50% of Americans, and 80% of likely GOP primary voters, now support the Trump ban on Muslims

No this is just your imagination run amok. Conservatives see the left as their enemy and a threat. I see the right as simply dangerous fools.

You are an Islamaphobe. You go far beyond criticism of Islam. You actually detest it and all it stands for. You go into that territory and then when anyone calls you out, you cry that people won't let you criticize Islam. Such a douchebag.

You should read this article and try to think for once:

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/islamophobia-and-criticism-of-islam/


Some good things in here, for instance, what is Islamophobia:

You are definitely guilty of many of these.

On the other hand - legit criticism of Islam - by scholars who know what they are talking about is totally fine and necessary. And it is troublesome when they get called Islamophobes.

There are legit areas of concern with the current Islamic establishment such as this:

Now, can you stop being a douchebag and actually use your brain to have discussion and debate without trying to resort to 5-year old childish attacks on people you disagree with?

 

He is more likely to be able to do so than any of the candidates. I do not like Ted Cruz, I find him to be very dangerous.... but he is a political junkie and has done extremely well everywhere he has been.

Yes, Cruz was one of the most successful collegiate debaters in recent history. Honestly, he was great at it.... but what really matters is how well a politician can connect with the audience and not what a group of experts believe.... Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton all were exceptional debaters.

Everything he says is calculated and said for a purpose. He appeals to his audience. For example his comments that most criminals are democrats... he gave a very carefully crafted message that appeals to what people "want" to believe. He didn't come out and say anything negative about poor people, black people, hispanics or urban cities...... but he knew that is what people would believe what he meant.

He says things all the time he knows are not true. He also isn't a terribly religious man, and he doesn't really believe in a literal interpretation of the bible (he donated $0 to his church). However he knows that is how to play the game on the Republican side.

He has attempted to appeal to a certain degree of the electorate, especially the last several years.... from his photo ops with him in flannel and meeting "common folks".

Everyone is so concerned about Trump....... but Ted Cruz is FAR more dangerous. He is extremely well educated, very bright and a classic narcissist with an anti-social disorder.

 

No you didn't. You were highly supportive of them, and your only argument was that they were supposedly democratically elected.

Which leads to a different question that is in fact related to this thread:

The will of the majority over everything?

Since you were such a fervent supporter of "respecting the will of the people" when the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections in Egypt - will you do the same if Trump wins the election and institutes ridiculous discriminatory measures against Muslims?

 

Sweet Lou, we often agree on the spirit of many issues, and I'm not trying to referee anything, but... just pointing out you'll get further in these debates (if that's even possible) by leading by example instead of slinging insults and then asking people to not do the same. Right? I've just noted heightened insult frequency in your posts recently. Cheers.

 

He is incapable of admitting his own biases and when he is wrong, and makes up strawman's and claims weird attacks all the time. Dude has some serious narcissistic tendencies.

 

I did read it. I am pretty sure you did not, because otherwise you would not have thought that it bolsters your case.

Here is the rest of the article:

THE DANGER OF EQUATING CRITICISM WITH ISLAMOPHOBIA

As some feel justified in denouncing Jewish use of the accusation of “anti-Semitism” to deflect legitimate criticism, however, so can Muslims use Islamophobia to deflect serious discussion about dangerous tendencies within Islam. Indeed, some define Islamophobia simply in terms of public image:

When any criticism or negative presentation of Islam becomes identified with Islamophobia, when any scholar who does not play the role of apologist can be so dismissed no matter how substantial his or her research, then the label has shifted from an important designation (and legitimate accusation) to a weapon of propaganda designed to smear opponents. In such cases, Islamophobia becomes a particularly powerful form of demopathic discourse, insisting that any criticism of Islam is a form of demonizing hate language.

The problem arises when we look more closely at the data. The two cases, however they may share this similarity in being both the objects of vilification, differ in most ways. The Jews were a minority in German (and other European) countries, with an understandably passive public discourse, and an extraordinary commitment to public law, as witnessed by their own passive obedience in assembling for deportation. Despite this public profile of Jews in their culture, Germans were taken over by a ruthless ruler who had plans for world conquest and genocide, and appealed to them by accusing the Jews of everything he planned to do. In other words, Hitler’s image of the Jew was the fevered projection of his own mad desires.

Muslims today represent over a billion people – possibly the most numerous religion on earth. They largely do not have societies, and certainly not polities, ruled by law. By the standards of civil society, male violence has few restraints (honor-killings, vendetta, assassination). Muslims of many ethnic and denominational groups have, shouting “Allah is great!” blown themselves up in the midst of tens, hundreds and thousands of civilians, hoping to kill as many as possible. Muslims openly make calls for world conquest, violent attacks on civilians – Muslim and non-Muslim – glorified as holy martyrdom; and a virulent discourse of world conquest and slaughter; and consider any Muslim who denies that terrorism in a part of Islam as a Kafir (unbeliever). Muslim and Arabic public discourse – media, circles of power – abound in conspiratorial thinking and action in which the “other” – especially the “Jew” – is, by definition, demonized.

Insofar as Islam is genuinely a religion of peace and tolerance for non-observant Muslims and non-Muslim neighbors, then sweeping generalizations about its ruthless imperial tendencies is indeed a form of Islamophobia. To the degree that Islam has yet to grapple with its own theocratic and imperialist elements (dar al Harb, which accounts for Islam’s bloody borders), to the degree that it has not yet developed a formal and powerful theological challenge to the Jihadi ideologies that drove an earlier, warrior culture to make war with the infidel, then fear and criticism of Islam by both non-Muslims and Muslims represents not paranoia but realistic concern. Nor need one express such concerns by demonizing.

In order to explore where legitimate criticism crosses the boundary into demonizing hate speech, we must establish a fair approach that applies the same rules to everyone and enables us to register evidence soberly. Thus we cannot merely say, “even-handedly,” that any criticism of Islam or Judaism is hate speech and constitutes either Islamophobia or Judeophobia, regardless of how Muslims and Jews behave. Otherwise, demopaths can demand that no one criticize them, even as they engage in the worst kind of hate-speech and violence.

THE PROBLEM WITH ISLAM

According to the PCP, Islam is a religion of peace. Violent Muslims, especially suicide terrorists, represent a “hi-jacking” of the religion, a deviation and distortion of the “true message” of Islam. Proponents of this perspective, including scholars like John Esposito and popularizers like Karen Armstrong, have dominated progressive public discourse for several decades. Even the President’s remarks in the aftermath of 9-11 reflected this public consensus.

The situation seems more than ironic. The US President, a man who had not even read the Quran in translation, tells the Muslims and the rest of the world what their religion is really about? In the meantime, radical Muslims, fully conversant with the contents of the Quran openly disagree and declare Islam a religion of war and conquest, and moderate Muslims noting Islamist use of violence in silencing criticism, bewail the role of Western intellectuals, who, alone, continue to insist that Islam is a religion of peace.

It is one thing to call oneself a religion of peace, another to act on those principles. The most disturbing aspect of Islam at the moment, is the reluctance of Islamic leaders has to denounce Islamic terrorism. In July of 2005, international representatives from Muslim nations opposed a UN attempt to condemn violence in the name of religion. These appointed, and supposedly qualified Muslim representative’s, then, saw the international condemnation of all religious violence as a specific and unacceptable attack on Islam. Since the London bombings, a distinct shift to a more accommodating Islamic position at least in public declarations has occurred, but it is not clear how much that shift is a response to a fear of retaliation.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this fundamental problem with Islam and civil society right now is the Muslim attitude towards those they label apostates (Muslims who leave the religion). Islamic law holds that apostates deserve death. Right now, the people who qualify as apostates, and are therefore deserving of death, are Muslims who criticize Islam or call attention to problems and the need to reform. The standard response from the Islamic world to the voice of moderate Muslim dissent is outrage and death threats which effectively silence those voices. On the other hand, Muslims who engage in suicide terrorism, those people who according to the PCP are ‘high-jacking’ and ‘perverting’ Islam, do not qualify as apostates according to prominent and vocal Muslim theologians. Again, since the London bombings, there has been some movement towards condemning terrorism, although critics have questioned the value and sincerity of the fatwa.

The situation has a recipe for mafia-style protection rackets and a culture of homerta (silence) where violence and its threat control public discourse. Muslims themselves represent the first and most common target of this violence, from the silenced reformers to the terrorism of Jihadis who consider the vast majority of Muslims as infidels who have regressed to the period of ignorance preceding the Prophet’s revelations (Jahaliyya). The terrible tales of Iraq, Darfur, Algeria, etc.!, in which Muslim terrorists kill Muslim civilians, support the JP’s perception of this violence as that of a fanatic religious war, the most daunting of enemies. One of the terrible truths with which those who will only swallow the PCP blue pill refuse to grapple, is that the first and worst victim of Jihadi Islamism is Muslims who do not join the movement, perhaps that very Islam which really is a religion of peace. In that sense, these forces represent enemies of all those people, Muslims, monotheists, polytheists, agnostics and atheists, who want to live in fruitful and peaceful relations with their neighbors.

We are dupes when we wrongly identify demopaths as “moderates” and ignore genuine moderates. Tariq Ramadan presents himself as a moderate, and has been compared with Niebuhr and Tillich by enthusiastic scholars of religion, as a high-level advisor to the English government may please the PCP desire to silence “knee-jerk elements in the right-wing press and their prejudices,” but if Tariq Ramadan is not a moderate, if his discourse, more closely examined, represents a “modern” reframing of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, then the consequences of such trust may prove most dangerous. Were Ramadan a demopath aiming at a Muslim takeover of Europe, he would use his position to eliminate the hot-heads who give away the game, and empower a whole generation of Muslim communities prepared to wait for a more opportune time, when the demographics improve.

How to tell a demopath in this crowded field of noisy claimants to tell us about Islam? In this case, where Islam stands out right now for the intensity of its demonizing public discourse, the Geiger counter for detecting demopaths is quite simple: What do they say and do about the hate speech that comes out of Islam, especially its Judeophobia? If they deny it, minimize it, make excuses, denounce it with empty formulas… if they engage in it when speaking to the choir… if, when pressed, they resort to accusations of Islamophobia and partisan bias against their critics… then the odds are, you’re either dealing with a demopath or an aggressive dupe. For those committed to civil society’s values, to let such demopaths slide is to hold Muslims in moral contempt by failing to apply the simplest of the rules of fairness. Why? For fear that they will not meet even those expectations? In any case, it condemns Muslims to a continued existence as the victims of systematic cultural and religious violence. Nothing illustrates these dynamics better than the Danish cartoon incident — Islamic hyper-sensitivity to criticism, demopathic comparisons of these cartoons with Holocaust denial, the “Muslim street” rioting, Western fears and intimidation, and the effective extension of Sharia law to non-Muslim areas.

The solution lies not in war, nor in demonizing, but in honest discourse, in supporting friends and challenging enemies; in making true friends and having the right enemies. So far, Islamophobia — the irrational fear of Islam — seems far more a term for demopaths to manipulate than a genuine identifier of a paranoid position.
​

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According to this article, you are clearly a "demopath" who tries to use the term Islamophobia to manipulate.

 

All the world's 'religions' start out with high ideals and get perverted into organizing elements of economic and social discrimination and promotion.
When you want to argue against a religion it's always where you draw the line at generalizing the actions of it's members, Southern Baptist and the KKK for one example.

I don't think we secular humanist and atheistic agnostics have much problem with that though, maybe the radical environmentalist.

It's the assignation and defense of certainty and omnipotence that gives religion the problem. Leaders can justify whatever they want.

 

Not at all, I am a critic of Islam and acknowledge many of the flaws - I read that article and agree with all of it.

You are the one who ignores the first half and jumps to defending your extremism by wrapping it under the blanket of "criticism". You are the one who steps over the boundary into Islamophobia over and over.

You are the one who portrays Islam and the majority of muslims as the death cult that produces violent jihadists and imply the solution is to spread fear of Islam.

So don't try to take your delusional reality and spin it any other way.

 

blah blah blah. Point being is that you would not defend Christianity but you have no problems defending Islam. For some odd reason, you believe Christianity is a bigger threat to the LGBT agenda than Islam.

But I guess you are correct in a sense... if a group persecutes another group into near extinction, then there truly is no problem to be had.

 

Please list some of the flaws you find with it.

Thanks.

DD

 

Let's be fair to him - he was critical of Islam.

Spoiler

Under his previous user name, that is.

And so on...more than 100 posts. Just goes to show that this guy is not sincere at all - he is just seeking attention.

 

Except our government is not ran by the laws of Christianity unlike many middle eastern countries govern by Islam. Its sad you can't see the difference.

And one group thinks youre going to hell. The other group eagerly wants to send you there. Clearly they are equal.

 

The main issues with Islam today is in the lack of tolerance for people to leave the religion, for women, and the overall need for reform to be part of the global world.

This backwardness in the issue that needs to be focused on.

 

Context is everything. Every religion, including Christianity has incredible value and brings a lot of positives. And they also bring a lot of negatives.

Christianity today is an example of how a religion that was once very intolerant and included practices such as stoning people for adultery and death for heresy can evolve into the mostly tolerant religion it is today. It's still not above critique. And neither is Islam.

You are coming up with a very misleading strawman Space Ghost.

 

So the fact that one is geographically closer to home is the only difference?

Does the one closer to home demand killing of apostates?