I'm Islamophobic

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
USAians are not as full of political correctness as we are and are for the most part less tolerant.

BS. Teh US is much more tolerant than Europe is.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by LordShiva


BS. Teh US is much more tolerant than Europe is.

Depends on where. Come to think of it you may be right for most of Europe. Perhaps Scandinavia is a exception to this.



In any case USAians aren't tolrerant to some groups Euros are and vice-versa.



But on BS political correctness we win.

[David Floyd]

Islamic extremists/fundamentalists certainly commit most of the world's terrorist acts. And before someone brings up "Christians" who bomb abortion clinics, look at the numbers. You can't equate Christian radicalism with Islamic radicalism.

So yeah, I think there's something to be said for being wary of Islam, as a religion. I'm perfectly aware there are Muslims who would never associate themselves with terrorism, but why is it, again, that Islam is responsible for most of the world's terrorism? I can't help but think that there really is something in religion, significant enough to be believed by a fairly good sized chunk of Muslims around the world, that says that it IS in fact OK to kill people who disagree with you.

Now, I'm ready to concede that Islam, at it's heart, doesn't condone those actions, but I gotta believe that it's at least unclear enough to convince plenty of people it does, in fact, condone those things.

[Lancer]

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2008/03/brussels-possible-muslim-majority-in-15.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/01/26/do2601.xml

http://www.gwias.com/globe/archive/000072.html

[Colon™]

If Belgium will be majority Muslim in 20 years, then it will be majority Jewish in 200 years. The Hasidic outbreed anyone.

[Lancer]

Blowing people up is easy. Can they make chocolate? That's the issue.

[Fake Boris]

Re: I'm Islamophobic

Originally posted by Heraclitus
There I've said it, I don't like how laws are being changed to fit cultural norms that are fundamentally incompatible with western civilization.

You mean like the Patriot Act and the French headscarf ban ?

[Riesstiu IV]

That's funny, I happen to be Llamaphobic myself. Those things look like mutant dogs.

[aneeshm]

Re: I'm Islamophobic

Originally posted by Heraclitus
There I’ve said it, I don’t like how laws are being changed to fit cultural norms that are fundamentally incompatible with western civilization. I now also have the intellectual integrity to admit to myself that multiculturalism is a complete failure. Similar cultures may coexist in this fashion; perhaps even radically different cultures that are tolerant can coexist, but a tolerant culture when confronted by an intolerant one will not alter the other culture, but it will begin to loose its ground.




Ahh, this feels better, It's so weird not blaming yourself for being a bigoted xenophobic arse.... But its also liberating. Let other people do it for a change! I'm done with it.

You don't have to be a bigoted xenophobic arse to be against Islam, you know, the same way that you don't have to be a bigoted xenophobic arse to be against, say, Nazism.

Change your perspective so that you see Islam for what it is - an ideology and a fundamentally tribalist, expansionist culture, and let that stupid "respect for religion" mentality drop away, and you'll find that the same way that you don't really "hate" any citizens of the Soviet Union, but can still despise communism for its sheer atrociousness, the same can be done with Islam. It's a much more balanced and humane perspective, IMO.

[aneeshm]

By the way, you may be interested in the book: Understanding Islam through Hadis (Ram Swarup). It's available freely on the internet.

[Harovan]

Islam is not worse than other religions.
All of them are equally bad.

[BeBMan]

Re: Re: I'm Islamophobic

Originally posted by aneeshm


You don't have to be a bigoted xenophobic arse to be against Islam, you know, the same way that you don't have to be a bigoted xenophobic arse to be against, say, Nazism.

But it can be extremely helpful.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Islam is not worse than other religions.
All of them are equally bad.

Any basis for that assertion?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


Oh, yes that is definitely intolerant.

But you see the thing is Christianity is very strong in the US, not quite so here. I don't remember abortion clinics getting bombed here. People who opose abortion do so through legal means.


Muslim extremists go beyond legal means in Europe.

I remember abortion clinics (and hospitals which provide abortions) being bombed. Hell, one of those Christian fundies also set off a bomb in the Olympic Village in downtown Atlanta. Come to think of it doctors who perform abortions have been assassinated, harassed, and their pictures & names have been put up on websites to intimidate them; then when one is assassinated a red X goes over their picture. Christian fundies suck a big fat ****.

Fortunately the FBI has been good about breaking those groups up and then throwing the book at them. Personally I'd say it is religion that's the problem though in general I would concede that Islamic militants greatly outnumber Christian militants.

[Dinner]

Originally Posted by BBC
When Muslims become Christians

There's a widespread belief that the penalty for leaving Islam is death - hence, perhaps, the killing of a British teacher last week. But Shiraz Maher believes attitudes may be softening.

Ziya Miral's parents disowned him when he converted from Islam to Christianity.

"They said 'go away, you're not our son.' They told people I died in an accident rather than having the shame of their son leaving Islam."

Born and raised in Turkey, he decided to convert to Christianity after moving to university. He knew telling his parents would be a difficult moment even though they're not particularly observant Muslims, and he planned to break the news to them gently.

In the end, events overtook him. Before heading back to Turkey for the holidays, Ziya briefly visited a Christian summer camp where he was filmed eating a bowl of spaghetti.

The first his parents heard of his conversion was when they saw Ziya on the national news being described as "an evil missionary" intent on "brainwashing" Turkish children.

His parents decided they would rather tell people that he was dead than acknowledge he was a Christian. And Ziya, who now lives in the UK, is not alone in this experience.

Sophia, which is not her real name, faced similar pressures when she decided to become a Christian.

Coming from a Pakistani background but living in east London, 28-year-old Sophia spoke about the extreme cultural pressures her family put her under.

"They kept saying: 'The punishment is death, do you know the punishment is death?'"

In the end, Sophia ran away from home. Her mother tracked her down and turned up at her baptism.

"I got up to get baptised, that's when my mother got up, ran to the front and tried to pull me out of the water.

"My brother was really angry. He reacted and phoned me on my mobile and just said: 'I'm coming down to burn that church.'"

For Sophia and Ziya, a lot of the prejudice they faced seemed to be borne out of cultural ideas, which are particularly ingrained in the South Asian community relating to notions of family honour.

But it's too easy to say this is just a cultural problem. Dig a little deeper and you find that there is a theological argument which advocates the death penalty for apostates, which has serious implications for British society.

Last week, British teacher Daud Hassan Ali, 64, was shot dead in Somalia. His widow, Margaret Ali, said her husband was targeted by Islamists who "believe it is ok to kill any man who was born into Islam and left the faith".

Those renouncing their faith for atheism or agnosticism are viewed in a similar way to those who adopt another faith.

A poll conducted by the Policy Exchange last year suggested that over a third of young British Muslims believe that the death penalty should apply for apostasy.

Until recently, I would have shared that view, but since personally rejecting extremism myself, I've been re-examining the issues which I once regarded as conclusive.

Discretion

I was staggered to learn that the Quran does not say anything about punishing apostates and that its proponents use two hadiths instead to support their view. Hadiths are the recorded traditions and sayings of the Prophet which, in addition to the Quran, provide an additional source of Islamic law.

The hadiths which relate to apostasy are linguistically ambiguous and open to interpretation. Distinguished scholars told me that the hadiths actually speak about a death penalty for treason, not apostasy. And even then, they stressed the punishment is discretionary.

Dr Hisham Hellyer is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies at University of Oxford, and has researched classical Islamic law.

He believes the death penalty punishment is no longer applicable and should be suspended under certain circumstances.

Usama Hassan, a Cambridge-educated scientist and an imam, goes further and says the classical scholars were wrong in how they interpreted the Quran. He is unequivocal in denouncing those who advocate the death penalty.

"I believe the classical law of apostasy in Islam is wrong and based on a misunderstanding of the original sources, because the Quran and Hadith don't actually talk about a death penalty for apostasy."

Last year Egypt's Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa, unequivocally told the Washington Post that the death penalty for apostasy simply no longer applies. It provoked a flurry of debate in Egypt and the wider Middle East.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7355515.stm

I'm glad there are now some voices which are trying to take a step back from the extremism but I'm afraid it would take something much stronger then the Protestant Reformation and the age of Enlightenment to make militantism rare instead of one of the biggest factions. It's sad to see even moderate Muslims verbally supporting the idea of killing someone because of their personal religious beliefs.

It's good to see that influential authors and clerics are speaking out about the problem though.