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132 comments

1 CuriousLurker  Oct 4, 2014 4:02:57pm

Well said. I get tired of people acting like free speech only works one way—i.e. as long as I’m not calling for violence, I should be able to say whatever I want, no matter how outrageously bigoted, racist, sexist, etc. it is, and anyone who disagrees and pushes back is an enemy of free speech.

I’ve been glad that I’ve been seeing more & more articles lately from atheists who’re getting fed up with people like Harris, Dawkins, and Maher (though it’s not clear to me if Maher considers himself an atheist or simply an asshole).

OTOH, it’s depressing to hear many in the crowd cheering the bigotry. *sigh*

2 StephenMeansMe  Oct 4, 2014 4:19:24pm

The saddest thing for me is that Maher is so close to a good argument but falls in a pile of bigoted shit instead.

It’s not Islam per se that is bad, it’s any belief system’s claim of immunity to criticism. Once that’s in place, the belief system can be used to justify any base human impulse (because who are you to criticize it?)—-it’s not like Islamic extremists are doing anything beyond the pale for Christian or Hindu or Communist extremists, historically speaking.

Liberalism’s great strength is its acceptance of criticism, albeit imperfectly. That’s what Maher et al should drive home, but they don’t. :(

3 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Oct 4, 2014 6:50:07pm

The video in the OP is a short excerpt of a much longer segment.

Youtube Video

Someone please do me a favor and watch that whole thing (as I have done) and explain to me, like I’m 5 years old, which specific parts are bigoted.

Really. You’d be doing your fellow man a favor. I’m not seeing it.

4 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce  Oct 4, 2014 8:49:18pm

re: #2 StephenMeansMe

It’s not Islam per se that is bad, it’s any belief system’s claim of immunity to criticism.

1) Islam is a belief system.
1a) Islam is a belief system that claims immunity to criticism.

5 Islamo-Masonic Conspirator  Oct 5, 2014 3:46:34am

It’s not entirely irrelevant what the traditional core religious beliefs are. It’s not entirely true that only social factors matter. But the point to be made is that religion can be transformed into less bigoted and violent forms. People sometimes cite that tired joke about Quaker terrorists, meaning: see, Islam is so obviously different, wink wink nudge nudge. And yet Quakers stem from the very same violent Abrahamic tradition. Their Bible is no less genocide-filled or stoning-endorsing. So this is actually a counterpoint to that kind of thinking. Traditional religions have violent roots but can overcome them with time.

And yes, most of today’s Islamic implementations are pretty illiberal. But how does saying something so cliche, uninformative and formal-logically unsound as “All Islam is [something or other]” help to improve the situation? Maybe it’s more productive to find the ways to help the liberal and moderate factions bloom among the Muslims?

6 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 7:24:50am

re: #3 First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

33 seconds -- “then when you say ‘in the muslim world this is what’s lacking’ - then they get upset”

Of course “they” do. It’s normal to get upset when someone makes a sweeping generalization about an entire class of people because that is bigotry. In this case the class is “muslim” and Bill and other bigots want to paint them a monolithic. If you replace “Muslim world” with “Jewish World” or “Christian World” would it be ok? (because for any supposed “bad Muslim practice” you care to name I can find a corollary to in other religions.) Which Muslim world? Indonesia or Malaysia where they mix with all other religions? Myanmar where they are being genocidally slaughtered by Buddhists? Bangladesh where a woman is head of state? Which world? Do we get to pretend that all christians want to stone gays because Gary North, the Rushdoonies, and the Phelps do? Do we get to pretend that all atheists are asshole misogynists because Richard Dawkins and Thunderfoot are?

7 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 7:44:37am

50 seconds - “Liberals have failed on criticizing theocracy”

— speaker lists liberal criticisms of Christian theocrats and willfully omits liberal criticisms of theocracy in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other theocratic Islamic nations. Lying to further your argument and omission of facts are common tools of bigots. They also try to make the exception the rule. More Muslims live in democracies than in theocracies. Even a country with hinterlands full of extreme religious fundamentalists like Pakistan has Parliamentary rule overall.

8 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 7:53:59am

1:00 min: “We’ve been sold this meme of Islamophobia”

Bullshit I criticize countries for specific laws and deeds all the time, I criticize specific groups all the time. I see others doing this as well all the time. I don’t get called an “Islamophobe”, they don’t get called Islamophobes. Those promulgating sweeping assertions about Islam or all muslims that originated with the Spencer and Geller crowd do get called Islamophobes.

Here’s an example:

ISIS is an evil group of Takfirist throwbacks trying to instigate another Fitna —the leaders of ISIS are callously using fundamentalist claptrap to gain personal power, wealth, and prestige and definitely need to either be killed; or be captured, tried, and executed.

Now we are only a minute in, do I really need to continue or can you perhaps start thinking for yourself instead of lazily grasping agit prop?

9 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 10:59:18am

Maher didn’t do a very good job of arguing it, but he is stumbling and bumbling his way to a valid point. Harris did a better job of it.

His point is not that a huge number of Muslims support ISIS or their ilk (they don’t). It’s also not that a huge number of Muslims support theocratic governance (though a troubling percentage certainly do).

The problem is the vast centre of “conservative” Muslims, who may be appalled by the tactics of ISIS, but see no real problem with condemning converts to death, or engaging in severe repression of women, homosexuals, Christians, atheists, and any other minority that doesn’t strictly conform to Islamic norms. Maher is right, polls do support the notion that this represents a broad swathe of Muslim society, whether liberals in the West care to admit it or not.

If these are in fact the prevailing views of society in many Muslim countries, that makes it EASIER for groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda to persist, and gain new recruits, even if the majority still disapproves of their more brutal methods. And until that changes, jihadism in its current form will not be defeated. And it certainly isn’t impossible for things to change, Islamic society before the 70s and 80s was much more open to Western, liberalizing influences, as we can see in old pictures of Beirut, Baghdad, even Kabul. Ironically, western interventions and military actions played no small part in making things go in the opposite direction. If change is going to come to the Muslim world, I think it will have to come from within, and not from US bombs currently raining on Iraq and Syria.

10 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 11:18:56am

re: #9 Desmond

Displace yourself in time a short distance, to when conditions in rural America were the same as the conditions in some rural muslim countries and you would find the same attitudes. Our “enlightenment” is only recent, so no Bill Maher is not “sort of right”. Until just recently in Utah you could request beheading as your means of execution if you were on death row. The last decapitation punishment in a democracy happened in 1977. You’ve defeated your own argument, and Bill’s point. As you pointed out, in the sixties and seventies, stewardesses on Pakistan Airlines wore mini-skirts. So the current wave of fundamentalism is not the religion or muslims per se, but a dangerous and violent subsect, no where near as prevalent as you or Bill would paint them.

You can find the same repressive attitudes and culture in Sub Saharan African CHRISTIAN countries like Eritrea and Nigeria, where they still burn witches and agitate to put gays to death. So like Bill you are still failing if you are trying to make it “Muslim” thing.

11 wrenchwench  Oct 5, 2014 11:19:51am

re: #9 Desmond

If these are in fact the prevailing views of society in many Muslim countries…

That’s a pretty big ‘if’, and citing Maher doesn’t count as verification. Harris mentions a poll of British Muslims, as though it is representative of something. I doubt there is enough polling and statistics to support a claim of “Islam is the motherload of bad ideas”. Even from an atheist who thinks all religions are loads of bad ideas, it is nothing but ignorant (possibly profitable) bigotry on Harris’s part to single out Islam as ‘the motherload’.

12 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 11:21:59am

re: #9 Desmond

You also forget the prevailing views here in the US, news.nationalgeographic.com

13 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 11:28:32am

In the subcontinent of Asia, child brides are common, but that practice is not confined to Islam. In pre Islamic days they put women in hijabs, so that’s not confined to Islam. (Also consider the modest garb forced on women by several Christian sects before you cast that stone.) In Sub Saharan Africa, FGM is practiced by Christians as well as Muslims. In the DRC the LRA Christian army has mutilated and kidnapped thousands.

The difference between the two is that there isn’t a well oiled agit prop machine rubbing your face in that like there is when someone from Islam does it. You are buying into the clash of civilizations crowds’ agitprop when propagate the lies that it’s just Muslims who do that.

14 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 1:41:10pm

re: #10 Randall Gross

You’ve defeated your own argument, and Bill’s point. As you pointed out, in the sixties and seventies, stewardesses on Pakistan Airlines wore mini-skirts. So the current wave of fundamentalism is not the religion or muslims per se, but a dangerous and violent subsect, no where near as prevalent as you or Bill would paint them.

A dangerous and violent subsect yes, but a subsect that feeds off of the relative tolerance of such views by the wider population. These are differences of degree, not of kind. For example, Joe Muslim in Cairo may not believe in murdering Christians because they are Christians, but does he support equal rights for Christians? Of course not, they are kaffir. Until the average Muslim comes around to the view that people should be treated equally under the law regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or religion (as much of the Christian world has), there will be a base of support for Jihadism that isn’t easy to dismiss as a small minority.

You can find the same repressive attitudes and culture in Sub Saharan African CHRISTIAN countries like Eritrea and Nigeria, where they still burn witches and agitate to put gays to death. So like Bill you are still failing if you are trying to make it “Muslim” thing.

It’s pretty telling that we have to go to places like Eritrea to find Christians acting like that. For the vast majority of the Christian world, burning witches and killing heretics are things of the past. And in much of the Muslim world, people don’t “agitate” to have gays put to death, they ARE put to death. In our supposed “ally”, Saudi Arabia, sodomy, homosexuality, and lesbianism are punishable by death, often by beheading. A bit far removed from Southern Baptists telling gays they will go to hell, or the Catholic Pope opposing gay marriage but equivocating on civil unions, wouldn’t you say?

Look, the point is NOT that Islam is uniquely repressive, or uniquely leads to violent ideologies like jihadism. We’ve seen plenty of examples throughout history of repression and violent, genocidal ideologies that have nothing to do with Islam, and a fair share of them have had a lot to do with Christianity. All I am saying is that at this current moment of history, the Islamic world has a particular problem with this, and it is enabled by the strongly conservative views held by much of the population.

Liberals do shy away from this reality, often for good and understandable reasons. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

15 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 1:53:15pm

re: #11 wrenchwench

That’s a pretty big ‘if’, and citing Maher doesn’t count as verification. Harris mentions a poll of British Muslims, as though it is representative of something. I doubt there is enough polling and statistics to support a claim of “Islam is the motherload of bad ideas”. Even from an atheist who thinks all religions are loads of bad ideas, it is nothing but ignorant (possibly profitable) bigotry on Harris’s part to single out Islam as ‘the motherload’.

You know, the polls are out there, you just have to google them.

pewglobal.org
The new poll finds broad support for harsh punishments: 78% favor death for those who leave Islam; 80% favor whippings and cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery; and 83% favor stoning adulterers.

pewglobal.org
77% of Egyptian Muslims favor floggings and amputation
58% of Jordanian Muslims favor floggings and amputation
36% of Indonesian Muslims favor floggings and amputation
82% of Pakistanis favor floggings and amputation
65% of Nigerian Muslims favor floggings and amputation

82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
70% of Jordanian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
42% of Indonesian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
82% of Pakistanis favor stoning adulterers
56% of Nigerian Muslims favor stoning adulterers

49% of Nigerian Muslims have favorable view of al-Qaeda (34% unfavorable)
23% of Indonesians have favorable view of al-Qaeda (56% unfavorable)
34% of Jordanians have favorable view of al-Qaeda
25% of Indonesians have “confidence” in Osama bin Laden (59% had confidence in 2003)
1 in 5 Egyptians have “confidence” in Osama bin Laden

telegraph.co.uk (40% of UK Muslims want Sharia)

macdonaldlaurier.ca
35% of Canadian Muslims would not repudiate al-Qaeda

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Islam the “motherload of bad ideas”, that’s a needless inflammatory statement. But neither would I look at these polls and try to draw some equivalency with fundamentalist Christians in the US, as many liberals tend to do when confronted with these numbers. I’m not in favor of fundamentalism of any kind, but we can’t ignore that the Muslim world has a particular problem with fundamentalism and intolerant views of women, homosexuals, and practitioners of minority religions. Not if we’re being honest.

16 wrenchwench  Oct 5, 2014 1:53:25pm

re: #14 Desmond

Until the average Muslim comes around to the view that people should be treated equally under the law regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or religion (as much of the Christian world has), there will be a base of support for Jihadism that isn’t easy to dismiss as a small minority.

The parenthetical statement made me laugh. The straw man at the end lets me know you are a propagandist. We are dropping fucking bombs on the ‘base of support for Jihadism’, although you see that base of support as the general population, while I see that base of support as ISIS.

All I am saying is that at this current moment of history, the Islamic world has a particular problem with this, and it is enabled by the strongly conservative views held by much of the population.

If you can’t make a factual case for ‘the strongly conservative views held by much of the population’, then you are not talking about reality.

17 wrenchwench  Oct 5, 2014 2:06:17pm

re: #15 Desmond

Here’s a much more recent poll indicating a lack of support for Islamic extremism in Muslim countries.

18 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 2:11:52pm

How about American Muslims, or most European Muslims Desmond? Why are they conveniently left out of your poll? What about the divide between Urban and educated Muslims and rural uneducated Muslims, or is that not a consideration? Does PEW have the same poll for xtians in Sub saharan Africa? Why not?

After several decades of clash of civilizations propaganda you should have learned to stop supporting one side’s propaganda over the other because this is not a Sport - Islam is going through a slow motion centuries long reformation, and there are reactionary forces against that change - just as there were reactionary forces against Xtian reformation.

19 Charles Johnson  Oct 5, 2014 2:13:06pm

re: #9 Desmond

If change is going to come to the Muslim world, I think it will have to come from within, and not from US bombs currently raining on Iraq and Syria.

In which case, erasing distinctions between moderate elements and extremists, and spreading fear and hatred toward the whole religion would seem to be rather counter-productive.

Human beings in general tend not to react well when they’re brow-beaten by outsiders.

20 wrenchwench  Oct 5, 2014 2:19:53pm

re: #19 Charles Johnson

In which case, erasing distinctions between moderate elements and extremists, and spreading fear and hatred toward the whole religion would seem to be rather counter-productive.

Human beings in general tend not to react well when they’re brow-beaten by outsiders.

I guess it’s a fine line between erasing those distinctions and ‘a needless inflammatory statement.’

21 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 2:20:43pm

re: #14 Desmond

Here’s data from a poll that’s not five years old:

Extremist <Twelve percent give al Qaeda a favorable rating, while just 8% hold a positive view of the Taliban. Still, negative ratings for these organizations have declined since 2009, when fighting between the Taliban and the Pakistani military in the Swat Valley generated strong concerns about the threats from extremists. However, one-third or more do not give an opinion about these organizations.

When considering the threat these organizations pose, Pakistanis express less concern over al Qaeda - less than half (42%) consider it a serious threat, on par with attitudes in recent years.

Concerns about India on the Rise AgainThree-quarters The perceived threat posed by India differs somewhat by region. People living in the regions of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa say India is a much greater concern than other Pakistanis. Eight-in-ten or more in Punjab (84%) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (80%) think India presents a serious threat to Pakistan. Fewer residents of Sindh (55%) and Baluchistan (35%) believe India is a serious concern.

22 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 2:33:47pm

re: #16 wrenchwench

The parenthetical statement made me laugh. The straw man at the end lets me know you are a propagandist. We are dropping fucking bombs on the ‘base of support for Jihadism’, although you see that base of support as the general population, while I see that base of support as ISIS.

I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. ISIS has a base of support that goes beyond themselves, otherwise they couldn’t exist. What I’m saying is that the Islamic world’s problems are not limited to 20-30,000 members of ISIS.

If you can’t make a factual case for ‘the strongly conservative views held by much of the population’, then you are not talking about reality.

I think I have been making a factual case. I mean, really? You don’t think supporting stoning adulturers, and beheading homosexuals and apostates is a wee bit “strongly conservative”?

23 goddamnedfrank  Oct 5, 2014 2:38:10pm

re: #15 Desmond

I’m not in favor of fundamentalism of any kind, but we can’t ignore that the Muslim world has a particular problem with fundamentalism and intolerant views of women, homosexuals, and practitioners of minority religions. Not if we’re being honest.

How “particular” is this problem when placed in an historical context? It’s pretty easy to sit here in the modern democratic US and just assume things were always this way here, because we humans have short lives and thus limited perspectives. Fifty years ago Jim Crow was both the de facto and de jure state of play in the Southern US, blacks were routinely beaten, raped, castrated and murdered for being black. Seventy-five years ago the Tuskegee experiments deliberately infected black men with syphilis and withheld treatment for it simply to document how they’d die. A hundred and fifty years ago, legal slavery.

We have Christian leaders in this country traveling to Africa to convince Christians there to enact death penalty legislation for gays, because they can’t accomplish the same goal here. We have Christians and conservatives here still resisting our own steady progress towards gender and marital equality. We still have the Klan. We may have effectively marginalized the shitty voices that used to hold sway over our national politics, but they still remain as a diminished vestigial reminder of what we evolved from, like some societal appendix. And like an appendix they sometimes still get enflamed and make us sick.

So while it’s tempting to look at the Middle East, Arab countries, or even the larger “Muslim World” with condemnation and contempt, the question is how useful or instructive is that? We didn’t exactly evolve as the result of external approbation, shaming campaigns, or (especially) force, so why would we expect others to. All we generally accomplish by such unfocused broad brush stereotyping is harden the hearts and shut down the internal dialog of the very societies we ostensibly want to see improved.

24 goddamnedfrank  Oct 5, 2014 2:44:33pm

re: #22 Desmond

I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. ISIS has a base of support that goes beyond themselves, otherwise they couldn’t exist. What I’m saying is that the Islamic world’s problems are not limited to 20-30,000 members of ISIS.

ISIS’s base of support is largely sectarian, and was created, at least in Iraq, by the corruption and incompetence of the Al Maliki government. Those Sunni factions working with ISIS now were once known as the Awakening Councils, and were to a great degree responsible for the successes attributed in our press to George Bush’s “surge.” They’re the ones who effectively neutralized Al Qaeda in Iraq, and then Al Maliki’s government deliberately alienated them and froze them out of power. ISIS is an ally of convenience for them, as they see themselves as having been disenfranchised by their own government.

25 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 2:44:57pm

re: #18 Randall Gross

How about American Muslims, or most European Muslims Desmond? Why are they conveniently left out of your poll? What about the divide between Urban and educated Muslims and rural uneducated Muslims, or is that not a consideration? Does PEW have the same poll for xtians in Sub saharan Africa? Why not?

Of course there is a divide between people with more or less education, or more or less urbanized, there always is. In fact, I think education is the key. Education, specifically of young girls, is the single most important factor in changing strongly patriarchal societies. If women are educated they aren’t nearly as likely to defer to men, and accept a second class status in society. It happened in the West and it can certainly happen in the Middle East as well.

Islam is going through a slow motion centuries long reformation, and there are reactionary forces against that change - just as there were reactionary forces against Xtian reformation.

Yes, very true. But does that mean we have to ignore and excuse blatantly illiberal views? Dismiss any criticism of such as “propaganda”?

26 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 2:49:46pm

re: #25 Desmond

That’s the point Mr. Negative kharma in just one day, nobody is ignoring it, and especially not here. We just also like to call out people like Bill & yourself who like to further general hate propaganda against large bodies of people who are actually all individuals. Because that’s bigotry, plain and simple.

27 electrotek  Oct 5, 2014 3:00:43pm

I’d like to see Bill Maher bash on Judaism with the same ferocity as he does towards Islam. Will that ever happen? I think we all know the answer to that.

28 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 3:12:03pm

re: #19 Charles Johnson

In which case, erasing distinctions between moderate elements and extremists, and spreading fear and hatred toward the whole religion would seem to be rather counter-productive.

I agree. But I don’t know if Maher is trying to erase those distinctions, and I’m certainly not. Of course there are moderate elements, and we should support them by whatever means are feasible. But we shouldn’t blindly assume those moderate elements speak for a huge proportion of the population. That has led the US to make some false assumptions over the years, supporting democratic elections in various places in the hopes of “moderate elements” winning, only to see hardline Islamists or sectarian ideologues come to power.

29 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 3:14:20pm

re: #28 Desmond

I just posted a new survey that shows only 11 percent of Pakistan’s population supporting the Taliban, and only 8 percent of the population supporting AQ, yet you still try to pretend that some imaginary majority of Muslims support ISIS. That’s exactly why you are a bigot, plain and simple, pure and evil.

30 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 3:21:05pm

re: #26 Randall Gross

That’s the point Mr. Negative kharma in just one day, nobody is ignoring it, and especially not here. We just also like to call out people like Bill & yourself who like to further general hate propaganda against large bodies of people who are actually all individuals. Because that’s bigotry, plain and simple.

Now you’re just engaging in ad hominem, because I’m not furthering any “hate propaganda”. Is it “hate propaganda” to point out that many Muslim countries have far more intolerant religious and social views than countries in the West? That’s not propaganda, that’s a fact. Maher’s point is that you’re not much of a liberal if you defend or excuse a blatantly illiberal system.

Let’s put it another way, suppose I say North Korea has a horrible totalitarian government that suppresses individuality and freedom of thought, and imprisons and tortures vast numbers of people for the most minor of offenses. And suppose I also postulate that most North Koreans actually support their government, for whatever reason, be it brainwashing, lack of education, or even habit (as is often the case with religion)? Am I then spreading “hate propaganda” towards North Koreans if I criticize the policies of the North Korean government?

31 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 3:21:53pm

re: #29 Randall Gross

I just posted a new survey that shows only 11 percent of Pakistan’s population supporting the Taliban, and only 8 percent of the population supporting AQ, yet you still try to pretend that some imaginary majority of Muslims support ISIS. That’s exactly why you are a bigot, plain and simple, pure and evil.

And that’s a blatant lie as I said no such thing. If this is the level of debate I’ll get from you, I don’t see much sense in continuing.

32 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 3:25:40pm

re: #30 Desmond

You are a bigot, that’s not ad hominem and that’s a fact because you keep saying things like “Muslims” (in general) and “The West” (in general) you’re a bigot stating the exact same things over and over agains and echoing Anders Breivik, and not even recognizing it.

Youtube Video

this vid’s for you.

33 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 3:27:42pm

re: #30 Desmond

“Am I then spreading “hate propaganda” towards North Koreans if I criticize the policies of the North Korean government?”

But that’s exactly what you are not doing. If you want to talk about the tyranny in Saudi Arabia, then do so but don’t pin it on “Muslims”.

34 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 3:28:42pm

re: #31 Desmond

And that’s a blatant lie as I said no such thing. If this is the level of debate I’ll get from you, I don’t see much sense in continuing.

I don’t see the point in continuing either since you are ill equipped to see your own biases.

35 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 3:46:29pm

re: #33 Randall Gross

But that’s exactly what you are not doing. If you want to talk about the tyranny in Saudi Arabia, then do so but don’t pin it on “Muslims”.

So we can talk in vague terms about theocracy and religious intolerance, but only if we don’t mention the word “Muslim”? That’s interesting.

I don’t see how anyone reading my posts could assume that I’m speaking about all Muslims or that I somehow believe that the majority of Muslims support ISIS (I said the exact opposite in my first post). That’s a juvenile, combative, and careless response to my argument, and I think you know it.

I’ve pointed out that things haven’t always been as they are, and are clearly reversible (Maher is mistaken if he assumes that Islamic countries will never change). I’ve also pointed out that Islam has no monopoly on extremism, and that things have been made worse by Western intervention.

But your only response is to accuse me over and over of being an evil bigot. OK.

36 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 4:08:33pm

re: #27 electrotek

I’d like to see Bill Maher bash on Judaism with the same ferocity as he does towards Islam. Will that ever happen? I think we all know the answer to that.

You must not watch his show with any regularity. Maher is a hardline atheist and views all religions with disdain, including Judaism and Christianity, although he believes Islam to inspire more violence in our present moment of history.

37 freetoken  Oct 5, 2014 4:27:52pm

re: #15 Desmond

One place where you’ve gone wrong is to try and compare a person from culture X to American culture.

While those polls certainly indicate that those who self-identify as “Muslim” at those locations choose a harsher punishment than some Americans would choose, you have not measured what the non-Muslims in those locations also believe.

For example, in Russia today the Orthodox Russian Church takes some pretty hard line stances on certain issues compared to, say, your local Methodist church out here in SoCal would take on the same issue. Both will claim to be “Christian”, but the culture of the Russian Orthodox leaders in Russia today and the average Southern Californian is different.

I am very critical of all of these Iron Age religions - Judaism, Christianity, an Islam - and the latter two are riffs on the former and all of them have folded in so many primitive practices that I still feel that we collectively would be better if our societies moved away from literal beliefs in these religions.

Perhaps the blowback against the Muslim haters has clouded the larger discussion about ancient religions not fitting into a modern world, but unfortunately people like Maher are not making the issue any clearer. Maher like all shout-media makes money by throwing the largest temper-tantrum possible, simply to get eyes-on-product.

38 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 4:28:08pm

re: #35 Desmond

That’s exactly what I didn’t say, and you know it. I’m saying be specific, don’t be an asshole bigot by using the generic “Muslim” or “Muslim World” when there are very specific actors, rulers, and very specific groups responsible for the acts you want to tar all Muslims with.

39 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 4:30:23pm

More gays are murdered in non-Islamic countries than in Islamic countries:

76crimes.com

40 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 4:33:07pm

Aside:

In Brazil, 1,341 LGBT people were reported murdered from 2007 through 2012.

you wouldn’t know that from reading Glen Greenwald.

41 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 4:37:13pm

re: #37 freetoken

That’s a very valid point freetoken. And I really don’t think Maher’s rants are the best way to make progress on this issue. But it also doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

42 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 4:41:00pm

re: #41 Desmond

That’s a very valid point freetoken. And I really don’t think Maher’s rants are the best way to make progress on this issue. But it also doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

Yes, it means he’s wrong in singling out Muslims for many of the issues stated. Laws against homosexuality are all through Africa and Asia, including Majority Christian Countries and Majority Hindu countries, yet he paints it as a Muslim issue.

43 Desmond  Oct 5, 2014 4:46:52pm

re: #38 Randall Gross

That’s exactly what I didn’t say, and you know it. I’m saying be specific, don’t be an asshole bigot by using the generic “Muslim” or “Muslim World” when there are very specific actors, rulers, and very specific groups responsible for the acts you want to tar all Muslims with.

78% of Pakistanis favoring death for those who leave Islam is a “very specific group”?

To pre-empt your expected strawman argument, no, that doesn’t mean 78% of Pakistanis support Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS. But it does mean that some 78% of Pakistanis have beliefs which any true liberal would have to consider illiberal.

More gays are murdered in non-Islamic countries than in Islamic countries:

Your link does not state that at all. And a country with a higher murder rate would expect to have more murders of homosexuals AND heterosexuals, they are not necessarily hate crimes, which your link points out. Many Middle Eastern countries have relatively low rates of violent crime, the state often has a near monopoly on violence. Furthermore, even admitting to being a homosexual is a dangerous thing in many countries. Hate crimes towards homosexuals are often not acknowledged at all, but they still happen. Simply because more homosexuals are murdered in Brazil than in a certain Islamic country does not prove that Brazil is less tolerant of homosexuality.

But once again, I will agree with you that Islam has no monopoly on discrimination towards homosexuals, Putin’s Russia, firmly in the Christian “West” is a good example of that. Though even in Russia I doubt we will see homosexuality punishable by death.

44 lostlakehiker  Oct 5, 2014 6:53:55pm

re: #2 StephenMeansMe

The saddest thing for me is that Maher is so close to a good argument but falls in a pile of bigoted shit instead.

It’s not Islam per se that is bad, it’s any belief system’s claim of immunity to criticism. Once that’s in place, the belief system can be used to justify any base human impulse (because who are you to criticize it?)—-it’s not like Islamic extremists are doing anything beyond the pale for Christian or Hindu or Communist extremists, historically speaking.

Liberalism’s great strength is its acceptance of criticism, albeit imperfectly. That’s what Maher et al should drive home, but they don’t. :(

The Nazis didn’t revel publicly in what was going on at Auschwitz. The Communists didn’t gloat over their Gulags or their Killing Fields. Posting massacres of surrendered POWs, crucifying children, cutting heads off and putting it all out there for all to see? Other extremists movements have done worse, but none, to my knowledge, have publicly boasted of it to the whole world. So there is something, at any rate, new and different here.

45 CuriousLurker  Oct 5, 2014 6:59:25pm

re: #44 lostlakehiker

The Nazis didn’t revel publicly in what was going on at Auschwitz. The Communists didn’t gloat over their Gulags or their Killing Fields. Posting massacres of surrendered POWs, crucifying children, cutting heads off and putting it all out there for all to see? Other extremists movements have done worse, but none, to my knowledge, have publicly boasted of it to the whole world. So there is something, at any rate, new and different here.

Yeah, if you choose to ignore serial killers who revel in their notoriety, public lynchings, the torture & prisoner abuse photos taken at Abu Ghraib, etc.

46 Charles Johnson  Oct 5, 2014 7:09:50pm

re: #44 lostlakehiker

We didn’t have YouTube in World War II.

47 Charles Johnson  Oct 5, 2014 7:12:10pm

To make my point clear, if an uncensored propaganda outlet like YouTube had been available in World War II, I have no doubt the Third Reich would have made full use of it to justify their mass murder.

48 lostlakehiker  Oct 5, 2014 7:17:43pm

re: #47 Charles Johnson

To make my point clear, if an uncensored propaganda outlet like YouTube had been available in World War II, I have no doubt the Third Reich would have made full use of it to justify their mass murder.

They had newspapers and newsreels and Axis Sally. They had the means to communicate what they were doing to their own people and to anyone with a radio who was willing to listen.

But they didn’t justify it, nor even admit it. Not to their own populace at large, and certainly not to the wider world. They may have considered themselves in the right in their own minds, (but who knows? maybe they knew full well who they were and what they were up to and that it was way wrong) but they definitely knew that the wider world would disapprove and they calculated that the publicity would not work to their advantage.

49 lostlakehiker  Oct 5, 2014 7:25:37pm

re: #45 CuriousLurker

Yeah, if you choose to ignore serial killers who revel in their notoriety, public lynchings, the torture & prisoner abuse photos taken at Abu Ghraib, etc.

There have always been people like that. If you go back far enough, there have been “movements” like that. The Romans crucified the entirety of the surrendered slave revolt led by Spartacus, one to the “mile” or whatever it was (stadia?) they used back then, right on the main public highway of the empire. Whole cities were put to the sword by Genghis Khan and he didn’t care who knew it. Some crusader is “credited” with a line that, probably mangled in translation but the sense of it comes down, “Kill them all. God will know his own.” That we have the quote tells us all we need to know about whether they wanted it spread around.

But large groups of people, numbering in the tens of thousands and up, have shied away from that kind of publicity in the past few centuries. Until now.

50 electrotek  Oct 5, 2014 7:44:44pm

re: #36 Desmond

You must not watch his show with any regularity. Maher is a hardline atheist and views all religions with disdain, including Judaism and Christianity, although he believes Islam to inspire more violence in our present moment of history.

Yet he will never criticize Israel and if you do, you’re an Islamist according to his logic.

51 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 7:54:52pm

The link does indicate that more homosexuals are murdered in non islamic countries, true you do have to poke around the site a bit, and actually read a few of the posts, maps, and statistics and do some actual math but that shouldn’t be so hard for an enlightened westerner like yourself, n’est ce pas?

52 CuriousLurker  Oct 5, 2014 7:56:54pm

re: #49 lostlakehiker

There have always been people like that. […]

Yet in your #44 you said:

So there is something, at any rate, new and different here.

Now that I’ve provided some recent examples it’s suddenly changed to groups numbering tens of thousands (or more) and the time frame has changed. Never mind the difference in technology between now & even 20 years ago.

The intellectual dishonesty is amazing.

53 The War TARDIS  Oct 5, 2014 7:59:15pm

Not to mention that, if we were really serious about stopping fanaticism in the Muslim World, we would cut off support from the Gulf States (save Oman), as well as putting more space between us and Erdogan’s Turkey.

We also could put more pressure on Netanyahu to stop building settlements and moving the goalposts in regards to Palestinians.

54 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 8:00:45pm

Here’s an interactive map you can check, this covers worldwide transgender murders

transrespect-transphobia.org

of course you will still be in denial.

55 Randall Gross  Oct 5, 2014 8:11:42pm

re: #44 lostlakehiker

Apparently you’ve never heard of the Tamil Tigers, the original suicide bombing martyrdom video terror group. They’re Hindu/Dravidian.

56 CuriousLurker  Oct 5, 2014 8:19:24pm

The only thing that’s new is that hateful extremists now have the means to instantly reach millions of people and attempt to polarize everyone to bring about some kind of apocalyptic cultural holy war.

The people on here in the West and in those in the Mideast who obediently repeat the agitprop are their enablers.

All the technology, all the supposed cultural advancement, and it still comes down to the same old tribal shit. It’s disgusting. Even worse, it’s fucking stupid.

57 goddamnedfrank  Oct 5, 2014 8:24:12pm

re: #48 lostlakehiker

But they didn’t justify it, nor even admit it. Not to their own populace at large, and certainly not to the wider world.

Yes they did. Everyone in Germany knew what was going on.

THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout

What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.

…

The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.

In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.

Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.

“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”

Postwar Germany did a very good job of whitewashing the average citizen’s involvement and culpability in the atrocities that took place, creating a pretense that like Sgt Schultz they “knew nothing.” However recent research and documentation has put lie to those denials, they knew.

58 lostlakehiker  Oct 5, 2014 8:25:26pm

re: #52 CuriousLurker

Yet in your #44 you said:

Now that I’ve provided some recent examples it’s suddenly changed to groups numbering tens of thousands (or more) and the time frame has changed. Never mind the difference in technology between now & even 20 years ago.

[Embedded image]

The intellectual dishonesty is amazing.

Intellectual dishonesty?! My original post was clear enough. I spoke of the Nazis and the Communists. I did not, originally, speak of depraved individuals operating entirely outside the context of their own societies. My original examples were of large groups. The goalposts have not shifted one centimeter.

I also carefully chose the phrase “extremist movements” to distinguish even between groups such as Aum Shinrikyo, with tiny followings but still “groups”, and large scale “movements”.

The time frame is also unmoved. The Nazis and the Communists under discussion were, no matter how widely you cast the net, phenomena of the 19th and 20th centuries. I did not reach further back because yes, if you go far enough back, it’s not “new”. But in the time frame that is implicit in the examples, it is new. Again, no intellectual dishonesty, no moving of goalposts.

There is no page limit in which an essay can be confined that is not open to the style of criticism you allow yourself. Bad faith is presumed. Examples are brought up that contradict, not what I wrote, but what you unreasonably and unjustifiedly impute to me. No amount of care in exposition can foreclose such argumentation.

By now, you surely know exactly what I meant. You also know that it’s all true. And that it’s fair.

To draw an analogy, we have something new going on also in West Africa.

Oh, one might say, there have been Ebola outbreaks before.

But a fair reading would nod and realize—-yes but not on anything remotely of this scale.

And one might say, there have been epidemics before.

But a fair reading would nod and realize—-yes but not in the era of vaccines and modern medicine, not this lethal on a case by case basis. True, we have mass epidemics of the flu, and many more are killed than so far, or even prospectively with any luck at all, by Ebola. So one could argue, if in a picky mood, that it’s not new. But you know what I mean here too.

So I guess you’re just in a picky mood tonight. Understandable since once you assume bad faith and read casually and don’t do this checking of meaning, it sounds like an attack on your faith. Which it is not. Because that’s not me. I’ve read “Mother without a mask”. I’ve been to UAE, twice. The people there were good, as good as people get which is everywhere and always imperfect.

But—-ISIS is not good. And it’s bad in new ways, new for our own age, in that it revels in things that for centuries have been done, if done at all, away from the light.

59 lostlakehiker  Oct 5, 2014 8:32:11pm

re: #57 goddamnedfrank

Yes they did. Everyone in Germany knew what was going on.

Postwar Germany did a very good job of whitewashing the average citizen’s involvement and culpability in the atrocities that took place, creating a pretense that like Sgt Schultz they “knew nothing.” However recent research and documentation has put lie to those denials, they knew.

I’m not saying that the Germans didn’t know. I’m saying that the Nazis didn’t want to talk about it. They didn’t put it in their newsreels. They didn’t put it in their newspapers. And they didn’t put it on their radio.

Something that monstrous cannot be kept secret. Murder will out. But the knowledge that was going around was furtive. People spoke of it only one on one or in very well trusted company.

At the end of the war, Patton rounded up the notables from towns and villages in his sector, and marched them at bayonet point through the camps, so they could see with their own eyes what the government they’d been gears in had done. And smell it.

Many committed suicide. Remorse? Shame? Fear of punishment that would be worse than death? Who knows? But it seems from this that they hadn’t already fully taken it in. As they more likely would have if it had been front and center, all spelled out, in the newspapers etc.

60 Islamo-Masonic Conspirator  Oct 5, 2014 8:41:34pm

re: #57 goddamnedfrank

Yes they did. Everyone in Germany knew what was going on.

Nope. Unless by “what’s going on” you simply mean the existence of some camps.

Of course everybody knew about the existence of concentration camps as such - Dachau was opened in 1933. Nobody made a secret of the mere existence of the camps.
What was officially a secret were the goings-on inside the camps, namely mistreatment of prisoners, experiments, etc. It was not advertised and when rumors got around, it was despite the intention of the Nazis.

And mass murder in far away extermination camps (which are not to be confused with “normal” concentration camps) is a wholly different cup of tea, and the same principle holds - the Nazis did try to keep things secret (in vain). (And certainly rumors about mass murder would fly around. But rumors are not the same as knowledge. Only a minority would actually know - from their relatives or friends in Einsatzgruppen, etc.)

61 CuriousLurker  Oct 5, 2014 9:13:38pm

re: #58 lostlakehiker

Oh, FFS—this is exactly the dishonesty I’m talking about.

Funny how whenever I push back it gets labeled as hypersensitivity by some or, to use your words, chalked up to supposedly not paying attention and/or just being “in a picky mood tonight”. Your condescension is noted and utterly useless.

For anyone who still doesn’t fucking get it: Criticism of the murderous bastards running ISIS doesn’t bother me in the least because the actions they call Islamic are unrecognizable to me as such. I have ZERO control over the shit they do on the other side of the world, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to kill myself by dragging around feelings of guilt for their actions and/or feeling I need to apologize for them. But you know what? When some asshole says “Muslims” or “the Muslim world” then that DOES include me and I’m not gonna take it. Is that perfectly, 100%, crystal-fucking-clear?

What pisses me off to no end is the apparent ease with which the jihadis manage to make supposedly modern, enlightened Westerners slide back into a mindset we claim to have left behind long ago. They know exactly how to pull our chains, and people get so damned distracted by their own knee-jerk reactions that they’re blind to how they’re being played. We’re letting them make the rules—that’s dangerous and beyond stupid. Wake up.

62 goddamnedfrank  Oct 5, 2014 9:15:56pm

re: #60 Islamo-Masonic Conspirator

Nope. Unless by “what’s going on” you simply mean the existence of some camps.

I mean in general the systematic, government led pogrom. I don’t have enough credulity to believe the average German didn’t know that an incredibly ugly and organized effort was taking place to make the Jews “go away.” And I’m fairly certain that most of them had a perfectly accurate notion of what that meant, at least in terms of broad strokes. This isn’t to say that they all approved, I’m sure lots of self preservation was at play, lots of people stayed silent because their lives and the lives of their children were at stake.

63 Islamo-Masonic Conspirator  Oct 5, 2014 9:28:01pm

re: #60 Islamo-Masonic Conspirator
From E.A. Johnson, K.-H. Reuband, What We Knew. Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany, 2005, pp. 393-4:

The survey and interview evidence also shows that information about the Holocaust became widespread toward the middle of the war years among the non-Jewish population in Germany. But exactly how widespread was it? On this point, the co-authors of this book have somewhat different assessments of the evidence. Karl-Heinz Reuband, a German sociologist who wrote the original draft of the chapters dealing with the German surveys conducted in Cologne, Krefeld, Dresden, and Berlin, argues that approximately one-third of the German population eventually became aware of the mass murder during the war years. Eric Johnson, an American historian who wrote the original draft of the chapters dealing with the Jewish surveys, thinks this estimate is too low. In Johnson’s view, a better estimate would be about half.
[…]
A second factor to consider has to do with how “awareness” of the Holocaust is defined. In our survey we did not simply ask people if they had become “aware” of the mass murder of the Jews before the end of the war. Rather, we asked them if they had “known” about it (gewußt), had “heard” about it (gehört), “suspected” it (geahnt), or not received any information about it at all (nichts davon). Reuband bases his estimate of one-third only on those who answered that they had either “known” about it or had “heard” about it. Johnson believes that this excludes many people who had in fact received information about the mass murder and should be included in our final estimate.

These are, of course, only ballpark figures. E.g. some people didn’t answer the survey. And contrary to both authors, it’s really controversial to include people who have “heard” among those who knew (much less those who merely “suspected”). Even the claim of having known is not always clear-cut, for one can think that one knew, yet one really didn’t - quite a lot of people imagine to have known about the soap made from Jews (which we now know to be a legend), because this was a relatively widespread war time rumor. Nevertheless, the point is clear - were the Nazis to advertise the fact, it wouldn’t be just half the population at best.

64 lostlakehiker  Oct 5, 2014 10:24:46pm

re: #61 CuriousLurker

Oh, FFS—this is exactly the dishonesty I’m talking about.

Funny how whenever I push back it gets labeled as hypersensitivity by some or, to use your words, chalked up to supposedly not paying attention and/or just being “in a picky mood tonight”. Your condescension is noted and utterly useless.

For anyone who still doesn’t fucking get it: Criticism of the murderous bastards running ISIS doesn’t bother me in the least because the actions they call Islamic are unrecognizable to me as such. I have ZERO control over the shit they do on the other side of the world, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to kill myself by dragging around feelings of guilt for their actions and/or feeling I need to apologize for them. But you know what? When some asshole says “Muslims” or “the Muslim world” then that DOES include me and I’m not gonna take it. Is that perfectly, 100%, crystal-fucking-clear?

What pisses me off to no end is the apparent ease with which the jihadis manage to make supposedly modern, enlightened Westerners slide back into a mindset we claim to have left behind long ago. They know exactly how to pull our chains, and people get so damned distracted by their own knee-jerk reactions that they’re blind to how they’re being played. We’re letting them make the rules—that’s dangerous and beyond stupid. Wake up.

It’s not “pushback” against what I actually said. And you’re the one slinging insults. You’re the one saying “dishonest” etc. If you’re writing that without having been in a bad mood or careless, then you don’t even have that excuse. There is nothing at all the least bit dishonest or inaccurate about what I wrote. I stand by every word of it, except if you insist that when I gave you the benefit of the doubt I was wrong, maybe I was.

And to be very clear, I never said, not explicitly and not by implication, that ISIS is really, truly, Islamic. It is, instead, LIKE I SAID, something new. And nor was the Rev. Jim Jones with his Guyana groupies and his KoolAid poison really, truly Christian. It’s just he didn’t have a twenty thousand man army to play with.

65 CuriousLurker  Oct 5, 2014 11:31:39pm

re: #64 lostlakehiker

It’s not “pushback” against what I actually said. And you’re the one slinging insults. You’re the one saying “dishonest” etc. If you’re writing that without having been in a bad mood or careless, then you don’t even have that excuse. There is nothing at all the least bit dishonest or inaccurate about what I wrote. I stand by every word of it, except if you insist that when I gave you the benefit of the doubt I was wrong, maybe I was.

And to be very clear, I never said, not explicitly and not by implication, that ISIS is really, truly, Islamic. It is, instead, LIKE I SAID, something new. And nor was the Rev. Jim Jones with his Guyana groupies and his KoolAid poison really, truly Christian. It’s just he didn’t have a twenty thousand man army to play with.

What I said was you claimed ISIS was something “new and different”, then you turned around and said “There have always been people like that.” I said you were being dishonest and moving the goalposts, and you were. As a matter of fact, you still are. I never said you explicitly said “ISIS is really, truly, Islamic” nor did I say you implied such—you just made that up. Either that or you’re the one not paying attention. My response to you in my #61 ended with “Your condescension is noted and utterly useless.”

This verbal shell game is how you’ve operated since the very first time I encountered you here over 4 years ago, which is why I’ve rarely attempted to engage in conversation with you. It’s a tedious and dishonest method of arguing and I consider it a waste of time.

I’m bored now, so we’re done—or at least I am—if you want to continue on your own, by all means go ahead and knock yourself out.

66 Jolo5309  Oct 6, 2014 4:08:01pm

Pew survey from 2013

Nevertheless, in six of the 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half of those who favor making Islamic law the official law also support executing apostates.
Taking the life of those who abandon Islam is most widely supported in Egypt (86%) and Jordan (82%). Roughly two-thirds who want sharia to be the law of the land also back this penalty in the Palestinian territories (66%). In the other countries surveyed in the Middle East-North Africa region, fewer than half take this view.

In Afghanistan, a substantial minority of Muslims (39%) (my note, 39% of 30 million is 11.5 million) say that this form of violence (my note: Suicide bombing) against civilian targets is often or sometimes justifiable in defense of Islam. In Bangladesh, more than a quarter of Muslims (26%) (my note:38.5 million) take this view. Support for suicide bombing is lower in Pakistan (13%) (my note: 22.5 million).

In the countries surveyed in Central Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe, fewer than one-in-six Muslims consider suicide bombing justified in Turkey (15%), (my note, 15% of 75 million is 10.5 million), Kosovo (11%) and and Kyrgyzstan (10%).

In Egypt, about three-in-ten (29%) consider suicide bombing justified at least sometimes. (my note 22.6 million).

Indonesia has only a small percentage that does, 7%, which is about 14 million.

So based on those countries, 120 million believe that suicide bombings can be justified sometime. This is about 8 percent of all Muslims…

67 wrenchwench  Oct 6, 2014 4:54:50pm

re: #66 Jolo5309

Are you drawing a conclusion based on those numbers?

Have you read the methodology for those polls? Did you read how the question was phrased?

68 Desmond  Oct 6, 2014 10:22:09pm

re: #51 Randall Gross

The link does indicate that more homosexuals are murdered in non islamic countries, true you do have to poke around the site a bit, and actually read a few of the posts, maps, and statistics and do some actual math but that shouldn’t be so hard for an enlightened westerner like yourself, n’est ce pas?

I’m a little late replying to this, but just what point do you think you are making? Murder rates in Latin America are 5 to 10 times higher than most of the Middle East, so I would totally expect more murders of homosexuals AND heterosexuals in Brazil or Colombia or Mexico than in Egypt or Libya or Iran.

But do you really think that is the entire picture? Simply being a homosexual is punishable by death in many Islamic countries. Many Islamic countries (and not just Islamic countries) don’t even admit to having any homosexuals, let alone reporting hate crimes against them, so I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove here.

69 Desmond  Oct 6, 2014 10:53:40pm

re: #67 wrenchwench

Are you drawing a conclusion based on those numbers?

Have you read the methodology for those polls? Did you read how the question was phrased?

I’m much more troubled by 80+% of Egyptians and Jordanians supporting executing converts away from Islam than I am by whatever minority supports suicide bombings under certain circumstances.

Suicide bombing can be a terror tactic that targets civilians or it can be a military tactic that targets combatants. It can be a horrendous crime against humanity that blows up innocents but it can also be a means by which the oppressed can strike back at their oppressors. It depends on your perspective.

But supporting the murder of those who leave Islam? And presumably also the oppression of women, homosexuals or religious minorities who don’t conform to Islamic law (as many of the polls corroborate)? These positions are actually much harder to justify from a “liberal” perspecitve than suicide bombings, and I think this is the point that Maher is getting at. This is what American liberals refuse to engage on, shutting down any such discussion as nothing but “bigotry”, as we have seen on this very thread.

I don’t call it “bigotry” when Christian conservatives are attacked for being anti-science, anti-choice, and do their utmost to limit the rights of homosexuals. Nor do I call it bigotry when Maher and the rest point out that conservative Muslims have illberal beliefs, and that conservative Muslims make up a worryingly high percentage of the overall Muslim population. It isn’t bigotry to point out the truth.

But go ahead, downvote me another 14 points for stating the blindingly obvious.

70 wrenchwench  Oct 7, 2014 8:54:35am

re: #69 Desmond

I’m much more troubled by 80+% of Egyptians and Jordanians supporting executing converts away from Islam than I am by whatever minority supports suicide bombings under certain circumstances.

Suicide bombing can be a terror tactic that targets civilians or it can be a military tactic that targets combatants. It can be a horrendous crime against humanity that blows up innocents but it can also be a means by which the oppressed can strike back at their oppressors. It depends on your perspective.

But supporting the murder of those who leave Islam? And presumably also the oppression of women, homosexuals or religious minorities who don’t conform to Islamic law (as many of the polls corroborate)? These positions are actually much harder to justify from a “liberal” perspecitve than suicide bombings, and I think this is the point that Maher is getting at. This is what American liberals refuse to engage on, shutting down any such discussion as nothing but “bigotry”, as we have seen on this very thread.

I don’t call it “bigotry” when Christian conservatives are attacked for being anti-science, anti-choice, and do their utmost to limit the rights of homosexuals. Nor do I call it bigotry when Maher and the rest point out that conservative Muslims have illberal beliefs, and that conservative Muslims make up a worryingly high percentage of the overall Muslim population. It isn’t bigotry to point out the truth.

But go ahead, downvote me another 14 points for stating the blindingly obvious.

The biggest straw person in the video and all the reaction to it is ‘liberals won’t criticize Islamism’. Where did that come from? Why do I see no verification for the claim? Must be because liberals do criticize Islamism. Even Nick Kristof, noted liberal, said in the video (paraphrasing) ‘you kind of have a point there, but….’, which was agreeing with criticism of Islamism.

Whether ‘conservative Muslims’ make up a ‘worrying percentage’ of anything is not a fact. It is a matter of opinion. If you are worried about something, spell it out for yourself, don’t attribute your feelings to ‘facts’.

You are not ‘downvoted’ for stating the obvious. I ding you down (only once per comment, alas) for generalizing about Muslims to fit your agenda of drumming up animosity, while calling it ‘blindingly obvious’ and ‘the truth’. Those are the terms of propagandists, not people who deal in facts.

71 Desmond  Oct 7, 2014 12:02:42pm

re: #70 wrenchwench

The biggest straw person in the video and all the reaction to it is ‘liberals won’t criticize Islamism’. Where did that come from? Why do I see no verification for the claim? Must be because liberals do criticize Islamism. Even Nick Kristof, noted liberal, said in the video (paraphrasing) ‘you kind of have a point there, but….’, which was agreeing with criticism of Islamism.

The fact that Maher faces withering criticism from liberals any time HE criticizes the influence of conservative Islam speaks for itself.

But no, prominent liberals do not generally take conservative Islam to task. When they do talk about Islamist extremism, it is in the context of seperating the worst extremists (al Qaeda, ISIS) from everyone else. What Maher is trying to say is, “no, that’s not the whole story, don’t let the people who support murdering converts and stoning adulterers off the hook either.”

Whether ‘conservative Muslims’ make up a ‘worrying percentage’ of anything is not a fact. It is a matter of opinion. If you are worried about something, spell it out for yourself, don’t attribute your feelings to ‘facts’.

If you don’t find it “worrying” that some 80+% of Egyptians, Jordanians and Pakistanis support draconian punishments under their interpretation of Islamic law, well, that’s your choice. I don’t know what your “feelings” are. But I don’t see how any supposed liberal wouldn’t find that worrying.

You are not ‘downvoted’ for stating the obvious. I ding you down (only once per comment, alas) for generalizing about Muslims to fit your agenda of drumming up animosity,

Oh, I have an “agenda” now? My only agenda was to try and inject a little balance into this thread rather than let’s all gang up on the evil bigot Bill Maher, and congratulate each other on how tolerant and progressive we are.

Look, I agree with you guys 99% of the time. And I detest “debating” with conservatives because most of what you get out of them is nonsense and lies (there I go again, generalizing, I suppose I’m bigoted against conservatives too….). I much prefer debating with people who at least agree on some basic principles of reality. But liberals have blind spots too. And this is one of them.

72 Jolo5309  Oct 7, 2014 3:55:53pm

re: #67 wrenchwench

Are you drawing a conclusion based on those numbers?

Have you read the methodology for those polls? Did you read how the question was phrased?

8% is actually pretty generous, the actual number I used was 120 million of about 700 million surveyed so it is probably closer to 20%.

Here is my conclusion:
I am willing to bet you will not find similar numbers in any of the following groups, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus or atheists. This tells me that even though Islam is called “the religion of peace”, It has some pretty fucked up ideas.

Here is the pew question regarding suicide bombings
Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?

What is your conclusion, or would you rather just ignore that over 120 million people feel that blowing themselves and others up is the best way to defend their religion?

73 klys  Oct 7, 2014 4:07:55pm

I guess it’s a good thing there aren’t any modern examples of Christian nations that want to do things like execute folks for being homosexuals or anything along those lines, right? Or, you know, Christian commenters in the US demanding that women who have abortions should be hung.

Otherwise we might have to acknowledge that there are maybe factors at play other than the religion of choice, here, like the surrounding environment and whether someone is predisposed to be a fundamentalist towards their religion of choice, and that extremists of all religions behave very similarly, and that just maybe the differences in surrounding environment has a shitload more to do with anything than the religion involved.

I mean, unless you’re going to claim that those numbers you’re flinging around apply to Muslims in the US, for example.

74 Jolo5309  Oct 7, 2014 7:54:21pm

re: #73 klys

I assume you are referring to me, so I will answer you, about 8% of all Muslims in the US, according to the Pew Survey I linked, to think that suicide bombers are often or sometimes justified to defend Islam . This is slightly lower than the average of 11% (according to the survey), or about 165 million worldwide.

I don’t have the numbers for the amount of Christians that feel it is acceptable to use suicide bombers (which comparable would be 231 million), maybe you can get Pew to do a survey. Of course, suicide bombers are rarely an issue in Christianity, Judaism, “insert another religion here”., which is why the question of Muslims was asked.

Would you like to talk about how appalling other religions are? I can talk about how the Roman Catholic church seems to protect child predator priests, or how Ultra Orthodox Jews like to spit on little girls and call them “sluts” or “whores” but I thought this thread was about Islam.

I don’t think you saw the part where Sam Harris says we have to protect and nurture the moderate (nominal) Muslims that don’t like what these crazies are doing in the name of the religion they share. Krystof pointed out how courageous some of his friends are that are doing this in Muslim countries (2 in jail, 1 dead) but I think you are leaning towards the exact position Harris accused liberals of doing.

75 klys  Oct 7, 2014 8:02:37pm

re: #74 Jolo5309

You know, when I look at all these things, the common thread I see is that extremists are the issue.

You know, fundamentalists. The folks who think you really are going to hell for not believing in their ONE TRUE RELIGION and are willing to trample all over your rights just to make sure that THEIR VISION of the world is fulfilled and we all abide by it.

But you choose to focus on the religion and not the environment that nutures fundamentalism or the power structures that enable them, and pretend that’s the problem, that there is something special that makes these extremists so much worse than any other extremist groups we’ve seen in the past, and then you get mad when people call you on your bullshit and bigotry. Because it is bigotry to look at a Christian extremist and say that the issue is that they’re an extremist but to look at a Muslim extremist and say that the issue is that they’re Muslim.

So go ahead, please, continue to try to excuse your bigotry. I’m going to worry about fundamentalists of all religions without claiming that any one religion has a particular problem.

76 Desmond  Oct 7, 2014 10:07:17pm

re: #75 klys

So go ahead, please, continue to try to excuse your bigotry. I’m going to worry about fundamentalists of all religions without claiming that any one religion has a particular problem.

From my perspective, it is not that one religion has a particular problem per se, but that one religion has a particular problem at this particular moment in history. Too often I see real bigots fail to make this distinction, as if Islam inspires more violence and has always inspired more violence. This is not the case.

But for all the faults of Christian fundamentalism, we have not seen Christian extremists trying to violently overthrow governments and using terror tactics against civilians, and that is exactly what we have seen with Islamic extremists for decades now, with a death toll in the tens or even hundreds of thousands. It hasn’t always been this way and I’m sure it won’t always be this way in the future. But this is what we have to deal with right now.

One notable difference is that Christianity has no equivalent to Sharia or Jewish religious law from the Old Testament. Islam was always intended to be a guidebook to all aspects of life, with strict rules about how individuals should conduct themselves and also how governments should apply the laws. And the unavoidable conclusion is that any government that embraces Sharia will find it difficult to also embrace modernism and liberal humanism.

Quite simply, it is not as difficult for Christians to tolerate separation of church and state (though many don’t), since Jesus said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”, and also disavowed the old Jewish laws, making a fairly clear distinction between religious and civic life.

77 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 7:43:56am

re: #72 Jolo5309

What is your conclusion, or would you rather just ignore that over 120 million people feel that blowing themselves and others up is the best way to defend their religion?

That’s an inaccurate restatement of the poll question. This kind of recasting of words is necessary to keep the fear mongering going. It’s bullshit.

I’m not ignoring anything. What are you doing to combat fanaticism among religious people? Posting about it on the internet?

If you insist on being upset by the numbers, perhaps you should look into the reasons for the difference between how Indonesian Muslims see the issues and how Egyptian Muslims see them.

78 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 7:45:09am

re: #74 Jolo5309

I don’t think you saw the part where Sam Harris says we have to protect and nurture the moderate (nominal) Muslims that don’t like what these crazies are doing in the name of the religion they share.

Saying that moderate Muslims are ‘nominal’ Muslims is offensive.

79 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 7:58:34am

re: #71 Desmond

The fact that Maher faces withering criticism from liberals any time HE criticizes the influence of conservative Islam speaks for itself.

Not to a person who has no TV and doesn’t watch his show.

But no, prominent liberals do not generally take conservative Islam to task. When they do talk about Islamist extremism, it is in the context of seperating the worst extremists (al Qaeda, ISIS) from everyone else. What Maher is trying to say is, “no, that’s not the whole story, don’t let the people who support murdering converts and stoning adulterers off the hook either.”

If you don’t find it “worrying” that some 80+% of Egyptians, Jordanians and Pakistanis support draconian punishments under their interpretation of Islamic law, well, that’s your choice. I don’t know what your “feelings” are. But I don’t see how any supposed liberal wouldn’t find that worrying.

I recognize that those are ‘illiberal’ attitudes. Why should I be ‘worried’ about them, though? I am not letting anyone off any hook, and I am not putting anyone on a hook. Who should be on a hook for the beliefs of others? As an ex-Catholic, am I on the hook for the Pope’s misogyny? What is required of me? I try to call out Pat Buchanan and other fascist Catholics whenever I can. Must I do more? Do I need a bigger platform for my objections to count?

Oh, I have an “agenda” now? My only agenda was to try and inject a little balance into this thread rather than let’s all gang up on the evil bigot Bill Maher, and congratulate each other on how tolerant and progressive we are.

Right, your agenda is to defend Maher and Harris. Hardly warrants the ‘Oh, I have an “agenda” now?’ reaction.

Look, I agree with you guys 99% of the time. And I detest “debating” with conservatives because most of what you get out of them is nonsense and lies (there I go again, generalizing, I suppose I’m bigoted against conservatives too….). I much prefer debating with people who at least agree on some basic principles of reality. But liberals have blind spots too. And this is one of them.

I am not a guy. Where have you been agreeing with ‘you guys’? Is this not your first registration here? Are you a ‘long-time lurker’?

I don’t have a blind spot about Islamic extremism. I also don’t have a blind spot about anti-Islam bigotry, perpetrated by supposed liberal allies who need to point a finger at one religion being worse than others, even if it’s only ‘at this particular moment in history’.

80 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 7:59:35am

re: #76 Desmond

One notable difference is that Christianity has no equivalent to Sharia or Jewish religious law from the Old Testament. Islam was always intended to be a guidebook to all aspects of life, with strict rules about how individuals should conduct themselves and also how governments should apply the laws. And the unavoidable conclusion is that any government that embraces Sharia will find it difficult to also embrace modernism and liberal humanism.

I see you have been studying your Robert Spencer.

81 CuriousLurker  Oct 8, 2014 10:39:48am

re: #78 wrenchwench

Saying that moderate Muslims are ‘nominal’ Muslims is offensive.

QFT. That’s quite the Gelleresque statement. It basically says that the only moderate Muslims are those who aren’t actually observant. As Charles wrote in an article last year:

The “pious Muslim” thing is one of Geller’s main talking points. It’s how she tries to excuse herself from the hate speech accusation; she doesn’t hate ALL Muslims, just all the PIOUS ones.

And that’s one of the tried and true techniques of a real hater — to collapse a very disparate continuum of people, all with their own reasons and beliefs, into a single mass labeled “devout Muslims.” It’s the definition of “stereotype,” and the purpose is to demonize that group en masse, based on the actions of any individual in the group.

littlegreenfootballs.com

re: #80 wrenchwench

I see you have been studying your Robert Spencer.

THIS, along with the absurd claim that “it is not as difficult for Christians to tolerate separation of church and state…” You’d think that the Reformation & Enlightenment in the West were orderly, bloodless transitions. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

You know that book on the history of antisemitism that I’ve been working my way thorough and keep bringing up? As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s been a real eye-opener—the history & gradual changes in the Christian West look a LOT different when viewed from a Jewish perspective.

I’m currently on chapter 10 out of 16, which covers the post-Enlightenment modern era up to the late 19th century and the Age of Nationalism. That means there are still 6 chapters to go that cover antisemitism from the late 18th century to the present, including the horrors of the Holocaust. If we’re going to talk about groups of people and their collective guilt and/or responsibility for violent, intolerant behavior and harsh laws in recent time—let’s say the past 100 years—then “we” (people born & raised in the West) aren’t exactly shining examples of peace, moderation, and tolerance.

But not to worry, the cut-off date for bad behavior always seems to be conveniently just after the things people don’t like thinking about and/or don’t want to have to try to defend.

Oh, and the whole notion of Christians/Christianity somehow being more innately tolerant of and amenable to the separation of church & state based on a single biblical verse attributed to Jesus (a.s.) is laughable. Emphasis mine:

Post-Enlightenment Christology Christology

The scholarly reinterpretation of Jesus in the Enlightenment was not formally endorsed by any ecclesiastical tradition. Rather, it was the personal opinion of theologians that began to reorient Christian thinking about Jesus. The official teachings of all Christian churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, about Jesus remained largely unchanged. Christological reflection in the 19th century was encumbered by the critiques of the Enlightenment—the repudiation of the supernatural elements in the Gospels, the challenge to metaphysical thinking and to the notion of revealed morality. This assault on traditional views raised fundamental questions for the entire Christian religion and had substantial implications for Christology. […]

britannica.com

82 Jolo5309  Oct 8, 2014 3:18:54pm

re: #78 wrenchwench

Saying that moderate Muslims are ‘nominal’ Muslims is offensive.

Why? There are such a thing as “nominal Christians”, “nominal Jews” who would all be put into the moderate religious class.

83 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 3:26:58pm

re: #82 Jolo5309

Why? There are such a thing as “nominal Christians”, “nominal Jews” who would all be put into the moderate religious class.

‘Nominal’ means ‘in name only’. As CuriousLurker says above, ‘It basically says that the only moderate Muslims are those who aren’t actually observant.’ You should read the rest of her comment (part one, at least) and the post she linked to.

It looks to me like you are saying the only religious people you would call ‘moderate’ are atheists who used to identify as religious. That doesn’t make sense. Unless you really do believe that, in which case YOU are not a moderate.

Do you understand?

84 Desmond  Oct 8, 2014 3:50:55pm

re: #79 wrenchwench

I recognize that those are ‘illiberal’ attitudes. Why should I be ‘worried’ about them, though? I am not letting anyone off any hook, and I am not putting anyone on a hook. Who should be on a hook for the beliefs of others? As an ex-Catholic, am I on the hook for the Pope’s misogyny? What is required of me? I try to call out Pat Buchanan and other fascist Catholics whenever I can. Must I do more? Do I need a bigger platform for my objections to count?

Nothing is “required” of you. Though not immediately dismissing the views of those who ARE worried about it as “bigotry” would be nice.

I am not a guy. Where have you been agreeing with ‘you guys’? Is this not your first registration here? Are you a ‘long-time lurker’?

Apologies, guys AND gals then. And yes, long time lurker. I usually don’t have any reason to comment because I’m already in agreement with what’s been said.

I also don’t have a blind spot about anti-Islam bigotry, perpetrated by supposed liberal allies who need to point a finger at one religion being worse than others, even if it’s only ‘at this particular moment in history’.

Perhaps we should define what exactly “anti-Islam bigotry” IS. Is any and all criticism of Islam “bigotry”? Is it scapegoating all Muslims to criticize the religion they follow? Are all religions equally pre-disposed towards violence? Are all religions morally equivalent?

I see you have been studying your Robert Spencer.

I’ve heard the name before but to the best of my knowledge I’ve never read a thing he’s written.

This is not a controversial view; Christianity did not leave behind a blueprint of laws and governance (not that political leaders never tried to use Christianity as justification for their actions). Islam did, very explicitly. This is not a moral judgement, just a noteworthy distinction.

Not that it’s impossible to have separation of Church and state in Islamic countries; for every Saudi Arabia and Iran there’s a Turkey or a Morocco. But when you have opinion polls of large majorities in many Islamic countries supporting sharia law, it’s a bit more difficult, wouldn’t you say?

85 Jolo5309  Oct 8, 2014 3:51:40pm

re: #77 wrenchwench

That’s an inaccurate restatement of the poll question. This kind of recasting of words is necessary to keep the fear mongering going. It’s bullshit.

I’m not ignoring anything. What are you doing to combat fanaticism among religious people? Posting about it on the internet?

If you insist on being upset by the numbers, perhaps you should look into the reasons for the difference between how Indonesian Muslims see the issues and how Egyptian Muslims see them.

How about this:
There are about 165 million (actually more) Muslims that feel that suicide bombers can be justified in the name of Islam. I added the “actually more” because this only count she ones that say “often justified” or “sometimes justified”, it does not include the ones that state it is “rarely justified”, which still means it could be justified.

Does that phrasing make you feel better?

Seriously, the feeling I get here is that there is no interest in looking at the issue, only complaining about the person talking about the issue. You want to make this about me, and Maher and Harris (and apparently Andrew Sullivan) who stated:

Christianity has a bloody past and a deeply flawed present. Islam has a glorious past in many respects, and manifests itself in many countries today, including the US, humbly, peacefully, beautifully. But far too much of contemporary Islam - from Pakistan through Iran and Iraq to Saudi Arabia - is more than usually fucked up. Some Muslims are threatening non-believers with mass murder, subjecting free societies to shameless terrorism, engaging in foul anti-Semitism, and beheading the sinful in Saudi Arabia just as much as in the Islamic State. And if liberals - in the broadest sense - cannot stand up for freedom of speech and assembly and religion, and for toleration as a core value, then what are liberals for?

I do find that you are trying to shut down any conversation about it (not any single one of you, but a collective piece of the website). Nice to see being called a bigot, what if I raised the same complaints about Christians? This is the same argument that Affleck used, no facts, just name calling.

As for what am I doing about it? The more important question is “What the fuck are the moderate Muslims whose religion is being smeared by the extremists?” This is a Muslim problem and has to be solved by Muslims, maybe they should get off their collective asses and fix this, and not wait for someone else (AKA the West) to show up. Maher believes the US should not be in the Middle East, but the moderate Muslims were doing not to help the Kurds, the Yezidis or anyone else until the US showed up.

And I will finish with a quote:

“Many of them [the Western liberals] have betrayed us liberals in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, and sided with the Islamists against us.”

Faisal Saeed Al Mutar

86 Jolo5309  Oct 8, 2014 3:52:35pm

re: #83 wrenchwench

I was replying to you, I had not read her’s.

Do you understand?

87 Jolo5309  Oct 8, 2014 3:53:41pm

re: #81 CuriousLurker

Since the Roman Catholic religion states that birth control is wrong and if RC use birth control, would you call them nominal?

88 ausador  Oct 8, 2014 3:58:07pm

re: #85 Jolo5309

Faisal Saeed Al Mutar

Sounds like he needs to stop watching FOX news for his take on American thought.

89 CuriousLurker  Oct 8, 2014 4:01:04pm

re: #87 Jolo5309

No, I would not, nor would I call a Jew or Muslim who didn’t stick 100% to strict rules of orthodoxy “nominal”.

90 Varek Raith  Oct 8, 2014 4:01:23pm

Good grief.

91 Backwoods_Sleuth  Oct 8, 2014 4:04:40pm

re: #90 Varek Raith

Good grief.

I’m still trying to get up to speed on how the strawman argument went from suicide bombers to birth control…

92 ausador  Oct 8, 2014 4:05:09pm

re: #87 Jolo5309

No, since 98% of American Catholic women use or have at some time used birth control I would call them normal.

93 klys  Oct 8, 2014 4:05:50pm
No amount of polls of Muslims denouncing ISIS will authenticate our humanity to the average Westerner who trusts propagated tropes from a culture industry more than anything else. It does not matter to the average bigot whether 126 senior Islamic scholars hailing from various parts of the Middle East, Europe, South Asia, North Africa and beyond theologically make clear in an open 24-bullet letter that the deeds of ISIS are entirely un-Islamic because to the average bigot, Islam is beyond redemption and its followers deserve to be punished by virtue of the faith they follow. It does not matter if one explains, as Alireza Doostdar does meticulously in this essay, that ISIS is not a religious problem but a political exacerbation that necessitates a contextual understanding of its chronological development and proliferation.

From a rather timely essay.

Strangely enough, we manage to have conversations about the Christian fundamentalists and the risk they pose to liberties here on this website all the time without issue because folks focus on the fundamentalists as the issue, not the religion. I don’t see anyone saying how Christianity is somehow worse than all other religions because of what fundamentalists and extremists do in its name.

All those names that keep getting thrown around (Harris, Maher, Sullivan, whatever) are people who do try to claim that Islam is somehow special, somehow worse than Christianity or any other religion and therefore deserves …what, I’m not sure. That part is never made very clear. But that attempt to make a distinction is what makes their actions here bigoted.

94 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 4:22:21pm

re: #86 Jolo5309

I was replying to you, I had not read her’s.

Do you understand?

So I suggested you read hers, then reply again. Odd way to ‘shut down the conversation’.

95 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 4:22:56pm

re: #90 Varek Raith

Good grief.

This one I understand.

96 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 4:25:28pm

re: #84 Desmond

I’ve heard the name before but to the best of my knowledge I’ve never read a thing he’s written.

Where does your knowledge of Islam come from, then?

97 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 4:28:25pm

re: #85 Jolo5309

As for what am I doing about it? The more important question is “What the fuck are the moderate Muslims whose religion is being smeared by the extremists?” This is a Muslim problem and has to be solved by Muslims, maybe they should get off their collective asses and fix this, and not wait for someone else (AKA the West) to show up. Maher believes the US should not be in the Middle East, but the moderate Muslims were doing not to help the Kurds, the Yezidis or anyone else until the US showed up.

Do you believe we should be there helping the Kurds?

98 CuriousLurker  Oct 8, 2014 4:40:38pm

re: #93 klys

There’s no longer a Soviet Union bogeyman to worry about and there always needs to be at lease one big bad one, so “Tag, Muslims—you’re It!”

99 CuriousLurker  Oct 8, 2014 4:45:16pm

re: #97 wrenchwench

Golly, it’s a good thing the West has never meddled in the internal affairs of the Mideast, huh? Otherwise it might be a case of, “You broke it, you bought it.” //

100 wrenchwench  Oct 8, 2014 4:48:01pm

re: #99 CuriousLurker

Golly, it’s a good thing the West has never meddled in the internal affairs of the Mideast, huh? Otherwise it might be a case of, “You broke it, you bought it.” //

Hey, young lady. You’re supposed get your collective ass over there to fix it. Andale, pues.

101 klys  Oct 8, 2014 4:48:48pm

re: #99 CuriousLurker

Golly, it’s a good thing the West has never meddled in the internal affairs of the Mideast, huh? Otherwise it might be a case of, “You broke it, you bought it.” //

It’s almost like there are other factors at play here…

////

102 CuriousLurker  Oct 8, 2014 4:54:44pm

re: #100 wrenchwench

Hey, young lady. You’re supposed get your collective ass over there to fix it. Andale, pues.

LOL, yeah, I was kinda scratching my head over that one: “Um, I live in NJ—what exactly is it that I’m expected to do about jihadis wreaking havoc on the other side of the world?” If I could do something to stop them I would, especially seeing as how the vast majority of their victims are innocent fellow Muslims.

103 Desmond  Oct 8, 2014 6:21:48pm

re: #96 wrenchwench

Where does your knowledge of Islam come from, then?

Certainly not Robert Spencer, although I try to keep up to speed on the subject from a variety of sources. But what does it matter? Are we saying that one needs to be an authority on Islam to criticize certain aspects of it? Does one need to be an authority on Christianity to criticize opposition to birth control or gay marriage?

I notice you didn’t respond to my questions:

Perhaps we should define what exactly “anti-Islam bigotry” IS. Is any and all criticism of Islam “bigotry”? Is it scapegoating all Muslims to criticize the religion they follow? Are all religions equally pre-disposed towards violence? Are all religions morally equivalent?

Seems pretty basic. One side of this argument is clearly trying to draw a moral equivalence between all religions, lest we “scapegoat” followers of a certain religion. Well, are they equivalent?

To mix things up a bit, would we make the same claim of pre-Enlightenment Christianity vs. post-Enlightenment Christianity? One of those burned witches at the stake, tortured “heretics” into false confessions, and saw rival denominations slaughter each other en masse. Yet the modern version (mostly) recoils in horror at that barbarism, as I hope any liberal would. I would go so far as to say that modern Christianity is not morally equivalent to medieval Christianity. So little equivalence, in fact, that they are practically different religions, probably almost as different as Christianity and Islam are now. There are some differences in doctrine, yes, but the main difference is how the general populace reacts to and interprets that doctrine, because we belong to a liberal humanist and post-Enlightenment society.

Can we admit that Islam has simply not reached its liberal humanist post-Enlightenment stage, and that, aside from a few exceptional countries, it has not reached the point at which it can comfortably co-exist with modern notions of freedom of speech, gender equality, and pluralism?

I quote Randall from post #18:

Islam is going through a slow motion centuries long reformation, and there are reactionary forces against that change - just as there were reactionary forces against Xtian reformation.

Exactly. And of course we should support the moderates against the reactionaries by whatever means are possible and realistic. But I’m not going to pretend that Islam as it is RIGHT NOW is morally or practically equivalent to every other religion on this planet.

Let’s imagine those Muslim moderates that we’re all so enthused about, trying to start a public debate about whether following Sharia is actually a good idea in the 21st century (I haven’t seen much real evidence that this is actually occurring, not least because anyone who does is in great danger of being murdered, but humor me for a minute)

Do you think they care about some nutjob Christian fundie on the Kansas schoolboard trying to ban the teaching of evolution, or about some Christian villagers in Eritrea who burned a witch?

“Well, I guess it’s not such a big deal that 75% of my countrymen support murdering apostates, because…look at this whackjob in Utah who doesn’t think gay people should get married! I guess we’re no worse off than Americans and therefore our efforts towards change are pointless!”

But you know what? Maybe they should just stick to politically correct arguments and promote tolerance and understanding. Don’t make any moral judgements about conservative Islam at all. Just like Enlightenment thinkers and Christianity….oh wait.

104 klys  Oct 8, 2014 6:37:36pm

If you can’t see the difference between a discussion of the actions of fundamentalists, particularly as led by moderate practitioners of the religion, and saying that the entire religion is worse than others because of the actions of fundamentalists as someone outside the religion, I’m afraid this discussion is hopeless.

I’m also afraid that you will continue to get a lot of pushback here, because bigotry is not tolerated.

105 Desmond  Oct 8, 2014 8:03:10pm

re: #104 klys

If you can’t see the difference between a discussion of the actions of fundamentalists, particularly as led by moderate practitioners of the religion, and saying that the entire religion is worse than others because of the actions of fundamentalists as someone outside the religion, I’m afraid this discussion is hopeless.

Perhaps it would help if you differentiated between fundamentalist and moderate? This is the heart of the issue.

When you use the word fundamentalist, it makes it sound like nothing but a more zealous minority, reactionaries against a rising tide of modernism. But is that an accurate representation? Is a “fundamentalist” someone who goes as far as to support suicide bombings in defense of Islam? And is a “moderate” someone who merely supports stoning adulterers?

pewforum.org

Attitudes toward Islamic law vary significantly by region. Support for making sharia the law of the land is highest in South Asia (median of 84%). Medians of at least six-in-ten Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa (64%), the Middle East-North Africa region (74%) and Southeast Asia (77%) also favor enshrining sharia as official law. But in two regions, far fewer Muslims say Islamic law should be endorsed by their governments: Southern and Eastern Europe (18%) and Central Asia (12%).

Can someone be a “moderate” and support the imposition of religious law?

I’m also afraid that you will continue to get a lot of pushback here, because bigotry is not tolerated.

Then I will ask you the same questions:

Is any and all criticism of Islam “bigotry”? Is it scapegoating all Muslims to criticize the religion they follow? Are all religions equally pre-disposed towards violence? Are all religions morally equivalent?

Yes or no?

106 klys  Oct 8, 2014 8:23:15pm

re: #105 Desmond

Perhaps it would help if you differentiated between fundamentalist and moderate? This is the heart of the issue.

When you use the word fundamentalist, it makes it sound like nothing but a more zealous minority, reactionaries against a rising tide of modernism. But is that an accurate representation? Is a “fundamentalist” someone who goes as far as to support suicide bombings in defense of Islam? And is a “moderate” someone who merely supports stoning adulterers?

Helpfully requoted from above:

You know, fundamentalists. The folks who think you really are going to hell for not believing in their ONE TRUE RELIGION and are willing to trample all over your rights just to make sure that THEIR VISION of the world is fulfilled and we all abide by it.

I think that covers my working definition pretty well and should answer your question of whether I think someone who believes adulterers should be stoned to death is a “moderate.”

I also spelled out clearly why you are getting pushback. You are criticizing the religion for the actions that people take in its name, ignoring the folks in the religion who point out that these actions are in fact inconsistent with their beliefs. And this condemnation is specific to Islam, without paying any mind to examples of Christian fundamentalism in action in the modern times. You ignore all the factors outside of religion that have a huge influence - otherwise why is there such a difference between the opinions of Saudi Muslims versus Indonesian Muslims versus Muslims in the US, for example?

I believe that all fundamentalists, regardless of their religion, will gladly use it as an excuse to trample the rights and lives of others, up to and including violence. I do not believe there is any one religion that supports this more than others. I believe that by focusing on the religion instead of the actions and the root causes that support and encourage fundamentalism, you play right into the hands of the fundamentalists.

107 CuriousLurker  Oct 9, 2014 7:39:14am

re: #102 CuriousLurker

LOL, yeah, I was kinda scratching my head over that one: “Um, I live in NJ—what exactly is it that I’m expected to do about jihadis wreaking havoc on the other side of the world?” If I could do something to stop them I would, especially seeing as how the vast majority of their victims are innocent fellow Muslims.

Case in point, from today’s headlines: Bomb Attack Striking Yemen Houthi Shiites Kills 47 in Sana’a

Sectarian conflict, a separatist movement in the south of the country, foreign interference in internal affairs, add a pinch of al-Qaeda extremism… None of those things are Islam-specific—the same types of problems exist all over the world (minus the suicide bombing, which isn’t a Muslim invention and against which fatwas like this one and this one have been issued).

Am I, as part of the Muslim “collective”, expected to somehow solve these problems, as asserted in comment #85? How, pray tell? If not me, then who? Oh right, it’s those lazy, whining Muslims in places like Yemen & Pakistan who should “get off their collective asses and fix this.” Never mind the political instability & often corrupt governments that will brutally put down any protest.

Oh, and you know who’s scared shitless of democracy? Wealthy oil sheikhdoms like our Saudi “friends”, with whom we’ve had a long relationship. Their resistance to change isn’t rooted in Islam (despite what they may claim), it’s rooted in their attachment to their wealth, power, and privilege.

But, hey, just fix it—easy peasy, right?

I’m gonna stick my neck out and guess that most of the people blaming Muslim victims of terrorism for their plight were lucky enough to have been born & raised in Western countries where they never had to deal with those sorts of problems. But, hey, it’s all due to Islam, right? Phew, good thing, otherwise there might be violence & strife in lots of other places. Oh, wait… Mexico & their drug cartels, Central & South America with their bloody (recent) pasts… it must be a Catholic thing, huh? //

108 CuriousLurker  Oct 9, 2014 8:58:52am

Oh look, more of those Muslims who never speak up or do anything:

109 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 9:31:35am

re: #106 klys

I also spelled out clearly why you are getting pushback. You are criticizing the religion for the actions that people take in its name, ignoring the folks in the religion who point out that these actions are in fact inconsistent with their beliefs. And this condemnation is specific to Islam, without paying any mind to examples of Christian fundamentalism in action in the modern times.

I’m not ignoring Christian fundamentalists at all. Only pointing out that their influence on Christian society and their opposition to liberalism is not equivalent to Islamic fundamentalists’ influence in Islamic societies and their opposition to liberalism. Is this really up for debate?

You ignore all the factors outside of religion that have a huge influence - otherwise why is there such a difference between the opinions of Saudi Muslims versus Indonesian Muslims versus Muslims in the US, for example?

Of course there are cultural differences outside of religion that influence people’s beliefs. But that says NOTHING about what the actual doctrine of Islam is, only how different groups of people interpret it. This is the solution, actually, finding an interpretation of Islam that is compatible with liberal values. The problem is that Islam as it is practiced in the US (more moderate interpretation) is the exception, not the rule, and things are actually trending in the wrong direction in much of the Muslim world. Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, Pakistan, even Turkey (which used to be militantly secular) have all become much more fundamentalist and theocratic than they were 50 years ago.

I believe that all fundamentalists, regardless of their religion, will gladly use it as an excuse to trample the rights and lives of others, up to and including violence. I do not believe there is any one religion that supports this more than others.

And how did you come to this conclusion? Hypothetically, what type of evidence would make you reconsider?

110 wrenchwench  Oct 9, 2014 9:35:31am

re: #103 Desmond

re: #96 wrenchwench

Where does your knowledge of Islam come from, then?

Certainly not Robert Spencer, although I try to keep up to speed on the subject from a variety of sources. But what does it matter? Are we saying that one needs to be an authority on Islam to criticize certain aspects of it? Does one need to be an authority on Christianity to criticize opposition to birth control or gay marriage?

I notice you didn’t respond to my questions:

[…]

I didn’t respond to your questions because I would like to get the answer to mine before going on to the next one. Last time you said,

I’ve heard the name before but to the best of my knowledge I’ve never read a thing he’s written.

This time you are certain. I would like to know where you did get your knowledge, because you are making statements of supposed fact that I believe are incorrect, but I am no expert, and if you turned out to be some University professor who wrote a thesis on Islam, I’d at least read it before going on, so I knew what common ground we might be starting from.

As it stands, the things you state as fact sound very similar to things Robert Spencer states as fact, so I considered my question pertinent to our discussion.

Also:

This hostility is not innate. One is not born with vengeance for a specific group of people. It is instilled and socialized through social and institutional production of ideology from the State, media outlets, academia and everyday social exchange. It is manufactured by ever escalating dosages of premeditated images, sound bites and seductive rhetoric that lures one into regurgitating falsities about a people. It reaches to a point, as we see today, where simply appearing to be Muslim (as if there is a specific aesthetic embodied by us) elicits some of the most unwarranted suspicion, invasive questions and in many cases, outright violence.

That’s why it matters.

That’s the next part of the essay Klys linked to in her #93. You might be interested to read the whole essay.

111 CuriousLurker  Oct 9, 2014 9:52:46am

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

———————————————————-

There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.

—Jelaluddin Rumi

Youtube Video

112 klys  Oct 9, 2014 12:37:13pm

re: #109 Desmond

And how did you come to this conclusion? Hypothetically, what type of evidence would make you reconsider?

A controlled sociological study where environmental variables, including external influences, are ruled out, showing a statistically significant proportion of adherents to one religion predisposed towards violence. All subjects would of course need to come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and be raised in similar environments, preferably one that mimics what we see in terms of Western liberalism, as you put it, in order to isolate other factors from the equation.

As for your other comments, I can’t imagine why folks in the Middle East would have tended towards fundamentalism over the past 50 years, it’s not like anything has happened in that region that would cause substantial upheaval and chaos, with no economic impacts. Nope, it’s all that pesky Islam.

If you really think Islam is the worst religion ever, what’s next? Clearly, if it’s bad, that means you want to stop people from practicing it, right? Because it encourages violence and fundamentalism? Please, clarify for me. Since you like to ask lots of questions trying to get people to agree that Islam is the worstest, explain what should be done next if we agree. How does your criticism of Islam as horrible fix anything?

113 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 5:07:19pm

re: #107 CuriousLurker

Oh, and you know who’s scared shitless of democracy? Wealthy oil sheikhdoms like our Saudi “friends”, with whom we’ve had a long relationship. Their resistance to change isn’t rooted in Islam (despite what they may claim), it’s rooted in their attachment to their wealth, power, and privilege.

Correct…but that’s not the whole story. Saudi Arabia follows Islamic law not because the Saudi royals believe in Islamic law but because ever since the seige of the Grand Mosque in 1979, they’ve been terrified of Islamic radicals and have given the clerics carte blanche to impose Sharia, and gender segregation, and bans on “sinful” western influences. Saudi “democracy” would likely result in more of the same, just with a different group of people at the top.

114 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 5:44:31pm

re: #110 wrenchwench

I would like to know where you did get your knowledge, because you are making statements of supposed fact that I believe are incorrect, but I am no expert, and if you turned out to be some University professor who wrote a thesis on Islam, I’d at least read it before going on, so I knew what common ground we might be starting from.

I make no claim of being an expert either, though I have more than a passing interest in the subject.

As it stands, the things you state as fact sound very similar to things Robert Spencer states as fact, so I considered my question pertinent to our discussion.

Which of my facts are controversial? The polls? They raise uncomfortable questions, perhaps. And you may draw conclusions that are different than mine.

It reaches to a point, as we see today, where simply appearing to be Muslim (as if there is a specific aesthetic embodied by us) elicits some of the most unwarranted suspicion, invasive questions and in many cases, outright violence.

So he is describing outright discrimination and naked bigotry, which is of course indefensible. Nothing I’ve posted in this thread advocates or defends this type of reaction to Muslim individuals. The suspicion of all Muslims as being potential terrorists is one of the more ridiculous Western reactions to Al Qaeda and other radicals. That reaction is one of fear, your “Islamophobia”.

I’m not afraid of Islam, but I’m more than willing to criticize it as an ideology that I disagree with, the same as I criticize other religions and other philosophies that I disagree with. And Affleck’s position, that you cannot criticize Islam without slandering its entire population of adherents, is very dangerous in its own right. We need to be able to criticize bad ideas, no matter how many people subscribe to them.

And oddly, the reaction on this thread seems to be that if I say Christianity and Islam are both bad ideas, fine. But if I say, “well, they’re both bad ideas, but I think it’s possible that Islam has some even worse ideas…”, well, everyone loses it! I’m a very bad, terrible, no-good, awful bigot. I MUST subscribe to cultural relativism and the moral equivalence of all religions or else I’m not an enlightened liberal…or something.

115 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 6:02:06pm

re: #112 klys

A controlled sociological study where environmental variables, including external influences, are ruled out, showing a statistically significant proportion of adherents to one religion predisposed towards violence. All subjects would of course need to come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds and be raised in similar environments, preferably one that mimics what we see in terms of Western liberalism, as you put it, in order to isolate other factors from the equation.

What you’re missing here with all the sarcasm is that religion is itself an essential part of the socioeconomic background and environment. You cannot look at Middle Eastern civilization and all its characteristics without considering the role that Islam has played, just like you can’t look at European civilization without acknowledging Christianity’s role.

In any case, this is not addressing what I asked. What allows you to say with such confidence that no religion inspires more violence than any other?

If you really think Islam is the worst religion ever, what’s next? Clearly, if it’s bad, that means you want to stop people from practicing it, right? Because it encourages violence and fundamentalism? Please, clarify for me.

I’ve answered this a number of times in this thread. Islam can reform just as Christianity did. It is difficult to see exactly how it will happen, when so many things appear to be trending in the wrong direction at the moment, but history has a way of surprising us.

Since you like to ask lots of questions trying to get people to agree that Islam is the worstest, explain what should be done next if we agree. How does your criticism of Islam as horrible fix anything?

I don’t know if it does, but denying that there’s a problem doesn’t do anything to fix it either. But this is what Maajid Nawaz (a reformed radical) tweeted in reply to Affleck a few days ago:

There’s an ideological current among Muslims globally generating sympathy for the same *aims* as ISIL: enforcing a view of Sharia as law. I call this ideology Islamism. Addressing Islamism (its primary victims are Muslims) is a challenge both “new atheists” & “old liberals” like you must meet. Until then, we Muslim reformers, the true Minority, will feel betrayed by all sides.

116 wrenchwench  Oct 9, 2014 6:03:28pm

re: #114 Desmond

You did not answer my question.

117 wrenchwench  Oct 9, 2014 6:04:52pm
118 klys  Oct 9, 2014 6:16:42pm

re: #115 Desmond

Your quote there must be exactly why CL feels utterly betrayed by the rest of us who choose to focus on the actions of fundamentalists and extremists - and not by you, bravely standing up to say that Islam is somehow worse than all other religions and needs reform.

But go ahead. Keep company with Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and David Horowitz. Maybe you like that company. I wouldn’t.

119 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 6:52:23pm

re: #118 klys

But go ahead. Keep company with Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, and David Horowitz. Maybe you like that company. I wouldn’t.

Apparently it’s easier to debate them than me, since you are not addressing a single thing that *I* said.

120 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 6:53:34pm

re: #116 wrenchwench

You did not answer my question.

You want me to give you a list of all the things I’ve ever read? ;)

121 klys  Oct 9, 2014 6:53:42pm

re: #119 Desmond

Apparently it’s easier to debate them than me, since you are not addressing a single thing that *I* said.

Yeah, no. I don’t particularly want to spend any more of my evening or weekend dealing with bigots, so I’m going to bow out of this conversation here.

The reality is that the position you’re advocating is the same one they do. Sorry if you don’t like that.

122 Desmond  Oct 9, 2014 7:52:04pm

re: #121 klys

The reality is that the position you’re advocating is the same one they do. Sorry if you don’t like that.

Well klys is bowing out, lest I contaminate him/her with my awful, terrible, no-good bigotry. But what “position” do you or anyone else think I am advocating, pray tell?

From what I know about those particular individuals, their mistake is to try and explain the modern phenomenon of jihadism by cherry picking bits of Quranic scripture to argue that Islam is necessarily violently hostile to all other religions and opposing ideas, and that jihadis are somehow more true to their religion than those who oppose them. I am NOT saying that, and that certainly DOES slander all Muslims unfairly.

In fact, most of what I’m arguing in this thread has very little to do with jihadism and terrorism; the focus on terrorism, Terrorism, TERRORISM!!!! by both the Robert Spencers and CNNs of the world illustrates the self-centered nature of OUR media culture, and how we seem to only care about the Islamic world when it threatens us directly. Most Americans didn’t even know what ISIS was before they started beheading Americans. And now that ISIS is the boogeyman, few seem to care that Assad is still bombing and starving civilians into submission, or that our “friends” the Saudis are also chopping off heads on a regular basis.

But I’m far more interested in the prevalence of support for Sharia, the widespread oppression of women, homosexuals, and religious minorities, the emphasis on religious education to the exclusion of other disciplines, and the threat of violence in response to any dissent from religious orthodoxy. All of these are FAR bigger problems for Muslims themselves than they are for us, but it does create an environment where violent radicals are more likely to survive;

So I thought I was advocating the same position as Muslim moderates and reformers: the gradual reform of their religion into something that co-exists more peacefully with modern liberal notions, like freedom of expression, gender equality, and minority rights. I think this is an inevitable outcome, actually. I’m just not naive enough to think they’ve already succeeded.

123 wrenchwench  Oct 10, 2014 5:54:25am

re: #120 Desmond

You want me to give you a list of all the things I’ve ever read? ;)

Since you have ‘more than a passing interest’ in the subject, it shouldn’t be too hard to tell what sources you have found helpful. Or so I thought. You do seem to become better acquainted with Spencer as the thread wears on.

124 CuriousLurker  Oct 10, 2014 9:59:05am

It’s weird how people are always talking about needing facts & empirical evidence to back up assertions, yet a couple of polls, some anecdotal “evidence”, and vague references to having studied cherry-picked bits about Islam seems to suffice for condemning Islam as the nexus of all the ills of a enormous swath of humanity.

BTW, regarding that Pew survey it clearly states (on page 148 of the PDF):

It should be noted that practical difficulties in conducting multinational surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls. In some countries, the achieved samples suffered from imbalances in the number of women or men interviewed, while in some countries a lack of adequate, national-level statistics made it difficult to assess the accuracy of educational characteristics among the sampled population.

It then goes on to list the numerous practical difficulties.

I have yet to see anyone post a scientific report by qualified experts in radicalization or terrorism (not to mention Islamic studies and Arabic) indicating that the problem stems from Islam itself (as opposed to individual Muslims and/or radical groups and their environments).

I find that rather odd coming people who seem to pride themselves on their ability to think critically and who (in my experience) usually consider empirical data to be of the utmost importance & value.

I also find it odd in light of the numerous Pages I’ve created providing resources on the study of terrorism & radicalization. It’s almost as if people prefer to be emotional instead of rational about this particular subject (which is exactly the response groups like ISIS want). It’s truly baffling.

125 CuriousLurker  Oct 10, 2014 10:04:38am

BTW, Sean Hannity approves of Maher’s message. That alone should give serious pause to any self-proclaimed liberal with half a brain.

126 Desmond  Oct 10, 2014 10:25:38am

re: #123 wrenchwench

Since you have ‘more than a passing interest’ in the subject, it shouldn’t be too hard to tell what sources you have found helpful. Or so I thought. You do seem to become better acquainted with Spencer as the thread wears on.

I wouldn’t point to anything in particular, my views are informed by everything I’ve read, watched and listened to for years. You don’t have to read the works of scholars to form an opinion on an issue, not if it’s in the news every single day, though there are certainly many editorials and op/eds in the news written by scholars. For example, today in the New York Times there is a “Room for debate” about this exact issue, with various intellectuals and public figures weighing in, and I read all of them. There was also an editorial by Reza Aslan the other day in which he addresses this.

Yes, I’ve become better acquainted with Spencer et al, because you folks keep talking about him and I did some googling so I could better understand what you were referring to.

127 Desmond  Oct 10, 2014 11:35:18am

re: #124 CuriousLurker

It’s weird how people are always talking about needing facts & empirical evidence to back up assertions, yet a couple of polls, some anecdotal “evidence”, and vague references to having studied cherry-picked bits about Islam seems to suffice for condemning Islam as the nexus of all the ills of a enormous swath of humanity.

I have yet to see anyone post a scientific report by qualified experts in radicalization or terrorism (not to mention Islamic studies and Arabic) indicating that the problem stems from Islam itself (as opposed to individual Muslims and/or radical groups and their environments).

Do we need a “scientific report by qualified experts” when the radicals and terrorists themselves are clearly stating that they are motivated by their religion? If Christian extremists state that they are motivated by their religion, I take them at their word, without condemning all Christians. I do the same with Muslim extremists, but in neither case do I absolve the religion itself of all responsibility.

Here’s the thing. When you have a clear pattern with violent organizations all around the world all claiming inspiration from their religion, I don’t think it’s the same as an indvidual psycho like Anders Brevik claiming inspiration from Christianity. Or even larger groups, like Buddhist monks supporting the persecution of Muslims in Myanmar, but nowhere else. Those are cases of extremism localized to a certain time and place. Jihadism is unfortunately a global phenomenon.

We’re still avoiding my main argument. It’s relatively simple: Based on the available evidence (however imperfect that evidence may be), it seems that large percentages if not outright majorities in many Islamic countries hold beliefs and support institutionalized religious laws that are frankly incompatible with modern ideals of liberalism. With the absence of a more moderate majority, this unfortunately limits the political choices to either autocracies or theocracies, either of which is an ideal breeding ground for Islamist radicals.

There are exceptions, like Tunisia and Turkey, with democratic systems that appear to be working for the most part (though Erdogan isn’t the best example of this, and Turkey is obviously having some issues with Kurdish unrest), even if moderate Islamist parties are in power. I think these are the examples that need to be emulated, however imperfect.

128 CuriousLurker  Oct 10, 2014 12:48:52pm

re: #127 Desmond

Do we need a “scientific report by qualified experts” when the radicals and terrorists themselves are clearly stating that they are motivated by their religion?

Yes, we do. If you cannot support your argument, then you don’t have one because, as has already been pointed out to you numerous times, there are too many other factors that can influence behavior.

If Christian extremists state that they are motivated by their religion, I take them at their word, without condemning all Christians. I do the same with Muslim extremists, but in neither case do I absolve the religion itself of all responsibility.

OFFS, a religion can’t do anything on its own. Are violent songs and/or video games responsible for things like Columbine? Some human beings, including Muslims, do horrible things and use religion to justify it. This fact isn’t news to anyone, and no one here is disputing it, so stop with the straw men already. There’s a BIG difference between someone being motivated by their religion and their religion actually being responsible for their actions—do you not understand that simple distinction?

Anders Breivik killed 70+ innocent people in Norway. Based on his manifesto, he was motivated (at least partially) by the writings of several right-wing anti-Muslim bloggers. Does that mean that those people bear the responsibility for what he did? No of course not—otherwise they should have been tried for the murders as well—it was his choice and his choice alone. He was solely responsible for his actions. This isn’t rocket science, it’s basic critical thinking.

If your issue is with harsh punishments in the Qur’an, then you’re going to have to condemn the Old & New Testaments also (mostly the Old). I’m not going to drag out all the awful punishments you can find there because it’s pointless and entire books have been written about them.

That no one is actually carrying out those OT punishments (At least AFAIK) is beside the point because your argument has not been that Muslims in the Sharia-compliant countries need to adjust how they interpret/follow Islam, but rather that they’re incapable of doing so as long as they’re following Islam, because Islam is inherently sinister & violent (or at least more so than the other Abrahamic faiths). That is what puts you in Geller territory.

Anyway, we’re just talking in circles now. You’re not saying anything new or interesting and you seem to feel no need to back up anything you say with links to reliable sources. Unless you do, then neither I nor anyone else is going to address your other points because it’s all anecdotal,. And please don’t tell us to go Google it—everyone here is responsible for backing up his/her own assertions.

129 wrenchwench  Oct 10, 2014 2:10:33pm

re: #126 Desmond

Thank you for an answer to my question. Now I will answer some of yours. From your #84:

Perhaps we should define what exactly “anti-Islam bigotry” IS. Is any and all criticism of Islam “bigotry”? Is it scapegoating all Muslims to criticize the religion they follow? Are all religions equally pre-disposed towards violence? Are all religions morally equivalent?

You seem to have agreed here on one thing that is anti-Islam bigotry (from your #35):

I don’t see how anyone reading my posts could assume that I’m speaking about all Muslims or that I somehow believe that the majority of Muslims support ISIS (I said the exact opposite in my first post).

So you are not speaking about ALL Muslims, but let’s look at your most recent comment:

Here’s the thing. When you have a clear pattern with violent organizations all around the world all claiming inspiration from their religion, I don’t think it’s the same as an indvidual psycho like Anders Brevik claiming inspiration from Christianity. Or even larger groups, like Buddhist monks supporting the persecution of Muslims in Myanmar, but nowhere else. Those are cases of extremism localized to a certain time and place. Jihadism is unfortunately a global phenomenon.

We’re still avoiding my main argument. It’s relatively simple: Based on the available evidence (however imperfect that evidence may be), it seems that large percentages if not outright majorities in many Islamic countries hold beliefs and support institutionalized religious laws that are frankly incompatible with modern ideals of liberalism. With the absence of a more moderate majority, this unfortunately limits the political choices to either autocracies or theocracies, either of which is an ideal breeding ground for Islamist radicals.

I bolded the parts where you come damn close to saying ‘all Muslims’. You cite exceptions, but only a couple. You leave out the country with the most Muslim citizens, and the lowest scores in those PEW polls in support of illiberal ideas.

That’s why you look like a bigot. Why do you want to paint with such a broad brush? You don’t want to talk about one country or even one region. Actually, you are talking about one region, but then you claim the phenomenon is a global one.

Maher painted with an even broader brush, but you present yourself as being here to inject balance because Bill was being ganged up on. That doesn’t look good, from my point of view.

130 CuriousLurker  Oct 10, 2014 5:31:09pm

John Campbell: Boko Haram and the Dynamics of Instability in West Africa - U.S. Naval War College

Youtube Video

—————————————

Lessons Learned - Faiza Patel is Co-Director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice:

Video

The report mentioned in the video above: Rethinking Radicalization: Summary (PDF of entire report available at the link)

—————————————

All About Sharia - An actual scholar who (at the time of the interview) was the Director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the U.S. Naval Academy (here’s his bio at the place he’s apparnently teaching now):

Video

—————————————

Homegrown Extremism 2001-2014 - The New America Foundation National Security Studies Program

Country Reports on Terrorism 2013 (PDF) - U.S. Dept. of State

The Trouble with Airport Profiling - Bruce Schneier, security guru

Combating Terrorism Center at West Point - Publishes TONS of research materials

Global Security Studies (GSS) Archives - GSS is an academic and professional journal for strategic issues involving international security affairs

Women and Radical Islamic Terrorism: Planners, perpetrators, patrons? (PDF) Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies (CISS)

Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST) - University of Chicago

131 Desmond  Oct 10, 2014 11:16:42pm

re: #128 CuriousLurker

There’s a BIG difference between someone being motivated by their religion and their religion actually being responsible for their actions—do you not understand that simple distinction?.

Yes, I do. But at what point do we admit that one religion is inspiring more violence than another? What evidence would satisfy you?

Anders Breivik killed 70+ innocent people in Norway. Based on his manifesto, he was motivated (at least partially) by the writings of several right-wing anti-Muslim bloggers. Does that mean that those people bear the responsibility for what he did? No of course not—otherwise they should have been tried for the murders as well—it was his choice and his choice alone. He was solely responsible for his actions. This isn’t rocket science, it’s basic critical thinking.re: #128 CuriousLurker

OFFS, a religion can’t do anything on its own. Are violent songs and/or video games responsible for things like Columbine? Some human beings, including Muslims, do horrible things and use religion to justify it. This fact isn’t news to anyone, and no one here is disputing it, so stop with the straw men already. There’s a BIG difference between someone being motivated by their religion and their religion actually being responsible for their actions—do you not understand that simple distinction?

I do, but like I said, there’s a difference between one deranged individual and a global movement with tens of thousands of adherents.

If your issue is with harsh punishments in the Qur’an, then you’re going to have to condemn the Old & New Testaments also (mostly the Old). I’m not going to drag out all the awful punishments you can find there because it’s pointless and entire books have been written about them.

Actually the Quran says relatively little about harsh punishments for moral sins. Most of that comes from the Hadith and cultural traditions that pre-date Islam. Nevertheless, any attempt to change these traditions will encounter strong opposition from Islamic clerics and possibly even violence. This is relevant to any discussion of contemporary Islam, whether you care to admit it or not.

That no one is actually carrying out those OT punishments (At least AFAIK) is beside the point because your argument has not been that Muslims in the Sharia-compliant countries need to adjust how they interpret/follow Islam, but rather that they’re incapable of doing so as long as they’re following Islam, because Islam is inherently sinister & violent (or at least more so than the other Abrahamic faiths). That is what puts you in Geller territory.

Excuse me, I’ve said that Islam is inherently sinister and violent? I don’t believe I’ve said any such thing, only that the current state of Islam is more illiberal than the current state of Christianity, and that reform in the Muslim world is desperately needed if Jihadism is to be defeated. If I thought Islam was inherently evil, would I be advocating reform and praising examples of successful reform?

Anyway, we’re just talking in circles now. You’re not saying anything new or interesting and you seem to feel no need to back up anything you say with links to reliable sources. Unless you do, then neither I nor anyone else is going to address your other points because it’s all anecdotal,. And please don’t tell us to go Google it—everyone here is responsible for backing up his/her own assertions.

Which of my assertions need to be further backed up? Are you disputing that large percentages support the enforcement of Sharia? If you require me to present more evidence, at least enlighten us as to which facts are in dispute.

132 Desmond  Oct 10, 2014 11:27:29pm

re: #129 wrenchwench

I bolded the parts where you come damn close to saying ‘all Muslims’. You cite exceptions, but only a couple. You leave out the country with the most Muslim citizens, and the lowest scores in those PEW polls in support of illiberal ideas.

That’s why you look like a bigot. Why do you want to paint with such a broad brush? You don’t want to talk about one country or even one region. Actually, you are talking about one region, but then you claim the phenomenon is a global one.

It is a global phenomenon, there are jihadists from Europe, Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and one country doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. I’m glad that Indonesia doesn’t subscribe to illiberal ideas for the most part, but even if they have the largest Muslim population, they do not represent the majority of all Muslims.


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