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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Islam. A religion of peace?
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anglocatholic
Apprentice
# 13804
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Posted
We are constantly being bombarded with news of violence committed by Muslims on TV and in the papers. We also are being told by our political leaders that Islam is a religion of peace.
Is this in fact true?
If we look at the life of the prophet Mohammad, we discover a man who was no stranger to violence.
In Medina he was responsible for the genocide of a Jewish tribe. He also led raids on caravans heading for Mecca where people were butchered.
A study of the Quran yields 109 passages where Muslims are exhorted to kill non-Muslims.
The next few centuries after the death of the Prophet were a jihad killing spree from North Africa to central Asia.
Each year around 100,000 Christians are killed for their faith, millions persecuted, the majority in Muslim lands.
Why are our leaders so insistent that Islam is a religion of peace when the facts speak otherwise?
Why are they so scared to name the real problem? Islam.
Your thoughts.
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An Anglican from Sydney but not a Sydney Anglican.
Posts: 34 | From: Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Christianity. A religion of honesty?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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anglocatholic
Apprentice
# 13804
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Posted
Why is it politically correct to be hyper critical of the Church but look at Islam through rose tinted glasses?
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An Anglican from Sydney but not a Sydney Anglican.
Posts: 34 | From: Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anglocatholic:
Why is it politically correct to be hyper critical of the Church but look at Islam through rose tinted glasses?
My point was rather that a religion can be about peace but have obnoxiously unpeaceful adherents. Christianity has a plethora of liars, but I do not conclude from this that it is a religion of lies, or that lying is a basic part of the religion.
Yes a lot of violence is being done in the name of Islam right now. If you had looked at Christianity in say the 17th century, you would have seen a very violent religion. You would have been well within your rights to say, "Prince of Peace? That's a laugh." However, that behavior is not what Christianity is about.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
There are parts of the Bible that read like a Conan novel, so....
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anglocatholic:
Why are they so scared to name the real problem? Islam.
Your thoughts.
I think blaming all problems on a large and fairly diverse religious group tends to lead to very bad ideas about what the right "solution" to that problem might be.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
Jesus was, I believe, a better person preaching a higher morality than Muhammad.
Clearly peaceful and warlike Christianities, and peaceful and warlike Islams have been constructed by adherents, but both Christians and Muslims have historically found it hard to completely ignore the character of their founders.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anglocatholic:
Why is it politically correct to be hyper critical of the Church but look at Islam through rose tinted glasses?
Because we've been treating Islam as the "other" for centuries and turning a blind eye to our own sins for at least as long?
Because part of our faith explicitly tells us that we need to deal with the planks in our own eyes?
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
When you have been on the Ship a little bit longer, anglocatholic, you will learn that it is not done to either say anything negative about Islam, or to advocate for Christians currently being persecuted (by Muslims or anyone else).
You are absolutely correct in seeing them as pressing issues which demand discussion, but in the case of the former you will be branded an Islamophobe and American lackey to boot, no matter how nuanced or qualified your comments, and in the case of the latter you will also be branded Islamophobic, along with McCarthyite if you mention persecution in communist countries and, always the final trump card, WHAT ABOUT THE INQUISITION?
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
People have been critical about how Islam is expressed with regard to women's/gay rights and religious freedom on the Ship in the past. The problem is:
1) It's very easy to talk critically about Islam when there are no Muslims here to put those Qu'ranic verses in context or explain their faith.
2) However, it's also unfair and runs the risk of bearing false witness to critique Islam or the conduct of Muslims without any present.
3) Many of the criticisms expressed with regard to Islam were also found in or supported by Christians not all that long ago. Christians haven't been much better when it comes to human rights and religious freedom than Muslims have been (and in some areas, like race relations, we've done far, far worse than they have.)
It was only AFTER the Enlightenment established a parallel yet different value system (called modernism/secularism, etc.) and weakened the power of traditional Christianity that Europe and North America's human right records improved relative to Islam.
4) Which Islam are we talking about? There is a huge gulf between ISIS or Al Qaeda, and Muslims for Progressive Values or the Progressive Muslim Union just like there is between the Westboro Baptist Church or the Christian Identity Movement and the United Church of Canada, C of E or Quakers. Few Christians would actively defend the former groups. For every sweeping statement about Islam we make here, you'll undoubtedly find many Muslims who will object to them as well.
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
4) Which Islam are we talking about? There is a huge gulf between ISIS or Al Qaeda, and Muslims for Progressive Values or the Progressive Muslim Union just like there is between the Westboro Baptist Church or the Christian Identity Movement and the United Church of Canada, C of E or Quakers. Few Christians would actively defend the former groups. For every sweeping statement about Islam we make here, you'll undoubtedly find many Muslims who will object to them as well.
Precisely.
There are enormous differences amongst the one and a half billion Muslims in the world, including the the little group I know, and have known, personally, and it is incumbent on us to draw careful distinctions, recognise the different ways in which way the Koran can be exegeted, and think about whether moderates and extremists are, or are not, true to Islam - assuming that there is a normative Islam.
This is complex and difficult, but in view of what is happening in places such as Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, it is sheer irresponsible obscurantism to refuse to make the effort because of the off chance that we might hurt someone's feelings.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anglocatholic:
Why is it politically correct to be hyper critical of the Church but look at Islam through rose tinted glasses?
It's because we're listening to some hyper-politically correct liberal hippy who said that before we think about helpfully taking specks out of other people's eyes, we should take the plank out of our own.
Also, we think our words are more likely to have an effect on Christian and secular violence against Muslims than they are on Muslim violence against Christians. Therefore, we choose which things to talk about that we may do more good and do less evil.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Is that the Jesus who was God's hippy holiday in between killing tens of billions?
Whose followers come a close second?
All the religions of the Book are guilty of believing the myth of redemptive violence. But none more so than Christendom.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think the best person to answer the OP is a Muslim - any here? Most of the rest of us have a very sketchy knowledge of the different kinds of Islam, and it is dangerous to generalize in any case. I might say that Christians burned people for a 1000 years, but that would not be the sum total of our knowledge of Christianity.
One of my oldest friends was a Sufi, and he was certainly not violent - but I can't then generalize upon that about 'Islam'. I don't think that 'Islam' exists.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Well, I suppose this website has its own centre of gravity when it comes to Shipmates perceiving extremism.
But in posting terms, extremism is normally characterised by assertion without verification, assuming "all right-thinking people will agree with me", parroting slogans, ignoring others' arguments, misrepresentation, creating straw men and generally being provocative.
Such behaviour, if consistently demonstrated, just gets any Shipmate the reputation of being a bit of a jerk, and may lead to a formal finding of jerkiness, which normally gets you banned.
I think you can be as critical as you like of Islamic theology (mainstream as well as extreme variants) but, as with Christianity, it is always wrong to assume that theology invariably determines behaviour, or that any theological variant is typical of the whole.
But if you're feeling critical about anything, a well-presented and well-marshalled post is always defensible, in a way in which a more extreme post (as characterised above) never is. I suppose it is true that if your post is some way away from the centre of gravity of opinions of active Shipmates, you'll attract more attention and criticism than otherwise, but that's in the nature of things in any group discussion, whether online or face-to-face.
[ 06. August 2014, 07:58: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
I've not read the Koran. A colleague who has tells me that the passages exhorting the slaying of infidels etc. generally end with "... or, you can forgive, because Allah is gracious," with a strong hint that this should be the preferred option.
If that's so then the more shouty nasty kind of Muslim - the one that perpetuates the stereotype - may simply be guilty of scriptural selectivity, and that's not exactly unique to Islam.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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*Leon*
Shipmate
# 3377
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Posted
An important difference is that Mohammed was a political leader operating in somewhat difficult circumstances in a fairly violent society. The apostles were politically powerless. Once Christianity had political power, violence in the name of (the correct flavor of) Christianity started quite quickly.
Apologists for a peaceful Islam seem to argue that Mohammed was as non-violent as he could be while fulfilling his obligations to the people of Medina given the political situation. That does not mean that his precise political decisions are applicable today.
I compare Mohammed with the apostles as opposed to Jesus because, as a Christian, I obviously believe that Jesus is far more than a prophet. I would like to say that Jesus could have ruled Medina without resorting to force at all. However I'm not at all sure that St Peter would have done as good a job as Mohammed did.
Posts: 831 | From: london | Registered: Oct 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There are enormous differences amongst the one and a half billion Muslims in the world, including the the little group I know, and have known, personally, and it is incumbent on us to draw careful distinctions, recognise the different ways in which way the Koran can be exegeted, and think about whether moderates and extremists are, or are not, true to Islam - assuming that there is a normative Islam.
All of which is just one more reason why sweeping statements about how the "problem" is "Islam" (such as, for example, the OP) are utterly stupid.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
It was only AFTER the Enlightenment established a parallel yet different value system (called modernism/secularism, etc.) and weakened the power of traditional Christianity that Europe and North America's human right records improved relative to Islam.
I don't understand why, if this is true, anyone would be a Christian.
quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
I compare Mohammed with the apostles as opposed to Jesus because, as a Christian, I obviously believe that Jesus is far more than a prophet. I would like to say that Jesus could have ruled Medina without resorting to force at all. However I'm not at all sure that St Peter would have done as good a job as Mohammed did.
Yes, I'm sure St Peter would have made a rubbish conquering warlord.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
I've not read the Koran. A colleague who has tells me that the passages exhorting the slaying of infidels etc. generally end with "... or, you can forgive, because Allah is gracious," with a strong hint that this should be the preferred option.
A Muslim classmate of mine at university gave a talk at the Islamic student society where he argued that the Koran suggests it's ideal to have just one wife, because it says you can have four if you love them equally, and for nearly all men this is impossible.
He was taken aside quietly afterwards and told he would not be asked to speak again.
I would suggest that the reasons the Koran tends to be interpreted conservatively are:
- it purports to be the literal word of Allah, therefore it would make the most sense to take it literally
- many of the cultures where Islam is predominantly practiced are conservative in general. And in countries that are Islamic but less conservative (e.g. Turkey, Lebanon) they tend to interpret it in a way that works for their culture
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
A Muslim classmate of mine at university gave a talk at the Islamic student society where he argued that the Koran suggests it's ideal to have just one wife, because it says you can have four if you love them equally, and for nearly all men this is impossible.
He was taken aside quietly afterwards and told he would not be asked to speak again.
Can you explain why he wouldn't be allowed to speak again. Was his explanation considered too lax, or too conservative?
Part of me thinks that in a society where serial monogamy, fairly high rates of adultery, and broken families are so common it's unreasonable for non-Muslims to condemn polygamy in all circumstances. But there's no doubt that it creates problems of its own.
Apparently, the number of polygamous relationships among Muslims in the UK is increasing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15032947
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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jrw
Shipmate
# 18045
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Posted
I realise that we're all meant to think that Islamophobia (Muslimophobia would be more correct) has 'nothing whatsoever to do with racism', but does anyone seriously believe that this topic would be anything like the issue that it is if most Muslims were white.
Posts: 522 | Registered: Mar 2014
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Candidly, I think that if a religion, primarily practiced by caucasians, had been claimed as the inspiration for 9/11, the current pogrom against Christians in the Middle East and Lee Rigby being chopped to pieces by goons with meat cleavers, I think that there might be a certain amount of theological critique going on.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
Candidly, I think that if a religion, primarily practiced by caucasians, had been claimed as the inspiration for 9/11, the current pogrom against Christians in the Middle East and Lee Rigby being chopped to pieces by goons with meat cleavers, I think that there might be a certain amount of theological critique going on.
You'd think so, but no. The usual reaction to things like Tim McVeigh's ties to Elohim City (if you have to Google that, you've illustrated my point) or Eric Rudolph is to claim that they're not "really Christians". In other words the typical reaction to atrocities committed by white Christians is not theological critique, but dismissal.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
A Muslim classmate of mine at university gave a talk at the Islamic student society where he argued that the Koran suggests it's ideal to have just one wife, because it says you can have four if you love them equally, and for nearly all men this is impossible.
He was taken aside quietly afterwards and told he would not be asked to speak again.
I would suggest that the reasons the Koran tends to be interpreted conservatively....
Your friend WAS interpreting the Qur'an conservatively.
He came out with the standard line.
In my 40 + years dealing with Muslims, I've never heard a different interpretation than that.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anglocatholic:
A study of the Quran yields 109 passages where Muslims are exhorted to kill non-Muslims.
Whose study? Your study? If so, give me some examples, suras and ayets.
You will find that in every case the context is war - where muslims have been attacked.
Not unlike the christian leaders' exhortations a hundred years ago to this very day.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
I rather like the theory that the prophet Muhammad in fact never existed, that there was no sudden conquest by Arabian tribes, and that Islam is really the result of an elaborate religious-political cover story for Persian conquests of Byzantium invented by Persian rulers who had converted to the Arabian form of the Christian heresy we know as Ebionism.
It's probably bollocks, but I have not so far read a serious academic debunking of these claims, they have been around for a while now, and they do seem to have at least some historical evidence going for them.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
A minor aside to lilBuddha: The original stories about Conan were mostly short stories, not novels.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Years ago I read an article that said Islam is a mirror to Christianity, showing us who we are - or recently were. What they do, *we* are or recently were doing and claiming to represent God in it - from restricting women's activities and voices to forcing the king's religion on all residents to justifying war to expand the religion.
(The article had a much longer list of simiarities.)
Some today in the West still long for these, if certain "conservatives" are speaking what they actually believe - desire for a "Christian country" that imposes prayers of one kind on all school children and restricts the roles and voices of women at least in church and possibly society.
Maybe part of the plank in our own eye is not recognizing the underlying causes that allowed these abuses to be endorsed as "God's way." Blindness to underlying causes makes it likely equally bad ideas will be endorsed (or are currently being endorsed).
For example, some "conservatives" want what they abhor others wanting (state mandated religion), thinking the use of political or military force to compel (superficial) belief is good so long as it's "our" beliefs being imposed. They see the issue as "whose doctrine is right" instead of "what behaviors reflect God's personality in this life and why do we think that?"
I have friends who insist torture and unlimited prison terms without trial are bad when used against us but good and should be used more against "them" because "they" aren't Christian so "they" are bad people and deserve it. How is that attitude any different than the attitude of the worst of the freedomfighters/terrorists?
Also, whenever we shrug off our own past abuses as "it was just how times were" and "they thought they were doing the right thing" instead of "how could they have thought such a thing!" we are justifying current abusers because for them it's just how times are and they think they are doing right.
We need to use our own abusive past (and present abusive attitudes) to figure out what went wrong that allowed endorsement of abuse, so we have a better chance of preventing abuses in the future ourselves. (Maybe others would take notice and see from our example what their own underlying problems are, and similarly change; but we aren't yet setting an example.)
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
A Muslim classmate of mine at university gave a talk at the Islamic student society where he argued that the Koran suggests it's ideal to have just one wife, because it says you can have four if you love them equally, and for nearly all men this is impossible.
He was taken aside quietly afterwards and told he would not be asked to speak again.
Can you explain why he wouldn't be allowed to speak again. Was his explanation considered too lax, or too conservative?
I'm not sure if lax and conservative are the right terms for this issue! Many of the Islamic students were international and in their home countries polygamy is legal. That is, they fully intended to take more than one wife in the future. So they were not happy to hear my friend's comments and several complained to the group's president.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
He came out with the standard line.
In my 40 + years dealing with Muslims, I've never heard a different interpretation than that.
Are you dealing with Muslims in countries where polygamy is legal?
My roots are in West Africa, many Muslim men I know there have at least two wives. I had a family of one husband/three wives at my wedding.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jrw:
I realise that we're all meant to think that Islamophobia (Muslimophobia would be more correct) has 'nothing whatsoever to do with racism', but does anyone seriously believe that this topic would be anything like the issue that it is if most Muslims were white.
White - you mean like the Boston bombers?
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
If Islam means submission and surrender to God, and Muslims believe their religion to encompass the words of all the same prophets as Christianity does, with one more, then what is said about Islam must reflect on us too. We worship the same God, like it or not, and we know as Christians that the one God requires peace, that God wants us to love our fellow human beings, and that God is calling on Muslims to do the same.
We are right to condemn what some Muslims do in the name of their religion, where it brings God's good name into disrepute. We are right to condemn Christians past and present who have done the same thing.
We would not be right imv to condemn the religion itself unless the majority of its adherents were doing the same, unless there were no 'fruit of the spirit' being produced through its people by the religion, unless God's holy name were continually brought into disrepute by it.
Those of us who have been inspired by attitudes or actions of Muslim brothers or sisters can witness to the fact that fruit of the spirit is often forthcoming from it, and that God's holy name is often promoted as good through it.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
We worship the same God, like it or not...
We would not be right imv to condemn the religion itself unless the majority of its adherents were doing the same, unless there were no 'fruit of the spirit' being produced through its people by the religion, unless God's holy name were continually brought into disrepute by it.
Without commenting on whether Islam and Christianity worship the same God --
I don't believe all who claim to be Christian worship the same God! Two people can look at the same book and in that sense have similarity, but one sees in it a loving God who embraces all humans while the other sees in it a vicious god who mostly hates "not us" and even among "us" looks for excuses to torture as many people as possible eternally.
Same god? Whole different personality. Not even a family resemblance.
Which is why I often avoid calling myself "Christian" unless I know what meaning the person spoken to hears in that word. *Many* people believe the word "Christian" means a devotee of a brutal and exclusionary god. I worship a different God than that one.
Accidentally happening to use the same word doesn't make it the same god; just like using a different word doesn't make it a different god.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
Candidly, I think that if a religion, primarily practiced by caucasians, had been claimed as the inspiration for 9/11, the current pogrom against Christians in the Middle East and Lee Rigby being chopped to pieces by goons with meat cleavers, I think that there might be a certain amount of theological critique going on.
You'd think so, but no. The usual reaction to things like Tim McVeigh's ties to Elohim City (if you have to Google that, you've illustrated my point) or Eric Rudolph is to claim that they're not "really Christians". In other words the typical reaction to atrocities committed by white Christians is not theological critique, but dismissal.
Yep. Christians need to own their problematic shit, especially white middle-class Western Christians. It's stuff like this which makes me hate the 'Not All Christians' movement as much as the 'Not All Men' movement. It's not OK to pretend that McVeigh et al's theology came out of thin air.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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jrw
Shipmate
# 18045
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by jrw:
I realise that we're all meant to think that Islamophobia (Muslimophobia would be more correct) has 'nothing whatsoever to do with racism', but does anyone seriously believe that this topic would be anything like the issue that it is if most Muslims were white.
White - you mean like the Boston bombers?
Sorry, I don't see your point.
Posts: 522 | Registered: Mar 2014
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seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jrw:
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by jrw:
I realise that we're all meant to think that Islamophobia (Muslimophobia would be more correct) has 'nothing whatsoever to do with racism', but does anyone seriously believe that this topic would be anything like the issue that it is if most Muslims were white.
White - you mean like the Boston bombers?
Sorry, I don't see your point.
I'm questioning your suggestion that anti-Islam sentiment is primarily racial. In the US it's almost entirely related to the (incorrect) belief that Islam is a violent pro-terrorist religion.
Which religion are "most" of its adherents white? Judaism maybe? I doubt it's true for Christianity.
[ 06. August 2014, 20:24: Message edited by: seekingsister ]
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
I'm questioning your suggestion that anti-Islam sentiment is primarily racial. In the US it's almost entirely related to the (incorrect) belief that Islam is a violent pro-terrorist religion.
I'm sorry, I don't think that's true. I think here in the US there is a horrible strand of racism that is an element in treating Islam as something "other."
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Jon in the Nati
Shipmate
# 15849
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Posted
I'm with SeekingSister on this. Islamophobia in the US is mainly about the connection in people's minds with terrorism. It is more about Muslims as terrorists who hate America and want to destroy us than it is about Muslims as brown people with weird customs from some other place. Moreover, it seems to come up in some really specific ways (general post-9/11 bigotry, the Murfreesboro and Park51 mosques, the recent fearmongering that Islamic religious law is taking over the country, etc.).
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I don't doubt that Christians are persecuted in some predominantly Islamic countries.
But the figure of 100,000 Christians a year being killed for their faith?
Where are the reliable figures to back that up?
In some of the countries where Christians have been killed in substantial numbers - Nigeria, Southern Sudan - there has been intercommunal violence where both Muslims and Christians have been killed.
It'd be like saying at the height of the Northern Ireland troubles, 'Protestants are being killed in Northern Ireland ...' without the corollary, 'Catholics are being killed in Northern Ireland ...'
As well as people who were neither.
There's a lot of space between 'There's nothing violent about Islam at all,' and 'Islam consists of nothing but violence.'
The Ship does tend to have a liberal bias, but I don't see radical Jihadism and the behaviour of people like ISIS being shrugged off with a 'get out of jail free' card.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
That said, I am well aware of the dreadful persecution in Mosul at the moment by Islamic State (formerly ISIS) and that has received nowhere near the air-time and media attention that it deserves.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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jrw
Shipmate
# 18045
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Which religion are "most" of its adherents white? Judaism maybe? I doubt it's true for Christianity.
Agreed. But I'm sure the (unconscious?) perception that people have of Muslims in England (I wouldn't know about the U.S.) is that they are mainly dark skinned . However superficial, it makes Muslims palpably different, creating the 'us and them ' mindset. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this as it would make the world a slightly less complicated place, but racism nowadays is not the black and white (excuse the pun) issue that it used to be. Racism seems to be more subtle now than in the past.
Posts: 522 | Registered: Mar 2014
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
When you have been on the Ship a little bit longer, anglocatholic, you will learn that it is not done to either say anything negative about Islam,
I think, rather, you will find it is not the done thing to level accusations at Islam that could be made against Christianity word-for-word but aren't.
It's not the criticism of Islam that bugs me. It's the incredible lack of specificity and the inconsistency. Most of the criticisms of Islam I see made on the Ship are almost EXACTLY the same as the criticisms of Christianity that non-Christians can be seen to make outside the Christian thought bubble. Ask a non-Christian whether Christianity is a religion of peace and they will happily bring up the Crusades and the destruction of various New World civilizations in the name of God. They will dig up various Bible passages.
I recall one time when a Shipmate linked to a site that listed all the horrible things in the Quran and said "see? see how terrible it is?" The only problem was, the site he linked to was an atheist site, and the page full of highlighted Quran passages was right next to another page full of highlighted Bible passages.
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Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
Here is a criticism of Islam which cannot be applied to Christianity: in Islam, Muhammad is considered the perfect man and exemplar for humanity.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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mrWaters
Shipmate
# 18171
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't doubt that Christians are persecuted in some predominantly Islamic countries.
But the figure of 100,000 Christians a year being killed for their faith?
Where are the reliable figures to back that up?
In short this statistic is not accurate at all. For example it includes deaths from conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo which was fueled by a lot more than religion.
A few years back I studied Islam and even read the Quran. One important thing to know is that there is no centralized Islam faith. There are numerous divides of the religion and they differentiate by a lot. The text of Quran is being interpreted very differently all over the world. One can find a lot of fairly explicit parts of Quran which are intolerant and xenophobic. The difference is how do you explain them. That is why the senior Muslim clerics have so much power all over the world. Since I began studying Islam I changed my opinion from very Islamophobic towards very cautious. Nowadays I do not believe that Islam itself promotes violence or anything like that, however I believe that the Muslim faith is relatively easy to manipulate. Obviously the terrorists use the Muslim holly text to manipulate others. Some passages from it, without proper interpretation, can be easily understood as the terrorists want. Which is a great disservice towards the more liberal Muslims.
Some may say that the Christian bible is also easy to incite violence. However most of those passages are found in the Old Testament, to which we have a little bit different attitude than towards the New. The Quran does not have this distinction. All verses are ordered by length which also creates confusion (blame for it one of the first caliphs who centralized Quran and burned all the different versions).
Posts: 80 | From: Aberdeen | Registered: Jul 2014
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Here is a criticism of Islam which cannot be applied to Christianity: in Islam, Muhammad is considered the perfect man and exemplar for humanity.
You think the NAME of the perfect man matters, then?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Here is a criticism of Islam which cannot be applied to Christianity: in Islam, Muhammad is considered the perfect man and exemplar for humanity.
You think the NAME of the perfect man matters, then?
No. I think his character matters.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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