Ayaan Hirsi Ali infuriates Muslims and discomfits liberals

[Judith]

A discussion-generating article; I decided to put it here, rather than in "New and Interesting Articles".

Original link:

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/featur...ml?id=110009771

Judith

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Free Radical

Ayaan Hirsi Ali infuriates Muslims and discomfits liberals.

BY JOSEPH RAGO

Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

NEW YORK--Ayaan Hirsi Ali is untrammeled and unrepentant: "I am supposed to apologize for saying the prophet is a pervert and a tyrant," she declares. "But that is apologizing for the truth."

Statements such as these have brought Ms. Hirsi Ali to world-wide attention. Though she recently left her adopted country, Holland--where her friend and intellectual collaborator Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004--she is still accompanied by armed guards wherever she travels.

Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in 1969 in Mogadishu--into, as she puts it, "the Islamic civilization, as far as you can call it a civilization." In 1992, at age 22, her family gave her hand to a distant relative; had the marriage ensued, she says, it would have been "an arranged rape." But as she was shipped to the appointment via Europe, she fled, obtaining asylum in Holland. There, "through observation, through experience, through reading," she acquainted herself with a different world. "The culture that I came to and I live in now is not perfect," Ms. Hirsi Ali says. "But this culture, the West, the product of the Enlightenment, is the best humanity has ever achieved."

Unease over Muslim immigration had been rising in the Low Countries for some time. For instance, when the gay right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn--"I am in favor of a cold war with Islam," he said, and believed the borders should be closed to Muslims--was gunned down in 2002, it was widely assumed his killer was an Islamist. There was a strange sense of relief when he turned out to be a mere animal-rights activist. Ms. Hirsi Ali brought integration issues to further attention, exposing domestic abuse and even honor killings in the Dutch-Muslim "dish cities."

In 2003, she won a seat in the parliament as a member of the center-right VVD Party, for People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. The next year, she wrote the script for a short film called "Submission." It investigated passages from the Quran that Ms. Hirsi Ali contends authorize violence against women, and did so by projecting those passages onto naked female bodies. In retrospect, she deeply regrets the outcome: "I don't think the film was worth the human life."

The life in question was that of Van Gogh, a prominent controversialist and the film's director. At the end of 2004, an Islamist named Mohammed Buyeri shot him as he was bicycling to work in downtown Amsterdam, then almost decapitated him with a curved sword. He left a manifesto impaled to the body: "I know for sure that you, Oh Hirsi Ali, will go down," was its incantation. "I know for sure that you, Oh unbelieving fundamentalist, will go down."

The shock was palpable. Holland--which has the second largest per capita population of Muslims in the EU, after France--had always prided itself on its pluralism, in which all groups would be tolerated but not integrated. The killing made clear just how apart its groups were. "Immediately after the murder," Ms. Hirsi Ali says, "we learned Theo's killer had access to education, he had learned the language, he had taken welfare. He made it very clear he knew what democracy meant, he knew what liberalism was, and he consciously rejected it. . . . He said, 'I have an alternative framework. It's Islam. It's the Quran.' "

At his sentencing, Mohammed Buyeri said he would have killed his own brother, had he made "Submission" or otherwise insulted the One True Faith. "And why?" Ms. Hirsi Ali asks. "Because he said his god ordered him to do it. . . . We need to see," she continues, "that this isn't something that's caused by special offense, the right, Jews, poverty. It's religion."

Ms. Hirsi Ali was forced into living underground; a hard-line VVD minister named Rita Verdonk, cracking down on immigration, canceled her citizenship for misstatements made on her asylum application--which Ms. Hirsi Ali had admitted years before and justified as a means to win quicker admission at a time of great personal vulnerability. The resulting controversy led to the collapse of Holland's coalition government. Ms. Hirsi Ali has since decamped for America--in effect a political refugee from Western Europe--to take up a position with the American Enterprise Institute. But the crisis, she says, is "still simmering underneath and it might erupt--somewhere, anywhere."

That partly explains why Ms. Hirsi Ali's new autobiography, "Infidel," is already a best seller. It may also have something to do with the way she scrambles our expectations. In person, she is modest, graceful, enthralling. Intellectually, she is fierce, even predatory: "We know exactly what it is about but we don't have the guts to say it out loud," she says. "We are too weak to take up our role. The West is falling apart. The open society is coming undone."

Many liberals loathe her for disrupting an imagined "diversity" consensus: It is absurd, she argues, to pretend that cultures are all equal, or all equally desirable. But conservatives, and others, might be reasonably unnerved by her dim view of religion. She does not believe that Islam has been "hijacked" by fanatics, but that fanaticism is intrinsic in Islam itself: "Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous."

The Muslim faith has many variations, but Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the unities are of greater significance. "Islam has a very consistent doctrine," she says, "and I define Islam as I was taught to define it: submission to the will of Allah. His will is written in the Quran, and in the hadith and Sunna. What we are all taught is that when you want to make a distinction between right and wrong, you follow the prophet. Muhammad is the model guide for every Muslim through time, throughout history."

This supposition justifies, in her view, a withering critique of Islam's most holy human messenger. "You start by scrutinizing the morality of the prophet," and then ask: "Are you prepared to follow the morality of the prophet in a society such as this one?" She draws a connection between Mohammed's taking of child brides and modern sexual oppressions--what she calls "this imprisonment of women." She decries the murder of adulteresses and rape victims, the wearing of the veil, arranged marriages, domestic violence, genital mutilation and other contraventions of "the most basic freedoms."

These sufferings, she maintains, are traceable to theological imperatives. "People say it is a bad strategy," Ms. Hirsi Ali says forcefully. "I think it is the best strategy. . . . Muslims must choose to follow their rational capacities as humans and to follow reason instead of Quranic commands. At that point Islam will be reformed."

This worldview has led certain critics to dismiss Ms. Hirsi Ali as a secular extremist. "I have my ideas and my views," she says, "and I want to argue them. It is our obligation to look at things critically." As to the charges that she is an "Enlightenment fundamentalist," she points out, rightly, that people who live in democratic societies are not supposed to settle their disagreements by killing one another.

And yet contemporary democracies, she says, accommodate the incitement of such behavior: "The multiculturalism theology, like all theologies, is cruel, is wrongheaded, and is unarguable because it is an utter dogmatism. . . . Minorities are exempted from the obligations of the rest of society, so they don't improve. . . . With this theory you limit them, you freeze their culture, you keep them in place."

The most grievous failing of the West is self-congratulatory passivity: We face "an external enemy that to a degree has become an internal enemy, that has infiltrated the system and wants to destroy it." She believes a more drastic reaction is required: "It's easy," she says, "to weigh liberties against the damage that can be done to society and decide to deny liberties. As it should be. A free society should be prepared to recognize the patterns in front of it, and do something about them."

She says the West must begin to think long term about its relationship with Islam--because the Islamists are. Ms. Hirsi Ali notes Muslim birth rates are vastly outstripping those elsewhere (particularly in Western Europe) and believes this is a conscious attempt to extend the faith. Muslims, she says, treat women as "these baby-machines, these son-factories. . . . We need to compete with this," she goes on. "It is a totalitarian method. The Nazis tried it using women as incubators, literally to give birth to soldiers. Islam is now doing it. . . . It is a very effective and very frightening way of dealing with human beings."

All of this is profoundly politically incorrect. But for this remarkable woman, ideas are not abstractions. She forces us back to first principles, and she punctures complacencies. These ought to be seen as virtues, even by those who find some of Ms. Hirsi Ali's ideas disturbing or objectionable. Society, after all, sometimes needs to be roused from its slumbers by agitators who go too far so that others will go far enough.

Mr. Rago is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is the Wikipedia article on Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Although her criticisms of Islam have basis in Islamic writings and her own observations, it should be noted that they are completely biased against any good (or even normal) that involves Islam. To her, Islam is evil. Period. Ms. Ali is well-known to those who follow the hostilities involving the Middle East and she only made the Wall Street Journal Editorial page because of her new book that just came out, Infidel.

Here are some quotes by her from the WSJ article alone.

I am in favor of a cold war with Islam.

... [the crisis is] still simmering underneath and it might erupt--somewhere, anywhere.

We know exactly what it is about but we don't have the guts to say it out loud. We are too weak to take up our role. The West is falling apart. The open society is coming undone.

Islam, even Islam in its nonviolent form, is dangerous.

... [islam is] an external enemy that to a degree has become an internal enemy, that has infiltrated the system and wants to destroy it.

(The West is falling apart? Where? Not where I have looked...)

In fairness, despite Ms. Ali's anti-Islamic bias, one conclusion she maintains is absolutely correct:

Muslims must choose to follow their rational capacities as humans and to follow reason instead of Quranic commands. At that point Islam will be reformed.

I am of two minds when I read about people like Ms. Ali. First, of course, I am highly interested in defusing the violent part of Islam—both getting to the core of the brainwashing and helping undo it, and using military strikes whenever radical Isalmists organize assaults on the rest of mankind.

But the other mind kicks in, also. I think about people like Naomi Ragen and her ordeal with militant Zionism (see here and here, for instance). And I think that most everybody in Objectivism-land has very little idea of exactly what Islam is. I know I have read a great deal of spiteful vitriol against Islam, even citing Islamic scripture to back it up, by Objectivists who don't even know what the Sunnah is. If this isn't a case of brainwashing on our side, I don't know what is.

I have been reading a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam by Yahiya Emerick (an American convert to Islam). Although this is written from a pro-Islam stance, there is much information given in it that I will share over time here on OL. I intend to do a full report on that book. It is important for us to know what we are talking about.

I do not think arriving at conclusions such as those of Ms. Ali are bad after one has learned about the subject in an objective manner. But I also know that I find it completely unbelievable that over a billion people want to become perverts or that they are all in a conspiracy to turn women into breeders for conquest. There is something attracting these people (especially new converts) and keeping them in the religion. The reasons promoted by people such as Ms. Ali (or Pipes or Little Green Footballs, etc.) do not convince me at all. Frankly I think the anti-Islam people make many of the same mistakes they criticize.

Let me make it clear that I do not defend Islam as a way of life. But I do defend objectively identifying what Islam is and what it is not. Frankly I am just as afraid of anti-Islamic bigotry as I am of Islamic fanaticism, and this does not mean that I view Islam as no threat to the West whatsoever. Parts of it is a threat. The rest of it isn't. But if any difference is ever going to be made, it will have to be made by isolating the problems and solving them, not by trashing the whole system and the entire Muslim society. Doing so is nothing but collectivism, anyway.

We should use the observations and opinions of people like Ms. Ali to help us think and provide highlights of what to look for as we learn. But we definitely should not learn about a subject like Islam solely from people like her. We will only get half the story (or less). And we definitely should not hate and fear because another person hates and fears. Each of us is responsible for his/her own thinking.

Michael

[Judith]

Let's keep in mind that Ayaan Hirsi Ali lived a good part of her life as a Moslem. Because of her experience, I'm inclined to take whatever she says very seriously indeed. One can't dismiss her story as "biased"; she's lived it.

Ali is one of a number of women emerging from the Moslem world telling stories like these. I've got her book, although I haven't yet read it. I've also got Brigitte Gabriel's book "Because They Hate", about her girlhood in Lebanon during the '80s, which have read, and which I highly recommend, and Nonie Darwish's "Now They Call Me Infidel", her story as the daughter of a Moslem shahid, which I also haven't yet had time to read.

These women have stories we need to hear.

Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let's keep in mind that Ayaan Hirsi Ali lived a good part of her life as a Moslem. Because of her experience, I'm inclined to take whatever she says very seriously indeed. One can't dismiss her story as "biased"; she's lived it.

Judith,

I certainly do not mean to dismiss Ms. Ali's story. Of course it should be taken seriously. What is happening with Islam in the world today is very serious business. (We in the West have provided fundamentalist Islamist states with a wealth beyond their wildest imaginations with oil money, and we provide high-tech products to purchase, including weapons.) And I see nothing wrong with recognizing Ms. Ali as biased in terms of the big picture and still take her seriously. To that end (highly intelligent anti-Islam criticism), you also might like the works of Oriana Fallaci.

I merely want to point out that learning about Islam (or Christianity, or any other religion for that matter) only from harsh critics will not really give you very much intellectual ammunition to combat the negative effects of that religion. You have to examine the happy and successful Muslims, also, including successful Muslim women. For instance, I gleaned the following off a quick Google search and there is much more: Azizah Celebrates Muslim American Women.

What do we do here? Ignore this kind of thing, then wonder why we are only being heard by the choir? And that's just one issue. I personally do not wish to remove or deny those women the happiness they have found. I do wish to stop people from using terrorism as a source of persuasion (including and especially Muslims, but look here, for instance, to see how many terrorist organizations are not even Muslim), and I also wish to provide intellectual ammunition for Muslims to start accepting separation of church and state, individual rights, etc., so that others who do not wish to be Muslim, or who wish to have a looser interpretation of sacred texts, can live successfully in peace among Muslims. You will see in other threads in this "Mideast" section that there are pockets of Muslims who do accept such fundamentals already (links are provided).

Once again, I have nothing against reading harsh critics. On the contrary, they must be read and considered as seriously as possible. For my own efforts at helping bring about change, however, I do not find a SOLE diet of harsh criticism effective or even intellectually healthy.

Michael

[Judith]

Once again, I have nothing against reading harsh critics. On the contrary, they must be read and considered as seriously as possible. For my own efforts at helping bring about change, however, I do not find a SOLE diet of harsh criticism effective or even intellectually healthy.

So why are you saying this in response to the article I posted? Does Islam have a protected status on this board, above and beyond other religions? Would you have reacted similarly had I posted an article by a girl who had grown up in a polygamous Mormon family and escaped an arranged marriage at the age of nine and come to tell us about it? Or an article by a girl who was physically abused in an evangelical Christian family who believed literally in "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and had come to tell us about it?

Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Judith,

So why are you saying this in response to the article I posted? Does Islam have a protected status on this board, above and beyond other religions?

No. But it is an area of inquiry I am studying and there is an incredible amount of vitriol against Islam that borders on bigotry on Objectivist boards. But why do I react to your article by saying that knowledge is a good thing? Because it is.

Would you have reacted similarly had I posted an article by a girl who had grown up in a polygamous Mormon family and escaped an arranged marriage at the age of nine and come to tell us about it? Or an article by a girl who was physically abused in an evangelical Christian family who believed literally in "Spare the rod and spoil the child," and had come to tell us about it?

If the article was bashing those religions as a totality, I probably would. Once again, knowledge is a good thing.

Please understand, my method is to develop cognitive abstractions (knowing) before normative ones (before judging). Reading harsh critics of anything is only part of the process of forming an objective cognitive abstraction. It is not the whole process. (Once again, I am not against reading harsh critics. I am against using them as the sole source of knowledge.)

Objectivists in general (judging from their writings) have very little knowledge of what Islam actually is. But they have no problem ranting and railing against it. Some ARI intellectuals even want to nuke Muslims off the face of the earth. For that matter, most of these people have very little knowledge of what Christianity is. I once wrote an article where I quoted the Bible and several posters made comments that they had not really fathomed the evil of Christianity until they read those excerpts, etc., etc. By saying that, however, they confessed that they had not read the Bible at all, or at best they read small parts of it superficially. But these posters have had no compunction against frequently mocking all Christianity in schoolyard language.

What does that achieve? Spread Objectivism? Convince Christians? Make the world a better place? What?

The same goes for Islam. I am only a bit cautious because of the constant excesses on Objectivist boards. I can see one of these uninformed Islam bashes start up quite easily. (Once again, I don't mind harshly criticizing Islam. I do mind the lack of knowledge by many who do so.)

Knowledge is a good thing. Making harshly condemnatory value judgments without proper knowledge is not a good thing and it reflects poorly on the people who do it, Objectivist or not. Reading harsh critics ONLY is not a correct manner to gain proper knowledge. It is a flawed method.

I am sorry that it is necessary to emphasize that, but within the context of the present Objectivist subculture, it is necessary.

Michael

EDIT: Gawddd! It just occurred to me that you might think I was insinuating that you were trying to start a hate thread. Let me be clear. I wasn't. My remarks were general.

[Judith]

I see.

I'm often bewildered by your posts because you reply in the context of "Other Objectivist Boards". Since I don't read those boards, I don't understand your answers; I write something that seems simple, and your answers come back layered with meanings that I can see have little to do with my original intentions, and I say, "Huh? Where's THIS coming from?"

Sometimes I manage to figure it out and sometimes I don't. In this case, I was a bit irritated, because the media world in general right now is bending over backwards to protect one particular religion, and it seemed like you were going that way; if you were, I wanted to ask a consciousness-raising question. But it seems like that's not the issue.

Judith

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; There are adherents I am worried about killing me or my family. The one that's been called the religion of "peace". Some Objectivists have gone over the top but the unpleasant truth I cite is still a truth. I have Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Book TV and she comes across as well-spoken and rational. That's rational with a capital R. I'll go with her any time.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

I have no problem with targeting such dangerous adherents of Islam. Believe it or not, they are not all that hard to find among the Muslims. The really dangerous ones deserve the USA military raining fire on their heads.

Also, keep your eyes out for The Army of God for Christianity (be careful around abortion clinics), several Eco-Terrorist groups, some right-wing extremist groups, etc. They will kill you and your family in the blink of an eye just as quickly as any Islamic terrorist.

Peaceful people, of course, should be accorded peace.

Michael

[studiodekadent]

Its strange that Michael's impression of Ms. Ali is that she is a complete "nuke all Muslim's" variety (well, even Michael doesn't believe this but I mean she considers Islam totally evil). During her interview with the 7.30 report (Australian TV program) she said that not all Muslims are dangerous extremists and that she thinks it is important to seperate Islam from Muslims.

In other words, Ms. Ali believes that being a completely consistent (fundamentalist) Muslim naturally results in a psychopath. I think this is a fair assessment. The majority of Muslims are not completely consistent. The same of course applies for Christians; most arent consistent and being totally consistent creates a nutcase of sorts.

Her intellect is incredibly admirable. Her standing up to the left's multiculturalism and (to a lesser extent) the right's embrace of religion is commendable. She is truly a great Classical Liberal enlightenment-modern mind. We need more like her.

[Chris Grieb]

Studiokadent; Your post was much better than mine and put the issue in a better way. Michael; Is the death toll from any the groups reach three figures?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Studiokadent; Your post was much better than mine and put the issue in a better way. Michael; Is the death toll from any the groups reach three figures?

Chris,

That's an unfair question since it is being gaged against all of modern Islam. I will put modern Christianity in the place of those organizations for a better balance. Has the death toll from modern Christianity reached three figures?

Heh.

studiodekadent,

You might be surprised to know that I happen to agree with many of Ms. Ali's conclusions. She, at least, knows something about the Islam she bashes and I do not sense bigotry (based on fear) from her. She hates something that has hurt her. I can identify with that and I pay very close attention to her arguments. There was no excuse for the butchery that was done to the film director who turned her screenplay into a movie.

But I have had a completely different experience with Muslims in Brazil and what she claims and has lived have very little to do with that reality. I can't see any of those people ever becoming suicide bombers, killing movie directors, enslaving women, etc. The fact is that Brazil simply doesn't have those problems despite a huge Muslim contingency.

This indicates to me that it is very easy to oversimplify on this issue.

The thing I am against is bigotry invading Objectivism to the point it has because people watch CNN or Fox News, listen to ARI's ranting, and fear for their lives. If you look at the issue in terms of facts, the USA government has done an outstanding job of containing terrorism in the USA since 9/11. If you want to know the truth, compare the terrorism throughout the world over the last 5 years against terrorist attacks over the last 100 years and you will see that, barring war zones and a few places like Israel and Sierra Leone, the world has done an outstanding job of containing terrorism in recent years.

Terrorism is still a danger, of course. And it can grow so it must be combated. But a person in a modern city most anywhere that is technologically developed runs a vastly higher risk of being hurt in a car accident than in a terrorist attack. The odds are through the roof, too. They are not even within betting distance. Those odds certainly do not justify bigotry.

btw - I don't think Ms. Ali is in the "Nuke 'Em All" crowd. That particular honor is reserved mostly for certain ARI intellectuals and right-wing extremists.

Michael

[studiodekadent]

But I have had a completely different experience with Muslims in Brazil and what she claims and has lived have very little to do with that reality. I can't see any of those people ever becoming suicide bombers, killing movie directors, enslaving women, etc. The fact is that Brazil simply doesn't have those problems despite a huge Muslim contingency.

This is why Ms. Ali remarked on the importance of seperating "Islam" from "Muslims." She openly concedes that there are many harmless Muslims. What Ms. Ali alleges is that complete consistency with Islam (i.e. Islamic Fundamentalism) is incompatible with Western (Classical) Liberalism. Although she has not said this (although Id love her to), the same applies to Christianity. Im sure we would all agree on this.

About Islam in Brazil..... I take it there is almost no influence of Wahabism there?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

studiodekadent,

You can't separate Islam from Muslims. That's like separating Christianity from Christians. They are by definition followers of Islam. Islam is the religion. Muslim is the name of the follower.

I do agree with making a special category, Islamic Fundamentalists, Islamo-fascists, Islamists, etc., to denote fanatical Muslims who mix strict adherence with their interpretation of the Islamic scripture and the government. (As even the Qur'an is full of contradictions, interpretation is needed. That's why you can have groups with such wide differences as the Salafi and Sufites.)

In Brazil, the Musim community I had more contact with was with Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian immigrants, not so much those from Saudi Arabia (where Wahhabism is more prominent), although I did know some. (And no, the Palestinian immigrants were not terrorists or leftovers from Black September or the PLO. They were motion picture professionals.) At that time I did not know the difference between the movements in Islam, so I had (and still have) no idea of who was what. I do know that they kept to themselves for religious worship and when a Soccer game was on or when Carnaval came around, they were out there letting it all hang out with the best of them. There was absolutely no religious influence on the government and I heard nothing about world domination.

No one even attempted to convert me, although my Bedouin ex-father-in-law once told me that there was wisdom in the Qur'an and I would do well to read it sometime. I suppose he would have been more Wahhabi than anything else, but he was drunk when he told me that. This was right after he told me that he used the pages of the Bible to wipe his ass (his wife, my ex-mother-in-law, was Catholic, so I think this comment was for her benefit).

Michael

[Judith]

You can't separate Islam from Muslims. That's like separating Christianity from Christians. They are by definition followers of Islam. Islam is the religion. Muslim is the name of the follower.

But Michael, it makes perfect sense to separate Christianity from Christians. I often, in debates with Christians, tell them that they are better than their religion when they are kinder or more rational than Christianity warrants, or when they interpret Christian scriptures in a generous way that doesn't seem logically warranted.

Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Judith,

That's not the meaning I meant. Of course a person is much more than the body of knowledge he/she professes. You and I are much more than Objectivism in this sense.

I was on a more basic level. Some people do not realize that Muslim means follower of Islam just like Christian means follower of Christianity and Buddist means follower of Buddism. With Islam, for some darn reason, they use two completely different words instead of using the same root.

Michael

[Judith]

That's not the meaning I meant. Of course a person is much more than the body of knowledge he/she professes. You and I are much more than Objectivism in this sense.

I was on a more basic level. Some people do not realize that Muslim means follower of Islam just like Christian means follower of Christianity and Buddist means follower of Buddism. With Islam, for some darn reason, they use two completely different words instead of using the same root.

No, you misunderstood my intent. When I use that argument, I mean that a person is "better" than they would be if they were following Christianity literally. Ever since the Enlightenment, any reasonably rational person who professes to be a Christian has a lot to explain away in the Bible. If they profess to believe in the authority of the Bible, yet are rational, humane, sensible human beings, they are "better" than their religion.

Judith

[studiodekadent]

I agree with Judith here, she is correct in explaining what exactly I mean (and Id imagine Ms. Ali means) by 'seperating Islam from Muslims'.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

OK folks.

What do you call a Christian who abandons Christianity?

A Christian?

How?

A Muslim who abandons Islam is no longer a Muslim. By definition. It doesn't matter how he practiced Islam when he was a Muslim, just so long as he practiced it.

That is what I was talking about.

Michael

[Judith]

What do you call a Christian who abandons Christianity?

A Christian?

How?

A Muslim who abandons Islam is no longer a Muslim. By definition. It doesn't matter how he practiced Islam when he was a Muslim, just so long as he practiced it.

I agree. In fact, I'd say that what you said above supports my position.

I think the tougher question is, "What do you call someone who calls him/herself a Christian but doesn't believe in the divinity of Christ, doesn't believe in the literal resurrection, and doesn't believe in a lot of other orthodox doctrines?" I'm not going to offend that person by telling him/her to his/her face that I don't consider that a Christian, but in fact, I don't.

Judith

[Matus1976]

Also, keep your eyes out for The Army of God for Christianity (be careful around abortion clinics), several Eco-Terrorist groups, some right-wing extremist groups, etc. They will kill you and your family in the blink of an eye just as quickly as any Islamic terrorist.

Michael

Of course, at least currently, those groups post little to no real threat, how many people have eco-terrorist groups killed? 0 as far as I know (though I recal a report that someone died in a french mcdonalds fire that was started by an ecoterrorist group) How many people have been killed by abortion clinic bombings? 10? 20? Im not sure, but all of these groups combined and multiplied by 10x still don't come anywhere near the death toll of fundamentalist islam

Recently it was in the news that a russian scientist was arrested for supplying weapons grade plutonium to undercover agents posing as muslim extremists. He first provided 10 grams, and once tested, was asked for a 100grams, he was arrested at that transaction.

Georgia-CIA sting nets bomb-grade uranium

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16795915/

Obviously acquiring weapons grade uranium is within the realm of the possible for islamic extremists, and is there really much doubt that would try to get / make a nuclear bomb? These are not the methods of eco-terrorists or abortion protestors, these are the methods of mass murderers.

In a world of finite resources we must focus on the greatest threat posted to us and make the best blow against that enemy when and where possible. To equate islamic terrorism with abortion clinic bombings is highly disingeneous.

[galtgulch]

Judith, You said:

>>>"I think the tougher question is, "What do you call someone who calls him/herself a Christian but doesn't believe in the divinity of Christ, doesn't believe in the literal resurrection, and doesn't believe in a lot of other orthodox doctrines?" I'm not going to offend that person by telling him/her to his/her face that I don't consider that a Christian, but in fact, I don't."<<<

Actually there are probably such people as you describe but they may consider themselves to be a Christian even though they have disavowed what are considered core beliefs of that Faith. Yet they may have a premise such as being kind to others, holding the interests of others above their own, or other some such altruistic ideal adherence to which leads them to justify considering themselves to be Christian.

Consequently they would be offended if you tell him or her to his or her face that you do not consider them to be a Christian.

It may be a matter of semantics and definition. No doubt many decent ordinary human beings were born into the Muslim faith and were raised in it but have turned out to accept basic human values and have as much respect for the rights of others as we do but consider themselves to be Islamic or Muslim without the fundamentalist militant intolerance of what I can only hope is a minority of the 1.3 Billion subscribers to that Faith.

I expect there is a spectrum of believers in any religion just as there are variations among those who consider themselves to be Objectivists. Anyway who goes around telling people to their faces what you might think they "are?"

galt

[mespie74]

I saw this article today which made me think of this thread.

"We are making a fatal mistake by ignoring the dissidents within Islam"

by Timothy Garton Ash

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2034009,00.html

He mentions Ms. Ali as well as other Muslim dissidents who do not get as much attention in the Western press as Ali does. One point he makes is the importance that any change in Islam must come from within, and I wonder if and how non-Muslims might try to influence any change.

Also, I agree with Judith in regards what beliefs constitute being a Christian. I grew up a Christian and worked in evangelical Christian organizations. The divinity of Jesus is the central theme. The values taught in Christianity (such as humility, charity, forgiveness, etc.) are also taught in other faiths. What separates the Christian from all the others that share these values is their belief that Jesus is God.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

galtgulch,

I do not claim that Islamist terrorists are to be taken lightly. However, I looked that the website on your image (www.thereligionofpeace.com) to see where that number of attacks came from. It is much higher that what I am used to seeing. I found there "'The List' of Islamic Terror Attacks For the Past 3 Months." It was a fairly long list, mostly mentioning attacks in Iraq, Pakistan, India, Thailand, etc. Out of all the attacks, only two were given in the USA as of today:

2/20/07

USA

Nashville, TN

0 Killed

1 Wounded

A Muslim cab driver runs over a Christian after arguing about religion. The young man's ankle and hip are broken by the vehicle.

Woah theah! This is considered as a terrorist attack? Gimme a break.

2/13/07

USA

Salt Lake City, UT

5 Killed

4 Wounded

A Muslim immigrant enters a gift shop and mows down five people buying Valentines Day cards, in a brutal hate crime.

This looked more serious, so I checked up on it. This guy was a deranged 18 year-old Muslim immigrant from Bosnia. I checked this further on Google and it was widely reported in the press. What I found fascinating about reading the reports was how both sides were not objective in reporting that he was Muslim. The early mainstream reports completely failed to mention that he was Muslim, and the anti-Islamic reports (see here, Salt Lake Jihad?, for example, for one of the more serious accounts) failed to mention what I consider to be a crucial fact in their speculations about this being an act of terrorism in the name of jihad: Sulejmen Talovic belonged to a family that was a refugee from the ethnic cleansing of Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia. From 4 to 8 years old, Talovic lived in a virtual war and slaughter zone. See the quote below from this article, Bosnian-Born Shooter Fled War as a Child:

Talovic lived as a refugee in Bosnia from 1993 to 1998, when his family moved to the United States, they said.

During that period, he spent some time in Srebrenica, the northeastern enclave where up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995 by Serb forces loyal to late ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. It was Europe's worst massacre of civilians since World War II.

Talovic left Srebrenica two years before the massacre, but acquaintances suggested it may have left an indelible mark on the quiet little boy they knew.

Why is this left out when speculations of jihad are aired? You don't need to be a Muslim to become deranged from that kind of experience. Recent USA history is full of deranged people who suffered from less traumatic events shooting innocents.

Does this event really qualify as an Islamist terrorist attack? I don't think so. Speaking of which, why are things like "ethnic cleansing" not mentioned at all when people rant against Islam?

On the other hand, why was the fact that Talovic was Muslim downplayed in the mainstream press? Is the mainstream press afraid of facts? Dayaamm! It's hard to get simple facts when Islam is involved. Almost nobody is objective. That is what I am against.

I see no value at all in exaggerating figures. The truth about Islamist terrorism is horrible enough. It does not need hate rhetoric to help it be more horrible. Here is a Counterterrorism Calendar from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). I think you will find the information given there to be much more responsible (not doctored, like that in your source), and still be horrible enough to be horrible. There is much more information like that available.

Michael

[Judith]

I expect there is a spectrum of believers in any religion just as there are variations among those who consider themselves to be Objectivists. Anyway who goes around telling people to their faces what you might think they "are?"

Exactly. But let's be honest among ourselves. What we're doing when we're doing "outreach" to members of any religion is trying to get them to abandon core elements of their religion.

Judith