# The Fallen Blogger and the Spectre of Secularism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827 "2015-02-28T03:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/41 "2015-03-01T03:53:52Z")
> [@truthSeeker2](#): > > Sure. (I was searching for spoiler tag, somehow couldn’t find at the time) Just for the record, the coding dashboard doesn’t have a spoiler tag (in addition to some other things it doesn’t have); you have to roll your own. Do this, and omit the spaces: [spoiler]The Titanic sinks and Jack dies.[/spoiler] The Titanic sinks and Jack dies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/42 "2015-03-01T04:01:10Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Mohammad don’t text. [But Muslims do.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Revolution) (Why not? It’s not a sin, they’re Muslim, not Amish.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/43 "2015-03-01T04:05:00Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > If this is not to be ignored, then it is necessary to note that it is quite distorting to imply the blogger was an unconnected American married to a Muslim, when in fact he was a Bangledeshi born person - of Muslim heritage - who became an American citizen and is the son of a well known Bangladesh secularist activist. Since the OP is from the region, this is hard to consider as an accident and seems deliberate and inflamatory (like some past references to “pakis”). So – was he an apostate, or not? That is, was he ever a Muslim? And, BTW, how widespread in today’s Islamic world is the belief that killing apostates from Islam is a duty? Serious question. I know it’s firmly grounded in the Koran and I know some believe it, some of them very vocally believe it; but for all I know, most Muslims might treat it as either an irrelevant archaism or a counsel of perfection, like most Christians treat the Christian rules about sex. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/44 "2015-03-01T04:14:05Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > Abstractions do not look in mirrors, no? But religions do. There are many historical examples. Many of them led to violence. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/45 "2015-03-01T04:26:47Z")
> [@truthSeeker2](#): > > @Kimstu > you miss the point bro. Religion of peace is the cancer for 21st century. 99% of extremists happen to be followers. Cite? That’s a ridiculously unrealistic number. You can’t just throw around specific quantitative estimates like that when what you actually mean is “yeah I think probably a lot but I don’t really know”. Even if as many as one in a thousand of all the world’s Muslims were actual violent Islamist extremists (an absurd overestimate), those 1.6 million people still wouldn’t constitute anything like 99% of all the world’s violent extremists. Hell, there are estimated to be 20 thousand armed cadres of the Naxali-Maoist insurgency in eastern India alone; and that’s not counting Sikh separatist terror groups, Corsican separatist terror groups, Sendero Luminoso in Peru, Colombian terror groups, and hundreds of others. I’m not claiming, and I never have claimed, that the nexus of radical Islamism and violent terrorism isn’t a unique and high-priority problem in the current global historical moment. But people who try to claim that radical Islamists are the world’s **only** significant group of violent terrorists, or that their common factor of Muslim religion is somehow the only thing that really matters about them, are just exposing their own ignorance and shallow understanding. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/46 "2015-03-01T04:27:58Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I don’t believe Western interventionism put the machetes in the hands of the men who killed Roy for writing criticisms of Islam. No, but it might have played some role in inspiring their resentment. After 9/11 a lot of writers tried to blame radical Islamism on the poverty of the Islamic world. I think it has more to do with pride than poverty. In the Middle Ages the Islamic Caliphate was the most brilliant, creative, wealthy and powerful civilization west of China, and many Muslims perhaps still believe in their bones that they are entitled to that status. The Crusades did not of course destroy their civilization, the Mongols did that, but the Crusaders still figure as enemies in the historical memory. And the Euro colonization of most of the Islamic world is a far more recent memory, and there is still a Western military presence in the Islamic world, and all of that is very hurtful to Islamic pride. Pride is a powerful thing. Hitler came to power [Godwin!] partly or mainly by appealing to the wounded pride of the German people over WWI and its aftermath. ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/47 "2015-03-01T04:45:00Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > I did not in any case assign a primary responsibility to the colonial imperialism at all - my main point was his idiocy about secularism showed the gross ignorance of the actual historical dominance of secular systems. Of course this has some colonial system roots, history does not disappear even if one is a reactionary with a attention span of the fox news. > > Of course he siezes on the phrase so he can try to stereotype and distort my comment as the typical Left radical, which is ridiculous as in my world I am an ultra liberal considered too radically free market and against government intervention. Whew. I used to have a girl-friend like you. I would say “Thank You” to a cup of coffee in the morning while waking up and then get hit verbally by all of the perceived injustices in the world. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/48 "2015-03-01T04:46:20Z")
Look, we all have to face this: **Islam is not going away.** Today, one human being in five is a Muslim. 100 years ago, one human being in five was a Muslim. Almost certainly, 100 years from now, one human being in five will be a Muslim. And the infidel majority just has to get used to that and find ways of living with Muslims peacefully. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/49 "2015-03-01T04:51:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, of course not, but it can make it a religion in the behavorial and intellectual sense. Respect for, e.g., science is not a religion because scientific theories are not dogmatic and are always open to modification in light of new data. An unquestionable, unalterable, epistemically closed body of doctrine like Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Communism closely resembles religious doctrine. :rolleyes: Oy gevalt. By this pretzel logic, anti-theistic Marxist-Leninism qualifies as a “religion” while some actual self-identified religions that happen to be less doctrinally dogmatic would not. This type of weasel-wording about what counts as “religion” is silly and misleading. The fact that some unquestionable, unalterable, epistemically closed bodies of doctrine are religious beliefs does not mean it makes sense to label every unquestionable, unalterable, epistemically closed body of doctrine a “religion”. And it certainly doesn’t make sense to try to deny the label “secularist” to anti-theistic zealots on the grounds that their dogmatic zealotry makes them somehow “religious” and hence they don’t qualify as secular. Oh yeah sure, and if I define a bagel to be a bialy then it’s valid to claim that bagels don’t have holes. :rolleyes: Sheer rhetorical smoke and mirrors attempting to obscure the fact that many non-religious or anti-religious ideologies can be just as dogmatic and closed-minded as religious ones. (For example, there are plenty of uninformed but overconfident people whose veneration of what they believe to be “science” goes far beyond “respect” into what you would term “a religion in the behavioral and intellectual sense”. Just because scientific theories themselves are “open to modification” doesn’t mean that the worldviews of many people who consider themselves “pro-science” aren’t epistemically closed and inflexible.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/50 "2015-03-01T04:56:24Z")
> [@Cabin\_Fever](#): > > Whew. > I used to have a girl-friend like you. I would say “Thank You” to a cup of coffee in the morning while waking up and then get hit verbally by all of the perceived injustices in the world. Is she single now? I’ll take her! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/51 "2015-03-01T04:57:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What do you think is mostly responsible for the existence of radical Islamism? This was directed at Ramira, but I’ll give it a shot. Then he can refute me if he wishes. I say there are 2 prongs. 1. In Egypt, free expression was repressed for decades. An exception was made for espousing devout views in the mosque. That mentality metastasized into the Muslim Brotherhood. Yes, I know that some of the head honcho Imans had the approval of the state. 2. The second prong involves the deal the House of Saud made with the hardline Islamicists. Support us and we’ll support you. They did. And so their zeal was directed outwards, outside of Saudi Arabia. Of course for both aspects could only work in fertile ground, i.e. dysfunctional societies. But all 3rd world countries are dysfunctional (just look at the corruption stats for an example). That there are people amenable to an ideology of violence is unsurprising. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/52 "2015-03-01T05:06:37Z")
> [@Cabin\_Fever](#): > > I used to have a girl-friend like you. I would say “Thank You” to a cup of coffee in the morning while waking up and then get hit verbally by all of the perceived injustices in the world. :dubious: And bringing you a cup of coffee in the morning is analogous to participating in a Pit thread on Islamist-extremist terrorism… how, exactly? I mean, I can certainly sympathize with you not wanting to hear strident denunciations of global injustice when thanking someone for a cup of coffee on waking up. But if you think that sort of conversational tone is equally inappropriate in an SDMB Pit thread, then mayyyybe you’re a little too fragile for this environment? Just saying. ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/53 "2015-03-01T05:07:43Z")
> [@Cabin\_Fever](#): > > Whew. > I used to have a girl-friend like you. I would say “Thank You” to a cup of coffee in the morning while waking up and then get hit verbally by all of the perceived injustices in the world. I remove my snark. It wasn’t meant to be personal even though the is The Pit. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/54 "2015-03-01T05:12:20Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :dubious: And bringing you a cup of coffee in the morning is analogous to participating in a Pit thread on Islamist-extremist terrorism… how, exactly? > > I mean, I can certainly sympathize with you not wanting to hear strident denunciations of global injustice when thanking someone for a cup of coffee on waking up. But if you think that sort of conversational tone is equally inappropriate in an SDMB Pit thread, then mayyyybe you’re a little too fragile for this environment? Just saying. Inappropriate. My apologies to all. ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/55 "2015-03-01T05:28:44Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Okay, I did disagree, but now that I’ve read the thread, I’m ready to put that opinion on hold and take in some (more) new information. I agree with you upon reflection. ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/56 "2015-03-01T05:53:27Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > :dubious: And bringing you a cup of coffee in the morning is analogous to participating in a Pit thread on Islamist-extremist terrorism… how, exactly? > > I mean, I can certainly sympathize with you not wanting to hear strident denunciations of global injustice when thanking someone for a cup of coffee on waking up. But if you think that sort of conversational tone is equally inappropriate in an SDMB Pit thread, then mayyyybe you’re a little too fragile for this environment? Just saying. Global injustice. Yeppers. There are assholes world-wide. Muslims, Christians, Atheists. etc. Just trying to make a point outside of this of this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![camille](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/57 "2015-03-01T08:03:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So – was he an apostate, or not? That is, was he ever a Muslim? Roy is a common Hindu name. His family had been Hindu, a minority in Bangladesh, but his father also considers himself a secular freethinker. Roy’s wife is a secular Muslim. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/58 "2015-03-01T08:18:47Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Just for the record, the coding dashboard doesn’t have a spoiler tag (in addition to some other things it doesn’t have); you have to roll your own. > > Do this, and omit the spaces: > > [spoiler]The Titanic sinks and Jack dies.[/spoiler] > > The Titanic sinks and Jack dies. You don’t need to code spaces for your demo. [noparse]How did I do this?[/noparse] “Noparse” tags cause tags inside them to be left alone ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/59 "2015-03-01T14:00:54Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I don’t believe Western interventionism put the machetes in the hands of the men who killed Roy for writing criticisms of Islam. > > Islamists killing an Islamic apostate over the latter’s criticism of the state of the religion says a lot of Muslim culture in that region of the world and little of what the Western interventionist powers do or want. > > This is an example, and quite an easy one at that, of inter-Muslim strife. Blaming whitey is a cop-out for those who wish to deny the cultural clash that is occurring. The only contribution the West made to this tragedy was to give Roy the platform to express his views. > > But a history lesson of evil white imperialism is always a fun distraction. Nice weaseling. The parallels to Marxism, (and the foolish responses of the Western political Right), are pretty obvious to those who are not making up their conclusions before they review the history and evidence. Western intervention has resulted in the oppression of a lot of people as the West picked different nations to be proxies in their various marketing and political wars. Prior to the rise of the Soviets, this tended to display as favoring one regional prince over another in developed countries or simply conquering less technologically developed lands. With the rise of Marxism, (as an eventually failed response to address inequalities in Western society), Marxist ideas were exported to many of those nations so that many of them became proxy battlefields for the Great Game between the Soviets and the West, (with China sticking its oar in where it could). The authoritarian regimes supported by the great powers tended to impose their own brands of oppression on the people. In a number of places, the people who were most resistant to the imposed (not democratic) authority happened to be Muslim, so in places such as Iran, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the Muslims were branded Marxists and laws suppressing Islam were enacted. It is a frequent occurrence that persecution will strengthen the most conservative elements of a group. (Witness Polish Catholicism.) When the Soviets could no longer afford to maintain their proxy wars, the most militant members of the Muslim community, having already organized as a response to persecution, then stepped forward to present their ideas for a “more just” society. Any place where people perceive injustice as the being supported by Western secularism, the more militant Muslims will seize on that pretext to promote their beliefs. To pretend that the conflict has nothing to do with Western intervention is to simply declare that one has no interest in facts or history. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/60 "2015-03-01T14:10:05Z")
FTR, the Great Game was originally between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, and continues today with Putin. We’ve always been at war with Westasia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=4)