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"Leave us alone or kill us all", Muslims shield Christians from terrorists in Kenya
- Thread starter RustyNails
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Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
While I agree with your broader point, let me ask you this: do you believe any Wahhabists are good people? Do you think Wahhabism should be criticized? If so, is that criticism shitting all over the good Wahhabists? (Feel free to substitute Wahhabism for any other ideology you disagree with, and ask the same questions)
On an issue by issue basis I think Wahhabism can certainly be criticized. Remembering of course that Wahhabists disagree on what is right and what isn't among themselves and that Boko Harma, ISIS, Al-Qaeda types are a small subset of Wahhabis/Salafis. We lost sight on individuals so easily when it comes to this topic that it's scary to me.
hydragonwarrior
Member
The crazier tend to be louder (see Tea Party and Trump) than good news. It's weird but the crazier are far more daring to be that loud and why it stays in the headlines. Trump's perfected this now.
He said people who take a shit on Islam lump all the Muslims together. His point is that by criticizing Islam as a whole, you are generalizing Muslims. I disagree with this notion.
I don't disagree? I don't like Islam for a lot of reasons, but generally this sort of thing aligns with a lot of the Islamic teachings I grew up with.
Which is fine, but that's not the thing you said that I took issue with, the thing you said that I took issue with is that the people who shit on Islam are generalizing Muslims, as someone who frequently shits on Islam, I don't appreciate -that- generalization.
It's not a generalization. It's a necessary consequence. You think 'Islam' in generic is horrible. I'm a devout Muslim. How does that not mean you think what I think and believe is horrible?
I don't know what you think and believe, as an individual, but if you say your position on homosexuality is defined by the Quran and the story of "Lot", then both the Quran and what you believe are horrible.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Isn't that fundamentally the same approach that can be used for Sunni Islam, or Islam? Just as you're not personally attacking every Wahhabist when you consider Wahhabism to be bad on the whole, not everyone who criticizes Islam is personally attacking every Muslim.
Joel Was Right
Gold Member
Why isn't this on Fox News yet?
And what If I understand (as I do) the story of Lot to be God condemning rape and pederasty rather than homosexuality?
Chairman Yang. I get your point. But like I said criticism has to be on an issue by issue basis as well. Otherwise it lumps people together that should not be. When you find diversity within a grouping then instead of the impossibility of specifying what 'true' Sunni beliefs are or 'real' Islamic beliefs are just get more specific. Sunni Islam is just so broad.
I have no issue with interpreting it that way and indeed modernizing how present day Muslims think about it- after all the three abrahamic texts are full of this shit. But the passage also has lot being pretty clear about sodomy even as it relates to consenting adult males. He lectures them about it in fact.
Be great if everyone had your attitude in this country and others as it relates to their texts, but just as frequently and troublingly those same writings are used to justify heinous crimes.
double jump
you haven't lived until a random little kid ask you "how do you make love".
powerful.
we should all follow this example.
we should all follow this example.
It really isn't even remotely that cut and dry Stinkles.
I'm talking about the text and its broad legal implications , not your or my interpretation of it. Homosexuality is literally illegal in most Muslim countries because of that and other supporting texts and hadiths. I'm not saying anything remotely controversial here. That's a fact.
Ironically pederasty is seen as less sinful in some of these places and openly tolerated in others.
By saying it's pretty clear about sodomy you're defining which interpretation is the correct one which is what my issue is.
I'm not really opining one way or the other, but Lot is plain in his words and those words have mostly been interpreted to mean homosexuality is both a heinous sin and a crime. My personal interpretation is irrelevant since I don't believe the underlying principles at all.
I don't know what you're arguing about unless it's to state that your minority interpretation is the correct one, which is kinda what you're accusing me of.
Or that no interpretation is correct, in which case what's the point of it?
DiipuSurotu
Banned
It's not in the news because it's about Kenya.
When a Muslim, black, non-French-citizen guy hid the Jewish hostages to save them during the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in France earlier this year (January), it was definitely in the news.
It's the same reason the Paris terror attack in November was in the news more than the Beirut terror attack at the same period.
When a Muslim, black, non-French-citizen guy hid the Jewish hostages to save them during the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in France earlier this year (January), it was definitely in the news.
It's the same reason the Paris terror attack in November was in the news more than the Beirut terror attack at the same period.
I'm saying that there are different interpretations which means you can't just criticize 'Islam' in the generic on this. You have to get more specific. Homophobia is a huge problem among most Muslims that must be addressed. But you can't just go "Islam is homophobic". You can certainly say "Most current understandings of Islam are homophobic" or "The vast majority of interpretations of Islam are homophobic" as, seriously, those clarifications are important and it's missing in a lot of commentary.
How about "The Qu'ran as a text is very easily interpreted as homophobic, when we look at passages like the ones referring to Lot, and the general interpretation by most islamic scholars and people alike is that homosexuality is a sin, especially if any hadith are consulted. Thus, the Qu'ran is a bad book when considering the rights of the LGBT community, as if it has no defense of homosexuality, and all the evidence is that it looks to homosexuality as a sin and a crime".
If homosexuality isn't good enough, we could go into passages that are more specifically heinous - like prescribing flogging/stoning as punishment for anything, or the general subservience of women to men in marriages (with stuff like punish your wife when she does the wrong things by sending them away and/or hitting them) - these are things that are inescably a part of the Qu'ran.
My point being that yes - we -absolutely- can and should criticize the Qu'ran and Islam, like we can and should criticize any other books or ideologies that are based on/related to them. The idea that specific interpretations of specific sects of specific concepts should be criticized is good too - but that doesn't mean that suddenly the broader picture should be ignored, or is no longer culpable.
theignoramus
Member
No. An Al Shabbab terror attack on Christians would do the rounds in right wing media swift and hard. It feeds into their hateful narrative. This doesn't.
TheOctodad
Member
It's really not clear at all actually.
It's about rape and the ANE value treating a guest in your home as the most sacred thing to defend.
It's really a stretch to view the great evil of Sodom to be homosexuality. Even the conservatives in my seminary agreed.
It's actually kinda hard to do so. The Sunni schools of law that view homosexuality as a crimedo so by drawing analogies between homosexuality and adultery.
Disagree with this as well. You can criticize your interpretation of the Qur'an and your understanding of Islam all you want and that has value. But once you start pretending that your interpretation and understanding is not just one view but what the faith actually is then you lose sight of the fact that you are not the steward and arbiter of what Islam is and that the faith is different for every individual. You deny the diversity of the Islamic experience and fall into the kind of stereotyping that only helps the people in this story that were outside the bus while undercutting the ones who were inside.
You are ignoring and shitting on Muslims like these:
http://www.mpvusa.org/lgbtqi-resources/
Some interpretations view it as a crime, some don't - about 95% of the interpretation's I've read view it at least as immoral. for example
I've read the link you've provided*** when I went through a Islam and homosexuality bender. It's funny because it picks and chooses both sura and hadith to back up it's point, but it has so many flaws - like it talks about Lot specifically condoning rape, but every interpretation of that sura has "be with men instead of women" - which is as clear cut as it gets.
***edit: Sorry, wrong link, for some reason I confused it with this one -
http://www.mpvusa.org/sexuality-diversity/
Like I can't find a single interpretation of that verse that doesn't say 'instead of' blowing the whole 'it was rape that was being condemned against' thing entirely out of the water.
http://www.quranbrowser.com/cgi/bin...sliterated& layout=auto& searchstring=007:081
This isn't denying the diversity of the Islamic experience, this is straight up criticizing a bad book.
No one is the steward or arbiter of any ideology, but ideologies effect the people that follow it, and we can map those ideas and behaviors to the ideology and the books that inspire them. This isn't a controversial thing. If someone said "The Game" by Neil Strauss was a feminist book, and then told everyone who said "no, it's absolutely not a feminist book, it says a lot of not feminist things" that their interpretations are off, would you agree with that person?
And finally, I want to point out on specific thing you mention often:
This is absolute bullshit. I am not going to stop criticizing Islam because you think that by criticizing Islam as a whole, I somehow help the extremists, or help the bigots, and I won't mince my words either.
Great response to a very lazy way of shutting down discussion.
theignoramus
Member
Why even use this thread for that though? Take your shit to a more appropriate thread, doing it in here makes you seem like an arrogant zealot. Like, fuck.
It's like going into a thread about a suicide bombing and arguing for the virtues of the Islamic faith. It's not fucking appropriate.
CountAntonius
Member
Amazing human beings. RIP to the ones who were lost.
I just want to add: lately the news helps people fuel their hatred for anyone different to themselves. It's crazy. Hate hate hate is all we see. Surely we can take lessons from the past and listen to the words of Malcolm X like: "hate begets hate, and violence begets violence" therefore maybe only peace beats out violence, and love beats out hate. Yes it's idealistic but who the hell cares! Violence and hate hasn't fixed anything so why not try a new approach?
Obviously I'm paraphrasing the Malcolm X speech but I'm sure you guys get my point. When did we develop his irrational need to hate everything that's different? Change must begin from within not without; yes I just quoted the fresh prince of bell air
Obviously I'm paraphrasing the Malcolm X speech but I'm sure you guys get my point. When did we develop his irrational need to hate everything that's different? Change must begin from within not without; yes I just quoted the fresh prince of bell air
I need to comment on this. If you look at how this sub-discussion in this thread evolved then you will see that it was not initiated by criticism against Islam. In fact, it was initialized by the claim that critics of "Islam" "lump together" those who promote a war between religious identities and those who—like the good people in this story—transcend religious identities in order to help fellow humans from being harmed. Out of that, a discussion evolved, which was warranted, since the point made in that original post, as well as the elaborations that followed, demanded clarification and are debatable.
However, despite not having having started the discussion themselves, the critics who responded are those who received multiple vitriolic responses, like standing on a "soapbox", or seeming like "arrogant zealots", or shitting up the thread, despite the fact, that the discussion evolved directly aspects of that story. It seem perfectly appropriate to me to discuss the issue of generalization of Muslims, variants of Islam, and criticism of Islam on the background of a story, whose core message appeals to this problem.
I personally have no desire to join that discussion here. I kind of understand that people are tired of having the same discussions in every thread that touches such topics. But what do people expect? When points are raised discussions will evolve. If you want to have a thread that only contains admiration for the good people in that bus, then nobody should raise any points at all; which would be a weird thing to demand on a discussion forum.
I don't even disagree - this shit:
Riles me up. I replied and tried to keep it short, then my next reply I tried to say "lets do this somewhere else". But it didn't want to end and I wasn't going to leave it at that.
Hopefully the people who jumped on me, telling me I didn't get what Azih was saying, actually understand that yes - Azih thinks that by criticizing Islam, you are being a bigot.
I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that's the (overwhelming) majority interpretation. And that it's hardly surprising given that text and the Hadiths that back it up and reinforce it. And the laws, Sharia and otherwise (including a couple of ostensibly secular nations) that prosecute based on it. And just for the sake of equity, the Old Testament (from which this particular passage is derivative of) is in many ways plainer and in my opinion worse.
Like I said, I have no business "interpreting" it at all, since I don't believe a single word of it. But I am allowed to be troubled by how it IS interpreted by the vast majority of Muslim nations, just as it troubles me in America when scumbags lean on the bible to justify their hatred.
If you're asking me to be OK with all of the above because a small minority of progressive Muslims choose to take a brighter path, as most of my Muslim friends do, in fact, I'm afraid that's not reasonable. I am FULLY appreciative of your position however, and hope more and more people of all faiths take stances like that.
First off let me apologize for shitting up this thread. Usually I only respond when people start generalizing and stereotyping 'Islam'. But in this thread I definitely was the one who brought the issue up and it takes away from the heroic acts described in the OP.
So what you're doing here is going into a theological debate and going 'uhuh what the mpvusa folk believe believe isn't Islam and they are not really Muslim'. This is bullshit. The problem here is that you are not the arbiter of what Islam is or isn't. You are not the judge of who is really Muslim and who isn't really Muslim. You know this and yet that is *exactly* what you do when you start in on "Islam is this, Islam is that". Why the heck do you have a resistance to accuracy and precision and truth? Why don't you talk about 'the majority opinion on Islam' or 'my personal view of Islam' and leave my faith and the faith like that of the people in mpvusa out of it?
And it's important to note here that I didn't say at all that it's wrong to criticize your reading of the Quran. I said it's wrong to criticize the contents of Islam without specifying sect and issue. If you understand verses in the Quran in a certain way and you don't like it then I would never say that you can't criticize it. But if I read the same verses and get something completely different from it then you have to acknowledge that. My understanding of the Quran and yours are obviously not the same thing.
Just as the understanding of the Quran of the people inside the bus in this story on how Muslims should treat non Muslims is completely not the same as the understanding of Al-Shabab outside the bus. That is what gets lost and it is exactly what should *not* be as without that basic understanding we can't move ahead and get to the actual important discussion of how different understandings of Islam/the Quran have spread in history and how they can spread in the future.
You've read the Quran and you got certain interpretations out of it. That's great. Don't foist it on me. Don't declare the crazy side the accurate ones and me the inaccurate one.
Then allow me to not mince my words.
My family is Shia Muslim and I grew up in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I am INCREDIBLY well aware of militant Islam because me and mine are fucking target #1 of these bastards. For you to lump me and my family in with these murderous pieces of shit.... for you to undercut the brave Muslims who resist and stand up to these assholes daily in those troubled parts of the world, and make no mistake that is exactly what you do when you say "Islam is this. The Quran is that", is terrible and it's doubly terrible that you don't realize that that is exactly what you do when you refuse to add any qualifiers onto your obviously reductive and overly simplistic criticism of the faith of 1.3 billion plus people.
I have *never* denied that homophobia is a huge and ugly issue among vast majorities of Muslims. What I, as a Muslim, have denied is that homophobia is somehow an intrinsic part of Islam or an intrinsic part of the Quran and that's *exactly* what people do when they go "Islam is homophobic" or "lookit this verse in da Quran it's obviously homophobic and anyone who says anything differently is flawed i.e: yore not real muslim".
So what you're doing here is going into a theological debate and going 'uhuh what the mpvusa folk believe believe isn't Islam and they are not really Muslim'. This is bullshit. The problem here is that you are not the arbiter of what Islam is or isn't. You are not the judge of who is really Muslim and who isn't really Muslim. You know this and yet that is *exactly* what you do when you start in on "Islam is this, Islam is that". Why the heck do you have a resistance to accuracy and precision and truth? Why don't you talk about 'the majority opinion on Islam' or 'my personal view of Islam' and leave my faith and the faith like that of the people in mpvusa out of it?
And it's important to note here that I didn't say at all that it's wrong to criticize your reading of the Quran. I said it's wrong to criticize the contents of Islam without specifying sect and issue. If you understand verses in the Quran in a certain way and you don't like it then I would never say that you can't criticize it. But if I read the same verses and get something completely different from it then you have to acknowledge that. My understanding of the Quran and yours are obviously not the same thing.
Just as the understanding of the Quran of the people inside the bus in this story on how Muslims should treat non Muslims is completely not the same as the understanding of Al-Shabab outside the bus. That is what gets lost and it is exactly what should *not* be as without that basic understanding we can't move ahead and get to the actual important discussion of how different understandings of Islam/the Quran have spread in history and how they can spread in the future.
You've read the Quran and you got certain interpretations out of it. That's great. Don't foist it on me. Don't declare the crazy side the accurate ones and me the inaccurate one.
Then allow me to not mince my words.
My family is Shia Muslim and I grew up in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I am INCREDIBLY well aware of militant Islam because me and mine are fucking target #1 of these bastards. For you to lump me and my family in with these murderous pieces of shit.... for you to undercut the brave Muslims who resist and stand up to these assholes daily in those troubled parts of the world, and make no mistake that is exactly what you do when you say "Islam is this. The Quran is that", is terrible and it's doubly terrible that you don't realize that that is exactly what you do when you refuse to add any qualifiers onto your obviously reductive and overly simplistic criticism of the faith of 1.3 billion plus people.
And I have no qualms or disagreements with that. As long as the qualifier is there that you put in in your last post. Whether it's the minor opinion (such as support for terrorism or how to deal with non Muslims as in this story) or the major opinion (homophobia) that's terrible that qualifier needs to be here. Any discourse (such as Kinitaris) that obscures the fact that Islam is not a monolith, or tacitly or explicitly states that the Boko Haram/ISIS types or even socially conservative types are the 'real' Muslims and others are not is terrible and illogical.
I have *never* denied that homophobia is a huge and ugly issue among vast majorities of Muslims. What I, as a Muslim, have denied is that homophobia is somehow an intrinsic part of Islam or an intrinsic part of the Quran and that's *exactly* what people do when they go "Islam is homophobic" or "lookit this verse in da Quran it's obviously homophobic and anyone who says anything differently is flawed i.e: yore not real muslim".
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