Does Islam drive homophobic violence?

[Kimstu]

@Gruff

It’s not a phobia when radical Islam has struck on America’s doorstep and elsewhere time and time again.

As I keep saying, nobody at all is objecting to criticism of or concerns about radical fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and their encouragement of oppression and violence. Those concerns and criticisms are not Islamophobic in the least, and nobody is trying to claim that they are.

What is Islamophobic is broad-brushing the subject of those concerns and criticisms to “Islam” unqualified or as a whole.

Which is something so easy to avoid that I really don’t understand why people who claim they’re not Islamophobic keep on doing it.

[QUOTE=Gruff]
People have the right to be afraid of any religion, or all of them, given the amount of bloodshed done in their names over the centuries.

[/quote]

People who are “afraid” of any or all religions as a whole, on the grounds that some practitioners over the centuries have done evil things in the name of their religion, are being phobic. Just like people who are “afraid” of any race or nation or other extremely broad and diverse category of human beings on the grounds that evil things have been done in its name.

Hell, there have been many atrociously evil things done in the none too distant past in the name of the German nation and the Aryan race. And there is a dangerous minority of people even today who support and encourage similar evil things. It’s perfectly reasonable to have concerns and criticisms about those violent ideologues doing evil things in the name of “Germany” or “Aryans”.

But anybody who asserts a “right” to be “afraid” of Germans or Nordic/Germanic peoples in general on that account is being irrationally phobic.

[Magiver]

@Yuweg

What I’m saying is that Islam is the same scenario but we have to do reform AT LEAST AMONG OUR OWN MOSQUES IN THE WEST (EUROPE, CANADA, USA). After 9/11, President Bush and the FBI worked with Mosques in the US to watch for terrorist activities or signs of it. There are may instances where the Mosque goers have discovered someone or some plot and reported it to the police. The Orlando Mosque where Omar Mateen went to was going to receive training in finding terrorists among their attendees. This type of stuff needs to be given to Mosques across the US. I am Muslim and I want that.

I fully understand and appreciate that. What makes it difficult is the very tool we’re using in this thread. That makes the task of change that much harder when Mosques are bypassed in the digital age.

[DerekMichaels00]

@Kimstu

Hell, there have been many atrociously evil things done in the none too distant past in the name of the German nation and the Aryan race. And there is a dangerous minority of people even today who support and encourage similar evil things. It’s perfectly reasonable to have concerns and criticisms about those violent ideologues doing evil things in the name of “Germany” or “Aryans”.

But anybody who asserts a “right” to be “afraid” of Germans or Nordic/Germanic peoples in general on that account is being irrationally phobic.

what part of Islam being a belief system, not a race or ethnicity, do you not understand, or want to understand?

[Trinopus]

What part of Islamic diversity do you not understand?

[Kimstu]

@DerekMichaels00

what part of Islam being a belief system, not a race or ethnicity, do you not understand, or want to understand?

What part of “any race or nation or other extremely broad and diverse category of human beings” (emphasis added) do you not understand, or want to understand?

The point isn’t whether the category is a race or religion or ethnicity: the point is that the category encompasses billions of people with very diverse principles and behavior over hundreds or thousands of years. Being afraid of any such category as a whole is being irrationally phobic.

Especially in the wake of today’s horrible atrocity in Istanbul, where violent Muslim extremists murdered and injured a bunch of people who were overwhelmingly or exclusively Muslim non-violent non-extremists, claiming any sort of “right to be afraid” of the religious identity shared by the murderers and their victims is despicable.

Yes, we are all justified in being afraid of and enraged at the many radical-extremist perpetrators and encouragers of terrorist violence in the name of Islam. No, we are not justified in being afraid of or enraged at the entire undifferentiated religious identity of Islam per se.

[Magiver]

@Trinopus

What part of Islamic diversity do you not understand?

The long list of terrorist groups and attacks. Today it was an airport in Istanbul.

That’s what I don’t understand.

[DerekMichaels00]

@Kimstu

What part of “any race or nation or other extremely broad and diverse category of human beings” (emphasis added) do you not understand, or want to understand?

The point isn’t whether the category is a race or religion or ethnicity: the point is that the category encompasses billions of people with very diverse principles and behavior over hundreds or thousands of years. Being afraid of any such category as a whole is being irrationally phobic.

Especially in the wake of today’s horrible atrocity in Istanbul, where violent Muslim extremists murdered and injured a bunch of people who were overwhelmingly or exclusively Muslim non-violent non-extremists, claiming any sort of “right to be afraid” of the religious identity shared by the murderers and their victims is despicable.

Yes, we are all justified in being afraid of and enraged at the many radical-extremist perpetrators and encouragers of terrorist violence in the name of Islam. No, we are not justified in being afraid of or enraged at the entire undifferentiated religious identity of Islam per se.

people don’t think racism is wrong just because its wrong; people think its wrong to hold something against someone that they cannot change and had zero say in! That’s why racism is no longer socially acceptable, and its not as if progressives don’t know this; hence how for years, particularly in the 2000s, they constantly, and rightfully criticized Christianity. Since when have progressives called the play The Book of Mormon “racist” or “bigoted???”

Clearly, the constantly kneejerk defense of Islam is progressives believing that if Islam practitioners were largely white, no one would have a problem. That is not reality. People have a problem with Islam because of what is has inspired many people to do and societies to act like.

And don’t try to make a BS parallel with dislike of Jews; you know damn well Jewry is an ethnoreligious group; both a religion and ethnicity, and disliking a person solely on account of ethnicity IS racism; that’s what most anti-Semitism has been over the recent centuries. And when people didn’t like them for their religion, it was because of things no one could prove, like who “killed Christ.” With Islam, we can prove the terror attacks and oppressive societies it inspired.

[Monty]

@Magiver

The long list of terrorist groups and attacks. Today it was an airport in Istanbul.

That’s what I don’t understand.

Oh, you understand already that the bombing was carried out because of Islam as a religion? How do you know this? Last I heard (just over two yours ago), a leading suspect of for the bombing could be the separatist Kurdish group.

And you’ve yet to actually address a number of queries put to you in this thread with actual answers instead of mimicking Trump.

[Kimstu]

@DerekMichaels00

people don’t think racism is wrong just because its wrong

Actually, many people do think that. Don’t you? Do you really believe that if people could choose not to be, for example, black or gay, that would make it okay to hate black or gay people in general?

@DerekMichaels00

Clearly, the constantly kneejerk defense of Islam is progressives believing that if Islam practitioners were largely white, no one would have a problem.

No, progressives are well aware that Islamophobia isn’t solely or even primarily about skin color. After all, progressives realize that many people over the centuries have been equally bigoted against, say, Catholics or Protestants, even when those groups were almost entirely white.

@DerekMichaels00

And don’t try to make a BS parallel with dislike of Jews

Oh right, there’s a (non-BS) parallel with dislike of Jews too; thanks for reminding me.

@DerekMichaels00

you know damn well Jewry is an ethnoreligious group; both a religion and ethnicity, and disliking a person solely on account of ethnicity IS racism; that’s what most anti-Semitism has been over the recent centuries.

I repeat: do you believe that if people could choose not to be (ethnically) Jewish, then hating Jews would be okay?

@DerekMichaels00

With Islam, we can prove the terror attacks and oppressive societies it inspired.

I can prove quite a bit about terror attacks and oppressive societies inspired by, say, Catholicism too. But I’m not idiotic or phobic or bigoted enough to believe that that justifies me in hating or fearing the entire religious identity of Catholicism as an undifferentiated whole.

[Trinopus]

@Magiver

The long list of terrorist groups and attacks. Today it was an airport in Istanbul.

That’s what I don’t understand.

Three guys commit a crime – okay, maybe they were backed up by a network of thirty. And on that basis, you condemn all billion believers.

You’ve never studied statistics, have you?

[Kimstu]

@Magiver

The long list of terrorist groups and attacks. Today it was an airport in Istanbul.

That’s what I don’t understand.

Well, if you actually wanted to understand the various ways in which modern radical-extremist interpretations of Islam drive and foster terrorist violence of all kinds, including homophobic violence as per the thread title, we could certainly discuss that. It’s an extremely serious and important subject, and we’d all benefit from understanding it better.

But what you evidently want to do instead is just insist endlessly on your ill-informed, childish and simplistic assertion of equivalence between “modern radical-extremist interpretations of Islam” and “Islam” unqualified. So all the time we could be spending on better identifying and understanding the serious problem of oppression and extremist violence in contemporary Islam is being wasted instead on trying to educate you in basic critical thinking.

You’re not only refusing to fight ignorance, you’re actively and persistently nurturing it.

[DerekMichaels00]

@Kimstu

[QUOTE=Kimstu trying to quote me]
People don’t think racism is wrong just because its wrong;

Actually, many people do think that.
[/QUOTE]

you clearly and obvious purposely left out my whole quote:

[QUOTE=me]
People don’t think racism is wrong just because its wrong; people think its wrong to hold something against someone that they cannot change and had zero say in!
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
I repeat: do you believe that if people could choose not to be (ethnically) Jewish, then hating Jews would be okay?

[/QUOTE]

First off, I don’t hate individual Muslims; I dislike the religion of Islam, just as Churchill did.

[QUOTE=Winston Churchill]
“Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”
[/QUOTE]

If there were groups of Jews in every continent in the world either blowing themselves up or trying to blow themselves up expressly and explicitly for Yahweh or to advance the cause of Judaism, costing governments around the globe billions, and there were 50 Jewish religion majority countries in the world and only 4% of them were rated “free” by Freedom House’s FITW rankings, or every country presently with the death penalty for gays were Jewish majority, then widespread criticism of their religion would be fair game.

I in no way endorse or condone those who would do violent hate crimes against anyone, including Muslims, as much as I dislike their religion. Don’t you try to lump me with that crowd.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
I can prove quite a bit about terror attacks and oppressive societies inspired by, say, Catholicism too.
[/QUOTE]

How many countries in recent times have had to endure or try to foil multitudes of groups trying to blow themselves up yelling “Papum Akbar?”

[tomndebb]

@Gruff

It’s not a phobia when radical Islam has struck on America’s doorstep and elsewhere time and time again. People have the right to be afraid of any religion, or all of them, given the amount of bloodshed done in their names over the centuries. Right now and for the foreseeable future the great majority of that bloodshed is being done in Islam’s name. That’s a huge, dangerous problem which should rightfully catch people’s attentions.

Note that you switched the grounds for concern from radical Islam to Islam in your own post.

One problem with the Islamophobic (and it is Islamophobic) approach, is that it makes no distinction between any adherents of different groups within the more broadly defined religion. Thus, Muslims who share Western values (i.e., the majority of Muslims in the U.S., France, and Germany, for example) are regarded as no different than Muslims in the more conservative areas held by the Taliban in Afghanistan or the actual loons among Daesh. If we look at all Muslims as “dangerous” or treat them all as “dangerous” or refuse to work with them because we are too bullheaded to distinguish among them, then we close off any available assistance that the more moderate members could offer and we drive younger persons, perceiving the irrational hatred directed against them, to consider joining the radical extremists. (This has already been demonstrated. The riots among French “Muslim” youth in 2005 took exactly this path. The vast majority of the kids involved in the rioting had turned their backs on their parents’ religion, were not given to attending services at mosques, and expressed no religious beliefs. The French security forces noted that the riots were cultural and classist and that Islam played no role in the riots, yet the kids were routinely identified as “Muslim” (and posters to the SDMB, for example, continued to insist that the riots were inspired by “Islam”). Analyses of the European recruits to ISIS indicate that it is not the most devout Muslims, but the least aware and involved kids who have been branded troublemakers because of their association with the (mostly Muslim) immigrant communities. In other words, discrimination against non-religious youth for being associated with “Islam” has had the most direct effect in recruiting them to the most extreme corruption of Islam.

Blaming “Islam” for so many troubles is irrational while preaching fear and hatred of Islam is the fastest way to create and foster the problems that idiots like Trump claim to fear.

[Kimstu]

@DerekMichaels00

you clearly and obvious purposely left out my whole quote:

Sure, because I was only responding to the specific part I disagreed with.

Quoting your entire sentence doesn’t change the fact that many people do think racism is wrong just because it’s wrong, irrespective of the fact that racial categorization is (mostly) not a matter of choice.

@DerekMichaels00

If there were groups of Jews in every continent in the world either blowing themselves up or trying to blow themselves up expressly and explicitly for Yahweh or to advance the cause of Judaism, costing governments around the globe billions, and there were 50 Jewish religion majority countries in the world and only 4% of them were rated “free” by Freedom House’s FITW rankings, or every country presently with the death penalty for gays were Jewish majority, then widespread criticism of their religion would be fair game.

Why? Why would you criticize their entire religious identity rather than criticizing the specific sects and ideologies within their religious identity that are promoting all that violence and oppression? Why are you so unwilling to put the blame for these evils on the particular aspects and adherents of the religion that are directly responsible for them, but instead insist on distributing your hate over the entire religion of oppressors and victims/resistors of oppression alike?

@DerekMichaels00

I in no way endorse or condone those who would do violent hate crimes against anyone, including Muslims, as much as I dislike their religion. Don’t you try to lump me with that crowd.

:dubious: Nowhere in this thread AFAICT has anybody even indirectly accused even the most Islamophobically-inclined posters of endorsing or condoning violent hate crimes against Muslims. Feeling a bit sensitive on the subject, are you?

[QUOTE=DerekMichaels00]

How many countries in recent times […]

[/QUOTE]

Emphasis added. There’s the essence of Islamophobia (and all bigotry, really) in a nutshell: point to a problem in a particular historical and cultural context and use it as a pretext for hating an entire religion in all cultures throughout all times, with no contextual considerations whatever.

[Magiver]

@Trinopus

Three guys commit a crime – okay, maybe they were backed up by a network of thirty. And on that basis, you condemn all billion believers.

No. That’s a false statement. I haven’t condemned anyone. I’ve simply pointed out that Islamic terrorists base their acts on the behavior and writings of Mohammad. Of this there is no argument.

@Trinopus

You’ve never studied statistics, have you?

Yes, actually I did. There are fewer Muslims than Christians yet there are vastly more terrorist attacks linked to Islam. Statistically that shouldn’t happen if all things are roughly equal.

It’s truly great that there are so many Muslims who simply ignore directives from Mohammad to kill for being gay or leaving the religion or insulting the religion. That doesn’t mean the directives don’t exist.

Islam is a follow-on religion to Judaism and Christianity and incorporates many of it’s prophets and writings. The big difference is the addition of another prophet who set down very specific laws. When terrorists martyr themselves in the name of their religion it’s logical to accept that they are following their religion.

[Kimstu]

Oh, and by the way:

@DerekMichaels00

First off, I don’t hate individual Muslims; I dislike the religion of Islam, just as Churchill did.

That would be the Churchill who was “strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes” because “it would spread a lively terror”? The Churchill who said “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion”? The one who urged the innate superiority of “the Aryan stock” over “natives”? Who refused to send food to relieve the 1943 Bengal famine because he said the people brought it on themselves by “breeding like rabbits”?

Without denying any of Churchill’s more admirable qualities, I think it’s safe to say that he was generally predisposed to heartily dislike lots of things about non-European peoples, so the fact that he had Islamophobic tendencies is in no way surprising or out of character.

[Kimstu]

@Magiver

Islam is a follow-on religion to Judaism and Christianity and incorporates many of it’s [sic] prophets and writings. The big difference is the addition of another prophet who set down very specific laws. When terrorists martyr themselves in the name of their religion it’s logical to accept that they are following their religion.

Well, what those terrorists are following is their interpretation of their religion.

Just as the many pious Muslim “saints” or awliya who devoted their lives to helping others were following their interpretation of their religion.

Just as harmless and well-meaning Muslim victims of today’s suicide bombing in Istanbul were following their interpretation of their religion, which you see fit to spit upon before their corpses are cold.

[Trinopus]

@Magiver

No. That’s a false statement. I haven’t condemned anyone. . . .

No; you just said the entire culture is “knee deep in terrorists.” Oh, gosh, no condemnation there, no sirree.

I’ve simply pointed out that Islamic terrorists base their acts on the behavior and writings of Mohammad. Of this there is no argument.

And, as Kimstu has said repeatedly, yes, that’s right, we get that. Meanwhile, the billion peaceful followers of Islam also base their acts on the behavior and writings of Mohammed. But you refuse to acknowledge that bit.

. . . There are fewer Muslims than Christians yet there are vastly more terrorist attacks linked to Islam. Statistically that shouldn’t happen if all things are roughly equal.

Once again, no one has said things are equal, even roughly. We get it. Islamic radical terrorists exist, and there are more of them, right now, than Christian radical terrorists, even per capita. Do you comprehend the folly of making arguments that no one here disputes?

We’re disputing that “Islam” drives homophobic violence. You appear not to get the difference.

It’s truly great that there are so many Muslims who simply ignore directives from Mohammad to kill for being gay or leaving the religion or insulting the religion. That doesn’t mean the directives don’t exist.

It’s truly great that there are many Christians who simply ignore directives from Moses to kill anyone who collects firewood on Saturday, or who mixes two kinds of fiber in their fabric, or who eat shellfish, or who curse their parents. That doesn’t mean the directives don’t exist.

Islam is a follow-on religion to Judaism and Christianity and incorporates many of it’s prophets and writings. The big difference is the addition of another prophet who set down very specific laws. When terrorists martyr themselves in the name of their religion it’s logical to accept that they are following their religion.

They’re following their religion, in one way. About a billion others follow the same religion in a different way. You seem to have grave difficulty comprehending that. It isn’t one solid, monolithic, homogeneous faith, but a mosaic of hundreds of discrete sects, much the same way Christianity is.

Why this keeps eluding you is a fascinating study in obstinacy, but, by now, any disinterested observers must surely have concluded that your views are not descriptive of reality.

[Trinopus]

@Kimstu

. . . That would be the Churchill who was “strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes” because “it would spread a lively terror”? The Churchill who said “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion”? The one who urged the innate superiority of “the Aryan stock” over “natives”? Who refused to send food to relieve the 1943 Bengal famine because he said the people brought it on themselves by “breeding like rabbits”? . . .

I didn’t know any of that about Churchill. Sigh. That’s the most depressing thing I’ve read all day. I always had a bit of hero-worship for the old sod, and now I learn he had graver faults and flaws than I knew.

Still… Truth. Truth is what we’re here to learn.

[Kimstu]

@Trinopus

I didn’t know any of that about Churchill. Sigh. […]

Still… Truth. Truth is what we’re here to learn.

Yup! And to be fair, although Churchill was considered by his peers rather brutal and bigoted even for an early 20th-century imperialist, it’s not as though he just made it all up himself. Brutality and bigotry towards the “natives” was a fairly common attitude back then.