Polytheism still counts in my sentiment - especially since they also warred with each other over individual gods inside their beliefs. By accepting a belief system, you knowingly reject someone else's beliefs. Become exclusive is what breeds intolerance, and it's part of being human.
Define 'reject someone else's beliefs.' And furthermore how is that intolerance?
Quick, everyone cite things that happened a thousand years ago!!!
Sorry, but you cannot say one religion with a blood-stained past is better than another with a blood-stained past. It's silly to compare levels of carnage in this fashion.
Sorry, but you cannot say one religion with a blood-stained past is better than another with a blood-stained past. It's silly to compare levels of carnage in this fashion.
Pretty self-explanatory. You choose an option, you exclude (reject) the others.
No, it means I'm citing other religions. Without blood-stained pasts. Like wicca, druidry. Like I said, I meant to but neo- infront of paganism in my original post.
Okay, we've established then that it isn't intolerance. Just because I don't follow a certain belief system doesn't mean I think it is 'illegitimate,' or 'worse,' or 'wrong.'
If I made a brand new faith with God as who I worshiped, then it'd still have its roots in a bloodstained history. You cannot just abandon the history of a religion when its convenient.
Also, my point isn't that religion is intolerant itself - because that would be a lie. I said religious beliefs will breed intolerance to other religious beliefs because you have to make a distinction between your faith and someone else's. It's human nature to turn that into what I beleive is right, which quickly dissolves into intolerance.
Pssst - there are MANY that do have such policies, whether to fullest extent or not. Sharia courts operate in England. Saudi Arabia and its neighbors enforce sharia. Sexism is prevalent in the religion even where it's not in its more fundamentalist form. As for teaching children nonsense about the world around them, that much is true for most of Islam and other religions. Plus, if you're admittedly too lazy to do the appropriate research then why even bother to engage? You say "few Middle Easter sects" but that's actually quite a gross understatement when you consider entire theocratic states such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. and countries with huge populations of practitioners where the situation is getting decidedly worse (e.g. Indonesia). In any case I don't care if it's "most" or 25% or 10%. I would prefer zero. As it is, it's more than enough.
Regardless it's not relevant here - and the group that tried to get traction for Sharia in England failed, by the way.
And for such "huge populations" most of those nations have a lesser population than Texas. Some even are lower population than Rhode Island. (i.e. Bahrain, Qatar is similar)
I could see justification in being afraid for those reasons of the Muslim faith in those areas that enforce those things (or distasteful of it) - but to worry about it in those areas that share the name loosely is absolutely ridiculous.
I don't lump all the Christians out there with the homophobic jerks that picket homosexual funerals, bomb abortion clinics, or whatever other nuttery after all - and those ACTUALLY HAPPEN HERE.
Making individual judgment based on varied groups is ignorant and prejudicial. (And frankly in this case, completely misfounded in the context of our nation)
Regardless it's not relevant here - and the group that tried to get traction for Sharia in England failed, by the way.
I think you're talking about something else. I said there are sharia courts in the UK, and I'm right. One second on Google will confirm: search results for "sharia courts uk"
And for such "huge populations" most of those nations have a lesser population than Texas. Some even are lower population than Rhode Island. (i.e. Bahrain, Qatar is similar)
OK and some of them have larger populations than Texas (by the way Texas has 25 million people which isn't exactly small so your point is kind of lost). Indonesia, the one I gave as an example for "huge", has 230+ million people. I am not sure what point you are trying to make here, except to maybe "play down" the number of practitioners in the world that practice more fundamental forms of Islam, for whatever reason that may be.
I could see justification in being afraid for those reasons of the Muslim faith in those areas that enforce those things (or distasteful of it) - but to worry about it in those areas that share the name loosely is absolutely ridiculous.
I am "distasteful" (to put it mildly) of any religion's more fundamental forms. There's nothing phobic about that, however, as these fundamental forms are not confined to some far-off countries that I will never see and have no effect on me. Unless of course you have some evidence that contradicts this.
I don't lump all the Christians out there with the homophobic jerks that picket homosexual funerals, bomb abortion clinics, or whatever other nuttery after all - and those ACTUALLY HAPPEN HERE.
I thought we were talking about Islam, not individual people. I never said I'd be afraid of a given individual from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. But fundamentalist religious ideology, that I am afraid of, and it doesn't need to be shared by 100% (or even close to 100%) of any particular demographic to be a concern.
Making individual judgment based on varied groups is ignorant and prejudicial. (And frankly in this case, completely misfounded in the context of our nation)
Who said anything about individual judgment? You are talking past me.
As I see it, Islamophobia or the "anti-Jihad" movement is very very tightly wrapped up with white nationalists/supremacists/racists. It didn't need to have started there but it has all those little goodies that far-right groups flock to:
1) A "different" enemy; 2) Somehow "inscrutable"; 3) Potentially hidden among us; 4) With a hidden agenda
There is nothing inherently immoral about opposing Sharia law or Wahhabism or whatever, because the same goes for Christian Dominionism or Creationism or other backward and crazy ideas. But it's way too easy to point out an Arabian-looking guy and scream "Muslim!" and kick him.
So what we have is a kind of mashup between the anti-Semitism and anti-Japanese sentiment from the WWII era. It's like anti-Semitism not only because it attracts the old guard of anti-Semites, but also because it has that "they're hidden among us" conspiratorial vibe. It's like anti-Japanese sentiment because radical Muslims attacked us, just as radical Japanese attacked us; this gives the bigots just the right excuse.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear the more frothing-at-the-mouth nutjobs call for Muslim identification or mass deportation or anything else.
There are progressive and moderate Muslims just as there are progressives and moderates of any religion (or non-religion). The extremists hate them more than even their sworn enemies, because the moderates' very existence undermines the extremist position.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
If I made a brand new faith with God as who I worshiped, then it'd still have its roots in a bloodstained history. You cannot just abandon the history of a religion when its convenient.
Also, my point isn't that religion is intolerant itself - because that would be a lie. I said religious beliefs will breed intolerance to other religious beliefs because you have to make a distinction between your faith and someone else's. It's human nature to turn that into what I beleive is right, which quickly dissolves into intolerance.
To your first point, I have no clue what you're trying to say. If I make a christian faith that doesn't claim it is the one true religion and is humbe, and accepting of other faiths, is it still subject to criticism because some romans one thousand years ago were intolerant?
Second point: It can happen, but it doesn't mean it is automatic and it happens to everyone, nor does it mean that religions automatically bestow this view. It's up to the individual to become intolerant or to not become intolerant...
Also, my point isn't that religion is intolerant itself - because that would be a lie. I said religious beliefs will breed intolerance to other religious beliefs because you have to make a distinction between your faith and someone else's. It's human nature to turn that into what I beleive is right, which quickly dissolves into intolerance.
If you don't believe that what you believe is right, you should change your beliefs.
In any event, this is a uselessly trivial definition of intolerance. I'm an atheist; that is, as best as I can tell, there does not exist a God. And it appears to me that quite a few people are mistaken on this question. But that doesn't get in the way of my getting along with them. It's not an impediment to forming friendships or to doing business or to sharing political goals. When we say that a community exhibits religious tolerance, we don't mean that all of its members fail to actually believe that what profess is true.* It's just that they don't let it get in the way.
*There's a bit of evidence that a number of religious beliefs are like this - that people believe they believe p without actually believing p itself - but that's not really relevant to the tolerance question.
Are you sure? You may wish to back up that generalization with some facts, because I know of many pagans in non-western society, I know of pagans that aren't well-to-do (assuming you're meaning 'well-off'), and I know of many conservative pagans. But by all means...
Median income is apparently the national average; I was wrong about that. However, Neopagans are predominantly white and well-educated, and so members of the elite class at least in that sense.
A large majority of Pagans are white; Berger, Leach, and Shaffer (2003) found 90.8 percent of respondents to their survey of American Neo-Pagans identified as white; the studies reviewed by Carpenter (1996) generally found that a majority of Pagans were of European descent. Although these percentages may not represent the exact racial and ethnic makeup of the community, Witchcraft and Wicca in particular draw mostly on European traditions, which may be especially appealing to those of European ancestry.
In addition, Berger et al. (2003), Jorgensen and Russell (1999), and Orion (1995) have found that Pagans have a higher level of formal education than does the American population as a whole (an observation supported by Carpenter's [1996] literature review). However, all three studies found that the median income level among respondents was equivalent to the national average for the United States. Berger et al. attributed this discrepancy between education and earnings to the high percentage of women in the Pagan population (estimates in the three studies cited above range from 57 percent to 65 percent), as women tend to earn less than men. Most researchers have noted that women are more likely than men to be drawn to Paganism because of its emphasis on female images of the divine. (Source)
Now, by "liberal" I meant in the general sense of "heir to Locke and Jefferson". Most neopagans, like most Western Christians, Muslims, and Jews, have been brought up in a cultural environment where one does not commit violence in the name of one's religion. That has more to do with their peaceful behavior than anything particular in their doctrines. In a different context, they would express their religion differently.
Look at Christianity. Its fundamental message is universal peace and love; if any faith were immune to violent behavior, you'd think it'd be this one. But look what happened as soon as people began using Christianity as a means of exercising power. And then look what happened when states began to enshrine tolerance in the law. The real variable here is sociopolitics, not religious doctrine.
When I reference paganism, I should have put 'neo' infront of it. I nthese neo-pagan religions, there isn't any dogma, and they actually discourage the evangelical sort of pushing the religions upon others or breeding people to be 'pagan.' They don't have any of the 'one true religion' crap that some other religions have.
I don't know if you're neopagan, but you're evangelizing on their behalf in any case. You're saying that they have a better belief system than other religions.
And I don't even think you're wrong about that. Professing religious tolerance is a good thing. But the beliefs reflect the social environment in which they were formed, not vice versa. Drop a large population of neopagans into a less tolerant and more violent environment, and watch their own beliefs shift to embrace intolerance and violence. It's human nature.
I would so love some citations of this 'anti-christian sentiment' because I've never encountered it.
Really? Never once bumped into a neopagan with a chip on their shoulder? Who resents Christians because of some lynchings committed in the 1600s, and/or because of the " 'one true religion' crap"? Or whose more "enlightened" beliefs have given them a smug sense of superiority?
Neopagans, like everyone else, are human, and therefore have the potential to be total ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺s.
Second point: It can happen, but it doesn't mean it is automatic and it happens to everyone, nor does it mean that religions automatically bestow this view. It's up to the individual to become intolerant or to not become intolerant...
Exactly. Religion is just a pretext. And it can be any religion that serves this purpose.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Median income is apparently the national average; I was wrong about that. However, Neopagans are predominantly white and well-educated, and so members of the elite class at least in that sense.
A large majority of Pagans are white; Berger, Leach, and Shaffer (2003) found 90.8 percent of respondents to their survey of American Neo-Pagans identified as white; the studies reviewed by Carpenter (1996) generally found that a majority of Pagans were of European descent. Although these percentages may not represent the exact racial and ethnic makeup of the community, Witchcraft and Wicca in particular draw mostly on European traditions, which may be especially appealing to those of European ancestry.
In addition, Berger et al. (2003), Jorgensen and Russell (1999), and Orion (1995) have found that Pagans have a higher level of formal education than does the American population as a whole (an observation supported by Carpenter's [1996] literature review). However, all three studies found that the median income level among respondents was equivalent to the national average for the United States. Berger et al. attributed this discrepancy between education and earnings to the high percentage of women in the Pagan population (estimates in the three studies cited above range from 57 percent to 65 percent), as women tend to earn less than men. Most researchers have noted that women are more likely than men to be drawn to Paganism because of its emphasis on female images of the divine. (Source)
Now, by "liberal" I meant in the general sense of "heir to Locke and Jefferson". Most neopagans, like most Western Christians, Muslims, and Jews, have been brought up in a cultural environment where one does not commit violence in the name of one's religion. That has more to do with their peaceful behavior than anything particular in their doctrines. In a different context, they would express their religion differently.
Look at Christianity. Its fundamental message is universal peace and love; if any faith were immune to violent behavior, you'd think it'd be this one. But look what happened as soon as people began using Christianity as a means of exercising power. And then look what happened when states began to enshrine tolerance in the law. The real variable here is sociopolitics, not religious doctrine.
I don't know if you're neopagan, but you're evangelizing on their behalf in any case. You're saying that they have a better belief system than other religions.
And I don't even think you're wrong about that. Professing religious tolerance is a good thing. But the beliefs reflect the social environment in which they were formed, not vice versa. Drop a large population of neopagans into a less tolerant and more violent environment, and watch their own beliefs shift to embrace intolerance and violence. It's human nature.
Really? Never once bumped into a neopagan with a chip on their shoulder? Who resents Christians because of some lynchings committed in the 1600s, and/or because of the " 'one true religion' crap"? Or whose more "enlightened" beliefs have given them a smug sense of superiority?
Neopagans, like everyone else, are human, and therefore have the potential to be total ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺s.
Exactly. Religion is just a pretext. And it can be any religion that serves this purpose.
Your statistics seem fine for the US, but the religion isn't restricted to the US.
Okay, so what I gather from this debate so far (the ones responding to me anyways) is that it isn't really the religions that cause the intolerance, it's the individuals. Would that be a fair assessment? In that sense, it would make my assertion true... it would make my assertion more valid.
I really don't mean to evangelize... just for the purposes of the debate I brought up how certain religions can be different, and I brought up the one I was famailiar with for my example.
Regarding the chip on the shoulder comment, I've seen individuals with some form of resentment, but I've never seen it really encouraged by spiritual leaders in that community, which leads to the 'religion causing intolerance' versus 'indiviuals causing intolerance'
I think you're talking about something else. I said there are sharia courts in the UK, and I'm right. One second on Google will confirm: search results for "sharia courts uk"
Yes, one's that can be VOLUNTARILY used by legal participants similar to US small claims courts.
There were some that were trying to get it instituted as a MANDATORY consideration, which did not gain traction.
Giving people an extra avenue of dispute resolution is hardly a bad thing - look at how many we've got on this side of the pond sometime - and is quite different than FORCING it, as per how I read your statement to elude.
OK and some of them have larger populations than Texas (by the way Texas has 25 million people which isn't exactly small so your point is kind of lost). Indonesia, the one I gave as an example for "huge", has 230+ million people. I am not sure what point you are trying to make here, except to maybe "play down" the number of practitioners in the world that practice more fundamental forms of Islam, for whatever reason that may be.
Well considering you're trying to lump the 1.5 BILLION people together under one banner and the fundamentalists make up a fractional portion of that in a fractional portion of the world it doesn't take a genius to see that you've got a bit of a logical disconnect there to say it's a problem with the faith.
I thought we were talking about Islam, not individual people. I never said I'd be afraid of a given individual from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. But fundamentalist religious ideology, that I am afraid of, and it doesn't need to be shared by 100% (or even close to 100%) of any particular demographic to be a concern.
It's impossible to be "phobic" of an abstract. Phobias involve something tangible or the belief in something tangible. In saying you're afraid of Islam, by direct correlation you're afraid of either a) those that practice it or b) iconography associated with Islam.
Considering the general temperature of the US, A is far more prevalent than B.
Is "Binladenism-ophobia" okay? i.e. is it OK to be afraid of the people who explicitly practice the ideology of Bin Laden? If the answer to that is no, then I'd love to know why it is not justifiable to fear someone who has expressly stated the desire to harm you and has vindicated that desire with action.
What about those Muslims that support al-dhimmah, the social contract between Muslims and non-Muslims under their rule? Even the most liberal-handed implementation of this philosophy involves a lesser package of rights and social privileges for the non-Muslim. Is it OK to fear people who want to impose this? I.e. is dhimmaphobia acceptable? Debatable, maybe. You could say that these people will never rule, so there's no reason to fear it -- but that's contingent at best considering they can and have ruled in other times and places.
I could go on but I hope that by this point the Sorites paradox waiting in the wings here is palpable to all.
Now, there are only three (classes of) solutions to the Sorites paradox.
1) You enforce the idea that all such fears are unacceptable. This is the basis of empty multiculturalism, and it's very dangerous. Firstly, because a person who suspects nothing is a sucker, and that's the friendliest term I know for it. Secondly, because to not fear someone who has a track record of doing fearful things, you must first forget those fearful things, and forgetting history is something that shouldn't be done.
2) You draw some kind of line; left of the line is "OK" to fear, right of the line is "not OK" to fear. But then of course you have the classic Sorites questions of where is the line? Are there grey areas? Who gets to be the arbiter of all this? On what authority?
3) You say anyone can fear whatever they want, and it's their own concern to square their fears with the world around them. Nobody is the arbiter of what another person fears. This is the position I take.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
3) You say anyone can fear whatever they want, and it's their own concern to square their fears with the world around them. Nobody is the arbiter of what another person fears. This is the position I take.
This is also my personal view on the matter - it's perfectly alright to be afraid of whatever - but the minute you try to extend it into being a reasoning behind something you better have solid evidence of your fears being relevant to whatever you want to have changed. (i.e. the Sharia law example given earlier - if I was in the UK - I'd be on the fence [although likely disagree as long as it remains a secondary option], here - I'd disagree vehemently, but in most of the Middle East I'd agree 110%... basically in line with the local relevancy)
Yes, one's that can be VOLUNTARILY used by legal participants similar to US small claims courts.
I wonder how voluntary it is for some. I am willing to bet good money that for some women (who have far fewer rights than men according to sharia law) it's about as voluntary as genital mutilation, and I mean it.
There were some that were trying to get it instituted as a MANDATORY consideration, which did not gain traction.
That's a whole other can of worms, that there are people living in the UK who would want this.
Giving people an extra avenue of dispute resolution is hardly a bad thing
Right. Name one thing that's good about dispute resolution according to sharia compared to how normal civil courts would handle it. I'm sure you're aware that I can name quite a few that are decidedly worse, at least according to our current moral values and views on gender equality. The misogyny intertwined in sharia may be attractive to Muslim men but I am not so sure about their female counterparts. Though how much say would they have if the men wanted sharia arbitration?
...is quite different than FORCING it, as per how I read your statement to elude.
How much of it is truly voluntary is impossible to say. For instance, suppose there were a burqa ban in the UK (as was discussed at one point) -- do you believe that every single Muslim woman living in the UK would be better off for it? Because I believe that enough would find their freedoms restricted even further because going out in public would violate religious custom, whether they are personally OK with that or not.
Well considering you're trying to lump the 1.5 BILLION people together under one banner
What banner is that exactly? Can you please quote me where I claim something is common to all of the world's Muslims? (Besides the bit about teaching children nonsense, which I maintain.) I challenge you do do so. You can't get away with claiming I hold a position that I do not.
and the fundamentalists make up a fractional portion of that in a fractional portion of the world it doesn't take a genius to see that you've got a bit of a logical disconnect there to say it's a problem with the faith.
I beg your pardon. The only logical connection between people and fundamentalist beliefs (and behaviors) is their faith. What else do you surmise it may be? Perhaps you think I said that fundamentalist belief is inherent in following Islam. I said no such thing, and this is easily confirmed by a closer reading of my posts. What I did effectively say, is that I have a problem with various aspects of fundamentalist forms of Islam. Full stop. You are the one who is trying to make my concern seem unfounded by claiming that "oh so few" practitioners of these fundamentalist forms exist. Well excuse me if I consider those "few" hundreds of millions to be quite plenty as far as I'm concerned. Far more than enough. One is too many, let alone entire nations.
It's impossible to be "phobic" of an abstract. Phobias involve something tangible or the belief in something tangible.
OK, so your position is that the "Islam" in "Islamophobia" isn't abstract. Well, it doesn't change my position that the term is a political one meant to stifle criticism of the religion. Plus, rest assured that all of the horrid things I listed in my initial post are quite tangible indeed. Nothing "abstract" about female genital mutilation or stoning or flogging or maiming or sexist legal rights or lack of any general education and I can go on and on my good sir. These are all quite real and they are not so rare that you can handwave them away with claims that millions upon millions of people that live under such conditions and propagate them are, proportionally speaking, not enough for concern. Well unlike you I am quite concerned, at the very least for the sake of women and children living under fundamentalist forms of Islam, whether here or abroad.
I wonder how voluntary it is for some. I am willing to bet good money that for some women (who have far fewer rights than men according to sharia law) it's about as voluntary as genital mutilation, and I mean it.
Considering those surgeries for example are illegal in the UK even with the existence of the Sharia court....
And from everything that's been presented on the matter that I have access to as a US citizen, both sides of any case have to agree to use it - and it does not ever apply in cases of the state against someone. (generally criminal cases, but sometimes civil)
Right. Name one thing that's good about dispute resolution according to sharia compared to how normal civil courts would handle it. I'm sure you're aware that I can name quite a few that are decidedly worse, at least according to our current moral values and views on gender equality. The misogyny intertwined in sharia may be attractive to Muslim men but I am not so sure about their female counterparts. Though how much say would they have if the men wanted sharia arbitration?
It really depends, back in the day, Catholics were expected to have disputes resolved through the Church. It's really not that alien if you look back a few hundred years in the world's most common faith.
And as for another major Faith, that of Judaism, many Rabbis study the law of their land to assist in either legal or psuedo-legal proceedings for their clergy.
For some people sticking to their religious ideals is more important than getting the "best legal deal they can get".
I beg your pardon. The only logical connection between people and fundamentalist beliefs (and behaviors) is their faith. What else do you surmise it may be? Perhaps you think I said that fundamentalist belief is inherent in following Islam. I said no such thing, and this is easily confirmed by a closer reading of my posts. What I did effectively say, is that I have a problem with various aspects of fundamentalist forms of Islam. Full stop. You are the one who is trying to make my concern seem unfounded by claiming that "oh so few" practitioners of these fundamentalist forms exist. Well excuse me if I consider those "few" hundreds of millions to be quite plenty as far as I'm concerned. Far more than enough. One is too many, let alone entire nations.
It is their belief in a specific subsection of the Faith as a whole however.
Do you think the Davidians of Waco were representative of of the Christian faiths as a whole? Or even something more mainstream like Mormons? Or Quakers? [Percentage-wise BTW, Mormonism is about as large for it's total portion of the Christian faiths as fundamentalists make up the Islam faiths: but for some reason most of the Christians I know don't wear "magic underwear"]
And as diverse as each of those are from each other - most of the variants of the Muslim faith are even further from each other in their beliefs and practices.
OK, so your position is that the "Islam" in "Islamophobia" isn't abstract. Well, it doesn't change my position that the term is a political one meant to stifle criticism of the religion. Plus, rest assured that all of the horrid things I listed in my initial post are quite tangible indeed. Nothing "abstract" about female genital mutilation or stoning or flogging or maiming or sexist legal rights or lack of any general education and I can go on and on my good sir. These are all quite real and they are not so rare that you can handwave them away with claims that millions upon millions of people that live under such conditions and propagate them are, proportionally speaking, not enough for concern. Well unlike you I am quite concerned, at the very least for the sake of women and children living under fundamentalist forms of Islam, whether here or abroad.
Applying it to anything locally "fundamentalist Islam" certainly would be abstract, since there's no fundamentalist Islam sects outside of rare individuals away from their sects within our HEMISPHERE.
You're welcome to fear whatever you want, but for something where it's an abstract that doesn't relate to how something operates locally, I need evidence of something rational causing fear of local conditions.
There's a huge difference of being afraid of Islam when you're running around the Middle East, compared to sitting in your Lazy Boy in Anytown, USA.
You're welcome to fear whatever you want, but for something where it's an abstract that doesn't relate to how something operates locally, I need evidence of something rational causing fear of local conditions.
There's a huge difference of being afraid of Islam when you're running around the Middle East, compared to sitting in your Lazy Boy in Anytown, USA.
I see no reason why fears need to be local in nature. It's not inherently wrong to be afraid of a trend happening elsewhere which you think could have a negative impact on the world, even if it doesn't have a direct impact on yourself. In fact, it even seems to me to be acceptable to have a sympathetic fear for people other than yourself, i.e., "I fear for women living under Sharia law" or something of that kind.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I see no reason why fears need to be local in nature. It's not inherently wrong to be afraid of a trend happening elsewhere which you think could have a negative impact on the world, even if it doesn't have a direct impact on yourself. In fact, it even seems to me to be acceptable to have a sympathetic fear for people other than yourself, i.e., "I fear for women living under Sharia law" or something of that kind.
In the former you should act PROACTIVELY to prevent negative occurences and delving appropriately in determining if one you're unsure of is negative or not. (i.e. the NYC "mosque" that will be as "Islamic" as YMCA's are "Christian")
And as for the latter, those would be actions you'd want to take INTERNATIONALLY not locally. And even then, using the word "fear" in that context is hyperbolic for effect, it's not truly fear - it's concern, which is hardly the same thing.
I have concern for the treatment of women in Islamic nations, but not by any stretch do I have a FEAR of Islamic nations while over on this side of the pond. (Nor did I during my trip to Egypt many years ago, but that was a while ago now - I think I might feel differently when in direct contact)
Using words as hyperbole does nothing to present your argument more clearly, and in fact obfuscates it with false levels of concern that make it much easier to dismiss or get aggravated with.
(i.e. "Mommy! I'd like some cake" vs. "Mommy! If I don't get some cake, I'm gonna die!" - while both children in that example have the same goal, the hyperbole of the second does nothing to further their cause, and could in fact cause aggravation for some - especially in a public area)
And even then, using the word "fear" in that context is hyperbolic for effect, it's not truly fear - it's concern, which is hardly the same thing.
Actually, "concern" is one of the dictionary.com definitions of fear. Fear comes in degrees, and if you want to use concern to describe a lower degree of fear, that's reasonable -- but to put them in different logical categories is not correct.
I have concern for the treatment of women in Islamic nations, but not by any stretch do I have a FEAR of Islamic nations while over on this side of the pond. (Nor did I during my trip to Egypt many years ago, but that was a while ago now - I think I might feel differently when in direct contact)
Fear for women in Islamic nations is certainly different from fear of Islamic nations, I'll give you that. You see no connection between them, fair enough.
For me, they map onto each other, though. See, when judging the ethics of a political entity, I always ask myself what things would be like if that entity had real power. And if they treat their own women -- devout practitioners of their own belief system -- in such a manner, what would they do to women who aren't, given arbitrary power? Is it not a fearful thought that a woman you know might be subjected to that sort of treatment, in a hypothetical world where that particular Islamic nation held ascendancy?
And so I think there is a rational path from fear for women in Islamic nations to fear of those nations themselves. Or maybe we should call it "concern" since it's unlikely that any such nation will obtain ascendancy.
I mean, it seems like that's what you're saying -- they may mistreat their women but you're not worried about it because they are far away and they don't actually have any real power to move their mysogyny beyond their borders. Yes?
Using words as hyperbole does nothing to present your argument more clearly, and in fact obfuscates it with false levels of concern that make it much easier to dismiss or get aggravated with.
Well, "false levels of concern" do not constitute criteria on which correctness, soundness, or validity of an argument is based.
It's up to you if you want to dismiss or get aggravated with arguments from concerned people, but that doesn't make them wrong, and it also doesn't seem like the greatest idea. Sometimes concerned people know things that unconcerned people may not.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
It really depends, back in the day, Catholics were expected to have disputes resolved through the Church. It's really not that alien if you look back a few hundred years in the world's most common faith.
And as for another major Faith, that of Judaism, many Rabbis study the law of their land to assist in either legal or psuedo-legal proceedings for their clergy.
People need to learn more about the Anabaptist movement with the Hutterites, Amish, Menonites, and friends. They're essentially fundamentalists with separatist elements. Quite a fascinating little subculture really especially with how the Amish especially are finding it difficult to adapt to rampant drug use and the like, but I digress.
The worst "anti-Amish propaganda" I can think of are:
So I agree with you and BS on the social factors, especially when we have fundamentalists that live peacefully in modern society and are more affected by the external world than their inner world, although they do have issues within their culture.
My main issue though is that politically we're talking about a building, rather than worrying about children slaying children in the streets or old people degenerating into husks or people in their prime struck down by mishap or disease. So really, I find this similar to the 1980's and 1990's moral crusades. Just a bunch of hogwash that in 10-15 years few will care to remember, while a few cultural historians in a graduate class will debate its "significance."
Mentor a youth, donate a few dollars to a charity, and if you're going to organize create an institution.. don't try to shut down one because it's not "kosher enough."
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Is Islam really a religion of hatred or has it been distorted out of context to revolve around hatred instead of peace? That's what I'm wondering about...
If Islam revolved around peace instead of hatred like Christianity, Catholicism, and other peaceful religions we wouldn't have the kind of conflicts that are going on today.
I do think Islam would be better off in the peaceful path instead of the destruction and hatred that they are being accused of. Something I believe is probably tainting the Islamic faith but I'm not sure what.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I mean, it seems like that's what you're saying -- they may mistreat their women but you're not worried about it because they are far away and they don't actually have any real power to move their mysogyny beyond their borders. Yes?
It's more a matter of focusing my energies on things I can effect, that far away there's no reasonable method I can effect things - and nor can they effect me.
And regardless I wouldn't pressure, or fear, local Muslims because of what their distant "relatives" do.
If for example, I would become the CEO of a multinational corporation though with branches in that part of the world, I would certainly have enough of a foothold there to elicit some change and would at that point for example enact company policies to protect people against the negatives you mentioned.
Quote from Captain_Morgan »
People need to learn more about the Anabaptist movement with the Hutterites, Amish, Menonites, and friends. They're essentially fundamentalists with separatist elements. Quite a fascinating little subculture really especially with how the Amish especially are finding it difficult to adapt to rampant drug use and the like, but I digress.
And yep, C_M - all sorts of religions are screwed up for all sorts of reasons - and specifically in regards to the Amish, it's amazing how their general portrayal doesn't actually jive with reality of the sect in many cases. I was raised over my high school/college years about 30 min from Lancaster, and with Carroll County at that time being the heroin capital of the state we would regularly see some of the unhinged ones being very "un-Amish". [Not that it was any substantial portion mind you, likely 1-2% if I had parsed out the one's I interacted with - but still something you hear about rarely]
Is Islam really a religion of hatred or has it been distorted out of context to revolve around hatred instead of peace? That's what I'm wondering about...
If Islam revolved around peace instead of hatred like Christianity, Catholicism, and other peaceful religions we wouldn't have the kind of conflicts that are going on today.
I do think Islam would be better off in the peaceful path instead of the destruction and hatred that they are being accused of. Something I believe is probably tainting the Islamic faith but I'm not sure what.
Perhaps only 0.0000001% of men turn out to be serial killers, but we know that the next serial killer will be a man. Shouldn't that warrant greater scrutiny?
Men are placed under greater scrutiny. Every US court of law is biased against men. A man is far more likely to be convicted than a woman; but this is all irrelevant because the average serial killer man will only take 1 life.
The average serial killer Muslim is going to take 100+ if he succeeds. Plus there are far less Muslims in the nation than men so they're easier to keep track of.
Simply put:
men - more difficult to scrutinize, smaller crimes
Muslims - easier to scrutinize, significantly bigger crimes
There's far bigger incentive to keep an eye on Muslims.
However, a Muslim man is most dangerous. Again, though, society (and airport security) already places greater scrutiny on men.
Never mind that US foreign policy hasn't historically been too generous towards the countries the people who carried out the attack came from.
So Americans and Muslims have a bloodfeud? It still doesn't take away from the fact that they took 3000 lives and that Africans and Jews took practically none.
The obvious problem here is that you actually believe in "The Muslims", as if over a billion people were all the same.
No, I acknowledge they're different. The Muslim ethnicities that are most likely to attack the United States are those of the Middle East and northern Africa.
Those are who a large number of "Islamophobists" direct their anger toward. It takes too much time to be "specific" when typing or speaking but most Americans already have an idealized image of a major terrorist in their head and it doesn't include Muslims such as those of Indonesia, etc. These ethnicities are just what liberals bring up to derail the argument.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: demanding major attacks and defining those as attacks with more than 100 victims is very dishonest because in doing so you are discounting the significantly greater quantity of smaller-scale attacks carried out by non-foreigners.
All the minor attacks in US history do not add up to 3000 lives!
I found this wikipedia list. The numbers are not close at all. You are failing to grasp the magnitude of attacks Muslims contrive. Muslims are the most major perpetrator of large scale terrorist attacks in the modern world, both domestic and foreign. Few other factions in the United States are interested in such attacks.
McVey killed the most people in Oklahoma City Bombing before 9/11 in a terrorist attack, and he was ex-military and white. Frankly,the "homogeneous" groups aren't really all homogeneous.
I'll give you that. Still, most major terrorist attacks are still being plotted by Muslims.
Next to Islamofascists it's been whites that have done more terrorism in the news since the 1990's especially with the rise of militias and ecoterrorist groups.
Muslim terrorism is a completely new, more malicious form of terrorism than any faced in the past or that we will face in the future from Caucasian religious groups. Pitting religious Caucasian terrorism with Muslim terrorism is being willfully ignorant of the much more extreme nature of the latter.
Quick, everyone cite things that happened a thousand years ago!!!
Define 'reject someone else's beliefs.' And furthermore how is that intolerance?
Pretty self-explanatory. You choose an option, you exclude (reject) the others.
No, it means I'm citing other religions. Without blood-stained pasts. Like wicca, druidry. Like I said, I meant to but neo- infront of paganism in my original post.
Okay, we've established then that it isn't intolerance. Just because I don't follow a certain belief system doesn't mean I think it is 'illegitimate,' or 'worse,' or 'wrong.'
Also, my point isn't that religion is intolerant itself - because that would be a lie. I said religious beliefs will breed intolerance to other religious beliefs because you have to make a distinction between your faith and someone else's. It's human nature to turn that into what I beleive is right, which quickly dissolves into intolerance.
Regardless it's not relevant here - and the group that tried to get traction for Sharia in England failed, by the way.
And for such "huge populations" most of those nations have a lesser population than Texas. Some even are lower population than Rhode Island. (i.e. Bahrain, Qatar is similar)
I could see justification in being afraid for those reasons of the Muslim faith in those areas that enforce those things (or distasteful of it) - but to worry about it in those areas that share the name loosely is absolutely ridiculous.
I don't lump all the Christians out there with the homophobic jerks that picket homosexual funerals, bomb abortion clinics, or whatever other nuttery after all - and those ACTUALLY HAPPEN HERE.
Making individual judgment based on varied groups is ignorant and prejudicial. (And frankly in this case, completely misfounded in the context of our nation)
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
OK and some of them have larger populations than Texas (by the way Texas has 25 million people which isn't exactly small so your point is kind of lost). Indonesia, the one I gave as an example for "huge", has 230+ million people. I am not sure what point you are trying to make here, except to maybe "play down" the number of practitioners in the world that practice more fundamental forms of Islam, for whatever reason that may be.
I am "distasteful" (to put it mildly) of any religion's more fundamental forms. There's nothing phobic about that, however, as these fundamental forms are not confined to some far-off countries that I will never see and have no effect on me. Unless of course you have some evidence that contradicts this.
I thought we were talking about Islam, not individual people. I never said I'd be afraid of a given individual from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. But fundamentalist religious ideology, that I am afraid of, and it doesn't need to be shared by 100% (or even close to 100%) of any particular demographic to be a concern.
Who said anything about individual judgment? You are talking past me.
1) A "different" enemy; 2) Somehow "inscrutable"; 3) Potentially hidden among us; 4) With a hidden agenda
There is nothing inherently immoral about opposing Sharia law or Wahhabism or whatever, because the same goes for Christian Dominionism or Creationism or other backward and crazy ideas. But it's way too easy to point out an Arabian-looking guy and scream "Muslim!" and kick him.
So what we have is a kind of mashup between the anti-Semitism and anti-Japanese sentiment from the WWII era. It's like anti-Semitism not only because it attracts the old guard of anti-Semites, but also because it has that "they're hidden among us" conspiratorial vibe. It's like anti-Japanese sentiment because radical Muslims attacked us, just as radical Japanese attacked us; this gives the bigots just the right excuse.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear the more frothing-at-the-mouth nutjobs call for Muslim identification or mass deportation or anything else.
There are progressive and moderate Muslims just as there are progressives and moderates of any religion (or non-religion). The extremists hate them more than even their sworn enemies, because the moderates' very existence undermines the extremist position.
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
To your first point, I have no clue what you're trying to say. If I make a christian faith that doesn't claim it is the one true religion and is humbe, and accepting of other faiths, is it still subject to criticism because some romans one thousand years ago were intolerant?
Second point: It can happen, but it doesn't mean it is automatic and it happens to everyone, nor does it mean that religions automatically bestow this view. It's up to the individual to become intolerant or to not become intolerant...
If you don't believe that what you believe is right, you should change your beliefs.
In any event, this is a uselessly trivial definition of intolerance. I'm an atheist; that is, as best as I can tell, there does not exist a God. And it appears to me that quite a few people are mistaken on this question. But that doesn't get in the way of my getting along with them. It's not an impediment to forming friendships or to doing business or to sharing political goals. When we say that a community exhibits religious tolerance, we don't mean that all of its members fail to actually believe that what profess is true.* It's just that they don't let it get in the way.
*There's a bit of evidence that a number of religious beliefs are like this - that people believe they believe p without actually believing p itself - but that's not really relevant to the tolerance question.
Median income is apparently the national average; I was wrong about that. However, Neopagans are predominantly white and well-educated, and so members of the elite class at least in that sense.
In addition, Berger et al. (2003), Jorgensen and Russell (1999), and Orion (1995) have found that Pagans have a higher level of formal education than does the American population as a whole (an observation supported by Carpenter's [1996] literature review). However, all three studies found that the median income level among respondents was equivalent to the national average for the United States. Berger et al. attributed this discrepancy between education and earnings to the high percentage of women in the Pagan population (estimates in the three studies cited above range from 57 percent to 65 percent), as women tend to earn less than men. Most researchers have noted that women are more likely than men to be drawn to Paganism because of its emphasis on female images of the divine. (Source)
Look at Christianity. Its fundamental message is universal peace and love; if any faith were immune to violent behavior, you'd think it'd be this one. But look what happened as soon as people began using Christianity as a means of exercising power. And then look what happened when states began to enshrine tolerance in the law. The real variable here is sociopolitics, not religious doctrine.
I don't know if you're neopagan, but you're evangelizing on their behalf in any case. You're saying that they have a better belief system than other religions.
And I don't even think you're wrong about that. Professing religious tolerance is a good thing. But the beliefs reflect the social environment in which they were formed, not vice versa. Drop a large population of neopagans into a less tolerant and more violent environment, and watch their own beliefs shift to embrace intolerance and violence. It's human nature.
Really? Never once bumped into a neopagan with a chip on their shoulder? Who resents Christians because of some lynchings committed in the 1600s, and/or because of the " 'one true religion' crap"? Or whose more "enlightened" beliefs have given them a smug sense of superiority?
Neopagans, like everyone else, are human, and therefore have the potential to be total ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺s.
Exactly. Religion is just a pretext. And it can be any religion that serves this purpose.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Your statistics seem fine for the US, but the religion isn't restricted to the US.
Okay, so what I gather from this debate so far (the ones responding to me anyways) is that it isn't really the religions that cause the intolerance, it's the individuals. Would that be a fair assessment? In that sense,
it would make my assertion true...it would make my assertion more valid.I really don't mean to evangelize... just for the purposes of the debate I brought up how certain religions can be different, and I brought up the one I was famailiar with for my example.
Regarding the chip on the shoulder comment, I've seen individuals with some form of resentment, but I've never seen it really encouraged by spiritual leaders in that community, which leads to the 'religion causing intolerance' versus 'indiviuals causing intolerance'
Yes, one's that can be VOLUNTARILY used by legal participants similar to US small claims courts.
There were some that were trying to get it instituted as a MANDATORY consideration, which did not gain traction.
Giving people an extra avenue of dispute resolution is hardly a bad thing - look at how many we've got on this side of the pond sometime - and is quite different than FORCING it, as per how I read your statement to elude.
Well considering you're trying to lump the 1.5 BILLION people together under one banner and the fundamentalists make up a fractional portion of that in a fractional portion of the world it doesn't take a genius to see that you've got a bit of a logical disconnect there to say it's a problem with the faith.
It's impossible to be "phobic" of an abstract. Phobias involve something tangible or the belief in something tangible. In saying you're afraid of Islam, by direct correlation you're afraid of either a) those that practice it or b) iconography associated with Islam.
Considering the general temperature of the US, A is far more prevalent than B.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I think one needs to ask these questions:
Is "Binladenism-ophobia" okay? i.e. is it OK to be afraid of the people who explicitly practice the ideology of Bin Laden? If the answer to that is no, then I'd love to know why it is not justifiable to fear someone who has expressly stated the desire to harm you and has vindicated that desire with action.
What about those Muslims that support al-dhimmah, the social contract between Muslims and non-Muslims under their rule? Even the most liberal-handed implementation of this philosophy involves a lesser package of rights and social privileges for the non-Muslim. Is it OK to fear people who want to impose this? I.e. is dhimmaphobia acceptable? Debatable, maybe. You could say that these people will never rule, so there's no reason to fear it -- but that's contingent at best considering they can and have ruled in other times and places.
I could go on but I hope that by this point the Sorites paradox waiting in the wings here is palpable to all.
Now, there are only three (classes of) solutions to the Sorites paradox.
1) You enforce the idea that all such fears are unacceptable. This is the basis of empty multiculturalism, and it's very dangerous. Firstly, because a person who suspects nothing is a sucker, and that's the friendliest term I know for it. Secondly, because to not fear someone who has a track record of doing fearful things, you must first forget those fearful things, and forgetting history is something that shouldn't be done.
2) You draw some kind of line; left of the line is "OK" to fear, right of the line is "not OK" to fear. But then of course you have the classic Sorites questions of where is the line? Are there grey areas? Who gets to be the arbiter of all this? On what authority?
3) You say anyone can fear whatever they want, and it's their own concern to square their fears with the world around them. Nobody is the arbiter of what another person fears. This is the position I take.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
This is also my personal view on the matter - it's perfectly alright to be afraid of whatever - but the minute you try to extend it into being a reasoning behind something you better have solid evidence of your fears being relevant to whatever you want to have changed. (i.e. the Sharia law example given earlier - if I was in the UK - I'd be on the fence [although likely disagree as long as it remains a secondary option], here - I'd disagree vehemently, but in most of the Middle East I'd agree 110%... basically in line with the local relevancy)
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
That's a whole other can of worms, that there are people living in the UK who would want this.
Right. Name one thing that's good about dispute resolution according to sharia compared to how normal civil courts would handle it. I'm sure you're aware that I can name quite a few that are decidedly worse, at least according to our current moral values and views on gender equality. The misogyny intertwined in sharia may be attractive to Muslim men but I am not so sure about their female counterparts. Though how much say would they have if the men wanted sharia arbitration?
How much of it is truly voluntary is impossible to say. For instance, suppose there were a burqa ban in the UK (as was discussed at one point) -- do you believe that every single Muslim woman living in the UK would be better off for it? Because I believe that enough would find their freedoms restricted even further because going out in public would violate religious custom, whether they are personally OK with that or not.
What banner is that exactly? Can you please quote me where I claim something is common to all of the world's Muslims? (Besides the bit about teaching children nonsense, which I maintain.) I challenge you do do so. You can't get away with claiming I hold a position that I do not.
I beg your pardon. The only logical connection between people and fundamentalist beliefs (and behaviors) is their faith. What else do you surmise it may be? Perhaps you think I said that fundamentalist belief is inherent in following Islam. I said no such thing, and this is easily confirmed by a closer reading of my posts. What I did effectively say, is that I have a problem with various aspects of fundamentalist forms of Islam. Full stop. You are the one who is trying to make my concern seem unfounded by claiming that "oh so few" practitioners of these fundamentalist forms exist. Well excuse me if I consider those "few" hundreds of millions to be quite plenty as far as I'm concerned. Far more than enough. One is too many, let alone entire nations.
OK, so your position is that the "Islam" in "Islamophobia" isn't abstract. Well, it doesn't change my position that the term is a political one meant to stifle criticism of the religion. Plus, rest assured that all of the horrid things I listed in my initial post are quite tangible indeed. Nothing "abstract" about female genital mutilation or stoning or flogging or maiming or sexist legal rights or lack of any general education and I can go on and on my good sir. These are all quite real and they are not so rare that you can handwave them away with claims that millions upon millions of people that live under such conditions and propagate them are, proportionally speaking, not enough for concern. Well unlike you I am quite concerned, at the very least for the sake of women and children living under fundamentalist forms of Islam, whether here or abroad.
Considering those surgeries for example are illegal in the UK even with the existence of the Sharia court....
And from everything that's been presented on the matter that I have access to as a US citizen, both sides of any case have to agree to use it - and it does not ever apply in cases of the state against someone. (generally criminal cases, but sometimes civil)
It really depends, back in the day, Catholics were expected to have disputes resolved through the Church. It's really not that alien if you look back a few hundred years in the world's most common faith.
And as for another major Faith, that of Judaism, many Rabbis study the law of their land to assist in either legal or psuedo-legal proceedings for their clergy.
For some people sticking to their religious ideals is more important than getting the "best legal deal they can get".
It is their belief in a specific subsection of the Faith as a whole however.
Do you think the Davidians of Waco were representative of of the Christian faiths as a whole? Or even something more mainstream like Mormons? Or Quakers? [Percentage-wise BTW, Mormonism is about as large for it's total portion of the Christian faiths as fundamentalists make up the Islam faiths: but for some reason most of the Christians I know don't wear "magic underwear"]
And as diverse as each of those are from each other - most of the variants of the Muslim faith are even further from each other in their beliefs and practices.
Applying it to anything locally "fundamentalist Islam" certainly would be abstract, since there's no fundamentalist Islam sects outside of rare individuals away from their sects within our HEMISPHERE.
You're welcome to fear whatever you want, but for something where it's an abstract that doesn't relate to how something operates locally, I need evidence of something rational causing fear of local conditions.
There's a huge difference of being afraid of Islam when you're running around the Middle East, compared to sitting in your Lazy Boy in Anytown, USA.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I see no reason why fears need to be local in nature. It's not inherently wrong to be afraid of a trend happening elsewhere which you think could have a negative impact on the world, even if it doesn't have a direct impact on yourself. In fact, it even seems to me to be acceptable to have a sympathetic fear for people other than yourself, i.e., "I fear for women living under Sharia law" or something of that kind.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
In the former you should act PROACTIVELY to prevent negative occurences and delving appropriately in determining if one you're unsure of is negative or not. (i.e. the NYC "mosque" that will be as "Islamic" as YMCA's are "Christian")
And as for the latter, those would be actions you'd want to take INTERNATIONALLY not locally. And even then, using the word "fear" in that context is hyperbolic for effect, it's not truly fear - it's concern, which is hardly the same thing.
I have concern for the treatment of women in Islamic nations, but not by any stretch do I have a FEAR of Islamic nations while over on this side of the pond. (Nor did I during my trip to Egypt many years ago, but that was a while ago now - I think I might feel differently when in direct contact)
Using words as hyperbole does nothing to present your argument more clearly, and in fact obfuscates it with false levels of concern that make it much easier to dismiss or get aggravated with.
(i.e. "Mommy! I'd like some cake" vs. "Mommy! If I don't get some cake, I'm gonna die!" - while both children in that example have the same goal, the hyperbole of the second does nothing to further their cause, and could in fact cause aggravation for some - especially in a public area)
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
Actually, "concern" is one of the dictionary.com definitions of fear. Fear comes in degrees, and if you want to use concern to describe a lower degree of fear, that's reasonable -- but to put them in different logical categories is not correct.
Fear for women in Islamic nations is certainly different from fear of Islamic nations, I'll give you that. You see no connection between them, fair enough.
For me, they map onto each other, though. See, when judging the ethics of a political entity, I always ask myself what things would be like if that entity had real power. And if they treat their own women -- devout practitioners of their own belief system -- in such a manner, what would they do to women who aren't, given arbitrary power? Is it not a fearful thought that a woman you know might be subjected to that sort of treatment, in a hypothetical world where that particular Islamic nation held ascendancy?
And so I think there is a rational path from fear for women in Islamic nations to fear of those nations themselves. Or maybe we should call it "concern" since it's unlikely that any such nation will obtain ascendancy.
I mean, it seems like that's what you're saying -- they may mistreat their women but you're not worried about it because they are far away and they don't actually have any real power to move their mysogyny beyond their borders. Yes?
Well, "false levels of concern" do not constitute criteria on which correctness, soundness, or validity of an argument is based.
It's up to you if you want to dismiss or get aggravated with arguments from concerned people, but that doesn't make them wrong, and it also doesn't seem like the greatest idea. Sometimes concerned people know things that unconcerned people may not.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
People need to learn more about the Anabaptist movement with the Hutterites, Amish, Menonites, and friends. They're essentially fundamentalists with separatist elements. Quite a fascinating little subculture really especially with how the Amish especially are finding it difficult to adapt to rampant drug use and the like, but I digress.
The worst "anti-Amish propaganda" I can think of are:
1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo74Dn7W_pA&feature=search
2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116778/
So I agree with you and BS on the social factors, especially when we have fundamentalists that live peacefully in modern society and are more affected by the external world than their inner world, although they do have issues within their culture.
My main issue though is that politically we're talking about a building, rather than worrying about children slaying children in the streets or old people degenerating into husks or people in their prime struck down by mishap or disease. So really, I find this similar to the 1980's and 1990's moral crusades. Just a bunch of hogwash that in 10-15 years few will care to remember, while a few cultural historians in a graduate class will debate its "significance."
Mentor a youth, donate a few dollars to a charity, and if you're going to organize create an institution.. don't try to shut down one because it's not "kosher enough."
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
If Islam revolved around peace instead of hatred like Christianity, Catholicism, and other peaceful religions we wouldn't have the kind of conflicts that are going on today.
I do think Islam would be better off in the peaceful path instead of the destruction and hatred that they are being accused of. Something I believe is probably tainting the Islamic faith but I'm not sure what.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
It's more a matter of focusing my energies on things I can effect, that far away there's no reasonable method I can effect things - and nor can they effect me.
And regardless I wouldn't pressure, or fear, local Muslims because of what their distant "relatives" do.
If for example, I would become the CEO of a multinational corporation though with branches in that part of the world, I would certainly have enough of a foothold there to elicit some change and would at that point for example enact company policies to protect people against the negatives you mentioned.
And yep, C_M - all sorts of religions are screwed up for all sorts of reasons - and specifically in regards to the Amish, it's amazing how their general portrayal doesn't actually jive with reality of the sect in many cases. I was raised over my high school/college years about 30 min from Lancaster, and with Carroll County at that time being the heroin capital of the state we would regularly see some of the unhinged ones being very "un-Amish". [Not that it was any substantial portion mind you, likely 1-2% if I had parsed out the one's I interacted with - but still something you hear about rarely]
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
.
The average serial killer Muslim is going to take 100+ if he succeeds. Plus there are far less Muslims in the nation than men so they're easier to keep track of.
Simply put:
men - more difficult to scrutinize, smaller crimes
Muslims - easier to scrutinize, significantly bigger crimes
There's far bigger incentive to keep an eye on Muslims.
However, a Muslim man is most dangerous. Again, though, society (and airport security) already places greater scrutiny on men.
So Americans and Muslims have a bloodfeud? It still doesn't take away from the fact that they took 3000 lives and that Africans and Jews took practically none.
No, I acknowledge they're different. The Muslim ethnicities that are most likely to attack the United States are those of the Middle East and northern Africa.
Those are who a large number of "Islamophobists" direct their anger toward. It takes too much time to be "specific" when typing or speaking but most Americans already have an idealized image of a major terrorist in their head and it doesn't include Muslims such as those of Indonesia, etc. These ethnicities are just what liberals bring up to derail the argument.
All the minor attacks in US history do not add up to 3000 lives!
I found this wikipedia list. The numbers are not close at all. You are failing to grasp the magnitude of attacks Muslims contrive. Muslims are the most major perpetrator of large scale terrorist attacks in the modern world, both domestic and foreign. Few other factions in the United States are interested in such attacks.
I'll give you that. Still, most major terrorist attacks are still being plotted by Muslims.
Muslim terrorism is a completely new, more malicious form of terrorism than any faced in the past or that we will face in the future from Caucasian religious groups. Pitting religious Caucasian terrorism with Muslim terrorism is being willfully ignorant of the much more extreme nature of the latter.
CSJ,
Quick Question,
So, are you serious about what you wrote in post 76? Poe's law and all.