What if other ideas were defended the same way?

[DeistPaladin]

I had this thought last night as my wife and I were discussing religion. Everyone, I'm sure is familiar with the recent meltdown of Ben Affleck on the Bill Maher show, Realtime. There's been a lot of activity since among liberals defending Muslims against what they see as bigoted attacks against them personally. Such attacks are not what Harris, Maher or others intended. They're trying to discuss the religion, not the people.

This knee-jerk charge of "racism" (Islam is now a race apparently) effectively shut down the conversation about the ideas Islam presents and prevent any serious discussion on whether there could be a link between religion and religious violence.

To the "coexist advocate" like Ben Affleck (I'll call them), religion is to be absolved from any responsibility for religious violence, for fear that we will paint moderates and ordinary adherents with the same brush we use to depict hard liners and terrorists. They insist we always look for a political, social or personal motive whenever religious violence rears its ugly head.

Oddly enough, this is the same strategy we see with the NRA. Mass shootings don't happen because of the plentiful accessibility of guns in the US. There are always other causes of the tragedy, from violence in video games to how we treat mental illness in this country. Any discussions of the availability of guns is shut down.

To the free thinker, this kind of creation of proverbial sacred cows and forbidden topics of discussion is intellectually dishonest. We don't treat non-religious ideas this way. When an idea seems to lead to violence, even by a mere 1% of its advocates, we ought to examine whether there was a link between the idea and the behavior of its adherents.

So with this long-winded intro having set the stage, imagine if we did treat other political ideas the way we treat Islam. Apologies in advance to Godwin; this satire is not intended to suggest anyone is a Nazi but to make a point on how we discuss ideas.

"Sure WWII was a terrible, destructive war and the holocaust a horror against humanity. Nobody denies this. But why do we paint all Nazis with a broad brush or assume that Nazism was the cause?

"Just because a few bad apples who ran the regime started a war with the world or ran concentration camps where so many were slaughtered, that doesn't mean we should agree with the racists or bigots who say the whole ideology of Nazism should be condemned with a broad brush. These were just bad people who happened to be Nazis, right?

"Let's not forget about all the moderates, the civilians who were unaware of the atrocities or the truth about the war. Not all German civilians, even those who voted for the "bad apple" Hitler, knew what the plan was. Some of them were deceived by the propaganda. And when you criticize an idea, it means you're a racist who is attacking and condemning all the people that hold it personally. There's just no way to separate the two ... is not ... is not ... is not.

"There's a more nuanced view. When we think of what caused the holocaust, we need to consider all possible motives, political, economic or personal and not just blame the ideology that drove the hatred that led to the atrocity.

"You can't blame an idea for what the adherents of the idea do. That's racist and bigoted."

[Chas]

Oddly enough, this is the same strategy we see with the NRA. Mass shootings don't happen because of the plentiful accessibility of guns in the US. There are always other causes of the tragedy, from violence in video games to how we treat mental illness in this country. Any discussions of the availability of guns is shut down.

You are equating ideologies with inanimate objects? That is a curious idea.

[DeistPaladin]

You are equating ideologies with inanimate objects? That is a curious idea.

I'm equating the automatic rule out of one possible cause for a given effect in an analysis of a given problem, since that fallacy is at work with both topics.

Just as it is fallacious to assume a positive conclusion on the source of a cause to a given effect and then look for evidence to support it ("look at the universe, Jesus must have done it, so let's look for reasons to believe that"), so too it is fallacious to automatically, by assumption, rule out a possible cause ("oh, it couldn't be that, and no, we won't even discuss it") and look for other possible causes to blame.

A similar fallacy is at work. That the possible cause being discussed is either the availability of a certain object or the possible dangerous implications of an idea is beside the point.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think that too often in the minds of non-Muslims, criticizing the religion becomes stereotyping all Muslims for the atrocities committed by a tiny fraction of them, in the same way that many foreigners thought that all Americans shared Dubya's retardation, for instance.

I agree with you're saying about sacred cows; nothing should be immune from reasoned criticism. But the level of bigotry in America is such that some folks will seize upon anything in order to castigate entire groups of people. Care should be taken in order to avoid fueling those fires.

[Mystic]

Ok DeistPaladin. Why not just blame belief in God and spirituality. Islam verses obviously teach peace to me, but, I think when people get attached to God they sometimes go to extremes and want to be part of a group identity that is chosen by him and see others as his enemies.

So why blame Islam. Why not say it's belief in God that is source of terrorism.

This specially again, when verses in Quran teach peace, it can't be said it's due to what Quran said.

The reality it's not belief in God, it's human nature. People can gather up on evil or good. That's how humans always been.

[DeistPaladin]

So why blame Islam. Why not say it's belief in God that is source of terrorism.

I'm not even saying it IS Islam. I'm saying everything needs to be on the table when dissecting the cause of religious or other violence when it occurs.

To give you an example close to home for me is when Christians assert that atheism and/or evolution was a contributor to the violence by Hitler, Stalin and Mao. I don't mind that discussion as the facts are on my side. Hitler was a devout Christian, or so it seems from his speeches and writings. Even if he was faking it (he wouldn't be the first dictator to find religion useful), the victims of the holocaust were Jews, gays and occult practicing Gypsies, the very people Christianity had been persecuting for 2000 years. Christians try to link up "survival of the fittest (to a given environment)" to Hitler's fantasy "super race" but the Nazis rejected Darwin. Meanwhile, the abuses of Stalin, while quite severe, were clearly politically motivated. Even his moves against the church were more about getting rid of rivals. There's nothing in the "teaching" of atheism that prompted his abuses because there are no teachings to atheism. Atheism is the absence of a belief.

[Minimalist]

religion is to be absolved from any responsibility for religious violence, for fear that we will paint moderates and ordinary adherents with the same brush we use to depict hard liners and terrorists.

I'm still waiting for those alleged "moderates and ordinary adherents" to demonstrate that they are willing to denounce the ones who have the guts to act. Mostly they seem to admire them.

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2014/...e-muslims/

Mark Durie in Islam, Human rights and Public Policy (2009) refers to a poll taken in 2006 which found that 58% of Indonesians believed adulterers should be stoned to death; up from 39% in 2001. Apparently the polled respondents in this “moderate” Muslim nation were not asked whether adulterers should simply get a damn good thrashing. I assume there would have been even greater support for that. In 2010, the Pew Research Centre found that 84% of Egyptians, 86% of Jordanians and 76% of Pakistanis favoured death for apostasy.

In early 2011, the governor of the Punjab province in Pakistan, Salmaan Taseer, was assassinated. He was killed for opposing blasphemy laws which had resulted in a Christian woman facing execution. Pope Benedict publicly opposed the laws. A number of Pakistan’s political leaders, including then-Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, made it clear that the Pope had no business interfering in Pakistan’s internal affairs and that the blasphemy laws would remain in place. Thousands were reported to have showered the alleged assassin with rose petals.

Ok DeistPaladin. Why not just blame belief in God and spirituality.

I agree with you completely. Several centuries back xtians were every bit as big a bunch of bloodthirsty bastards as ISIS.

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
― Blaise Pascal

[simplemoss]

Islam and nazism aren't the same, nazism is polical ideology you can compare it to jihadism which would make a better name for the war than "war on terrorism" or "war on Islam" which seems to be a big part of the debate. Now the question should really be is why are senators saying Islam is a cancer that needs to be cut out. Yet nobody called for Christianity to be destroyed? After all we lost alot more in ww2 than we have since 2001.

We did lock up all the japs though

[Lao Shizi]

From the same Quadrant article you site:

"As I pointed out in “Moderate Muslims are the Problem, Not the Solution” (Quadrant, May 2013): “Christians don’t go around bombing people in the name of Christianity or envisioning a restored Christian empire, akin to a caliphate, in the Western world.” Without an immoderate and warlike comparison, the term “moderate” has no meaning. Christians don’t go around axiomatically describing themselves as moderate. It would be silly. Not so with Muslims."

Really?

I don't see any real difference in the 3 Abrahamic religions. They all have moderates, and fanatics who use the religion for whatever ends they desire, be it a Caliphate, or a "Christian Nation," or a Jewish state, or whatever. They all believe that they are right, and everyone else is wrong. Islam is no crazier than any other, or Pakistan would have nuked the fuck out of somebody by now.

[DeistPaladin]

I don't see any real difference in the 3 Abrahamic religions. They all have moderates, and fanatics who use the religion for whatever ends they desire, be it a Caliphate, or a "Christian Nation," or a Jewish state, or whatever. They all believe that they are right, and everyone else is wrong. Islam is no crazier than any other, or Pakistan would have nuked the fuck out of somebody by now.

Christianity is like a rabid dog that has been caged and muzzled. It's days of Inquisitions, Crusades and Witch Burnings are over (except for the witch hunts in Africa). The worst we have to contend with is Christianity trying to break free of it's restraints, a scarier possibility 10 years ago than today.

Islam is like the same rabid dog still running amok. Some might say, "look how much scarier the dog running free is" but that's not because the dog is any more or less rabid. It's only because the dog has not yet been caged and muzzled like the other one.

One day, we'll be able to put them both down with the euthenizing drug called "prove it".