Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Is Supporting The Rights Of Muslims Hypocrisy?
I'm a part of several politically oriented groups on Facebook and recently this meme below showed up on my feed by a conservative showing an apparent hypocrisy in what Democrats do:
The thing is, you can support someone's civil rights even without agreeing with them on their political and social attitudes. Anyone who knows me or has read my blog knows I'm one of the biggest critics of Islam there is. I detest almost everything about Islam. But I will respect and stand up for the rights and civil liberties of Muslims to not be unfairly discriminated against and mistreated.
What does "Dixon Diaz" think Democrats should do? Fight for the removal of civil liberties from Muslim people in the US because we may disagree with them on certain things? Think of it this way. Should I, as a Democrat, stand up for the rights of Republicans to not be discriminated against even though I vehemently oppose their views? I'm sure every Republican would say "yes." In fact, many Republicans are complaining now that Democrats and liberals aren't standing up for the free speech of Republicans, particularly on college campuses. So there you go.
Now it's one thing to support someone's civil rights, it's another thing to support their agenda. I'm against supporting the agenda of Muslims who do not agree with the very civil rights I'd protect, who instead support regressive laws and policies. But I still think they deserve basic civil liberties. Liberals just need to be fully aware of this distinction, and so do conservatives like the guy who made this meme. Supporting someone's civil rights does not entail you support their views. And without doing this, no one would have any rights.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Interview With An Iraqi Refugee
So a few days ago president Trump signed an executive order banning all nationals from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Iran, and Somalia from entering the US for 3 months, and all refugees from these countries for 180 days, until (apparently) our government can figure out "what the hell is going on." Now aside from the evidence that there were zero deaths in the US by nationals from those countries over the last 40 years from terror related activities, and there have been plenty from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon, curiously not on the list, the reason given by the Trump administration was "danger."
But what can we say? It's Trump. He's not a rational actor. The news of the ban though, reminded me of my own friend Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, an Iraqi refugee and secular activist who came to the US in 2013. The ban for him is personal, since if it happened 4 years ago he wouldn't have been able to make it into the US, despite him being an atheist and secular activist who argues against Islamic extremism.
Below is the interview of him we had on the Firebrands Podcast last month (which you should totally check out) about his experiences and work as a secular activist trying to reform Islam.
Labels:
Immigration,
Islam,
Politics
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Quote Of The Day: Mohammad Owned Black Slaves
I could never understand why any black person could be a Christian, given how the religion was forced onto their African ancestors by their white slave masters. I can certainly see how they would want to leave Christianity, but some black people think Islam is the answer. I've never understood that either, given how Islam had its own African slave trade for centuries. In fact the prophet of Islam himself owned black slaves. It says so right in the Islamic scriptures in the Hadith. Sahih Muslim Book 010, Hadith Number 3901:
Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledged allegiance to Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man).
Are black Muslims aware of this? Does those who left Christianity to convert to Islam because they felt Christianity was too much of a white man's religion know that they now swear allegiance to a religion whose founder owned black slaves? Say what you want about Jesus, but he never owned any slaves, certainly not any black ones.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
The Argument From Core Theory
The most successful scientific theory ever that gives us the most accurate predictions in all of science is quantum field theory. It says that particles and forces arise out of fields. When the fields vibrate, we observe those vibrations in the form of particles. Particles are made up of two kinds of fields, fermions and bosons. Bosons make up force fields. An example would be the Higgs field, which gives particles matter. Fermions make up the objects of matter that you and I are made of.
There are basically only three kinds of matter particles and three forces that you and I are made up of. Protons and neutrons, which make up the nucleus of atoms, and orbiting electrons, are the three matter particles. Then there are the three forces in the Standard Model: the strong and the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism. The strong force binds the nucleus of atoms together (and the quarks that make up protons and neutrons), the weak force allows interaction with neutrinos and are carried by W and Z bosons, and electromagnetism binds electrons with the nucleus.
Then there's gravity, for which we use the General Theory of Relativity to describe. Gravity is a very weak force and is very simple: everything pulls on everything else. It could be said that gravity isn't really a force per se, but is rather the curvature of spacetime. Regardless, it's just easier to describe it as a force. There are two other generations of fermions but they decay rather quickly and aren't particularly relevant for describing the stuff that you and I are made of and interact with.
So that makes up everything you experience in your everyday lives, without exception. When we combine all this knowledge into a single theory, we get what is called Core Theory. It was developed and named by Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek. And there's an equation that describes Core Theory:
Within this equation lies the physics of everyday human experience: eating, exercising, sleeping, dreaming, using a computer, driving a car, flying an airplane, reproducing, making decisions, meditating — everything you've ever done, ever seen, or ever will do (so long as you don't travel into a black hole), and every scientific experiment that has been performed is fundamentally described by, and compatible with, this equation. There are no exceptions.
The key word above is fundamentally. That means that whatever you experience yourself doing or seeing in your everyday life is going to be either reduced to and explained by, or emerges from, the fermions and bosons described by this equation. But this means there are consequences to this equation. As all-encompassing as Core Theory is, what it restricts is perhaps the most important.
One of its consequences is that psychic phenomena like telekinesis is ruled out. There are no forces or particles that your mind can produce that can bend spoons or move objects. In other words, we don't need to test the claims of every self-proclaimed psychic and mentalist. Core Theory unambiguously rules out such abilities. There's no way for there to be forces that can produce the kinds of effects mentalists claim they can cause. There's no room with in Core Theory to allow that. It isn't that we don't know of possible forces that might still exist "out there" waiting to be discovered that can allow spoon bending with one's mind, rather it's that we know all the relevant particles and forces and how they interact that are involved with the physics of everyday human experience, which telekinesis would be a part of. Any new force or particle that exists would be far too weakly interacting with the atoms that make up spoons or you and I to be able to effect them in any way like the mentalists claim they can do. This is why no psychic phenomena has ever been able to be demonstrated under any competent scientific scrutiny.
Friday, December 16, 2016
PEW Study On Education By Religion Shows Unaffiliated Educated Less
Pew has released a new survey reporting that Jews and Christians worldwide have on average higher levels of educational attainment than the unaffiliated do. On some Right-leaning sites this is being touted as a rebuttal to the often heard claim that atheists are more educated than Christians, or religious people in general.
Well, there is a way to explain this but it's a little bit complicated. In the US, a larger percentage of the unaffiliated (and therefore atheists) have higher education than Christians, as the same survey reported. This is not always true for several developing countries. This means region must be factored in as much as religion. The latter claim that atheists are more educated than religious people in general is indeed true and this same study reports that when the affiliated and unaffiliated worldwide go head-to-head on the percentage of those with higher education, the unaffiliated always show more. (See below)
Labels:
Atheism,
Christianity,
Islam,
religion
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Maajid Nawaz Makes The Case For A Secular Islam
Across the secular web there has been an uproar over the Southern Poverty Law Center's recent decision to add Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali to their list of "Anti-Muslim Extremists." Now I've followed both of them for years and read their work, listened to their speeches and lectures, and I know for a fact that neither of them are anti-Muslim extremists.
But because Maajid is occasionally critical of Islam, Islamic history, and what Muslims have done in the name of Islam (and in many cases still do today), he's been branded by some on the left as anti-Muslim, despite being a Muslim himself. And so they've written critical pieces against him in left-wing syndications that exaggerate or outright lie about his deeds and intentions, and the SPLC picked up on that and branded him an anti-Muslim extremist without clear justification.
Regressive leftists like CJ Werleman have called Maajid a "House Muslim" because he's willing to take the "extreme" position that there is a link between Islamic beliefs and terrorism and because he challenges Islamists and engages with atheists. Instead, "true Muslims" according to regressives must be the kind that deny theology can have any influence whatsoever on anyone's actions — unless they're good of course. And "true Muslims" must be the kind that blame Western foreign policy for all the problems in the Islamic world and who deny groups like ISIS have anything to do with Islam.
So watch the video above. Tell me this isn't the work of a true Muslim reformer who's trying to find the difficult path on getting Islam updated for the 21st century — which all liberals should realize is desperately needed. The SPLC made a bad decision, and there is a petition on change.org to get both Maajid and Ayaan removed. I urge all of you to sign it and share it on Facebook.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Quote Of The Day: Why ISIS Fights & Hates Us
Today's quote comes from the latest issue of ISIS's very own publication Dabiq. To those out there who still insist that ISIS is the result of purely socio-economic reasons and/or motivated by Western foreign policy that has nothing to do with the religion of Islam, I give you an article shutting that view down right from the source. It's entitled, "Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You" and in it ISIS explains exactly why they fight and hate us and (spoiler alert!) it's first and foremost due to their religion of Islam. They hate our secular, disbelieving, gay-enabling lands of freedom and sodomy, where we let criticism of Islam and their pedophile prophet Mohammad be tolerated. They will not rest in hating and fighting us until we convert to Islam or submit to Islamic rule under dhimmi status and pay the jizyah. All of us. Only a temporary cease fire is the best we can ever hope for in terms of "peace." That's why ISIS needs to be wiped off the face of the earth and every last one of them is destroyed. And their ideology and religion need to be utterly refuted into extinction so that it never comes back.
Here are their top 3 reasons why they hate and fight us.
1. We hate you, first and foremost, because you are disbelievers; you reject the oneness of Allah – whether you realize it or not – by making partners for Him in worship, you blaspheme against Him, claiming that He has a son, you fabricate lies against His prophets and messengers, and you indulge in all manner of devilish practices. It is for this reason that we were commanded to openly declare our hatred for you and our enmity towards you. “There has already been for you an excellent example in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, ‘Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah. We have rejected you, and there has arisen, between us and you, enmity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone’” (Al-Mumtahanah 4). Furthermore, just as your disbelief is the primary reason we hate you, your disbelief is the primary reason we fight you, as we have been commanded to fight the disbelievers until they submit to the authority of Islam, either by becoming Muslims, or by paying jizyah – for those afforded this option – and living in humiliation under the rule of the Muslims. Thus, even if you were to stop fighting us, your best-case scenario in a state of war would be that we would suspend our attacks against you – if we deemed it necessary – in order to focus on the closer and more immediate threats, before eventually resuming our campaigns against you. Apart from the option of a temporary truce, this is the only likely scenario that would bring you fleeting respite from our attacks. So in the end, you cannot bring an indefinite halt to our war against you. At most, you could only delay it temporarily. “And fight them until there is no fitnah [paganism] and [until] the religion, all of it, is for Allah” (Al-Baqarah 193).
2. We hate you because your secular, liberal societies permit the very things that Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted, a matter that doesn’t concern you because you separate between religion and state, thereby granting supreme authority to your whims and desires via the legislators you vote into power. In doing so, you desire to rob Allah of His right to be obeyed and you wish to usurp that right for yourselves. “Legislation is not but for Allah” (Yusuf 40). Your secular liberalism has led you to tolerate and even support “gay rights,” to allow alcohol, drugs, fornication, gambling, and usury to become widespread, and to encourage the people to mock those who denounce these filthy sins and vices. As such, we wage war against you to stop you from spreading your disbelief and debauchery – your secularism and nationalism, your perverted liberal values, your Christianity and atheism – and all the depravity and corruption they entail. You’ve made it your mission to “liberate” Muslim societies; we’ve made it our mission to fight off your influence and protect mankind from your misguided concepts and your deviant way of life.
3. In the case of the atheist fringe, we hate you and wage war against you because you disbelieve in the existence of your Lord and Creator. You witness the extraordinarily complex makeup of created beings, and the astonishing and inexplicably precise physical laws that govern the entire universe, but insist that they all came about through randomness and that one should be faulted, mocked, and ostracized for recognizing that the astonishing signs we witness day after day are the creation of the Wise, All-Knowing Creator and not the result of accidental occurrence. “Or were they created by nothing, or were they the creators [of themselves]?” (AtTur 35). Your disbelief in your Creator further leads you to deny the Day of Judgment, claiming that “you only live once.” “Those who disbelieve have claimed that they will never be resurrected. Say, ‘Yes, by my Lord, you will surely be resurrected; then you will surely be informed of what you did. And that, for Allah, is easy’” (At-Taghabun 7).
When reading ISIS propaganda, prepare to see how twisted and warped taking the religion of Islam literally can make you. Read it all right from the latest issue of Dabiq, entitled Break the Cross.
Labels:
Atheism,
Islam,
religion,
secularism
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
America Is A Christian Nation?
I came across this video from a YouTube channel called Counter Arguments. There are some really nice videos on that channel, well produced and edited, and I agree with almost everything I've seen so far. Here is one video on the counter argument to the claim "America is a Christian nation." Please check out his videos and YouTube channel.
EXTRA: Here's another one on the nonsense spewed out by professional Islamic obscurantist Reza Aslan.
Labels:
Christianity,
Islam,
Politics,
secularism
Friday, June 17, 2016
Quote Of The Day: The Racism Of Low Expectations
Today's quote comes from Maajid Nawaz, the coiner of the term "regressive left," from his BigThink talk:
… It’s what I call the racism of low expectations: to lower those standards when looking at a brown person if a brown person happens to express a level of misogyny, chauvinism, bigotry, or anti-Semitism, and yet hold other white people to universal liberal standards. The real victim of that double standard are the minority communities themselves because by doing so we limit their horizons; we limit their own ceiling and expectations as to what they aspire to be; we’re judging them as somehow that their culture is inherently less civilized; and, of course, we are tolerating bigotry within communities, and the first victims of that bigotry happen to be those who are weakest from among those communities.
Happy Friday!
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Prerequisite List For Having A Conversation With Regressive Leftists
Before you have a conversation with regressive leftists where you'll be critical about Islam and terrorism, in order to preempt the usual responses you'll typically get, remember to mention the things on this checklist:
- Yes, I'm fully aware that not all Muslims are terrorists and not all terrorists are Muslims
- Yes, I'm fully aware that the vast majority of Muslims are not violent
- Yes, I'm fully aware that Christians have committed violence in the name of their religion
- Yes, I'm fully aware that the Bible has many violent and sexist verses in it
- Yes, I'm fully aware that the US government has done many terrible things in its foreign policy
- No, I'm not saying that Islam is the root of all evil or that religion is the cause of every problem in the world
- No, I'm not suggesting that we kill all Muslims or attack innocent civilians
- No, I'm not suggesting we discriminate against all people from the Middle East or South Asia
- And no, I'm not suggesting there is something inherently violent about Muslims
With that out of the way you can proceed onto your dialogue with the regressive leftist and you will have hopefully preempted many of their impulsive accusations that hinder real dialogue. This list may grow as I think of new ones. If you're interested, you can check out Sam Harris' version of this here.
Labels:
Christianity,
Islam
Sunday, June 12, 2016
This Is What Happens When You Take Religion Literally
In light of the recent mass shooting in Orlando I'm seeing the regressive leftists all over twitter saying that this shooting had nothing to do with the terrorist's Islamic faith. But of course that's bullshit. Both the Qu'ran and the Hadith speak very negatively about homosexuality, and in some cases recommend death. Religion is a factor in the motivation of behavior, both good and bad, and we have to acknowledge that and stop denying that religions like Islam do any harm (I'm talking to you liberals). We must be vigilant in refuting regressive ideologies everywhere, regardless of whether they're secular or religious.
Here is a wonderful example of a fundamentalist Christian who takes the Bible literally where you can see the poisonous effects it has on his brain. I present to you raging homophobe pastor Steven Anderson.
Labels:
Christianity,
Islam,
religion
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Hitchens On Why Islam Is Nonsense
This is why I love Hitchens.
Labels:
Christopher Hitchens,
Islam,
religion
Friday, April 8, 2016
When Liberalism Shoots Itself In The Foot
I feel the need to write more about politics given that this is an election year and I've always been a political person. I want to gravitate towards writing about higher level phenomena like politic and economics, and discussing the issues and the philosophies around them.
I've been thinking for some time now about the negative, and perhaps, unintended consequences of political correctness that some on the left don't seem to acknowledge. One of the problems with political correctness is that it sometimes forces you to deny reality—to deny facts, in the name of not offending people. There are some facts about this world that are inconvenient to the liberal agenda. But facts shouldn't conform to political ideology. Rather, ideology should conform to the facts.
I think political correctness when gone too far can sometimes hurt the liberal agenda by shooting itself in the foot. Let's look at two examples.
Take the issue of the treatment of women in Islam. You have feminists in Western countries who will challenge every aspect of the patriarchy, and every perceived threat of male dominance to the status and treatment of women, yet on the issue of Islam and how women are treated in cultures dominated by that religion, the criticism almost disappears. Instead, the idea goes, since most Muslims are brown, and since the Western colonial powers have historically done bad things to brown people, criticizing Islamic culture for its treatment of women exemplifies this legacy Western colonial dominance, and so we must be respectful of not criticizing the treatment of women is Islamic cultures too harshly—or at all—thereby enabling the mistreatment of hundreds of millions of women to persist. This is a case of political correctness hurting the liberal agenda.
Or, take the dicey issue of race. Political correctness has made talking about race and racism more difficult. The social justice warriors of our day want to effectively shut down anyone who disagrees with their "facts" or who violates their preapproved accepted terminology on how to "properly" talk about race. If someone accidentally "misspeaks" and uses the wrong word, they are labeled a racist and must either step down, be fired, boycotted, or shamed into apology or hiding. What this ends up doing is making many people terrified to talk about race publicly. But racism still exists and not talking about race doesn't make racism go away. We have to talk about race in order to address the causes and solution to racism, and if everyone's terrified to talk about race because they're afraid of accidentally offending someone and being labelled a racist, then no one talks about race except for those perhaps on the far left, and actual racists. This will alienate people in the middle who might have important input to the discussion but who don't agree with the most liberal positions of the far left agenda, and who don't want to get associated with the actual racism of the far right. And so hugely important issues about race might never get discussed and addressed. This is a case of political correctness hurting the liberal agenda. It's 1984 with a liberal Big Brother.
I understand the need for some level of political correctness. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is openly racist and sexist like it was sixty years ago. I abhor actual racism and sexism. But political correctness gone too far shoots liberalism in the foot—and I still consider myself a liberal, by and large. We have to be able to be real with one another when talking about the tough problems we deal with as a society. For example, if you suggest that black culture is partly to blame for the systemic problems in many black communities, should that automatically disqualify you from the conversation? No. If you say that the Islamic religion and much of the culture based on it has sexist elements and is a large part of the problem with how women are treated in Islamic cultures, should you automatically be labeled a Islamophobe who's upholding the racist colonial dominance of an oppressed people? No. We need to be able to discuss about these things without the PC police shutting down the conversation before it even starts.
This is by the way, not an argument against liberalism, but an argument about how liberalism should change, because too much political correctness is hurting it. This is enabling a backlash that is empowering the rise of the far right. And I don't want to see that happening.
Unintended consequences.
Monday, January 4, 2016
"Seven main reasons why I left Islam - Proof Islam is false"
In lieu of writing original content, I've decided to post some interesting YouTube videos that I've seen lately to fill in the silence. I will definitely be blogging in the near future on a wide variety of topics, including finishing up chapter 5 of The Last Superstition which I hopefully should have by February-ish. I will also plan on writing more about regressive leftism, which I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I plan to write some thoughts on Richard Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus. A lot more as well.
Here's an interesting video I saw criticizing Islam. It is very important that we spread these kinds of videos so that (1) believing Muslims can be exposed to criticism of their religion and its truth claims, and (2) so that non-Muslims are exposed to some good reasons to think Islam is false, making it unlikely that they'll ever convert.
Labels:
Christianity,
Islam,
The Qur'an
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Dear Christians: You Do Know That Anti-Muslim Rhetoric Helps Atheists, Right?
Source: The Real News |
So yeah, you Christians should amp up the anti-Muslim rhetoric as much as possible so that this is more likely to happen, and that way we atheists can use the worsening Christian/Muslim conflict to point out how stupid all religion is, which will help our secular agenda.
Just sayin'.
Labels:
Atheism,
Christianity,
Islam,
Politics,
religion,
secularism
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
I Think I figured Out Trump
I think I figured out Donald Trump's appeal. He's simply saying out loud what a very, very large percentage of republicans have been thinking for years. Decades. I have family members who, sadly, are white separatists. They want all the Latinos, Asians, and Muslims deported. They've been talking about banning Muslims from coming into this country for years. They don't like "minorities." They don't like foreigners. They don't like black people either of course. And this is a big chunk of the conservative base. A recent Bloomberg poll stated that 65% of likely republican voters support temporarily banning Muslims from entering the US who are not citizens. I'm not at all surprised.
Most of us think he's crazy. Trump's political goals are impractical even if he gets elected. He really doesn't seem to know how American politics works. He couldn't ban Muslims from entering the US even if he became president. He couldn't call up the CEO of General Motors and demand they build a plant here in the US or else pay a 35% tariff on their imports. Presidents just can't do that on a whim. He thinks America is his corporation, where he can just issue declarations. It's hard to imagine how someone so stupid has even been able to become so successful in business.
Maybe Trump is just saying this to get his numbers up. Every time he says something racist, his numbers go up. That says more about the republican party more than anything. I mean, I'm as big a critic as anyone about Islam, but banning entry to the US on the basis of religion is one of the most un-American things I can think of.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
It's Time To Be Thankful Again - A Short Rant
So, it's been another year since Thanksgiving. This time last year I was recovering from surgery and having to work from home. That episode involved two operations and two nights in the hospital, and totaled nearly 40 thousand dollars. It was $7,000 per night just to stay in the hospital. The hospital was decent but the food was absolutely horrible. Can you believe it costs that much to stay at the hospital per night? It's outrageous.
Thankfully though, I had health insurance, and good health insurance at that. I only ended up paying $500 out of pocket for the whole thing. Had I needed surgery a few years earlier when I was unemployed and without insurance, I would have been financially fucked. So this has made me appreciate what I've got and its always good to set aside a time of the year to remind us of this. I have a good job that is low stress, pays good, and provides me good health insurance. I'm a middle class person living in a first world country. Right there I have it better than 90 percent of the world's population. I live in the best city in the world. I have good friends. My family relationships are mostly good. I have my health (thanks to my insurance). And I have a new girlfriend and things are going well (so far). Right now my life is pretty good. I don't really have anything that's causing me tremendous stress. Things aren't perfect of course. I have problems here and there, but overall things are pretty good.
And this is mostly due to pure luck. I'm simply lucky that I was born with a healthy body and a healthy brain, into a secular middle class family in a first world country where I enjoy levels of freedom billions of people are not afforded. I got dealt a good hand. I lucked out in the genetic lottery. That's the reality of my situation. I'm just luckier than most other people in many ways. But with that luck I plan to make this world a better place so that other people can be just as lucky as me. That way, a greater number of people in the future will win this genetic lottery. If anything we should always thank the people who've made the pleasures in our lives possible. I thank them mostly.
I am optimistic that the world will get better. We no doubt have problems—climate change, income inequality, terrorism, war — plenty of stuff. Religion is declining in the West and I'm happy about that. We're going to have problems with the Islamic world for generations to come unfortunately, but I think the Islamic world will eventually liberalize and secularize. It won't be easy. Technology is going to improve all of our lives. Diseases will be eradicated by genetic manipulation. We've not even begun to reap the rewards of our ability to manipulate DNA and realize its potential. This is going to utterly change our ability to combat disease and make nature work for us. We can't pray for change, we must be active agents in making the world a better place — at least in the sense of making it a point to not cause any unnecessary suffering. If we all were negative utilitarians in this sense, the happiness and well being of the world would go up tremendously. That's one of the reasons why I had to give up eating meat.
This will also be my first Thanksgiving as a vegetarian. It will be interesting, but I like mash potatoes and stuffing enough to call it a meal.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
On Being Offended
What if I created an ideology that said Muslims are the most vile animal in the world, who are ignorant, niggardly, diseased, disobedient criminals and sinful liars, whose hearts are hardend, and who are deaf, dumb, and blind? Would you think that Muslims would find that offensive? Would you think many non-Muslims would find that offensive about Muslims? You probably guessed the answer is yes. And you probably guessed that such an ideology would be considered bigoted, Islamophobic hate speech, and perhaps even racist to many as well. Such adherents to this ideology would be routinely discriminated against and mocked with bitter disgust and no doubt most liberals would equate them with the Nazis or the KKK.
Well, this is exactly what Islam says about unbelievers, be they Christians or Jews, polytheists or atheists. And yet, Islam is not considered hate speech, nor is it considered bigoted or racist or anything else like that to most people. So how does Islam get away with such a double standard? Oh, that's right — it's a religion, and not only that, it's a minority religion. Once something operates under the title of "religion" it gets a privileged status. Criticizing it becomes "offensive" to an adherent's cherished beliefs and the PC police will come out in full swing at anyone who dares offend a believer. Meanwhile, the Muslim gets to espouse all the hateful rhetoric he wants from the Mosque, or the street, about how wicked and diseased us non-believers are with virtual impunity — because he's just doing what his religion says.
This is madness.
I'm supposed to be concerned about offending him? What about my sentiments? If we're going to truly live up to the standards set out by the PC police then let's at least be fair. If it's politically incorrect for me to have an ideology that calls Muslims the vilest of animals and sinful disobedient liars, then it's politically incorrect for Muslims to have a religion that says the same thing about non-believers. So that means we're going to have to censor the Qur'an to make it PC friendly. Or, we're going to have to ban it altogether. And while we're at it, let's do the same to the Bible and the Book of Mormon. They each have hateful, sexist, or homophobic bigoted rhetoric. How's that sound? Why don't we all consider how offended atheists are when they are told mean, nasty things in religious texts? Don't we all believe in fairness and equality?
Labels:
Atheism,
Islam,
Philosophy,
Politics,
religion
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Don't Pray For Paris, Become An Advocate Against Regressive Beliefs
The recent news out of Paris is horrible. At least 129 are dead in 6 orchestrated terrorist attacks, less than a year after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. The hastag #PrayForParis started trending on Twitter as a result. This is very common when there is a tragedy somewhere. Praying for someone means thinking about them in a nice way. It involves asking some higher being, power, or spirit to show love, compassion, help, and mercy towards the person or persons you're praying for. As atheists, we know such prayers are useless. Your prayers do not affect the universe in any way. At most, we can say that when we know we're being prayed for, we feel good. It's little different from finding out someone likes you and is thinking positively about you. It makes us feel good. But prayer has no metaphysical effect.
When dealing with these kinds of tragedies, rather than praying, we should resist that urge however powerful and instinctive it may feel, and instead apply a more rational and practical response. We should donate money, food, and supplies, whenever possible. And when dealing with terrorism based on perverted and false ideology, like that of Islam, our response should be to become advocates against their regressive beliefs. We should refute them and their ideology at every chance we get, within reasonableness. And we should become advocates for the modern, secular, progressive way of life that we live and stand for. Let's make #TerrorismSociallyUnacceptable as Bill Maher recently tweeted. Let's stand for liberal principles! But let's also not become racist xenophobes in the process. Of course, it goes without saying that not all Muslims are terrorists, and not all terrorists are Muslims. It is bad ideology that we need to be advocates against, regardless of whether it is religious or secular.
#ParisAttacks Lets make #TerrorismSociallyUnacceptable which means liberals standing firm for Liberal principles!
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 14, 2015
Labels:
Atheism,
Islam,
Philosophy
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