UKC

I enjoyed this interesting blog post on religious tolerance and how that principle is supported in the American Constitution. It is part of a wider argument for secularism.  It’s authored by UKCs Coel Hellier

https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/three-cheers-for-religious-t...

Coel, more of this thoughtful and scholarly work here please.

Eddie

PS – I can’t resist just a little poke at you (I know you enjoy it).  Your first sentence is:

 “In the all-time lists of Good Ideas the principle of religious freedom ranks high, preventing much strife and war and thus being responsible for saving more lives than penicillin and vaccination combined [1].

I scroll eagerly to the footnote for the numbers and reference and instead I find this:

[1] This is a rhetorical flourish, don’t ask me for stats to back it up!

Coel, this is splendid!  I’m going to use this sentence every time you ask me for stats from now on.  You’ve saved me so much work.  I’ll even cite you.

For someone who thinks everyone should get an equal chance at life and opinions, you seem obsessed with trying to give Cole a hard time, although you don't seem to be doing very well at it 😉

Has UKC suddenly turned into the Guardian readers letters page? 

Only about 80%, the remaining 20% is Daily Mail letters page.

You are very welcome!   Please note that I openly admitted the "this is a rhetorical flourish" bit.   So please do, please quote my sentence when you need to defend a claim of yours.

And every time you quote it I'll reply: "so you're admitting that your claim is a mere rhetorical flourish and you're not actually claiming it as a fact?". 

Actually, thanks for reminding me of that! Having just re-read it, it's rather a good article, even if I say so myself.

I guess tolerance for religion is fine so long as the practicing of religion and expression of religious values doesn't impinge upon the rights and freedoms of others.

It has me thinking about the rugby player in Australia Israel Folau who lost his public position for calling homosexuality sinful. A poster on here rather robustly questioned whether gay people might need any protection from homophobia in Australia, and whether what he said could impinge upon their ability to live a peaceful life free from having to experience homophobia and it's consequences.

https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi155

It strikes me that when murders still occur in Australia for the sole reason that the victims are gay, then a person's freedom to express such religious belief ends where it can (help to) endanger others, which it currently arguably can do where it reinforces the hatred which some already feel towards gay men.

It's a shame Coel can't apply this level of argument on tolerance to his views on Islam: blanket labelling it as evil instead of just calling out the evil done in its name. Coel also got very upset with Folau's employer despite having a clear legal right to do what they did (given what he said was counter to a clear organisational ethos and was causing reputation damage). Such aggression towards the beliefs of some muslins who, despite the problems in most practice in their religion, don't feel the need to be homophobic and supporting bogus rights of a Christian homophobe does look like partial treatment.

https://www.facebook.com/MuslimsAgainstLGBTHate/

I do!   Tolerating something is entirely consistent with criticising it strongly.  That's the whole basis of a pluralistic democracy, you need to tolerate ideas you dislike, but can criticise them stridently.

The ideology of Islam **is** evil, in the sense of being hugely damaging and harmful.    The harm is not just "done in its name", the harm is intrinsic to the ideology.

Everyone accepts that it is legitimate to regard other idea systems as hugely damaging and harmful -- communism, fascism, etc -- so why try to place one particular idea system as exempt from criticism? 

Nope, I wasn't "very upset" I simply defended the principle of free speech. 

That's not at all clear, given that the resulting law suit was settled out of court on terms that were not made public. 

Aggression? 

Islam is obviously by far the worst of the major religions today, so of course one should criticise it. 

PS: And just to note that Offwidth has a habit of repeatedly bringing Islam into the conversation, at the same time as accusing me of being obsessed with it. 

Actually, I've been in more of an anti-Woke than an anti-Islam mood recently.     But I'm happy to reprise the latter if anyone wishes. 

That was just Coel applying his own "principle" of free speech, which goes something like this:

Where there is public abuse of minorities in the news, when the following conditions are met:

1) it is abuse of gay or trans people

2) it is on twitter

then, some bullshit excuse must be found to defend it. 

In that case, he even pulled out "religious freedom". Contrary to his article, he was asking for some special right to be granted that gave Folau the right to express his opinion, when otherwise for a secular person it would just be viewed as a homophobic outburst and would not warrant protection. It was absolute garbage.

I wouldn't quite go that far. In the US, as Coel argues, the freedom of speech linked to religion can lead to first and second class citizens. The irony is that what Coel was questioning in the treatment of Folou's bogus 'freedom of speech', under the law where he lived as an employee working for a company with clear ethos on homophobia, can be unfairly supported in law sometimes in the US. 

No actually, I was not arguing for a special right for Folau, I was arguing for a general right for anyone to be able to voice such views -- sorry! 

Except you agreed that a headteacher shouldn't, and you wouldn't apply the defence for the right for people to post racial abuse, and you cited religious freedom as the reason the right should be defended in this case...

But apart from that, you made an excellent argument.

By the way, I am rather amused by the dichotomy between the opinion expressed by such as EddieA, which can be summed up as "this forum is too dominated by Coel's views on X, Y and Z", ...

... followed by various posters deciding "hey, let's weigh in and re-hash Coel's views on Islam, Folau, free speech et cetera".

Yes I do bring this up as I wish you would look more carefully at what you say and talk to a few more Muslims about their belief.  What you say disgusts me given the large majority of the very large number of Muslims who have Islamic beliefs that I meet in my life (mainly but not exclusively students and academics through work) are simply not as you paint them. It's like you have never met such people. They are good citizens, they preach against  'Islamic extremists' as evil and un-islamic, they accept the secular laws they live under. They know they have a problem in their religion but say the way this is portrayed isn't typical for the UK and often relates to exploited conservatism in older relatives. Some even add a flourish of humour on the current revival of the popularist ideas of empire and the end of the EU... speculating on new links given during the batterned down british christinity of empire we had N Africa as a favourite for a particular type of upper class tourism.

Why's that amusing? Many of us can remember you asserting your views, in your normal style - long and multiple posts - on many issues; the genetic basis of imprisonment for example - as came back up last week - or IQ differences, Islam or Folau etc. Doesn't that just suggest that you do dominate many of these discussions?

I reckon Jon might match you for words typed, but his posts aren't as regular I don't think.

Sigh.  I'm painting the *religion*, the idea-system, not the adherents.   Most *people* who adhere to a religion are vastly better than their religion. 

I guess I need to dumb this down to your level:

1a) Communism is a hugely harmful and damaging idea system.
1b) Most (not all) communists were/are fine, decent people who want nothing more than to live decent family lives.

2a) Naziism was a hugely harmful and damaging idea system.
2b) Most (not all) of the 8 million members of the Nazi party (at its peak) were likely to be fine, decent people who wanted nothing more than to live decent family lives.

3a) Islam is a hugely harmful and damaging idea system.
3b) Most (not all) Muslims are fine, decent people who want nothing more than to live decent family lives.

Clear yet? 

This is why the propoganda term "Islamophobia" is so harmful. It deliberately conflates criticism of an idea system (which is entirely fine) with bigotry towards people (not so fine).    Indeed the term was promoted by Islamists for exactly this reason, to try to disallow criticism of the Islamic religion. 

And Offwidth has swallowed it whole, and acts the Islamist puppet.  

Why yes, it does! 

And some people think that's a bad thing (well, EddieA complained anyhow), ... and then various people weigh in with an open invitation to re-hash my views on genetics, Islam, free speech, and everything. 

A major difference is that I never start political threads to assert my views. I only post on politics when someone says something that's the type of absolute drivel that makes the world a worse place to live in, and is popular to believe because it serves people's self-interest in bolstering their socially conservative instincts.

That's two other favourites of mine.

Firstly how you twist definitions

Toleration normally allows the existence, occurrence, or practice of something that you disagree with without interference. My question is at what point does your (very partial) campaign against Islam (as opposed to challenge to negative aspects of Islam, that I could fully agree with you on) become interference. Being so blanket and not applied so consistently to other religions it looks like dog whistle politics to me.

Secondly how I think people should rehabilitate woke in protest to those who weaponise it.

Woke is part of an exaggerated US political proxy war being fought by popularists, the religious right, libertarians and the alt right. It's laughable that honest intellectuals could get so worked up about it in the US given the constitutional protections for freedom of speech. In contrast the US populace seems to me to be finally 'woking up' to the appalling ravages of too lightly constrained capitalism and a too damaged state public information system, on the fairness of treatment of its citizens and that maybe a more European system might be preferable.

If you are so confident with that ridiculous 3 point argument on Nazism, Communism and Islam why not try and get it posted as an essay on the same website. Irrespective that even belief in high ideals can be misused for political ends it's telling how you never explain how you think nazi ideas can be held by good people, and use that false idea to try and score trite points against Communism and Islam.

I'd argue there is no such thing as a good Nazi and would act as an apologist to an extent for anyone stuck in a dictatorship. It's hard to speak up when you know you your family and friends might die or suffer severely as a result.

Accusing someone who publicly speaks against the disgusting ideals of Islamism as being an Islamist puppet for defending the well educated followers of Islam in a secular society also shows you up for what you are.

Ah yes, I'm yet to hear "I have nothing against racists as people, it's the idea of racism that I despise". Doesn't quite have the right ring to it, does it?

Communism naively sounds pretty good on paper in that the aim is to create a good life for everyone. But, human nature makes its implementation completely impossible, and as a political system, it's doomed to create terrible outcomes.

Nazism sounds terrible on paper, obviously. It's a consequence of human nature that under sufficient pressure people will ignore what they know is terrible in order to survive.

Islam is pretty terrible on paper, but it's all shrouded in the ambiguity of religious language. People pick and choose which bits they believe in, so you have some people choosing the bad bits because of their culture and circumstances, while others just pick the nice bits. This is characteristic of all religions.

Yes. Your argument is drivel.

 1a) Capitalism is the most  harmful and damaging idea system.

1b) Most (not all) capitalists were/are fine, decent people who want nothing more than to live decent family lives. 

1c) Communism is a hugely progressive natural and wonderful idea system for a peaceful, sustainable world. 

Ftfy

It doesn't.  Vocally criticising something is not "intolerance" unless you want to maintain that all politicians are intolerant of all other parties. 

It is applied consistently to other religions!  It's just that, in today's world, Islam is worse than the other major religions.   It's not being "inconsistent" to give harsher criticism to things that are worse.

Nope, the idea of being "woke" was invented by ... the woke.  They chose it. 

But that only protects from the government.  Freedom of speech is wider than that, and is about what can be said openly in wider society.  If you can be sacked by ones employer simply for discussing issues that are being discussed in wider society then you don't have much freedom of speech.

.... including European-style employment protections, so that an employer cannot sack someone just because a Twitter mob comes after them. 

I expect that Offwidth will now go after you as he does me for saying the same about Islam.

Err, no he won't. Silly me. 

And there reason is simple. There is a problem in our society of division between Muslims and non-Muslims, which if we want to live in a better society, we should try to ameliorate rather than exacerbate. This does not apply to capitalism.

False equivalence seems to be the bedrock of all your arguments.

Because, (1) that few-line point is too short to amount to an "essay", and (2) that website is now longer being updated, as the host has now moved on to other things.

That can happen in exactly the same way as it happens with religion.  It can happen if they grow up in an environment where those ideas are prevalent and lauded, and so they adopt them themselves, perhaps never really thinking that deeply about them.  

People are like that. It's why a kid growing up in Iran will most likely consider themselves a Muslim and adopt many of those ideas, whereas a kid growing up in Poland will more likely consider themselves a Catholic and will instead adopt many Catholic ideas.

Well you do pop up, puppet-like, in reaction to my statements that Islam is a harmful and damaging ideology.

So there is no ongoing pulling in different directions between those who want a more capitalist society and those who want a more socialist one? 

What about Oscar Schindler. Or are we in "no true Scotsman" territory here?

No, actually, it's not as simple as that.  How did Naziism gain a popular following such that half the population went with it?  It also has a lot of superficial attractiveness to it, at least to those in the "in group", and, yes, the appeal of it largely was "making a better life for everyone".   Mein Kampf is full of moralising and appeals for how to make things better.   

Plenty of otherwise decent people were suckered into it, in the same way that plenty of decent people are suckered into Islam, because it is what dominates in their culture. Ditto Mao's China. 

No, actually, it's not.  Overall it is pretty clear and prescriptive, far more so than many of the variants of Christianity that we're more used to. 

But you're right, people do pick and choose how they react to their religion, and that's because, as I said, most people are better than their religion.

There is no problem of social division between these communities, no. Indeed, at the last election, many who had been assumed to be of one tribe defected to the other. You might have a better case with respect to leave vs remain, but that's not remotely comparable as they are not different communities, this division has even been drawn within households.

So your argument is that, since Muslims in the UK are a minority with not much power, we should not criticise Islam the way we criticise capitalism or socialism?

The problem with that argument is that, in a large swathe of countries worldwide, Islam is the dominant and majority idea system, with a totalitarian stranglehold.  And yet you still want it to be above criticism?

What about the minorities in those countries who want Islam to be criticised because they want to be free of its oppressive yoke?

Since posters have steered the conversation to Islam, there's a worthwhile podcast here:

"Ex-Muslim activist and author Yasmine Mohammed (@YasMohammedxx) ...  talks about her new book ‘Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam’. "

https://www.gspellchecker.com/2020/06/ep157-yasmine-mohammed-unveiled/

She has a good perspective, with knowing what it is like to live under Islam. 

Though of course we need to remember Titania McGrath's wise words:

https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1272873901060755463?s=20

Capitalism isn't an idea system, it's an economic system. The problem is that it is a system that leads to massive inequalities if it is unchecked. Because of that it attracts ideological defences like neoliberalism. 

No the argument is that because there is a problem in our society of division between Muslims and non-Muslims, we should try to ameliorate rather than exacerbate it. 

People are born into Muslim families and live in Muslim communities. The equivalence you draw between Islam and economic systems is nonsense.

I criticise what you, specifically, say about Islam, in the context in which you say it. I have never, and will never argue that Islam should be "above criticism". You started with false equivalence, and this is false generalisation. It's rubbish.

If you show me an authentic email or whatever from a resident of an Islamic nation asking that you post divisive nonsense on UKC about Islam being "a fascist ideology", then I will consider that on its merits. Otherwise, I'll remain absolutely convinced that your point is irrelevant nonsense and a weak attempt to justify your actions under criticism.

Feel free to read Yasmine Mohammed's new book, which is aimed at "Western liberals" such as yourself.

If you want to talk about people being "suckered into" political ideologies, then you need to start talking about Islamism, not Islam. People are born into Muslim families, but they are converted to political and extremist ideologies.

So the anti-Islam brigade are at great pains to say. And yet when I try to read the Koran myself, I can't make head nor tale of it. And then when I listen to what Muslims say about it, some say it's all peace and tolerance, while others say it's all throwing gays off buildings.

So who should I believe? My own eyes? Muslims? No, I should listen to what Coel says about the "real" meaning of the Koran. I don't care what the holy book says, I know it's harmful nonsense, what matters is what people believe and how they act. And the diversity in that is pretty much as broad as for any other religion. Theological arguments about the prescriptive nature of Islam are worthless, because other than bolstering an entirely banal and pointless position that "Islam is bad", they have no bearing on anything. What are you going to do? Make it less prescriptive? 

I would be extremely surprised to find her arguments pertinent.

I criticise you, specifically, for the specific words you write in this context. I do not make general arguments about "criticism of Islam", which your responses relate to. 

"Look at these ex-Muslims!" isn't a response to the criticism I level at you. I think your contributions on the topic are divisive and unhelpful, because where you could be specific about a particular ideology within Islam, you instead use language that insults and alienates all Muslims. It's not helpful to the cause of ex-Muslims, or anyone else, to insult and alienate people who, if your concerns were genuine, you would be wanting to get onside. 

Try to get your head round this: when I criticise what you say, I'm criticising what you say - including the way you say it and the context you say it in. I'm criticising it on the basis of the consequences of you saying it. I'm not supporting or opposing some generalised principle in your head that "Islam is above criticism" or "everyone must align to x political view". You generate these generalisations, and then respond to them. It's a waste of time.

I don't think he is a UKC staff member. 

It's both.  Kids imbibe both religions and versions of religions.

It's wrong to regard the religion as just the core text.  Islam is based on the Koran (writings attributed to Mohammed), the Hadith (the reported sayings of Mohammed) and the life and example of Mohammed, and then the rulings and interpretations of various religious scholars since then.

I doubt if anyone who say that those are the only aspects of the religion.

Nope, you should take an overview of the religion as it actually is in the forms it is in a variety of countries.   You could, for example, read some of the criticisms of Islam by ex-Muslims.  (Though I guess some defences of Islam, for balance, would also be appropriate.)

That would be a good start. 

But there you are effectively insisting that there's nothing wrong with the ideology of Islam overall, only with particular parts of it.  But I don't agree, since the harmful aspects are central to the ideology.  

On a previous occasion when the topic of Islam came up (again started by others!), I went to the lengths of outlining why I regard Islam as harmful (by which I mean not just that some aspects of it are harmful, but that enough of the core ideas are harmful such that overall it is harmful).  I may as well re-post it:

OK, here goes, here's an account of the ideas within Islam that result in it being harmful.  

Note: I am not claiming that all versions of Islam hold to all of these (only that many versions hold to many of them, such that one can fairly assess Islam overall as "harmful").  In saying "Islam says ..." I mean that it is commonly held
among mainstream variants.

Note 2: I am not claiming that any of these are unique to Islam (they are not, many are found in the other Abrahamic religions and elsewhere; in many ways Islam is just the most virulent strain of Abrahamism).

Note 3: I am certainly not making any claims about to what extent any particular person who identifies as "Muslim" holds to these ideas.   What I am claiming is that enough Muslims hold to enough of them such that the overall effect of Islam on the world is "harmful" rather than "beneficial".

Note 4: Most of the below derives from the writings of ex-Muslims and reformist-minded moderate Muslims.

1) Islam teaches that the Koran is the literal words of God (dictated by the angel Gabriel to Mohammed).  [Contrasting with Christianity, which holds that the Bible might have been divinely "inspired" but was written by fallible humans.]
Being literally the words of God, they are not open to doubt or question or revision; since God is perfect the text of the Koran is literally perfect.  At most there is some leeway over interpretation.  

This is hugely regressive, since it means that Islam is stuck with and anchored in the attitudes and morals of the 7th century warlords who created the Koran. 

[Christianity has way more latitude to throw out bad bits; you don't like the stuff in Leviticus? Then just ignore it.]

2) Islam teaches that the Koran is complete.  It is God's final revelation [Islam regards the Biblical prophets as also prophets from God, but Mohammed was the final one].  Being God's final revelation it contains everything God wanted to say to mankind.  It can't be added to or improved upon.  

This is a hugely regressive doctrine, again anchoring Islam in the attitudes and morals of the 7th century. The doctrine severely hampers moral improvement, of which there has been a huge amount over the centuries.  

[Christianity, by contrast, has no problem with ongoing revelation, so, for example, they can decide that God is fine with people being gay, and the previous Christians who thought otherwise were fallible and wrong.]

[Note that the Amadhiyya Muslims are a fringe sect who are regarded as heretical and are persecuted simply because they believe that a later prophet also came with some messages from God.]

3) Since the Koran is God's final and complete revelation, it is a manual for all aspects of life.  Hence, in Islam, there is no division into "religious" and "secular" aspects of life, Islam is a way of life, a way of all aspects of life.

For this reason Islam has never accepted the doctrine of a separation between church/mosque and the state. Sharia law (God's law) takes precedence over secular law (man-made law).  That is a totalitarian and hugely harmful attitude.  Christianity was as bad until the doctrine of different religious and secular aspects of life and church/state separation took hold.  

4) Since the Koran is God's final, complete and perfect revelation, it is not up for debate, not up for voting on.  Humans are obligated to submit to it, not question or doubt it.   The term "Islam" means "submission" to this will of God.  
 Obviously, since that means submission to the writings and attitudes of the 7th century, that is a hugely regressive doctrine.  

5) Since the Koran is God's revelation to mankind, it will, over time, come to dominate.  There will come a time when the whole world "submits" to the will of God, meaning that the whole world will be Islamic.  There is no timescale specified for this, but Muslims have a moral duty to promote this end if they can.   That is the doctrine of the "jihad", an obligation on all Muslims.  Now, Muslims
 can indeed interpret "jihad" in ways that don't involve use of force, but the *original* "jihad" was indeed an aggressive military expansion.  Islam grew rapidly owing to military expansion, and the subjegation and forced conversion of peoples they conquered.  

6) In Islam, Mohammed (who is not divine) is considered the ideal human, a role model to emulate in all aspects of life.   This means they have a role model of a 7th-century military leader.  

[In contrast, the role model of Jesus was not as a military leader; Jesus did not lead armies, conquer people and force them to convert; Mohammed did.]    

This "Mohammed is the ideal human to be emulated" is taught to all Muslims.  So can we be surprised if some take the emulation of a warlord seriously?  We're expected of course, to parrot that such is "nothing to do with Islam", but the truth is that it is everything to do with Islam.  

7) An afterlife: (shared of course with Christianity), Islam teaches that this world is merely a preparation to the vastly more-important next world. This is seriously bad idea leading to warped ideas and warped behaviour in this life.

8) Martyrdom:  Coupling the last two, jihad and the afterlife, produces the idea that martyrdom is hugely honourable and to be embraced, and that anyone dying as a result of promoting Islam will be hugely rewarded.    We can all think of the harmful effects of this idea.

9) The combination of the "afterlife" idea with that of the Koran being God's complete and perfect revelation is that the Islamic world can be un-interested in science and advancing knowledge.  They already have everything they need, and the important thing is study of the Koran and of Islam, because that is what is important as preparation for the next world. 

Nowadays, there is very little science in the Islamic world and very little scholarship -- it's orders of magnitude
behind the West.   [Yes, I know it was different back in the day when totalitarian Christianity stiffled the West.]

10) The attitude that the communal good trumps individual rights.  The idea of individual rights is ubiquitous in the West today, but not nearly so much elsewhere.  In Islam the communal good takes precedence. People are expected to support the communal good, and that means supporting Islam.  Hence why apostasy is not seen as a right, it's seen as a betrayal, an act of a traitor towards his community, and so is generally abhored.  

11) A combination of above factors means there is no general acceptance of free speech, not on important matters.  Since they have the perfect and complete Kora
n, and since the duty is to submit to it, one should not think for oneself, one should submit, guided by the Koranic scholars who can best interpret the text.   There is simply no need for free speech, and certainly not for questioning the religious authorities, that would be leading *away* from Islam, which is of course rebellion against God.   Free speech is thus dangerous and speech needs to be carefully controlled by the religious authorities.

12) So one of the biggest engines for progress in the West, people thinking for themselves, thinking of new ideas,  and challenging the status quo, is deprecated in much of the Islamic world.  There is almost no science in the Islamic world today (certainly by Western standards), almost no technological development or innovation, and little social innovation.

13) Call-out culture.   Partly as a result of the idea that communal good trumps individual rights, there is a strong tendency in Islam that everyone has a moral duty to police everyone else's adherence to Islam.  Thus, to give an example, wearing a hijab gets spread partly by edicts demanding it, but more by peer pressure, people being called bad Muslims if they don't comply. The most strict, and most extreme in their adherence, go around chiding others as "un-Islamic" and producing a ratchet towards increasing strictness.

[In contrast, nowadays in the West, there's very much an attitude that it's no-one else's business how one individually behaves in most matters.]

The attitude that the individual needs to comply for the communal good thus leads to things like hijab wearing and Mosque attendance and compliance with Ramadam fasts being compulsory. There is no acceptance of an individual's right to opt-out or dissent.

Overall it seems to me that the harmful effects of this set of ideas are pretty obvious across the world.

Fine. And when Muslims combine all these aspects of their religion, some come up with ISIS, while others practice a wishy-washy version of Islam that boils down to little more than a bunch of rituals practised in the context of middle class UK society.

Fine. I'm absolutely appalled by oppressive Islamic regimes such like Saudi Arabia, and more broadly I think theocratic governance is an absolutely terrible idea. The relevant point, is that the people who will read your comments about the whole of Islam are almost certainly going to be wishy-washy liberal British Muslims, e.g. your students, or climbers in this country. And you're insulting them and alienating them by using inflammatory language to demonise an entire religion. There's just nothing positive I can say about doing that, it's just pointless, destructive behaviour that exacerbates the division between Muslims and non-Muslims.

You're clinging to this ludicrous idea that I'm having some difficulty in deciding whether Islam is 'good' or 'bad'. I don't doubt for half a second that the ex-Muslims who speak out have had terrible treatment under Islamic regimes, and that they relate the way such regimes work with the content of the religion itself. I'm not at all interested in reading any "defence" of Islam. None of that is going to have any bearing on whether I think that your comments in this context are a positive or a negative contribution.

As said in my previous posts, your responses do not relate to my criticism.

Well no, the majority of people who will read my comments will be non-Muslims. 

So you agree that Islam is bad, but just think that we should not say so, since it will alienate moderate Muslims? 

You really can't understand the basic point here can you? 

You're engaged in an argument about whether Islam is 'good' or 'bad', but I'm not interested.

If you wanted to actually make society better, you'd try to engage with Muslims who take a wishy-washy liberal interpretation of their religion, you wouldn't alienate and insult those people. Instead, you focus on the ex-Muslims, because they hate the religion, and so do you.

In the context of your comments, all you'll achieve is making Muslims hate you, and you'll be cheered on by people who hate Muslims. It's not useful.

No one has to be silent about Islam or anything else. You just have a choice about whether, when you talk about people's religion, you give the impression you think that all Muslims are like ISIS (e.g. "Islam is a fascist ideology"); or whether you demonstrate that you respect all the Muslims whose private religious beliefs cause no harm and are nothing to do with you.

Why do you want to make enemies of the all the Muslim consultants in the NHS, for example? What good does that do?

I’m not going to spend much time on this, but I’d like to mention Turkey, which follows the same principle as France and is secular, that the Muslim stance on gays comes from Leviticus and hence many Christians have the exact same issue from the exact same writings, and it’s complete and utter nonsense to suggest that Muslims follow things just as in the 7th century.  Maybe in Saudi some people would wish to, but I can assure you that most Muslims are normal people.  

If you want to worry about backwards Abrahamic fundamentalists then some of the Christians in America are very concerning.  

There are plenty of opt out options to sawm; travelling, pregnancy, being elderly, young or sick - probably others I can't remember.

They may well hate the religion.  But they most certainly do not hate Muslims as people; Muslims as people are their people. 

I actually think that the ex-Muslims and the reformist-minded moderate Muslims are far better at that engagement than I am. 

So what I'll do is defend their right to criticise Islam from such as yourself who would shut that down.   

(And I know you'll now claim that is not what you're trying to do, but de facto it seems very much what your stance amounts to, wanting to place -- for example -- even the most mild comparisons to a letter box beyond the pale.)

How about "I don't feel like it" as an opt-out option? Or "this stuff is silly, and we shouldn't do this any more"?  If that sort of thing were generally accepted within Islamic communities then it would be a vastly better religion.

But then I didn't.  I've been clearly making a distinction between what the religion says, and how much of it people believe and follow.

For comparison, Catholic teaching on things like abortion is clear, but whether a person who regards themselves as Catholic abides by that teaching is a different matter. 

My above account is about mainstream aspects of the religion that make it overall harmful.  I've never thought that all Muslims subscribe to each and every aspect that I stated.

Now you are comparing Islam to Nazis.  Ffs.  

You're simply wrong. The stance I have taken is limited to pointing out to you and others on UKC that blanket statements about how evil Islam is - statements that just don't ring true when applied to the only Muslims who could possibly be reading them - are divisive and unhelpful.

I have listened with interest to people like Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. As usual, every time the phrase "shutting down" is used, it's total bollocks.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. I'm firmly anti-burka (although I don't support a ban) although my preferred expression to mock it is "trick or treat" rather than "letterbox". When Johnson wrote that article, I agreed with what he said, but saw through his shallow self-serving motivation and criticised that. You might be able to dig out the thread to check. 

Covering your face in public is an antisocial behaviour that deliberately alienates you from the society you live in, while screaming "look at how devout and holy I am" to anyone who can see. Or, it's an act of oppressing women promoted by the worst regimes on the planet. It isn't, however, representative of Islam in general.

Women don’t fast during their period.  

Some of my pupils didn’t fast during GCSEs and A-Levels.   Probably not official that one.  

There's a big problem with that stance.  In the last free, multi-party election, 17 million people voted for the Nazi Party (and 8 million were members at its peak).

So what's the explanation? "It was a chance alignment of lots of bad people" is so implausible it's a non-starter.    Similarly Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, etc. 

The only plausible explanation is that normal people -- no worse or better than average, which means they're basically good, decent people who want a peaceful family life, since most people are -- ended up supporting, or at least going along with, a highly harmful and damaging ideology. 

In the same way, there's nothing at all outlandish in saying that most Muslims are good, decent people who want a peaceful family life, but are supporting, or at least going along with, a highly harmful and damaging ideology. 

I, yet again, point to the distinction between ideologies and people.  

Saying that Islam is highly damaging and harmful is not saying the same about most or all Muslims. 

Apologies if I misremembered and confused your reaction with that of others.

Yeah, I've had kids say "we do it at the weekend with mum and dad because we want to, but they don't want us to do it during the week and miss school lunch."

Coel seems to get himself into the odd position for an anti-Islam atheist of telling Muslims that they aren't doing their religion right when they don't seem to feel the need to practice their faith in the way he thinks they should. I do know what he means, but as religion is (and I say this as an atheist) a total social construction, it really isn't anything beyond the practice of its followers. So sawm can be both a fundamental part of the faith that you absolutely must do, one of the five pillars after all, AND something that you sort of do some of the time when you're not too busy with work and such.

And yet again, I invite you to be consistent in your approach, "e.g. I have no problem with the white supremacists as people, only their ideology".

Not at all, I make no statement on what is the "right" way to do religion (or at least, my only statement would be "not at all". ).

Not quite, there is also the teachings.  It's valid to ask how the teachings of a religion compare to the practice, and which way the teachings pull.

For example, actual practice of Catholics on birth control and other sexual matters is vastly more liberal than official Catholic Church teachings.  Thus you can quite legitimately distinguish between Catholic teachings/ideology and the on-the-ground behaviour of Catholics. 

The difference is that a religion is not only an ideology. It's also a set of cultural traditions and practices -- and most of those are likely benign and beneficial. It makes entire sense for someone to participate in those and identify with the religion, but if you ask them about some aspect of theology they reply "Agreed, and I don't accept or believe that". 

Plenty of people, for example, regard themselves as cultural Christians, so they identify as Christians but don't believe in hell (or even God).

So, as repeatedly stated, I'm not making any assumption about whether a given Muslim holds to a given part of the ideology. As I've said, most people are far better than their religion.

But "white supremacy" is not like that.  It's purely an ideology. There's no other aspect to it, you can't be a "cultural white supremacist", meaning someone who doesn't actually want or advocate white supremacy. 

And by the way, I think I have been consistent in my approach, by applying the same analysis to Third Reich Germany, Mao's China, etc.  

I agree, but you're now making a different argument. The argument I'm asking you to defend is that you can dislike "ideas" or "ideologies" but not the people who follow them.  It seems not - if an ideology is bad, then the people who follow it are bad too: 

So you have to not follow the ideology to avoid being bad. Your problem is that all the normal British Muslims will tell you that they do follow Islam, devoutly. So now you're telling them that they're not real Muslims. 

I guess it is accepting that people are fallible and can often be led astray.  Hating them for it doesn't achieve much (it's opposing the ideas that achieves things).    I don't regard myself as anywhere near a perfect human being, and I don't expect other people to be that either.    Part of being tolerant is not hating people for being different -- but nothing about that means one can't deplore harmful acts or harmful ideas.

There is no one way to "follow Islam", there's quite a range of attitudes and beliefs.  Just compare Maajid Nawaz with Ayman al-Zawahiri for example.   How much of the bad stuff of their religion they actually hold to is up to them.

But, if they hold to the ideas I listed up-thread then I'd have no problem stating that they hold to bad ideas. 

As for whether they are "bad people", well, to me, that would be more about how they act, not about what they say when questioned about their religion -- in other words, some people can hold to bad ideas but hold them nominally and not particularly act on them, whereas other people might act on them. 

Here is a good example of the Woke lunacy now getting common in the US, and an example which shows that Offwidth's statement that there is no problem about free speech over there is just wrong.

Does anyone think that in the case recounted here he deserved to be sacked?

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-tom-cotton-new-...

PS The New York Mag article linked just above really is well worth reading. 

That’s not very convincing. If some really believes all lefthanders should be killed, they will facilitate that. You can’t nominally think that sort of thing. At some point someone’s beliefs move beyond being tolerable and interestingly different, to defining who they are. The 

It is interesting and I see why you are interested in highlighting left Vs left Twitter battles, but when you read the bit that says:

"Bringing up crime in black communities to deflect away from systemic racism is a conservative trope so familiar and clichéd it is often summarized with the mocking shorthand “what about black-on-black crime?” And the simplistic comparison of deaths at the hands of white police versus minorities fails to acknowledge both the broader patterns of mistreatment by police that falls short of outright murder, and the fear this creates, so that a single police murder can terrorize thousands and shape their view of the state in a way that a local murder cannot."

Did you not think it rather describes what you've been doing here for the last couple of weeks?

I'm sorry but I just think this is a load of waffle. What else could make someone 'bad' (by which I mean worthy of personal criticism, not 'essentially' bad) other than holding bad ideas?

So, perhaps, rather than "following a fascist ideology" they might be an ordinary Muslim who isn't remotely fascist, but there are some aspects of their religion which you disagree with. If you said to most people in a modern western society "there are some aspects of your religion I disagree with", they'd most likely think that was perfectly reasonable. But if you said to them "you follow a fascist ideology" when obviously they don't, they'd just think you were an arsehole, wouldn't they?

Hmm, I'm pretty sure that, yes, you can nominally think that sort of thing.  Indeed, religious people are pretty good at that sort of compartmentalised, nominal thinking, that they would not actually act on.  

An extreme example was a woman who told me explicitly that, yes, apostates from Islam should be put to death (because that's what her religion tells her to think and say).

And yet she was the most caring person, working as a nurse in the NHS, in an exemplary way, caring about people of all sorts.   I have little doubt that, if a car-accident victim were  admitted who she happened to know was an ex-Muslim, then faced with a real person, she would do her very best to save that person's life.

Acts.

... and which happens to be fascist.

Would you say to someone "there are some aspects of your fascism that I disagree with ... though obviously overall fascism is perfectly fine"?

But they do.  Sorry. Whether, if you are trying to reach out to them, it is tactically wise to adopt this line is a different matter.  

Well maybe they would indeed think I was just being an arsehole.  But that doesn't stop it being true that mainstream Islam is fascist.  If it were believed predominantly by white people you would have no problem seeing that very clearly. 

Imagine, as a thought experiment, that Islam was believed and practised solely by a minority sect of white people in the Dakotas or Russia somewhere.  You'd have little difficulty in adopting utterly disdainful language. 

In my view, she is responsible for, liable for criticism for holding, that dreadful idea. She should be taken to task on it: "so then, if apostates should be put to death, what exactly are you doing with this infidel RTA casualty? Oh, I see. You don't really believe that nonsense do you. So stop saying it."

In which case she doesn’t actually believe it.

In addition to the above link to New York Mag, here's another piece covering some of the same events:

"It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

"The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily."

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself

Which would be motivated by ideas. You don't believe the behaviourist line, so I won't respond to it.

Well no, but when I talk to my Muslim friends and colleagues, they tell me all about all the motherhood and apple pie aspects for their religion which I can't criticise because it's all about kindness and charity, blah blah.

The equivalence between Islam and fascism has been ludicrous from the start. We don't even agree on what fascism even means, but I assure you, there is no definition which is consistent with the values and behaviour of the Muslims I know. 

Then why do exactly none of the Muslims I know exhibit even the tiniest semblance of any behaviour that appears remotely fascist. Maybe it's because you're talking bollocks?

Well then it wouldn't be an enormous religion practised by people integrated into UK society, would it? So, if I imagined that Islam was a fascist cult, then would I would describe it as a fascist cult? Yes, I suppose I would. And no, it wouldn't matter what colour their skin was.

Ordinary British Muslims are not fascists (the ideology they follow is not fascist, same thing) by any definition that makes any sense, and to say that they are just looks like bigotry. There's no argument you can make that's going to convince me that the people I work with every day are fascists - it's a stupid thing to say. You should just stop being a tit, and stop saying it.

Maybe. I'm not going to say how much of their religion people actually believe, as oppose to say they believe.

Do Muslims believe that Mohammed flew from Jerusalem to visit Heaven on a winged horse?  They say they do.  Do they really believe it?  

Yes, acts are motivated by ideas.  But often, ideas do not motivate acts.

Maybe it's because they're in a minority. So they don't try to impose on wider society. But they do try to impose within their own community.  From the point of view of a 16-yr-old girl who does not want to wear the hijab, some sections (note the "some") of the Islamic communities can be pretty fascist. 

And where Islam dominates, as it does in many countries around the world, the fascist aspects are more blatant.

I'm not trying to.  I'm trying to convince you that their ideology is fascist.  That's not the same thing.

More from the above article:

"The main thing accomplished by removing those types of editorials from newspapers — apart from scaring the hell out of editors — is to shield readers from knowledge of what a major segment of American society is thinking.

"It also guarantees that opinion writers and editors alike will shape views to avoid upsetting colleagues, which means that instead of hearing what our differences are and how we might address those issues, newspaper readers will instead be presented with page after page of people professing to agree with one another. That’s not agitation, that’s misinformation.

"The instinct to shield audiences from views or facts deemed politically uncomfortable has been in evidence since Trump became a national phenomenon. We saw it when reporters told audiences Hillary Clinton’s small crowds were a “wholly intentional” campaign decision. I listened to colleagues that summer of 2016 talk about ignoring poll results, or anecdotes about Hillary’s troubled campaign, on the grounds that doing otherwise might “help Trump” (or, worse, be perceived that way).

"Even if you embrace a wholly politically utilitarian vision of the news media – I don’t, but let’s say – non-reporting of that “enthusiasm” story, or ignoring adverse poll results, didn’t help Hillary’s campaign. I’d argue it more likely accomplished the opposite, contributing to voter apathy by conveying the false impression that her victory was secure."

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself 

What a shitty attitude towards people, describing all Muslims with a generalised "they do/don't do x or y". And I've no idea what definition of fascism relates to pressuring children to wear religious hair coverings.

You completely failed to convince me that people's characters could be separated from their ideas or ideologies. Fascists follow fascist ideology. People who are not fascists do not follow fascist ideologies. Your construct of a person who follows a fascist ideology without, somehow, becoming a fascist themselves, is garbage.

Err, ok, perhaps you might give us two or three examples of evidence showing that they were sacked for writing those twits and not for, lets say, abusing horses, or not washing their hands?

So you know what the correct teachings are. Your expertise knows no bounds! Why not just ring up the Grand Mufti and al Azhar university and tell them they can stop arguing over the Quran and the Hadith because you know what the teachings are and how it should all be understood.

Comparing Islam, a religion, to Catholicism, a denomination, isn't going to help either. Particularly comparing a religion where every believer has an unmediated relationship with God, to a denomination marked out specifically by having a leader who is seen as appointed by God to lead his people on Earth, and where the priesthood is the intermediary between God and mankind seems to be missing something fundamental about both religious traditions.

I never said I know what the "correct" teachings are, I simply said I know enough about what the mainstream teachings are.  

Not really, I've merely read accounts by people who do know.

So you're going for the "chance coincidence of lots of bad people" explanation of Third Reich Germany, Mao's China, et cetera?

No, there's no essentialism of good or bad people involved. All the Germans who supported Hitler were fascists, because they followed a fascist ideology. Under different circumstances they would not have been fascists.

I agree with you!

True.  Does anyone do well at giving Coel a hard time?  He's rather good at what he does, isn't he?

And I'm sincere about liking the article.

Yes please do! That way we needn't get into pointless arguments that diminish us both.  

Oh, we should debate something here, though, just to see if we can do it...

Your opening argument asks the reader to accept the premise that religion causes wars, whereas one might argue that religion is often a pretext, but the cause is a struggle for power and resources?  I think the 'Encyclopedia of Wars' (in its 3rd/4th edition by now?) has only about 7% of all wars recorded in history having a clearly religious origin. What do you think?

And, I should state, that even if religion isn't an underlying cause of war, there are many other good arguments for tolerance and therefore the rest of your article remains valid.

I think you paraphrase my views incorrectly.  My actual thoughts, on dropping in to the forum from time to time, was that the way you argued was potentially stifling debates, rather than fostering them.  I thought - and continue to think - that showing others a little more respect would help bring more people to the forums.  It is impossible to debate someone who insists that they have a monopoly on rigour, and who recognizes the legitimacy of no field of knowledge other than his own, and that claims no political bias while at the same time drawing his talking points straight from the same places Donald Trump gets his.  

Now that you are being amiable, it all seems a lot easier.  There are discussions on race elsewhere in the forums that have women and other races chipping in - I haven't seen that in a while.  You've been very respectful and restrained there.  I think it has made the discussion more interesting.  That was all I was trying to do.

It may be a coincidence, or it may be that our minor confrontation opened some space for other voices. I kept you busy, if nothing else.

I'm staying out of the Muslim debate, other that to say I have lived in Islamic countries and have been made to feel both welcome and safe.  Like Christianity - and indeed secularism, there are moderates, and then there are extremists.   I'm an atheist myself by the way, but a tolerant one, which is why I liked your article on tolerance.  

Oh, you were doing so well!  

Maybe, ineffectual as I was, I might have opened up some space for renewed scrutiny of your ideas, and now you have a renewed opportunity to defend them.  Surely that's good, for everyone? 

Well yes, there's a lot of history between me and Offwidth.   He has long been one to readily resort to insults.  I tolerated it for ages, replying civilly.  After a while I totally lost patience with him.

I do think that religion is often a major cause of wars. Partly because it's a major cause of division, and if you're going to have a war over power and resources, then the religious differences exacerbate the division.

But, obviously, it's not the only cause of wars.  WW2 for example was nothing to do with religion.

Most wars have multiple causes (can anyone summarise the "cause of the First World War" in a couple of sentences?), so I'm not sure it's sensible to put a percentage on which ones were religious. 

As I see it, a large part of how I post is a reaction to how people post to me.  

Is it any surprise people are sometimes scathing to someone who does things like claiming 'wokeness' is blighting the US and their illustrative example is a case covered by a mutually agreed departure on an NDA. I'm sure looking at case detail we could often agree that bad things have happened, sometimes even that that happened in the name of 'wokeness', but that doesn't make it the massive issue that you and the US right claim; and the legal protections in the constitution means that won't change any time soon. This is what is so sad in what you do here.. you could be making a serious difference by raising concerns on real issues but instead you extrapolate ideas to the point where incredulity and/or ridicule are the normal human response. This sort of extrapolating is what zeolots normally do, not academics.

Ironic then, that your behaviour on here serves to exacerbate such divisions. 

Not really.  Discussing different opinions and attitudes tends to reduce divisions.  It's refusing to do that that exacerbates them.

If you think that describing Muslims' religion as "a fascist ideology" is a discussion that will tend to reduce division, then rather than just being a tit, I submit that you are insane.

That's an oddly weak response, but not really what I was getting at anyway. "Teachings" are socially constructed (what Shi'a Muslim believes the Quran says about angels is notably different enough from what a Sunni believes it says to make it onto the GCSE syllabus), but how people understand and choose to put them into practice is a social construct too. 

In some cases people with power force others to practice in certain ways, but then in other cases people not subject to that power act differently, whilst still claiming the same faith as the powerful and supposedly following the same teachings. So who is right? You say you know Islam is fascist, so you must know what true Islam is, or at least you've read people who know. And Jon's nice colleagues who aren't in the slightest bit fascist clearly aren't following the Islam properly, otherwise they would act in the way you have read they should be.

No one is "right" because there is no "true" version of Islam.  As you say, all versions are made up.  

But, despite that, there is still enough "family resemblance" between the different versions that it is valid to talk about the religion overall.   

Similarly, there are lots of versions of communism (Marx, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc, all had different versions) but it's still valid to describe characteristics of "communism".

This tactic of "deny that there is any such thing as "Islam" that one can sensibly talk about" just seems to me yet another tactic amounting to "thou shalt not criticise Islam".

By "Islam if fascist" I mean that mainstream versions of Islam have a variety of attributes that, considered together, gives Islam overall a strong tendency to being fascist.

There's no such thing as a "proper" way to follow Islam.  As I've explained multiple times, saying the above about Islam is not the same as saying that each and every Muslim is a fascist. 

But it's a shit argument that doesn't hold water. You agreed that if you follow white supremacist ideology, that makes you a racist and culpable for it. You then tried to justify not applying the same approach to Muslims by saying that the ones who weren't fascists were just "cultural Muslims". But this doesn't work, because if you ask normal British Muslims, they'll tell you that they're devout followers of Islam, and yet you haven't got the stomach to follow your convictions and call them fascists.

"Explaining multiple times" doesn't improve matters for you. You're stuck. Is Islam fascist, and are my Muslim friends and colleagues fascists, or not?

Yes.

How would I know?, I've not met them.   Maybe some are, maybe some are not. 

Not a satisfactory response to the argument. I do not need to meet white supremacists to ascertain whether or not they are racists - if they say they follow that ideology, that's sufficient. Similarly, if Islam is a fascist ideology, then those who say they follow it are fascists.

Of course one can sensibly talk about it, but you're not sensibly talking about it. You are saying it's fascist. For the the reasons that Jon has been explaining to you again and again and again, you're not making any sense - it is by definition not sensible thought.

No, capitalism has inbuilt contradictions that create these 'massive inequalities' as it is an ideology based on gangsterism in which the power is all placed in the hands of the bourgeoisie in any given country. This country uses this system to dominate all other countries and form an empire or when they are in a unified competing capitalist bloc they exploit the rest of the world to keep them on top by feeding off everyone else using force. 

Neo-liberalism, crony capitalism, economic liberalism, free enterprise economy, free market, Laissez-faire capitalism are all just nonsense terms designed by capitalists to confuse people into thinking that terrible system isn't real capitalism which is pure and good. It's BS as capitalism is gangsterism,war, imperialism and exploitation, always was and always will be. 

Oh and it has destroyed the earth and its species. 

The dominant theme in Islamic jurisprudence about apostasy is that it should be punished by death.  That alone is sufficient for the ideology to qualify as "fascist".

In reply to Jon Stewart:

Again, it depends to what extent they follow it.  I think you're way underestimating the extent to which religious believers hold some beliefs nominally.

So maybe ask them.  Ask them, in an ideal Islamic Caliphate, should adults who apostasize from Islam be punished?   If they say yes then they are fascists.  If they say, no, whatever the rulings by the religious authorities, in their opinion, apostates should not be punished, nor ostracised, and should be able to live peacefully in Islam-dominated communities, then they are not fascists. 

But, around the world, 25 countries have a death penalty or other severe penalty for apostasy from Islam. (And in those countries it really is dangerous for any Muslim-bred person to openly renounce the religion, both from fear of reaction from the authorities and from fear of reaction from the community.)  That is sufficient to describe the ideology as "fascist".

But, I readily allow that many individual Muslims might not agree, and would happily accept open ex-Muslims as members of their communities and as friends.  So, again, I'm not going to assert that all Muslims are necessarily fascists. 

And just to repeat a point from up-thread: If Islam were believed predominantly by whites, I think you'd have no trouble at all regarding it as fascist.

If Italy under Mussolini qualifies as "fascist" then so do countries such as post-revolution Iran.    And take things like Pakistan's treatment of the Ahmadiyya minority.  If it were a white-majority country treating a minority like that, there would be uproar. 

But somehow we have complete double standards.  Muslim-dominated countries get a free pass because they are brown. We simply don't expect any better of them.  And no-one cares about the many people in Islam-dominated countries who don't want to live under the yoke of Islam.

Right so we are back to your expertise now, specifically now in Islamic jurisprudence. It's a "dominant theme" is it? Are you sure its not a dominant theme in the odd article you read about Islamic jurisprudence as shared in your anti-Islam circles?

I'm afraid I don't share your expertise in Islamic jurisprudence so had to do a bit of reading up. According to Wikipedia "apostasy is a crime in 16 out of 49 Muslim majority countries; in other Muslim nations such as Morocco, apostasy is not illegal but proselytizing to Muslims is. It is subject to the death penalty in some countries, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, although executions for apostasy are rare." It being a crime in some countries isn't good and it being punished by death is worse - but if it is such a dominant theme in Islamic jurisprudence why are so few Muslims being executed? Why do so many Muslims seem to be able to happily accept that apostates don't need to be punished (with death or lesser punishments)?

Would you accept it if I said a dominant theme of US policing is the killing of unarmed black men?

Oh look, Coel is making shit up again. What a surprise.

The use of capital punishment in Italy has been banned since 1889, with the exception of the period 1926–1947, encompassing the rule of Fascism in Italy

In 1926, it was reintroduced by dictator Benito Mussolini

It was used sparsely, however; until the outbreak of war in 1940, a total of nine executions were carried out, allegedly not for political offenses, followed by another 17 until Italy's surrender in July 1943 (compared to almost 80,000 legal executions in Nazi Germany, including courts martial).[2][3][4]

The last people executed for civil crimes were three Sicilian robbers, also convicted of murder, who battered and threw into a well ten people (while still alive) on a farm near Villarbasse (province of Turin) in 1945. The president, Enrico de Nicola, declined to pardon them, and they were executed by a firing squad on March 4, 1947 at Basse di Stura riverside, in the suburbs of Turin. This was the last execution in Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Italy

He must have missed the Twitt about Italian history in the 1926-1947 fascist era and decided he might as well wing it and claim that people were punished to death for not adopting Fascism and hope nobody notices.

For comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom#Unit...

Erm, perhaps there aren't many apostates being executed because apostasy is punishable by death, so people might not be keen to be seen as apostates. Be a Muslim or die is quite a forceful way of maintaining religion.

I've just seen one of these in my window

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/assets/photo/66031271-240px.jpg

I noticed it has feathers and a beak. That alone is sufficient to qualify it as a horse

Well this link says:

"As of 2019, there are 12 Muslim-majority countries that have the death sentence for apostasy,[31][32][33] whereas in 13 other countries apostasy is illegal ..."

So that makes 25.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam

FFS. How many times do I need to state this? Plenty of religious believers pick and choose which bits of their religion to believe.  Plenty of people are far better than their religion.   I must have made this distinction a dozen times so far.

No, since there is no policy anywhere asking for that. 

I've just had a breakfast of eggs and  bacon. That alone is sufficient to qualify it as a Cornish Pastry

Although, 12 doesn't really lend any credence to your statement that "The dominant theme in Islamic jurisprudence about apostasy is that it should be punished by death." All those other Muslim majority countries aren't doing their religion correctly then?

Temper temper.

Until you manage to explain it in a way that makes sense?

So again you know what the true religion is, whilst those practicing Muslims - whether Jon's colleagues or the leadership in the Muslim countries where apostasy isn't a capital crime and some where it's not even a crime - are doing it wrong.

I've just picked up a final warning letter from the TV License. That alone is sufficient for the letter to qualify as a plane on a treadmill

Please try to distinguish between a school of jurisprudence within Islam (= rulings made by religious scholars) and state policy in Muslim-majority countries. 

And, for the sixth time, there is no such thing as a "correct" way of doing Islam, so why do you keep asking?

FFS

So honest question.

I don't have a TV, but if i get an inspection from a TV license enforcement agent do you think that having an oven, that alone is sufficient to qualify as a TV? I'm kind of worried now

"Same as it ever was, same as it ever was"

youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8&

You’ve missed the point. Capitalism is first and foremost an economic system- that’s how it evolved. The justifications you mention are part of the ideologies that have been developed retrospectively. They are post-hoc rationalisations. (This view does not preclude you from holding an anti-capitalist position so there is no need for an anti-capitalist rant here.)

OK, I'm trying. Let's stick with your wording "The dominant theme in Islamic jurisprudence about apostasy is that it should be punished by death." If there is no correct way of doing Islam (agreed), and most Muslims, and indeed many Muslim-majority polities, don't do that thing, how can it be a dominant theme of Islamic jurisprudence*? You are trying to persuade us that this is one of the things that makes Islam fascist. But you seem to be now suggesting you can have non-fascist Islam as well? Is that just 'another Islam' or 'not-proper Islam'? 

*I don't actually know if there are really any dominant themes in Islamic jurisprudence - it seems that lots of sharia scholars spend their time trying to work out, rule on, explain and so on issues to do with all the standard stuff of life family relationships, marriage, sexual relationships, inheritance, contracts, compliance of financial instruments with Islamic beliefs and so on. 

Islam has a number of "schools" of thought, based around the teachings and rulings of particular religious scholars and their followers.    (A bit like Christianity has divisions following from the teachings of Martin Luther, etc.)

Thus there are a number of schools of Islamic Jurisprudence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches#Schools_of_juris...

Now, (I think it is the case that) all major schools of Islamic Jurisprudence regard apostasy as a crime. Certainly the majority do. 

As far as I'm aware (though am open to correction) not one of the major schools of Islamic Jurisprudence regard apostasy as a personal matter that should be the right of the individual, and that should not attract punishment.

Given this dominant opinion within the different strands and schools of Islamic theology and religious rulings, it is entirely valid to make descriptive statements about Islam as I have done.

That is not making prescriptive statements about any "correct" version of Islam. 

Further, what Islamic theological schools say is different from what political leaders do (for example, Ataturk set up Turkey with a secular constitution despite it being majority-Muslim; and the Government of Poland doesn't always adopt the teachings of Catholic Church, despite it being a majority-Catholic country).

And further still, statements about the religious doctrine is not the same as saying that all followers of the religion believe that doctrine, just as some Catholics might not agree with Catholic policy on abortion. 

And lastly, do I really need to explain all this for the fourteenth time?  You really seem to me to be trying your hardest not to get it.

But you offer it as your argument that Islam is fascist, yet won't or can't explain why so many Muslims, and even Muslims states, don't follow that part of, as you call it, the ideology of Islam. If they are wrong and not doing Islam correctly, then that makes perfect sense, but you accept that Islam is a social construction, so how is Islam "fascist" if in so many cases Muslims don't do what you say makes it fascist? They are either wrong about what Islam is, or Islam isn't the thing you say it is. 

An aside, there is no Quranic basis for death as the punishment for apostasy whilst there are a number or surahs that 'give' freedom of conscience on faith. This is used by Muslims arguing against jurisprudence that has been derived mainly from some Hadith (which have been interpreted wrongly liberals seem to suggest) that does support the death penalty for apostasy. I guess they would argue that they know, or believe, that this liberal interpretation is a true interpretation of their faith and God's message but that argument doesn't make any sense from a non-believer.

More nonsense. Apostasy being a capital crime  is a medievalist law only practiced in Afghanistan, Brunei, Comoros, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (sometime only for men... women would face life imprisonment). Note this list includes some major UK and US allies. Laws on blasphemy can be also used to try people for apostasy in another 15 countries. This is in total a small majority of the 49 Muslim majority countries.  In some Sharia courts in some Muslim majority states it is possible to renounce Islam (albeit for some very specific reasons). No such apostasy law applies in any country in Europe or in the Americas; even if many Muslims who have Islamic belief in these countries believe in criminalising apostasy (a minority regarding it as a capital crime). There are Islamic scholars who rightly place apostasy as untenable.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Religion-Apostasy-Islam-Abdullah/dp/075463...

Only?

So that's 25 countries then?

Did anyone suggest that it did?

The religion of Christianity clearly involves a belief in God. Yet, many British people who regard themselves as Christians do not believe in God.

So the religion of Christianity is theistic, but not all British Christians are theists.

That's the fifteenth time I've explained it to you.

I read the blog as more a discourse on religious equality rather than religious tolerance. Two very different things.

Yes only. You exaggerated it's prevalence. So I'd ask what pressure have the major western powers applied to stop this terrible law in those countries? Why are you just blaming Islam when the real problem is a lack of democracy in religious dictatorships which all the western powers do nothing to stop. Actually worse than that, we sell them weapons and train their armed forces and police.

Well there a "rhetorical flourish" if ever saw one.  

Maybe Don Cuppit has succeeded in secretly changing Anglican views en masse?

What a weird thing to say. 

Yes, the opposition to democracy from Islamic religious authorities is indeed one of the problems (see list up-thread).

You might think that, but you have no reasons. You're attempting to tar me with some sort of "virtue signalling" brush, but I'm quite happy to explain my motivations. I've done so many times and you don't listen - you'd rather make up motivations that suit your bullshit narrative that people who challenge the rubbish you talk are doing so for illegitimate reasons. You're wrong: what you're saying really is rubbish.

I think the Catholic church is a monstrous evil, much like Islam really but a narrow sect rather than huge religion, but I don't think it's fascist. I think your definition of fascism is constructed for use as a weapon against tribes of people you don't like, and it isn't what I understand fascism to be (which is vague anyway, but generally authoritarian nationalism). 

The reason I challenge the way you make enemies of all Muslims (and that's what you do when you call their religion fascist) is because Muslims are vulnerable to attack from the far right, and racists. If a white group was vulnerable to such discrimination, I would challenge attitudes that encouraged that discrimination.

Do you think that the religious right in Israel are fascist, incidentally? I'm not going to use that word because I think it's extremely unwise to weaponise it that way, especially in that context, but I will say that I despise their racist ideology. Now what I won't do is apply what I think about the racist Israeli extremists to Judaism in general, and thus to all Jews. If someone on here were to do that, they would of course get banned immediately, whereas for whatever reason, we put up with your generalisations about the whole of Islam. But I assure you I would be every bit as vigorous in challenging that antisemitism, because Jews suffer discrimination, and generalising from an extreme aspect of their religion to all Jews is antisemitic and totally wrong.

That's clear to anyone who can follow an argument. But sadly, Coel's inability to back down takes precedent over all else. He probably doesn't even have much of a problem with Islam now he's moved onto The Wokes, it's purely a matter of not backing down. 

So, just suppose I dropped the claim that Islam is fascist, and instead said that Islam was a monstrous evil.  Would that be ok?

Islam certainly is authoritarian (where it has the ability to be so). 

As for nationalism, well, instead of having an us/them, in-group/out-group of "national" vs "non-national", it has the in-group/out-group of believer versus non-believer.

If you want to claim that I'm stretching the definition of "fascism" to compare the two then ok, but as you say, the definition of fascism is rather vague. 

And national vs non-national isn't fully correct anyhow, since most German Jews had been German nationals for multiple generations. 

Maybe, but I'm not sure I know enough about the sort of society they want to be able to say. (Israel overall is certainly not, and Arab citizens have equality within Israel.)

Once again, note the big difference.  The former ("all Jews") is about people whereas the latter ("whole of Islam") is about an ideology. 

I have on about twenty occasions explicitly stated that I am not applying what I say to "all Muslims".  It really is tedious to keep having to say this.

As for making statements about Islam overall, I'm simply describing characteristics that are common to all the major variants.  If we define "Islam" as what is taught in Mosques and Madrassas, and what is in doctrinal proclamations by religious scholars and recognised religious authorities,  worldwide, then  -- accepting that there is quite a bit of variation across the world -- there is enough of a common picture that one can sensibly talk about "Islam". 

Again, how much of that a random person in a Tehran street believes is a different issue.

As above, if you can point me to any major, mainstream school of Islamic Jurisprudence that states that apostasy is a personal matter, and the right of an individual, and that it should not be punished, and that apostates should be accepted as continuing to live in their society, then I'm willing to amend my opinion. 

I wouldn't disagree with it. But remember that what I object to is your comments in context. Whereas I'm happy to express that opinion in passing, alongside an identical comment made about Catholicism because I don't see that as promoting hostility towards a group who are vulnerable to far right attacks. It's just saying what I think about all such religions.

And on not one of those occasions has the argument been valid. Just as a person who adheres to white supremacist ideology is a racist, and is culpable for it, a person who follows a fascist ideology is a fascist. It doesn't matter how many times you say "ideas not people", it's never going to make a valid argument. Just because it's a popular argument on talk shows doesn't make it valid. The argument doesn't work.

You're making theological claims that don't match the attitudes and behaviours of the adherents to the ideology in the relevant context, the UK. The context that forms the basis of my criticism is that you're posting on a public forum in the UK, where Muslims who aren't spoiling for a fight with anyone are probably reading. So your claims, like all theological claims, are meaningless.

After all these rounds, you still haven't understood the criticism. I'm not disputing any theological claims. I have no problem with your objections to certain religious teachings, I am criticising you for actively promoting hostility to Muslims in a public forum, because it's divisive and unhelpful. That's the criticism you need to address. I don't care about your theological justification that "Islam really is a fascist ideology", it's not interesting, and it doesn't relate to the important facts about normal British Muslims who you're insulting and alienating. 

Your response that when you say "Islam is a fascist ideology" you are not promoting anti-Muslim sentiment is simply bollocks, on the face of it. How could actively pushing this message not have precisely those consequences? That's what you're doing, and then you're attempting to cover your tracks with this "ideas not people" line that makes no sense.

You can repeat that line again if you like. And I'll respond that if you follow a fascist ideology, that makes you a fascist. That argument was false at the start, and it's false no matter how many times you repeat it.

"What a weird thing to say. 

Yes, the opposition to democracy from Islamic religious authorities is indeed one of the problems (see list up-thread)."

What a weird thing to say.

A religious dictatorship doesn't give a stuff about democracy unless forced to do so. The west could change that but it's people don't care enough in general to force that change on their liberal governments. In the meantime you attack the faith of the victims with the same gusto as the faith of the dictators.

Yes, I do "attack the faith of the victims". I do indeed attack Islam because it is the people in Islam-dominated countries who suffer most from it, just as the people who suffered most from Mao's or Stalin's communism were the citizens living under it. 

Now this is interesting. It seems to be saying that, yes Islam is indeed fascist, and yes the Catholic Church is a monstrous evil, and in the right context we should say so. So that, if talking to people in a cafe in Tehran, where Islam dominates, it would be fine to say so.

... but you don't want it said in the British context, not because it is not true about worldwide manifestations of Islam -- but because of possible consequences for British Muslims who are in a sometimes-abused minority?

OK, so you've said you regard the Catholic Church as a monstrous evil.  Do you then regard all Catholics as monstrously evil?  Well I've actually met Catholics, and they didn't seem monstrously evil to me.  Indeed not one of those I've met seemed to be "evil" as a person.

But if we can allow that the Catholic Church is a "monstrous evil" without insisting that each and every Catholic is "monstrously evil", then why can't I maintain that the Islamic religion is "fascist" without then saying that all Muslims are fascists?

OK, I'm beginning to understand your argument.  It amounts to: "Yes, Islam is indeed fascist, but I don't want you to say so". 

And you don't want me to say so because of possible consequences for adherents to Islam who are, in the UK,  a sometimes-oppressed minority.

Whereas saying that the Catholic Church is a "monstrous evil" is fine because Catholics are not (these days anyhow!) subject to oppression in the UK. 

Is this a fair summary of your position?

Two questions. Which Islamic or heavily Muslim countries have you been to? (For the purposes of this question I think India would count.)

Which novels, films and other works of art produced by Muslims from Islamic societies have you read, watched or otherwise consumed?

Do you mean the entire population who were given free health care by them or the entire population that was given electricity and proper houses by them? Or the entire population that was given jobs for life by them, mechanisation, an end to illiteracy or the entire population that could join their party and rise to the top or get free education to any level or free public transport. What about the fact that food prices were subsidised for the entire population and for the first time in history the entire population were given an 8 hour day of work. Proper summer and winter holidays for all workers and where bosses could no longer bully workers due to worker committees in the workplace.

Nah your right, bastards! For forcing all that onto their people and giving the people control of the power in their own countries rather than foreign imperialists. 

Presuming that I've understood  your position at least roughly, a reply would be:

What about the minority within the minority? What about all those young people in Muslim communities who want to reject Islam, but find it an oppressive and controlling culture, to a large extent because of the society-wide taboo on saying anything negative about Islam?

What those people want is for everyone to be able to say negative things about Islam, just as everyone can say negative things about the Catholic Church without people trying to shut them down.

There is no "phobe" word for those who say that the Catholic Church is a monstrous evil! 

I recall again the story of Yasmine Mohammed.  Her story started when watching a TV show interviewing Sam Harris, who criticised Islam.  The other guest, Ben Affleck went for him with the "phobe" language, talking over him and really trying to make it unacceptable to say what Harris was saying.

And Yasmine Mohammed felt utterly betrayed. Here was Ben Affleck (white male) supposedly talking on her behalf (female, brown, Muslim heritage), and yet she *wanted* a society where people can criticise Islam.

So that event led to her becoming an activist.  At first she did so anonymously, because she was afraid.  (Why is it only critics of Islam who are literally afraid of their lives?) But, after receiving so many messages of support, she plucked up courage to be openly ex-Muslim.   

She nearly abandoned the book she was writing, but was kept going by messages of "please speak up, we can't". 

Eventually her agent took her book round major publishers.  They all declined.  Partly because they were afraid.  Partly it was a "not even bargepole" attitude to criticising Islam in today's climate.

So she self-published it. 

In this podcast she tells her story: https://www.gspellchecker.com/2020/06/ep157-yasmine-mohammed-unveiled/

You can get the book on Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unveiled-Western-Liberals-Empower-Radical/dp/19992...

Good post.

But to me the two statements are not equivalent:

Islam is xxx is equivalent to christianity is xxx

and

the catholic church is xxx is more like wahhabism is xxx.

The criticism, at it's most basic level, is that your actions have bad consequences. Compounding this basic criticism about when and how it's a good or bad idea to say something, is that additionally what you're saying ("Islam is fascist") isn't true. It's not unequivocally false, either - you can construct a definition of fascism to suit, and then make a meaningless theological justification to fit that definition, if you like. Which you do.

That, to me, is a badly motivation action, which stirs up division and anti-Muslim sentiment. It makes this community unwelcoming to Muslims. Its has bad consequences. The criticism is that your action

a) has negative consequences;

b) has no positive motivation; and 

c) you dishonestly concoct a positive motivation (helping out Apostates In Need) 

The criticism is of your actions, your motivation, and your excuses.

The Catholic Church is an organisation. I believe the people controlling the organisation are monstrously evil. Islam is not an organisation. I'd be equally happy to call the frothing Imams calling for the murder of homosexuals monstrously evil.

This is a very straightforward position to defend. If I say something really nasty, I aim it at really nasty people. I despise the racist Israeli religious right, but I don't target all of Judaism or all Jews. I despise the Catholic Church, but I don't target all Christians. I despise those that spread Wahhabism, but I don't target all Muslims. It's easy.

The problem is that you draw the circle too wide and in doing so aim your hatred at ordinary, good people, who don't deserve it. That causes division and stirs up hatred against a group who are already vulnerable to attacks from racists. The consequences of your actions are bad, and that's why I criticise them. Your weak excuses that you're helping ex-Muslims (you're not) don't wash.

"Islam is a fascist" isn't true. It's not unequivocally false, either - you can construct a definition of fascism to suit, and then make a meaningless theological justification to fit that definition, if you like. Which you do. So your action is unhelpful and badly motivated.

I don't want you to say so because

a) It's not true; and 

b) It has negative consequences

What more reasons could you need not to say something?

It's fine because it targets bad people correctly (aiming at the organisation), and doesn't have the bad consequences of causing hatred of a group already targeted by the far right.

No. 

I sympathise entirely with those people.

You think you're helping them by saying on this forum that "Islam is a fascist ideology" - but you're not. Your comments have no effect on these people. The people reading your comments are people who don't like Muslims who are cheering you on (so you're stirring up division), people like me who think you're being divisive and destructive, and potentially ordinary Muslims who'll be insulted and alienated. There are no positive consequences from your actions. They are badly judged, and badly motivated.

The chances of an oppressed ex-Muslim reading your comments and finding it helpful are vanishingly close to zero. So it's a really weak excuse.

OK, but do you target all Catholics? 

Did you miss the bit where I explained that the Catholic Church was an *organisation*? 

And Islam is an ideology.

But, do you target all Catholics?

Islam is a religion.

No. I've already explained:

All Catholics aren't targeted. I think all Catholics are misguided, because they respect an organisation that I think is monstrously evil.

All Muslims are not targeted.  I think that all Muslims are misguided, because they respect an ideology that I think is fascist.

Doesn't stop most of them being decent people though.  Decent people can be misguided.

I've also met lots of decent Catholics. 

Is you thinking it's fascist a concession from it being fascist? I suppose it depends on your omniscience.

And are you still at this? 

Muslims *follow* a fascist ideology, according to you. And if you follow a fascist ideology, that makes you a fascist.

I agree. I think Muslim are misguided. I just think it's destructive, divisive and also untrue to say that they follow a fascist ideology.

Come on Coel, this is a good question and I’m surprised you haven’t answered it...

What's the relevance of the question?

You mean what is the relevance of your engagement with something that you write at length about? 

I am writing at length about the religion, the ideology.

You are asking me about people and their art and culture. 

I'v distinguished between the two on about thirty six occasions so far. 

So the answer is no, you’ve never visited any Muslim countries or engaged with their art that talks about themselves and the effects of their religion. You’ve basically edited the actual people out of the equation...
 

One suspects you would write about actual Nazis when writing about Nazism, but feel you can edit the brown people out, right? Except those that have your ideological approval. I’m struggling to see why you’d do this.

Your accusation is self-refuting. 

You have your favoured non-white sources who you will name, but the others you airbrush out. You refer to a religion as an “idea system” which is the most basic category error but which does mean you don’t have to deal with history, sociology, art, etc as if they were just peripheral to any proper consideration of what a religion is, what it does or how it works. 
 

Your defensiveness and evasiveness in this question of engagement suggests that at heart you know it’s problematic. 

Here is Umberto Eco’s excellent essay on what makes political movements fascist. It’s a handy guide, of course, but I should also point out his strong engagement with actual people. He knew of what he wrote.
 

https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf

So not naming someone is the same as "airbrushing" them out?

Here is me up-thread:

"The difference is that a religion is not only an ideology. It's also a set of cultural traditions and practices -- and most of those are likely benign and beneficial."

(PS, a "religion" is indeed an "idea system". Of course any two-word phrase does not sum up its totality.)

So Coel what is the extent of your engagement with the world of Islam? You set yourself up as an expert, it’s surely fair to ask what the source of your expertise is, whether formal or informal.

I don't regard myself as an expert on Islam. What I see myself as doing is simply flouting the society wide taboo on criticising Islam.  And that's because the ex-Muslims ask for that, they want a society where it is as normal to criticise Islam as it is to criticise Christianity.

In my youth I would criticise Christianity.  But there's little point these days (in Britain at least) -- everyone agrees!   How many posters have objected to the description of Catholicism as "monstrously evil"?   None.  It's just a normal thing to say.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Jon's accusation, nobody objects to him saying it. 

Similarly, anyone can disparage Soviet communism. It's normal to state that it was a highly harmful and damaging way of running the country.     No-one says, but have you been to the Bolshoi Ballet and didn't they produce a lot of good chess players?**  Yes they did.  I can still come to the assessment that, overall, Soviet communism was a very bad way to run the country. 

(**OK, Pefa might!)