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The only thing that can keep Abrahamic religions in check is a strong secular state apparatus to keep the theocrats muzzled. It's hard enough to do without poorly drawn colonial borders, ethnic strife, and dumbass imperial entanglements so faulting the Arabs for their poo poo religious situation is pretty unfair. Even here if you let evangelicals simmer long enough with their stupid ideas they go and ruin things. The difference between Islam and Christianity is that Christian extremists are currently exporting their Iron Age idiocy to places no one cares about like Africa instead of land that has oil under it.
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Dec 15, 2015 00:03
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khwarezm posted:I'm not saying that all Muslims should be lumped together on the issue, but its a pretty low standard to set that Homosexual activity simply be legal. Yeah, I mean large parts of the West has had it for an amazing 13 years!
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Dec 15, 2015 00:08
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computer parts posted:Yeah, I mean large parts of the West has had it for an amazing 13 years! True, the retreat of political religion in the west has been pretty great.
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Dec 15, 2015 00:13
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khwarezm posted:True, the retreat of political religion in the west has been pretty great. The retreat, such as European nations only wanting to take in Christian refugees from Syria.
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Dec 15, 2015 00:21
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Tei posted:The most positive part is that most people think is unamerican. It's more depressing than positive IMO. People basically think it goes against all American values but want to do it anyways.  Mulva posted:It's loving hilarious that the Islamic world has a reputation for homophobia. Me and my husband will get funny looks holding hands in many major cities in America, but in Saudi Arabia of all places no one bats an eye; it's literally one of the gayest places on earth. I don't think it's so much guys being gay there as it is part of the culture for men who are friends with each other to hold hands or hug. It's the same deal in India. Definitely weird as a westerner to see, but it's just what's considered normal there. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 00:33
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:It's more depressing than positive IMO. People basically think it goes against all American values but want to do it anyways. Values and some empathy can go a long road. Values or empathy alone can be manipulated, but together make a good team, I think. People will return to he senses in a few weeks. I think.
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Dec 15, 2015 00:51
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computer parts posted:The retreat, such as European nations only wanting to take in Christian refugees from Syria. Nice segue, but if you really think things are worse these days maybe we could travel back to 1950 and see if anywhere in Europe wouldn't have sooner wiped out any Muslim refugees than let them in? Besides Poland and Slovakia don't speak for the whole continent, Germany expects to receive a million people this year and Sweden almost 200,000 without much regard for their religion, if the Christian nature of those countries were still so important none would get in. Considering that most people moaning about refugees do so because they fear it will remove the Christian elements of the continent it doesn't really undermine my point anyway.
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Dec 15, 2015 00:52
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VitalSigns posted:Well sure, if your actual problem is homophobia and your critique is intended to advocate reform of the teachings of some Islamic sects and the legal systems of some Islamic countries that's not a problem, but some people use that criticism as an excuse for bigotry. Do I mind if I paraphrase this and quote it elsewhere?
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Dec 15, 2015 00:59
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khwarezm posted:Nice segue, but if you really think things are worse these days maybe we could travel back to 1950 and see if anywhere in Europe wouldn't have sooner wiped out any Muslim refugees than let them in? If they were fleeing Communists, they probably would've let them in.
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Dec 15, 2015 01:00
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GyroNinja posted:I'm the >5% of Republicans who think that banning Muslims goes against everything our country stands for, but want to do it anyway. Why?
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Dec 15, 2015 01:00
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computer parts posted:If they were fleeing Communists, they probably would've let them in. It's a shame Putin is undoing Lenin's work on the Orthodox church.
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Dec 15, 2015 01:05
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Nah, I was just pointing out how 51% of Republicans think that such a ban is unamerican, but 54% support it, which mathematically means there must be some overlap there. It may just be the lizardman quotient, though.
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Dec 15, 2015 01:32
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PT6A posted:The theory of evolution does not tell people who believe in it how to behave, so your comparison makes absolutely no sense. Plenty of people's understanding of the theory of evolution was that it does, in fact, tell you how to behave. Maybe your understanding of evolution is different, but you've already said that one person's understanding is enough to condemn the whole thing, even if it was an incorrect understanding.
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Dec 15, 2015 01:45
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Main Paineframe posted:Plenty of people's understanding of the theory of evolution was that it does, in fact, tell you how to behave. Maybe your understanding of evolution is different, but you've already said that one person's understanding is enough to condemn the whole thing, even if it was an incorrect understanding. Religion tells you what you should and shouldn't do. A description of how a certain part of nature works does not make any claims as to how you should behave as a result, although of course people are free to use that as a basis while deciding for themselves how to act. I agree that we have a responsibility to address the evils of social Darwinism, even if it has no basis in the theory of evolution itself. The difference is that sexism and homophobic attitudes are pretty clearly expressed in the Quran, as they are in the Torah and the New Testament as well. You have to do some absolutely superb mental gymnastics to deny that. That doesn't mean that individual Muslims, Christians and Jews cannot form their own opinion on the subject, just that when those attitudes are contained in the founding document of your religion, perhaps it's valid to criticize that specific element. Again, any self-identified Muslim, Christian or Jew who accepts homosexuality is implicitly criticizing those elements of their own religion. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! I don't know why you seem so dead-set on insisting that various religions don't have extremely lovely parts to them, considering either their scriptural foundations or their common practice in various regions of the world. What the gently caress do you have to gain by defending the idea that Islam is permanently blameless for everything ever? No philosophy is ever perfect or free from criticism; why should Islam or any other religion be different?
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Dec 15, 2015 01:53
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Main Paineframe posted:Plenty of people's understanding of the theory of evolution was that it does, in fact, tell you how to behave. Maybe your understanding of evolution is different, but you've already said that one person's understanding is enough to condemn the whole thing, even if it was an incorrect understanding. Hahaha holy poo poo. Let's all consult the imam of evolution. Maybe the bishop of plate tectonics needs to be consulted too. Perhaps the bodhisattva of heliocentrism has something constructive to add as well!
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Dec 15, 2015 02:01
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Eugenics was super popular in the early 20th century though
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Dec 15, 2015 02:17
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:I don't think it's so much guys being gay there as it is part of the culture for men who are friends with each other to hold hands or hug. It's the same deal in India. Definitely weird as a westerner to see, but it's just what's considered normal there. Actually in the case of Saudi Arabia a bunch of guys are gay there, in significant part because the draconian sex segregation makes it almost impossible for single men to meet women.
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Dec 15, 2015 02:17
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Main Paineframe posted:Plenty of people's understanding of the theory of evolution was that it does, in fact, tell you how to behave. Well, yeah. Evolution says we have to be altruistic, so I think it's as good a moral guide as any religion.
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Dec 15, 2015 02:17
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Cat Mattress posted:Well, yeah. Evolution says we have to be altruistic, so I think it's as good a moral guide as any religion. The theory of evolution is not prescriptive, nor is any other theory. By claiming it is, you're helping Main Paineframe make his idiotic point.
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Dec 15, 2015 02:25
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khwarezm posted:True, the retreat of political religion in the west has been pretty great. These are arguments against theocracy, which are true, theocracy is bad no doubt about that. If you want to criticize certain sects or traditions in Islam that teach theocracy, that's a reasonable argument too. What wouldn't be reasonable is claiming theocracy is some problem inherent to Islam because that's just false historically (or at least it's no more of a problem in Islam than many other religions). Criticizing the repressive practices of some Muslim majority states without sounding like a bigot is fairly easy, as you're demonstrating here. And keep your standards consistent. At the very least, if you're going to criticize Muslims for having religiously influenced discriminatory laws as if that's some unique super-Islamic thing, pick something that large parts of the US didn't also criminalize for religious reasons only 12 years ago (and which still has majority support in the populations of those states, frustrated only because two anomalous presidential elections with a spoiler candidate resulted in a supreme court that was just barely willing to overturn its previous 1980s "gently caress the gays" decision in Bowers)
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Dec 15, 2015 02:43
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Cat Mattress posted:Well, yeah. Evolution says we have to be altruistic, so I think it's as good a moral guide as any religion. Evolution also "says" that if you're in a group with altruists you should abuse the hell out of their generosity and take 'em for all they're worth. Not very instructive, imo.
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Dec 15, 2015 07:36
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Squalid posted:Evolution also "says" that if you're in a group with altruists you should abuse the hell out of their generosity and take 'em for all they're worth. Not very instructive, imo. There's some animals that only have response altruism; they wait until they see the other individual acting altruistically before they act altruistically towards them. It's pretty good at keeping cheaters at bay actually, though in some groups the cheaters form mutual altruism alliances where they're altruistic towards each other but not towards the 'suckers' and it's mostly fake altruism towards each other anyway. To conclude, Islam is just another religion like all other religions and can be radicalized or liberalized or ignored. Religions is just another part of culture, treating it as though it's some supernatural thing is silly.
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Dec 15, 2015 12:21
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Obdicut posted:There's some animals that only have response altruism; they wait until they see the other individual acting altruistically before they act altruistically towards them. It's pretty good at keeping cheaters at bay actually, though in some groups the cheaters form mutual altruism alliances where they're altruistic towards each other but not towards the 'suckers' and it's mostly fake altruism towards each other anyway. In human society, these cheaters are called "the 1%".
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Dec 15, 2015 12:55
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Dec 15, 2015 14:00
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but when did Trump say anything about exiling, what I assume to be, American citizens because of their religion? I can make up with a hundred heartbreaking stories about children misinterpreting the news just to tug on your heartstrings. Furthermore, what obligation does the United States have to accept any and all people wishing to immigrate? Because of an inscription on a statue? Do we have to remain beholden to the values of an era gone by when it may not be practical to operate under those same principles?
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Dec 15, 2015 14:11
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PT6A posted:Religion tells you what you should and shouldn't do. A description of how a certain part of nature works does not make any claims as to how you should behave as a result, although of course people are free to use that as a basis while deciding for themselves how to act. Oh, so that's your understanding of those things? Great, good for you! I have a different understanding of those things, though. And since you said that a concept can be criticized based on people's understanding of that concept, even if it's a flawed and incorrect understanding that most people don't share, the theory of evolution is horrible and evil because a bunch of people took it as guidance to do horrible things 80 years ago, even though you and most people totally disagree with their understandings! Wow! As it turns out, it's ncredibly easy to criticize anything on the basis of "someone once understood it to mean something bad, or did something bad because of their understanding of it, regardless of the correctness of that understanding", and nearly impossible to counter said criticism without abandoning that principle or declaring that it doesn't count for anything besides the thing you want to criticize! Main Paineframe fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 14:14
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File that under STDH
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Dec 15, 2015 14:31
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Shoren posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but when did Trump say anything about exiling, what I assume to be, American citizens because of their religion? I can make up with a hundred heartbreaking stories about children misinterpreting the news just to tug on your heartstrings. When he made the "we should stop letting Muslims in" comments he was asked whether that applied to US citizens currently abroad. He said it did.
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Dec 15, 2015 14:35
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Shoren posted:Do we have to remain beholden to the values of an era gone by when it may not be practical to operate under those same principles? Sadly, yes. 
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Dec 15, 2015 14:46
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SedanChair posted:Context is what should keep you from it. I would love to criticize Saudi Arabia's restrictions on women, but that's tactically and ethically inappropriate right now because it will just be lumped in with all the bigoted rhetoric. And that's unfortunate. Like I said, it probably won't change many minds. But I think we should at least attempt to get Islamophobes to understand what they're saying when they talk about why Muslim immigrants should "go back to where they came from." Those immigrants, in many cases, have no place to go back to. It would hopefully encourage some empathy for the refugees, because it also empathizes with the nativists' fear of Islamic terrorism, which is not entirely crazy; though it mostly is. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 14:54
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GyroNinja posted:I'm the >5% of Republicans who think that banning Muslims goes against everything our country stands for, but want to do it anyway. You are the 5%? Theres a copypasta (I don't know if is a new one) called "The 5%". quote:[deleted] Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3wtijy/this_is_islam_at_5_what_does_this_mean_and_where/ Edit Actually, If you want to read it, go to the link provided. I have deleted it because it was too long. Tei fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 15:19
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MUSLIM CRITICAL MASSquote:Of course, that's not the case. To satisfy their blood lust, Muslims then start killing each other for a variety of reasons.  Well that's certainly, uh, something.
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Dec 15, 2015 15:23
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Shoren posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but when did Trump say anything about exiling, what I assume to be, American citizens because of their religion? I can make up with a hundred heartbreaking stories about children misinterpreting the news just to tug on your heartstrings. People have been saying the US is full since long before that statue was built. It's bullshit. Trump is pandering to nativitist racism. It's riling up his supporters to feel confident and bold into being overt racists even though trump is not going to win. Mandy Thompson fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 16:40
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Main Paineframe posted:Oh, so that's your understanding of those things? Great, good for you! I have a different understanding of those things, though. And since you said that a concept can be criticized based on people's understanding of that concept, even if it's a flawed and incorrect understanding that most people don't share, the theory of evolution is horrible and evil because a bunch of people took it as guidance to do horrible things 80 years ago, even though you and most people totally disagree with their understandings! Wow! As it turns out, it's ncredibly easy to criticize anything on the basis of "someone once understood it to mean something bad, or did something bad because of their understanding of it, regardless of the correctness of that understanding", and nearly impossible to counter said criticism without abandoning that principle or declaring that it doesn't count for anything besides the thing you want to criticize! You seem to be missing the point: evolution does not tell anyone to do anything. No theory does. Yes, it's flawed inasmuch as the conclusions some people drew from it were awful. When theories are flawed, we change them and fix them. That flaw does not make evolution bad or wrong, no more than Islam's own flaws make Islam itself bad or wrong. You still haven't answered: why is it so important to you that Islam be absolutely flawless? That's a standard that literally nothing, ever, can satisfy because everything is flawed in some way. Nothing is perfect. Why should anyone feel bad because any specific thing is not perfect?
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Dec 15, 2015 17:07
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PT6A posted:You seem to be missing the point: evolution does not tell anyone to do anything. No theory does. Yes, it's flawed inasmuch as the conclusions some people drew from it were awful. When theories are flawed, we change them and fix them. That flaw does not make evolution bad or wrong, no more than Islam's own flaws make Islam itself bad or wrong. Islam doesn't have any flaws, because there is no such thing as "islam". ANy flaw you can point to will be present in some forms of Islam but not others. quote:You still haven't answered: why is it so important to you that Islam be absolutely flawless? That's a standard that literally nothing, ever, can satisfy because everything is flawed in some way. Nothing is perfect. Why should anyone feel bad because any specific thing is not perfect? Nobody is saying Islam is flawless, I don't get how you can come to this idea.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:11
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Islam is far from perfect. Even Muslims recognize this. The kind of mealy-mouthed "Well Islam is bad because of x" claims are frankly ridiculous since they lack even the most cursory knowledge of any single aspect of Islam and don't really posit any sort of interesting or meaningful criticism because they're usually so vague as to be almost completely worthless. Kind of like how people constantly demand that "Muslim leaders" constantly defend their faith, which is pretty ignorant of Islam as a whole since Islam, strictly speaking, does not have a hierarchy of power - there is no universally recognized leader of the faith. There is no real scholar of Islam that is more recognized as "knowledgeable" as any else, and individual Muslims, when looking for guidance, are usually told that it's a very specific interpretation and that others may interpret it differently. There's no Islamic Pope with complete infallible that can make pronouncements on aspects of the faith from on high and universally condemn/praise a practice.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:16
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Obdicut posted:Islam doesn't have any flaws, because there is no such thing as "islam". ANy flaw you can point to will be present in some forms of Islam but not others. Of course! It should go without saying that I'm only criticizing the flaws if and when they are actually present. I'm not blaming LGBT-friendly Muslims for being homophobic. I'm not blaming Muslim feminists for being sexist. These things should go without saying. I think it's still fair to say, based on prevailing attitudes in Islamic jurisprudence and in many explicitly Muslim and/or Muslim-majority countries around the world, as well as the Quran and Hadith, Islam has a very nasty history of sexism and homophobia, a trait which it shares with Christianity and Judaism, both of which have been just as bad or worse on those accounts. EDIT: And again, I'm not saying that means that Islam is bad. Just that it has some very flawed elements, born largely of the sociopolitical context of 1500 years ago. I don't know why people are working so diligently to twist this into some kind of Islamophobia on my part. PT6A fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 17:17
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Omi-Polari posted:People who hate Muslim immigrants will probably do so anyways, but it is made worse by their ignorance of why Muslims (from the Middle East) come to the United States and Europe. One reason is that those countries are intolerant, regressive places with few opportunities to go anywhere in life. Or they're in the midst of sectarian-religious civil war. I don't see what good comes from denying this. I'm always happy to point out the war and repression that refugees are fleeing from. That's what I'll talk about, not the Saudi religious police or driving laws.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:18
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SedanChair posted:I'm always happy to point out the war and repression that refugees are fleeing from. That's what I'll talk about, not the Saudi religious police or driving laws. If the establishment parties in the Western world don't dare mention these facts, you'll get a Donald Trump or Le Pen who will and they'll do it through alarmist messages.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:26
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Mandy Thompson posted:Trump is pandering to nativitist racism. It's riling up his supporters to feel confident and bold into being overt racists even though trump is not going to win. This is what concerns me. When Obama won, they rushed to the gun stores and caused an ammuntion shortage. They hate Hillary Clinton even more, if that's possible. What sort of crazy poo poo will they pull then?
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Dec 15, 2015 17:59
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