Criticizing Islam is racist?

[Rhondazvous]

Yeah, don't look up facts, for all I care. And it's not Islam, but the muslim world, bringing us culture in the medieval world.

Reading this the second time made me realize something. We're saying the same thing. It wasn't Islam. I thought you were saying Islam gave us the number zero. Or, at least that it was because of Islam, because the people were Muslims. they gave us this and that.

I shudder to think what it would be like to really disagree with you about something. Well, at least I'll have a worthy opponent.

[abaris]

I shudder to think what it would be like to really disagree with you about something. Well, at least I'll have a worthy opponent.

Well, don't.

Especially the people settling on the shores of the Mediterranean largely preserved the classical Greek heritage and were not shy to build upon it. The Western world just stopped dead in their tracks. There's also a distinct line between the Western world and the Byzantine empire.

One of the reasons being the peoples involved. One of the reasons being their understanding of religion being more liberal than what Rome dictated. It offered more space for exploration. What we now understand as, and make blanket statements about is largely dictated by uneducated people, who basically were nomads from the desert, coming into power. All these movements, feared by the West, have one thing in common. All of them are melting pots of rural or urban disadvantaged people, who didn't get the opportunity at higher education and see no future for themselves where they live. That's why I said, it's political as well as religious. It's an outlet for violent reactions for perceived wrongs. Religious fanatics build on that. Pretty much in the same way as rightwing populists build on our growing disadvantaged populations. And they both point fingers at and are scapegoating each other.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Unless they themselves have been violent, you yourself are being an asshole.

Judge people based on their behavior, not because someone else cherry-picks the same fucking book in a different manner.

lol. 

But Thump, I am basing it on THEIR behavior.

I am basing it on their choice to be not only remain aligned with something evil,
but to make efforts to recruit for that evil.

Yes, because all Muslims are evangelists trying to recruit jihadis.

I'm done with this conversation. Your walls are too thick. Goodbye.

[Lemonvariable72]

Christian, or I should more specifically is western culture has been effected very deeply by enlightenment teachings such as equality and individualism. These ideals are only now beginning to take

Little of what you observe to be muslim culture is actually influenced by religion. It's their regional culture they lived even before Islam came to be. That's why I said to look at the countries we're talking about. They're still deeply tribal in nature and the countries we now see on the map are mostly artificial constructs with next to no natural glue of people wanting to form a nation. That's especially true for Iraq, Lybia and Syria and to a lesser degree for Jordan.

Add to this that the Turks became the dominant people around the 14th century, adding most of the above regions to their realm and keeping them on a tight leash for about 500 years and you have one of the reasons why they didn't see any independent development. Add to this the fact that Lawrence of Arabia promised them independence if they fought the Osmanic empire. Add to this that this promise was entirely void at the end of WWI and they only exchanged Osmanic domination against british and French domination. All of this are ingredients to the cocktail of making them suspicious of everyone trying to change their ways. But you're only scratching the surface with all of this.

Iran, just to take one example, was on a good way to become an entirely secular nation. The only mistake they made was to nationalise oil production and leaning to socialism. That, the West couldn't tolerate. They were losing their profits and they feared of losing out on the Soviets. So the helped overthrow Mohammad Mossadegh and installed their puppet. And the rest is history, since the Shah's rule fertilized the soil for the backclash.

Still, much of what we tend to perceive as religious nuttery, has entirely political origins. Overthrowing Saddam and laying off all Ba'athists in the army led to them joining insurgent groups. They lost their jobs and their livelyhood and wanted to get back at the invaders. So high ranking Ba'athist officers ultimately ended up training and commanding ISIS. Not because they like them that much, since the Ba'athist movement was entirely secular and rather left leaning in principle. But because they hated the same persons, they hated.

The list could be continued for pages. It's only, like most things in the world, things aren't as simple as making blanket statements. There are reasons for people being motivated to act in a certain fashion. Even if it looks like religion motivating them, religion may actually be only the pretext for something entirely different. That's why I said in a previous post, to look at their history and try to walk in their shoes for a spell. Not to excuse what their radicals do, but to understand why the people are angry.

Of course. And all of those actions by the west has screwed them and driven more into the hands of fundamentalism then otherwise would have been. People when pushed often turn to religion for some form of relief. So yes there are many factors in the current situation the west created. Also you are right in saying that a large part of culture is regional, but I think where your a little off is that culture and religion influence each other, and often religion maintains practices that culturally out dated, like religious prohibitions against pork. I'd also like to elaborate that even deeply religion influenced nations under Islam draw very different influences ex. Iran and Saudi Arabia.

[abaris]

I'd also like to elaborate that even deeply religion influenced nations under Islam draw very different influences ex. Iran and Saudi Arabia.

I think I pointed that out previously here, in this very thread. But I gladly repeat it. Compared to the Saudis, Iran is a liberal paradise. Especially when it comes to women's rights. It also points to our own hypocrisy. The worse one is our very best friend. The better one is our enemy. Purely because they haven't played western ball in the last 30 years.

Also, Iran is Shia. The Saudis are a peculiar sect of Sunni. Wahhabism is considered to be abysmal by most of the muslim world too. They mostly look down on them, calling them uppity nomads coming in from the desert.

As for not eating pork. That's actually one religious rule still making sense in certain regions. There's a reason why jews as well as muslims have that rule. The experience of eating pork making you sick. In some of the less developed regions, it still would. But it also points to humans being behind the creation of the particular religion. They simply collected their ways of life and their experiences with nature there and attributed them to the respective gods.

[Rhondazvous]

I shudder to think what it would be like to really disagree with you about something. Well, at least I'll have a worthy opponent.

Well, don't.

Especially the people settling on the shores of the Mediterranean largely preserved the classical Greek heritage and were not shy to build upon it. The Western world just stopped dead in their tracks. There's also a distinct line between the Western world and the Byzantine empire.

One of the reasons being the peoples involved. One of the reasons being their understanding of religion being more liberal than what Rome dictated. It offered more space for exploration. What we now understand as, and make blanket statements about is largely dictated by uneducated people, who basically were nomads from the desert, coming into power. All these movements, feared by the West, have one thing in common. All of them are melting pots of rural or urban disadvantaged people, who didn't get the opportunity at higher education and see no future for themselves where they live. That's why I said, it's political as well as religious. It's an outlet for violent reactions for perceived wrongs. Religious fanatics build on that. Pretty much in the same way as rightwing populists build on our growing disadvantaged populations. And they both point fingers at and are scapegoating each other.

It’s a complicated mess, isn’t it? One really can’t tell the players without a score card.

Rome as a bastion of conservative Christianity and yet to this day Christians wear the badge of martyrdom in Roman arenas

If only Yahweh and Allah would ago the way of Zeus and Apollo. Part of their distant heritage.

[Minimalist]

abaris

I'd also like to elaborate that even deeply religion influenced nations under Islam draw very different influences ex. Iran and Saudi Arabia.

I think I pointed that out previously here, in this very thread. But I gladly repeat it. Compared to the Saudis, Iran is a liberal paradise. Especially when it comes to women's rights. It also points to our own hypocrisy. The worse one is our very best friend. The better one is our enemy. Purely because they haven't played western ball in the last 30 years.

Also, Iran is Shia. The Saudis are a peculiar sect of Sunni. Wahhabism is considered to be abysmal by most of the muslim world too. They mostly look down on them, calling them uppity nomads coming in from the desert.

As for not eating pork. That's actually one religious rule still making sense in certain regions. There's a reason why jews as well as muslims have that rule. The experience of eating pork making you sick. In some of the less developed regions, it still would. But it also points to humans being behind the creation of the particular religion. They simply collected their ways of life and their experiences with nature there and attributed them to the respective gods.



Ab, would you be surprised to learn that there is actually a study on this?

https://www.academia.edu/4062281/Pig_Hus..._and_Judah

(You might have to join Academia.edu to download the file but its free.)

The most intriguing pattern discovered at sites from the Iron Age IIA–B is the dichotomy between Israel and Judah.

  In the lowlands, pigs do not appear in the Judahite Shephelah,while they do appear in large numbers in the Jezreel Valley sites of the Northern Kingdom,especially in the Iron Age IIB. It seems that the larger frequencies at those sites derive fromdomesticated pigs, raised as part of the livestock, and not from the occasional hunting of wildboar. No special attitude towards pigs (i.e., their appearance in some unique context, inarticulation, fragmented or butchered differently), can be observed in the reviewed reports.On the contrary, all authors define them as part of the eaten fauna. This seems to indicate that pigs were treated just like the rest of the eaten fauna and were not discarded in a specific manner reflecting a different cultural attitude.

There is a suggestion - backed up by population growth studies - that when the Assyrians overran the northern kingdom there was a substantial number of refugees who flooded south into Judah.  The population of Judah was small, nomadic, except for a handful of villages and hamlets and  we can see certain attitudes towards the northerners which indicate that they were less than thrilled to have a shitload of foreigners coming into their land.  The pork thing is one of them.  The Judahites were goat and sheep herders.  The land is not ecologically suited to pigs  unlike the Philistine coast where pigs were plentiful. and pigs are not generally "herded" the way sheep and goats are.  This whole Bedouin-type "sheep and goats are good shows up in other places like when god accepts Cain's sacrifice of meat but tells Abel to take his grain and go fuck himself.  The implication is clear.  This story was written by a nomadic herding culture that did not like farmers.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Pork is no less safe than beef under Bronze Age conditions. Pork can convey trichinosis, and beef can convey e. coli, both when uncooked. When cooked through, neither is a problem.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Pork is no less safe than beef under Bronze Age conditions. Pork can convey trichinosis, and beef can convey e. coli, both when uncooked.  When cooked through, neither is a problem.

An Arab will eat a camel; a Jew won't.  Arabs and Jews will eat beef; a Hindu won't.  the Chinese will eat everything.