Tag Archives | Islam

Islam and Atheism, Problems in Common

By Good German on February 16, 2015 in News, Religion 0

Rahuldeep Singh Gill writes at the Huffington Post:

After the cold-blooded executions of three young Muslims in the shattered safety of their North Carolina apartment, it took a day for the national media to figure out that the deaths of three Muslims was worthy of coverage. The three students killed were Deah Barakat, 23, and Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Mohammad’s sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.

But once the news did break, it didn’t take long for a knee-jerk web poster to blame the faith commitment of the alleged murderer for the act. Except in this case, his commitment was that he rejected them. Or to be more precise, as an atheist, Craig Hicks rejected the role of religion in everyday life.

According to Vox,

We still don’t know why three students, all Muslim, were shot to death in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Tuesday. But there is unconfirmed speculation that the murders were motivated by the victims’ religion, bolstered by a Facebook account that appears to belong to someone with the same name as the man who turned himself into police for the killings, and which identified him as an “anti-theist.”

Atheist or anti-theist, what would make Hicks a repulsive human being are his alleged actions, not his beliefs.

… Read the rest

‘Lone Wolf,’ ‘Self-Radicalized': Islamophobic Buzzwords never applied to White Terrorists

By Good German on February 13, 2015 in News, Politics, Religion 0

Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were found dead on Tuesday

Juan Cole writes at Informed Comment:

Did a self-radicalized lone wolf white terrorist kill three young Muslim students in cold blood in Chapel Hill? It is a kind of a stupid question, but its stupidity is just more apparent when asked of someone with an English last name. What does self-radicalized or lone wolf even mean? Craig Hicks constantly shared anti-Muslim and anti-Christian links on social media and proclaimed to believers, ““I have every right to insult a religion that goes out of its way to insult, to judge, and to condemn me as an inadequate human being — which your religion does with self-righteous gusto…” I think we may conclude that he didn’t like Muslims, and one of the victims told her father that before her death. While he may have been provoked to his rage by a parking incident and while he clearly is one egg short of an omelette, the “new atheist” discourse of believers as oppressive and coercive per se is part of his problem.

… Read the rest

The “Non-Islamic” Islamic State?

By Colby Hess on February 11, 2015 in History, News, Op-Ed, Politics, Religion 0

Jake Stimpson (CC BY 2.0)

At the recent National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., President Obama proudly asserted yet again what has become a tired and predictable platitude; one endlessly repeated by countless media pundits, heads of state, and religious leaders following every fresh outbreak of religiously inspired violence. It’s the notion that groups like ISIS “seek to hijack religion for their own murderous ends;” that somehow they represent faith “twisted and misused in the name of evil,” as opposed to just diligently doing as their holy books command.

As he put it:

From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith… to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism – terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.

… Read the rest

The Origin of Modern Terror and Crumbling Western Values

By Good German on January 28, 2015 in News, Op-Ed, Politics 0

Peter (CC BY-SA 2.0)

John Chuckman writes at CounterPunch:

Do you ever solve problems by ignoring them? Most of us would say that is not possible, yet that is precisely what western governments do in their efforts to counteract what is called “Islamic terror.” Yes, there are vast and costly efforts to suppress the symptoms of what western governments regard as a modern plague, including killing many people presumed to be infected with it, fomenting rebellion and destruction in places presumed to be prone to it, secretly returning to barbaric practices such as torture, things we thought had been left behind centuries ago, to fight it, and violating rights of their own citizens we thought were as firmly established as the need for food and shelter. Governments ignore, in all these destructive efforts, what in private they know very well is the origin of the problem.

Have Islamic radicals always existed?

… Read the rest

In Defense of Muhammad (From Both Sides)

By Kowality Jesus on January 14, 2015 in Education, History, Op-Ed, Philosophy, Politics, Religion 0

So for some reason or another, after centuries of proselytization by the sword and hundreds of terrorist attacks in the 20th/21st century, when a French cartoonist is murdered for being a violence-baiting, blasphemous shock-jock towards Muslims, suddenly everybody thinks Islam is evil. Yes, Islam has usually been a thorn in the side of Western Civilization and certainly Christendom, but it was begun by a remarkable man both in wisdom and power. I found some words of Muhammad excerpted from the Koran that show that many who “submit” to Islam are probably just not listening to their prophet very closely.

Even though Arabic is the only holy language of Islam, and the Koran can never be translated yet retain its status as Word-Of-God, these English translations of Muhammad’s statements might give us a teleological vector on what he intended his followers to embody. Reading the quotes and looking at today’s Muslim world might lead some to wonder “What the hell happened?”

Thus spake Muhammad:

Do you love your creator?… Read the rest

#JeSuisIslamophobia – Why Anti-Muslim Critics Are Wrong About the Charlie Hebdo Killings

By Drew Reed on January 10, 2015 in News, Op-Ed 0

By now, you’ve probably heard all the details of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. But just in case you haven’t, I’ll fill you in. On Wednesday, two masked gunmen broke into the headquarters of Paris’s Charlie Hebdo magazine, killing ten employees, including the magazine’s top editor. The magazine was well known locally for its attention-grabbing cartoons, which often sought to offend the easily offended – namely Muslims.

Thus it came as no surprise to many that the perpetrators of the massacre were two Muslim extremists, reportedly shouting that they had avenged Mohammed after committing the attack. The killers were able to escape central Paris to the suburbs, where they took hostages in a standoff that would last nearly two days. As I write this, reports are coming in that they have been killed by French police.

It’s hard to quantify tragedy. The killing of these twelve people is horrendous and ought to be condemned.… Read the rest

Michel Houellebecq New Book Foresees Possible Muslim President For France

By majestic on January 9, 2015 in Entertainment, News, Politics 0

Michel Houllebecq, France’s famously controversial novelist, has a new book (Soumission) – published this week in extraordinary timing – depicting a possible future for France with a Muslim president. Both the book and the interview below in the Paris Review were carried out before the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but it’s clear that Houellebecq has zeroed in on the religious versus secularist tension in France.

After the attack, The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, stated: “France is not Houellebecq. It’s not intolerance, hatred and fear.” Houellebecq is apparently in hiding and his publisher’s office is under police protection. Regarding the book itself, he tells interviewer Sylvain Bourmeau:

Is this a satirical novel?

No. Maybe a small part of the book satirizes political journalists—politicians a little bit, too, to be honest. But the main characters are not satirical.

Michel Houellebecq. Photo by Mariusz Kubik (CC)

Where did you get the idea for a presidential election, in 2022, that came down to Marine Le Pen and the leader of a Muslim party?

… Read the rest

World’s Biggest Pilgrimage Now Underway, And Why You’ve Never Heard of it!

By Marcie Gainer on December 13, 2014 in News 0

This was article sent to us via Disinfo Tips.

via The Huffington Post:

It’s not the Muslim Hajj, or the Hindu Kumbh Mela. Known as Arbaeen, it is the world’s most populous gathering and you’ve probably never heard of it! Not only does the congregation exceed the number of visitors to Mecca (by a factor of five, in fact), it is more significant than Kumbh Mela, since the latter is only held every third year. In short, Arbaeen dwarfs every other rally on the planet, reaching twenty million last year. That is a staggering %60 of Iraq’s entire population, and it is growing year after year.

Above all, Arbaeen is unique because it takes place against the backdrop of chaotic and dangerous geopolitical scenes. Daesh (aka ‘Islamic State’) sees the Shia as theirmortal enemy, so nothing infuriates the terror group more than the sight of Shia pilgrims gathering for their greatest show of faith.

… Read the rest

ISIS Releases Horrifying Sex Slave Pamphlet, Justifies Child Rape

By majestic on December 12, 2014 in News 0

If any reader sympathizes with ISIS, how do you justify this policy? From RT:

The Islamic State militant group has released a guide to the capture, punishment and rape of female non-believers. It outlines how to use them as their sex slaves and also justifies child rape.

The guide appears in the form of questions and answers about how to capture and subjugate woman of other beliefs.

The sickening list appears to have been printed on December 3 by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in-house publishers for their“Research and Fatwa Department”.

The document has been translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an NGO based in Washington DC.

Researchers from the anti-extremism think tank Quilliam told the Independent that they believed it “can be traced back to some of ISIS’s most active propagandists.”

It’s known the Islamic State has kidnapped more than 2,500 women, and another 4,600 are missing.

In their twisted, medieval interpretation of Islam the document makes crystal clear how these woman are treated, and that such treatment is permissible because the captives are non-Muslims.

… Read the rest

Maher and Harris Were Wrong on Islam, but Not for the Reasons You Think

By Drew Reed on October 16, 2014 in News, Politics 0

Bill Maher and Sam Harris. Image: HBO via Youtube

If I had been watching live, I probably would have guessed that the Bill Maher/Sam Harris/Ben Affleck video (with a mediocre cameo by ex RNC chair and full time goofball Michael Steele) would go massively viral. And go massively viral it did. Why? Simple. Maher and Harris are bigots! That was the basic counterpoint of Ben Affleck who, while not interrupting Sam Harris, spent most of the clip scowling and holding his mouth shut with his hand. That’s how you stand up to bigotry.

I don’t mean to imply I wasn’t on his side. Ultimately, his arguments, and those made after the clip by long time Maher critic Reza Aslan, win by default as Maher and Harris made a clumsy case that was impossible to believe – even for atheist-leaning agnostics like myself. The crux of Harris’s argument is that Islam was a “really bad idea.” Okay, but what do we do about that really bad idea?… Read the rest

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Tag Archives | Islam

Islam and Atheism, Problems in Common

‘Lone Wolf,’ ‘Self-Radicalized': Islamophobic Buzzwords never applied to White Terrorists

The “Non-Islamic” Islamic State?

The Origin of Modern Terror and Crumbling Western Values

In Defense of Muhammad (From Both Sides)

#JeSuisIslamophobia – Why Anti-Muslim Critics Are Wrong About the Charlie Hebdo Killings

Michel Houellebecq New Book Foresees Possible Muslim President For France

World’s Biggest Pilgrimage Now Underway, And Why You’ve Never Heard of it!

ISIS Releases Horrifying Sex Slave Pamphlet, Justifies Child Rape

Maher and Harris Were Wrong on Islam, but Not for the Reasons You Think