Forums → WEPR → Why do so many hate Muslims

He broke an arbitrary defining rule vaguely stated by Razer, is what I said.

Osama did not see it as breaking a rule, nor do the others who are extremists such as he was. Further, whether he actually broke a rule is up to how you interpret the book itself.

"Im a Muslim and to be a muslim you cant do bad things. and by bad things i mean a variety. Such as you cant kill some one, or you cant steal from someone etc."

None of the above is what classifies someone as a Muslim. The definition of a Muslim is:

1) "A Muslim, also spelled Moslem,[1] is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the Qur'an��"which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad��"and, with lesser authority than the Qur'an, the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, called hadith. "Muslim" is an Arabic word meaning "one who submits to God"."

That's why it's called a fallacy! It's not a valid argument! Any side can add an addendum to what it means to be something, then declassify everyone/everything that does not fit into that as not being a part of it! They're correct by their own definition, which is why it's a logical fallacy.

Except the Qur'an is as open to interpretation as anything else. We don't even have to get into the contradicting parts. One person's definition is not the same as another's.

Lastly, maybe it doesn't to you, but as an example, I come from a Chinese society, and I believe more in conformity and putting society over my needs in more cases than you, due to my Confucian roots. I am repelled by the liberal, rather self-centred values perpetuated by more progressive Western nations.

Freedom CAN be given and taken, but that doesn't make it tangible, tangible referring to the fact that freedom can be measured, split, and done accurately, like a cake cut into equal slices. Freedom cannot be split accurately, because people have different notions of what is and equal balance and compromise in freedom given, unlike measurements of units which are clear cut definite.

So who's freedom is more important?

No I did not. Go back and read my post again.

because we have other factors to weigh in, such as our culture and tradition.

And no, to refute your point that Muslim nations that are progressive are just evident that more radical communities are unnecessary; that lies on the egocentric assumption that Muslim nations will all follow the trajectory that Western nations have taken, and will become democratic.

Secondly, I think you have a very narrow-minded view of what Muslim culture is. It's not a tradition of being slaves, and Muslim nations were often afforded more freedom than Christian ones in the past, such as the right for a woman to initiate divorce. Thirdly, they are proud of their tradition, that is positive (Duh right? Go back and think through it.).

Well, then sorry for your narrow-mindedness if you can't trust a Muslim because a small minority does all that, whilst you unfairly blame the rest of the moderates for not being able to overpower that minority, who are often in places of power.

That's an ignorant view, given that both religions are different. I could meet one Italian, and tell the Germans that all Europeans are like that. Or a Texan, and tell all Americans that they're like that. Is that fair? NO.

Also, the fact that they can disagree with certain parts of the book because it does not fit with their beliefs is not something to be slammed, but on the contrary, applauded, because it shows that they aren't as constrained by their religion as you think.

Also, the fact that they can disagree with certain parts of the book because it does not fit with their beliefs is not something to be slammed, but on the contrary, applauded, because it shows that they aren't as constrained by their religion as you think.

I've been raised in a leftwing oriented family and I still hold many leftwing views, and I'm denifitely favorable to socialist institutions and other ways to put society over my needs. Yet, unlike you, I can't in good conscience just say that I do so because my ancestors did and the tradition can't be broken. That's why I tried my best to conciliate those views with the only values that make sense to me: freedom and equality. Resulting with the freedom distribution thing.

Asking who's freedom is more important is irrelevant, beside the fact that I already said everyone deserves the same, because your gun and smoking examples are unrelated to such a problem: the freedoms to be lost and gained are different, so the only question is "what freedoms are more important, and what can be sacrificed?" And I agree that there are cases where it is not possible to decide objectively and where freedom is not easy to divide equally with an absolute judgement. Yet, this is hardly the case for religious impositions, as they usually result in no freedom gained for anyone, making the judgement rather easy.

Sounded like we have no other factors to weigh in. Anyway.

I don't get it? All I was saying is that if you can consider good Muslims the ones that live in progressive nations, as you seem to do, then there is no reason why another community should limit the freedom of its people since the progressive nations prove that good, true Islam can coexist with freedom. I'm really not taking any western nation as a model, I'm considering exclusively progressive and conservative Muslim nations.

But how am I supposed to take their beliefs seriously, if they are so much contradictory? Basically it's like if someone told you: "I would never kill you, it's a bad thing and it's against my values. But you know that guy who told me I should kill you? He was totally right." (killing is just an example.)

Slavery was a bit of an hyperbole I guess, but you are failing to answer my point. When I said that, I obviously weren't referring to the ones who are happy and satisfied with Islam, but to the ones that would happily live without it, yet are FORCED to adapt just because they live in the same nation. I think that is the core point: just like we can't assume the fanatics are representative of the whole Muslim community, you can't assume that the happy and proud Muslim community is representative of every single individual living in a Muslim country and thus subject to Islamic impositions. Even when you talk about tradition, you have to realize that while the majority is favorable to it, there will always a minority of people who disagree, but the tradition is forced over them.

No they aren't. Who's freedom is more important IS the question. You claim that the question should be ''what freedoms are more important, and what can be sacrifised?", that's essentially the same question.

And I disagree, with religious impositions, there are usually freedom gains. By taking away and accusing Sharia law of being barbaric when in most cases it isn't, the problem is with you, and not the Muslims, because you're taking their freedom to practice their own laws (which is what most want these days), or at the very least, decrying it as demonic, and painting an unfairly negative picture of it.

When France tried to ban the Burqa itself, that's infringing on religious freedom. When Switzerland banned the construction of minarets, that is infringing on religious freedom. When the US tried to ban the building of a mosque at ground zero, that is infringing on religious freedom.

Yes, and I countered it by stating that even if a few Muslim communities progress (and they don't even ''rogress'' like Westerners think they do), there's no basis that all Muslims communitites need, will, should, simply because cultures and countries are different even internally. What I discuss as progress here is not your progress of democracy and liberalism, it's progress of adapting Islam to more modern contexts, whilst still holding on very strongly to their beliefs.

Those are radicals. Would asked you to trust them? Talk to more Muslims. Most don't agree with killing of any form, even if the Quran states it.

No, that's not the same question. To use the gun control example, you're sticking to the simplified image of a gun owner losing freedom and his neighbour losing it, but in fact, the law affects both in the same way: the gun owner loses his right to bear his gun, but he gains the freedom to live a safer life himself, just like his neighbour, while gaining the freedom to safety, he will lose the right to have a gun himself. So at this point there is really no reason to make a difference between people.

You used yourself the word &quotractice": taking away Shariah doesn't prevent anyone from following its laws, just like I would be free to wear a veil even if there's nothing that tells me to do so. It would only prevent people to force the laws on other people who might disagree. ("taking away" begins to sound weird, just for clarification I'll remind that I have no desire to burn the texts and delete the memory, but only to make sure that it isn't held as a law and imposed on other people)

Pretty much.

A reason why they should progress is to be more respectful of personal freedom, simply. I can accept if you counter this reason by saying that personal freedom breaks the Islamic tradition, but then you can't say that there are countries where the extra freedom didn't break the tradition because that denies your counter.

Actually I was trying to depict the moderates/progressives. The radicals go "the Qu'ran is always right, the Qu'ran tells me to do this, so I do it". The moderates, on the other hand, seem to think this way: "the Qu'ran is always right, the Qu'ran tells me to do this, yet I'm not going to do it". (please don't tell me that the Qu'ran is against killing, I was using killing as a random example for any Koranic law)

It is the same question - that of judging how freedom can be allocated. The fact that the gun owner gains the freedom of having a safer life is irrelevant simply because he does not want it, he wants the freedom of owning and using the gun, which is infringed upon.

How can a country practice Sharia law if you take away and force them not to practice that law? Sharia is not just a moral code of enforcing veil-wearing, or petty superficial rules like that. Sharia law is often the legal system. It is a way of life, that in many ways is not inferior to Western law, like English civil law, which is the basis of law in many Commonwealth nations.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Not all communities value personal freedom, nor even think that they're freedom is impinged upon, unlike more open, often Western societies.

You're skirting the examples given.

Am I? I'm only against imposition. How is building something, or wearing whatever one wants to wear, an imposition? Why would I ever oppose that, after all my rambling over freedom?

I thought you said it was an universal value?

Until you give me a rational justification of why the Sharia gets the power to limit people's freedom (possibly better than "because our fathers did&quot, I'm not going to consider it a legitimate legal system, and I will consider its imposition as a breaking of human rights.

Yes, that's the question, but it doesn't imply at all the necessity to make a difference between people. Everyone is given the same amount of freedom. It doesn't matter if he enjoys the freedom he gave up more than the one he gained. Or should we base laws on individual people's wishes? If one enjoys the freedom to kill more than the freedom to live safely, does he have the right to require a law fitting to his desire?

Read my examples. Countries are infringing on the right of Muslims, yet have the cheek to also claim that Muslims need to change? Clearly some bias is at hand.

It is. I should be more clear; not every society values personal freedom to the same degree, and most certainly not all place it upon the topmost pedestal like Western societies do.

Sharia law is much more than what you think of it; it isn't about harsh punishments. It shares many of the same facets of law that Westerners consider is law, such as a fair divorce process. Why do you have the power to limit my gun rights? Or my smoking rights? Why? Sharia law has bits and parts that do indeed infringe on freedom, but that's not the basis of the whole system, of which most non-Muslims are wholly unconcerned and uninterested in, seeing instead, only the bloody face of Sharia law.

No, how can you claim that everyone is given the same amount of freedom, when the freedom I want is not allowed?

Just like someone in a Western, ''rogressive'' society makes the laws that infringe on laws, someone in a Muslim society does, and they do it in vastly different ways that will end up at loggerheads at each other.

We didn't get hung up on the fact that the racist beliefs, apartheid, KKK and Jim Crow laws discriminated against many people in the West and generalized all Westerners as such. Perhaps you should afford the Muslim community such a luxury.

Honestly I wouldn't consider myself as a country. I am stating my own views, why do you bring up other people's ones?

Okay, so conservative Muslim communities might have another value that they consider more important than freedom, and at that point they can give up freedom in order to preserve the other value, if they claim that such value would be damaged by freedom. But integrity of Islam cannot be that value, because the less conservative Muslim communities prove that freedom does not damage it. That was my point.

Yes, I get that Sharia contains parts equivalent to any other legal system, I have nothing against those parts.
The power to limit gun rights comes from the freedom distribution principle. Or better, that's how I justify such a law (because I'm not actually in charge of western legislation).

What is the problem? I really want to have the freedom to rule Europe, while a friend of mine is not interested in such freedom. Does that mean we are granted different levels of freedom? Am I less free because I desire something that my freedoms don't include?

As I said, I only accept laws that are based on a logical principle. It doesn't matter if it's the one I'm using or not, it just has to be logical. And I'm not saying all western laws are logical and all Muslim laws are illogical, either.

Don't use such things against me just because they came from the west. It doesn't mean I agree with them. Just like I wouldn't repeat all this to someone coming from a Muslim country unless he actually agrees with the Muslim principles I'm opposing, and that's also why I'm not targeting the Muslim community as a whole, but just the ones that support those principles. There is no need for any generalization.

Yes, but less conservative and more conservative Muslim communities are two different groups altogether, are they not?

Yes and no. It depends what 'level' you mean by 'group'. It's almost like taxonomy; different in the sense that a pug is not a lab vs this "dog" doesn't fall under the higher classification of "wolf" and therefore isn't really a dog. The religious groups are both identify using the same main group label. Within the main, there are their sub-groups. Those are what generally depend upon disagreements in the details/lifestyles/dogmas/etc and it splits further from there. It depends on how broadly or narrowly the main group is defined, if it would really include the subs that claim to be a part of it. For example, Christian could simply mean "good/noble/kind", which would include a lot more people than would generally identify as Christians. In common use, wiki says the basic assumptions associated with the title "include belief in theism, the historicity of Jesus, the Incarnation, salvation through faith in Jesus, and Jesus as an ethical role model".

Until you give me a rational justification of why the Sharia gets the power to limit people's freedom (possibly better than "because our fathers did&quot, I'm not going to consider it a legitimate legal system, and I will consider its imposition as a breaking of human rights.

Last I had heard there are roughly 1.57 billion Muslims in the entire world, so to generalize roughly 20% of the entire population is, in my mind, idiotic. I would avoid people that hate such a large, diverse group.

A Hui Muslim is different from a Salafi Muslim, or a Sufi Muslim. Now that's simpler.