In this “ground zero mosque” controversy, a lot of people are saying that not all Muslims believe the same thing. I think that is hard to disagree with, but is it a fair counter argument?
Not all Democrats believe the same thing, but it is not a sufficient counter argument to charges against Democrats as a whole. Not all members of the NRA believe the same stuff, but that doesn’t make their optional membership in the NRA meaningless. Optionally identifying with a group carries certain baggage with it.
Religion is a choice. A Muslim is free to practice their own form of Islam without identifying as a Muslim. If you choose to identify with a certain religion, aren’t you choosing to take on the negative, as well as positive (debatable in the case of religion) attributes of that religion?
If every practitioner of a religion has their completely unique interpretation of the religion, what is the point of the larger religion in the first place?
I disagree with your assertion that religion is a choice. That’s like saying hair color is a choice. Sure, you can change it, but most people don’t, nor should they be expected to. Most live and die with the same hair color/religion they were born with.
To the degree that it’s true, yes. They all share the blame for believing in an irrational belief system (as do all religious people) along with the side effects of that; but Islam simply isn’t unified. It’s not like Catholicism, which has a guy in charge promulgating dogma that you can say all Catholics are supporting, monetarily or otherwise. It’s more like the various Protestant sects, where what the members of a particular sect believes can easily not extend beyond that tiny little church. Or to put it another way, the typical follower of Islam isn’t any more to blame for 9-11 than the average Christian or Hindu is to blame for it. They can all be equally blamed for helping provide the environment for 9-11 to happen, but little more.
If you claim to be a member of a group and then don’t act like persons of that group are expected to, people from both inside and outside of the group may criticize you for it, with varying degrees of vehemence depending on how much they care and how much your behavior is embarassing you by association. That’s life.
There are deviations from religion all the time. Didn’t the 9/11 ‘muslims’ go to Vegas to drink and patronize strip clubs before they did their deed? I personally know a bunch of people who call themselves big-C Catholic yet they’re pro-choice; since that’s pretty much 180 from Papal doctrine, I thought that situation would be totally non-kosher
I think many on this board paint certain posters with the broad brush of religion as a shortcut for critical thinking; kind of an intellectually lazy speed dial.
Since you bring up the mosque controversy, I think many Americans don’t feel that mainstream Islam leaders have done enough to drive out the fanatic members of their cult, so it’s kind of a guilt-by-association thing. Whether they are right or not, who knows. (as an aside, does anyone have a credible source on the percentage of muslims who Americans would consider fanatical/militant?)
Groups, pigeonholes and categories are shortcuts and simplifications. No one fits absolutely inside one box or another. The most you can say is that someone’s ideas roughly fit within category X (i.e. most of his ideas match the ideas stereotypically accepted to be Goup X ideas).
The problem in the specific case of Muslims is that the stereotypical views attributed to them don’t match what the actual majority of Muslims really believe, even if we don’t factor in the various schisms and sects that compose the whole of Islam.
When I declare that right wingers are on the side of capitalism, free enterprise, little fiscal nonsense, respect of traditions and individual property rights, I don’t generate outrage because the majority of self-described right wingers do espouse those values.
But Muslims espousing violent Jihad, suicide bombing the West, murdering the Iiinfeedels at all cost and reconquering dar-el-Islam God willing are, strictly speaking, in the minority. For most Muslims, Islam is just like Christianity : a set of rules and guidelines to help human beings act unlike complete assholes in their daily life, as is their natural inclination. Which they try more or less to adhere to as long as it’s not overly inconvenient.
Not that all self-described Muslims really follow all, or any tenets of Islam at all either. Anecdote : the most hilarious interaction I ever had with a Muslim was with a banlieue teenage thug who said to me, and I swear this is verbatim : “If you don’t give me one of your beers, I swear on the Koran I’ll kick your ass”. You can’t make this shit up :).
I read once of an interview with an American soldier in WWII, who had the surname “Hitler”. The interviewer asked him if he’d ever considered changing his name. “Hell no! Let that son of a bitch change his name.”
There are violent Muslims, and there are peace-loving Muslims. In fact, the peace-loving Muslims significantly outnumber the violent ones. Why should it be the violent ones who get to define what “Muslim” means? If the peaceful ones chose a new name for themselves specifically to distance themselves from the violent radicals, and then some violent radicals decided to use that name, too, would the peaceful ones be obligated to change again?
I think the problem is in the distinction between the ideas of religions, sects, and churches.
It would, in the opinion of this ardent anti-theist, be utterly unreasonable to hold all Christians culpable for the Catholic kiddie-raping. It is not, however, so unreasonable to blame those who contribute(d) to the Catholic church, now and for the past few decades while this was a rather open secret. Nor even, in the abstract, those who call themselves Catholic and give the appearance of moral authority to the leadership that allows it.
In a similar vein, it is completely unreasonable to blame all Muslims for 9/11 and similar terror attacks. The question is, where do we draw the line (and how do those of us who are much less familiar with the distinctions within Islam find those lines) in this case?
Broad-brushing is for your ideological enemies; nuance for your ideological friends (why you’re more likely to see as humans rather than as The Them.) That’s why Christians react badly when folks make generalizations about Christian beliefs, while they’re OK with associating Cordoba House with what they view as a monolithic Islamic faith.
For the same reason, those on the left rise to the defense of Islamic projects while happily tarring Christians with a broad brush. Neither side is that great at fair-mindedness or nuance; they just have different categories of Friends and Enemies.
The difference is that the Democrats have a platform, and leaders that were appointed by, and represent, the entire movement.
There is no such thing in religion. Should a Lutheran feel responsibility for negativity for the Pope’s opinions on birth control when they self identify as “Christian” ? That seems a bit harsh when when their sect what found explicitly in opposition to the Pope’s right to divinely represent all Christians (likewise for a Shia about Wahhabi cleric)
I don’t know a lot of Christians, Catholic or Protestant, leader or follower, who supported the violence in Northern Ireland. Nor were there many bigots who insisted on broad-brushing all Catholics and Protestants because of the violence.
But I also don’t believe all soccer fans are hooligans and all NASCAR fans are rednecks, so maybe I’m just naive.
