"The left is wrong on Islam. The right is wrong on Muslims." - Ali Rizvi

Basically agreeing, but I feel like people on the forum think im some wild alt-right member or something so i wrote out my thoughts (with the normal amount of exaggerate glazing)

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morbo wrote:

No sincere debate can be had in a politically correct environment. If I say that way too many (hundreds of millions) Muslims believe and follow fundamentally incompatible ideas, like:

* death penalty for apostasy / leaving islam / blasphemy
* death penalty / corporal punishment for adultery
* legalized discrimination against non-muslims

then, I'm already an "islamphobe", according to the PC environment and the liberals who enforce it. These ideas are part of Sharia (which is a legal system) and Sharia is codified into the core religion itself. If Islam is even able to reform, it surely wont happen in a system that enforces political correctness.

Here's an example of an extremely rare reformist islamic thinker and guess what - he's considered an apostate by most muslims and routinely receives death threats AND he's being attacked by the "progressive" left... lol

My Chat with Imam Tawhidi

Political correctness is just the latest form of censorship

southpark.cc.com/clips/bjcjld/a-pc-pretze

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Manocean wrote:

Basically agreeing, but I feel like people on the forum think im some wild alt-right member or something so i wrote out my thoughts (with the normal amount of exaggerate glazing)

Got it.

I'm an atheist, but I'm in favor of freedom of religion(I think the world would be better without any religion, but it's just not realistic today), but even tho I think like that, in no way I would condone some of the shit that is done in name of Allah. I can totally side with the good people that happens to be born in certain religion, but when it comes to defending the ideologies of the religion, that is not for me.

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soneka101 wrote:

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diablofdb wrote:

Religion are bad.... the second you put them in charge or in power, you get people slaughtered.

You are doing a wonderful job on making sure there will be no religion left in the world! Very effective!

sorry but.... fuck religion, they are the plague humanity

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Manocean wrote:

Basically agreeing, but I feel like people on the forum think im some wild alt-right member or something so i wrote out my thoughts (with the normal amount of exaggerate glazing)

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I'm just gonna quote myself from the last time this came up...

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pneuma wrote:

(Wahhabism-based) Terrorism is one thing. It's like being afraid of shark attacks or getting struck by lightning. It's like the KKK; it's like the neo-nazis; it's a very small group of troublemakers.

The violence toward and subjugation of women, the violence toward LGBT, blasphemy laws, and the violence toward apostates is a completely other thing. Those are "all muslims" problems.

... Which is exactly what the OP/'s link is talking about.

"The Right" cares too much about the former, but at least acknowledges the latter as problematic.
"The Left" correctly cares about the former, but doesn't acknowledge the latter as problematic.

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diablofdb wrote:

sorry but.... fuck religion, they are the plague humanity

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Ali Rizvi
Well, my book is pretty hard on the religion too, but it’s not about telling people their religion is bullshit — it’s about how you tell them that. I say in the book that setting the stage for the conversation is often more important than the conversation itself.

Just saying "fuck religion" won't make it go away. Maybe the "Atheist Muslim" is better in this stuff than you are.

I'm at least not stoning women and gay

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diablofdb wrote:

I'm at least not stoning women and gay

Oh boy...

The title of the article really exemplifies the confusion. "An atheist Muslim." Absurd. If he can do that, then I'm an atheist Catholic.

The source of the confusion is identity politics — or, as I prefer to refer to it, racism. You have your identity politicians on the right trying to conflate Islam with brownness to attack brownness via its real yet imperfect and possibly temporary correlation with Islam, and to counter this (often exaggerated) threat you have your identity politicians on the left conflating Islam with brownness to defend brownness via its real yet imperfect and possibly temporary correlation with Islam. Racial stereotyping, pure and simple.

But Muslim doesn't actually imply brownness. Muslim isn't an ethnicity. There are Muslims of every ethnicity. Being Muslim means following Islam, it is an ideological distinction and thus fully volitional. Granted, one can follow with great or slight devotion, there are degrees of how Muslim one is, but even if not every Muslim believes all of the teachings, being Muslim is about believing the teachings.

Rivzi is not a Muslim. He is an atheist who has failed to conceptually distinguish between a secular culture he is comforted by, and the religion that dominates it.

The left is wrong about Islam. The right is wrong about "Muslims," except when said "Muslims" actually follow Islam.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The title of the article really exemplifies the confusion. "An atheist Muslim." No. Impossible.

The source of the confusion is identity politics — or, as I prefer to refer to it, racism. You have your identity politicians on the right trying to conflate Islam with brownness to attack brownness via its real yet imperfect and possibly temporary correlation with Islam, and to counter this (often exaggerated) threat you have the identity politicians conflating Islam with brownness to defend brownness via its real yet imperfect and possibly temporary correlation with Islam. Racial stereotyping, pure and simple.

But Muslim doesn't actually imply brownness. Muslim isn't an ethnicity. There are Muslims of every ethnicity. Being Muslim means following Islam, it is an ideological distinction and thus fully volitional. Granted, one can follow with great or slight devotion, there are degrees of how Muslim one is, but even if not every Muslim believes all of the teachings, being Muslim is about believing the teachings.

Rivzi is not a Muslim. He is an atheist who has failed to conceptually distinguish between a secular culture he is comforted by, and the religion that dominates it.

The left is wrong about Islam. The right is wrong about "Muslims," except when they choose to follow Islam.

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Sean Illing
You might also say that religion helps to create and reinforce culture, but I take your point.

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Ali Rizvi
Sure, and there are aspects of this that can be positive. There are many of us who are atheists but retain some cultural elements of the religion. For example, I still enjoy the Eid holiday and the fast-breaking iftar feasts of Ramadan with my family. I have pleasant childhood associations and memories with these things.

This is true for other religions too. Richard Dawkins himself, who is a ... well, you don't get more atheist than Richard Dawkins. Yet he has also described himself as a cultural Christian. He even says he prefers singing the religious Christmas carols like “Silent Night” to the others, like “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I think we should be able to enjoy some of these rituals without the burden of belief.

He is talking about culture, not "brownness".

I was born and raised in a catholic family, I stopped believing in God(at least the God they preached in the church) before I stopped going to the church, so in a way I was an "Atheist Catholic" for a while.

Nowadays I don't fallow any catholic customs, and don't believe in God in any form.