Muslim students less likely to be awarded top class degrees.

[Belacqua]

Wow.  A member makes a valid comment about a small segment of believers in three religions, SAYS it's not about all believers, and is castigated for being a bigot.

Where's the real bigotry here?

Boru

The way I read his comment, he's saying that "cultural Jews" are the ones who don't believe in the literal truth of the myths. To me, this sounds as though he thinks that religious Jews DO believe these as literal truth. 

Given other things he's said in the past, my inference is reasonable. If he'd like to clarify, and explain that many many religious Jews and religious Muslims DO NOT believe in the literal truth of talking snakes, global floods, etc., he can certainly do that. I suspect that he won't be willing to agree that there are religious people who don't believe stupid stuff.

I think he is suffering from cognitive dissonance. He assumes a priori that religious people believe stupid stuff. If, therefore, a Jew or a Muslim does not believe stupid stuff, then FM assumes that he must be only a "cultural" Jew or Muslim, not a religious one. 

If that's what he believes, he's wrong. If it's not what he believes, he can clarify.

---

I'm sorry to read about your past troubles.

It's OK, it was a fascinating time for me. 

I worked at a very high-priced art gallery in NYC for several years. Since I'd grown up in a tiny town with basically no culture, it was a big change. The whole thing felt so unreal that I didn't resent the privileges of the 1% -- it was like watching a movie. And even though I was the one hanging the picture and doing the track lighting, the pictures I was hanging up were the same ones I'd been studying in art history classes, and that was fun for me. 

There was also a clear distinction between the people who got rich because of talent and those who got rich just because of money. Wall Street people treated everyone they were around who wasn't their financial equal like a slave. But the artists were almost always kind and personable. I went to Paloma Picasso's house a few times to take pictures or organize shipping, and even though she looked superhumanly well put together, she was always welcoming. My favorite was Saul Steinberg, who was famous for New Yorker covers. He acted like someone who wasn't famous. I always had a book under my arm for when I had to wait, and he invariably wanted to know about what I was reading, and if he should read it, and suggested similar things I'd like. He was a wonderful man. 

As a Muslim, our region is drenched in pure poverty, lack of future, etc. We mainly look forward to an immigration chance to a western country so we live. I don't think academics would be our concern, but how to get work so we gain cash enough for us to survive.

You can see a glimpse of that in the immigrants boarding the death-boats to the borders of Europe, or the Millions of Syrians crossing to Turkey then Europe.

But yes. Rich, well-rest students are of course at an advantage. Only bigots would fail to see due to bigotry and ignoring of facts.

Yes, I think there's no doubt about this at all. Western colonization has worked diligently to keep Muslim regions poor in order to extract the resources cheaply.

It's certain that a great deal of Western antipathy to Islam is manufactured by the media to distract us from our own government's evil policies, and pretend that there is something intrinsically bad about people in those countries. As if their desire to hit us back is due only to irrational religion. 

I read an article a while back about Britain's need for cotton in the 18th century. Most of it came from the American colonies, and the war for independence was fought at least in part for control of the cotton. Instead of shipping it to England to be woven and therefore have most of the value added, the colonies wanted to weave it themselves and derive the whole benefit. When England lost this resource after 1776, they turned to Egyptian cotton and made sure not to repeat the mistake they'd made in North America: they made absolutely sure that Egyptians themselves would never be able to benefit from the profits of the cotton, and to do this required keeping Egyptian education and its economy as primitive as possible. And then of course they blamed the Egyptians for not being an advanced country.

Here is where the useful idiots like Hitchens and Dawkins serve as spokespeople for empire. By blaming religion for what can much more fairly be attributed to their own countries' economic policies, they scapegoat others and exonerate themselves.