Is Islam The Problem?

[Kaitzilla]

So it is a good thing that one could openly be so bigoted and racist back then?

What they don't tell us about Winston Churchill - anti-semitic, racist war criminal...

I will not write off humanity before 1950 because of bigotry and racism.

And I will not write off the man who wrote "The Second World War", winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953, because of a few racist or bigoted comments.


There are nuggets of truth and wisdom that can still be gleaned today.
Pointing them out does not mean approving the bigoted and racist things.

 

[illram]

Uhh so what's the nugget of truth then?

 

[Formaldehyde]

He said it quite clearly. The "nugget of truth" was being able to publicly express clearly bigoted views in the past which would now be illegal given the silly hate speech laws.

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More on Sam Harris' unholy crusade against Islam:

Compared to some other major world religions, Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse." He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one’s faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central part of the doctrine of Islam not found in many other religions, "and this difference has consequences in the real world."

In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy—and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so—it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms."[6][9][38][39] He has voiced support for profiling, stating, "We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it."[40] He states that his criticism is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam as an ideology, acknowledging that not all Muslims subscribe to the ideas he is criticizing.

Anthropologist Scott Atran has criticized Harris for what he believes is an unscientific highlighting of the role of belief in the psychology of suicide bombers. Atran later followed up his comments in an online discussion for Edge, in which he criticized Harris and others for combating religious dogmatism and faith in a way that Atran believes is "scientifically baseless, psychologically uninformed, politically naïve, and counterproductive for goals we share".[41]

In an article in The Nation reviewing three of Harris’ books, Jackson Lears, states that, when Harris’ arguments are evaluated "according to their resonance with public policy debates, the results are sobering...", continuing:

"From him we learn, among other things, that torture is just another form of collateral damage in the "war on terror"—regrettable, maybe, but a necessary price to pay in the crucial effort to save Western civilization from the threat of radical Islam… As in the golden age of positivism, a notion of sovereign science is enlisted in the service of empire. Harris dispenses with the Christian rhetoric of his imperialist predecessors but not with their rationalizations for state-sponsored violence".[42]

Several columns, one in Al Jazeera and one in Salon, have accused Harris and the New Atheists of expressing irrational anti-Muslim animus under the guise of rational atheism, Glenn Greenwald wrote a column saying he agreed: "The key point is that Harris does far, far more than voice criticisms of Islam as part of a general critique of religion. He has repeatedly made clear that he thinks Islam is uniquely threatening … Yes, he criticizes Christianity, but he reserves the most intense attacks and superlative condemnations for Islam, as well as unique policy proscriptions of aggression, violence and rights abridgments aimed only at Muslims.".[40] Harris has responded to the controversy stating that he believes critics of Islam are unfairly labelled as bigots.[43][44]

Harris has criticized the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it."[6][45]

 

[Funky]

Your attempt to smear this man is malevolent and pathetic. Needless to say, not one of the quotes you posted is factually wrong. Just as you haven't been able to provide a factually incorrect statement by Geert Wilders or any other Islam critics you like to smear. Your inability to deal with other opinions and instead slander those who hold them is a dispicable and ultimately fascist attitude. How about you get some knowledge of the topic and challenge the arguments? You know, the democratic and liberal value of free discourse that you tread down so willingly. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Uhh so what's the nugget of truth then?

The plight of women under Islam still rings true after 100 years.

Islam claims to be more than just a religion, but a total way of life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Islam

Women in Islam are guided by primary Islamic sources of personal law, namely the Quran and hadiths, as well as secondary sources such as the ijma, qiyas, ijtihad in form such as fatwas; the secondary sources vary with various sects of Islam and schools of jurisprudence (madhhab).[1][2] In certain regions, in addition to religious guidelines, pre-Islamic cultural traditions play a role.[3] Islamic laws and cultural customs impact various stages of a Muslim women's life, including her education, employment opportunities, rights to inheritance, dress, age of marriage, freedom to consent to marriage, marriage contract, mahr, permissibility of birth control, divorce, sex outside or before marriage, her ability to receive justice in case of sex crimes, property rights independent of her husband, and when salat (prayers) are mandatory for her.[4][5][6] Polygyny is allowed to men under Islam, but not widespread; in some Islamic countries, such as Iran, a woman's husband may enter into temporary marriages in addition to permanent marriage.[7][8] Islam forbids Muslim women from marrying a non-Muslim.[9] There is debate and controversy on gender roles according to Islam.[3][10]

Sharia provides for complementarianism,[11] differences between women's and men's roles, rights, and obligations. Being a Muslim is more than a religious identity; Islam outlines and structures ways in which Muslim women should live their lives on a day-to-day basis.[12] In majority Muslim countries women exercise varying degrees of their religious rights with regards to marriage, divorce, legal status, dress code, and education based on different interpretations. Scholars and other commentators vary as to whether they are just and whether they are a correct interpretation of religious imperatives.

The results are evident.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...y-gap-greatest-islamic-countries-survey-shows

19 out of 20 countries with the lowest scores in an annual survey of gender equality around the world are Islamic.

I am particularly disturbed by honor killings.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-crimewave-that-shames-the-world-2072201.html

And female genital mutilation, which has a shocking 97% rate in Egypt.
http://www.meforum.org/1629/is-female-genital-mutilation-an-islamic-problem



My main problem with Islam is that it claims to be a complete way of life.
And yet when I look at those lives and their negative results, it is never ever Islam's fault, just a bad interpretation.


How can 90-95% of the wars in the world involve Muslims, and people still claim that there is no problem with Islam?

 

[Borachio]

How can 90-95% of the wars in the world involved Muslims, and people still claim that there is no problem with Islam?

There could be many reasons for this.

(Assuming it's a true statement at all, of course. It may not be. It depends on what time interval you're talking about. If you wanted to talk about the C20th for instance, it scarcely needs pointing out that the two largest conflicts in the history of humanity, although they both did involve Muslims, Muslims didn't figure significantly in them compared with the involvement of non-Muslims.)

But let's go with it being a true statement, since certainly the conflicts in the present day that hit the headlines most frequently (excluding Ukraine and one or two other places) do seem to involve Muslims.

The most obvious thing to consider in this matter is that correlation doesn't indicate causation. Simply because those who are Muslims are those involved in a conflict doesn't automatically mean that Islam is what's causing the conflict. It doesn't mean that it doesn't cause it either, of course.

Another thing to consider is that, possibly, without Islam the nature of the conflicts would be EVEN worse. And that Islam is in fact a moderating force for good.

I don't know how you're going to go about resolving this issue, tbh. But I suspect you'll persist in stating that somehow Islam is the ultimate cause of the conflict in the first place. Who knows? You may be right. But just stating it is isn't going to convince the so-far unconvinced, is it?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Needless to say, not one of the quotes you posted is factually wrong

Needless to say, he is clearly an Islamophobic bigot who is actually far more dangerous than Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller because he hides behind a mask of pseudo-science and atheism to preach his unmitigated hatred of an entire faith.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to rationalize and defend such a reprehensible excuse for a human being.

The plight of women under Islam still rings true after 100 years.

Is that right? what is the "plight" of Muslim women in Europe and the US?

And female genital mutilation, which has a shocking 97% rate in Egypt.
http://www.meforum.org/1629/is-female-genital-mutilation-an-islamic-problem

Which clearly has nothing to do with Islam itself. But it is certainly not going to stop you from pretending it does.

How can 90-95% of the wars in the world involve Muslims, and people still claim that there is no problem with Islam?

Are those the ones the US did or did not directly instigate with its incessant nonsencical foreign policy decisions?

And you blame Islam itself for this while apparently giving a free pass to Judaism and Christianity?

 

[brennan]

In the UK it is estimated that 66,000 women and girls have been subjected to FGM. London hospitals reported over 2000 cases of girls with suspected FGM in three years.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/06/female-genital-mutilation-foreign-crime-common-uk

I'd call having your labia sawn off 'plight'.

 

[Formaldehyde]

More on these points:

Bill Maher's Dangerous Critique of Islam

“The tragedy of Vietnam,” wrote Schlesinger in 1967, “is the tragedy of the catastrophic overextension and misapplication of valid principles.” And the engine of that overextension and misapplication was ignorance. Most pro-war liberals simply didn’t know enough about Vietnam to realize that their anti-communism was leading them astray. As Graham Greene wrote of Alden Pyle, the idealistic CIA agent in his novel, The Quiet American, “He was impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his ignorance.”

Maher is similarly armored today. It’s one thing to denounce the Saudi monarchy for its fanatical illiberalism. Like Stalin’s dictatorship, it’s a particular regime in a particular place. But to imply that Islamism—and by extension organizations such as Tunisia’s Ennahda Party or Turkey’s AKP, both of which have won democratic elections—are just milder versions of ISIS is dangerously sloppy. As Kennan insisted again and again, national circumstances often play a larger role in determining how cultures and political systems function than do transnational beliefs.

That’s especially true when the ideology isn’t even Islamism but Islam. Maher wants Americans to denounce Islam because while “all religions are stupid, Islam just happens to be the one right now, in this century, that’s most dangerous and violent.” That’s a wild overgeneralization. “Islam” is not violent or peaceful, dangerous or benign. Like every great religion, it includes a vast array of diverse and often contradictory teachings, which different people interpret in different ways in different places and times. Yes, in some Muslim-majority countries, women and religious minorities are treated brutally. But that has far more to do with their particular national circumstances than with the fact that Muslims populate them. After all, other Muslim-majority countries have elected female heads of state. To lump together Indonesia and Yemen because both countries are mostly Muslim makes about as much sense as lumping together Ireland and the Dominican Republic because both countries are mostly Catholic.

The second lesson from the Cold War is that while anti-totalitarianism is important, it can become an excuse for America’s own misdeeds. In 1954, eager to prove their anti-communist bona fides in the face of McCarthyite attacks, liberal stalwarts Hubert Humphrey, Paul Douglas, and John F. Kennedy introduced legislation banning the American Communist Party—thus using America’s crusade against Soviet repression to massively repress free speech here at home. America’s war in Vietnam, justified as a struggle for freedom and human rights, took close to a million lives.

When Affleck told Maher that America has “killed more Muslims than they’ve killed us by an awful lot … and somehow we’re exempt from these things because they’re not really a reflection of what we believe in. We did it by accident,” he was making a crucial point. As the great liberal Cold War theologian Reinhold Niebuhr stressed, nations, like individuals, are often unable to acknowledge the degree to which selfish interest infects their supposed pursuit of high principle. Restraining the evil that lurks within our own culture requires facing our own history of, and ongoing capacity for, terrible crimes. It requires trying to see largely Christian America the way we are seen by the Muslims whose cities we have bombed. By contrast, declaring that the essential barbarism in today’s world lies elsewhere—not even just in a foreign regime or movement but in an entire religion—lets us off easy.

“The pride and self-righteousness of powerful nations,” wrote Niebuhr, “are a greater hazard to their success than the machinations of their foes.” It took the Vietnam War for Schlesinger to truly appreciate that point. Given America’s experience in the Middle East over the last decade, Maher has no excuse.

 

[Formaldehyde]

In the UK it is estimated that 66,000 women and girls have been subjected to FGM. London hospitals reported over 2000 cases of girls with suspected FGM in three years.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/06/female-genital-mutilation-foreign-crime-common-uk

I'd call having your labia sawn off 'plight'.

That is indeed a tragedy that it could occur in a country that supposedly bans it, but has apparently not even tried to enforce its own laws.

But, again, it has nothing at all to do with Islam. This is a regional and cultural phenomenon, not a religious one.

There were approximately 2.9 million Muslims living in the UK in 2011 . If we even use the estimate above of 66,000 victims in the UK and assume half of the Muslim population is women, that means that only 4% of the Muslim women had to undergo this barbaric practice. While it is certainly objectionable that any woman in a developed country would be subjected to such an outrage, it isn't as though it is widely practiced even by the Muslims.

 

[brennan]

1)

2)

 

[Formaldehyde]

I really didn't think you would have a different reaction to the obvious facts which contradict this Islamophobic nonsense.

Which clearly has nothing to do with Islam itself. But it is certainly not going to stop you from pretending it does.

 

[Tahuti]

I am particularly disturbed by honor killings.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-crimewave-that-shames-the-world-2072201.html

Honour killings are way older than Islam and occurred in the Roman Empire as well. In fact, for Northern Africa, those are almost certainly a Roman influence rather than an Islamic one. In fact, it occurs among non-Muslims in the Arab world or in close proximity to it, such as Arab Christians and Armenians. It is a problem much bigger than Islam.

 

[illram]

More on these points:

Bill Maher's Dangerous Critique of Islam

This is a great quote and sums up alot of how I feel. There is certainly introspection to be done in the Islamic world, and to a great extent it is being done, but there are political and social roadblocks impeding secular or liberal movements in majority Muslim countries. And sadly, many of these roadblocks are overly authoritarian theocratic Islamic regimes in which a more liberal or secular view of Islam is a threat that needs to be put down. Political institutions utilizing whatever brand of Islam benefits their particular authoritarianism or political ambition however means Islam is ancillary to, rather than the root cause of, alot of these problems.

"It's more complicated" than just Islam might seem like a cop-out but it's true.

 

[brennan]

Please don't call me Islamophobic. It incorrectly suggests that I hold other religions in less contempt.

The Quran exhorts the faithful to "seize" and "kill" disbelievers (4:89). Surely that's a bit brennanophobic?

http://quran.com/4

 

[Formaldehyde]

I stated it was an Islamophobic position because it clearly is. If you made a similar statement about Jewish circumcision I would call it a Judaiphobic position, even though that is actually part of their religion. The difference is that, unlike FGM, it is completely harmless and actually more hygienic and less susceptible to disease when properly done. But, again, FGM has nothing at all to do with Islam.

The Bible also "exhorts the faithful" that disbelievers (blasphemers) should be stoned to death. Better watch out for all those Christians and Jews around you.

 

[brennan]

Since when is blasphemer a synonym for unbeliever?

The use of all these silly 'phobic' terms to describe the objection to these revolting practices is ridiculous. Cutting bits off your children is immoral, barbaric and disgusting.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You mean like since forever?

Blasphemy is the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God, to religious or holy persons or things, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable.[2][3][4]

And you are showing the very same sort of contempt of trying to conflate Islam and FGM by disparaging the widely accepted medical procedure of male circumcision by calling it "immoral, barbaric and disgusting" merely because you happen a different personal opinion. (Not that it really has anything to do with this topic, and I certainly hope it doesn't get derailed as usual as a result). I was merely pointing out an example of a clearly Judaiphobic and Islamophobic position.

"Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns." Plato

 

[brennan]

Male circumcision is at best an unnecessary surgical operation. It results in multiple deaths annually in the USA alone. I stand by my opinion, thanks.

Lack of reverence = doesn't believe in? How convincing.

 

[JollyRoger]

Your attempt to smear this man is malevolent and pathetic. .

Posted by a man trying to do the same to over a billion people.