A Simple Rule

[Mister Agenda]

But you are a bigot if you oppose Germans because some of them were/are Nazis. Being a Muslim is more akin to being a German than to Nazi ideology.

NO!
IT'S!
NOT!

Good use of capitalization, if you think shouting is a valid method of argumentation.

Islam is a belief, not a race.

Very few Germans were 'born into' Naziism. Those who became Nazis were not born into an established Nazi culture where every adult they knew took Naziism completely for granted. Nazis consciously chose to be Nazis. Germans do not consciously choose to be Germans, it's an accident of birth. In this way being a Muslim is analogous to being a German.

Every Muslim can become an ex-Muslim.

Every German can become an ex-German, too.

Sweet Reason, why is this such a point of controversy?

My guess it that it's because you have blinders on when it comes to Islam that prevent you from working through an analogy appropriately or lead you to over-extend it.

No, as soon as you start the conversation, people pre-emptively scream you're painting with a broad brush and being prejudiced against an entire people.

And you don't see that as having anything to do with you 'starting the conversation' with a broad brush? Is it some kind of compulsion with you?

The recent Affleck-Harris discussion is the perfect example. Harris did specifically open the discussion with "Islamic theocracy".

Really? I thought he opened with

“We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards muslims as people,” Harris began. “It’s intellectually ridiculous.”

In other words, he opened by pre-emptively attacking his detractors, just like you usually do on this topic. Can you imagine any reason why someone who doesn't feel that's a fair description of their position might object to what you're saying right off the bat? It's pretty hypocritical to lead with something you have to know is provocative to the audience you're complaining about and also complain that you successfully provoked them.

It's a Bill O'Riley type of opening gambit that is disappointing to encounter among supposedly intellectually rigorous people.

This is specific to extremists and Islamists. Affleck ignored this distinction and accused him of being racist against a billion people, trying to shout him down (and thus proved Harris' point).

Harris was clear that he blamed Islam itself for Islamic extremism, and characterized Muslims who are not extremists as 'not serious about their religion'.

Islamic extremism.

Or just plain Islam, at least in its current incarnation.

If you like. Clearly you are not the one interested in moving farther along in the conversation if so, however. It's amazing to me how you stick on that first point and whine that it's everyone else stopping you from criticizing Islam. If we were talking about any other broad demographic in the world, I think you could see it. Or would you insist on just calling Jewish terrorism, 'Judaism'?

The Islam in a previous incarnation, pre-Crusades, seemed to promote science and learning. Why is that? What changed? How do we change it back? I'd like to have this conversation.

History, and it's a conversation that you prevent by insisting that first we must agree Islam itself is the problem.

That's hardly always the case. People openly criticize Islam all the time without serious consequence. Your list is infinitesimal compared to the list of people who have openly criticized Islam without having to go into hiding or receiving a single threat.

Can you cite any examples? "A single threat" and the implication that this list is exhaustive compared to those killed or threatened is quite a claim.

It's not nearly as big a claim as that out of millions of people who have publicly criticized Islam, most of them have gotten death threats or suffered other serious consequences. Your 'evidence' is anecdotal. Usually you would be smart enough to know that you can't meaningfully make such a claim based on anecdotal evidence, but not on this subject. It's the kind of claim that requires statistics to support it. What is the universe of people who publicly criticize Islam? Over what period of time? What percentage have suffered serious consequences? How did you find that out? There was a South Park episode that portrayed Mohammed, how come that one was ignored by the Muslim World, and the later one generated a death threat?

I posit that most people who publicly criticize Islam are in a position to feel safe in doing so, so one would expect little consequence for most of them. Talking heads are not particularly shy on the matter.

I wonder if the correlation between the danger you're in for not conforming to the majority ideology or religion has more to do with whether your country is an undeveloped mess than exactly which ideology or religion is on top?

An interesting question. There are plenty of poor, undeveloped countries that are non-Muslim in majority that we can compare to test this hypothesis. I'll wager the Abrahamic religions are more violent and less tolerant since ideology has everything to do with what kind of behavior I expect.

I see you've moved the goalposts to include all Abrahamic religions, as though that's what we were talking about instead of Islam specifically. I'll assume that means you're aware that undeveloped Christian countries aren't shining lights compared to Muslim countries.

If you make their scriptures the problem, reform is impossible.

I wish I had the power to make their scriptures anything. The question is are their scriptures the problem?

Wow, however did you manage to ask that question in the face of radical anti-Islamophobes preventing you from having this conversation?

Since there are countries with a majority population that has similarly problematic scriptures with a much smaller degree of radical extremism, I think it's safe to conclude that scriptures aren't at the heart of the problem.

It's not an excuse. It's a literal fact that the Muslims who are terrorists are radicals. You're the one who seems to have a problem with that fact.

I don't have a problem with that fact. I keep saying, "show me the radicals of a religion and I'll show you the teachings of that religion".

And I'll say 'show me the moderates of a religion, and I'll show you the people we should want to see become a bigger percentage and wield more influence than the fundamentalists'. I'll also say 'show me the majority of a religion's followers, and I'll show you what most of the religion's followers are like'.

If any group in a religion IS the religion, it's the majority.

Not necessarily. Fred Phelps doesn't represent a majority of Christians but he does understand what scripture says. Most Christians don't. Most Christians have never actually read the Bible.

Like a fundamentalist, you focus on literal interpretation of scripture. Moderates don't agree that scripture should be interpreted so literally. When it comes to ancient scriptures, the cherry-pickers in favor of modernity have my full support, while the cherry-pickers in favor of reactionism have my condemnation. When dealing with scripture, cherry-picking is unavoidable, and it mystifies me why a deist would pick the side picking the most violent interpretation as the most correct one. It doesn't seem helpful to be telling moderate Christians that they're doing it wrong and if they want to be REAL Christians, they should be doing it like Phelps. I'd be afraid I might be too successful in convincing them of that.

So which group represents an ideology? One man who knows it and fully embraces it or ten people who kind of believe in something like it sort of in a way?

They're distinct ideologies which each group is representing and fully embracing. Criticizing moderates for not being fundamentalists is like criticizing Independents for not being Republicans. The reason they're not fundamentalists (or Republicans) is because they disagree with them on many points. And unless you're on the side of Republicans, you might want to be careful if you're a liberal of telling Independents they have to choose between Republicans and Democrats down the line, and that their course of agreeing with Democrats on some things and Republicans on some things is illegtitimate. It's likely to make them think more poorly of Democrats if that group is seen as telling them they're wrong to take a middle path, which is an ideology in itself.