He's not saying they don't have the right to get angry.
Teacher beheaded near Paris after showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad
- Thread starter SinNombre
- Start date
He's not saying they don't have the right to get angry.
It certainly does not, i couldn't believe some of the stuff he's been saying on it. Of course he doesn't care if it riles someone up and results in the brutal murder of someone as long as it scores him political points.
I would take Ergodan anyday over this lunatic pakistani imam who is urging Pakistan to nuke france over this.
Imagine if the death of all life on earth was provoked by an offensive cartoon
I know I was born in the 1950s, but you can't pin that on me!
There are no double standards. Do you understand the difference between "having a right" and "being right"? If I play an online game and lose, it's my right to get angry, throw my toys out the pram and maybe smash my monitor with my keyboard. No one can legally stop me from doing this. It's my right. But if I do so, it shows at least immaturity and at worse anger issues. Yes I have the right to do it, but it's not the right reaction. It shows there's a problem.
Similarly neither the Muslims nor anyone else is right in getting angry over a cartoon by a fringe publication or over a meme on the internet. And nobody else is getting angry "en masse" about this except Muslims. Jews don't care about cartoons of Moses splitting a girls legs like the Red Sea and Christians just roll their eyes at cartoons of Jesus engaging in gay orgies with the 12 apostles. And honestly, like I said, if a only few people got angry it wouldn't be a problem. Some Christians do get mad at those cartoons. But they are so few and the vast majority simply don't care for them. Western liberalism means people can make fun of you and your religion and while it's not a polite thing to do, it happens so much that the majority simply don't care.
The first issue here is that Muslims in the West are on average more religiously conservative than the other communities and react worse than anyone else. Because they come from very religiously conservative countries and communities with blasphemy and apostasy laws. Concepts irreconcilable with liberalism. And the second issue is that Muslims from all over the world chime in like they think this is happening in their country or it's their duty to "defend" Islam abroad. The former causes the friction, the latter makes it worse. That overreaction fuels those crazies who end up killing people.
Last edited:
If someone insults you and your parents and then your family you have a right to be angry. But is is right? Does it shows immaturity or anger issues? Or are you just going to walk away smiling? Whether Muslims get angry en masse or one person gets angry does not matter. What matters is they have their right to be angry. Just like the publishers of the cartoons to be obnoxious and publish them. Is it right to be obnoxious? It is their problem because they have a right to be obnoxious. One cannot simply put everything under one label. Jews may get angry for one thing and Christians another and Hindus another. It is their own issues. Getting angry and doing violence are different issues.
Now you are saying that getting emotional for Muslims is a problem. That is double standards. So long as they do not cause violence themselves then they should be free to express their emotions and anger is an emotion.
Just because Trump shouted to the crowd to lock her up about Governor Whitmer, and then there was a plot to kill her, it does not mean Trump is responsible for the plot to kill her. Or is he?
You really have no clue whatsoever what he's saying
But that’s not exactly true, by numerous reports, the teacher did have a fatwa issued against him. The decapitator wasn’t working in his own vacuum.
It may not have been someone as high up the islamic structure system as Khomeini, but the decapitator has fallen prey to the psychosis of religious extremism & apparently took the fatwa to heart & acted upon it. If the point you’re trying to make is that the fatwa wasn’t issued by the government, that just lends itself even more to the severity of sociopathy the decapitator showed by acting on the fatwa of an apparent nobody / lesser figure within the islamic religion.
Last edited:
Trump’s rhetoric has certainly greased the skids for the white supremacists in this country, so, yes he is culpable in many people’s eyes. He is tapping into the psychosis of christian extremism just like whoever issued the fatwa tapped into the psychosis of islamic extremism. The governor’s kidnappers expressed clear intent to kill her so Trump’s rhetoric could be construed as a ‘fatwa’ to those weak-minded enough to be sucked into the thralls of such extremism, just like the decapitator was sucked in by the fatwa.
There is a marked difference between Muslims. There are other polls too you know
There's tonnes of differences in the poll you cited and other polls too between attitudes here and in other countries
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default...-on-muslims-in-great-britain-ipsos-mori_0.pdf
There's gallup too. I simply do not understand how you and others can take opinions polls, selectively ignore others, with all the differing results and methodological flaws and come to the conclusions you have.
Its something I see a lot in ex-Muslim community of which I was once a part of. Still am secular, but definitely do not identify with this lot
Its this kind of shit, this non-factual nonsensical propaganda, this hyperbole that feeds into right wing narrative that Muslims are an existential threat to Western societies that led to the shooting up of the mosque in New Zealand.
Tried to make this exact point earlier in the thread but was had my posts slammed for being stupid.
The common denominator in all of this is religion, there’s no way around that. The psychosis of religious extremism by its very term is religion itself. It’s pollyanna-ish to think that religions do their upmost to police themselves of the radical extremes within their ranks; it’s often times the extreme behaviors can be key to keep receiving donations & converts to the cause. It will be a banner day when religions worldwide take seriously the issues their extreme wings bring them & try to police seriously from within.
Serious question here - why can’t they just stop beheading & killing people over cartoons?
This person didn’t make this story up out of thin air.
feck's sake mate, what is this mess? I never once said they have no right to get angry. Get that out of your head. I said it's not the right response and it shows a problem and it causes further problems.
The bolded part is where you're clearly wrong. Muslims getting mad at this "en masse" matters hugely, because thousands of people getting angry and commenting angrily on social media fuels those crazies who then go and kill people. It also shows that most people can't deal rationally with fecking cartoons that no one else has any issue with in the western world. It's problematic to say the least.
Anger is linked to violence, in what universe is it not? How are they different issues, are you for real? So those who go and kill people because they feel that their religion and themselves are being attacked, are they not angry about the cartoons? Their actions happen in a vacuum do they? And yes Trump is very much responsible for fuelling hate, anger and encouraging far-right groups. Have you been in the Trump thread? It's all we ever talk about.
Finally you need to learn what double standards is before you use it next time. Because you have mentioned it twice now but not once pointed out where the double standard is. I didn't make any special cases for Muslims, I said no one is right in being offended by cartoons and memes on the internet. It shows you can't rationally process and then ignore something completely trivial that doesn't affect your life in the slightest. You produce an emotional response to a situation that doesn't warrant it. If someone on the internet insults my parents I laugh, I don't get angry. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me on an online game that they fecked my mum, I'd probably be rivalling Jeff Bezos by now. But I'm not 6 years old, so I don't have an emotional response to that. It wouldn't be right to get angry about it, even if I have the right to be angry. Do you understand what we're saying?
We're worlds apart mate. We're not even close to having common ground and views here.
I know Muslims in the UK, Canada, America, the United States and Ireland. Family and friends. This is a crock of shit. You've believed this because its what your perception of us is.
I think the biggest chance of a nuclear winter is definitely religious nutjobs obtaining a nuke. Fecking scary if you think about it.
Crazy people do crazy things. Murderers murder. Right wing terrorism exists. Islamic terrorism exists. People get radicalised, they murder, they send death threats. Has happened always. I do not see what its "Muslims" as a group who should bear collective responsibility for criminal acts.
While these guys murder people, I was in A&E doing a locum shift doing chest compressions to save lives of an old man in cardiac arrest, majority of my team that responded was doing this was Muslim including the anaesthetist who came to save the day.
I thought about this humorous clip on the director Kevin Smith joining in on protesting against his own movie Dogma which a lot of devout christians found deeply offensive.
You mean like evangelical christians? They already have the keys to them...
But, when it’s a murder in the name of islam (which this was, a fatwa was apparently issued), how can you divorce islam from the crime? While these three murders may not have been the result of a fatwa, they are also certainly done in the name of islam.
I just don’t see how hard this is to comprehend. Regardless the flavor of religion, that specific religion is most responsible for heinous acts committed in its behalf. There’s really no grey area in that. I feel that the onus to affect change falls squarely into on that religion. It’s childish to think otherwise.
Whose house? Run’s house.
That's absolutely great for you and your friends but credible studies in the UK show that as a community they are more conservative on practically every measure.
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default...-on-muslims-in-great-britain-ipsos-mori_0.pdf
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/many-british-muslims-put-islam-first/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/may/07/muslims-britain-france-germany-homosexuality
They are more religiously observant than any other major religious group and their religious beliefs strongly influence their opinions on a host of social issues. From abortion and gay rights to freedom of speech and blasphemy.
And I mean that shouldn't come as a surprise, because Muslim majority countries are far more conservative and theocratical than western liberal democracies.
Last edited:
I am a muslim, I'm not responsible for somebody else doing something who happens to be of the same religion as me. I don't share his views.
That's not childish. The French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the attack.
Have a read of what MI5's report from their behavioural science unit said when they looked into this issue of terrorism and religiosity
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1
To paraphrase
- a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly
- Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices
- Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households
- evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.
Every single time in these threads, the PEW polls are thrown around, taken as gospel, every single other data set is ignored that disproves the stereotypes or challenges the prevailing narrative.
Most young muslims get high and think liking Drake is a personality trait.
Have you actually read that IPSOS Mori that you put up?
It shows a vast difference between the views you posted up Pakistani Muslims having on that Pew poll that you were using to scare us into thinking we're not compatible with western society on many topics.
No surprise it says young people are more liberal, older ones have more conservative values. Pretty much like any other group in society I'd imagine.
Also
Young muslims are pro-immigration remainers who love sending christmas cards and more than other groups say they are British
Like I said, you posted something the content of which literally goes against the core of your argument. You have an altered view of reality.
The Muslims in Britain are a world away from other Muslims in the same country let alone abroad. No two people are the same.
That’s great that they condemned the attacks as the attacks were carried out in the name of their religion. Internal policing, serious internal policing, is the only way that religious extremism will be eradicated. And that will take more than words from a council. It might take modernizing the teachings of the religion. Mere words really don’t mean shit. If the French authorities don’t come down on the person who issues the fatwa (not sure where that person lives), then the muslim leaders should. People are still killed in some muslim countries when they violate laws, this would be a perfect time for islam to stone the person who issued the fatwa to death for doing so. But, I don’t think anyone high up in the islamic hierarchy would have the balls to do such a thing. Or, whatever muslim country in which that person resides needs to bring the fatwa issuer to trial & hopefully the death penalty would be found an appropriate sentence.
Again, religion, whatever flavor, is the common denominator in religious extremism. Mere words of condemnation when discussing a religiously-caused murder of an innocent is trite, banal, again, childish. The lack of true apparent effort within religions to curb their extremists is tantamount to absolving future extremist crimes.
You are right about the apparent mental deficiency that religious extremists seem to have, either in illiteracy of their religion, a basic lack of intelligence or social skills, or the sociopaths within its ranks who probably keen enough to know better but they see justification in their crimes through the prism of their religion. Either way, religion is at the core of it all. If the religions can’t police the actual terrorists (zygote who commit the crimes), they should go after the more zealous aspects of their religion. Other than mere condemnation, do you actually see islam really going after those who radicalized this person / going after radicalization as a whole? I don’t as this would hit it in the pocket book & potentially siphon off some of its ranks.
It’s religion that is the only truly guilty party in extremism, regardless the flavor of religion, & until religions seriously put a crimp on the extremist elements within their ranks, the current discontent will just be maintained. Those seeking to find a quick way out of responsibility by blaming a phobia against their own religion aren’t helping the cause either.
I'm offended, I read that review in full!
It does indeed paint a positive picture for younger Muslims. But I didn't in any way present an alternate version of reality. Quote straight from the 2nd page of the report.
The ipsos mori report doesn't talk about freedom of speech or abortion but others do. Never did I say that because Pakistani Muslims have certain views the British Muslims will share them verbatim and in same numbers. But conservativism filters through, in smaller numbers and milder in views but still more "right shifted". Again it's evident on every metric.
I also don't believe that Islamic religious belief in general is incompatible with the West. No more than Christian religious belief anyway. I find all Abrahamic religions a bit outdated if I'm honest but benign so long as they focus on one's self. I find that deep, dogmatic religiosity does clash with liberalism, however. Muslims are simply more religious and devout on average, and Islam is currently on a more conservative trend globally as well. It's not that it's downright incompatible. We don't have religious wars. It's not a square peg in a round hole. But like I said it chafes, there's friction. Friction that isn't as evident with other religious communities. And friction often causes fire. We don't have these threads about Hindus, Buddhists or Jews.
If something is truly incompatible with liberal democracies however, it's political Islam. Which brings me to the post I was replying to before I hopped onto this....
I think you misunderstand what we're saying. Or at least what I'm saying, I can't speak for everyone. It's not that Muslims should bear responsibility or that bearing responsibility actually makes any difference here. What does it change apart from create guilt or anger? And neither am I ignoring ascendant right-wing extremism, nor the fact that Islamic extremism kills primarily Muslims across the world.
But the religion needs heavy reforms from within to modernise, reduce it's political influence and move away from trying to provide a framework for society to providing a framework for personal or community religious practice. Muslim countries will hugely benefit themselves from such a change in the first place. You can't run modern liberal societies on legal and tax systems fit for the 7th-15th century. You can't take Abrahamic-religion views on blasphemy and instead of suggesting that people should privately avoid it, be inclined to enforce it nationally on everyone regardless of their religion or views.
PS. That's not up on any individual to do. It happens when societal attitude gradually shift that way and that becomes a movement.
Last edited:
I would take Ergodan anyday over this lunatic pakistani imam who is urging Pakistan to nuke france over this.
Imagine if the death of all life on earth was provoked by an offensive cartoon
can I take option #2, no Erdogan and no Pakistani crazy man?
Stop evading Penna, you're personally responsible for the Crusades and I'll hear you say it!
I don't understand. There are already laws in place against violence, against preaching extremism. It's not up to Muslims to enforce the law. Murder is a crime, advocating violence is a crime.
You mention "religion" as a guilty party as if its a sentient entity. Its made up of individual adherents. Muslims don't have a pope or central body as such but there are imams, preachers, activists, elected councils, all of which engage with police in many ways.
Its not my responsibility as a Muslim to stop a murder or prevent somebody else becoming radicalised despite how many times you keep saying it is it will not become less ridiculous. There are plenty of terrorist attacks stopped because of tip offs from Muslims sure but thats one thing. Quite another to say that I have to squeeze in somehow my day job as a GP to prevent beheadings.
On a side note (following from my earlier post) the decentralisation of Islam is in my humble opinion part of the reason why reforms aren't easy.
Muslims are not the only group that have homophobes and misogynists among their ranks. There is this erroneous belief that conservatism and religiosity correlates to propensity to terrorism which I haven't seen evidence for. And as per my post previously I've seen evidence to the contrary for.
I know Muslims who go to the mosque, have a strong sense of Islamic identity and they are perfectly well adjusted and acclimated to live in the west. And vice versa, think Moeen Ali popping out of the champagne splashing during cricket celebrations. Or my bosses giving me Eid off, and vice versa majority of Christmas holidays in hospital shifts being covered by Muslims.
I think society has become as an aggregate more progressive over time, some say regressive and overly PC etc. Muslims aren't exempt from that. If you look at the Muslim diaspora in western societies (south asians etc), its largely in my opinion a success story. These stories don't take away from the enormous societal contributions (economic and otherwise) that Muslims have made in every day life in the West.
Agreed. I think reforming texts is a non-starter. But you see it in a Muslim mayor of London attending and advocating Pride parade. Societal shifts in attitudes have and are happening. What I'm saying though is that even in communities that are observant, hold views that are socially conservative/orthodox it is easy to think thats what propogates terrorism or creates a hotbed for terrorism, its not that straight forward.
So you're a bit of naziphobe then?
It's exaggerated, but I wouldn't call it phobic. If the influx of muslims when Pegida started had continued, if muslims would have double the number of kids of the non muslims, which isn't farfetched, and muslims would produce 3 generations in the time the non muslims produce 2, also not farfetched, a substantial demographic change would be happening very fast. And with muslims beeing violent about their religion, it doesn't take a majority of muslims for islamisation. Also with small minorities like 5 or 10% we see islamisation as in beeing forced to adapt to islam.
Yes, I tend to be critical of the authoritarian French state, but in this case it's an advantage.
The threat of Nazis is a much more realistic one than that of an islamisation. After all, the AfD - a party that consists of right wing extremists - holds 12,5% in the Bundestag and in a European comparison, that's actually a low percentage. And PEGIDA and the AfD are actually strongest in regions in which muslims make up less than 2-3% of the population. A quick research suggests that in 2019, Germany registered 425 religiously motivated crimes but 22.342 cases motivated by right wing ideologies. Last year, a popular politician was killed by a Nazi.
Also, your computation is also exaggerated. First, you couldn't expect the influx to continue. Also, your model would require all those muslims being religious traditionalists. Moreover, 5-10% would never be enough to force people to convert to Islam since we're living in secular countries with functioning legal and executive authorities. All of this is just a pretext to mask xenophobia.
So yes, I think it's more than fair to call the fear of an islamisation "Islamophobia". Again, I'm not speaking of fear regarding terrorist attacks or something along those lines but some people really think that we might sooner than later have to live according to the sharia and that's definitely not a rational thing to believe or fight against. And the people inflicting and promoting such fears know that very well themselves, they just use it to foster their agendas.
This is a convenient excuse that I’ve heard multiple times in the past. How about those adherents to the religion, like yourself, getting up in arms & demanding change? It’s far easier to somewhat circle the wagons in faux outrage claiming that there is rampant phobia against a certain religion from others; it’s another to actually feel ashamed that crimes are being committed in the name of said religion yet basically admit that nothing can be done. Smacks of a cop out. Religions are by their very nature divisive & it’s telling that you would feel so put upon when the root cause of these current atrocities is islam itself, there’s really no way around that fact. Don’t get twisted here, I am equally as contemptuous of all religion, this is not a slam solely on islam.
So, basically, you appear to be fine with any fatwa issued by islam towards any non-believer regardless the outcome? That it should be the country in which the atrocity is committed that should be policing itself & islam should not be held for any responsibility of the act? Just throw up your hands & claim that there is nothing you or your religion could do about it? With this attitude, you can’t see that there could be some perhaps deserved phobia against your religion? Again, not coming down only on your religion, just reflecting the current mood in France & in some parts of the world that is appalled by these particular acts of violence in the name of islam.
What’s ultimately ridiculous is that someone who believes in a fairy tale tells a non-believer that there should be nothing that he should or could do to affect change. Religion is all man made to begin with, but it’s dismaying when adherents to a religion can’t see that some meaningful reform needs to always come about by those humans that espouse it, by agitating for it. Because, if a state or secular government would try to impose any outside change on it, those who are religious would immediately play the phobia card & claim that they’re impotent to be able to affect any real change & that outsiders were just bent on destroying their religion. That, to me, is peak both siderism, that’s spinning a bigger fairy tale than the one the religious believers follow, that convenient excuse really doesn’t hold that much water.
- "Muslims are not the only group that have homophobes and misogynists among their ranks."
- "I know Muslims who go to the mosque, have a strong sense of Islamic identity and they are perfectly well adjusted and acclimated to live in the west."
- "I think society has become as an aggregate more progressive over time, some say regressive and overly PC etc."
Also the west is a small bubble. The bubble itself is worryingly disintegrating internally and things outside of it seem to be regressing fast as well. Eastern Europe and Russia are becoming increasingly religiously intolerant and racist. Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (bar India) are on a path of political Islam and oppression of religious minorities. Sub-Saharan Africa I haven't read much on so I'll keep my mouth shut. India is regressing on freedoms and advancing on nationalism. China is going full surveillance state and repression of minorities. South America is still grappling with the ghost of socialism. The US is on a knife edge with the upcoming elections, extreme partisanship and social unrest.
- "If you look at the Muslim diaspora in western societies (south asians etc), its largely in my opinion a success story. These stories don't take away from the enormous societal contributions (economic and otherwise) that Muslims have made in every day life in the West."
It's not necessary to alter texts. But for example you see the Pope saying that homosexual relationships are not bad. You see the first gay Catholic priest in the US. Do the scriptures agree with that? Hell no. But if the attitudes of people change, it can happen regardless.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I don't think the religiously observant communities are a hotbed for terrorism. Well, not strictly anyway. It's more nuanced than that. But I do strongly maintain that religious conservatives getting riled up about Charlie fecking Hebdo cartoons and deeming it to be an attack on Islam are riling up those extremists into action. They are just unrelated to them.
I will vociferously oppose those who normalise what happens with "for every action there's a reaction", "bad guys on both sides" type of arguments. Those who deflect criticism of such views with false equivalences. And similarly to Trump, who provides excuses for and gives fuel to right-wing extremists, I find it reprehensible and indirectly responsible for these actions of radicalised individuals. And you can see plenty of such views on this very thread.
Last edited:
A question to you that is different than our other ongoing one - why would textual reform be a non-starter? Wouldn’t somewhat modernizing religious texts to potentially soften any rhetoric in them that would lead to radicalization be perhaps a positive step in this regard? The whole idea about religious texts being sacrosanct & the ultimate word of the higher power is ludicrous as they’re all man made & many other religions have gone through internal reform to stay somewhat modern. Wouldn’t amending text be a logical start in curbing extremism & even further quicken the positive shifts in societal attitudes towards them?
It’s not as though absolutely nothing can’t be done, there’s always something that could be tried. Does islam necessarily want to change its texts to be seen as modernizing at all?
Careful now, this is 2020 we're talking about.Imagine if the death of all life on earth was provoked by an offensive cartoon
Thou shalt not tempt fate!
I would take Ergodan anyday over this lunatic pakistani imam who is urging Pakistan to nuke france over this.
Imagine if the death of all life on earth was provoked by an offensive cartoon
This "imam" is a laughing stock in Pakistan. He spouts crazy non-sense every now and then and abuses literally every one. He is a "meme" in Pakistan.
Always worth posting
I'm from Singapore, Malaysia's neighbour. This man was re-elected as PM not too long ago in a political system that relies heavily on race-based (and by extention religion) politics, so saying he doesn't have much influence over Muslims is baseless and even dangerous for non-Muslims living in the region.
You could be the nicest guy on this planet but you ARE responsible for anything and everything that happens in the name of your shared belief system.
Drop the imaginary friends and all the problems that your religion — and every other religion — have created decrease significantly. Isn‘t that reason enough? Don‘t you think you could step away from your irrational belief if it could save your neighbour/colleague/friend from being beheaded by a lunatic following the same belief system? Why not? Because in reality you don‘t give a shit. You don‘t want to leave your comfort zone, you don‘t want to disappoint your family and friends of the same belief. You choose to be part of a big lie over evolving.
As long as you hold on to it, of course you‘re also responsible for what is caused by it.
You have it in your own hands yet refuse to accept responsibility and instead continue to deny being part of the problem.