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I probably agree with you on more things religious than not. Having said that, I was correcting OP, who strongly suggested that Islam was uniquely misogynist by

I probably agree with you on more things religious than not. Having said that, I was correcting OP, who strongly suggested that Islam was uniquely misogynist by quoting a couple passages from the Quran. What I think is really interesting is that the some of the strongest currents in Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all converging on the subjugation of women, especially the control of their bodies and their sexuality. > We can also do this with Islam too, a religion founded by a slaver war monger who had sex slaves, and whose teachings say women are a sexual reward. A helpful reminder to you that Christianity was founded by a man who never married, never had children, and lived poor his whole life. Something literally no one within Christianity espouses today. It is ignorant to assume that Muslims all aspire to live like Mohammad when virtually no Christians aspire to live like Christ.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Islams founder's take differs quite a bit from Christianity's founder's take. We should be able to point that out without being called racist/bigot/receiving down votes. One had sex slaves, one did not marry and instead treated the world as his children. Virtually every Christian I know aspires to be as Christ like as they can. You may not see that in their actions, but in their beliefs they definitely aspire to that. Are you saying Muslims don't hold their prophet in high regard? The prophet is just symbolic? Christians believe you should wait until marriage for sex. So they very much preach item 2 you list. Most Christians I know follow item 3 and literally espouse it. That you should not be greedy. You should not take advantage of others. You should live life for a moral purpose, for entry to heaven, not material gain. Christianity teaches that you can't be Jesus, that is the point of the religion. You can't be a god. You can only be the best flawed human you can, and that is good enough, and you are forgiven for those flaws, IF you TRY to be better than your base nature. It teaches that Christs life was that of a god, and yet he still took time to take care of/see the lowest among us. Not that his life was one we can do, but definitely one we should aspire to. Does Islam not teach you should aspire to be like their prophet? That his morality should be an inspiration? The west is freely accepting of calling out Christianity, Mormonism, Scientology. But we can't examine/be critical of Islam. That is not OK. I've known way more Muslims than Scientologists. It is not a foreign/abstract religion, but a real religion present in our communities. There is a lot in Islam that needs to be called out and processed by the Muslim faithful. Tom Cruise can be called out on his faith. Mitt Romney had his faith called out a ton and that was OK. Catholics get called out all the time for being Catholic. We can call out other religions too without it suddenly being racist/bigoted. No, it's calling out if a religion has some crappy beliefs/justifications and saying 'I'm not sure about a person who believes these things as a core part of their identity'. All that said I would love to see Mamdani as mayor of New York. His religion/acts done under it shouldn't define him, just like with Tom Cruise, Mitt Romney. We're all people making our way, not caricatures defined externally.
- teachrdan 1y ago
  > Virtually every Christian I know aspires to be as Christ like as they can. You may not see that in their actions, but in their beliefs they definitely aspire to that. This is a nonsense statement. It's trivially obvious how to be "Christ like": Live poor, help the disenfranchised, feed the hungry, heal the wounded, don't marry, don't have kids, and preach the gospel, if only to a small number of people. If the Christians you know don't live like that, then they are not being "Christ like." To say they are while they do the opposite -- work to get rich, get married and have big families, confine their spiritual work to Sunday mornings, occasionally giving to charity (or only to their own church) -- is to believe that words have no meaning at all. I'm sure the people you think of as "Christ like" are by and large perfectly wonderful human beings. But this whole discussion was sparked by a powerful man at Sequoia making reductive statements about all of Islam based on a few quotations from the Quran. At some point we have to admit that the way people practice religion does not necessarily follow what's written in their texts. And to suggest, as others have in this very thread, that because Mohammad married had multiple wives means that all of his followers want to as well, is as ignorant as assuming that all Christians want to live like Christ actually lived.
  - _DeadFred_ 1y ago
    The Quran is held by Muslims as 'the perfect word of God'. It is treated much differently than the Christian bible which gets somewhat loosely translated into many languages. As the perfect word of God, quotations from it ARE THE PERFECT WORD OF GOD. How is talking about what someone believes is the exact and perfect words of God off limits/racist/bigoted? How is saying that 'Gods perfect representative on earth' having sex slaves makes me call the beliefs of followers of Islam in to question racist/bigoted? I want to know if someone is OK with sexual slavery. A religion that talks about when it gives out sex slaves/sex as a reward to good men makes me have questions about how someone who believes that sees women. Believe me, I struggle with it. The founders of my country were awful men who raped female slaves themselves. I struggle with how do I incorporate 'good parts' of their ideology when they were vile human beings. But I think it is important to challenge that, to ask that question, especially of myself and my nation. I can't imagine if that was my founding religious leader. Asking 'what about Thomas Jefferson raping his understage slave' isn't being racist. It's legit 'how do you reconcile these things'. It's hugely informative. Islam is a much more mainstream American religion than Scientology. There are only maybe 50,000 Scientologists in the US. There are around 3.5 million Muslims. I should be able to talk about Islam with at least the same criticality. Please understand my culture is to challenge religions/religious people/politicians/admired figures, not just Muslims. Muslims, because they believe the Quran is the perfect word of God, are in a tough spot when their perfect word of God says things like lying or sexual slavery are OK. Just like Americans when their 'freedom fighter' founders also had literal sex slaves. But that does not mean we should not challenge. I get it's really hard for Muslims because they can't challenge 'the perfect word of God' but that doesn't make it bigoted/racist to say 'this person's religion says it is the perfect word of god that they can lie about this how do I know they are telling the truth'. In the US, we reformed, we did away with slavery. We condemn the actions of our founders. Islam being the perfect word of God with it's perfect messenger on earth can't really condemn nor phase these things out. So how public political figures reconcile these things is very valid to bring up.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

Islams founder's take differs quite a bit from Christianity's founder's take. We should be able to point that out without being called racist/bigot/receiving down votes. One had sex slaves, one did not marry and instead treated the world as his children. Virtually every Christian I know aspires to be as Christ like as they can. You may not see that in their actions, but in their beliefs they definitely aspire to that. Are you saying Muslims don't hold their prophet in high regard? The prophet is just symbolic? Christians believe you should wait until marriage for sex. So they very much preach item 2 you list. Most Christians I know follow item 3 and literally espouse it. That you should not be greedy. You should not take advantage of others. You should live life for a moral purpose, for entry to heaven, not material gain. Christianity teaches that you can't be Jesus, that is the point of the religion. You can't be a god. You can only be the best flawed human you can, and that is good enough, and you are forgiven for those flaws, IF you TRY to be better than your base nature. It teaches that Christs life was that of a god, and yet he still took time to take care of/see the lowest among us. Not that his life was one we can do, but definitely one we should aspire to. Does Islam not teach you should aspire to be like their prophet? That his morality should be an inspiration? The west is freely accepting of calling out Christianity, Mormonism, Scientology. But we can't examine/be critical of Islam. That is not OK. I've known way more Muslims than Scientologists. It is not a foreign/abstract religion, but a real religion present in our communities. There is a lot in Islam that needs to be called out and processed by the Muslim faithful. Tom Cruise can be called out on his faith. Mitt Romney had his faith called out a ton and that was OK. Catholics get called out all the time for being Catholic. We can call out other religions too without it suddenly being racist/bigoted. No, it's calling out if a religion has some crappy beliefs/justifications and saying 'I'm not sure about a person who believes these things as a core part of their identity'. All that said I would love to see Mamdani as mayor of New York. His religion/acts done under it shouldn't define him, just like with Tom Cruise, Mitt Romney. We're all people making our way, not caricatures defined externally.

teachrdan 1y ago
> Virtually every Christian I know aspires to be as Christ like as they can. You may not see that in their actions, but in their beliefs they definitely aspire to that. This is a nonsense statement. It's trivially obvious how to be "Christ like": Live poor, help the disenfranchised, feed the hungry, heal the wounded, don't marry, don't have kids, and preach the gospel, if only to a small number of people. If the Christians you know don't live like that, then they are not being "Christ like." To say they are while they do the opposite -- work to get rich, get married and have big families, confine their spiritual work to Sunday mornings, occasionally giving to charity (or only to their own church) -- is to believe that words have no meaning at all. I'm sure the people you think of as "Christ like" are by and large perfectly wonderful human beings. But this whole discussion was sparked by a powerful man at Sequoia making reductive statements about all of Islam based on a few quotations from the Quran. At some point we have to admit that the way people practice religion does not necessarily follow what's written in their texts. And to suggest, as others have in this very thread, that because Mohammad married had multiple wives means that all of his followers want to as well, is as ignorant as assuming that all Christians want to live like Christ actually lived.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  The Quran is held by Muslims as 'the perfect word of God'. It is treated much differently than the Christian bible which gets somewhat loosely translated into many languages. As the perfect word of God, quotations from it ARE THE PERFECT WORD OF GOD. How is talking about what someone believes is the exact and perfect words of God off limits/racist/bigoted? How is saying that 'Gods perfect representative on earth' having sex slaves makes me call the beliefs of followers of Islam in to question racist/bigoted? I want to know if someone is OK with sexual slavery. A religion that talks about when it gives out sex slaves/sex as a reward to good men makes me have questions about how someone who believes that sees women. Believe me, I struggle with it. The founders of my country were awful men who raped female slaves themselves. I struggle with how do I incorporate 'good parts' of their ideology when they were vile human beings. But I think it is important to challenge that, to ask that question, especially of myself and my nation. I can't imagine if that was my founding religious leader. Asking 'what about Thomas Jefferson raping his understage slave' isn't being racist. It's legit 'how do you reconcile these things'. It's hugely informative. Islam is a much more mainstream American religion than Scientology. There are only maybe 50,000 Scientologists in the US. There are around 3.5 million Muslims. I should be able to talk about Islam with at least the same criticality. Please understand my culture is to challenge religions/religious people/politicians/admired figures, not just Muslims. Muslims, because they believe the Quran is the perfect word of God, are in a tough spot when their perfect word of God says things like lying or sexual slavery are OK. Just like Americans when their 'freedom fighter' founders also had literal sex slaves. But that does not mean we should not challenge. I get it's really hard for Muslims because they can't challenge 'the perfect word of God' but that doesn't make it bigoted/racist to say 'this person's religion says it is the perfect word of god that they can lie about this how do I know they are telling the truth'. In the US, we reformed, we did away with slavery. We condemn the actions of our founders. Islam being the perfect word of God with it's perfect messenger on earth can't really condemn nor phase these things out. So how public political figures reconcile these things is very valid to bring up.