aviel wrote:First, as far as I can tell, nobody here is calling for any restriction on free speech.
Not here, and I already said that that's to her credit.
aviel wrote:Second, a Muslim can reasonably be offended for being asked to denounce Islamic extremism because she don't think she should have to, not because she's okay with that extremism. Requiring Muslims to denounce Islamic extremism is basically the same as insisting that black people should be handling black-on-black crime. There is an inherent bigotry in holding each individual responsible for the behavior of the entire group. It's that bigotry that causes people to take offense, not the attack on Islamic extremism.
I don't expect individual Muslims to denounce Islamic terrorist attacks, but I do expect organizations like CAIR and the MCB to. If you claim to represent American or British Muslims and an American or British Muslim commits a terrorist attack, I'd say you have an obligation to say something about it. I also think that these groups should more proactively condemn dangerously authoritarian attitudes present in their communities, such as support for blasphemy laws, and yet instead they have a tendency to say "there ought to be limits to free speech" whenever someone says something mean about Islam.
aviel wrote:Finally, it's not so much tu quoquism when there are people of other religions who believe themselves to be moral, and Muslims not to be, but if the same reasoning applied to Muslims were applied to them, they would have to conclude themselves to be immoral. That's not whataboutism; that's pointing out an inconsistency in an argument. The problem with "well in your country you lynch negroes" was a) that that was usually criticizing a different kind of wrong premised on different moral questions, and b) that the person being criticized usually didn't think that lynchings were okay either. Neither of those elements is applicable here.
Sorry, I'm not following your argument here.
Crimson847 wrote:Did I misinterpret that part?
Very much so. I was saying that I expect a lot people are going to see the overblown reaction and react much as I did, against the people who are attacking the billboard rather than the billboard itself.
Crimson847 wrote:hey made a lousy argument and acted like assholes, which makes critics of Islam look bad just as the reaction makes defenders of Islam look bad.
See, I don't think it's a lousy argument. Insomuch as they're making any argument, it would seem to be that there's a problem in Islam because Muhammad is supposed to be an example for everyone to follow, yet he's utterly terrible. What's wrong with that argument?
Crimson847 wrote:Your argument in your own words is that Islam is "qualitatively different from other religions". Not just that it has flaws, but that those flaws are significantly worse than those of any other major religion. If your whole point is "Islam is worse than other religions", then what other religions do is in fact relevant.
That's
my point, not necessarily that of the designers of the billboard. However every example that people give of "oh look, other religions do bad stuff too!" completely misses the point. The point isn't that people do bad stuff in the name of Islam. It's that they're following Mohammad's example when they do so.
Crimson847 wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army
Seriously? The LRA is a weird African cult with precious little connection to Christianity which makes no attempt to follow Christ's example. Central Africa is filled with such groups, but you don't find them popping up outside of Central Africa because they're not following Christ's example. You do find Salafist movements popping up all over the Islamic world, and can point to similar examples earlier in Islam's history with no connection. The problem is that such groups
are following Mohammad's example. We could eradicate Salafism, have every Muslim country turn into a liberal democracy, and still risk having groups like ISIS pop up again.
@Lemon:
The problems inherent in Islam are not present in Hinduism. The thuggee cult, which is the most common example I see for Hinduism's answer to ISIS (hence why I brought it up), is in fact nothing like ISIS. Nothing you've said seems to contradict either of those points. And I use Christianity and Hinduism in contrast with Islam because they're the world's first and third largest religions. However if you'd rather I use a religion which actually has a founder, perhaps you can tell me where the Sikh ISIS is?