Well, here’s where I think you have to practice some introspection. Is there something about the religion itself that fosters some of this extremism, as opposed to other religions? I think there is–Islam and Christianity share certain traits–including being evangelistic and exclusive–that is, believing that they represent the one true religion with a mission to convert others. It’s clear that these traits lead to certain kinds of behaviors that may not be present in other religions. I don’t think there will ever be extremist Unitarians, for example, and Jews are not interested in converting other people to Judaism. I think it’s important to understand these factors, so that moderate members of the faith can work against extremism.</p>
<p>We could have a dialogue about the religion itself among --I assume-- educated and well-learned people. We could debate for a long time if the imposition of wearing a veil or a headscarf are actually part of the Qu’ran, or a mere fanatical interpretation by “scholars.” The obvious dismissive tone in my previous sentence does set the tone for an improbable reconciliation of arguments. What is also obvious is that the millions of Muslims believe it to be an inherent part of their religion, and if not a personal choice. </p>
<p>That is an example of a discussion about religion. However, the opinion of long term residents of a particular neighborhood who felt compelled to move because of threats and a growing climate of insecurity does not require a deep understanding of the religion to equate the presence of veiled women as an attack to their values. I have posted a video of a market in Molenbeek --a district of Brussels. I visited the area with my grandparents who lived in that neighborhood for decades. I had asked them to show me the house where my family lived. The “pilgrimage” created a deep sadness and the elders could not contain their tears in seeing the absolute social destruction of what was one a popular and inviting neighborhood. It is now filthy and dangerous for non-minorities. Please note that my grandparents also explained that it was not always like today. They talked about how the earlier immigrants integrated and adapted. The negative changes occurred in the past ten years.</p>
<p>My grandparents did not need to study religion to form an opinion. They lived through the changes brought by religious extremism, and this until they had no other option to move out of a place they spent their entire life. They did not move because immigrants lived next door; they moved because they were threatened and harassed. </p>
<p>That is real life. Something that goes well beyond debating the finer points of a religious text.</p>
<p>The forum has asked for answers and responsibility but has only received rhetoric and veiled insults. Your beliefs are false. Your refusal to think for yourself is mind numbing. The testimony of “what can I do” smacks of the trials of Nuremberg. </p>
<p>What can you do? 1)separate church and state 2) consider sharia law your dark age moment in history. 3) Take a page out of the protestant reformation. (never let any church doctrine get in between you and your God). </p>
<p>History has set the table and led the way. Now turn on your brain and do something about it. It’s not too late yet, but the window is closing.</p>
<p>@xiggi What happened to your grandparents is awful. It’s horrible how such discriminating immigrants ruined their home.
But I don’t think we should let a bunch of nuts create dislike or hatred towards particular beliefs or people. If some are able to create more discrimination by discriminating, those nuts are essentially winning. By being offended by the very presence of a veiled woman due to the horrible things some crazy people have done, you’re essentially reiterating their point: peaceful coexistence isn’t possible, it’s between us and them, so join our fight.
The fact is, the presence of a veiled woman isn’t an attack on anyone’s values. It’s just someone practicing their own personal values which they have a right to have.
I don’t think it’s just “apples and oranges.” By forming an opinion on a religion, you’re forming an opinion on something that is very important to many, many people, and it needs an understanding of the religion. Forming an opinion on what extremists have done or are doing does not, and it is not something I am opposed to. But when you say something like “the destruction by this religion,” you’re essentially saying that the religion itself is responsible, and you can’t do that without being knowledgeable about it.</p>
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I am also the only Muslim on CC. I don’t think the best way to go about things is to discuss a religion with no actual followers of the religion taking part.
My motivation is not to get this thread shutdown. But if people start attacking my religion, or any religion for that matter, should it not concern me? </p>
<p>@sosomenza To be frank, I feel like you’re the one who is using rhetoric rather than giving actual arguments. You keep repeating your point, but you never address the points that are presented against them.
No one is saying that we can’t do anything against terrorism. We’re saying that the beliefs of moderate Muslims will not affect terrorists or extremists. It’s not that it’s an excuse not to do anything, but rather a view that says we should focus our efforts to fight terrorism elsewhere, and not on the beliefs of people who are not terrorists.
I’m not sure how you interpret Sharia law as a “dark age” in Islamic history. Sharia law has always been prominent and a motivating factor in Islamic history, including during the Islamic Golden Age.</p>
I don’t think your religion is being attacked. It is, however, being discussed openly without fear of being called a racist or of being harmed. Islam is rarely discussed in such an open way and it obviously makes you uncomfortable, which is unfortunate, but open discussion does not equal an attack. Your discomfort at such a relatively light touch says a lot about how Islam has been treated with kid gloves for far too long in a way that other religions, beliefs, ethnicities are not. Islam isn’t better or more deserving of care than any other religion, and Christianity in its various forms has been truly picked apart here. You need to get a thicker skin on this and recognize that this hyper sensitivity is part of the continuum that leads to violence.</p>
<p>@zoosermom I would argue that saying things like “Islam is violent,” “Islam mistreats women,” and “this religion causes terrorism” is attacking the religion.
I wouldn’t say that other religions have been treated this way (at least, not in this particular society during these times). I have certainly never heard someone say, “Christianity is an inherently a violent religion,” though I have heard it criticized before.
Besides, the views on Islam on this thread seem to be based upon the behavior of a small portion of Muslims rather then a study of the actual religion itself. If you’re focusing on the religion itself, you should base it on religious texts, books, and ideas about the religion (which are written neither by fanatics nor by people who don’t like Islam).</p>
You are unambiguously wrong about this. Which is part of the problem. You don’t seem to understand that Islam is treated with kid gloves when, in fact, it is.</p>
<p>There are plenty of threads on the forum tearing apart Catholicism or the Pope or other Christian denominations. Also, other organizations or identity groups that mean a lot to some posters. The Catholic Church is hated on like you can obviously not imagine. The treatment of Islam has nothing on the treatment of the Catholic Church. And can you seriously say that hurting the feelings of Muslims with true words is worse than the rash of anti-Semitism throughout the world? The statistics are pretty jarring, maybe you should look them up. It is Jews who are much more likely to be assaulted or have their property damaged than any other religion. Except, of course, Christians in Muslim countries. I will repeat to you that you are wrong and making assumptions based on that wrong perception.</p>
<p>As far as Islam, as I said earlier, I work with an Islamic group comprised of some of the finest people I have ever met. And they would be the first to tell you that the violent fanatics can and do find support for their positions right there in the actual religion itself.</p>
Am I? Perhaps I am being sensitive. But the problem that has arisen in this thread, I find, is that a discussion about terrorism and a discussion about what’s wrong with Islam are being talked about simultaneously.
I’m a bit lost on this statement of yours when I do recall you previously saying:
If what’s important here is talking about Islam openly, then why can’t I dispel generalizations about the religion? Are we talking about terrorism, in which case the actions of the terrorists are all that matter, or are we talking about Islam? If we’re talking about terrorism and people feel the view of Islam is irrelevant, why did people start bringing up their views on Islam?</p>
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I used to think that too until I started studying and learning more about Islam.
Yes, they do find “support.” But only by doing exactly what Islam says they’re not supposed to do. If you take random quotes out of the Quran to fit your agenda, and ignore the rest of it, you can construe it to say any message you want it to. But that is not how Islam works. You have to look at everything in context. There are actually quite a few quotes in Islam (within the Quran and in sayings of the Prophet SAW and His Family AS) that address hypocrisy and people construing things to mean what they want.</p>
<p>If the discussion is about terrorism, it can be done without assumptions without religion accompanying it on the side. If the discussion is about Islam, I think I should be able join in with my perspective, especially considering that I’m the only Muslim here, without anyone telling me that I’m not focused enough on the actual terrorism taking place.</p>
You should and you are (but don’t assume you are the only Muslim), but you are the only one who has wanted to shut down the thread, and you don’t seem at all focused on the actual terrorism, at least in terms of your posts. Maybe you are within yourself, and you always seem like a lovely person, but you really are making assumptions that aren’t true. Islam isn’t being treated badly here, it’s just an open discussion. Some comments are positive, some are not, but the small and relatively tame negative posts are bothering you to the point that you want to shut down the thread. That is unfortunate and plays into the stereotypes that you are so bothered by. Again, dispel whatever you want to dispel, but don’t complain that Islam is being treated unfairly here, because it is not, or in the greater world because it’s not there, either. Many of us believe to our souls the quote from Voltaire that “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it” and that is what we are looking for from you. Defend, argue, debate, listen, learn, share. But don’t censor.</p>
It is not on the side, it is right in the middle of the actions taken by people in its name. They put the religion there, not anyone else, and you don’t get to say that Islam is incidental. Their motives are their own whether you like it or not.</p>
<p>@zoosermom I wanted the thread to be shut down a while back, because CC has usually been a safe haven for me, and I was upset that not only did CCers, of all people, seem to readily believe that you could judge a religion based on a portion of followers, but the mods didn’t do anything about it. I’ve debated religion quite a bit before, and I’m open to it, but it surprised me that a lot of people didn’t see the rudeness I did concerning some particular posts. I am a sensitive person overall so perhaps I was taking some words to heart too much.
In terms of the actual terrorism, I don’t really have much to say… it’s just disgusting. I don’t know what else to add.</p>
<p>If I sound like I’m trying to stop discussion instead of aiding it, I’ll try to stop doing so by thinking twice before I post in the future.</p>
<p>I think the 18-year-old is doing pretty well. It’s a bit much to keep harping on the idea that she wanted to shut down the thread, when obviously she isn’t trying to do that now, but is trying (pretty calmly) to defend her point of view, and also to defend Muslims who aren’t terrorists. And I’ve got to say, we’d better hope that Islam isn’t inherently violent and oppressive–if it is, the world is facing a long, dark, road. Hopefully, it is more like Christianity, and it can evolve into forms that are better able to coexist with other religions. Perhaps it has already done some in some countries.</p>
Well, there are two points here. One is that they claim that these are their motivations. Personally, I see a scheming mastermind (who refines the invalid interpretation and makes it convincing) at the top of extremist groups with many brainwashed people following them (who are well read in the interpretation, but not in anything else concerning the religion). I can think of many factors which have influenced the motivation other than Islam, and though some claim or even believe that Islam is their motivating factor, there are other factors at play. Islam is 1400 years old, yet Islamic extremism is comparatively a new phenomenon. Extremists also seem to stem from the same region. If Islam is a primary and inherent factor then we would see Muslims who were randomly distributed through out history and through out the world committing extremist acts.</p>
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I would actually say that things have gone backwards.
An extremist interpretation of Islam has evolved. It’s relatively recent, considering Islam’s long history. It’s the more “progressive” Muslims who seem to have not evolved.</p>
<p>Part of living in the Western world, though, is that I am free to have opinions on anything I want, including religion, and it doesn’t really matter that it’s important to “many, many people.” I am free, as hypothetical examples, to think that it’s silly for Orthodox Jews to refrain from tearing toilet paper on the Sabbath or for Catholics to think that that cup of communion wine is really the blood of Christ. I am free to hold those opinions all the livelong day. What I’m not free to do is prevent other people from carrying out those things. </p>
<p>As for a veiled woman, I spent time in Saudi Arabia for business, and did indeed live under a burka. Mine showed my face and I could get away with that because I was in relatively liberal Jeddah and clearly a foreigner with my freckles and green eyes, but most of the women I came in contact with were veiled so that all you could see were their eyes. I can most certainly object to what I think is dehumanizing. And more to the point, there’s a huge difference between a society in which women are free to wear clothing as modest-or-not-modest as they choose and a society in which women are forced to wear this kind of clothing. The presence of a veiled woman isn’t an attack on values – IF she had the freedom, that morning, to veil herself or not. If she had no such choice – then it is an attack on values.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl I agree that we are all free to have our opinions on religion, but I do not think it’s right to be offended by the very presence of a veiled woman without knowing whether or not it was her choice to dress in such a way. I find that many veiled women dress in such a way, because they wish to of their own free will.
If, of course, she was forced to dress in such a way, I can understand how someone would be offended by that. I myself would be offended by that.</p>
<p>I wear the hijab, and many times when people have seen my mom without a headscarf they have asked me, “Wait, your mom doesn’t wear a headscarf? Then why do you wear it?” They also tend to ask “What age do you have to start wearing it?” At which point I say that it was a completely impulsive decision on my part, with no prior discussion about it with my family.</p>