Would you ever make these statements to a friend or colleague who is Muslim? If so how do you think that would make them feel, and if not then why not?
This is a good question, and no, I would not, because I am polite and don't feel the need to hurt someone's personal feelings face to face. Doesn't mean it's not true. Would you tell your wife she is fat, if she is fat? Doesn't mean it's not true.
OK, so you think it’s just fine for an official to put out public statements that reach the ears of all Muslims (including your friends/colleagues), and presumably would hurt them just the same if not more so, but it wouldn’t be OK to say it in a personal interaction because you don’t want to hurt them? It’s difficult for me to understand that.
I understand that you agree with what he said. I’m not going to fight you over that. If out of a desire not to be cruel you wouldn’t actually say it face to face to a Muslim acquaintance you have no beef with, should it not also be the case that you’d want officials to show some restraint in saying it on a platform where even more such acquaintances would be affected? Don’t you think the cruelty that you personally would feel uncomfortable expressing would only be encouraged in others who are not as polite as you as a result of this? There’s nothing to be gained by calling certain people you have no quarrel with physically ugly and it’s just needlessly cruel to do so in public (even if you think it is true). In the same way, I don’t see the point in calling a revered religious figure who lived ages ago a pedophile or saying someone’s sacred beliefs are inherently “evil”. It seems to me just being antagonistic and nasty for its own sake.
A harmful ideology is a harmful ideology. No ideology has a right to not be criticized because it might offend some of its followers. I think the idea of "an infallible pope" is stupid. I think a lot of teachings in all kinds of religions are dumb as ****. Do I shove that in people's faces? No. Should these ideologies have some kind of magic shield where they can't be criticized, the less so the more easily offended its followers become? Hell no. Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas. I only talk about it anonymously here, for a variety of reasons. But an ideology has no right to be beyond criticism, even though Islam tries to institute that, by punishing apostasy with death, and by having the most violent followers and the most violent reactions to any kind of criticism. They even invented a misnomer called "Islamophobia".
In that case, would you then also be OK with an official publicly criticizing other religions that have certain teachings you might consider dumb? I know next to nothing about Judaism, and so I have nothing negative to say about it. But perhaps someone who is familiar with it might have major problems they’d want to express. Some of it may hurt the sensitivities of devout Jews. Are you cool with that as well?
To be clear, I don’t see any problem with criticizing really bad ideas in a religion — like punishment for apostasy or free expression. But I think there’s a pretty clear distinction between critiques of bad ideas and inflammatory statements like “Islam is inherently evil” or “Muhammad is a pedophile” which serve no purpose other than to antagonize or demean a people. If we are talking about Judaism or some other religion, I think you’d recognize the distinction much more readily than you do for Islam.
It is historically accurate to state that Muhammad was a pedophile warlord. Why should one not be allowed to state the truth?
I don’t know if it is actually true that Mohammed was attracted to prepubescent children, which is what “pedophile” means. And unless he or contemporaries wrote that he did, I don’t think anyone can know this. Nevertheless, of course I think one should be allowed to say it. However, as you well know, what people should be allowed to say and what people should say are two different things. Now, is the purpose of making such a statement to critique a harmful ideology, or is the purpose to antagonize people who demand punishment for insults against Muhammed? It really seems to me that it’s the latter. And I don’t think officials should be insulting revered religious figures (be it Muhammed, or Jesus, or Moses, or whoever) simply to make a point about free speech. There are more constructive ways do this.
The motivation behind statements is important. There are genuine historical interests in making statements, but those are usually matter-of-fact type statements, such as "the historical Muhammad married Aisha when she was around 9 years old," or "He led armies and engaged in warfare" (many of the stories are about him using warfare to defend his new religious movement from annihilation and persecutions). Statements such as "pedophile warlord," in today's context, carry a clear negative narrative that can be interpreted as pushing the whole religion as horrible. I think we can categorize that as bigotry. As an aside, I think if anyone wants to push hatred toward any religion, they are very likely able to find historical and textual information to do so. Discerning between historical facts, relevance, narrative, and bigotry is all important. People can state whatever they want, and others can respond however they want. Calling Islam as a whole evil is bigotry, and those agreeing with that are also showing their bigotry.
That's sooo ridiculous. Doing that kind of stuff they are going to F*ck around and find out if they keep pushing.
This is a very common problem with the internet and social media that people express their most angry and negative views because they can do so anonymously. This also becomes a feedback mechanism where people read and self select messages that feed though negative views and then amplify them. This is why people often say “if you just get people together they wouldn’t say the same things they write behind the anonymity of a keyboard and screen.” What we’ve gotten though in a lot of our culture is the opposite where what messages from behind keyboards and screens is amplified.
