Why do Atheists defend Islam?

[abaris]

We aren't talking about Muslims 'in the west' we are talking about Muslims.

And you're basing that on what exactly? What does a Bosnian or a Kosovarian have in common with someone living in Mali? What does an Iranian have in common with someone living in Saudi Arabia? What does an Indonesian have in common with an Algerian?

See, that's the problem. The broad brush, you don't apply to christians for some reasons. You could give them the courtesy of at least considering their different cultures and traditions. It goes much deeper than that and so far I give you the benefit of the doubt of not being wilfully ignorant. But it takes a lot of catching up. Not every muslim is an Arab and not every Arab is a radical. And if you look at Tunesia, or Bosnia or Kosovo or Marocco, the last thing these people desire is a theocracy.

So that statement is stupid or ignorant. Make your own pick.

[Catholic_Lady]

We aren't talking about Muslims 'in the west' we are talking about Muslims.

And you're basing that on what exactly? What does a Bosnian or a Kosovarian have in common with someone living in Mali? What does an Iranian have in common with someone living in Saudi Arabia? What does an Indonesian have in common with an Algerian?

See, that's the problem. The broad brush, you don't apply to christians for some reasons. You could give them the courtesy of at least considering their different cultures and traditions. It goes much deeper than that and so far I give you the benefit of the doubt of not being wilfully ignorant. But it takes a lot of catching up. Not every muslim is an Arab and not every Arab is a radical. And if you look at Tunesia, or Bosnia or Kosovo or Marocco, the last thing these people desire is a theocracy.

So that statement is stupid or ignorant. Make your own pick.

Captain's objection is to Irrational for having said that Republicans are "just as bad" as 80% of Muslims believing it should be illegal to draw Mohammed.

[abaris]

Captain's objection is to Irrational for having said that Republicans are "just as bad" as 80% of Muslims believing it should be illegal to draw Mohammed.

As I pointed out previously, obviously without anyone noticing. It's not about Mohammed. It's about drawing any human and especially prophets. It's a kind of dogma, on the same lines as catholic dogma. Obviously I don't believe in it, but it's about god's creation that humans shouldn't depict. And, to stress another point, which I tried to make previously. Most muslims will react in the same way as christians react to blaspheming their believes. With outrage, but nothing more.

[CapnAwesome]

We aren't talking about Muslims 'in the west' we are talking about Muslims.

And you're basing that on what exactly? What does a Bosnian or a Kosovarian have in common with someone living in Mali? What does an Iranian have in common with someone living in Saudi Arabia? What does an Indonesian have in common with an Algerian?

See, that's the problem. The broad brush, you don't apply to christians for some reasons. You could give them the courtesy of at least considering their different cultures and traditions. It goes much deeper than that and so far I give you the benefit of the doubt of not being wilfully ignorant. But it takes a lot of catching up. Not every muslim is an Arab and not every Arab is a radical. And if you look at Tunesia, or Bosnia or Kosovo or Marocco, the last thing these people desire is a theocracy.

So that statement is stupid or ignorant. Make your own pick.

What??? Extrapolation much? I don't need to be told the differences in Islam, Muslims or their practices. I'm well aware. What does that have to do with my reply to someone who was comparing Republicans to Muslims and then tried change it to 'Muslims in the west' and I was calling him out on it. He was the one ignoring the differences, not me.

Muslims in the west are an equally poor example to use when demonstrating what Muslims believe as are any of the groups you mentioned. Nor did I say 'every' or 'all' or any of the words that you are obsessed with. You love to add those words to what other people are saying and I don't really feel like having any more conversations with you until you stop that.

[Mechaghostman2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTd4-WXw2SM

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, that 44% number came from a survey of a whole few hundred people. It was hardly a representative sample size of Republicans as a whole in this country. But let's assume that such a number is uniform to all Republicans, that still isn't the majority of Republicans.

And what is the sample base of the Pew poll? How many answers did they garner from how many people?

[GrandizerII]

And you're basing that on what exactly? What does a Bosnian or a Kosovarian have in common with someone living in Mali? What does an Iranian have in common with someone living in Saudi Arabia? What does an Indonesian have in common with an Algerian?

See, that's the problem. The broad brush, you don't apply to christians for some reasons. You could give them the courtesy of at least considering their different cultures and traditions. It goes much deeper than that and so far I give you the benefit of the doubt of not being wilfully ignorant. But it takes a lot of catching up. Not every muslim is an Arab and not every Arab is a radical. And if you look at Tunesia, or Bosnia or Kosovo or Marocco, the last thing these people desire is a theocracy.

So that statement is stupid or ignorant. Make your own pick.

What??? Extrapolation much? I don't need to be told the differences in Islam, Muslims or their practices. I'm well aware. What does that have to do with my reply to someone who was comparing Republicans to Muslims and then tried change it to 'Muslims in the west' and I was calling him out on it. He was the one ignoring the differences, not me.

Not trying to change anything. Mecha was discussing Muslims in UK, which is considered in the West.

But if you want to discuss Muslims from the Middle East, where I come from (a Middle Eastern country), Christians are generally just as extreme as Muslims. In my country, we have Christian militia/parties who thrive on violence. But the media doesn't tell you that, that's the problem.

[paulpablo]

What??? Extrapolation much? I don't need to be told the differences in Islam, Muslims or their practices. I'm well aware. What does that have to do with my reply to someone who was comparing Republicans to Muslims and then tried change it to 'Muslims in the west' and I was calling him out on it. He was the one ignoring the differences, not me.

Not trying to change anything. Mecha was discussing Muslims in UK, which is considered in the West.

But if you want to discuss Muslims from the Middle East, where I come from (a Middle Eastern country), Christians are generally just as extreme as Muslims. In my country, we have Christian militia/parties who thrive on violence. But the media doesn't tell you that, that's the problem.

I think if Christian militias were coming into Europe or America and killing people shouting God is great then the media would report on it.

[Regina]

I don't see very many atheists giving Islam a free pass. Islam gets more attention from some atheists than even Christianity does.

The double-standard highlighted by the OP does exist, but it's not so much from atheists, it's from the general political left in the West. It's more the postmodernists, leftists and feminists who will criticise Christianity to their hearts' contents and then uplift Islam. It's not so much atheists.

I get tired of the selective outrage, and whenever Islam comes up you can guarantee most people involved in the conversation have it. I get tired of people knocking down one religion only then to uplift another, and Christian right-wing sympathisers are just as guilty of this as the pro-Islamist left. I also get tired of (some! jfc some, not all) Muslims giving a bigger shit that someone looked at them funny in the street than they do that 100 people were gunned down.

Not trying to change anything. Mecha was discussing Muslims in UK, which is considered in the West.

But if you want to discuss Muslims from the Middle East, where I come from (a Middle Eastern country), Christians are generally just as extreme as Muslims. In my country, we have Christian militia/parties who thrive on violence. But the media doesn't tell you that, that's the problem.

I think if Christian militias were coming into Europe or America and killing people shouting God is great then the media would report on it.

I agree with this, you also see this with Islam. In The Middle East or Asia, takes a very massive Islamic terrorist attack, or one where Westerners were killed, for it to hit Western news. The Western media do not give a shit when Islamists hack local journalists to death in Bangladesh, but if the same thing happens in Paris it's front page news for weeks.

[abaris]

I think if Christian militias were coming into Europe or America and killing people shouting God is great then the media would report on it.

Which is the major problem these days. Killing a single Westerner is splashed over the frontpages. Killing thousands of brown people isn't newsworthy. It's safe to say that organisations such as Isil are killing at least a thousand times more fellow muslims than they are killing Westerners. But that of course does fly under the radar. They're so bad that even Al Quaeda declared war on them - and even if that seems a little bit ironic, it also points out why throwing all muslims under the same blanket is inherently stupid.

Also, to come back to what Irrational said. Have a look at the role of christian militias during the Lebanese civil war. It's as ugly as muslims extremism. That's why I always keep saying, the only thing preventing christian violence to be as abhorrent as muslim radicalism is a thin coat of society. Most christians simply live in relatively stable regions. But as soon as the same environment is created, all bets are off. Same goes for jews, obviously, which can be observed in certain regions of Israel. And yes, they too strive for their very own theocracy with their very own version of Sharia law. There are certain districts of Jerusalem being virtually occupied by jewish nutters. For the time being, the state fends them off, but they are a nuisance, according to Israeli news sources.