Ayaan Hirsi Ali's op-ed in today' New York Times/Are there Islamic moderates?

Ah, the sound of one axe grinding.

i'm allowed to refer to irish people as micks and drunks.

We all refer to Irish people as micks and drunks.

Not the Scots, that would be the pot calling the kettle African-American

It is depressing to read about the incidents she brings up in the article. Fucking barbaric.

For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan.

Bit of professional envy going on here or what?

ban laurel, i've never been so offended.

under irish law, i could have you kneecapped for that.

Bit of professional envy going on here or what?

uh i think the subtext here is that she just hates tariq ramadan

Please, Irish boys are my downfall as it is. I've suffered enough.

uh i think the subtext here is that she just hates tariq ramadan

Well, he's a Muslim, so obviously she would

But the fact that he's not a poster boy for right wing Islamophobes is the main reason, I'd warrant

Asking "Where are the _____ voices speaking out against this?" is a classic technique for tarring an entire group, no matter how many _____ voices are actually already speaking out.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10480042

well, as i recall the major islamic groups in ireland spoke out pretty much immediately against both of the first two issues. i assumed that it was the same in the UK.

"...poster boy for right wing Islamophobes"

There's nothing more "right wing" than the mindset of the people who perpetrated the acts described in her article.

So?

does it matter if islamophobes are right wing are not?

or is it presumed that all right wingers are islamophobes and all left wingers aren't?

or is it presumed that all right wingers are islamophobes and all left wingers aren't?

You think I'm stupid or something?

general question, thrown out there.

You'd have to be stupid to presume that though

most boring potential thread derail ever

^^^ OTM

anyway- stupid to presume that you think it, or to presume that it's the case? i don't assume either is true.

Tom D serious question, do you know who tariq ramadan is?

big article from this summer by paul berman about him:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ah6sxjndq9qq_315dwk7qn

interview with FP:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2709

sorry to be a pedant

Now you think I'm stupid!

Jesus!

look i'm not trying to start shit w/ you, i honestly didn't get this: "But the fact that he's not a poster boy for right wing Islamophobes is the main reason, I'd warrant."

ramadan is that guy that doesn't eat, right?

xpost yeah, i didn't get that comment either, and no, i'm not picking a fight.

Considering that the consensus opinion in Islam is that she should be killed for apostasy, I can understand her search for 'moderates'.

um, how is that the "consensus opinion?"

how did you find out the consensus opinion, michael? did you take a survey of the world's 1.4 billion muslims?

if so, can i have their phone numbers?

Indeed. What I am implying is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is very much the poster girl for right wing (or otherwise) Islamophobes the (Western) world over.

if so, can i have their phone numbers?

WHY BECAUSE THEY LOOK INTERSTING

Indeed. What I am implying is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is very much the poster girl for right wing (or otherwise) Islamophobes the (Western) world over.

yup! but the substance of her beef with TR is not that he has a fanbase that she would like to have. unless you call that fanbase "europe," i guess.

The consensus among most Sunni and Shi'a commentators on Sharia, is that the punishment should be beheading. There are differing interpretations and the consensus opinion stems from the hadith and not any specific sura of The Koran, but that's what most of the scholars say.

i think tom is pointing toward the fact that hirsi ali has no room for "islamic moderates" who arent vehemently anti-islam

she's a hard woman to please, i guess

What defines "Islamic Moderates" in western opinion? Muslims who drink moderately?

I don't know exactly what her beef with Tariq Ramadan is, to be honest, I do think he would tend to be taken more seriously as a commetator on Islam than she would however - maybe only in Europe, I don't know, he does speak French, which might not go down too well with certain parties in the US, shall we say

the contradictions of AHA's fame are funny: in what other context would a militant athiest woman banging on about europe's secular intellectual heritage get a pass in the american conservative firmament? oh right, islam is bad.

Saying she's a "right wing poster boy for Islamophobes" is a typical way of not having to deal with what she's saying, or the reality of the fact that tens of thousands of Muslims called for murder over a teddy bear named Mohammad.

tens of thousands? really

The consensus among most Sunni and Shi'a commentators on Sharia, is that the punishment should be beheading. There are differing interpretations and the consensus opinion stems from the hadith and not any specific sura of The Koran, but that's what most of the scholars say.

what consensus are you talking about?? note also that "consensus among commentators on sharia" is different from "consensus opinion in islam."

lots of made up "facts" on this thread

"Indeed. What I am implying is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is very much the poster girl for right wing (or otherwise) Islamophobes the (Western) world over."

I certainly sympathize with her, and I'm neither. I think you're totally wrong.

You sympathize with the statement "It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme."?

"tens of thousands of Muslims called for murder over a teddy bear named Mohammad" = the sudanese government hired a few hundred protesters to stir up controversy for a variety of political reasons

^^ the religious substance of the teddy bear thing can be easily misread: as much as western right wingers want to use that as another episode of muslim insanity, the controversy was equally cynical. the bear was christened (lol) months before the woman was arrested, it was drummed up for local, political purposes by the gov't (greatest hit: darfur).

ie both the Somali authorities and your mark steyn types would have you believe it was a spontaneous outpouring of true muslim sentiment, but it wasn't.

xps!

anyway we all know there is a problem with Muslim religious culture's denial of the passage of time and changing circumstances, the conflation of civil law with religious law, lack of open dialogue, etc. the question is what to do about it. There are changes that from a global/humanistic standpoint need to happen within Islam (ie can't we all agree on basic human rights), but they can't exactly be forced from without.

but they can't exactly be forced from without.

Amen

bought a teddy bear on ebay for a fiver, called him mohammed.

i sold him for a tenner, but did i make a prophet?

"can't we all agree on basic human rights"

Who's definition of basic human rights? In a believers eyes, it would have to mean a persons GOD GIVEN rights no?

I was bein a bit hyperbolic there

what consensus are you talking about?? note also that "consensus among commentators on sharia" is different from "consensus opinion in islam."

The consensus among most Islamic theologians. I do note the difference between the two, but since a Muslim tends to want to define his or her beliefs on The Koran or the Hadith, the opinions and fatwas of theologians matter to many, perhaps even, most of them, to some degree.

polling data courtesy of www.mostislamictheologians.com

Somehow I doubt that yer average Muslim is hanging on the every word of a few theologians somewhere or other

I'm happy to admit being a Judeo-Christianphobe, Islamaphobe, Mormonphobe, Scientologistphobe, Kaballahphobe, Astrologyphobe, Buddahphobe, Rastaphobe. They are all equally ridiculous belief systems that require belief in supernatural beings, prophecies, life after death, a cosmic plan, and unreasonable restrictions on sex and diet, but Judeo-Christian and Islamic values fuck up the world the most.

You rebel.

Actually, wait, why are you posting here when you should be out promoting your movie adaptation?

dally smarter than all the people who have ever lived hurrah

Astrologyphobe

At first I thought this said "Astroglidephobe" and wondered what church this could be.

Didn't say anything about smarter, just acknowledging what year it is.

religious systems are the result of thousands of years of accumulated experience, which is what I was getting at

I'm mostly with dally on this, provided we add a couple of other ancient and often pernicious religious traditions and I have little compunction about defending Enlightenment values against obscurantism. Does that make me biased or narrow-minded? Quite possibly but I haven't made my choice blindly nor without study and the notable difference between my 'fundamentalism' and theirs is that I support free speech, eschew corporal or capital punishment for questions of religious conscience, and don't insist on trying to control every aspect of other people's lives with narrowly defined, intolerant systems of ethical control.

Of course if I were bashing fundie xtians no one here would complain much.

The problem is not Islam per se but the lack of separation between church (or mosque) & state in countries that implement Islamic law. Europe had the same types of problems up until modern times - people being tried for apostasy, etc. The Western world has learned the lesson that the state should not enforce the morals of any one religion, but strive for a kind of plurality - some (not all) Muslim countries haven't learned this yet. Countries like Indonesia are a happy exception.

religious systems are the result of thousands of years of accumulated experience repression, which is what I was getting at

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, December 7, 2007 1:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Of course if I were bashing fundie xtians no one here would complain much

uh, yes we would, and im pretty sure i did last time you started some dumb thread about richard dawkins

the only people i wont defend on this board are idiot militant atheists whose total confidence in their superiority is matched only by their unwillingness to actually engage with religious ideas on anything more than the most superficial and general level

I happen to agree with Dawkins's position that it's the the religious moderates who make the world safe for fundamentalists.

Why do you get so angry on this subject? Most atheists I know have engaged with religious ideas at kleast as much as people of faith.

Interesting that you accuse atheists of superiority, we're not the ones saying other people's souls are going to spend eternity in hell if you don't believe in the veracity of a particular prophet who died 2,000 years ago in a gory human sacrifice.

Interesting that you accuse atheists of superiority, we're not the ones saying other people's souls are going to spend eternity in hell if you don't believe in the veracity of a particular prophet who died 2,000 years ago in a gory human sacrifice.

They are all equally ridiculous belief systems that require belief in supernatural beings, prophecies, life after death, a cosmic plan, and unreasonable restrictions on sex and diet, but Judeo-Christian and Islamic values fuck up the world the most.

HEY BY THE WAY THERE ARE A LOT OF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE EXACTLY NONE OF THE THINGS YOU JUST LISTED

I get angry because "religious people are idiots and all religion is a load of crap" just about the most intellectually lazy position you can possibly take.

Ah yes, I've heard of the unitarians ("we're Christians, but not THAT kind of Christian...")

maybe youve also heard of "Catholics"?

I happen to be an atheist and there are some people who give us atheists a bad name - not unlike those 10,000 Teddy Bear hataz in Sudan giving Islam a bad name

Not really, max, in fact, if you read God Is Not Great, for example, or Bertrand Russell, H.L. Mencken, et al. you'll see it's quite more intellectually rigorous than anything you've ever posted in ILM (for starters) or written in any so-called holy book.

Ah yes, the Catholics: no child's behind left.

LOL U SURE GOT CATHOLICS WITH THAT BRO, TAKE THAT, "POPE"

haha dude pointing out that the bible is old and that it sometimes contradicts itself and that some christians have done bad things is not particularly rigorous

It was nice of the Catholic church to decide the other year that limbo doesn't exist anymore wasn't it? Now unbaptized babies' souls can go right to heaven. I also enjoyed the millions the Vatican paid out to the thousands who were sexually abused by priests: payment was based on severity of abuse, so I guess if the priest just cupped your balls you didn't get as much as if he'd buggered you.

max, you sound exactly like someone who has read next to nothing on the subject you are challenging.

i dont really have an issue with anyone but you, dally, and the way you present yourself and your ideas on this board

Peep Emma Goldman being intellectually lazy all the way back in 1916:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/goldman.htm

dude are you really trying to say that this post:

I'm happy to admit being a Judeo-Christianphobe, Islamaphobe, Mormonphobe, Scientologistphobe, Kaballahphobe, Astrologyphobe, Buddahphobe, Rastaphobe. They are all equally ridiculous belief systems that require belief in supernatural beings, prophecies, life after death, a cosmic plan, and unreasonable restrictions on sex and diet, but Judeo-Christian and Islamic values fuck up the world the most.

is anywhere close to as interesting or well-thought-out as goldman's essay??

like i said, im not trying to drag russell or mencken or whatever old-school atheist thinkers you dream-fellate into this argument, i just think that youre a dick about religion and you continue to be a dick about religion and when you want to stop being a dick about religion you will stop pretending that only retards believe in god

i'm not going to click on that link, but pretend it's just FUCK YAHWEH in comic sans 72 pt

with like blingees all over

Can we just all accept that there's a difference between religion as culture/philosophy/pastime and religion as literalist restrictive code trumping all other authorities and move on since we wind up having this same debate on EVERY REMOTELY RELATED THREAD?

No, I'm not.

advice to dally: be more sanctimonious it wins converts

like i said, im not trying to drag russell or mencken or whatever old-school atheist thinkers you dream-fellate into this argument, i just think that youre a dick about religion and you continue to be a dick about religion and when you want to stop being a dick about religion you will stop pretending that only retards believe in god

-- max, Friday, December 7, 2007 2:17 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

what an intellectually rigorous post.

seriously do you think going around message boards spouting this bullshit makes you seem smart? it makes you look like every wannabe galt on fark, and i cant decide whether i want to cry or throw up. what makes your smug self-righteousness all the more irritating is the clear indication that you have no idea what youre talking about and no desire to think any more deeply about these issues than youve read in some popular science bestsellers.

You mean those books you've never read?

HEY GUESS WHAT DALLY IM NOT ARGUING WITH THOSE BOOKS IM ARGUING WITH YOU

Also I don't believe only retards believe in god, I just think being in god is retarded.

being=believing

whadayawant, a medal

Why such passion, max? Dally doesn't agree with you. So what? If you guys were talking about baking or gardening, you'd shrug, but bring up some metaphysics and eveyone wants blood. I don't get it.

Dally, your method of argument isn't so hot. Why call someone who believes retarded? It doesn't allow anyone to agree with what you're trying to say, if in fact they were so inclined.

Anybody see Romney's speech yesterday? He had one true howler (paraphrasing): Religion without freedom can't survive, and freedom without religion can't survive.

If God is retarded, we should give him a lot of credit for trying so hard.

It's sweet, you know.

Sorry, max introduced the word retarded and I was responding to his comment. He freaks out every time I post.

Hitchens has a great response to Romney's speech, also linked on the other thread:

http://www.slate.com/id/2179404/

"freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom."

Why such passion, max? Dally doesn't agree with you. So what? If you guys were talking about baking or gardening, you'd shrug, but bring up some metaphysics and eveyone wants blood. I don't get it.

michael, that strikes me as a kind of naive thing to say. id get pretty mad if dally said that everyone who bakes a cake was engaging in "equally ridiculous belief systems that require belief in supernatural beings, prophecies, life after death, a cosmic plan, and unreasonable restrictions on sex and diet." that kind of sweeping generalization about the religious--an incredibly broad category that includes many of my close friends and family--is offensive, and worse, intellectually lazy (as i said above). the sense of superiority that dally hold so close is one i find deeply irritating.

this is also not the first thread ive had this argument with dally so in all likelihood some of my vitriol is carrying over from the last time i had this discussion (on the dawkins thread, i think--fwiw i had what i thought on that thread was a pretty interesting conversation about these same issues with a bunch of people who took slightly more moderate versions of dally's position and didnt devolve into invective. something about dally brings it out in me)

freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.

its true, this is total non-sequitur lolz. wtf Mitt.

Ah, gotcha, max.

yeah lol that ppl are calling that speech "kennedyesque" when JF was trying to make a trans-religious appeal to the country as a whole, whereas MR is appealing to "tolerance" only in order to court the most intolerant voting bloc this country has. but this should probably be in another thread.

max, obviously one can bake a cake without believing in a supernatural being or the soul continuing after death. do you think you can be religious without believing in either of the above?

omg that wasnt my point dude

Romney really did say like 20 things that would make Mormons suspicious of his growing 'apostasy' and they're like the only sure base he has. (Tho that's just ID & UT, seven electoral votes.)

do you think you can be religious without believing in either of the above?

absolutely

Dally, my metaphysics are far closer to yours than to max's but trying to argue with people about this stuff is pointless. Just let it go.

i need to stop posting on this thread but i should say--dally, i probably dont disagree with all that much on specific point of belief and faith. but please understand that there is a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE between saying "i think all people who are religious are idiots" and "i think people who believe in an anthropomorphic god who takes an interest in specific human affairs are idiots" and "i think that people who believe in an anthropomorphic god who takes an interest in specific human affairs have a weird sense of what god is or might be, and one that i dont personally hold"

just to chime in

They are all equally ridiculous belief systems that require belief in supernatural beings, prophecies, life after death, a cosmic plan, and unreasonable restrictions on sex and diet

Hi, I'm the steendriver, and I approve this message:

I AM A BUDDHIST AND YOU ARE UTTERLY WRONG. I believe in none of the abovementioned items. But feel free to continue in your error.

peace be upon you

My metaphysics are probably closer to max (to the extent he's shown his hand), and I think everybody on this board would reject religous fundamentalism. What dally is doing is completely criticizing all people who adhere to a religion, and tarring a lot of people with a very broad brush. Even Hitchens, who I get a kick out of sometimes (Esp. his takedowns of Romney) doesn't do that.

Big Hoos, do you believe in reincarnation?

do you think you can be religious without believing in either of the above?

absolutely

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, December 7, 2007 2:46 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Ok, perhaps you can be 'spiritual' in California without them, but you can't be religious in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sense.

I'm an agnostic with a very, very strong atheistic bent, but ultimately we're talking about the unknowable so my leap of faith is no less into the dark than anybody's and I don't care if people believe in auras or the Tao or John 3:16 or that God's last prophet was Muhammad as long as they stay the fuck away from the liberal, tolerant values that came about after 17th Century Europe almost bled to death arguing about religion. I mean, if some dude named Muhammad wants to kill a British lady for letting her class of little Islamic tykes name a bear by the same name, I guess that's their inane and barbaric right in their own country, (though I'll be damned if I back off from my right to say I find it barbaric through some patronizing impulse toward 'tolerance'), but the second he implies the West should criminalize speech deemed un-Islamic, is the second I tell him he's now fucking with MY shibboleth and also the second I point out how 'insensitive' HE's being toward my culture.

I'm pretty much with you after the first comma

I don't agree that trying someone for blasphemy should be allowed in any country, Muslim or not. I believe that the principles of toleration, separation of church & state, and pluralism should trump the demands of any religion.

Ok, perhaps you can be 'spiritual' in California without them, but you can't be religious in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sense.

I'm Jewish.

I have no idea what it means to be spiritual at all. Is it just contentment or is it something else?

Is it even explainable?

Monsieur White, the west has been continously fucking with the Muslim world for the last two centuries and you're saying, "Muslims leave us alone!"

I don't either, and neither to people who describe themselves as spiritual. Usually they just say they believe there are "things out there we can't explain."

Shakey, I'm not saying you can't be Jewish (or that your mother wasn't Jewish), I said religious. Obviously one can be Jewish and not religious in a way that one can't be Christian and not religious. There's a great tradition of atheism in Jewish intellectual circles.

I know a lot of people unconcerned with the inexplicable who say they are spiritual. ???

I don't think dally is working from a particular good (or valid, in modernity) definition of "religious"

no kidding

Though I'm glad to see another potentially interesting discussion completely devolve into PHIL101 semantic bickering

in other words DNFTT

otm

And whatever Heave Ho's point is, it's patently ridiculous.

All I ever wanted was a spoon, a spoon, a spoon, a spoon.

Bill I think you might want to maybe consider the idea that Heave Ho could have a non-ridiculous point first. You may have heard of the Crusades. Do you think it's completely invalid for many of the world's Muslims to construe the establishment and protection of Israel as being very similar?

I don't think Heave Ho really understands White's statement all that well, either, but I consider modern Salafism to contain a lot of arguments and ideas that are pretty hard to argue with.

(not saying heave ho is a salafist, either)

It's a ridiculous point no matter what. I didn't have a goddamn thing to do with the crusades, and either did the 18th Century Enlightenment scientists and philosophers the other guy was talking about, and neither did 3000 people who were incinerated because of nut-wad religious fundamentalism. I don't buy the whole "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" bullshit. This is one place where Hitchens and I are in agreement.

I don't buy the whole "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" bullshit.

Wow, how selfish and narrow-minded.

Oh, fuck it. What the fuck am I even thinking.

yeah let's talk about pizza again

one man's pizza topping is another man's chicken

DOES HTML PLAYGROUND HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST??

I'm still waiting to hear some useful suggestions on how to encourage/foment an "enlightenment"-type revolution in Islamic culture...

haha this is an xpost with Shakey! --

The problem with op-eds like this is that they're absolutely unproductive and basically groany: they do absolutely nothing to encourage any upswing in the outspoken moderates they claim to be looking for. And even if you accept their content (and don't worry that they're defending the use of a broad brush to write off lots and lots of people, or setting up some kind of test/challenge whereby people are asked to denounce stuff they have nothing to do with to avoid that brush), then the question becomes ... what then? It's solely pessimistic; not only does the writing itself not serve to encourage or draw out the moderates it's looking for, but it suggests nothing to make that happen.

In fact the final graph seems to have been thrown in there like a happy ending at the end of Romeo and Juliet --

When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

-- to the point where you can almost imagine an editor saying "okay but you need to close on some kind of suggestion or point of hope, like a thing you actually WANT here?"

"Wow, how selfish and narrow-minded."

I don't see how that is, but whatever. Fuck you.

Is that something like a definition, "A moderate Muslim is one who chooses compassion over what God orders"?

Hirsi Ali: I’d love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God—much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts. There’s a sense of calm in such places that’s wonderful, and there’s the awe you feel because of what humanity can accomplish.

But do I miss the religious experience? The feelings of belonging and family and community were powerful, but the price in terms of freedom was too high. In order to be able to live free, I’ve accepted living with the pain of missing my family. As for community, I experienced a very deep sense of community with my friends in Holland.

Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?

Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.

Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.

I'm still waiting to hear some useful suggestions on how to encourage/foment an "enlightenment"-type revolution in Islamic culture...

kill like a third of the population and blame it on the Imams, that's what did it for Europe

so in a sense this op-ed is a big lie: "Where are the muslim moderates (who cares they should be crushed anyway)?" xp

of course you have to let it happen, you can't force this shit from the outside (sorry, interventionist warmongers)

Hirsi Ali is not a person who has read very much history

about ANYTHING, apparently

Monsieur White, the west has been continously fucking with the Muslim world for the last two centuries and you're saying, "Muslims leave us alone!"

Heave, Islam has been fucking with Xtianity and Judaism and Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, etc., for 1,400 years, too. Everybody got into a tizzy when Bush (admittedly ill-advisedly) used the term 'crusader' but did they point out that Omar didn't exactly take over Palestine peacefully? No, 'cause it didn't serve their narative of victimization. Two hundred years (actually more) of western Imperialism, sure, but Northern India, Persia, Egypt, the Maghreb, Spain and parts of Southern France, present-day Turkey, and the Balkans were conquered by the sword, too, so let's not pretend this is a one way street, please.

I don't see how that is, but whatever. Fuck you.

Perhaps try stepping just a little outside your rigidly defined viewpoint of the rest of the world. And while you're at it, eat a peanut out of my shit.

Hands up anybody who thinks we'll ever be able to admit that "wars of religion" were really only ever about kings and other despots of varying titles using faith as an instrument to get poor folks to die in the name of their own completely secular and materialistic ego-driven goals

i dunno tom it's a chicken-egg thing -- religious ideas enforce differences among people, for sure, but they spread because the ideas in them solve problems unique to a community: conversion to islam looks like a good deal if you're an untouchable, frex

Michael that basically amounts to "well, they did it too!" and it serves to totally ignore the specific problems that face the current geopolitical climate and the way we arrived at our present state!!

"And while you're at it, eat a peanut out of my shit."

Sure, you stupid fuck, after I batter it out of you.

the map of protestant europe looks exactly like the part the romans never controlled: eerie!

xp oh awesome, what this issue desperately needed is some more e-thuggin

I don't think that's the whole picture, Tombot. I think many of the players in the Thirty Years War, for example, were cynical or at least more cynical than others (Richelieu) but others were genuine true-believers and those societies were steeped in religion in a way that escapes us, I think, nowadays.

yeah shit i'd rather live in tehran today than zurich under calvin, ouch

And there’s no middle ground in wars

Thi is fine for comic books and TV shows but it's absolutely nutso when it comes to long term antagonisms like that between fundamentalist Islam and secular, human rights based democracy.

AHA is a very bright and extremely pissed off woman who likes to talk a lot of shit, basically

There are millions of Muslims alive today who can remember a point in their lifetime where Western powers (acting out of their own self-interest with little regard to the people themselves) deposed democratically-elected leaders or stole oil or land. What's more, these events continue to affect the lives of the people who remember then. Not a single citizen of "the West" was alive when Omar conquered Palestine, and not a one is dealing with the negative aftereffects of 200 years of imperialism and colonization. I don't know that you're going to calm anyone down by telling a justifiably pissed-off Palestinian that his land is ill-gotten gains of a millenium ago!

Michael that basically amounts to "well, they did it too!" and it serves to totally ignore the specific problems that face the current geopolitical climate and the way we arrived at our present state!!

Not necessarily. I'm merely pointing out their hypocrisy, which isn't a bad place to start when one talks about many Middle Eastern Muslim countries. Is the West responsible for their falling to the Turks? Is the West responsible for the attraction to Ba'athism, the flirtation with Nazi Germany, centralized economic control without democracy, exclusion of many women from the workplace? The poor countries blame the Americans and the Zionists for everything and many of the oil-rich countries have only recently started to diversify their economies enought to have some kind of chance at prosperity once the oil reserves run dry. In Algeria they're still concentrating on zinging the French (and justifiably, it can be argued) instead of on the last 16 years of democracy denied and the GIA and the Army's bloody war on each other. I understand that Muslims want to regain some of the pride they had in times past but in times past they were relatively progessive and advanced compared to their neighbors. This is no longer the case in most circumstances and no amount of fanatical piety will make them more respected, more powerful, more influential or richer.

something i've thought about for a long time abt the neocons -- not that they're listening to me -- is their use of and attitude toward "the enlightenment" and "the reformation."

there's all this pained wish-fulfillment discourse from them about wanting a Muslim version of both of those things, at the same time as all this stuff blaming 'senescent' Europe for being demilitarized, bored, deracinated, "empty cathedrals," all that. and yeah there's very little recognition that it took a few hundred years and half of europe died.

and then there's the "nuke mecca" crowd who just wants them all to die, which is probably more honest.

I don't know that you're going to calm anyone down by telling a justifiably pissed-off Palestinian that his land is ill-gotten gains of a millenium ago!

Pandering to his prejudices is just condescension and I meant less 'ill-gotten' than 'people living in glass houses should be careful about throwing stones'. Israelo-Arab relations are super fucking complex but choosing Hamas has been such a success for most Palestinians, hasn't it?

Is the West responsible for the ... the flirtation with Nazi Germany

well, kind of - seeing as how most of that was motivated by a desire to oppose the British ("enemy of my enemy is my friend"-style)

in times past but in times past they were relatively progessive and advanced compared to their neighbors. This is no longer the case in most circumstances and no amount of fanatical piety will make them more respected, more powerful, more influential or richer.

^^^^THIS. so true

choosing Hamas was fucking super-stupid, lolz what did they expect... but we covered that on one of the Israel threads

yeah but we're never going to convince them of that from outside. they're just going to have to keep voting hamas and fighting amongst themselves until they learn futility, like Joshua

there's no way to foment a cultural revolution away from Salafist ideas until Salafism is finally, decisively self-petard hoistified, which is probably going to require much more bloodshed and destruction, if history is any indicator.

sometimes I think Iran and Pakistan would be more likely to nuke one another than India or Israel

by "sometimes I think" in that last sentence I mean "I just thought this up,"

Pakistan nuking India = suicide

Iran nuking Israel seems slightly more likely, but woe to the country that renders Jerusalem uninhabitable

whoops i referred to Sudan as Somalia, upthread.

Iran nuking Israel seems slightly more likely, but woe to the country that renders Jerusalem uninhabitable

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, December 7, 2007 5:03 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

You don't think they could strike the just Israeli air defense infrastructure?

sometimes I think Iran and Pakistan would be more likely to nuke one another than India or Israel

Really? We always tend to think that if we could just 'find peace in the Middle East' then a lot of the Salafist urge would dissipate, but I bet in some of the madrassas of Pakistan and the Taliban, Palestine is a lot less on their minds than Kashmir.

but did they point out that Omar didn't exactly take over Palestine peacefully

The Muslim position wasn't internally inconsistent/hypocrical, they asked the Romans of Jerusalem to accept Islam and be their brothers or remain on their religion and pay protection money or fight, the Romans held out for sometime and then agreed to deal. It's not like they were screaming, "WHY DON'T THESE ROMANS LET US LIVE LIKE WANT TO" and at the same time occupying their lands and clusterbombing their cities.

the problem is that Pakistan is totally outgunned by India - their nuclear program is almost exclusively deterrent in nature. Were Pakistan to launch a strike on India, India has the capability to obliterate large swathes of Pakistan; they have more missiles, a stronger military, etc.

Wouldn't the fall out from hitting Pakistan be pretty serious for india?

(hmm actually that may no longer be true - the last time I did any research on this subject was '99 lolz)

x-post

"The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an arms control research organization that tracks nuclear capacity worldwide, estimates that India maintains a nuclear arsenal of 25 to 40 nuclear weapons, compared with 15 to 20 for Pakistan.

The institute reports that India can deliver nuclear warheads with two types of combat aircraft, the MIG-27 and the Jaguar, and that Pakistan could arm its F-16's with nuclear bombs. India also has ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear payloads: the short-range Pritvi I, which can carry a warhead up to 155 miles, and a two-stage Agni missile, with a range of 1,500 miles."

this is from 2002, may no longer be accurate...

By Romans, Heave Ho, you, of course mean their heirs in Palestina, the Byzantines who, though they had a superior force, lost to the invading forces of the Rashidun army at Yarmuk. What's hypocritical is saying 'crusader' is offensive while failing to acknowledge how much of the dar al Islam was taken by outright and unwelcome conquest.

so i know i'm 3 hours late to the clusterfuck, but:

Big Hoos, do you believe in reincarnation?

-- dally, Friday, 7 December 2007 19:59

No.

Pakistan nuking India = suicide

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, December 7, 2007 5:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Suicide doesn't seem to deter people much these days.

BIG HOOS, do you have a guru?

Suicide doesn't seem to deter people much these days.

in general, nations don't commit suicide dumbass

argh sorry

I think that is the first time I've ever insulted somebody on ILE

^^ MTO

I don't know what MTO means

Money the on?

Monkey-tongued onanism?

Maple Trees Only?

Morve, teint orange?

Move tits over?

My terse oblate?

It's really too bad when someone with some salient points (the notion that you have to make exceptions for every minor and irrelevant belief system when criticizing 'religion' as it exists between LA to Pakistan running east ie Abrahamic faiths uber alles is absurd) lets slip some of that "Muslims be crazy! The Iranians/et al. would nuke the shit out of Israel/US/et al. no matter the consequences" nonsense.

worth reading, if you can find a copy of last month's Harper's:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/0081757

one of your fellow atheists is an idiot = now you know how us "minor and irrelevant" religious folks feel being lumped in with fundie nutjobs

also fuck a subscription to Harper's

BIG HOOS, do you have a guru?

-- dally, Friday, December 7, 2007 11:34 PM

Nope. There's a guy I call my teacher, but he's hardly infallible.

Getting into the specifics of my beliefs is besides the point though. I was using myself as an example of the fact that you're painting all religions with an absurdly broad brush. You know it, and you're being disingenuous.

i hate dawkins and hitchens and all the other militant atheists, but srsly wtf max? religious people r nutty, get over it.

also fuck a subscription to Harper's

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, December 8, 2007 12:07 AM

wtf dude

Hands up anybody who thinks we'll ever be able to admit that "wars of religion" were really only ever about kings and other despots of varying titles using faith as an instrument to get poor folks to die in the name of their own completely secular and materialistic ego-driven goals

-- El Tomboto, Friday, December 7, 2007 9:27 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

not the whole truth.

choosing Hamas was fucking super-stupid, lolz what did they expect

Nah mean? I see your point, but nah mean?

Haha, wait, I totally fucked that post up.

I was going to put in "Bush" after the strike.

lol

also fuck a subscription to Harper's

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, December 8, 2007 12:07 AM

wtf dude

oh no biggie I just couldn't read the link

ah

i hate dawkins and hitchens and all the other militant atheists, but srsly wtf max? religious people r nutty, get over it.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, December 7, 2007 4:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

have you ever dealt with dally before?

i was going to write something else long and involved about relationships btw. "the west" and "the muslim world" (im going to use quotation marks b/c im dont want to pretend that either of these groups are homogenous or easy to categorize but for the sake of easy argument im going to anyway) but really i think tom is on point here: pretending that we of "the west" can do this from the outside "the muslim world," like we somehow have the solution to all their problems, not only helps exactly 0 people, it also makes "us" look like total dickwads. the dick-sucking worship of the enlightenment and the constant ritual "oh their customs are so barbaric" that seems to be endemic to even the most moderate views about the current geo-political situation is no more helpful than dropping a nuke on iran would be. this is a situation that dates back thousands of years, sure, but "dont throw stones at glass houses" is an easy way to pretend that the US and europe isnt at fault. guess what: we are, and we dont get to stand around acting morally superior to people who we've been shitting on for almost two centuries just because their anger has manifested itself as a rejection of the values we hold most dear.

i have encountered dally and debated him yeah.

in the uk you can't get away with 'the west' vs 'the muslim world' for pretty obvious reasons. or in europe generally, really. but you certainly don't get to claim that 'europe' has been 'shitting on' 'the muslim world' for two centuries -- it's way way way more complex than that. (for starters, 'europe' will shit on anyone who gets in its way; its pretty unideological about that.)

but to take an obvious and portentous example, the balkan wars & collapse of the ottoman empire, which obviously relates to israel and the modern middle east, cannot be reduced to a simple oppressor/oppressed dyad.

i'm not sure who is claiming to be morally superior to whom really. is enlightenment dick-sucking really less "helpful" than, like, all the things ali mentions in her article?

religious people r nutty, get over it.

Not the ones I know. But maybe they're the only ones who aren't.

sorry nrq--youre right, its obviously way more complex than im making it out to be. and i was pretty drunk when i wrote that. im mostly just responding to the stuff people are writing here on this thread, and the stuff i feel like i always hear said. there is pretty much nothing i find more sickening the self-righteous claims of moral superiority of westerners who lives, if affected at all by the movement of western imperialism, have only been improved. not that it would mean anything, but id be just as annoyed on a board populated with self-righteously moral muslims. but i maintain that the lazy complacency of "well everyone's at fault" or, worse, "dont let them get their hands on my pure enlightenment morals" is an easy way to avoid looking at the realities of the problem right now, which is that "the west" has power and "the muslim world" doesn't, and much of the blame lies at "our" feet.

sorry, to be clear--this is less about my own personal views on the issue and my irritation at the way people react (with "well, sure, we may have deposed democratically-elected leaders in the middle east, but they started the crusades" or "hey, they can do whatever they want in their backwater, barbaric country, just dont let them touch my beautiful, precious values of tolerance and freedom")

as long as max can find a way to blame the west, he's cool. what college are you attending, max?

Dally, from whence does the anti-Western anger of millions of Muslims arise?

what college did you attend dally?

how much money do you make?

where do you live?

what kind of car do you drive?

are there any other smirking irrelevant questions you can think of that might make you look more like the knotted diseased sphincter that you are

i said a quiet non-denominational prayer for all the sinners on this thread

knotted diseased sphinctersad boring townie

jesus dally you're like gzeus with a copy of strunk and white

i mean seriously i dont think ive seen anyone being as totally boringly, unoriginally "provocative" before

max check your webmail

uh woah townie's the wrong word i meant yuppie, and now i will stop posting on this thread forever and ever, remy your prayer has been answered, god bless :)

i need to stop posting on this thread before i make it a monument to "taking a troll too seriously"

I'm pretty sure gzeus was white. But dally is a troll and a racist and a cretin, so rilly, why engage
?

lol dude

i assume max meant "the elements of style by strunk & white," not that dally was/wasn't white.

yeah but hoos the clash can be bought a clerer view when examined through the concept of religious belief, not power relations; neo marxist type economic arguments that frame much of what could loosley be called western liberal angst dont have much to say about the central issues at stake here.

Dally, from whence does the anti-Western anger of millions of Muslims arise?

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 9 December 2007 00:54 (10 hours ago) Link

what i was trying to get at is, this isn't about "Western". the bombers and would-be bombers in the UK were british-born or transnational professional men.

^^^ yes here

Something is going on which is closer to the spirit of the Unabomber and McVeigh than a straight-up anti-colonial war.

Also lol me for drunkenly misreading Strunk & White.

what i was trying to get at is, this isn't about "Western". the bombers and would-be bombers in the UK were british-born or transnational professional men.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, December 9, 2007 11:37 AM

point taken.

enrique im interested to hear what you think the bombers would say this is about--i understand that using terms like "west" vs. "muslims" is fantastically problematic for a huge number of reasons but unfortunately enough those terms--those ideas--are the ones used by a lot of the "major players" (as it were) in this "conflict"--the terrorists especially!!

what the bombers would say this is about, if it isn't about "Western"

"Western" culture is the culture that many of the bombers grew up in - their ideas, at least in part, are products of that culture. Revolution is a very enlightenment ideal.

what the bombers would say this is about, if it isn't about "Western"

-- max, Sunday, December 9, 2007 5:21 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i guess *they'd* say it was about the evil imperialist "west"'s ill deeds in the middle east, in chechnya, or more obscurely in kosovo.

it's hard for me to see a coherent position there, coming from people who either grew up in the UK, or lived, like, 200 metres from where i'm sitting now.

so i've taken the position that i'm less interested in what the young'uns say (ie the 07/07 guys) than in their psychological state + the ideology put out by the preacher guys the french had no qualms about deporting in the mid-90s, who were able to get a strong position in some british mosques.

the more recent attempted lamer bombers of this last summer, who were significantly older and held positions of responsiblity -- i guess they might say it was about establishing a caliphate in the west too, what with the attempting bombing of the nightclub 'slags'? i dunno, i'm just saying.

theirs is obviously the flipside of the 'clash of civilizations' argument.

Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism

i dont disagree with you. really, im just using the terms that michael and dally and whoever seemed to be using. i dont have a dog in this fight except for being really annoyed by people who find it really easy to a) categorize and label people, countries and ideologies as "western" or "muslim" (something that i obviously am doing too) and then b) describe those things as "barbaric" or "backward" with no desire to look at those people/countries/ideologies they think of as "western" and therefore their own with a critical eye.

well, sure, we may have deposed democratically-elected leaders in the middle east, but they started the crusades" or "hey, they can do whatever they want in their backwater, barbaric country, just dont let them touch my beautiful, precious values of tolerance and freedom")

max, I think this is a little unfair and while I shan't take it to heart, I do think I am at least one of your targets here. I have not denied the misdeeds of the West wrt the Middle East or, indeed, other parts of the world, but I was simply pointing out that the selective attention and memory of people decrying the use of the word 'crusader' (as ill-advised as I accept that to be) while there are Islamic (or should I say 'Islamic' lest you think I think that there's a monolithic Sudanese government consisting of nothing but clones) governments who either actively or passively support jihad against non-Muslims and (my original point) who recall the unpleasant and unwanted nature of the Xtian forays into the Levant while failing to recall that their earlier conquest was equally unwanted, is a form of intellectual dishonesty at worst and wishful and ideological thinking at best. Why anyone should choose defend such weak thinking is beyond me.

As to the second point, I don't think you can have it both ways. If you're arguing against an arrogant and interventionist West, then you are going to leave various countries to their own devices, some of which I think are barbaric, cruel, regressive and decadent. That is not to say that I don't think many policies in the West aren't the same, but just becuase I don't approve of waterboarding, the death penalty, the use of mercenaries, and the de facto death of Habeas Corpus in no way allays my duty to my own conscience to decry honor killings, the de facto status of other religions of the book as second class (not to mention the status of 'heathen' religions, the killing of proseltyzers of other faiths, etc... I am well aware of the evil and hypocrisy here in my country and in quite a few other Western countries but it has almost no bearing on whether other countries or cultures are similarly or differently hypocritical or evil.

You can sneer ("precious values of tolerance and freedom") and swagger rhetorically ("enlightenment dick-sucking") but I actually do see many of those values as worthy of struggle to retain and not merely some eternally acquired heritage not to be fretted over. I also have no qualms about being accused of having a Western bias. I am a Westerner inasmuch as I was raised in the West and in my attachments to many of the mainstream values of the West. Those values, surrounded as they are by 'native born' obscurantists and totalitarians, imperialists and protectionists, are hardly monolithic. If I categorize a country which is 97% Muslim, such as Iraq, as Muslim, I am not implying that it is monolithic nor lacking in complexity (that would be the job of the neo-cons). I am merely pointing out that most of its people directly, obliquely, explicitly or implicitly make some reference to a sacred text, a religious culture and a theology which do not apply to, say, Tibet or Iceland. I also find it worrisome and tedious that you infer things from what I say that I have neither never actually said nor thought. If you wish to have a discussion, even a pointed one full of disagreements, at least have the decency to engage with me and not your own bêtes noires and strawmen.

All the currents that claim adherence to political Islam proclaim the “specificity of Islam.” According to them, Islam knows nothing of the separation between politics and religion, something supposedly distinctive of Christianity. It would accomplish nothing to remind them, as I have done, that their remarks reproduce, almost word for word, what European reactionaries at the beginning of the nineteenth century (such as Bonald and de Maistre) said to condemn the rupture that the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had produced in the history of the Christian West!

this is an interesting point

It's interesting to note that in India it's the Muslims who are calling for a return to the ideals of secular democracy, as protection against what they consider to be the encroachment of religion into the public sphere, through the rise of Hindu nationalist parties such as the BJP.

I don't know anyone who was offended by the word "crusade". Mostly they pointed towards it as a freudian slip on Bush's part.

max, I think this is a little unfair and while I shan't take it to heart, I do think I am at least one of your targets here. I have not denied the misdeeds of the West wrt the Middle East or, indeed, other parts of the world, but I was simply pointing out that the selective attention and memory of people decrying the use of the word 'crusader' (as ill-advised as I accept that to be) while there are Islamic (or should I say 'Islamic' lest you think I think that there's a monolithic Sudanese government consisting of nothing but clones) governments who either actively or passively support jihad against non-Muslims and (my original point) who recall the unpleasant and unwanted nature of the Xtian forays into the Levant while failing to recall that their earlier conquest was equally unwanted, is a form of intellectual dishonesty at worst and wishful and ideological thinking at best. Why anyone should choose defend such weak thinking is beyond me.

As to the second point, I don't think you can have it both ways. If you're arguing against an arrogant and interventionist West, then you are going to leave various countries to their own devices, some of which I think are barbaric, cruel, regressive and decadent. That is not to say that I don't think many policies in the West aren't the same, but just becuase I don't approve of waterboarding, the death penalty, the use of mercenaries, and the de facto death of Habeas Corpus in no way allays my duty to my own conscience to decry honor killings, the de facto status of other religions of the book as second class (not to mention the status of 'heathen' religions, the killing of proseltyzers of other faiths, etc... I am well aware of the evil and hypocrisy here in my country and in quite a few other Western countries but it has almost no bearing on whether other countries or cultures are similarly or differently hypocritical or evil.

You can sneer ("precious values of tolerance and freedom") and swagger rhetorically ("enlightenment dick-sucking") but I actually do see many of those values as worthy of struggle to retain and not merely some eternally acquired heritage not to be fretted over. I also have no qualms about being accused of having a Western bias. I am a Westerner inasmuch as I was raised in the West and in my attachments to many of the mainstream values of the West. Those values, surrounded as they are by 'native born' obscurantists and totalitarians, imperialists and protectionists, are hardly monolithic. If I categorize a country which is 97% Muslim, such as Iraq, as Muslim, I am not implying that it is monolithic nor lacking in complexity (that would be the job of the neo-cons). I am merely pointing out that most of its people directly, obliquely, explicitly or implicitly make some reference to a sacred text, a religious culture and a theology which do not apply to, say, Tibet or Iceland. I also find it worrisome and tedious that you infer things from what I say that I have neither never actually said nor thought. If you wish to have a discussion, even a pointed one full of disagreements, at least have the decency to engage with me and not your own bêtes noires and strawmen.

-- Michael White, Monday, December 10, 2007 5:26 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

also, luna was a dude

Mordant retort that one, and what, you wag.