How does being concerned about spread of Islam in the West make someone far-right?

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Reply 20

Craig1998

Original post by KingBradly

Show me one part of the Dhammapada which is "shady". This seems like an uninformed overgeneralisation.

Side-stepping right wingers like usual.

Reply 21

Studentus-anonymous

Original post by KingBradly

Are you suggesting that certain left-wingers often base their opinions on simply being opposite to the opinions of those they see as enemies, rather than actually trying to use critical thinking?

Bingo.

It's called by some the "Regressive Left", which basically means the same sort of fanatical political extremists that are making the same mistakes and failures as the far right they claim to loath, but in truth they are just the flip-side of.

One wears black, the other wears red, both are loud and stupid.

Then there's the rest of us along the spectrum but generally orbiting the middle.

One-day the human species at large will embrace a politics based on reason, compromise and the context of situations/issues.

On that day it'll be perfectly fine to point out that some Muslims are backwards tossers without being shouted down as a racist, nor pointing out most Muslims are just normal human beings trying to make a go of it and aren't extremists get you labelled some "liberal" cuck or something.

A man can dream.

Reply 22

jeremy1988

Original post by offhegoes

Nice little rant, but you are stereotyping liberals in exactly the same way that OP is complaining about people stereotyping those who criticise Islam.

I should have qualified to say that I don't mean ALL liberals. But it seems like so many liberals these days think this way that the ones who don't get drowned out and shouted down.

In a nutshell, I think the left at this point pretty much has to embrace something like Secular Humanism over moral relativism, or they really don't have a future.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 23

KingBradly

Original post by Craig1998

Side-stepping right wingers like usual.

My point (which you ironically seem to have missed) is that saying all religions are "shady" is disingenuous and aims to deflect valid criticism with a gross oversimplification that entirely (again rather ironically) misses "the point". Some religions are clearly far more "shady" than others, and that is the heart of the matter, not sidestepping at all.

Reply 24

TheTechN1304

It doesn't. What I find incredibly ironic is how young liberals will jump at any opportunity to defend Islam and label any speech against the religion as 'Islamaphobic', when that very same religion preaches that apostates and gays should be killed, that women are worth less than men, among other verses of hate, violence and intolerance. Ahh the wonders of the regressive left.

Reply 25

KingBradly

Original post by offhegoes

Yes, as I've said I do understand being anti-religion, without agreeing with that attitude.

But the part in bold interests me - course of action to what end? What is your objective?

Ignoring truths, lacking consistancy, using arguments that are more concerned with the allegiances of the people arguing than the matter at hand, and people quacking out at best meaningless and at worst wildly inmaccurate platitudes such as "Islam is a religion of peace" or refusing to acknowledge that Islamic texts and certain cultures that surround it have had an influence in creating Islamic State is all pretty dangerous because it's not addressing reality. How can you begin to address problems like Islamic extremism, the subjugation of women or the treatment of gays in many Islamic cultures if one isn't able to actually address obvious realities without being dismissed and given a nasty label? When the BBC refuses to acknowledge a link between Islam and ISIS, you have a problem. I have no objective other than to desire reason and critical thinking on this matter to be valued more than fawning platitudes, ad-hominem arguments, and blatent deflections.

Reply 26

Craig1998

Original post by KingBradly

And my point was an answer to the question you posed for this thread. We both know you side-stepped that to try and prove some sort of point (idk what though).

Reply 27

1420787

Original post by KingBradly

You are taking the stances of the very worst people who you deem to be in the "liberal" group and using their attitudes to misrepresent and tarnish essentially all liberals who reconise a need to defend Islam from the attacks of some of the people who might be deemed to be in "your group."

Try taking a step back from criticising this liberal stereotype you keep harping on about and instead discuss the points in a reasonable manner.

It is possible for a "right-winger" and a "liberal" to have a meaningful discussion about Islam without falling into Strawman arguments every two minutes :smile:

Reply 28

KingBradly

Original post by offhegoes

But I'm not doing that at all. That is a strawman you yourself have created. I am a self proclaimed liberal, and I am aware of many liberals who take a similar stance to me, such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bill Maher, and Maajid Nawaz.

I am targeting a very large group of people though. This is not just a fringe group of liberals. It's not even necessarily confined to liberals, or to the left, although the "regressive left" are the worst offenders. This is a huge group of people. As I said, even the BBC goes so far as to call ISIS the "so-called" Islamic State in an effort to absolve Islam of responsibility. The very mindless platitude I spoke of, "the religion of peace" is a neologism which was invented by politicians after 9/11, and was used by the likes of George Bush. Don't pretend these problems are merely confined to a fringe group.

Reply 29

1420787

Original post by KingBradly

I'll do that when you stop pretending the majority of people who criticise Islam do so fairly, differentiating between a religion followed peacefully by over a billion people worldwide and an ideology involving a tiny minority of Muslims involved in terrorism :wink:

Done? So, Islam is clearly not going anywhere in a hurry and neither is Christianity or any of the other major religions. So the question is, how do we minimise the negative elements of organised religion?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 30

MrControversial

Because some people like to make massive irrational leaps. I believe most people merely want immigration controls to avoid our cultures being snuffed out merely by sheer numbers and rates of breeding of various groups.

Those who take a leap think that if we recognise a real issue on a cultural level and in respect to wanting to preserve ours it will somehow lead to mistreatment, workcamps, slavery, genocide and other nonsense.

Of course you could say the same about the movement against "xenophobes". Much has already been done to make criticism of Islam a taboo, a "sin", socially unacceptable, stigmatised, blasphemy, heresy.

Why not criminalise it further? Why not have people take "openness" and "tolerance" tests as part of the hiring process? Why not have people sent to re-education camps? Why not have mass immigration and force people to mingle to crush the xenophobia out of them and to destroy their identity and any pride they have in it? Why not search for the genetics behind group identity and eliminate it once and for all? Nothing is working, mass immigration is only breeding more xenophobia so what exactly will be the final solution against xenophobes, nationalists, racists, bigots and so on?

Reply 31

MrControversial

Original post by offhegoes

I think this the important part - Islam itself is not an ideology, it is a religion. Just like Christianity has poisonous ideologies based upon it (KKK, sectarianism in Ireland), Islam has ideologies cultivated based upon it. ISIS being of course the most prominent, alongside brutal regimes such as in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan. Whilst most of the worst of Christian idologies and regimes have died out in the last few centuries, many Islamic ones still persist and are even growing.

These brutal regimes and cult-like ideologies based on Islam (and Buddhism, and Christianity, et...) should be condemned wherever they appear, of course.

But to rail against Islam itself is to rail against the billions of peaceful Muslims living all around the world. For me it is when people do this that I am likely to have some thoughts about their attitudes, with the exception of those who condemn all organised religion, which is a viewpoint that I don't agree with but do understand.

Religion is ideology, that's not really something you can work around.

Worse ideologies do spin off all religions and even good ideologies, even science or pacifism can be misappropriated.

At this point that's not really relevant. What is are the facts of the matter which is that Islam, where ever you go it very nearly always significantly more conservative on a much larger scale than anything else. It also heavily believes in propagation and domination.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 32

The_Opinion

I find it a little unusual how you call him "Mo", but then also use the "pbuh" thing, how come?

Reply 33

Crassy

It doesn't make sense until you understand that the left is merely anti-western civilisation more than anything.

Reply 34

username471863

It depends; if you have an unhealthy obsession with Muslims, portraying them as a threat and exaggerating how widespread a religion with adherents whose percentage doesn't even reach the double digits in nearly every Western country is, you would appear to be so. The conspiracy theories that "they're taking over" is both dehumanising to an entire religious groups and inaccurate fear mongering. Sounds more like scapegoating than concern.

Reply 35

TorpidPhil

Original post by KingBradly

While banning Muslims from the country would be an illiberal action, I think criticizing Muslims can come from a liberal perspective. For example, over half of Muslims in the UK think homosexuality should be illegal. I think any liberal can criticise Muslim's as a demographic for harbouring such homophobic views, just as they can criticise bible thumpers in the Deep South. Additionally, a certain degree of intolerance towards intolerant groups is necessary for a level of tolerance to exist at all.

"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

I wish there was a female form of you.

You're just me. But younger.

Clever kid :wink:

Reply 36

1420787

Original post by MrControversial

To simply say religion is ideology is glib and frankly untrue. They are not synonyms.

That said, I find it significant that OP isn't talking about what to do about Christianity as well, his emphasis is squarely on Islam. So I can only assume that he is at this point not set on ridding the world of religion, just on ridding it of the most oppressive ideologies and regimes.

If so then great, we're in agreement - we need to tackle brutality, oppression and inequality wherever it occurs. But let's handle it with tact and recognise that the focus is on those uncompromising hardline regumes and ideologies, not on the entire religion. Maybe we can talk about those based on other religions too.

If not, and he is indeed waging war on religion, then why is only Islam being talked about?

The only way to discuss these matters is with honesty. Not mud-flinging.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 37

ReddBeard

Because as a White person you do not have the right to protect your people, your culture or future

It is what it is

Our politicians have sold us out

Only a bloody revolution can reverse this and it's not going to happen

Reply 38

ODES_PDES

Original post by ReddBeard

I share your views

Reply 39

MrControversial

Original post by offhegoes

Religion is just ideology and I think it's important to establish this. The only thing that makes religion seem different is because it is ancient ideology that a huge number support and that is ingrained into untold numbers of children through a process of indoctrination throughout centuries or even millenniums.

It's important to realise that outside of this religion is neither special nor fundamental. There is nothing special about it setting it apart. It's no more than thoughts, beliefs, ideas just like any other system. It's a matter of software, not hardware. Nurture, not nature aside from the human flaws that make people vulnerable to religion.

Understanding exactly what religion is and how to separate idea, belief and so on from human flaws is absolutely critical in understanding the world around us and the mistakes we might make yet again in future because while religion is ideology, you can also call ideology religion and I do mean in the worst sense.

Human rights, democracy for example is now followed with a religious zeal, it is the new master morality, master ideology. Even anti-racism and all the positive movements of the previous few generations are under threat due to dogma, fanaticism and extremism. You're drawing lines between religion and other things that are not really there and potentially failing to see the prevailing pattern of human folly underlying any and all such systems of belief, good or bad.

> If not, and he is indeed waging war on religion, then why is only Islam being talked about?

Religion may suck in general but not all religions are equal. Islam at present is problematic. There's no more religion at present as conservative or with as a strong a will to spread, become dominant and so on. Islam is going to get more attention but there are other factors as well such as suddenly we're not allowed to criticise or speak ill of Islam, if you dislike it you're a xenophobe. This is massively in contrast with our cultural beliefs and practices. We do not like being told what to think, who to like, who to suck up to. We do not like having Islamic values put ahead of our own. But don't worry, we know it's not Islam doing much of this, it's the liberal left that have lost their marbles.

Christianity is in decline. We've spent decades ridiculing it and expressing our distaste for it. It's Islam that just came out of the blue that suddenly we were not allowed to mock even when it was barely the focus of our attention so I think you need to go a bit back further in time with your question and ask why it is that you demand special treatment for Islam? Better treatment than we give to all other religions. Why is it only Islam that we were told we can't talk about? This whole oh look at poor Islam thing your type is waging on about is self invented. It's called the Streisand effect.