# Isn't Islam a wonderful religion? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 31, 2026, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240 "2026-01-31T19:36:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2026, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/61 "2026-01-31T23:30:18Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Doubtful merits of your argument aside, you _are_ certainly allowed to fellate a weed whacker, and I would encourage you to do so at the earliest opportunity. Since this is the pit, I will just remark what a pleasant person you seem to be, And I recommend you relocate to a theocratic country like Iran or Afghanistan as soon as possible since you seem to be so in favor of their policies. I’ll buy you a ticket. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2026, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/62 "2026-01-31T23:34:17Z")
When was the last time a seemingly harmless poster made such an ass of themself? In the fucking Pit? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2026, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/63 "2026-01-31T23:38:43Z")
My wife is Iranian. We are spending most evenings monitoring the news and reaching out for safety updates from her family members suffering repression and abuse in the country. The situation there is horrifying and heartbreaking and yet you seem to regard it as fair game for flippant flaming. One might have thought it was impossible for you to be even more offensive than you already were, but your irresponsible bullshit has astonishingly lowered the bar. You are an absolutely worthless and execrable excuse for a human. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2026, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/64 "2026-01-31T23:45:39Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > So, in this Muslim-majority country, one province has a super fucked up criminal code, and you blame this on Islam, not on this one province? You sure as fuck don’t know where you are with Islam unless you know that you’re in Aceh. Not to defend the blatant and revolting Islamophobia of the OP, but I’m assuming that the law the couple violated was a _very_ regressive law passed in 2023 in Indonesia, and the punishment is just the Sharia version of it. > **[Indonesia passes criminal code banning sex outside marriage](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63869078)** > > New laws will disproportionately punish women, LGBT people and religious minorities, critics say. > Sex outside marriage will carry a jail term of up to a year under the new laws, which take effect in three years. > > The raft of changes come after a rise in religious conservatism in the Muslim-majority country. > > Critics see the laws as a “disaster” for human rights, and a potential blow to tourism and investment. > > Several groups of mainly young people protested against the legislation outside parliament in Jakarta this week. It is expected the new laws will be challenged in court. > > They apply equally to locals and to foreigners living in Indonesia, or visiting holiday destinations such as Bali. Under the laws, unmarried couples caught having sex can be jailed for up to a year. I haven’t kept up with it, but the last I’d heard was that the final version requires that a family member report the ‘crime’ to the police. I became aware of the law in 2023 because it effectively makes homosexuality illegal in Indonesia - well, if your family reports you for it - since homosexual marriage isn’t allowed, so it’s impossible to have ‘legal’ sex with a same sex partner. So, if you’re gay or bi, you’d better hope your family is cool with it if you’re Indonesian. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/65 "2026-02-01T00:41:48Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > What does “free” even mean in this context? Is the USA still a “free” country at the moment? The universal declaration of human rights is a good starter on the traits of a liberal democracy. > **[Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights)** > > A milestone document in the history of human rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected. It has been translated into over 500 languages. Here is info about how freedom house measures countries > **[Freedom in the World Research Methodology](https://freedomhouse.org/reports/freedom-world/freedom-world-research-methodology)** > > Freedom in the World is an annual global report on political rights and civil liberties, composed of numerical ratings and descriptive texts for each country and a select group of territories. > **[United States: Freedom in the World 2024 Country Report | Freedom House](https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states/freedom-world/2024)** > > See the Freedom in the World 2024 score and learn about democracy and freedom in United States. Is the US free? Yes. We currently score an 83/100. However, our score has been declining. We were at 94/100 in the year 2010. Then the GOP won congress, did a bunch of gerrymandering, Trump and MAGA came about, and we’ve dropped from 94 to 83. Our score will likely be even lower when the 2025 report comes out due to Trump’s weaponization of law enforcement and ignoring judges. I think the cutoff between ‘free’ and ‘partly free’ may be around 68/100. > **[United States: Freedom in the World 2024 Country Report | Freedom House](https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states/freedom-world/2024)** > > See the Freedom in the World 2024 score and learn about democracy and freedom in United States. > **[US sinks to new low in rankings of world's democracies](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/24/us-world-democracy-rankings-freedom-house-new-low)** > > The US has slipped 11 points in a decade – below Argentina and Mongolia – according the latest report by a democracy watchdog > The US earned 83 out of 100 possible points this year in Freedom House’s [annual rankings](https://freedomhouse.org/reports/freedom-world/freedom-world-research-methodology) of freedoms around the world, an 11-point drop from its ranking of 94 a decade ago. The US’s new ranking places it on par with countries like Panama, Romania and Croatia and behind countries such as Argentina and Mongolia. It lagged far behind countries like the United Kingdom (93), Chile (93), Costa Rica (91) and Slovakia (90). Out of 193 countries and territories, the US is currently #56. Finland is #1 with 100/100 > **[Freedom in the World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World)** > > Freedom in the World is a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House that measures the degree of civil liberties and political rights in every nation and significant related and disputed territories around the world. > Critical assessments of the survey have highlighted potential biases stemming from its funding, methodology, ideological leanings and the subjective nature of the scoring. Freedom House has defended its ratings as independent and evide... ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/66 "2026-02-01T00:56:43Z")
Incidentally here is a list of nations by % who are muslim, and a list of nations by their rankings from freedom house. > **[Islam by country | Table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country#Table)** > **[Freedom in the World | 2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World#2025)** > > Former entries from Freedom in the World. Most are territories added in the 1978 report for 1977 and received their last coverage in the 2000 report of the same year. Other territories with differing dates are noted below. Their placements are based on their final rankings before ceasing coverage. Supposedly among muslim nations there are 1 free 15 partly free 33 not free By comparison, for the entire world it is: 84 free 58 partly free 53 not free So about 62% of ‘not free’ nations are muslim majority nations, despite muslim majority nations only making up about 25% of the world’s countries. There are only 20 nations on earth that are both ‘not free’ and not muslim majority (Belarus, Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc etc) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/67 "2026-02-01T01:01:49Z")
Recency bias. It’s trivially easy to find points in the past at which Muslim nations and regions were generally much more “free”, much more devoted to science and progress, and much better places to live, than Christian nations at the time, on average. There was nothing intrinsic to Islam (or Christianity) that made this so, at the time, and there’s nothing intrinsic to either that makes various statistics different now. There’s nothing special about now. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/68 "2026-02-01T01:05:10Z")
Yes but we don’t live in the past, we live in the present. It doesn’t matter if in the 12th century if muslim majority nations had more freedom than christian nations. In 1700 most of europe was oppressive dictatorships. In the early 1940s much of Europe was under control of fascism. But we’re living in the current moment. It doesn’t mean things will be like this forever. But for right now, this is how things are. Many of us resent being told we have to pretend this isn’t happening because it undermines narratives about egalitarianism and campism. Also I’d happily import 60 million muslim immigrants from the middle east who believed in democracy and human rights if some other nation wanted to take our 60 million white christian MAGAs who support christian fascism. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/69 "2026-02-01T01:11:41Z")
Fuck you. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/70 "2026-02-01T01:17:04Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > So about 62% of ‘not free’ nations are muslim majority nations, despite muslim majority nations only making up about 25% of the world’s countries. And is that because they are Muslim, or is it because religion is powerful there? Because when a religion - any religion - is politically powerful the invariable result is tyranny and suffering. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism; it’s always a bad thing when they are strong. If somebody waved a magic wand and changed the religion of those nations I doubt you’d see a notable difference in how they acted. Religion by its nature is anti-human and anti-freedom, and encourages the worst aspects of human nature. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/71 "2026-02-01T01:22:23Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > (there is no god and Dawkins is his prophet) Dawkins is a transphobic crank and you can draw a straight line between the “new atheist” movement he was part of 20 years ago and the alt-right fascists who are doing their best to destroy this country right now. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/72 "2026-02-01T01:29:27Z")
Well, yes. Fascism is _much_ more politically and socially acceptable than atheism, so it’s not surprising that so many atheists were sucked into that. After all, fascists only kill millions of people, while atheists do something _far worse_ in the eyes of most people: they don’t believe in God. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/73 "2026-02-01T01:34:11Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And is that because they are Muslim, or is it because religion is powerful there? Because when a religion - any religion - is politically powerful the invariable result is tyranny and suffering. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism; it’s always a bad thing when they are strong. If somebody waved a magic wand and changed the religion of those nations I doubt you’d see a notable difference in how they acted. > > Religion by its nature is anti-human and anti-freedom, and encourages the worst aspects of human nature. I am not sure. But this rule of thumb applies across regions. It applies in the middle east, in eastern europe, in africa, in southeast asia. Thas why I mentioned Africa earlier. Africa is impoverished and a victim of colonialization, but evenso the muslim nations have less freedom than the non muslim nations. I’m sure sociologists and political scientists understand the ‘why’ far better than I do. According to this blurb, misogyny may be a major factor in the freedom deficit. > **[The True Clash of Civilizations](https://archive.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2003/0304clash.htm)** > > Global Policy Forum is a policy watchdog that follows the work of the United Nations. We promote accountability and citizen participation in decisions on peace and security, social justice and international law. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/74 "2026-02-01T01:50:54Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > Fuck “cultural relativism and it’s their way.” > > The way I would wish to see humanity moving forwards is towards a humanistic, scientific world where we realize that we’re all part of the same distant family living on the same planet. First of all, there’s no central authority in Isam; there’s no such thing as a papal equivalent in Islam and its practice can vary from country to country and mosque to mosque. Your complaints shouldn’t be against Islam so much as the specific countries and cultures within which they’re resident. Are you willing to say the same things about Christianity? Don’t forget that there are very conservative Christian churches and denominations, as well as variations within denominations. The United Church of Canada, for example, has their communion with grape juice, whereas other churches use wine. Btw I “get it” to an extent (eg [Shafia family murders - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafia_family_murders) - honour killings by a family of Afghan origin which took place just outside of Kingston, Ontario) while at the same time I had a Muslim woman coworker who was not averse to having a beer and would, in her words, wear a hijab from time to time. So you are painting a population with an extremely broad brush. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/75 "2026-02-01T01:59:32Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > First of all, there’s no central authority in Isam; there’s no such thing as a papal equivalent in Islam and its practice can vary from country to country and mosque to mosque. Yes. If one insists on a Western analogy it’s a lot closer to Protestantism than Catholicism, where some places you can find multiple churches in the same town full of people sure the other church is full of agents of Satan. That’s also why you keep seeing extremists popping up in the news with some “[fatwah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa)” calling for something crazy or brutal. The lack of centralization means that you can find a qualified (in terms of religious law) individual who’ll support just about anything if you shop for one long enough. There’s no Islamic Pope who can say “no, that’s stupid, stop saying that”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/76 "2026-02-01T03:03:58Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > People get upset when you talk about it though because they feel you are trying to justify persecution of people who are non-white, non-western and non-christian and promote western christian fascism. > > FWIW, supposedly secularism is growing in the Islamic world. Think about those two statements. No, the reason that many people dislike carefully cherry-picked statistics about Muslim-majority societies being on average less free, by some metric of freedom, than Christian-majority societies is not because they jump to the conclusion that the cherry-pickers must be trying to promote “western christian fascism”. It’s because the lack of historical context in those comparisons is pandering to an Islamophobic pro-“western” set of simplistic assumptions about culture and religion, even if you personally don’t intend any fascist or Islamophobic message by it. There are a whole bunch of historical reasons why in the postcolonial 21st century, none of the nation-states arbitrarily classified as “liberal democracies” are Muslim-majority. Complex and contingent political and cultural reasons, not any intrinsic tendency of Muslim people or doctrines to be just naturally more incapable of liberal democracy than Christian or other non-Muslim societies are. (As your own subsequent remark about the growth of secularism in parts of Islam worldwide, at a time when many Christian-majority societies are becoming more authoritarian and religiously repressive, illustrates.) ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/77 "2026-02-01T03:22:15Z")
> [@velomont](#): > > Are you willing to say the same things about Christianity? Don’t forget that there are very conservative Christian churches and denominations, as well as variations within denominations. The United Church of Canada, for example, has their communion with grape juice, whereas other churches use wine. They have criticized religion in general. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/78 "2026-02-01T03:33:39Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > Sorry, the OP title was a bit inflammatory. Yeah, no shit. > [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > There are some things you are not allowed to say anything bad about: like religion . Why not? Well you just can’t: it’s not allowed. You’re allowed to say bad things about religion. People on the SDMB say bad things about religion all the time. It’s the demonizing of one or two billion people, people who are currently under attack in the US for being “different”, that got you the reaction you are seeing. Just fyi, the Muslims who gather and worship at the mosque near me are a _shockers_ a lot like me. They are Americans, they are doctors and accountants, they worry about their kids’ grades. And they aren’t religious extremists, any more than folks at the local Congregationalist church are. I really liked the sermon their Iman gave when i visited. They trade extra parking lot space with the synagogue across the street, they also do a bunch of random charitable stuff with the synagogue across the street. But they are part of “Islam”. > [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > To be clear I do not like the idea of ANY theocracy. Islam is just one example. I don’t like the idea of any theocracy, either. Theocracies tend to be really bad places to live, and tend to brutally oppress people. There are Jewish nuts who want to restore biblical theocracy in Israel. In the meantime, I’m pretty sure they are trying to genocide Palestinians. They’d stone me if they had the chance, too. “Islam” is not an example of a theocracy. Islam is an umbrella term that covers a lot of ways people express spirituality, and they range from liberal and supportive to reactionary and repressive. There are Islamic theocracies. They are pretty bad. They do not define “Islam”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/79 "2026-02-01T04:08:46Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > To be clear I do not like the idea of ANY theocracy. Islam is just one example. And here you are again, ignorantly and/or maliciously conflating “Islam”, unqualified and as a whole, with the specific Muslim-fundamentalist theocratic societies whose oppression of their people you (justifiably) condemned. I’m beginning to wonder if you weren’t quite sincere when you seemed to be apologizing for your “inflammatory” title of this thread as just “a rather unfortunate immediate reaction”. Dude, if you agree that it’s possible and valid to criticize religion in general—and specific repressive theocratic Islamist-extremist regimes in particular—without resorting to Islamophobic bigotry in the process, then **stop resorting to Islamophobic bigotry**. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2026, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240/80 "2026-02-01T10:28:58Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > > [@Johanna](#): > > > > Then take a seat and shut the fuck up until you actually learn something. > > Actually, since this is the Pit, I am NOt going to shut the fuck up. > > \*\*Religion is a mental disease. It is a bug in the human brain operating system, > > It involves a compulsion to defer to authority without evidence, It’s a cultural construct.\*\* > > As Dawkins said: there are no ‘christian’ children or ‘muslim’ children etc. They have just absorbed the beliefs of their parents, just as they learned language. > > There is NO objective evidence for the existence of any deity. What you _feel_ is up to you, but don’t try to force your beliefs on me, please. (Emphasis mine.) Religion is _not_ a mental illness. I should know. I’m Bipolar 1, and on bad days, my faith in Jesus is all that keeps me alive. I have panic attacks. I disassociate. I yell “nigger” at Black cops who aren’t being fair. I get violent. I get bat shit. I black out sometimes for weeks. _That_ is what Bipolar 1 is like from the inside. You think you’re stronger than me on my worst day? I would accidentally kill my _mother_ on my worst day. This was an extremist cult doing extremist things, you bigot. I hope you answer Jesus’ knock at the door and invite to dine with him, but as for myself personally, you’ve offended me, and I give you the chance to apologize. Or you can go fuck yourself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-islam-a-wonderful-religion/1027240.md?page=5)