h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

To save you time Kea, I've checked the Forum and you have to go back to Sep 6, 2006 for a thread I started asking if we could or should negotiate with Al Quaeda. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F135418?thread=3434261 More than two years ago. You've only got Ask to search

yeah, fair enough SWL I should have put it in the past tense. Your posts in this thread did seem very reminiscent of back then and I haven't seen you do that for a while, which is why it stood out so much here I suppose.

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Others post threads - I comment. Is that not OK with you? Perhaps you should set up a quota system & decide how many threads I'm allowed to post on.
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Don't be silly. Of course you can comment. As can I. Which is what I did.

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At least my stance is consistent. I always find it amusing that people who otherwise advocate gender equality and who can't wait to criticise Christians and/or Western Culture set all this aside when Islam is at issue. It's cultural racism - admitting that another culture cannot and should not be held to the same standards as Western culture.
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Are you say that is what I do? If we're going to do link dragging to back up statements, please show me anywhere where I have ever said that Islam cultures don't have serious problems in how the treat women.

This is more classic SWL I think. Where you think that because people don't want to pilory Islam this means they are completely uncritical of it. I'm sure there is a word for that kind of manipulation of debate.

I always find it amusing, amongst other things, when white, western men use pseudo feminist arguments to denigrate other cultures when our own is that shit hot yet.

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It would be broadly positive if Islam decided that dogs weren't dirty at all. Until then I can;t really get excited about them deciding that stopping a Muslim going to a Mosque is more important than letting in a 'damn dirty dog'(apologies to Charlton heston)
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Many dogs are dirty though*. I generally don't let people bring their dogs inside my house. Especially if they can't control it. I'd have no problem with a guide dog though.

Likewise, you usually can't take dogs into supermarkets, dairys etc. For good reasons.


*and I don't mean in an morally bad way, which is how I assume some Muslims see dogs.

Yes agree with Kea.

Dogs in house are OK as long as house trained. Now ay to dogs in restaurants.

Are guidedogs cleaner than non-guide dogs?!?!?!

Kea - you made a false generalisation about me that I was easily able to refute. Now, I can understand *why* you made that generalisation because I'm quite upfront in my intense dislike for Islam. I don't apologise for it and I make no attempt to dress it up.

Frequently your posts, in tone if not the letter, are critical of Western Society in general, the US in particular and men overall. Can you understand that people might get that impression?

Western society is by no means perfect. You may not find threads I've started criticising Islam, but you'd certainly find plenty criticising my own society. Western Society however moves forward precisely because every aspect is open to criticism & questioning. It's no coincidence that feminism is a Western construct. Do you think that H2G2 could have been born in China, Iran, Saudi, Chile or just about anywhere in Africa?

Can only women use feminist arguments? I would have thought that if the arguments were sound and based upon reason and observeable facts, they would be valid for all to use.

As a husband to a woman who was physically and mentally abused by a man for six years, who spent two years as a single parent, who (together with her sister) was sexually abused as a child by a family member and who was gang-raped at 13, I think I have something to say about feminist issues.

I didn't make up that generalisation SWL, I made a smart remark that should have been phrased in the past tense if I wanted to be pedantically accurate. And I acknowledged that.

I don't have a problem with men using feminist arguments. Nor specifically you. In fact I'd find that quite an interesting conversation. I don't think that what you do with women's rights and Islam is feminist though. You could possibly change my mind about that by outlining some of the issues that Muslim feminists are dealing with, and how they differ from Western issues.

>>Frequently your posts, in tone if not the letter, are critical of Western Society in general, the US in particular and men overall. Can you understand that people might get that impression? <<

That's true to an extent (and I do tend to do shorter, throwaway comments how that can be misinterpreted), but it's a misrepresentation of both my views and how I post here. Mostly you read those criticisms because the conversations here are overwhelmingly eurocentric. If for instance we were talking indigenous rights in a context where those rights were a given you might get to hear some of my criticisms of non-Western cultures. But most of my time here is taken up with pointing out the inherent and largely invisible ethnocentricism of this site.

Likewise, if gender issues are constantly discussed in a male priviledge context then my initial responses are going to be to draw attention to that. I know that you can't prove that I am critical of men overall because I'm not, but I'm sure you can demonstrate that I am critical of the power that men as a class have. There is a difference, and that difference is not particularly well understood by some, which might be why I keep going on about it.

I also think that your belief about my views now clouds you so that you miss those posts where I do praise my own culture, or criticise others'.

My objections to Islam are based on four principles:

1) The Koran preaches hatred against non-Muslims. The Hadith go further and advocate killing Jews. Historically, Islam has treated non-Muslims as "untermensch" at various times. This continues to this day in parts of Iraq and in rural Pakistan.

2) Islam further discriminates even amongst Muslims. Under Sharia, women are less than men and have very few rights independent of men. Specific women's issues that differ from Western issues include -

Prsocribing restrictive clothing, denying equality in inheritance and criminal law, unfairly prosecuting women for adultery when they have been raped, restricting women's freedom of speech, movement & liberty, limiting education, limiting careers etc etc.

3) Islam is the only religion AFAIK that kills people for leaving it.

4) Islam is inherently incompatible with Western Liberal touchstones of equality, liberty, freedom of speech and secularity.

I am well aware that individual Muslims and groups are trying to speak out against their own culture & religion. I know that Islam isn't a monolith, but the very encompassing nature of Islam means that the stronger voices within conservative Islam exert far more influence upon ordinary Muslims than the Pope does on Catholics (for example). In the past I have donated to http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/. I brought them up here on H2G2 - the resounding silence about their activities and aims was telling. These people do real work to reform Islam. Hyping up a pathetic little story about a Guide Dog doesn't really cut it.

Finally, I also think that your belief about my views now clouds you so that you miss those posts where I do criticise my own culture, or praise others'.

I see no reason why Islam cannot be reformed. Consider mainstream Christianity a few hundred years ago and mainstream Christianity now. If religion is a social construct (which, as I'm an atheist, I take as a given), it will move with the times. Islam just seems highly resilient to doing so.

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2) Islam further discriminates even amongst Muslims. Under Sharia, women are less than men and have very few rights independent of men. Specific women's issues that differ from Western issues include -

Prsocribing restrictive clothing, denying equality in inheritance and criminal law, unfairly prosecuting women for adultery when they have been raped, restricting women's freedom of speech, movement & liberty, limiting education, limiting careers etc etc.
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That's not a feminist perspective SWL, it's just a statement about how women are treated by Islam.

*

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Finally, I also think that your belief about my views now clouds you so that you miss those posts where I do criticise my own culture, or praise others'.
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I think the appropriate appropriation of my sentence would have been:

"Finally, I also think that your belief about my views now clouds you so that you miss those posts where I do give credit to Islam where credit is due'. "

I'm not an atheist (nor religious), and I also think that religion is a social construct.

laconian, did you mean 'resilient'?

Yes. I suppose 'reluctant to do so' would do as well. Basically I'm saying Islam's not exactly progressive, is it?

I'm not an expert on Islam, but my understanding of it is that like most religions it has a lot of apparently nasty rules, which some choose to ignore and some don't, and some nicer rules, likewise. Islamic theocracies are pretty reprehensible, but then did you ever come across a theocracy that wasn't? The problem is that theocracies are oligarchic (and so undemocratic), not that they are religious. I don't see anything to distinguish Islam from any other religion.

...and nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Islam is not unique in it's intolerance of the non-Islamic and is no more guilty that other religions, whether Abrahamic or otherwise.

Agnosticism is dangerous in it's tolerance for religion in general. At least atheism confronts and disputes the foundations of religion and it's influence on society.

The Muslin Council issuing a fatwa to allow a guide dog into a mosque is at best a response to the direct threat from the Disability Discrimination Act and the religion and belief effects of the Equality Act 2006 ( http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/325878.pdf ) and at worst a cynical publicity stunt to distance themselves from radical Islamism.

t.

Surely, the important thing is the doing, not the reasons. It's a worthwhile step.

Hi SWL, it's impossible that you are against Islam as you say.
Islam is part of western culture. How can it be?

In the Middle Age, and following the path from Al-Andalus to Parisian centres of knowledge,it entered in Europe knowledge about philosophy, maths,literature, science, particulary in the field of medicin, astronomy,etc. Even food: coffee, cane of sugar...
Islam is not only religion. And Islamic religion comes from the jew and christian ones.
Islam culture were also influenced by Bizancio and other developed cultures.

About women rights. The first suras protected the women rights. But patriarchal and tribal groups added the restrictive ones. And, despite that, women, during the second half of the XX century, didn´t wear the veil and could study in Irak and Afganistan.

And could you say that NOWADAYS women in Europe or in other non-Muslim countries enjoy the same rights as men?
Of couse not. So, the problem is not religion per se.
Although obviously, it helps a lot.

If you say that you upfront Islam, you are getting quite close to those groups that were about to hold a meeting in Colonia a few days ago.
You should get information from other sources to contrast your views about Islamic culture. I recommend you to get information from what happened in Al-andalus. Or about what is said by experts on Islamic culture. Hey, we have internet, it is a must not to be so biased.

Al-Andalus - the high water mark of Islamic civilisation, a thousand years ago. If the height of Islamic tolerance is to graciously permit Christians & Jews to live as dhimmis, second-class citizens, it's not a great advert.

You cite women being allowed an education in the 2nd half of the 20th Century in Afghanistan & Iraq. Any correlation with both countries being increasingly Westernised? And what is the situation *now*? As women's rights indubitably increase in the West, Iraq & Afghanistan move backwards.

Regarding sources - are you saying that the Koran is not the best source?

Why is it ok to be anti-globalisation, anti-US, an environmentalist, a climate change opponent, to be anti-vivisection and anti- just about anything and have your views accepted as valid opinions but if someone opposes a backward, ossified cult that represses women and provides the justification for mass murder, you're a Nazi?

It seems that there's not point in discussing with you as you ignore what I have said.

Hiyab is interpreted by SOME in a belicist sense. Some other say that Hiyab is the effort you must do to improve yourself.

The origin of fundamentalism springs from the behaviour of western countries in those areas. It is history, you can read it, also you can read the history of Al-Andalus. It may change your opinion, if you had a more open attitude.

The Bible contents much more explicit machist words about women. However not all Christian are machist.

I always try not to be maniqueist. I'm not pro-Islam as a whole nor anti-US. I critizise and recognize some aspects,not the entire lot.
But you take the position of things are black or white, good or evil. That's the problem.
Those Nazis groups in Colonia, had flags with mosques as the symbol of evil to be destroyed. A lot of no Nazi people share the same attitude. Being a fascist is an attitude that goes beyond shaved heads and other parafernalia and rituals. That explains Le Penn in France and other groups in Italy, Austria, etc. They have obtained votes from normal working people and from educated and not educated ones.

Maniqueist attitudes foster intolerance and then, fascism.

Any step towards common sense and integration and to try to know each other better must be wellcome.

You know it gets really boring really quick when every few months someone comes along and tells me I know nothing of Islam.

Islam translates literally as submission. There are no shades of grey there. If Islam were to be invented for the first time tomorrow as a political ideology, the closest corollary would be fascism. A binding thread between Islam and the Nazis is a profound belief in a master race and an utter hatred of Jews.

Faced with that, I choose to stand against Islam.

Well that submission argument is a bit pointless. If you choose to believe in God, then it makes sense to submit to him. I've heard he's quite powerful.

Am I right in saying SWL that you have a lot of problems with Islam, but less so with Muslims? Because that would make a lot of sense to me. I have a lot of problems with religion, but no ingrained hatred of theists per se. Some of them, maybe, but certainly not all.

But it's not just submission to a god - it's submission to all the precepts, conditions and rules that go with the religion, all based on the transcripts of an illiterate. (Interesting that one of the transcribers was a Christian who converted to Islam then converted to Judaeism and was the inspiration for the "death to apostates" line.)

I don't hate Muslims. How can you hate people who have been brainwashed from birth?