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

Has anybody read this book?

http://www.theliesaboutmuhammad.com/

It's put to shame the fabrications by Robert Spencer.

http://spencerwatch.com/

Please don't scream. Block caps are unnecessary and unseemly.

I've not read the book. According to that website, it's a response to another book I also haven't read, or previously heard of.

TRiG.

Sorry about the caps.

This is a very important book because it's exposes the lies told by Robert Spencer. You may not have read either book but Robert Spencers lies have spread around the world and are the main cause of Islamaphobia today.

**** I**********a. (Odd that the word is acceptable for your post but modded for mine.................)

I'm against any religion, it's all the biggest con game on the go in our time.

Belief versus demonstrable fact or theory. You make your choice and you live your life accordingly. Just don't try to convert me. Proselytizing should be illegal. (It is here).

Good luck when you face the final darkness.

ImranKhan:

have you read any of the books by Mr. Tarek Fatah, for example 'Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State'? Mr. Fatah is the winner of, among other awards, the Press Freedom Award of the National Press Club of Canada.

Mr. Fatah is a tireless defender of Islam against Islamist extremists who are interested in, as he puts it, building the Islamic State rather than improving the state of Islam.

Mr. Fatah has nothing to do with this Spencer person you mention. He does, however, call out the Islamists for their murderous, genocidal ideas.

Would it not be more productive to promote the writings of Muslims who condemn the illegitimate excesses of their co-religionists rather than promoting by opposition the rantings of a right-wing tea-partier in the rapidly crumbling and more and more unimportant U.S.?

I, for one, have never heard of this Spencer person. But I have heard of Wahabism. My impression is that Wahabism does more damage to the image of Islam than this Spencer person. From what I can tell, this Spencer has an audience limited largely to the U.S., and there, largely to the uneducated and powerless.

Who cares?

In my community, in Edmonton, Canada, (which, BTW, has had a Muslim Member of Parliament, and out neighbouring city, Calgary, has just recently elected a Muslim mayor -- and in neither case was the religion of the individual an issue), the only concern the larger community has about any part of the Muslim community is the murder of a few young Somali men, apparently in connection with the Islamist group Al-Shabab. Muslims are wonderful, generous, welcome contributors to the wonderful, peaceful multicultural community in which I live.

Islamists, however, murder teenagers.

And those murders have nothing to do with this Spencer person.


Islam is not endangered by this Spencer.

Islam *is* endangered by Al-Shabab.

These Islamists are the ones who should be being condemned by Muslims, as Mr. Fatah has spent his adult life condemning them.

Oh for s sake

anyone who takes the texts of 2000 (or 1400) year old books as truth and justifies any act (criminal or not) based on those texts completely misses the point.

The basis of religion, any religion, is "be nice to your fellow-humans". Fine with me if you want to drop down five times a day and recite a mantra, fine with me if you want to go to church twice on a Sunday. there's no difference in those.
If you discuss religion the starting point would be the basics: "be nice to your fellow-humans". Then discuss how to do that.

Skip all the sentiments of crusades, burning of heretics, murdering most of South America, 9/11, murdering teenagers, murdering homosexuals. These actions were committed by a group of criminals, they're not signs of religious virtue.

>>The basis of religion, any religion, is "be nice to your fellow-humans".

-- not every religion. I don't think that's the basis of Judaism, for example, and it certainly wasn't the basis of Christianity for a lot of its history.

Ahlan, Imramkhan,

Don´t know about those books, but I of course know about the growing Islamophobia. In the case of US, it´s worrying because of the strength the Tea party movement is getting. ( the strength comes maily from bigotry, ignorance and a lot of money founding that movement)
A book that fights that islamophobia is wellcomed, but islamophobes aren´t going to read it, surely.

From my point of view, it´s difficult to fight islamophobia, one of the reasons is that mass media only highlights anything negative in relation to Islam or Islamic countries, and then, intellectually lazy people confuse the Islamic culture and religion with the contemptible actions of some people that claim to be truly Muslims and act in the name of Alah.

On the other hand, we have countries where an elite of politicians and religious leaders rule ignoring human rights. Those politicians say also they act in the name of Alah. People from outside also confuse Islam with patriarcal, machists, feudalist notions of governing a country.

Islam affirms compassion, social justice, diversity... maybe some Muslims should take seriously their religion.
So seriously that they should forget about use it as a flag, a way of identity, as fanatics do.
Instead, criticism, not only to terrorists, but also to traditional ways of life that repress women, perpetuate power, etc. using religion as an excuse should be critisized openly.
::
wa sahla

with due apologies Gnomon, but I think you confuse religion with a small group criminals who highjacked a religion for their own purposes. Popes robbing fortunes can hardly be seen as good christians. Conquistadores murdering and looting South American had in real life no idea of any religion whatsoever. They said they were good christians, because the pope said he agreed with whatever crime they committed as long as he was in for 25% of the loot.

Do make a difference between religion and criminals.

Following my reasoning .. there are very few truly religious people. Maybe none.

so dump the holy books, stop reading them, and be nice your fellow humans (and to hippos of course).

>>>The basis of religion, any religion, is "be nice to your fellow-humans".

-- not every religion. I don't think that's the basis of Judaism, for example, and it certainly wasn't the basis of Christianity for a lot of its history.
<<

Jesus gave his followers 2 commandments to follow
Love the Lord your God
Love your neighbour as yourself.

Therefore being nice to fellow humans is definitly part christianity but its not the basis of it. God is the basis.

"Robert Spencers lies have spread around the world and are the main cause of Islamaphobia today"

I've never heard of Robert Spencer, and I doubt most Islamophobic people have.

His wikipedia entry lists his various books, the earliest of which was published in 2002.

I suggest that Islamophobia in the USA has, as its "main cause", an event which occurred the previous year.

I further suggest that Islamophobia in the UK has, as its "main cause", an event which occurred in 1989, and is further justified by events in 2005.

Anyone who wishes to stir up fear and distrust of Muslims can very easily do so by reference to facts. Why would anyone bother to lie?

"Why would anyone bother to lie?"

Because it's easier than looking up the details of the truth?

But that's precisely my point: I had to look up this Robert Spencer person. I've never read his book. I have no idea what it contains, what his arguments are. I neither know, nor care, what he is supposed to have said about Muhammad, and whether or not what he's said is true.

What I KNOW, and what I would imagine most of the world knows, without having to look it up, is that 9/11 happened, and that those responsible were Muslims.

What I know, and what I would imagine most of Britain knows, without having to look it up, is that 7/7 happened, and that those responsible were Muslims.

What I know, and what I would imagine most of Britain my age or older knows, without having to look it up, is that Salman Rushdie was under constant threat of death from February 1989, and that those responsible were Muslims.

You don't NEED to lie, and you don't need to refer to anything obscure, to stir up fear and distrust of Muslims. Muslims have done things bad enough, and well publicised enough, that you can generate that fear very easily with reference to facts everyone already knows.

I honestly don't understand why anyone would bother lying when the truth is so damning.

>>Anyone who wishes to stir up fear and distrust of Muslims can very easily do so by reference to facts. Why would anyone bother to lie?<<
It´s easy because the atmosphere is propitious, not because of the facts. Let´s see a possible analogy:
The Marroqui goverment is smashing Saharauis right now in the Aiun camp, it would be easy to stir up fear and distrust against marroquis referring to those facts. However, it´s not so easy because:

- It´s an action carried out by the Marroqui goverment, not by all marroquis (although we can tar all marroquis with the same brush as islamophobes do with Muslims*)

- The International community is turning a blind eye on this conflict (since 1975, for different interests**) so the media, the politicians, etc. Consider it NO news. If something is no news, it doesn´t exist .

::
*they can´t distinguish between normal ordinary Muslim people and a bunch of fanatic criminals who claim to be truly Muslims.
**I guess, that´s speculation, that islamophia might help to ignore the real reasons by which the US and friends are “fighting for democracy” in areas full of energetic resources.

Too many ideas in my previous post. I´ll try to make clear that of the propitious atmosphere for islamophobia.

But I leave it to experts, particularly to FAIR, an organization of journalists.
this article “Making Islamophobia Mainstream
How Muslim-bashers broadcast their bigotry” illustrates my point.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3648

There are more reasons for that propitious atmosphere, some of them can be found in History, it tells us a lot about all that mess of prejudices and vested interests behind what is called islamophobia.

btw, that Robert Spencers is mentioned in that article.

His book is "The truth about Mahoma,founder of the most intolerant religion in the world"
It comments by itself. An ignorant bigot or a hatred propagandist, or both.

"It´s easy because the atmosphere is propitious, not because of the facts."

Hmm. That seems a specious point, since the only possible sensible next question is "Yes, but WHY is the atmosphere propitious?", to which the only sensible answer is "Er... the facts."

The 1970s in the UK were a "propitious" time for bashing the Irish. Irish jokes on the telly, Irish stereotypes in the media, innocent Irish people in jail.

Why was that a propitious time to bash the Irish? Because hey - the Irish were BLOWING SHIT UP.

Funny thing is, the Irish economy is in the toilet, but nobody seems to be bashing the Irish much nowadays. Can't remember the last time I heard an Irish joke and there are former terrorists in the Northern Irish government. Why? Because they stopped blowing shit up.

Pretending that Islamophobia is about "atmosphere", as though that is somehow unrelated to Muslims blowing shit up, is just ridiculous.

>>The basis of religion, any religion, is "be nice to your fellow-humans".

No. The basis of most religions is something more like, "We are the chosen ones; don't mix with those plebs."

Can we be careful to distinguish between Muslims and Islamists, and also between Christians and Christianists, etc.

TRiG.

You say "the Irish were blowing..."

That´s the problem, to say "the Irish" is/was an unfair generalization, because it were SOME Irish people. Stupid jokes about a whole population.

It seems that you haven´t read at all that link of Northamerican journalists. It´s about northamerican media, but actually it can be applied to what is happening in Europe .
Islamophobia has to do with political agendas to a great extent, in US and in Europe. Islamophobia helps right and far right parties to get votes. Islamophobia is no new, as I´ve said before,History tells a lot about it.

Of course, those facts you mention are relevant, but the prejudices of population, the hatred, the delirant and ridiculous fear of some, the distrust, etc. come not only from the NY, Madrid and London attacks, there are many more ingredients in that pot of fear and hate.

Read that report, it´s very interesting.

"those facts you mention are relevant, but the prejudices of population, the hatred, the delirant and ridiculous fear of some, the distrust, etc. come not only from the NY, Madrid and London attacks, there are many more ingredients in that pot of fear and hate"

Maybe. But if you're talking history, there's a LOT of competition for the post of whipping boy. Us English have a long and proud history of hating the French, the Germans, Jews, blacks, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, the Poles, the Belgians, the Italians, the Chinese, the Spanish - we're equal opportunties bigots. If you don't play cricket (or if you do, but better than us) and can't pronounce "scone" properly, we'll hate you.

But here's a thing: until 1989, I contend most English people thought of Muslims as something that happened abroad. It was only that year that it was forcefully brought home to us that if some bearded wacko in a foreign land did something called a "fatwa", there were over a MILLION of that wacko's soldiers living right here in this green and pleasant land, every man (and woman) jack of them keen to martyr themselves for Allah in the cause of suppressing freedom of speech.

Obviously the above is an egregious exaggeration - but the point is, Muslims were, to a large extent, irrelevant to this country, and then overnight they became a terrorist threat. And they became that terrorist threat NOT because of an illegal war initiated by a Prime Minister in thrall to a moron, or because long-standing historical sectarian rivalries and burning social inequities - they became that threat overnight because the nearest thing they had to a Pope decreed a British subject should die at the hands of a Muslim because he'd written a book.

And, most significantly, influential leaders among the British Muslim community didn't condemn that exhortation, and in some cases actively endorsed it. Life in Britain for Muslims has only got harder since then, and I honestly think that with every negative step, they have only other Muslims to blame.

Tiggy, that is a very silly post indeed.

you wrote "And they became that terrorist threat NOT because of an illegal war initiated by a Prime Minister in thrall to a moron, or because long-standing historical sectarian rivalries and burning social inequities - they became that threat overnight because the nearest thing they had to a Pope decreed a British subject should die at the hands of a Muslim because he'd written a book"

Which Muslim has written this book?

Muslims became a percieved threat because of War propaganda, nothing more.