Social justie whack-a-do defending Islam

[TaraJo]

Funny thing about religions, when in the minority they always teach peace and love, whilst claiming to be oppressed. Then when they become the majority the first thing they do is oppress or outright kill their competition, and then precede with their own bigoted agenda.

Actually, yeah, that's pretty much true.

Damn. I think this is the first time I've agreed with a Christian on this forum!

In all seriousness, I have a friend who did counter-intelligence for the military in the middle east. One of the rules she noticed is that religious groups get more nasty when they have near complete control of a region. Whenever they're fighting for popularity, they're usually much more open minded.

Truth is, while I see a lot to object to in Islamic countries in the middle east, I've met more than a few Muslims here in America and they seem to be pretty cool people over here. They're certainly less dickish about their religious beliefs than the Christians.

[DramaQueen]

And it also depends on which Muslim country they came from.

[Mister Agenda]

I have to give credit to the Islamic fundamentalists for managing to convince a lot of people, that criticism of Islam equals something equivilent to racism.

I am going to give an example of this craziness in recent proposals here in Australia to ban the public wearing of the burka or niqab. There are very good reasons for initating this ban. However critics are jumping over and down saying it is Islamicphobic and etc.

If there's a special law for the burqa and not public mask-wearing in general, it is Islamophobic. And anti-secular, to boot.

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It's truly amazing. You point out to people some of the very noxious ideas perpetuated in the Qur'an and the hadith and they reply, "But you're generalizing about all Muslims."

Bitch please. The only Muslims I'm generalizing about are adherents and supporters of homophobic, sexist, and violent ideas as explicitly contained in the texts of the Prophet--considered divine and infallible, and as such, the foundation and pinnacle of a rational ethic. Even if these people are not themselves dangerous, they're providing the wellspring for such ideologies to arise.

If you're a Muslim who can admit that some of your religion's holy texts are vile and should be viewed as restricted to the 7th-century, where such barbarism should have remained, all the power to you.

There's a perfectly cromulent word for people like that: Islamists.

Is·la·mism/isˈläˌmizəm/
noun
Islamic militancy or fundamentalism.

[Cato]

There's a perfectly cromulent word for people like that: Islamists.

Is·la·mism/isˈläˌmizəm/
noun
Islamic militancy or fundamentalism.

There's a huge practical problem with this distinction. There is no way to differentiate based on appearance meaning you will only have a fraction of a second to ponder your new discovery prior to losing your head or transforming into flying mince. Until Muslims affect the change required to rid themselves of Islamists, they will simply have to deal with the fact that unfamiliar non-Muslims will necessarily regard them with a certain level of suspicion until ensured otherwise.

[Mudhammam]

There's a perfectly cromulent word for people like that: Islamists.

Is·la·mism/isˈläˌmizəm/
noun
Islamic militancy or fundamentalism.

That's valid. It remains to be seen which (Muslims or Islamists) gain more credibility as heirs to the "correct" (i.e. popular) interpretation of Islam, perhaps in much the same way that Christianity spawned a number of different Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant sects.

[DramaQueen]

The thing is Muslims who are heretics are more likely to lose their faith

[Chas]

The thing is Muslims who are heretics are more likely to lose their faith

Or more likely to lose their heads.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Funny thing about religions, when in the minority they always teach peace and love, whilst claiming to be oppressed.

Except the American Christians, who claim to be oppressed even as they're the overwhelming majority of the populace.

There's a huge practical problem with this distinction. There is no way to differentiate based on appearance meaning you will only have a fraction of a second to ponder your new discovery prior to losing your head or transforming into flying mince. Until Muslims affect the change required to rid themselves of Islamists, they will simply have to deal with the fact that unfamiliar non-Muslims will necessarily regard them with a certain level of suspicion until ensured otherwise.

Replace "Muslim" with "American", and replace "Islamist" with "neocon". What of this construct now?

[Lemonvariable72]

Funny thing about religions, when in the minority they always teach peace and love, whilst claiming to be oppressed. Then when they become the majority the first thing they do is oppress or outright kill their competition, and then precede with their own bigoted agenda.

Actually, yeah, that's pretty much true.

Damn. I think this is the first time I've agreed with a Christian on this forum!

In all seriousness, I have a friend who did counter-intelligence for the military in the middle east. One of the rules she noticed is that religious groups get more nasty when they have near complete control of a region. Whenever they're fighting for popularity, they're usually much more open minded.

Truth is, while I see a lot to object to in Islamic countries in the middle east, I've met more than a few Muslims here in America and they seem to be pretty cool people over here. They're certainly less dickish about their religious beliefs than the Christians.

Me Christian? I have not been a christian since 22/04/13. I am most certainly agnostic atheist, at least last I check. Maybe Christianity is like aids and you can catch without knowing?

[Mister Agenda]

Maybe if you rephrased it as Islamic fundamentalism? Most Muslims don't live in the Middle East and although plenty of those are misogynist too, plenty aren't...at least, not more so than the average male American.

Though I strongly doubt you are an actual Islamophobe. If I were doing a 'You might be an Islamophobe bit, the questions would go along these lines:

If you think Muslims should be prevented from immigrating in order to protect the Constitution.
If you think less than 2% of the population is going to institute Shariah law in America in the nesxt 20 years.
If you think the next war on Muslim extremists can be shortened to a week by dipping our bullets in pig blood and advertising it.
If you think so-called 'moderate Muslims' are practicing taqiyya.
If you think the president is secretly a Muslim.
If you think Islam is not really a religion but a political system disguised as a religion.

I would be very surprised if any of that describes you, TaraJo.

The last one, kinda. I think Islam is a religious system that asks for a specific kind of government. I mean, the religious leader of Muslims, Mohammed, very specifically started an Islamic state and his followers have a habit of doing the same thing. Fortunately, the only place where there is a high enough percentage of Muslims for this to happen is in the middle east and some parts of Africa. I don't worry in the slightest that there's going to be Sharia law here in the US. Hell, I worry more about Jewish law being instituted in the US than I do Sharia law.

I think for the last one, I should have added '...and therefore should not be protected by the First Amendment'.

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There's a perfectly cromulent word for people like that: Islamists.

Is·la·mism/isˈläˌmizəm/
noun
Islamic militancy or fundamentalism.

There's a huge practical problem with this distinction. There is no way to differentiate based on appearance meaning you will only have a fraction of a second to ponder your new discovery prior to losing your head or transforming into flying mince. Until Muslims affect the change required to rid themselves of Islamists, they will simply have to deal with the fact that unfamiliar non-Muslims will necessarily regard them with a certain level of suspicion until ensured otherwise.

My apologies. I did not realize you are in central Iraq, which makes your attitude justifiable. It's a little different in the West, where behaving as though the typical Muslim one runs into on the street is at least 50% likely to be a jihadist is considered a bit unreasonable.

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The thing is Muslims who are heretics are more likely to lose their faith

Sounds like a good reason to support Islamic heresies that are not Islamist as a matter of policy.