Rolling Islamophobia Thread

So I don't think we have any thread for this stuff, but living in Europe, this stuff is everywhere, and I could really need some place to rant about it, without being accused of being 'soft on islamism' or a 'halal-hippie' or anything. Also this was prompted by this article on islamophobia on American cable: http://www.vox.com/2014/10/8/6918485/the-overt-islamophobia-on-american-tv-news-is-out-of-control That CNN interview is quite frankly scary. So the US has it as well, though in different ways.

In European news, we have all that stuff about young people going to fight in Syria, which of course with ISIS being all people now know about Syria, is becoming even more present. There is talk that a mosque in Aarhus will be closed, and while it does seem as if they have quite frankly helped in recruiting and organizing fighting for ISIS, the politicians in the city are talking of just closing it bureaucratically, without having to prove anything, and keeps talking about 'brainwashing'. Which scares me. Denmark has become fanatical about freedom of speech, but when it comes to imams, people are openly calling their preaching 'brainwashing', as if that is in any way a legal term. In Belgium, an imam is on trial for abetting terrorists and it seems as if 'brainwashing' is among the things he is accused of. What does that mean? Where on earth do you draw a line with that?

didnt bill maher say a mean thing recently

is the answer to that question ever "no"?

(re: bill maher)

viral 'debate' w/ Ben Affleck (Nicholas Kristof straining to get a word in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60

you guys can tell me abt this Sam Harris if u care to

i have islamophobia

in this climate reza aslan is a pleasingly chill & handsome presence to have around for interviews

Well, you'd think that, but according to CNN he is part of the problem:

Also, his tone was angry. He wound up kind of demonstrating what people are fearful about when they think of the faith in the first place, which is the hostility of it. Look, here's what you guys were exposing yourself to. This is the state of play in journalism today. The Muslim world is responsible for a really big part of religious extremism right now. And they are unusually violent. They're unusually barbaric in the places where it is happening. And it's happening there more there than it is in other places. Do you therefore want to generalize? Of course not. But you do want to call a situation what it is. It's not a coincidence that ISIS begins with an I. I mean, that's what's going on in that part of the world. Doesn't mean other faiths can't be violent and other cultures can't be violent, but you shouldn't be afraid of the question.

That's Chris Cuomo discussing the Aslan-interview with Lemon and Camerota, copy-pasted from the article I linked to in the opening post.

Also, his tone was angry. He wound up kind of demonstrating what people are fearful about when they think of the faith in the first place, which is the hostility of it. Look

Oh fuck this.

The Muslim world is responsible for a really big part of religious extremism right now.

This is an interesting sentence.

Denmark has become fanatical about freedom of speech, but when it comes to imams, people are openly calling their preaching 'brainwashing',

Yup, people get militant about a 'freedom of speech', which sounds like it ought to be universal, but as they mean it, doesn't apply to Imams or anyone beyond the arbitrary pale marked 'extremist'. Likewise people get militant about the freedom to dress however you want but it doesn't apply to women in burqas. Or the right to express one's religious beliefs - it seems you should get this if you want to wear a cross to work, but not if you want to wear a headscarf

This is probably a bit shaky, but the feeling I get is that around Europe, a lot of people consciously hold to some sort of universalist liberal humanist ideology, but one which doesn't have very much substance and which falls apart the minute they're faced with the sight of two Muslim women with their kids in their local supermarket. It washes away, and underneath you find a pretty much untouched seam of Old Hate, as strong as it ever was.

in this climate reza aslan is a pleasingly chill & handsome presence to have around for interviews

― ogmor, Thursday, October 9, 2014 6:49 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, he is so watchable and engaging

Ben Affleck isn't really an adequate debate opponent for Sam Harris.

well yeah that's been the problem with BM's shows all along (besides him)

I mean Sam Harris has some points, but I think someone a little smarter could challenge him a little better without resorting to simplistic "OMG U R A BIGOT" answers and empty sarcasm.

a little smarter and more well-read on the subject

This is probably a bit shaky, but the feeling I get is that around Europe, a lot of people consciously hold to some sort of universalist liberal humanist ideology, but one which doesn't have very much substance and which falls apart the minute they're faced with the sight of two Muslim women with their kids in their local supermarket. It washes away, and underneath you find a pretty much untouched seam of Old Hate, as strong as it ever was.

― cardamon, 9. oktober 2014 15:29 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, many people see the biggest fight in the world today as being between western liberalism and middle eastern islamism. Like, this book called De Anstændige (The Decent Ones, I think) is all about how we have to be really brave and stand up to islamists with our 'enlightenment', which isn't really developed further. And it's definitely true that islamists has called for censorship and stuff. Danish critics of Islam has been attacked and threatened. It's not a made up problem. But how 'enlightenment' is compatible with jailing people for 'brainwashing' or - the big one - western policy in the middle east is a really big question, that I don't really see the liberals trying to answer.

I think cardamon's point is good but doesn't go deep enough, because there's a very real and difficult problem of how far we take western liberal "tolerance" when it bumps up against groups that actively work against western liberalism. And it's sort of a dodge to point out western liberalism's own failings at living up to its ideals, because it doesn't really answer the question. And also I think it's possible to ask the questions separately about foreign vs domestic policy, like it's one thing to say "we shouldn't be invading people's countries because they hold different views," but it's another thing to ask what to do about a group within your country's borders who would like to overthrow your values. I'm not sure why, for example, a group seeking censorship of (and threatening violence against) a cartoonist for mocking a religion should be treated differently from other extreme right wing groups.

But I think cardamom hits on a problem that a lot of people don't really have strong, well-backed-up convictions about their liberalism but have just sort of received it through the ether. I tend to think this is partly the fault of consumerist capitalism, which I think has sort of hollowed-out liberal values and left us with a cardboard cutout of them.

So the US has it as well, though in different ways.

It seems worse in the US, more open anyway.

... worse than the UK, can't speak for Denmark et al

... this in spite of having a Muslim President

Well, the problem for me is that if you read a book like De Anstændige, the point seems to be that the liberal ideals of 'enlightenment' is what in and of itself will take care of islamism. But then we also shouldn't 'be naive' and let those same ideals stand in the way of doing something efficient about the islamists. Like...

I don't know the book of course, but that's part of my problem with Sam Harris -- sounds like a nice, rational, reasonable argument on the surface but what is the logical conclusion? But otoh dismissing Sam Harris doesn't answer any questions.

but what is the logical conclusion?

Deporting Muslims qua Muslims, closing borders to Muslims qua Muslims, banning the Koran, demolishing mosques, making the practice and promotion of Islam illegal ...

... are perhaps not the logical conclusions of Sam Harris, but that list probably provides a useful definition of what one conclusion would look like. So far as I'm aware his schtick doesn't involve expressly ruling out the things on that list.

Another of my suspicions (take it for what it's worth) is that when dealing with an Other of some kind, we are very quick to reify what they're all about – what they care about, how they would like the world to be, how they behave in the world - into an ideology, program, or project. Such that we stop thinking about the actual (better or worse) human being, and instead see a kind of robotic agent.

This anyway seems to be the attitude held by the majority of supposedly daring Critics Of Islam that I come across, and it strikes me that, apart from this attitude looking like it's going to start killing innocent people fairly soon, it's just kind of unhealthy for the holder too.

What with how most Muslims really don't think all Muslims are on the same page, it's weird how Sam Harris seems to think they are, for example.

The propaganda of Renaissance Europe against the Ottoman Empire has proved remarkably durable.

so ... is one not allowed to criticize islam?

i mean, can we criticize any religion? is that ever okay? or is it just meaningless because it's too broad?

I think the problem is an essentialist one, i.e. how you define "a religion" for criticism purposes.

i'm not getting ready to criticize islam here fwiw

Meanwhile here we're seeing things like women in hijabs getting their heads smashed into train carriage walls by angry white bogans, the govt wanting to segregate anyone wearing a burqua inside our parliament if they attend, behind a glass wall...

(here being Aus for anyone who doesnt know )

those wites are dangerous extremists unconnected to the vast majority of peaceful wites

Legitimate questions about whether bogan culture is compatible with contemporary social norms in the west, though.

x-posts but

...and this is how "Islamaphobia" becomes the acceptable face of European racism. That whole "Islam isn't a race, it's a religion, and it's A-OK to criticise any and all religions because religions are BAD, people!" from, y'know, the kind of people you *never* see calling "the International Christian Community" to account for the actions of Texan lawmakers or abortion clinic bombers.

It's the way that even supposedly left-wing people add that cover of plausible deniability to their fear and gut-instinct xenophobia and racism. But of course, you're the *real* racist if you point out that all the people they're tarring with this brush ~just happen~ to be brown or black or just look like they might have ancestors from South Asia, the Middle East or North Africa. "You brought race into it, I'm just decrying an oppressive religion here!"

And it's gross the way "women's rights" are often to trotted up to defend it, even while enacting their fear and hatred on the bodies of othered women. I can't count the number of conversations I've had with other White Feminists about how "Islam" is bad because: "Burqa" and forcing women to wear hijab is coercive blah blah blah. (Well, I don't know if ALL the women wearing hijab are coerced, but you know what sure *is* definitely coercive? Forcing them *not* to wear it.)

But it starts to feel like a broken record on this. Because "OMG, we can't even criticise religion!" well of course you can, but if you only ever seem to enact your anti-religion quest on the bodies of brown and black people, um, you might want to think about how race informs those issues.

I don't think it's helpful to say things like "but it's WORSE in the US!" like racism is this thing that can be metered out and measured in degrees. It might be helpful to say "racism takes different forms in the US or Europe, because of different cultures and histories, and it's worth interrogating the differences" because that way you can stop handwaving away the huge problems with racism or Islamophobia in the UK by just saying "but the US is worse!" and actually try to do something about the forms they take here. Different is not better or worse, it's just different. It's still bad, and it's still worth interrogating and moving against.

Legitimate questions about whether bogan culture is compatible with contemporary social norms in the west, though.

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari)

definitely!

uh definitely legitimate q I mean heh, not "hi 5 it definitely is compatible" l

i don't think it's purely racism though, there are brown critics of islam, too

I have a lot of time for individual Women of Colour who take great time, care and experience criticising the patriarchal aspects of some Islamic religion and culture. I don't have a lot of time for the Western men who pick up those women (and no others) in order to justify their knee jerk Islamophobia without ever interrogating the rest of it.

The problem I had with the Ben Affleck appearance on Bill Maher - and which I think ties in with the broader issue - is his view that there is something outrageous in and of itself in claiming that Islam may be a particularly pernicious influence in the world. If Maher and Harris are wrong about the issue, then it should be because the facts don't support it, not because their claim is inherently repugnant. This is where the argument of "it"s a religion, not a race" does have validity. This is why Reza Aslan was so refreshing - he provided a sober, non-defensive, fact-based counter-argument to Maher, instead of just projecting racist feelings onto him.

Criticizing Islam is sort of pointless. It's so broad with 1.5 billion followers, and so many directions like wahabism, sufism, etc, and there is no organizational structure - as with catholicism, where 'criticizing' catholicism might make sense. So it becomes kinda meaningless. It's like criticizing 'africa' or 'asia', what does it mean?

We also have a problem with words, which I thought about before I stared this thread. Because we don't even have a word for hatred of muslims. Islamophobia does not mean the same as anti-semitism (nobody would ever defend anti-semitism by asking 'does that mean I cannot criticize Judaism?'). But, really, it's not fear of islam, it's fear of muslims.

Well, I actually agree with Harris in that, strictly semantically, the concept of Islamophobia is a nonsense. "Anti-Muslim bigotry" isn't very catchy, but the more more common usage of it or some equivalent term, instead of "Islamophobia", might help the debate to become less muddied.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/opinion/bill-maher-isnt-the-only-one-who-misunderstands-religion.html?smid=tw-nytimes

this is a fantastic piece imo

What both the believers and the critics often miss is that religion is often far more a matter of identity than it is a matter of beliefs and practices. The phrase “I am a Muslim,” “I am a Christian,” “I am a Jew” and the like is, often, not so much a description of what a person believes or what rituals he or she follows, as a simple statement of identity, of how the speaker views her or his place in the world.

As a form of identity, religion is inextricable from all the other factors that make up a person’s self-understanding, like culture, ethnicity, nationality, gender and sexual orientation. What a member of a suburban megachurch in Texas calls Christianity may be radically different from what an impoverished coffee picker in the hills of Guatemala calls Christianity. The cultural practices of a Saudi Muslim, when it comes to the role of women in society, are largely irrelevant to a Muslim in a more secular society like Turkey or Indonesia. The differences between Tibetan Buddhists living in exile in India and militant Buddhist monks persecuting the Muslim minority known as the Rohingya, in neighboring Myanmar, has everything to do with the political cultures of those countries and almost nothing to do with Buddhism itself.

No religion exists in a vacuum. On the contrary, every faith is rooted in the soil in which it is planted. It is a fallacy to believe that people of faith derive their values primarily from their Scriptures. The opposite is true. People of faith insert their values into their Scriptures, reading them through the lens of their own cultural, ethnic, nationalistic and even political perspectives.

yes, good article

That's not bad, but I think it's a little flattening in its treatment of all religions as blank slates and all scriptures as though they are equally as much books in which you could find justification for any point of view. Maybe that's as much as one can expect in an op-ed.

I mean I don't think, for example, that Jesus's mention of the sword is really equivalent to an imperative to slay the idolaters wherever you find them. It's fair to say that the vast majority of people in any religion don't practice their religion according to a literal interpretation of scriptures, but that comfortably brushes aside the fundamentalists, and I don't know whether all holy books produce the same kinds of fundamentalists.

the argument would be that scriptures don't produce fundamentalists at all, given that fundamentalism is an essentially modern phenomenon. it'd be more instructive to look in a broader sociopolitical context at the kinds of communities that produce sectarian violence i think, altho without denying that the rhetorical justification for this violence is rooted in religious discourse

It just seems to me like at the moment violent Islamic fundamentalism is significantly more widespread than violent Christian fundamentalism. Maybe the underlying reasons really are geopolitical, having something to do with the power balance between traditionally Christian socities (i.e. Europe/America) and non-Christian societies.

I think the place I take issue with Maher/Harris most is drawing in that third "concentric circle" of people with conservative views on women, gays, etc., because once you get to that circle you're clearly talking about something that would cover a significant portion of Christians and members of other religions as well. Using "gays" in particular as a stick to beat other cultures with seems pretty offensive, given how recently the US has started to change its tune about homosexuality. But at the same time, I don't think the first circle -- violent Islamic fundamentalism -- has an equivalent in Christianity at the moment. Abortion clinic bombers are a pretty tiny and insignificant phenomenon comparatively. ISIS and its supporters/sympathizers are far from mainstream Islam, but they're also not just a handful of outlier wackos with minimal impact.

It just seems to me like at the moment violent Islamic fundamentalism is significantly more widespread than violent Christian fundamentalism. Maybe the underlying reasons really are geopolitical, having something to do with the power balance between traditionally Christian socities (i.e. Europe/America) and non-Christian societies.

this was essentially the writer's argument man

Abortion clinic bombers are a pretty tiny and insignificant phenomenon comparatively.

Bombers, yeah, at this point, but they don't need to bomb them when they have a compliant and sympathetic political class that will use the law to shut down clinics. It might not be violent, but it's capitulation to religious fundamentalism nonetheless.

BTW, this is blatantly false, and intellectually dishonest: The same Bible that commands Jews to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) also exhorts them to “kill every man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey,” who worship any other God (1 Sam. 15:3).

What he's actually referring to is the story of the massacre of the Amalekites - certainly one of the ugliest parts of the old testament and nothing to be proud of, but there is nothing in the text that can be interpreted as a command to kill everyone who worships any other God. It's a revenge story concerning a specific tribe.

It might not be violent, but it's capitulation to religious fundamentalism nonetheless.

― bippity bup at the hotel california (Phil D.), Monday, October 13, 2014 11:20 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sure, and I think this is a good point. Religion is often connected with political movements, some of them extremist. I think it is reasonable to fear a religious-political movement that seeks to curtail your own freedoms or that actively opposes your way of life and looks to change it. So if a group has as its platform that liberal democratic government should be replaced with religious government, I oppose that group.

no one disputes that, dude. the point is that attributing the ugly attitudes/beliefs as inherent to the religion elides the fact that religion and the interpretation of its texts take place within certain social and economic contexts

Yeah, I get that. But leaving it at "all religions ____" elides a lot of things too.

Which religions do you think actively and effectively resist interpretation as a justification for slaughtering the 'other'?

Bahai seems like a good candidate for that

i mean the islamic world certainly has the most problems with that kind of stuff right now. that's pretty indisputable. but it's more likely that its fundamentalism is a product of its poverty and what is basically a feudal society rather than anything intrinsic to islam

capitalism would probably be the best thing that could ever happen to a lot of these societies tbh

Music is prohibited in Islam, right?

Obtuse

I hear you guys don't use heat

the concentric circles model of religion doesn't have a lot to recommend it imo

agreed

what is the concentric circles model?

My family belongs to a chassidic group that has had some controversy about their beliefs. A very vocal minority believes in actively proselytizing the belief that the now deceased Rebbe is the Messiah. Some even fringier elements have promoted ideas that imply the Rebbe is actually god. A larger % of the chassidic group don't proselytize, but say 'yechi,' (which attests to the kingship + eternal life of the Rebbe). An even larger - probably majority of Chabad chassidim - believe that the Rebbe is the messiah but don't believe in talking about it / spreading it. It's a private belief. And then I would say that the number of Chabad chassidim who don't believe he is the messiah at all is very few. I'm bringing this up bc my personal experience in this culture means that I understand what it looks like when more common beliefs give tacit support to more radical beliefs in a group. I don't know exactly what percentage of Muslims believe in actively killing apostates v. believe that it's the right thing to do but they won't do it v. believe in a general sense that Sharia law should be the law of the land v. are only culturally Muslim and for all practical purposes don't believe in religious law at all, etc. But I think the concentric model is useful for visualizing how silence in a faith community can often represent the holding of beliefs that aren't reasonable + mainstream and that the holding of those beliefs (whether it's that the Rebbe is messiah, or that stoning is the appropriate punishment for adultary) can empower the more terrible extremists. That's what I get from that model anyway.

xp like circles of hell but w/ fundamentalism instead of sin

xp it's something Harris used in his Maher appearance -- like "small circle of violent extremists, larger core of political islamists who don't openly espouse violence but believe in establishing Islamic states, larger circle of "conservative islamists" who hold a lot of beliefs we find repugnant but aren't active in a political project" etc.

*larger circle, not core

hm

why are violent extremists at the center?

again, any metaphor or schematic that places "fundamentalism" as central to the tenets or truth of a religion is a dishonest scheme i think - tho i get that really what Harris is talking about are fellow travellers or useful idiots

a sect that arrives late in a religion's history and is followed by a small fraction of that faith's followers might want to claim centrality but surely is not central in any meaningful way. maybe Sam Harris is happy to blithely accept fundamentalists account of their own importance for some reason.

Yeah, I don't like the idea of placing them at the "center." My concern isn't really how "central" the violent fundamentalist group is so much as how large and how powerful it is. While I think Mordy's description may work within a specific group/community of Jews, I don't think it works within Judaism at large, which is very multicentric. Like at this point I don't really see reform Judaism as hassdic Judaism lite, I see it as a very different branch of Judaism with very different ideas about things. I know much less about the branches of Islam but my impression is that it is also very multicentric, and that there are branches of Islam in which, e.g., wahabbist ideas couldn't even find purchase, because the branches of the religion have evolved so differently.

Good point, Hurting. The way Sam Harris and Bill Maher present the concentric circles in the clip upthread is completely opposite of that, pretending that their circles cover the entirety of the muslim world. And it's a bigoted idea. Insane Wahabists who are mainly located in Saudi Arabia becomes the reason to condemn muslim immigrants in the west, because jihadists and islamists are 'arguably 20%' of muslims.

Harris, Maher and others could be profitably read as products of 9-11?

Because I can't see them finding a place alongside Voltaire and William James and The Golden Bough, in the tradition of people who write about religion, but as '9-11 literature' maybe?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B63_50aCQAAZ0JS.png

Lol @ Poland and Hungary.

tbf when u ask an average american what % of the US is Jewish, you get ridiculous numbers - I once heard 25% (the answer is 2%). i think a) ppl are terrible w/ evaluating percentages and b) minorities in particular stand out more + tend to be over estimated

the latter is true - but America's relationship to Jews is totally different from Europe's relationship to Muslims

which informs the survey results/numbers above

oh yeah, for sure, i just meant to say that there are other things at play besides straight up islamophobia

When I lived in Woolwich in '95/'97 there was a massive influx of Somalian refugees and it was an area with something like 80% public housing.

i think a) ppl are terrible w/ evaluating percentages and b) minorities in particular stand out more + tend to be over estimated

Or else they're bigoted halfwits.

Caveat, unsure about this site and haven't fully checked out the article. None the less, might be some fuel for this thread:

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/american-sniper-spawns-death-threats-against-arabs-and-muslims

^^ topical

So one of the major Danish parties, not even the rigth-wing populist one, who basically only gets votes through fear of foreigners, but the Conservatives, just put up an election poster saying STOP Naziislamism. In four rows

STOP
Nazi
Islam
Ism

Can any of you beat that?

denmark seems like a weird, weird place regarding foreigners

It's just racist, plain and simple. The left wing labour party had posters saying 'If you come to Denmark, you have to work' with a subtext specifying that it's pointed at both refugees and immigrants. Which is well and good, except refugees have asked for permission to work for a long time, anything to not be holed up in limbo in camps without having anything to do, but they haven't been allowed to do nothing. And now we're calling them lazy.

A mayor went out recently, and said that the reason his city was so good at getting refugees to work was because they until now hadn't had that many refugees from Africa.

It's just a disgusting cesspool at this point.

http://news.yahoo.com/officer-shooting-muhammad-cartoon-contest-texas-005227724.html

obviously having abhorrent views and putting together shitty-themed contests doesn't make one deserving of violence so yes, outright condemning the attack at this event without question, but....at the same time, fuck the group that put this on. Not blaming them for inciting violence, but Jesus God, a terrible, offensive idea. and yet on my other hand I'm all like "fuck religion". so many conflicting feelings.

thankfully no civilians seem to be dead...at least, not known yet. two suspects dead.

given what happened, expect a lot more of these events

xp the group that put it on is the brainchild of P4m G3ll4r, who is also the one putting all the anti-Islam ads on NYC buses. She's a vile, contemptible bigot who got exactly what she was hoping for here.

attn: earth: don't shoot at our bigots, it only encourages them

She also apparantly works with people in Denmark. We are at this point an international exporter of Islamophobia.

That said, the shooting is obviously the important part of this story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/05/china-orders-muslim-shopkeepers-to-sell-alcohol-cigarettes-to-weaken-islam/

They all sell alcohol and cigarettes over here! They'd probably go out of business otherwise.

only thing keeping usa out of the grip of sharia law iirc

two groups of assholes that deserve each other. I'm cool with them all murdering each other, just leave the rest of us out of it k thx bye

I should know better than to reply but wth do you mean? are uighurs assholes now

lol shakey otm

I mean that on the one hand there are the organizers of the event - who are bigoted, racist promoters of violence - and on the other are the shooters, jihadists (apparently) who are violent ideologues. they're two sides of the same coin, and they deserve each other, they both want the violent conflict, the "clash of civilizations".

oh you're talking about the other thing

It sort of seems like kicking them when they are down, doesn't it? How many Muslim countries is the US militarily involved in vs. Christian countries?

mm depends on what you mean by "Christian" (is Germany a christian country? S. Korea?) and what you mean by "militarily involved" (we have troops all over the place)

The kind of involvement that, say, accidentally blows up a wedding.

hey, you don't even have to have troops in a country to blow up a wedding

There aren't hundreds of accidental deaths of Germans by US drones iirc.

well we got a few
http://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/features/afghanistan-pakistan/6680-eight-germans-reported-killed-in-us-drone-strike

but yes I get your point

BTW in case you need evidence that G3ll4r is not some brave pro-free-speech advocate and is just in this for the Islamophobia: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/05/free-speech-for-me-but-not-for-thee.html

http://www.wnyc.org/story/islamophobia/

'Carly Fiorina under fire for not being an awful, awful person' isn't something I anticipate having to write too much, but there you go:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/08/carly-fiorina-michele-bachmann-islam

Caveated by saying that this was a poll conducted by an organisation that often seems to skew to the right, but even if it's out by 10% this is a pretty damning indictment of London and its voters:

https://www.rt.com/uk/312371-london-mayor-muslim-poll/

Both major parties have prominent Muslim candidates on the shortlist to be Mayor - one a distinguished human rights lawyer who won a string of cases against the police and government before becoming the shadow Lord Chancellor, the other an academic who's currently Chairman of the Conservative and Reform bloc in the European Parliament, so fairly different. They are both secular democrats committed to equal rights and, if the poll that suggests only 55% of Londoners would be 'comfortable with a Muslim mayor" is remotely accurate, both completely unlelectable. Even the perception that it might be accurate is probably enough to keep them off the final ballot paper.

Slovakia has offered to take in 200 refugees from Syria as part of the pan-European response to the humanitarian crisis - with one small stipulation...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/19/slovakia-will-take-in-200-syrian-refugees-but-they-have-to-be-christian/

but we don't have any mosques in Slovakia so how can Muslims be integrated if they are not going to like it here?"

There's about 4000 Muslims in Slovakia and an Islamic cultural centre in downtown Bratislava but the fact the Interior Minister doesn't know about them indicates they're pretty well integrated.

My wife was out walking in our neighborhood and fell to talking with a woman she'd never met, but who lived in the area, who was out walking her three small dogs. After a meandering conversation that revealed the woman's conservative politics and habit of listening to Limbaugh and similar radio shows, she said to my wife, 'you know what I'm really afraid of is muslims. if I saw a woman in a chador in the supermarket I'd worry she was concealing a bomb under it.'

ftr, she'd admitted to having just been drinking in a pub with some buddies of hers and was a bit tipsy, but really, the media types who are spreading this shit around are some of the worst humans on this planet.

as are the hateful morons who buy into it

garbage in, garbage out

This story of the kid in Dallas who was arrested for bringing a clock he built to school is blinding me with fury right now.

In the sixth period, the principal and a police officer pulled the 14-year-old out of class. He was taken to another room where he found four other officers waiting. One who sat in the back, he says, said: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”

oh man, these fucking cops living out their 24 fantasies

fucking infuriating

THIS STORY MAKES ME SO FUCKING ANGRY

as ppl have pointed out on twitter, the school was not evacuated and the bomb squad was not called. they just wanted to arrest him.

Beyond all of the obvious and overt horribleness, it dawned on me that this kid just started high school a number of days ago and can look forward another four years of dealing with god only knows what kind of bullshit. I have to hope he at least gets a free ride to MIT or something in the wake of this.

I have to hope he at least gets a free ride to MIT or something in the wake of this.

there have already been a bunch of people at MIT saying on twitter "let's get this kid here because he is exactly who we want"

i just hope his life can go back to pleasant normality as soon as possible

https://twitter.com/IStandWithAhmed

he's been getting a ton of support which is awesome

That's heartening.

https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656

OBAMA IS ON A ROLL!

amazing tweet & props for quick turnaround on this awful story

when he gets back from the White House the local cops are going to arrest him again for associating with a known terrorist

That english teacher must be pretty terrified right now.

Also curious about whether the republican candidates will touch this one at all.

RIPk Perry already addressed how many times a day a stopped clock is correct

https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/644177398553030656

LOL:

.@IStandWithAhmed @Cmdr_Hadfield @SiriAgrell Ahmed, if we can get the $$ to fly you up to Toronto for Oct 28 can u get out of school, etc?

Nate Wittig ‏@NateWittig 57m57 minutes ago
@JPBoutros @IStandWithAhmed @Cmdr_Hadfield @SiriAgrell All he has to do is take another great invention to school and he will be able to.

lol

Kind of LOL but at least 50% sad.

My emotional gestalt wrt this story has done a 180 since this morning.

the statements from the school make me want to kill myself.. basically they suspended him for not reporting himself and his own suspicious clock making behavior

Just thinking how crappy it is to be in high school and get picked on for the absolute smallest things, kids are jerks, can you imagine having to go back to school the next day fml.

the saddest part i read was at the tail end of a story where ahmed said he wouldn't be bringing anymore inventions to school.

No amount of support and generosity after the fact will ever completely erase the knowledge this kid will carry around about his vulnerability to irrational hate. Although, it would help immensely if the principal and that teacher made lavish and sincere apologies. Those five cops can just go fuck themselves.

Greenwald:

http://gawker.com/the-arrest-of-a-14-year-old-for-making-a-clock-is-the-e-1731061138

The mayor of Irving, Beth Van Duyne, became a beloved national hero to America’s anti-Muslim fanatics when, last February, she seized on a fraudulent online chain letter, which claimed that area imams had created a special court based on sharia law. In response, Mayor Van Duyne posted a Facebook rant in which she vowed to “fight with every fiber of my being” the nonexistent “sharia court.” One anti-Muslim website gushed that Irving “is being called ‘ground zero’ in the battle to prevent Islamic law from gaining a foothold, no matter how small, in the U.S. legal system” and hailed her as “the mayor who stood up to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

That led to support for a bill introduced in the Texas State Legislature banning the use of foreign law, which its sponsor made clear was targeted at least in part at these “sharia courts.” The Irving City Council went out of its way to enact a resolution supporting the state bill. It was enacted in June. One of the City Council members who opposed the bill — William “Bill” Mahone, who “denounced the vote and urged Irving to ’embrace the Muslims’” — then lost his seat in the city election “by a wide margin.” I’ve spoken to Muslim groups in Irving and there is a small but thriving community there, which in turn has produced intense anti-Muslim animus.

Irving is a suburb of Dallas. Ever land at DFW Airport? You're in Irving.

via a fb friend:

"Obviously the only response to a kid bringing a clock to school is to give all the teachers clocks to defend themselves with."

xpost They named an airport after DFW?

Very good.

Still, this kinda shit infuriates me on several levels, to point of dregding up decades-old teenager BBS urges to print out every text file, alt.2600 faq, and anarchist cookbook to teach every nerdy non-Anglo(and Anglo, I guess) wannabe maker/hacker kid how to hack shit and fuck with adults as much as possible until you can successfully escape off to university and then work on ways to eventually get paid for these skills.

Clocks don't kill people, people do.

Actually, time kills people.

Ahh, I get it. His clock reminded them of their encroaching mortality and they took it as an implicit threat. And here I was thinking the cops were almost frighteningly incompetent because they couldn't tell the difference between a clock and a bomb.

Maybe it was a hoax memento mori.

THIS STORY MAKES ME SO FUCKING ANGRY

― goole, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 9:15 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^

Here's the letter they sent home, too:

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/16/9336557/ahmed-mohamed-clock-school

Is it...reassuring? Refreshing? Disappointing? Horrifying? to know that white middle-class suburbanite high school administration types are still the dimwit fuckheads two decades plus after I had to deal with them?

some things that screw up youth never change

The thing that's infuriating about the story is that, from the way they behaved, it sounds like all police and authority figures involved pretty quickly figured out it WASN'T a bomb. IF they were actually acting out of genuine, albeit idiotic, fear of what they thought might be a real bomb, I could sort of half forgive them.

https://mobile.twitter.com/saladinahmed/status/644233323372539905

MUSLIMS NEED TO LEAVE THE MIDDLE AGES AND JOIN THE 21ST CENTURY OK

kid: look I'm so into science I made a clock!

BOMB BOMB HE'S GOT A BOMB

2:36pm - 16 Sep 15

The thing that's infuriating about the story is that, from the way they behaved, it sounds like all police and authority figures involved pretty quickly figured out it WASN'T a bomb. IF they were actually acting out of genuine, albeit idiotic, fear of what they thought might be a real bomb, I could sort of half forgive them.

If they thought it was a real bomb, why didn't they call the bomb squad

That's my point.

No one acted as though they actually believed it was a bomb. No bomb squad, no evacuation. But it doesn't matter. It says a lot about how Islamophobia operates -- guilty even after proven innocent.

Yeah but they're not concerned with it being a real bomb. The charge was that it was a "hoax bomb".

§46.08 of the Texas Penal Code defines hoax bomb:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly manufactures, sells, purchases, transports, or possesses a hoax bomb with intent to use the hoax bomb to:
(1) make another believe that the hoax bomb is an explosive or incendiary device; or
(2) cause alarm or reaction of any type by an official of a public safety agency or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies.
(b) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Yeah but he immediately told them it was a clock. What kind of fucking hoax is that?

Beats me!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPCswBPWcAECfm5.png
Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan told the station, "We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock."
"Clearly, there were disassembled clock parts in there, but he offered no more explanation than that," McLellan said. "A lot of these details that the family and he have provided to you were not shared with us yesterday. He was very much less than forthcoming."

i mean. fuck.

That guy looks like Mr. Spock if he was a total moron.

That...just makes...so little sense

I wonder how much extra money and equipment you get if your dept busts a terror plot.

"It's just a clock"
"Could you elaborate?"
"No?"
"So you refuse to cooperate?"

Yeah but he immediately told them it was a clock. What kind of fucking hoax is that?

the hoax of trying to pass off his Hoax Bomb as a clock. Levels.

A 14 year old being 'less than forthcoming' you say.

Chief Wiggum: I've got everything I need to convict your boy, except for motive, means, and opportunity.
Lou: You also have no evidence.
Chief Wiggum: That's implied.

"why didn't they call the bomb squad"

or at least the gap band

http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.23162298.1680/flat,800x800,070,f.u2.jpg

ceci n'est pas une horloge

Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan told the station, "We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock."
"Clearly, there were disassembled clock parts in there, but he offered no more explanation than that," McLellan said. "A lot of these details that the family and he have provided to you were not shared with us yesterday. He was very much less than forthcoming."

this reads to me like a slightly less familiar iteration of "person doesn't completely genuflect to cop, cop thinks it's some kind of crime".

"why didn't they call the bomb squad"

those guys have enough clocks

http://www.neontommy.com/sites/default/files/uploads/flav.jpg

i hated how the one cop said that the child said it was a clock but gave "no further explanation", then when pressed by what the hell he meant by *that*, he explained it even less coherently. cos what he really meant was...

cop: what's that?
kid: a clock
cop: no, what's it really?
kid: I told you, a clock
cop: but what's it REALLY?

"if he was so innocent, why wouldn't he admit he wasn't?"

glad sanity prevailed in the end. I'm sure Islamophobes will now launch into Obama for praising his clock.

^^^ Already done, in abundance.

now if only obama were praising someone's /glock/

https://www.facebook.com/newshour/videos/10153641825003675/

"I'm thinking about transferring from MacArthur to ... any other school."

There's a GoFundMe set up for Ahmed to go to Defcon if he wants:
https://www.gofundme.com/defcon4ahmed/

Absolutely blind with rage about this story.

you can't blame the cops, in all their favorite movies bomb have these big elaborate LED displays, and villains that look like Ahmed!

Yes, but instead of counting up like a clock, they count down like a timer. This is urgent and key!

ahh but he made it count up to trick them!

I am looking forward to the shitshow the local police department has headed his way. hopefully at least Ahmed can get some silver lining with that Defcon fundraiser but the unapologetic xenophobia is a shitty thing to have to barter for it.

xxxxp already reached the $4000 goal

awesome - it was so nice to see him grinning and jocular on his tv appearance today.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/17/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/

"n an interview late Wednesday with MSNBC's Chris Hayes, Ahmed said he was pulled out of class at MacArthur High School by his principal and five police officers and taken to a room where he was questioned for about an hour and a half.

He said he asked the adults if he could call his parents.

"They told me 'No, you can't call your parents,'" Ahmed said. "'You're in the middle of an interrogation at the moment.' They asked me a couple of times, 'Is it a bomb?' and I answered a couple of times, 'It's a clock.'"

"I felt like I was a criminal," the teenager said. "I felt like I was a terrorist. I felt like all the names I was called."

Hayes asked what he meant."

"Hayes asked what he meant".

'it's a clock' one of those few delightful sentences in English that is pretty unambiguous iirc

n/m - it was the MSNBC person that asked that (was reading too fast).

still though - 'you're in an interrogation here', gtfo. they never thought it was a bomb, and besides what kid would jubilantly show an explosive to his teacher?

They refuse to let him call his parents and insist on interrogating him alone, and then complain that he was "less than forthcoming."

They were hoping to break his will and elicit a sobbing confession that... it was a clock.

veys unt means of making him tock

the mayor (aka the famous anti-Sharia law mayor) is of course defending the cops and saying they were doing their job and that if we'd "heard the full story" we'd reconsider, but declining to expand on what she meant due to "Ahmed's privacy" (um yeah if you cared that much you wouldn't have brought it up, assbag)

I mean unless he was running around the school with a megaphone shouting "I got 9/11 problems and this clock ain't one" I can't imagine what context makes this acceptable.

They were just doing their jobs it's not like they were harassing a 9th grader for free they were also getting taxpayer money to do it.

i saw one of these bumper stickers today

http://www.ruffinflagcompany.net/images/products/military/armed%20infidel%20stickers%20md.jpg

what the hell

Yeah, I see that one occasionally. These fucking fucks.

Been seeing this list making the rounds on the web lately, has anyone else? Wanted to get ILX's take on it. I'm worried that it's justifying sweeping racism in people's minds because "just look at the data". It's worrisome for peaceful Muslims that just want coexist and don't identify with any of the below.

Pew Research (2013):
Only 57% of Muslims worldwide disapprove of al-Qaeda.
Only 51% disapprove of the Taliban.
13% support both groups and 1 in 4 refuse to say.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/09/10/muslim-publics-share-concerns-about-extremist-groups/

Wenzel Strategies (2012):
58% of Muslim-Americans believe criticism of Islam or Muhammad is not protected free speech under the First Amendment.
45% believe mockers of Islam should face criminal charges (38% said they should not).
12% of Muslim-Americans believe blaspheming Islam should be punishable by death.
43% of Muslim-Americans believe people of other faiths have no right to evangelize Muslims.
32% of Muslims in America believe that Sharia should be the supreme law of the land.

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/10/31/sixty-percent-of-us-muslims-reject-freedom-of-expression

ICM Poll:
40% of British Muslims want Sharia in the UK
20% of British Muslims sympathize with 7/7 bombers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html

Pew Research (2010):
82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
70% of Jordanian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
42% of Indonesian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
82% of Pakistanis favor stoning adulterers
56% of Nigerian Muslims favor stoning adulterers

http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/

WZB Berlin Social Science Center:
65%% of Muslims in Europe say Sharia is more important than the law of the country they live in.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4092/europe-islamic-fundamentalism

Pew Global (2006)
68% of Palestinian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
43% of Nigerian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
38% of Lebanese Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.
15% of Egyptian Muslims say suicide attacks against civilians in defense of Islam are justified.

http://cnsnews.com/node/53865

World Public Opinion (2009)
61% of Egyptians approve of attacks on Americans
32% of Indonesians approve of attacks on Americans
41% of Pakistanis approve of attacks on Americans
38% of Moroccans approve of attacks on Americans
62% of Jordanians approve of some or most groups that attack Americans (21% oppose)
42% of Turks approve of some or most groups that attack Americans (45% oppose)

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/feb09/STARTII_Feb09_rpt.pdf

NOP Research:
62% percent of British Muslims say freedom of speech shouldn't be protected
1 in 4 British Muslims say 7/7 bombings were justified
78% of British Muslims support punishing the publishers of Muhammad cartoons

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/14/opinion/main1893879.shtml&;date=2011-04-06

People Press Surveys:
31% of Turks support suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq.

http://www.people-press.org/2004/03/16/a-year-after-iraq-war/

Belgian HLN:
16% of young Muslims in Belgium state terrorism is "acceptable".

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/1275/Islam/article/detail/1619036/2013/04/22/Zestien-procent-moslimjongens-vindt-terrorisme-aanvaardbaar.dhtml

ICM Poll:
25% of British Muslims disagree that a Muslim has an obligation to report terrorists to police.

http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/reviews/2004/Guardian%20Muslims%20Poll%20Nov%2004/Guardian%20Muslims%20Nov04.asp

Pew Research (2007):
26% of younger Muslims in America believe suicide bombings are justified.
35% of young Muslims in Britain believe suicide bombings are justified (24% overall).
42% of young Muslims in France believe suicide bombings are justified (35% overall).
22% of young Muslims in Germany believe suicide bombings are justified.(13% overall).
29% of young Muslims in Spain believe suicide bombings are justified.(25% overall).

pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf#page=60

Al-Jazeera (2006):
49.9% of Muslims polled support Osama bin Laden

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

Populus Poll (2006):
16% of British Muslims believe suicide attacks against Israelis are justified.
37% believe Jews in Britain are a "legitimate target".

http://www.populuslimited.com/pdf/2006_02_07_times.pdf
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2005/07/more-survey-research-from-a-british-islamist

GfK NOP:
28% of British Muslims want Britain to be an Islamic state

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/ShariaLawOrOneLawForAll.pdf

NOP Research:
68% of British Muslims support the arrest and prosecution of anyone who insults Islam;

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/14/opinion/main1893879.shtml&;date=2011-04-06

MacDonald Laurier Institute:
62% of Muslims want Sharia in Canada (15% say make it mandatory)
35% of Canadian Muslims would not repudiate al-Qaeda

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/01/strong-support-for-shariah-in-canada
http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/much-good-news-and-some-worrying-results-in-new-study-of-muslim-public-opinion-in-canada/

al-Arabiya:
36% of Arabs polled said the 9/11 attacks were morally justified; 38% disagreed; 26% Unsure

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/09/10/166274.html

Gallup:
38.6% of Muslims believe 9/11 attacks were justified (7% "fully", 6.5% "mostly", 23.1% "partially")

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/just-like-us-really

Policy Exchange:
1 in 4 Muslims in the UK have never heard of the Holocaust;
Only 34% of British Muslims believe the Holocaust ever happened.

http://www.imaginate.uk.com/MCC01_SURVEY/Site%20Download.pdf
http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/ShariaLawOrOneLawForAll.pdf

Pew Research (2010):
84% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
86% of Jordanian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
30% of Indonesian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam
76% of Pakistanis support death the penalty for leaving Islam
51% of Nigerian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam

http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/

Policy Exchange:
One third of British Muslims believe anyone who leaves Islam should be killed

http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/ShariaLawOrOneLawForAll.pdf

ive seen worse polls about ridiculous shit Americans believe

anyone that gathers that specific list clearly has something they want to say. they can just come out and say it instead of hiding behind numbers.

Seen plenty of polls of attitudes held by British Muslims before and the figures above look like bollocks to me. Can't comment on Muslims in Nigeria or Belgium or wherever.

"making the rounds" eh? is it even legit?

I haven't seen this. I'm not a huge data guy and man that's uh a lot of data. I look at something like, "84% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for leaving Islam" and am at a total loss.

I'm acquaintances with a group of Muslim dudes that are damn near the friendliest group of people I know. Religion doesn't really come up, but it's definitely a part of who they are (making time for prayer, fasting and ritual bathing for that one holiday they just had, etc.). I think if I showed them these numbers they'd probably be willing to engage in a discussion about them, but I don't know their particular beliefs, for ex. how they feel about someone who identified as Muslim and then lost faith.

Glazing over this stuff and wow yeah I just don't even know. Identifying with a religion can be serious business.

xpost

over 40% of Americans think God created the world 10,000 years ago

Most of these surveys have either been roundly criticised or misrepresented by the press.

Can't go into detail as am on a phone but some of the UK ones were specifically surveys of hardline Muslim student associations. There have been lots of surveys suggesting, for example, that x% of people "sympathise" with the aims of particular terrorist groups but, often the same surveys, show 99 point something of respondents saying that the terrorists were wrong to conduct attacks. Given that people can rarely agree on what these aims are, it's not particularly useful.

The sharia ones are particularly stupid given that the UK already acknowledges sharia courts in civil claims.

its like, great, you found the evidence you need to sweepingly convict millions of people of thoughtcrime

"making the rounds" eh? is it even legit?

― brimstead, Friday, November 20, 2015 1:49 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe not as much as I had thought, saw it linked in a few predictable locations (FB, reddit).

death for apostasy has traditionally been pretty mainstream; saudi arabia still beheads a lot of apostates every year, possibly after torturing a confession out of them

A recent poll I saw that something like 60% of Palestinians now believe that the goal should be neither a two-state solution nor a one-state solution with equal rights for all, but a Palestinian Arab state from the river to the sea. The same poll also showed that like 70% of Palestinians would like it if Israel would reopen itself to workers from the territories so they could get jobs there. So IDK, polls are weird.

Legit or not, anytime I see poll results clustered together like that in order to make a very particular point, the CONFIRMATION BIAS alarm immediately goes off in my brain. Thankfully, the emphasis on critical thinking skills in American education ensures that the general public will be similarly skeptical.

I think the biggest likely problem with the list above is it looks cherry-picked to get the absolute worst-sounding stat from each poll.

it does seem obsessively compiled and like the ~timing~ of this might be something someone would want to think critically about

it's also a bunch of evidence presented w no goals/questions/hypothesis. what are they saying we should do about this information?

or is it another case of "just sayin'"

Hey, man, I'm not trying to say anything. Feel free to interpret my carefully-compiled dog whistle data any way you like.

i'm grateful i didn't grow up in a place where death for apostasy was a thing, even if 40% of the people here do think the world is 10,000 years old

those poll results are definitely cherry-picked for maximum shock value, and the confirmation bias point is apt--there are other polls that complicate the picture a great deal. and i'm definitely not comfortable with the way that poll seems designed to make whatever awful thing you say about muslims seem reasonable.

that said, there are some truly awful views that are held by a majority of the world's muslims. there's no way around that.

Frexample?

pork is bad

and alcohol is bad

personally i have always felt the measure of people should not be their opinions but rather how they conduct themselves

Reason I'm asking frexample there is I feel pretty much the same as what amateurist says - yes these polls (and general anti-Muslim hysteria) = stupid and divisive, at the same time however as a non-Muslim, I must disagree with some % of Muslims on some set of issues, surely? But what are the actual figures? What are the actual issues?

And there again as the late great says. Isn't there a trap we can fall into where we judge people based on their opinions rather on their actions; or rather, isn't it tempting to judge some people by their actions alone, but judge other people by their opinions when it's convenient for us to do so

personally i have always felt the measure of people should not be their opinions but rather how they conduct themselves

― the late great

not a big survey person?

fuck a survey

Apart from the big shift to cell phones, opinion surveyors are getting whacked by a growing lack of cooperation by the general population. I have refused to answer any opinion surveys on any subject for decades now.

I mean I personally can't fucking stand a survey, but I also have a hard time outright dismissing them for ex. the ones posted by Evan and the Earth creation one posted by Adam

Bill Maher really fanning the flames last night.

Holy hell, he was in rare form, even for his Islamophobic ass.

Whenever the last time Glenn Greenwald was on, I remember Glenn shut that shit down quickly and decisively.

just another weekend in Texas

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015/11/armed-protesters-set-up-outside-islamic-center-of-irving.html/

may a meteorite dome them all and leave the mosque standing

Islamophobia is defined as "prejudice against, hatred towards, or fear of the religion of Islam or Muslims." That "Islam or part is problematic.

like if the definition doesn't even differentiate between disliking the religion and disliking its followers, no wonder so many people see incapable of the distinction.

cool good job arguing against a random sentence you googled on the internet, v. powerful stuff

why the hostility?

I was going to argue against calling Maher Islmaphobic...but according to the definition, he clearly is! Definition causes it to be useless as a slur imo.

also you don't know what 'random' means apparently?

well at least we diverted the bows and arrows internally

xpost

he totally is. his defense is that he is merely judging their way of thinking. as if he knows what millions of people are thinking.

if this is an ideological war then we need to not let terrorist define these systems that are in use by millions of honest and innocent people. bill maher is basically defining islam based on the acting of terrorists.

he constantly asks "where are the moderate muslims speaking out against this? there aren't any" when there are so many, some of them actually appearing on his show, or the Daily Show or the Nightly Show or CNN or FOX, etc.

he loves using women as a shield for his liberal crusade. they can never leave the house, he says that all muslims think this. in truth a muslim country had a women leader decades before the US. most of the muslims i have seen on talk shows promoting books speaking out against extremism and stuff have been women. for Maher there is no moderate muslim women when he is on these tirades. they don't fit his narrative of it's evil way of thinking.

If there was a good word for anti-muslimism, people would use that. But there isn't. So we say Islamophobe. And it works, for nobody is ever against 'Islam', it makes no sense to be against only one religion in particular, since all religions are a spectrum, and all religions have fundamentalists. Maher isn't complaining that there's something wrong with Islam. He's saying that there's something wrong with muslims.

Just in general, it's impossible to distinguish fear of Islam from fear of Muslims. If there's something inherently problematic about Islam, then of course there must be something wrong with the people who think it's the truth.

also you don't know what 'random' means apparently?

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, November 22, 2015 2:41 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk i just googled a definition on the internet and now i'm mad about it does that help

Someone saying 'I don't have a problem with any individual Communist, but Communism is evil and must be eradicated' would, necessarily, be saying they don't want anyone to be a Communist anymore.

Someone saying 'I don't have a problem with any individual Christian, but Christianity is evil and must be eradicated' would again be saying they don't want anyone to be a Christian anymore.

So the thing is, people whose problem is 'With the Ism, not the Ist', are still not exactly gonna leave you alone, are they, if you're an Ist?

They're saying something like 'I won't outright walk up to you in the street and punch you in the face for being an Ist, I'm just going to work ceaselessly to have your Ism made illegal in the state of Arizona'. Or if that's an exaggeration they're still saying 'The way you do things, the way you do your life, is wrong and needs to be changed'.

Meanwhile 'I don't have a problem with Muslims, but I do have a problem with radical Islam', for example, is getting somewhere, and is a pretty unobjectionable thing for your facebook aunt or uncle to say at least.

Maher meanwhile can fuck off: Where are the moderate Muslims? Where are the Muslims condemning the attacks? Fucking everywhere, the internet is full of Muslims vocally disapproving of terrorism ... if he wants to question the sincerity of that, fair enough, but at least acknowledge it's there

i've hated maher for the longest time. quite a while ago i was catching up with a 'former' conservative friend who was all wide eyed and telling me that he was a big time liberal now. we sat down in his living room and he played some movie where maher was talking about the stupidity of christians. ok dude good for you. being a smug asshole about religion seems to be a big part of his brand. if he can't find a moderate muslim to come on his dumb show then fuck him and fuck hbo too.

being a smug asshole about religion seems to be a big part of his brand.

For Maher, this goes hand-in-hand with being an obscenely classist and elitist fuckface. One of his standby tropes -- besides Asian driver jokes and fat jokes -- is "GET A LOAD OF THOSE DUMBFUCK HICKS, AMIRITE?"

Bill T. Jones was a guest right after he received his Kennedy Center award. Jones had been honored along with Merle Haggard (and others I can't remember), and talked to Maher about how much he enjoyed hanging out with Haggard during the ceremony and what a fan of his music he was. Maher was incredulous, and slid into his "You LIKE that hick?!" thing. Jones basically said, "of course I do," with a look that added, "you clueless moron."

If there was a good word for anti-muslimism, people would use that. But there isn't. So we say Islamophobe. And it works, for nobody is ever against 'Islam', it makes no sense to be against only one religion in particular, since all religions are a spectrum, and all religions have fundamentalists. Maher isn't complaining that there's something wrong with Islam. He's saying that there's something wrong with muslims.

Just in general, it's impossible to distinguish fear of Islam from fear of Muslims. If there's something inherently problematic about Islam, then of course there must be something wrong with the people who think it's the truth.

I respectfully disagree with this 100%. I don't have the time or energy to make a counterargument, because people on ILX are REALLY dug in on this position. I would only ask: how is one to make criticisms of a belief system without being labeled as ____phobic and bigoted?

idk i just googled a definition on the internet and now i'm mad about it does that help

would you prefer me to get it from a paper dictionary? seems like you're the one mad here. but whew boy what a vicious and well-deserved takedown of me!

They're saying something like 'I won't outright walk up to you in the street and punch you in the face for being an Ist, I'm just going to work ceaselessly to have your Ism made illegal in the state of Arizona'. Or if that's an exaggeration they're still saying 'The way you do things, the way you do your life, is wrong and needs to be changed'.

No. They're saying "I believe this is a bad ideology and humankind would be better off without it". No one on the left is saying anything about making Islam or any other religion illegal, let alone "working ceaselessly" towards that end.
Maher is clearly and repeatedly says he's against all religions. He focuses on Islam more than Xianity or anything else cause uh gee yeah lemme think about why he'd focus on it nowadays...

Do you seriously feel like you can't criticize Islam as a set of beliefs without being labeled a bigot?

me personally? on ILX, yep. Maher and Sam Harris getting accused of it is bullshit. It stifles debate.

Maher is an idiot. If you're going to be dumb about how you critique Islam, you're going to get called on it.

Ok go ahead and call him dumb, and point out the reasons why. But we're talking about calling him bigoted.

I mean the thing is, maher opens himself up to that claim by saying bigoted shit all the time. He's contemptuous of many groups of people that are unlike him and doesn't bother to know what he's talking about, I guess in the service of being funny. He's not a serious thinker so when he tries to say things about our current political moment, he's going to get criticism

If there's something inherently problematic about Islam, then of course there must be something wrong with the people who think it's the truth.

Are people who criticize various cults (even going as far as thinking these beliefs are wrong and everyone would be better off without them) also guilty of thinking there's something wrong with its followers?

Islam is not a cult. C'mon. It's one of the world's major religions - it's a great and rich tradition. You don't have to agree with it, but I think it's wise to show at least a little respect when talking about a religion that like 1/4th of the world adheres to.

He's not a serious thinker

this really can't be said enough

what is the difference between it and a cult?
yeah I have zero respect for a shitty dumb set of beliefs...the amount of people who believe it just makes it worse!

so what is the cutoff for being allowed to mock a set of beliefs? 1 million followers? 100k? been around for 10 yrs? 100 yrs?

I'm assuming you feel that way about all religions then? Fwiw I think that is a limited way of looking at the world, but not exactly bigoted. If you talk about believers the way maher does, though, as though they are subhuman, you can't be surprised to be viewed that way.

yeah all religions are dumb and humanity would be better off without them, but I don't know why that's germane. It would be possible to find 1 or more religions especially egregious without.
I have no problem separating my thoughts on a religion and my thoughts on people who believe them.

egregious without being bigoted towards its believers.

1) to the idiots: is it not totally obvious that there is a geopolitical element to the middle-east (INDEPENDENT OF ISLAM) that drives terrorism?

2) seriously, fuck these idiots. i go to a school with a pretty sizeable Muslim student body so it's kind of a personal issue for me. And I don't even know if this made it out of the bay area, but a few years ago a white supremacist shot and killed 6 people at a nearby Sikh temple. let's continue to pretend this is some star wars fantasy bullshit, though, great work.

is it not totally obvious that Islam is ONE of the things driving it? I'd say one of the bigger things.

The difference between a cult and a religion is that cults are inherently fanatic. That's kinda what the word 'cult' means. There are cults and sects in Islam as well, and you can criticize those. I mean, this isn't even rocket science, every cult claims that they're not a cult.

You wonder how to criticize a 'belief system' without being called a bigot? Well, do it in a non-bigoted way. Here's the thing: Taking what's going on in the Middle East and putting it on the 'belief system' Islam is plain and simply untrue. Islam is so many things, to so many people, provably so, so to claim that there's a united 'belief system' driving terror is slandering an enormous group of people. It's the definition of bigotry.

So because Islam isn't "inherently fanatic", it's immune from criticism? Why?
I think various people have done it in a "non-bigoted way"...the thing is, large block of people on the Left are primed to see bigotry where it may not exist. I find this problematic. ILX appears not to. Oh well.

Weren't you without energy to make counterarguments? I mean, I can see you don't, you're just twisting words and spouting platitudes, but still. Are you going to discuss, or are you going to shut up?

'Islam' is 'immune from criticism' the same way 'black people' or 'Jews' are. It's such an enormous construct containing so many different types of things, that it's meaningless to criticize (beyond 'no alcohol?' or 'prayers five times a day?', and even those aren't really meaningful the way they used to be). If you claim to say something categorical about Islam, you're saying something wrong. Religions are amorphous and changeable.

This doesn't mean you can't criticize wahabism or the veil or your local imam.

goodbye

the intolerance and shouting down of opposing viewpoints with name-calling is something ILX should be very proud of

As is your victim-complex.

If you claim to say something categorical about Islam, you're saying something wrong. Religions are amorphous and changeable.

this is horseshit. there are basic beliefs in Islam, held by virtually all followers. I find these beliefs wrong and dumb. I am criticizing them, whether you gave me your blessed permission to or not.

silly me for having a "victim complex" when someone asks me to shut up for no good reason

The difference between a cult and a religion is that cults are inherently fanatic. That's kinda what the word 'cult' means.

― Frederik B, Sunday, November 22, 2015 9:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually sorta disagree here. imho the key element of a cult is that it cuts you off from other social relationships and forces you into isolation, and also seeks tight direct observation and control over your daily life as well as the sum total of resources you can provide. there are lots of cults by this defn that really only do harm to the people drawn into them (but do genuine harm don't get me wrong) and otherwise aren't "fanatic" -- and there are cults that aren't religious as well. e.g. synanon.

The school of Islamist thought that gave birth to Al Qaeda and ISIS takes as a principle that Islam is not just a religion but a total system governing all spheres of life and politics. In this sense, this particular branch or whatever you want to call it of Islam is not comparable to, say, modern-day Roman Catholicism or Evangelical Christianity or Modern Orthodox Judaism, because it isn't compatible with modernity or with other political systems or ways of life -- it purports to be a complete code governing everything, as well as the correct system for the entire world. Evangelical Christian right-wingers in America claim to want to govern by Christianity, but even that movement doesn't have the kind of all-encompassing anti-liberal vision that this branch of Islamism does. That said, I'm skeptical of how many Muslims really want to live in the absolutist world envisioned by this ideology, even Muslims with very conservative views.

Well, there are less and less dissenters every day

this is horseshit. there are basic beliefs in Islam, held by virtually all followers. I find these beliefs wrong and dumb. I am criticizing them, whether you gave me your blessed permission to or not.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), 23. november 2015 03:54 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The funny thing is, you're kinda not? You still haven't actually criticized Islam, except saying that it's 'wrong and dumb'. Which is pretty funny, considering you take every criticism of yourself to be 'shouting down' and 'name-calling'. Plus you seem awfully worked up about whether I give you permission or not. Go with peace, my bigoted friend. Let us both keep our beliefs as we had them to begin with.

The difference between a cult and a religion is that cults are inherently fanatic. That's kinda what the word 'cult' means.

― Frederik B, Sunday, November 22, 2015 9:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually sorta disagree here. imho the key element of a cult is that it cuts you off from other social relationships and forces you into isolation, and also seeks tight direct observation and control over your daily life as well as the sum total of resources you can provide. there are lots of cults by this defn that really only do harm to the people drawn into them (but do genuine harm don't get me wrong) and otherwise aren't "fanatic" -- and there are cults that aren't religious as well. e.g. synanon.

― big WHOIS aka the nameserver (s.clover), 23. november 2015 04:00 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Def a better definition of 'cult', but I guess I find that to be fanaticism as well? Because of the isolation, and the intense social world of the cult, there is no room for disagreements. Once those happen, the cult splits in two. While Shia and Sunni are still 'Islam'.

I guess I'm saying cults are 'fanatic' because they're actual consistent belief systems. While religions are inconsistent. Though of course, subsets of religions - sects and whatnot - can be very consistent.

Like, if Granny Dainger are saying 'virtually all' muslims believe the same thing, that still means there's room in Islam to not believe it. So it's not inherent to Islam, wherefore criticizing Islam for it is wrong. Factually wrong.

I'm a bigot. You have tarred me beyond repair. Fuck I try so hard to hide it but you guys always get me.

You're saying every encyclopedia entry about Islam, or every sentence starting "Islam is" is wrong. That is silly.

Maher is clearly and repeatedly says he's against all religions. He focuses on Islam more than Xianity or anything else cause uh gee yeah lemme think about why he'd focus on it nowadays...

Cos his sponsors are all Christian?

I think it's pretty much impossible for a religion shared by over a billion people spread across the globe to wind up being something you can essentialize.

you asked me to shut up. that's rude. and now you're acting like I'm some lunatic for reacting to you being a dick, ya dick.

YOU LABELED MEEEEEE
I LABELED YOOOOUUU-WAH!

All religions are awful and have baked-in xtra potential to lead to horrible things (ie moreso than a non-religious ideology). Any belief system like this, that plays even a small role in a plethora of heinous shit, such as shit that the world has been taking about for most of my life, should be criticized harshly and without the "yeah but you're a bigot!" or other such lazy, self-serving reaction. Communism can be criticized as a belief-system without some being told they are bigoted towards communists. This is such bullshit, peace out for realz now y'all have a good night.

Bill Maher, defender of women

(except when he's groping them at the Hefner mansion)

And a fine night to you as well, G-D.

Islam is changable. It's constantly changing. Therefore it isn't an 'is'. It does. It becomes. That's not 'silly', that's quite well known ideas.

uno mas cosa: I see religion as a cancer. I hate the cancer, I have nothing against people with cancer. I would love for them all to be cured, but I would never force them to. Or even go around haranguing them about it. I don't conflate cancer with the person who has it. I am perfectly ok with others disagreeing that it is a cancer; however I'm calling bullshit on the reflexive calls of bigotry, or that it's "too big, too amorphous". So is communism. So is a sandwich.

If we could only critique or make "categorical statements" about things that aren't changeable or constantly changing, we'd be extremely limited. I am not denying that it isn't! I'm saying that doesn't make it immune to sweeping criticism.

Yeah, in general, fewer categorical statements are a pretty good idea. So here's another one: What you're saying is that if we can't make untrue statements, then we can't say as much as we like, and you should be allowed to make untrue statements about billions of people without being told that you're making untrue statements about billions of people. Hm. Let's sleep on that, shall we?

1000 years from now and 1/4 of the population is Scientologist. There's many many sects of it, but they all came from the same source and share quite a few traits. It has "rich and storied tradition" and is believed by so many people, so we should show some respect for it. Doing otherwise is bigotry. Do not call it dumb and wrong. Do not wish humanity had become something better than slaves to a ridiculous ideology. Certain small percentage of Scientologists have turned to terrorism, shouting "L Ron is great!" while slaughtering innocents. There are a web of causes to their behavior, and it's obvious to anyone that Scientology is a big part of it...but do not criticize Scientology. Because racism.

can you once and finally get this straght: I do not conflate Islam with Muslims. Sleep on it homey.

No I can't. Probably because it's untrue?

lol this thread is living up to its title

so you know that I conflate the two? how do you know this?

but thanks for admitting you can't grasp the concept.

You just said you consider all muslims to be sick with a cancer?

Labelling is bad. That is the main problem.

Let's say you are having an open discussion w someone. But before you do, someone tells you "Just remember they think X". No matter what X is it is going to alter the course of the conversation. If X is a bad thing it will naturally steer it in a bad direction.

It's just a bad way to approach a supposed free exchange of ideas, pre-judging someone to think a certain way. Not just immoral but objectively bad. It introduces unnecessary fear and aggression.

It's of utmost important to make a distinction between extremist groups and the millions of normal everyday people just trying to live regular lives that live around them. In the same way we do not think all Americans are like Donald Trump, President Obama, or President George W Bush I say we should not think all Muslims are like their leaders or the fringe groups that largely represent them in the American media. Similarly all Christians are not like The Pope. Many born-again Republicans showed that when they repudiated the Pope's authority this year.

It's silly to see religion as cancer because humanity has been without religion as much as it has been without hierarchy, without patriarchy, without death. Until we conquer death - or our fear of death - then religion will always be there.

Yes. It is benign in most of them. Just like it is in most Christians, Jews, etc. I can criticize ideas without you forcing me to wed it to those who hold the belief.

no doubt fear of death is why it's still around. but never say never. 5000 years is a long time, let alone a million. there is no reason religion could not be shedded eventually, with much less consequences than other things that have "been around forever".
i can still ridicule anti-vaxxers on ilx right? not a cult even eh? way less than 1/4 population believe it, and it's only this 1 specific weird belief not a grand milieu of weird "deeply held" "personal" beliefs.

you are amazing

I can't really jump that high

where others might be satisfied with a straw man argument you have created a whole straw civilization

it was a metaphor, desperate attempt to get you to understand the concept. oh well, not smart enough, ol ilx

how can you honest separate religion from the rest of human culture? religion was basically all of pop culture for 1500+ years. not to mention science, education, etc. all of that was funded by the church in the dark ages. i mean aside from the wandering cosmopolitan elite.

should we move on from arabic numerals and come up w something new? cos that comes from the more exploratory traditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

Since this isn't really getting anywhere, start from scratch in another thread. Criticize some ideas in general. If bigotry red flags go up, that's when you know you've crossed a line. It seems most people in this thread feel Maher has crossed that line. He certainly is excessively smug, and he's definitely not great at making particularly sophisticated arguments.

no doubt fear of death is why it's still around. but never say never. 5000 years is a long time, let alone a million. there is no reason religion could not be shedded eventually, with much less consequences than other things that have "been around forever".
i can still ridicule anti-vaxxers on ilx right? not a cult even eh? way less than 1/4 population believe it, and it's only this 1 specific weird belief not a grand milieu of weird "deeply held" "personal" beliefs.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, November 22, 2015 11:34 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm starting to see the point. its like there's no place on the internet these days where you can go and ridicule stuff.

and if you want to ridicule stuff and not be ridiculed yourself? fuggedaboutit.

Me:

They're saying something like 'I won't outright walk up to you in the street and punch you in the face for being an Ist, I'm just going to work ceaselessly to have your Ism made illegal in the state of Arizona'. Or if that's an exaggeration they're still saying 'The way you do things, the way you do your life, is wrong and needs to be changed'.

Granny Dainger:

No. They're saying "I believe this is a bad ideology and humankind would be better off without it". No one on the left is saying anything about making Islam or any other religion illegal, let alone "working ceaselessly" towards that end.

'I think this is a bad ideology and humankind would be better off without it, but you're being foolish if you think I'm actually going to do anything about it. Why ever would you assume I was going to do something about it just because I think it's a bad ideology and humankind would be better off without it?'

cool to hear from a edgy white guy tho, let a 100 flrs bloom

bought the lawrence wright book about al quaeda second-hand last week, after seeing it mentioned in light of recent events and enjoying his scientology book, the front cover and the all-caps THE LOOMING TOWER coupled with "devastating. terrifying. the daily mail" makes me ashamed to read it in public though. I guess this is what sells books?

i rolled my eyes so hard at granny dainger that I now need to visit the optician, can i sue ilx y/n?

xp bought the looming tower 2nd hand last week, now hoping it was a hardback copy so i can ditch the dust jacket

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PFR3Gqw9L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

almost as bad as my copy of shakey having a quote from noel gallagher on the front - like "a bloody great read" or something.

hahaha omg shakey is my favourite rock biog probably but i would have to stick that straight into the wood-chipper

oh actually my copy it seems DOES have that [goes to find wood chipper]

hahaha - everytime i think about it i try to find a way of dismissing it, like "putting a quote from noel gallagher on the front of a book about neil young is like..." and then i can't think of one that covers it accurately.

"like having a daily mail quote on the sleeve of a probably incisive and right-on book about 9/11" does it for me tbh

otm!

gonna have to take a twin photo of these now

SHAKEY
Jimmy McDonough

"There's a quote in it that changed my life, he's asked why he's been in Buffalo Springfield, Crazy Horse and all these other bands and he replies, "No one band is big enough to hold what I've got." At the time of reading it, I felt like that. In the last few years of Oasis I was only writing half the album, so I put out 15 songs in 10 years. I must have written 60 a year. I kept going back to that quote. Here's this guy that does whatever he wants. No one will ever be like Neil Young."

oh the inestimable hubris of noel g

"what i've got isn't enough to keep one band going beyond two albums" would be closer to noel's truth

But what about those multi-volume sets he issued over the past ten years oh wait that's Prince.

Anyway, back to the Islam..

personally i have always felt the measure of people should not be their opinions but rather how they conduct themselves

teasing out opinions from people on topics they don't normally think about can be interesting but not necessarily significant, but people's contributions to what I feel self-conscious about calling The World of Ideas - the way you engage with people, who you engage with, and the way you spread your beliefs even implicity - are v important aspects of how people conduct themselves imo

If you claim to say something categorical about Islam, you're saying something wrong.

I think this is an essentially anti-religious view; you know where most categorical statements about islam come from

I'm guessing the dumb posts in this thread come from someone who doesn't spend much time amongst Muslims irl? that's much easier in the USA than in Europe ime

Hmmm, gross generalization here, but Americans don't seem to know that much about Muslims.

Except apparently they all have cancer.

If you claim to say something categorical about Islam, you're saying something wrong.

I think this is an essentially anti-religious view; you know where most categorical statements about islam come from

― ogmor, 23. november 2015 12:27 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's anti-fanaticism, and prob a bit anti-organized religion. Though still, I think most religious people normally say 'the koran says' or 'the bible says', not 'islam is' or 'christianity is'. But yeah, most of what the imams say are wrong. As is most of what is going on in churches, fwiw.

xp yes I was talking about Americans being unaware of Muslims irl

xp yes, but it's tricky to oppose absolutism & not a v popular cause. sometimes the clarity of universal condemnation seems attractive when opposed to the murkier territory of people forming impressions and making judgments on people through a process of associations and ideas of character and psychology. absolutism & categorical statements lend strength to exhortations, and I'm reluctant to dismiss them completely if used in that rhetorical/moral sense, even though I don't want to deify the instincts to which those statements appeal

#notalltheists

xp yes, but it's tricky to oppose absolutism & not a v popular cause. sometimes the clarity of universal condemnation seems attractive when opposed to the murkier territory of people forming impressions and making judgments on people through a process of associations and ideas of character and psychology. absolutism & categorical statements lend strength to exhortations, and I'm reluctant to dismiss them completely if used in that rhetorical/moral sense, even though I don't want to deify the instincts to which those statements appeal

― ogmor, 23. november 2015 13:55 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It used to be a quite popular cause in the sixties and seventies. And who knows, with all this identity-politics, it might be a popular cause again.

But you're completely right about the attractiveness of absolutism and categorical statements. We will never get away from those. I'm religious myself, btw, I too like believing in something bigger. Just because something isn't true doesn't mean you shouldn't believe it. Les Non-Dupes Errent as Lacan said.

Just because something isn't true doesn't mean you shouldn't believe in it

I have sympathy for this view but I tend to look to art to scratch that itch - it's why I do acting or go to the theatre, or read or watch films or whatever.

My flatmate has lately got very into like... loads of alternative medicine and wizardry and stuff, and predicting the future - I find this really irritating even though he is quite calm and acts rationally, and a nice person - I can't really put my finger on why though it does feel pretentious I guess. The view that it's total bullshit doesn't bother me as such, more like that he has made me aware there is a subculture of hippy hipsters who seem to share in these beliefs - it just feels a bit stultified.

like he will literally be like "i spoke to a japanese mage at the weekend and he told me 'when a rock is in a lake and the water flows quickly'" and every fibre of my body is like "FUCK OFF"

I'm waiting for atheism to come back into fashion tbh. Maybe have to wait till Dawkins pops his clogs.

"Just because something isn't true doesn't mean you shouldn't believe it."

I'm having trouble with this one, myself.

well we have a phrase "suspension of disbelief" which is usually used around art i guess?

also santa claus.

childhood in general...

I'm not thinking the wording really applies in the same way as "suspension of disbelief". And it's not implying childhood beliefs either, but rather things that you already acknowledge are probably or definitely untrue?

I used to have a roommate who believed in anti-aging and miraculous skin repairing creams to an extent that was basically spiritual. She went on and on about combating free radicals blah blah whatever the hype was then. I always secretly suspected she didn't believe it either but was carefully acting out a whole life as if she did.

It's really not a controversial view, though I phrase it rather bluntly. It's a paraphrase of something in John Barth's first novel The Floating Boat. He also says something like 'Just because something can't be done doesn't mean you shouldn't try and do it.' Again, Lacan simply says Les Non-Dupes Errent, or Those Who Aren't Fooled Are Wrong. A Swedish singer once sung it 'I'm far too smart to get fooled by myself!'

Beliefs should sometimes be judged on whether they're harmful or beneficial. There's quite a correlation between true beliefs and beneficial beliefs, though, but it's not 100%. Placebos, AA programs, loads of things work with helpful untruths.

I always secretly suspected she didn't believe it either but was carefully acting out a whole life as if she did.

yes - this is how I feel about my flatmate for sure.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-one-in-five-british-muslims-do-not-support-isis-despite-what-the-sun-front-page-says-a6744801.html

xp yes, but it's tricky to oppose absolutism & not a v popular cause. sometimes the clarity of universal condemnation seems attractive when opposed to the murkier territory of people forming impressions and making judgments on people through a process of associations and ideas of character and psychology. absolutism & categorical statements lend strength to exhortations, and I'm reluctant to dismiss them completely if used in that rhetorical/moral sense, even though I don't want to deify the instincts to which those statements appeal

There are probably some things that can be said about 'Islam' even though, as Frederik points out, in real life 'Islam' is a huge category containing things which contradict each other. I think Islam is always monotheistic for example.

between #notalltheists and "i spoke to a japanese mage at the weekend" this thread has taken a welcome turn

I think it's good to be specific. wrt monotheism I know there are nominal muslims in sulawesi who practice ancestor worship, I'm not sure if there are other exceptions

I do not have nor have I ever had an affiliation with any religion. Religion is not a thing that works for me or that makes sense to me, personally. That said, I have always tried to be respectful towards people for whom religion does work and makes sense. I don't think anyone's decision to practice or not practice a religion should be predicated upon the understanding or permission of any other person. I would love it if everyone else (secular or religious) felt the same but I grok that that is not the case.

Is religion, in many cases, inherently regressive? Sure. Most of these belief systems have existed for thousands of years, and when treated as orthodoxy, a strict interpretation is often irreoncilable with the way many people live their lives in the 21st Century. But to the extent that people are willing to allow their beliefs to be a personal thing and not be up other people's asses about it (or blow other people's asses up over it), I don't see anything wrong with people thinking that I (for example) am a godless heathen who's going to burn in hell. They're as welcome to their belief as I am to mine. And those people who are living a personal religious existence should have every right to denounce and divorce themselves from people who do seek to foist those same beliefs on others or to harm others in the name of those beliefs. There are awful adherents of every religion, people who will scrape together some half-assed scriptural justification for being the awful people that they are. And there are decent people within every religion who find solace in their beliefs and just want to live their lives. Criticism of religious doctrine is totally valid, but to the extent that the individual believers aren't actively fucking up your day or anyone else's, it seems to me that the cool move is to just let them do their thing and to maybe speak up when they start getting harassed or persecuted for just doing their thing.

I'm reading the Lawrence Wright book as well and have read some of his other work -- he's an excellent journalist and writer, plz do not let the Daily Mail quote dissuade you.

yeah the scientology book is so great - i would read anything of his after that.

There's a tendency to tell Muslims what they believe, rather than listen to them.

I think going forward as well, Sam Harris should be the one criticized or defended in this discussion, as he's much more measured and sophisticated than Maher. It would be good to remove the blowhard variable from the conversation as that could be complicating it.

If we're going to discuss Sam Harris, I think a good start would be with his misuse of the word 'doctrine'. Because his misgivings is constantly with how extremism is found in the islamic 'doctrine'. But doctrine means codified set of beliefs, so a critique of islamic doctrine is a critique of the specific historical codification of islamic belief, rather than of Islam itself. Which is well and needed and necessary. But if you insist on confusing the two, as it sometimes seem to me as Harris does, then, again, you're crossing the line to bigotry. You're saying that there's something unfixably wrong with muslims.

As Lawrence Wright notes, Wahhab himself was in the 18th Century widely considered to be a dangerous heretic among Muslims in Arabia.

you know where most categorical statements about islam come from

There is a very long history of anti-Islam propaganda in the west that dates from the Crusades, continues through the long expulsion of Islam from the Iberian peninsula and the equally long struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Vatican has always been a very rich source of such statements.

Seems ironic that today's atheists have so strongly embraced the strict Vatican line from centuries ago on these matters.

https://www.facebook.com/Mediamatters/videos/10152410206006167/

xp hopefully my use of present tense indicated what I was thinking about, but, even taking into account all manner of historical european anti-muslim sentiment, from paranoia over morisco blood to febrile baphomet conspiracy, I think muslims have spoken about their own faith in absolute terms more often. I'm not sure how much modern islamophobia in the multicultural west, which atm seems primarily concerned with conflating all muslims with jihadis via polls, shares with yr medieval/early modern anti-infidel religious war rhetoric beyond a base xenophobic impulse, I guess yr samuel huntingdon's would fit in there

ISIS makes absolute statements about Islam all the time. Hundreds of millions of muslims ignore their proclamations and go about their daily lives untroubled by their disobedience.

i think bear should have the last word

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUgUt7CWEAAAupS.jpg

Breaking news bear claims Jews taste funny

4000 post thread by morning

Jews Did Indigestion

Human flesh apparently tastes like pork iirc

Not to a bear.

Disconcerting use of "iirc"

Irl lol at bear

Xps is Sufism monotheistic? I've met a few Sufis who were very open minded re Buddhism and Hinduism.

yes, sufism is monotheistic

the way you engage with people, who you engage with, and the way you spread your beliefs even implicity - are v important aspects of how people conduct themselves imo

i agree! but i think of the first two as quite independent from people's "opinions".

Cool. Then I guess monotheism seems like best broad statement so far.

Can someone fill me in, did Dainger ever go to bed?

Whither is Dainger? he cried. I shall tell you. He has gone to bed -- because of you and I. All of us have sent him to bed. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Wither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the attendants who are tucking in Dainger? Do we not smell anything yet of Dainger's unconscious farts? Daingers too fart. Dainger has gone to bed. Dainger remains in bed. And we have sent him there... Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become Daingers, simply to seem worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed. And whoever will be born after us -- for the sake of this deed, he will be part of a greater history than all history hitherto.

...in awe

kind of glad I slept through that whole clusterfuck upthread, but actual Muslim ilxor here with some basic Islam 101. first of all, getting it out of the way, i don't represent all Muslims obvs. but on the topic of "what Muslims believe", here is the six pillars of faith, a list of what we are actually obliged to believe in as a Muslim:

1. Belief in God
2. Belief in the angels
3. Belief in the Qur'an and other holy books (this includes the Bible and the Torah)
4. Belief in Muhammad and the prophets
5. Belief in the end of days
6. Belief in destiny.

And, here is a list of the five pillars of Islam, the five basic acts that are mandatory on all Muslims:

1. Declare that there is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger
2. Pray five times a day
3. Fast during Ramadhan
4. Make a pilgrimage to Mecca (for those who are able)
5. Give alms/charity

Shiites have slightly different categories for these sets of acts/beliefs, but essentially, that's it, that's the very core of the Islamic belief system. If you do all of that, congratulations, you're a Muslim.

The rest of it - whether you should wear a veil, refrain from alcohol/pork, get tattooed, whether we believe infidels should be killed, whether we should subscribe to shariah law... all of that differs from community to community, depending on the culture and traditions of a specific place, depending on your families, and on the muslim authorities/clerics/muftis/imams in your general vicinity.

so yeah, if you find anything "troubling" or "violent" in the basic tenets of Islam, sure, take your best shot. otherwise, you're just making sweeping generalisations about 1.4 billion people and what "they" believe in.

thanks Roz, good post

yes, thanks

the nuanced Sam Harris

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/11/23/what-does-sam-harris-have-in-common-with-the-republican-presidential-candidates/

so yeah, if you find anything "troubling" or "violent" in the basic tenets of Islam, sure, take your best shot. otherwise, you're just making sweeping generalisations about 1.4 billion people and what "they" believe in.

nothing troubling or violent in Quran or Bible, nope!

Thanks, was worried we were settling into a reasonable discussion for a moment

reasonable to ilx=horseshit to me, go on with your captain save a muslim morality play

SO you agree he took it out of its case and pretended he had made it?

I can't speak to the Quran, but what is in the Torah =/= the tenets of Judaism as a religion. For example, there are stories in the torah of god commanding the Hebrews to commit massacres, but the Jewish religion is not "act out the stories in the Torah" it's live by the laws of the Torah, none of which afaik say "commit massacres."

reasonable=anyone who condemns Islam is making inaccurate generalizations and is a bigot, but anyone calling all those who critique Islam a bigot is totally otm hi 5 keep the faith man. idiots.

Now then Roz was talking about the particular things they posted there, what do you think of those?

Also, did anyone watch this?

https://www.facebook.com/Mediamatters/videos/10152410206006167/

xxp tell em why you mad son

but the Jewish religion is not "act out the stories in the Torah" it's live by the laws of the Torah, none of which afaik say "commit massacres."

tbf if we knew who Amalek really were presumably we would have an obligation to kill every single member. but luckily we do not know and therefore have no obligation. i've been staying out of this discussion intentionally but there are obviously some chilling suras and hadiths, esp if you're a jew.

but if u need evidence that the text has very little to do w/ actual practice/belief, there seems to be an explicit passage that suggests jews should live in israel:

"To Moses We [Allah] gave nine clear signs. Ask the Israelites how he [Moses] first appeared amongst them. Pharoah said to him: 'Moses, I can see that you are bewitched.' 'You know full well,' he [Moses] replied, 'that none but the Lord of the heavens and the earth has revealed these visible signs. Pharoah, you are doomed.'"

"Pharoah sought to scare them [the Israelites] out of the land [of Israel]: but We [Allah] drowned him [Pharoah] together with all who were with him. Then We [Allah] said to the Israelites: 'Dwell in this land [the Land of Israel]. When the promise of the hereafter [End of Days] comes to be fulfilled, We [Allah] shall assemble you [the Israelites] all together [in the Land of Israel]."

"We [Allah] have revealed the Qur'an with the truth, and with the truth it has come down. We have sent you [Muhammed] forth only to proclaim good news and to give warning."

[Qur'an, "Night Journey," chapter 17:100-104]

Thanks to everyone who's supplying solid info itt. Granny, I've yet to see a rational counter complaint from you. With, like, concrete examples of what you're talking about.

I dunno what complaints counter gd is usually directed to but I've got fifty quid right here that says its not the rational one

Sam Harris said it, Granny believes it, that settles it.

TBF to Granny, he has been arguing more for the general right to criticize majority held ideas without automatically being labeled an Islamophobe, but I don't think we can ever really get anywhere with that argument on either side of the debate without looking at a case by case context. On Granny's side, he ends up arguing that unspecified ideas are believed by the majority of Muslims (without data), and on Frederick's side, he ends up arguing that almost all beliefs are not definable enough to represent the majority of Muslims (without data), implying that Roz's breakdown may be the only universal "rules". I just feel like those positions have moved so far into their extremes that there is no way any progress can be made in the discussion. Or, it simply proves that you really need to land on a conclusion only after looking at a ton of specific case by case beliefs and what the majority is. Something like that list I pasted upthread but without the problematic curation.

A religion is not a book. I like Yeshayahu Leibowitz's terming of equating a religion solely with what it says in a book as "bibliolatry."

(Warning, Disorganized thought follows:)

This was alluded to before, but part of all this is that "religion" is not nec. this walled-up separate subject/academic department. It was inseparable from culture/identity/(pre?)nationhood for the vast majority of human life. "Religion" just became a subset of cultural practices & habits. Hell, religion and culture and pop-culture were a continuum forever(from Greek myth down to Biblical refs in Shakespeare).

One of those constantly reposted things online that annoys the shit out of me is people going on about how religion is the source for all wars, which is hilariously blinkered and clueless attempted at tribal point-scoring, as if your own group of loud atheistic types wouldn't march across E. Europe or Central Asia if you weren't in that place or time.

Both Chris Hedges and Stephen Prothero have written about this, but part of what schews a lot of thinking about a very core human subject is both religious illiteracy and sampling error. Mass-media mixed with 40 years of well-organized Jerry Falwell-types resulted in only the loudest assholes getting heard brashly waving the battle standard and branding as the sole Authority on religious stuff, so they got plenty of talking head time, which deliberately colored the perception.

Hell, our popular instinctual conception now is that "Islam" = "the most visible, tangible differences in political and social practices in Muslim countries" = "Assholes in Saudi Arabia/Syria/only the Middle East." And we hear this again and again and again to the point where our neural ruts immediate trigger just this connection, and we never think "Muslim country" = Indonesia, plenty of India, Bangledesh, etc.

Agreed, Reza Aslan did a pretty good job explaining that in the video link I posted. Supports your conclusion.

man alive, kingfish, mordy otm

Agreed and also can I put in a request that Mordy does contribute more to this thread - as someone who has previously approached Mordy with two mouths open and two ears closed I know the kind of controversy yr talking about and want to avoid but will make it a mission not to be a prat re Mordy especially in this thread

Islam is a religion. Religion makes claims to have knowledge of the origins of the universe; generally these claims go beyond "there is a superpowerful omnipotent being creator" to "and we have knowledge of what this creator thinks about humanity". I reject all these claims. I do not reject any person or group of people who do not reject these claims. Whether 1 person or 1 billion people accept the claims is immaterial to me when criticizing the claims themselves. As is whether the claims have had a "rich and storied tradition". Every person is far more than his religious beliefs to me, even if they themselves feel their religious beliefs are their sum total.
Over the past 50 years or so, liberals have learned that tarring those who don't hold their beliefs with terms like "bigot" or "____ophobe" is an effective tool. In pretty much all of its big sociocultural battles (religion, sexism, homophobia, etc) it has fought against those who could pretty much only hold the opposing viewpoint if they were sexist, racist, or bigoted in some way. At this point it's apparent that many liberals are primed to see anyone who doesn't hold their exact viewpoint as bigoted, and is overeager to use that effective debate tool they discovered years ago.
Bill Maher is almost undoubtedly sexist, and that fat jokes are awful. Richard Dawkins, ugh, where to begin. But I don't think either hates Muslims on the whole. You may disagree. Fair enough. Surely there is enough to criticize without resorting to lazy, self-serving slanders.

Bill Maher is almost undoubtedly sexist, and that fat jokes are awful. Richard Dawkins, ugh, where to begin. But I don't think either hates Muslims on the whole.

odd conclusion. what would one have to do in order to qualify as hating "muslims on the whole", in your eyes?

Religion makes claims to have knowledge of the origins of the universe; generally these claims go beyond "there is a superpowerful omnipotent being creator" to "and we have knowledge of what this creator thinks about humanity".

also lol @ this convenient over-simplification of thousands of years of thought but ok

plenty of religious traditions engage with the idea that how God is ultimately incomprehensible to humanity but oh why am I bothering

luckily we can isolate that to religion as no other systems claim to tell people how to live their lives

break it down to its base and i'm making a convenient over-simplificaton; do otherwise and I'm making an incorrect generalization about 1 billion people. lol at all of you.

No im with him 100% on the magic omnipotent being tbh

GD are you aware that nobody has actually called you these things that you keep defending yourself against? Or maybe I missed that post...

I see little difference between "actually hating" someone and going on national TV saying there is a fundamental difference that is objectively BAD at the root of all thinking of a billion and a half people.

it's almost like religion is ... complicated

xp

but they do claim their is a god, right? I reject the claim.
an article in glamour tells people how to live their lives. an article in glamour does not make claims to possess knowledge of the creation/creator of the universe.
I know it's MUCH to much to ask people to read statements with an intention other than to tear them down, but ahh that would be nice for such a "progressive" "tolerant" "non-judgemental" group as ilxors.

The "origin of the universe" is actually of little import to the lives of most people. Are you well-versed in quantum mechanics?

oh wait wait now it's a billion and a HALF??? ok i take it all back

a convenient over-simplificaton; do otherwise and I'm making an incorrect generalization about 1 billion people

also these are p much the same thing, idk what kind of distinction you think you're drawing here.
xp

I think there's a huge space between poles to allow that humans are complicated while holding the opinion that God is a lololololololololllz concept cmon now let's not make the islamophobia thread about that

pretty easy to reject a deity that other people believe when you yourself are defining that deity philosophical fish in a barrell

my whole point was to simplify it. you lol'ing at that just makes me lol.

but they do claim their is a god, right? I reject the claim.

tbf an awful lot of theology is concerned with what exactly is meant by "God", what is the nature of this force that brought the universe into being, what can we know about it, what does that mean for humanity

straw gods

humans are complicated. you guys really cannot separate humans who ideas from the ideas themselves. Frederik was not bullshittin. There's really no discussion to be had until you guys can accomplish that mental feat.

capn save a religion

GD does Trump hate Muslims, in your opinion?

sure seems to

do I get my liberal merit badge now?

It's more a question of can Muslims trump hate *folds arms*

solution is to just admit that GD is god. infallible and omniscient. only an all-knowing being could know the beliefs of 1.5 billion people.

As a human who quite proudly idea, I think I can mental that feat!

Heh

You never idea

https://www.facebook.com/Mediamatters/videos/10152410206006167/

― Evan, Tuesday, November 24, 2015 12:04 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did anyone watch this frickin video or not? It's so extremely relevant!

lol

xp

I watched it a few days ago. He makes some good points! Agree with some of it, not all.

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solution is to just admit that GD is god. infallible and omniscient. only an all-knowing being could know the beliefs of 1.5 billion people.

You are either really thick, don't even read what I write, or just wanna pile on.

wins what are you some kind of social justice warrior?

pretty rad of the US to take a minute from destroying Planned Parenthood and shutting down equal pay amendments to take the position of really standing up for women's rights. heroes, all.

I watched it a few days ago. He makes some good points! Agree with some of it, not all.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, November 24, 2015 5:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What bits didn't you agree with?

You never idea

― MONKEY had been BUMMED by the GHOST of the late prancing paedophile (darraghmac), 24. november 2015 23:00 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did! I did idea! It you who never. Nevers in France.

Wins is absolutely some kind of sjw tbf he's just more interesting than most of em imo

Also, I did idea that G*D bigot be. When merely he begot bigot idea. Is what who I idea. I do mental that feat, not bigot but begotten bigotry.

don't wanna rewatch but remember thinking he basically made a "religion doesn't kill people, people kill people" argument. I can see why people think this, I just happen to disagree. There will always be reasons people find to harm others. I think it would be nice to get rid of one of these reasons.

making fun of the typo now? really hard-hitting stuff.

I could feel you getting all warm n fuzzy when you called me a bigot. Prob went and polished off your liberal merit badge.

When ppl kill ppl and ppl say things like yknow what really killed those ppl and their answer is not the ppl who killed the ppl I always think man fuck those ppl

currently washing my liberal merit badge in the blood of the lamb fyi

Appropriation iirc

There will always be reasons people find to harm others. I think it would be nice to get rid of one of these reasons.

if there will always be reasons, what's the point of getting rid of one of them? idgi

He made more of a "religion doesn't kill people, cultures kill people" kind of argument. xposts

Mo reason mo harm

GD my main issue is you are implying that separating religion from the rest of human experience is somehow a doable thing. For me it is intricately inseparable from every facet of life. If there was an example of a zero-religion society out there you could point to and say "Oh look here they have no wars" then fine, I would join your cause in an instant. But there isn't.

I for one don't think that GD hates Muslims

I mean this is all interesting stuff that's come up off the back of GD's re-appearance, but I believe GD when GD says that none of his position on Islam means hating Muslims

I didn't even know that's what we were arguing about. I thought it was about obvious Islamophobes Dawkins and Maher.

like you wanna argue about the "nature" of Islam hey that's all good, plenty of interesting stuff to untangle there - but when you get down to defending people who routinely utter offensive slurs and perpetuate stereotypes and whatnot, that's different. Those guys cross a line and they cross it regularly and with glee, fuck both of them.

Though pointing to one of those zero-religion societies potentially could make you say "Oh look they have more scientific progress and equal rights". Potentially!

xpost to Adam

like you wanna argue about the "nature" of Islam hey that's all good, plenty of interesting stuff to untangle there - but when you get down to defending people who routinely utter offensive slurs and perpetuate stereotypes and whatnot, that's different. Those guys cross a line and they cross it regularly and with glee, fuck both of them.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, November 24, 2015 5:18 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's why I was thinking Sam Harris might be a better example than those other guys. Remove the blowhard variable and get right down to a more pure when-criticisms-of-ideas-become-bigotry debate.

xp but I also kind of want to know what GD desires from Muslims, and again: while I believe GD's intentions, I'm not sure I believe the intentions of most who say 'No problem with any Muslims but fuck Islam amirite'

Sam Harris should be the one criticized or defended in this discussion, as he's much more measured and sophisticated than Maher.

hmmm, getting less so by the day?

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/sam-harris-id-vote-for-dangerously-deluded-religious-imbecile-ben-carson-over-noam-chomsky/

Evan, I feel that on many subjects there is a legitimate discussion to be had/critique to be made of something, but which becomes an attack (an outburst of 'bigotry'), by the time and the place and the way it's put forward

Frexample the way Dawkins et al like to use the word 'Abrahamic'

Fairly reasonable word to use when categorising religions, and someone might reasonably say I prefer the Vedic branch of religion to the Abrahamic, but these guys almost spit it whenever they say it

xps I firmly believe in his intentions as a particularly dim and truculent blower of minds on the internet who has a persistent fantasy of being the only clear thinker in a world of disingenuous PC merit badge sheeple, problem really is with the people itt who in between clowning him took the time to explain at length and from several different angles why his "position on islam" is reductive bullshit, when his version of good-faith engagement with the topic is "I will simplify my generalisation"

those people were wrong to do so obv

For some reason when I see 'GD' I keep thinking of you know who *points heavenwards*

sorry wins didn't know I was feedin a troll

if there will always be reasons, what's the point of getting rid of one of them? idgi

Good grief I hope you aren't a physician. Or a mechanic.

wins how true! brilliant analysis of me (which has #nothingtodowithislam). but apparently you are too dim to realize that the more of you think I am stupid and wrong, the more I feel I am smart and right.

in a world of disingenuous PC merit badge sheeple,

if "world" is "ilx" then yep!

Wait, wait, hold up, whoever said we were "non-judgemental"?

ilx clowns on beliefs ALL the time. mocks EVERYONE for thousands of thoughts, acts, beliefs, lifestyles, etc. But how dare YOU dismiss a religion! You must go to every 1.5 billion believer and ask them precisely what they believe. This is how debates about ideologies are done, you dimwit!

and for how goshdarn intelligent and well-read and cultured you lot pride yourselves on being, some of you (some have!) haven't figured out that it is super super easy to make a "troll" go away.

Good grief I hope you aren't a physician. Or a mechanic.

if a physician's patient is going to die no matter what he does, he's got no business performing an amputation

Not to be rude, Tom, but sometimes you are like a man whose employee steals wheelbarrows.

Also, wins otm. And I apologize that my untroll-like behaviour clearly derailed this thread, as briefly as might be.

A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger) wrote this on thread Rolling Islamophobia Thread on board I Love Everything on Nov 23, 2015

the intolerance and shouting down of opposing viewpoints with name-calling is something ILX should be very proud of

A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger) wrote this on thread Paris under Attack - November 13 2015 on board I Love Everything on Nov 20, 2015

brimstead really exemplifying ilx's proud tradition of responding to opposing viewpoints

A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger) wrote this on thread Jeremy Clarkson's "The World According To Clarkson" is one of Penguin's "best books of its kind to be published in recent years" on board I Love Everything on Jun 6, 2013

also amusing how the tree-hugging hippy peaceniks he roils are quick to wish harm to happen to a man simply for his relatively b9 viewpoints

Granny Dainger wrote this on thread the new roots album rising down on board I Love Music on May 7, 2008

yeah wtf w/differing opinions people!

A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger) wrote this on thread 2014-15 NBA regular season thread: 82 games of injuries and inevitabilities on board I Love Hoops on Nov 14, 2014

u do this all the time btw. anyone who has diff reaction or opinion then u is dumb. surely u realize this?

hope this helps (Granny Dainger) wrote this on thread I Was Wrong About Radiohead on board I Love Music on Apr 16, 2009

i'm not coming in here saying you're wrong and fucked up for disregarding album filler and judging an artist solely on their best tracks, so i don't get why y'all have to be opinion fascists about how I view things. LOL U YUNG.

Granny Dainger wrote this on thread Major League Soccer on board I Love Football on Dec 3, 2008

wow you guys are so owning me. i can't even hold that opinion anymore. great parallels being drawn here. A++ work, pats on backs all around.

not a troll, just the dumbest guy in the room with super interesting opinions and a chip on his shoulder about all the fancypants think they're so smart they aren't smart I'm smart

'How come HE can say what HE idea without you calling HIM dumb??? HUH???'

Islam is dumb. Religion is dumb.
How dare you make such a generalization! Islam is a ever-changing, amorphous thing followed by 1/4 of the poppulation.
*makes statement boiling down what all religions have in common, and what distinguishes them from other ideologies*
How dare you make such an over-simplification!

you just spent time looking up old posts of mine. and I'm the dumb one hahahahaah omfg.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm perfectly confident in my intelligence. Keep wasting your time bashing it.

this is a nadir

http://fat.gfycat.com/OptimalThoseFoal.gif

^^otm

if a physician's patient is going to die no matter what he does, he's got no business performing an amputation

If someone comes in with elevated trigs, but he's got cancer and will prob die from it down the line, no good doc will go eh not gonna do anything about the trigs, you're gonna die from the cancer anyway.

No, you don't strike me as being smart enough to know how dumb you are, G'D. I often envy people like you.

And you're too dumb to realize I feel the exact same about you.

I was trying to get you to think about why you were inclined to admit that violence happens whether there's religion in the world or not, and what that implies for the argument that getting rid of religion (if that was even possible - I'm prone to argue it's not, it's hardwired into humanity imo) would make the world a less violent place.

xp

if someone disagrees with ilx hivemind, they are dumb! a dumb bigot! clearly incapable of understanding such a nuanced issue! peace out dillweeds.

I assume you are going to say that there are many causes of violence in the world and religion is just one of them, wouldn't it be nice to have one less

xp

which begs the question of why you are singling out religion as a cause (hint: it might be because you're a bigot)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgtrzQEG3S8

Bought myself a video game
to get en-ter-tained
in an ea-sy way

But I saw through that
I'm far too smart to get
FOOLED BY MYSELF

(0:58)

I spent the same amount of time looking up "liberal merit badge", pretty sure I can afford it.

Having said that: look I told y'all, but enjoy another 200 posts if you want to, I'm out

The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions

The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addictions
The worst combination of addic-THE WOOOOORST

God, I love that song.

*makes statement boiling down what all religions have in common, and what distinguishes them from other ideologies*

Can see where you're coming from with this

But still think that boiling down is a bit strawing up - but if the essence of religion you got to is what seems accurate to you I guess that's just different strokes

Does anybody have a list of Qutb's record collection? Or photos? He probably had better taste than anyone on ILM

There's no reason to think Granny D is stupid. When you're sitting in a parked car, it doesn't matter much if it is a Ferrari or a Chevy; it's not going anywhere.

Potential, my friend, potential.

Does anybody have a list of Qutb's record collection? Or photos? He probably had better taste than anyone on ILM

― brimstead, Tuesday, November 24, 2015 6:41 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seriously, how is there not a nakhchivan thread about this?

presumably a lot of classical music in there and presumably nothing with female vocals

which begs the question of why you are singling out religion as a cause (hint: it might be because you're a bigot)

because this is a religion thread you dolt lmao what a guy

It is true that your islamophobia is in harmony w/this thread title

Ebony and iiiivory

i mean just to demonstrate the amt of ad hominen shit sloppy dicked mofos throw around: for the record I'm equally for the elimination of contributing factors to death, maiming, rape, taking up 2 spots parking, ignorance, ACTUAL BIGOTRY, etc etc as for religion. Buddhism can stay tho, even a few terrorists and tea shop owners.

what do you mean by "elimination of religion"?

nevermind nevermind forget i asked

"i mean just to demonstrate the amt of ad hominen shit sloppy dicked mofos throw around"

so uh "sloppy dicked" is not ad hominem on the other hand then i guess, idk i should just remove bookmark.

sloppy dicked cuck manginas, iirc

of some relevance (to the thread, not the last comment):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/world/asia/indonesia-islam-nahdlatul-ulama.html

probably won't get reported on fox news

fox news: "where are all the moderate muslims? why won't they speak out?"

moderate muslims: "we're here. hi!"

fox news: "where are all the moderate muslims? why won't they speak out?"

yes, otm, though sadly that applies to nyt comments boxes too

Monday night I was driving down the highway and I passed a car with a Baby On Board sign that had its lights off (we were in traffic, so no doubt all the other headlights made it hard for the driver to tell). Next time we came to a standstill and the car came up to me, I was about to start yelling out the window, or giving the driver a honk to get their attention to tell them to turn their lights on, and I saw the driver was a Muslim woman with a full hijab, covering everything but her eyes. I didn't feel comfortable honking, yelling and gesticulating, because god knows what she's had to put up with. Don't know if I made the right decision or not.

It was clearly a gang initiation thing.

meanwhile, this is horrifying: http://irvingblog.dallasnews.com/2015/11/group-that-brought-guns-to-irving-mosque-publishes-muslims-home-addresses.html/

I'm almost equally repulsed by the fact that so much of American society deems this an acceptable response, we've gotten to a place of "well we're sorry for them but hey they are associated with people who do violence" style of acceptance. doxxing and intimidation - we saw this after 9/11, and it's probably not going away.

was American relationships with Muslims this bad pre-9/11? I don't recall it, but I was just becoming an adult at that time.

What relationship. Majority of americans dont interact w muslims at all

i mean the hostility

Anti-Muslim prejudice ‘is moving to the mainstream’

You can imagine how shocked I was to find out that Tommy Robinson is still a wrong 'un despite all the money the Quilliam Foundation chucked at him.

but he busted up a chiffarobe for only 5 cents

yeah it's patheos and nothing more than a chuckle but....

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/12/04/these-pranksters-read-bible-passages-to-people-telling-them-it-was-the-quran-they-were-shocked/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

You can imagine how shocked I was to find out that Tommy Robinson is still a wrong 'un despite all the money the Quilliam Foundation chucked at him.

They were giving him money?!?

t/s joe walsh vs george pataki

They were giving him money?!?

― cardamon, Saturday, December 5, 2015 11:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

about £8,000 according to Robinson

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/03/tommy-robinson-claims-quilliam-paid-him-to-leave-edl_n_8710834.html?1449244376&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

there is also this story from last year that Quilliam asked the Department for Communities and Local Government for funds to support Robinson

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/03/quilliam-maajid-nawaz-edl_n_4716443.html

In emails to Caroll released under the Freedom of Information Act, Nawaz wrote that "Quilliam has managed to facilitate the defection of the founder and leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley), and his right-hand man and co-founder Kevin Carroll from their movement. In other words, the UK’s largest right-wing street movement – the EDL - is being decapitated."

He said both men wanted to be "guided by Quilliam in their transition away from this movement" and the think tank had "offered to support these defections and are currently seeking to raise funds for the costs associated with supporting Tommy Robinson while he transitions away from his current financial dependency on the EDL, with a long term view of helping him reconsider his strategy and tactics under our long-term guidance."

The news was "unprecedented" he said, and said Quilliam had been bearing "all costs associated to it without a budget. Please let us know if you can urgently help us with a direct contribution so that we may fund Stephen’s transition and cut off his previous dependency on EDL donors".

Can't knock the hustle

trump:“Where the hatred comes from and why, we are going to have to determine,”

indeed

"why are you all looking at ME?"

Greenwald:

Lest liberals become self-satisfied about all this, this obsession with demonizing Muslims is by no means confined to the GOP presidential field. Residing — or so they claim — outside the far-right and Fox News swamps, there’s a sprawling cottage industry of pundits, academics, authors, TV hosts, think tanks, and “anti-extremist” activist groups devoted primarily to one idea: that Islam is supremely dangerous and Muslims pose the greatest threat. Beloved Democratic Gen. Wesley Clark, while on MSNBC earlier this year, explicitly called for “camps” for radicalized American Muslims. CNN’s role in all this is legion.

These are the people who have laid the rancid intellectual groundwork in which Trump and his movement are now festering. Just yesterday, the Daily Beast’s supremely loyal Democratic partisan columnist Michael Tomasky — who in 2013 instructed us all to celebrate the Egyptian military coup of the brutal tyrant Abdel Fattah al-Sisi because it got rid of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood — repulsively demanded that American Muslims first prove they are loyal and can be trusted before they are “given” their rights.

https://theintercept.com/2015/12/08/donald-trumps-ban-muslims-proposal-is-wildly-dangerous-but-not-far-outside-the-u-s-mainstream/

and Teju Cole on FB:

Trump is a dangerous clown, and we must continue to strongly oppose him and his hateful crowds. But it is important to understand that his idea of "banning all Muslims," scandalous as it is (intentionally scandalous, because he is of course doing it for media attention), is far less scandalous than the past dozen years of American disregard for non-American Muslim lives. And that wasn't Trump. Trump didn't murder thousands of innocent people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Trump didn't kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people with bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump didn't torture people at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or the numerous black sites across the planet. Trump's weapons aren't incinerating Yemen now, and didn't blow up Gaza last year. No American president in the past fourteen years has openly championed Islamophobia, but none has refrained from doing to Muslims overseas what would be unthinkable to do here to Americans of any religion. This deadly speech we are hearing towards the Muslim members of our family is nothing new: it is a continuation in words of what has been real on the ground for a long time. Our legitimate dismay at Islamophobic statements must be situated inside this recent history, a history in which a far wider swath of the country than Trump's base is implicated.

Btw, in reference to Greenwald's comment, Tomasky has apologized for using the term "earned" in reference to citizenship and says he was misunderstood:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/08/so-must-citizenship-be-earned.html

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Woman-s-park-confrontation-with-Muslims-prompts-6686827.php?cmpid=brknow

corrections officer ... figures

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/12/10/council-on-american-islamic-relations-evacuated-after-getting-white-powder-in-mail/

https://www.facebook.com/asranomani/posts/10156411028895171

o_0

We went on two visits to mosques when I was at school. But the past is another country, or something.

weird that they used the shahada for a calligraphy exercise, even weirder that it shut down a school district

Radicalisation fear over cucumber drawing by boy, 4

Stories like that genuinely make me despair for the future of humanity.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-35898543

Shopkeeper stabbed to death in glasgow, being treated as religiously motivated

... And not islamophobia, Islamic extremism maybe, suspect arrested is also Muslim.

This is Islamophobia though

Anyone who claims the Daily Mail is Britain's worst newspaper really hasn't thought it through

There's plenty of shame to go round imo

Was gonna say that was a strange hill to pick to die on, alright

[dmac I read that post in the same voice Jarvis uses on Pulp's Babies]

https://cominsitu.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/on-the-anti-islamophobia-ideology/

god orthodox marxists are boring

Yup. Plus confusing the order of existence and analysis - people using the term are not mixing up race and religion, but are recognising that it's already mixed. That racism is a process rather than a description. As a Marxist I feel it's a terrible mistake to make, but one that I expect tom 'edgy' 'Marxists' who want to react against a thin they view as sentimental, feminine or 'unscientific'.

there is some truth to this, idk

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/06/olivier_roy_on_isis_brexit_orlando_and_the_islamization_of_radicalism.html

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the UAE has advised all Emiratis not to wear national dress / thobe when visiting the US. An Emirati man was arrested by armed police in Ohio, manhandled and subsequently suffered a stroke, after a hotel clerk overheard him talking on a mobile phone at reception and thought he was pledging allegiance to ISIS:

http://gulfnews.com/news/americas/usa/emirati-mistaken-for-daesh-member-in-us-1.1856250

pledge allegiance to ISIS via phone while you're waiting in your hotel lobby, makes good sense

Between this & the marriage plebiscite, my friends who work transcribing Aussie TV/radio are getting p.worn down.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/18/tv-host-sonia-kruger-calls-for-end-to-muslim-migration-to-australia

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jul/18/pauline-hanson-and-sam-dastyari-clash-over-islam-on-abcs-qa

France is getting progressively more ludicrous:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37056742

Full-body swimsuits have been banned from beaches in Cannes for being a 'symbol of Islamic extremism' and because they are "liable to create risks of disrupting public order" (which i can only interpret as provoking other French ppl to attack or harass Muslims).

I don't want to make forced equivalencies or anything, but forcing women to show their bodies doesn't seem that different than forcing them not to.

I've always thought that the result of things like that swimsuit ban are, that women from devout families where husbands/fathers control things too much are now even less likely to be able to go have fun at that beach?

And it looks like a retaliation for the ISIS attack on the church tbh

French policies about religious freedom continue to be some of the dumbest, most counter-productive ever

france and quebec both have laws promoting secularism by banning clothing associated with islam

france produces more isis recruits per capita than any other country in europe

quebec produces more isis recruits per capita than any other province in canada

almost as if this kind of thing doesn't help at all

it truly is a mystery

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/nyregion/1-killed-in-shooting-outside-mosque-in-queens.html?_r=0

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-15/party-for-freedom-stunt-disrupts-anglican-church-service/7733710

the Cannes burkini ban is horrible but more than a sign of the racism of France as a whole (which is considerable) it's particularly a sign of the racism of the Côte d'Azur (which is even more considerable). I guess the international papers didn't cover last week's "controversy" over a Muslim group's booking of a "burkini party" at a private pool complex just outside Marseille? the owner of the complex canceled the party after public pressure and meetings with local politicians. I just clicked on the main local political group's ("Force du 13", 13 for the département Bouches-du-Rhône where Marseille is located) webpage and I see they've been hacked by a "close Charlie Hebdo" group that proclaims "we are not terrorists, we are not ISIS".

this interview isn't totally a good fit for this thread (tho it touches on related issues) but more importantly i thought it was very interesting and worth reading:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/08/shadi_hamid_on_islamic_exceptionalism.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/16/mans-unusual-fixation-with-lebanese-neighbors-led-to-murder-tulsa-police-say/#

Real sickener of a story

xp that article is fascinating to me just for the amazing consistency with which hamid outlines positions I completely disagree with; on essentialism,'meaning', heaven, identity, his peculiarly differing treatment of 'liberalism' and 'democracy'. at the end he starts to walk it back and suggests that these islamic societies aren't ready now, that we have to hold faith in democracy to resolve all problems despite its continual failures, and it doesn't seem that he's proposing that anyone does anything at all. but yes probably better elsewhere

The Daily Mail appears to have decided that armed police making women take their clothes off in public is a bit OTT:

https://twitter.com/CarolineFourest/status/768342243954622464

Sarkozy apparently planning to ban Muslim and Jewish children from being offered substitute pork-free meals if / when he gets back into office:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/19/le-comeback-kid-sarkozy-shapes-up-for-presidential-run-on-hardline-platform

The woman wasn't even wearing a burkini, just a top and a headscarf. This is a very frightening development. Inquisition.

cool can't see this uninflammatory photograph causing many problems good job france

so France has gone fascist, really, hasn't it?

ils passeront

Burqini ban overturned by French high court.

No surprise that this would happen in France
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/france-burkini-ban-secularist-equality-muslim

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS SHIT
https://twitter.com/SecureAmerica/status/794936987715325952
FUCKING TWITTER TARGETING "PROMOTED TWEETS" AT LAMES LIKE ME JUST TO RILE PEOPLE UP

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/georgia-bill-bans-burqa-public

A Republican state representative in Georgia on Tuesday introduced a bill that would restrict women's ability to wear a burqa or veil in their driver's license photo and in public places, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

is it currently legal to wear a burqa for your driver's license photo? that seems like a mistake? banning it in public places of course abhorrent.

is it currently legal to wear a burqa for your driver's license photo?

Seems unlikely, not to say pointless.

iirc some states allow for driving licences without photos and have done for many years - largely because you have some religious minorities like Mennonites who do not want to be photographed at all. They are not valid for other ID purposes.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/11/us/muslim-florida-store-fire/index.html

"It's unfortunate that Mr. Lloyd made the assumption that the store owners were Arabic when, in fact, they are of Indian descent," Mascara said."

ahh right. cos if they had been Arabic then it woulda been ok.

According to CNN affiliate WPEC, Lloyd told investigators he tried to buy a bottle of Tropicana orange pineapple juice at the store a few days ago but was told they didn't have any.

and people are scared of Muslims???

two dead in Portland after intervening as a guy harassed Muslim women on the MAX train

http://www.wweek.com/uncategorized/2017/05/26/witnesses-man-on-northeast-portland-max-train-cut-the-throats-of-two-men-who-tried-to-stop-anti-muslim-bullying-of-women-passengers/

white supremacist background:

http://www.wweek.com/news/2017/05/27/the-man-accused-of-max-double-murder-is-a-portland-white-supremacist-who-delivered-nazi-salutes-and-racial-slurs-at-a-free-speech-rally-last-month/

totally fucked

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/nov/01/inquiry-rejects-press-claims-about-christian-girl-fostered-by-muslims

Absolutely shameful conduct from the press.

Last paragraph was horrible:

The Daily Mail followed by putting the story on its front page under the headline “MPs’ anger as Christian girl forced into Muslim foster care”. It used a stock picture of a Muslim family to illustrate the story in print and online, but altered the image to cover the woman’s face with a veil.

Is the talk about Chinese camps on other threads?

https://www.politico.eu/article/former-dutch-anti-muslim-politician-converts-to-islam-joram-van-klaveren/

something about that horseshoe

mashallah

Still waiting for ex-ISIS members to join Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement national.

actually that's problematic, what i said - maybe he has recanted his ways and converted to a nice moderate islam. i won't rule it out but

anyway this thread could probably be retitled 'rolling europe'

More than a few of the links posted upthread concern the US. But I take your point.

I think he actually has converted 'truthfully'. Have heard the horseshoe remarks about this since yesterday and yes, it is a bit problematic imo, to see both as opposing extremes. xp

the US is europe's dream realised, but bigger

Besides, it's a four-pronged horseshoe once you throw the far left and the far centre into the equation.

lol

Think the horseshoe here actually consists of the ends being a) his orthodox reformed upbringing and b) islam

Reformed Orthodoxy… in the Netherlands? I'm curious.

The photo chosen to accompany the article is kinda LOL.

The Zidane of Dutch politics. Or the Ribéry, more like.

I thought this revive might have been about Baroness Warsi once again saying (to deaf ears and a wall of silence) that an independent enquiry into Conservative Party Islamophobia is long overdue. If only she learned to keep her mouth shut, or be a self-hating racist prick - she could be where Javid is.

Reformed Orthodoxy… in the Netherlands? I'm curious.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, February 5, 2019 10:53 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Netherlands has its own bible belt where the Restored Reformed Church and orthodox protestants reigneth. They're the orthodox/conservative wings that passed on the merger of 2004 of reformists and protestants, which they deemed not hardcore and old-fashioned and anti-gay, anti-abortion enough (my words).

Ah, I see. I was confused by your use of the word 'orthodox', which I systematically take (no doubt due to my roots) to mean Eastern Orthodox.

Yeah that one's on me, as I know you're from those parts :) Only Orthodox in your sense of the word we have here are Russian/Eastern Europe congregations.

Tbf in my experience most English speakers (in North America, at least) use 'orthodox' as shorthand for 'Orthodox Judaism', so I should know better than to continue assuming it's about the Eastern rite. Not to mention the word's more general, desacralized meaning.

In the USA the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is a very conservative Calvinist denomination with important connections to Republican politics through "Reconstructionism". My main knowledge of its practical life though is that they do not permit the singing of hymns, but only psalms.

Dutch newspaper @ADnl published an explainer on what to do if someone spots a Burqa wearer from tomorrow when the ban begins. They suggest asking the person to leave, call the police or, alternative, exercise the right to a citizen's arrest. Wilders, of course, likes that option pic.twitter.com/m7dttADm8g

— Flavia Dzodan (@redlightvoices) July 31, 2019

what is this fuckery

Police already said they aren't going to enforce this. It's a useless, purely symbolic new law and, indeed, utter madness. (studies estimate there are all of 250 women wearing a burqa. O a population of nearly 18 million...)

this was my understanding, but then on what grounds are they advocating for citizens arrests?

racism?