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Islam - What's your view on it?
- Thread starter SalmanBH
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Joel
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- Noob616
I shed a single maple syrup tear.I have to be honest, I shed a small tear when I first read this story. I am so proud of my fellow countrymen and women sometimes I just want to burst and it makes me so thankful to be a part of this great country
I had the same sort of feeling in the wake of the shooting and this story last week. It made me realize that I take for granted how accepting Canada is as a whole. I saw on sites like reddit, people from the US and Europe being worried that there'd be backlash against Muslims. It just never even crossed my mind, the point in the article was spot on, the irony is delicious that some idiot painted "GO HOME" and "CANADA" on the side of a mosque, which is probably the least Canadian thing possible.
- 33,155
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It depends on the context. Our curriculum allows teachers to cover the core aspects of various world religions for the purposes of comparative study. It particularly applies to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, given the common elements among them.
This is just another case of parents not understanding what their child is learning or why. The history assignment was clearly a case of internal assessment and assessment for learning.
- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
That's not why the parent went into school though; the article says he doesn't want any religion to be taught at all. In my view somebody with such strong convictions about their child's education would have made relevant enquiries with every school from first admission.
I absolutely fail to see where the school has been stupid; they've taught something that's perfectly valid in the contexts of both History and RE, they've allowed the parent to visit the school to raise his concerns and they've banned him when he's made threats.
In what way are they stupid?
- 2,988
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- GBO-Possum
- 2,988
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- GBO-Possum
Forgive the double post, here is a video which just might give hope:-
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- Australia
The word "subtle" was drenched in the sarcasms and ironicals. The reactions to being wronged could scarcely be more different.
That's a very well-spoken and spot on little video piece there. At the moment moderate is good but not enough, but too often it's only "moderate" anyway, where a bit of probing, change of context, or pressure sees the ugly truth rear it's head. Moderate will be all that's required once significant change has been enacted. I think the separation of religion and ethnicity is crucial though. Maybe jewish people can lead the way on that.......?
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- GBO-Possum
@LeMansAid, sorry, I was not really reading straight! Now I see that you meant that Muslims are actually the only group of people to have been seriously wronged on this planet, so we should not be surprised that they choose explosive clothing. 
My turn for irony.
My turn for irony.
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- Spurgy777
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- kennylmao
He got so mad.Saw that a little while ago, the nonsense Ben Affleck was coming out with was quite funny, was as if he wasn't listening to anything they were saying.
It's pointless having discussion with someone when emotions come into play.
KSaiyu
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Yay my sunny spot of London is in the news again, this time for being the location of one of the suspects in the Remembrance Sunday plot
zzz_pt
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- zzz_pt
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Ah, but you don't understand. The very word "Islam" means peace. And it's only the extremists. And all non-Muslim religions have just as many extremists who will make their way to paradise by killing those of different faiths and dying in the process. And atheists are just as bad. The problem isn't with Islam, it's the way it's interpreted. And so on, and so on, and so on .......
Funny thing, if it's just an interpretation problem, you'd think Allah would send an update with all the ambiguities removed. Oh, that's right, Allah can't, because "The Prophet" was the LAST prophet, and he's dead, so there can be no updates. I guess Allah painted himself into a corner with that one. Sadly, we are the ones who got trapped.
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It's a religion. Like all religions, it creates identity. At the end of the day, the formalities of Islamic doctrine are trivial; yes, the stance on the Quran on infidels may be brutal at times (but it's not as easy and clear-cut as you'd think), but so is the stance of the Talmud and of the Old Testament on people who wear mixed fiber clothing. I'm quite sure there are many Jews and Christians out there who don't follow their sacred texts to the letter, and look with bewilderment at those who do; most Muslims I happen to know are just the same under that regard.
It would be quite complicated to try paint a picture of Islamic extremism in the Middle East, how it came into being, and I'm quite sure somebody did do a better job at it than I could in the past 50 or something pages of this topic. Islamic extremism is not the only possible way a society where the majority of the population is Muslims can head. It's a political movement (or rather, a multitude of different political movements), morally legitimized by one possible interpretation of a religion. It is a reaction to modernity, to change - a textbook reactionary movement looking to go back to an idealized era long in the past because the future is uncertain. If the IS didn't have Islam, it would've played the card of race, or national identity. That's what Nationalist and Nazist parties did, do, and will always do.
Take a pariah - or at the very least, someone who perceives he's being treated unjustly in life - and tell him with convincing words he's entitled to rule the world because of something he is - Muslim, Christian, German, peasant, whatever - and he'll believe in whatever ideology you're shoving down his throat. Show him that those who are not like him aren't as human as he is, that they are Lebenunwertes Leben, and that the world will be better without them, and he'll kill them gladly. There's always some ****ed up psychopath leading the charge - someone who's really convinced that all infidels should die, for example - but what about those following him? Those are, for the most part, people that are persuaded by his or her words. People that don't believe in religion per se, but belive in an ideology.
The people who are in the IS (I'm taking the IS as an example because well, as of now, it's the most prominent radical Islamic movement in the world) are not pious Muslims - or at the very least, weren't before being ensnared by silver-tongues recruiters and by flashy promo vids promising glory and riches but, first and foremost, the social recognition they feel they're not being given, in some cases, rightly so. Likewise, the rules of Islamic theocratic countries may adopt a perceived set of Islamic values as the core values of their regime, but they do so merely because that's also what gives an identity to their subjects.
So, yeah, I think Islam is not the problem here; it's kinda like getting a cold, it's not the virus itself that bothers you, but rather, the immune reaction of your body which fills your sinuses with mucus. Of course I could find better analogies, but then, I suck at finding pertinent examples, so that's it.
(As for what I think of Islam as a religion: it's basically Christianity with a lot of staring at a compass and bowing, no alcohol, no gambling and no bacon. Oh, and even less pre-marital boning. Hell, I'd probably blow myself up too if my life were that boring. It has to be said, tho: Muslims know, or at least, knew how to do art. And science. And maths! And the cultue of Arab and Berber countries is still fascinating)
It would be quite complicated to try paint a picture of Islamic extremism in the Middle East, how it came into being, and I'm quite sure somebody did do a better job at it than I could in the past 50 or something pages of this topic. Islamic extremism is not the only possible way a society where the majority of the population is Muslims can head. It's a political movement (or rather, a multitude of different political movements), morally legitimized by one possible interpretation of a religion. It is a reaction to modernity, to change - a textbook reactionary movement looking to go back to an idealized era long in the past because the future is uncertain. If the IS didn't have Islam, it would've played the card of race, or national identity. That's what Nationalist and Nazist parties did, do, and will always do.
Take a pariah - or at the very least, someone who perceives he's being treated unjustly in life - and tell him with convincing words he's entitled to rule the world because of something he is - Muslim, Christian, German, peasant, whatever - and he'll believe in whatever ideology you're shoving down his throat. Show him that those who are not like him aren't as human as he is, that they are Lebenunwertes Leben, and that the world will be better without them, and he'll kill them gladly. There's always some ****ed up psychopath leading the charge - someone who's really convinced that all infidels should die, for example - but what about those following him? Those are, for the most part, people that are persuaded by his or her words. People that don't believe in religion per se, but belive in an ideology.
The people who are in the IS (I'm taking the IS as an example because well, as of now, it's the most prominent radical Islamic movement in the world) are not pious Muslims - or at the very least, weren't before being ensnared by silver-tongues recruiters and by flashy promo vids promising glory and riches but, first and foremost, the social recognition they feel they're not being given, in some cases, rightly so. Likewise, the rules of Islamic theocratic countries may adopt a perceived set of Islamic values as the core values of their regime, but they do so merely because that's also what gives an identity to their subjects.
So, yeah, I think Islam is not the problem here; it's kinda like getting a cold, it's not the virus itself that bothers you, but rather, the immune reaction of your body which fills your sinuses with mucus. Of course I could find better analogies, but then, I suck at finding pertinent examples, so that's it.
(As for what I think of Islam as a religion: it's basically Christianity with a lot of staring at a compass and bowing, no alcohol, no gambling and no bacon. Oh, and even less pre-marital boning. Hell, I'd probably blow myself up too if my life were that boring. It has to be said, tho: Muslims know, or at least, knew how to do art. And science. And maths! And the cultue of Arab and Berber countries is still fascinating)
zzz_pt
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- Spurgy777
Religious doctrine is hardly trivial when it's being followed and used as justification for murder. And of course the majority of religious people don't follow religious text to the letter, it's because they aren't completely ignorant of reality or psychopathic.
The ideas and reasoning behind the movements hold at least partial blame for the movements. If there was a religion that solely said, kill everyone who doesn't convert to this religion, you wouldn't say "oh, well if they didn't have that religion, they would just use something else, so it's not a problem" and "it's not the religions fault, because they're only killing people based on one interpretation of the religion", or at least I hope you wouldn't. Yes, there may be other factors involved, but if the justification for a persons actions is their religion, then their religion is at least partially to blame.
Completely irrelevant to how Islam isn't to blame. Unless you're suggesting that Islamic extremists aren't necessarily religious, they're just persuaded by reasoning that doesn't remotely apply to them, which is ridiculous.
Care to provide evidence that all of the followers of IS aren't devoutly religious? Or most, or even some, because that seems like a very bold claim.
If you're equating Islam to the virus, and the extremism to the symptoms, then yes, its a good analogy, and the way to get rid of the symptoms, is to target the virus.
Scaff
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Some evidence for this does exist.
Two of the people who traveled from Britain to join IS purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies shortly before leaving.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/jihadist-radicalisation-islam-for-dummies_b_5697160.html
Not exactly the reading material of the devout, the above article goes into some of teh other factors (alongside religion) that draw young men to IS...
". . . what inspires the most lethal terrorists in the world today is not so much the Quran or religious teachings as a thrilling cause and call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends, and through friends, eternal respect and remembrance in the wider world"
.....its ludicrous to take either position as absolute. Yes of course for many religion is a part, they are devout (often Wahhabi or similar in background) and see the fight as being for literal Islam. However a claim that they are all like this (or even the vast majority) is simply not true, and plenty of testimony given by the intelligence community backs that up.
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It IS trivial, however, when religion is just an excuse. Just superstructure. The IS especially is cherrypicking and distorting the aspects of Islam that better suit their ideology, completely ignoring those that discredit it. The fact that it is quite popular nowadays doesn't mean it has any doctrinal solidity.
Your reasoning is very sound indeed, and I can't say it's wrong, but I think you misunderstood me. Of course those people are motivated by their interpretation of the Quran and of the tenents of Islam.
However, the point that I'm trying to get across is that other similar movements have been sprung into existence by very different (and quite diverse) systems of beliefs and by different ideologies; yet they adopted very similar goals (a Tausendjähriges Reich to last for all eternity), methods, and sometimes even rethorics.
If a large majority of extremist movements in recent history (say, in the last one hundred years) used Islam as a legitimization, then I'd say not only that you weren't wrong, but that you were dead-on right. But the rise of totalitarisms in Europe has shown us that where an extremism can't co-opt a religion, it will try to become a religion itself (like Fascism tried, and in part succeeded, to do) Therefore, we must exclude that the specificity of Islam has any real significance in the formation of these movements. Islam here serves a role in which it is interchangeable. If the Western world was Islamic, and the Middle East Christian, trust me, the instigators of those extremisms would've found a way to make Christianity fit their designs.
Islam is... A hat worn by a madman. And what change in the madman if he wears another, different hat, apart from his outer appearance?
(I would also point out that anthropology does a fine job in explaining us why a religion whose only commandment is to kill other humans regardless of their belonging to a social group can't work - and as a matter of fact, despite a quite extensive knowledge of the world's religions and a cursory search on the internet just to make sure I can't really point out a religion that only asks of its followers to kill, apart from the fictional Church of Khorne and the cult of Sithis.
YMMV on this, but none of the Five Pillars of Islam has anything to do with killing anybody. Ismailism and the Druze have a couple of additional tenents, one of them being the Jihad - which is however intended as a "Great Struggle" against the enemies of faith such as personal and social vices and rarely takes the form of an armed struggle. It is worth pointing out that the Ismailites and Druze have nothing to do with the present-day extremist Islamist movements, which find their roots in Wahhabism)
Now, bear with me; I'm not saying those people don't follow the rules and rituals of Islam, which is, for most people, the definition of being religious. What I am saying is that they didn't approach Islam to fill a spiritual void, but rather because it provided them with an identity they felt like they were being denied. And that is especially true for those Muslims born in Europe or in the US who joined the IS. They ended up "rediscovering their faith" and being devout Muslims because it was part of a package. Their desire for jihad came before their faith, and their faith is faith in jihad. Their version of Islam, as a matter of fact, purely consists of waging holy war against the West.
Again, I can't provide proper evidence to back my claim. Mostly because those people would look devoutly religious at a passing glance. They do bow and pray alright. What I do believe, however, is that religion is part of the ideology and not that ideology is a product of religion. An Islamic extremist is first and foremost an extremist, and then some sort of Muslim, but only because it is a requirement of being an extremist.
Actually, there are more than 200 viruses that can induce the common cold in us humans. The common cold IS our immune system going haywire. Likewise, Islam is only one of the hundreds of ideologies and religion in the name of which we've spilled blood in our history. And again, as I said, the specificity of Islam is irrelevant: the same schemes that lead us to having two countries in large part administered with extreme brutality by a fanatic group of zealots also work if you replace Islamism with Nationalism, or Socialism, or something else that ends in -ism and is the product of someone who believes he's so right and you're so wrong he should kill you in cold blood.
Yeah. Let's get rid of all religions, and all ideologies; turn ourselves into puppets with no strings. That, however, would be an extremism per se, don't you think? It sounds quite ironic, an anti-extremism extremist; but yet it is a definite possibility when you start to argue, like many do, that a religion that is being used as a justification for endless violence and brutality is, in reality, to blame for it despite the fact that of the 1.2 billion Muslims in the world only a minuscule minority supports those extremists.
Of course, those are just my two cents on the matter; and I'm just some fool on the internet. And I'm not keeping in mind all cases, nor is my model that generic. M
y interest is mostly in Europeans and Americans who joined the so-called Jihad that's raging in Iraq and Syria (although one could argue that there are a lot of reasons for which a young Arab would want to join the IS, too - all of them political). But still, I'd be elated if you'd give my words some consideration.
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- Spurgy777
Thanks, was expecting there to be some evidence, as you pointed out, it would be ridiculous to take either absolute position (that all Muslims are/are not devoutly religious).
I'd agree that when it's used as an excuse for a persons actions, and that person doesn't really care what the doctrine says, then it is trivial, but that doesn't necessarily apply to all cases of Islamic extremism.
Your analogy would be better if instead of different hats, you had different objects being used as weapons, with some objects being more deadly than others. In fact, having a madman is slightly misleading, as you don't need to be mad to be an extremist, only ignorant enough of reality to be able to rationalise murder.
I see what you're saying, and as Scaff has shown, it applies to at least some people, however it is still a rather bold claim to say it applies to all Islamic extremists, and that as a result Islam is completely blameless.
Still doesn't negate the fact that you target the virus to get rid of the symptoms. Like all problems, it's best to target the root of the problems, otherwise the consequences of them will just keep happening. And Islam, like lots of other things, including other religions, is the root of at least some of the worlds problems, and that needs to be addressed.
Not exactly a minuscule minority depending on your definition of extremism, but I've never suggested that we should get rid of all religions (I mean ideally yes, but you can't force people to give up their religion), instead we should encourage improvement in religions, and that people should look to make their religions more moral and rational, and cutting out all the bronze age nonsense, rather than just leaving it in and ignoring it.
I appreciate your input, and I don't think our views differ as much as they appear to, it seems to mostly just be on our conclusions as to whether or not Islam is a problem. 👍
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Have you watched that Ben Affleck vid I posted above?
Also to the rest, any stand on the argument Sam Harris has made?
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I watched it, yeah, and find really funny that Sam Harris somehow found a way to poll 1.2 to 1.6 billion people and somehow hasn't got a Nobel Prize for something. Also, Bill Maher seems to believe in the bullet theory of communication - which went out of fashion in the 60s, I think? And then there's Ben Affleck stammering like an idiot - that's what happens when you call Daredevil to discuss Islamism, guys!
Saying that since, say, 20% of Muslims is an extremist then Islam must be the cause of extremism is like saying that since there are more guns than people in America, fluoride in your water makes you want to shoot a rifle.
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Only when I was done reading did I realize who it was written by. This guy, I'd sit him right next to Reza Aslan.
That Clam Choudary guy you have there over in the UK wasn't a completely devout Muslim his whole life now, was he? I read that he used to be pretty cool fella. And a radical preacher here where I live is, of all people... a Chinese convert (Most Chinese here are Buddhist or Christians). Funny how the most hardcore of people usually originate from the opposite end of the spectrum.
From the article:
Only point that rings true is "Jihadists aren't all devout". Flip the rest around and you get "Jihadists are all Islamists and Islamists are all Muslims".
It doesn't matter if you're devout (radical preachers) or casual (regular everyday Muslims), wealthy (Osama bin Laden) or impoverished (Palestinians), Islam is the underlying factor that ties them all together. It is the catalyst for violence and anti-Western sentiments, given all the conflict the West has contributed to in the Middle East, in addition to the immoral, hedonistic lifestyle of the West which Islam strongly prohibits. To claim otherwise, that there is no problem what so ever, is only disregarding the issue which will certainly lead to many more future fatalities in the hands of terrorists.
He also made a snarky condemnation of the Daily Mail (which from what I've heard is a biased news site?). Is there an understanding among Brits that information coming from certain news outlets are completely void without even needing to read or apply logic to what they actually have to say?
Not sure if you know how survey works... and it wasn't he who did the polls, the information was obtained from a Pew research.
Sorry, you lost me on that one. (I'm a bit slow.) Well, Islam surely is a contributing factor to extremism. Where else would people get the idea of 'death to apostates' if not from the written text in a very popular book?
The point Harris is making was that the views of Muslims towards human rights is of a number which justifies reasonable concern. 20%, a conservative estimate, of 1.6 billion is not a small number.
Scaff
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Its the source used within the article that are of more use than the article itself, much of which I also disagree with.
The main point was a counter to the question that Spurgy asked about all those travelling to join IS being devout.
Which would indicate that many factors are involved in the process of radicalsation.
And?
They all have beards as well, I have a beard, does than make me a radical?
Correlation does not always equal causality.
You are also not distinguishing between different sects within Islam either, nor taking into account what percentage of Muslims are terrorists.
All IRA terrorists are Catholics, all Catholics are Christians, therefore all Christians are IRA terrorists. Do you not see the rather big flaw in this line of thought?
Its one of the catalysts, its not the only one, as the many security analysts have said.
To claim it must be only one cause (Islam) and anyone who says otherwise is utterly rejecting that as a cause is a nonsense.
Its a wide range of factors, of which religion is a large one, but its certainly not the only one. Disregarding all factors involved is the most dangerous thing to do.
The Daily Mail has a long track record of simply making things up.
A rather passive/aggressive dig.
Yes we are just as capable of using critical analysis as the residents of any country, its not a national trait/quality, its an individual one. I do find it rather ironic however that you would use such a dig while seeming to claim that the issue of radicalisation has one single cause and from that one single cause you can then apply it to everyone who shares one correlating factor.
And he is right to raise it as a concern and it should be discussed more openly both within the Muslim community and outside it, but it should also be kept in mind that 20% is still a significant minority. If we alienate the remaining 80% then all we do is risk making that 20% much bigger through our own actions.
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I'm quite sure I do know how survey works. I'm also quite sure that for the purpose of determining if Muslims are extremists, a survey is a good tool, but if you want to determine whenever Islam is the CAUSE of extremism, then it just doesn't work, unless you really do an effort to keep in mind all other factors that could come in play (education, social status, etc.) and that could even be more important. Also, let's just say that a survey on a representative sample of 1.6 billion people spread all over the world would be an absolute nightmare to organize, and that I doubt Pew Research has the tools to do it.
Islam by itself is NOT a contributing factor to extremism; and with that I mean that it is not one of the reasons for the birth of Islamism; again, I'd like to again call upon my metaphor of Islam as a hat being worn as a madman - as a passive tool that is interchangeable. It does lend itself quite well to radicalisms, to armed orthodoxy, however, so does Hebraism and, to a certain extent, so does Christianity. Truth is, most ideological and religious beliefs can produce radicalisms; regardless of what's the set of values they provide.
I would be extremely bad at my job if I didn't say - hey, maybe it's not Islam per se to blame. Maybe it's other factors - political, economical, whatever - that led to the rise of Islamism, and Islam just happened to be a convenient legitimizing superstructure. Islamism is first and foremost antagonism to the Western world. It took over the purely political doctrine of pan-Arabism, which failed in its design, died in the 70s (just as the hippie movement was being replaced by punk in the West - something that I always found to be somewhat ironic) and is only seeing a resurgence now as a force opposed both to Western influence AND to Islamism. Cultural identity has been replaced by religious identity - and by speaking in ultimates and definitives, religion produces a very fanatical kind of devotion (and that's why Nazism and Fascism both tried to create a true religion around the leader and the ruling party - because religious extremism tends to be more fierce than political extremism).
Hell, people see Islam as one religion. It is not, it's just as splintered as Christianity. Most Islamist movements draw their inspiration from Wahhabism doctrine. And I think that looking at the spread of Wahhabism vindicates my theory.
P.S: I also believe the Pew research highlighted fundamentalism in Islam, rather than extremism. Those are two very separate things (or at least, are considered two separe things in Italian-language literature on the topic, to which I refer for the most part) and should be treated as such.
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So, in other words, Muslims should become Catholics. She's basically saying that muslims need to get rid of the hyperstress on the divine will.
