Iapetus wrote: ↑July 10th, 2018, 5:36 am
Reply to Spectrum:
Note the terrible evils by SOME evil prone Muslims are not confined to the evils acts of extremists but cover the full range of all sorts of evils by these 'SOME' evil prone Muslims.
I think this encapsulates your bigotry quite nicely.
I, personally, dislike the use of the term, ‘evil’ for a number of reasons which I won’t go into now. I accept, however, that many people use it as a form of shorthand for motives and actions which need to be strongly resisted. I have no problem with this, as long as they are prepared to explain and develop the reasons for such resistance.
There are, however, dangers associated with over-use of such terms. As an example, there is a ‘pro-life’ poster on abortion issues who seems incapable of addressing those who advocate abortion in certain circumstances without adding the adjective, ‘murderous’. It is not enough to simplify the argument into a single word; ‘abortionist’, which is bad enough. She has to add ‘murderous’ in front. Almost every time. Instead of dealing directly with the arguments, she has made a pre-judgement. In a discussion on relative positions with regard to the issue, she has declared that her mind is made up regardless. Abortionists are murderers. She is prejudiced.
As, it seems to me, are you with the term, ‘evil-prone’. You use it so frequently that it is difficult to discern any real meaning. Thus we end up with your sentence above. It is very confusing on a number of levels. It appears that you are trying to separate out some muslims from others with a big, capital-lettered SOME. I have to assume that you are trying to separate out ‘Muslims’ from ‘evil prone Muslims’ as a defence against accusations of bigotry but it may be that you want to separate some ‘evil prone Muslims’ from other ‘evil prone Muslims’. If it is the first case, then I have no idea about what basis you are using to define them as ‘evil prone’. Is it adherence to the Quran? If so, then what distinguishes them from other Muslims? This is a very significant question if we want to instigate border controls but it is certainly not resolved by repeated reference to ‘evil prone’. What is even more confusing is that you don’t appear to be refering simply to the
‘evil acts of extremists’. You include also the
“full range of all sorts of evils”. What on earth do you mean by this? What on earth could you mean, if you you not refering the the evil acts of extremists? This sounds like bigotry. After all, the ‘evil prone Muslims’ are not self-identifying. Are you talking about thought crime? Thinking bad things?
You quoted an extract from the Stanford Encyclopaedia about the use of the term, ‘evil’. It was, by the way, an unattributed essay. You declined to mention the sections which outlined problems with use of the term. You cherry-picked.
Moreover, ‘evil-prone’ could be applied to any group. I am sure that we could address the problem of ‘evil-prone quiltmakers’. The difficulty here would be in associating the activity of quiltmaking with motivations and actions of evil. The quiltmaking may turn out to be quite incidental. I know that you have stated,
“we must differentiate the ideology from the people”, but that is precisely what you seem incapable of doing. You have determined that
“Islam is inherently evil” – an opinion, not a demonstrable fact. This seems to be why you are so free with adding ‘evil prone’ to its followers even though you have admitted,
“even now the majority of Muslims do not take their religion seriously”. Could that statement not be applied equally to followers of all other religions?
The really sad thing about all this is that there is an argument to be had. Religious fundamentalism is a real issue in the world today. You cloud this argument by your confusion of vague opinion with facts and of unreasoned prejudice with objectiveness.