Talk:Islamophobia Watch

	This Islamophobia related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Maher

Given that Maher did say things like "most of the 1.2 billion muslims just want to subjugate in peace" and implied that all arabs are savages and misogyinist "talk to women who date arab men the reviews are not good" and has always implied that palestinians are the ones who are mostly to blame for the conflict in palestine even though both sides had issues, Maher is definatly racist. Still, the reest of the article is pretty good. ^{— Unsigned, by: 149.137.106.81 / talk / contribs}

Site seems defunct

I can't read the language, but it sure seems like the domain has been grabbed by a domain squatter/spammer. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 17:12, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I saw a seemingly-throwaway line about the site being dead. So… should we really be referring to it in present tense? --Luigifan18 (talk) 17:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

for real though

In what world is "Islam is an unmitigated evil" not an Islamophobic comment? ^{— Unsigned, by: 92.40.168.44 / talk}

Does it have the same connotations as "Christianity is an unmitigated evil"? I don't think so, because obviously the person saying it could be easily talking about Muslims and not merely the religion of Islam. That distinction is very important to make when calling someone Islamophobic. In the sense that, yes, technically they are 'Islamophobic', but are they racist? I'm an antitheist in some ways, so to me, the statement that Islam is a force for evil and Christianity is a force for evil aren't particularly controversial. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 17:36, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think either are necessarily "unmitigated evil" (historically, such as medieval era in Europe, organized religion helped found universities, and the Islamic Golden age also made an extraordinary amount of similar advancements to modern concepts that we still owe a lot to today such as algebra, the scientific method) but they're definitely the cause for a lot of harm in the world. Anyhow, that statement needs further context to support it to avoid bigotry, since it's very easy to slip into racism since that statement is already swamped by other statements by sincere bigots. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 21:05, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I view it from the perspective that at best 'God' can only ever be a dictator. It's a divine totalitarian entity that knows what you think and watches you all the time, and is responsible for all of the mistakes that you are then blamed for despite having no agency to avoid them or predict where your life would be. I don't think that can be salvaged morally, personally. This has nothing to do with someone being from the middle-east, but it is explicitly anti-islam. Islam isn't always interchangeable with Muslim. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 17:24, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

I mean, let's break things down a bit. Islam contributes to science, Christianity contributes to science, saves some books in history, we should be grateful yadda yadda, but let's forget that for all the books saved, all the wars justified in the name of the religion. All the suffering that's pointless that pays for just a lil' bit. It's not enough, the wrongs of any theoretical omnipotent god outweigh the positives, all goods do is serve to justify more miserable tomorrows with more death and pointless loss of life. That goes beyond a few books from antiquity being preserved. This is only talking about the religious side of things and criticizing that though, but for that, I would be put on this watch list as an 'Islamophobe'. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 17:33, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think you're severely downplaying the role religion did in advancing society historically by equating achievements to "saves some books in history". The only reason we even know anything about the medieval era in Europe was due to book-keeping by monks.[1] (it's also worth checking out the link for backstory including contributions to the scientific method and philosophy) The church itself was a major sponsor of science such as, again, establishing universities, establishing hospitals, and so on, and it was probably the reason scientific research and advancements continued despite the disarray of Europe at the time. You're also seriously downplaying Islamic Golden Age, which is actually a revolutionary era that's hard to overstate. The Wikipedia article is really impressive. You have pioneering of the scientific method, pioneering of algebra, flourishing astronomy (such as helpful translations to Arabic to help Islamic scientists advance knowledge; the crucial development of the astrolabe), observations in human anatomy that agrees with modern facts, and more. The Wikipedia article for European science in the Middle Ages is also worth reading and worth keeping in mind how religion played a role there. It's a huge disservice to cast all this off as "a few books from antiquity being preserved". It could be arguably a strawman.

That being said, I'm not arguing that religion is a pure good establishment. It certainly was a systemic way to withhold women from accomplishing in way too many fields such as in art where women were banned from even figure-drawing nudes and whatnot, and there's little doubt there's religious undertones for that reason. It certainly lead to disastrous wars and intolerance that saw many people killed or had their ways of life altered. And there's a whole ton of problems that I can't even begin to touch on ranging from abusing children, religion being used to justify slavery, religion used for ecological destruction, and so on. I don't think I need to state the mountains of criticism for religion, particularly organized religion; it's why we have so many divisions of religions. However we can't discount how engrained and important religion was to people historically; it worked closely with society for charity, to try to make people literate, to try to establish moral codes, and whatnot. The Crusades, despite being an atrocity, did lead to facilitation of trade in the regions affected, which led to important ideas being exchanged I'm talking just about Christianity and Islam but I do think other religions ranging from Buddhism to Hinduism to African folk religion have also these influences on society is run. I don't think religion is appealing to me personally, and I do think the decline of religious belief is a justified decline until religious belief can comfortably associate itself with left-wing goals and social justice.

However, the question "Is Islam is an unmitigated evil?" cannot lead to a short answer. Same for "Is Christianity an unmitigated evil?" Your response is just extremely problematic by being too reductionist; history doesn't seem to support your claims. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 02:37, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

As long as Santa brings his presents, he can justify any of his previous evils against you. Or even the modern ones. I'm not comfortable telling people who get their family members executed by a religious state that it was fine and the faith that lead to it isn't evil simply because it also did some good at some point, or I might be more comfortable arguing for the positives of Jimmy Savile's donations. I can even apply it to my own problems, since I donate to charity, all my other flaws can simply be overlooked or padded. I can't simply be an evil in the world because I have bribed it during my time alive. But what I think is most interesting is whether or not Islam itself was necessary for any of those accomplishments, or whether Muslims themselves would still have done the humanitarian things over time without religion, was it really their motivator during those times? BumblingBuffoon (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

As I pointed out in the Islam article, Islam also has a pacifist current. Non-violent Muslims in Senegal created a pacifistic resistance movement to the French with no bloodshed involved, for example. To say that "Islam is special" among the world's religions is fallacious and insulting. I should also point out that Islam isn't a monolithic entity, and any generalizing claims about Islam or Muslims are bound to be at least somewhat fallacious and inaccurate.

For instance, take the claim that "Islam was spread by the sword." No, the caliphates were spread by the sword. The Caliphate didn't want people converting. Islam really spread due to a mixture of tax policy and merchant proselytizing (in addition to political convenience). The Caliphate never reached Southeast Asia, for instance, but Muslim merchants certainly did. Yeah, forced conversions played a part in the spread of Islam, but not the only (or even main) part. Vee (talk) 13:28, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

"But what I think is most interesting is whether or not Islam itself was necessary for any of those accomplishments, or whether Muslims themselves would still have done the humanitarian things over time without religion, was it really their motivator during those times?"

Which I already answered at length: you're not going to receive a short answer. Islam DID contribute to these accomplishments, I am sure, but the extent is probably debated, back and forth whenever religion inspired and motivated people to accomplish things or help other people, did we overstate it, understate it, might not even be the correct question. Vee put a good response, that Islam also runs a spectrum and has many subfactions of competing beliefs and priorities. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:37, 10 December 2022 (UTC)