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Is there something wrong with pointing out its positive aspects? Personally I appreciate the counter balance to the last two decades of racist tropes.
by cle 6y ago
Is there something wrong with pointing out its positive aspects? Personally I appreciate the counter balance to the last two decades of racist tropes.
- falseprofit 6y agoIslam isn't a race, and mathematics isn't a religious achievement.
- badconvincer 6y agoI would argue that Islam is not a race but it is almost entirely a non-white religion so there are some connotations there. Obviously the modern definition of white is socially constructed but it’s where we are currently.
- fastball 6y agoWhy does that matter? If you don't like a specific ideology that happens to be majority non-white, you're automatically a racist / criticism of it is automatically racist? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with North Africans, Arabs, Indonesians, etc, etc. There is a lot wrong with Islam. Just as there are problems with every religion. Islam's are just more severe. Islam is as worthy of defense as communism, which is to say – not very much.
- badconvincer 6y agoI’m not a fan of Islam myself but if I had to find reasons in its favor I would say it’s extremely unifying, offers contentment through absolute submission and fosters a martial sense in its adherents I find missing in a lot of religions. Additionally I feel like it is the religion that would be the most accepting of a scientific interpretation of the world if it can get past the modern Wahhabism that’s being spewed. The western world has also historically demonized people all over the world through various implicative means so it’s not surprising people are on guard when all you’re probably trying to do is be direct and straightforward. The key here is “probably”, I genuinely don’t know your motivations.
- Spooky23 6y agoTake the racist bullshit somewhere else.
- cle 6y agoI think we’re on the same page, but I’d argue that a race is defined by how it’s used, if people decide to lump Muslims together into one category and generalize based on that, like is common in the West, then I’d say it’s probably a race. (I don’t find the distinction to be very important outside of how it’s misused.)
- fastball 6y agoWhat? An ideology is definitely not a race. Racism is bad because you are judging people based on intrinsic characteristics they cannot change. Being Muslim is... definitely not that.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoThe term "racism" has been used to describe prejudices against religious groups (not just what you or I would consider "intrinsic characteristics") for decades now: see the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
- fastball 6y agoFairly certain it's usually ethnic groups, not wider religious groups. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the OED on hand. That being said, luckily this still isn't racist, because there is no prejudice here. My problems with Islam are entirely rational.
- bgilroy26 6y agoAny sufficiently large group activity can become analogous to the family Sharing a government of a country, a university president, an artistic director of a theatre, a religious leader or council of elders, a chief executive officer, the heads of a political party or mvmt, author of a media IP with a fandom, leader of a reinterpretation of an artistic work that has its own following All of these things create little societies that are smaller than all of humanity. These all are modeled off of family dynamics and to minister over them requires the community toown their own language the languages which leads naturally to the Tower of Babel problem. The Tower of Babel problem which is that translation of language/dialect/accent/jargon from one group to another is cognitively taxing and anticipation of that work makes us angry/despairing on an emotional level If everyone understood that these groups were different expressions of the same format we could all work together and the laws could be much simpler in one respect and more complicated in others (eg banning discrimination on the basis of race/creed/ethnicity/nation of origin/gender/age could remove the inexhaustible list of possibal tribal categories but they'd need to add some kind of Code of Conduct like a programming language has to handle their conferences and email groups)
- bigbubba 6y agoI've seen 'white' Roman Catholics from southern Italy that are far more swarthy than many Muslims from Iran or Lebanon. And I'd be hard pressed to visually distinguish an orthodox Greek from a muslim Turk... So yes, it's very much a socially constructed matter. Incidentally I believe Arabs, Persians, Turks, etc are often classified as caucasian (particularly on the US census I believe?) So these cultural definitions aren't even consistent within specific societal context. I've even seen some racists online say that Italians aren't white, because they aren't nordic.
- badconvincer 6y agoThey’re not. Arabs, Iranians etc. show up as Asian in the US though you’re free to pick whatever you want.
- bigbubba 6y agoI suppose this is meant to be changed. I can't say I paid attention to what the 2020 census actually said, but on this matter Wikipedia says: > White American, European American, or Middle Eastern American: those having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. Following consultations with Middle East and North Africa (MENA) organizations, the Census Bureau announced in 2014 that it would establish a new MENA ethnic category for populations from the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab world.[18] However, this did not occur on the 2020 Census.
- raverbashing 6y agoAh yes the "Asian" monicker, the most generic and "racist" (in its own way) ethnical description in the English language You're adding South Asians, SE Asians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Mongols, etc all under the same umbrella
- bigbubba 6y agoSeems to me that describing people based on their continent of origin, rather than their apparent 'race', is distinctly not racist. Though there is something to be said for the arbitrary nature in which Eurasia is split into 'two continents'.
- fastball 6y agoYes. Just like it doesn't matter if a serial killer volunteered at the local food bank. This academy thrived because the people valued knowledge and the pursuit of it, not because they were Muslim.
- cle 6y agoI’m sorry did I claim that they thrived because they were Muslim? I like it because many people in my culture see Muslims as a single homogeneous race of evil, destructive people, and a lot of the discourse reflects that. That kind of categorization and generalization is obviously BS, and I think stories like this help demonstrate that.
- fastball 6y agoNo, the article is claiming that with its headline. That is the matter at hand in this subthread.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- john4532452 6y agoWhen the founder is a pedo its hard to look for postive things. By the way Hind caste system is even worse.
- tim333 6y ago99%+ of muslims are not that way and were born into it. So you can look at that stuff I guess.
- john4532452 6y agoMy point is why do you defend the religion. IMNHO well educated people defending ISLAM are the actual source of problem rather that the extremist. Extremists are honest and open about their view and can be barred from entering non islamic countries. OTOH moderate muslims can not be banned at the same time they silently support the ISLAM.
- tim333 6y agoDunno. It's complicated. The bible has lots of bits about killing homosexuals and us christians used to persecute Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing. I guess the reasonable viewpoint is that christianity is not inherently evil but lay off the stonings etc. Likewise for islam.
- dang 6y agoReligious flamewar will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post anything like this or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319136 again.
- john4532452 6y agoOk. This one was a bit too far. I agree. But this is not https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25319136 How to respond to the arguments that support religion and discourage it. PS: I am not just against ISLAM if that's what any one thinks(look at my past comments)