What's the problem with Islam, anyway?

[Ayn Rand]

Unsettling truth: There are a number of nations out there that are pretty backward because of exploitation (both in the past and now) by the West, particularly Europe.

Much more palatable un-truth: There are a number of of nations out there that are pretty backward because of Islam.

You do realise the Ottoman Empire controlled the Middle East for centuries, don't you? The modern Arab States are only independent because of the British Empire.

The development and freedom they do have is due to the West. The backwardness they have is due to Islam.

 

[Masada]

if not for the west, the oil wouldn't be exploited. My, how prosperous Middle Eastern states would have been then.

Right, because most Muslim states are Saudi Arabia.

western rule over Middle East and northern Africa was relatively short and mostly not direct.

What does that matter?

Also, if they were conquered by Europe, it's mostly because these countries were much weaker than them already.

This matters how?

You do realise the Ottoman Empire controlled the Middle East for centuries, don't you? The modern Arab States are only independent because of the British Empire.

Er, this matters how?

The development and freedom they do have is due to the West. The backwardness they have is due to Islam.

How does one prove that assertion?

 

[Tee Kay]

Fair enough - but I don't think I'm misrepresenting the ideology. There are serious problems with many parts of Islam. You keep responding that some parts of Islam don't have problems. So what does that have to do with my point?

Everything.

You point to oppression and violence and proclaimth forth in a loud voice "This is Islam!"

Except, it's not. You are conflating the actions of a few who follows violent interpretations of Islam to all of Islam. It makes as much sense as pointing to paedophile priests or the Crusades or killing of abortion doctors or persecution of homosexuals and saying "This is Christianity!"

May I ask you what your characterisation of Islam is? Do you think it is wholly innocent and harmless as an ideology? I'd like clarity on this, because if Islam is truly as varied as you say it is, then you must surely admit that it is at least partially evil.

When did I say it's wholly innocent and harmless?

My characterization of Islam is a set of related (Shahada, common founder, common God, Five Pillars, and so on) but otherwise different ideologies, and interpretations thereof. You think "ideology" and you think it must have a code, it must have a list of policies like those on a political party website. Islam is not a political party. There are as many interpretations of Islam as there are adherents of Islam. An ideology/set of ideologies as nebulous as Islam it's only evil as a particular interpretations of Islam is. Al Qaeda's ideology is evil, and yes it is an interpretation of Islam. As to the question of whether Islam, as a whole, is partially evil, that's like asking whether humans, as a group, are partially evil.

I am dealing with the oppressive parts of Islam - ie this is a discussion on the problems that Islam has.

You keep essentially repeating "it's not fair to look at the problems in Islam because there are some parts somewhere else that don't have problems". We can't just look at the problem-free areas, we are specifically looking at the problem areas here.

You're missing my point entirely. I'm saying it's not fair to portray Islam as a whole based solely on oppression in Islamic societies, nor is it accurate to portray all the problems in Islamic societies as a result of Islam.

 

[ripper_GFA]

The religion as a whole is fine, and normal peaceful people. Its the whackjob extremist's that are the problem.

 

[Haseri]

Woah, the Muslim world is unscientific?

They're the people that kept the majority of Roman knowledge alive while Europe was in the dark ages.

Just one example I remember from GCSE History, is an Arab doctor making up a way of retrieiving bullet wounds. I can't remember how he did it, but he did it.

 

[Squonk]

Woah, the Muslim world is unscientific?

They're the people that kept the majority of Roman knowledge alive while Europe was in the dark ages.

it's more about greek knowledge than roman, but it's besides the point. We are speaking about muslim world today, not 1000 years ago.

Right, because most Muslim states are Saudi Arabia.

I am speaking about Middle East, not "most muslim states".
SA, Iran, Kuweit, Bahrein, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, Azerbeijan are full of oil. Syria has its own deposits too. Libya, Algeria have large oil/gas deposits as well.

My point is clear: without european/american involvement, these countries wouldn't profit from their natural deposits, which would make them much poorer. My point is a bit wider: colonialism and imperialism had many disadvantages, mut many, mostly economical, advantages too. Being conquered by a developed nation is much better for some country's infrastructure than by a not developed one. Look at Poland: even today, post-prussian part of it has more railways, has better agriculture and is, in general, richer than austrian, not to mention russian, part. I do believe Arab states

What does that matter?



This matters how?

Er, this matters how?

That this horrible "western exploitation" didn't last so long and couldn't have been so deep to be responsible for the low development of these lands.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

You defend current "mistakes" of a certain culture by that another culture made another mistakes 400-500 years earlier?

Leviticus 20:10
“ ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

There are many examples of the Old Testament prescribing death for various offenses:

The Old Testament law commanded the death penalty for various acts: murder (Exodus 21:12), kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), bestiality (Exodus 22:19), adultery (Leviticus 20:10), homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5), prostitution and rape (Deuteronomy 22:24)

http://www.gotquestions.org/death-penalty.html

The Koran is not the only holy book to demand capital punishment for various offenses.
So perhaps Islam is not the problem, but all Abrahamic religions?

 

[Tee Kay]

it's more about greek knowledge than roman, but it's besides the point. We are speaking about muslim world today, not 1000 years ago.

The argument Ayn Rand is putting forward is that Islam slows scientific progress. Thus it's still relevant.

 

[Gangor]

You do realise the Ottoman Empire controlled the Middle East for centuries, don't you? The modern Arab States are only independent because of the British Empire.

Learn your history! The only reason they're not part of a British or French empire is that the Americans wouldn't allow it, following WWI.

The development and freedom they do have is due to the West. The backwardness they have is due to Islam.

The backwardsness is due to being part of the Ottoman empire for so long, and the corrupt and incompetient governments they've had since. Pretty much like Africa, actually.

 

[Tee Kay]

Learn your history! The only reason they're not part of a British or French empire is that the Americans wouldn't allow it, following WWI.

Actually, it's WWII, and because both countries were too bankrupt and war wearied to fight Arab nationalists.

The backwardsness is due to being part of the Ottoman empire for so long, and the corrupt and incompetient governments they've had since. Pretty much like Africa, actually.

And the backwardness of the Ottoman Empire is not really due to Islam, either.

 

[Squonk]

Leviticus 20:10
“ ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

There are many examples of the Old Testament prescribing death for various offenses:


http://www.gotquestions.org/death-penalty.html

The Koran is not the only holy book to demand capital punishment for various offenses.
So perhaps Islam is not the problem, but all Abrahamic religions?

That is Old Testament. As I've mentioned, Christ opposed that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery

so I'd like you to find some proof that christians are, or were, stoning women based on OT.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

That is Old Testament. As I've mentioned, Christ opposed that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery

so I'd like you to find some proof that christians are, or were, stoning women based on OT.

Some have said that Jesus set aside capital punishment in John 8 when He did not call for the woman caught in adultery to be stoned. But remember the context. The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus between the Roman law and the Mosaic law. If He said that they should stone her, He would break the Roman law. If He refused to allow them to stone her, He would break the Mosaic law (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22). Jesus' answer avoided the conflict: He said that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. Since He did teach that a stone be thrown (John 8:7), this is not an abolition of the death penalty.

In other places in the New Testament we see the principle of capital punishment being reinforced. Romans 13:1-7, for example, teaches that human government is ordained by God and that the civil magistrate is a minister of God. We are to obey government for we are taught that government does not bear the sword in vain. The fact that the Apostle Paul used the image of the sword further supports the idea that capital punishment was to be used by government in the New Testament age as well. Rather than abolish the idea of the death penalty, Paul uses the emblem of the Roman sword to reinforce the idea of capital punishment. The New Testament did not abolish the death penalty; it reinforced the principle of capital punishment.

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/cap-pun.html

EDIT: wow, that didn't take long....

 

[Ayn Rand]

Everything.

You point to oppression and violence and proclaimth forth in a loud voice "This is Islam!"

Yes, that is Islam. If Islam is so varied, then where are the flourishing Islamic democracies?

Why can I count one dictatorship after another when I look at the Islamic World, but struggle to find major democracies?

Human rights violations - consistent across most of the Islamic World
Scientific output - crushingly low across the Islamic World

You claim variety - the facts repeatedly state the same picture.

Except, it's not. You are conflating the actions of a few who follows violent interpretations of Islam to all of Islam. It makes as much sense as pointing to paedophile priests or the Crusades or killing of abortion doctors or persecution of homosexuals and saying "This is Christianity!"

It's not a few, it's the Nation-States of the vast majority of Islamic countries.

The majority of muslims are under the command of these States. You are too naive about ideology and the role it plays in the State and, by extension, the real actions of a people through State actors rather than just the intentions of individuals in their private lives.

When did I say it's wholly innocent and harmless?

I just wanted to clarify. We can agree that it is definitely not an entirely good religion.

My characterization of Islam is a set of related (Shahada, common founder, common God, Five Pillars, and so on) but otherwise different ideologies, and interpretations thereof. You think "ideology" and you think it must have a code, it must have a list of policies like those on a political party website. Islam is not a political party. There are as many interpretations of Islam as there are adherents of Islam. An ideology/set of ideologies as nebulous as Islam it's only evil as a particular interpretations of Islam is. Al Qaeda's ideology is evil, and yes it is an interpretation of Islam. As to the question of whether Islam, as a whole, is partially evil, that's like asking whether humans, as a group, are partially evil.

There are consistencies between many Islamic countries - I already pointed out the human rights violations, low scientific output, lack of industry and limits on individual freedom.

Islam is not all things to all men. Regardless of what you claim, it does have specific moral codes and is not as varied as you say.

You're missing my point entirely. I'm saying it's not fair to portray Islam as a whole based solely on oppression in Islamic societies, nor is it accurate to portray all the problems in Islamic societies as a result of Islam.

I'm only portraying the facts. They paint a consistent picture for anyone willing to take an objective look at the real truth.

 

[spryllino]

You are too naive about ideology and the role it plays in the State and, by extension, the real actions of a people through State actors rather than just the intentions of individuals in their private lives.

Stop the ad hominems.

 

[Squonk]

The argument Ayn Rand is putting forward is that Islam slows scientific progress. Thus it's still relevant.

I disagree with Ayn Rand if he claims that slowing scientific progress is something inherent in islam, it clearly isn't, as history proves. But I'd agree that islam in its current form slows scientific progress TODAY. But it's not about specific dogmas of islam, more of the attitude that many muslims hold, the conviction that Al-Qur'an contains scientific facts and each and every word of is true, perfect etc. Such convictions exist among some of the nuttier christians in USA as well, and in this sence some forms of christianity today slow scientific progress as well. But such convictions are fringy in modern christianity. In islam they are much more spread and in many schools lessons about some sciences start with what Al-Qur'an has to say in this subject. That is the problem. Maurice Bucaille is one of the biggest evildoers in this subject.

 

[Masada]

SA, Iran, Kuweit, Bahrein, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, Azerbeijan are full of oil. Syria has its own deposits too. Libya, Algeria have large oil/gas deposits as well.

Right, coool. I challenge you to find a single country that doesn't have domestic oil of some sort. The crucial thing is not that they have it but the value of the oil relative to population. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, to some extent, are laughing (Dutch Disease and Unitary Resource Dependence are baaaaad things by the way). The rest, well, I have no idea. I suspect that if we adjusted prices in real terms we might find that the relative value of Azerbaijan's oil isn't quite as great as it might first appear in our present climate of very expensive oil. I would take that a little further and look at say real average realised prices going back 50 years? That gives you three oil shocks; which balance out against the three low points. Should be a fair comparison if ma' mind is still sharp on these kinds of things. Dunno about gas-LNG that's really only come onto the scene in the last decade in a major way outside of Japan. I honestly don't know how to reconcile that to disallow for variation.

My point is clear: without european/american involvement, these countries wouldn't profit from their natural deposits, which would make them much poorer.

Saudi Arabia became a major producer without being a colony and Malaysia only became one after independence. Obviously, the technology was quite easily separable from the Imperialism. Furthermore both of the parties I've invoked have rather good relations with the oil companies they deal with. The relationship isn't necessarily exploitative for existing between two consenting parties. It would be exploitative if the oil companies were exempted from paying taxes (which were repatriated to the colonising power anyway) because it suited the colonial government for instance.

My point is a bit wider: colonialism and imperialism had many disadvantages, mut many, mostly economical, advantages too.

Well, sure, colonialism and imperialism had some advantages. Java got a nice road network. Sure, it was built using corvee labour and the East Indies were maintained using all the controls of a police state but that's fine. I guess... But I don't see how the point flows from one to the other. An oil derrick is great but only if it offers tangible benefits to those whom were colonised. The same goals for rail. It might have some ancillary benefits for passengers but that was usually secondary to its ability to further facilitate exports.

That this horrible "western exploitation" didn't last so long and couldn't have been so deep to be responsible for the low development of these lands.

I'm not sure I believe that. Length is not a necessary prerequisite for wrecking stuff. The Soviet Union did a fairly good number on Poland. It wasn't wholly exploitative but the limitations forced on the Polish economy through the systems both economic and political it forced on you didn't help. At a guess, Polish welfare relative to its pre-war levels viz. a viz. say the French probably declined. You might have gone from being say, half as poor, to being a quarter as wealthy. Speculation. But I'm reasonably sure you'll get the point.

 

[Squonk]

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/cap-pun.html

EDIT: wow, that didn't take long....

Huh? We are talking about stoning (of unfaithful women), not about death penalty in general. I am not convinced by these opinions anyway.

Please provide me with examples of christians stoning unfaithful women.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'll make a historical analogy that best describes this situation. When we went to war with Germany, Japan and Italy in WW2, we were at war with a group of ideologies.

You mean like fascism and totalitarianism? Then how do you explain that the US supported so many governments which were fascist and totalitarian after WWII if we were actually at war with ideology instead of specific countries? Why are so many of our allies even today under totalitarian rule with governments which are just as bad in many respects?

You have to be careful to not believe all the propaganda deliberately created to incite hatred and enmity towards our supposed "enemies" during such times. We declared war on Japan because they attacked Pearl Harbor. Germany declared war on the US in return. It had nothing to do with their ideologies.

We are at "war" with a handful of diehard fanatics who are resentful of past American foreign policy and deliberate meddling in their affairs, not 1.5 billion people who just want to live their lives in peace. And their diehard fanatics are really at war with our own more than they are the typical American. It's really a shame that people like Terry Jones and Geert Wilders aren't given the opportunity to engage in actual combat with bin Laden and the al Qaida. Perhaps then they could both destroy each other and leave the world a much better place.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

Huh? We are talking about stoning (of unfaithful women), not about death penalty in general. I am not convinced by these opinions anyway.

Please provide me with examples of christians stoning unfaithful women.

This isn't about stoining in particular, it is about the Koran prescribing death for certain offenses. All abrahamic religions condone capital punishment. Therefore, the problem is not with Islam, it is with all Abrahamic religions.

Singling out Islam for being "evil" cannot be done without also implicating all other Abrahamic religions. If Islam is evil, so is Christianity and Judaism.

On a side note, the US President Obama was on tv earlier (even here in Canada) and I think he summed it up best when he said "A religion did not attack us". He also stated that you should not "hide behind a wall of suspicion". The US was built on the backs of tolerance and freedom (even religious freedom, oh my!). Something people such as Ayn Rand seem to have forgotten.

 

[Ayn Rand]

You mean like fascism and totalitarianism? Then how do you explain that the US supported so many governments which were fascist and totalitarian after WWII if we were actually at war with ideology instead of specific countries? Why are so many of our allies even today under totalitarian rule with governments which are just as bad in many respects?

That's a very complex subject and we can't get into that here.

You have to be careful in such instances to not believe all the propaganda deliberately created to incite hatred and enmity towards our supposed "enemies" during such times.

But as you point out, we are allied to many of these people as well so it can't all be warmongering propaganda. We should criticise countries consistently, based on principle, which is what I am doing.

We are at "war" with a handful of diehard fanatics who are resentful of past American foreign policy and deliberate meddling in their affairs, not 1.5 billion people who just want to live their lives in peace. And their diehard fanatics are really at war with our own more than they are the typical American. It's really a shame that people like Terry Jones and Geert Wilders aren't given the opportunity to engage in actual combat with bin Laden and the al Qaida. Perhaps then they could both destroy each other and leave the world a much better place.

The intentions of those 1.5 billion people don't automatically equate to actions of equal magnitude. There is the mechanism of the State, which acts on their behalf or commands them for its own purposes.

Islam as a State ideology is evil - as all religion quickly seems to become whenever it is given access to State power. That crazy minority you are talking about are large enough to control Islamic States. And the 1.5 billion well-intentioned muslims you refer to are sufficiently over-awed and unquestioning to conform to oppressive Islamic States and support them.

This then leads to evil actions. Whether it is done by a minority of people or not is irrelevant. Whether the majority wanted something better and more decent, is irrelevant. The simple act of submission to dictatorship is an evil act - possibly the most evil act any person anywhere can engage in [because it can destroy all progress and freedom for generations, as happened with Islamic countries for over a thousand years]. A religion or ideology that encourages this submission has to be described as immoral.