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blowfish posted:I can believe someone like Harris or Dawkins is honestly criticising Islam's religious institutions but given that people are dumb many followers will just treat muslim and brown as interchangeable. I'm not sure I'm willing to give Harris and Dawkins that much credit, considering Harris has loudly advocated racial profiling as a way of combating terrorism (even in the face of security experts explaining to him how ineffective racial profiling is), and Dawkins was unusually worked up about the whole clock incident in Texas. I don't think they consider themselves racist, but they've definitely internalized the tendency to conflate "Muslim" with "brown-skinned."
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Dec 2, 2015 01:32
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dawkins himself isn't above criticism. self identifying as a rational thinker doesn't necessarily make it so. he's got a track record of idiotic comments on sexism, islam, doesn't mind mild pedophilia, and thinks that multiculturalism is code for islamic invasion of europe. he also gets to geet crazy defensive when he says something inflammatory or wrong about islam and then preemptively pulls the racist card against his opponents, which is an excellent indicator that he's full of poo poo. he's pretty clearly just a scared old upper crust white dude who isn't worth less scrutiny just because he's some kind of skeptic pope
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Dec 2, 2015 01:40
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Mulva posted:I think one of the biggest problems Islam has with regard to integration into Western culture is it's insistence on not changing itself with regard to the culture it exists in. For example, why does an American born Muslim have to learn and speak in Arabic whenever possible? Why do they insist on perform group prayers multiple times every day when no other religion in America does that more than maybe once or twice a week? I don't find it difficult at all to see why people might be wary of such a religion. My local Catholic church has multiple masses a day.
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Dec 2, 2015 01:41
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lol at the idea that being bilingual is a bad thing
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Dec 2, 2015 01:43
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Also until '59, Catholics also would have needed to know a weird moon language to go to church where there was group prayer multiple times a day. Unless that's the joke? 
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Dec 2, 2015 02:00
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Mulva posted:I think one of the biggest problems Islam has with regard to integration into Western culture is it's insistence on not changing itself with regard to the culture it exists in. For example, why does an American born Muslim have to learn and speak in Arabic whenever possible? Do you also have a problem with the children of immigrants from Latin America learning and speaking in Spanish? Mulva posted:Why do they insist on perform group prayers multiple times every day when no other religion in America does that more than maybe once or twice a week? I don't find it difficult at all to see why people might be wary of such a religion. If you think that American Christians never engage in ostentatious public displays of their religion, you need to get out more. And they don't even have the excuse of it being a requirement of the faith.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:04
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Popular Thug Drink posted:the islam in islamobphobia does mean islam though. you contended that americans are not actually scared of muslims, but of ethnic people. you failed to consider that americans are simultaneously afraid of both muslims and ethnic people I'm not talking specifically about Americans, but sure, let's use them as an example. If Americans are scared of Muslims, they're scared of Muslims. Islam is a different thing. Muslims are people, Islam is a religious ideology. Pretty different things, and they have pretty different words to designate them, even! Maybe Americans are scared of Muslims, ethnic groups other than WASP, and Islam. Obviously when you have these three fears together, the one that is the worst, the most unforgivable is the fear of Islam! TheBalor posted:Arabic is considered essential for a Muslim to learn because the Quran was written in Arabic, and any translation will by necessity involve loss of meaning and linguistic context that will warp your understanding. Just look at the history of bible translations if you don't believe that's true. That's a rationale that seems sound, from a superficial glance, but then when you look at it in little bit more in depth you realize the effort is futile. Because with language it's like that bit in Alice in Wonderland where you have to run so as to stay in place. Language evolves. If the text doesn't change, then it will change nonetheless because the frame used to understand it (aka language) has changed. This is obvious if you start actually studying Arabic -- you discover that, for a start, it's not one language but a bunch of them, and the classical Arabic is now quite different from the various forms of spoken Arabic. The Arabic spoken in Morocco is different from the Arabic spoken in Oman, and neither are really that close from the Arabic of the Koran. And you don't even need to study Arabic to understand the issue, because that's true of every language. Try reading the Canterbury Tales, for example: quote:Whan that the Knyght had thus his tale ytoold, quote:Hwæt! Wē Gār‐Dena in geār‐dagum But you don't even need to go that far back in time to have changes in meaning. Words can change their meaning because of slang (e.g. "gay"), their meaning can be weakened (e.g. "awesome") or strengthened, etc. The references in some set expressions can be forgotten or otherwise twisted. The linguistic context goes far beyond just learning the language. The belief that people who native language is English or Chinese or whatever else would get a better understanding of the Koran from reading it in the original with Berlioz's help than from reading a translated and annotated version is sorely misplaced.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:10
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Orthodox Judaism requires three daily prayers. Of men, at least.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:10
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Cat Mattress posted:I'm not talking specifically about Americans, but sure, let's use them as an example. If Americans are scared of Muslims, they're scared of Muslims. Islam is a different thing. Muslims are people, Islam is a religious ideology. Pretty different things, and they have pretty different words to designate them, even! Maybe Americans are scared of Muslims, ethnic groups other than WASP, and Islam. Obviously when you have these three fears together, the one that is the worst, the most unforgivable is the fear of Islam! there are two really dumb things i want to point out here but don't want to argue because i dont see the point in arguing with you specifically -you seem to think that fear of people who practice islam and fear of islam as a theological construct are distinct enough concepts to require precise language, which is pedantically correct-but-incorrect like 'guns dont kill people' -you seem to think that it's some kind of politically correct sin to criticize islam, which makes me think that you're specifically triggered about being called an islamophobe in the past. not trying to be antagonistic here but from your word choice it seems obvious that you're not actually interested in much outside of justifying your opinions to others which is tedious boner confessor fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 02:18
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1. I tend not to view Muslims as being necessarily "people who practice Islam". In the same way there are plenty of atheist, agnostic and non-practicing Jews or Christians, there are also atheist, agnostic, and non-practicing Muslims. It's not because your parents called you Muhammad or Fatima and that you've heard verses from the Koran during all your childhood that you will have that faith; but you'll still be culturally a Muslim. 2. I have never seen a good reason to use "Islamophobia" instead of "racism", except perhaps when playing Scrabbles.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:38
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Cat Mattress posted:1. I tend not to view Muslims as being necessarily "people who practice Islam". this is a mistake because, by definition, a muslim is someone who practices islam Cat Mattress posted:2. I have never seen a good reason to use "Islamophobia" instead of "racism", except perhaps when playing Scrabbles. islamophobia means fear of muslims. racism is a belief system based on the fundamental inequity between races, however those are defined
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Dec 2, 2015 02:44
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Cat Mattress posted:1. I tend not to view Muslims as being necessarily "people who practice Islam". In the same way there are plenty of atheist, agnostic and non-practicing Jews or Christians, there are also atheist, agnostic, and non-practicing Muslims. Muslim and Islam are the same word in different tenses. Think how suis and être are pretty different on first glance.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:50
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Cat Mattress posted:1. I tend not to view Muslims as being necessarily "people who practice Islam". In the same way there are plenty of atheist, agnostic and non-practicing Jews or Christians, there are also atheist, agnostic, and non-practicing Muslims. It's not because your parents called you Muhammad or Fatima and that you've heard verses from the Koran during all your childhood that you will have that faith; but you'll still be culturally a Muslim. So it's he Islamic faith that deserve scrutiny, also any culture that's been touched by Islam beyond a certain level? How Islamic does someone's background have to be for them to become stealth Muslims?
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Dec 2, 2015 02:57
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Pussy Cartel posted:So it's he Islamic faith that deserve scrutiny, also any culture that's been touched by Islam beyond a certain level? How Islamic does someone's background have to be for them to become stealth Muslims? That whoosh you haven't heard was the sound of the point flying so far above your head.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:07
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Cat Mattress posted:That whoosh you haven't heard was the sound of the point flying so far above your head. I don't think you quite realize that the Islamophobes you believe don't exist at all do in fact frequently believe that being 'culturally Muslim' is enough to make someone incompatible with Western values. Even atheists will proudly proclaim themselves as being 'culturally Christian' as a counterpoint to the savage hordes at the gates (e.g., Dawkins).
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Dec 2, 2015 03:10
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INH5 posted:Do you also have a problem with the children of immigrants from Latin America learning and speaking in Spanish? Oh not at all, I think the greatest thing about America is that no matter the language Americans are pretty much all the same. Not to mention that I am trying to learn another language as well right now. My post was not intended to imply that these were my views, just why I think it's harder for mainstream American people used to Americam Protestantism to accept Islam. quote:If you think that American Christians never engage in ostentatious public displays of their religion, you need to get out more. And they don't even have the excuse of it being a requirement of the faith. Oh absolutely, it's quite amazing that self-described biblical literalists always seem to skip over the red words.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:17
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Pussy Cartel posted:I don't think you quite realize that the Islamophobes you believe don't exist at all do in fact frequently believe that being 'culturally Muslim' is enough to make someone incompatible with Western values. Even atheists will proudly proclaim themselves as being 'culturally Christian' as a counterpoint to the savage hordes at the gates (e.g., Dawkins). And? That's pretty much my point. If they are also afraid of someone who is culturally Muslim (but who is actually atheist, or even why not a convert to Christianity) then it's obvious the real issue isn't a supposed fear of Islam, but plain old racism.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:19
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Cat Mattress posted:And? That's pretty much my point. If they are also afraid of someone who is culturally Muslim (but who is actually atheist, or even why not a convert to Christianity) then it's obvious the real issue isn't a supposed fear of Islam, but plain old racism. they are also afraid of muslims it is possible for someone to be afraid of one, two, heck, even three things at a time different forms of bigotry don't cancel each other out bro
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Dec 2, 2015 03:29
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blowfish posted:I can believe someone like Harris or Dawkins is honestly criticising Islam's religious institutions but given that people are dumb many followers will just treat muslim and brown as interchangeable. The problem with Dawkins and Harris' criticism of Islam is that they not only take the text as the sole factor in radicalism and ignore material considerations, they also belligerently declaim any consideration of material conditions as apologism.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:42
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Cat Mattress posted:That's the whole point behind the term Islamophobia. It achieves two objectives: This sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would say.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:50
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Popular Thug Drink posted:doesn't mind mild pedophilia lol, people keep dragging this up again and again, and fail to make the distinction between "not as bad as" and "good" in their white and black worldviews e: His statement translated to goonspeak boils down to "Getting butt raped so hard your rear end in a top hat ruptures is worse than just getting butt raped, which in turn is worse than having your crotch fondled. All of these things are bad but some are worse." Tezzor posted:The problem with Dawkins and Harris' criticism of Islam is that they not only take the text as the sole factor in radicalism and ignore material considerations, they also belligerently declaim any consideration of material conditions as apologism. This actually makes perfect sense if you consider the distribution of personal faiths among people of a religion to be statistical noise around the true parameter value of whatever that religion is. In the case of Islam it's particularly easy to do this because the koran is supposed to be the literal word of god and not an interpretation like say the different gospels of the bible. Therefore, any variation in personal faith beyond interpreting all the literal words of god and their order of precedence such as picking only the nice bits of scripture means you're an atheist or agnostic in denial, which given that religion is untrue is not that big of a deal. Material considerations don't matter for this argument because it's descriptive rather than prescriptive and is mainly suitable to showing that religion is a human construct rather than the truthTM about the world. The main mistake that Dawkins makes is forgetting this distinction when it comes to the real world where people are dumb and irrational about things and often believe in them because of their social context rather than because they sat down at their desk with a pen and paper and a cup of tea to do some philosophy. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 13:38
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Cat Mattress posted:And? That's pretty much my point. If they are also afraid of someone who is culturally Muslim (but who is actually atheist, or even why not a convert to Christianity) then it's obvious the real issue isn't a supposed fear of Islam, but plain old racism. I guess this would be a reasonable position if numerous prominent members of one of America's two major political parties and one of it's largest news organizations were not constantly declaring that the nation is at war with "radical Islam" and that the President is betraying the nation by not saying so.
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Dec 2, 2015 16:02
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That's just dog-whistling. Should we call racism against black customers in restaurants "Canadianophobia"?
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Dec 2, 2015 16:33
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rememeber when dawkins said you should be wary of trusting a rape victim who had been drinking makes you think Edit: sorry for insulting your hero Blowjob Marijuana Nihilist fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 16:55
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Helsing posted:I guess this would be a reasonable position if numerous prominent members of one of America's two major political parties and one of it's largest news organizations were not constantly declaring that the nation is at war with "radical Islam" and that the President is betraying the nation by not saying so. What's wrong with saying that we're at war with radical Islam? That's more or less true, even if "radical Islam" is a troublingly imprecise term. It's also true that the largest threat that radical Islam poses is towards Muslims, and "radical Islam" is a very small segment of total Islamic practice. Marijuana Nihilist posted:rememeber when dawkins said you should be wary of trusting a rape victim who had been drinking The fact that Dawkins has said some stupid things does not invalidate the totality of all things he's said.
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Dec 2, 2015 17:44
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PT6A posted:The fact that Dawkins has said some stupid things does not invalidate the totality of all things he's said. It certainly gives one reason to question anything else they say. For instance Maher's guest the other week, the Indian born Muslim woman who earlier had said that all Muslims should be more than willing to subject themselves to increased surveillance by law enforcement, to include stop and frisk. She then cited the NYPD over its effectiveness. I'm sure that factored into the invitation.
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Dec 2, 2015 17:53
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blowfish posted:lol, people keep dragging this up again and again, and fail to make the distinction between "not as bad as" and "good" in their white and black worldviews most rational thinkers i know of dont find themselves splitting hairs over the relative degrees of sexual assault on children on twitter PT6A posted:The fact that Dawkins has said some stupid things does not invalidate the totality of all things he's said. it also means he shouldn't be cited as some kind of overwhelming authority given that he has a track record of saying intensely stupid poo poo it turns out he's just a flawed illogical human like the rest of us, and as such can be wrong about many things, such as his irrational fear of the muslim cultural invasion of britain this means you can't just accept his arguments as "oh he's a smart philosopher man he must have considered the angles" when he says things like he's visually repulsed when he sees muslim women wearing garbage bags. he's just a bigot and his irrational arguments should be dismissed on those grounds alone boner confessor fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 18:08
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I liked Dawkins when he wrote evolution books that had graphics from simulations he did on an old Apple IIc computer.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:21
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PT6A posted:What's wrong with saying that we're at war with radical Islam? That's more or less true, even if "radical Islam" is a troublingly imprecise term. It's also true that the largest threat that radical Islam poses is towards Muslims, and "radical Islam" is a very small segment of total Islamic practice. If you're at war with anything, it's not a religion. You can't declare war to a religion, or it's a holy war. You can declare war on a country, or if you stretch the meaning of the word, with an organization or a group of people. Thus you are at war with Daesh, a war against (Sunni) Salafist Jihadist terrorists.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:42
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blowfish posted:This actually makes perfect sense if you consider the distribution of personal faiths among people of a religion to be statistical noise around the true parameter value of whatever that religion is. In the case of Islam it's particularly easy to do this because the koran is supposed to be the literal word of god and not an interpretation like say the different gospels of the bible. Therefore, any variation in personal faith beyond interpreting all the literal words of god and their order of precedence such as picking only the nice bits of scripture means you're an atheist or agnostic in denial, which given that religion is untrue is not that big of a deal. Material considerations don't matter for this argument because it's descriptive rather than prescriptive and is mainly suitable to showing that religion is a human construct rather than the truthTM about the world. The main mistake that Dawkins makes is forgetting this distinction when it comes to the real world where people are dumb and irrational about things and often believe in them because of their social context rather than because they sat down at their desk with a pen and paper and a cup of tea to do some philosophy. Right. I think probably the biggest mistake of the New Atheist crowd was forgetting that while the question of whether a religion is true can be debated philosophically, the question of why people do the things that they do in the real world is an empirical question. This means that you can't just point at a problem in the world and make up a just-so story for how it is caused by a religion if you want to be at all scientific about it. For example, it is easy to look at US Evangelicals pushing schools to teach abstinence-only sex education and conclude that this wouldn't be an issue if Christianity didn't exist. It is considerably harder to say that after you take a look elsewhere and find out that China, one of the least religious countries in the world, has pretty much the exact same problem.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:55
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Cat Mattress posted:That's just dog-whistling. Should we call racism against black customers in restaurants "Canadianophobia"? The point of labeling something Islamophobia is to highlight the particular set of interests and relationships that are implicated in spreading this particular form of racist dog whistling. I can almost imagine that if somebody asked you to pass them a Philips head screwdriver you might respond by saying "Why are you calling it a Philips head? What difference does it make? They're all screw drivers!"
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Dec 2, 2015 21:39
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There are different kinds of screw drives and they need appropriate screwdrivers because you can't use a torx driver in a cruciform head or whatever. For the analogy to hold, you need to demonstrate that similarly, you can't call someone who hates Arabs cannot be called the same thing as someone who hates Chinese people; that it just wouldn't work. This also assumes that none of them hate both Arabs and Chinese people simultaneously (as well as Africans, Latinos, Roms, and Jews).
Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 22:05
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The pattern I am seeing here is people expressing distrust of Islam but having a very limited understanding of it and using this to rationalize a hatred of people who "look Muslim" (i.e. Arab/South Asian, or having types of dress associated with North African/South Asian regions). It seems like a coherent enough pattern of bigotry to be eligible for an individual moniker, and "Islamophobia" is good enough. Much like it is pointless to reject "antisemitism" as a moniker due to it not referring to a hatred of all semitic people, I don't think it's useful to reject "Islamophobia" just because there are legitimate grounds for criticizing Islam as a faith.
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Dec 2, 2015 22:17
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PT6A posted:What's wrong with saying that we're at war with radical Islam? That's more or less true, even if "radical Islam" is a troublingly imprecise term. It's also true that the largest threat that radical Islam poses is towards Muslims, and "radical Islam" is a very small segment of total Islamic practice. Absurd Alhazred posted:The pattern I am seeing here is people expressing distrust of Islam but having a very limited understanding of it and using this to rationalize a hatred of people who "look Muslim" (i.e. Arab/South Asian, or having types of dress associated with North African/South Asian regions). It seems like a coherent enough pattern of bigotry to be eligible for an individual moniker, and "Islamophobia" is good enough.
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Dec 3, 2015 00:27
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I think we should isolate Saudi Arabia from the rest of the world too, until they stop being less hosed in the head. It's abhorrent that the western world continues to regard them as a friend or partner in any way. We don't need to be at war with them yet, mind you, because we haven't even tried "not indulging their bullshit" first.
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Dec 3, 2015 01:04
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"France likely to close more than 100 mosques" http://aje.io/zqas quote:"According to official figures and our discussions with the interior ministry, between 100 and 160 more mosques will be closed because they are run illegally without proper licenses, they preach hatred, or use takfiri speech," he said.
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Dec 3, 2015 01:38
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Good.
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Dec 3, 2015 01:50
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Honj Steak posted:"France likely to close more than 100 mosques"
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Dec 3, 2015 02:14
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Cat Mattress posted:Good. You come across the same as someone desperate to distinguish between Ephebophilia and Pedophilia. The pedantry over the utility of the term Islamophobia is especially pointless given that as you already said: "Words can change their meaning."
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Dec 3, 2015 02:49
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To me, secularism means being neutral with respect to religion. People should have the freedom to decide for themselves what house gives them comfort provided that that house doesn't violate the rights of others.
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Dec 3, 2015 03:02
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