Defending Secularism against Religious Incursions

[icehorse]

This thread is meant to address claims made in this RF thread:

Spreading Sharia, e.g. the Suit against Amazon

Specifically claims that the Sharia-titled thread was guilty of "dog whistling" and even "Yellow Peril"-ing.

In the context of these two threads, my goal is to defend universal human rights as nicely defined by the UDHR, and secularism is our best approach to defending human rights. Given this, I believe ANY encroachment into secularism by ANY religious group must be resisted. I believe that "reasonable accommodation" for religious sensibilities is usually a mistake. As a secularist, I defend people's right to pursue their religion, but not at the expense of other's human rights or liberties.

Off the top of my head, here is a list of recent efforts by (mostly), Christians and Muslims to encroach on secularism and human rights:

- Biology teachers pressured to avoid teaching evolution and begin to teach ID
- Women's reproductive rights under pressure
- Climate change denial
- Corporal punishment in red states
- DeVos pushing for prayer in school and charter schools
- Islamic Sharia council in the UK (coercion of women)
- Separate swimming hours for muslim women (Sweden)
- Halal and kosher in public schools (NY)
- SPLC lists legitimate critics as "anti-Muslim extremists"
- using islamophobia to stifle criticism
- OIC pressuring for blasphemy laws
- Salman Rushdie condemned by Archbishop of Canterbury who calls for expanding blasphemy laws
- danish cartoons of Muhammad not getting published
- Organizations like First Liberty, who's charter is to: "protect religious freedom"

To shine light on such anti-secular efforts is not "dog whistling", nor is it racist as the "Yellow Peril" smear implies.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

- SPLC lists legitimate critics as "anti-Muslim extremists"

Such as?

 

[icehorse]

Such as?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz:

Southern Poverty Law Center: Remove Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the SPLC's list of anti-Muslim extremists

 

[Kemosloby]

Climate change is a NWO lie, A manufactured global crises intended to unite the world against the boogie man. The beauty of it is that it is imperceptible to the naked eye, only perceptible on charts, graphs or on a hot day 'wink' . So nobody can really judge the effectiveness of any type of solution, only lies and officials stories can be regarded as truth. Anyone with an opposable thumb should be able to see that.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

To shine light on such anti-secular efforts is not "dog whistling", nor is it racist as the "Yellow Peril" smear implies.

Your "Spreading Sharia" banner was both.

 

[icehorse]

Your "Spreading Sharia" banner was both.

And again, being critical of Sharia is simply not racist.
And again, what is the term of the body of law that a Christian theocracy would install? I don't know it. "Sharia" is a valid shorthand for theocratic law, especially since I specifically mentioned Christian incursions in the OP.

I think perhaps you and the Archbishop of Canterbury out to go out for tea and bemoan those pesky secularists.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

Climate change is a NWO lie, A manufactured global crises intended to unite the world against the boogie man. The beauty of it is that it is imperceptible to the naked eye, only perceptible on charts, graphs or on a hot day 'wink' . So nobody can really judge the effectiveness of any type of solution, only lies and officials stories can be regarded as truth. Anyone with an opposable thumb should be able to see that.

Thank you for revealing that you are ignorant of how statistics works.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And again, being critical of Sharia is simply not racist.

And, again, labeling a workplace grievance as "Spreading Sharia" is not being critical of Sharia. It's thinly veiled fear mongering warning that "Beware: The Muslims Are Coming!" It's a xenophobic dog whistle.

 

[icehorse]

And, again, labeling a workplace grievance as "Spreading Sharia" is not being critical of Sharia. It's thinly veiled fear mongering warning that "Beware: The Muslims Are Coming!" It's a xenophobic dog whistle.

Calling it a "workplace grievance" is to misconstrue the situation.

Look at my initial list in this thread and tell me if those are also xenophobic dog whistles.

 

[Kemosloby]

Thank you for revealing that you are ignorant of how statistics works.

They work the same as the bible, by interpretation.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

They work the same as the bible, by interpretation.

That's a pretty strange claim your making.

Care to back it up?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Calling it a "workplace grievance" is to misconstrue the situation.

Amazon has touted itself as defender of Muslim American rights in recent months. The company made headlines for being one of several tech companies that condemned Donald Trump’s Muslim ban; CEO Jeff Bezos even vowed to fight the ban in court and on Capitol Hill. Amazon also provides stand-alone prayer rooms for employees who work high-tech jobs within the company.

But Muslims employed by the e-commerce giant’s security contractor, Security Industry Specialists (SIS), say use of prayer rooms was not fully extended to lower-paid officers who patrol Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington — even though Muslims represent a sizable portion of the roughly 800 security personnel.

More broadly, they claim that SIS — and Amazon — both have a history of mistreating or failing to accommodate those who claim Islam as their faith. [ibid]

Arguments can be made for either side in the "workplace grievance," but to paint it as Spreading Sharia is nothing more than islamophobic fear mongering.

 

[Kemosloby]

That's a pretty strange claim your making.

Care to back it up?

Someone has to interpret the data, someone has to approve the interpretation of the data. It's just the way it is. Sort of like the Vatican believes it's interpretation is correct and the surround themselves with officialdom to back it up. Some people fall for that stuff.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

Someone has to interpret the data, someone has to approve the interpretation of the data. It's just the way it is. Sort of like the Vatican believes it's interpretation is correct and the surround themselves with officialdom to back it up. Some people fall for that stuff.

You do realize that science is a process of logical and ordered interpretation?

 

[icehorse]

Arguments can be made for either side in the "workplace grievance," but to paint it as Spreading Sharia is nothing more than islamophobic fear mongering.

Perhaps we can make some progress here. So here's an assumption I'm making:

I view secularism and theocracy as opponents in a zero-sum game.

Do you agree or disagree?

(BTW, "islamophobia" is a fundamentally dishonest term promoted by those who want to stifle criticism. If you're concerned with anti-Muslim discrimination, you have a legitimate concern. But the term "islamophobia" conflates actual discrimination with legitimate criticism.)

​

 

[Kemosloby]

You do realize that science is a process of logical and ordered interpretation?

Generally people are logical and ordered except in the movie One flew over the cockoo's nest. Even a con artists interpretations are logical and orderly, a pyramid scheme is well thought out.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

Generally people are logical and ordered except in the movie One flew over the cockoo's nest. Even a con artists interpretations are logical and orderly, a pyramid scheme is well thought out.

Incorrect.

Con artist's claims are intuitive not logical and ordered. If you can look at their claims you can see where they lack evidence and use logical fallacies, religious claims have much in common with this.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I find it quite sad, that here we are, 2017, some 240 years later, and we are still struggling with "religious freedom"....

In truth? The *only* way one can experience religious freedom, is under purely secular government.

This ought to be obvious: What are the odds that a Theistic Government practices the same theism that any random theist practices? Slim to none.

Yet we still fight this, even today.

 

[Lorgar-Aurelian]

This thread is meant to address claims made in this RF thread:

Spreading Sharia, e.g. the Suit against Amazon

Specifically claims that the Sharia-titled thread was guilty of "dog whistling" and even "Yellow Peril"-ing.

In the context of these two threads, my goal is to defend universal human rights as nicely defined by the UDHR, and secularism is our best approach to defending human rights. Given this, I believe ANY encroachment into secularism by ANY religious group must be resisted. I believe that "reasonable accommodation" for religious sensibilities is usually a mistake. As a secularist, I defend people's right to pursue their religion, but not at the expense of other's human rights or liberties.

Off the top of my head, here is a list of recent efforts by (mostly), Christians and Muslims to encroach on secularism and human rights:

- Biology teachers pressured to avoid teaching evolution and begin to teach ID
- Women's reproductive rights under pressure
- Climate change denial
- Corporal punishment in red states
- DeVos pushing for prayer in school and charter schools
- Islamic Sharia council in the UK (coercion of women)
- Separate swimming hours for muslim women (Sweden)
- Halal and kosher in public schools (NY)
- SPLC lists legitimate critics as "anti-Muslim extremists"
- using islamophobia to stifle criticism
- OIC pressuring for blasphemy laws
- Salman Rushdie condemned by Archbishop of Canterbury who calls for expanding blasphemy laws
- danish cartoons of Muhammad not getting published
- Organizations like First Liberty, who's charter is to: "protect religious freedom"

To shine light on such anti-secular efforts is not "dog whistling", nor is it racist as the "Yellow Peril" smear implies.

If you want a simple phrase to sum this all up " Islam is about power to muslims and the slavery of everyone else." I do not say this lightly but many of these people from Pakistan , Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq ect are savages. They will refuse to integrate on any level and they demand you bend over backwards for them.

Pointing out how high migrant crime is from muslims in Europe? Clearly a racist. Pointing out the amount of child marriage and child sex slavery within these cultures? How could you be so islamaphobic?! Blasphemy against the prophet? clearly you deserve to die because my filthy religion should control you as well.

Do you know one of the biggest reasons they get so angry and want to try and use the western law system like this is? It's because a lot of them realize how weak their hold becomes over other people when they can be presented the facts. They start to realize that the little thread showing how much of a savage Muhammad was gets pulled and suddenly Islam starts to become undone.

Are you threatening Islam's grubby hands holding back entire scores of the population so they can be enslaved to allah forever? THAT IS THE MOST ISLAMAPHOBIC THING OF ALL!!

 

[Kemosloby]

Incorrect.

Con artist's claims are intuitive not logical and ordered. If you can look at their claims you can see where they lack evidence and use logical fallacies, religious claims have much in common with this.

But like climate change, you can't see their claims. It's a lie, a scheme, backed up by falsified interpretation of mountains of data. So I don't think we're getting anywhere, you have an unwavering faith in the incorruptibility of the scientific community. Much like in days of old people believed the pope and his church were infallible.