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agreed. Apologetics means one understands the place of their belief statement and that it is more valid not to take it literally and modify it based on new information. Apologetics is a "more" normal stance and milly/fund is an "less" normal to abnormal stance.
Forcing people to choose between "my way" or "their way" is not rational. We don't have to drink that punch.
I think that the reaction to Bill Maher's comments was understandable and Ben Affleck's spirited defence of Muslims came from a sincere and well-meaning place. However, on the whole, I tend to side with Bill Maher.
I heard about, but didn't see, the Affleck interview; I didn't have that in mind though, but rather, a woman whose name eludes me at the moment who was on his panel rather than the actual guest, who tried to make the case that Maher's criticism of Islam was hate speech. It was somewhat before the Affleck thing.
Sometimes Maher's derisive, perpetually disgusted persona probably gets in the way by being so hard to ignore. It's part of his comedic schtick but also part of his personality. I don't think he knows any other way to be, so the chips just have to fall where they will. But I agree with Maher that Islam is no more beyond criticism or disagreement than any other belief, and they need to get used to not being entitled to scraping deference. Christianity is further along in reacclimatizing to the new reality but it has work to do also.
This guy made some good points. I saw a video from an exmuslim talking about the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck thing that was awesome. Will try and track it down.
He gave a really good explanation of the difference between Islam and Muslim.
There's a difference? I thought LI was just pulling 'No True Muslim'.
Thanks for posting - required Watching.
Yeah. I'm not letting Muslims off the hook just because they are not Islamist. There is some horrible things in those 2000 year old books that both they and Christians try and deny while incorporating it in secret. That brutality will probably play a big part in waking people up. It looks to me that in the past 100 years things that were once considered normal are now called abuse. People are growing a conscience that is beyond 2000 year old brutality.
This guy made some good points. I saw a video from an exmuslim talking about the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck thing that was awesome. Will try and track it down.
He gave a really good explanation of the difference between Islam and Muslim.
Because of my poor hearing I could not understand the video very well.
But from what I could understand there are a few clarifications I would like to make.
The difference between Islam and Muslim is Islam is a verb. Islam being the action of submitting to Allaah(swt)
Muslim is a noun meaning a person who does the act of Islam.
Islamist is a media term, coined by the AP (Associate Press). I really am not certain it has an actual definition yet. The AP handbook has changed their definition at least once.
The old definition read as (via the US News):
"Supporter of government in accord with the laws of Islam. Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi."
While the new version reads a bit longer, and not unlike the immigration change, requests reporters take the time to offer more details on a case-by-case basis:
"An advocate or supporter of a political movement that favors reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam. Do not use as a synonym for Islamic fighters, militants, extremists or radicals, who may or may not be Islamists.
He pretty much said that Islam was Muslim+political structure based on the Quran. He brought up how in Christianity we have separation of church and state(somewhat). Islam would be like if the US government laws were set up based on the bible, old testament and all. Is that what you are saying?
He pretty much said that Islam was Muslim+political structure based on the Quran. He brought up how in Christianity we have separation of church and state(somewhat). Islam would be like if the US government laws were set up based on the bible, old testament and all. Is that what you are saying?
For a Non-Muslim the concept of De'en does not exist.
In the Arabic language and in Islam there are no separate words for life and religion. De'en means both. A person's true religion is what the individual does, thinks and says, it is how he lives his life. Therefore there is no separation between religion and State as what ever the state does is the "Religion" the person lives.
In Islam there is no centralized teaching of universally accepted Dogma and beliefs. There are very few things all Muslims have in common. All Muslims perform Islam, which is the submission to Allaah(to best of one's ability and knowledge. Therefore you actually have 1.7 billion ways of performing Islam.
However, when he mocks Catholics for belief in transubstantiation, or Christians in general for the belief in Noah's Ark, the reaction is altogether a lot more muted.
My own experience differs here. I did some scientific examination of Catholic Cracker Bread and received no small quantity of death threats. I still periodically do when some rampant catholic comes across the article I wrote. And I occasionally get messages still asking me if I possess the crackers, and when they find that I do they DEMAND that I "release" them at once.... yes as if I was literally holding them captive or prisoner, like real people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by micC
But it seems that many liberal atheists want to prevent Islam from being held up even to the same level of intellectual scrutiny that is heaped upon Christianity.
They are certainly welcome to try and do that to me. They will fail. I treat all religions equally in my appraisal of them, despite such people hiding behind words like "Islamophobic" or "Anti Semetic" or any of those other buzz words designed to cajole people into silence.
For a Non-Muslim the concept of De'en does not exist.
In the Arabic language and in Islam there are no separate words for life and religion. De'en means both. A person's true religion is what the individual does, thinks and says, it is how he lives his life. Therefore there is no separation between religion and State as what ever the state does is the "Religion" the person lives.
In Islam there is no centralized teaching of universally accepted Dogma and beliefs. There are very few things all Muslims have in common. All Muslims perform Islam, which is the submission to Allaah(to best of one's ability and knowledge. Therefore you actually have 1.7 billion ways of performing Islam.
That perhaps is why this ex -Muslim finds that the terms need to be used differently. What I think, do and how I live could be in your definition 'My religion'. But I actually don't have one. Not only because I don't believe in any god, let alone submit to one. And I do no religious rituals and observe no religious law. For an ex -muslim, living your life can indeed be separate from religion and of course an atheist or humanist would argue that most of us live a non religious life with religion being added on to it.
Just how much the religion is added on depends upon how much one wants it to be or how much it is imposed. The term 'Fundamentalist' springs to mind when people have their lives pretty much dominated by the rules of a religion.
This ex -Muslim argues that the Islamic or Muslim religion was political right from the start. The founder was a political leader and so were the successors in a way no other religion was. Christianity only became political when the emperor became the tool of the Pope in suppressing other religions. From the start Islam was the state.
Another ex -muslim atheist in Egypt has explained how the 'Arab spring' movement against military rule was humanist in character, wanting democracy, freedom of thought and general liberation. It was significant that the Muslim brotherhood stood back rather. At the time it was thought to be a way of ensuring that the military government couldn't use the accusation of being the (banned) Muslim brotherhood against the demonstrators. But later it looked (so the ex -muslim said) as though they let the Spring' dislodge the president and then stepped in and got themselves elected. Religion and political rule are the same in their minds. Submission to Allah means submission of the state and political machinery to the religion in a way that we get nowhere else, except perhaps in the dogmatic ideological states of Stalinist communism.
Indonesia is the moist populous Muslim country, but Islam is not the state, and nowhere is it - though Saudi Arabia and Iran come pretty close. But ISIS is absolutely (a the ex -Muslim explained) going back to the origins. A caliph running an Islamic state where there is no thought or politics or education that is not religious. There is no separation of religion and society in a way we find in Indonesia, Turkey of course, as a conscious political policy, or even Iran, where humanism has to be kept out of sight.
The ex -muslim also touched on whose fault IS is. Well, we know. Even Blair is beginning to realize what he has done, though the idiot Bush probably still thinks he was doing God's work. I was against the war in Iraq, too. Not because I liked Saddam. But because the war was fought on the basis of a logical fallacy. Faith in the existence of WMD and never mind the lack of evidence. And I still remember listening with horror to Blair arguing that, if you didn't support a war to remove Saddam, you much be a supporter of Saddam (false dichotomy, in case you didn't know). But then politics has always been about rhetorical tricks, not about logic and reason.
But the point the ex -muslim made was..and we already see this...is that ruthless leaders like Saddam and Assad now look better than what abrogation or removal of their power has led to. Because if you remove a communist dictator, after confusion, the humanist -democratic worldview will become the political default. But in Islamic countries, it is Islam that is ready to be the political default. And the more that Islam sees to it that there is no humanist alternative, the more complete, fundamentalist and appalling is the Islamic State that we get.
That my old friend is why Islam is unacceptable to me and repellent. To get back on topic, muslims and Islam can be ok, just as Christians can. But not because of their religion, but in spite of it.
It is not for nothing that Boko Haram is the name of one nasty group. It symbolizes the essential basis of Islamic thought that is opposed to western politics, education and all that cultural humanism that allows Islam to look acceptable. In just the same way we can see how Fundamentalist Christianity is ghastly and very dangerous, Islam is even more hardwired to fundamentalism.
I have gone on too long. I haven't even touched on his talk of hope and the role of the Internet in putting the ideas that Authority wants to suppress. China as well as Islamic authority. But there is hope - even for the Muddle east. But it is the Internet and talking and thinking and seeing the need to roll back religious authority that is going to realize that hope.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 01-25-2016 at 03:44 AM..
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I thought LI was just pulling 'No True Muslim'.
