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Islam - What's your view on it?
- Thread starter SalmanBH
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I would imagine the odds are probably greater since Christian's are allowed to drink alcohol.
zzz_pt
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You'll find people in some places who'll whip your ass if you show up wearing the wrong football jersey, even.
But how about the less "In your face", act of publicizing a book or a cartoon? Will you still deflect and find some way of pointing the finger to christians? You know better than that.
I have a friend who's gay and when he went to Thailand a few years back, he and his boyfriend needed to stop in Dubai for a day. I remember talking with him about it and he was quite worried about going out to the streets there. Because, you know, it's illegal to be gay over there and we're talking about the "las vegas" of the middle east, where you can end up in prison and/or deported for being gay.
There are 13 countries on earth where the penalty for being an atheist is death. All of them are majority muslim countries.
Let's not muddy the waters please.
SestoScudo
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Regardless of what the motive was but Isis and Al qaeda have constantly told their followers or supporters to go and kill or kidnap foreign tourists especially western ones.
It is said these terrorist groups are mainly targeting tourists to hit certain countries tourist industry. The pkk has also been doing this with various terrorist attacks to hit Turkey's tourism.
If tourists are not coming the money starts to dry especially for Morocco a country which relies on tourism.
What has happened was an atrocity not only these scumbags killed a human being they killed two defenceless tourists especially women no wonder the country was outraged where people want the perpatrators getting executed. In 2008 an Italian women was raped in Turkey this also led to outrage even the President calling the Italian president to express his grief even a newspaper article wrote we are ashamed.
As tourists too they need to take care especially travelling in remote areas. Tourists especially in poor countries will always be targeted for kidnappings, ransom, trafficking, robberys and many more.
- 13,907
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Muddy the waters by pointing out that when it comes to irrational religiosity Muslims aren't exactly an outlier?
UKMikey
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So if the one in five (and I'm not sure which studies directly indicated this) is a combined percentage then why are Jihadists and Islamists lumped together? Is someone trying to make the problem seem more serious than it actually is? If not, then why not provide separate percentages if the two groups aren't an equivalent threat?
Presumably these are Muslims who are getting outraged at these atrocities and Muslims who are arresting the suspects and investigating the crimes. That's why I find it hard to buy the no-true-Scotsman logic of the only good Muslims being bad Muslims.
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Yup, makes one wonder why they thought that it's safe to go backpacking in such a country ...
Nah, as long as you hold muslims to the same universal liberal standards as you expect from the majority, you are safe from the term.
UKMikey
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No, I'd like proof (or at least a verified counterexample indicating) that the articles were wrong and regressive leftism isn't some meaningless label hurled at the left in general, as reported in the article and video.you want proof that you are not a regressive leftist or you are doubting yourself?
Wikipedia article linked above
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- 13,907
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The reality is that nowhere is safe, and if you look at the statistics involved going backpacking in Morocco is not particularly dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Morocco
10.3 million visitors in 2017 it says. So if your chance of getting randomly murdered by ISIS is 2 in 10 million, that's basically negligible. I've got a greater chance of dying falling down a staircase. In 2015, 18 people died in Australia falling down stairs from a population of ~25 million.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/n...a/news-story/a8a3ffb30d802f0e49759bf128aa12de
I don't think that it suddenly becomes reasonable to be questioning why anyone would be using a staircase just because some tiny fraction of people died in that circumstance. Random deaths while abroad do make an enticing news story though, and most people are poorly equipped to see through the hype to the actual statistical risk presented.
All that said, there are travel cautions on Morocco for a reason. But I think that's reason for caution, not reason to avoid any and all risk whatsoever. If people choose to go backpacking even though there are cautions, that's totally justifiable if they do so in an informed manner. IMO, anything that is less dangerous than driving a car (which people do every day without second thought) shouldn't even make it into discussion.
Life's a lottery, be lucky.
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Anything is open to misinterpretation, but the concept is quite clear, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_left#Concept
Of course, question is if they were aware of the risks involved ...
- 13,907
- Adelaide
- Neomone
Why? It doesn't change the fact that the actual risk involved in what they were doing was incredibly low. Splitting hairs over whether they made their decisions well or not doesn't affect that going backpacking in Morocco is not a particularly risky choice.
You questioned why they might have thought that going backpacking in Morocco was safe. I told you. Your implication that going backpacking in Morocco was stupid was wrong. Give it up.
- 1,320
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Even though the risks (not only killing by ISIS) are low, they are still present as in any poor country. It's not safe and comparison to a staircase accidents is wrong because staircase doesn't have free will.
I thought that you are worried about someone labeling you as regressive leftist, if it is about that 20% figure of "jihadists and Islamists" I have no idea how he came up with that.
SestoScudo
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Australian government has a smart traveller website which tell how safe various countries are and which countries should not be visited.
Syria, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali, Niger and Libya are basically no go zones.
It is a useful website especially for Australians travelling and take the needed precautions.
I feel travellers also need to take responsibility and not put themselves in awful situations.
Syria, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali, Niger and Libya are basically no go zones.
It is a useful website especially for Australians travelling and take the needed precautions.
I feel travellers also need to take responsibility and not put themselves in awful situations.
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It's nothing to do with free will. It's accurate assessment of risk. The risks do not change depending on whether the risk has free will or not. Your chances of being killed by ISIS in Morocco as a tourist are less than of an Australian dying to a staircase.
If you can't grasp that a 2 in 10 million chance of fatality is staggeringly below risks that you probably take on a daily basis without even categorising them as risky activities, then you're really going to struggle with this concept. Maybe you're bad at maths, maybe you're bad at logic, or maybe like many people you don't like it when reasoned logic is in conflict with your emotional reaction to a situation. We get it. People being killed is bad. Two people in 10 million people dying is sad for those specific people, but not really a threat that the other 9,999,998 should really be concerned about at all.
Realistically, the threats that things like Smart Traveller most warn against are places where there's little to no functioning civil order and war zones. There's a lot of countries in Africa that are functionally in anarchy or which are actual war zones. Even countries that are not are at heightened states of alert, and therefore accidents can happen if a tourist were to accidentally to walk into, say, a militarily restricted area.
See how close Morocco is to that big red zone? That's no go territory. Anyone who travels into that of their own free will is taking their chances. Morocco has a pretty good buffer, but Smart Traveller puts warnings because they know that conflicts can spread very quickly. If you're in Morocco as a traveller, you should be monitoring the news and be prepared to leave on relatively short notice if necessary.
You know which countries in Europe have the same warning level as Morocco at the moment? France and Belgium.
Would you be scared to travel to France at the moment? Would you belittle anyone who chose to take that risk?
UKMikey
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By reading the book, presumably.
200,000-odd British expats can't all be wrong... unless they're part of the reason? Good thing there are only 1.3 million of us in Australia, then.
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zzz_pt
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Yes, because I never said 1) "muslims" (I said extremists) and 2 ) they're the only ones. That's a strawman.
My claim is they (muslim radicals / jihadists / extremists) demonstrate the worse type of irrational religiosity at the moment with the largest number of victims. Feel free to deflect and strawman again.
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by he I meant author of the book.
From the beginning, I'm talking about risks that involve humans and intentional actions, as @SestoScudo put it "kidnappings, ransom, trafficking, robberys and many more" ... yeah of course I can fall from the stairs in any country, that is not relevant.
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Firstly, thank you for that. Here is the interesting part from what I know (and I have attempted to point this out a number of times on this thread I believe, but as with all debate sometimes points need to be remade as they get lost). And again, I will point out I am no perfect Muslim and I do not have every single answer to every single thing about faith.
- Those people who want 'Sharia' law more than likely have no idea what Sharia law actually is. It is astounding how many Muslims fail to understand what Sharia law means. The conditions for Sharia law do not even exist today in any country (yes, that includes the Arab nations). Why do I (and also scholars) say this? Because simply put there is no nation that has the basic rules or government in place that could fairly execute this rule of law. I'll talk more about my personal opinion on this (particularly places like Saudi, Qatar (sp?) et al) later in this post. But the basis of Sharia (or Shariah) is essentially most of the practises of English common law. In fact, many laws (both in a country and international) are derived from Sharia itself. Where does it differ? Well, we could say in writing a will. Or the marriage ceremony. Or divorce. Those who want Sharia implemented have no idea that Sharia is actually present and available for them right there. In fact, Sharia itself is truly between God and a Muslim, nobody else. In addition to that, those that say they want Sharia have missed a KEY point. Sharia only applies to Muslims, and Muslims alone. No other person is bound by these rules whatsoever, and that in itself is part of Sharia. Furthermore, Sharia has a stipulation that the rule of the land must be followed in addition to any rules of Sharia. So, if the rule of the land for murder is a life sentence, then that is the law to be followed. That becomes Sharia. This brings me on to point two nicely...
- Jews to be wiped out. Any Muslim who says this has a serious problem with themselves, their understanding of faith, humanity, morals and justice. If the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) had an agreement drawn up to protect the lives, property and the freedom of expressing the faith of Jews, Christians and Fire Worshippers, what right does ANY Muslim have in wanting anybody dead due to their faith. The politics of Israel aside, I would not, and no self reflecting Muslim would not, wish harm upon any other person, no matter what. To such an extent that the Prophet made two things clear during the draft of this particular agreement:
1) The religious leaders of the respective faiths were to be treated with the respect they commanded from their communities from the Muslims, and by the Prophet himself. He had the utmost respect for these people, despite them being of a totally different belief system.
2) Those Muslims who were to intentionally cause harm to these communities they lived with would never see paradise.
If that is not the prime example on how important every single person is, I do not know what is. Lastly, on the respect for other faiths - a Muslim should, upon seeing a funeral of any person, show some form of respect. The Prophet once was resting by a tree with his companions when a funeral passed by of a random person (Christian I believe). The Prophet stood up and stood still as it passed in respect. And when questioned why he did so, his response was that that person was a human being at the end of the day, and at the very least deserved that basic respect. So, any Muslim saying anybody else should be wiped out? Bit of a problem there.
- Women treated like cattle. This is by far the biggest problem in current times I have seen predominantly from Muslim communities. And it is just as appalling as the second one. How can any Muslim say this. This is a pure culture problem that has nothing to do with Islam in itself. Islam makes mention of how special a woman is numerous times, and how important their rights are, as well as the rights of everything. Nowhere in Islam does it say women are slaves of men. Nowhere does it say that women cannot work or learn or be successful in their own right. The first Muslim woman (Khadijah) was an extremely successful and rich businesswoman. Upon becoming a Muslim she did not have to give any of that up at all. It was her work, her rights, her choice. Women are even mentioned to be a gift from God, in the sense that if a lady is mistreated by her mate, her mate will answer directly to God for this. The sexism present in Muslim communities goes against the teachings of Islam, and it is sad to see how women are treated. I will not disagree that some of the worst treatment stories of women come from Muslim communities. But I will disagree that this is what Islam teaches.
- Critics should be killed. Again, such a ridiculous notion but it happens and people believe this. It is my firm belief that if a person is criticising a faith or a person, it is just an opportunity to open a dialogue and to learn. You cannot learn without debate and dialogue. If you are going to shut down that aspect you will become ignorant, isolated and that in turn means you will not be able to contribute to a community - something a Muslim should be doing. Those who think this probably have not stopped for a second to think 'Okay, so my faith is subject to criticism. Wait a minute. I am an ambassador for my faith. So maybe I am doing something wrong that leads people to think this. Let me find out why they think this and take a long look at myself to see what I am messing up as a human and a Muslim'. If their thoughts immediately go towards 'kill', then there is something once again fundamentally wrong with their belief and understanding of Islam.
The points you bring up are totally valid and make complete sense, and I am glad you point them out. I see these myself, but from the inside, I know where a Muslim is differing from what Islam teaches. This brings me to the Arab countries. I am not going to go too in depth with this, but a conversation I had with a friend-an atheist- last week led to this same topic. Muslims and Arabia are shown to go hand in hand. If you think Muslim, you will think Saudi. If you think Saudi you will think Muslim. So naturally you will have a tendency (as I do) to look at these arab countries and take their rules and examples as the closest you can get to the pure teachings of Islam. Sadly, that is far from the truth. These countries are ruled by people who think mostly for themselves. If a rule does not suit them, they change it. Slaves (forbidden in Islam) are used. Women are treated like objects (also forbidden). Corruption is everywhere (also forbidden). No wonder people have such a poor opinion of this faith. On one side you have ISIS claiming to be Muslim and killing everybody-exactly the opposite of what they should do; On the other side you have Muslim countries implementing 'Shariah' law but also going against it and ignoring the core aspects. Western countries have more liberties that follow Shariah than most, if not all, Muslim countries. I would put a closing statement here, but I have none. Nor do I have a picture of a minion to put up for a laugh. So, I'll just keep reading this debate!
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You should look at what I quoted.
That quote contains the phrase "majority muslim countries" and doesn't not contain the word "extremists".
There may have been earlier posts where you talked about extremists, but I responded specifically to one about 13 countries that impose the death penalty on atheists being exclusively Muslim.
It's not so much a strawman as me reading between the lines. You bring up that countries where atheists are subject to the death penalty are exclusively Muslim. I see that as being "they're the only ones" in pretty plain language. And yes, as far as killing atheists they are indeed the only ones, or at least the only ones who codify it into law and occasionally practise it. All religions seem to demonise atheism to some extent or another, for fairly obvious reasons, but it's becoming less common for countries to even have the death penalty and rarer to apply it to "religious" crimes.
But persecution can take many forms, and there's many groups out there other than atheists. That there are 13 Muslim majority countries that still use the death penalty for apostasy is interesting, but surely not the whole story with regards to blindly following one's faith, would you not agree?
My experience is that Islam when taken as a whole is not really that different to Christianity, Judaism, or Hinduism, all of which seem to have extremist groups. Wahhabism/Salafism seems to have been quite effective at capturing a certain radical minority of Islam. I think the West has been rather more effective at capturing and diverting the equivalent sort of radical Christians into things like military service such that their energies are directed against enemies of the state rather than against the state itself.
But I do believe that the exact same sort of people exist in Christianity and Hinduism as well; you can see the same sort of extremist views espoused and they're not exactly hard to find. See the President of the United States of America. Nominally it's a non-religious post, realistically everyone is aware that being an atheist politician in the US is career suicide. So he's a Christian leader of a very powerful nation, who would like to see the death penalty for drug traffickers. That's a crime, sure, but there's a solid debate over whether it should be. Adults being free to do what they like with their own bodies and all, you know.
A lot like apostates. Apostasy is a crime in those 13 countries, sure, but there's a solid debate over whether it should be. Adults being allowed to express their views and all, you know.
You see how when you take a step back and broaden you view just a touch, you start to see the same patterns everywhere, regardless of the specific religion? There are easy examples of both Christian and Muslim governments wanting to kill people for crimes that probably don't deserve it. I suspect I could find the same for Hinduism without looking too hard, but it's the one I'm least familiar with.
I get the feeling that you've decided that Islam is the worst of the worst (or bought into the media hype) and therefore you're seeing things that confirm what you believe. But try taking a little more of a neutral stance and look more broadly and you'll see that the current "upswelling" of Muslim violence is little more than random variation, confirmation bias and media amplification.
You're pretty sensitive about this, considering it was neither a deflection nor a strawman. I think you're wrong, and I hope what I've said above explains why.
Scaff
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To further support your point around POTUS, Bush has been cited as saying that he invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on God's instruction.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa
