Ed Dawkins on Allahu Akhbar

TubbaBlubba said:
I mean, it's not a Worst Religion contest. Jihadist terrorism a la Al-Qaeda is a peculiar phenomenon of the past 40 years that must be understood on its own terms and which cannot be directly translated into Christian equivalent terms. Ultimately its roots lie, I would argue, in anticolonial movements, which also turned their agression on fellow Islamic movements deemed too willing to accept "Westernness" (e.g. "The East has Muslims but no Islam; the West has Islam but no Muslims" as one reformist said).

It taking roots and the broad failure of democracy in the Muslim world lies at least partly in the failure of moderate/secular muslim politicians to create an acceptable vision of a modern Islamic society that went beyond "Who can give the biggest middle finger to the British?". The turf wars between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and the Arab League's inability to deal with Israel in a sensible manner (never mind the establishment of Israel in the first place and the lies of the British to Sharif Hussain) seem to have cemented the level and type of violence.
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"A British Civil Servant Called Sykes and a French Civil Servent called Picot got together,,,,"

Claude Reins as a scumbucket British diplomat in "Lawrence of Arabia".
 
dudalb said:
"A British Civil Servant Called Sykes and a French Civil Servent called Picot got together,,,,"

Claude Reins as a scumbucket British diplomat in "Lawrence of Arabia".
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The Sykes-Picot agreement never went into effect and as so is a tad overrated. But yeah, Mark Sykes was triple-dealing all over the place.

That said, the idea of a bad border somewhere having doomed the Arab world to instability is a bit silly. It's not like they couldn't have done population exchanges, land swaps or whatever else they thought were needed. If anything it's more a general issye of adapting oneself to the basic idea that there need to be "correct borders" based on "nationality" drawn, which is pretty novel.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Has Dawkins cracked up a bit in his latter years?
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Nah... Dawk has always been a bit of a Dick. I think it can be argued that since he discovered Islam as a thing to criticise, he's gotten a lot milder on Christianity. Maybe as he is getting older and facing his own mortality he is slowing starting to think "maybe believing in a hopeful message isn't such a bad thing... as long as it isn't one of those foreign ones..."
 
Undesired Walrus said:
This is just a plain weird thing to say:

https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1018933359978909696?s=20

Has Dawkins cracked up a bit in his latter years?
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I don't think it is something wrong with Dawkins' preference; valid I'd say even if that would be a perfectly subjective choice (but I am sure Dawkins wouldn't have liked to hear a song with 'Jesus died for your sins. Repent and pray now!' instead of mere tolls).

The problem is of course that one can add objective justification for such a preference, its not that difficult to realize that the phrase 'Allah Akbar' ('Allah is greater' or 'greatest'; not 'God is great' by the way) is indeed also an expression of the supremacy of Islam (actually shouted by Muhammad during the unprovoked attack against the Jews of Khaybar and used during the uncountable jihad attacks along the centuries; besides the Islamic law forbids at least outdoor bell-ringing in the Christian Churches in the Islamic lands etc).

In fact these sick accusations of 'racism' and 'bigotry' on Dawkins are the product of a society lead astray by pure ideology, having little in common with Reason (albeit in the name of 'justice'), the goal being to silence all criticism going beyond what tolerated by the prevalent ideology. Nothing good to expect if we persist on this path.
 
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metacristi said:
I don't think it is something wrong with Dawkins' preference; valid I'd say even if that would be a perfectly subjective choice (but I am sure Dawkins wouldn't have liked to hear a song with 'Jesus died for your sins. Repent and pray now!' instead of mere tolls).

The problem is of course that one can add objective justification for such a preference, its not that difficult to realize that the phrase 'Allah Akbar' ('Allah is greater' or 'greatest'; not 'God is great' by the way) is indeed also an expression of the supremacy of Islam (actually shouted by Muhammad during the unprovoked attack against the Jews of Khaybar and used during the uncountable jihad attacks along the centuries; besides the Islamic law forbids at least bell-ringing in the Christian Churches in the Islamic lands etc).

In fact these sick accusations of 'racism' and 'bigotry' on Dawkins are the product of a society lead astray by pure ideology, having little in common with Reason (albeit in the name of 'justice'), the goal being to silence all criticism going beyond what tolerated by the prevalent ideology. Nothing good to expect if we persist on this path.
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Oh Jesus wept.
 
Truth is truth (we can talk at least about arguments having strong justification) no matter if he wept or not. Some seem to never realize that. And yes one can be very well an atheist-Christian (in the sense of recognizing the role of played by Christianity, be it largely via being much more benign than islam, in the making of Modernity).
 
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I'm dumbfounded on multiple levels. One being why you'd be so trusting of these particular Hadith (because AFAIK the Qur'an does not cover this battle) as to accept their word on what particular interjection Muhammed used. Never mind whether the battle was waged by Muhammad in the first place (I honestly have no idea nor do I particularly care, but early Muslim tradition does exaggerate his conquests.)

For anyone who wants the not-talking-points origin of Islam, Hoyland's "In God's Path", largely based on contemporary and non-Islamic sources, is excellent.
 
Earthborn said:
Nah... Dawk has always been a bit of a Dick. I think it can be argued that since he discovered Islam as a thing to criticise, he's gotten a lot milder on Christianity. Maybe as he is getting older and facing his own mortality he is slowing starting to think "maybe believing in a hopeful message isn't such a bad thing... as long as it isn't one of those foreign ones..."
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I recall him saying when he was starting out on his new career pathway that he enjoyed signing Christmas carols in church. Can't think of anything worse myself, but there we are.
 
metacristi said:
I don't think it is something wrong with Dawkins' preference; valid I'd say even if that would be a perfectly subjective choice (but I am sure Dawkins wouldn't have liked to hear a song with 'Jesus died for your sins. Repent and pray now!' instead of mere tolls).

The problem is of course that one can add objective justification for such a preference, its not that difficult to realize that the phrase 'Allah Akbar' ('Allah is greater' or 'greatest'; not 'God is great' by the way) is indeed also an expression of the supremacy of Islam (actually shouted by Muhammad during the unprovoked attack against the Jews of Khaybar and used during the uncountable jihad attacks along the centuries; besides the Islamic law forbids at least outdoor bell-ringing in the Christian Churches in the Islamic lands etc).

In fact these sick accusations of 'racism' and 'bigotry' on Dawkins are the product of a society lead astray by pure ideology, having little in common with Reason (albeit in the name of 'justice'), the goal being to silence all criticism going beyond what tolerated by the prevalent ideology. Nothing good to expect if we persist on this path.
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Why not just tweet this?

Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester.

And then later, with context:

Can't bloody stand that call to prayer! Wrecked my eardrums.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
I recall him saying when he was starting out on his new career pathway that he enjoyed signing Christmas carols in church. Can't think of anything worse myself, but there we are.
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He talks about this in an interview from 2008:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...elebrate-Christmas-worlds-famous-atheist.html

'I am perfectly happy on Christmas day to say Merry Christmas to everybody,' Dawkins said. 'I might sing Christmas carols - once I was privileged to be invited to Kings College, Cambridge, for their Christmas carols and loved it.

'I actually love most of the genuine Christmas carols. I can't bear Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and you might think from that that I was religious, that I can't bear the ones that make no mention of religion. But I just think they are dreadful tunes and even more dreadful words. I like the traditional Christmas carols.'​
 
TubbaBlubba said:
Are you suggesting that the Wehrmacht did not engage in widespread acts of terrorism and murder?
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The Wehrmacht generally? I'm suggesting that soldiers of the Wehrmacht did not drive halftracks into civilians on the streets of Paris, shouting "Gott mit uns!" - at least, not enough for the phrase to be associated with terrorism and murder in the French popular culture.

"Allah akbar!", on the other hand... A guy walking by the Charlie Hebdo offices hears that, I'm pretty sure his first thought won't be "oh, just another peaceful Muslim rejoicing in the will of his deity". And I'm pretty sure his second thought won't be, "this reminds me of how German troops in the 1940s used to run around shouting 'Gott mit uns!' while they murdered people".

As pleasant sounds go, the bells of Notre Dame versus "Allah akbar" on the streets of Paris? No contest, I think.
 
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theprestige said:
The Wehrmacht generally? I'm suggesting that soldiers of the Wehrmacht did not drive halftracks into civilians on the streets of Paris, shouting "Gott mit uns!" - at least, not enough for the phrase to be associated with terrorism and murder in the French popular culture.
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You may wish to check out the Eastern campaign.

"Allah akbar!", on the other hand... A guy walking by the Charlie Hebdo offices hears that, I'm pretty sure his first thought won't be "oh, just another peaceful Muslim rejoicing in the will of his deity". And I'm pretty sure his second thought won't be, "this reminds me of how German troops in the 1940s used to run around shouting 'Gott mit uns!' while they murdered people".
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I think I had a whiplash from the number of jumps back and forth in your post. To whatever extent the phrase has the effects you imagine, it is precisely because of the kind of obsession over - again - a very common Arabic phrase that you and Dawkins exhibit here.

If the reaction to the phrase when it entered the media was instead, "Oh, it's a common Arabic phrase, like "By God!" or "Jesus Christ!", and we can compare its use to...", it would hardly have gained the connotation - at least not as strongly - in the first place.

Your post almost seems to revel over the fact that some associate a common Islamic phrase with terrorism. I would think that this should instead be a cause for concern and something we need to actively counteract. Surely you don't think there's anything fortunate about the association? Because that would just be ghoulish...
 
Even if 'Allahu Akbar' were exclusively used by Islamic terrorists to announce an imminent attack... And even if you think comparing one religion's call to prayer with another's call to murder is an apt comparison because you believe that one religion is objectively more evil than the other one... that still doesn't make Dawkins' tweet as much of a droll witticism or 'sick burn' as he thought.

Just a weird non sequitur. And I think that's kind of embarrassing for a man of his intellectual stature.
Then again, tweets are brain farts so I don't really care. Being smart doesn't mean everything you think of is clever.
 
Earthborn said:
Nah... Dawk has always been a bit of a Dick. I think it can be argued that since he discovered Islam as a thing to criticise, he's gotten a lot milder on Christianity. Maybe as he is getting older and facing his own mortality he is slowing starting to think "maybe believing in a hopeful message isn't such a bad thing... as long as it isn't one of those foreign ones..."
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Pascal's Wager? Really?
 
My personal strongest association of how peoples bigotry shapes this was when that white christian trump supporter shot up a mosque and clearly the religious cries of Allahu Akbar. Clearly that must have been the true cause of the shooting.
 
Zivan said:
Or even spelled correctly, which Arabic speakers in the comments pointed out..........
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You can spell Arabic words a lot of different ways as they have different alphabets with sounds that correlate imperfectly with the phonics of English. Qaddafi was a famous example. Different news outlets used different spellings. Also used in Farsi and Urdu. Also it was Al Qaeda per AP, Al Qaida per NYT.

People say "Allah u akbar" in all sorts of situations. It's supposed to be good to say it right before you die, but you might say it upon getting good news, or even bad news.

The call to prayer I think is beautiful especially at dusk on the Bosphorus when it rhymes with the foghorns. It's not so great when you're woken up at dawn by a muezzin in a minaret 6 feet away from your ear.

Yesterday I got exasperated with an Arab and ended up saying, "Jesus!" He knew I wasn't praising the lord. "Oh my God" or simply "God" are said in a lot of contexts.
 
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Ned Beatty says it in "Charlie Wilson's War" when he delivers a bunch of weapons to the mujahideen in Afghanistan. I believe his character is supposed to be an evangelical Christian.
 
Minoosh said:
You can spell Arabic words a lot of different ways as they have different alphabets with sounds that correlate imperfectly with the phonics of English.
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Yes, Arabic is an abjad language like Hebrew. Transliterations of both languages into English interchange "k" and "q" for the same letter/sound sometimes, but "k/q" is a completely different sound than "kh" (back of the throat). So "k" and "kh" should never be used interchangeably.
 
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