Activist Atheist divided regarding criticism of Islam

[IanS]

IanS: I suggest you study radicalism a bit closer. Radicals are rarely very knowledgeable about their religion and are often recent converts. They find in terrorism some sort of justified release for their frustration, I think.

I do not need to study it any closer, thanks.

But you may need to take a more objective look at what I said in that previous post. Because I am talking there about the actual evidence put before UK courts in more than 200 terrorism related trials. The material produced before the courts is unarguable. And it showed that in “all” cases the defendants had acted largely from a sense of extremely devout religious Islamic belief.

You may not have experienced anything remotely close to that level of cases if you live in the US, but I can tell you that in the UK all those hundreds of court cases were reported in great detail in the UK broadsheet press with many long in-depth articles in the Sunday press from the Times, Telegraph, Observer, and also at times with numerous opinion polls conducted amongst the UK Muslim population, asking for their views on such things as “who was behind the 9-11 attacks”, whether or not the Islamic attackers “were justified in making the attacks on the London Tube system”, “who they blamed for all of the many thousands of Islamic terrorist attacks around the world”, “whether UK Muslims should obey the UK laws or whether they should have more allegiance to what they regarded as the laws of Allah” and “whether or not they would report Islamic neighbours if they thought they were involved in support for terrorism”, etc. etc. And the results of those opinion polls were often quite shocking, with significant percentages of UK Muslims defending all manner of Islamic fundamentalist beliefs inc. the belief that the London bombers and the 9-11 attackers were justified in making their attacks.

But the point I am making to you, is that the UK Muslims who answered the surveys in that way, i.e. with indirect, or sometimes even quite direct, support for terrorist mass murder, were in all cases motivated in such beliefs (and such actions) very substantially by (if not always entirely by) what they themselves were expressing as their extremely devout religious belief in the infallibility of the Koran and the need to obey the will of Allah.

By the way, in all of those hundreds of UK court cases, almost all of the 2000 or so defendants started off by denying the charges against them, even though during the trials almost every single one of them was found to be guilty. Though just be clear & fair, I should add that the vast majority of those 200+ UK cases have involved relatively minor offences such as downloading banned terrorist material, or making public protests in support of Islamic fundamentalist beliefs. Only about 15-20 of the cases have been major high-court trials involving full scale bomb plots or other mass murder plots with defendents convicted and sentenced to very long terms from 10 to 40 years (where 40 years was previously almost unknown as a sentence in UK trials).

The number of more minor cases passing through the UK courts seems to have diminished somewhat over the last 4 or 5 years, though as you will know from recent European news, the actual terrorist incidents on the streets in the UK, in France, in Germany & Belgium etc. have continued in relatively high numbers. But to repeat the point - in all the UK cases, where we have the actual evidence produced during the trials (mountains of it), all of the defendants were shown to be acting very substantially from motivations derived directly from their religious beliefs.

If you say that all these Islamic individuals have misunderstood what it says in the Koran, such that if they had a more precise understanding of their holy books then they would not be making, supporting, or justifying all these mass murder attacks and other lesser attacks, then all those individuals would vehemently disagree with you (as they showed in their UK trials), and so would all those that I mentioned in the UK opinion polls. And most importantly so too would a large number of so-called Islamic “scholars” around the world who preach to millions of Muslims telling them that their holy books and the very words of God himself do indeed require them to support a Jihadic quest for a so-called “Ummah” or Caliphate as a devoutly religious nation for all true believers etc.

And that of course is precisely the stated aim of IS. And before IS, it was also the goal of Al Qaeda under Osama Bin Laden. In respect of which, I am sure you must know that several thousand Muslims from the UK, France, Belgium etc., have in recent years travelled to Syria and elsewhere specifically to join groups like IS in attempting to create by force (i.e., by mass murder) that sort of religious Islamic “Ummah”.

The point is – the religion and it's beliefs are unarguably very dangerous indeed. And religions such as Islam (and Christianity) most certainly should be criticised for continuing to preach about the need for people to believe in an almighty creator with the insistence that the true words of their holy books must be obeyed by all (otherwise you will be sent to hell, by Allah/God himself).

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Such polls are notoriously difficult to conduct and evaluate in a useful way, as is interpreting the implications of the answers in a reasonable way. Not everyone who believes the Iraq war was to some degree justified approves of every single bomb dropped or every single child killed.

 

[Carn]

Briefly, the Cairo declaration on Human rights was a direct consequence of the status of the Iranian Revolution as a forceful reaction of the Islamic world against Western imperialism. Its origins are largely found in the tensions between the "West" and the Islamic world that occurred as a result of the constant violent interference of Western countries in the internal politics of the Islamic world, not in any particular qualities inherent to Islam.

And what does any of this change about the Cairo declaration being a raised middle finger to the Universal declaration of human rights?

http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/cairodeclaration.html
"ARTICLE 1:
(a) All human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah and descent from Adam. All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the basis of race, colour, language, belief, sex, religion, political affiliation, social status or other considerations. The true religion is the guarantee for enhancing such dignity along the path to human integrity."

"ARTICLE 24:

All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah.


ARTICLE 25:
The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration. "

They could as well have written:
"**** you rest of mankind, we are against universal (*) human rights, we only accept islamic human rights."

It would have been exactly the same.

And while the reasons that led them to do that are certainly important and interesting, it does not change that they did it and that this is a serious problem, that a sizable number of countries are in favor of abolishing the universal declaration of human rights and that they are all islamic and all claim to do this due to islam.

(*Meaning cross-cultural and cross-religion accepted rights whether one happens to be in Beijing, New York, Lagos, Sao Paulo or Kairo)

 

[Kumar]

No, you can criticise the religion, and I've been criticising Christianity for 25 years, by addressing its beliefs and practices. The same is true for Islam.

Its opposite side can also be true. Nothing is one sided.

 

[Carn]

Such polls are notoriously difficult to conduct and evaluate in a useful way, as is interpreting the implications of the answers in a reasonable way. Not everyone who believes the Iraq war was to some degree justified approves of every single bomb dropped or every single child killed.

So not everyone who believes Muslim citizens of the UK waging a war against the UK on UK soil is to some degree justified approves of every single bomb detonated at a soft and civilian target and every single child killed.

And hence my general impression is confirmed, that if i ever tried to reduce whatever "Islamophobia" i have, the absolutely worst thing to do is actually listen to people trying to argue that Islam is not a problem.

Cause the straws they try to use to form an argument are just chilling right to the bone.

As here, it can be summarized as:
Do not worry about millions of muslim immigrants; the 10-40% of them in favor of treason and starting a civil war in your country are actually in favor of respecting the Geneva conventions in such a civil war; so there is realy no serious problem about having millions of muslim immigrants.

And that is supposedly a good argument against "Islamophobia". Which is, why its chilling right to the bone.

 

[David Mo]

Is there anyone arguing in public in the way your comment 143 suggested and is not being called islamophobe/right-wing by what is called "mainstream media" or Southern Poverty Law Center or similar organizations?

Truly? I don’t know what this Southern Poverty Law Center says but I have spoke many times on this subject with my friends of SOS-Racisme and Amnesty International and they usually agree with my main statements. It would be interesting that you put here some statement or deeds of the Southern Poverty Law Center that you consider erroneous. I prefer discussing particular issues rather than global disqualifications —specially when I don’t know well the case and circumstances.

Cause i think it might be pretty tricky. Effectively the position would be:
- all religions are somehwat democracy-incompatible
- fortunately in some religions this was understood - e.g. Christianity - and somehow religion and democracy can coexist
-unfortunately in some religions such an understanding is yet to weak, hence we have to specifically discuss how those religion's scriptures and teaching is incompatible with democracy; and the religion with which the discussion is most urgent is Islam
(...)
Technically, you claimed superiority of Christianity over Islam, as you indicated that Christians have made the better job at ignoring the problematic passages of their scipture.
That suggest at least a temporary superiority of the religion and/or the adherents over the other.(…)

That suggest a relative-circumstantial superiority of some Christian tendencies over other Muslim tendencies. For example: we cannot assimilate the document of alleged “Arab Charter of Human Rights” drew up by the Afrab leaders with the thought of Arab people as a whole. And we cannot suppose that this circumstantial superiority is some kind of con-substantial superiority. In other circumstances, Islam has been more tolerant that Christianity. Change the circumstances and “superiorities” can change.

That avoids the question, how should one act who thinks otherwise, so who thinks that some religions are due to the content of their scipture/theology "worse" than other religions.

Because we have not a clear way to valuate the whole set of statements of a complex totality as religion is. It would be more productive to debate on particular statements because in general all religions are a danger for freedom. For example:

Claiming [X-god] wrote his laws on every human heart, so that all know them and can only be in sinful rebellion when not accepting the faith, allows for execution on the spot of those refusing to bow: wildly, sickly absolutist.

[I have removed the name of the particular god mentioned here.].
This is true for Islam and this is true for Christianity. This is even true for a “peaceful” religion as Buddhism, as you can see in the genocide of Burmese Rohingya.

So, it would be preferable to discuss on particular verses of the Koran and the Bible rather than establish a ranking of dangerous books. There are dangerous passages in the Bible and in the Koran? Yes, there are. Are they responsible of the Islamic terrorism and the state terrorism in the Palestinian Occupied Territories? Yes they are. Do we need to forbid the Koran and the Bible? Do we need to forbid Islamism and Judaism? No we needn’t do it. Let us debate with Muslims and Jews on particular subjects and the way their religion can be acceptable in democracy and respect for justice, and let the philosophical issue of the dangers of religion for particular circumstances. Secularism is the priority, and the danger with rankings of bad religions is that you risk to give support to “less dangerous” ones with a label of “democratic religion”. This is not right —no religion is democratic— and you risk to extend your support to racist interests. Think about it for a minute.

 

[BStrong]

Please elaborate on the difference between legitimate criticism of islam and illegtimate abuse of islam; or better give examples of legitimate criticism of islam.

If I described individual instances of bad behavior on the part of muslims I encountered while working in the ME that would be legit criticism.

If I described that same behavior as being indicative of all muslims, that would not be legit criticism.

Get over yourself. Religious folks of every faith can be great, or reprehensible scumbags, depending on their inclinations.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

There is the general case of the danger of any truth narrative or model being taken as unerring. This is the problem I call Big Truth; applies to ideologies of any stripe, including mythical "perfect markets." The degree of absolutism, that is, lack of room for others to disagree freely without sanction, is what drives the tendency of adherents to feel that the ends justify the means.

There is the general case of radicalization, in which in-group dynamics and alienation play a role in bonding together with single purpose around a powerful narrative that enhances the group's authority in its own eyes. This is common to all religious and political extremists, and may often be the result of alienation or a sense of injustice (Bubba being outdone by uppity Obama, for example).

Then there are the specifics of what radical groups do, based on (1) the justifications found in the creed (and/or added by local leader/sect), and (2) IMO, the degree to which adherents feel there is an enabling narrative in the society around them; that is, that their actions will be applauded in the groups they have as reference. The latter is especially important for lone wolf attacks in which attackers imagine themselves heroes before an unseen audience.

Given the foregoing, what makes sense isn't comparative religion, which is a total distraction, but the following:

- Examination of the degree of absolutism - ability to coexist with contrary ideas - of any creed.
- The factors contributing to alienation or radicalization, which may or may not be a result of poor socioeconomic conditions (eg, wealthy GOP donors subscribing to radical racist ideas). Propaganda plays a heavy role here.
- The actual specific calls to action in any creed or doctrine which shape the eventual behavior.
- The enabling narratives themselves, and their support in the formal doctrine.

I suggest that readers actually undertake the research. Comparative religion alone is a huge mistake, as is thinking "everybody is good and has rights" means everything will work out in the end, "because noble savage." Or as I used to write this up:

Radical extremism and terrorism results from:
1. Triggering conditions.
2. Enabling narrative and mental shortcuts.
3. Access to resources and opportunity.

***
As for how Islam plays out over time, we have a large number of examples in the form of Muslim-majority nation states and their behavior, internally and on the international stage, especially since the time when the Ottoman Empire and last Caliphate fell. The historical reaction is a matter of record, and the doctrines developed in response to modernity and human rights there for those who wish to look.

Long live skepticism and the questioning of all assumptions.

***
ETA: See the principle of abrogation. This alone is enough to entirely radicalize all of Islam's teachings, as it places Sura 9 and its "verse of the sword" as the final word in all things.
Super-ETA: All the above applies, without modification to method, to the rise of radical white nationalism. Note the enabling narrative now comes from POTUS, making today's world a very dangerous one.

 

[IanS]

Such polls are notoriously difficult to conduct and evaluate in a useful way, as is interpreting the implications of the answers in a reasonable way. Not everyone who believes the Iraq war was to some degree justified approves of every single bomb dropped or every single child killed.

When you say "not everyone" who believes ...", that is an empty statement and an example of seriously mistaken thinking - a statement that begins "not everyone" is a statement in which your are requesting absolute certainty for everyone ... there is no such absolute certainty for anything in this universe, not even for things like scientific theories of Evolution, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics/Field-Theory etc. There can be no such blanket absolute certainty for anything, let alone a certainty for all humans to share exactly the same belief about anything. So that sort of argument is a completely misguided error from the start.

What we are talking about is the influence of religious belief (and in particular, according to the title of this thread, Islamic religious belief) and whether or not that makes a significant proportion of the most highly influenced & most devout individuals, dangerous in society.

And what I have tried to point out to you is that the actual evidence before the UK courts in over 200 trials (it's actually probably closer to 300 cases now ), does show beyond any argument that the defendants were in "all" cases, largely motivated in their criminal behaviour by a very strong sense of religious faith. In all cases they were acting from what they believed was a religious justification, or even a religious requirement, to wage a physical war against others who they regard as un-Islamic or insufficiently devout or not strict enough in their obedience to Islam.

What you are doing, and what all apologists for religious violence are doing, is wilfully ignoring what is staring you in the face. You are trying to excuse religious faith in religions like Islam (and Christianity, to a lesser extent), by claiming that the violent behaviour of the offenders is actually motivated by all sorts of other things rather than their religious beliefs. But what I am saying to you is that the actual evidence in hundreds of court trials, shows that you are wrong … in every single case the defendants were indeed mainly motivated by their extreme interest in Islamic religious faith and it's holy books.

And by the way, just to be clear about something – I am not particularly anti-religious, or even anti-Islam. Or more accurately – I was not anti-religious before the 9-11 attacks and before what slowly became clear about the nature of those attacks over the following couple of years, and what then lead to the attacks in Madrid, London and hundreds of other places all around the world. Before any of that, I never really thought about religion at all, and certainly had no views on Islam.

And nor do I think the US, UK and other western governments are always blameless in the way they have tried to make financial profits from trade deals inc. arms deals etc. with leaders in distinctly dubious regimes such as that in Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.

But what happened after 9-11, is not that the plotters of that attack simply continued their fight against the USA, but instead very large numbers of Muslims around the world have been motivated to declare their allegiance to what they call their religious “brothers” on the other side of the world, and to either travel to join them in their Jihad, or else more relevantly to what I've focused upon here, they have been motivated to plot all manner of mass murder attacks in the west, in the UK, in France, Germany, Belgium etc. Their justification, as shown by all the evidence in their hundreds of court trials, is that they support groups like Al Qaeda and IS in a worldwide quest to fight against what they call Christian Crusaders invading Arab/Muslim lands, and they support by physical mass murder and war a religious aim of creating an Islamic Ummah which will return all Muslims to a strict obedience with Koranic rule of the kind that dates back to the barbarity and ignorance at the times of Mohamed 1500 years ago.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Faraway foreign country constantly interferes in the affairs of your homecountry and has historically been responsible for much of the political instability there. Someone successfully pulls off an attack on said very powerful country.

It's not hard at all to see why a sizable minority people might sympathize to some degree with terrorist orgs. "So what if they killed 3000 people? You dropped bombs that killed 100,000 people here!"

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Faraway foreign country constantly interferes in the affairs of your homecountry and has historically been responsible for much of the political instability there. Someone successfully pulls off an attack on said very powerful country.

It's not hard at all to see why a sizable minority people might sympathize to some degree with terrorist orgs. "So what if they killed 3000 people? You dropped bombs that killed 100,000 people here!"

Yet this is not sufficiently analytical, as it does not explain Osama bin Laden's reasoning that saving East Timor from genocide of the non-Muslim minority was an act of aggression against "Muslim lands" (one justification for 9/11). Nor does it cover the continued claim that any lands anywhere on Earth (Spain, SE Europe) that had ever been under Muslim rule are, today, an unjust usurpation of Islamic rule. See IanS's post above for more on the permanent conflict -- in Islam's own formulation - between al-Islam, the world of surrender, and al-Harq, the world of war. When your prophet himself decrees that no treaty with non-Muslims may last more than ten years, is legitimate only when Islam is temporarily weak, and is to be used to prepare to conquer, well, you get the last 1400 years of mayhem.

Sure, the Holy Roman Empire made war on Islam, unjustly and horribly, including massacres in Jerusalem. Screw the Holy Roman Empire, which has receded at great cost under the onslaught of reason. Islam's turn.

 

[Belz...]

Its opposite side can also be true. Nothing is one sided.

You're not adding anything to the discussion. Of course the opposite can be true. THAT'S MY POINT!

 

[Belz...]

There is the general case of the danger of any truth narrative or model being taken as unerring.

Yeah, but that's not always true.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Yeah, but that's not always true.

Unless we are dealing with... [pauses for a respectful hush]... that nectar of the best gods, the richest and most famousest, maple syrup. Unmitigated pure holiness for all time!

 

[TubbaBlubba]

When your prophet himself decrees that no treaty with non-Muslims may last more than ten years, is legitimate only when Islam is temporarily weak, and is to be used to prepare to conquer, well, you get the last 1400 years of mayhem.

I'm reasonably certain this is untrue. The ten-year limit was particular to the treaty of Hudaybiyah. Some classical jurists used this time limit as a precedent, reasoning that no truce with a non-Muslim nation could be permanent. However, there was widespread debate on this.

That this particular legal debate would be responsible for "the last 1400 years of mayhem" is an extremely spurious claim. Can you direct me to any study of how this bit of treaty law debate has affected foreign relations of Muslim countries for "the last 1400 years"?

 

[Carn]

If I described individual instances of bad behavior on the part of muslims I encountered while working in the ME that would be legit criticism.

If I described that same behavior as being indicative of all muslims, that would not be legit criticism.

Neither of these are examples of criticism of Islam. The first is criticism of some muslims, the second of all muslims.

Criticism of Islam for example would be:

Mohammed was a pedophilic 7th century war lord; as 7th century (and 6th and 8th and nearly any other centuries) war lords are on any decent ethical scale nearly at the bottom, only a being of supreme evilness would proclaim a 7th century warlord and on top of that a pedophilic one as an excellent pattern for conduct to emulate.

Hence, Sura 33:21
https://quran.com/33/21
"There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and [who] remembers Allah often."

is either man-made or - if supernatural origin - from some creature one should better not offer prayers towards.

As therefore at least a single verse of the Quran is not from the supreme good being, muslims should therefore consider discarding the believe that every single verse of the Quran is verbatim from the supreme good being.


Please note, that nowhere in this criticism i actually say anything about behavior of some muslims or muslims in general. I only called Muhammed a pedophile; which is a reasonable charge as according to some sources he supposedly found interest enough in a 6 year old girl to marry and supposedly had sex with her when she was 9-year old.

And yet, i would wager quite a sum, that if someone put that criticism of Islam in New York Times editorial or any other prominent place, the roar:"Islamophobia!!!!!" would be so deafening, that even someone like Trump would try to calm the anger.



What i do not understand is why some people have such a hard time to distinguish between:
- criticism of some/many/all muslims
- criticism of the body of text and thought that forms part of the core of Islam

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Oh boy, here we go again. Muhammad married A'isha to secure a political alliance.

 

[Carn]

Truly? I don’t know what this Southern Poverty Law Center says but I have spoke many times on this subject with my friends of SOS-Racisme and Amnesty International and they usually agree with my main statements. It would be interesting that you put here some statement or deeds of the Southern Poverty Law Center that you consider erroneous. I prefer discussing particular issues rather than global disqualifications —specially when I don’t know well the case and circumstances.

https://www.splcenter.org/20161025/journalists-manual-field-guide-anti-muslim-extremists#ali
"The Profiles: 15 Anti-Muslim Extremists"

"Ayaan Hirsi Ali"

All what the SPLC offers against her are statements against Islam. Hence, putting her unter the header "Anti-Muslims Extremists" is wrong.

At least she should be put under the header "Anti-Islamic Extremists".

And that is just the most obvious error; the inability to distinguish between criticism of Muslims and criticism of Islam (also somewhat demonstrated by BStrong who offered as examples for legitimate/non-lgitimate criticism of Islam actually examples of criticism of Muslims).

But its not that hard; when it comes to capitalism, Christianity or socialism everybody is at once able to distinguish between criticizing the idea itself and the adherents of the idea; just when the word "Islam" pops up that ability is lost at once.

That suggest a relative-circumstantial superiority of some Christian tendencies over other Muslim tendencies. For example: we cannot assimilate the document of alleged “Arab Charter of Human Rights” drew up by the Afrab leaders with the thought of Arab people as a whole. And we cannot suppose that this circumstantial superiority is some kind of con-substantial superiority. In other circumstances, Islam has been more tolerant that Christianity. Change the circumstances and “superiorities” can change.

Nontheless you assume a current superiority.

As we had it about Dawkins earlier in this thread:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/12/richard-dawkins-slams-islam-as-most-evil-religion-/
"“If you look at the actual impact that different religions have on the world, it’s quite apparent that at present the most evil religion in the world has to be Islam.”"

So Dawkins holds the same position as you, that currently Christianity and other religions are superior to Islam in being at present less evil than Islam.

And for your position, he gets shunned as being too extremist:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ncelled-over-his-abusive-speech-against-islam

So you see, your position about a only at present superiority of Christianity is also Islamophobic according to the islamophobia crowd.

Because we have not a clear way to valuate the whole set of statements of a complex totality as religion is. It would be more productive to debate on particular statements because in general all religions are a danger for freedom.

That avoids the question what someone should do who thinks some religions not being a danger for freedom and who thinks that some other religions are a danger to freedom.

And i think that actually many people are convinced that only some religions are a danger to freedom.

Reason is that there is the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster which is a recognized religion in Netherlands and New Zealand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Legal_status

I do not think there is any sane living soul on this planet who both holds modern democracy dear AND considers "Pastafarianism" a danger to freedom; yet i presume that a sizeable number of those holding modern democracy dear think there is generally some problem with some other religions.

So how should someone who thinks Christianity and Islam are a danger to freedom, but Pastafarianism is not a danger, voice his opinion, that only some religions are dangerous?

(And presuming that Pastifatianism is not a religion is not possible, as i am certain that the branches in New Zealand and Netherland would offer any number of sworn testimonies to the contrary.)

 

[IanS]

Faraway foreign country constantly interferes in the affairs of your homecountry and has historically been responsible for much of the political instability there. Someone successfully pulls off an attack on said very powerful country.

It's not hard at all to see why a sizable minority people might sympathize to some degree with terrorist orgs. "So what if they killed 3000 people? You dropped bombs that killed 100,000 people here!"

Oh, certainly, it is indeed likely that many UK Muslims do think that terrorist attacks in the UK are justified on the basis that the UK joined forces (military forces) with the US and iirc about 50 other nations in a military response first to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda along with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then with an invasion of Iraq. Indeed that's exactly what was shown in many of the polls that I described to you.

But you are presenting that as if you think it's some sort of valid justification for mass murder attacks on the streets of London, Paris, Madrid etc.

It certainly can never be any kind of justification to take the law into your own hands in that way and go around slaughtering random innocent people thousands of miles from where the actual military action is taking place against thousands of heavily armed Islamic terrorists.

In several of the most serious UK trials several of the defendants actually said “as you bomb us, so we bomb you!” (that's a quote from a “martyrdom video” made by one of the defendants). But who is he talking about when he says “you bomb us”? He was not taking about himself or any of his co-defendants, because they were not being bombed or harmed in any way at all … they were all living quite nice lives in the UK (and in many of these cases they were actually receiving quite substantial state aid, i.e. money, for all sorts of claimed social and personal problems). So who was he talking about when he said “us”? Well he meant the Islamic terrorists who had formed heavily armed groups like Al Qaeda and IS in Iraq & Afghanistan etc. But none of those defendants had ever met any of those Islamic terrorists in any of those far-flung countries!

What he meant was that he and his co-defendants regarded themselves as religious “brothers” fighting the battles of IS and Al-Q by extending it to random mass murder attacks in London.

Do you really think that is justified?

That's not justifiable in any sort of honest educated sane society.

But they clearly do believe it's justified, because they think their religion is under attack from the West (from “Christian Crusaders”, apparently). But their religion is clearly not under any actual military attack. Bin Laden, the Afghan Taliban, Saddam Hussein etc. were never under attack because of their Islamic faith. They found themselves under attack because of their own military attacks in foreign lands … i.e. the 9-11 attacks in the USA, and in the case of Saddam Hussein his invasion of Kuwait followed by 12 years in which he constantly flouted all the terms of his ceasefire/”surrender” agreement to the stage where he had become completely uncontrollable as far as that ceasefire agreement was concerned, and where in the light of what had happened in the 9-11 attacks, the USA, UK, Spain and iirc about 10 to 20 other western democracies decided that it was simply too dangerous to leave him in control of his military dictatorship at the heart of the middle-East …. but it was certainly NOT because of their Islamic faith that any of the militarised groups like AL-Q or Saddam's dictatorship were eventually confronted militarily by a coalition of western forces.

 

[Carn]

Oh boy, here we go again. Muhammad married A'isha to secure a political alliance.

Then the criticism might be factualy incorrect or without base; but it would still not be criticism against today muslims.

And yet, it would still be called islamophobic.

Besides, even if he married her mainly or solely for political reasons, having sex with her when she was 9 or 10 would make him nonetheless a pedophilic.

(And there is no need to avoid the issue, why such a criticism of Islam should be Islamophobic, by pointing out that some people claim she was older when they had first sex; that again would make the argument only false and not islamophobic)