Briefly, criticising people's genes is wrong.
You can't change your genes.
You can't help being born white, black, Arab, or whatever.
But criticising people's memes is ok
- indeed it is what free speech is all about.
You can change your memes.
Being born an Arab Muslim doesn't mean you can't adopt western values,
be tolerant of gays, Jews and atheists,
even abandon Islam altogether.
Criticism of people's religion can be difficult.
How does one tell the difference between
logical criticism
and simple hatred and bigotry?
For example,
how does one tell the difference between
criticism of the
supernatural meme of Judaism
and simple
anti-semitism?
The trick, I think, is that
criticism
should be optimistic and positive.
It should
be done with respect for the well-being of the people involved,
and hope that they change to better memes.
Instead of saying:
"Followers of meme X
are evil and we should fear them"
it is far better to say that:
"Followers of meme X should abandon it
and adopt better memes".
It should always be done with an open respect for
freedom of religion
- namely, the right of the person to ignore your criticism
and carry on believing in their memes freely.
Meme X itself cannot demand respect.
It should always be legal to say:
"Meme X is evil".
But then to follow it with:
"Believers in meme X should abandon it and adopt better memes"
to make it clear you are in the world of logic and debate
rather than in the world of extermination.
The optimistic, positive message
to Arabs and Muslims
is that they should
abandon the culture of their ancestors,
and adopt something better.
I have abandoned the culture of
my ancestors,
and adopted something better.
So have millions of other people,
such as the Indian Ibn Warraq
and the Iranians Ali Sina
and
Amir Taheri.
People imagine that their religions have been around forever,
when in fact they were only
invented at a certain point in history,
and before that, not one person on earth
believed in them.
So all Muslims have already
abandoned the culture of their ancestors.
They imagine that Islam is the "natural" religion of the Middle East,
when in fact it is a 7th century betrayal of the beliefs of the
ancestors of the Middle East population.
All Muslims have several billion pre-Muslim and non-Muslim ancestors who would be baffled
and horrified
by their descendants' beliefs.
We have all betrayed our ancestors.
It is simply a matter of choosing which ancestors to betray.
Anti-racism
- Racism is pessimistic and unscientific.
"Islamophobia"
- the left attempt to stop criticism of conservative religion.
It is interesting how the extreme left
are collaborating with gay-hating, anti-semitic, atheist-hating
Islamists
in using
racial "hatred"
or
religious "hatred"
laws to try to roll back
the freedom to criticise religion
that took us hundreds of years, and many martyrs, to win.
Of course it's baffling
why the left likes Islamism so much.
It is only Islam
that the left supports.
They don't support Christianity.
For some reason,
it's only Islam
that the left wants to make it illegal to criticise.
They don't want to make it illegal to criticise Christianity.
Of course, it should be legal to criticise both.
Freedom of religion
- Just as I have the right to criticise your memes,
so you have the right to ignore my criticism
and carry on believing whatever memes you like.
The Blackmail Of Islamophobia,
Pascal Bruckner
- How the accusation of "Islamophobia" is used to silence atheists, unbelievers
and moderate Muslims.
"What is this all about in reality? Removing the religion of the Koran from the test
to which the two other existing monotheisms have long been subject: the test of self-examination."
Far from being "racist",
".. arguing against a system of thought
or belief, rejecting its ideas, convictions which you judge, rightly or wrongly, to be false or dangerous is the
very foundation of intellectual life and free thought.
...
If Voltaire
were alive today, we can bet that certain
"anti-racists" would have him thrown in prison."
Nonie Darwish
(born an Egyptian Muslim)
on jihadi preachers in the West,
and the assertions that those who criticise them are "Islamophobic" racists:
"Such preachers are often regarded as a joke and as extreme even by moderate Muslims in Egypt
only to find themselves with new respectable status and freedoms they could only dream of
under Muslim dictatorships. Such Muslim radical preachers should never have been allowed in America.
But believe it or not they have discovered that only in America
can they work the system to their advantage to demand this and that
and if anyone criticizes them they learn the good old buzz words in America:
racist, bigot and Islamophobia
- the choice words they learned quickly from some Muslim American organizations
who claim to be moderate."
'Islamophobia' Idiocy, Amir Taheri (Iranian atheist), July 3, 2007
- "Britain and a few other Western democracies are the only places on earth where Muslims of all persuasions can practice their faith in full freedom. A thick directory of Muslim institutions in Britain lists more than 300 different sects - most of them banned and persecuted in every Muslim country on earth.
A Shiite Muslim can't build a mosque in Cairo; his Sunni brother can't have a mosque of his own in Tehran. Editions of the Koran printed in Egypt or Saudi Arabia are seized as contraband in Iran; Egypt and most other Muslim nations in turn ban the import of Korans printed in Iran. The works of a majority of Muslim writers and philosophers are banned in most Muslim countries.
In Britain, all mosques are allowed; no Muslim author or philosopher is banned."
Johann Hari
on the left's tolerance of sharia rules for Muslim women in the west:
"Multiculturalism was formed with good intentions as a counter-reaction"
[to the old racism]
"But it has become a mirror-image of this old racism, treating Muslim women - and others - as so different that they do not deserve the same rights as the rest of us."
Iranian feminist Azar Majedi:
"Multiculturalism is racism; cultural relativism is racism; this should be recognized once and for all. By defining different laws for different citizens on the basis of such arbitrary concepts such as culture or religion, we leave the lot of the weakest sections of that so-called "cultural community" to the mercy of the self-imposed leaders of that community."
Muhammad Sven Kalisch,
a Muslim who has come to believe that
The Prophet Muhammad never existed,
says that
it is wrong to treat Muslims as if they are children
whose faith must be protected from criticism
and frightening new ideas,
whereas Christians need no such protection:
"The word "respect" sounds wonderful but it is completely inappropriate here because one really refers to the opposite. Whoever thinks that Muslims can't deal with facts puts Muslims on the same level as small children who can't think and decide for themselves and whose illusions of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny one doesn't want to destroy."
Monica Ali, quoted 1 Feb 2009, says the way the left treats minorities could be seen as racist:
"Liberals, she says, "begin with sympathy for the underdog. They want to defend minority communities because they are beleaguered communities. But what they end up doing is listening to the loudest voices in those communities and ignoring the diversity".
It is striking, she points out, how, in the name of respect for minorities, minority voices themselves get silenced. The liberal idea of respect, Ali notes, is patronising: "It is a kind of moral superiority. What liberals mean when they talk about respect is that they can handle complex fiction, ambiguity, criticism, but other people can't, especially people in minority communities, because they are too sensitive.""
There is an extraordinary modern idea that we should "respect" other people's beliefs.
Often it is suggested that we should "respect" Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or other religions,
simply
because they are old, or have lots of followers.
This shows a basic lack of understanding of what a free society is.
A free society is one in which
you have the right to believe nonsense,
and I have the right to call it nonsense.
You don't have to "respect" my stupid beliefs.
And I don't have to "respect" yours.
But we both must agree to leave the other alone to believe what they want in peace.
So many so-called "liberals" fail to understand this basic building block of a western liberal society.
jesusandmo.net cartoon
on the idea that we have to "respect" other people's beliefs.
"It is abject nonsense to say that we understand and even share to some degree
the primitive Muslim outrage expressed ...
at the Danish cartoons, in the unctuous Clintonian sense of feeling their pain.
Perhaps we understand the outrage in the anthropological sense,
as a symptom of injured pride and the thuggishness that injured pride generates.
But that is not what Jack Straw ... meant,
or rather intended us to think he meant."
"We do not, most of us, respect Islam any more than we respect people who speak in tongues.
What we respect is the right of Muslims to practise their religion in perfect peace,
in so far as it does not conflict with our laws.
...
Tolerance is not a matter of respecting what is tolerated
- if it were, tolerance would hardly be necessary."
"Surely Muslims in this country and elsewhere know perfectly well that we, most of us,
do not respect their religion, in the sense of according it
high
intellectual, moral or artistic status
in the modern world
...
Some among them find this intolerable"
He is appalled at politicians' response to the cartoons hysteria:
"Instead, Muslims should be told quite clearly that
our citizens have the legal right
to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock Mohammed to their heart's content,
in any way that they wish: that Islam and Muslims have no special claim to protection
from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life.
If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else"
The atheist Johann Hari on Islam, 14 August 2008:
"Insulating a religion from criticism - surrounding it with an electric fence called "respect" - keeps it stunted at its most infantile and fundamentalist stage. The smart, questioning and instinctively moral Muslims - the majority - learn to be silent, or are shunned (at best).
...
So why do many people who cheer The Life Of Brian and Jerry Springer: The Opera turn into clucking Mary Whitehouses when it comes to Islam?
...
It is condescending to treat Muslims like excitable children who cannot cope with the probing, mocking treatment we hand out to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism."
Oliver Kamm:
Religious tests and public office:
"If you're a religious believer, don't ask me for respect; you don't have it. Call me an "Islamophobe" or a "Christianophobe" and I will accept these terms as compliments ... If you seek legal protection for your religious beliefs (as opposed to the freedom to worship any god or none) then I will oppose you and accept no compromise. But leave me and (more important) my fellow citizens alone, and I will remain indifferent to whatever myths of origins and eschatology you espouse."
Demanding respect.
Q. "So are you saying that it is "inherently unreasonable" for any religious group to ask for respect?"
A. "Yes, of course. The most, as well as the least, that any religious group is entitled to is freedom of belief, conscience, speech, worship and association, and that there be no religious test for public office. To ask for respect as well is inherently unreasonable."
Oliver Kamm, August 14, 2008:
"I strongly reject the notion that belief in the sacred is entitled to protection, whether by voluntary indulgence or legal sanction. The principle of respect for other people's deepest beliefs is not one I hold, and I consider its implications are pernicious."
The loony-left pro-Islamist site
Islamophobia Watch
is mainly written by "Martin Sullivan".
I had wondered for years if "Martin Sullivan"
was an Islamist.
But apparently he is
the loony-left
non-Muslim
Bob Pitt,
who worked for
Ken Livingstone
and promoted the
vile Islamist
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
Left-wing atheist
Johann Hari on Islamophobia Watch.
Apparently we can be atheists about Christianity,
but we are not allowed be atheists about Islam.
"[Islamophobia Watch]
defend Sacranie
on the grounds that his homophobia is part of his religion.
But religions are just another set of ideas formulated by human beings and open to human discussion.
Tatchell says, "All people are worthy of respect - but not all ideas are."
Just because somebody wrote it in a book a millennia ago and called it a 'religion',
doesn't place it beyond discussion. If I write a book calling Sacranie a homophobe
and claim it was dictated to me by the Archangel Gabriel,
will Pitt defend it as my religious view, and damn everyone who disagrees as 'Johann-phobic'?"
"Islamophobia Watch - and the dense chunk of the hard left that adopts a similar approach -
is trying to redefine consistent atheism as a form of racism."
"Islamophobia-Watch .. is a blog designed to smear human rights activists who criticise the treatment of women, gays and lesbian, secularists and apostates in Middle Eastern countries; defame Muslims who are critical of aspects of their own faith community or Islamist politics; and Iranian political dissidents - usually left-wing women - who criticise the reactionary and patriarchal theocratic regime
...
Much of his time seems to be spent pouring vitriol on middle eastern dissidents who oppose the Islamist politics he promotes."
Comment points out that "Islamophobia Watch" is spreading Islamophobia:
"In fact, by encouraging Islamism in this country, he does everybody who lives here a great disservice. He encourages anger and fear in Muslims, by falsely representing any criticism of Islamist groups as an attack on Muslims generally. He encourages anger and fear among ordinary people, who see what the Islamist groups say and do. Can you imagine what people think about Muslims,
when Bunglawala
is held up as their representative?"
Loonwatch.com
- run by leftists or Islamists,
it's hard to tell. (And isn't that a sad comment on the left!)
I suspect Loonwatch is run by Islamists, though,
because of the bitterness with which they attack Muslim apostates like
Wafa Sultan,
calling them:
"self-proclaimed turn coats from their Arab and Muslim identities".
Why would a non-Muslim care two cents
if a Muslim loses their faith and their Muslim identity?
Hence I suspect Loonwatch are Muslims who
don't have the honesty to say so.
Some anti-counterjihad people like the above
say that hostility to Islam and Islamism
is like the old anti-semitism, that
"Muslims are the new Jews"
who now need to fear persecution and extermination.
There are however some differences with pre-1939 anti-semitism:
Jews in the early 20th century were not carrying out terrorist attacks
on the western democracies.
If they were, then hostility to Judaism would have been quite justified.
Jews in the early 20th century were not threatening to end human rights
in the western democracies
and impose an oppressive Jewish religious law.
If they were, then hostility to Judaism would have been quite justified.
Jews in the early 20th century were not running countries
where religious minorities were persecuted and oppressed
under Jewish religious law.
If they were, then hostility to Judaism would have been quite justified.
Jews in the early 20th century were not
engaged in constant warfare and terror attacks throughout the world.
If they were, then hostility to Judaism would have been quite justified.
Jews in the early 20th century were not threatening to
conquer the world under their religion.
If they were, then hostility to Judaism would have been quite justified.
So not much of an analogy there, then.
Hostility to Judaism looks creepy not because Judaism makes sense (it makes no sense at all)
but because it is so harmless.
If Judaism was violent and oppressed people, I would certainly be a lot more hostile to it.
I like a lot of what D'Souza writes on
America and communism and the Cold War,
but he seems to be useless on Islamism.
It seems that because he is religious and Islam is religious,
he feels defensive of it in some way.
D'Souza talks rubbish about "traditional values".
He says the right should form an alliance with traditional Muslims,
both sharing conservative "traditional values"
in contrast to
the modern liberal, sexually permissive, atheist West
(which I love).
D'Souza says the right
should stop criticising Islam and the Prophet:
"First, stop attacking Islam. Conservatives have to cease blaming Islam
for the behavior of the radical Muslims. Recently the right has produced a spate
of Islamophobic tracts with titles like
Islam Unveiled,
Sword of the Prophet, (*) and
The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.
There is probably no better way to repel traditional Muslims,
and push them into the radical camp, than to attack their religion and their prophet."
In other words, D'Souza is saying that an Islamic Reformation,
or an Islamic Enlightenment, should not be allowed to take place,
and Islam and the Prophet must remain forever beyond criticism,
as Christianity and the Church were in the Middle Ages.
But my point stands that
open criticism of "their religion and their prophet"
is exactly what Islam needs, and far from creating more radicals,
it will create more apostates and moderates,
just as open criticism of Christianity has done over the last 200 years.
D'Souza also says about Islamic countries:
"if they want Sharia, let them have it."
"Worse than its sophomoric treatment of serious issues is its presentation of a blinkered and politically correct version of the Muslim world. It is a presentation that the young Mr. D'Souza would have scorned.
... Mr. D'Souza's portrait of the Muslim world verges on apologetics.
...
D'Souza stigmatizes [criticism of Islam]
as "Islamophobic." It is a judgment he expresses in the lexicon of the high church of political correctness that Mr. D'Souza mocked in a previous life. Getting in the spirit, he asserts that conservatives "have to cease blaming Islam for the behavior of radical Muslims." (We must instead learn to blame "the cultural left" for the behavior of radical Muslims.)"
In reference to the Muhammad cartoons, D'Souza attacks the idea that
"it is within the parameters of acceptable satire to blame Muhammad for the pathologies of radical Islam".
First, he gets it wrong by suggesting this would have to be satire, rather than
a reasonable theory (maybe D'Souza should read about the life of Muhammad).
Second, he suggests this is satire which is beyond the bounds of acceptable satire!
Robert Spencer debates Dinesh D'Souza.
D'Souza claims the West's freedom of speech and sexuality
repels "traditional Muslims", who are apparently different from "radical Muslims".
When asked for an example of the former, who the West should apparently be wooing,
D'Souza named the
Mufti of Egypt.
Unfortunately, as Spencer points out, the Mufti
supports Hizballah,
supports wife-beating,
has ruled that statues are un-Islamic,
and says apostates should be punished.
Robert Spencer summarises why
D'Souza is wrong to think of our liberal permissive society as a
cause of the Islamist jihad,
no matter how much Muslims might talk about it.
D'Souza is falling into the same trap as those who think Israel, say,
is the cause of the Islamist jihad:
"no redressing of Islamic grievances against the West (as Obama is relentlessly pursuing) will blunt the force of the global jihad: the grievances are just counters and recruiting tools for a jihad imperative that is based simply on the fact that we are Infidels, not Infidels with an objectionable foreign policy or pop culture."
The Mufti of Egypt,
who D'Souza praises as the kind of traditional Muslim
western conservatives should be allying with,
supports wife-beating. "Women in some cultures are not averse to beatings. They consider it as an expression of masculinity, and as a kind of control, which she herself desires."
The Dennis Prager controversy of 2006
shows some clear water between me and some other people on the right.
For me, the right to practice your religion (including Christianity and Islam)
is fundamental to a free society.
You cannot demand that I "respect" your mad supernatural beliefs,
but you have the right to practice them unmolested,
and especially without having other people's mad beliefs forced on you.
This
is a bizarre article
saying that congressmen should swear on the Bible.
What is bizarre is that Prager does not believe in the Bible.
At least, not the Christian Bible that congressmen swear on.
He is a Jew.
He claims that historically,
non-believers like Jews and Mormons have gone along with
swearing on the Bible, [1] and he thinks this is good,
and represents the unity of America.
I disagree. I think it is bizarre.
What is the problem with allowing any book? Or no book at all? [2]
I see no problem at all.
[2] In fact, no book is required by law.
Nor can it be, under the constitution.
The problem with Prager's argument is the element of compulsion.
Prager's original article
says that swearing on the Bible should be forced on all congressmen.
"Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned,
America is interested in only one book, the Bible.
If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress."
Though in the followup he says he does not want people to be forced by law.
See here:
"I don't think anything legal should be done about this.
...
I'm not arguing legality. I'm arguing what you should do."
Prager later regrets his article:
"'It was a rare example of my passion getting the better of my reason,'
said Prager, who regrets any implication that Ellison should not have the legal right
to swear on the Koran. Prager said he did not believe a
"religious test" should be a requirement to hold office."
Eugene Volokh
destroys Prager,
"whose work I often much like".
He notes that
Presidents Franklin Pierce and Herbert Hoover (a Quaker) didn't swear at all,
but rather affirmed.
Michael Medved:
"This year, one newly elected House member
.. will choose to take his oath of office on his own sacred scripture, the Koran.
Some religious conservatives have made themselves look terrible
- mean-spirited and intolerant and theocratic - by objecting to this innocuous gesture"
The ADL:
"Dennis Prager's argument ...
is
intolerant, misinformed and downright un-American.
...
Members of Congress, like all Americans, should be free to observe their own religious practices without government interference or coercion.".
Mary Katharine Ham
notes that it is like a ceasefire in the blog world.
Prager has
"unified Americans of the right and left blogospheres in a very rare way."
I still like Prager on other topics.
Since Prager doesn't believe in the Bible,
this must I think ultimately be filed as a bizarre,
rather than a bigoted Christian, statement.
The bottom line is that Muslims in the West should be free to practice their religion,
dress how they want,
build mosques, proselytise,
run for office, swear on the Koran,
and in general enjoy all the religious freedoms that are found in western secular democracies
and not in Islamic countries.
Islamic fundamentalism may be a deadly violent threat to the West,
but that is no reason to abolish freedom of religion.
As I say elsewhere,
we shouldn't give up our religious freedom just because some Middle Eastern hellholes deny it.
Debbie Schlussel
is another person
who talks sense on Islamism and global politics,
but talks nonsense about religion (this is quite common on the right).
And she also, like Prager, is, bizarrely, a Jew
who buys into Christian supremacism:
She says
in an attack on atheists
on the Paula Zahn show, CNN, January 31, 2007:
"Listen, we are a Christian nation.
I'm not a Christian. I'm Jewish, but I recognize we're a Christian country
and freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion."
Complete rubbish, of course.
The fundamental difference between the West and Islamic countries
is that we do have freedom from religion.
Why creepy?
Look at their 5 point plan
to combat Islamophobia
and
"to address the negative perceptions and stereotypes of Islam and British Muslims".
In their plan, there is no mention of
fighting (or even criticising!)
those Muslims who support terror, violence and oppression.
No mention of
opposing sharia law
and defending freedom of religion for apostates, atheists and infidels.
Robert Spencer gives them a better
5 point plan:
As Spencer points out, if they actually implemented his plan,
it would lead to a dramatic reduction in "Islamophobia".
But of course they are not listening.
Spencer then works through each of their 5 points in turn:
But of course they are not listening.
Robert Spencer explains how to end Islamophobia.
His 5 point plan starts
at 4:33.
But of course, whining grievance-mongering groups like
MPAC
are not listening.
An even more ludicrous ad campaign for Islam:
"Inspired by Muhammad",
claiming that Muhammad believed in women's rights (or any human rights).
As Edmund Standing
says:
"It's hard to tell if this campaign is run by sadly deluded people who actually believe the slogans are accurate or if this is an example of dissimulation for a kufr audience."
He also unearths the dodgy associations of
the woman above.
In response to the (rather pathetic) argument that maybe Muhammad
was "advanced for his time",
Standing
points out that pagan Roman philosophers
like, say, the 1st century AD
Gaius Musonius Rufus
had ideas on women that
were far more advanced than Muhammad,
despite living
centuries before Muhammad.
If Muslims want to reduce
fear and dislike of Islam in the West, they should, Spencer says:
Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people.
Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.
If Muslims do those five things, voila! "Misperceptions" of Islam will no longer hold sway among Americans. And "outright bigotry"? Forget it! It will be about as common as outright anti-Buddhist bigotry!
who D'Souza praises as the kind of traditional Muslim
western conservatives should be allying with,
supports wife-beating.
Since 1995.
