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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSalon: We Must Talk About Islam
Salon recently has touched on an important issue, and Salon is no conservative rag. In fact, its very progressive and makes some very important points.
It is vital to understand one thing: freedom of speech means nothing if we are not at liberty to express ourselves about the most contentious issue of all, religion, be it Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. “Islamophobia” and “Islamophobic” are bludgeoning terms of political jargon wielded to suppress free speech and render Islam off-limits for anything but accolades, or, at least, neutral acceptance. Those who denounce “Islamophobia” are pursuing an agenda, seeking to carve out a critique-free haven for their ideology, or else serving, at times unwittingly, as the “useful idiots” of such people and some pretty unsavory regimes.
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closeupready
(29,503 posts)And besides, this isn't the most timely discussion for a 'news' outfit (hint: news is supposed to be 'new').
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)ericson00
(2,707 posts)meaning religious nuts from both sides, is not objectionable.
rug
(82,333 posts)http://www.salon.com/2015/02/08/its_time_to_fight_religion_toxic_drivel_useful_media_idiots_and_the_real_story_about_faith_and_violence/
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/08/we_must_stop_deferring_to_religion_laughable_absurdities_must_be_laughed_at/
ericson00
(2,707 posts)he touches on Islam. Why is it verboten to do so? How many mass murders but with common links all across the globe and here need to occur to acknowledge this?
rug
(82,333 posts)His premise, that murder and terrorism flow directly from the Quran, is flawed and is bigoted towards every practicing Muslim.
You don't defend free expression with bigotry.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Want quotes?
rug
(82,333 posts)Have you read any scholarly books lately on world scriptures?
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)"The mythology has some barbaric shit in it...."
Doesn't that apply to almost every literary genre?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins catalog it at exhaustive (and sickening) length regarding the Abrahamic fairy tales. They are all based in blood and barbarism. Islam and Christianity both sought to conquer the world at the point of a sword, and the old ways have not been laid aside. That is fact.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)On DU it's fair game to go after every single religion but Islam. Time to ask yourself why that is.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Go on and ask him about HIS religion, it's inherent misogyny, and it's official's sexual abuse of children and cover-ups, and you'll get the very same deflection and excuses.
rug
(82,333 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)any one person because of their faith. All I'm saying is that Islam gets a special pass around here - ANY criticism gets you tagged as a Islamophobe or the story gets deflected to whatever bullshit they can change the subject to. ANYTHING to deflect from the FACTS that countries that have Islamic laws are not friends of women or gays or liberals. I simply ceased caring what they thought because they're not honest brokers.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)
"Go after" is not nearly the same as broadbrushing bigotry. And that does happen on DU against every religion. I've even seen sneering comments about the UUs.
delrem
(9,688 posts)a religion with 1.5 billion "believers" or "followers", in all their historical variation.
That's just stupidity on wheels.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)What part of Islam can't we criticize?
rug
(82,333 posts)
sub.theory
(652 posts)I don't find it justification for silence when the fact that 1.5 billion people get their feelings hurt when they believe in a book that:
1) Allows for the rape of female captives in war
2) Explicitly permits slavery
3) Condones the killing of non-Muslims
4) Condones terrorism
5) Allows husbands to beat their wives
6) Instructs barbaric punishments for crime such as crucifixion and limb amputation
7) Mandates that followers who abandon Islam are to be killed
These are all in the Quran.
If being offensive is a crime, well these teaching sure as hell offend me.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)The fact that so many people believe it doesn't change that. I think it is important that criticism of religion is is one of the most most important uses of free speech.
stranger81
(2,345 posts)What I would expect to see if Bill Maher had a day job.
delrem
(9,688 posts)I can't stomach reading such manure, but tastes vary and if you like it and find it edifying that's fine with me.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)ericson00
(2,707 posts)while I'm against discrimination of any sort, radical Islamist ideology needs to be fought, and stamped out. However, it needs to be done with cooperation of Muslim societies, and that can happen. No one is pushing endless war or more war. But it requires being frank with the world and hopefully the next president will neither have her head in the sand like Obama seems to do on it, or argues for more war like Republicans.
Radical Islamists, if they became more common here, wouldn't spare gay pride parades or other infidel things you know. They don't like abortion rights either.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Salons media headline 'pot stirring' helps at all to make anything better, just worse.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)...but you'll be called a racist if you are critical of anything else.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)and it needs to end. That could actually hurt Democrats in future elections. I'd bet if Obama didn't have the perception about Islam that he does, even if just reflected in words, his approval would be higher.
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)Proven time and time again. Just today people talked about a SACRED white buffalo. Now I do not think a white buffalo should be hunted for food or sport but to declare them SACRED is just silly. Same goes for the SACRED mountain debates against building a telescope. because a few superstitious people believe imaginary creatures live in a volcano, science will be halted.
Always makes me think of something I either read or saw in a movie where a kid was telling his parents his friend believed in ghosts and they told him it was foolish until the kid said his friend was NATIVE AMERICAN and then they went, oh, well that's different.
No it is not different. There are no ghosts. There are no sacred lands. There are no gods under any name.
Many of us have pointed that out endless times over the years. I'm immune to the "hater" label. Let them think what they want.
sub.theory
(652 posts)For too many on the left the only socially acceptable, even encouraged, religion to attack is Christianity. Everything else is bigoted.
romanic
(2,841 posts)I agree with the article, from Salon no less!
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Even our moderate and liberal believers right here feel the same way about their religion. It ain't just 'radical islam'.
romanic
(2,841 posts)My point is, whenever someone justly criticizes radical Islam's views on say, homosexuality; there's always someone who shouts "islamaphobe" or "Christian fundies hate gays too). We know other religions suck, but radical Islam always seems to get shuffled aside to include another religion's fundies with it. IMO, radical Islam is extremely damaging, maybe more so than any other radical view on religion simply because Islam is tied to many governments in the middle east, thus affected their human rights policies. I don't know of many Christian or Jewish theocracies out there.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts) 
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)than of the fact that in many Islamic countries homosexuality is illegal and gay people are executed.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)I think a contra-Bush streak, that "if George Bush believed it, the dead opposite must be true" is some of what influences those who try to pretend Islamist Jihadism doesn't exist, and some of it that European left-parties, being both hostile to Israel and courting of Muslim voters, influence such views. Bush was awful on everything but a broken clock is right twice a day: radical Islamic fascism is real.
This "enemy of my enemy is OK or doesn't exist, or may even be friends" crap needs to end. Jimmy Carter is a spectacular example of this: he talks about womens' issues in developing nations non-Muslim nations that may also have regressive ideas about women, but deliberate will not mention those in Muslim countries.
Marr
(20,317 posts)just as there are authoritarians who instinctively back the established, more powerful entity, there are people who are the opposite, and instinctively defend the side they perceive as the underdog. If the subject is framed simply as 'the problems of this particular religion', which they perceive as the weaker cousin of Christianity, they'll respond one way. If the debate is about womens' rights, gay rights, etc., against a powerful state religion, they may respond very differently.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Maybe more people here were raised Catholic than Islamic. But no doubt, we all of us will pretend to have an answer... even if we simply cower behind our implications in the form of a question.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)He may even learn something, starting with the meaning of the term Islamophobia. It's defined as being a dislike of and/or prejudice of Muslims. It's the same as the term anti-semitism. The term applies to those who dislike and/or are prejudiced against Jews, and it's not a term that means no-one can criticise Judaism itself.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)used against people who are only doing that. Criticizing the ideology not the majority of the people.
edhopper
(33,579 posts)we need to ask those who throw out these terms to defend the ideology being criticized.
And call bullshit on the idea that criticizing a portion of Muslims is attacking all Muslims.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)It's disturbing.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)One to signify bigotry against Muslim people (like saying, "they are all terrrorists!"
And a different one to signify criticism of the religion itself, which is totally appropriate. We criticize Christianity and conservativism and a thousand other ideologies. Islam is not off limits.
Islam's mainstream beliefs today are antithetical to liberal beliefs. Are there liberal Muslims who ignore mainstream teaching? Yes (but they currently have a weak voice in the world). Could mainstream Islam look liberal and non-coercive in a few hundred years? Yes, of course. But as it stands, in 2015, the ideology deserves intense criticism.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)It gives the peaceful something to do to pass the time and gives violent people an excuse to kill and abuse others.
Some religions are better and worse at it than others.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)The problem is (at least in America) for every person that might have a legit criticism of Islam, there are a lot more who are simply paranoid hypocritical bigots. There just isn't any kind of environment for that sort of meaningful conversation imo.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)I would say that for every american Muslim who is suffering from antiMuslim bigotry, (usually a momentary thing like a dirty look or an ugly comment on the street), there are a whole lot of American Muslims whose lives are full of suffering due to the injustices and restrictions foisted upon them by their family's/community's fundentalism - and many (especially the girls and women) have little freedom to make their own choice to leave or stay. The punishment for rebellion in traditional families is huge.
For some reason liberals don't care too much. The suffering of Duggar girls or LDS women, we can get behind. But American Muslimahs, nah.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)LDS refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The mainline Mormons.
While they are certainly a conservative bunch, I don't think you can begin to compare them to the Duggar girls.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)not egalitarian either. Do they still teach that a woman can only go to heaven on her husband's coattails?
I don't enough about them to judge.
My main concern with any religion or ideology is: does it create a community in which some people are kept less powerful than others? And can people (including teens and women) leave anytime they change their mind? Are they ostracized or punished for leaving?
StevieM
(10,500 posts)Mormons believe in three levels of heaven. Only a few people go to Outer Darkness, or Hell.
I don't think they still teach that a woman needs her husband to go to the highest level of heaven, the Celestial Kingdom.
I agree that a lot of religious communities can employ coercion. And it can be hard to leave some of them. The Amish practice shunning, for example. I don't think the Mormons are too bad about that, at least not anymore. Of course, I am sure it varies from family to family.
I have often wondered what would happen to one of the Duggar girls if they dared try to leave the nest.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)if my info is right - is that teens get a year of "running around" (freedom to live outside the community), after which they can choose to be Amish or leave for good.
Mainstream Islam teaches that after death you get judged, and then it's hellfire or paradise. In my family at least, the teaching was that Baba (father) goes to hellfire if his children don't turn out Muslim.
I think we westerners are so free, we can't imagine what it's like to live within a closed community like muslims or Hasidic Jews or Christian Quiverful types. But there are books by ex members of all those movements, detailing the mental prison of being on the inside, and the struggle - internal and external - to get out and live free.
Of course some people don't want to leave, which is their own business.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)American muslims are as free to leave/stay in their fundamentalist families or communities as Rob Kardashian is free to leave his trashy kin behind, or anyone else for that matter. Any 'punishment' would be as unenforceable as demanding that a pregnant female must keep her 'baby' - not a binding pronouncement legally.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)By punishment, I did not mean lpunishment under US law of course.
What I see is a closed community where conformity is important. Men, being dominant, have freedom to break the rules and live as westerners if they want - eg to divorce, to date, even to fuck around (though only with females outside the community). But the double standard is huge: men wink at the freedoms taken by other men, but a girl or woman who steps out of line will face serious retribution.
A man's reputation depends on what other men think of his wife's modesty and his children's religiosity. He wields the power over his family, and the community stands behind him, and the women and children know it. Girls accept their position young. It is a hierarchical system, and it's far less risky to fit in than to rebel. An obedient female gives up freedom and equality but gains the security of being loved and approved of.
So technically everyone is "free" and "equal" in America - but if you are raised to obey, submit, and conform, amd you know that exercising ypur American freedom and equality means that everyone close to ypu will attack or ostracize you, how free and equal are you?
Half my family is Muslim. I hope coming generations establish a relaxed and liberal Islam in America. I think there are pockets where it is developing. But in my American city, the old Palestinian imam still gives sermons on a man's right to beat his disobedient wife. ( Lightly, of course!)
And please - don't tell me liberals would for one moment tolerate a Christian preacher saying that DU would light up if it happened. And the PR fallout would cost the guy his job.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)Stories abound about wealthy Protestants who disinherit and disown their wayward kin, ditto Jews and Catholics. If I had a dollar for every openly gay man or women I knew whose families cast them out completely, I could treat the two of us to dinner at Nobu.
sub.theory
(652 posts)I think you're conveniently leaving out that in Islam gay men are killed. That doesn't happen in Christianity or Judaism, so your equivalence is false. I will never understand how a religion as brutal, totalitarian, and intolerant as Islam gets such a free pass from the left.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)News to me. 
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Syzygy321
(583 posts)Last edited Thu Aug 6, 2015, 07:38 PM - Edit history (1)
females in Muslim families. For some reason, you seem eager to skip over that whole subject. Why? Is it because you can't easily say "Christians and Jews do that too!". Or is it because fundamentalist abuse of females really...isn't your problem?
I will try to answer your question though, since it is a fair one.
Re those wealthy Protestants: I have never met any outside of Jane Austen. But even in those (rare!) families where dad disinherits kid, that kid has lost only his parents and his money. Sucky, yes
- but he still has his friends, community, and everyone's respect. That is very different from the situation of a female who fails to conforn inside a tightknit fundamentalist community and is cast out and considered a whore, unmarriageable, perhaps threatened with beatings or murder.
Re: cast-out gays. That's terrible and it shouldn't happen. How is it different among Muslims versus other religions? Well, ask yourself how common it is for American churches and synagogues to openly embrace gay members. That should tell you how common it is for Chr and J families to accept gay children. It's not universal but it's common, and getting more so. The Westboro Baptist nuts are considered nuts by EVERY Christian who isn't them.
Now read the following:
Www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33565055
Fundy Christians and Orthodox Jews are the fringe - and even they do not beat or KILL gays in the name of God. Nor do they
control the laws of countries.
An Arab relative told me years ago - soon after coming to the US - that of course Allah wants gay people thrown to their deaths from rooftops. When I asked if he would kill American gays, he said no - "It should only be done in a Muslim community, where children are taught right from wrong, so of they choose to break Allah's laws they cannot claim ignorance.". In other words: he agrees with ISIS.
(By the way he is a smart, well-loved Arab-American doctor - plays soccer, shows off pictures of his children. If you met him he might invite you over and you would brag to your liberal buds about your "really nice Muslim friend." You would not guess that he controlled his ex wife's every move (that's not abuse; its a husband's right), and then divorced her. Or that he believes adulterers should be stoned to death. Superficially he's very personable and outside his family he's as American as apple pie. He fucked around between marriages. His second wife, of course, was a guaranteed virgin from the old country.)
See, when men control women to such a degree that they can do anything they want without consequence, it doesn't tend to make the men good people. "power corrupts" and all that.
Another point re gays: Understand that Muslim girls are not simply told: "Don't be a lesbian; other than that, go live your life as you want.". If only! Commonly they are controlled and watched and policed. Dating is forbidden to most young women. Many are not permitted to leave home (say, for college) unless they are married or at least engaged first. Early marriage - to control the girl and ensure her virtue - is the norm. And of course girls are taught young that a wife's place, like a daughter's, is to obey.. So her husband is not her only jailer: if she is controlled or abused, other women, too, will tell her to be patient and accepting and obedient. They are all Uncle Toms in a man's world. Yes, just like fundy Christians - but again: it's the fringe in Christianity; the mainstream in today's Islam. And since women live like this in my American city, what's it like in Arab countries? Have you read up on Muslim family law in the Mideast??
I hope the fundamentalism and legalism and misogyny will change - in America, if no where else. In a few generations, maybe the tide will turn and Muslims will be as free as others to choose their path.
Now read this:
Www.cnn.com/2013/06/20/world/meast/Jordan-honor-crimes-study/
Now finally: please ask yourself why you care more about protecting the reputation of Islam - an ideology, an inanimate thing! - than about protecting its victims.
Criticizing Islam doesn't make you a bigot. Refusing to criticize it, makes you a poor liberal.
I hope that helps. Glad to discuss it further if you want.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)at the moment, but want to read and reflect in a bit, and get back to you. Cheers. 
Syzygy321
(583 posts)And since you aren't shouting me down, I will take a moment to qualify the foregoing post: Islam of course is pretty huge and nuanced, so of course there are plenty of exceptions to the lifestyle I describe. This is Arab-paki-Afghani mainstream. Malaysia/Indonesia (except aceh!) is different I think. And lots of Iranians are atheist behind closed doors.
And - like all conformist, clannish communities, even the coercive lifestyle I describe has its upside too. Thats why plenty of people become Muslim by choice. I just want *everyone* to be free to choose it, or choose against it.
rug
(82,333 posts)I have the same experience.
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)and all Catholics, than of Muslims. I've never figured out why.
Ex Lurker
(3,813 posts)and are loath to criticize the Third World, even when justified. They view Islam as a religion of colonialized, Third World people, and thus any criticism of it is off limits.
sub.theory
(652 posts)Absolutely everything. Some on the left have convinced themselves that the West is responsible for all of the world's problems and if anyone non-Western does something wrong it must be because of some legitimate grievance against the West. The West is the root of all evil.
pnwmom
(108,978 posts)DashOneBravo
(2,679 posts)(1) as someone else mentioned, real anti Muslim bigotry is real. And liberals consider it a virtue to avoid bigotry. So there is confusion: "If I criticize a minority person's religion, aren't I picking on the poor, put-upon minority person?"
(2) our current multiculturalism basically says "embrace and respect all the weird and colorful ways of people throughout the world.". (Which is fine when you are watching people eat fufu with their hands...Yet not so fine when the fufu is made by a twelve year old bride, sold by her father for two cows.). So, shhh! Be respectful!
(3) we liberals like to let minorities speak for themselves. So when a Muslim says - as they all do - "Ours is a religion of peace" and "Muslim women are so greatly respected," we insist on believing them. We wouldn't believe a Duggar who said "My church is all about love" or a Red Texan who said "America is bringing freedom to the savages" - but when a Spokesman for Islam says it, we nod in earnest agreement. Never mind that the Spokesman has three previous abused wives (that his Muslim community threw to the wolves), and that he just sawed his last wife's head off. (That's a Bridges TV reference if ya missed it.)
(4) it feels good to say, "We are so morally superior to those evil hatey Republicans.". Ah that moral high horse!
(5) It feels really really great to scream, "You are an ISLAMOPHOBE!! I caught an ISLAMOPHOBE!! Look at me - I am a pure and loving liberal - look at me, everyone, see how lib I am! I am calling out a stinking ISLAMOPHOBE!!" ( This is the moral high horse to the Nth power. Alas it coerces lots of otherwise brave people into keeping their thoughts to themselves..)
ericson00
(2,707 posts)by shying away from it at all. It needs to stop being a "liberal/con" issue.
get the red out
(13,466 posts)But I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)That should not shield Islam from legitimate criticism.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)as an excuse to claim that "faith" is the source of much intolerance in the world are often disguising, or attempting to disguise, their hatred of the concept of religion and/or belief.
If you tell me that Jim Jones was a suicidal lunatic, what difference if he cloaked his actions in a veneer of Christianity?
If you tell me that Osama bin Laden was a violent lunatic, what difference if he cloaked his hatred in a veneer of Islam?
Violent people, intolerant people, all types of haters will always have a "reason" for their hatred. No one claims to hate because hate feels good. Everyone claims to have a reason for their actions.
If you wish to talk about Islam, do you ever talk about the good that Muslims do in the name of God? Or is your focus exclusively on violence?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)populist Western racism as a means of helping to keep in check calls to end colonization of disputed non-Western land and resources.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)beneath the surface of my remarks to expose my true, secret goals. Or something like that.
So my call to refrain from broadbrush attacks on ANY or ALL religion(s) is actually an attempt to fan the flames of western racism?
A very interesting, and revealing, reading of my remarks.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)and simply wanted to suggest that when you consider those who frequently bash Islam indiscriminately, you might find some interesting coincidences with regard to other issues where Islam and the modern world seem to clash.
Peace to you.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Would you give examples of: "other issues where Islam and the modern world seem to clash."?
Peace to you also.
Syzygy321
(583 posts)Last edited Fri Aug 7, 2015, 01:39 AM - Edit history (1)
Because as you say it is "The actions of a few."
TBH it still bothers me some, though - because obviously it is an outgrowth of:
--mainstream Muslim belief in jihad,
--and the never-criticized nostalgia for Islam's glorious lost age of conquest,
--and the central belief that Allah wants Islam to conquer other faiths,
--and the Quran's oft-repeated statement that martyrdom is a ticket to heaven,
--and the Quranic claim that heaven is indeed full of good food and hot virgins -
-- and finally, its claim that you must believe all the preceding Holy Crapola because the Quran is God's exact and perfect word.
-- And, catch-22! you will burn in hell if you question it. But first you'll be punished for blasphemy.
(Yeah, I'm against that shit. Sue me.)
However I am much more troubled by the universal Muslim belief in male legal and moral supremacy over women.
That is not the act/belief of a tiny minority.
It has been codified not just by 1400 years of farflung Muslim culture but by the vastly unequal gendered laws that govern men and women - laws that Come From God and can never be changed.
Look around the Muslim world.
Read the laws and customs that chain women (and always will) to medieval notions of unequal rights.
So now that you have proven to yourself that gross societal inequality , based on sex, is not the act of a tiny Muslim minority but the belief of the vast majority...
What do you think of that?
Does it bother you?
At all?
Bugs the hell outa me. But unlike you, I'm a woman who had to suffer under it. I guess since islam's abuses and injustices are happening to People Not You, you can pretend we inconvenient victims (by the millions) just don't matter.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)n/t
DashOneBravo
(2,679 posts)ericson00
(2,707 posts)because it is one of the few issues the GOP wins in the polls on. The debate cannot be partisan. and don't let this debate fool you
