Society/Culture Why I blame Islam for the fact it's raining today.... part 2

[Chief]

Reminder:

This isn't the Israel/Hamas thread.

Go to the Israel/Hamas thread if you want to talk about that.

Mid East - Israel declare war after Hamas attack II

Part I: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/israel-declare-war-after-hamas-attack.1371828/page-47#post-81443295 Thread Rules: Alright. I recognise that this is a fraught topic for any number of you posting here. Some of you will have family in Israel or Palestine. Some of you will have...

www.bigfooty.com

Thanks.

 

[Crankyhawk]

Hypocrisy much?

Currently the largest group is the non Muslims, and here you are, as a member of that group, advocating for policy to discriminate against the Muslim minority (ostensibly to keep them that way).

Well yes; I as an atheist do not want any special rights or privileges given to people “because religion”. It’s as illogical as special right because someone barracks for north Melbourne, or Fremantle.

 

[ShanDog]

The first part is a reply to you. The secomd half more of a general rant.

First half is saying that 40 years ago isn't far removed from us. It's a generation and a third by current birth age - less than the difference between us and our grandparents.

Ok, makes sense, but it really just reinforces what I said. Forty years isn't a great deal of time in a literal sense, but in the context of social change, it's been exponentially greater than every 40 years prior to it.

 

[Number37]

I'm not sure anyone was making this argument, but regardless, you legitimately believe that Western society on the whole is not far and away better on human/social rights and liberal laws than effectively everywhere else? If so, where else does it as well or even better?

The struggle that minorities/the marginalised face for rights in every type of society is the same.

The idea that Western society treats better minorities/the marginalised is the stuff of fantasy.

Western society creates a class of marginalised people then discriminates against them.
The unemployed. The homeless. Just 2 examples.

 

[ShanDog]

The struggle that minorities/the marginalised face for rights in every type of society is the same.

The idea that Western society treats better minorities/the marginalised is the stuff of fantasy.

Western society creates a class of marginalised people then discriminates against them.
The unemployed. The homeless. Just 2 examples.

That's a mealy mouthed answer that is at very best extremely dubious. It doesn't really address my actual question.

Your two examples are in fact non-examples. What non-western societies treat the homeless and unemployed better, provide them more support or have stronger human rights for them?

 

[Number37]

That's a mealy mouthed answer that is at very best extremely dubious. It doesn't really address my actual question.

Your two examples are in fact non-examples. What non-western societies treat the homeless and unemployed better, provide them more support or have stronger human rights for them?

I would have thought the answer was obvious.

If Western society is so much better then why TF do they even have homeless people?
Homeless people are created by the society. They don't magically appear out of nowhere.
A society that creates homeless people is better than a society that doesn't support or grant human rights to homeless people?
How do you figure that?
I would have thought there isn't any difference between the 2.
I have no idea how you can say one is definitively better than the other.

 

[ShanDog]

I would have thought the answer was obvious.

If Western society is so much better then why TF do they even have homeless people?
Homeless people are created by the society. They don't magically appear out of nowhere.
A society that creates homeless people is better than a society that doesn't support or grant human rights to homeless people?
How do you figure that?
I would have thought there isn't any difference between the 2.
I have no idea how you can say one is definitively better than the other.

I don't even know where to start with this baffling attempt at reasoning.

The question is pretty clear regardless of how much you try to dodge it.

What region/cultural group/nation of the world has better rights and outcomes for the people in it than the liberal democracies of Westernised nations?

 

[ZEV]

That's a mealy mouthed answer that is at very best extremely dubious. It doesn't really address my actual question.

Your two examples are in fact non-examples. What non-western societies treat the homeless and unemployed better, provide them more support or have stronger human rights for them?

He can't answer it.

 

[barreness]

We're quick to target fundamentalist Christians and even the US over backward religious views on sexuality and womens rights. Yet surveys show attitudes of many Muslim majority nations to be far more backward and unaccepting than the US.

It seems to me that many give Islam and Muslims a free pass because they're not white or Western.

Islam isn't a race and I have no problem criticising it - I think all organised religion is backwards and dangerous, especially the Abrahamic versions.

While Christianity has been largely tamed in Australian society, it still punches above it's weight in politics. Islam has not yet been tamed and secularised to the same extent and I believe there are valid reasons to be concerned about its potential to influence our way of life. That's being swept under the carpet because we don't want to apper racist towards a religion.

Yeh I do give them a little more leeway, they most likely come from a country that has suffered from recent American imperialism/other colonial acts etc, a community that has been bombed and starved to bits I will forgive for not being the most liberal for a generation or two, they couldn't afford to be under those circumstances.

I don't like the Islamic schools tbh, Mosque is fine but let the wider Australian community liberalise them through public school. People find religion comforting and who am I to tell them otherwise

The particular dislike of the reactionary modern Christian comes from their hate of the growing liberalism and their ability to influence politics for me, it's de-secularising which is the concern

 

[Ghost Patrol]

I don't even know where to start with this baffling attempt at reasoning.

The question is pretty clear regardless of how much you try to dodge it.

What region/cultural group/nation of the world has better rights and outcomes for the people in it than the liberal democracies of Westernised nations?

Well you have USA with regular mass shootings, so it's probably not them. Military industrial complex.... oh
Threatening the ICC and ignoring International law.... hmmmm

It seems not all Westernised nations are the same.

 

[barreness]

I don't even know where to start with this baffling attempt at reasoning.

The question is pretty clear regardless of how much you try to dodge it.

What region/cultural group/nation of the world has better rights and outcomes for the people in it than the liberal democracies of Westernised nations?

Because you've got it backwards

We industrialised, unionised, enriched at least some of the working class, democratised and then liberalised(mostly). I don't think those last two steps are really necessary for our ruling capital class, and could be argued to be in retreat

Material conditions ya know, to expect the opposite order is I think unviable under capitalism.

However you could look at rights in USSR/Cuba for minorities*/women a lot earlier than many, even if material conditions were far worse early on. Outcomes for indigenous people are basically bottom of the barrel amongst liberal democracies still today

*obviously scrap some Stalin shit, as you could say about a lot of democratic leaders

 

[ShanDog]

Because you've got it backwards

We industrialised, unionised, enriched at least some of the working class, democratised and then liberalised(mostly). I don't think those last two steps are really necessary for our ruling capital class, and could be argued to be in retreat

Material conditions ya know, to expect the opposite order is I think unviable under capitalism.

However you could look at rights in USSR/Cuba for minorities*/women a lot earlier than many, even if material conditions were far worse early on. Outcomes for indigenous people are basically bottom of the barrel amongst liberal democracies still today

*obviously scrap some Stalin s**t, as you could say about a lot of democratic leaders

I'm talking about the present.

Do south Asian or east Asian (excluding probably Korea & Japan since they have westernised their laws for the most part) nations have better rights? South America? African nations? Anywhere? Would it be advantageous for you to move to a non-Western nation and retain your rights and freedoms anywhere else in the world?

 

[Gethelred]

I'm talking about the present.

Do south Asian or east Asian (excluding probably Korea & Japan since they have westernised their laws for the most part) nations have better rights? South America? African nations? Anywhere? Would it be advantageous for you to move to a non-Western nation and retain your rights and freedoms anywhere else in the world?

Sorry to pull a postmodernism on you here, but your opinion of what is 'better' from the alternatives presented will be shaped by where you grew up; the dominant discourses around 'good' rights versus 'bad' or 'lesser' rights. A Cuban person might treasure their healthcare system and deride the freedom to die of an American context; a Chinese citizen might ridicule individualist rights over the more collectivist society as chaos over order. Hell, a male chauvanist might prefer the Saudi Arabian system; there is no greater evidence than the American obsession with gun rights.

What you value and what you don't is shaped by where you were raised. Your questions aren't meaningful, because there's no objectively 'better' system; there's what you prefer versus what you don't.

If you want to argue from a utilitarian perspective - ugh - then you could try and maximise happiness or progress or productivity, but I don't know how well Western nations would do compared to other systems there either. In short, to say one is better than the other is to truly be saying 'I prefer this system over that one'. Which is a fine position to take - and it's one I'm fully in sympathy with - but it's not intellectually honest to depict it any other way.

 

[the_interloper]

The Mayor of London is a Muslim, and the Prime Minister of the UK is Hindu.

What's changed?

The UK being conservative is way more important than him being Hindu that’s for sure

 

[ShanDog]

Sorry to pull a postmodernism on you here, but your opinion of what is 'better' from the alternatives presented will be shaped by where you grew up; the dominant discourses around 'good' rights versus 'bad' or 'lesser' rights. A Cuban person might treasure their healthcare system and deride the freedom to die of an American context; a Chinese citizen might ridicule individualist rights over the more collectivist society as chaos over order. Hell, a male chauvanist might prefer the Saudi Arabian system; there is no greater evidence than the American obsession with gun rights.

What you value and what you don't is shaped by where you were raised. Your questions aren't meaningful, because there's no objectively 'better' system; there's what you prefer versus what you don't.

If you want to argue from a utilitarian perspective - ugh - then you could try and maximise happiness or progress or productivity, but I don't know how well Western nations would do compared to other systems there either. In short, to say one is better than the other is to truly be saying 'I prefer this system over that one'. Which is a fine position to take - and it's one I'm fully in sympathy with - but it's not intellectually honest to depict it any other way.

It's only intellectually dishonest if you put any credence into postmodernism

 

[Crankyhawk]

Islam has been growing in the UK and Europe. It’s rising and going to continue to rise.

Do you think it’ll just continue rising or peak and decline

Atheism is also rising and faster. Which is as it should be. And means no danger of any type of religious whack job laws taking over (beyond what is already in law)

 

[Crankyhawk]

And the religious people don't want your group of atheists and agnostics telling them what to do either.

It's hypocrisy wanting to place legal restrictions on Muslims (banning Muslim immigration, stopping Mosque construction etc) on the grounds that if they get in the majority, they'd seek to place legal restrictions on you.

Either people are free to do what they want to do and believe what they want to believe (without restriction) or they're not.

Choose a lane.

Their beliefs should not impact wider society more than what footy team they support. Any widening of religious power of influence beyond this is illogical. Religion is only an opinion you may hold your opinion and not be persecuted for holding it beyond what the law of the land is (no free pass for practicing nazi elements)

 

[Crankyhawk]

Australia isnt a dictatorship either, and even if it was, Sharia law wouldn't pass here in Australia either:

Section 116 of our Constitution provides:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

In light of the above provision, please explain to me how Sharia law becomes the law of Australia?

So with this existing provision wtf were people whinging about needing religious freedom? They already have it

 

[Crankyhawk]

Just googled it - 1984, but not for being homosexual - for performing a homosexual act. It's bloody recent. Homosexuality is forbidden in all the Abrahamic religions, not just Islam. Whether or not it is illegal in a society tends to depend on the level of secularism in that country - eg it is not illegal in Turkey. Sodomy is illegal in Malaysia - but that is a relic of British Christian colonial rule - it's not generally an enforced law in Malaysia.

Apart from political reasons (Anwar)

Edit nvm was already mentioned

 

[Gough]

So with this existing provision wtf were people whinging about needing religious freedom? They already have it

Marriage equality broke these stupid campaigner's minds. Faced with overwhelming evidence that their brand of small minded bigotry is out of step with society they've thrown a tantrum that would do an overtired toddler proud.

 

[sr36]

So with this existing provision wtf were people whinging about needing religious freedom? They already have it

The constitution may make religious freedom lawful, but we've still got to fight for it.

We've got people trying to paint all muslims as representative of Iranian injustice and suggesting that we have to ensure that that religion stays under a particular percentage within society.

 

[Crankyhawk]

The constitution may make religious freedom lawful, but we've still got to fight for it.

We've got people trying to paint all muslims as representative of Iranian injustice and suggesting that we have to ensure that that religion stays under a particular percentage within society.

Well this is where it’s a little tricky. I think it is reasonable to have an opinion that you fear the adherents of a religion- your opinion about it is as valid as the holding of a religion (religion being only as important as an opinion). However you should not be taking direct measures to oppress the religious from holding an opinion. You may use existing laws (eg town planning codes) to prevent building of religious buildings in my opinion

 

[Gethelred]

It's only intellectually dishonest if you put any credence into postmodernism

I'd certainly be interested in reading you attempt to demonstrate a series of objectively 'better' rights, Shan.

 

[sr36]

Ok, makes sense, but it really just reinforces what I said. Forty years isn't a great deal of time in a literal sense, but in the context of social change, it's been exponentially greater than every 40 years prior to it.

I'd argue that 40 years is such M historical blip that we don't even know if any of the change will hold ad become meaningful.

 

[ShanDog]

I'd argue that 40 years is such M historical blip that we don't even know if any of the change will hold ad become meaningful.

That's a fair point, there's no guarantees.

 

[sr36]

Well this is where it’s a little tricky. I think it is reasonable to have an opinion that you fear the adherents of a religion- your opinion about it is as valid as the holding of a religion (religion being only as important as an opinion). However you should not be taking direct measures to oppress the religious from holding an opinion. You may use existing laws (eg town planning codes) to prevent building of religious buildings in my opinion

Doing so as a response to the religion that the building represents rather than how the building and it's use will affect community infrastructure is definitely religious oppression.