Why are people scared to discuss Islam

[Belindi]

Given the apparent obsession with zombies in popular culture, perhaps the movie "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" might be a good introduction to Jane Austen for young people? Or perhaps not.

Whatever works, Steve Elizabeth Bennet is so much not a Zombie, while her mother is sort of dead and alive. One wonder how her Zombie-like parents can have produced her. That they did so gives hope to us all. Moreover all the Zombies in P and P are made a lot of fun of which can't be bad.

[Steve3007]

Yes perhaps you're right. I originally thought that "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" was just a daft idea for a movie. But maybe adding mindless zombies to the story is actually a witty comment on the strict social structures of early 19th Century society as depicted by Jane Austen which themselves forced people to act like mindless zombies, simply going through the motions of life according to a set of superficial rules over which they had no control, against which Elizabeth Bennet courageously rebelled. Discuss?

[Belindi]

Steve, I really do believe that sudden daft ideas can form the structure of a new idea that can be made into a work of art.

Those traditional ideas such as pride in oneself are not altogether bad, though. Elizabeth Bennet had too much pride in herself to marry her ridiculous cousin, or to be intimidated by Lady de Bourgh, or even by Darcy. Darcy had too much pride in himself to refuse to help others however undeserving they were. It's about separating the wheat from the chaff of outworn or self serving ideas. It's also about the rise of the individual against those conservative trends which encourage prejudice.

Islam seems to be in a changing state right now. I saw the religious chiefs at the prayers for the victims of the Westminster murders. The Shi'ite imam embraced the Sunni imam. There is maybe a movement towards a split between liberal, moderate, Islam on the one hand and fanatical, violent, Islam on the other hand. The many disparate sects of Islam are now amidst winds of change. Saudi Arabia and Wahabbism is a hard nut to crack.

[-1-]

It is a misconception that PnP or other Austen novels were written by J. Austen. They were written, and published under a pseudonym, by Ibn Abdul Hadji Halef Omar, a Wahabbi Imam, who started his writhing career first with being a spinning dervish.

[Spectrum]

Why most people are scared to discuss Islam is because they have been subliminally cowed into submission to be scared of 'death' by the evident threats and real killings and violence by SOME evil prone Muslims. [critiques of Islam are violently killed as sanction by Islam]

In addition, this deterrence is supported by ignorant and cowed Muslim apologists and many left wing liberals.

Islam in part [not whole] is inherently evil. When their evils acts manifest from SOME Islamists, they strategized to shut the critiques and unfortunately they have been very successful with the 'Islamophobia' [a stupid and irrational term] with the help of the cowed left wing liberals.

While the critiques of Islams are shut down, the evil Islamists [SOME] are doing what is natural to them, i.e. propagate their evils to dominate the world [another stupid idea].

The moderates Muslims are relative powerless to condemn those who are committing evils as inspired by the evil laden verses in the Quran. As per the Quran, no Muslims [including the moderates] has any divine authority to judge the acts of another Muslims. So the 'SOME' [20% = 300 million!! ] of evil prone Muslims will continue to commit evils and violence in the belief they are doing their duty as a good Muslim to please Allah so they can go the Paradise.

At present I have done enough research on Islam to claim to be a reasonable expert on the religion.

Islam in part [not whole] is inherently evil. The majority of humanity must update their knowledge of Islam - the ideology - and made the relevant rational critique to highlight the inherent evil within Islam.

[Eduk]

No more inherently evil than any other unreasonable belief. People cherry pick which parts they want to focus on and which they don't. Free will is a bit complex in that we seem to have free will but at the same time we aren't islands and are very clearly influenced either negatively or positively by the circumstances we find ourselves in.
To give another example people love to give other people very simple and complete labels. Which in their heads define them entirely. They then attack those people on a personal level. Then actions and words are cherry picked to support the hypothesis.
Personally i wouldn't be too sure of my opinion if i used words such as communist or liberal as an incontrovertible insult.

[Steve3007]

Don't argue with Spectrum on the subject of Islam. It's his thing. He's been here a while and has honed it. You're on a hiding to nothing.

[Eduk]

Ah Jeez if I only answered posts where I thought the person writing hadn't already had their mind made up I wouldn't answer many

[Spectrum]

No more inherently evil than any other unreasonable belief.

All religions has unreasonable beliefs. However in the context of the OP [scared to discuss Islam], Islam is the only religion that has extreme malignant evil [in part not whole] that inspire SOME Muslims who are evil prone to commit terrible evils and violence that are glaringly evident.

Tell me which other religion [major] catalyze their believers [a large minority] to commit terrible evils and violence in the name of the religion, the founder and quoting from their main holy texts.

People cherry pick which parts they want to focus on and which they don't. Free will is a bit complex in that we seem to have free will but at the same time we aren't islands and are very clearly influenced either negatively or positively by the circumstances we find ourselves in.

I agree cherry picking [a fallacy] is not wholesome critical thinking for discussion on any topic.

Even in my post, I have made sufficient qualifications, e.g. SOME, not all, a part, etc. to maintain my intellectual integrity.

Another critical requirement is to be objective and support all claims with evidence.
To critique any subject [Islam in this case] it would preferable for one to be an expert on the subject. I am striving to achieve that 'expert' status [80% on Quran-based Islam].
I have evidence from the Quran to support my claims but in a forum like this I am constraint in providing and list all the references.

This is why I advocated [in my post] non-Muslims to get educated on the topic of Islam and the Quran so that they can critique Islam [deservedly] on a rational and objective basis. Especially not from a perspective of ignorance in condemning other critiques [experts or non-experts].

One point is, a critique of Islam cannot take the Quran superficially and too lightly. The Quran is a very DENSE, compact, complex and messed-up [no well arrange theme] text.

In understanding and unpacking the Quran, I relied on more than 50++ English Translations of the Quran but that is not sufficient as there are often no consensus among the translators on certain critical issue.
To supplement one has to learn at least basic [not necessary advanced] Quranic Arabic language, the grammar, etc. I have done that [grudgingly in order to be more objective].
To top it all, one must apply philosophy-proper [critical thinking, wisdom, extensive knowledge etc.] to the understanding of the Quran, Islam and believers in general.

I have spent more than 2 years FULL-TIME [ave 6 hours a day] on the above and there is still quite a long way to go. Since then I have done very detailed analysis of the Quran, summaries, statistical analysis, flowcharts, etc.

To give another example people love to give other people very simple and complete labels. Which in their heads define them entirely. They then attack those people on a personal level. Then actions and words are cherry picked to support the hypothesis.
Personally i wouldn't be too sure of my opinion if i used words such as communist or liberal as an incontrovertible insult.

I did mention 'left wing liberal' [political perspectives] and qualified 'many'.

But the main reason why people are so afraid to critique Islam is because they have been subliminally cowed [leveraged on primal fears] and is not even aware of that. 'Subliminal = unconscious, unaware'.

This is one of Islam's strategy to 'win' [under subliminal emotional desperation] against non-Muslims;

• 3:151. We [Allah] shall cast terror [R3B: l-ruʿ'ba] into the hearts of those [infidels] who disbelieve because they [infidels] ascribe unto Allah partners [ShRK: ashrakū idols and deities], for which no warrant hath been revealed. Their [infidels] habitation is the Fire, and hapless the abode of the wrong doers [l-ẓālimīna] [infidels].

The above verse is supported by many other similar verses and the whole ethos of the Quran.

Btw, I not claiming to be absolutely right on my views, but if you want to critique them, then do so objectively and with supporting evidences from the Quran [core of Islam].

-- Updated Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:17 am to add the following --

Don't argue with Spectrum on the subject of Islam. It's his thing. He's been here a while and has honed it. You're on a hiding to nothing.

I'll accept that since I have put in the necessary effort and done my homework.

[Belindi]

Ah Jeez if I only answered posts where I thought the person writing hadn't already had their mind made up I wouldn't answer many

We each sit upon our pet idea set like a hen incubating her egg.

[Steve3007]

Spectrum:

I'll accept that since I have put in the necessary effort and done my homework.

Okey dokey. By the way, my comment wasn't meant as a criticism of any of your arguments per se. It was just an observation that you've clearly spent a lot of time on this particular issue.

-- Updated Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:56 am to add the following --

Belindi:

We each sit upon our pet idea set like a hen incubating her egg.

We do indeed. It's something I've noticed about this forum. In fact, I've mentioned it enough times before that maybe that is one of my own little eggs! A sort of meta-egg. Don't know if any conclusion can be drawn about it all.

[Eduk]

We do indeed. It's something I've noticed about this forum. In fact, I've mentioned it enough times before that maybe that is one of my own little eggs! A sort of meta-egg. Don't know if any conclusion can be drawn about it all.

Yes we can draw rather a large conclusion from it. The recognition of the success of double blinding for example is directly attributable to this self knowledge.
When you accept you aren't a perfect recording instrument it can help temper your response. The ideal of the scientific method is after sitting on your egg for a decade to get off the second you are presented with empirical evidence falsifying your claims. Of course a very very hard thing to actually do in real life, but some individuals have and do and the community as a whole does.

Tell me which other religion [major] catalyze their believers [a large minority] to commit terrible evils and violence in the name of the religion, the founder and quoting from their main holy texts.

I would argue this was more a cultural phenomenon than anything directly derived from some book. For example there is a long tradition of hooliganism at football matches. Does this mean football is inherently evil?

[Spectrum]

Tell me which other religion [major] catalyze their believers [a large minority] to commit terrible evils and violence in the name of the religion, the founder and quoting from their main holy texts.

I would argue this was more a cultural phenomenon than anything directly derived from some book. For example there is a long tradition of hooliganism at football matches. Does this mean football is inherently evil?

It is not cultural but fundamentally due to the human DNA and human nature.

DNA wise, all humans beings has the potential [dormant and active] to be evil.
A certain % of humans has significant active evil tendencies. [say 20%, could be more in various degrees].

This active evil tendencies in some % of people can be triggered into evil actions by various factors, e.g. from internal [chemical, drugs, brainwashing, etc.] or external elements [sense activated].
Therefore on the issue of evil, what is most critical is humanity must find the root causes that trigger evils in those with active evil tendencies and even those whose evil tendencies are dormant.
Islam is one religion that can cause even very good people to be evil.

Note, all evils must be addressed and investigated to find their root causes and solutions are to be taken by addressing the root causes.

Now if playing 'football' do cause evil and violence, then playing football should be researched and investigated to find the root causes that caused the related evils. There has been violence arising during and after football matches and the cause-effect has been well researched.
As far as football per-se is concerned there are no rules within the games of football [as approved by FIFA] that condone evils and violence. So evil is not inherent within football per-se.
The causes of violence that arose within and after football matches has been traced to various factors other than football per-se and steps are usually take to prevent violence [evils] from arising, e.g. opposing fans seated and separated, alcohol is banned, bags checked for potential weapons, etc.

SOME Muslims do commit evils and violence against non-Muslims and other Muslims for other reasons that are not directly related to the Quran. This need to be addressed but they are not the point of the OP.

What we are concerned here is there are loads of verses in the Quran [words of Allah] that directly condone and inspire SOME evil prone Muslims to commit evils and violence on non-Muslims and other Muslims. This is the reason why Islam per-se [in part] is inherently and malignantly and evil.

This is why I request you to educate yourself with the Quran thoroughly and understand why the Quran. i.e. Islam [in part] is inherently evil or argue your case if you insist Islam is not inherently evil.

Your blind insistent that evils and violence committed by SOME Muslims are culturally driven and not because 'Islam is inherently evil' is based on an abandonment of your intellectual integrity towards pure ignorance or the "Ostrich Effect". It is obvious you are one of those who had been severely 'cowed' by the Islamist strategy to silence critiques of Islam.

[Eduk]

Obvious to anyone who reads sentences which can be understood in many different ways and takes their own interpretation as factual. I assume you also believe in horoscopes?

[Belindi]

Obvious to anyone who reads sentences which can be understood in many different ways and takes their own interpretation as factual. I assume you also believe in horoscopes?

I think Spectrum makes a worthy point about those Koranic verses . If the Koran is to be interpreted literally and not historically then those verses in the Koran will inspire some people to do what they are told is the direct word of Allah. I personally don't know what interpretations are taught by which imams , and I am sorry that Islamic authorities such as they are are not communicating with infidels very well.

Is the latter communication problem caused by Muslim consciousness of historical exploitation by infidels, or is it caused by some injunction in the Koran that infidels should not be communicated with?

I do understand however that one Islamic sect the Wahabbis are literal interpreters and oppressive. I also understand that Sunni and Shia have different doctrines about the spiritual leadership dynasty. Another point that we should remember is that Islamism is politicised Islam but most of the Muslims one meets daily are not Islamist. Yet another point is that many if not all religions, including modern inventions such as Mormon, absorb ideas and practises from the wider society including superstitious and pagan ideas and practices.

Spectrum has bitten off more than he chews.

-- Updated April 3rd, 2017, 6:41 am to add the following --

Obvious to anyone who reads sentences which can be understood in many different ways and takes their own interpretation as factual. I assume you also believe in horoscopes?

I think Spectrum makes a worthy point about those Koranic verses . If the Koran is to be interpreted literally and not historically then those verses in the Koran will inspire some people to do what they are told is the direct word of Allah. I personally don't know what interpretations are taught by which imams , and I am sorry that Islamic authorities such as they are are not communicating with infidels very well.

Is the latter communication problem caused by Muslim consciousness of historical exploitation by infidels, or is it caused by some injunction in the Koran that infidels should not be communicated with?

I do understand however that one Islamic sect the Wahabbis are literal interpreters and oppressive. I also understand that Sunni and Shia have different doctrines about the spiritual leadership dynasty. Another point that we should remember is that Islamism is politicised Islam but most of the Muslims one meets daily are not Islamist. Yet another point is that many if not all religions, including modern inventions such as Mormon, absorb ideas and practises from the wider society including superstitious and pagan ideas and practices.

Spectrum has bitten off more than he chews.