I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Greta
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Greta »

Seleucus wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 5:12 am
Greta wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 1:39 amThe golden age of Islam was around the thirteenth century, with flourishing commerce and trade, sciences, arts, medicine and architecture.
No, by that time the Muslim world was in implosion, the Semites and Mediterraneans (Sunni) were in religious war against the Indo-Aryans (Shia) and the Turks and Mongols from the East and the Greeks and Latins from the West were moving in at full speed.

The Golden Age of Islam was over by 900. In addition, the Golden Age of Islam, I would argue, had little to do with Islam, and much more to do with a resurgence of the long culturally dominant peoples, particularly the Persians and Greeks and throwing off of the influence of the Arab invaders and colonizers. Al-Mutawakkil who reigned from 847–861 reversed the rationalist agenda of his Abbasid predecessors and sent the civilization on track back into dogmatism, which continues to today. Also note, Muslim and Golden Age accomplishments were in the fields of medicine and mathematics, because philosophy, art, and literature care (non-Islamic) values and were therefore repressed. A book like Jim Al-Khalili's How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance is practically grotesque since the Islamic contribution spurring the Renaissance was the sacking of Constantinople leading to masses of Greek refugees bringing their knowledge and books to Italy.
Thanks for the correction. Interesting!

Whatever, putting my philosophical hat on, the sacking of Constantinople is far from the first time that entropic, even catastrophic, events have ended up creating something that we perceive of as positive. Funny old world.
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Seleucus
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Greta wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 12:48 pm
Seleucus wrote:The great hope of the masses of the developing world was prosperity and freedom. But as the prosperity and freedom that came to the 3rd world was largely brought in my the colonizers, not an indigenous accomplishment, when the developing world was left to fend for itself, there was a total failure. The aspirations of freedom and prosperity gave way to hopelessness and resentment. Radical Islam is then taken as the opposite of the American dream that came to nothing and in the dualistic thinking of simple mind (and more sophisticated too), embrace of Islamism represents the rejection of a failed hope and dream.
That looks like a failure of the colonisers to properly consider succession planning.
I believe it goes to the point of "civilizational trajectory". It is very hard to change a culture. When the Dutch left Indonesia things went on as they always have, when the British left Indian, when the Americans left the Philippines...
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Immanuel Can
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Immanuel Can »

Seleucus wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 4:41 amI think it is important to propagate the idea that refugees want to return home.
I don't mind "propagating" it, if it turns out to be true. But I would suggest it would be unwise to imagine it if it's not true.

As I said before, I think IF it's true at all, it tends to be true of only first-generation refugees. It's certainly unlikely to be true of second and third generation people, who have never seen their alleged "homeland," and is likely untrue of economic migrants, which make up the majority of immigration today. By definition, they've not been forced out, but have decided to leave when they did not have to. Why therefore should they suddenly prefer to return?
The Jews are an amazing example.
The Jews are pretty much a historically-unique example. I wouldn't look for that pattern to become general.
Another good example is the return of slaves from the Americas to Liberia after abolition.

Is that why there are so many African-Americans in America? :wink: I think the averages are against your thought there.
Internment camp systems have been extremely successful in achieving nation building. South Africa, Malaysia, and Kenya for example. I'm not saying it isn't a brutal method, but it is arguably less costly of life than than the current policy which seeks to avoid involvement with the population.
I think a less brutal alternative is desirable. The current policy is useless, I agree...but so is forcible "re-education" of people. That's always a human rights disaster.
One of the important lessons we should take away from the Obama period is that after the Arab Spring, overthrowing dictatorships didn't result in popular support for freedom and democracy, the majority supported Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. The default position of the psychology of the masses was Islamist, some active intervention is required to change that inertia.
I would suggest it needs to be undermined not by force but by persuasion, and not eclipsed by force but by the winsomeness of alternatives. After all, Islam is not a very bright system of belief. The Koran is not a plausible document, even by the most generous reckoning. Mohammed was not an admirable moral example. And Allah "the merciful" is a cold, indifferent and distant account of god. There is much in Islam that leaves the soul hungry and sad.

Fill the empty soul. That's the way you transform a person.
Boko Haram

Very nasty people, those. Angry and hostile to everything Western.

At some point, you have to ask why Islam produces so many moral disasters. It's not like it generally makes good people, but occasionally becomes used for nefarious purposes. Islam seems routinely to create anger, violence, repression, sexism, terrorism, and so forth. As I say, look around the world for a single country that is made happy, just and prosperous by Islam. There isn't a single case. At some point, shouldn't we ask Islam to show its "superiority" in just one little case? :shock: And if it can't, we really have to ask, why would we persist in encouraging it at all?
Already we see mosques with women doing the call to prayer, for example a case in Denmark. Overall I agree that hundreds of millions of Muslims in the 21st Century are likely not going to reform and the civilization will largely continue with the inertia of thousands of yeas behind it.
The solution is to give them something better. You would say "education," I suppose; and I think that's an admirable idea. But I think they also need some better metaphysical and existential answers too. Give them those, and I think we'll see real change.

The problem is this: the secular soul is so empty it ultimately has nothing to offer them. It has no (non-arbitrary and non-trivial) rationale for hope, morality, identity, meaning, direction or governance. We in the West offer Islamists Nikes, Coca-cola and BMW's in exchange for giving up the centrepiece of their cultural, spiritual and existential hopes. Some take that deal: but a lot won't. And maybe it's not so hard to understand why.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 4:37 pm
Seleucus wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 4:41 amI think it is important to propagate the idea that refugees want to return home.
I don't mind "propagating" it, if it turns out to be true. But I would suggest it would be unwise to imagine it if it's not true.

As I said before, I think IF it's true at all, it tends to be true of only first-generation refugees. It's certainly unlikely to be true of second and third generation people, who have never seen their alleged "homeland," and is likely untrue of economic migrants, which make up the majority of immigration today. By definition, they've not been forced out, but have decided to leave when they did not have to. Why therefore should they suddenly prefer to return?
The Jews are an amazing example.
The Jews are pretty much a historically-unique example. I wouldn't look for that pattern to become general.
Another good example is the return of slaves from the Americas to Liberia after abolition.

Is that why there are so many African-Americans in America? :wink: I think the averages are against your thought there.
Internment camp systems have been extremely successful in achieving nation building. South Africa, Malaysia, and Kenya for example. I'm not saying it isn't a brutal method, but it is arguably less costly of life than than the current policy which seeks to avoid involvement with the population.
I think a less brutal alternative is desirable. The current policy is useless, I agree...but so is forcible "re-education" of people. That's always a human rights disaster.
One of the important lessons we should take away from the Obama period is that after the Arab Spring, overthrowing dictatorships didn't result in popular support for freedom and democracy, the majority supported Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. The default position of the psychology of the masses was Islamist, some active intervention is required to change that inertia.
I would suggest it needs to be undermined not by force but by persuasion, and not eclipsed by force but by the winsomeness of alternatives. After all, Islam is not a very bright system of belief. The Koran is not a plausible document, even by the most generous reckoning. Mohammed was not an admirable moral example. And Allah "the merciful" is a cold, indifferent and distant account of god. There is much in Islam that leaves the soul hungry and sad.

Fill the empty soul. That's the way you transform a person.
Boko Haram

Very nasty people, those. Angry and hostile to everything Western.

At some point, you have to ask why Islam produces so many moral disasters. It's not like it generally makes good people, but occasionally becomes used for nefarious purposes. Islam seems routinely to create anger, violence, repression, sexism, terrorism, and so forth. As I say, look around the world for a single country that is made happy, just and prosperous by Islam. There isn't a single case. At some point, shouldn't we ask Islam to show its "superiority" in just one little case? :shock: And if it can't, we really have to ask, why would we persist in encouraging it at all?
Already we see mosques with women doing the call to prayer, for example a case in Denmark. Overall I agree that hundreds of millions of Muslims in the 21st Century are likely not going to reform and the civilization will largely continue with the inertia of thousands of yeas behind it.
The solution is to give them something better. You would say "education," I suppose; and I think that's an admirable idea. But I think they also need some better metaphysical and existential answers too. Give them those, and I think we'll see real change.

The problem is this: the secular soul is so empty it ultimately has nothing to offer them. It has no (non-arbitrary and non-trivial) rationale for hope, morality, identity, meaning, direction or governance. We in the West offer Islamists Nikes, Coca-cola and BMW's in exchange for giving up the centrepiece of their cultural, spiritual and existential hopes. Some take that deal: but a lot won't. And maybe it's not so hard to understand why.
Indeed. Unlike the bible, which is completely 'plausible'.
You could replace 'islam' with 'kristianity' and it would be just as true.
How very patronising.
I can't believe I'm defending islam, but nonsense is nonsense, and kristians certainly have no room to take the morally-superior position.
Last edited by vegetariantaxidermy on Sun May 21, 2017 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Greta wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 1:13 amAs with the Bible, there are numerous passages about peace, love, kindness and other desirable qualities along with those that promote ideas and primitive mindsets.
This tells me right away that you haven't read the Koran. It's explicitly promoting those mindsets. There's really no question. Go and read the "Chapter of Women," just for a start, and you'll see.
Immanuel Can wrote:...the answers are that they need to drop Islam. It's their commitment to impossible economics, repression of women and destructive and backward social practices, hatred of erudition, along with the unfair distribution of wealth that is killing them.
They need to drop extremism and, rather than laud fundamentalists as being especially devoted [sic] they should be seen through as stupid people making a naked opportunistic power grab. The opportunity came because those much smarter than they are became complacent and too unprepared to deal with stupid unreasonableness. Whatever its other qualities, religion can, and does, provide a relatively easy path to power for those without the talent to make it in the real world'.
You're right, of course. But ideology of any kind does this very well. Look at Communist Russia, Korea or China, or at African tribalism, and you'll see even worse power-grabs, but by explicitly anti-religious people. Nationalism, racism, utopianism, cultural imperialism...these are all even more toxic than some religions.

Watch out for the "isms" is the big thing we have to learn.

Now, this next part is interesting...
What needs to be dropped is the dream of human equality and that 'all men should be treated as equals'.
This is potentially very dangerous for women, I think. For it is clear that neither physically nor, according to 3rd Wave Feminism, psychologically, emotionally and morally are men and women the same. In that case, it becomes a power-contest to see who's "better": and power-contests have rarely turned out in women's favour, historically.
No, they should not, because it gives inordinate power to those who would squander it through obliviousness and stubbornly insecure emotionalism.
Do you not recognize this as exactly the rationale used by males to justify the subjugation of females?
We cannot consider all humans to be the same any more. They are not. I would test people before allowing them to vote. If they don't understand what they are voting for them they have no business voting as they would be just as likely to vote against their own interests as for them.
And was not "giving women the right to vote" one of the first major women's issues? It seems to me that your rationale could threaten this. The lines used to be things like, "They're too emotional," and "They'll be swung by people who will convince them to vote foolishly."
Immanuel Can wrote: Agreed. I think, though, that poor living conditions have been at the root of fundamentalist Islam's rise.
I don't think so. There might be some component of that in some very limited regions of the world. And certainly, poor, uneducated and downtrodden people are more attracted to ideologies of a tight and extreme sort...whether Islam or Communism. But we must recall that Islam is an old religion, one that has persisted for a very long time, and one that at one point had control of most of the Mediterranean and a good bit of Europe. That's hardly "poor living conditions".
Their problem is the same as Africa's - primitively corrupt leadership.
There's some real truth to that. Tribalism is a curse, and Africa suffers under the legacy of tribal admiration for its "big men."
Interesting times ahead.
I think we can count on that.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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vegetariantaxidermy wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 5:03 pm [
I can't believe I'm defending islam, but nonsense is nonsense, and kristians certainly have no room to take the morally-superior position.
On this, there is no worthy argument against.

Regards
DL
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 4:37 pmIslam seems routinely to create anger, violence, repression, sexism, terrorism, and so forth.
In the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map there appears to be a chicken-and-egg problem. Are the poor countries in the bottom and left of the map poor because they are authoritarian and uncreative or are they authoritarian and uncreative because they are poor? Conversely, are the cultures in the top and right free and creative because they are rich or are they rich because they are free and creative? (Islam is in the bottom-left, the West in the top-right.) It must by cybernetic.

The Qur'an is sometimes divided between the Meccan surahs which concern primarily with spirituality and the Medinan which deal with the governance of the gang. Islam is often compared to Christianity and Judaism but I would suggest there is greater similarity between Christianity and Buddhism and between Islam and Hinduism, the reason being that the former pair are concerned fundamentally with seeking enlightenment, while the latter two contain embedded in them political systems. Hence we often hear the phrase "political Islam".

Radicalism in Islam is often traced back to the Khawarij who basically viewed Ali's willingness to accept peace as cowardice and formed a third major force, together with the Sunni and the Shia for many centuries, in fact the majority of the people of Oman are of a sect closely related to the Khawarij. I'm personally quite critical of Islam, but I'll grant there are some gems in it such as Sufism, a unique artistic tradition, in my view the story of the crucifixion in the Qur'an is the same as in Christianity despite how it has been interpreted to imply Simon of Cyrene swapped places with Jesus, I can't see any reason why the Furthest mosque ought to refer to Jerusalem, in my reading it implies Heaven, 17:110 advises not to be too loud in your prayers, a verse that is obviously not being heeded! The story of Jesus being born able to talk is impossible but interesting to reflect on, likewise the information on Alexander the Great is confused but interesting reading for lovers of Hellenistic history. I'm pretty open too to the ideas in The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran, for example 76:17-18, it doesn't make any sense, why would the name "Salsabil" be noted like that and never mentioned again in connection with anything, it's probably a wrong reading; or 4:47, often interpreted to mean a reference to turning the non-devout's faces dark and into monkeys, (other non-sense translations include twisting heads around like The Exorcist and "obliterating faces") but a more likely translation is something like what Dante said about being lost in a dark wood, in my view.

Meanwhile, anyone can see that everywhere there are Muslims there is conflict with their neighbors, the south of Thailand, the west of Burma, Indonesia, the south of the Philippines, Papua, and so on. It's hard to believe that in every case it is oppression of Muslims. In Korea, Christians and Buddhists live totally peacefully, but in Indonesia there is violence between Muslims and Christians and in Thailand there is violence between Muslims and Buddhists. A similar comparison can be made with other combos of religion and in different places with Islam always being troublesome. Islam is highly exclusive with it's dietary taboos, loud prayer rituals, distinctive fashion, uncommon waking and meal times, miscegenation laws and so on which makes it very difficult for others to live with or around Muslims.

I'm not totally sure what my point is, just some things that came up after reading your reply...
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Immanuel Can
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Immanuel Can »

Seleucus wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 6:36 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 4:37 pmIslam seems routinely to create anger, violence, repression, sexism, terrorism, and so forth.
In the Inglehart–Welzel cultural map there appears to be a chicken-and-egg problem. Are the poor countries in the bottom and left of the map poor because they are authoritarian and uncreative or are they authoritarian and uncreative because they are poor?
I'd suggest a different way of characterizing it. Look at the map again: which countries have been largely shaped by Christianity and Judaism, and which from other things? Suddenly, the map starts to clear up.

Every happy, prosperous, technologically-developed country that maintains a tradition of human rights is...one thing. All the rest are....others.
The Qur'an is sometimes divided between the Meccan surahs which concern primarily with spirituality and the Medinan which deal with the governance of the gang.
I'm aware of this distinction.

Prior to Medina, Islam had about 130 followers, and Mohammed appeared to preach a more pacifistic and inclusive kind of message; coming back from Medina, Mohammed was swinging the sword, with over 10,000 soldiers. But anyone who understands the Islamic principle of abrogation knows that Mohammed's commandments after his militant phase replace and vacate his commandments issued during his "pacifist" phase.
Islam is often compared to Christianity and Judaism but I would suggest there is greater similarity between Christianity and Buddhism and between Islam and Hinduism, the reason being that the former pair are concerned fundamentally with seeking enlightenment, while the latter two contain embedded in them political systems. Hence we often hear the phrase "political Islam".
That's sort of true, but only when thinking about the political-versus-non-political distinction. The better way to divide the religious zones is between Western and Eastern, and Northern and Southern, along monotheistic versus pantheistic or polytheistic lines.
Radicalism in Islam is often traced back to the Khawarij
I would think it traces back to Mohammed. He was pretty militaristic.
I'm personally quite critical of Islam, but I'll grant there are some gems in it such as Sufism, a unique artistic tradition, in my view the story of the crucifixion in the Qur'an is the same as in Christianity despite how it has been interpreted to imply Simon of Cyrene swapped places with Jesus,
Islam flatly contradicts Christianity on that point. The Koran says, "It was another man." (4:157)
I can't see any reason why the Furthest mosque ought to refer to Jerusalem,
Well, even more bizarrely, have you considered that it is actually impossible that Mohammed ascended from the Temple in Jerusalem? At the time at which he said he did it, there was no temple left in Jerusalem! He did not know, so he made a mistake.

An Islamic person is thus caught in a dilemma: if there was no temple in Jerusalem when Mohammed ascended, then perhaps he only did so in a vision. But if so, literal Jerusalem is no longer a sacred site for Muslims, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not on the site of anything that really happened. But if Mohammed's "night journey" was real, how did he manage to really ascend off the non-existing pinnacle of a non-existent temple? :shock:
Meanwhile, anyone can see that everywhere there are Muslims there is conflict with their neighbors, the south of Thailand, the west of Burma, Indonesia, the south of the Philippines, Papua, and so on. It's hard to believe that in every case it is oppression of Muslims.

Unreasonable even to think. Our experience also shows that every case of a Muslim being "offended" is deemed an "attack," and so all incidents of anything offending Islam are said to be "acts of aggression," justifying aggression in response.
I'm not totally sure what my point is, just some things that came up after reading your reply...
It's all very interesting information. Thanks for sharing it anyway.
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Greta
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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They need to drop extremism and, rather than laud fundamentalists as being especially devoted [sic] they should be seen through as stupid people making a naked opportunistic power grab. The opportunity came because those much smarter than they are became complacent and too unprepared to deal with stupid unreasonableness. Whatever its other qualities, religion can, and does, provide a relatively easy path to power for those without the talent to make it in the real world'.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 5:05 pmYou're right, of course. But ideology of any kind does this very well. Look at Communist Russia, Korea or China, or at African tribalism, and you'll see even worse power-grabs, but by explicitly anti-religious people. Nationalism, racism, utopianism, cultural imperialism...these are all even more toxic than some religions.

Watch out for the "isms" is the big thing we have to learn.
Fair comment.

[quote="Immanuel Can"Now, this next part is interesting...
What needs to be dropped is the dream of human equality and that 'all men should be treated as equals'.
This is potentially very dangerous for women, I think. For it is clear that neither physically nor, according to 3rd Wave Feminism, psychologically, emotionally and morally are men and women the same. In that case, it becomes a power-contest to see who's "better": and power-contests have rarely turned out in women's favour, historically.
No, they should not, because it gives inordinate power to those who would squander it through obliviousness and stubbornly insecure emotionalism.
Do you not recognize this as exactly the rationale used by males to justify the subjugation of females?
We cannot consider all humans to be the same any more. They are not. I would test people before allowing them to vote. If they don't understand what they are voting for them they have no business voting as they would be just as likely to vote against their own interests as for them.
And was not "giving women the right to vote" one of the first major women's issues? It seems to me that your rationale could threaten this. The lines used to be things like, "They're too emotional," and "They'll be swung by people who will convince them to vote foolishly."[/quote]
If women - or men - do not understand what they are voting for, then why should their age elevate them above, say, teenagers with a strong understanding? I would like to see age, gender and so on to be ignored in favour of rewarding those who are competent to vote with the vote. If people want to have a say then they should educate themselves enough to provide an informed opinion rather than slaving following of their chosen media icons as though they were political gurus. It undermines democracy.
Immanuel Can wrote:
Agreed. I think, though, that poor living conditions have been at the root of fundamentalist Islam's rise.
I don't think so. There might be some component of that in some very limited regions of the world. And certainly, poor, uneducated and downtrodden people are more attracted to ideologies of a tight and extreme sort...whether Islam or Communism. But we must recall that Islam is an old religion, one that has persisted for a very long time, and one that at one point had control of most of the Mediterranean and a good bit of Europe. That's hardly "poor living conditions".
You are speaking about ancient history, not the rise of modern, fundamentalist Islam. This is a geopolitical issue of today.

However, my guess is that this is the last, and ill-fated, rise of Islam. The ideology is doomed, being far too removed from reality. Again I refer to the Kiai Master being beaten with one punch by a MMA fighter. While the fastasists fantasise, the realistic just get on with living. The latter will always win. I doubt that it will be the west that defeats them though, who are too vulnerable to propaganda wars, but the east. When fundamentalist Muslims accused the west of being immoral and decadent, many US Christians, who'd been thinking the same thing, were ashamed and post 9/11 there was a strong rise in US Christian fundamentalism in response - to prove that the US was moral, and thus right.

However, if fundamentalist Muslims accused, say, China or South Korea of being immoral, they would simply be ignored because they are crazy and irrational fundamentalists who should worry about their own failings. The west lacks that security and confidence due to its plurality. Sadly (to me), I also suspect that in time democracy and western values will follow Islam into history. Whatever it is we are doing is clearly unsustainable and I can see command economies like China having the competitive edge over democracies in a global society due to their capacity to act quickly and rationally. People sense this, exhausted by the roadblocks of democracy, many of would prefer authoritarian rule.

When I imagine authoritarian rule coming to the west, I consider the people displaced without compensation in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. How would they have felt? How many might have simply shrugged and accepted that their sacrifice was needed in a utilitarian society, just a matter of bad luck, and proud to have contributed to the state? Did they wonder why, by chance, the stadiums weren't requiring the demolition of the political and economic elites' homes? Did they leave quietly and afraid, like rats being brushed out of their nooks with a broom? Or was it a slow, grumbling process, laying the seeds of possible future rebellion?
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Immanuel Can »

Greta wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 11:55 pm If women - or men - do not understand what they are voting for, then why should their age elevate them above, say, teenagers with a strong understanding? I would like to see age, gender and so on to be ignored in favour of rewarding those who are competent to vote with the vote. If people want to have a say then they should educate themselves enough to provide an informed opinion rather than slaving following of their chosen media icons as though they were political gurus. It undermines democracy.
Well, you're right to point his out as a problem inherent in democracy...that people who are not really "qualified" do get the vote. The problem, of course, is the alternative: who gets to define the person who gets the vote and the one who does not?
You are speaking about ancient history, not the rise of modern, fundamentalist Islam. This is a geopolitical issue of today.
Not according to today's Islamists. The "Caliphate" idea is of a revival of the ancient regime. And as for poverty, many of those countries are very, very far from poor. Look at Qatar...if poverty is the problem, why isn't Qatar free of Islam? Why is OPEC dominated by Islamic countries? And why (in spite of some residual problems, of course) is the healthiest country for human rights in the whole Middle East Israel? They have fewer resources and more problems than many surrounding countries...and they're smaller than their neighbours. So why does Islam so universally produce misery, oppression and poverty?
However, my guess is that this is the last, and ill-fated, rise of Islam. The ideology is doomed, being far too removed from reality.
Maybe. But being absurdly distant from reality hasn't seemed to doom Socialism.
Sadly (to me), I also suspect that in time democracy and western values will follow Islam into history.
I hope not too. But it's possible.
When I imagine authoritarian rule coming to the west, I consider the people displaced without compensation in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. How would they have felt? How many might have simply shrugged and accepted that their sacrifice was needed in a utilitarian society, just a matter of bad luck, and proud to have contributed to the state? Did they wonder why, by chance, the stadiums weren't requiring the demolition of the political and economic elites' homes? Did they leave quietly and afraid, like rats being brushed out of their nooks with a broom? Or was it a slow, grumbling process, laying the seeds of possible future rebellion?
I hate to say it, but in China life is cheap. Property is confiscatable. Freedom is optional. It's still a nasty, Communists state controlled by Beijing. I foresee no rebellion on the horizon, because Beijing doesn't care about killing a few thousand or even a million to suppress one -- and the Chinese people know it. The governmental attitude is, "We've got lots more where those came from." So it's hard to risk a rebellion when you know you're going to be the first one against the wall.

Communism. What a nasty mess it is.
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 7:52 pm
I'm personally quite critical of Islam, but I'll grant there are some gems in it such as Sufism, a unique artistic tradition, in my view the story of the crucifixion in the Qur'an is the same as in Christianity despite how it has been interpreted to imply Simon of Cyrene swapped places with Jesus,
Islam flatly contradicts Christianity on that point. The Koran says, "It was another man." (4:157)
Nothing could be more useless than debating theology and the Qur'an, but purely for the sake of discussion and as an interest in history of religion...

I don't believe the original Arabic is intended to imply that the person Jesus wasn't killed and crucified. In my view, 4:157 is best translated as something like: those who say Jesus was killed are mistaken, it only appeared that way, actually Jesus was not killed. My ancient Arabic is rather limited but word for word, there isn't anything about swapping out anyone in the original text. That switch-out, in my view, is inserted by translators who have not kept fidelity to the Arabic. Presumably the swap with Simon the Cyrenian story, which later became the standard belief among Muslims, was aimed at differentiating themselves from and take a stab at Christians.

Of translations I've looked at today, the swapped out interpretation appears in only Muhsin Khan and Sarwar. Perhaps others if I missed one or two -- there at least fifty. Obviously the vast majority are written as I say above. Quite easily the verse could be interpreted as a swap-out by those who want to propagate the Simon of Cyrenica tale and/or don't appreciate non-dualism or the story of the crucifixion as an allegory of impersonal eternal life that transcends the death of the body and persona.
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Greta
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon May 22, 2017 2:48 am
Greta wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 11:55 pm If women - or men - do not understand what they are voting for, then why should their age elevate them above, say, teenagers with a strong understanding? I would like to see age, gender and so on to be ignored in favour of rewarding those who are competent to vote with the vote. If people want to have a say then they should educate themselves enough to provide an informed opinion rather than slaving following of their chosen media icons as though they were political gurus. It undermines democracy.
Well, you're right to point his out as a problem inherent in democracy...that people who are not really "qualified" do get the vote. The problem, of course, is the alternative: who gets to define the person who gets the vote and the one who does not?
So far, the ones in power do - by applying almost zero standards. No doubt some find opportunities in an ignorant electorate.
Immanuel Can wrote:
You are speaking about ancient history, not the rise of modern, fundamentalist Islam. This is a geopolitical issue of today.
Not according to today's Islamists. The "Caliphate" idea is of a revival of the ancient regime. And as for poverty, many of those countries are very, very far from poor. Look at Qatar...if poverty is the problem, why isn't Qatar free of Islam? Why is OPEC dominated by Islamic countries? And why (in spite of some residual problems, of course) is the healthiest country for human rights in the whole Middle East Israel? They have fewer resources and more problems than many surrounding countries...and they're smaller than their neighbours. So why does Islam so universally produce misery, oppression and poverty?
Because it's inflexible and outmoded, and thus fails to take advantage of 50% of their human resources. That is a luxury no nation can afford.
Immanuel Can wrote:
However, my guess is that this is the last, and ill-fated, rise of Islam. The ideology is doomed, being far too removed from reality.
Maybe. But being absurdly distant from reality hasn't seemed to doom Socialism.
That's because it's not distant from reality, speaking to the desire for fairness in groups. However, I do think many aspects of socialism are doomed too. However some, such as using resources for early life interventions to reduce damage to the very young is a grounded idea that I suspect will increasingly become more prevalent. It seems that most of our attempts to achieve equality are thwarted by "cultural selection".

Immanuel Can wrote:
Greta wrote:When I imagine authoritarian rule coming to the west, I consider the people displaced without compensation in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. How would they have felt? How many might have simply shrugged and accepted that their sacrifice was needed in a utilitarian society, just a matter of bad luck, and proud to have contributed to the state? Did they wonder why, by chance, the stadiums weren't requiring the demolition of the political and economic elites' homes? Did they leave quietly and afraid, like rats being brushed out of their nooks with a broom? Or was it a slow, grumbling process, laying the seeds of possible future rebellion?
I hate to say it, but in China life is cheap. Property is confiscatable. Freedom is optional. It's still a nasty, Communists state controlled by Beijing. I foresee no rebellion on the horizon, because Beijing doesn't care about killing a few thousand or even a million to suppress one -- and the Chinese people know it. The governmental attitude is, "We've got lots more where those came from." So it's hard to risk a rebellion when you know you're going to be the first one against the wall.

Communism. What a nasty mess it is.
Communism. Just one more means of organising a society that will eventually be superseded. From what I can gather what's coming will be a more capitalist form of authoritarianism, based mainly on the interests of major institutions as in feudal times, but otherwise operating on utilitarian principles. Thing is, in a tribe of ten people, every individual life is critical and every death a tragedy. When you have over a billion people struggling in competition with each other for survival, deaths are a boon. Look at how Europe prospered immediately after the great plague. Too many people.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Seleucus wrote: Mon May 22, 2017 4:57 am That switch-out, in my view, is inserted by translators who have not kept fidelity to the Arabic.
The "only the original Arabic counts" position of Muslims on the Koran has always puzzled me. I have found that they turn to it every time anyone points out a contradiction in the Koran. They just say, "Well, the Arabic is the only true Koran; you're reading a translation."

Yet they claim that Mohammed was a prophet...not just to Arabs, but to the world, and that the whole world has a responsibility to hear him and believe he was a prophet. Then they claim that translations are all wrong, and nobody who can't read Arabic can rightly understand the prophecy that is said to be the only "miracle" available to validate him as a prophet.

If he can't be understood by anyone who does not speak Arabic, and the only "miracle" he ever did was the Koran, how can Mohammed be seen to be a "prophet" by anyone but Arabic speakers?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

Post by Immanuel Can »

Greta wrote: Mon May 22, 2017 7:30 am Because it's inflexible and outmoded, and thus fails to take advantage of 50% of their human resources. That is a luxury no nation can afford.
Yet that's not a case of a lack of resources, is it? It's neither their ecology nor their lack of human resources that's got them in trouble. It's their misuse of those, which is a fault of their ideology.
Immanuel Can wrote:
However, my guess is that this is the last, and ill-fated, rise of Islam. The ideology is doomed, being far too removed from reality.
Maybe. But being absurdly distant from reality hasn't seemed to doom Socialism.
That's because it's not distant from reality, speaking to the desire for fairness in groups.
But "fairness" isn't manifest anywhere in nature. Nor is believing that all people are trustworthy with enforced equality -- i.e. that there are no lazy and venial types who will not work without incentives -- nor is believing that people can live meaningfully without property. All these things are Socialist mainstays...but they bear no resemblance to reality.

The biggest fault of Socialism is that it dreams in the ideal, but pays zero attention to real-world human nature. And that's why it's an economic, political and human rights disaster wherever it's tried.
Communism. Just one more means of organising a society that will eventually be superseded. From what I can gather what's coming will be a more capitalist form of authoritarianism, based mainly on the interests of major institutions as in feudal times, but otherwise operating on utilitarian principles. Thing is, in a tribe of ten people, every individual life is critical and every death a tragedy. When you have over a billion people struggling in competition with each other for survival, deaths are a boon. Look at how Europe prospered immediately after the great plague. Too many people.
Well, if you check the population charts from the Middle Ages to today, you'll see some interesting things. The problem was not the numbers in the population during the great plagues of Europe: it was urbanization...too many in a confined area, not too many on a world scale. Population density, bad sanitation, lack of vaccination, poor diet and hygiene, and lack of pest control, not raw numbers, precipitated the spread of the plague. The fires that were frequent in the wood-based cities were also apparently a big factor in promoting the plague's spread, since they moved the rats around.

We've vastly exceeded that world population since. You'll also find that because of the way population works, the effects of the plagues on general population numbers were very temporary, and the plagues are blips on a steady curve upwards.

But you might be right as to where we're headed. I would add that we're likely, in our desperation, to look to bigger and bigger governments to which we give more and more power, until the world is a warring zone of superpower blocks divided along national and ideological fracture lines. The EU is a good example of the sort of bad government toward which people look when they hope that somebody will control the massive dynamics of world economics and national unrest. They sell all their freedoms for the dream that somebody with enough centralized power can control what's happening.

But we'll see.
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Arising_uk
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Re: I am an Islamophobe. If you are not, you might not be a moral person.

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Immanuel Can wrote:...The EU is a good example of the sort of bad government ...
This again!? How about the EU is a good example of how to hold the peace between nations, which was what it was designed for, and as such has done a good job for seventy two odd years so far.
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