There have been an increasing number of articles in the media portraying those who criticize Islam as “Islamophobes,” and about the pressure Muslims apply (using the “I”-word) to quash those who dare question their faith. How refreshing, then, to see someone of a Muslim background call out this nonsense.
The author is Ali Rivzi, a Canadian-Pakistani physician and author who’s now writing a book called The Atheist Muslim. (I hope he has bodyguards!). And his piece, in Monday’s HuffPo, is called “The phobia of being called Islamophobic.” It says a lot of sensible things, and also reprises the latest kerfuffles over “Islamophobia,” including the rescinding of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s invitation to speak at Brandeis, the cancellation of the film Honor Diaries at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois at Chicago (shame, shame on them!), the London School of Economics’ ridiculous kerfuffle over Jesus and Mo tee shirts, and Katy Perry’s removing a scene from one of her music videos because it offended Muslims.
But the most important thing Rivzi does is draw a clear distinction between dislike of Islam as a faith and dislike of Muslims as people. Only the latter is “Islamophobia,” just as “anti-Semitism” is dislike of Jews, not criticality of the tenets of Judaism:
For decades, Muslims around the world have rightly complained about the Israeli government labeling even legitimate criticism of its policies “anti-Semitic,” effectively shielding itself from accountability. Today, Muslim organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) have borrowed a page from their playbook with the “Islamophobia” label — and taken it even further.
In addition to calling out prejudice against Muslims (a people), the term “Islamophobia” seeks to shield Islam itself (an ideology) from criticism. It’s as if every time you said smoking was a filthy habit, you were perceived to be calling all smokers filthy people. Human beings have rights and are entitled to respect. But when did we start extending those rights to ideas, books, and beliefs? You’d think the difference would be clear, but it isn’t. The ploy has worked over and over again, and now everyone seems petrified of being tagged with this label.
The phobia of being called “Islamophobic” is on the rise — and it’s becoming much more rampant, powerful, and dangerous than Islamophobia itself.
He then goes after the CAIR, which might also be called OMHF (Organization for Muslims with Hurt Feelings):
Last month, a white American man successfully convinced the Massachusetts liberal arts school Brandeis University that he was being victimized and oppressed by a black African woman from Somalia — a woman who underwent genital mutilation at age five and travels with armed security at risk of being assassinated.
That is the power of this term.
The man, Ibrahim Hooper, is a Muslim convert and a founding member and spokesman for CAIR. The woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is an unapologetic activist for the rights of girls and women and a harsh, no-holds-barred critic of the religious ideologies (particularly the Islamic ideology in Muslim-majority countries that she experienced first-hand) that perpetuate and maintain their abuse. Having abandoned the Islamic faith of her parents and taken a stance against it, she is guilty of apostasy, a crime that is punishable by death according to most Islamic scholars, not to mention the holy text itself.
Here’s a screenshot of the Qur’anic verse used to justify murder for apostasy (from the link):
Hirsi Ali was also involved with the award-winning documentary, Honor Diaries, which explores violence against women in honor-based societies, including female genital mutilation (FGM), honor killings, domestic violence, and forced marriage. Despite featuring the voices of several practicing Muslim women, the film was deemed “Islamophobic” by — you guessed it — the poor folks at CAIR. Again, they felt they were the real victims, wanting their own voices heard while silencing those of the victims of FGM and honor killing in the film.
“So what?” you say. “It’s 2014. No one’s going to take that kind of position seriously, right?”
Wrong. Astonishingly, this ludicrous argument was enough to convince both the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan to cancel their screenings of the film.
It’s astonishing to me that people who not only dislike tenets of Catholicism, for instance, but regularly go after it publicly and vociferously, pull back when it comes to Islam. I think there are two reasons for this. The first, of course, is fear. Despite the bullying tactics of Bill Donohue, Catholics aren’t wont to murder those who disagree with them. Let no one doubt (and you’re blind if you do) that Muslims have cowed many of us into submission by the implicit threat that offending Muslims will bring on violence.
Second, the “Islamophobia” canard is a form of reverse racism. Muslims with hurt feelings are catered to more often simply because they look different from Westerners, and come from a different culture. It smacks of racism, so the argument goes, to criticize the “cultural” practices of such people. That’s why we have the conflation between the reprehensible tenets of Islam itself and the “Islamophobia” canard implying dislike of Muslims as people. I will confess to disliking any Muslim who fervently believes in sharia law, the suppression of women, the murder of apostates, and so on, but not those Muslims who don’t adhere to those doctrines, but disliking them for their views, not as humans. (All of us have friends with some views we dislike.) It’s the practice of those tenets that I find odious, just as I’d dislike the ideas of any Catholic who tried to excuse child rape by priests.
Rivzi continues, quoting Sam Harris:
After being publicly accused by Glenn Greenwald of “spouting and promoting Islamophobia,” Sam Harris responded with these words, which should be read by everyone:
“Needless to say, there are people who hate Arabs, Somalis, and other immigrants from predominantly Muslim societies for racist reasons. But if you can’t distinguish that sort of blind bigotry from a hatred and concern for dangerous, divisive, and irrational ideas — like a belief in martyrdom, or a notion of male ‘honor’ that entails the virtual enslavement of women and girls — you are doing real harm to our public conversation. Everything I have ever said about Islam refers to the content and consequences of its doctrine. And, again, I have always emphasized that its primary victims are innocent Muslims — especially women and girls.
There is no such thing as ‘Islamophobia.’ This is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it.”
The fear of being called Islamophobic once led many prominent Westerners to abandon their own values when they abandoned Salman Rushdie. It led Yale to publish a book about the Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy, but without the cartoons. It led Comedy Central to censor the show South Park on more than one occasion for fear of offending Muslims, even though the show irreverently lambastes virtually every other religion on a regular basis, unhindered.
Rivzi, in fact, is endangering himself merely by saying stuff that is obvious, like the above. He further opens himself up with his truthful and eloquent conclusion:
As I’ve written before, this is an effective deterrent. This is exactly how terrorism works. This is how perfectly intelligent, well-read writers, commentators, and broadcasters become silenced by the Islamophobia smear fear — and rationalize themselves into becoming unaware victims of it.
When you’re unable to introduce Pakistan-style blasphemy laws in a secular, Western society, you have to find alternative ways to silence those who offend you, right?
Now certainly there are true Islamophobes: those who recoil at the sight of Muslims, and dislike them on principle simply because they’re foreigners (although there are many American Muslims). This isn’t racism, for Muslims are not an ethnic group, but simple xenophobia. And I must admit that I, too, recoil when I see a woman shrouded in a burqa, which, to me, instantiates the endemic misogyny of Islam. But we have to fight against this xenophobia and remember that the target is religious beliefs themselves: the beliefs of what happens to be the world’s most odious and dangerous faith. The way to get Muslims to stop cowing us with their implicit threats is not to be cowed by them, but simply laugh them off. Yes, that will stir up nastiness, but better that then devolve into a country where we’re not free to criticize pernicious doctrines.
Have a look at this report on the cancellation of the film Honor Diaries, which shows clips from the film, as well as an interview with a really disingenuous Muslim woman, Agnieska Karoluk (coordinator for CAIR events in Chicago), who defends the film’s cancellation.
It’s a shame that criticism of CAIR comes largely from the right-wing media (Fox News in this case). Liberals, of course, are those who are most afraid to appear Islamophobic, and it must be admitted that some conservatives are genuine Islamophobes. But just because someone holds politically conservative views does not mean that she’s always wrong. To consider conservatives always wrong a priori is in fact to reject the tenets of skepticism, for it is the ideas, not their exponents, that matter.
…ah boy…
Islam-o-skepticism.
For me, Islamophobes are those ultra-rightwing fear-mongers who claim that Europe will be overrun by Muslims, who claim that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia law in all Western countries, and who promulgate the killing of all Muslims and the nuking of their holy cities – and the naive and gullible followers of these fear-mongers.
Hmmm … who is the fear-monger(er) here? I think you are being disingenuous by equating, say for example, expressing a genuine concern re muslim/non-muslim birth rates (particularly in western Europe) to wanting to nuke everybody. Your attitude is exactly the point of the article, just coming from the other end.
That concern may be genuine but is baseless, it is part of the Islamophobe propaganda.
Surprisingly, not all Muslim societies think that high birth rates are desirable or somehow non-Islamic. Iran – very much a theocratic society – has promoted birth control for more than twenty years, as its population pyramid makes clear. That would suggest that if high birth rates are a concern, then it makes more sense to argue against high birth rates. If you don’t like the tenets of Islam then argue against them. Honestly, the tenets of Islam and Christianity seem to me to be about equally vile, the latter only seem more inocuous because fewer current adherents take them seriously.
OT, but that’s a nice site with population pyramids. Shows that misogyny (infanticide) in some societies is a quite visible thing: look for instance at the proportions of male/female in China: consistently more male than female (greater differences than in, say, Canada) up until the age group of 65-69. More or less the same for India.
“expressing a genuine concern re muslim/non-muslim birth rates (particularly in western Europe)”
I assume there is some sort of study which has shown a birth rate disparity, and if so, that there’s some reason to be concerned beyond a general feeling of “OMG MUSLIMS TAKING OVER!”
Even with a very high rate of births among Muslims in Europe, it will take several generations before it can correctly be perceived as a cause for concern:
http://www.muslimpopulation.com/Europe/
Indeed. This paranoia, sorry, “perfectly valid opinion” can only correspond to reality if: (a) muslims living in Europe have a significantly higher birthrates than non-muslims; (b) this is a trend that will continue indefinitely into the future; (c) future generations will retain their identity as muslims rather than Dutch/German/French/etc, and (d) uh, sharia and we all die or something.
I suppose that a theoretical future problem is easier to deal with than the complexities of reality.
The birth-rate concern seems to be raised with respect to minority groups again and again. “They breed like rats” is a time-honored cry of bigots.
What, this kind of stuff?
“The demographic trends are ominous: Given current birthrates, France could be a majority Muslim country in 25 years, and that is if immigration were to stop tomorrow. Throughout Western Europe, Muslim immigrants show little inclination to acquire the secular and civil values of their host countries, and yet exploit these values to the utmost—demanding tolerance for their backwardness, their misogyny, their anti-Semitism, and the genocidal hatred that is regularly preached in their mosques.”
Sam Harris,
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-reality-of-islam
“And one of the problems we have is that many Muslims, for understandable reasons and some for really deplorable reasons, are playing hide the ball with the articles of faith, and are eager to have the conversations of the sort you have had from a very cynical and manipulative perspective. We’re just going to keep having big families, and eventually it’s going to be Eurabia, and the war will be won. There are people who really think in those terms, and they’re not necessarily just the people in the center of the bull’s-eye of Islamic infatuation.”
“The demographic trends are ominous: Given current birthrates, France could be a majority Muslim country in 25 years, and that is if immigration were to stop tomorrow…
Absolute nonsense and mathematically impossible.
Throughout Western Europe, Muslim immigrants show little inclination to acquire the secular and civil values of their host countries, and yet exploit these values to the utmost—demanding tolerance for their backwardness, their misogyny, their anti-Semitism, and the genocidal hatred that is regularly preached in their mosques.”
Not all Muslim immigrants, by any stretch, just a minority.
Indeed.
“And one of the problems we have is that many Muslims, for understandable reasons and some for really deplorable reasons, are playing hide the ball with the articles of faith, and are eager to have the conversations of the sort you have had from a very cynical and manipulative perspective. We’re just going to keep having big families, and eventually it’s going to be Eurabia, and the war will be won. There are people who really think in those terms, and they’re not necessarily just the people in the center of the bull’s-eye of Islamic infatuation.”
Only a minuscule minority of Muslims in the US and in Europe think and speak that way. Your Sam Harris may be a good neuroscientist, but he is a piss poor assessor of reality where Muslim immigrants in Europe are concerned. In fact, I find him full of irrational prejudice akin to Antisemitism of the worst kind, reminiscent of the anti-Jew propaganda in the nineteenth century and the first half of the 20th century. Despicable at best.
“Only a minuscule minority of Muslims in the US and in Europe think and speak that way.”
Can you provide any data to back up your assertion?
Of the eleven or so million Muslims in Europe (out of a population of half a billion people in Europe), only a small handful act and speak that way.
You want data? Read this:
http://www.euronews.com/2012/01/06/should-europe-fear-islamic-extremists/
I almost forgot. Did you know that
“Insofar as there is a crime problem in Western Europe, it is largely the product of immigration. Seventy percent of the inmates of France’s jails, for instance, are Muslim.”
Kind of like African Americans in the US…
Are you insinuating those African-Americans are in jail for any other reason than they committed crimes? Do they just round up African-Americans as they find them and incarcerate them? Absurd. They are in jail because they commit crimes. It’s as simple as that.
There is certainly data to disprove it. According to Pew, the French Muslim population is forecasted by the Pew Research Centre to grow to 10% by 2030 from its present figure of 7.5%, and France will be the Western European state with the highest number of Muslims. The only country that surpasses it is Russia which, even as it borders autonomous Muslim states, is projected to see her share of Muslims rise to 14%.
Harris based all of his ideas about Muslims conspiring to outbreed everyone on the writings of Bat Ye’or and Bruce Bawer.
We’re just going to keep having big families, and eventually it’s going to be Eurabia, and the war will be won.
He is quoting almost verbatim (except for the Eurabia part) what in fact a Palestinian leader said a couple of decades ago with regard to Israel and the Occupied Territories. No Muslim has said anything like that about Europe, but that is also what Anders Breivik believed. Sam is in good company…
Perhaps it would be best to round up all the Muslims in Europe, put them in concentration camps, starve them and then kill them in gas chambers (Zyklon B has proven very effective and it is so cheap), and then cremate their bodies in large ovens or bury them in mass graves, so as to save the economy, save Europe, and save the world, eh?
Sheesh…
Oh, come on! You seem to be the very epitome of a pusher of the Islamophobia myth. It’s astonishing the number of non-religious commenters who come out en masse when Islam is criticized. It doesn’t happen with Christianity, this website’s most commonly criticized religion. Why hasn’t anyone invented a word for criticizing Christianity to scare people away from criticizing it’s ridiculous and immoral beliefs lest they be termed anti-Christianites or Christianophobes? Why is criticism of Islam the hobbyhorse of so many liberals? It’s a reaction to the genuine, over-the-top hatred of all Muslims by many (most?) conservatives, but the reaction can sometimes be just as irrational (see your comments). Islam and it’s ridiculous and immoral tenets deserve to be treated with ridicule and condemnation, just like other religions, but even more so since so many Muslims either have never been exposed to enlightenment ideals or, more likely, rejected enlightenment ideals as Western imperialism. I know of no other world religion that is currently as violent as Islam.
Wrong, the Dalai Lama has such religious influence on even Tibetan people that he has them setting themselves on fire in China for his dead cause.
He is building a shrine in Dharmasala to these ‘martyrs and heroes’ as the Tibetan in Exile Govement is calling them, and they are writing dozens of martyr songs on You Tube thus will encourage more violent deaths.
In 2012 the Lamas of the Kagyu sect publically burned a book in India they didn’t like. There was killing between these monks of intrasect battling
This year, Akong Rinpoche , a High Tibetan Lama, was murdered by a group of his own monks, it was first called an ‘assasination’ by the Tibetans and the downplayed and disappeared from main stream news. Not the only murder that these ‘peaceful buddhists’ have engaged in over in India, news that is kept from being written about in ‘Everything Only Positive about Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ please in corporate controlled media.
Five of the Dalai Lamas were murdered in regime changes….
The history of Violence in Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ is appalling not only the intrasect and intersect violence with Lamaism , but the the violence they perpetrated on their own people to keep them in line for a 1000 years.
969 Burmese monks have been killing and murdering Muslims in the name of their peaceful religion to such a level that the Human Rights watch has called it a genocide.
That too has been downplayed in the U.S. news steeped in Dalai Lama positive memes.
Sri Lanka, Burma , Cambodia, violent dictatorships , Buddhist nations.
NO RELIGION has not been violent or has not perpetrated violence in its name, and Buddhism has been one of the worst.
Criticism is just fine, but what Sam does is inciting fear, discrimination (in the negative sense) and hatred.
Fear is a valid emotion, as long as it’s not irrational. I hate islamists as they would seek to ruin our liberal democracy which they are mandated to.
Yes , Muslims are the new scapegoat for the move toward our new Totalism, “Corporatism”.
“We might as well call it Corporatism , because that is what Fascism is”
Mussolini
Muslims ARE trying to impose sharia law in western countries. Do you understand the concept of a world wide caliphate and what that means? That’s what many, if not all, muslims want.
Islam, like catholicism, understands that the quickest way to increase the power and influence of a religion is to increase the number of believers and the quickest most effective way to do that is to breed them. Hence anti contraception and women as baby machines. How much more effective with polygamy.
I don’t know of any widespread desire to kill all muslims and nuke their holy cities, maybe you’ve not been wearing your tin hat and the thoughts are leaking into your head again.
Yes, I know about the Caliphate and about the handful of Muslim extremists who dream of imposing it on the world, but the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not. As for those calling to kill all Muslims and nuke Mecca, there is a plethora of websites pushing either the former or the latter, or both. Here is one example:
http://caesartort.blogspot.ch/2009/02/nuking-mecca-truly-fascinating-exchange.html
So when it is muslims that want to force the caliphate on the world, they are just a “handful”, but when it is websites calling for nuking mecca, they are a “plethora”.
Nice work destroying your own argument. You are a Hypocrite.
Warning: calling other readers names is a violation of the Roolz. Please apologize. You can make your point without that kind of name-calling.
Here is another:
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/greeneville-tn/TIS8352AG8811SJ3T
And another:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-18032968
And another. Excerpt:
Dooley also presumed, for the purposes of his theoretical war plan, that the Geneva Conventions that set standards of armed conflict are “no longer relevant.”
He adds: “This would leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable…).”
His war plan suggests possible outcomes such as “Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation … Islam reduced to cult status” and the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia “destroyed.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/11/us-military-class-suspended-for-its-view-on-islam/
Shall I go on? As you can see, I am not a tinfoil hat wearer but simply well informed.
You obviously spend a lot more time looking for reasons to hate moslems than I do. Well done.
Excreta bovines.
Vierot seems to be one of those apologists seeking to disclaim the threat and bigotry of this filthy ideology.
Excreta bovines. Personal attacks like this are unworthy of decent human beings.
I don’t think the contrast (i.e. we critique western Christianity but show deference to other groups) is as great as you make it sound. Christian conservatives use exactly the same tactics, complaining that any negative discussion of their beliefs amounts to bigotry against Christians. And IMO there ARE cultural norms in the west that suppress criticism of Christianity. The highly negative responses to fairly innocuous atheism bus ads and billboards show that. The fact that it took until about 2000-2010 for these groups to publicly advertise at all is pretty telling, too.
The tactic of making a philosophical argurment personal in order to try and shut it down is not just something “other” groups do. We westerners do it too.
I agree with the central message of what you’ve written, especially the difference between disliking the ideas/beliefs/tenets/practices of Islam (or any religion) and the people who practice the religion (Muslims, in this case). Ditto for the difference between racism and xenophobia (both of which should be resisted and fought against). However, even in this post, which I presume you intended to word relatively carefully, there are hints, perhaps unwarranted, of a broader bias. You write: “Let no one doubt (and you’re blind if you do), that Muslims have cowed many of us into submission by the implicit threat that offending Muslims will bring on violence.” There’s no qualification that you’re talking about *some* Muslims, not *all* Muslims, and that’s a big difference – do you think your assertion applies to a majority of Muslims (95%? 80%? 60?), or a small minority (15%? 10%? 1%?)? Without some qualification to this statement, it sounds like a blanket characterisation of more than a billion people, which at the very least sounds prejudiced, if not a bit phobic. The same applies when you write “The way to get Muslims to stop cowing us with their implicit threats is not to be cowed by them, but simply laugh them off.” Whatever your intentions, it *sounds* like you’re treating all Muslims as some kind of monolithic group. Even if you’re not.
Thanks for policing my language so minutely, concentrating on a few words written quickly to tell me that I sound Islamophobic. Clearly I don’t mean all Muslims in the statement above, and that, I think, is implicit in the text.It is this kind of word policing, on a post written quickly at 6 a.m., that makes me think that people like you are giving Muslims treatment that you wouldn’t give Catholics.
Hear hear!
I had no problem understanding in the context of this post that the author wasn’t making “a blanket characterisation of more than a billion people”. What’s more, I strongly suspect that neither did you, which makes your comment fundamentally dishonest.
In the context of the post, it didn’t sound to me like Jerry was making a blanket statement.
Besides, this post isn’t an academic paper meant for peer-review.
I don’t think Jerry has made a “blanket characterisation of more than a billion people”. He did not need to use a qualifier. Imagine he’d said something like “Let no one doubt that Germans build fine cars”. The meaning is perfectly clear. Of course not everybody in Germany works in a car factory. So it’s implicit in the meaning of the sentence that “some” Germans build fine cars.
You’ve taken Jerry to task over something for which he has no case to answer. It’s only your faulty understanding of English sentences that’s the problem.
How dare you? Since when has not making sweeping generalisations done anyone any good? Being precise and accurate about what you mean has no place on a blog devoted to science and rationalism. Take your looney ideas elsewhere and go and live in a Muslim country if you like Muslims so much.
Ummm. . . this would seem to be a Roolz violation. Please explain the comment.
The word Some is not necessary to qualify the phrase you jumped on above. Those who have cowed us are moslem, no “some” required because the set of moslems who have cowed us is a subset of all moslems.
Any sensible person applying basic analytical thinking skills would divine the intended meaning but to twist it in the way you have betrays your own prejudice. Prof. Ceiling Cat recommended a good primer on analytical thinking which you might find helpful.
Granted that a minority incite violence. However the majority of muslims are ambivalent and by default acquiesce. You never get to hear of widespread condemnation by muslims of attempts made by say 1% of muslims to intimidate the world with the threat of violence. Shame on people who justify the irrational and cruel practices of islam and greater shame on those who condemn critics of such practices equating that with hatred for muslim people.
Excellent post and something that needed to be said. Just because it is a minority does not mean it should be tolerated by anyone, least of all those muslims who say they are against such behavior.
You never hear of them because the western mainstream media are meticulous in never publishing about it.
Here is but a tiny handful of the vast amount of Muslims who have expressed themselves against violence, extremism and terrorism:
http://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-statements-against-terrorism/
Are you suggesting a *conspiracy of silence* amongst the western mainstream media?
/@
Nope, just profound bias.
A bias which is shared by *every* Western newspaper and *every* broadcast news program?
/@
No, not by every, but by most and by mainstream.
Okay! I was born a hindu and have been an atheist for the last 38 years i.e. since my college days. I have a couple of close relatives who have become muslims, converting after their marriages. I have some very close friends who are muslims. So I cannot bring myself to hate muslims. However I am curious to know what in that religion makes several people (Statistically more than any other religion globally)turn violent resorting to terrorism under the garb of jihad?
Historically even christians have resorted to violence – crusades, slave trade etc. But not in this modern era. Why was Daniel Pearl killed? Why did Salman Rushdie have to spend a productive part of his life in hiding? What is so sacrosanct about koran or it teachings that it cannot come under scrutiny of any kind? What is the islamic society as a whole doing to reverse this trend? Why isn’t that society taking decisive action to reform and put an end to this menace? Just mouthing sympathies (in the media mainstream or not) for victims of terrorists’ violence won’t do. Several islamic states while officially condemning terrorism resort to clandestine support to terrorist activities. We have the officials of palestine govt. condemning the WTC attack but visuals of common people celebrating the attack and dancing with joy are fresh in memory.
While other religions have reformed over the period, why is islam stuck in the medieval mindset? Why is that the jihadists still believe that becoming a jihadi is a route to acquiring 72 virgins? Why is that even educated muslims believe in such unscientific crap? It is easy to dismiss opposing opinion as excreta bovines. Is it because one lacks answers?
Nothing in Islam or the Koran condones terrorism, quite the contrary, even if the perpetrators invoke Islam for their acts.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/islamic-forbids-terrorism.html
I am sure that Lee Rigby will be greatly reassured by that. Oh. Wait…
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I suspect you probably didn’t even bother to click on the link.
Well, you’re quite wrong.
But why would my comment above make you think that?
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I did go through the link. That’s theory vierotchka! My question is why is there such a huge gap between theory and practice? And what is the muslim society at large doing to reverse this trend?
Several of the questions that I posed in my posting remain unanswered. The websites that you quote at the drop of a hat are by the elite for the elite. At the ground level the sympathies of the common average muslim in most places lie with perpetrators of violence.
How do you explain violence between the various muslim sects – sunnis, shias, ahmedias etc.?
I still stand by comment that the majority among the muslim population (that includes common man,rulers, politicians, administrators) should do more to reform the religion and make the world a more peaceful and better place to live in. Running with the hare and hunting with hound won’t do.
Most jihadis are products of madrassas – so there is a foundation being laid somewhere.
And, vierotchka, we haven’t even started talking about other issues like woman’s rights. Many such medieval practices draw their inspiration from somewhere and surely it is not from other religions! What is obsolete and not in tune with requirements of a modern world should be discarded.
‘Nothing in Islam or the Koran condones terrorism’.
This would be a laughable statement, if it wasn’t so alarming.
No matter how you define ‘in Islam’ (canon, or canon + celebrated history, Islamic ‘scholarship’ and jurisprudence etc.) or ‘terrorism’, to say that ‘nothing in Islam or the Koran condones terrorism’ is not true. Not even remotely true.
http://scorpionsinabottle.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/the-quran-the-perfect-book-of-hate-menace-and-ignorance/.
I’m a muslim Atheist too! I don’t believe in Allah anymore, but I can’t deny my Islamic background. I still retain some parts of the tradition I used to believe in, hopefully the more innocuous ones! Remember, today young Muslims can easily be tomorrows Atheists and skeptics. Try to win them with the gentle way of Reason and Science.
I think most people here do understand that it is hateful and repressive IDEAS that we oppose, not the people who hold those ideas ( except those who try to do evil actions).
I find lots of things to like about the cultures of predominantly Muslim countries, plus I am mindful that it was mostly Islam-believing scholars who preserved and built on the science of the ancient Greeks and Romans when western science was throttled by the Catholic church.
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I agree with everything Jerry says or quotes in this article. Just one small point – I believe the movie Honor Diaries was cancelled at the Dearborn campus of the University of Michigan, not the Ann Arbor one. This is significant because the city of Dearborn (as well as the U Mich campus there) has a very high percentage of people of Arabic descent.
Sub
“It’s as if every time you said smoking was a filthy habit, you were perceived to be calling all smokers filthy people.”
I’ve actually had that thrown at me by a smoker friend.
The reason for this is the same reason it is for any religious person. They cannot separate themselves from the act of smoking, or the religion of which they are a member.
Both things cause their users to bond as one with them, therefore and attack on one is an attack on all. It is a built in defense mechanism.
Who’s touchy now?
Dang, That was supposed to be areply to Dan Jones, who appears to have gootn a well- deserved kiss from the banhammer.
To be fair, a great deal of the batshit insane lunacy of the religious is to identify themselves with their faery tales. That’s especially true in the “honor” societies. You diss my man Mo, you diss me; prepare to die!
That is, I’d argue that what the fuckwits at CAIR are doing is reactionary and symptomatic, and less tactical and conscious. Poor sods can’t help themselves; they’re too drunk on the KookAid.
…which is why, of course, they need to be given a free taxi ride to a safe place where they can sleep it off. When they come to their senses, then maybe we can have an adult conversation.
b&
Its not necessarily kooky. Remember that these honor societies also tend to be the ones with less reliable economic and government systems. Honor is, in many cases, a stand-in for those things. No reliable credit records? In that cases, society implements a taboo against lying (i.e., an honor code) to help evaluate loan candidates. No criminal background checks because records aren’t kept? Again, this forces the society to rely on word of mouth and honor. Now granted, personal honor codes and reputation are very poor substitutes for real social infrastructure, but when you don’t have real infrastructure, socially enforced honor codes and socially tracked reputation is a lot better than nothing at all.
The reason I bring this up is because if you want to replace such honor societies with more western-style ones where violent defense of honor is unacceptable, where free speech and criticism are lauded, where slander and libel are interpreted very narrowly, and so on, you can’t just make a flowery philosophical argument about the goodness of free speech and open political debate. That won’t work, because honor and reputation serve a real social function in these societies. You have to replace honor with stronger institutions before expecting these societies to accept western notions off free speech.
It may seem silly and pithy to say this, but if you want to reduce islamic immigrant violence related to Mohammed insults, the way to do it is to ensure those immigrants have truly equal access to financial credit, to police protection, and all the other institutions that do not need to count on someone’s word or reputation to function properly and let people be prosperous. Conversly, we can expect that in our own states, “honor societies” will pop up whenever and wherever the police don’t trust or protect the citizens, where banks don’t give fair loans, where public records are unreliable indicators of how people have acted in the past or whether they can be trusted, and so on. And guess what? That’s exactly what we see. When the police stop caring and the merchants leave town, when city water and garbage services become unreliable, gangs emerge. You want to get rid of the gangs, you gotta make the police care, city services care, and the merchants act fairly first. Likewise, you want to get rid of islamic notions of honor, you have to provide the social institutions that their societies lack (or give only to the wealthy).
While I’m all for social justice and equality, I don’t think your thesis holds up all that well. The Islamic world isn’t nearly so benighted as you make it out to be, and many of the militantly vocal Islamists in the West are doing more than just fine, thank you. Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest nations and the most oppressive — and how would you account for wealthy Catholics insisting on similar privilege, such as Phil Donohue?
While honor codes might be able to serve the functions you indicate, and while that might even explain their origins in the mists of time…well, it’s like the Aristotelian metaphysics that pervades Christian apologetics. It’s a primitive superstition that should have died out centuries, if not millennia, ago, and yet it still persists.
Personally, I suspect it has much more to do with emotional immaturity, promoted by a religious culture whereby the priesthood maintains their personal parasitical prestige by encouraging such immaturity in their hosts. Almost every child goes through an honor phase growing up, and militaries lean heavily on it. Almost every child anthropomorphizes everything in sight at one point, too. Most people grow out of those phases…but not if a shaman has figured out how to feed off of you by promoting infantilism. (And don’t forget the whole surrogate paternalism thing that runs through religions, with the Heavenly Father in the sky and the fathers and elders and teachers in the churches and mosques and synagogues.)
b&
“how would you account for wealthy Catholics insisting on similar privilege, such as Phil Donohue?”
You mean, perhaps, BILL Donohue?
Yes…sorry…can’t always keep my Irish media personalities with rhyming names straight…
b&
Bill doesn’t call for his detractors to be killed. He’s an example of the decline of the value of honor, not an example of someone keeping a primitive notion of it.
Militaries are another good example of what I’m talking about, and support my position, not yours. The reason military units weigh trust and honor so highly is because there is not time nor resources on the battlefield to check whether someone is telling the truth. You don’t ‘credit check’ your platoonmate’s need for ammo before giving it to him/her; even if that information existed (i.e. if you knew where all your enemies were, and who was going to need the ammo most), the time requirement to do it could lead to someone’s death. You have to trust that what they ask for, they need. And to ensure that sort of trust is not heavily abused, the military drills into its soldiers the importance of loyalty. They try and create a very high social cost for particular types of lying, so that nobody does it, so that people’s word can be used as a form of trusted currency. And that is the basis of the honor culture – using people’s words as a form of trusted currency. To get rid of the culture, you must first replace the currency.
I’ll even use this concept to make a prediction. I’ll predict that in countries, times, and localities where eyewitness testimony becomes less important to court cases and confirmable physical evidence becomes more imporant, the actually imposed penalties for lying on the stand will go down. On the books the penalties might stay the same, but they will be applied in fewer cases, the egregiousness of lying will have to be higher to trigger a court response, and so on. Why? Because when courts depend on testimony to mete out judgements, they will create a social structure that reinforces the need to give honest testimony. The less they depend on it, the less the need is. But such shifts to lower penalties occur after we get things like fingerprinting and DNA, not before.
Freedom of speech and religion is great. I’m an unabashed “colonialist” about such ideas – I think they are certainly ideas we should promulgate to other cultures and societies. But I recognize that they are at least partially dependent on a working social system that does not cause people to be killed or their lives ruined solely on someone else’s word. Because wherever that more primitive system is in place – where you can cause death and destruction with what you say – you are going to have an extroadinarily hard time convincing people that you should be allowed to say anything you want without legal consequences.
“Because wherever that more primitive system is in place – where you can cause death and destruction with what you say – you are going to have an extroadinarily hard time convincing people that you should be allowed to say anything you want without legal consequences.”
Then it would seem that those people should stay where they are, eh?
I don’t know.
Honour in the sense of “honour killing”, one of the major problems related to societies with a high degree of religiosity (Latin-American machismo, anyone?) seems more concerned with the perceived manliness of a (male) person. Is he enough in control of the women in his family/clan? Does he show enough behaviour that is coded as “male”? I really don’t think that building trust from the side of authorities/police or keeping reliable credit records (laudable as these goals are) is going to make any difference in that.
Instead, what is necessary is to change the ways people can get a sense of self-worth; instill a sense of democracy in people: the idea that other people are autonomous persons, that they do not need to behave strictly according to your whims and sense of honour/pride. That they can hold notions about relationships between men and women or about their own destiny that do not necessarily comport with your own, and that this does not diminish your status (“honour”) vis-à-vis others (men) around you. And that not only extends to people close to you (family/clan/tribe), but also to the rest of the society you are part of.
In my opinion, getting rid of that destructive notion of “honour” or “pride” has little to do with credit records or trust in authorities. It’s much more of an interpersonal thing, something that pervades the way people see each other.
I think that trying to define a line between criticizing a religion and the people who practice it is not so tidy.
Every religious tenet is so up for interpretation, and there is much variation in how any large world religion is practiced from place to place.
It’s difficult to criticize a religious belief without noting its effect on the people who live in conjunction with it.
Without specific examples of how a religious belief or practice harms people somewhere in the world, there is little meat in any criticism of that belief. But specifics are allows going to open the door to charges of xenophobia, because you are criticizing the behavior of a group of people from the outside.
There’s no simple formula, it’s always going to be a case by case basis.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s criticism comes from direct personal harm done to her body. That more than fulfills your “meat” requirement to criticize islamic (or anyone else’s) practices of FGM without being labeled islamophobic. So she should not be called an islamophobe, right?
I humbly suggest you mistook my point.
Hirsi Ali criticizes specific practices and gets accused of Islamophobia both.
I don’t see how that refute my point that getting into specifics opens the door to charges of Islamophobia, just or unjust.
I didn’t say such charges would inevitably be just, I said that the validity of such charges could only be argued case by case.
My point being, that there is no magic formula to avoid charges of Islamophobia. There is no universal magic line that most people will agree can drawn where speech on that side of the line is OK criticsim of religion, and speech on this side is not OK criticism of groups of people.
If that was your understanding of what I said originally, I’m sorry it makes you so angry but I have no idea why.
“I think that trying to define a line between criticizing a religion and the people who practice it is not so tidy.”
I think this is a true statement. Unfortunately. Separating repulsive action(s) and/or ideology from their owners is not nearly as straightforward a process as could be wished.
After someone demonstrates that they hold a repugnant belief, their identity expands to include the fact that they hold the repugnant belief, and any further interactions with the person are going to be (person + repugnant belief = believer of repugnant things). As Nick Hornby put it in his novel “About a Boy”, you have to live with the consequences of your “one offs”.
I have a small criticism of this post. The nomenclature is a bit muddied.
I have taken to referring to the dislike of muslims as ‘Muslimphobia’, a term I did not invent and to denying the existence of ‘Islamophobia’ as being an unreasoning fear of Islam as an ideology. The fear of Islam is a reasonable one, I think.
There lies the important distinction. There are indeed people who are prejudiced against Muslims for racial and cultural reasons, they are Muslimphobes, but that is not the same as being opposed to an ideology for moral reasons. That is the conflation the free speech bullies in the Muslim world use to their advantage, and to great effect.
I would really like to see the more accurate term of Muslimphopia used more often, particularly in response to charges of Islamophobia (an egregious misnomer if ever there was one).
There is no such thing as a Muslim race — not even vaguely.
I think most people who suggest otherwise are thinking of Arabs. And it’s true that Islam traces its routes to Arabia…but that no more makes Islam and Arabs synonymous than Christianity’s origins in the Mediterranean means that Christianity is racially synonymous with Mediterraneans.
The largest Islamic country, if I remember right, is Indonesia, which is most emphatically not racially or ethnically Arabic. One of the more significant Muslim populations, both religiously and politically, is in Iran, which is predominantly Persian (and don’t you dare confuse Persians with Arabs!). Islam is also huge in Africa, and significant in India; you would have no trouble finding two pitch-black skinned Muslims of radically different ethnic and racial backgrounds. It’s possibly the case (I’d have to look it up) that there’re more Muslims in America of African descent whose ancestors were slaves in the South than there are Arabic Muslims. And, of course, there are also small but non-trivial numbers of Muslims of northern European descent.
So I really don’t get the “racist against Muslims” idea. Is this racism against Arabs? Against Javanese people? Against anybody with a built-in suntan? Just doesn’t make sense.
Cheers,
b&
“Some definitions of racism also include discriminatory behaviors and beliefs based on cultural, national, ethnic, caste, or religious stereotypes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism
Yeah, but my point is that none of those apply save the “religious” one. And I just don’t see how a charge of “racism” can apply to a class of people whose only shared property is their religion. Could you be racist against Buddhists? Scientologists? Neopagans? No? Then how could you possibly be racist against Muslims?
Cheers,
b&
Some people want – desperately – any form of criticism of religion to fit under the same umbrella term as racial discrimination, i.e. racism. I suspect this is mostly for said criticism to piggyback on racism’s rather negative connotations.
“I just don’t see how a charge of “racism” can apply to a class of people whose only shared property is their religion.”
From Wikipedia:
“Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical, historical, linguistic, religious, and/or social affiliation.”
Borked the link.
Race (human classification)
So, try applying that to Christianity.
/@
Yeah, I see that. I just don’t buy it.
If religion, why not political ideology, or favorite economic theory? Am I racist against Goldman Sachs for thinking that the market needs a metric fuckton more regulation?
There’re enough problems with the concept of race without muddying it up even further with non-heritable traits.
b&
Concur.
Also, if all those other descriptors somehow constitute “race,” why not add “intellectual curiosity”?
I gather that most people regard “race” as something which is visually apprehended. That leads me to wonder how someone blind from birth becomes racially biased, assuming a blind person can be racially biased.
A blind-from-birth’s other senses are very acute, so they could also tell another person’s race through means other than sight, so yes, they could become a racist.
CAIR complains a lot about who is producing and funding the film without the report naming who made it. The funders of the film include two Muslim organizations: “Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow” and “American Islamic Forum for Democracy”.
The actual film-makers seem to include a lot of Jewish folk. The first executive producer is an Orthodox rabbi named Raphael Shore. (The second executive producer is Ayaan Hirsi Ali.) The writer is Paula Kweskin, an Israeli human rights attorney. Co-producer is Heidi Basch-Harod is the Executive Director of Women’s Voices Now
Ironically, the film “Honor Diaries” won an “Best Interfaith film” award at the St Louis International Film Festival. The awarded films “were selected for their artistic merit; contribution to the understanding of the human condition; and recognition of ethical, social, and spiritual values.” http://www.cinemastlouis.org/awards
Do I detect a wee bit of kettle-on-pot action coming from CAIR?
b&
That sounds steamy. 🙂
Only until the kettle runs dry….
b&
The response by Sam Harris is indeed something which should be read and understood by everyone. It’s the reasonable position, which of course makes it repulsive to the deeply religious.
I fail to see how the Quranic verse above justifies the killing of apostates per se. It seems to be a statement that covers ALL unbelievers.
I suspect that you’ll find in most contexts a lack of blatantness, with interpretation and commentary needed. That’s another reason why the “schools” where recitation and “memorizing interpretation” is done is so dangerous.
Aah…the old vicious cycle of “right” interpretation…
The verse isn’t talking about killing apostates. If you go back and read the context, you’ll see that it’s reciting the narrative of a small battle that Muhammad engaged in 2 years after migrating to Medina. And the command in the verse is in fact given to a supposed army of angels that came down to help Muhammad and his companions win the battle.
I don’t believe that the Quran has any verse that explicitly talks about killing apostates. You’ll find that mainly in the Hadith, which is a collection of reports about Muhammad’s sayings and actions.
I hope that Jerry will fix that mistake.
This stuff spreads and spreads. Last month, the extremely popular and successful K-pop (Korean pop music) group 2NE1 “had to” edit a youtube video of a performance of the song “MTBD (Mental Breakdown)” because of a sample it contained. Apparently, unbeknownst to the song’s producer, the sample was of a melody used for reciting part of the Qur’an. This was met by outrage from Muslims who claimed this was sacriligious and disrespectful, and who demanded the song be edited.
I’m all for treating people with respect. (Of course.) But what I find outrageous is the idea that *I* am bound by *your* religion’s prohibitions.
This Islamophobia canard is the most insidious threat western enlightenment faces IMO. If it becomes impossible to criticize Islam and its tenets we will have lost the ability to defend ourselves.
I looked for a list of schools that had shown the film, but couldn’t seem to come up with anything. UC San Diego and Brandeis (who withdrew Hirsi’s honorary degree) are showing it. I’m sure there must be some more.
It was shown at my school, Middle Tennessee State University, a few weeks ago.
It’s good that Jerry is explaining the distinctions here. In the U.S., there are real Islamophobes in those communities that seek to ban mosques, not because they object to religious practices but, as Jerry correctly identifies, because of simple xenophobia. Among that group are people who want to impose a christian theocracy in the U.S., and in that respect are no different than Islamic fundamentalists. It is that group that one has to be careful not to identify with in deploring the human rights violations of Islamic societies.
Well said. A main problem when speaking critically of Islam is that one must unavoidably partition everything one says so that it too does not become equal to the theocratic fundamentalism that violates human rights.
My tactic: I hold no biases. My contention against religion has always been epistemological and all religions claim to know stuff that is useless.
A few months ago, I attended a local “think” group that was addresing the notion of “dangerous ideas”. Sam Harris was termed an islamophobe by one person, and that label waa agreed with by many in the group. I fought against the proposition, but it was clear that most of the group had their minds made up. This term appears to be a most dangerous idea and overrides the facts of human rights infractions and murder, justified by sharia law. Thank you for your exposition of the material and the Fox News piece.
The harsh vilification of Sam Harris by some people in the atheist movement has always puzzled me. I can understand disagreeing with certain points or holding dissenting opinions to some of the concepts of his books, but Sam always seems to make some (often considerable) effort to fully address criticisms and further explain his reasoning. This seems to be largely ignored by the people who, as you say, have their “minds made up.” When any further discussion is deemed unnecessary, then you forfeit the cause of rational discourse.
Sam places a large onus on himself to be understood and is slow to accuse others of failure to understand. He feels that if someone doesn’t understand his position, it’s worth trying to explain it more clearly.
But sometimes of course, it isn’t, because the other party has a vested interest in not understanding.
To be fair there are some of us who’re all too happy to rip Sam a new one when he deserves it, and who are also big fans of his who mostly cheer him on.
Same deal with Hitch when he was still with us, or Richard, or Dan, or….
Cheers,
b&
Very true. though one can’t notice the blantant hypocracy of those that level the Islamophobia charge against Sam and others. By casting such a generalization on his character, without addressing the specific points of argument in detail, neither the clarifications, it is effectively the same as disparaging all Muslims as Islamist and perhaps, even more dishonest.
Time and time again, it has been made clear by Jerry and others that what this is not about all Muslims but rather tenets of the Islamic faith that act upon individuals to do violence. The tenets are clear, and we do not have the luxury of authoritative generalisations, addendums and clarifications, as there are no clear authorities that represents all Muslims or meaning that all Muslim’s will adhere too. Nevertheless, there are feiged Islamic authorities that do have influence, some of whom are not necessarily directly harmful themselves but do provide shelter for those that are. How should one critize those forces then? Especially if they use those same Islamic tenets to justify violent actions and silence opposition? It’s simple, attack the tenets and those that take the interpretation that causes harms to others. “Islamists” sounds accurate to me, and by the way, they are Muslim by their own assertion, even more “true” by their own interpretation. (Do I hear a “No true Scotsman” fallacy? Going once, twice…)
To take the liberty of an argumentum ad absurdum too far; despite the fact that there are no tenets in “germanism” which advocate Nazism (as opposed to Islam), German’s will readily admit that the Nazis were for the most part, German, and as such, Germans have honerably taken collective responsibility to eliminate the scourge from their culture through law, reperations and education. It would be discusting to contemplate people outside of a holocaust museum or screenings shouting claims of Germanophobia or racism in response to crimes committed in WWII, or have apologist organizations advocating that violent interpretations of “Mein Kampf” are only practiced by a few.
In fact, one would not hesitate to call them Nazis and also the organizations that protect them without any fear of being accused by apolgists of being Germanophobic.
One would expect Muslim’s and others to roundly act towards Islamists in the same way, but alas.. there is CAIR, protecting Islam from it’s victims, whether Muslim or not. (Talk about generalizations!)
Same analogy can be said for so many other things and Religions, yet, we are expected to take a double standard towards Islam. This is the epitomy of the bigotry of lower expectations.
“We are not here to discuss CAIR”
Did their spokesperson in that clip really say that? Having tried her best to avoid mentioning the film’s contents and just going after the backers…
You and Rivzi are correct, Jerry. “Islamophobia” is now being used as a bludgeon to silence criticism.
Online there are many examples, especially, in the case of Pat Condell, where Conservative Christians are attracted to the vociferous attitudes atheists (God forbid!) can have against Islam.
For every Condell anti-Islam rant they listen to, they should have to listen to one of his anti-Christian rants.
Pat Condell advocated to prevert Muslims to build the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”. I cannot take the anyone with that opinion as someon who merely criticises Islam. He clearly wants to target *Mulims* and take away their rights because of their shared lable with the terrorists of 9/11. Because of that Pat Condell fits the description of an Islamophobe perfectly.
Hey any Islamophiles (Islamofetishists?) reading this: in America, if a Muslim woman (bereft of a portion of her clitoris from years earlier as a child, against her will) decides she has had enough of Islam, refuses to submit to men or to Sharia, and thinks that she should not be put to death for her alleged apostasy, is she an Islamophobe?
Clitorectomy and infibulation have nothing to do with religion, even if praticed by some Muslims (but mostly by Animists, some Jews, and even a great majority of Egyptian Christians) – they have everything to do with customs and traditions that largely antedate the Abrahamic religions.
Try something else.
Do I correctly take it that you otherwise agree with me?
You posed a question – one cannot agree or disagree with a question, one can only agree or disagree with an answer.
You can at least respond, if you so choose, to the hypothetical Muslim woman’s claim/statement.
I ask you as plainly as I know how, is she an Islamophobe?
It depends on whether she simply leaves Islam (and takes protective actions should her husband/brothers/uncles/male members of her community take the apostasy laws to the letter and are dangerous and might kill her) or becomes a loud, irrational, hysterical screeching paranoid Islam-hating propagandist.
In the first, dignified instance, no, she is not what I would call an Islamophobe. In the second, undignified instance, yes, she would most definitely be an Islamophobe.
Oh, and I am not an Islamophile, even less an “Islamofetishist”, neither am I a Christianophile, a Judaiophile, nor an Animistophile, for that matter. I am, on the other hand, a Humanophile and a lover of all life.
Why, here in the news is another example of the evil Islam promotes:
http://tinyurl.com/nrk4xpv
Such evil seems to be becoming a weekly event in ol’ England despite muslims being a rather small minority of the population. In contrast, that would be an extremely rare event in regions such as Bosnia where the population have been largely muslim for many hundreds of years, but an all too common event in Pakistan. I guess that goes to show how some societies happily reject or ignore what others would consider an essential part of Islam.
In other (slightly older) news the chief of Brunei is imposing murder as dictated by his holy book thus demonstrating that society can always go backward and succumb to the evils of Islam.
Sam Harris has been soaked in Tibetan Buddhism , before you so quickly come to his defense, not only is he a secular front for pushing Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, which also a millenialist, fundamentalist theocracy of great historic and current violence, whose secret teachings of the the Kalachakra IS fundamentally anti-Muslim, and is about a Holy War with all semitic religions and mostly against Islam because no one holds a grudge as long as the Tibetan Lamas.
That is why the Sam goes around bashing all of Islam, AND puts in plugs for Tibetan Buddhism and the Vajrayana at the same time, in his talke declaring TB the only non-violent religion when it is steeped in religious violence, Sam Harris is a fundamentalist theocrat of Tibetan Buddhism and is a shill for the Dalai Lama. He comes from two streams that have now merged in the Mind and Life Institute of the Dalai Lama , his secular and scientific front to push this ninth century theocracy through the disguises of secular and scientfic.
For more on the background of Sam Harris and his Tibetan Buddhism and the lineage of his Theravadin stream that is merged in what is the new mindfulness meditation of the Dalai Lama crowd are pushing in corporations like Google:
The trouble with Aetheists is they don’t bother to research deeply about anything ‘religious’ so they don’t see dangers where it exists, or thta someone could be wearing a mask to push a theocratic fundamental religion, as the Vajrayana would teach him to do, as the Dalai Lama does, while proclaiming to be against all religions.
What Sam really is saying is MY fundamental, misogynistic steeped in violence religion is GOOD , all other religions particularly Islam is BAD. He is doing this while saying and perhaps even believing , because all Tibetan ‘Buddhists’ are thought controlled inside Lamaism , that he is a secularist. That is what they all believe. That they are ‘studying the science of the mind’ That is one of the thought control memes planted in their consciousness.
I once believed the same thing about being a Tibetan Buddhist.
Sam Harris, who studied with the Dalai Lama, and with his Theravadin teacher, Sharon Salzberg and, like her, connected with Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama, served for a time as one of his students in India when on his ‘spiritual journeying ‘ and wanderings in the east.
Sam is now promoting this ninth century, misogynistic and despotic cult of thought control, a theism so deep and pervasive, that the rulers of Tibetan, the Lamas, with their Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ were the gods.
This Burmese Theravadin buddhist lineage, that Sam’s teacher Ms. Salzberg, and Sam Harris both studied, is the same lineage of the 969 Wirathu monks who are macheting Muslims to death after their meditation sessions. Wirathu has credited his inspiration for his actions to the Dalai Lama and his Kalachakra teachings about a great apocalyptic war with Muslims and other semitic religions from which the Buddhists will win and usher in a Thousand Year period of Peace, Dalai Lama and Wirathu style.
So quite a lineage of non violent Buddhism that Sam is coming from as he declares Islam to be the most fundamental and dangerous.
Sam is not being called an Islamophobe for nothing:
http://www.extibetanbuddhist.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=638&action=edit
That’s quite a nice conspiracy theory you’ve got there.
Too bad it doesn’t have anything to do with reality.
Sam has been quite vocal about the harm that religious Buddhism presents, whilst simultaneously expressing support for some of the particular practices of Buddhism.
See here, for example:
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/
For example, Sam’s words:
How you get from something so unambiguous on Sam’s part to accusing him of being a secret agent provocateur of Burmese Theravadin Buddhism reflects far more on your own paranoia than reality.
Cheers,
b&
Actually to believe that Sam is a secularist and scientist, and just right off what I am saying as a conspiracy theory, is a knee jerk reaction , that is not dealing with reality.
I document very clearly why Sam could believe what he believes, and who his connections in Buddhism are, That he can say Vajrayana Buddhism is non violent for example, shows that he , like all western thought controlled Lamaists inside Lamaism say, I know he never reads the real history of Tibet or its violent intersect and intrasect bloody battlers, or that the Lamas are still murdering each other, as we speak, or that it is a highly sexually abusive cult , where women are used for the Lamas sexual bliss practices. This is happening while Sam rails agains the misogyny of Islam.
You have to be totally out of a cult of thought control to realize you were in one.
Sam doesn’t know he is in one, because he is still deeply in it, just as Tom Cruise is deeply in Scientology and is so well paid and has such celebrity status to shill for Scientology, now he is never going to have a break through, meanwhile he is deceiving himself and deceiving everyone else, and shilling for the Lamas.
I would know he is , now you wouldn’t because you have never had that experience, now have you?
So you call it a ‘conspiracy theory’ because you don’t like what I am saying about someone you like.
http://www.extibetanbuddhist.com
Hi Chris,
Calm down, please.
Did you read Da Roolz? Especially nos. 8 and 11?
Thanks Matthew, I am not going to post any more on this, I gave my link , people can chose to read it or not. Most people don’t follow links I find, so it was important to try at least to penetrate the secular sainthood of Sam Harris, I could have given even more documentation .. You all apparently don’t, that’s fine but it is not scientific at all.
I think that secularists are now as ‘religiously fanatic about their positions’ as anyone else. They don’t want to believe that someone could dupe them like this i.e. Sam Harris whom they believe is just a simple ‘scientist’ and reasoning person like them, because he says he is. Very scientific of them. It’s the same way intelligent people view the Dalai Lama, he must be bringing peace because he says he is.
So here you ‘scientists’ have one of your own presenting himself as a secularist, but is involved in a ninth century atavistic fundamentalist cult as repressive on the ‘inside’ as any Islamic group, encouraging suicides for THEIR cause, and as ‘scientists you are not even curious, but attack the messenger.
I could have cited even more evidence about his shilling, All Tibetan Buddhists shill for the Lamas, they are thought control inside these groups to do it, Sam is no exception he has spent years inside this Vajrayana Cult of Lamaism and is shilling for the Lamas,
Again, I have put very important information up for those who are trying to fight irrationality and religiosity, because it undermines our freedoms , particularly about group and its representatives that are doing this by stealth. , but if their own entrenched belief systems about who is representing them leads to so much cognitive dissonance that they can’t even entertain the possibility of being duped, or want to even see behind the masks, or even say, HMMM. that ‘s interesting I should check that out, instead accuse me with the usual ho hum comspiracy , tin hat meme, and these scientists? who don’t want to check out facts anymore, and believe exhaustive facts are all conspiracy theories, or just opinions, and don’t add up to a pattern that should be further investigated? Well then we are really ‘f…..d.
Sam Harris, are you possibly aware of, and can deliver us from, this tsunami of verbiage?
Carry on , missing the elephant in the room while looking elsewhere for your enemies of reason and freedom of thought.
Sorry, I should have directed that plea to you. Thank you for your omniscience.
Well, Christine (see? some of us do follow links), I don’t think you do yourself any favours by the way you right about this: Your style is classic conspiracy-theorist, making very broad and sensationalist claims without citing any evidence, and decrying others for their lack of critical thinking and failure as good scientists, sceptics or whatever. The fact you write *at length* about this really does not add any real weight to your *arguments*. Clearly, your 25 or 30 years (your blog is inconsistent on this) *in thrall* to *Lamaism* has deeply hurt you. Your rhetoric might be cathartic. But whatever truth there might be in what you say is thoroughly obfuscated.
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Sam is a Tibetan Vajayanist, he acknowledges that in many places Sam, who is part of the Dalai Lama’s Mind and Life Institute, is a shill for them, and is one more ‘academic’ with a secular front in this cult, to actually spread a fundamentalist theocratic ninth century ,anti-rational, scientism through false ‘rhetoric’ and pseudo-secularism.
Members in this cult of Lamaism and Vajrayana take vows to spread Tibetan Buddhism far and wide through any means necessary, including lies, deceit, whatever it takes, they believe in their ‘religion’ spreading as deeply as any fundamental Christian or Islamist.
Sam has been very successful with his target audience, YOU and others , people who believe they are rational and secular and are instead easily duped by appearances. That is who the Dalai Lama has purposely gone after. the ‘secularists’ , thats what their ‘secular ethics’ mask is all about , fooling liberal, educated people.
My 30 years inside what is a cult of thought control, Lamaism 25 deeply in and 5 years to come out that’s how long it takes, makes 30. Do the math. My experience inside , deep inside and out again gives me more credibility , not less.
I am not hurt anymore by it at all, I am free, free enough to see clearly as a psychologist myself (they attract many psychologists) .
Someone who is still in the cult of Lamaism and working for the Dalai Lama , like Sam is, is not a good spokesperson for rationalism, I can assure you all of that.
That is the issue, as well as the anti-Muslim views in this cult of Lamaism, the Dalai Lama’s Wheel of Time or Kalachakra empowerments has been given 5 times in the U.S. more that in any other western country, since it has been given to 10’s of thousands of people in the U.S. more anti-Muslim sentiment has grown. Tibetan Buddhism is not Buddhism, it is a dangerous cult that is spreading everywhere, particularly among good hearted liberal people who have no idea what it is really about. or who its shills, like Sam, are really about.
Muslims are the new scapegoat or has anyone noticed that yet?
http://www.extibetanbuddhist.com
That’s enough of your criticism of Sam, which you’ve already repeated several times on this site ad nauseum. I’ve given you your say, now say no more. As for Muslims being a scapegoat, (for what?), that simply wrong. That religion is wreaking far more harm on the world than any form of Buddhism.
You have posted NINE times here after you said you weren’t going to post any more on this topic, and you haven’t said anything knew except continued on your monomaniacal rant, including insulting my friend Sam Harris.
I think your response rather proves my point.
I can do the maths; but you’re still making inconsistent/ambiguous statements on your blog.
And you have *no idea* what I think about Sam Harris.
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For Sam’s real lineage of ‘Buddhism” and the roots of his Islamaphobia:
http://www.extibetanbuddhist.com/2014/02/28/mindfulness-training-for-silicon-valley-and-the-peaceful-monks-of-969-wirathu-lineage/
All varayanist ‘Buddhists’ are thought controlled to shill for Lamaism, Sam is probably not knowingly promoting a fundamentalist theocratic religion, because Tibetan Buddhists don’t study the real history of Tibet, even those with PhDs.
Sam Harris is promoting the Scientism of the Mind and Life Institute of the Dalai Lama, He can say things like ‘I am not really a Buddhist, I am a Dzogchen practitioner , which is really not Buddhism,” I used to say that all the time, meanwhile he is out shilling for the Dalai Lama, why do you think he is promoting ‘secular ethics” that is what the Dalai Lama’s front is. Sam is just a better paid shill. Like Tom Cruise.
When Sam starts equally discussing the ‘apocalyptic millenialist theocratic, misogynistic reality of Tibet and Tibetan ‘Buddhisms’ violence, and when he starts acknowledging that Tibet ‘Buddhism’ is not Buddhism but Hindu Brahmin Tantric Vajrayana, a slave paradigm that kept the Tibetan people in mental slavery and that is was a cruel and violent religious fundamentalism as cruel and violent as the most fundamental Islamists?
Then I will say he is beginning to come out of his thought control by the Lamas and the Dalai Lama , Until then he is fooling himself and fooling all of you. Shilling for the Lamas.
But I doubt that is going to happen, they have made him one of their STAR SHILLS.
http://www.extibetanbuddhist.com
You apparently didn’t read the essay I linked to, which contains this paragraph:
Either that, or it’s not enough for you that Sam equates the Dalai Lama with primitive superstitions; you want Sam to condemn the Dalai Lama for some other set of sins.
Whatever. You’re firing wet powder up the worng rope, but that’s your problem.
Cheers,
b&
The Dslai Lama is a dangerous theocrat that is infiltrating the west through higher academia and through the Mind and Life Institute through its various masks, it is slow cooking our western culture through a growing group of Western Tibetan “Buddhists’ who like Sam are thought control inside the cult of Lamaism and or by being ‘mesmirized’ by the positive Dalai Lama memes that we have all been programmed with for decades now in the U.S.
You don’t get what I am saying because you don’t know that one of the things the Vajrayana Tantra, which Sam admits in many places he is a Vajrayanaist” is that is allows lying and deceit to spread Lamaism far and wide , which is what the Dalai Lama is doing, through his front the Mind and Life Institute , which Sam Harris is heavily involved in.
Sam’s teacher is Sharon Salzberg, from the lineage of 969 Burmese Theravadin, and who became a fanatic follower of Sogyal Rinpoche , a sexual exploiter of women inside his Rigpa Empire and has a second multimillion lawsuit against him for prolific sexual and physical abuse of women,
He has Dan Goldberg, endores his books. and wifes books, Goldberg is also heavily involved with the Mind and Life Institute and organized the first one out of M.I.T. popular psychologist and author of best selling book Emotional Intelligence, which dumbed down psychology and should have been called ‘Emotional Intelligence Over Reason , it down plays the very critical analytical skills
Dan Goldman is also shilling for Tibetan Buddhism , and when he is not prostrating at his masters’ Sogyal rinpoche’s feet, and ignoring his massive sexual abuses inside his ‘sanghas’ protecting and enabling this to continue and breaking his vows as a psychologists to report harm, because his vow as a Vajrayana ‘Buddhist’ and devotee of his Lama guru takes precedent, he is out teaching “leadership skills’ to Harvard Business school graduates” This is Dan Goldman doing his part, through deception, to shill for the Lamas.
That is the ‘Science’ and Secular Ethics these people are promoting, Scienticism. and dumbing down the nation with their ‘mindfulness meditation’ a merged stream from Burmese Theravadin and Tibetan Buddhism from the Mind and Life Institute.
Sam’s new book , for examply is about bringing the ‘contemplative practices’ into Science, that is the Mind and Life Institutes goals as well you can read it on their websit. . His new book is called Awakening.
The Dalai Lama new film, narrated by Harrison Ford, and an Update of another propaganda film called “Renaissance” with all the new age players , the luminaries they call themselves, is called ‘Awakening”.
These are not coincidences, these are the patterns of influence that are slow cooking our western culture to turn from traditional religions into the Buddhocracy that the Kalachakra of the Dalai Lama predicts after a Holy War with semitic religions particularly Muslims.
These are all propagandists for Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ spreading through these deceptive means,and they use these very simple potent language memes like ‘Secular Ethics’ , Awakening” in the larger population. This is thought control 101.
Sam is not only attempting to destroy traditional religions, in particular Islam, but he is also promoting Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ , he never bashes that.
He knows that some people are calling out who his connections are, so of course he makes these statements , but only lately , as he is well aware that if it were found out how deep his affiliations and continuous promotion of one of the most theocratic fundamental priesthoods was, it would ruin his shill. And him.
MY point is Scientists, Aetheists and Secularists like yourself are being played to focus in the wrong direction, i.e. on fundamental Christianity and Muslimism, instead of the real danger to reason and science in western culture, the hook up of Coroporations and the Dalai Lama,
The Dalai Lama Plays the Ecumenical and Religous Harmony instrument, and Sam Harris plays the ‘Anti Islam’ instrument , but they are playing the same song, from the same score.
Sorry, its early, Dan GOLEMAN, not Goldberg or GOLDMAN.
Its Dan GOLEMAN that is the other fanatic Tibetan Lamaist, and who is promoting Tibetan ‘Buddhism ‘ and the Dalai Lama’s Mind and Life Institute his secular and scientific study of the mind, a front for spreading his cult of Lamaism.
My point is, they have all of those concerned about ‘fundamentalist’ religion and its ability of weakening science and rational thought looking in the wrong direction as to where the real danger is,as a very primitive , and atavistic fundamentalist theocracy has already infiltrated into higher education and is influencing and ‘dumbing down’ a third generation of college graduates, young people already deeply programmed in these Hindu cultic memes, (Tibetan Buddhism is really Hindu Vajryana) and to value “intuition’ and ’emotional intelligence’ over reason and critical thinking skills, and it will get worse if you all don’t stop calling everything a conspiracy theory, (that is another programmmed meme to get you to dismiss anything in a knee jerk reaction) when facts are presented to you of a very dangerous and obvious ‘pattern of influence’ spreading like wildfire , with thousands of Tibetan monasteries being built, and all major universities , (now corporate funded and controlled) sponsoring giant Dalai Lama events to massive get to young people, he is coming this fall to the University of Alabama,for another giant event to reach young people. and now even has a group infiltrating into community colleges,to spread his Lamaism, and fundamental theocracy, while you are focused on the ‘false flags’ to distract you from what is happening under your noses.
Their strategy and tactics is to undermine first , traditional religion which is what Sam’s role is with these watered down psuedo-nonreligious messages, that is what the Dalai Lama is promoting now as well.
This is a cult of thought control and it has worked best with ‘academics’ and well educated people. That is the tragedy, that liberals who might have fought to preserve freedom of speech and democratic principles are enabling this to be undermined by the most dangerous fundamental theocracy of despots the world has ever known, because their religious tenets tell them to use deception and stealth to spread. At least the other ‘fundamental theocracies’ are out in the open, they arene’t pretending to be secular and and scientific to fool people like you.
Woah…I think your tinfoil hat is slipping; the mind rays are leaking a bit, there. Or maybe you pulled an amateur move and tried to make your hat with aluminum foil rather than genuine tinfoil?
b&
Impossible to reach you, like all people programmed to react with the ‘tin foil’ hat meme , you have already been deeply programmed to ignore facts , or obvious patterns of influence , the elephant in the room here to undermine secularism, and reason, by first wearing ‘secular’ and reason ‘ masks.
Tibetan Lamas are the masters of the masked dance, how do you think they kept their own people in such poverty and misery as their slaves for over a thousand years.
Keep focusing on the Muslims and Christians , that’s the plan.
“Tibetan Lamas are the masters of the masked dance, how do you think they kept their own people in such poverty and misery as their slaves for over a thousand years.”
Oh, off the top of my head, perhaps because Tibet is a remote, harsh, inaccessible backwater where most people were fully occupied in trying to eke out a miserable subsistence lifestyle, and therefore didn’t have the luxury of time on their hands to dream up the bizarre conspiracy theory you’ve come up with. I mean really – a secret plot by Tibetan Buddhists to take over the world? Doesn’t evertbody know that the Jews have a monopoly on that kind of thing? Somehow I can’t imagine the Dalai Lama as the chief villain in a James Bond movie, and I doubt whether the “Protocols of the Elders of Lhasa” will ever match the sales of the original.
Okay Chandler, you are showing signs of monomania with these long rants, all of which say the same thing. And you’ve derailed this thread. Please go post on someone else’s site.
When people come out with the ‘tin foil hat’ ad hominem,, that is right up their with the you must be a ‘Chinese spy’ meme.
I suspect you are an affiliate of Tibetan ‘Buddhism’ yourself?
Trolls of the Dalai Lama machine have 3 favorite memes planted in their heads to make sure any one critical of the Dalai Lama machinery is dismissed as a nut.
http://www.extibetanbuddhist.com/2014/04/25/dalai-lama-damage-control-limited-hang-out-operations-of-the-dalai-lama-corporation/
Suspect all you want, but the extent of my personal involvement with Buddhism was to take a non-major general studies art of Asia class at university. I suppose the professor must really have been an elite member of the Tibetan Kung Fu Caliphate, and he used secret Tantric hypnosis techniques to implant mind triggers in our brains when we all thought he was merely boring us to tears. Makes so much sense!
b&
Ritzvi is also the author of this excellent piece:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-atheist-muslims-perspective-on-the-root-causes-of-islamist-jihadism-and-the-politics-of-islamophobia_b_3159286.html
There are some very interesting and appropriate comments below that article on the Huffington Post.
So you object to
Ayaan Hirsi Ali being strongly outspoken against Islam. Her arguments are against the faith itself, not against muslims. That she puts her arguments strongly, based on her experiences of Islam as it is practised,is neither hear nor there.
Perhaps if you had undergone the indignities she had to endure you would also adopt an “undignified manner” in criticising Islam.
Maybe you should try living in an Islamic country and witness what women have to endure, and it’s all supported by the Quran, the hadiths, the sutras and the Islamic theocrats. Once Muslims become the majority in a country the only system they permit is Islam, so don’t be so sanguine about Islam and it’s adherents. I know many Muslims, but I know not one who will criticise any tenets of their faith.If it’s in the Quran or the sayings of Mohammed, it’s beyond criticism.
Typo “surras”.
It is not surras, it is suras. A surra is a severe tropical or subtropical disease of domestic animals that is caused by a protozoan of the genus Trypanosoma (T. evansi), is transmitted by biting flies, and is marked especially by fever, anemia, edema, emaciation, and petechiae
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surra
Ooh!
Getting pedantic are we? Seems like you got the point of my comment though.
Don’t presume to put words in my mouth or tell me what I think.
For your edification, I have lived in Muslim countries – Afghanistan and Pakistan where I lived with local people, as well as with a huge Muslim family in a remote area of northern Kenya (in a little town called Wamba), and spent most of the time with the women. My daughter’s father is a Pathan from Paktia, Afghanistan, so I reckon I am in a far better position than you to talk about this subject.
I didn’t put words in your mouth. I commented on your defence of Islam. I also know Muslims that are good people, however that’s despite them being Muslims, not because of it.
You cannot deny the extreme violence that is perpetrated by followers of Islam, and that is justified by the sayings in the Quran and the hadiths. Furthermore you cannot deny that the response of Muslims to even the slightest criticism of Mohammed or Islam is regarded as Islamophobia.
You just seem hellbent on defending Islam at all costs. How much freedom did those women in Afghanistan enjoy, and what are the socioeconomic conditions in that country as a result of medieval religious government,or in Pakistan. Islam is the worst of religions for oppressing it’s women. Perhaps you’re a victim of it’s doctrine of taqquia.
Rizvi is also the author of this excellent piece
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/an-atheist-muslims-perspective-on-the-root-causes-of-islamist-jihadism-and-the-politics-of-islamophobia_b_3159286.html
The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing!
But spreading irrational fear and feeding hatred is not what good people should do.
Reblogged this on The Atheist .
I think it is good that you write this, to make people more conscious of the difference between Islamophobia and the dislike of Muslims. Many people don’t know this, and it makes you think more about those matters.
I don’t know much about religions/the Islam/racial hatred, but I love to see that a discussion has sparked. Keep up the good work!
Sam Harris’s rational inspiration for his ‘secular ethics’ and anti-Muslim inspiration as a Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhist and part of the Dalai Lama’s front to spread it all over the world, and particularly in the U.S.
through many vehicles but particularly to fool academics and liberal ‘secularists” through the Mind and Life Institute which Sam is a big part of . His anti Muslim sentiment didn’t just emerge from no where, he has been inspired by his membership in the cult of Vajrayana.
The Kalachakra empowerments of the Dalai Lama. has been given five times in the U.S.a target nation to spread Tibetan Lamaism, through deceptive means, and given to hundreds and thousands of naive people, and since then more Anti-Muslim sentiment has grown.
http://www.trimondi.de/SDLE/Part-1-06.htm
Mind and Life Institute and its ambitious Goals to spread Tibetan Lamaism by fooling educated people and to weaken western science:
http://www.mindandlife.org/
Since it is is common sense (and rational) to fear a religion that urges its believers to convert, kill, enslave, or subdue unbelievers and force them to pay a head tax (and otherwise reduce them to second class citizens), there can be no “irrational fear” (phobia) of Islam.
Therefore, there is no such thing as Islamphobia. It is simply a creation of subversives working to undermine the West, and taken up by opportunists and moronic malcontents.
Reblogged this on My views on Obama and Islam and commented:
a very nice explanation for a common problem