Comments on I Would Have an Easier Time Avoiding Feelings of Islamophobia...

What I said on the last one you posted with the same headline. Only not with stones. Word.

I've thought about this and come to the conclusion that what I'm afraid of isn't Islamists, it's fundamentalists.

Islamic fundamentalists scare me, but so do Christian fundamentalists. Conversely, I don't find Islamic moderates troubling at all.

isms will do us all in.

Speaking as a proud gay atheist I think ANYONE who believes in any form of Islam, Christianity ect is someone to avoid on any street in the middle of the night. Even the moderate ones. Sorry, but I went to school with people who were only moderate in their religous beliefs and they scare me a little more than the fundamentalists do. At least the fundamentalist will attack straight on, the moderates do it behind your back.

There's a difference between fear of all Muslims and fear of religious extremists. I've read enough of your work to know you have similar concerns about the religious right in this country (as do I), but I never got the sense that you extended that concern to all Christians.

There's also an issue of media coverage: newspapers, oddly enough, like sensationalist stories like this (or like shootings near police stations and/or nightclubs), because people like to read drama.

I spent long enough living in the Arab world to know that the media's portrayal doesn't always match reality (always being a key modifier there).

I don't know; the fundamentalists are definitely more scary to me, but the moderates tend just to make the world more friendly to the whole ridiculous exercise, including the fundamentalists.

And at least the fundamentalists are consistent. Religious moderates are generally only as moderate as they are living in opposition to their religions founding documents. Which, of course, is fine by me, but if you're going to choose not to stone women for sassing back, why are you allowed to get divorced, or work on Sundays, or wear blended fabrics, or whatever? I know this is not an original point, but I think it's an important one that is all too often glossed over.

the people attacking her aren't FUNDAMENTALISTS. they're regular old mulsims.

Islamic fundamentalists scare me, but so do Christian fundamentalists. Conversely, I don't find Islamic moderates troubling at all.

Then there are either no more fundamentalist Christians on Earth, or there is nothing about fundamentalist Christianity that provokes violence on nonbelievers/apostates.

Christopher Hitchens notes in the current Free Inquiry that he's intentionally brought his book tour for God is not Great into the Bible Belt South, and has gotten "large and courteous audiences" at every stop. He's not getting attacked by anyone, never mind members of the state legislatures.

Could Hitchens make an analogous tour of Muslim cities?

@8: Three words: "abortion clinic bombings."

What kind of "mulsims" are they, max?

May I point out that Nasreen herself is a (former) Muslim? And that Western articles about Muslim (and Indian) topics tend to be filled with misunderstandings and errors (such as her novel being in Bengali; it isn't, it's in Tegulu. And the party that attacked her IS extremist.

What would your reaction be to an article in the Indian press that suggested that Fred Phelps represented the average views of Americans?

Phobia implies an irrational fear. It is not irrational to fear, and to confront, strongly, any creed that demands the oppression of ideas that "offend religious feelings".

While fundy Christianity in this country can be scary, you won't find too many examples of writers forced into exile for calling them on their bullshit.

@6: with most religion based on ancient writings there is much room for interpretation. it does not require inconsistency to say stoning is out but working on sunday is in. while i am no longer a practicing christian that was one of the easiest arguments to mentally dismiss.... and yet i heard/hear it all the time. to a moderate, it only sounds like you do understand what they believe. which -- by your own choice -- i'd be willing to bet was true.

that said, i'll take a moderate over a fundie any day. the concept of spirituality, however you want to define it, is a power tool even if at present we don't fully understand why, or how to use it in more positive as opposed to negative ways.

And the party that attacked her IS extremist.

If they're so damn extremist how did then manage to get seats in the Indian legislature?

12 - but in this world where an all-knowing, all-powerful God created us and set us on this earth and wrote a book for us, who are we to be interpreting anything? Of course I'm not surprised that people interpret and adapt and pick and choose in order to make a faith that fits in with current society - if they didn't, faith would just wither and die altogether. I just wish they would finish the process of winnowing, and do away with the whole thing.

The problem with Islam is that it's extremely fundamentalist-friendly. It emphasizes actions over internal belief, demands that you believe that its holy book is literally perfect, and serves as not only a literary model but a source of jurisprudence.

Christianity, for all its faults, has not historically claimed that the Bible is perfect (modern fundamentalists do, but mainstream churches don't, and of course the early church didn't because they didn't even have a fixed canon), and the Bible itself doesn't require anyone to believe this either. Also, when the Bible was being written, Christians weren't in charge of anything, so fortunately the Bible (well, at least the New Testament) never got around to including actual binding laws. That got added when Christians equaled the state in the Middle Ages, and it was therefore easy to remove after the Enlightenment.

Islam, on the other hand, has a book that SAYS it's perfect, and that you can't be a good Muslim without accepting what it says. And it was written as a book of laws as well, so you can't really engage in modern practices that might boost economic growth (I'm thinking of charging interest, which the Qu'ran forbids) without overtly abandoning the book because it's--ahem--wrong and unhelpful. Ditto for its statements about homosexuals (even moderate Muslims suggest, in their wild liberalism, imprisonment rather than stoning). Although it's actually not as harsh on women as its reputation suggests; most of the stuff like honor killings and burqas are bullshit tribal traditions that emerged from the hadith. Muslim feminists urge a return away from the hadith (the oral traditions about what The Prophet did and what he thought about everything) and return to a purely Qu'ranic society. It would certainly be a start.

Ultimately, I'm with Reza Aslan on this one: the only way out is a Muslim Reformation, where scholars are actually allowed to apply scholarship to the Qu'ran and disprove its claims to be perfect, and start, perhaps, to break down the insular tribalism that the book consistently reinforces. Then its adherents can start joining the rest of the world's religions by doing what all moderates do: living peaceably and ignoring the crazy, violent, and otherwise backward parts of their own scriptures.

My own probably vain hope is that this will be accomplished through a rise, perhaps, in Sufism, which has had a long career of flouting the Qu'ran's proscriptions in the name of the REAL (spiritual, unseeable) goodness behind the rules. Mysticism was at an all-time high leading up to the Christian Reformation, too, so maybe it can happen twice. At this point, I'm half tempted to leave the entire region and say, "Call us when you've sorted your shit out and are ready for investment capital."

Fnarf - It's Telugu, not Tegulu. And you're also wrong about her novel. It was written in Bengali but translated into Telugu.

"What would your reaction be to an article in the Indian press that suggested that Fred Phelps represented the average views of Americans?"

In one sense, yes, you're right - there are Christian fundies in the US, and they are visible. But Christian fundies, repulsive though they are, generally seek to further their goals through civil society. Islamic extremists, by contrast, proclaim themselves above the law. Have prominent Christian conservatives ever offered a reward for the successful execution of an apostate? (In the last couple of centuries, that is?)

@8: Three words: "abortion clinic bombings."

1) Abortion clinic bombings would not come under the criteria I mentioned (attacks because of lack of belief or leaving a religion)

2) these bombings are universally condemned by even rigorously conservative religious leaders

3) If you look at the statistics below, covering 1989-2004, the incidence of violence against clinics has been dropping like a rock (across all physical and non-physical forms of attack), including a grand total of six bombings or attempted bombings in the last 3 years of data, compared to 57 in 1992-1994. Six too many, to be sure, but this is not exactly trending upwards.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm

(and that link is not from a conservative Xtian organization, to state from their Statement of Belief the have "we consist of one Atheist, Agnostic, Christian, Wiccan and Zen Buddhist.")

I really love the impotence of the post. Basically Dan's afraid of something for which there is no rational solution. Muslims exist. Muslims aren't going anywhere. Muslims are not a direct threat to the United States' continued existence, other than scaring Americans into doing dumb shit to themselves. So why are you wasting your energy? Why so much fear? Seriously. Is it just to balance things out with the anti-Christian posts? If that's the case, rock on I guess. But as far as I'm concerned, you're just pissing in the wind.

I agree that fundamentalists of all sorts are frightening and dangerous. But comparing violence in Islamic society and violence in the US is difficult...we don't kill heretics for religious reasons, but we DO kill a lot of folks, directly or indirectly, for a lot of other reasons (gun violence, drug wars, lack of health care for the poor, military or other interference in foreign countries, etc.).

Organized religion is too seductive a tool for power and control to be used wisely by humankind. Individual religious people who LIVE their spirituality by good works, compassion, and lack of self-righteous judgement are all too rare, but they exist. Too bad it's all the whackos who try to run the world and get all the press.