Liberal opinion of Bill Maher's views on Islam...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Are Islamic texts and traditions really that much more strict and codified than, say Catholic ones - with their emphasis on Sacraments and everything? And even if they are, why would strictness necessarily correlate with the degree of religious-inspired violence?

All I'm trying to suggest is that, instead of looking to "cultural" reasons, we should rather look for sociological and political ones.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Bill's 100% right. Who in the first video said anything about "All Muslims"? Who said anything about race? Affleck's just reciting PC talking points. It has nothing to do with race, as anyone can be a Muslim. Maybe the people screaming racist are a little bit racist themselves, assuming he's talking about an ethnic minority. It's funny that Bill was saying that most liberals are reluctant to attack extremism in Islam, and Affleck went and proved his point. Maybe he was just doing a demonstration and isn't a complete moron?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Are Islamic texts and traditions really that much more strict and codified than, say Catholic ones - with their emphasis on Sacraments and everything? And even if they are, why would strictness necessarily correlate with the degree of religious-inspired violence?

All I'm trying to suggest is that, instead of looking to "cultural" reasons, we should rather look for sociological and political ones.

In practice, Islam is much less systematized. Catholicism, with its emphasis on a centuries-long tradition of centralized temporal authority, seems like a particularly bad analogy for the modern practice of Islam - at least if we're generalizing across all 1.5 billion Muslims. (Am I missing the point of your comparison?)

So that would make, following the culturalist logic of this thread, Catholicism even more "oppressive" than Islam, right? I'm not really sure what's being argued, tbh.

[ingemann]

While Wahhabism is a very unpleasant aspect of modern Islam, it's not like pre-Wahhabistic Islam was all that enlighten, yes early modern Islam and medieval treated Christians better than early modern and medieval Christianity treated Muslims (because Muslim saw Christians as Christians saw Jews, and for Christians Muslims was just pagans), but it treated Jews excactly like Christians did and their treatment of pagans was everybit as brutal as the worst of Christinity's treatment of pagans. Early modern Islam was not especially enligthen compare to Christianity, both shared a general intolerance toward other religions and both also had and still have strong social justice elements (help the poor and weak).

At the same time slavery was much more integrated into the Islamic faith than it was in Christianity, which have always had anti-slavery aspects (slavery was de facto abolished several times in Christiandom, only to reestablish itself later again). It's no accident that Islam never abolished slavery on it own, but that it was external pressure, which made them abolish it. In fact Mauritania is the last stronghold of real chattel slavery (rather than the bonded labour we see in the Gulf today) and it was not a stronghold of Wahhabism in the past. 

So mostly I think it's too easy to blame Wahhabism, yes it's ugly version of Islam, and the Saudi prestige (as guardian of Mecca and Medina) and money has allowed its uglier aspects to spread and may be the primarily source of radical Islamic universalism. But it's not the only problem, Taliban and Boko haram are ethno-religious version of Islam, who is mostly homegrown, it do not make them nicer. The Iranian theocracy have from the start been anti-Wahhabistic (and Iran and the Shias are in fact the Wahhabists maqin enemies, not the west), but it have also had very ugly elements.   

 

[bedstuy]

Sam Harris never makes the distinction between "liberal" Islam as it is practiced in the west, especially the United States (where Sam Harris comes from) and Wahhabism. I will support anyone who comes out against the destructive ideology that is Wahhabism, but I cannot support a racist who attacks Islam generally. If you attack Sufi Islam, you are just as horrible a human being as someone who attacks Buddhism or liberal Christianity.

What are the qualities of "liberal" Islam?  How does mainstream American Sunni Islam differ from Wahhabi Islam in terms of doctrine?  Could you give an explanation of the similarities and difference?

Do you think Sufism is an Islamic sect? 

Look, I will go with the views of my best friend and the millions of other Indian muslims who are liberal at heart. I really don't give a sh**t what you think.

I don't know whether Sufism is a sect or not. I frankly don't give a sh**t. Religion bores me terribly. What I can tell you though is that Indian muslims, basically 1/6th of the Muslim world, don't think like those Saudis do. Attack the Saudis, not all Muslims. That is my point. Of course the United States won't do that because...well...oil. Much easier to attack people who don't have oil. Saudi Arabia is the problem, not Islam. Yet, no one is willing to confront that elephant in the room.

If you don't know anything about Islam and don't care to know anything, so why are you so intent on making specific points about it?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I'll post this here, too... Since they are essentially the same thread.


Oh, another Atlas Hates Bill Maher thread.  Considering that Atlas is partially defined by the following...

1. Religious apologism for EVERYTHING.  There are only bad people, and religion is never, ever to blame.
2. We hate big meanies!!!

...it is quite expected.  And of course Maher is right.  Western culture and liberal democracy is not just different, it is better, and no one should ever feel threatened by attacking the repulsive worldview of much of the Islamic world.  I'm well aware that there are good Muslims, but to make an Atlas metaphor (since this thread is soooooooo Atlas), this is like saying criticism of the Crusades is wrong because BRTD exists. 

And criticizing a faith is not, by definition, racism. 

EDIT: Honestly, he is a fellow NJ-born liberal, and I think people from NJ "get" each other in a way that has everything to with why out-of-staters tend to find us insufferable.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Are Islamic texts and traditions really that much more strict and codified than, say Catholic ones - with their emphasis on Sacraments and everything? And even if they are, why would strictness necessarily correlate with the degree of religious-inspired violence?

All I'm trying to suggest is that, instead of looking to "cultural" reasons, we should rather look for sociological and political ones.

In practice, Islam is much less systematized. Catholicism, with its emphasis on a centuries-long tradition of centralized temporal authority, seems like a particularly bad analogy for the modern practice of Islam - at least if we're generalizing across all 1.5 billion Muslims. (Am I missing the point of your comparison?)

So that would make, following the culturalist logic of this thread, Catholicism even more "oppressive" than Islam, right? I'm not really sure what's being argued, tbh.

Politicus seems to have jumped to that conclusion by confusingly equating "detail and inflexibility" with illiberality. This is not a compelling argument.

On the other hand, is it really so ridiculous to include the Quran (as well as certain strains of Islamic doctrine) and the history of political Islam in accounts of the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism? There's an apparent reluctance to name these as underlying factors lest they be confused with or misrepresented as the ultimate cause of religious violence. And, to be honest, that's a concern that several recent posts in this thread vindicate.

I'm not denying that some branches of Islamic doctrine have contributed to the rise of terrorism (Afleitch's post on Wahhabism was very good, for example). But I haven't found any evidence, neither theoretical nor empirical, in this thread or elsewhere, that would seem to indicate that the fundamental characteristics of Islam itself are any more prone to inspiring violent behavior than those of other religions.

[bedstuy]

Wahhabism is the proper name for a specific Saudi fundamentalist movement.  However, you can't just label all Islamic movements that are fundamentalist or distasteful, Wahhabist.  Wahhabi is a Saudi movement which has influenced many radicals like Osama Bin Laden.  But, Al Qaeda specifically broke with the Wahhabi religious authorities in Saudi Arabia like Bin Baz who Bin Laden saw as Saud regime pawns.  And, you won't find many people outside Saudi Arabia identifying as Wahhabist, instead they'll usually say Salafi.  I don't think it's a helpful term outside of the Saudi context.

On the other hand, the most brutal crimes committed by Muslims could appropriately be called "ethno-religious."  Sudan for example in their brutal imposition of Islamic sharia, genocide and enslavement of their southern provinces, that was a sort of Islam mixed with racial/cultural hatred.  But, you can't just chalk the Sudanese Civil War to nationalism or race, when it was started because the north wanted to impose Islamic law on the South and subsequently used that Islamic law to justify enslaving thousands of people. 

Here's my issue though:  Where do we draw the line between Salafi and normal Sunni Islam?  Because, it's not that simple it seems to me.  Because, "let's restore the original form of XYZ" is not a totally unique, novel take on anything.  I think most of these jihadists are actually pretty uneducated on Islam honestly.  They have a sort of extremist spin on the type of Sunni Islam you find anywhere in the world, not some esoteric, unique theology. 

And, for the Islamic religious authorities in the liberal west, it's also not that simple.  If you're up there emphasizing how Islam is the perfect religion and sharia is God's law, etc, etc. it's then difficult to say,  "but, don't take it tooooo far."  And, sure, most people will ignore the radicalism because they just want to live their lives.  And, even most extremists will never join something like Al Qaeda because they're decent human beings who recoil at the idea of mass murder.  But, I can't help but see that all religions have people who take things a bit too far.  I don't think it's a coincidence that taking things a bit too far in the Islamic faith is materially different and more dangerous than any other mainstream faith.

I think we're silly if we don't pay attention to what's actually happening in the Western World.  When people become Christian fundamentalists, they're annoying, but they don't kill people.  When people become Jewish fundamentalists, they're annoying, but they don't kill people.  Muslim fundamentalists have been trying to blow up my hometown for my entire life.  Not just Saudis Muslims, but Egyptians, Pakistanis, Americans, etc. etc.  So, I think it's all too easy to just dismiss the connection between the type of Sunni Islam you find in the average mosque in America or France or the UK and Salafi extremism.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I know this was just her example and not her point itself, but I have to interject here to say that politicus is betraying a common oversimplification in her understanding of Buddhism. While it's true that most of the forms of the religion with which somebody from outside East and Southeast Asia would be reasonably familiar are relatively short on outwardly behavior-modifying strictures, there are sutras that prescribe incredibly specific and restrictive psychological rigors, which are intended to modify the way the practitioner's mind works on an even more fundamental (pun intended) level than the changes in worldview and emotional state that the rigors of Orthodox Judaism and legalistic Islam are intended to bring about. This admittedly less frequently leads to political problems, primarily because it's mostly internal and secondarily because the tendency of early Buddhism to support specific kinds of political structures over others has been attenuated over the millennia, but it can come across as something akin to self-brainwashing (highly spiritually accomplished Buddhist practitioners will sometimes develop a lack of concern for other people's individuality and adopt behaviors that are difficult to distinguish from mild antisocial tendencies). Also, there very much have been and are societies inflexibly based on Buddhism.

[All Along The Watchtower]

This is a topic of immense complexity and it's all-too-easy to oversimplify things, so take anything-including my post here-with a sizable grain of salt.

Nevertheless, I suspect that it's not liberal democracy or "pluralism" that is specifically incompatible with the "Islamic world" (a world that, we should never forget, is extremely diverse in historical experience, culturally, ethnically, socioeconomically, and yes, politically); but that, for many of  the world's Muslims, these ideas are so obviously associated with Western cultural and economic imperialism-to the point where "liberal democracy" is just another word for Western hypocrisy.

Whether Muslims-particularly, but not exclusively, in the Middle East-are right or justified in feeling this way is kind of beside the point. The reality is that many of them do believe this.

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article (from 1992, FWIW) that touches on that theme (bolding mine).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer174/liberalization-democratization-arab-world

Also, Political Islam/Islamism didn't really begin to emerge until the early 20th century-you know, around the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. I'm sure that was just a coincidence, though.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The problem with declaring anything incompatible with "Western values" is that few can really define what those values are.

Free speech
Freedom of religion
Free press

At the very least.

So I guess Atlanta isn't part of the west?
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=205667.0

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The problem with declaring anything incompatible with "Western values" is that few can really define what those values are.

Exactly. Not to mention that the constructs of "West" vs. "East" are basically lies.

Anyway, if one decides that "Western Values" are democracy and individual rights, one must reconcile that with the fact that more than a few Muslim countries or countries with large Muslim populations maintain these values. See Indonesia, Turkey, India, Senegal, Bosnia, Albania, Tunisia etc. Not mention that there was a little thing called the Arab Spring a couple years ago that included widespread public support for the aforementioned values. Of course it wasn't broadly successful in the short term, but neither was, say, 1848.

I thought from the first that the Arab Spring would resemble 1848 much more than the 1989 many were giddily expecting.

[Alcon]

Expanding this beyond political Islam, since it's really hard to extricate sincere religious belief and political concerns there, how longstanding is the practice/support of giving apostates the death penalty, stoning adulterers, etc.?  I was under the impression these things are not recent inventions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Expanding this beyond political Islam, since it's really hard to extricate sincere religious belief and political concerns there, how longstanding is the practice/support of giving apostates the death penalty, stoning adulterers, etc.?  I was under the impression these things are not recent inventions.

Hardly a specifically Muslim thing.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If you're comparing current policies of Islamic states, supported by majorities of Muslims, to policies from Catholicism of the 16th and 17th centuries, you're making Maher's point for him. How long have you been a racist, Antonio?

[Antonio the Sixth]

If you're comparing current policies of Islamic states, supported by majorities of Muslims, to policies from Catholicism of the 16th and 17th centuries, you're making Maher's point for him. How long have you been a racist, Antonio?

Wow. It's the second time in a couple days I've been called racist and for totally opposite reasons. It seems like a glimpse of how the Charlie Hebdo staff must have felt every day for daring to examine Islam rationally and refusing both sides of bigotry.

[Alcon]

Expanding this beyond political Islam, since it's really hard to extricate sincere religious belief and political concerns there, how longstanding is the practice/support of giving apostates the death penalty, stoning adulterers, etc.?  I was under the impression these things are not recent inventions.

Hardly a specifically Muslim thing.

Antonio, have you not been reading my posts in this thread?  Do you not understand my argument?  Unless that's the case, how did you arrive at the conclusion that I'm claiming religious executions are unique to Islam (or execution is unique to religion)?

If that was still a widespread, widely-supported practice in Christianity, I would be just as concerned about it.  It's the same thing.  And, like the current problems in Islam, hersey executions were fueled by sincere religious beliefs -- not the inevitable result of them, but aided by them.

[Ashbringer]

a terrible person

[Antonio the Sixth]

Expanding this beyond political Islam, since it's really hard to extricate sincere religious belief and political concerns there, how longstanding is the practice/support of giving apostates the death penalty, stoning adulterers, etc.?  I was under the impression these things are not recent inventions.

Hardly a specifically Muslim thing.

Antonio, have you not been reading my posts in this thread?  Do you not understand my argument?  Unless that's the case, how did you arrive at the conclusion that I'm claiming religious executions are unique to Islam (or execution is unique to religion)?

If that was still a widespread, widely-supported practice in Christianity, I would be just as concerned about it.  It's the same thing.  And, like the current problems in Islam, hersey executions were fueled by sincere religious beliefs -- not the inevitable result of them, but aided by them.

Certainly. But, if we accept that all (or at least most) religions can, potentially, spread this sort of behavior, then we have to consider the possibility that maybe the variable at stake here isn't Islam in itself, but rather its political utilization.

[Alcon]

Expanding this beyond political Islam, since it's really hard to extricate sincere religious belief and political concerns there, how longstanding is the practice/support of giving apostates the death penalty, stoning adulterers, etc.?  I was under the impression these things are not recent inventions.

Hardly a specifically Muslim thing.

Antonio, have you not been reading my posts in this thread?  Do you not understand my argument?  Unless that's the case, how did you arrive at the conclusion that I'm claiming religious executions are unique to Islam (or execution is unique to religion)?

If that was still a widespread, widely-supported practice in Christianity, I would be just as concerned about it.  It's the same thing.  And, like the current problems in Islam, hersey executions were fueled by sincere religious beliefs -- not the inevitable result of them, but aided by them.

Certainly. But, if we accept that all (or at least most) religions can, potentially, spread this sort of behavior, then we have to consider the possibility that maybe the variable at stake here isn't Islam in itself, but rather its political utilization.

I don't understand why you think there can't be multiple significant variables here.  Your argument is like pointing out that there are Christians who support gay marriage, and concluding that gay marriage opposition has nothing to do with Christian religious beliefs, or that the Inquisition or Crusades had nothing to do with Christianity because they're not constant and universal in the religion.  Or like arguing that, because not all countries have the death penalty for apostasy, we should assume punishing apostates has nothing to do with religion.

Besides, inverting your argument, what does it say that apostasy prohibitions have been widespread throughout very different political periods?  Aren't you basically forced, by your own argument, to accept that religion is the static variable there?

[patrick1]

To many Muslims, political Islam is as much a redundancy as ATM Machine or PIN #.

 Back in college, before 9.11, I had a guest lecturer for a week in Political science who was some sort of Pashtun refugee or expat.   He explained that for many Muslims the concepts of democracy  and communism were seen as failed and even evil Western ideologies, incompatible with Islam.  Many felt that all jurisprudence (and everything else for that matter) is wholly contained within the Quran.  It was self evident that the Quran was a political document. This was really an eye opening experience for me as I had always viewed Islam as merely a religion, having learned the standard high school curriculum 5 pillars etc. etc.  He didn't really let on to his own opinions, but in discussions after class I gauged that he supported a moderate form of Islamic republic.  Incidentally he has served on the Afghan cabinet for the last decade and has managed to not get himself killed or locked up.

[Rockefeller GOP]

In a shocking turn of events, the hilariously elitist, intolerant and rude Bill Maher says something stupid!

[Sbane]

Sam Harris never makes the distinction between "liberal" Islam as it is practiced in the west, especially the United States (where Sam Harris comes from) and Wahhabism. I will support anyone who comes out against the destructive ideology that is Wahhabism, but I cannot support a racist who attacks Islam generally. If you attack Sufi Islam, you are just as horrible a human being as someone who attacks Buddhism or liberal Christianity.

What are the qualities of "liberal" Islam?  How does mainstream American Sunni Islam differ from Wahhabi Islam in terms of doctrine?  Could you give an explanation of the similarities and difference?

Do you think Sufism is an Islamic sect? 

Look, I will go with the views of my best friend and the millions of other Indian muslims who are liberal at heart. I really don't give a sh**t what you think.

I don't know whether Sufism is a sect or not. I frankly don't give a sh**t. Religion bores me terribly. What I can tell you though is that Indian muslims, basically 1/6th of the Muslim world, don't think like those Saudis do. Attack the Saudis, not all Muslims. That is my point. Of course the United States won't do that because...well...oil. Much easier to attack people who don't have oil. Saudi Arabia is the problem, not Islam. Yet, no one is willing to confront that elephant in the room.

If you don't know anything about Islam and don't care to know anything, so why are you so intent on making specific points about it?

Religion bores me terribly so I am really not interested in properly categorizing Sufism within Islam. You can do that on your own if you wish.

I am commenting on this topic because people like Bill Maher generalize about Islam when it is fundamentalist Islam, especially the type of Islam being exported out of Saudi Arabia, that is the real problem. It is not only utterly bigoted, it also deepens the divides that do exist between Islam and the west.

There are 1.5 Billion Muslims in this world, a large part of whom practice a fairly tame version of Islam. I could not care less whether this form of Islam is the most authentic or the most committed to literally following scripture. The point is that these people exist and they are most certainly Muslim. What is gained by attacking these people along with the extremists?

That is why I find the whole exercise of figuring out which religion is most predisposed to extremism to be useless and unproductive. And of course it provides westerners the opportunity to pat themselves on the back for being so awesome. It is this sort of thinking that led to the development of the ideology of white supremacy.

Of course there may be cultural factors that predispose certain regions to resort to violence more quickly than other regions. You rightly pointed out that Wahhabis are not the only Islamic extremists out there but one can also see there are basically no extreme Islamic movements in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia or Indonesia. Sufism is definitely a factor as well in South Asia as the very way they spread Islam (music) is antithetical to what Wahabbis believe in. In Sufi shrines in India they commit idolatry, which is not very popular with the Saudis as you can imagine. It is sometimes useful to view religion not just from a theoretical point of view but also how it is practiced by the masses.

[Alcon]

sbane - A full 86% of Malaysian Muslims support sharia law, and of those, two-thirds support the death penalty for apostasy.  It's true that Malaysia has little Islamist terrorism, but these numbers are still a problem.  You seem to be under the impression that people expressing concern about these numbers "must" be expressing concern about all adherents of the religion, or claiming that all interpretations of the religion lead the same place.  That's not the case, even with Maher, who can be pretty broad with his dickishness.

P.S. You earlier claimed that Sam Harris has never differentiated liberal Muslims from Islamists.  Again, do you actually believe that he never does this?  I recall him doing it multiple times during the Affleck debate.

(Side note: It's weird to me to see liberals purporting to be concerned about social justice treat this so much differently than the #NotAllMen/#YesAllWomen business.  I'm not criticizing anyone in this thread, but I know a ton of people who flipped on the whole "appropriateness of systemic criticism of non-majority ills" issue, seemingly overnight.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Mormons are more equivalent to Alawites or Ahmadiyya . Bektashi are equivalent to liberal Protestants.

That's not how analogies work.  You're bringing in irrelevant criteria.  The reason you reject Mormons as Christians is because they fail to meet certain prerequisites for Christianity.  It doesn't matter if Bektashi are closer to liberal Protestants in the sense that they're socially liberal, or non-insular.  That doesn't somehow acquit them on the relevant criteria: whether mainstream Islam would reject their Islamicness on the basis of failing to meet basic criteria (in this case, literal interpretation of the Qu'ran).

Muslims overwhelmingly believe that literal interpretation of the Q'uran is a prerequisite to being truly Islamic.  Yes or no?  Muslims overwhelmingly believe that the Q'uran prohibits the consumption of alcohol.  Yes or no?  The Bektashi do not believe in this Q'uranic teaching.  Yes or no?

If your answer to these questions is "yes," the analogy to your opinion on Mormonism is completely apt, and you're a ridiculous man.  If the answer to these question is somehow "no," then you're just a ridiculous man.

Alright, here's how I break it down. There are no doubt Muslims that believe anyone without a literal interpretation of the Koran isn't Muslim. There's also people who say anyone who doesn't literally interpret the Bible isn't Christian. Obviously liberal Protestants are not Christian to these people. Being a liberal Protestant, I think it's pretty obvious what my opinion is. So if Bektashi are equivalent to liberal Protestants (which they fit pretty well in they basically hold to all the basic tenants and five pillars, they just don't follow most un-modern Islamic laws like liberal Protestants reject the anti-gay stuff), then yeah they're clearly Muslim by my view.

Ahmadis are a sect that was founded by some guy in the 19th century who claimed to have received further revelations from God after Mohammed. Does that remind you of anything? The vast majority of Muslims (including probably most Bektashi I'd wager) consider them non-Muslim on the grounds that Mohammed being the final messenger is a tenant of Islam. In Pakistan there's heavy discrimination against them, it's basically illegal for themselves to call themselves Muslim or even to call their places of worship mosques. But if you're going to exclude Mormons as Christians, it's hard to not exclude them as Muslim too, especially considering the similarities. Obviously this doesn't justify the legal discrimination against them, and I don't consider them any more right or wrong than Muslims, but there's a solid case to exclude them and not Bektashi.

I'll also note that while there are plenty that agree with me that liberal Protestants are Christian but not Mormon, it's pretty difficult to argue the latter, unless you believe in some sort of insane No True Scotsman that being anti-gay is a central tenant of Christianity (which a lot of Reddit-esque neckbeard atheist types actually do, but I know you're smarter than they are.)