We’re morally ahead by forty years! 
The point I’m making in this thread is a subjective one; specifically, that it’s a stretch to say the vast majority of Muslims are tolerant of other religions when 20% of them at an absolute bare minimum would sooner see a fellow Muslim dead than convert to another religion. This is a point which was not addressed in the other thread.
The reason none of the listed countries are Western is something you’ll have to take up with Pew. I would imagine the fact that Western nations have relatively negligible per capita Muslim populations has something to do with it. However, as I have repeatedly pointed out, plenty of Muslims in Western nations are homicidally hostile to apostates as well, at least in principle. This BBC poll shows that 36% of British Muslims aged 16-24, and 19% of British Muslims aged 55 and over believe that if a Muslim converts to another religion he should be put to death. I’m no demographer, but if I were being conservative I would guess that equates to about half a million British Muslims, or about 18% of the total.
That said, I have no problem believing that support for executing apostates is lower in Western countries than in Middle Eastern or Western-Asian countries. I can only attribute that to the militating effects of secularism and free expression on murderous displays of religious fanaticism.
Numbers don’t change, but surely the nature of the question on which respondents are being polled should influence our perspective on them. If, for example, 1 in 5 Americans thought that rape victims were sluts who were asking for it, pointing out that they only represent 20% of the population would hardly be exculpatory. Indeed, it would stand as a damning indictment of American culture that a mere 80% of Americans thought otherwise. As Chris Rock might say “What do they want, a cookie?” In other words, it would hardly be reassuring to someone who asked in all good faith “Are Americans tolerant of women?”
The apostasy question, like the rape question, is incredibly easy. Should people be allowed to convert from Islam to whatever religion they like without having to spend the rest of their lives fending off credible threats of murder and prosecution? Yes. End of story. The fact that 20% of Muslims (in actuality, probably more like 30% when you factor in all the variables I mentioned in my last post) can be relied upon to get this question wrong is extremely troubling. A vast majority for a question as simple as that ought to be much, much higher.
The poll is accurate to within 2-4%. Regardless of which error bars you use, the numbers are still horrifying. And, of course, we know that, in practise, the number of Muslims who believe apostates should be killed is considerably higher than 316,764,924.
I’m not quite sure I follow. Are you saying racists aren’t a problem so long as they don’t actually commit hate crimes? I’m asking in all seriousness. I’m not sure I really understand what you’re getting at.
And if you were able to trace a direct line from Christian scripture to this outpouring of warmongering ignorance, I would agree that Christian dogma would be largely to blame and would condemn it accordingly.
I find this amusing because Sharia itself is inherently bigoted. There is, as far as I’m aware, no enlightened liberal branch of Sharia in which a woman’s word is worth the same as a man’s. And there is no branch of Sharia which condones apostasy, or many of the other freedoms we take for granted. You might find this article of interest. In Britain, where I’m from, Sharia courts routinely pass illegal decrees. While, in theory, Sharia courts are superseded by British courts, in practise there exists in some areas a significant social pressure for Muslims (especially women) to abide by these decrees, often to their detriment. Does objecting to that truly make one bigoted?
Er, yes, it would.
Perhaps you’re comparing the poll numbers to some imaginary, ideal world? Because small-to-middling numbers of people believe in all kinds of heinous shit. 13% of Americans oppose interracial marriage. 28% believe homosexuality should be illegal.
Well, there’s the problem: you define the whole by the part, and a small part, at that.
It’s easy for Westerners, who live in societies that prize individual rights. In other parts of the world, where tribal/group identity is paramount (in the absence of a strong government enforcing individual rights) and the individual isn’t worth much, it’s not so easy. Not everyone had your upbringing or life experiences.
I don’t mean that Pew recorded the answers incorrectly, I mean that there’s a phenomenon called the false enforcement of unpopular norms wherein a sufficiently influential minority can compel the majority to uphold social norms that would otherwise be abandoned.
Canadians didn’t “resoundingly” say “Hell no” to the conservative party. The liberals got like 39% of the vote.
The thing a lot of people worry about with muslims is that islam is not exactly a live and let live religion.
When they have the numbers it’ll be their way or the highway (think sharia law).
Those numbers are terrible. And to the extent that they are linked to religion (and they likely are) then the religion has a problem with intolerance. And it’s absolutely fair to criticize Christianity for its intolerance toward homosexuals.
Canada is not a two party state, so your figure is out of context.
It would be more in context to note that the right’s Conservative party went from a majority government to only about a third of the vote, and the left’s Liberal and NDP parties swept the election with the Liberal’s majority taking the government. Here are the numbers, both by seat and by vote.
The country’s “Hell no” to the Conservative party took on extra life when the Conservatives went after the Muslim niqab. The gambit Trump is now playing in the USA blew up in Harper’s face in Canada.
I suggest reading the conservative newspaper National Post’s conservative pundit Robyn Urback’s article “The Conservatives bet big on the veil, and lost” which notes: “It became clear that while the Conservatives may have been correct in pegging the niqab as a wedge issue, they left themselves on the wrong side of it.”
I knew an architecture master’s degree student who visited Turkey to check out the architecture. She fell in love with the whole place, the buildings, the culture, the whole kebab. She liked wearing the thing out in public and she remarked that Turkish men had more respect for women than American men. I think she enjoyed a break from being checked out. I think she went back and married a Turk…
That is just one example, sure, but some women apparently do want to wear the thing.
Oh, it’s a rabbit hole. 15% believe that childhood vaccination is unimportant. 41% believe that slavery wasn’t the main cause of the Civil War. 15% believe that Iraq was directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
People believe crazy shit, it’s only a problem in large numbers.
Ok, but again, that’s defining the religion by a small minority faction thereof.
Am I to understand you expect me to use email or telephone to obtain information that proves your point?
You are not wrong it is just a case of convincing people on here
Why not? some of the people on this site will disbelieve me if I tell them black is black, white is white, the question to be asked is are they debating seeking truth or is it just for the sake of argument?
The normal practice is to cite to some sort of authoritative source that doesn’t require an international telephone call. You might consider a website.
You’re really going to have to do better than just toss out your outlandish assertions without providing some actual substantiation.
Oh, and for the love of whatever would cause this to happen: Learn how to punctuate and how to make a decent sentence.
I have lived in several different countries including a Muslim one. I would have barely noticed them and can’t imagine why anyone would be angry.
Ask any Christian which law is greater, US law, or god’s law.
You put their names into Google, msn, firefox, yahoo and you find their websites
It’s hard to fathom why you keep harping away on British Muslims in particular when I’ve already shown you in a previous discussion that those stats are a statistical outlier compared to other western countries. I frankly don’t know if this is a polling problem (this one was done by a right-leaning think tank) or some cultural phenomenon in Britain but it’s very clear that some of the numbers being quoted for British Muslims aren’t at all representative of Muslims across western societies.
So your theory is that somehow in a society that values and supports free expression, “murderous displays of religious fanaticism” are being secretly suppressed? That’s a very odd theory.
It’s even odder that it didn’t even occur to you that perhaps it’s because western Muslims are genuinely more modern and more moderate, and relatively integrated into western culture. It’s even odder that you choose to advance these beliefs while completely ignoring the facts I cited in the above link – to reiterate:
… western Muslims strongly embrace western values in areas outside of sexual/gender issues where they tend to be conservative. The Gallup Coexist Index 2009 found that European Muslims “not only accepted but welcomed the freedoms, democratic institutions, justice, and human rights that characterized their societies.” It found that European Muslims perceive themselves as loyal citizens, and in Germany and the UK they have higher confidence in the police and judiciary than the general public … In all countries surveyed, Muslims were more socially integrated than others, and much less likely than members of the general public to want to live in communities of their own ethnic and religious background.
Getting information on Islam from Maryam Namazie is a lot like getting information on liberalism from Ann Coulter. And the first cite is mainly directed to issues of domestic violence which has nothing to do with the topic here at all. So whatever “facts” you wish to persuade us about remain unclear and extremely unpersuasive.
I tell you what; you put their names into Google, sort through the results, copy the relevant quotes, and post them here with the links. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.
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I am now 72 years of age and all my life I have had a problem with spelling and grammar I have been told it is a very mild form of dyslexia so I cannot see things changing any time soon. I will always have my say and just hope people understand what I am saying.
**You’re really going to have to do better than just toss out your outlandish assertions without providing some actual substantiation.
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I started out 5/6 years ago trying to post a middle ground about Islam until I went on to a site called FFI founded by ex-Muslims and verbally given a good kicking I was given hard introduction about the difficulties of leaving Islam, the abuse suffered by Muslim woman and children. Some of what I was hearing was horrific. Me being me checked the stories reading news reports printed in English from around the world and managed to check out 75% of what I was being told. I have travelled a little and spoken to Coptic Christians in Egypt and Beirut, I have spoken with Christians from Mosel in Iraq while they were visiting London. I am not a very good keyboard warrior I am more of a street person so do not expect to much from me
This is happening in Canada. How long before their problems travel south of the border
Breaking News, Headlines and Stories | National Post youth making pit-stops to earn cash in oil-sands before joining extremist groups such as ISIS: chief
[Before heading abroad to join extremist groups like ISIS, some Canadians have been stopping first in northern Alberta to earn money to finance their terrorist activities, the chief of the Edmonton Police Service told the National Post in an interview.
“The short answer is yes, we have seen that,” Rod Knecht said. “You can go up to Fort McMurray … you’re relatively anonymous, you’re in one of those work camps and you can make a hockey sack of money in a very, very short period of time.”
A National Post investigation has identified three Canadians who have worked short-term jobs in northern Alberta before joining ISIS, including two from Ontario. The RCMP said Michael Zehaf-Bibeau had also worked in the oil fields before his deadly attack in Ottawa.](Breaking News, Headlines and Stories | National Post)