Political taboos

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As an atheist, I do not decry Islam any more than any other religion. However, I *will* sharpen my little picking bone further when it comes to * extremest* Muslims, much like I will with extremest christians.

Put it this way - extremist Muslims are a much bigger nuisance to us than extremist Christians at this moment in time. Europe has spent centuries trying to detox itself from the scourge of extreme Christianity and we still haven't quite managed it yet.

Though I take your point that, in the U.S., that they can be an irritant as well. At least they - mostly - don't try to bomb (hello Echelon!) people into submission though.

Thank you for clarifying that phrase and further explaining your situation to me. I have friends in the Netherlands who have expressed similar concerns. My point of contention was with certain generalizations being made, but I can understand perfectly being overwhelmed by sudden social change. Our relatively new Hispanic influx is shaking things up considerably. However, the solution is never anti-immigrant bigotry, something my Latino (and Muslim) friends struggle with regularly now.

Also, church bells are my biggest autism sensory hate, so I may have been overestimating their irritating-ness. Hate those things.

Granted. The area I am is highly conservative and most christian, so I deal with the bible thumpers far more often.

Ah, islamic schools - another controversial subject. They're funded by our generous government. There are reports of them teaching homosexuality is wrong, spending time analysing the Qur'an, forcing women to wear headscarves, assisting in forced marriage, and producing the worst overall results of all schools.

I'm not a big fan of christianity either, but it's a lot better than islam. Christianity, for one, is not embedded here in a culture that allows domestic violence, imprisonment of women, circumcision of females, violence against young boys who are forced to spend hours a day on the streets, racism towards any non-Arab or non-Maghreb people regardless of religion, and tolerates violent and drug-related crime. If you've spent enough time in Europe, you should know it's a large problem here.

Compared to the things we're forced to tolerate in our own back garden (yeah - one of them destroyed part of my fence, and another threw things at my windows, not to mention how they've insulted and threatened my mother) to not look racist, the worst christian fundamentalists we have here are saints.

Doesn't work. Religion, when taken seriously, is not a private matter. Religion is a set of claims about the most important topics conceivable. There is literally nothing more important than the ultimate purpose of human existence.

We acknowledge that political views are not merely a private matter. They affect how we behave, how we vote, the sort of society we want to build. For that reason, we see the importance of having public debates about the validity of political views, since they are so important. In fact, there are some political views that are so dangerous that they are considered unacceptable to hold. Well, religion is even more important than that!

So what's the answer then?

I think we've discovered the root of the disagreement. Our worst Christian fundies are stockpiling guns to help Jesus kill the nonbelievers after the apocalypse. Also, google the "Quiverfull" movement. I guarantee you'll be horrified.

We try to convince each other that our own religious beliefs are correct and that theirs are incorrect, using logical arguments. We do not allow anybody to begin any sentence with "As a Christian..." or "As a Muslim...". We make religion a domain of truth, and not a domain of identity politics. When a religious person makes a religious claim, we take it completely seriously and ask them how they know that it is true. We do not view religions as a wonderful expression of human culture, but as a list of claims which are either true or false.

The problem with that is that many religious people are beyond any and all reason. How do you hope to deal with that?

The same way we deal with it in any other domain of discourse. We laugh at them.

Yeesh, if that's what we should then I am years ahead of the bell curve.

Go me.

I, being ethnically Irish, couldn't give a toss if an Englishman or what have you claimed the Irish are stupid and uncultured, and I certainly wouldn't use it as an excuse for antisocial behaviour.

I, being a white person, couldn't give a toss if someone pointed out that east-Asians score about 5 IQ points higher on average than whites, and I certainly wouldn't use it as an excuse to be a criminal.

At one point, during a debate, Pim Fortuyn made clear to an islamic scholar that he was a homosexual. Apparently, the islamic scholar was very angry, and started a tirade, after which Fortuyn calmly looked at the camera and said "this is what I mean." It's very unfortunate he was murdered 'for targeting islam and for targeting the weak in society'.

Last year, in a small city, people were outraged. Moroccans had been terrorizing the neighbourhood, forcing people out of their homes and having riots. Local politicians finally agreed - in a few months, two cameras would be placed. After that, people said they'd rather form militias than trust the police anymore. On the internet, the idea was met with praise, and a lot of people sympathizing with the locals' intention to fight back. This is the price you pay for ignoring things perceived as extreme problems by locals. The only thing we can do is free ourselves from the European Union and decide with a large majority on sensible policies to keep immigration and cultural clashes under control.

Why is it that in preaching the gospel of cultural understanding north Americans can never accept that Europe is a very different place to north America?

Let us try this slowly, for those who have never studied any history outside of their own countries and with no understanding politics outside of their own country.

12 months ago the arab spring happened.

What was the American response?
f**k yeah! Freedom and Democracy baby! USA Number one!

What was the Israeli response?
s**t, now we have another Iran in the making, better spend more on defence.

One year later, islamists are in control of Egypt and 100,000 coptic christians have fled the country because they are murdered and burned out of their homes and churches. Mullahs on state controlled television are advocating war with Israel and the extermination of all zionist pigs. Ooops, USA not so clever... You do not have miracle answers for the world.

Now let me explain the situation in Europe. You think Europe is an old bastion of democracy and liberal values? Well you are wrong.
Within living memory half of the countries in Europe were part of the Soviet Union until 1992, many of the rest were monarchies and military dictatorships.

Greece only stopped being a dictatorship in 1974.
Spain in 1982.
Portugal 1974.
After WWII Italy basically went from being a fascist dictatorship to a mafia controlled kleptocracy and still is.

The last time Europe engaged in ethnic cleansing was 1995, surprised? Go google the Srebrenica massacre.
Shocked? Didn't realise that the majority of Europe had been democracies for less than a single generation?

Now after 10-15 years of totally open door immigration policy, 5 years of austerity and some small parts of Europe having 75% unemployment do you think the very, very angry populations of Europe are more likely to go for group hugs for all humanity or start looking for people to direct their fury at? What about after 10 years of austerity and 20 years of open door immigration?

You do realise that some national governments in Europe have had to form coalition governments with fascist parties to get into power?

By the way I don't mean fascist as in hardline republican the way Americans use the term I mean fascist as black shirt, polished boot & swastika wearing fascists that do nazi-salutes.

Try and imagine George Bush republicans in a coalition government with 20% of the senate & congress being the KKK and they turn up to vote wearing their robes and hoods. That is the actual situation in Hungary right now.

Despite your grand lecturing I bet you had never even heard of Jobbik. I bet you didn't actually have a clue about some of the harsh, unpleasant truths to do with Europe that I have just mentioned.

OMG I hate debating on autism boards. Racist stuff was being said. I have recently had to console a Muslim friend who was called a "sand n-word" at a gas station because she was wearing a headscarf. I had to listen to her cry "Why do they hate us?" very very recently. So when I saw bigotry, I jumped in. I'll admit, I wasn't using a very productive tone, probably due to my emotional involvement. Even though I still disagree with the OP, I feel like I understand where they are coming from better. Good discussion in my book.

However, I have been called ignorant multiple times on this thread. If I didn't know what I was talking about, maybe that would be right. But I know sociology, I know anthropology, and I am currently writing my senior thesis on citizenship and privilege, which is what I've been talking about. I'm not talking about immigration law or any of the other off-topic things people brought up. I'm not even sure what the point of listing a bunch of stuff everyone already knew was. My point is: resorting to ad hominem attacks only prove I've put you on the defensive, so please stop.

BTW, we in America have watched Europe's new flirtation with fascism with absolute horror.