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Reblogged: No More Free Pass for Islam?

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Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute considersseveral interesting questions, among them:

[W]here was the solidarity nearly a decade ago for
Jyllands-Posten
, Flemming Rose, and the artists who were driven in to hiding after the
Mohammad cartoons crisis
? And before that, after the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh? Or, for
Charlie Hebdo
in 2011 when its offices were firebombed?

By now people have many, many more data points. Now, as in the past, the pattern is blatant. The jihadists seek to extinguish the freedom of speech. At
Charlie Hebdo
, the killers declared that they were avenging the prophet. They voiced a standard battle cry, "Allahu Akbar." They executed the journalists during an
editorial
meeting. [link in original, minor format edits]

An editorial at RealClear Politics, by Bill Scher, indicates that Journo is correct. Scher, notingthat the left is "grappling" with Charlie Hebdo, cites a few examples:

, summarizing
New York Times
conservative columnist
Ross Douthat's view
that "Vulgar expression that would otherwise be unworthy of defense becomes worthy if it is made in defiance of violent threats." Therefore, the
Charlie Hebdo
cartoons are no longer on par with [Glenn] Greenwald's examples of anti-Semitism "because nobody is murdering artists who publish anti-Semitic cartoons."

Bill Maher went beyond the encouragement of sacrilege to criticize Islam itself, in the name of liberalism no less. During an
interview
on ABC's
Jimmy Kimmel Live
the day of the attack, Maher insisted, "I'm a proud liberal ... It's not my fault that the part of the world that is most against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world ... We have to stop saying, 'Well, we should not insult a great religion' ... we should insult them."

Two days later on his HBO show
Real Time
, he was even more denigrating of Islam:
"When there's this many bad apples, there's something wrong with the orchard."
[links in original, minor format edits]

Good data hardly guarantees correct conclusions, but it is heartening to see that the efforts of the jihadists may well backfire more easily than I had hoped. At least the idea that Islam, as a religion, is exempt from examination and criticism seems to be going by the wayside.

-- CAV

P.S. For clarity, let me add that I regard all speech, even the most vulgar and offensive, that does not actually cause harm (e.g., via incitement or slander) as an absolute right and deserving of government protection. This is a different issue from one's moral evaluation of the speaker. One can morally condemn, say, an anti-Semite or a mere provocateur, while still insisting that such a person has the right to speak his mind, however small it might be.

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By now people have many, many more data points. Now, as in the past, the pattern is blatant. The jihadists seek to extinguish the freedom of speech. a

 

 

So they take a single data point and call it a "blatant" pattern. Have the terrorists attacked other newspapers who don't attack their religion but nonetheless practice free speech? Are they trying to stop the entire Internet from happening? Are they bombing telephone companies and threatening ISP executives who publish anything, or are they going after a specific subset of people? What subset is that? What does that subset have in common?

 

That's how you scientifically analyze this situation.

 

The above quoted story is religion nonsense.

 

Does Islam cause terrorism? Does high-fat food cause heart attacks? Sorta. Sometimes. Not all of the time. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes its even helpful. Sometimes it can kill you. You have to dive into the specific context. You have to focus on the details of every situation.

 

Soundbites are for idiots who have no interest in solving real-world problems.

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One point from two perspectives

Carly Fiorina did makes the assessment that one of the reasons the media is so united is because this incident hit so close to home, while Salman Rushdie observed that the stories he's hearing are already couching in terms of what he called the "Free speech but" parade. Free speech, but maybe he shouldn't have done that. Free speech, but, not when it offends certain sensibilities . . . 

 

The freedom of speech should be held sacrosanct, especially by the media. They should do this when the ball is in their court, and also when they find it in any court.

 

Does Islam cause terrorism?

Islam is a religion. Religion, as such, is a primitive form of philosophy. The right to life, being left free to decide for one's self what are the right thoughts and actions to uphold is the moral philosophical principle that thugs and terrorist don't uphold, and serve as the basis for a proper government to distinguish between who to leave alone and who to root it out where ever they are found and deemed a threat to the citizens it is established to protect.

 

Rule of law. Who's law? Allah's? Man's? Nature's? Do you want to break it down?

Who's law trumps the others? The one backed by the most force? Might is right? Law forged in the crucible of a moral principle?

Moral, based on what? God's teachings? Altruism? Egoism?

What does Islam teach? How might it guide those to whom other alternatives are not known, or taught to be an anathema. Is Islam trying to wipe this out and instill an understanding of the basis for a proper government, or is it as in Pakistan, killing kids in a boko haram attack for what was being taught. Is there such a distinction as fundamental Islam vs say . . . neo Isalm - Western Islam vs. Middle Eastern Islam?

Edited by dream_weaver
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Is there such a distinction as fundamental Islam vs say . . . neo Isalm - Western Islam vs. Middle Eastern Islam?

Two Concepts: The term "Islam" can be used to represent two related but different concepts (and the same applies to "Hinduism", "Christianity", and perhaps even "Objectivism". One concept is: the creed as it is supposed to be, if interpreted "right". The second is the creed as interpreted. The distinction is particular relevant when you're speaking of individuals.

 

Take Christianity: The Wikipedia says there are over 2 billion Christians in the world. PEW says about 250 million Christians live in the U.S. Of these, Gallup reports that a little under 40% of the adults said they went to church in the last week. Even alarmed church leaders say its about 20%. Cut this number down further to be conservative, and you still won't find people who agree with all the teachings in the bible. So, what makes them "christian"?

 

And using belief in the bible is already problematic because the contents of the bible were an editorial decision. People also disagree on how the Old Testament should be used. Not all Christians believed in the Trinity. Indeed, some thought it was heresy that broke the primary tenet: there is only one God. Even if we narrow down to the gospels, they are reported accounts -- they were not written by their namesakes, but passed on across decades, and interpretation is required. Scholars argue about what is historically right and what isn't. And, then there are the "non-canonical" gospels. 

 

There's a joke among scholars of Christianity that Christ is the second-most important person in Christianity. The idea here is that interpretation and commentary plays a huge role and thus the number 1 position goes to Paul ( who is "officially" given the #2 designation that the joke reverses). The point is: why should Paul's interpretation be more "Christian" than the interpretation of Joseph Smith?

 

Then, what about people who claim to believe in something, but don't practice it: if they are completely hypocritical, are they Christian? 

 

It is this that leads people to conclude that "the only one true Christian" ever was Christ himself. But, if we follow this methodology down to one person, or even to a small subset, we've rubbished the second concept: the one that includes many millions. Can we say that the anti-abortion push in the U.S. comes from Christians, when a close analysis may show that the majority of them disagree on many things that are :true Christianity"? 

 

A similar analysis holds for Islam and Muslims. And these are the easy ones. When you come to Hinduism, you can never even get agreement on where to start. So, one would be forced to conclude there are no Hindus in the world.

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Good point, JASKN.

 

sNerd,

What you say here fits in very well here, and in a parallel thread Who are the "true" Muslims.

 

An essential difference that arises examining some of this is the lives of Jesus, Joseph Smith, let's add L. Ron Hubbard and that of Mohammad. The first three were not known for their violence or avocation of violence, where Ibn Warraq brings many colorful examples of both to the pages of his work where on numerous occasions Mohammad.resorted to both.

 

I have to grant that in Christianity, there is a history of its use, and there are a few suggestions that some followers of the Mormon tradition may have a skeleton or two in their closet.

With Islam, however, Mohammad is granted almost Allah-like status. It would have been nice if Stanton E. Samenow could have had more material on terrorism in his book Inside The Criminal Mind.

He brings out that most criminals do not view themselves as such. They have a sense of good and bad, albeit not using life as the standard. In his short chapter on terrorists he cited that:

An article in the news.telegraph.co.uk pointed out that bin Laden distinguished between good and bad terror and asserted that what he and his followers practice is "good terror."

 

A paragraph earlier he writes:

In an unequivocal statement, Kin Abdullah II of Jordan wrote in the Washington Post about Islamic fundamentalists, "In fact, there is nothing fundamentally Islamic about these extremists. They are religious totalitarians, in a long line of extremists of various faiths who seek power by intimidation, violence, and thuggery."

 

Do we note this same angle and approach with regard to the atrocities of the founder of Islam?

 

Is the question: Why is it done in the name of Islam, and in so many places under the same guise?

Edited by dream_weaver
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Declaring 1 billion people to be terrorists or terrorist supporters won't get you anywhere and won't solve anything. Those 1 billion people are not terrorists and they don't support it, regardless of what we might have noticed about the implications of their basic premises. They haven't noticed and they probably won't ever.

 

Now, why would some really violent, pissed off people who love to shoot guns at people align themselves religious beliefs held by 1 billion people? Gosh, why?

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So we just wait until someone commits this sort of crime, shoot them if we can't apprehend them, run them thru the criminal justice system if we can. Lock them up for our safety, secure in the knowledge that none of them will ever be released to go out and cause more mayhem? The solution is in place. There is nothing more here to see?

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Maybe these few posts do belong to that other thread.

An essential difference that arises...

Sure, there's a history of why Islam is the way it is. On the other hand, it is not a huge feat if a Muslim starts with the Koran and wants to interpret his religion rationally and in a way that is as compatible with modernity as are the other religions. Some Islamic scholars have attempted it and more will try. Islam has had quite a few schisms in the past and it needs a new modernistic intellectual schism. It will come. It won't be without pain. Consider how Catholic orders have their sub-groups: the Franciscans , the Dominicans, the Jesuits have had such different approaches, and have had fights and persecutions along the way. 

 

What Islam needs is more of what happened in Christianity. They had their Aquinas, but rejected him. So, they need a new one. They need their Luther and some self-interested state-backer, to broadcast a new, more individualistic, less mullah-oriented interpretation. They need to marginalize the stricter schools of interpretation like Wahhabis. It is partly an accident of history that the Wahhabis became ascendant with the discovery of oil. Without that, Islam was already making some modernizing strides. Also, younger Muslims are often more serious about Islam than their parents were. This is a search of meaning and identity ... something that is being mirrored among Indian today, seeking to rediscover the glory (even fabricated glory) of their own past. 

 

To understand Islam as it is and as it could evolve, one has to understand it as a conglomerate of various sects and streams. Other than understanding that there are real differences, there is  a vested interest in dealing differently with different strains of Islam: e.g. the type popular in Bosnia and Kosovo, the type in Tunisia, the type in Indonesia,... all the way to the type in Saudi Arabia. [Which is far worse than Iran as far has hard-core theology and intellectual movements go.] 

 

This century is surely going to see some predominantly muslim states become fairly modern: Kosovo [95% muslim country, with a statue of Bill Clinton], Tunisia [where the Islamic party is relatively weak and the secularists won the last election], Morocco [where the king is overseeing a transition to modernity] are the best bets. The good thing about these three is that the population is not being dragged kicking and screaming to become more secular. That was tried in Turkey, and they're going through a reaction of religious revival. In Egypt too, the army threw out the Muslim Brotherhood by force, and so it festers below the surface. It makes sense for the west to deal with these countries differently, based on the extent to which they allow their people individual freedoms, rewarding the ones that modernize and punishing ones like Turkey which back-track.

 

Bottom-line: westerners who insist on seeing Islam as just one thing, don't get it, and also do work against their own interests.

Edited by softwareNerd
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This century is surely going to see some predominantly muslim states become fairly modern

Not necessarily. I'm sure people predicted the same thing 100 years ago, and it hasn't happened. It could happen this century. It could also not happen.

I'm curious to see what will happen when the oil starts running out in the rich Arab countries. I don't think it'll be pretty.

 

What Islam needs is more of what happened in Christianity. They had their Aquinas, but rejected him. So, they need a new one. They need their Luther and some self-interested state-backer, to broadcast a new, more individualistic, less mullah-oriented interpretation.

...

Bottom-line: westerners who insist on seeing Islam as just one thing, don't get it, and also do work against their own interests.

100 years ago, most of the world was an authoritarian mess. After WW2, some order was created: a large number of independent countries, with fairly stable borders (at least compared to before) were formed, and most were allowed to develop without too much forceful outside interference (with some significant exceptions, like Afghanistan or Vietnam).

And yet, like you pointed out, the only Muslim countries that developed even the semblance of personal freedom were the ones where the military, supported by direct western aid, imposed those values on the political scene. Meanwhile, many if not most non-Muslim countries that started out under the same conditions (former colonies that found themselves in a chaotic state of sudden independence) have made significant progress towards civil rights and secularism.

Muslim countries have not. Like you said, they NEED to figure out a way to change the religion. It's the only way to avoid conflict with secular states. But, so far, they haven't. If anything, Islam has become more and more unified in their irrationality and group think, thanks to mass media. To me at least, the vast majority of Muslim activists seem to be engaged in the same rhetoric and demagogy, no matter where they happen to live. The only differences are in degree of fanaticism to the go to Muslim causes, not in their choice of a cause.

Here's an example: I know of tons and tons of Jews (including religious ones) who are public and militant about supporting Palestinian and/or anti-Israeli causes. But you never hear of any Muslims (I don't mean people who were born Muslim but renounced Islam, I mean people who consider themselves faithful Muslims, but "a different strand") marching in the streets with an Israeli flag, singing the praises of the only beacon of democracy and religious tolerance in the Middle East.

I'm all for treating Muslim individuals as "not just one thing". But I think that what distinguishes them isn't their specific brand of religion, it's how seriously they take that religion (and all their other beliefs and abilities, aside from their religion). When it comes to their actual religion, it's all pretty much just one thing.

Edited by Nicky
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