And I suppose Trinopus, you can’t actually blame Christianity for the Inquisition or the Crusades, because hey - it was just a few bad Christian governments, priests and worshipers.
Oh, suh-nap!
Well, in practice, it is not “2014” in all parts of the world. There are still stone-age tribesmen in the hinterlands of Brazil.
No, the Inquisition was not a small, isolated affair, but was orchestrated at the highest levels of the church hierarchy. Same with the Crusades.
For pogroms, you have a better argument, as these did tend to be organized at a more local level, and were not directed from the Vatican.
since there is no equivalent to the Vatican in Islam, I guess it doesn’t matter how many imams call for “death to the Great Satan”? Islam is off the hook?
Well, sure, sure, no one can say anything against Al Qaeda, because they don’t have a top-tier leader. Uh huh.
Funny how that doesn’t work. Decentralized groups have decentralized responsibility. It’s absurd to imagine that they would have no responsibility at all.
Keep on comparing apples and grapes, eh?
But they are not rioting over YouTube videos or cartoons published thousands of miles away, or using websites to issue death threats and coordinate violent attacks. Muslims can’t have it both ways.
While I agree with you about some of the rhetoric swirling around some of the Christians, in practice they are, frankly, pretty cowardly. So they talk and take only safe (for them) action.
Would you consider people equally extreme if one person says they are willing to destroy the world and the other acts to destroy, say, a village? I’m not sure really how to compare them.
Lol. I could have said the same thing.
Sure they can - because the vast majority of “Muslims” aren’t rioting over YouTube videos and cartoons, and indeed many of them are condemning such actions. Again, you are tarring over a billion people due to the actions of a small but nasty minority.
Consider the murder of Lee Rigby last year. A couple of homegrown extremist idiots openly murder a British soldier " to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British armed forces". But a number of Muslim leaders and groups condemned the killing in the strongest terms. So who represents the true face of Islam - the killers or the condemners of the killing? Also note that in the wake of the attack there were a reported 193 (or possibly more, depending on the source) anti-Muslim attacks including vandalism, physical assaults and even attempted firebombings. If the killers represent Islam, should not the firebombers represent Christians or the English or whatever subculture you care to place them in?
Or consider: in 2010 Faisal Shahzad attempted to set off a car bomb in Times Square. But one of the people who spotted and alerted the police to the bomb was Alioune Niasse, a Muslim immigrant from Senegal. So which is the true face of Islam - the bomber or the man who helped foil the bombing?
There’s no point in repeating this since it doesn’t seem to sink in but I’ll do it anyway: NO ONE IS EXCUSING ISLAMIC EXTREMIST VIOLENCE. But if you can’t separate the actions of a minority of crazies from those of all members of an entire religion then maybe this messageboard isn’t the place for you.
Okay, first of all: though you have been registered here since 2000 and I “only” since 2004, I was a reg on the SDMB when it was on AOL in the 1990s. So I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me whether or not it’s the place for me.
Secondly, do you have cites for large numbers of people within predominantly Muslim countries denouncing the riots over the cartoon? Or do most people just stay quiet about it? Silence equals complicity, though I don’t blame them for being afraid to speak out.
Third, what is your answer to my question about a putative satirical musical about the Qu’uran? If you agree with me that it would be safe to stage one about any other religion but Islam, but not safe or at all feasible to stage one about Mohammed, then what does that do to your whole argument?
Finally, even if Islam were the peaceful religion it often is claimed to be, it would still be oppressive for those within Muslim families and countries, and a wet blanket for the rest of us, or at least for people of my proclivities. I am a feminist, gay rights supporting atheist, who enjoys envelope-pushing art, literature, and music, not to mention various forms of intoxication. Islam looks, from that perspective, like a buzzkill, a party foul. And if I grew up in a Muslim family in a Muslim country, it would surely be much worse than that characterisation makes it sound. And never mind just the bohemians like me; *any *woman is to be pitied if she is born into Muslim environs.
I agree that “Koran: The Musical” would meet much more opposition and potential violence.
Now what?
Doesn’t that make the Islamic world, collectively, a bully? Immigration of Muslims something to not so much welcome? That’s really all I’m saying.
Why?
If I make fun of someone and he threatens to punch me, does that make men, collectively, bullies?
Only if you’re a bigot.
they are both the true face of Islam.
That’s namecalling, but I guess mods can get away with it?
Anyway, whatever: I’m a big boy. I think it’s interesting though that my making a negative judgment about people who belong to an organisation and subscribe to its beliefs is “bigoted”. Does that apply to political parties too? Is it bigoted to say negative things about the GOP? What about the KKK?
To put it another way, as an atheist I don’t see why religion gets put in the same category as race, gender, or sexual orientation. Those are inborn characteristics; Islam is a belief system people subscribe to, an international organisation people belong to. It began, in fact, as a conquering nation state under Mohammed; in most countries where it predominates, political parties overtly adopt Islamic elements to their platform.
In what possible sense is Islam “an organization?”
Depends. Do you take the actions and beliefs of a minority of members of those groups, and use them to make judgements about the group as a whole? If so, then yes.
Simple: because like those other things people have a pervasive history of violently oppressing each other over it.
I wasn’t commenting on board seniority but rather your ability or lack thereof to correctly separate the actions of a few from the beliefs of the many.
Sorry, I didn’t realize this argument only applied to Muslims in Muslim countries. Did you say that at some point or are you just moving the goalposts?
Since I’ve acknowledged the existence of violent Islamic extremism, it changes nothing about my argument.
Also I think it would fail mightily for commercial reasons and the only reason for doing it is to wind up Muslims and court controversy.* Trolling tends to make people angry; that’s the whole point of it. But if you want a real amusing satire of modern extremist Islam I recommend the excellent Four Lions. Which raised nary a peep in Muslim countries, as far as I’m aware.
I agree that growing up in a theocratic environment is a terrible situation for women, gays, religious minorities and so forth. That the “liberal agenda” is slowly and painfully loosening the grip of the fundamentalists in Western countries and that progress is much slower in non-Western countries is as much (if not moreso) a socio-political difference as it is a religious difference.
Just this morning I was listening to someone talk about how in US states where the Republicans took power in 2010 there have been literally dozens of anti-abortion laws passed that in many cases serve little purpose other than to shame and humiliate women (intra-vaginal ultrasounds, anyone?). Religious organizations in the US are working to get severe legal penalties for homosexuals (up to and including death) implemented in African countries, and that’s not even getting into the situation in Russia where mobs led by Orthodox priests have beaten gay people bloody in the streets. As I’ve already noted, there have been numerous violent anti-Muslim attacks in the UK over the past year including assaulting women in public. Where are the condemnations of all Christians everywhere for these barbaric practices? If Christianity is the peaceful religion it purports to be, these would still be terrible abuses. Yet progress is being made.
In most of the predominantly Muslim countries the fundamentalist groups hold the political power, often through undemocratic means, and the reformers face an uphill battle including potential punishment for their anti-authoritarian views. But note that the moderates and the reformers exist and they are not a tiny group. Iran has a long tradition of moderate and enlightened Islam pre-Revolution, and the fact that the Revolution put the extremists in power is not due to the Qu’ran but rather was a reaction to the prolonged meddling by the West and its puppet Shah. Also consider predominantly-Muslim Turkey, where attempts to increase the influence of Islam are met with fierce resistance (and occasionally military force). And even in countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia there are slow changes happening. Where the younger generation has access to information about the wider world they are growing up more liberal and more tolerant than the older generations, and the public acceptance of the enforcers of religious dogma is weakening. Sure, there are still hotheads, rabble-rousers and dogmatics but progress is being made.
What needs to be done is to support the progressmakers, not to lump them all together into one big bucket labelled “Muslims”, claim that they’re all bad and chuck the whole thing away. Because then progress won’t be made.
*Ironically that clip is from a film about the public reaction to Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which received public protests and was banned from being shown due to widespread Christian ire, despite the protesters not having seen the film. Funny how that happens. Fortunately, the C of E is about as un-extreme as you can get and the British are more about “writing stern letters” than “burning things in the streets”. This sort of thing popped up again when the BBC opted to air Jerry Springer: The Opera, for which they received something like 30,000 complaints from people who hadn’t seen it, didn’t know what it was about but had been told by their religious leaders that it was bad. Religion, huh? Whatcha gonna do?
I’m going to move this to GD since it seems like nothing but a debate at this point (and has been for most of the thread), so it fits better there than here.