Sorry, it’s survey question Q85, page 276.
It’s all me. I’ll stop believing it has any truth to it when the muslim population is no more volatile than any other group around the world.
And btw, you need to convince people who have done a hell of a lot more research and actually talked to muslims than most of us.
People always say this, I still don’t know how true it is. It’s a useless point in modern times because this is not the current state of the world and relative attitudes of world religious practitioners, even if it WAS the case that the christian world was worse a thousand years ago, or 500 years ago, it has no bearing on the standing today. But as an Academic point, again, how true is it that the Islamic world was the beacon of modernity for its time? It seems to be the time when Islam was at the height of its world conquest into parts of Europe
Seems like much more religious conquest against neighbors from the Islam world than vice versa. They were definitely more enlightened than the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan, but that’s not saying much. But to me the Conquest seems like it depressed and lengthened the dark ages and ruin of societies in the region. Economic disaster due to rampant piracy in the Mediterranean must have been a colossal drag on trade in the ancient world. This is the peaceful and tolerate Islam you speak of?
In the end, I can’t give a credible and reasonable answer here. I don’t know the history well enough to give a complete picture and grasp a complete understanding of what was more tolerant and peaceful than what, and for how long. But I will say that when people say that Islam was the more benign force in the world at the time, I get the impression it’s coming from a similar lack of historical knowledge and depth.
[QUOTE=Kimstu]
So yes, […] the actual data indicate that there is indeed “a majority opposed to the death penalty for apostasy” among Muslims worldwide.
Now we can proceed to the usual goalpost-moving complaints about how unacceptably small that majority is, and how there ought to be a far higher percentage of Muslims who oppose the death penalty for apostasy, etc. Yup, and nobody here disagrees with any of that.
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes: Aaaand the goalpost-movers show up right on schedule.
Remember, I’m not in any way denying that the percentage of Muslims worldwide who oppose executing apostates is far smaller than it ought to be. I’m just making the point that the numerous ignorant Islamophobic jackasses who always crop up when these issues are discussed generally have very little knowledge of actual facts and data concerning what quantitative subsets of Muslims worldwide actually hold what opinions, and how those opinions relate to the opinions of non-Muslims in similar cultures and circumstances.
If the ignorant Islamophobic jackasses would learn to confine themselves to making specific criticisms about various pernicious aspects of contemporary Islam that are actually borne out by factual evidence without context-free distortions, then they wouldn’t encounter such constant correction and contempt for their half-assed sloppy thinking.
Maybe that’s true, but it definitely seems that Islam is far more concerned with intertwining religion and state than Christianity. I have heard it said there are more similarities with Judaism there, so not sure why it was easier for Jews to ditch that trash modality than so many Islamic societies.
Some of the beliefs of christians are absolutely vile. I still think the idea that being mistaken about theology is all that is needed to make the difference between heaven and hell, and not just a finite end and oblivion. Torture, a lake of fire, ETERNAL torture from the good and loving and just GOD. Ghandi and HITLER? Neither accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, their mortal actions are nothing next to the goodness of god. You can’t “buy” your way into heaven with good deeds, you have to have proper beliefs in the final analysis, and so because both are still near infinitely far from the goodness of god and chose not be saved through believing in his Son, BOTH are slated for ETERNAL torture.
An ASTONISHINGLY wicked theology, that cares so little for goodness and decency in the final analysis. But at least there, it’s GOD that will do the punishing, not man (which is BS anyway so no harm to foul in my day to day life). With Islam, many muslims think it’s THEIR job to murder the infidel, the apostate, the atheist, not Gods job, THEIRS!
This affects me, as I live in this world. It makes all the difference in the world. So even if ideas are equally vile, if not worse in Christianity or Judaism, those come across as far more toothless to my life and many others.
Incidentally, we have an answer from Germany and Merkel.
As long as she is in power it seems the answer is, NEVER.
As for Germany writ large, until her Term ends, she won’t be getting a new one.
Except that it does have a very significant bearing on your own ignorant essentialist claims that “What Islam is is what Muhammad said it was”. If global Christianity overall today is more humane on average than global Islam overall today, and you’re claiming that that difference is because of INNATE differences in the ways that the Muslim and Christian religions originated many centuries ago, then your “innate differences” myth is fundamentally contradicted by the fact that in medieval times global Christianity overall was less humane on average than global Islam.
If you don’t want people bringing up comparisons between medieval Islam and Christianity because you think they’re not relevant to the state of world religion today, then your ill-informed yawping about ancient Islam and Christianity is also not relevant to the state of world religion today.
Like all the other ignorant Islamophobic jackasses, you want to be able to spew vague historical speculations when you think they support the point you’re trying to make, while at the same time disallowing other historical references when they don’t support the point you’re trying to make. But you can’t get away with that kind of double standard here on the Dope.
What, exactly, does the majority of self-designated Muslims do that offends you?
Even Magiver could only point to a minority of them, who favored a death-penalty for apostasy. As bad as that is, it isn’t a majority, and it isn’t an actual commission of any wrongdoing act.
Can you present a better indictment?
Nope. We say it isn’t a majority, which is what was claimed.
Come back when you have evidence for what you actually said, as opposed to some other claim that vaguely resembles what you actually said.
Well, that was…something. It had a certain performative quality to it.
Certainly not one better than Sam Harris’s:
My bad: I was trying to post here, listen to the DNC, and text with my wife all at the same time. I failed to notice there was a page 13; this was in response to the last post on page 12. :o
It is also a theology held by a minority of Christians, so hardly a cornerstone of Christianity. (You might encounter larger numbers of Christians promoting that idea, depending on where you live in the U.S. but it is simply not a belief held by most Christians.)
Here, how about this for a goalpost, which I promise not to move. In what Muslim-majority countries could my wife live openly as the person she is? Safely, that is. I don’t demand that she be embraced by all. We live in the American “heartland”, the Bible Belt, and here she feels that many people wrinkle their noses at her and judge her negatively. Specifically, she is an unabashed atheist, an ardent feminist, and a strong supporter of abortion rights and LGBTQ rights (probably stronger than I am TBH). She prefers to wear tank tops and such when it’s hot out, as it is for months at a time in this region. In this country, even here in rural Missouri, she can “let her freak flag fly” and feel safe from physical attack or from negative consequences in the workplace (negative financial consequences, anyway: she works at a public school where the majority of her colleagues are conservatives who share ridiculous memes on Facebook).
Where in the Muslim world can someone live this way? Nowhere? Then those countries suck. Period. (Yes, the same goes for any non-Muslim countries where the same is true, but I think this is a much smaller list.)
Yep, and now we’ve moved them right on over to where it’s blindingly obvious that for the majority of the world’s Muslims, Islam is anything but a religion of peace, love and tolerance.
For the last 50 years or more I’ve had to listen to endless broadbrush whinging and insults from the left aimed at “Republicans”, “conservatives”, “right-wingnuts”, “Christians”, “men” (and even worse, “white men”) that were anything but discriminating as to what percentage of the offending group was actually committing whatever real or imagined wrongdoing that was involved, with said wrongdoings being so far removed from the things going on in the Muslim world that to call them trivial would be an overstatement.
But when it comes to Islam, it’s expected that we drill down and make a point of excluding whichever percentage isn’t included in whatever evil is being perpetrated and then either ignore or turn a blind eye to the rest, uttering not a word of protest or criticism.
Given that the left in this country has been so rabid for so long about so many offenses in the U.S. that pale when compared to those going on in the Muslim world, and that their defense of Islam and turning a blind eye to its ills, I’ve come to the conclusion that human rights and suffering aren’t really what American liberalism is concerned with, despite its never-ending whingement over anything and everything that can possibly be stretched into a social injustice of some kind.
No, I can only conclude instead that in America the liberal contingent simply waits to see how the right is going to come down on an issue and then fervently mounts an opposition, no matter which side of human rights issues this places them on or how hypocritical it makes them appear. This is the only explanation I can think of to explain the left’s feverish defense of Islam despite the fact that most of the world’s Muslims believe in and support attitudes, beliefs and practices a thousand times worse than anything that American liberals have been getting all het up over in the U.S. for the last 50 years. I’d be happy to entertain alternative explanations should any exist.
Sadly, this is true. But I have the impression you’d like the same benefit of that blind eye or selective benefit of the doubt. Whereas I want to turn it around the other way, and be condemnatory toward both groups.
But you see, regressive lefties? This is what Sam was talking about. This is what you open yourself up to by carving out this special safe space for Muslims. You let right wing white dudes grab the rhetorical high ground on you. That is a major fail. :smack:
This part, right there. You nailed it.
Is it not obvious that by pointing out 720,000,000 of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims favor death for apostasy equates ‘majority’?
And besides, throw in the virtually endless number of other barbaric, misogynistic and homophobic Islamic beliefs and practices dominant in most Islamic countries and you’ll be well above the 50% mark (as if pointing out that any of them are under 50% is some sort of moral victory for the left :rolleyes: ).
Says the dude who wants to implement ethnic cleansing.
No, what I’d like to see coming from the left is consistency. There’s no way they’re ever going to cut any of the aforementioned groups any slack so I rarely even think in terms of getting benefit of the doubt from them. But it’s way past confusing and all the way to pissed off-edness when they get all up in arms about the right insisting on voter ID cards because poor people and start calling people assholes over using the wrong pronoun for transexuals, and then they either defend Islam when they can or stay silent when they can’t.
Not for us right wing white dudes. 