Mini-skirts in Saudi - Shock horror!

[Forty Two]

The problem with the right is when they criticise Islam they often post complete lies. A friend of mine, for instance, recently posted a long list of things Muslims apparently aren't allowed do. I showed it to the two Muslims I work with and we laughed our asses off at the sheer ignorance of it. The right don't seem to be able to get their heads around the idea that Islam isn't an homogenous group. I think the list may have been for the Taliban or ISIS. Not that ignorant idiots can tell the difference.

Pretty much the only time it is important to note that a religion is "not a homogeneous group" is when dealing with Islam. When passing lists of odd things Christians do, we don't here defenders riding in on their white horses to defend the non-homogeneous Christians who don't adhere to the fundamentalist requirements. No, instead, we skewer the liberal Christians for being even more ludicrous in their cherry-picking their religion, and just ignoring the bad parts and pretending the good parts are the only parts that exist.

Not with Islam, though. If you say, Islam motivates a lot of terrorism, you immediately get lectured on the obvious, that not all Muslims, or even most Muslims, are terrorists. The conclusion to be drawn, of course, is that therefore Islam does not motivate a lot of terrorism, which, however, it most obviously does. Both things can be true - most Muslims aren't terrorists, but Islam still is a fine engine for the production of terrorism. But, the apologists want to change the conversation from the role of a religion in the motivation of bad behavior to recitation of "not all Muslims" mantra.

You don't see that with Christianity, though. When people argue "Christianity this... " or "Christianity is sexist or homophobic..." - there isn't the same outpouring of apologetics, making sure we all hear another lecture on "not all Christians" and "most of the 1.5 billion christians are nice, kind, non-homophobic, non-sexist good people..."

Which, of course, this whole notion of the vast majority of religious people being all good, kind, nice, non-sexist, non-racist, non-homophobic, is exactly the opposite of what so much of the Progressive Left declares about society in general. Society in general is patriarchal and white supremacist, systemically racist, and homophobic and transphobic. Not the Muslims, though, because most of them are good, ind, non-sexist, non-racist, non-homophobic.... must just be the Christians who are that, in order to make society as a whole so patriarchal, racist and sexist....

[pErvinalia]

You and your fucking 'tu quoque, waaah it's not fair that Christians get treated differently,' bullshit

You can never objectively analyse anything, can you? You've always got to try and red herring the debate.

[Svartalf]

Is that any less mad than Filipinos crucifying themselves?

I don't know how far the filipinos push the thing, but it's at least fully as crazy

[Svartalf]

well, I know they aren't allowed to partake in intoxicants, they aren't allowed to eat pork products, and they aren't allowed to eat or drink or fuck during the day a whole month per year, and it seems that month falls in summer more often than is his turn. am I an ign orant clod?

As for the difference between muslim groups, yes, I'm in complete ignorance for the most parts, though I know that it's a specific sh'a twelver custom to whip oneself around the anniversary of the battle of Kerbalah.

There is such a thing as 'cultural Muslims' exactly the same as there are 'cultural Christians'.

Sure, and then it depends what level of craziness you let 'your culture' inject into your life going to the mosque for mostly social reason is not necessarily crazy, but showing your arse to the sky 5 times daily is certainly silly.

[NineBerry]

Sure, and then it depends what level of craziness you let 'your culture' inject into your life going to the mosque for mostly social reason is not necessarily crazy, but showing your arse to the sky 5 times daily is certainly silly.

[pErvinalia]

[Svartalf]

silly ain't it?

[Brian Peacock]

I've always said that Allah can suck my dick. If he's truly great, he must be great at sucking dick too - so great... the greatest. Then again, I say the same about YHWH, Odin, and Osiris.

[pErvinalia]

God(s) would give the best head.

[Hermit]

If you say, Islam motivates a lot of terrorism, you immediately get lectured on the obvious, that not all Muslims, or even most Muslims, are terrorists. The conclusion to be drawn, of course, is that therefore Islam does not motivate a lot of terrorism, which, however, it most obviously does.

If Islam does motivate a lot of terrorism, it becomes really difficult to explain why the majority of Muslims are not terrorists, or why terrorism is not equally prevalent in time and location. The same applies to Christianity.

we skewer the liberal Christians for being even more ludicrous in their cherry-picking their religion

Speak for yourself. Or at least provide links to some examples. As for me, I neither restrict my observations concerning cherry picking to Christians, nor do I skewer them for doing so. For instance:

I think cherry picking and at least distortions are absolutely necessary, given the number of contradictions within the Bible, the Qur'an and for all I know, the holy scriptures of other religions.

[JimC]

Forty Two wrote:

There is also a fairly substantial group on the left that equates criticism of Islam with racism. Even hatred and mockery of Islam, profane and vulgar insults to the false Prophet and his silly religion, is not racism, yet there is this thread through the Progressive left to call it "Islamophobia."

You are correct to a degree, in that a lot of left commentary lazily says any criticism of Islam is racist. However, there is no smoke without fire - a very large proportion of the criticism of Islam and Muslims in general, at least here in Oz, does come from right-wing groups with a very clear racist sub-text. It's up to the left commentators to be more discerning, and to recognise that it is possible to disconnect rational criticism of Islam from the racism within many anti-islamic groups.
You might note, by the way, that rEv has consistently mentioned the fights he gets into with other leftists about their head-in-the-sand attitude to Islam...

[Brian Peacock]

It's different for us ex-Dawks because we remember how Paul Almond reasoned God and the supernatural out of existence and how Eightfootmanchild scattered the ashes to the four winds. A religion might comprise an aspect of cultural identity, and everyone might have a right and freedom to be as religious as they choose, but I no longer afford any respect to any faith because, as the poet once said, religion poisons everything.

This is why it is in equal parts pathetic and funny when someone drags out the canard that, simply by dint of not being 'to the right', one is an automatic defender of Islam, and by extension of all the horrors perpetrated in the name of that morally impoverished, violent, cast-ridden, tradition of wilful mental slavery.

الله يمكن أن العيد على القضيب

[Forty Two]

If you say, Islam motivates a lot of terrorism, you immediately get lectured on the obvious, that not all Muslims, or even most Muslims, are terrorists. The conclusion to be drawn, of course, is that therefore Islam does not motivate a lot of terrorism, which, however, it most obviously does.

If Islam does motivate a lot of terrorism, it becomes really difficult to explain why the majority of Muslims are not terrorists, or why terrorism is not equally prevalent in time and location. The same applies to Christianity.

Not really, because even though most religious people do not act out in accordance with their beliefs, that does not mean that having deeply held religious beliefs does not motivate behavior. While most people will not go out and become terrorists, that does not mean that a belief system which fundamentally advocates war against opponents of that belief system does not create people who take action in accordance with those beliefs.

It's often said that we don't have nearly as many atheist terrorists as we have religious terrorists. I think that's true. And, it's true because religion provides a divine warrant to the terrorist actions. So, while most religious people won't be terrorists, religion provides a vehicle for some people to justify action in that regard. Where atheists become terrorists is where they give themselves a different moral code that justifies violence - you can have eco-terrorists, for example, who subscribe to a different set of beliefs that justify violent action to serve a "greater good." There aren't nearly as many of those, though, because there aren't nearly as many people who adhere to such extremism, as compared to religious extremists.

Differences in statistical prevalence of religious terrorism over time is a function of the degree to which fundamental or extreme religious views are held by the populous. If a religion liberalizes, and the people don't take it all that seriously and see the "fundamentalist" and "outdated" blurbs in their holy books as metaphors and figurative allegories, etc., or relics of a different past, then there will be fewer fundamentalists who take those fundamental views seriously, and fewer "moderates" who while not taking action will provide "cover" to the fundamentalists and provide tacit support for their actions (I wouldn't do it, but I support the people brave enough to do it - that kind of thing).

we skewer the liberal Christians for being even more ludicrous in their cherry-picking their religion

Speak for yourself. Or at least provide links to some examples. As for me, I neither restrict my observations concerning cherry picking to Christians, nor do I skewer them for doing so. For instance:

I think cherry picking and at least distortions are absolutely necessary, given the number of contradictions within the Bible, the Qur'an and for all I know, the holy scriptures of other religions.

I was speaking for myself and my experience. I wasn't accusing you personally of doing anything. Surely, though, you have seen plenty of people discussing the cherry-picking that religious liberals do? I agree, cherry-picking is necessary and actually beneficial - I would recommend any person who is a religious person to cherry pick their religion.

What I'm highlighting here is the difference in approach - the zeitgeist - addressed to Islam as opposed to Christianity. Naturally, I'm not saying everyone does X, Y or Z. Clearly not everyone does. I don't. I have no shame in lambasting Islam. Many other people don't either. However, there is a segment of the Left which does engage in apologetics toward Islam which it will not do in relation to Christianity. I don't think that's controversial. It's a point that has been made many times by the likes of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (RIP), and Daniel Dennett, etc.

[Forty Two]

It's different for us ex-Dawks because we remember how Paul Almond reasoned God and the supernatural out of existence and how Eightfootmanchild scattered the ashes to the four winds. A religion might comprise an aspect of cultural identity, and everyone might have a right and freedom to be as religious as they choose, but I no longer afford any respect to any faith because, as the poet once said, religion poisons everything.

This is why it is in equal parts pathetic and funny when someone drags out the canard that, simply by dint of not being 'to the right', one is an automatic defender of Islam, and by extension of all the horrors perpetrated in the name of that morally impoverished, violent, cast-ridden, tradition of wilful mental slavery.

الله يمكن أن العيد على القضيب

Suggesting that there is a segment of the Left which does X does not mean that if one is not to the right one is automatically a defender of Islam. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video ... s_bad.html "You don't have to be a fascist or a racist or even a Trumpian to not want to import people into your society who think cartoonists should be killed for drawing the prophet," Harris told Maher. "In the immediate aftermath of Orlando we have Clinton talking about gun control, only, and then admonishing the whole country the whole country not to be racist," Harris said. "Now, you can't said that jihadism has no relationship to Islam. So, people like Asra [Q. Nomani] (a Muslim against radical Islam who supported Donald Trump for president), who are fed up with this and there are millions of them said, this is too galling. And [former President Obama] has been lying for 8 years about this."

"Presumably, he's not been bombing the Amish. So he knows that this has some relationship with Islam," Harris said of Obama on Friday.

[Forty Two]

Forty Two wrote:

There is also a fairly substantial group on the left that equates criticism of Islam with racism. Even hatred and mockery of Islam, profane and vulgar insults to the false Prophet and his silly religion, is not racism, yet there is this thread through the Progressive left to call it "Islamophobia."

You are correct to a degree, in that a lot of left commentary lazily says any criticism of Islam is racist. However, there is no smoke without fire - a very large proportion of the criticism of Islam and Muslims in general, at least here in Oz, does come from right-wing groups with a very clear racist sub-text.

It may well. I am not familiar with any racist right-wing groups in Oz. However, I would be cautious, because I have seen too much, particularly in recent years, where folks accuse people of being right-wing and racist simply because they espouse harsh criticism of Islam. There is this movement to label people "right wing racist" or "alt right" or even "Nazi" when they don't really look all that racist, alt or Nazi...

It's up to the left commentators to be more discerning, and to recognise that it is possible to disconnect rational criticism of Islam from the racism within many anti-islamic groups.

I think we should also be careful not to read "subtext" into statements, because sometimes, sometimes, what is happening is that a person is being pigeonholed, and their text is imbued with a meaning at odds with the words being used.