a theological debate between a "moderate Muslim" and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

 

[Humes fork]

All Islam is, in this thread frankly is the same old easy target, all the other religions all display the same issues three is nothing novel about Islam in that respect.

This thread is about Islam. Not about any other religion.

Enforced secularism is just as bad and just as wrong as enforced religion.

Do you even know what secularism is? To claim that a state that enforces secularism is akin to enforced religion is preposterous. But in the minds of post-modern Islamic apologists, up is down, it seems.

Read that link before you reply to this post. It will be very easy to tell if you have not.

 

[Cleon]

Do you even know what secularism is? To claim that a state that enforces secularism is akin to enforced religion is preposterous.

Have your explained that to France and other countries that have tried to restrict or ban the wearing of religious garb in public? Or are we about to be treated to a bizarre twisting of logic about how that's not really "enforced secularism?"

But in the minds of post-modern Islamic apologists, up is down, it seems.

 

[Cleon]

Bilal Philips isn't a "British Imam". He was born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, and after converting to Islam he studied and taught in Saudi Arabia (oh, look...another Salafist that Humes is trying to pretend represents all Muslims). He currently lives and teaches in Qatar, and is banned from entering Australia, the UK, Germany, and even Kenya.

HF posted something inaccurate and misleading? Well, I'm shocked.

 

[Chaos]

Note to my detractors: I don't view all Muslims as extremists, far from it! However, Islamic theology certainly leads in a specific direction. While it might be true that most Muslims prefer a modern life, those who really take the religion seriously are in risk of becoming Jihadists. Who do you think would win a theological debate between a "moderate Muslim" and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

How about you address - and I mean actually address, not just handwave away - the many many points in which your "arguments" have been shown to be wrong, rather than tossing out yet more of them?

 

[A'isha]

No need to seek nonmuslim views .

I didn't. Dr. Brown is Muslim.

No, It is not nice .Erdogan won mandate while he was promoting sharia law.

Erdogan didn't win a mandate for shari'ah, his party won election because of their economic platform and success in applying that platform to Turkey's economic growth.

My assertion was he wanted to bring sharia.That he was unable to do it is because of secular Army.

The army is only part of it.

The protestors were against Morsi bringing sharia law and their numbers were far less.

Really?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/30/mohamed-morsi-egypt-protests

Millions of Egyptians filled streets across Egypt on Sunday calling for the departure of Mohamed Morsi on Sunday, hours after the president told the Guardian he would not resign.

A year to the day after Morsi's inauguration as Egypt's first democratically elected president, up to 500,000 protesters swelled Cairo's Tahrir Square calling for Morsi's removal. They then headed to Itahadiya, the presidential palace in the north-east of the city in the evening.

[...]

In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, 100,000 rallied in the centre, with similar rallies reported in dozens of other Egyptian cities. The headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's Islamist group, came under attack as night fell.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/07/01/will-obama-and-us-stand-with-or-against-egypt-people/

In a rare historic moment for humanity, the BBC reported on June 30, 2013, that “the number of anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters today in Egypt is the largest number in a political event in the history of mankind.”

The Egyptian military used helicopters to track the protests across Egypt and estimated that the numbers of protesters was between 15-20 million. Other foreign media reported the number to be closer to 30 million.

That's a lot of people.

You seem to read some minds and more and draw some false conclusions apart from throwing some wild allegations.I didn't imply anything. I said Morsi was on the verge of imposing sharia in egypt.He also won referendum for sharia law.

That something is Army and nothing else. The will of egyptian people (since most of them are muslim) is sharia law which was negated by ARMY. That some thing is army and not the secular character of ordinary egyptian muslims.

The Egyptian army cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood only after days of protests against the Brotherhood because what Morsi and his cohorts were doing was enough to anger some one fifth to one third of Egypts entire population to come out and protest against him in the blistering summer weather in Egypt. The pro-Morsi counter-protests numbered only 20,000 people in Cairo, barely 4% of the numbers of anti-Morsi protesters gathered in Tahrir Square alone.

I would love to see them say that.Let them declare what Muhammad did was wrong.

Now you're moving the goalposts.

 

[Dcdrac]

I do know what secularism is I do not need the internet to tell me I can read books and enforced secularism is just as much a breach of basic human rights as enforced religion.

While this thread maybe about Islam specifically I have seen nothing in it that cannot be said be said about any other major religion in the world today.

 

[trustbutverify]

All Islam is, in this thread frankly is the same old easy target, all the other religions all display the same issues three is nothing novel about Islam in that respect.

Enforced secularism is just as bad and just as wrong as enforced religion.

Nope.

 

[metacristi]

All Islam is, in this thread frankly is the same old easy target, all the other religions all display the same issues three is nothing novel about Islam in that respect.

Enforced secularism is just as bad and just as wrong as enforced religion.

Yet that was the only really efficient way to implement a certain degree of secularism in the muslim world. Via colonialism, strong western pressure and muslim dictators & reformist kings (the internal reformists couldn't have had an impact without the western pressure, one can even advance the hypothesis that nothing of substance would have changed in the muslim world had it not been soundly beaten militarily by the Europeans). Eons away from the situation in other religions. I do not like pressure either but I find inacceptable to have to restrain free speech & suspend critical thinking in order to not 'offend' muslims, telling the truth about islam, mere intellectual pressure, is the least of evils here.

Further the real problem is of course that not all levels of secularism can have the needed impact to durably modernize a society (the muslim dictators had to appease the masses via important concessions made to islam, the Islamic worldview still dominate the minds of many muslims) and with the exception of Turkey not even a muslim country is close to what is needed (anyways the Ataturk experiment seems to have come to an end, just another evidence that at least a partial return toward the past is likely if nothing changes in non trivial ways).

Finally not our fault that islam is very difficult to modernize along the lines which 'worked' well in the case of other religions. Blame the fundamentals of islam for that.

 

[rtved]

Erdogan didn't win a mandate for shari'ah, his party won election because of their economic platform and success in applying that platform to Turkey's economic growth.

Sharia was a major part of erdogan's campaign.You cannot possibly peer in to minds of turkish voters and declare they didn't take cognisance of it.

The army is only part of it.

Yeah, but a major part.

Really?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/30/mohamed-morsi-egypt-protests

May be I should have made it clear. As per Pew research 64% of Egyptian muslims want death penalty for muslims leaving Islam. It is logical to assume those 64% of muslims didn't want to agitate against sharia.

Besides, I would not depend on The guardian when it comes to statistics.the same goes for foxnews.

The Egyptian army cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood only after days of protests against the Brotherhood because what Morsi and his cohorts were doing was enough to anger some one fifth to one third of Egypts entire population to come out and protest against him in the blistering summer weather in Egypt. The pro-Morsi counter-protests numbered only 20,000 people in Cairo, barely 4% of the numbers of anti-Morsi protesters gathered in Tahrir Square alone.

No prizes for guessing that doesn't constitute 64% of egyptian muslims who wants death penalty for apostasy.Now, that is what you can call "lot of numbers". Also 20 % of egyptian population is christian who are scared of sharia.

Islamic brotherhood will win hands down if they are allowed to participate in elections.

Egyptian military has problems of it's own if sharia is adopted in egypt.They possibly loose overseas aid/funding making their life difficult.The military has it's own reasons.

Now you're moving the goalposts.

Nope.

 

[rtved]

There is also peculiar case of leftists in India espousing, while white washing, extreme religious demands of Muslims . Probably they derive inspiration from west. One wise man told me muslims provide foot soldiers to leftist demonstrations and hence the cooperation.I didn't verify that observation but it appears to have some basis.

 

[Humes fork]

Have your explained that to France and other countries that have tried to restrict or ban the wearing of religious garb in public? Or are we about to be treated to a bizarre twisting of logic about how that's not really "enforced secularism?"

So you didn't read the link then. I'm not going to bothering with you again until you read the link and stop with those strawmen.

 

[Humes fork]

How about you address - and I mean actually address, not just handwave away - the many many points in which your "arguments" have been shown to be wrong, rather than tossing out yet more of them?

I'm not going to address retarded slandering insinuations that I want Muslims to wear yellow badges.