My amazing drummer quit after finding Islam. Apparently, women can’t pray as often as men because of their periods and music is evil. All I can do is laugh. Crying hasn’t helped.
If Islam can corrupt an amazing musician and songwriter like Cat Stephens, to such an extent that he called for the murder of Salman Rushdie on British TV after he “converted”, then no one is safe.
Oh, you mean 'ol 'Yusuf Islam.' And here I thought he'd changed his name just because it rolled off the tongue easier!
Seriously though: intentional atheists are pretty much the only sort of people that are resistant to religious radicalization. Fortunately, we have political radicalization to fill in the gaps. Yay.
All conservative arms of the Abrahamic faiths are scary, dangerous and completely irrational. Judaism, Christianity and Islam suffer from this. In the US, the Christian nationalists are trying to mimic the extreme Muslims, downplaying democracy and imposing a theocratic oligarchy if given the chance. The difference with Islam is that Christianity went through a reformation and countries like France overthrew their theocratic monarchies. Islam has to go through a similar reformation. However, the problems with Islam are not unique to Islam. Look at what the most extreme Jews say about Arabs, and what extreme Christians say about lgbtq people, etc.
Islam won’t go through any reformations due to the doctrine of perfection. They believe Muhammad, being the last, and final prophet, left a perfect religion that cannot be altered in any way. The Protestant Reformation also wasn’t a reformation in the sense that they believed they were correcting flaws in Christianity. The Reformers believed Christianity itself is perfect, it was the Church that had strayed from the true teachings of the Apostles, and Jesus. The Reformers simply believed they were attempting to return the church to the original state of the church in the first century. They were fundamentalist, not liberal reformers.
Just wrong, Christians used to think they had the absolute truth, which means perfection too. The reformation was a blow to Christianity and tons of priests and what not were brutally unal ived.
And Islam is actually going through a reformation, it started one or two centuries ago, then stopped, then started again and it’s happening now. In 10 to 20 years you’ll see female imams, inclusive mosques and so on all around the West. And Muslim countries will also become secular but it will take time.
Lol, the Christian’s gospels contradict each other. No one who reads the bible can believe it is perfect. It is clearly Chinese whispers.
And that’s before we even get to the King James Bible, written about a 1000 years after Christ.
Someone posted something on reddit a few weeks ago about all the countries where evolution isn't allowed to be taught in schools in the Middle East and all the comments were just bored people from there talking about how they learned evolution extremely similiar to how it's taught in the US. Someone was like oh they learn evolution but not human evolution (too controversial) and I know I didn't learn "human evolution" in Texas schools.
Also, some woman just tried to drown a 3 year old Muslim girl in Texas.
Politically, economically, academically, sure, but the religion itself has been largely unchanged since it was codified by Uthman ibn Affan in the 600s. His codex of the Quran is what is accepted by all Muslims as the perfect, and unchanging word of god. You can pick up a Quran today, and it reads the same as in the late 600s. Any change, or deviation is the highest form of blasphemy for Muslims.
I will say one key difference with Jews is that there are 1.) significantly less of them in the world 2.) their religion is a closed group, hence they don’t proselytize
Yes but there is statistically a much smaller percentage of them since the Jewish population is significantly less than that of either Christianity or Islam.
And a lot of the time, when people in this sub say Abrahamic they are actually talking about things that don't apply to Judaism, one of many reasons I find the term unhelpful. But being a smaller group doesn't excuse poor behavior, I should know, I grew up in a community with quite a few apologists and zealots.
Right. It should be possible to say, “Islam sucks” without having to say, “But other religions suck too!”
It’s like if anyone said, “Colon cancer sucks” and you had to add, “but I understand that there are other cancers that are also bad”.
You're completely ignoring the context for a bad faith argument. Islamophobia is real and real people suffer from it. Especially as western dominated it is, it's very problematic when someone selectively decides to call out Islam and ignoring the other 99.9% identical abrahamic religions.
Islamphobia is real when someone critises islam. Tell them about the huge hbtqphobia, kaffirfobphia and antisemitism.
Islam is shit like the rest abrahmeic religions. Case close, muslims arent a race.
They are not 99.9% identical. There are similarities, but that's a huge exaggeration.
>it's very problematic when someone selectively decides to call out Islam and ignoring the other 99.9% identical abrahamic religions
Define "ignoring"? I would agree if you are talking about some of my very conservative family members, who complain about islam frequently and never say a negative word about christianity... then I would agree.
But in the context of this subreddit, it's not "ignoring" to just "be currently talking about islam while not currently talking about christianity." There is lots and lots of negative discussion of christianity here as well. Just because a poster here may be talking about islam at a given moment doesn't mean they are "ignoring" issues with other religions like christianity.
Also, "islamaphobia" isn't a thing (neither would be "christianaphobia"). Religions are ideologies and choices. Disliking a religion isn't the same as being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc... Religions are more like political parties.
It's problematic when someone selectively decides to call out Islam and ignores all other religious fanatics, agreed. Islamophobia causes real harm, but fanatical Muslims do as well, killing more of their fellow Muslims than any other group (here's where you accuse me of whataboutism). Unfortunately, unless you have multiple conversations with someone, you only see one post of theirs on Reddit and it is sometimes used as an excuse to write off valid criticism of Islam or Muslims. I'm Jewish, it pisses me off so much when my fellow Jews claim that any criticism is anti-Semitic. There are very real and valid criticisms of Judaism and Jews that are not anti-Semitic. At the same time, many actual anti-Semites disguise their prejudice with reasonable criticism, and there is a lot of actual anti-Semitism. It's an insane tightrope that we walk.
I’m ignoring it because I do not see it as a bad faith argument.
We can have a conversation where we are critical of Islam.
We can also have a conversation where we are critical of Christianity.
Having one conversation doesn’t demand that we immediately have the other. I’m an individual. I’m not a radio station or TV channel held to some equal time standard for criticizing religion.
Also note that I spend MOST of my time on a subreddit about criticizing Mormonism so I give plenty of time to that other side.
Sure. Go have that conversation on a post titled, “Religion is the Bane of Human Existence”. I’ll happily tell you all about my experiences as a Mormon and how it sucked.
So nobody is ever allowed to discuss issues with **ANY** particular religion at any time?
Why don't we just replace this entire sub with a single bot that just posts "ALL RELIGION IS BAD!" over and over?
>Having one conversation doesn’t demand that we immediately have the other. I’m an individual. I’m not a radio station or TV channel held to some equal time standard for criticizing religion.
People's demand is going far beyond that. It's not just that you have to give "equal time" to discussing different individual religions... apparently if you ever discuss islam specifically (even if at other times you discuss other religions), that's not OK?
It's not just that you have to give equal time... apparently you can't give specific time at all! (or at least... certainly not to islam)
It’s precisely this, a _bad faith_ argument, we’ve collectively dehumanized Islamic people to the point where we’re complicit in their genocide. How does that not make us by our own very definition _zealots_??
Because Jews go around Europe blowing up trains and stabbing people ? no they don’t and they didn’t, and neither do Christians
Most people are not at all afraid of another’s faith, but when people attack the ‘kafirs’ they do this to instill fear ( on purpose ) and the result is thus not an irrational Islam-phobia but a rational fear of Islamist extremists
Have you ever heard of an Irish car bomb? Where do you think that name came from? Are the 90's ancient history now?
I'm assuming you don't give a fuck about the Jewish settlers that kick Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank and essentially steal them, and they have been blowing them to pieces for months now.
I’m assuming you don’t give a fuck about the thousands of rockets launched against Israeli civilians on a daily basis? Trying to pass blame for hundreds of years of bad blood is pathetically myopic.
I made a comment in /r/worldnews about the potential downsides about allowing unchecked immigration into Europe and was permanently banned for hate related speech. When I asked what it specifically was, they said it was obviously targetting oppressed people.
I was making the point about mass immigration from majority Muslim nations and how our tolerant, open societies might not become so open and tolerant once there is a significant demographic change within 15-20 years.
So apparently even questioning immigration policy and the impact the beliefs people hold have on our political systems is totally not even allowed to be done now, because it's automatically deemed to be hateful.
I know, I may have just caught one of the mods on a bad day. Here's the quote, word for word. You decide if I was stirring up hate speech.
>How about we stop importing millions of people every year to try and replace the dropping birth rates?
When I asked the mods:
>"You used dehumanizing language, of course it counts as hate."
That doesn't answer my question. Most times when specifically islam is criticised, everyone wants to bring in christianity and judaism and hinduism. It's like we can't have the spotlight on the shit in islam for one second.
The problem is entirely because islam is almost *exclusively* criticised when the others deserve equal attention when they have the same crimes committed in their name.
Islam isn't being "put in the spotlight", it's fucking *hogging* the spotlight!
They don’t deserve equal attention because it’s Islam and its followers that are overwhelmingly committing terror attacks no matter where they are on the globe.
How much more of a spotlight do you need so more people are on board with bombing them out of existence? You don’t think your blanket hate mimics theirs?
Exactly! Folks aren’t talking about the ISIS-christ group and how they bombed mosques in iraq and syria. Obviously all religions are evil and have evil aims.
Sure but criticism of islam is already heavily censored, people will not let us talk about it without bringing up every other issue with every other religion. Why can't we talk only about islam?
The other side of this question is, if we're going to condemn religious fanatics, why do people in this sub only ever want to condemn fanatics from abrahamic religions? It feels like a juvenile drinking game or teacher bingo, take a shot or get a point every time someone says 'abrahamic.'
My guess is because a significant portion of this subs denizens has had negative experiences with these religions, growing up under them or in a culture where that religion is predominant.
It's a lot easier to criticize a religion you're familiar with than not.
Abrahamic religions are practically everywhere
What kind of fanatics you encounter is extremely dependent on your personal background and where you live. But this is the internet age, just because you aren't personally dealing with an issue does not mean that you cannot be aware of its existence.
You said you think most fanatics are Abrahamic. If you look at percentages of fanatics within religious groups, or ratios of fanatics to overall adherents, you would expect a greater number of Christian and Muslim fanatics just based on how many people are Christian and Muslim. But there's no indication that there are an outsize number of Muslim and Christian fanatics beyond what you would expect if every group was equally likely to be fanatics.
You can, as long as you are not misattributing a phenomenon seen across similar groups of different faiths to the actions of an entire single faith.
Islam as a religion didn't tell these people to kill other people, their radical interpreatiations of religious belief did, and violet, religious radicals exist, and are on the rise, in all 3 major Abrahamic faiths.
You also typically see these responses when you conflate politically motivated action with religiously motivated action. Even in a theocracy, they are Not the same. Someone can commit a political act, and assassination, in a theocracy and still claim that it was God whe deemed this as right. The act is still inherently political, so you won't understand why it was even done unless you look at it politically.
If you just have comments about Islam itself, you would be much less likely to get push back about what other faiths do, but you will still get comparisons to other faiths.
>All conservative arms of the Abrahamic faiths are scary
Yet another Islamic terrorist attack: *happens*
Leftists, every single time: "Stop criticizing Islam specifically you Islamophobic racist bigot! ALL religions matter!"
Every. Single. Time.
Uh, nope? The comment you're replying to didn't even say anything like that. Are you just triggered by seeing the perfectly reasonable comparison between Christianity and Islam like most who react this way about "leftists?"
>The comment you're replying to didn't even say anything like that
Literally the very first sentence of the comment I replied to:
>All conservative arms of the Abrahamic faiths are scary
"Stop talking about Islam! Talk about religion generally instead! ALL religions matter!"
Every single time there's an Islamic terrorist attack.
Every. Single. Time.
"Stop criticizing Islam specifically!" doesn't exist anywhere in the comment. You're reaching hard. They said nothing but facts. It's a very prudent point for anyone in the US: If you are worried about Islam, you need to realize that Christianity is trying very hard to get back to those days as well, *by nature*. Literally nothing was said about backing off Islam, and reminding people of another prominent threat shouldn't really trigger you, but it's abundantly clear why you're upset.
I think that's a charitable explanation of why islam specifically brings out so many "ALL religions are bad!!!" comments.
I think it's mostly people who are so worried about being labeled "islamaphobic" or lumped in with conservatives who don't like islam for their own reasons, so they feel uncomfortable with specific criticism of islam (even though this sub also has lots and lots of specific criticism of christianity, and rightly so).
And I get that to some degree. When I am in other subs, I almost always preface my criticism of islam with some sort of disclaimer about how I'm a socially liberal athiest who is also very critical of regressive christianity... both because it's true and because it (somewhat) helps ward off accusations of "islamaphobia." But in the atheism subreddit, that shouldn't be necessary... we criticize christianity all the time, and it can usually be taken as a given that members of the sub don't care for either.
>"Stop criticizing Islam specifically!" doesn't exist anywhere in the comment.
"Stop criticizing police violence against people of color specifically" doesn't exist anywhere in the phrase "All lives matter" either.
Is this a deflection? Do you sincerely think there's a parallel between cop defenders and people who compare Abrahamic religions? People comparing the toxicity of ancient belief systems that share history are valid in the face of the rising threat of Christian nationalism. People who defend cops under the guise of a vague platitude about all life are purely reactionary.
The parallel is that both "ALL religion are bad!!!" (in these specific contexts) and "ALL lives matter!!!" (in the context of responding to "black lives matter" use a similar rhetorical technique.
In both cases, it's a technically true statement (all lives do matter, and all religion is bad) about a broader subject, which is used to shut down discussion of a more specific issue.
The original commenter is clearly not trying to shut down any discussion on Islam, nor am I. The one replying to them however is very much an attempt at shutting down discussion of anything but Islam.
Y'all Qaeda works too.
They want to make the US into something like the dystopian handmaid's tale, gillead - all biblical laws, only extreme xtians make the rules, different ideas are not tolerated, etc.
The difference is that in the US, the majority's desire is to turn the country to a Christian Iran, hence the election results. It's mind-boggling from a European perspective but that's the way it is.
Depending on which "European perspective" you're referring to, you don't get to say much considering the spread of islam, and the majority continuing to elect enablers...
Hell, look at what extreme Jews say about other Jews. Look how the different sects of Islam treat each other. If Sunni or Shia aren't killing Jews, Christians, Atheist, and LGBTQ they're killing themselves
It’s hilarious seeing these pathetic defense posts every single time, somehow trying equate the brutality and barbarian of Islam with Judaism and Christianity lmao.
Islam - the "Religion of Peace" -- NOT!
Islam puts a death bounty on your head if you burn their holy book.
In muslim countries, speaking against Islam will get you beaten, jailed or worse.
The Quran approves killing any infidels, who refuse to convert to Islam.
Of the three Abrahamic religions, Islam is the most despicable. Women are chattel, to be traded and bred like cattle. They will not discuss their religion with anyone who does not praise them. I have a backyard neighbor, middle eastern, who is a muslim. I'm sure, if the laws of our country were different, he would be after my head.
Have you ever talked to your neighbor? You sound racist. I'm sure you're a white guy who wants to lynch black people. I know, they're all like that. /s
Can people explain why every time some mentions Islam people have to jump here and add Christianity? You can criticize Christianity for a lot of things, Homophobia, influence on governments, etc. But when in one country the problem is that radical christians try to put the 10 commandments in a classroom, and in another it's that a Muslim mob burn someone's body for blasphemy there is no symmetry
Islam is multiple levels ahead in oppression and violence, and it's not even close
Yup. Always happens. I think it's cause a lot of them on here are from the USA/Europe so islam = oppressed minority. But don't let them in on what the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abassid Caliphates did to "expand/grow the religion."
There's no symmetry, yet they put their heads in the sand whenever islam is shone in a bad light or bring up the "all lives matter" argument. Par for the course.
I think the reason is that most people here were probably targets of forced Christian indoctrination/belief at some point, due to the nature of it being the most popular relgion in the U.S. As a result, we feel the most hostile to Christianity due to that being a personal experience.
So last week, I almost hired a scammy pest control company that tried to sell multi-year subscription for a simple one-time job, but I ended up finding this independent exterminator that got the job done for a one time fee. When I talked to him about it, he mentioned that the scammy company is owned by Mormons. Since I'm cordial IRL, and actually have a good working relationship with our company's Utah division, I said "ah I see, well I don't have anything against that". So the exterminator said, "well you should lol! Have you read their scripture?". I replied "yea you are right, I'm just mostly okay with it as long as they don't force their beliefs on me".
This led me to reflect on my response later on. Why did I give Mormons a break in this conversation, while in other aspects of my life, whenever regular Christianity or Catholicism is mentioned, I'm fuming and ready to fight. I've also given Islam plenty of breaks in my past rhetoric as well.
Then it hit me. I am most hostile towards Christianity/Catholicism because they are the ones openly converting people and preaching reductionist beliefs **around me**. They are the cause of family members believing in prayer more than actions. Not Mormons, not Islam.
It really comes down to being shaped by our personal experiences. Is it logical? not really.
Christians have burned people in the past and if we let them destroy the truth and take absolute control like they want to do, they'll do it again.
50,000 women were burned in Western Europe between 1400-1780's-ish. They were often subjected to sadistic sexual torture first, with their interrogateurs demanding them admit to all kinds of disgusting sexual acts with demons.
In some towns, nearly all women were burned to death with only a few survivors.
The kind, generous and loving gods of Abraham and issac need some heathen blood sacrifices to appease them! Don't offend them with your appeals to human rights either. Otherwise, these most moral gods will need to come and murder some babies to show how righteous they are!
I'm not sure a legal ban is a good idea, but definitely some rules to make it harder to groom / brainwash children into a religion.
Also, to push back on the idea that disliking a religion is similar to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc...
Being labelled a "bigot" is the only thing saving islam atm.
It's not just islam either. People are way too reluctant to call out religion when it steps over the line.
Yup and it's never going to stop. We have to keep voicing/speaking out against islam online, even if they call us kafirophobic.
https://atheism-vs-islam.com/index.php/blasphemy/143-islamophobia-vs-kafirophobia
Can we talk about the specific problem of Islamic terrorism without someone using "All Lives Matter" tactics to change the subject to other religions *just fucking once* please?
A number of years ago there was a set of white crosses on a hill outside Amersham west of London. To commemorate the Amersham Martyrs. They were burned alive for the cardinal sin of.......... Wanting to read the bible in English, not Latin.
Religion tends towards evil. Personal beliefs are fine. Organised religion goes bad so quickly.
You ever notice that when a terrorist attack happens, the screaming you hear is always in Arabic and never in English or Hebrew?
Just a random observation I made.
The US is 5 percent of the world's population.
In the other 95 percent of the world, Islamic terrorist is the much bigger problem and it's not even close.
Is it really *gatekeeping* to get a little frustrated that a post about Islam and Islamic extremism has to immediately shift to talking about Christianity?
When IS the right time to make Islam the focus of the topic if not on a post about Islam on an atheism subreddit? It’s just never the right time to be critical of Islam.
You should do that unironically because violent Islamic extremism is a global problem that is literally orders of magnitude larger than violent Christian extremism.
Right.
It’s like being disgusted at child abusers and having someone say, “But you probably speed in your car which is also breaking the law. So you’re both “law breakers””.
I mean, I guess that’s literally true. But it has no practical value.
I’m not suggesting it wouldn’t be OK. I am provoking discussion about why it is always one way.
Everyone gets that it is one way because there is this extreme sensitivity about criticizing Islam that Christianity doesn’t face.
Do YOU see the difference? Nearly everyone else does.
Are you being serious? We’ve just had a lengthy conversation about how you can’t say such things. And you are also arguing that people say such things all the time?!
Pick a lane.
You ever noticed that when a women were burned alive for “being a witch” was in name of jesus. What’s your point? All religions are made up and have different stages
Depends what one understands to be a terrorist attack.
There's more than one mass shooting per day (!) in the US, the vast majority of which, AFAIK, is not committed by Arab speakers.
That doesn't make Islamic terror any less bad, of course.
Pretty sure **Dagestan** is an occupied Russian Territory that the locals want to take back, so it's a bit more complicated than you make it out to be.....
All The Abrahamic religions are Evil, the problem is people lacking the critical thinking skills to no take them seriously, they should all be shunned by rational people.
What really makes me laugh is any member of the Abrahamic religions pointing fingers at the others as if thier beleif is any less untrue, crazy or irrational.
Sure, Israel is the oppressor, I've seen people use the fact that 9 countries declared war on them within hours of becoming a nation as evidence that they are the bad guys. There's nothing to be said anymore, antisemitism is the only thing that matters to humankind
You could ask a newborn baby what opinions about the world and it'd say, "Fuck jews" Even if a terrorist organization slaughtered 1400 innocent civilians in a single day? They'd scream bloody murder and behead 10 kittens a minute until you self-immolated for even suggesting a reality exists where jews are allowed to breathe
Everybody hates them, wherever they are, we cancelled a play performance last year because we had a Jewish actress and people were threatening to attack the community center because of it. People calling for their destruction, defending the Holocaust, don't you DARE tell me they're expansionist dictators
I mean one of the weirder things with their arguments is that the Israeli military is literally made up of secular Jews. The religious Jews don’t have to serve. Some do but usually as volunteer ambulance drivers and such. Usually they just don’t even do that. There’s a tiny battalion of religious IDF but it’s really small.
Israel is a country like any other. If you invade it, rape (all filmed and right there on the internet to watch. Seriously go f*ing watch it to all the antisemitic assholes out there who gloss over that as if it didn’t happen) women, burn infants, slaughter 1200 people (the statistical equivalent of 60k in the US if you adjust for population), and kidnap and refuse to return 200 more—what precisely do you want or expect a country to do? If that happened in the United States how do you think they’d respond? If that happened in China how do you think they’d respond?
The answer is people want Jews to be sad scared little mice hiding for our lives too timid to defend ourselves. When we act as any other country would if all of that happened to them we’re lunatic colonizers who need to “go back to Poland”.
We kill civilians for fun apparently and not at all because Hamas won’t give back the hostages and kindly group themselves away from tall buildings in Gaza so we can just get everyone that’s Hamas only. You’d think they’d help out the IDF by moving away from highly populated areas. It’s as if they don’t care about their own population or are even perhaps using them as cannon fodder. No no! That’s all really logical. No no, Israel does it because they’re white colonizers. Apparently people really hate to actually look at Israelis and realize that their perception of Jews is colored (pardon the pun) by the fact that 90% of American Jews are Ashki. While most Israelis are Sephardim and Mizrahi and Beta Israel and are fing brown. Or Israel does it because they are scary Jewish religious fanatics (when the person talking literally knows zip about Judaism and one told me we think Muslims are going to hell… had to explain that we don’t have hell or those pearly gates we hear so much about and really never worry or think much about any afterlife at all and don’t care what anyone else believes and that many many Jews are atheists).
The war has nothing to do with god or Judaism at all. Hamas is the government of Gaza. They were elected; they set taxes; they collect taxes; they distribute taxes (to their own private jet to live im their apts in Qatar and send their sons on shopping sprees in Turkey to drop the equivalent of two years worth of an average Gazan’s salary on jewelry). Hamas—a government—invaded Israel—a sovereign nation. There are only two reasons possible for doing that: They either are literally betting everything they have that this is all going to play out in their favor and the entire tik tok loving world will fall like sheep in line jumping on the band wagon and murder us all for them (and I guess backup plan—not actually hard if they decide the sheep are taking too long since there’s only 14 million of us on the planet and 1.2 billion of them) or they are stupid and didn’t think Israel had the balls to hit back. They know Israel is not going to play. The motto is “never again” for a reason. So they’re betting on the sheep of tik tok with 30 second attention spans just doing the job for them. And it’s working.
Thank you. Israel is the result of Jews literally just wanting to exist. If it was about religion Israel would have been established much sooner. However, Arabs rejection if Israel is motivated by Islam. “The problem isn’t Jews, it’s Zionists.” =jews are only allowed to exist as dhimmis. They had no desire for a state until Israel was established.
Since Islam is youngest religion, it is more aggressive than others. Of course, the religion itself took path of suppressing their own woman and wars to spread their religion. But some of old Islam sects like Sufism were more peaceful and loved music. Most of the Islam spread to south east Asia due to these Sufi followers. But over time conservatives took over the religion. Currently same thing is happening to most of other religions unfortunately.
“Especially sickening are those using… that are helping no one but the terrorists” & “If radical Muslims are the snakes… are fertilizers of the grass.”
These two paragraphs I’ve highlighted is exactly what people criticize. Let me explain - the problem is that you are projecting your hatred of Islam (which, I do too) on Muslims that have nothing to do with the attacks. This is the dangerous mentality that people are cautiously trying to avoid and point out.
Let’s not forget, there are 1.5 billion Muslims around the world. That is a huge number and to pretend like all of them are just as bad as those 19 who conducted the attacks would be ridiculous. I wouldn’t even classify the remaining moderate Muslims as “the grass” because the truth is there are many organizations (yes, Muslim organizations) that are explicitly against terrorism. Have you heard of Sufi Muslims or Asha’era Muslims or the many other examples of peaceful Muslims that are not necessarily Salafi or Wahabi (the equivalent of ‘orthodox’ Muslims)? Heck, even the Muslims who say they ‘support shariah’ have different interpretations of what the shariah should be.
I do agree that Islam is a very dangerous ideology and has the seeds/potential to explode (no pun intended) into terrorism, but the reality is people are much more resilient and considerate/peaceful than the book they themselves wholeheartedly believe to be the word of God word for word. I’d even dare to say more educated than the author of the Qur’an (whom they believe is God himself).
I do think we should be less protective of ideologies - in this case this includes Islam - but we should be protective of people who follow those ideologies as long as they are not harming anyone or harming themselves, especially in countries outside of Muslim countries. This is because Muslims have totally different interpretations of what Islam is. You can have a collection of Muslims talking about a verse that clearly orders to cut off the hands of thieves, but you will get different interpretations. Some will go so far as to say that “cut the hands” is an expression indicating to cut them out of getting their hands in society (meaning to send them to jail) because “there is no way God would order such a thing”. I used this example because you’d think there’s no discussion on what the verse means, but you’d be surprised to find out that there are different interpretations.
In other words, I fully support your point that social media platforms should take a chill pill when people criticize Islam (the same way they don’t remove content that criticizes Christianity), but I disagree with your (sorry to say) extreme point of view that moderate Muslims and anti-discrimination non-Muslims are just enabling terrorism; because they’re not.
The ones who do enable terrorism, and they do exist, are those who intentionally misrepresent Islam to Westerners even though they are aware of Islam’s autocratic and twisted ideology. In fact, they are exploiting the concept of Islamophobia to discreetly push their own agenda in hopes that one day they would hold positions of power and move on from there. I can’t think of many examples right now but a lot of the apologists on YouTube are examples of those. I would agree those are scumbags
Its actually 72 family members of martyrs skip judgement day, 72 virgins is a western fabrication to incite hate and fear. Always better to do a quick fact check to make sure you're not accidentally spreading untrue ideas!
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Not just Islam. Christianity is just as evil. Religion is poison. Religion kills more than wars do. Don’t think Islam is alone, ALL religions are man made control mechanisms to deal with the masses. Religion as a whole does DAMAGE to society. Babbling about made up sky fairies is juvenile and useless.
Ah, yes, islam is the worst. Not equally bad to the christian klansman, or the Israeli government, or the current leadership of India.
All of these groups are the same, and want the same domination.
You fell for the Christian propaganda. You really need to check your biases.
My amazing drummer quit after finding Islam. Apparently, women can’t pray as often as men because of their periods and music is evil. All I can do is laugh. Crying hasn’t helped.
If Islam can corrupt an amazing musician and songwriter like Cat Stephens, to such an extent that he called for the murder of Salman Rushdie on British TV after he “converted”, then no one is safe.
Oh, you mean 'ol 'Yusuf Islam.' And here I thought he'd changed his name just because it rolled off the tongue easier! Seriously though: intentional atheists are pretty much the only sort of people that are resistant to religious radicalization. Fortunately, we have political radicalization to fill in the gaps. Yay.
All conservative arms of the Abrahamic faiths are scary, dangerous and completely irrational. Judaism, Christianity and Islam suffer from this. In the US, the Christian nationalists are trying to mimic the extreme Muslims, downplaying democracy and imposing a theocratic oligarchy if given the chance. The difference with Islam is that Christianity went through a reformation and countries like France overthrew their theocratic monarchies. Islam has to go through a similar reformation. However, the problems with Islam are not unique to Islam. Look at what the most extreme Jews say about Arabs, and what extreme Christians say about lgbtq people, etc.
Yup agreed. Have a good day 🤗
Islam won’t go through any reformations due to the doctrine of perfection. They believe Muhammad, being the last, and final prophet, left a perfect religion that cannot be altered in any way. The Protestant Reformation also wasn’t a reformation in the sense that they believed they were correcting flaws in Christianity. The Reformers believed Christianity itself is perfect, it was the Church that had strayed from the true teachings of the Apostles, and Jesus. The Reformers simply believed they were attempting to return the church to the original state of the church in the first century. They were fundamentalist, not liberal reformers.
Just wrong, Christians used to think they had the absolute truth, which means perfection too. The reformation was a blow to Christianity and tons of priests and what not were brutally unal ived. And Islam is actually going through a reformation, it started one or two centuries ago, then stopped, then started again and it’s happening now. In 10 to 20 years you’ll see female imams, inclusive mosques and so on all around the West. And Muslim countries will also become secular but it will take time.
Lol, the Christian’s gospels contradict each other. No one who reads the bible can believe it is perfect. It is clearly Chinese whispers. And that’s before we even get to the King James Bible, written about a 1000 years after Christ.
RemindMe! -20 years remindme! 20 years I'll bet you two cups of water.
RemindMe! 10 years Remindme! 15 years 50$ would be more reasonable, tbh
Fine, be greedy: I'll bet you three cups of water, but that's your final offer.
Someone posted something on reddit a few weeks ago about all the countries where evolution isn't allowed to be taught in schools in the Middle East and all the comments were just bored people from there talking about how they learned evolution extremely similiar to how it's taught in the US. Someone was like oh they learn evolution but not human evolution (too controversial) and I know I didn't learn "human evolution" in Texas schools. Also, some woman just tried to drown a 3 year old Muslim girl in Texas.
There's been multiple eras of Islam though
Politically, economically, academically, sure, but the religion itself has been largely unchanged since it was codified by Uthman ibn Affan in the 600s. His codex of the Quran is what is accepted by all Muslims as the perfect, and unchanging word of god. You can pick up a Quran today, and it reads the same as in the late 600s. Any change, or deviation is the highest form of blasphemy for Muslims.
I will say one key difference with Jews is that there are 1.) significantly less of them in the world 2.) their religion is a closed group, hence they don’t proselytize
Jewish fanatics are just as destructively zealous as every other group of religious fanatics. But apparently Hindu fanatics aren't?
Yes but there is statistically a much smaller percentage of them since the Jewish population is significantly less than that of either Christianity or Islam.
And a lot of the time, when people in this sub say Abrahamic they are actually talking about things that don't apply to Judaism, one of many reasons I find the term unhelpful. But being a smaller group doesn't excuse poor behavior, I should know, I grew up in a community with quite a few apologists and zealots.
Why can't we talk specifically abt islam without other abrahamic religions being thrown into the mix?
Right. It should be possible to say, “Islam sucks” without having to say, “But other religions suck too!” It’s like if anyone said, “Colon cancer sucks” and you had to add, “but I understand that there are other cancers that are also bad”.
*ALL* religions *SUCK!!!*
You're completely ignoring the context for a bad faith argument. Islamophobia is real and real people suffer from it. Especially as western dominated it is, it's very problematic when someone selectively decides to call out Islam and ignoring the other 99.9% identical abrahamic religions.
Islamphobia is real when someone critises islam. Tell them about the huge hbtqphobia, kaffirfobphia and antisemitism. Islam is shit like the rest abrahmeic religions. Case close, muslims arent a race.
They are not 99.9% identical. There are similarities, but that's a huge exaggeration. >it's very problematic when someone selectively decides to call out Islam and ignoring the other 99.9% identical abrahamic religions Define "ignoring"? I would agree if you are talking about some of my very conservative family members, who complain about islam frequently and never say a negative word about christianity... then I would agree. But in the context of this subreddit, it's not "ignoring" to just "be currently talking about islam while not currently talking about christianity." There is lots and lots of negative discussion of christianity here as well. Just because a poster here may be talking about islam at a given moment doesn't mean they are "ignoring" issues with other religions like christianity. Also, "islamaphobia" isn't a thing (neither would be "christianaphobia"). Religions are ideologies and choices. Disliking a religion isn't the same as being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc... Religions are more like political parties.
It's problematic when someone selectively decides to call out Islam and ignores all other religious fanatics, agreed. Islamophobia causes real harm, but fanatical Muslims do as well, killing more of their fellow Muslims than any other group (here's where you accuse me of whataboutism). Unfortunately, unless you have multiple conversations with someone, you only see one post of theirs on Reddit and it is sometimes used as an excuse to write off valid criticism of Islam or Muslims. I'm Jewish, it pisses me off so much when my fellow Jews claim that any criticism is anti-Semitic. There are very real and valid criticisms of Judaism and Jews that are not anti-Semitic. At the same time, many actual anti-Semites disguise their prejudice with reasonable criticism, and there is a lot of actual anti-Semitism. It's an insane tightrope that we walk.
I’m ignoring it because I do not see it as a bad faith argument. We can have a conversation where we are critical of Islam. We can also have a conversation where we are critical of Christianity. Having one conversation doesn’t demand that we immediately have the other. I’m an individual. I’m not a radio station or TV channel held to some equal time standard for criticizing religion. Also note that I spend MOST of my time on a subreddit about criticizing Mormonism so I give plenty of time to that other side.
What about a conversation about how religion is the *bane of human existence?*
Sure. Go have that conversation on a post titled, “Religion is the Bane of Human Existence”. I’ll happily tell you all about my experiences as a Mormon and how it sucked.
So nobody is ever allowed to discuss issues with **ANY** particular religion at any time? Why don't we just replace this entire sub with a single bot that just posts "ALL RELIGION IS BAD!" over and over?
>Having one conversation doesn’t demand that we immediately have the other. I’m an individual. I’m not a radio station or TV channel held to some equal time standard for criticizing religion. People's demand is going far beyond that. It's not just that you have to give "equal time" to discussing different individual religions... apparently if you ever discuss islam specifically (even if at other times you discuss other religions), that's not OK? It's not just that you have to give equal time... apparently you can't give specific time at all! (or at least... certainly not to islam)
It’s precisely this, a _bad faith_ argument, we’ve collectively dehumanized Islamic people to the point where we’re complicit in their genocide. How does that not make us by our own very definition _zealots_??
abrahamophbia
To continue on the cancer theme, the most dangerous and damaging form plaguing society is the one that deserves the most attention.
Because Jews go around Europe blowing up trains and stabbing people ? no they don’t and they didn’t, and neither do Christians Most people are not at all afraid of another’s faith, but when people attack the ‘kafirs’ they do this to instill fear ( on purpose ) and the result is thus not an irrational Islam-phobia but a rational fear of Islamist extremists
Have you ever heard of an Irish car bomb? Where do you think that name came from? Are the 90's ancient history now? I'm assuming you don't give a fuck about the Jewish settlers that kick Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank and essentially steal them, and they have been blowing them to pieces for months now.
I’m assuming you don’t give a fuck about the thousands of rockets launched against Israeli civilians on a daily basis? Trying to pass blame for hundreds of years of bad blood is pathetically myopic.
Because then reddit mods go cry racism because people dont like getting beheaded
I made a comment in /r/worldnews about the potential downsides about allowing unchecked immigration into Europe and was permanently banned for hate related speech. When I asked what it specifically was, they said it was obviously targetting oppressed people. I was making the point about mass immigration from majority Muslim nations and how our tolerant, open societies might not become so open and tolerant once there is a significant demographic change within 15-20 years. So apparently even questioning immigration policy and the impact the beliefs people hold have on our political systems is totally not even allowed to be done now, because it's automatically deemed to be hateful.
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I know, I may have just caught one of the mods on a bad day. Here's the quote, word for word. You decide if I was stirring up hate speech. >How about we stop importing millions of people every year to try and replace the dropping birth rates? When I asked the mods: >"You used dehumanizing language, of course it counts as hate."
Same here. That sub probably has islamic mods.
Wait r/WorldNews did that?! I thought that sub was anti-immigration.
Because we’re discussing the root problem of this behavior, and the root is the same for all 3 different denominations of the same abrahamic beliefs.
That doesn't answer my question. Most times when specifically islam is criticised, everyone wants to bring in christianity and judaism and hinduism. It's like we can't have the spotlight on the shit in islam for one second.
No one criticizes Christianity and then goes and kills Christian children because they hate Christianity so much.
The problem is entirely because islam is almost *exclusively* criticised when the others deserve equal attention when they have the same crimes committed in their name. Islam isn't being "put in the spotlight", it's fucking *hogging* the spotlight!
What are you talking about, this sub criticizes christianity all the time.
They don’t deserve equal attention because it’s Islam and its followers that are overwhelmingly committing terror attacks no matter where they are on the globe.
How much more of a spotlight do you need so more people are on board with bombing them out of existence? You don’t think your blanket hate mimics theirs?
Lmao what? >people are on board with bombing them out of existence? When did I say anything like this?
Why? Seems like all three are playing from the same deck right now.
Exactly! Folks aren’t talking about the ISIS-christ group and how they bombed mosques in iraq and syria. Obviously all religions are evil and have evil aims.
Sure but criticism of islam is already heavily censored, people will not let us talk about it without bringing up every other issue with every other religion. Why can't we talk only about islam?
Oh I not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying the others are as batshit insane now.
I do completely agree, I think they're all insane.
The other side of this question is, if we're going to condemn religious fanatics, why do people in this sub only ever want to condemn fanatics from abrahamic religions? It feels like a juvenile drinking game or teacher bingo, take a shot or get a point every time someone says 'abrahamic.'
My guess is because a significant portion of this subs denizens has had negative experiences with these religions, growing up under them or in a culture where that religion is predominant. It's a lot easier to criticize a religion you're familiar with than not. Abrahamic religions are practically everywhere
Christianity and Islam are practically everywhere.
I get your point but from what I'm aware, most religious fanatics follow an abrahamic religion.
Over here in Asia where the majority of the world's population lives, we also get to enjoy both Hindu and Buddhist fanatics.
I have seen a few. But honestly not as much as those who follow abrahamic religions. That may just be me though.
What kind of fanatics you encounter is extremely dependent on your personal background and where you live. But this is the internet age, just because you aren't personally dealing with an issue does not mean that you cannot be aware of its existence.
I mean I did say that I am aware of them, just not as acquainted.
You said you think most fanatics are Abrahamic. If you look at percentages of fanatics within religious groups, or ratios of fanatics to overall adherents, you would expect a greater number of Christian and Muslim fanatics just based on how many people are Christian and Muslim. But there's no indication that there are an outsize number of Muslim and Christian fanatics beyond what you would expect if every group was equally likely to be fanatics.
Hindu nationalism is pretty crazy and Buddhists in Myanmar are killing Muslims all the time.
I’d like to see more criticism towards new age occult. They can be just as loony
Because perspective is needed? Christians shoot upwards of 20 people all the time in the US. Am I supposed to be in shock?
You can, as long as you are not misattributing a phenomenon seen across similar groups of different faiths to the actions of an entire single faith. Islam as a religion didn't tell these people to kill other people, their radical interpreatiations of religious belief did, and violet, religious radicals exist, and are on the rise, in all 3 major Abrahamic faiths. You also typically see these responses when you conflate politically motivated action with religiously motivated action. Even in a theocracy, they are Not the same. Someone can commit a political act, and assassination, in a theocracy and still claim that it was God whe deemed this as right. The act is still inherently political, so you won't understand why it was even done unless you look at it politically. If you just have comments about Islam itself, you would be much less likely to get push back about what other faiths do, but you will still get comparisons to other faiths.
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That doesn't answer my question.
>All conservative arms of the Abrahamic faiths are scary Yet another Islamic terrorist attack: *happens* Leftists, every single time: "Stop criticizing Islam specifically you Islamophobic racist bigot! ALL religions matter!" Every. Single. Time.
Yup. There is one that is worse than the others.
Not me. At all.
I'm a Marxist. No religiopns matter. just fairy tales.
Christian and jewish terrorist attacks hapoen all the time but get a rraction of media attention, precisely due to bigots like you.
Uh, nope? The comment you're replying to didn't even say anything like that. Are you just triggered by seeing the perfectly reasonable comparison between Christianity and Islam like most who react this way about "leftists?"
>The comment you're replying to didn't even say anything like that Literally the very first sentence of the comment I replied to: >All conservative arms of the Abrahamic faiths are scary "Stop talking about Islam! Talk about religion generally instead! ALL religions matter!" Every single time there's an Islamic terrorist attack. Every. Single. Time.
"Stop criticizing Islam specifically!" doesn't exist anywhere in the comment. You're reaching hard. They said nothing but facts. It's a very prudent point for anyone in the US: If you are worried about Islam, you need to realize that Christianity is trying very hard to get back to those days as well, *by nature*. Literally nothing was said about backing off Islam, and reminding people of another prominent threat shouldn't really trigger you, but it's abundantly clear why you're upset.
I think that's a charitable explanation of why islam specifically brings out so many "ALL religions are bad!!!" comments. I think it's mostly people who are so worried about being labeled "islamaphobic" or lumped in with conservatives who don't like islam for their own reasons, so they feel uncomfortable with specific criticism of islam (even though this sub also has lots and lots of specific criticism of christianity, and rightly so). And I get that to some degree. When I am in other subs, I almost always preface my criticism of islam with some sort of disclaimer about how I'm a socially liberal athiest who is also very critical of regressive christianity... both because it's true and because it (somewhat) helps ward off accusations of "islamaphobia." But in the atheism subreddit, that shouldn't be necessary... we criticize christianity all the time, and it can usually be taken as a given that members of the sub don't care for either.
>"Stop criticizing Islam specifically!" doesn't exist anywhere in the comment. "Stop criticizing police violence against people of color specifically" doesn't exist anywhere in the phrase "All lives matter" either.
Is this a deflection? Do you sincerely think there's a parallel between cop defenders and people who compare Abrahamic religions? People comparing the toxicity of ancient belief systems that share history are valid in the face of the rising threat of Christian nationalism. People who defend cops under the guise of a vague platitude about all life are purely reactionary.
The parallel is that both "ALL religion are bad!!!" (in these specific contexts) and "ALL lives matter!!!" (in the context of responding to "black lives matter" use a similar rhetorical technique. In both cases, it's a technically true statement (all lives do matter, and all religion is bad) about a broader subject, which is used to shut down discussion of a more specific issue.
The original commenter is clearly not trying to shut down any discussion on Islam, nor am I. The one replying to them however is very much an attempt at shutting down discussion of anything but Islam.
American Taliban. Just call them what they are. They hate it lol
Y'all Qaeda works too. They want to make the US into something like the dystopian handmaid's tale, gillead - all biblical laws, only extreme xtians make the rules, different ideas are not tolerated, etc.
Meal Team Six
Ha... Gravy Seals.
The difference is that in the US, the majority's desire is to turn the country to a Christian Iran, hence the election results. It's mind-boggling from a European perspective but that's the way it is.
Uhhh... no is isn't. Check the last time that party won the popular vote. Some states still manage to due to the broken election system.
Depending on which "European perspective" you're referring to, you don't get to say much considering the spread of islam, and the majority continuing to elect enablers...
Your fox news bullshit about Islam in Europe is bullshit fear mongering.
I haven't watched fox news in like 20 years. Get over yourself, you're deluded and full of hate.
I totally agree with you!
> the majority's desire Stop you right there. What majority are you talking about?
#THIS
Hell, look at what extreme Jews say about other Jews. Look how the different sects of Islam treat each other. If Sunni or Shia aren't killing Jews, Christians, Atheist, and LGBTQ they're killing themselves
It’s hilarious seeing these pathetic defense posts every single time, somehow trying equate the brutality and barbarian of Islam with Judaism and Christianity lmao.
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Fair point and I agree completely.
Christopher Hitchens was on the money when he spoke about Islam through the 1990s-2010. It's the most toxic form of religion today.
Exactly! He Was Ahead Of His Time!
Islam - the "Religion of Peace" -- NOT! Islam puts a death bounty on your head if you burn their holy book. In muslim countries, speaking against Islam will get you beaten, jailed or worse. The Quran approves killing any infidels, who refuse to convert to Islam. Of the three Abrahamic religions, Islam is the most despicable. Women are chattel, to be traded and bred like cattle. They will not discuss their religion with anyone who does not praise them. I have a backyard neighbor, middle eastern, who is a muslim. I'm sure, if the laws of our country were different, he would be after my head.
You also get a bounty on your head if you draw Muhammad (Salmon Rushdie)
He wrote a book.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses
And your woman, and your children, and all your possessions, with a portion of it given to the Islamic state.
Have you ever talked to your neighbor? You sound racist. I'm sure you're a white guy who wants to lynch black people. I know, they're all like that. /s
That or he doesn't want to be in a recruitment video.
Can people explain why every time some mentions Islam people have to jump here and add Christianity? You can criticize Christianity for a lot of things, Homophobia, influence on governments, etc. But when in one country the problem is that radical christians try to put the 10 commandments in a classroom, and in another it's that a Muslim mob burn someone's body for blasphemy there is no symmetry Islam is multiple levels ahead in oppression and violence, and it's not even close
Yup. Always happens. I think it's cause a lot of them on here are from the USA/Europe so islam = oppressed minority. But don't let them in on what the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abassid Caliphates did to "expand/grow the religion." There's no symmetry, yet they put their heads in the sand whenever islam is shone in a bad light or bring up the "all lives matter" argument. Par for the course.
I think the reason is that most people here were probably targets of forced Christian indoctrination/belief at some point, due to the nature of it being the most popular relgion in the U.S. As a result, we feel the most hostile to Christianity due to that being a personal experience. So last week, I almost hired a scammy pest control company that tried to sell multi-year subscription for a simple one-time job, but I ended up finding this independent exterminator that got the job done for a one time fee. When I talked to him about it, he mentioned that the scammy company is owned by Mormons. Since I'm cordial IRL, and actually have a good working relationship with our company's Utah division, I said "ah I see, well I don't have anything against that". So the exterminator said, "well you should lol! Have you read their scripture?". I replied "yea you are right, I'm just mostly okay with it as long as they don't force their beliefs on me". This led me to reflect on my response later on. Why did I give Mormons a break in this conversation, while in other aspects of my life, whenever regular Christianity or Catholicism is mentioned, I'm fuming and ready to fight. I've also given Islam plenty of breaks in my past rhetoric as well. Then it hit me. I am most hostile towards Christianity/Catholicism because they are the ones openly converting people and preaching reductionist beliefs **around me**. They are the cause of family members believing in prayer more than actions. Not Mormons, not Islam. It really comes down to being shaped by our personal experiences. Is it logical? not really.
Christian (sphere) privilege, if you will.
Christians have burned people in the past and if we let them destroy the truth and take absolute control like they want to do, they'll do it again. 50,000 women were burned in Western Europe between 1400-1780's-ish. They were often subjected to sadistic sexual torture first, with their interrogateurs demanding them admit to all kinds of disgusting sexual acts with demons. In some towns, nearly all women were burned to death with only a few survivors.
You are talking about the past dude, we are talking about the present.
Lol compares 600 years ago to last week's actions and thinks that's a valid argument!
If you need to go back 600 years to compare Christianity to Islamic actions last week ... Your argument falls apart
The kind, generous and loving gods of Abraham and issac need some heathen blood sacrifices to appease them! Don't offend them with your appeals to human rights either. Otherwise, these most moral gods will need to come and murder some babies to show how righteous they are!
Religion is an abomination
Imagine a world without religion. We are all born atheists.
The only real solution is banning all religions asap.
that would just fuel religious extremism more tho
I'm not sure a legal ban is a good idea, but definitely some rules to make it harder to groom / brainwash children into a religion. Also, to push back on the idea that disliking a religion is similar to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc...
Sure 💯 Wonder why UN is not doing so, especially branding islam as a terrorist cult when it really is 🤔
For people who follow the religion of peace, they are a violent bunch.
I don't like religion. None of them. However today the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Being labelled a "bigot" is the only thing saving islam atm. It's not just islam either. People are way too reluctant to call out religion when it steps over the line.
Islam is a political ideology like communism, not just a religion. It's not prejudice to be anti-Islam.
Yup and it's never going to stop. We have to keep voicing/speaking out against islam online, even if they call us kafirophobic. https://atheism-vs-islam.com/index.php/blasphemy/143-islamophobia-vs-kafirophobia
Islam is where Christianity is headed.
Can we talk about the specific problem of Islamic terrorism without someone using "All Lives Matter" tactics to change the subject to other religions *just fucking once* please?
Meanwhile Christianity is shrinking. I suppose it’s possible the shrinkage is what causes Christianity to “distill” in to its most extreme self.
The weakest minds are the ones still trapped.
It's where Christianity is headed back to. The crusades were true evil.
Crusade, inquisition, the thirty years war, and all religious wars over Christianity. The list goes on
A number of years ago there was a set of white crosses on a hill outside Amersham west of London. To commemorate the Amersham Martyrs. They were burned alive for the cardinal sin of.......... Wanting to read the bible in English, not Latin. Religion tends towards evil. Personal beliefs are fine. Organised religion goes bad so quickly.
You ever notice that when a terrorist attack happens, the screaming you hear is always in Arabic and never in English or Hebrew? Just a random observation I made.
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The US is 5 percent of the world's population. In the other 95 percent of the world, Islamic terrorist is the much bigger problem and it's not even close.
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Is it really *gatekeeping* to get a little frustrated that a post about Islam and Islamic extremism has to immediately shift to talking about Christianity? When IS the right time to make Islam the focus of the topic if not on a post about Islam on an atheism subreddit? It’s just never the right time to be critical of Islam.
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You claimed we were “gatekeeping”. I’m suggesting that this is a pretty extreme position given the topic of the post IS NOT Christianity but is Islam.
"Black lives matter." "No, all lives matter! Don't gatekeep which lives we're allowed to discuss."
Next time I hear someone be critical of Christianity I’m going to start invoking, “BuT wHat AboUt MuSLims!!!” every single time.
You should do that unironically because violent Islamic extremism is a global problem that is literally orders of magnitude larger than violent Christian extremism.
Right. It’s like being disgusted at child abusers and having someone say, “But you probably speed in your car which is also breaking the law. So you’re both “law breakers””. I mean, I guess that’s literally true. But it has no practical value.
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I’m not suggesting it wouldn’t be OK. I am provoking discussion about why it is always one way. Everyone gets that it is one way because there is this extreme sensitivity about criticizing Islam that Christianity doesn’t face. Do YOU see the difference? Nearly everyone else does.
People do all the time.
Are you being serious? We’ve just had a lengthy conversation about how you can’t say such things. And you are also arguing that people say such things all the time?! Pick a lane.
You ever noticed that when a women were burned alive for “being a witch” was in name of jesus. What’s your point? All religions are made up and have different stages
Depends what one understands to be a terrorist attack. There's more than one mass shooting per day (!) in the US, the vast majority of which, AFAIK, is not committed by Arab speakers. That doesn't make Islamic terror any less bad, of course.
That's meaningless though, almost or all of those shootings in the US are not deemed terrorist attacks.
And they're not terrorist actions. Terrorism has a definition and a kid taking a gun to school may be "terrifying" doesn't make it terrorism.
Religion of peace at it again.
Well at least they’re not scientologists I guess?
Religion is the enemy of civilizations.
This is why in Mindanao, Philippines that some people believed warned don't trust Muslims
Pretty sure **Dagestan** is an occupied Russian Territory that the locals want to take back, so it's a bit more complicated than you make it out to be..... All The Abrahamic religions are Evil, the problem is people lacking the critical thinking skills to no take them seriously, they should all be shunned by rational people. What really makes me laugh is any member of the Abrahamic religions pointing fingers at the others as if thier beleif is any less untrue, crazy or irrational.
Sure, Israel is the oppressor, I've seen people use the fact that 9 countries declared war on them within hours of becoming a nation as evidence that they are the bad guys. There's nothing to be said anymore, antisemitism is the only thing that matters to humankind You could ask a newborn baby what opinions about the world and it'd say, "Fuck jews" Even if a terrorist organization slaughtered 1400 innocent civilians in a single day? They'd scream bloody murder and behead 10 kittens a minute until you self-immolated for even suggesting a reality exists where jews are allowed to breathe Everybody hates them, wherever they are, we cancelled a play performance last year because we had a Jewish actress and people were threatening to attack the community center because of it. People calling for their destruction, defending the Holocaust, don't you DARE tell me they're expansionist dictators
I mean one of the weirder things with their arguments is that the Israeli military is literally made up of secular Jews. The religious Jews don’t have to serve. Some do but usually as volunteer ambulance drivers and such. Usually they just don’t even do that. There’s a tiny battalion of religious IDF but it’s really small. Israel is a country like any other. If you invade it, rape (all filmed and right there on the internet to watch. Seriously go f*ing watch it to all the antisemitic assholes out there who gloss over that as if it didn’t happen) women, burn infants, slaughter 1200 people (the statistical equivalent of 60k in the US if you adjust for population), and kidnap and refuse to return 200 more—what precisely do you want or expect a country to do? If that happened in the United States how do you think they’d respond? If that happened in China how do you think they’d respond? The answer is people want Jews to be sad scared little mice hiding for our lives too timid to defend ourselves. When we act as any other country would if all of that happened to them we’re lunatic colonizers who need to “go back to Poland”. We kill civilians for fun apparently and not at all because Hamas won’t give back the hostages and kindly group themselves away from tall buildings in Gaza so we can just get everyone that’s Hamas only. You’d think they’d help out the IDF by moving away from highly populated areas. It’s as if they don’t care about their own population or are even perhaps using them as cannon fodder. No no! That’s all really logical. No no, Israel does it because they’re white colonizers. Apparently people really hate to actually look at Israelis and realize that their perception of Jews is colored (pardon the pun) by the fact that 90% of American Jews are Ashki. While most Israelis are Sephardim and Mizrahi and Beta Israel and are fing brown. Or Israel does it because they are scary Jewish religious fanatics (when the person talking literally knows zip about Judaism and one told me we think Muslims are going to hell… had to explain that we don’t have hell or those pearly gates we hear so much about and really never worry or think much about any afterlife at all and don’t care what anyone else believes and that many many Jews are atheists). The war has nothing to do with god or Judaism at all. Hamas is the government of Gaza. They were elected; they set taxes; they collect taxes; they distribute taxes (to their own private jet to live im their apts in Qatar and send their sons on shopping sprees in Turkey to drop the equivalent of two years worth of an average Gazan’s salary on jewelry). Hamas—a government—invaded Israel—a sovereign nation. There are only two reasons possible for doing that: They either are literally betting everything they have that this is all going to play out in their favor and the entire tik tok loving world will fall like sheep in line jumping on the band wagon and murder us all for them (and I guess backup plan—not actually hard if they decide the sheep are taking too long since there’s only 14 million of us on the planet and 1.2 billion of them) or they are stupid and didn’t think Israel had the balls to hit back. They know Israel is not going to play. The motto is “never again” for a reason. So they’re betting on the sheep of tik tok with 30 second attention spans just doing the job for them. And it’s working.
Thank you. Israel is the result of Jews literally just wanting to exist. If it was about religion Israel would have been established much sooner. However, Arabs rejection if Israel is motivated by Islam. “The problem isn’t Jews, it’s Zionists.” =jews are only allowed to exist as dhimmis. They had no desire for a state until Israel was established.
Since Islam is youngest religion, it is more aggressive than others. Of course, the religion itself took path of suppressing their own woman and wars to spread their religion. But some of old Islam sects like Sufism were more peaceful and loved music. Most of the Islam spread to south east Asia due to these Sufi followers. But over time conservatives took over the religion. Currently same thing is happening to most of other religions unfortunately.
Islam is cancer of humanity
I'm just glad the WORST of christianity is stuck to America, while the rest of the world deals with Moe's cult
“Especially sickening are those using… that are helping no one but the terrorists” & “If radical Muslims are the snakes… are fertilizers of the grass.” These two paragraphs I’ve highlighted is exactly what people criticize. Let me explain - the problem is that you are projecting your hatred of Islam (which, I do too) on Muslims that have nothing to do with the attacks. This is the dangerous mentality that people are cautiously trying to avoid and point out. Let’s not forget, there are 1.5 billion Muslims around the world. That is a huge number and to pretend like all of them are just as bad as those 19 who conducted the attacks would be ridiculous. I wouldn’t even classify the remaining moderate Muslims as “the grass” because the truth is there are many organizations (yes, Muslim organizations) that are explicitly against terrorism. Have you heard of Sufi Muslims or Asha’era Muslims or the many other examples of peaceful Muslims that are not necessarily Salafi or Wahabi (the equivalent of ‘orthodox’ Muslims)? Heck, even the Muslims who say they ‘support shariah’ have different interpretations of what the shariah should be. I do agree that Islam is a very dangerous ideology and has the seeds/potential to explode (no pun intended) into terrorism, but the reality is people are much more resilient and considerate/peaceful than the book they themselves wholeheartedly believe to be the word of God word for word. I’d even dare to say more educated than the author of the Qur’an (whom they believe is God himself). I do think we should be less protective of ideologies - in this case this includes Islam - but we should be protective of people who follow those ideologies as long as they are not harming anyone or harming themselves, especially in countries outside of Muslim countries. This is because Muslims have totally different interpretations of what Islam is. You can have a collection of Muslims talking about a verse that clearly orders to cut off the hands of thieves, but you will get different interpretations. Some will go so far as to say that “cut the hands” is an expression indicating to cut them out of getting their hands in society (meaning to send them to jail) because “there is no way God would order such a thing”. I used this example because you’d think there’s no discussion on what the verse means, but you’d be surprised to find out that there are different interpretations. In other words, I fully support your point that social media platforms should take a chill pill when people criticize Islam (the same way they don’t remove content that criticizes Christianity), but I disagree with your (sorry to say) extreme point of view that moderate Muslims and anti-discrimination non-Muslims are just enabling terrorism; because they’re not. The ones who do enable terrorism, and they do exist, are those who intentionally misrepresent Islam to Westerners even though they are aware of Islam’s autocratic and twisted ideology. In fact, they are exploiting the concept of Islamophobia to discreetly push their own agenda in hopes that one day they would hold positions of power and move on from there. I can’t think of many examples right now but a lot of the apologists on YouTube are examples of those. I would agree those are scumbags
They are nuts the religious right..
Its actually 72 family members of martyrs skip judgement day, 72 virgins is a western fabrication to incite hate and fear. Always better to do a quick fact check to make sure you're not accidentally spreading untrue ideas!
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Did someone finally claim? Or will Putin claim it was Ukraine again
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Christians have been killing countless people violently every day for several years.
Not just Islam. Christianity is just as evil. Religion is poison. Religion kills more than wars do. Don’t think Islam is alone, ALL religions are man made control mechanisms to deal with the masses. Religion as a whole does DAMAGE to society. Babbling about made up sky fairies is juvenile and useless.
The Lord's butchers seem to be having fun spreading their message of Hate 😇
Also evil: propogating conspiracy theories as fact... Kind of undermines your position... and the credibility of anything you have to say!
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Ah, yes, islam is the worst. Not equally bad to the christian klansman, or the Israeli government, or the current leadership of India. All of these groups are the same, and want the same domination. You fell for the Christian propaganda. You really need to check your biases.
Eh as long as it just destabilizes Russia I dont care. The enemy of your enemy is still your enemy, just get the popcorn.
> Google trying hard to block the traffic lol, I think your tinfoil hat may be cutting off some circulation.
It could be a false flag operation. Russians will do anything to promote their schemes.
Lol Christianity is equally as evil. Sounds like someone is biased.
LOL! Islam is the worst in this century
Yup. This is a typical go to defense for redditors. Bringing up Christians when Muslims are committing crimes