Why can't we just admit it out loud?

They have suicide bombers while we have warplanes...Do I have to bring out a list of countries we've bombed who disagreed with us or a list of governments we've overthrown and replaced with dictators? Allende who was a democratically elected socialist in Chile was overthrown in a CIA backed coup. The CIA gave kill lists to Suharto in Indonesia who ended up killing around a million people because they were left-wingers. We're the worlds largest purveyor of violence but yeah it's just the terrorists who blow people up who disagree with them[/sarcasm].

 

You fine coworkers only behave because they have to. At my uni the prayer room has a section set up specifically for women in the back.........this is in the US at a university with so called moderate Muslims. Its about as progressive a Muslim as you are going to find and they still make their women sit in the back. Most Muslims around the world support sharia law which is factually incompatible with our laws which are based for the most part on English common law. They CANNOT coexist in any way shape or form.

 

The thing is that’s demonstrably not true. There are millions of Muslims living perfectly normal, peaceful and constructive lives in the west (and elsewhere). There are undeniably a significant number of Muslims whose beliefs are incompatible with our society (and often incompatible with the modern Islamic societies they live in too) but it’s clear that Islam is capable of, and is arguably in the process of, a kind of reformation. After all, even the long nominally recorded and modernised faiths have small streams of extremists pushing back against those changes, sometime even violently.

The idea that Islam, as a fundamental whole, is incapable of ever being compatible with western society in any way is irrational in the face of history and sociology but such blind aggression towards anyone and anything associated with it only serves as much of an obstruction as the Islamic extremists who share your viewpoint.

 

Unfortunately I must deal with TODAY because I live there. Although I am well aware of the history of Religious progression and evolution It makes little difference when attempting to deal with the realities of current life. I'm sure that by 2100 or so things will have calmed and Islam will join the rest of the world....Today is not 2100.

 

Your view of where Muslims are today is wrong too and your purpose here is to seek to actively prevent any further progression. You’re no better than what you’re attacking.

 

I find it "Interesting" that you are able to define my purpose from a single comment. Perhaps you are psychic and can reach into minds from afar?

However, anyone of minimal intellectual capability would have gathered from my most recent reply that I understand and appreciate the Muslim pursuit of progress but am trying to deal with aspects of the current world situation. Muslims in general are a peaceful population yet the people threatening and acting in violence toward our ideals are also Muslim for the most part....and there is no way to differentiate. Thus do all Muslims bear the brunt of distrust created by the few...it may seem unfair to you, but it IS the unfortunate reality we face.

 

Christians used to segregate women too. Some of them still forbid women from teaching or having leadership positions. Christianity reformed. Islam can reform. In fact, in your last post you said they should, now you say they can't. And since you insist on holding tightly to a conspiracy theory regarding the millions of Muslims who essentially have reformed, and since you want to treat your personal experiences with Muslims as representative of all Muslims while dismissing other people's experiences, it is clear that your doctrinal "they can't coexist even though millions do" belief will not accept any factual observation to the contrary. The facts are that other, equally violent religions have reformed and that millions of Muslims have already reformed. I'm sorry if these facts are inconvenient for your politics, but they are still facts. My evidence that Muslims can peacefully coexist is that millions do. Your evidence that they can't is to just pretend that millions of people don't exist.

 

Your core statement in the OP is that “Islam is incompatible with freedom”. There is nothing there to distinguish between Islam today and Islam in the future and nor is there any distinction between all of the individuals who practice Islam. On that basis, I think it’s disingenuous for you to then claim to accept that most Muslim are peaceful and that Islam can and is reforming.

That basically answers your OP question; You shouldn't “admit” that because it’s factually incorrect and falsely implies that there is no scope for improvement.

As a general matter of principle, any definitive statement about an entire overarching set of religious beliefs like this is going to be flawed.

 

I see...so I should have asked the question in the OP with my thesis attached for clarity?

 

I'll say it plainly.......


Islamophobes are cowardly bigots.

I can prove it in about 2-3 questions.....that they'll dodge and deflect, rather than answer honestly.

 

Dismissing people with these concerns flatly as 'Islamophobes' is no better than what actual bigots do.

We should focus on ideas, maybe the aspects of the religion itself, in stead of the believers or their detractors.

 

I'll focus on "ideas"....YOUR ideas. Care to answer some basic questions with LOGICAL follow-up?

1. Is Islam (whether you regard it as a religion or an "ideology") an existential threat to the United States, within and abroad?

 

I'll play along. If the adherents of Islam can utilize, on their own or at the behest of leadership, what is in the belief system or twist what is there on such a level that enough bad actors can arise and can act on that utility in either fashion, then yes, potentially Islam can become an existential threat to every government and every other belief system we have in play at this moment in history. That being said, so can 'democracy' and 'capitalism'. It's never the tool, it's what you do with it.

 

Look at that, something we can agree on! I completely agree, they simply infiltrate us from within, by using our political correctness/weakness against us, and policies made thereof. So because people don't want to call Islam for what it is, simply so they are not racist (does not mean one is racist), they come into our country illegally and they are defended for it. They wait tell the moment is right (after casing the joint) and proceed to kill Americans. Afterwards we still can't confront them as our enemy, for political correctness reasons. So the process continues. I'm sure at some point, we will see an Orlando type event, only nationwide all at the same time. If such an event occurred, would we still be bound by the grasp of political correctness/weakness?

 

You’re free to ask your questions in any form you wish. The fact remains that the statement in your OP is fundamentally flawed and your follow-up comments inconsistent with it. That does answer your question, though not in one of the ways you wanted it answering.

 

When the same charges are leveled against Christians, by people who cite instances of dominion-ism, what is your response?

 

Okay...lets just take a look here:

Please point out my inconsistencies, keeping in mind the initial statements were asked to be clarified and expanded upon.

 

I do not know any Christian of that sort. A true Christian is one of righteousness, and wishes or exerts no harm to anybody. If a serial killer claimed to be a Christian, would you believe it? Christianity says thou shall not kill. Islam says kill all infidels, or anyone that is not muslim.

To claim to be a Christian and all actions prove otherwise, is the same thing as a wolf in sheeps clothing.

 

Our prisons are full of prisoners who are Christians, and any good Muslim can use the same 'no true Scotsman' fallacy that you just employed. You've avoided the charges, you haven't answered them.

 

The Christian prayer groups had no such restrictions on women. Only the Muslim prayer groups. The "extreme" Christian churches that don't allow women to vote on church policy don't really compare to the "extreme" Muslim groups that throw gays off buildings and kill women for simply talking to another man do they? Unless you are going to make some asinine moral equivalency argument about how not baking a cake is the same as killing someone.

Everyone says that Islam should reform that is a non starter. The problem is that Islam simply will NOT reform any time soon if ever. Christianity reformed at the same time there was a rise in secular power such as monarchs to counter the power of the Roman Catholic church which up till then was essentially unchallenged. The only examples we have of secular powers countering groups like ISIS or AQ are despots like Assad, Hussein etc. who are just as bad if not worse to their own subjects so many of them go right back into the arms of their precious Koran and sharia law.

 

Mine did in college (a bible study group sponsored by the local Evangelical Free Church). Same with the Orthodox Jewish prayer group.

There are Christian groups today in the West that advocate the death penalty for homosexuality. In Africa, they have been more successful in pushing that agenda. Let's not pretend that the Lord's Army is any less monstrous in their ideology than ISIS is.

But you continue missing the point: Christians reformed, despite the violence in their scriptures. Millions of Muslims have done the same and there is no rational reason to suspect that there can be no further advance in that arena.

Then why did you address that claim to me when we started, as if I disagreed?

Christianity was just as bloody when monarchs were ruling, monarchies were often far from secular and the Protestants were every bit as violent as the Catholics. A "heretic" like myself wouldn't have been any safer in Protestant Geneva than in Catholic Rome. The Enlightenment, which questioned both monarchist and religious authority, was the primary secularizing force that defanged Christianity.

Are you going to pretend that secularism doesn't exist in the West, or are you going to pretend that no Muslims live in the West and that millions are doing so peacefully?

 

Sure, any belief system or religion can pose a threat.

But those who believe that Islam itself or ALL Muslims pose a threat....are engaging in bigotry.

 

And that is why you direct that term at people it applies to instead of everyone who expresses a concern over what Islam is realistically capable of doing. When you call every critic an Islamophobe, how is that any better than any actual Islamophobe calling every Muslim a terrorist? The behavior is the same, just with different fingers pointed in different directions. It is not productive in the slightest.

Did you want me to tackle those other two questions, or are we good?

 

He will never admit how bigoted he is while calling everyone else a bigot.
Can't have a discussion when you are arguing from a false premise.

BTW, I agree with you.

 

I think that the point of a forum is for people with differing views to hash out their differences. Some folks are hard to reach, but that doesn't mean to not try. And the lack of response might mean I got through, at least in some small way. Give them the benefit of doubt, and wait and see what they post next. You may be pleasantly surprised.