The Issue of Islamic Conservatism

[Leonardo17]

I’ve just learned that the US president Donald Trump is willing to restart the F-35 negotiation with Turkey (or the East Roman Empire if we are to use a more current terminology):
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trum...37295.html
 
On one hand I am not saddened by this decision. As the world is being polarized once again after two or three decades of a multi-polar world, I see it as a good investment against Russian expansionism and potential Israeli hubris that is (according to me) set to rise even more in the coming decades.
 
Also it means that the Collective West is still willing to cooperate with us. And this in turn gives me hope on the future of Democracy in this country.
 
Still: Dealing with Islamic Conservatism is a big issue. Before the IRI, Iran used to be a close US ally in the region. Now they are a pariah state that is seeking to obtain atomic weapons.
 
So my position is that this is still a mistake. The Collective West is failing to act as a whole against autocrats. If Turkey (or any other nation – Hungary, Israel, Belarus etc.) is moving away from basic values like the rules of law and the respect of the freedom of expression, than democratic countries should stop dealing with these countries even if it is for some necessary short term benefits.
 
Of course the US itself is becoming a problematic country in these issues (freedom of expression, right of minorities, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights etc.) but I believe that previous generations understood this “It’s a matter of principle” kind of approach better than us. And I think this is going to be a huge issue if we are to overcome 21st century style autocrats and populists (like mr. Erdogan also known as Emperor Belisarius) 

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^You really need to let go of this Byzantine nonsense.

Boru

[Ivan Denisovich]

West being willing to cooperate have no bearing on condition of democracy in country x as west was willing to deal with Russia that was rogue state long before current war, or supplying weapons to genocidal regime.

[The Grand Nudger]

The issue of islamic conservatism is that islam is pig shit, and conserving pig shit leads to pig shit outcomes. The rule of law and freedom of expression, the rights of minorities, women, and lgbtq people are all sideways with the principles of islam. There's no better version of islam that includes these things which is also, accurately, still islam. We will never overcome islamic autocrats until we have overcome islam, end of. The US can be as problematic as we like, and islam is still islam.

[Leonardo17]

The issue of islamic conservatism is that islam is pig shit, and conserving pig shit leads to pig shit outcomes.   The rule of law and freedom of expression, the rights of minorities, women, and lgbtq people are all sideways with the principles of islam.  There's no better version of islam that includes these things which is also, accurately, still islam.  We will never overcome islamic autocrats until we have overcome islam, end of.  The US can be as problematic as we like, and islam is still islam.

Religions are like ideologies with some sort of “soft side” or positive aspect. I like to compare them to some political ideologies. You and I have been disagreeing about things like the Soviet Union for instance.
 
First of all, Karl Marx what a humanist type of philosopher and people who are knowledgeable in philosophy say that some of his ideas were of great value even today.
 
Second, at some point Karl Marx had to admit he was not a Marxist.
 
Third, Left-wing people like to say that Lenin was a man with real socialist vision but he sort of lost his place to a real dictator like Stalin. But still: To some baby boomer leftists even Stalin was “The man of Steel” who defeated Hitler and made the Soviet Union a strong superpower.
 
The reason why I am telling you all this is that, during most of the 20th century, there were strong socialist ideals and there was this “Socialist social contract”. Today that is simply gone. But it was still around at least during my teenage years.
 
The issue of religions is not that different. In the 1982 movie called Gandhi, you can hear Gandhi say “I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Sikh, I am a Christian”. What he means is that all these religions have this “basic message” I am talking about.
 
Still on a practical level and for most people, it’s this mixture of faith in completely unproven ideas married with some orders and instructions that are to be followed to the letter by commoners or ordinary people but simply don’t apply to the rich and powerful (including the spiritual cast).
 
Here is a nice video on how construction workers in Dubai are exploited like animals although the rich in Dubai have more than enough cash to treat them decently if only they wanted to:
 
 


 
I talked about this with many people. Nobody is interested in the burden of that kind of belief system anymore.
 
But what you are not seeing is that this is slowly shifting. It’s not going to happen in a decade or so, but gradually, the more insane aspects of religion are simply going to disappear.
 
Still: The Political Islamist government is also doing nothing about Gaza. Left wing parties here are mobilizing to support the Gaza humanitarian aid flotilla while the governing AK Party is looking for ways to normalize its relation with Israel.
 
The Abrahamic God says “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me”. So where is the solution when the conservative ones love dollar bills more than religious scriptures?

[Alan V]

The issue of religions is not that different. In the 1982 movie called Gandhi, you can hear Gandhi say “I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Sikh, I am a Christian”. What he means is that all these religions have this “basic message” I am talking about.

That's a nice hope, and it is similar to what the Sufis sometimes say.  But I don't think it is realistic.

I am not a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, or any other variety of religious person.  Those are all out-dated systems of thought in my opinion.
 

The Abrahamic God says “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me”. So where is the solution when the conservative ones love dollar bills more than religious scriptures?

Here's the way I see it.  We all share a common human nature, a psychology which was evolved over thousands of years so that we adapt to our immediate circumstances.

This means that people adopt one religion over another primarily to integrate socially, to gain the benefits of that social integration in terms of surviving and thriving.  In other words, in most cases we do not do it because we are convinced of the truth of our religious beliefs.  We are, in fact, behaving opportunistically just as we were evolved to do.

Only a certain number of people spend the time and efforts to really examine their belief systems critically.  Many of such people abandon them altogether.

So the opportunists are in the majority, by far.  Only a few are able to really cash in because of it, but they are supported by all of those who have been trained to think they are good people.

[Leonardo17]

Alan V:
 
1) I don’t believe that being an atheist you will lose your soul or anything like that. I don’t see God as a cosmic persona either. I like to define it as The Ultimate Reality that is the creative force behind the universe that is described (in most mystical traditions including Sufism) as being accessible by all men equally because it is an inner phenomenon more than some Superior creature living in some inaccessible place like Mount Olympus in the ancient Greek tradition
 
2) I gave a kudo to this one. A decade or so ago I would simply disengage from the type of “believers” both of us have mentioned in this thread. But in my case, there was a point in which I decided to break my silence. And that’s because of this:
 
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fiI3FDH3l...ture=share
 
You have probably heard about the Sumud Flotilla that left Spain to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza. Most of the activists in that flotilla have a “welcome them all” policy for any would be participants. Yet if you click on the link provided above you will see that the Turkish “activists” are all political Islamist. In the video they are shouting anti-Israeli and pro-Hamas slogans. These are the guys who want to overthrow the secular Republic in Turkey. And actually they are the guys Israelis are fighting. If you go to Gazza with this type of people on board Israel will intensify its strikes instead of decreasing them. That’s their arch-nemesis if you like. They are like fire and gunpowder. So the whole effort is failing because of them. That’s the type of people who want no Israel at all.
 
Anyway. So seeing the negative aspects of religion is a good thing. Being scientific minded and looking for observation and verifiable facts instead of believing the word of this or that wise person or divine scripture is even better.
 
But there is no harm in trying to understand some aspects of religion (any religion) is also important in our time. You can be an atheist and still ask to the perpetrators of 9/11 “What part of the scripture saying ‘Thou Shalt not kill’ did you somehow manage to miss?”
 
And again, you cannot count on these guys to bring us peace in the Middle-East. With today’s mass media + Internet + education levels I need to see better approaches on this and other issues. And I will keep criticizing anyone who fails to do so.
 
  How is it possible that Gandhi who lived 77 years ago in India understood all I am saying but today’s grown-ups are meeting the activists of the Sumud Flotilla and all that they have is “Death to Israel” and “Long live Hamas”?
 
And that’s just me: I do get frustrated when I see things like that. I do expect 21st century people to be more like 21st century people. That’s all

[The Grand Nudger]

 You can be an atheist and still ask to the perpetrators of 9/11 “What part of the scripture saying ‘Thou Shalt not kill’ did you somehow manage to miss?

They didn't miss shit Leo.  For every fragment of a directive that you can dig out of magic books that you like, the people who you disagree with can do the same.   Islamists aren't doing islam wrong.  You are. It's their religion. It's always been their religion. How often, and for how long, must reformers fail before we can acknowledge it was a shitty enterprise from the word go?

Scripture™ is a uniquely bad reason to do or not do anything.

[Leonardo17]

 You can be an atheist and still ask to the perpetrators of 9/11 “What part of the scripture saying ‘Thou Shalt not kill’ did you somehow manage to miss?

They didn't miss shit Leo.  For every fragment of a directive that you can dig out of magic books that you like, the people who you disagree with can do the same.   Islamists aren't doing islam wrong.  You are.  It's their religion.  It's always been their religion.  How often, and for how long, must reformers fail before we can acknowledge it was a shitty enterprise from the word go?

Scripture™ is a uniquely bad reason to do or not do anything.

I agree with the final statement. There should be laws directing people only to believe in what they can directly observe or verify with experiments done to see if someone is completely right or not. Trying to do things by believing what somebody or some book said is full of risks from the very beginning.
 
What mystics “believe” is called intuition. For us it is a method of perceiving things without our material senses. But let’s not get into that
 
I’ve just read that Greta is being held in very difficult conditions in the Negev desert right now:
 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...aza-sweden
 
Of course most of the press in my country is multiplying the truth by 10 before supplying it to the ordinary citizens.
 
/ What I am emphasizing here is this: Typical Jews and typical Muslims as you name them are not going to be able to solve this issue. There is clearly two sides in this issue.
 
Those who believe in our identities as men and women. The history of humanity is older than the history of religion. We believe in reconciliation and peace. Than there are those like Netanyahu. Who believe in some interpretation of religious scriptures, but are unable to change anything on the ground.
 
The Netanyahu way of thinking is not any different from the Hamas way of thinking.
 
And again, it’s atheists or secular people who are trying to solve the issue. Islamists try to get their share by joining the flotilla as you saw in the video provided above. Israel uses this as an opportunity to prove that the peace flotilla itself is evil and anti-Semite.
 
So who is trying to solve the issue (as part of the flotilla or as demonstrators all over the world)?
 
- We are. I mean everybody, except people who believe that politics and religion should work hand in hand in order to achieve thing in this world.
 
So for me that’s the main issue here.
The religion you are talking about also exists. But I am saying it shouldn’t exist anymore. It’s completely inefficient and outdated and a perfect breeding ground for ideologies of hatred and intolerance. And I believe that today, anybody is able to see this, so they all take precaution either by studying what is what and which part fits where while remaining a believer. Or they simply throw the whole thing away and don’t spend anymore of their energy and time on matters that have become totally useless to them.
 
So (for me) both ways are good as long as it suits you. But I have my reserves on all forms of politicized religion. I cannot criticize Mussolini and say that politicized religion is ok. It would be incoherent to do so

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Leonardo17

I agree with the final statement. There should be laws directing people only to believe in what they can directly observe or verify with experiments done to see if someone is completely right or not. Trying to do things by believing what somebody or some book said is full of risks from the very beginning.

I can’t imagine an idea more inimical to freedom that attempting to legislate belief. 

I also don’t understand how such laws could be enforced.

Boru