Religion, what's the point?

JohnDoe said:
I don't see how any rational person can deny that Islam is uniquely destructive at this point in history. That's just a fact, whether you like it or not.
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I personally think this kind of argument is shallow and almost pointless because it's looking at one factor and ignoring many other factors which are - in my opinion at least - much more relevant. I'm not sure it's much more useful than saying "brown people are more likely to be terrorists" (which is probably also factually correct at this point in history).

Key thing as well is "at this point in history" because every religion has erred at some point in history - which suggests it's a human problem, not a religious problem. Correlation and causation - is the religion the cause or is it some other factor?

When you look at the regions where Islamic terrorism is most rife, it doesn't surprise me because all you'll find there is usually already a lot of conflict - more often than not seeded by the often horrendous and to put it bluntly - evil - meddling of western powers.

I mean, what do you think would happen if say, Afghanistan had a powerful military and started meddling in our affairs - let's say they started supporting the IRA in their fight against the UK government. To the extent that they were bombing houses in the UK. What the do you think would happen then?

What would we do if Iraq and Iran's secret services got together and supported a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader in favour of a dictator? Do you think the fine citizens of the UK would act completely in unison with reason if they found out about that? Of course they wouldn't. And whatever happened would probably happen under the banner of Christianity - as it has done in the past.

Let this kind of destructive and selfish meddling happen throughout the entire 20th and 21st centuries and you shouldn't be surprised when it comes back to bite us.
 
Don't Kill Bill said:
I'm not sure that is possible to be honest. If you don't believe there is a god how on earth can you be a muslim,or have I got this all wrong?
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Sorry should have clarified, atheist by belief but still self identify as Muslim, as in not dissociated from community like many ex-muslims choose to do. Occasionally pray, fast but essentially a humanist/non-believer. I appreciate there is a contradiction in the term.
 
Religion as culture rather than belief, CofE get baptised, married and have their funeral rite in church - many don't see the inside of one very often otherwise.
 
JohnDoe said:
Harris was on The Young Turks for 3 hours last night and tried to clear up the controversy surrounding him regarding torture, profiling etc.

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Got about 90 minutes and turned it off as it was getting monotonous. Cenk should've cut the time from 3 hours to one hour. Hopefully the remaining 90 minutes will feature some juicy bits with Harris having a go at Aslan.
 
Wolverine said:
He did plagiarise a few things, and apologised in unequivocal terms for the laziness but he is right on Islamic terrorism. Im not at all surprised the new atheists going after him after he essentially went after their raison d'etre.

The fact is that they now make a living out of amplifying the threat that Islam plays as a uniquely destructive force. That I take issue with. The majority of atheists in fact who don't necessarily identity as anti-theists according to a few polls any way might also take issue with.

The fact is that Harris has said he thinks pre-emptively nuking Muslims under the control of what he deems as an Islamist group if they were to acquire long range nuclear weapons. And he said "time is not on our side" meaning its imminent. Its that kind of neocon alarmist bullshit that many take issue with. Should we take people like ISIS seriously? Sure, should we say things like pre-emptively nuking as a hypothetical and provoking a nuclear war? No. Pakistan has had nuclear weapons but most of these countries have a self preservationist streak, suicide bombers and their ilk make up rebel arms and militia groups, in ISIS' case they have captured tanks (a few fighter jets allegedly) at most. To go from that and say we have to consider the possibility they'll have nukes is ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that most western countries would have I'd imagine pretty sophisticated anti-nuclear/ballistics defense systems in place. No mention of that whatsoever by Sam Harris and his ticking bomb scenarios.

And when this is pointed out to him and his fans he shows them an essay. Sam Harris doesn't understand that you can't polish a turd. He wants a clash of civilisation, or maybe he doesn't and its all talk, who knows.


After this Sam Harris was booked to come on MPR radio but cancelled last minute because they booked "known fraud" Reza Aslan on to appear with him despite of course Harris' debates with him previously.

I think Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are finding it difficult to contend with that there are dissenting voicing against them on issues. Being a liberal atheist doesn't preclude you from being dangerously bigoted and wrong on issues of national foreign policy and they don't like being called what they are (in harsh terms admittedly) but they have said some pretty strong stuff. And there will be pushback on it.

But of course Sam Harris has the twitter/reddit/youtube/blogosphere atheist contingent on his side armed with accusations of "intellectual dishonesty", "obscurantism", "ad hominem" ready to go at a moment's notice when their worldview is challenged with nuance.

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May be he should draw a cartoon of his prophet and then compare the level of venomous responses.

I don't get the love-in for Aslan. Fox news basically did him a huge favor with that ridiculous interview they conducted. Since then he has taken that persona to the hilt to milk as much money from media as possible.

He also frequently DOES misrepresent certain aspects of Islam in today's world by cherry picking cases from one end of the spectrum and dismissing cases from another. If you are going to cite Turkey as an example of liberal Muslim nation, you can't dismiss Saudi Arabia completely as well.

I don't agree with everything Harris has said but he does try to be consistent in his arguments. He is prone to saying some reactive things like 'Islam is the mother load of bad ideas', which brings much deserved heat on him but in general he is more intellectually honest than Aslan.
 
Shamwow said:
I personally think this kind of argument is shallow and almost pointless because it's looking at one factor and ignoring many other factors which are - in my opinion at least - much more relevant. I'm not sure it's much more useful than saying "brown people are more likely to be terrorists" (which is probably also factually correct at this point in history).

Key thing as well is "at this point in history" because every religion has erred at some point in history - which suggests it's a human problem, not a religious problem. Correlation and causation - is the religion the cause or is it some other factor?

When you look at the regions where Islamic terrorism is most rife, it doesn't surprise me because all you'll find there is usually already a lot of conflict - more often than not seeded by the often horrendous and to put it bluntly - evil - meddling of western powers.

I mean, what do you think would happen if say, Afghanistan had a powerful military and started meddling in our affairs - let's say they started supporting the IRA in their fight against the UK government. To the extent that they were bombing houses in the UK. What the do you think would happen then?

What would we do if Iraq and Iran's secret services got together and supported a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader in favour of a dictator? Do you think the fine citizens of the UK would act completely in unison with reason if they found out about that? Of course they wouldn't. And whatever happened would probably happen under the banner of Christianity - as it has done in the past.

Let this kind of destructive and selfish meddling happen throughout the entire 20th and 21st centuries and you shouldn't be surprised when it comes back to bite us.
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I get what you are saying, but disagree with it completely.

I know it is wrong to genralize, but the flip side being if we treat each and every incident as seperate crime by a single person or a group, then we miss seeing the big picture. It could be a lot of dots, but if not related we would be fighting the incident and not the cause.

With 'Point in history' you are just arguing semantics. The Inquision and prosecution by Church on 'pagans' sounds very similar to intolerance to 'infidels', right? At that point in hisotry, Christianity was a destructive force, same as Islam becoming one currently. Lessons from history should be applied in current affairs to rpevent recurrance. Might not be religion, Nazism was a destructive force at that time and we can go back to find examples at differnt points in history.

Meddling is a very subjective arguement. Should we leave ISIS army alone? Should Saddam have been left alone? Bin Laden's enimity to US can be traced to religios reasons around Gulf War time.

The point being, we are seeing a rising trend in Islamist extremism. Maybe it is too soon for a general labelling of 'destructive force', but imo, it is clear that moderate muslims either do not do thie part, or whatever they are doing is completely ineffective in stemming the rising extermism within their religion.
 
Shamwow said:
I personally think this kind of argument is shallow and almost pointless because it's looking at one factor and ignoring many other factors which are - in my opinion at least - much more relevant. I'm not sure it's much more useful than saying "brown people are more likely to be terrorists" (which is probably also factually correct at this point in history).

Key thing as well is "at this point in history" because every religion has erred at some point in history - which suggests it's a human problem, not a religious problem. Correlation and causation - is the religion the cause or is it some other factor?

When you look at the regions where Islamic terrorism is most rife, it doesn't surprise me because all you'll find there is usually already a lot of conflict - more often than not seeded by the often horrendous and to put it bluntly - evil - meddling of western powers.

I mean, what do you think would happen if say, Afghanistan had a powerful military and started meddling in our affairs - let's say they started supporting the IRA in their fight against the UK government. To the extent that they were bombing houses in the UK. What the do you think would happen then?

What would we do if Iraq and Iran's secret services got together and supported a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader in favour of a dictator? Do you think the fine citizens of the UK would act completely in unison with reason if they found out about that? Of course they wouldn't. And whatever happened would probably happen under the banner of Christianity - as it has done in the past.

Let this kind of destructive and selfish meddling happen throughout the entire 20th and 21st centuries and you shouldn't be surprised when it comes back to bite us.
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Nice post Sham
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
I get what you are saying, but disagree with it completely.

I know it is wrong to genralize, but the flip side being if we treat each and every incident as seperate crime by a single person or a group, then we miss seeing the big picture. It could be a lot of dots, but if not related we would be fighting the incident and not the cause.

With 'Point in history' you are just arguing semantics. The Inquision and prosecution by Church on 'pagans' sounds very similar to intolerance to 'infidels', right? At that point in hisotry, Christianity was a destructive force, same as Islam becoming one currently. Lessons from history should be applied in current affairs to rpevent recurrance. Might not be religion, Nazism was a destructive force at that time and we can go back to find examples at differnt points in history.

Meddling is a very subjective arguement. Should we leave ISIS army alone? Should Saddam have been left alone? Bin Laden's enimity to US can be traced to religios reasons around Gulf War time.

The point being, we are seeing a rising trend in Islamist extremism. Maybe it is too soon for a general labelling of 'destructive force', but imo, it is clear that moderate muslims either do not do thie part, or whatever they are doing is completely ineffective in stemming the rising extermism within their religion.
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I'm not saying treat every incident separately. I'm saying that if you just say "Islam is the problem" and leave it at that, you're ignoring a whole metric feckton of factors that are deeper rooted causes. Ones that are easier to solve than it would be to get rid of Islam.

I'm just not talking about getting rid of Saddam. I'm talking about things like the UK and US starting a coup in Iran to overthrow Mossadegh and put the Shah back in power because Mossadegh wanted to nationalise the oil industry. Is that subjectively bad or just straight up bad? Giving Saddam chemical weapons in the 80s. Supporting the Saudi regime. There's so much shit that has been done to feck the region up by outside powers.

Then you have to remember that subjective or not, a lot of the people affected by this don't know about our ever so noble motivations. They just see that their family got blown up by a bomb that was dropped from a drone the USA sent.

The children that grow up in these areas - what's going to be a more destructive influence on their lives? Islam or the constant death and destruction that we are helping to create?

Feel free to criticise Islam. I'm not a big fan. There's a reason that my family hasn't returned to Iran since the revolution. But if you're talking about it in the context of terrorism etc, well I don't think it's the real cause of the shit that's going on right now in the Middle East and elsewhere.

That's why I take exception at statements like "Islam is a uniquely destructive force".
 
You could say that geopolitical, economic, educational etc. circumstances influence religious extremism (or fundamentalism or whatever word you want to use), and it's a fair point, but it runs both ways; religious extremism stifles economic growth, education, and inflames geopolitical circumstances.

Of course the US isn't blameless in this, they've made a ton of mistakes over the years - some that would certainly fit the definition of a war crime - but we're not just talking about people growing up in the most geopolitically unstable countries or regions in the world, nor are we exclusively talking about people who have necessarily been mistreated by the US or anyone else. And the fact remains that the actions and ideology of ISIS, al-Qaeda and a ton of other jihadist groups are fully explicable by the Islamic texts and principles. And indeed other countries and regions have suffered occupations and mistreatment without the same level of extremism or violence, not to mention the Christian communities in the ME, which don't behave in the same way as the jihadists.

You can take all the exception you like, it's still a self-evidently true statement.
 
JohnDoe said:
You could say that geopolitical, economic, educational etc. circumstances influence religious extremism (or fundamentalism or whatever word you want to use), and it's a fair point, but it runs both ways; religious extremism stifles economic growth, education, and inflames geopolitical circumstances.

Of course the US isn't blameless in this, they've made a ton of mistakes over the years - some that would certainly fit the definition of a war crime - but we're not just talking about people growing up in the most geopolitically unstable countries or regions in the world, nor are we exclusively talking about people who have necessarily been mistreated by the US or anyone else. And the fact remains that the actions and ideology of ISIS, al-Qaeda and a ton of other jihadist groups are fully explicable by the Islamic texts and principles. And indeed other countries and regions have suffered occupations and mistreatment without the same level of extremism or violence, not to mention the Christian communities in the ME, which don't behave in the same way as the jihadists.

You can take all the exception you like, it's still a self-evidently true statement.
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Let's assume you are right, and Islam is the core problem. What do you do with that conclusion exactly?
 
JohnDoe said:
That's Ali Rivzi, a Canadian writer and former Muslim, not Dawkins.
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Hah ok that explains the "As a brown-skinned man with a Muslim name and family who grew up in Muslim-majority countries well into my twenties," which nearly gave me an aneurysm. The funny thing was is that I read the entire thing in Dawkin's voice.
 
Shamwow said:
Let's assume you are right, and Islam is the core problem. What do you do with that conclusion exactly?
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Simultaneously promoting secularism and human rights, and, if possible, encouraging an Islamic reformation of sorts, where a reinterpretation of the Islamic texts effectively disposes of doctrines like jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, blasphemy etc. I don't think military force is going to solve this problem (even if it might be necessary in certain instances, for example to prevent genocide, or prevent WMD's from falling into jihadist hands), so whenever "we" can keep out of the region and let them figure things out for themselves, we should. It's just too inflammatory.
 
JohnDoe said:
Simultaneously promoting secularism and human rights, and, if possible, encouraging an Islamic reformation of sorts, where a reinterpretation of the Islamic texts effectively disposes of doctrines like jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, blasphemy etc. I don't think military force is going to solve this problem (even if it might be necessary in certain instances, for example to prevent genocide, or prevent WMD's from falling into jihadist hands), so whenever "we" can keep out of the region and let them figure things out for themselves, we should.
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I would agree with most of that although any Islamic reformation is not going to happen due to external pressures.
 
JohnDoe said:
Simultaneously promoting secularism and human rights, and, if possible, encouraging an Islamic reformation of sorts, where a reinterpretation of the Islamic texts effectively disposes of doctrines like jihad, martyrdom, apostasy, blasphemy etc. I don't think military force is going to solve this problem (even if it might be necessary in certain instances, for example to prevent genocide, or prevent WMD's from falling into jihadist hands), so whenever "we" can keep out of the region and let them figure things out for themselves, we should. It's just too inflammatory.
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I agree with this and that it will have to happen organically. You can force it on them like the Shah did but if you're corrupt then it doesn't matter.

Like I said many Muslims do believe in secularism, democracy and human rights. Pakistan really had Islamism forced into its constitution by a dictator. Even with the religious population the coalition of ultraconservative Islamist parties got 2.2% of the vote. Given what you hear about Muslims there why isn't this figure higher there? Quite simply because Muslims want Islam, but not necessarily Islamism.

We need to be able to of course debate and spread awareness of the inherent barbarism that is jihadism, blasphemy laws but that will take more time because it is a debate over ideas. And hopefully we'll see the progress. Much in the same way I'd also like to see Western foreign policy not backing an occupying regime with arms which is used to conduct militarism which produces a civilian casualty rate (by their own estimates) upwards of 50%. But people can be very intransigent about things. But yeah...politics.
 
Its very encouraging to see various "Atheist Muslims" and otherwise reasonable secular ones spring up all of a sudden. The Muslim world could do with an infusion of new ideas imo.
 
Wolverine said:
I agree with this and that it will have to happen organically. You can force it on them like the Shah did but if you're corrupt then it doesn't matter.

Like I said many Muslims do believe in secularism, democracy and human rights. Pakistan really had Islamism forced into its constitution by a dictator. Even with the religious population the coalition of ultraconservative Islamist parties got 2.2% of the vote. Given what you hear about Muslims there why isn't this figure higher there? Quite simply because Muslims want Islam, but not necessarily Islamism.

We need to be able to of course debate and spread awareness of the inherent barbarism that is jihadism, blasphemy laws but that will take more time because it is a debate over ideas. And hopefully we'll see the progress. Much in the same way I'd also like to see Western foreign policy not backing an occupying regime with arms which is used to conduct militarism which produces a civilian casualty rate (by their own estimates) upwards of 50%. But people can be very intransigent about things. But yeah...politics.
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Which dictator was that? Pakistan very reason of existence was to be an Islamic republic. You can't escape that. And like I said before Pakistan also have to introspect that why the percentage of minorities in their country has gone done so drastically in last 60 years. It can't just be due to 'cultural' reasons. That's one thing that needs to be tackled more head on rather than being brushed under the carpet. State of minorities in various Muslim countries is progressively getting worse, even before we get to other groups like homosexuals.
 
crappycraperson said:
Which dictator was that? Pakistan very reason of existence was to be an Islamic republic. You can't escape that. And like I said before Pakistan also have to introspect that why the percentage of minorities in their country has gone done so drastically in last 60 years. It can't just be due to 'cultural' reasons. That's one thing that needs to be tackled more head on rather than being brushed under the carpet. State of minorities in various Muslim countries is progressively getting worse, even before we get to other groups like homosexuals.
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Well a case can be made for all of them as being oppressive/corrupt/engaging in nepotism, but I was referring to Zia ul-haq there. I do believe you are right that Pakistan's raison d'etre is a Muslim state but Jinnah did say this:

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the state. … We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens, and equal citizens, of one state.”
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It was around 1977 that alcohol became a hot topic, around the same time Zia ul Haq overthrew Bhutto in a coup, and assumed a dictatorship to introduce many changes to our constitution which Nadeem Paracha of Dawn covers which gives that time some context
http://www.dawn.com/news/1060507
http://www.npr.org/blogs/picturesho...-pakistans-past-the-beatles-booze-and-bikinis

And I'm not escaping anything, but saying that the most pernicious ideas into Pakistan, lets say the subjugation of the Ahmadi movement was force-fed into law by Gen Zia ul-Haq's administration who wanted to use Islamism as a wedge to lend his regime divine credibility so he introduced Ordinance XX. I think it is absolutely appalling the state of minorities within our country, you are not going to get an argument on me from that. And you haven't.

My point was even a country like Pakistan, its important not to brush aside the fact its not as black as white as people wanting Islamism. The Awami National party which are openly democratic, secular and espouse those values almost got as many votes as a coalition of hard right Islamist parties? Despite the ANP not being to campaign at all due to threats towards their candidates by the Pakistan taliban and others.

I mean if all or indeed significant majority Pakistanis want is subjugation of minorities, sharia law, sympathising with the Taliban, why did only 2.2% voted for Islamist parties who would make being a theocracy a priority? They are unabashedly against secularism, yet Jamaat e islami only have 4 out 342 seats in national assembly.

Ofcourse we have to have be introspective and be accountable to the extent that mobs burns down christian homes, to the secularists are assassinated and their assassins praised and the way societal opinions on issues are not progressive.

But people want a living wage, education, safety, less violence, social mobility, infrastructure. Of course there are morons there too. Probably a higher percentage of morons than so in other countries. Again I am not denying that or brushing anything under the carpet. Pakistan has problems, but they are related to a fundamental lack of justice, corruption, weak leadership more so than being backwards religiously/culturally (which is also a significant and abhorrent problem)
 
Shamwow said:
Not sure where I stand on this. Probably somewhere in the middle.

As an example - when the Goths converted to Christianity in the 3rd century, it was very much Christanity in their own image.

You can't completely discount the religious texts though. Otherwise what would be the point in them?
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Indeed. I think that religion is undeniably very influential. If nothing else it can give false justification for pre-existing beliefs, hardening them.

However if religion were the, or even a, major cause you might infer that removing religion entirely would result in a significant change in general beliefs in the fundamentalist groups of the world (whether quickly or long term). Personally I'm skeptical whether that's true because numerous other pressures still exist. More likely they would move behind some other philosophy or banner that would allow them to continue acting in the same way.
 
Raoul said:
Its very encouraging to see various "Atheist Muslims" and otherwise reasonable secular ones spring up all of a sudden. The Muslim world could do with an infusion of new ideas imo.
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Yes i agree, but secularism in the "Islamic" world is nothing new. Neither is atheism, but its not as open and didn't have a voice as a collective because there'd be pockets of us within communities.

The main issue is also being appropriated. I take issue with many ex-Muslims who speak out against the barbaric nature of Islam but then don't criticise the policies that lead to it. I was at the secular conference 2014 in London a few weeks ago and I was really depressed at the simplistic rhetoric and lack of ideas.

Its the usual, cultural relativism is bad, PC gone mad and anyone who disagree was an apologist for Islamism. Explaining the cause (or one of the causal factors) of something doesn't mean you are justifying it. I think we can stand for more, fight islamophobia, for the rights of Palestinians (also a minority), for LGBT rights, women's rights and promote democratic, progressive ideals.
 
Wolverine said:
Sorry should have clarified, atheist by belief but still self identify as Muslim, as in not dissociated from community like many ex-muslims choose to do. Occasionally pray, fast but essentially a humanist/non-believer. I appreciate there is a contradiction in the term.
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I realise you've already said there's a contradiction but who do you pray to when you do pray?

I'm sure you have your reasons I just found it a little odd and was intrigued.
 
Wolverine said:
but saying that the most pernicious ideas into Pakistan, lets say the subjugation of the Ahmadi movement was force-fed into law by Gen Zia ul-Haq's administration
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Good post. Would just point out that it was under the previous regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that the Ahmadiyya were declared non-Muslims, and that largely as a measure designed to appease growing (Sunni) Islamist sentiment throughout the country, particularly as the Bhuttos were Shi'i.
 
Wolverine said:
Here's what scares me, I am an atheist Muslim. My family who are more liberal than your average ones yet we all identify as Muslims. It is a real concern to us, and indeed all Muslims that we are one major terror attack (i.e. more resembling the scope of 9/11) for there to be calls for us to be deported, marginalised, internment camped, profiled ever more and start seeing the rise of far right politics more than ever.


You guys are calling CJ Werleman, Reza Aslan all sorts of things but he is not the one that calls for torture (despite the vast evidence to the contrary) of detainees, fascists' opinion on Islam, racial profiling, pre-emptive nuclear warfare based on who Sam Harris and the West decide are Islamists etc.
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These two points absolutely nail it (not saying the other's dont!). I am from a similar background and while I get some of the points the likes of Harris makes especially as I see myself agreeing on liberal values, I'm never got quite sure what the upshot is other than alienating 1.6bn people. Then there is obviously the uncomfortable feeling of feeling targeted, to most people Muslims are Muslims, if calls for deportation and profiling were to occur, it would be the innocent who would be hurt the most.
 
Harris thinks torture should be illegal, does not believe in racial profiling, and has not called for a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Anyone who has actually bothered to read his arguments knows that.
 
JohnDoe said:
Harris thinks torture should be illegal, does not believe in racial profiling, and has not called for a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Anyone who has actually bothered to read his arguments knows that.
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http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/in-defense-of-profiling

"We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-id-rather-not-speak-about-torture1

He did kinda backtrack on torture, saying it should be rare. And acknowledged that it is ethical dilemma. But again he misses the point about it being proven to be potentially counterproductive in terms of its use on enemy combatants, there's a few studies on it and comments as I have mentioned earlier in the thread which he could have and should have mentioned it. And that there are alternatives that are much better suited to the scenarios he mentions that interrogators have highlighted. And that is in fact more scientific, evidence-based, and it debunks the Jack Bauer mentality that is pervasive among defenders of torture and perpetuated by films like Zero Dark Thirty.

The pre-emptive nuclear strike people can read decide for themselves, I have covered it before in this thread
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2#premptive_nuclear_war

I have bothered to read his arguments. And disagree with them. Fair enough you're convinced I have reached the wrong conclusion about him and perhaps that is the case. I've read more than I'd like of him, and maybe not the stuff he's more well liked for (i.e. science and morality) which is a shame.

It is indeed a shame that the atheists I grew up admiring, Richard Feynmann etc, we don't have more like him though that are less divisive.

I don't know how many of you have experienced profiling at airports, it can be incredibly stressful. Me and my brother were on a small domestic flight from Minnesota to New York, and we were called out for interrogation while the other passengers went on ahead. Now its usually the sort of thing many Muslims dismiss because it happens once or so in a year.

But it's happened on my past 4 visits to New York and when I drive across the border from Toronto to New York. My cousin, 13 years old, was detained for 10 hours because as a Shia he had visited Iran previously. Longest I've been kept for is 3 hours, and that is because I always have on hand a lot of paperwork (e.g. university admission letter), always give them all the details they ask for in a calm prompt manner (they have in the past asked for my email, all my addresses and phone numbers) and I am lucky on my new passport issued I don't have the stamp of Pakistan (last visit I made there was 6 years ago).

But the scary thing is that whilst a lot of people have called not to be reactionary, we now have in place Terrorism Act laws that means I could be whisked off to a detention facility tomorrow and never heard from, denied access to a lawyer, kept for years and it would be totally legal. And people would support it. And should another major incident happen it will get worse.

Ex-Muslim groups I am not part of because I would like to see them take a stance on that too, I am all for calling for reform in Muslim majority countries but for me secularism should mean freedom of religion (within an existing legal framework) as much as freedom from it. Tackling radicalism/fundamentalism needs more nuance, more understanding, more evidence-based policies and more humanity...not less.
 
So apparantly I'm a direct sign of jesus returning.

I'm stuck in portsmouth for the day and there's a preacher standing in the rain banging on about monkeys and earthquakes. So I shout out that monkeys have nothing to do with evolution, at least not in the way he's saying, and that if you are going to force people to hear you then at least have a basic grasp on what it is you are yelling.

He then dramatically turns and points at me and shouts he was told by jesus himself that a mocker like me would bring back his return.

So I have 2 questions:

1) at what point does the line between believer and mental illness occur?

2) How do I go about setting up my own cult? I reckon I could get a group of followers off the back of this.
 
2cents said:
Good post. Would just point out that it was under the previous regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that the Ahmadiyya were declared non-Muslims, and that largely as a measure designed to appease growing (Sunni) Islamist sentiment throughout the country, particularly as the Bhuttos were Shi'i.
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Again, not the full facts. Ahmadiyyism was officially ruled outside of Islam by worldwide Islamic scholars in the 70s when they met in the middle east somewhere. Pakistan got the clarification needed about the sect and ruled them non-Muslims. It just so happens Zufiqar was in charge of Pakistan at the time. There was no appeasing going on, it was a decision based on the intellect and governance of these scholars.

Ahmadiyyism isn't the only sect ruled outside of Islam by the way, there are 100s or maybe 1000s more.
 
Redlambs said:
So apparantly I'm a direct sign of jesus returning.

I'm stuck in portsmouth for the day and there's a preacher standing in the rain banging on about monkeys and earthquakes. So I shout out that monkeys have nothing to do with evolution, at least not in the way he's saying, and that if you are going to force people to hear you then at least have a basic grasp on what it is you are yelling.

He then dramatically turns and points at me and shouts he was told by jesus himself that a mocker like me would bring back his return.

So I have 2 questions:

1) at what point does the line between believer and mental illness occur?

2) How do I go about setting up my own cult? I reckon I could get a group of followers off the back of this.
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Maybe he said 'mocha' not 'mocker' and he just wants you to buy him a coffee so that you can both discuss the finer points of evolution and religion in a quieter and more intimate location.
 
Dumbstar said:
Ahmadiyyism was officially ruled outside of Islam by worldwide Islamic scholars in the 70s when they met in the middle east somewhere. Pakistan got the clarification needed about the sect and ruled them non-Muslims. It just so happens Zufiqar was in charge of Pakistan at the time. There was no appeasing going on, it was a decision based on the intellect and governance of these scholars.
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The idea that 'clarification was needed' about the status of the Ahmadiyya came from the religious parties such as the JI. After all, what business is it of the state to decide who is and who is not a Muslim? Why should it matter? Why should a religious opinion become enshrined in law?

That the issue was on the agenda at all was a result of pressure from the religious right. Bhutto simply caved in to that pressure by amending the constitution, and in doing so helped fuel the sectarian monster that has increasingly haunted Pakistani society since.
 
Redlambs said:
2) How do I go about setting up my own cult? I reckon I could get a group of followers off the back of this.
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Easy. A cult is just a minority religion. Get some guys, get a name, maybe an acoustic guitar with a rainbow strap - you're a cult leader!

If I were you I'd make it one of those fun cults. With blackjack. And hookers.
 
I would join your cult Redlambs especially if blackjack and hookers are involved. Can I be a high priest?
 
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