Race and Religion and evolution. OP/ED

[Dystopia]

Jews and Muslims have been interchanging race and religion to avoid the real problem which is religious tribalism.

I think I can't really agree with this fully. It is true that anyone can play the race card, hide in a corner and hope that it looks believable. However saying race doesn't count is an irrational kind of thinking

Let's be clear, biologically there is no race - We are all one human race; however denying race and being "colorblind" is ignoring all problems people might face because they have a different ethnicity, culture or physical features.

Anti-semitism, for example, doesn't target Jewish religion specifically, it targets people with features that are traditionally attributed to jews - Regardless of believing race exists or not; there are traits and facial features we associated with being "jewish" and people who dislike jews target them for that; it's not because of Judaism, it is because they have some manifestation of Jewish culture.

As for Islam - Let's say this right away - there is no Islam race, Islam is not a race... However: It is true that people who we traditionally associate with being Muslims (from the middle east, etc.) are physically not the same as native white Americans or Europeans - It is true that some people who dislike Muslims do it because they have physical features or dress clothes that are associated trough stereotypes to Islam. With this, what I'm saying is that the skepticals who criticize Islam for being a religion, like the ones in AF, are not the majority; I have no statistics on this, but I'm willing to bet the majority of anti-Islam is in fact anti-Arab and anti-other-cultures; that's just how it works; many haters of Islam are fuelled not by reason and logic but some old ultra conservative racist ideology that dislikes anything that isn't white native Christian.

Basically my point is that while some Muslims and Jews play the race card I don't think we should ignore race because it plays a part in it, it can cause harm and discrimination. No one sees Christians getting mocked like Muslims do, and if anyone criticizes Christians, they are labelled as bigots - Yet in common social circles it's acceptable to criticize Islam freely and even Jews, because they're not the majority. Despite blasphemy laws it's obvious that in western societies it is widely accepted to criticize Islam and "arabs" as much as you want, as long as you don't do it in public speeches, and you won't get a lot of hate; but if you criticize Christianity in Europe, maybe because it slows down science, because of the high rate of rapes among priests and how it impacts legislative measures - You are called an intolerant who doesn't accept difference. These are bad double standards. I don't like Islam, but I don't want to risk into turning a critique to a violent religion into a perception of discriminating people who are from other cultures - But that's what happens frequently

Criticism of Islam is criticism of a culture - behaviours, lifestyles, beliefs. It has nothing to do with biology. Now, it would be racism to see a brown Middle Eastern looking person, assume they are Muslim based on their appearance, and completely unprovoked attack them. That's racism. Criticising Islam for honour killings of "disobedient" women and homosexuals is not racism.

This sumps up the problem pretty well - There are many people who criticize Muslims because of the reasons mentioned in the second sentence - Because Middle eastern brown looking people are from a different culture; Let's use an easy example - If a western sees a woman in a hijab with her husband and they don't look as white as natives, they are assumed to be Muslims, regardless of what reasons she might have to be Muslim and regardless of the fact that the man is simply slightly more dark skinned than white people - If the person observing is a bigot, he might assume automatically that the man is a wife-beater and she is subservient and oppressed by him

[Brian37]

That is precisely the point. Science does have descriptions of scull shape and skin tone, and those are relevant to evolution. We are the same species which is why we cannot afford religious people to switch back and forth to allow them to ignore this.

[Dystopia]

That is precisely the point. Science does have descriptions of scull shape and skin tone, and those are relevant to evolution. We are the same species which is why we cannot afford religious people to switch back and forth to allow them to ignore this.

Yes, but we cannot ignore as well those who get discriminated on skin tone, regardless of what we know about biology; socially speaking there are races, we identify races all the time, it's common - I can at least think of some categories - White, black, mixed, asian, arabs and jews. These are categories we create based on our own social constructed norms, we identify people because of their skin and facial features, that's a fact - It doesn't matter if biologically there's no race. And it's also truth that with some races we attribute stereotypes, and there comes the danger with anti-semitism and all the white nationalists who hate them; and Islamophobia not against Islam but against people who look "middle eastern".

I'm going to give you a personal example - I'm white, but my dad looked a little like a middle eastern person, he REALLY did, if he dressed on of those "hijabs" he'd pass for a long life Muslim, but he wasn't a religious person to begin with and he doesn't have descendants from the middle east. Once he went to italy or germany (can't remember) on a work trip, he went to a hotel... It happens cops were looking for a terrorist, an Islamic terrorist that sent a threat about bombing; about 10 guys similar to SWAT forces entered his room and almost arrested him because he looked "arab" and because of that he could be a terrorist; luckily he figured it out and explained he was European and portuguese of origin. Do you see, trough this example, how it becomes blurry for race? Now apply this example of high magnitude to small stereotypes that might hurt people who "look Muslim" but may even not be.