rudatron posted:

You're the second person so far to have deployed the 'arrogant westerners' schtick, so it deserves a response: honest criticism is integral to progress. Disingenuous shits will use dishonest criticism as a bludgeon (see: right-wing attacks against islam that focus on it being anti-women despite the accusers themselves opposing women's issues) but if you refuse to criticize for the sake of good manners, you're automatically ceding that ground to them.

The key is to be consistent and reframe it in such a way that it serves progressive forces rather than reactionary forces, which is what an honest assessment will do. Part of that is a deconstruction of the monolithic other of 'muslims' into distinct power blocks and ideological superstructures, which you can compare and contrast with similar power-structures/ideologies both historical and contemporary, then react appropriately (which is what the post you are quoting is doing). Islamism is far-right, you undermine it the same way you do any other far-right groups.

Svartvit posted:

No, you do not undermine Islamism at all. You have, presumably, nothing to do with it. Do you think that the Tea Party movement reasonably can be undermined the Chinese middle class? There are a plethora of Russian intellectuals and fancy middle-class debaters who a little too frequently complain about US transgressions of international law and democratic standards in the Russian media. What a loving joke they are, just like we are when we obsess about today's Islamic culture and all its many flaws. This thread is mostly just a wallowing in stereotypifications and neat little academic roundabout formulations disconnected from reality. People talk about Islam and Muslims as if they just arrived from Mars with tentacles and in a pool of sludge, and if I didn't personally think that the Islamic religion is dumb crock I'd be pretty offended and even seriously worried by the words being used.

Svartvit posted:

No, you do not undermine Islamism at all. You have, presumably, nothing to do with it. Do you think that the Tea Party movement reasonably can be undermined the Chinese middle class? There are a plethora of Russian intellectuals and fancy middle-class debaters who a little too frequently complain about US transgressions of international law and democratic standards in the Russian media. What a loving joke they are, just like we are when we obsess about today's Islamic culture and all its many flaws. This thread is mostly just a wallowing in stereotypifications and neat little academic roundabout formulations disconnected from reality. People talk about Islam and Muslims as if they just arrived from Mars with tentacles and in a pool of sludge, and if I didn't personally think that the Islamic religion is dumb crock I'd be pretty offended and even seriously worried by the words being used.

Sethex posted:

Really though I feel as if your beef isn't with discussing things you lack agency over but with the fact that the item being criticized is Islam, else you would just go from d&d subject to subject regurgitating this same line of reasoning.

Sethex posted:

Firstly, I'm more focused on the naive leftists like yourself who attack the line of discussion from either the Trezzor position of just conflating it with racism or hyperbolic calls for savage imperialism, or your vague an irrational calls to squelch discussion because: 'you can't change anything as an outsider thus it shouldn't be discussed'

.....

Really though I feel as if your beef isn't with discussing things you lack agency over but with the fact that the item being criticized is Islam, else you would just go from d&d subject to subject regurgitating this same line of reasoning.

CommieGIR posted:

Secondly: The problem at hand, especially in the US, is those willing to directly tackle Islam as a source of direct contention while at the same time holding up their religion (usually Fundamentalism Christianity or Extreme Right Wing Christianity) as the epitome of a 'Good Religion', then completely ignore than their particular variant of Christianity is just as deplorable as Fundamentalist Islam.

Sethex posted:

I'm also not sure this forum is a place where strong Christian militarism takes place, thus far I haven't seen much of a: 'my totalitarian religion is better than yours' bit in this discussion, so I don't see much of a point in reacting as though Christian fundies are using this thread to bash islam.

Sethex posted:

I fully agree that right wing elements an conservatives target islam in a very hypocritical way.

Their assessment is a sort of enemy within, alarmist Jingo that you can expect from any proto fascist group.

But the nature of the left when discussing these subjects appears to be frightened and insecure for fear of being labeled a bigot.

Political islam is certainly a growing an reasonably mainstream movement, especially in parts of Europe. To simply have 'the left' remain mute on these issues only enables the far right Christian nationalists to opportunistically exploit the lack of a moderate narrative.

I'm also not sure this forum is a place where strong Christian militarism takes place, thus far I haven't seen much of a: 'my totalitarian religion is better than yours' bit in this discussion, so I don't see much of a point in reacting as though Christian fundies are using this thread to bash islam.

https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/2f93x9/are_human_rights_compatible_with_islam/

The Islam subreddit generally seems to self identify as though their religion is not compatible with human rights, which is honest of them, but at the same time I view this as a pretty good reason to show skepticism for what religious freedom should include.

Obdicut posted:

The left says that the crazy anti-female-freedom conservative rear end in a top hat Muslims are bad, but not really worse than the Christian types--remember, here in the US we have women arrested for miscarriages thanks to Christian whackjobs.

Strudel Man posted:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/10/21/Video-shows-ISIS-stoning-woman-in-front-of-her-father.html

quote:

African Children Denounced As "Witches" By Christian Pastors

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Strudel Man posted:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/10/21/Video-shows-ISIS-stoning-woman-in-front-of-her-father.html

ToxicAcne posted:

Can someone give me a source on comparing Judeo-Christian ethics and morals to Islamic ones. As in what have Islamic theologians and Philosophers have said in comparison to Christian ones.

quote:

"Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible," Jenkins says.

Jenkins is a professor at Penn State University and author of two books dealing with the issue: the recently published Jesus Wars, and Dark Passages , which has not been published but is already drawing controversy.

Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible.
Philip Jenkins, author of 'Jesus Wars'
Violence in the Quran, he and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says. "Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide."

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: "And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them," God says through the prophet Samuel. "But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

"In other words," Jenkins says, "Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God's law if you do not."

Jenkins notes that the history of Christianity is strewn with herem. During the Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic popes declared the Muslims Amalekites. In the great religious wars in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries, Protestants and Catholics each believed the other side were the Amalekites and should be utterly destroyed.

quote:

That may be the popular notion of jihad, says Waleed El-Ansary, but it's the wrong one. El-Ansary, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of South Carolina, says the Quran explicitly condemns religious aggression and the killing of civilians. And it makes the distinction between jihad — legal warfare with the proper rules of engagement — and irjaf, or terrorism.

"All of those types of incidences — [Sept. 11], Maj. Nidal Hasan and so forth — those are all examples of irjaf, not jihad," he says. According to the Quran, he says, those who practice irjaf "are going to hell."

So what's going on here? After all, we all have images of Muslim radicals flying planes into buildings, shooting up soldiers at Fort Hood, trying to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day. How to reconcile a peaceful Quran with these violent acts?

El-Ansary says that in the past 30 years, there's been a perfect storm that has created a violent strain of Islam. The first is political: frustration at Western intervention in the Muslim world. The second is intellectual: the rise of Wahhabi Islam, a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam subscribed to by Osama bin Laden. El-Ansary says fundamentalists have distorted Islam for political purposes.

"Basically what they do is they take verses out of context and then use that to justify these egregious actions," he says.

El-Ansary says we are seeing more religious violence from Muslims now because the Islamic world is far more religious than is the West. Still, Jenkins says Judeo-Christian cultures shouldn't be smug. The Bible has plenty of violence.

"The scriptures are still there, dormant, but not dead," he says, "and they can be resurrected at any time. Witness the white supremacists who cite the murderous Phineas when calling for racial purity, or an anti-abortion activist when shooting a doctor who performs abortions.

In the end, the scholars can agree on one thing: The DNA of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam code for a lot of violence. Whether they can evolve out of it is another thing altogether.

Sethex posted:

This line of reasoning is bad. We shouldn't talk about anything unless we know we can affect a positive outcome?

Firstly, I'm more focused on the naive leftists like yourself who attack the line of discussion from either the Trezzor position of just conflating it with racism or hyperbolic calls for savage imperialism, or your vague an irrational calls to squelch discussion because: 'you can't change anything as an outsider thus it shouldn't be discussed'

Not only would following your rational significantly limit the subjects anyone could talk about, but it isn't even reasonable to assume that you would know what the outcomes having these discussions would have.

Really though I feel as if your beef isn't with discussing things you lack agency over but with the fact that the item being criticized is Islam, else you would just go from d&d subject to subject regurgitating this same line of reasoning.

CommieGIR posted:

That's not the US, and hardcore Conservative Christians would LOVE to be able to do this. See Jeb Bush and his pushing laws that would ostracize unwed mothers.

Kinda like they did this poo poo to blacks not even 60 years ago, all while wearing the cross. We are well aware of the human rights violations of the Middle East, but then again these are religious extremists and fundamentalists you are pointing out, and in nearly every case regardless of religion, Fundamentalism leads to human rights violations.

Liberal_L33t posted:

I hate being pushed into the position of defending Christianity but even IF we are going to stretch the bounds of relevancy by comparing modern events to poo poo from a century ago, modern political Islam isn't comparable to political Christianity. "Moderate" Islamists like the Turkish AKP and Egyptian MB have ideas on the integration of church (mosque) and state that make Franco look like goddamn Jimmy Carter in comparison. In the modern world, I think it's pretty telling that in Nigeria, the poster child (alongside Uganda) for international Christian fundies whipping up harsh laws, the harshest penalties against homosexuality (or any other sexual offense) are to be found in the regions under Sharia law. Even if you insist on comparing it to racism, current Muslim nations where political Islam has been successful in its aims have legal systems which treat women, children, non-muslims and others worse than blacks were treated at the height of Jim Crow.

Don't compare the Republican party, noxious plutocrats and reactionaries though they are, to Islamists. The western right pushes policies with implicit religious justification which chip away at the economic rights of marginalized groups and facilitate excluding them from institutions. Comparing it to theocratic political parties and militias shredding two or three constitutions every year, continually assassinating perceived enemies across the world, passing explicitly religious laws and publicly executing people in accordance with said laws is just insulting. I don't care if you think you're being fair-minded, or pragmatic. Putting the western religious right and political Islam next to one another and claiming that they are the same in any meaningful way is just bullshit.

There are a few western religious movements which can be compared to mainstream conservative Islam in terms of malignancy and hostility to secular democracy. The Church of Latter Day Saints is probably the best example of an "Islamist-like" sect of Christianity whose aims go beyond sneaking in the odd religiously motivated law and into the realm of establishing a totalitarian religious community. In fact, the early Mormons were pretty much the ISIS of their day. But the non-Mormon Christian community and secular government took energetic action to stop them getting anywhere near the theocracy they wanted. Note that unlike ISIS, however, they didn't get a stream of cash and volunteers pouring in from across the globe.

quote:

One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful. -Jeb Bush

Liberal_L33t posted:

Can we get the bolded part in the OP?


I hate being pushed into the position of defending Christianity but even IF we are going to stretch the bounds of relevancy by comparing modern events to poo poo from a century ago, modern political Islam isn't comparable to political Christianity. "Moderate" Islamists like the Turkish AKP and Egyptian MB have ideas on the integration of church (mosque) and state that make Franco look like goddamn Jimmy Carter in comparison. In the modern world, I think it's pretty telling that in Nigeria, the poster child (alongside Uganda) for international Christian fundies whipping up harsh laws, the harshest penalties against homosexuality (or any other sexual offense) are to be found in the regions under Sharia law. Even if you insist on comparing it to racism, current Muslim nations where political Islam has been successful in its aims have legal systems which treat women, children, non-muslims and others worse than blacks were treated at the height of Jim Crow.

quote:

Don't compare the Republican party, noxious plutocrats and reactionaries though they are, to Islamists.

quote:

The western right pushes policies with implicit religious justification which chip away at the economic rights of marginalized groups and facilitate excluding them from institutions. Comparing it to theocratic political parties and militias shredding two or three constitutions every year, continually assassinating perceived enemies across the world, passing explicitly religious laws and publicly executing people in accordance with said laws is just insulting. I don't care if you think you're being fair-minded, or pragmatic. Putting the western religious right and political Islam next to one another and claiming that they are the same in any meaningful way is just bullshit.

"Liberal_L33t posted:

Obdicut posted:

The left isn't mute. The left says that the crazy anti-female-freedom conservative rear end in a top hat Muslims are bad, but not really worse than the Christian types--remember, here in the US we have women arrested for miscarriages thanks to Christian whackjobs. The left also says most Muslims are ordinary people who just want to live their lives and get along and are somewhat dutiful about religion but mostly concerned with other stuff, like most people are.

V. Illych L. posted:

namaste

Obdicut posted:

The left isn't mute. The left says that the crazy anti-female-freedom conservative rear end in a top hat Muslims are bad, but not really worse than the Christian types

TheImmigrant posted:

I worry that you really believe that, that there is a Christian equivalent to Da'esh poised to emerge in Europe or North America.

CommieGIR posted:

Nah, they are not nearly that organized nor dedicated. Nor do we have the current situation in the region that would motivate such a group. We've pointed this out time and again: circumstances in the Middle East right now are perfect for growing Religious Extremist groups. Its different in the US, that doesn't mean should circumstances change it could not happen.

Sethex posted:

You're right that the left is not mute, i was wrong to use that word. But at times it feels that way when mainstream politicians claim the causes of the erratic religiously charged violence is not a result of religion.

quote:

You may try an casually dismiss people like Trezzor as a one off but within the left are factions that hurl claims of racism an bigotry at pretty much anything mocking the sacred in a non-white people religion:
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/11/is_charlie_hebdo_racist_or_have_critics_been_too_quick_to_condemn_it/

Main Paineframe posted:

And they'd be absolutely one hundred percent correct in those claims. Would it be "suppressing free speech" to criticize a cartoon featuring a greasy-looking man with an enormous nose wearing a kipah and jealously guarding a pile of gold coins while crowing about how he rules the world? Charlie Hebdo doesn't have much room to fly the "defender of free speech" flag anyway, given that they previously fired a cartoonist for a vaguely discriminatory comment against a minority religion that wasn't Islam.

V. Illych L. posted:

uh

the dude proudly proclaimed himself an anti-semite

CH gives judaism poo poo just the same as it does islam

Sethex posted:

You're right that the left is not mute, i was wrong to use that word. But at times it feels that way when mainstream politicians claim the causes of the erratic religiously charged violence is not a result of religion.

quote:

This position may be arguably safe for reducing the anti muslim backlash that bigots crave to commit, but at the same time it is very dishonest, and opens the possibility of unofficial and extreme narratives about islam to take root.

quote:

You may try an casually dismiss people like Trezzor as a one off but within the left are factions that hurl claims of racism an bigotry at pretty much anything mocking the sacred in a non-white people religion:
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/11/is_charlie_hebdo_racist_or_have_critics_been_too_quick_to_condemn_it/

http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/6473690

quote:

These leftists unconsciously appear to reject the values of free speech, at best choosing to state they believe in it but argue that the hebdo content should not exist, at worse creating a vast field of interpretation to what hate speech is.

TheImmigrant posted:

I worry that you really believe that, that there is a Christian equivalent to Da'esh poised to emerge in Europe or North America.

TheImmigrant posted:

I worry that you really believe that, that there is a Christian equivalent to Da'esh poised to emerge in Europe or North America.

Obdicut posted:

Again, what we do have is women being arrested for miscarriages,

V. Illych L. posted:

lord's resistance army etc etc

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

Just so I can check it out, can you link to an article about this?

Sethex posted:

Political islam is certainly a growing an reasonably mainstream movement, especially in parts of Europe. To simply have 'the left' remain mute on these issues only enables the far right Christian nationalists to opportunistically exploit the lack of a moderate narrative.

quote:

https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/2f93x9/are_human_rights_compatible_with_islam/

The Islam subreddit generally seems to self identify as though their religion is not compatible with human rights, which is honest of them, but at the same time I view this as a pretty good reason to show skepticism for what religious freedom should include.

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

Could've sworn someone said this happened in the US. Hmm.

V. Illych L. posted:

if we're talking just islam vs christianity in general it's germane imo, you don't have many IS types running around threatening to murder people in america

V. Illych L. posted:

if we're talking just islam vs christianity in general it's germane imo, you don't have many IS types running around threatening to murder people in america