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Explaining negativity towards Muslims and/or Islam?

mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
icehorse said:
...

I believe that there are a core set of ideas in Islam. Anyone who declares themselves a Muslim is declaring that they support the core ideas of Islam. They have CHOSEN to be a member of this group, and while they are all different, they do have this one important thing in common.

Further, I see attempt after attempt by apologists to claim that Islam can't be pinned down to a single set of ideas. Well you cannot have it both ways. If Islam doesn't stand for anything, why are we asked to respect it?
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Well, if you look closer there is no single unified interpretation of the single set of ideas. Indeed if you look closer there is not single set of ideas, because Islam is more than just the Qur'an.

I don't respect the Qur'an or any other book of law and all that. I believe in the evolving idea of human rights and the respect of all humans as with dignity.

See, it is not that hard. I don't respect Islam as such. I respect the human right to believe. Of course that is not absolute because there is not just one human. It becomes a balancing act, but I don't just judge humans based on on these to broad categories, which breaks down when you look closer.

Regards
Mikkel
 
mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
mikkel_the_dane said:
No, you could read a sufficiently broad scholarly work on Islam and learn what I have learned. I mean I came across one Muslim who was humanistic, secular and pacifist.
Islam is as open to interpretation as any other religion.

Here is an historic example:
Nonviolence from the unlikeliest of places - Waging Nonviolence
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There are many denominations of Christianity. Each emphasizes their interpretation of the basics. Among other things, the fact that Christians have made these denominations is a friendly gesture for the rest of the world.

I have no doubt that there are secular-humanist Muslims. But there are probably very few of them in the world of 1.8 billion Muslims. So for those of us who want to have friendly interactions with people of all belief systems, it would be a courtesy for Muslims to declare the denomination of Islam they follow.

OTOH, when an OP is focused on "Islam", it is more than reasonable for RFers to assume the OP is referring to basic, core, widely held beliefs about Islam. It is not reasonable to expect RFers to assume otherwise. So the baseline ought to be something like:

When you're talking about Islam, we can assume you're talking about the five pillars, or some such.
 
mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
icehorse said:
There are many denominations of Christianity. Each emphasizes their interpretation of the basics. Among other things, the fact that Christians have made these denominations is a friendly gesture for the rest of the world.

I have no doubt that there are secular-humanist Muslims. But there are probably very few of them in the world of 1.8 billion Muslims. So for those of us who want to have friendly interactions with people of all belief systems, it would be a courtesy for Muslims to declare the denomination of Islam they follow.
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But that applies to all religions, political ideologies and in some cases some forms of philosophy. Further I am realist, so I don't want to have friendly interactions with people of all belief systems, because some of them don't view me as friendly or indeed I because of my biases don't view them as friendly. Now it doesn't mean that I want to fight them per se, nor that I don't want to be hostile and I won't be friendly either as such.
 
mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Piculet said:
A Muslim by definition cannot support secularism for Muslim countries.
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Well, yes and no. But then we enter the fallacy of No True Scotsman and what makes a country Muslim.
I get what you are saying. For a certain understanding of Islam it is not possible, yet the Ottoman Empire in a certain sense did so. Now I am not that familiar with the Mughal Empire but maybe they did the same in some sense.
And I do believe than some modern Muslim countries are moving in that direction.
 
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Piculet said:
I'm sure you'd fit right in with the hadith rejecters. They hate the truth and will not acknowledge it if it's right in front of them.
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I'm not understanding you, can you rephrase that? thx!
 
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
mikkel_the_dane said:
You can google it. Start with hadith. Then look for hadith rejecters or rejectors. It is not that hard to understand.
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I know about the Hadith, thank you very much. What I'm not sure about is why my criticism of Islamic ideas would be related to Hadith rejectors. A person can criticize basic Islamic ideas by focusing on the Quran OR by taking a broader source of material.
 
Piculet

Piculet

Active Member
mikkel_the_dane said:
Well, yes and no. But then we enter the fallacy of No True Scotsman and what makes a country Muslim.
I get what you are saying. For a certain understanding of Islam it is not possible, yet the Ottoman Empire in a certain sense did so. Now I am not that familiar with the Mughal Empire but maybe they did the same in some sense.
And I do believe than some modern Muslim countries are moving in that direction.
Click to expand...
It isn't about what makes a country Muslim, but about what Islam teaches. Based on the Qur'an and the Hadith it is not possible for a learned Muslim to support secularism in a Muslim country. The reason I say in a Muslim country is that it would be absurd for someone in Canada or UK to support some other form of government, the Islamic law is for Muslims. But if there is a Muslim living in the US and he or she says KSA should be secular, he either doesn't have faith in the Islamic law or he is ignorant about it.
 
mikkel_the_dane

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Piculet said:
It isn't about what makes a country Muslim, but about what Islam teaches. Based on the Qur'an and the Hadith it is not possible for a learned Muslim to support secularism in a Muslim country. The reason I say in a Muslim country is that it would be absurd for someone in Canada or UK to support some other form of government, the Islamic law is for Muslims. But if there is a Muslim living in the US and he or she says KSA should be secular, he either doesn't have faith in the Islamic law or he is ignorant about it.
Click to expand...

And there we have it - the no true Scotsman. Okay, I suspect that these Muslims would still consider themselves Muslims and I would, but I accept that you don't do that.
 
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