Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Also, it’s very much the underdog in world politics, because it just is, and it’s probably because of this paranoid feeling of threat from the rest of the world that makes it so tight in enforcing rules…

The paranoid feeling of threat is made up BS, just like the made up “crime” of Islamophobia. It is so tight in enforcing rules because that is the only way it can survive. If Islamic countries disbanded their “thought police” and “morality police” and removed the clerics from their courts and governments it would vanish. It only survives by abusing human rights.

[Simon Paynton]

I’d like to know the historical reasons as well.  It seems to have started off strict, although fairly relaxed in some surprising ways, but has become ultra-conservative in the past century or two.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes a good case for why Islam needs a reformation….now.

[PopeBeanie]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

just like the made up “crime” of Islamophobia

Oh man, the melting power of name-calling… Islamistphobia would be a more reasonable fear.

[PopeBeanie]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I’d like to know the historical reasons as well. It seems to have started off strict, although fairly relaxed in some surprising ways, but has become ultra-conservative in the past century or two.

Just like in pre-reformed Chrisitanity, authoritarians used religion to rule and subjugate. And it’s not over yet, with Putin loving the orthodox church, and Trump loving evangelists. Muhammad certainly had rule in mind when he invented Islam.

[PopeBeanie]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes a good case for why Islam needs a reformation….now.

The book reviews there are pretty enlightening, too. I probably have the odd atheist perspective here, because I think it’s counter-productive to condemn an entire religion when the most powerful reform can come from its more moderate members, which in this case are by far in the majority. The rise of extremism, which is the disease that spreads and kills like cancer, is empowered by authoritarians (e.g. in Saudi Arabia) and their big money and international reach.

Rather than blame moderates, we should be enabling them to rise up over the authoritarians, keeping human rights movements (even in Islam) their main theme. We can’t help them all win the war for freedom at once, but we can battle those in power, again, with human rights as the main theme.

Can anyone argue against the view that, above all else, authoritarianism is the biggest enemy to freedom?

[Simon Paynton]

I’ve shown this before, it’s an appeal to the peaceful sides of Islam in order to reduce violence in the Muslim world.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

The problem is that at the top of the pile there are no moderates. While I am not trying to apply the same label to all Muslims, it would appear that places like Iran or Saudi Arabia exert way too much influence. Iran supports Islamic Jihadists with training and money and Saudi Arabia exports its brand of Wahhabism around the globe by sponsoring the building of new mosques and the export of radical clerics to preach in them. So the moderates don’t get heard and are told they are not “true believers”. I know this to be true because I have helped ex-Muslims to get refugee status in different countries. They all warn us about the radical clerics. Most Muslims – the vast majority are peaceful people but the peaceful majority are irrelevant.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Some more of its history.

[Simon Paynton]

I suppose if Church and State are the same thing, then power and religion are the same thing.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
– Seneca

[Davis]

PopeBeanie wrote:

which in this case [moderates] are by far in the majority

Unfortunately I beg to differ. As the increase of extremism and violence has increased in the last few decades, some see moderate Muslims as those who do not agree with violent Jihad and who make a couple progressive exceptions to common oppressive customs. But this departs from the “moderate” form of any other religion. There is little moderate about muslims in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. Women are systematically oppressed while homosexuality, apostasy, theological dissent and infidelity are met with corporal punishment or even execution. Female genital mutilation is used by the overwhelming majority in African Muslim countries. Radical jihad is overwealmingly supported in extensive areas of the Muslim world including Nigeria, Mali, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Niger and Mauritania. Importantly the same goes for relative moderates. In countries with even splits between christianity and Islam such as in Nigeria, Lebanon and previously in Sudan, while Christians do exhibit some highly conservative customs the Muslim population is far more restrictive. It reminds me of Lebanon where in the centre Christian women dance on the tables at night time while in several Muslim  towns it was near impossible to see a woman on the street. It is likely the case that muslims in countries like the United States or Australia are relatively moderate for a number of reasons, it is quite the stretch to say so about the general practices of Islam in the majority of muslim countries. Opression is abound and in many places tacit support for violence is common.

[Davis]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

The paranoid feeling of threat is made up BS,

This is often the case. As though Westerners plan to take their religion away from them, force them to enact progressive laws and invade their countries for religious reasons. I’ve heard this time and time again in Iran, Turkey, Jordan and even Morocco. The paranoia is so intense there is little you can say that might  chip away at it.

[PopeBeanie]

@Davis, I wasn’t speaking of the majority of countries, but the majority of Muslims. As for most of the countries you list, I’m laying blame on their authoritarian governments for how they’ve historically and presently religiously oppress their populations.

But I was still wrong to say majority. You made me look! I don’t know how I got it so wrong, other than with wishful thinking. And the future looks bleaker.

[Davis]

Pope, unfortunately the majority of muslims adhere to a rather conservative and opressive form of Islam. The overwealming majority of muslim women are very held back, homophobia is nearly universal, freedom of religious dessent is rare and acts of adultary are met with strict punishment. If by moderate you mean they don’t support terrorists, then you are right. But if by moderate you mean respecting individuals, women’s rights, diverse sexuality, religious freedom etc…then no, the  majority most certainly aren’t moderates. It’s preposterous to review statistics and surveys and claim otherwise.

Pope, I cannot believe you are still using the “authoritarian” bullshit excuse. It is so full of crap for several reasons. The first, and the most important is, many of these governments are elected with relatively open and fair elections. Think Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Malaysia, Bangladesh. A large majority of their populations consistently vote in non-moderate governments. So there goes your excuse right out the window. And then ontop of that, you have the bizarre question which people are afriad to answer which is, why are the majority of muslim countries inflicted with authoritarian governments while Christian and Bhuddist ones are not (except for 5 countries). That isn’t an insignificant fact. There is nothing remotely similar about the culture or political background of Indonesia and Mauritania. They are two different universes. However when you travel from Mauritania to Indonesia, you cross, virtually uninterrupted, through dozens of muslim countries, all of them minus India and to an extent Bangladesh, as authoritarian. To pretend that there is zero causality there is sticking your head in the sand, especially when many of these countries neighbours are all non-authoritarian.

But the biggest response to this tired excuse, is the one I’ve never ever seen you properly address let alone explain. Why is it that when a country has a Christian/Bhuddist/Hindu region and a muslim region, the muslim region is almost always significantly more severe with human freedoms (womens rights, religious dissent, severity of punishment, homophobia) than the other regions. For instance, why are Christian regions of Lebanon relatively progressive while the muslim regions are highly conservative and limiting? Why are the Christian areas of Benin struggling to do better while the Muslim northern regions of Nigeria are totally bananas with many parts under brutal sharia law and increasing violence? Why is Phillippines (hardly perfect), with the exception of the recent drug dealer purge, a relatively democratic country with many freedoms, and yet the Muslim islands in the south are extreemist, several of them having strict opressive laws? Why are the poorest and most violent areas of Russia muslim majority regions (Chechnia, Dagestan, Ingushtia?). Why are the christian and hindu minority regions of Indonesia the ones with the most freedoms? Why, amongst the 15 post soviet countries, are four of the five muslim coutries opressive and war torn, while the 5th is only semi democratic, while 7 of the 10 Christian ones are flourishing democracies? Why is Zanzibara, a muslim island of Tanzania, severely more opressive to human rights than the mostly Christian mainland? Why are the two majority muslim countries in Europe failed states? (Albania and Bosnia) both with recent external strife? Why are the Christian West African countries showing some progress (Guinea, Ivory Coast, Togo) while the inner Muslim ones are fundamentalist hell holes (Niger, Mali, Chad).

The only reason people dismiss serious chronic problems in major regions of the world as political circumstances rather than the direct result of bad religious ideas such as “autocratic”, “authoritarianism”, “colonialism” is they are hesitant to tread on pluralist sensibilities. Despite the fact that neighboring or even co-habitating regions of the same country…with the same history, culture and hurdles, yet do far better in terms of human rights, religious secularism and less severity in punishment than the Muslim ones?

Now cue the hand wave and dismissal and more excuses.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Davis.

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