Beagle:The problem is the body bags associated with Islamic extremists.
Well, if your sole criterion for “backwardness” of a religion is the number of body bags generated by its extremists, the mostly-Hindu Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, with tens of thousands of victims of suicide-bomber terrorists, would have to put Hinduism higher than Islam on the “backwardness” scale. The Jewish extremists who shoot Palestinians at random and tried to bomb a Palestinian girls’ school and hospital account for many fewer body bags, of course, but that’s partly what you’d expect given the Jews’ vastly smaller percentage of world population. Then there are the thousands of body bags due to Protestant and Catholic extremists in Northern Ireland…
For my part, I think it’s simplistic to the point of uselessness to try to assign entire religions a rating for “backwardness” or any other quality, especially if the rating’s based on a single factor, such as the amount of violence extremist adherents of the religion commit. Religious extremism, religion-linked violence, terrorism, etc., have many and complex causes involving history, politics, and culture as well as religion. Even if you believe that entire religions can be ranked as “better” or “worse” than others (about which I’m skeptical), I doubt that you could rank them accurately using a single crude yardstick at a single moment in history.
I’m a little bit confused as to why your co-worker must be wrong. I would also guess that if someone said that “all fundamentalist Christians are backward”, it would meet with your approval.
I think your over riding pricinple is one of moral relativism. All religions are equal. They are all equally good and beautiful and/or bad. Therefore to single out one is unfair, indeed, since this is the religion of non-white peoples…it is even RACIST. Is that your line of reasoning?
All cultural traditions are equal too I guess. Female genital mutilation as practiced in Africa…that’s not backward…indeed it’s racist to say it is. It’s no more backward that a bat mitvah (sp) or a sweet sixteen party.
Your co-worker has read the Koran. Have you? Maybe it is full of violence and “kill all non-believers”…how would you know? You’re operating under the assumption that it must be a “peaceful” religion b/c those who say it’s not are by definition racist?
Not all who pracitce Islam are fanatics or are backward…but I don’t think that’s what your co-worker said. Anyway, I think you’re the one who is ignorant.
Harsh criticism indeed. However, I believe it was fine and quite in order to broadcast this information to the world at large.
To get back to basics, I was responding to the prior content free posts.
The OP has now been provided with links to two cost free versions of the Koran and she is in a position to judge its merits by herself, if she chooses to do so.
Hi. Seriously non-fundamentalist Muslim here. And you know what? There’s an awful lot of us. Not everyone who follows Islam is a stark raving fundamentalist, just like not everyone who follows Christ is a fundie. And as for trying to disassociate myself from fundamentalists, I do - on a fairly regular basis. Heck, most of the time you can’t even tell that I’m Muslim.
AOB:However, I believe it was fine and quite in order to broadcast this information to the world at large.
Information’s always useful. I wish that the link in question had a little less misinformation in it: e.g., it includes India and Sri Lanka as subcategories of “Arab culture” (WTF?), and claims that “Islamic cultures are a theocracy with no separation of church and state” (a sweeping generalization that leaves out, e.g., the non-Arab but definitely Islamic cultures in Turkey, Indonesia (the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, and also a republic with a secular constitution), and India (the country with the world’s second-largest Muslim population, and also a republic with a secular constitution).
Even the statistic about the Suez Canal being 100 miles long is, alas, faulty; at 193 km it’s really more like 120 miles. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. Anyway, I appreciate your efforts to fight ignorance by providing a link to a site about Arab culture, and I am happy to help you fight ignorance a little further by pointing out some of its flaws and inaccuracies.
On the face of it, you have to wonder about Islam and backwardness. Is there any country in the world in which Islam is the dominant religion, which is a first-class economic or technical power? In fact, is there any Islamic nation which has a strong, healthy economy not based on oil extraction?
I think the correlation vs. causation debate comes into play there. The worst abuses of Islam don’t strike me as being any more awful than the worst abuses of Christianity. So to me, there are a lot of contributing factors to the backwardness of so many Islamic nations.
I’m trying to be fair here but I’m also trying to be tough-minded and skeptical as required by Straight Dope protocols. If all or almost all nations under Islamic rule either are poverty-stricken or would be if it weren’t for the presence of oil under the ground, it might just be that there’s a link there somewhere. Why do we have to back off on this one? Would anybody deny that Christianity has fucked up Western countries wrt to sex? (OK, a few ideologues, but that’s about it.) Would anybody deny that Chinese culture kept them from taking advantage to a number of technical innovations that would have allowed THEM to be the ones to explore and more or less conquer the world instead of the Europeans?
If we can make THOSE claims, why can’t we look at all those Islamic countries that are either dirt-poor or ruled by elites who can’t build a decent social and technical infrastructure and wonder if there’s SOME kind of link there?
I dealt with that in the bit you quoted: correlation (‘these countries are all backwards and Islamic’) doesn’t imply causation (‘they’re backwards BECAUSE they’re Islamic’). I think the colonialism has a lot to do with it.
We don’t have to “back off,” but unseemly haste to make an assertion that there is a connection might open us to charges of engaging in post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy unless we actually established a causal relationship.
For one thing, the claim that Muslim nations are poverty stricken must be adjusted to note that Muslim nations at the beginning of the 21st century tend to be poorer. At other times, they have been the richest in the world. Then we should note that there are other ways to group nations according to (current) poverty in which we might find that those nations that suffered most harshly under colonial rule (even Christian nations) tend to continue in poverty, today, regardless of the majority religious belief.
Before we choose to establish a link between poverty and Islam, we should be able to explain just what that link might be. Creating arbitrary groups based on ephemeral situations that link coincidental cultural factors does not promote the fight against ignorance.
It is an interesting question though and we talked about that in an other thread on htis board. I don’t recall its name, nor author but seen the point being brought up again, it would be interesting to bringit back and go further with that conversation.
To answer tha question about the eventuality of a link between “Islam” and “poverty” or “backwardness”.
It depends how you want to see those words.
Islam as religion promotes education and social engagement = study and solidarity.
On the other hand, certain interpretations of Islam - who are then more based on the hadith then on Al Qur’an - tend to form a barrier between an open mind and transformation of societies towards more competitive with the West.
Remains the quesiton why the West is so stubborn in its belief that their way of life and values would be what people of other regions and cultures absolutely wish.
There are certain aspects of Western societies I would like to see implemented all over the world, yet those are not exactly “Western” inventions but rather “human” goals.
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There are certainly several so called “Western” -and especially US- habits and values I would not like to see implemented in my country or other Islamic nations.
So I guess when you come up with such questions and comparisons, you should also ask yourself why you think that “Yours” must be “Theirs” because without “your way of life” it is impossible for “them” to live a happy life.
You should also ask yourself if you believe that “your” society is so much better, why there are then so much homeless and poor people in your own nation.
Salaam. A
I think the question that has to be asked is that in the Middle Ages, the “people who lived by the Koran” were not backward in the slightest, so what happened? At that time, the East had made progress in science and technology, that the West would not see for a good long time. “Civilisation” in Muslim countries was flourishing, Islamic empires were among some of the strongest and most widespread in the world, and learning, and education, and the pursuit of knowledge were widely encouraged, and in fact, still are. There’s a quote from the Koran, which I can’t remember exactly, but paraphrased, essentially Allah says “I am the hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. By discovering My creation, you discover Me”. Essentially, the pursuit of knowledge of the world and universe around us can be an act of following the Koran. Don’t try and tell me those Muslim scientists, of which there are many, are “backward”.
There are many countries in the world where Christianity is the dominant religion which are not first class economic or technical powers. Does this mean that Christianity in some cases prevents progress?
Come on, now. Do you really want to compare relative standards of living in the Western world with those in the Islamic world? According to a UN report, the GDP of all Arab nations combined is less than that of Spain.
Islam just doesn’t seem to allow for the seperation of church and state that other religions do. Even Turkey, the only secular Islamic nation that comes to mind, has the army sitting in the wings, keeping an eye on things, lest Islamists come to power. In Iraq, a purportedly ‘modern’ and secular Arab nation, a distressingly high number of people think that an Islamic gov’t is a good idea. Until attitudes like that are changed, we will not see true democratization of Islamic nations.
Well, that’s an alternative explanation to Islam having some cultural aspects that retard social and economic progress, but it’s used so often and to explain so many things that happen in the Third World that I tend to be dubious of any claims about colonialism causing this or that nowadays. I know colonialism has had a profound effect on the Third World, but I do not think that it alone is the be-all and end-all explanation here.
It’s very much like the problem of black males being so overwhelmingly out of proportion in the numbers who go to jail in the U.S. Yes, there are a lot of poor black people in the U.S., yes, the educational system is not nearly as useful for black people as it is for whites, but I’ve read comments from a number of black writers to the effect that one of the big problems is that most young black men believe that education is a “white thing” and therefore to be resisted.
Is the culture combining with the economic conditions in seriously counterproductive ways?
In the case of Islam, am wondering if things like the rank sexism that is endemic to Islamic cultures doesn’t put them at a disadvantage relative to other cultures by stifling the contribution of half the populace. Or the hierarchical nature of some Islamic societies, with older, more successful males from successful tribes engaging in baboonlike behavior such as marrying multiple wives in a de facto harem. How much youthful energy and enthusiasm does this sap from the culture?
Yes, I am well aware of the glory that was Spain under Muslim rule, and I readily concede that this is proof that the Koran is quite capable of being a guide that will allow people to build a healthy, free, tolerant, intellectually advanced society, as some Islamic societies once were. I know where we got algebra from.
But you know, there aren’t a lot of Islamic societies like that right now – it’s been a few hundred years, after all – and I wonder if the current iteration of Islam isn’t in some way responsible for that.
So far as I know, all I have said is that Islamic nations are poor and there just might be a link to Islamic cultural beliefs in there somewhere. Refusing to acknowledge what is obvious does not promote the fight against ignorance, either.
And which iteration would that be? Sunni Islam? Shia Islam? Shia Ithna Ashari Islam? Shia Imami Ismaili Islam? Islam has many many sects and ‘iterations’ as you call them. Tarring them all with the same brush really is unbecoming.
You may well be surprised to learn that one of the major development agencies, which works in developing countries, and with full support from the EU and the US is a Muslim run agency, which works for the betterment of run down areas, provides education and humanitarian relief where needed, and helps build infrastructures of countries like Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
But of course, the current ‘iterations’ of Islam all work to ensure that people live in poverty, have no education, and no chance of bettering their lot. :rolleyes:
And there are certain Western values that I would like to see stifled in the Western world and not spread to other parts of the world. Frex, the hard-edged version of “devil take the hindmost” capitalism that is practiced in the U.S. Or crony capitalism, which I am sure would work very smoothly in a society already inundated with baksheesh. Or the religous beliefs wrt sex that have caused so many problems for the Catholic Church and has led certain fundamentalists here to become just another hate group.
Basically, I’m OK with Islam finding its own way in the world so long as it doesn’t behave as high-handedly and stupidly as some of the Western powers have behaved in the Middle East. But I have to tell you I think that some of the sexual beliefs and practices of Islmaic nations are sick stuff, and I’ll happily oppose them, not with force, but with any other methods I can think up.
[sub][sup]Sorry, just couldn’t resist the obvious.[/sup][/sub]