-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Freedom of speech debate heats up in France after death threats to 16-year-old girl who called Islam "religion of hate"
- Thread starter DiipuSurotu
- Start date
I'm on her side and believe she is a victim but saying that she will stick a finger up the God of islam's ass is maybe not the smartest thing to do knowing the importance of religion in Arabic culture, don't you think?
Still doesn't justify any of the threats she received.
This didn't warrant death threats, that's for sure. Even if girl ends up being racist, we, muslims, should know better than to give more ammunition to people who hate us, especially over an online fight there some twat got rejected and started insult olympics
What's more interesting is the amount of people here who subscribe to the idea that "I hate Islam, but muslims are fine", like bruv, I don't believe you, you won't make exception like that for conservatives, no reason to sugarcoat your stance in this matter either.
What's more interesting is the amount of people here who subscribe to the idea that "I hate Islam, but muslims are fine", like bruv, I don't believe you, you won't make exception like that for conservatives, no reason to sugarcoat your stance in this matter either.
Wtf are you on about?
I have a conservative grandma who is very Christian and I love her. I hate Christianity but don't hate all Christians. One can ABSOLUTELY hate a religion without hating the entire group of people. Some of us just hate more religions than others
Not many in here talk about "hating islam".
The majority of the debate has been about if it's ok to criticize a religion or not.
It's ok to criticize whatever you want to criticize including religion. I just think it's strange to state that person hates religion but have no problem with people who practice it. Logically speaking, if you believe that religion is inherently evil, then practitioners are part of the problem.
I don't agree. I view most of them as "victims of their environment and upbringing", and please don't read into the word victim too much here. I am a victim of my own environment and upbringing as well; and that's something that absolutely isn't limited to religion. All my opinions and preferences are formed by my environement and culture etc (obviously). My parents where Christian, so naturally that's where I was as well when I was 16 or so. Now I'm 34 and fully atheist.
Then we have the people that find religion much later, or people that insist that they have reasoned deeply with themselves, thought about it, read the texts over and over - and are still religious many years later. There are parts with this I have a hard time understanding. I did write a post a couple of pages back, post #603. Read if if you want.
But to personally adress your point - many of the pracitioners of a religion are part of "the problem". I hope you agree as well. Fundamentalist Christians that openly condemn people for their sexual preferences, or.. I mean.. ISIS etc.
These people are part of "the problem" and are therefor worthy of heavy criticism.
The religions (those brought up here), as defined, are also worthy of criticism.
But every practitioner is not worthy of criticism, far from it.
no I think this is just emblematic of the very lazy and one-dimensional view of religion that leads to the attitudes that have permeated through this thread.
so many people have this view of religion now that defines it essentially as a set of scriptures and hard rules that are fixed and interpreted 100% literally and must be applied equally in all contexts. that's a very new understanding of what faith is, though, and it's a pretty shallow one too. historically, religions have been cultural, spiritual, and artistic traditions passed down primarily through word of mouth, remolded, updated and reinterpreted to fit the current context.
Christianity, as a religion, existed for hundreds of years before the book you seem to think of as the be-all-and-end-all of Christian practice was compiled, and it was mostly compiled in the form it currently exists as an internecine play of power politics. you ask me to look at the history of the religion, but I could tell you to do the same. this same shallow view of religious practice shows how much the most devoted anti-theists have in common with fundamentalists. they both see religious texts as documents that must be seen 100% literally rather than through the proper historical lens, as a totem and art form and icon of faith practices. these scriptures are created by religion, they don't create religion.
I agree that an idiot who starts to send death threats because other people had an online fight and insulted each other is a part of a problem.
The ISIS is an interesting case in how its propaganda succeeded in bringing a lot of people with criminal records, addiction problems and zero theological knowledge (there was an article a couple of years ago about it) under its banner, but that's a different discussion.
I'm well aware that a favorite is that "feminists give Muslims a pass".
That shit ain't slick. Especially cause the people who raise the point almost NEVER show any sort of interest in feminism or the ideas surrounding it.
It is a very common talking point from the far right going back decades.
So again we need to look at what is being said and how.
If you for example link too Nazi propaganda and then semi backtrack while claiming the propaganda shows reality YOU are in fact reproducing racism.
I love especially how people who raise this point ignore that one of the most known cases of honor related killings was a Christian family from the Middle East.
This segways into my earlier point about how Muslims have been portrayed in western new and media and how that correlates to the western imperialism.
Like how people will bash Iran (rightfully so) but forget that it was the US that acted as a driving force behind how the country looks today.
Or how people will ignore their countries diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia and the hard line Wahhabism they promote.
In regard to your post I'll still say that Islam isn't monolithic.
Lazy huh. Lazy.
I don't agree, and I don't consider myself lazy in any definition of the word. I've spent an exorbitant amount of time thinking about this, all the time from when i was Christian myself up until now. I've explained my position over several posts in this thread.
Agreed.
See this is an assumption you're making and not a logical necessity. It's usually easier to ask people what they think instead of ascribing feelings or positions to them based on what you think is more or less consistent.
The religion is the problem, the holy text, dogma, and theocracy are the problem. These do not exist in a vacuum and are all bolstered by the humans that believe in it, sure.
But as a former believer, who knows how easily humans can be fooled and swayed to buy into nonsense, I feel sorry for most of them. I feel bad for them and hope they can find happiness without dogma. That's not hate.
I've been there, and I know how easily one can fall into a pile of horseshit when everyone in your community and World tells you it's amazing and the only path to truth.
How is that view lazy or one-dimensional? I think you have a somewhat naive or perhaps misinformed view of what religion really is. You have to be able to separate the religion from its followers, otherwise it will just become a convoluted mess. The alt-right is taking advantage of people's inability to do this, and in this thread you can see numerous people who seem to genuinely believe that just because someone is critical of, or even hate a religion or religions in general, that they must also necessarily hate the practitioners even though that isn't true. If you cannot separate religion from its followers, then how could you possible separate any other type of ideology from its followers? How could you separate members of a political party from the ideology of the party? How could you separate a state's citizens from the state's politics or ideology?
Most of the large religions that exist today were the product of a prophet, or prophets, who came with teachings and wisdom, and they, or their followers, wrote scripture based on those teachings. Christianity was never a totem, art form or icon of faith of the practices in Israel 2000 years ago. Jesus was teaching how you could live a righteous life and get into heaven in the afterlife and his followers were recording his speeches, parables and life. The bible as it exists now was compiled at a later date, but that doesn't mean that the early Christians didn't rely on the scripture that ended up in the bible. Jesus created the religion Christianity, Mohammed the religion Islam.
Also the concept that the religious documents must be seen as the 100% literal word of god is something that is written in the scripture itself. It isn't something that the practitioners have come up with on their own, and nothing that anti-theists have made up. In fact many religious practitioners have gone to great lengths to try to interpret, explain and come to terms with many of the inherent problematic passages in scripture. Just because a religion's followers generally tend to pick and choose which passages they follow and which passages they don't, doesn't mean that they are the ones that create the scripture. This is also why we have so many religious denominations that follow the same books and the same god. The scripture is what it is, it's the followers who interpret it in the way that they feel is the right way to interpret it.
Are you capable of addressing those who disagree with you without maligning them right out of the gate?
Fundamentalism is a spectrum. Some sects are more fundamentalist than others. But the holy texts are regarded as holy by most sects. With any other book containing problematic elements, I can jettison it no problem. If some of the stuff in the holy books is problematic, then sects can stop using them as dogma. If you keep holding up a "holy book" as sacred, don't get all ruffled when some non believers asks why you think the problematic parts are acceptable. Because we don't know how fundamentalist a believer is or not until they tell us.
I mean, average joe Republican isn't exactly separated from the ideology of their party and gets blasted as much as any prominent member of the party here and vice versa on sites with different political leanings.
The concept of separating individual from their belief system is an interesting one, but I've yet to see it's actually working, if anything the tendency is to de-emphasize individuality and to attribute negative characteristics to entire groups.
it's not maligning anyone. if i wanted to malign, i could have, for example, pointed out that this thread is filled with a lot of frankly nauseating islamophobia, prejudice and ignorance
this is just not true. sorry. it is untrue. there's no arguing with it: it is not an accurate representation of the development of Christianity and I'm afraid you've proven my point. early Christianity was passed down through oral tradition for decades before anything was recorded in writing. that's not an opinion, it's a fact. you're just wrong.
Just wonder, that last bit here, is that how you feel about Trump voters? That we should emphasize more with them as a group, even though the party they vote for has all these problematic views and policies?
And another question; do you feel that we shouldn't be criticizing the GOP? Because there are obviously people that vote for this party with all these problematic view and policies, while still being very good people.
If you're asking me; my stance is very similar to my stance on religion:
1. The GOP (and religions) are open to criticism if they have problematic views.
2. Voters of the GOP, and people that subscribe to the religion are open to criticism if they agree with the problematic views.
3. Voters of the GOP that DOESN'T agree with the problematic views - I see them as victims of their environment and hopefully they can be reasoned with. People that say they belong to the religion with problematic views, but don't agree with the problematic views: see post #603 in this thread.
What a ridiculous way of arguing.
Why is it better that the stories were spoken instead of written though
you're right. when someone bases their argument on saying something that is objectively not true, it's ridiculous to point out that what they're saying isn't true.
it's not "better" and it's not worse. it's different. but it's indicative of the fact that religious scripture and teaching in general has not been historically set in stone as a 100% objective "truth" to its followers. they were understood as stories about their faith and even as an art form. they had an inherent element of subjectivity that's very often erased from the narrative about religion today
As if it's that simple.
And why do you qoute " How is that view lazy or one-dimensional? " without even adressing it?
Just like you did with my post a bit above. Instead of actually refuting anyones posts with arguments you claim the are invalid by default cause they are "lazy" or "objectively not true" which in the case above is just straight bullshit. You can keep saying it over and over, but no one here will just magically agree.
Also, this is also bullshit.
In Christianity, the Bible is the word of God. The Bible as it is today didn't exist in year 430 but today, the Bible is the word of God. To say something else, is to not be Christian.
Same goes for the Quran.
Then, of course, there are many attempts to interpret parts of it different than what seems obvious at first glance (most of these are quite futile attempts however, imo).
But, if nothing else, a quick googling "is bible the word of god" will bring up countless of results from prominent Christian resources that claim that not only is that true; but it can also be proven.
Last edited:
it is absolutely that simple. there's nothing to argue about in that point. if you want to find someone who will debate with you about whether basic factual errors about the history of religion are true or not, find someone else.
i did address it. pointing out that the argument has basic factual errors is absolutely addressing how it's lazy and one-dimensional
no, it's plainly true. saying that early Christians were relying on the written scriptures is not true. it's not a point of debate. they didn't exist. that is not a development that occurred until the late second century, and oral tradition continued to be a key part of Christian practice for many generations past that. the development of Christianity, the Gnostics, and the early compilation of Gospel is something I've spent many years studying. I'm not really interested in a debate about whether basic facts are true or false
I'm not American, I can't comment on how much you should emphasize the individuality of Trump's base or Republicans in general. It's simply an observation how one group presented as a monolithic entity (the same way other internet forums imagine Era for example), not many people here are going to defend Tad from Nebraska even if he's a nice guy, he still voted for a candidate people hate.
Again, I'm not against criticism, I'm just sceptical that people can actually separate between person and their belief system.
1. It's not
2. You didn't
3. See my last post.
Can you adress the rest of my post? Do you agree with my 1, 2, 3?
no, of course not.
i'm afraid you could not prove my point more readily if you wanted to
this is so deeply insulting. you are erasing so many Christians with a more progressive, nuanced understanding of scripture and saying that only fundamentalists are true Christians.
wow, you're right. Christian fundamentalist websites on Google tell you that the Bible is the word of god. that means the centuries of scholarship about Christianity is untrue. your view of Christianity is identical to that of a fundamentalist. but, luckily, you don't get to decide who is and isn't a Christian. there's no point continuing this nonsensical conversation
It was common for scripture to be memorized and not be written down back in those days, none of it invalidates my point. The point is that Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus, and it doesn't matter if the scripture was memorized or written down. Odds are that there were texts written down that the later texts are based on, but that they are lost.
This was true of old pagan religions and does not apply to how Christianity or Islam was founded.
Maybe try a term besides "lazy" when describing the views of those you disagree with if you want to engage in good faith dialog.
maybe you cannot conceive of anyone being able to criticize a religion separate from its adherents, but I can assure you that many do, myself included. And if you disagree, then you're telling me what my position is. Which is not a good faith argument for anything.
Not sure what I can address here, as I said, nobody can take away your right to criticize and you should have a complete freedom to exercise it.
I have not met a single Christian in my life that did not claim that the Bible is the word of god. Granted, like I said, when I bring up its more problematic points they tend to generally talk about "words from another time" or "interpretations exist", but it is still the word of god.
And if there are Christians out there that not only do not agree with the problematic views on the Bible, but also don't even believe the Bible is the word of god:
These people are not worthy of criticism.
Thats why we separate them. the people from the religion.
without any kind of definition of what a religion is, on its own, I could just as well call myself Christian. I don't agree with pretty much anything in the Bible, but what the hell: I'm a Christian.
Obviously thats pointless and worthless cause words mean something and have definitions.
Pauls letters were written about 20-30 years after Jesus died, and the gospels between 3-7 decades after Jesus died. It's also likely that the gospels are based on even earlier written scripture. Sure, there were different factions of Christians in those days just as there are these days, but it doesn't mean that they didn't rely on a common foundation, and even if that was not the case then the bible as it is now was compiled over 1600 years ago and believed to be the word of god ever since. It's rich to claim that the view that the bible is the word of god is some type of new development and that it's lazy and one-dimensional to view religious scripture as being the word of god. The books that the bible consist of have always been viewed as the word of god by Christians, even the early ones.
I imagine that you separate people from their belief systems on a daily basis. Don't you have a friend or a relative who you disagree with on something, but you still love them because they're good people even though they believe something that you don't? I have a friend who has a bit crazy religious views, but he's one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Just don't discuss religious topics with him. Should I not be friends with him because we disagree on his religion?
I think there should be a distinction between someone you personally know and a complete stranger. Complete stranger might be a nice guy, but how many people are going to invest their time to learn about them rather than pass judgement out of microscopic amount of information they had prior?
But the fact that some people conflate their dislike with a religion with a dislike of it's practitioners doesn't mean that everyone does this. But you said:
"Logically speaking, if you believe that religion is inherently evil, then practitioners are part of the problem. "
That is far from "not many people are going to invest their time".
Hopefully by now, you have seen that it doesn't logically follow that just because you dislike a religion, do you consider all practitioners part of the problem. Fundamentalists and terrorists etc are of course part of the problem, that we can agree on.
There's not really a quick fix solution. Try not to judge others hastily and be a good person, and try to teach others to do the same. All I know is that banning or even just shaming criticism of ideologies is part of the problem, not the solution.
Who's saying that here? Do you think Era is full of racists?
Fair enough. It's not like we have actual statistics on the matter.
I'm pretty sure there's no solution to this problem, except maybe creating equilibrium-esque society. But I agree that humanity as a whole would benefit from being more tolerant.
Many people don't do the legwork, but many others, like myself, have been indoctrinated into fundamentalism before and can can understand why good people fall for the dogma.
So clearly, some of us can delineate between the dogma and those that place their faith in it. So can we drop that aspect of this conversation? It doesn't logically flow that criticisms of a religion equals painting the humans that believe it as bad.
That's kinda the issue dude is pointing out. There's believers out there (myself) that thinks that parts of the of Bible are the words of God but as a whole, more than likely its not.
First off:
then you are not, as far as I can tell from the information available, worthy of any criticism.
See how easy that was.
Secondly; like i said in post #603, I find this so strange. Now that you're here I can ask you I guess. Isn't it kinda sloppy and dangerous to have this book created that contain your words, but have parts in there that prob isn't really your words and also has led to thousands of people suffering over the years? The whole thing is baffling to me.
that's the issue
Every different individual Christian has their own list of what Bible verses are "canon". Every sect/denomination of any religion has their own interpretation. So that's why those of us trying to address the problematic dogma in good faith recognize that blanket criticism of "all Muslims" or "all Christians" are meaningless.
What we can do, is criticize the holy texts and those that wrote them. Hell, I could even criticize yahweh for Condoning slavery. But I know that modern Christians all have their own interpretations. So I can either specify which sects interpretations I think are most problematic, (evangelical, catholic, LDS, Mormons, ect) or I can condemn the writings themselves. Anyone that believes that those verses are from god would fall under that blanket. Those that don't, are not as problematic and not worthy of criticism.
You're right that there are a lot of people who sadly can't make this distinction, which is why bigotry so easily festers (and it's why political groups have used this kind of thing to manipulate the masses time and time again - it's easy and works). It takes empathy, maturity and understanding to not do this. Personally, as someone who has experienced an extensive amount of Islamophobia myself, and knows more Muslims than any other group of people (including my entire family), it's very easy for me to not generalise Muslims and to yearn for their safety and well-being despite having issues with Islamic scripture.
But even speaking about other religions, it's easy for me to have the same mindset. My own struggles make it easy for me to empathise with others not like me. Intersectionality is hard, but not an impossible task.
That's true, it's always easier to maintain power through division and alienation. Create a big enemy and folks are always going to buy into us vs. them narrative, add a bit of sentimentality on top and you have a loyal following. Still works like a Swiss watch.
Not really? Because its not my (or Gods for that matter, he's been hands off imo with regards to proceedings) fault that people in political power decided to lord their beliefs as the one true belief system and decided to shape and mold it to whatever means they wanted. I mean that's part of why I believe in the whole free will and individualism thing in the first place.
My issue is if you understand how diverse different sects are then you can see why the girl's initial blanket statement (not ignoring the potential racial contexts behind because even she realized that) is kinda fucked up. Even if you don't believe yourself to be worthy of the criticism, you have to see where the criticism is coming from and how much good or bad faith is in it which is this case is justified but went about the wrong way. For example there's a lot of bad faith criticism of religion in this very thread that personally upset me even though I'm not the person they're talking about because it comes off as angry and vindictive and completely ignored the overall situation.
I'm kind of confused how you determine what is and isn't the word of God.
Isn't it a lot more likely that none of it is the word of God?
More than likely. I can never debate otherwise because you're talking about a text that gets constantly updated and changed and has whole portions ripped out. I do think there are some points of divinity but most of that it long gone by now and is up to the interpretation of people decide what is divine and what is not. That's when you get into all the more faith/spiritual stuff that not everyone believes in which make it hard to empathize or comprehend. Which is also why a lot of people are dismissive in general of religion and why you get so many impassioned responses in situations like what happened here.
I'm not trying to debate, I'm just confused how you determine what is and isn't the word of God. Are you yourself deciding what you should and shouldn't follow? And if that's the case, then do you really need the Bible at all?
I grew up Catholic and we were taught the Bible was written by men inspired by God and thus contained the word of God. I obviously don't believe that now, but I did for a lot of my younger life and, the same as you, I found I was picking and choosing what to follow.
We could just as well be more specific and it should be all solved:
With criticism of a religion me, and many others refer to criticism of the scriptures.
That should be fine then, according to you too.
According to that definition "criticism of Islam" is ok, right?
If we can table that we can discuss the semantics stuff we don't agree with, i.e. if "criticism of Islam" refers to the scriptures or something else. Seems like a language discussion then. Not quite as interesting but sure.
No because you're short-handing something that can't be and using a racist dogwhistle at the same time. Words mean things and they are also filled with context. That's why many in the thread were asking to specifically call out the guys sending death threats. If you're saying you're criticizing Islam you're talking about the entire thing for anyone who jumps in the conversation and in a less liberal forum you'd be inviting those with a clear racist viewpoint OR racist blindspot.
Yeah if anyone believes any deity had no agency on what was included in his holy texts when they supposedly created the universe. I don't know what to say.
Any sufficiently advanced deity should know how to convey important things about their holy text's interpretation. Yet here we have multiple abrahamic faiths with anti LGBT dogma and no prohibition of slavery.