That’s interesting, thanks. What, in your opinion, would be the best way to understand how Islam is practised?
Talking to Muslims is definitely the best way. If you don’t know any, many mosques have “open houses” where non-Muslim members of the community can visit and ask questions.
I also suggest books like Andrew Rippin’s Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices.
Another Islamophobe has been successfully fended off by the forces of tolerance: http://www.pen.org/blog/pen-outraged-confinement-south-african-writer-who-expressed-admiration-rushdie
Garry Trudeau is very angry at the Islamophobes who got off lightly by being gunned down by the tolerance patrol before they could be prosecuted for hate speech: Garry Trudeau's Full Remarks on Charlie Hebdo at the Polk Awards: 'Satire Punches Up' - The Atlantic
That sentiment is not remotely present in article you linked. It’s about the inconsistencies of hate speech laws in France, along with saying that, even though you have the right of free speech, you should not use it to be an asshole. Punch up, not down.
Making up strawmen really doesn’t help your cause. You only strengthen his argument that the “free speech absolutists” aren’t thinking through their position.
“Punching down” is just a word people use to dismiss anything that makes them uncomfortable. The smearing of the Charlie Hebdo murder victims as racists who “punched down” at the average Muslim is a complete fabrication based on American progressive ignorance about what CH was doing, designed to resolve your own cognitive dissonance over the fact that Muslims did something wrong by making CH out to have deserved it.
Your use of the boogeyphrase “free speech absolutists” just shows that you agree with Trudeau: not only that Islamists should be able to kill anyone who offends their feelings, but that the false narrative about Charlie Hebdo being anti-Muslim or racist in the first place is true.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’m definitely interested in learning more about Islam and how it’s practised. The trouble, living in the UK at least, is that there seems to be no shortage of differing opinions among Muslims about how Islam should be practised. There’s a mosque not too far from where my parents live where everyone seems to be nice as pie. There are mosques in London, where I work, where I’d be scared to set foot within a hundred yards, and for good reason.
I mean, if a Muslim in America was to use the same strategy to find out how Christianity was practised, he’d get very different responses in Massachusetts and Texas. And the average American Christian can’t even name the Ten Commandments, so they’re hardly any use. Where’s an outsider supposed to start?
Seriously, you cannot really be this stupid, right? It’s an act, right?
No, the haters are blind to their stupidies and their hypocrisies, because of course stupid hate attacks do not happen except bythe people they hate and those they hate never have the worlds against such attacks, even speculated.
It is always obvious the hated group is very evil and anything in contradiction to this view is making excuses or lies or somehow is justified.
Hey guys we’re not allowed to care about Islamist violence and censorship because other bad things happen.
How is it “punching down” to make crude depictions of all prophets?
The clear insinuation here is that Muhammad is off-limits. A laughable and shameful notion which goes against the very grain of whatever supposed “free speech” the author claims to appreciate.
Satire can be funny even if it isn’t a white, Christian male being made fun of. Sentiment suggesting otherwise is a contrived distortion of the Political Correctness dogma. The absolutism on display is not of free speech principles but that of “protected groups” being immune to ridicule due simply to being a minority.
Some day, the PC left will look back on this and realize that appeasing intolerance in the name of tolerance was, obviously, misguided.
Or they’ll continue to divert us to our Middle Age history lessons.
[QUOTE=Stringbean;18283400…
Some day, the PC left will look back on this and realize that appeasing intolerance in the name of tolerance was, obviously, misguided.
Or they’ll continue to divert us to our Middle Age history lessons.[/QUOTE]
Stringbean, peace be upon him, is a fuckin prophet!
More Islamophobes have been courageously fended off. Tolerance is on the march! Egypt Anti-Christian Violence: Church Commemorating ISIS Coptic Victims Attacked
Do you honestly think this is helping anyone? That this is helping solve some problem? That this “ZOMG, look more Muslim violence! What do you think about that, you Muslim-loving Muslim lovers!” is actually accomplishing anything other than making you look like some kind of obsessed, hateful jackass?
Alright, alright, don’t lose my head over it.
Welcome to the complex world of major religions with billions of individual adherents. You unfortunately can’t really get a grasp of how “Islam” as a singular entity is practiced than you can (as you point out) get a grasp of how “Christianity” as a singular entity is practiced. In Islam, it’s actually harder, since there are a lot fewer recognized hierarchies of religious authority where you can say “Oh, you’re such-and-such denomination? Then you must believe X” like you can with, say, Southern Baptists or Catholics or members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (and even within those ostensibly definite hierarchies, there are divisions and subdivisions and so on…even Catholics, who are all under the religious authority of a single man and a single unified clergy, aren’t exactly all in lockstep in terms of their individual beliefs).
Within Islam, you can turn to any of almost innumerable religious authorities and ask them to rule on a specific matter (such a ruling is called a fatwa). Not only may such a ruling be entirely different from one authority to another, it’s only binding if you actually accept that particular religious authority as authoritative. In some countries, nationally-sanctioned authorities have their fatawa backed up by the government, but in others, there’s nothing stopping an individual Muslim from deciding for him or herself what fatawa from which authorities they consider binding - it’s not unheard of for Muslims to actually consult a number of different authorities on a matter, and follow the fatwa that they like best (such a practice is often derisively called “fatwa-shopping”).
More directly to your question, Rippin’s book offers a broad overview which covers some of the similarities and differences among the larger divisions within Islam (not just Sunni vs. Shia, but the various traditions within Sunnism as well). Other than that, though, the best thing is to recognize, as you point out, that is preached in one mosque may be entirely different from what is preached in a different mosque, and yet it’s all still “Islam”, so if you want to get an idea of how “Islam is practiced” I’d start with whatever mosque is both local for you and comfortable for you to visit and/or talk to, and then (as opportunity presents itself) try to find other mosques in other communities to provide a comparing/contrasting perspective. Just keep in mind that, like any colossal macro-scale thing, “zooming in” like that will let you see the fine detail but won’t help with trying to understand the larger shape, while “pulling back” to see the larger shape will cause you to lose all of the fine detail.
I guess think of it like trying to understand the geography of the United States. A big nationwide map may show you the broad features, and a small city map will help you understand the local terrain. But neither one will actually give you the full picture of what “the geography of the United States” actually is, and it’ll probably take some combination of looking at the larger map and examining (and visiting) smaller local areas before you can really start to understand the massive, diverse nature of the subject.
I apologize if that’s not really helpful! This is not a simple topic, and I’m happy to try to answer any specific questions you might have to the best of my ability.
So you don’t have any actual point or purpose, other than hating on those evil, violent Muslims?
It seems you are very disturbed at the notion that people might find out what happens to those labeled enemies of Islam. Do you have anything to say about this topic, or just complaints about those who do?
Muslims are both the main victims of, and the main fighters against, the kind of people who murder others for being “enemies of Islam”.
You’re just jeering them all from the sidelines.
This is true. But what is your contribution when Garry Trudeau falsely claims that Charlie Hebdo cartoons designed to advocate for ordinary Muslims, against both European Nazis and Muslim extremist leaders, are “Islamophobic” and should be prosecuted as “hate speech”? And when he says these things in a world where the Islamophobes have already been summarily executed by Muslims? Which group are you in, exactly?
As are you. But I’m jeering the right people.