Talk:Islamophobia/Archive1
[edit] Resources, I guess?
When I argue with Islamophobes on the internet, I really like to refer to this DeviantArt user because he's done a good job of explaining aspects of Islam that non-Muslims often see misrepresented in the media. This is another comic he made.
- Does he talk about the usual and proscribed penalty for apostasy? Does he address how he feels about blasphemy laws? Also, keep in mind that "Islam" is not some singular thing. There are plenty of Muslims out there who feel exactly as he/she does. However, there are plenty that don't. And I am not doing to sit here and argue over who has the "true" interpretation of a fiction book. Both are Islam to me. It's a curious thing - anything done in the name of religion is religion, by definition. However, merely doing something in the name of science does not make it science. Funny thing, that. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 22:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
[edit] How can one discribe "islamofobia" as a xenofobia while many immigrants are also anti islam?
So, "Islamophobia is a contraversial term used by persons who mention critism on the ideology of islam as a form of xenophobia, denying that many immigrants are also anti-islam." Dr. Dolittle 14:50, 28 December 2007 (EST)
Dude, read that sentence aloud - it barely makes sense. What are you trying to say? That some immigrants have a grudge against Islam? So what. I fail to see what you're getting at here. And for the umpteenth time, "Islam" takes a capital "I." PFoster 14:52, 28 December 2007 (EST)
- You're being too Manichaean, Dr.; just because bigots who are members of 'our' society hate the 'other', doesn't mean that other people can't, even if we would consider those other people an 'other'.-- מְתֻרְגְּמָן וִיקִי שְׁלֹום!
There is a large difference between those who are anti-Islam and those who have the visceral, gut level hatred of all things remotely Muslim (which is what xenophobia/Islamophobia are.) By the way, Hirsi Ali is not 100% anti-Islam, despite most of her public pronouncements. Many times she has had good things to say about it. Researcher 14:56, 28 December 2007 (EST)
I think this may be a language barrier issue. Dolittle believes that xenophobia means hatred of all foreigners and that is incompatible with Islamophobia because there are some foreigners who also hate Islam. I've tried to explain it as a subset on his talk page, but we'll see how he takes it. And, Researcher, I agree with you on Hirsi Ali. Again, it's on Dolittle's talk page. Stile4aly 15:00, 28 December 2007 (EST)
[edit] Racism category
Racism has been removed as a category by a recent user. Given that quite a lot of Islamophobia can be seen as old fears of brown folks, I think it's an appropriate categorization. Thoughts? The Wine of TyrantsDrunk with power again! 21:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- It's an interesting question - I think the cat is useful, by tying together fairly similar concepts. That Islamophobia is not actually racism in and of itself isn't as important as its overlap with racism. ħuman
22:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Agreed. I've reverted the cat back. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 22:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Islamists try to stifle criticism of Islam by calling it racism. If the racism category is not removed from this page, we might as well put most pages on the Wiki in that category on account of their attacks on Christianity.
ListenerXTalkerX 22:37, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Agree with Listener. Take it out. Broccoli (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- "Islamists try to stifle criticism of Islam by calling it racism" huh? And "most pages" here have attacks on Xtianity? What we need are more detailed criticisms of Islam and Wicca to balance things... ħuman
23:24, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- That was how they shoved the new blasphemy laws through in the U.K. Here are some more overt examples: [1] [2] [3] [4]
- There are attacks on Christianity on most pages on the Wiki, or at least most of those that mention religion.
ListenerXTalkerX 00:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- So what? Many aspects of Christianity are irrational, after all. Like I said, what we need to do long term is tear the other silly religions some good holes, too. We're just less familiar with them. ħuman
00:44, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- So what? Many aspects of Christianity are irrational, after all. Like I said, what we need to do long term is tear the other silly religions some good holes, too. We're just less familiar with them. ħuman
- "Islamists try to stifle criticism of Islam by calling it racism" huh? And "most pages" here have attacks on Xtianity? What we need are more detailed criticisms of Islam and Wicca to balance things... ħuman
- Agree with Listener. Take it out. Broccoli (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Islamists try to stifle criticism of Islam by calling it racism. If the racism category is not removed from this page, we might as well put most pages on the Wiki in that category on account of their attacks on Christianity.
- Agreed. I've reverted the cat back. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
Back to the question: Why is hatred of a reglion racism? Broccoli (talk) 00:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- In the Jewish tradition: is the fear surrounding Islam due to religion or race in the Western world? The Wine of TyrantsDrunk with power again! 01:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Perhaps the simple solution is to create a "bigotry" category? TheoryOfPractice (talk) 01:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- I like TheoryOfPractice's idea, here. Bigotry and racism are different, after all. The Spikey Punk I'm punking my punk! 01:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- "...is the fear surrounding Islam due to religion or race in the Western world?" I would say that it is mostly religious (a fear of having a new religion imposed), but other motivations are more cultural than racial.
- Human, I was not advocating removal of the attacks on Christianity; most of them are meritorious. I agree with TheoryOfPractice's suggestion for a "bigotry" category.
ListenerXTalkerX 02:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm on board with category:bigotry. Nice work, folks. Let's do it. ħuman
03:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'm on board with category:bigotry. Nice work, folks. Let's do it. ħuman
- I like TheoryOfPractice's idea, here. Bigotry and racism are different, after all. The Spikey Punk I'm punking my punk! 01:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- Perhaps the simple solution is to create a "bigotry" category? TheoryOfPractice (talk) 01:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
sorry, i dont know how to properly reply. i removed it because it is not racism. this is rational wiki, not stereotype wiki, where all christians are white, where all muslims are brown. i also agree with a bigotry category. again, sorry about not replying in the standard fashion.Logan (talk) 02:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- As much as your point regarding stereotypes is true, I simply point that the irrational Islamophobia may come out of the fact that Westerners probably don't think of white Muslims, even though they do exist in great numbers. You have to bring stereotypes to the table when you're talking about ill-placed hate.
I'll also throw in some support for a Bigotry category. I believe there's a racial component, but I don't think it's purely racial.The Wine of TyrantsDrunk with power again! 02:54, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- I think that component could be addressed in text in the article rather than using the cat, perhaps? ħuman
03:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
- I added the article to the discrimination category since religion is unrelated to ethnicity, as stated on the Islam article. --GastonRabbit (talk) 16:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- Here's the part I was referring to:
- I added the article to the discrimination category since religion is unrelated to ethnicity, as stated on the Islam article. --GastonRabbit (talk) 16:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
The terms "racism" and "Islamophobia" have often been conflated in recent years. The fact that Islam is a religion and not a race seems to matter very little.
I think the bigotry category would be a good idea, though. --GastonRabbit (talk) 16:35, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
- If disliking Islam is racist then disliking Christianity is racist as both have their origins in the Middle-East. The term Islamophobia is a complete nonsense because the Oxford English Dictionary defines a "-phobia" as an irrational fear. Being wary of Islam is not necessarily a fear and it's certainly not irrational. Islam is not a race, it is an ideology, an ideology that calls for the enslavement of unbelievers, the stoning of adulteresses (pretty harsh on my mother as my parents are divorced and she's remarried - does this count as adultery?) and homosexuals, genital mutilation, polygamy and it condones wife-beating. And if you don't believe me, look in the Qu'ran. The earlier Haddiths are more moderate but there's a monopoly on this: the later sayings of Muhammad take precedence over the former and the latter are the extreme ones. --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 02:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
- Minor quibble. Yes, the "-phobia" suffix may be incorrect ala etymology and common psychology conventions. However, this word has gained lots of traction in the public discourse, so I suggest you deal with it. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
- Let's hit this from a couple directions.
- 1) It is possible to have a phobia of something that others can also have reasons to be afraid of. If you are living in a predominantly Muslim country and you are an atheist, you probably have a real reason to have an extreme fear of Islam, a fear for your very life. If you are living in an overwhelmingly Christian neighborhood in Florida and you are scared of Sharia law entering your town and forcing you to pray to Allah, you are probably experiencing Islamophobia, because you have a completely irrational fear on every level. It's possible to have a justified fear of hornets if you are especially susceptible to their stings. That doesn't mean that everyone who is afraid of hornets, at any extreme, must have a totally rational fear. Also, on a more minor point: a phobia is an extreme or irrational fear, but I'm willing to work with the second one. Again, however: just because you can rationally fear something doesn't mean that every fear of that thing is rational.
- 2) Ideologies and religions don't exist in a vacuum, especially for people with irrational fears of that ideology. You are assuming that every single person is, when stirred up with some irrational fears, able to surgically separate their irrational fears from the issue that the majority of the people who they perceive as belonging to the religion they are afraid of are in fact people of color. If you really want to say that it's not possible for criticism of Islam and all the resulting fear of Islam (justified or not) can't possibly have resulted in or been made more serious by racism... you have quite a bit of work to do. You have to explain why Arab Americans in general, not just Muslims, experienced a stark increase in hate crimes directed at them after 9/11. Because, for the sociologist it is clear: there are a lot of people who are afraid of and angry towards their perception of what Islam is, and they are taking it out upon upon anyone they perceive as Muslims (which often includes anyone who they think appears Arabic).
- --ShadowofLords (talk) 13:35, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Well I suppose it would be accurate to say that many racists are Islamophobic but it would be a non-sequitur to say that Islamophobia is itself racist. Sadly, because Islam is practiced predominantly by people of Middle-Eastern origin, many individuals hate it as a result of their xenophobia and racism, such as the English Defence League. However just as many people are opposed not to Muslims but to the Qu'ran and the ideas contained therein. There's certainly nothing irrational about that. Sadly, such people are all too frequently vilified as racists just because some scumbags like the EDL and the BNP also happen to be Islamophobic and racist. I'd be a fool to deny that there are many kind, intelligent, moderate Muslims and I've met many of them but Islamophobia is not anti-Muslim, it is anti-Islam. All religions are as mad as frogs as far as I'm concerned, Islam just happens to be the barmiest of the lot. --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 21:10, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
- This is getting confusing. If you are going to say that Islamophobia is complete nonsense, don't use it at the same time to also refer to reasonable critiques of Islam. Islamophobia, referring to the irrational fear of and hatred of Muslims, is intricately tied to racism and the fear of the "other". It's not as simple as saying some islamophobes and islamophobic groups happen to also be racist. Islamophobia itself is woven in with racism: the wholesale cultural distrust of people with dark skin feeds into the fear of Islam, and this loops back and feeds into more fear of people who appear arabic. It's even got some lingering ties to when Malcolm X and the "scarier" black groups had large cuslim ties. A comparison: it's not just that the people afraid of communists during the red scare coincidentally happened to be Xenophobic in general. It's that the red scare encouraged xenophobia and xenophobia encouraged Communism. And, while it would be possible to have had strong, rational, justified reasons to be against communism back then, that doesn't even begin to mean that most people who were against communism had such positions (the average person against communism probably couldn't begin to describe it in any meaning). So too we find ourselves with Islamophobia. While there can be strong, critical challenges to the dogma of Islam, they have to be made delicately because we are talking about a group of people that are discriminated against in many meaningful ways in Western societies. --ShadowofLords (talk) 03:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
- so basically this went nowhere then? The racism category is still attached and not bigotry? I strongly disagree that most Islamophobia is a result of racism. Many many people are quite aware of many prominent white Muslims and their fear of Islam is a result of "valid criticisms of Islam and the culture that arises because of following Islam and Sharia law".--Barryjon (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- I personally think it should have both Bigotry and Racism and categories. And I don't necessarily mean that most or all Islamophobia is a result of purely or chiefly racism. However, it is still intricately tied to racial perceptions of Muslims.
- You've done something very strange. This article is clear to draw the distinction between Islamophobia and criticism of Islam, but you have blended the two into the term. Your have essentially said, "Many many people who might be called Islamophobes are not Islamophobes because they have legitimate reasons to be afraid of Islam." Bully for them. But I was specifically talking about Islamophobia, which is the irrational fear of Islam, which categorically does not include the individuals you are talking about after all (if they do in fact have rational reasons to be afraid of Islam). But, for the individuals who are irrationally afraid of Islam, I argue that race does play an important role in their irrational fear.
- Also, I dub thee a necromancer. Shadow of Lords talk 21:48, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- I don't think the distinction is real, which is why I stumbled over it here. I describe myself as quite literally Islamophobic; I have a real fear of Islam, I fear its potentially damaging effects on 'western' values of tolerance and pluralism and I fear for its potential impact on my freedom and safety as a gay man. I am aware that this is irrational to some extent but it's honest and it's real and it is NOT racist. If we are so insistent on not conflating attacks on Christianity with racism, why do we allow Islamophobia to be so conflated? Is there any evidence that the two are linked? What benefit does linking the two provide in the article? I think linking the two offers fuel to those who accuse those who attack Islam as being racist and I don't see any reason why this Wiki should do that. I am way too new here to be able to push my view above all others, but there it looks to me as though there are enough others on here who disagree with the racism category. In fact, it seems the consensus was to remove it in favour of bigotry. I think it's worth following through on that.--Barryjon (talk) 22:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think this is worth considering in the argument. Polling shows many people in Britain have fears of Islam but are not racist and would not wish to be associated with a racist organisation--Barryjon (talk) 22:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- That article reminds me of the people who thought the KKK was too low-brow for them so they joined the White Citizens' Councils instead. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- I think this is worth considering in the argument. Polling shows many people in Britain have fears of Islam but are not racist and would not wish to be associated with a racist organisation--Barryjon (talk) 22:50, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- I don't think the distinction is real, which is why I stumbled over it here. I describe myself as quite literally Islamophobic; I have a real fear of Islam, I fear its potentially damaging effects on 'western' values of tolerance and pluralism and I fear for its potential impact on my freedom and safety as a gay man. I am aware that this is irrational to some extent but it's honest and it's real and it is NOT racist. If we are so insistent on not conflating attacks on Christianity with racism, why do we allow Islamophobia to be so conflated? Is there any evidence that the two are linked? What benefit does linking the two provide in the article? I think linking the two offers fuel to those who accuse those who attack Islam as being racist and I don't see any reason why this Wiki should do that. I am way too new here to be able to push my view above all others, but there it looks to me as though there are enough others on here who disagree with the racism category. In fact, it seems the consensus was to remove it in favour of bigotry. I think it's worth following through on that.--Barryjon (talk) 22:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
- so basically this went nowhere then? The racism category is still attached and not bigotry? I strongly disagree that most Islamophobia is a result of racism. Many many people are quite aware of many prominent white Muslims and their fear of Islam is a result of "valid criticisms of Islam and the culture that arises because of following Islam and Sharia law".--Barryjon (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
I once worked for a Syrian born Arabic man who was a member of the Syrian Orthodox Christian Church... his view of Muslims was, quite literally, "all Muslims are terrorists." Given that his entire family is Syrian, I sincerely doubt his view of Islam was racially informed. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 07:35, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
[edit] "Examples of Islamophobia" section
This whole section seems a little... odd to me. Right now it's got quotations from three right-wing pundits, a description of a parody of right-wing pundits, and an account of a murder. I'm trying to think of better ways to format it; the three commentators could go in a section called "notable Islamophobes", for example, and there could be another section on crimes that have been attributed to Islamophobia. Any thoughts? Baljit (talk) 20:47, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
[edit] The current last sentence in the article could be improved
Can someone more gifted in prose help improve the "Of course, in full irony meter, Harris has gone on to call for the racial profiling of Muslims. Thanks, Sam! " with a bit about racial profiling being utterly ineffective against a faith that includes ALL races in its membership?Wzrd1 (talk) 05:33, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Am I an "Islamophobic"?
Let's go over the checklist from the main page.
- Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change. - Well, it's definitely not monolithic, just like christianity is not a single homogenous block, but it is static and unresponsive to change to a similar degree as christianity.
- [Islam] does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them. - Perhaps for some/most sects, but again I could say the same thing of a lot of christian sects.
- Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive, and sexist. - I don't know what exactly that means. What I can say is that muslim dominated countries tend to be much behind in some academic disciplines (e.g. most of them). Their human rights vs "religion" tends to be far worse than modern christian countries. I'm going to say that living in a theocracy is bad, and living in a secular democractic public is good, and this is objectively and demonstrably true, if you're willing to grant the values of humanism.
- Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a Clash of Civilizations. - Well, the practitioners are more often those things than compared to modern christians, but of course not necessarily all muslims, or most muslims, but still decidedly a higher proportion than christians. I believe like christianity, it's a phase, and hopefully they'll grow out of it. They just need their enlightenment.
- Islam is seen as a political ideology, used for political or military advantage. - Well, it is a political ideology under a loose definition of "political", again just like christianity. I don't know what the whole "for political or military advantage" nonsense is talking about.
- Criticisms made of 'the West' by Islam are rejected out of hand. - Yay, one criterion that I don't match! I listen to criticism from any source, more or less.
- Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. - And another criterion I don't fit.
- Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural and normal. - I don't know if as a matter of facts it's seen as natural and normal, but I want it to be that way. I also want the norm to be that christianity is treated with hostility and contempt. Both religions have these rather pernicious beliefs about justice which hurt everyone, and this should be pointed out regularly. It's kind of like Nazis or the KKK. We tolerate their presence because of free speech et al, but we also point out their idiocy and evilness every chance we get.
So, do I pass? EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- "But of course not necessarily all Muslims, or most Muslims." You answered your own question. Osaka Sun (talk) 22:00, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- And those Nazi/KKK comparisons. Real classy. Straight to Godwin. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď
Methinks it is a Weasel 22:06, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, and? I think their views are about as heinous in principle. They think that as an atheist, I deserve eternal torment. That is a large portion of christians and muslims. The only difference is that they won't inflict the torture themselves, but they're more than happy for someone else to do it for them. I fail to see any substantial difference why I should cut them any slack. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:14, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- Correction: Far worse than the KKK. AFAIK, the KKK do not seek the eternal torment of blacks, just that they be moved to ghettos, out of country, or otherwise "out of sight". In that regard, I'd rather be a black under hypothetical unchallengeable KKK than be an atheist under the purported unchallengeable christian god or muslim god. This is despicable, and I will not give them a pass on it. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:18, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- So why bother working through a checklist of mealy mouthed vacillations when you could just cut to the chase? Next time you find yourself wondering "am I xxxxx-phobic?", about any subject, just ask yourself "would I compare xxxxx to the Nazis or claim xxxxx is worse than the KKK?". If the answer to question 2 is yes, the answer to question 1 is also yes. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď
Methinks it is a Weasel 22:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- As the mainspace article says though, "islamaphobia" is defined as "unjustified" or "unreasonable" (or some such) criticism. You need to start being a decent human being by recognizing that 1- I do not deserve to be tortured forever, 2- a central element of christianity and islam, believed by a lot / most believers is that I do deserve to be tortured forever, and 3- even KKK members don't believe that blacks should be tortured forever just for being black. I'm sorry to burst your little bubble, but you need to drop this kid-gloves crap. If they believe what they say they believe, then the average christian or muslim is more despicable than the KKK. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- After reading the Quran by myself, after informing about the various human rights abuses in the Islamic world, after stuying the Sharia, after learning about the history of Islam and Muhammad, after ... well, after considering Islam for a decade, I am proud to be islamophob.--31.17.153.69 (talk) 19:56, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
- As the mainspace article says though, "islamaphobia" is defined as "unjustified" or "unreasonable" (or some such) criticism. You need to start being a decent human being by recognizing that 1- I do not deserve to be tortured forever, 2- a central element of christianity and islam, believed by a lot / most believers is that I do deserve to be tortured forever, and 3- even KKK members don't believe that blacks should be tortured forever just for being black. I'm sorry to burst your little bubble, but you need to drop this kid-gloves crap. If they believe what they say they believe, then the average christian or muslim is more despicable than the KKK. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
- So why bother working through a checklist of mealy mouthed vacillations when you could just cut to the chase? Next time you find yourself wondering "am I xxxxx-phobic?", about any subject, just ask yourself "would I compare xxxxx to the Nazis or claim xxxxx is worse than the KKK?". If the answer to question 2 is yes, the answer to question 1 is also yes. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď
- And those Nazi/KKK comparisons. Real classy. Straight to Godwin. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď
[edit] racial profiling
He is very specifically calling for profiling of people who "look like" Muslim extremists. In essence, this will quickly devolve into racial stereotyping. I'm all on board. However, the main page article is still nonsensical when it says "Harris has gone on to call for the racial profiling of Muslims". You cannot racially profile a diverse religious group. You can "in principle" profile a diverse religious group, but such profiling is not racial on its face. It can and will quickly devolve into that, and we should explain that, but it's nonsensical to identify Muslims as a racial group as the main page does. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- The lines around what constitutes a "race" are not clear-cut. The Nazis saw the Jews as a "race," not simply a religious group like, say, the Catholics. Up until the sixties, it was common for people in Canada to refer to the country's two "races" -- the French and the English. When my Coptic Egyptian friend gets brought to the special room at the airport, that's entirely because he's being racially profiled. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
22:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, but... Everyone could be a Muslim without a single change in appearance. Thus, are you trying to say that everyone on the planet is a member of the "Muslim" "race"? Or are you allowing race to include mere mental states? Again, I think as written the article is flatly wrong, and it does a disservice by conflating race with religion w.r.t Islam. For comparison, Jewishness is both a race and a religion, and that's how it's commonly understood. No one understands "Muslimness" as both a "racial" heritage, something that you inherit like you can inherit being "Jewish". EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- The fact that "Jewishness is both a race and a religion" says nothing about Jewishness--it says that we've designated a members of a particular group as sharing characteristics that make them a "race." If a Falasha from Ethiopia, a Hasidim, and Adam Sandler are all members of the "Jewish race," then why can't a Bosnian Muslim an Arab, an Indonesian and a guy from Senegal not be members of the "Muslim race"? PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
23:14, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I do not believe that you are being honest if you say that people regularly recognize a native European guy, a Japanese guy, a native African guy, a native American guy, and so on, as all belonging to the same race. Again, I understand that race is largely a social construct based on arbitrary criteria, and so if you don't like the "race" word that's fine. Are you fighting to say that Muslims are a racial group, and we should use that terminology? That seems to be an inconsistent position: on one hand to say that the race word lacks meaning and can mean anything, and on the other to be adamant that we use that word when it's meaningless. IMHO, we should not identify Muslims as a racial group in the mainspace article, because that elevates them in common discourse and "grants them" additional protections which I do not think they should be afforded. I think it would be heinous to say that we should attempt to destroy all people with black skin, and I think it's the only moral option to say that we need to destroy or fundamentally alter Muslim religion (and the Christian religion, and the orthodox Jewish religion, and the rest of the harmful ones). Calling Muslims a race implicitly grants Muslims additional unwarranted protections in the usual liberal discourse. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:24, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not fighting to say that Muslims should be put together as a racial group; what I'm saying is that it makes exactly as much sense to do so as it is to consider Jews, French-Canadians, or people with dark skin and tightly-curled hair as belonging to a particular "race," all of which has happened -- the racial profiling of Muslims fits into that historical arc. As for your argument that Islam, Christianity oand Orthodox Judaism needs to be destroyed, or that Muslims are at risk of being granted "additional unwarranted protections", well, I'm not touching those claims with a ten-foot pole. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
23:36, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Let's take a simpler question. Do you think it's acceptable, or even morally (weakly) required that we should try to rid the world of people who think the Earth is flat through education and dialog? Suppose we denied jobs in education to those who thought the world was flat. Would this be racial discrimination? Would you have a problem with someone who tried to phrase it in those terms? I do. Islam - and the other religions - are belief systems just like any other belief system, and religions deserve just as much respect as any other belief system - in other words none unless and until they can demonstrate truth and utility. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I don't understand the equivalence you're making between flat-Earthism and religion, at least in terms of my own religious practice, i.e. what I learn from and gain from reading religious texts and going to religious services on a regular basis, so I'm not sure how to answer this. And like I said before, if a consensus emerged that an adherence to a belief system constituted a "race," then it would make about as much sense as any other attempt to classify people as such. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
23:46, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Why the comparison? Because by and large religious beliefs are about as wrong and deluded as flat Earth belief, and comparatively harmful. And surely you agree that it is right to discriminate against flat Earthers in many areas where it would be considered wrong to discriminate against blacks. If someone tells me that they're a practicing literalist pentecostal, that's good reason right there to deny them any job in education in history and science, and especially ancient history and astronomy and biology, because their beliefs matter. Calling it racial discrimination, or racial profiling, carries a connotation that it's bad, when in this case it is not. Some of the Islamophobists (?) have a good point here, that Islam is not a race, and we should not grant it the protections that we grant someone for being black, or for having Jewish ancestry, and I think that even acknowledging it as a race without the heavy disclaimers that you have put forth communicates to the average person that they are a race deserving of the same protections as blacks and Jews-by-ancestry. Sadly, we seem to be getting nowhere, and worse you happen to be religious which I'm sure greatly hampers my point. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:58, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I don't understand the equivalence you're making between flat-Earthism and religion, at least in terms of my own religious practice, i.e. what I learn from and gain from reading religious texts and going to religious services on a regular basis, so I'm not sure how to answer this. And like I said before, if a consensus emerged that an adherence to a belief system constituted a "race," then it would make about as much sense as any other attempt to classify people as such. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
- Let's take a simpler question. Do you think it's acceptable, or even morally (weakly) required that we should try to rid the world of people who think the Earth is flat through education and dialog? Suppose we denied jobs in education to those who thought the world was flat. Would this be racial discrimination? Would you have a problem with someone who tried to phrase it in those terms? I do. Islam - and the other religions - are belief systems just like any other belief system, and religions deserve just as much respect as any other belief system - in other words none unless and until they can demonstrate truth and utility. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not fighting to say that Muslims should be put together as a racial group; what I'm saying is that it makes exactly as much sense to do so as it is to consider Jews, French-Canadians, or people with dark skin and tightly-curled hair as belonging to a particular "race," all of which has happened -- the racial profiling of Muslims fits into that historical arc. As for your argument that Islam, Christianity oand Orthodox Judaism needs to be destroyed, or that Muslims are at risk of being granted "additional unwarranted protections", well, I'm not touching those claims with a ten-foot pole. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
- I do not believe that you are being honest if you say that people regularly recognize a native European guy, a Japanese guy, a native African guy, a native American guy, and so on, as all belonging to the same race. Again, I understand that race is largely a social construct based on arbitrary criteria, and so if you don't like the "race" word that's fine. Are you fighting to say that Muslims are a racial group, and we should use that terminology? That seems to be an inconsistent position: on one hand to say that the race word lacks meaning and can mean anything, and on the other to be adamant that we use that word when it's meaningless. IMHO, we should not identify Muslims as a racial group in the mainspace article, because that elevates them in common discourse and "grants them" additional protections which I do not think they should be afforded. I think it would be heinous to say that we should attempt to destroy all people with black skin, and I think it's the only moral option to say that we need to destroy or fundamentally alter Muslim religion (and the Christian religion, and the orthodox Jewish religion, and the rest of the harmful ones). Calling Muslims a race implicitly grants Muslims additional unwarranted protections in the usual liberal discourse. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:24, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- The fact that "Jewishness is both a race and a religion" says nothing about Jewishness--it says that we've designated a members of a particular group as sharing characteristics that make them a "race." If a Falasha from Ethiopia, a Hasidim, and Adam Sandler are all members of the "Jewish race," then why can't a Bosnian Muslim an Arab, an Indonesian and a guy from Senegal not be members of the "Muslim race"? PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.
- Yes, but... Everyone could be a Muslim without a single change in appearance. Thus, are you trying to say that everyone on the planet is a member of the "Muslim" "race"? Or are you allowing race to include mere mental states? Again, I think as written the article is flatly wrong, and it does a disservice by conflating race with religion w.r.t Islam. For comparison, Jewishness is both a race and a religion, and that's how it's commonly understood. No one understands "Muslimness" as both a "racial" heritage, something that you inherit like you can inherit being "Jewish". EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- When Harris advocates profiling "anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim", that sounds a lot like racial profiling to me. ωεαşεζόίď
Methinks it is a Weasel 22:44, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I said as much 2 "posts" up, and I agree we should mention this clearly, and make fun of Sam Harris for it too. I thought my edit to the mainspace article did exactly that, and humorously - the edit which was just reverted. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Bullshit. Your edit claimed that "Harris has gone on to call for the racial profiling of Arabs" while citing an article that didn't use the term Arab at all but did explicitly call for profiling of Muslims, something you crossed out. Wéáśéĺóíď
Methinks it is a Weasel 23:13, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Bullshit. Your edit claimed that "Harris has gone on to call for the racial profiling of Arabs" while citing an article that didn't use the term Arab at all but did explicitly call for profiling of Muslims, something you crossed out. Wéáśéĺóíď
- How about the following? Of course, in full irony meter, Sam Harris has gone on to call for the "non-racial" profiling of Muslims,[12] which in practice is functionally identical to racial profiling. Thanks, Sam! EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- How about no. You're still putting words in his mouth. Wèàšèìòìď
Methinks it is a Weasel 23:13, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- How about no. You're still putting words in his mouth. Wèàšèìòìď
- Or this? Of course, in full irony meter, Sam Harris has gone on to call for the "non-racial" profiling of anyone who looks like they might be a Muslim extremist,[12] which amounts to racial profiling for the rest of us in the real world. Thanks, Sam! EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:10, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- How about no. You're still putting words in his mouth. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 23:13, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- What do you mean I'm putting words in his mouth? I haven't followed your exact link, but I have read both his initial appeal for profiling of Muslims and his later defense of that position against detractors. He is quite clear that his position is that he does not want racial profiling per se, but wants to include anyone who "looks like" they might be an extremist, and includes himself in the profile (a white guy). Of course, suggesting that we adopt a profile like this and have it not be a racial profile is a ridiculous position, and it's a ridiculous position for other reasons, and all of this is quite well explained by the security expert who was writing with him. Thus, I'm very lost. What words am I putting into his mouth? What positions do you think I am falsely attributing to Sam Harris? EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:24, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- You keep saying he calls for "non-racial" profiling, in emphatic quotes, when the article doesn't use the term "non-racial" at all and on the contrary does advocate profiling based on ethnicity among other factors. And he doesn't call for profiling of people who look like they might be an extremist as you say; he calls explicitly for profiling "anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim". Any Muslim. Wëäŝëïöïď
Methinks it is a Weasel 23:42, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- I fail to see how he can be advocating racial profiling when he includes every conventional race in the profile. You would have to twist the word "race" to something other than common usage, as PowderSmokeAndLeather is trying to do up-page. ... And sure, maybe he's advocating profiling for all Muslims. I haven't read the thing in a while. Sorry for my impreciseness / incorrectness. However, it's also not relevant to our discussion. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- How about no. You're still putting words in his mouth. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ
- I said as much 2 "posts" up, and I agree we should mention this clearly, and make fun of Sam Harris for it too. I thought my edit to the mainspace article did exactly that, and humorously - the edit which was just reverted. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Here, olive branch. I think there is some merit to what you say. Quoting Sam [5]:
- When I speak of profiling “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” I am not narrowly focused on people with dark skin. In fact, I included myself in the description of the type of person I think should be profiled (twice). To say that ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, dress, traveling companions, behavior in the terminal, and other outward appearances offer no indication of a person’s beliefs or terrorist potential is either quite crazy or totally dishonest. It is the charm of political correctness that it blends these sins against reasonableness so seamlessly. We are paying a very high price for this obscurantism—and the price could grow much higher in an instant. We have limited resources, and every moment spent searching a woman like the one pictured above, or the children seen in the linked videos, is a moment in which someone or something else goes unobserved.
He out and out explicitly states that this is not profiling just based on if someone has dark skin. However, several sentences later he leaves open the possibility of using ethnicity. Frankly, I think his position is utter crap, and inconsistent. However, I do not understand how you can read that and miss the big parts where he explicitly states he is not for merely racial profiling, or IMHO racial profiling in anything resembling the common usage of the word. He is imagining creating a complex profile which may include race to help determine who might be a Muslim, and he would include members of every conventional ethnicity in that profile. Again, of course this is crap, because such a thing is basically unspecifiable, and worse even if some really educated guys could make an accurate profile, there's no way barely trained security guards could properly implement it. Again, all points which were clearly spelled out by the security expert who wrote a part of the first blog post with Harris. But it is rank dishonesty to say that Sam Harris nakedly advocated racial profiling. And frankly, this is all a giant non-sequitir to the discussion at hand, which is whether we should refer to members of the Muslim faith as a "race". EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:52, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
- Since when is that the discussion at hand? It's certain not the discussion I've been involved with on this page.
- "I do not understand how you can read that and miss the big parts where he explicitly states he is not for merely racial profiling". I didn't miss it; I just don't buy into the notion that saying "I am not a racist" exempts somebody from actually being a bit racist. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 00:01, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- Ok. Sam Harris is a racist. Whatever. Can we change the main page to not refer to Muslims as a race? EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 00:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe this? Sam Harris calls for the racial profiling of anyone who "looks Muslim". EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 00:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- That's basically what it already says. Why are you so desperate to reword it? Wėąṣėḷőįď
Methinks it is a Weasel 00:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- I've explained in great detail above. Again, refers to Muslims as a race in general discourse invokes several liberal values, such as the value that it deserves protection against any discrimination, on a level equal protections against racial discrimination against blacks. You should be able to legally discriminate when hiring someone based on their (pertinent) religious beliefs, and you should not be able to legally discriminate when hiring someone based on their skin color. Muslims do not constitute a race under any conventional understanding of the term, and to use that term does play into one of the valid points of the "islamophobics" that Islamophobia is starting to take on most of the same connotations of actual racism, such as racism against blacks. Someone who thinks that blacks are stupider is just wrong on the evidence. Someone who thinks that we're morally obliged to discriminate against blacks, or that it's morally permissible, is just wrong. However, Muslims are deluded, and we should be able to legally discriminate against Muslims who take the Koran literally in a variety of ways, including employment the beliefs are relevant. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 00:49, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- Why am I "desperate"? 1- The above point, and 2- Because as written it's not correct or honest. As loose as the "race" word is, it still has a meaning. Blacks are a race. People who are Jewish by ancestry are a race. People of a particular belief system do not constitute a race. It is absurd to call US Democrats a race, and it is just as absurd to call Muslims a race. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 00:51, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- FFS I haven't said anything about Muslims being a "race" and neither does the article. Muslims of various ethnicities are, however, a frequent target of racism and racial profiling, as Sam Harris is advocating. As for employers being able to discriminate against Muslims, most of the developed world's employment laws would disagree with you, and rightly so. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 07:57, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- The main article identifies Muslims as a race. I tried to fix it, and you reverted that change. ... The fact that profiling of Muslims frequently devolves down to racial profiling I fully agree with, but that still is no excuse as identifying Muslims as a race. ... You are wrong about the employment issue. For example, I remember this one young Earth creationist who got a PhD in biology from a respected university in the US, got a job in the US, and refused to do any work on evolutionary theory because he didn't believe in it. He got his ass fired. He tried to countersue by saying he was fired for his religious beliefs. He lost in court. And guess what, he's factually right. He got his ass fired for his religious beliefs. If you are hiring someone to do research in evolution, and the person in question does not believe in evolution, then that's a perfectly good and legal (in the US) reason to discriminate against that person in hiring. (I'll dig up a link on request, but I hope that's not necessary.) I suggest you actually research case law before you speak out of your ass. I also suggest you read what I say, because I used nearly this exact example up-thread, so don't you even dare suggest that I was saying something different. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- FFS I haven't said anything about Muslims being a "race" and neither does the article. Muslims of various ethnicities are, however, a frequent target of racism and racial profiling, as Sam Harris is advocating. As for employers being able to discriminate against Muslims, most of the developed world's employment laws would disagree with you, and rightly so. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
- That's basically what it already says. Why are you so desperate to reword it? Wėąṣėḷőįď
- Maybe this? Sam Harris calls for the racial profiling of anyone who "looks Muslim". EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 00:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- Ok. Sam Harris is a racist. Whatever. Can we change the main page to not refer to Muslims as a race? EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 00:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
New to this conversation, but I've been quite involved before in ones like it on Sam Harris and this particular topic. I think it may be best to clarify that, while Sam Harris is not directly putting forward a position that we should be performing racial profiling, he is stating that we shouldn't be eliminating any factors from our profiling that could affect it. It is more accurate to say that he proposes "efficient" profiling (insofar as it is possible) that includes whatever factors, including race, are best suited for identifying Muslims, to the extent that they are a factor.
This is one of the (admittedly few) issues I have a strong disagreement with Harris on. It's not that I am against using race as a category of profiling, but it comes from an understanding that we already do unconsciously use race to profile, and we use it heavily. If we add it to the list of things we consciously search out, we are going to be doubling down ona single critereon and actually end up hurting ourselves in the long run. I think my worries that we will end up using race (and indeed religion itself) as too strong of a factor. The goal should not be "find the Muslims, using race as a factor", but rather "find the terrorists, using all known data as factors", with religion being but another trait that goes into the process.
With all this, I think it therefore makes sense to say, "Harris calls for the profiling of anyone who appears to be Muslim, explicitly stating that [[Racial profiling|race]] should be used as a factor to the extent it is useful in identifying Muslims. Sam leaves up to the imagination exactly how this process is supposed to be fair and bypass already existing human biases." Thoughts, opposition, etc.? --ShadowofLords (talk) 13:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
- Hi guys - I'm new to this. So my apologies if I have made technical mistakes in getting to this page. I was reading Rational Wiki's article on Islamaphobia and found quite a loaded sentence (and maybe a grammatical slip?!) in reference to Sam Harris's views on profiling: "Of course, in full irony, Harris has gone on to call for the profiling of Muslims and "anybody who looks like they could conceivably be Muslim" in security contexts.[11] What does a Muslim look like, Sam? We thought Islam was not a race, nor an ethnicity..." While I agree that the guy is probably wrong about it (although it seems he has a good point in the debate with Schneier, about it being only a disagreement over efficiency, and the comments on Israeli techniques are interesting) I think it's pretty amazing that Rational Wiki has such a loaded and frankly inaccurate reference to Harris's support for profiling. It seems slightly odd that it should be labelled racial profiling when the guy is asking for himself to be checked - basically, it seems a tad unfair to explicitly state that he supports racial profiling, when he has repeatedly said he does not.— Unsigned, by: Contrapunctus / talk / contribs
- His claims that it wouldn't be racial profiling seem rather flimsy & contradictory. He also seems to think airport security is all about screening for terrorists, & doesn't say anything about drug trafficking, firearms or anything else the TSA staff could be checking for. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
Methinks it is a Weasel 19:04, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
- His claims that it wouldn't be racial profiling seem rather flimsy & contradictory. He also seems to think airport security is all about screening for terrorists, & doesn't say anything about drug trafficking, firearms or anything else the TSA staff could be checking for. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ
- Hi guys - I'm new to this. So my apologies if I have made technical mistakes in getting to this page. I was reading Rational Wiki's article on Islamaphobia and found quite a loaded sentence (and maybe a grammatical slip?!) in reference to Sam Harris's views on profiling: "Of course, in full irony, Harris has gone on to call for the profiling of Muslims and "anybody who looks like they could conceivably be Muslim" in security contexts.[11] What does a Muslim look like, Sam? We thought Islam was not a race, nor an ethnicity..." While I agree that the guy is probably wrong about it (although it seems he has a good point in the debate with Schneier, about it being only a disagreement over efficiency, and the comments on Israeli techniques are interesting) I think it's pretty amazing that Rational Wiki has such a loaded and frankly inaccurate reference to Harris's support for profiling. It seems slightly odd that it should be labelled racial profiling when the guy is asking for himself to be checked - basically, it seems a tad unfair to explicitly state that he supports racial profiling, when he has repeatedly said he does not.— Unsigned, by: Contrapunctus / talk / contribs
[edit] Rollback of agreed changes without discussion
Hey, Osaka, we appear to have come to a conclusion in the talk page here, and you rather than stating disagreement with changes made a month ago (with two users agreeing they should be made and no one disagreeing) you just roll them back with no discussion. Any justification for going behind our backs and reverting the changes rather than having said something here first and continuing the conversation? Thanks. --ShadowofLords (talk) 15:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
- Two users isn't much of a consensus.
- Your edit took out the citation where Harris talks about profiling. Way to improve content by removing references!
- Harris advocates for racial profiling of anyone who looks like they could be Muslim. Let's not pretend this isn't racial profiling.
- No, Harris doesn't leave us to imagine how his proposal would bypass existing human biases: his whole proposal is built on a set of biases. If not, concepts like "anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim" would be meaningless.
- I support the reverted version. Щєазєюіδ
Methinks it is a Weasel 17:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
- Harris is many good things. He is also a racist and anti-Islamist. I agree the way it is now, is the way it should be.
Godot The ablity to breath is such an overrated ability 18:39, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree two users isn't much, but the original change was actively discussed followed by a solution that had no disagreement, but then the solution was rolled back with zero discussion, with someone a month later apparently deciding on their own "No, this is the correct way".
- References can be added back in.
- Not pretending that. I think it would be pretty clear reading what I wrote that it's a system that at a minimum is ripe for racial profiling, though perhaps it could have been made more clear it was built upon it.
- Harris does leave it to the imagination, though. The system he proposes clearly would be racially biased, he just claims that it isn't a problem so long as race is actually a determining factor in finding Muslims.
- No argument against Harris being a racist from me (in the more sociological sense: advocating policies that would needlessly and negatively affect racial minorities). However, that section of the article in particular is pretty poor. We appear to be readily hanging a straw man of Harris as attempting to create a system were we look at people and, solely based on their perceived race, identify Muslims. As far as I am aware this has not been his position. His position is that, if somebody is going to hijack or otherwise destroy a plane in flight, they will probably be a Muslim, and therefore we should apply additional scrutiny to Muslims at the airport (and we obviously would have to use visual cues to do so, perhaps dress and actions and, as Harris explicitly includes, race).
- So, we can easily show why this is a stupid way to go about identifying likely terrorists at the airport, and why we shouldn't use this system to let every grandma just walk through with minimal inspection. But, by reducing his position to "racially profile people to find Muslims", we hurt our credibility. We can go into how you might develop a decision making algorithm to detect terrorists, and why you would still want to randomly select some people who score low, especially when dealing with a system in which conscious creatures are attempting to stay hidden.
- My point, which is now much longer than I intended is that we are taking the easy road of attacking a position he doesn't really have rather than talking about why his logic is flawed. --ShadowofLords (talk) 17:23, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
- Harris is many good things. He is also a racist and anti-Islamist. I agree the way it is now, is the way it should be.
[edit] Dear Terrorist Sympathizers
“”Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.
|
| —Winston Churchill |
I'm assuming because this is a site dedicated to debunking religious views, crankery, pseudoscience and the like, that most of us here are atheists. Islam hates atheists, period. They hate atheists probably as much as they hate Jews. Christians also hate atheists, but they won't cut your head off for it, and, it only depends on where you live whether they'll try to enslave you for it. Islam holds the position that Muhammad was God's prophet issuing the final address from God to man for all time. Because Muhammad is said to have channeled God directly, all human beings must be subservient to him, because he came from God. Whereas Christianity and other religions often have edicts declaring they are not to associate with atheists, Islam is fine with association in the sense that they are commanded to fight and kill them. Islam does not and will not tolerate atheists in even the slightest way. Trying to sit around and figure out how to be friends with them is like trying to figure out how to make creationism real so we don't offend creationists by denying it. Islam is not like other religions in the sense that they are directly commanded to conquer the world and bring it into alignment with Sharia. Islam is the western world's 1500 year old enemy - Islamic religious violence is nothing new and they have been killing and enslaving westerners for centuries. Don't believe me? Pick up Chaucer - read "The Man of Law's Tale." It is a story about a Muslim man who is going to convert to Christianity to marry a Christian woman. His mother is incensed that he will convert from Islam, so she pretends to be ok with it, organizes a banquet, and has her son and the entire party's attendees put to death. There are centuries of literature affirming the perpetual violence of Islam against westerners. They view liberals as weak because liberals naturally tend to prefer peace, but Islam is not a religion that wants peace. It wants what the word Islam means: submission. It's nice to think you can get along with anyone in this world, but there are many who are not amenable to reason or ovations of peace. For atheists to engage in Islamic apologetics is a truly disturbing presentation. I don't know what teachers taught you that Islam is something that is highly ecumenical and amenable to a pluralistic society, but they shouldn't be qualified to teach.
Get your head straight and stop pillaging rationalwiki's pages with apologetic for Islamic supremacists. I'm a big peace fan, lay down in the grass and sing hippie songs kind of person, but unless you've been a zealous religious fundamentalist at some point in your life, you really don't understand the kind of mentality you're making apologies for. I was the kind of Christian as a young teen who read Left Behind and lusted for the death and punishment of the non-believers - though would not have taken such an action upon myself. If you don't know what it's like to want someone else dead for not believing in your religion, then you are completely out of line making apologetics for Islam - not to mention stupid. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 09:25, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
- This will be a discussion about extent, I assume. My experience is opposed to yours (me only having met and made friends with moderate Muslims all my life, and my non-Muslim friends who have a great time working in Muslim countries), but I don't doubt that there are such extremists in abundance if I just go to the right place. Nullahnung (talk) 09:48, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
- It's nice to think you can get along with anyone in this world, but there are many who are not amenable to reason or ovations of peace. - and, by the sound of your rant, you're one of them. Innocent Bystander (talk) 10:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
- I worked for a Pakistani Muslim for many years, he was a very nice man. That doesn't mean that Islam is friendly towards the west - it is not - it is and has been an enemy of the west for many many centuries and they're not going to be disposing of their views on that any time soon. To support Islam is to support the absolute worst abuser of human rights in the entire world - and that's really saying something. Islamic countries have spent nearly no time in their countries trying to adapt the views from Sharia and the fundamental core of Islam is supremacy. Please find me some Islamic scholars that say that Islam does not believe atheists should be either killed or enslaved - I would love to see one. Ovations of peace from Islam are like pedophiles with candy and kids - it looks and tastes sweet - but you're an idiot to climb in that van. Rational people are afraid of animals that want to kill them: http://iheu.org/story/you-can-be-put-death-atheism-13-countries-around-world http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/01/blasphemyLaws_05.png
- It's nice to think you can get along with anyone in this world, but there are many who are not amenable to reason or ovations of peace. - and, by the sound of your rant, you're one of them. Innocent Bystander (talk) 10:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
- All I'm saying is don't drink the politically correct liberal cyanide. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 11:32, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- Don't forget, they eat babies!!!! Innocent Bystander (talk) 12:59, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- No they don't, but they do murder apostates and blasphemers - quite openly with government approval from their member states. But, sure, in the name of tolerance, as rationalists, we should openly endorse the murder of atheists and rationalists. I think that's a wise course of action. Charles Manson was just a few centuries too late or he could have been Muhammad and raised armies to conquer 35% of the world - we should tolerate people who ruthlessly kill others in the name of religion. I'm sympathetic towards most liberal values, but as someone who was raised dominionist and turned atheist there's still a part of my psyche that says: "New York totally deserved 9/11 and more." If you don't know what it's like to think like that - then you have no idea how insane it is to talk about Islam the way a good number of the left does - with this peacenik hold-over from the flower children naivete. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 13:16, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- You might want to actually read some of our articles such as Islamic Awakening, Muslim Patrol and Taliban amongst many others. Other articles on, for example, Blasphemy will be of interest well.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 15:41, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- Tolerance of Islam is not the same as the tolerance of the terrible practices of radical Islamists. The excuses the radical Islamic nations use for their various crimes are the same kinds of scripture that are found in the Christian and Jewish holy texts. Just because religion has inspired these people to kill and destroy doesn't mean we should prohibit the peaceful practice of it by much more moderate worshipers.
- The Western world being tolerant of Islam does not mean they would tolerate stoning atheists. It means they're not going to tear down a mosque just because radical Islamists in another country a thousand miles away are stoning atheists.
- Islamophobia is when some nut goes off his rocker ranting about putting a mosque near Ground Zero because he doesn't know the difference between al-Qaeda and moderate Muslims. Being outraged by the death and destruction caused by radical Islamists is not Islamophobia. Frederick♠♣♥♦ 02:54, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
- No they don't, but they do murder apostates and blasphemers - quite openly with government approval from their member states. But, sure, in the name of tolerance, as rationalists, we should openly endorse the murder of atheists and rationalists. I think that's a wise course of action. Charles Manson was just a few centuries too late or he could have been Muhammad and raised armies to conquer 35% of the world - we should tolerate people who ruthlessly kill others in the name of religion. I'm sympathetic towards most liberal values, but as someone who was raised dominionist and turned atheist there's still a part of my psyche that says: "New York totally deserved 9/11 and more." If you don't know what it's like to think like that - then you have no idea how insane it is to talk about Islam the way a good number of the left does - with this peacenik hold-over from the flower children naivete. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 13:16, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- Don't forget, they eat babies!!!! Innocent Bystander (talk) 12:59, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- All I'm saying is don't drink the politically correct liberal cyanide. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 11:32, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
- So if I complain that Christians are being persecuted by Islamic terrorists or an "atheist" totalitarian regime or Jewish nationalists in Israel or the West Bank, I take you are going to yell at me and call me a "Crusader Sympathizer." Rand0 (talk) 06:49, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
- Probably not since you're complaining about a real issue. "Crusader symphathizer" would only be appropriate if you advocated outright religious warfare.-- 194.81.33.118 (talk) 08:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC)