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But Islam also has a lot of things that it deserves to be criticized for.
So do all other religions. Region by definitely is based largely on ignorance, and deserves to be criticized.
I am non-religious, non-western, non-Muslim. I think one point people keep missing is that the issue is not about Islam and whatever the Koran says. All the problems about religion is about how people interpret their books and how they choose to practice it.
In reality nothing, absolutely nothing says Christianity is more loving, more peaceful, more tolerant than Islam. In fact, if one looks at history, Christians tended to be less tolerant and more violent toward infidels than Muslims. The difference is that the Christian world largely moved on and has become more and more tolerant, and they stop interpreting the Bible so literally, and are advancing with the change of times. Islam on the other hand didn't, at least not much. So instead of criticizing Islam itself, pretending Christianity is somehow superior by design, we should really think more about the way today's Muslims' think, why they tend to be more conservative and what has caused the extremism among some individuals - this requires a lot more understanding about the social and historic context about the Muslim world, instead of just looking at "what happens now" - which is a very superficial way of looking at things.
It is easy for people, especially westerners to just lazily (and stupidly) decide it is all the problems of the Muslim world - because that takes no efforts and it makes themselves feel morally superior. Can I ask, among all Muslim countries, Iraq and Syria are two the of most secular ones, but how come the most dangerous and strict Islamism ISIS originated from there, instead of far more conservative and probably more oppressive countries such as Saudi Arabia, where even watching movies is banned? Why not look at how the Iraqis (and Afghanistanis) have suffered since 911 due to the foolish policies by the Americans, and determine who deprived millions of people, including half a million soldiers, of basic livelihood and pushed them more and more to the most dangerous side of religions? I am not an expert, but it doesn't take a lot of research to understand, the US intervention, particularly their utter lack of understanding of the Iraq society and mismanagement of the country, that directly caused the deterioration of situation resulting in the rise of ISIS.
It is so easy to accuse others for being violent and backward, isn't it? Have the western politicians ever left the Middle East alone to grow, solve their problems and advance into modern civilization? The west always has the arrogance about being able to force stability, freedom and better life on other countries, or whatever their self-righteous BS, what guess what, they CAN'T. History tells us they only made things far worse. Just look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, has any one of these country become a better place to live than before the wars forced upon them by the west? More security? More freedom? More wealth? Nothing. Taliban is still there. Al Qaeda as active as before. Crimes and violence worse than ever. Suicide bombing on the rise. Drug trafficking out of control. Everything has become much much worse. Instability and poverty as well as hate (rightly so) leads to religious extremism, and we are wondering why the hell they attack western cities? Why the hell do western countries attack their cities in the first place? To save people from tyranny? That deserves a laugh since the Saudi and Bahrain kings are pretty comfortable in their thrones.
yeah, it is super easy to accuse the Muslims, or how backward Islam is. Keep doing that on the newspapers and continue lighting those useless stupid candles. It will do absolutely nothing because that's not the root of the problem. Even if ISIS is eradicated entirely from the surface of the world today, do you think western lives will cease to be lost? Not a chance. As long as our democratically elected governments continue to adopt our self-serving interventionist policies for geopolitical reasons, there will always be hatred and terrorism toward the west.
Guess what, don't bother blaming the Muslims, not even terrorists. Blame our governments. Actually, blame ourselves for electing such war-mongering governments to start with. You know what is the Irony? Obama who probably engaged three times the wars on other countries than Bush Jr resulting in god knows how many deaths of civilians, won a peace Nobel prize. Are those lives worth any less than those lost during the Paris or Orlando attack?? And right now they are rooting for Hilary Clinton who is even more hawkish in foreign policy than Obama himself.
Does the US deserve 911? you know what, to some extent, it does. As long as the western people don't realize the logic here, innocent people will keeping dying and there is no other way out of this mess.
Only a fool would think it is about how good or bad Islam is. A religion CAN't possibly be that bad considering it has 1500 years of history and 1.5 billion followers. Let the old good Canada suffer what Iraq did and I am sure terrorism will arise as well.
Last edited by botticelli; 06-20-2016 at 08:06 AM..
So do all other religions. Region by definitely is based largely on ignorance, and deserves to be criticized.
I am non-religious, non-western, non-Muslim. I think one point people keep missing is that the issue is not about Islam and whatever the Koran says. All the problems about religion is about how people interpret their books and how they choose to practice it.
In reality nothing, absolutely nothing says Christianity is more loving, more peaceful, more tolerant than Islam. In fact, if one looks at history, Christians tended to be less tolerant and more violent toward infidels than Muslims. The difference is that the Christian world largely moved on and has become more and more tolerant, and they stop interpreting the Bible so literally, and are advancing with the change of times. Islam on the other hand didn't, at least not much. So instead of criticizing Islam itself, pretending Christianity is somehow superior by design, we should really think more about the way today's Muslims' think, why they tend to be more conservative and what has caused the extremism among some individuals - this requires a lot more understanding about the social and historic context about the Muslim world, instead of just looking at "what happens now" - which is a very superficial way of looking at things.
It is easy for people, especially westerners to just lazily (and stupidly) decide it is all the problems of the Muslim world - because that takes no efforts and it makes themselves feel morally superior. Can I ask, among all Muslim countries, Iraq and Syria are two the of most secular ones, but how come the most dangerous and strict Islamism ISIS originated from there, instead of far more conservative and probably more oppressive countries such as Saudi Arabia, where even watching movies is banned? Why not look at how the Iraqis (and Afghanistanis) have suffered since 911 due to the foolish policies by the Americans, and determine who deprived millions of people, including half a million soldiers, of basic livelihood and pushed them more and more to the most dangerous side of religions? I am not an expert, but it doesn't take a lot of research to understand, the US intervention, particularly their utter lack of understanding of the Iraq society and mismanagement of the country, that directly caused the deterioration of situation resulting in the rise of ISIS.
It is so easy to accuse others for being violent and backward, isn't it? Have the western politicians ever left the Middle East alone to grow, solve their problems and advance into modern civilization? The west always has the arrogance about being able to force stability, freedom and better life on other countries, or whatever their self-righteous BS, what guess what, they CAN'T. History tells us they only made things far worse. Just look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, has any one of these country become a better place to live than before the wars forced upon them by the west? More security? More freedom? More wealth? Nothing. Taliban is still there. Al Qaeda as active as before. Crimes and violence worse than ever. Suicide bombing on the rise. Drug trafficking out of control. Everything has become much much worse. Instability and poverty as well as hate (rightly so) leads to religious extremism, and we are wondering why the hell they attack western cities? Why the hell do western countries attack their cities in the first place? To save people from tyranny? That deserves a laugh since the Saudi and Bahrain kings are pretty comfortable in their thrones.
yeah, it is super easy to accuse the Muslims, or how backward Islam is. Keep doing that on the newspapers and continue lighting those useless stupid candles. It will do absolutely nothing because that's not the root of the problem. Even if ISIS is eradicated entirely from the surface of the world today, do you think western lives will cease to be lost? Not a chance. As long as our democratically elected governments continue to adopt our self-serving interventionist policies for geopolitical reasons, there will always be hatred and terrorism toward the west.
Guess what, don't bother blaming the Muslims, not even terrorists. Blame our governments. Actually, blame ourselves for electing such war-mongering governments to start with. You know what is the Irony? Obama who probably engaged three times the wars on other countries than Bush Jr resulting in god knows how many deaths of civilians, won a peace Nobel prize. Are those lives worth any less than those lost during the Paris or Orlando attack?? And right now they are rooting for Hilary Clinton who is even more hawkish in foreign policy than Obama himself.
Does the US deserve 911? you know what, to some extent, it does. As long as the western people don't realize the logic here, innocent people will keeping dying and there is no other way out of this mess.
Only a fool would think it is about how good or bad Islam is. A religion CAN't possibly be that bad considering it has 1500 years of history and 1.5 billion followers. Let the old good Canada suffer what Iraq did and I am sure terrorism will arise as well.
I assume this is not primarily directed at me. As you know, I think much the same way. I just don't think people should be making excuses or exceptions for themselves (or other people) just because "it's their religion". Regardless of the religion.
I must have missed a link as I've no idea what a Catholic bishop wouldn't speak in public about. Are you saying that although the official position of the church is that homosexuality is a sin, no bishop would speak about it and it's just one of those things that exist in the official version of Catholicism?
I'm amazed too but in a good way. Two wrongs don't make a right. As to why gays (or anyone for that matter) might be more critical of the Catholic church than Islam, perhaps it has to do with western homosexuals being more familiar with Catholicism than Islam. One always feel more entitled to speak about what one perceives as home base, don't they? It's what we know best and we often have our own backpack of hurts we carry around with us for the rest of our lives so we feel more qualified to criticize it.
I don't find that there is a defence of Islam. I see it a lot more as saying that our cultures all have baggage we don't agree with and not everyone is at the same place in the great dirt road through history. I think that there are circumstances in which progress can be forcefully encouraged, but I also think that cultures have a natural course to follow first. Western societies were not always as lenient or merciful on many issues as they are now. We evolved. Just because some areas of the world are not up to our standards as we like to think about it doesn't mean they aren't getting there. We just didn't all start off in the same spot, and we didn't have the same environment.
The revolution, so to speak, for certain Islamic countries has to come from within.
So far - and I'm hesitating in advance of the 911 tapes to be released tomorrow - more than anything, this shooter appears to have had long standing mental issues that took the road of least resistance. Had he not been raised nominally (or not) Islamic, he would have found himself another 'cause,' and failing to find a cause, no cause at all would also do. At this point he looks to be a nut. Catholics and evangelical Christians also have nuts. Nuts don't have to have any religion at all. I reserve the right to change my opinion in case other information comes out that indicates otherwise.
I don't know what you mean by 'fishy.' Usually 'fishy' means implausible, doesn't it? As when people are giving viewpoints they don't actually have but feel they should have?
Well, I won't be too popular for saying this but here goes...
Canada has a (largely deserved) reputation for being one of the most tolerant countries in the world.
Most Canadians are extremely proud of this and therefore are conscious of the need to live up to the reputation if it is to be maintained.
Islam right now might be said to be something of a global pariah religion. Everyone and their uncle seems to be on their case. (In some cases it's totally undeserved, and in at least a few cases it probably is deserved.) Given the growing trend of islamophobia in western countries, it's therefore not surprising that many Canadians want to give Muslims a break, give them the benefit of the doubt. Not paint them all with the same brush.
So this doesn't mean at all that people are being insincere. Rather, it's that Canadians are often "automatically" tolerant. It's their default position on most anything.
In the haste to be tolerant however, sometimes the less pleasant aspects of belief systems may get glossed over... or too quickly or easily "forgiven".
Okay both of you guys made pretty valid and sensible arguments.
My humble opinion is that all walks of faiths are fair game and should be open to both praise and critique - if there are crazies out there using your faith to justify blowing up innocent people, then that religion and its leaders should be prepared to be criticized and should be held partly responsible for the values that they espouse. This applies to Christanity, Islam, Buddhists, whatever. In an open society every person from whatever faith should be prepared to face up to this kind of public discourse.
Note Acajack that I'm not "forgiving" or "glossing over" anyone or any religion in this case. Murder is murder - if you use your religion as a reason to murder, then 1. you should be prepared to go to prison 2. your religion should be prepared to own up to it and also needs to be condemned in the harshest manner on the kind of values that your religion perpetuates.
Okay both of you guys made pretty valid and sensible arguments.
My humble opinion is that all walks of faiths are fair game and should be open to both praise and critique - if there are crazies out there using your faith to justify blowing up innocent people, then that religion and its leaders should be prepared to be criticized and should be held partly responsible for the values that they espouse. This applies to Christanity, Islam, Buddhists, whatever. In an open society every person from whatever faith should be prepared to face up to this kind of public discourse.
Note Acajack that I'm not "forgiving" or "glossing over" anyone or any religion in this case. Murder is murder - if you use your religion as a reason to murder, then 1. you should be prepared to go to prison 2. your religion should be prepared to own up to it and also needs to be condemned in the harshest manner on the kind of values that your religion perpetuates.
Thanks Kid.
I know that several people will jump in to say they aren't making excuses for murder (regardless of the motivation), and this is true. Obviously they would never do that.
Why yes, as a matter of fact. His old classmates said when they were freshmen and the teacher brought a television into the classroom on Sept 11, he cheered when he saw the second plane go into the tower. He got suspended a few days later for fighting, probably because his classmates didn't like his reaction.
I haven't read any posts past this one yet, so if someone has already mentioned this, sorry.
So he cheered. OK. To me that shows a continuation of his odd and bad behaviours. Connecting that incident to Islamic terrorism, seems logical in hindsight. HOWEVER if you are suggesting, that this high school kid somehow knew that AT THE TIME OF THE ATTACKS that he knew it was islamic terrorism before anyone else, then I'm kind of at a loss for words. ( not for long though )
Anyone cheering destruction like that, should of set off alarm bells for mental health professionals. What did his school etc do about the incident besides suspending him?
If she was frightened, then why not turn him in to the FBI instead of allowing him to kill 49 people? There was her opportunity to get rid of him. Why did she instead take him to scout different locations, drive him to the club, and reply to his text inquiry about whether the shooting made the news with "I love you"?
The article I read said she was frightened by peoples reaction to her AFTER the attacks.
Malawi? Wow, you really went far to dig that one up! Completely different socio-religious climate from Canada or any western country.
BTW, I know that the Catholic church can be anti-gay. I was raised in a Catholic family. My parents went to mass this morning in fact.
But the Catholic church gets taken to task for this. And I'd venture to say that most of the faithful and even a large part of the leadership are not in agreement with some of the old anti-gay, anti-birth control and sexist tenets of the church.
This includes my parents BTW.
We can't say the same for all other religions.
I grew up Catholic as well, and I do understand the difference between doctrine issued and doctrine followed.
My point is that I didn't have to dig. I did say it depends on where you are in the world. The church seems perfectly fine being moderate and extreme in it's views on gay people, as long as the audience stays.
Again, it's the SAME Catholic Church and criticism should be directed at Rome.
It's nothing short of amazing how adamant some of our gay friends on here (and other forums I frequent) are in their defence of any criticism of Islam.
I mean, I understand that Islamophobia is wrong and just as worthy of being denounced as any other -phobia directed at any other group. But Islam also has a lot of things that it deserves to be criticized for.
So why the focus on defending Islam against criticisms?
Given some of the tenets of Islam (and the levels of adherence of the faithful to them), wouldn't one expect Canadian gays to spend their time defending gay Muslims instead? Many of which are surely suffering oppression under the guise of religion?
It's all very fishy.
I really think you are missing the boat on this one. Forums don't always reflect reality. Lots of people out there pretending to who they aren't. Fanning the flames of threads, and what better way than to try and paint the gay community as hypocrites.
I don't buy it. It makes NO sense. I know of no one, who supports ANY religion or doctrine that wants to do harm to them.
I do know people who support the freedom of religion. Supporting Muslims. What does that mean? Does it means supporting radical Islamic teachings or the moderate forms?
I support the freedom of people to be Catholic. Does that mean I support what happens in Malawi or what happens in Canada?
Gay people understand prejudice, hatred, misinformation, slandering, name-calling, media frenzy over overblown events, bad portrayals in TV and movies etc. We get it.
So when we see some of the comments directed at muslims and Islam as blanket statements of fact, we are naturally wary and rightfully so.
I really think you are missing the boat on this one. Forums don't always reflect reality. Lots of people out there pretending to who they aren't. Fanning the flames of threads, and what better way than to try and paint the gay community as hypocrites.
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Nah, you're just normal Canadians like the rest of us!
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Two wrongs don't make a right. As to why gays (or anyone for that matter) might be more critical of the Catholic church than Islam, perhaps it has to do with western homosexuals being more familiar with Catholicism than Islam. One always feel more entitled to speak about what one perceives as home base, don't they? It's what we know best and we often have our own backpack of hurts we carry around with us for the rest of our lives so we feel more qualified to criticize it.
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