Can someone explain Islamophobia to me?

[BaMamma]

I don't think I have an irrational fear of Muslims, but I think I have a reasonable concern about radical Islam, does that make me Islamophobic?

I tend to use the dictionary when I want a definition. Wiki, as brilliant as it is, is not a dictionary.

re your comment about Catholics you are completely wrong. I do not know a single Catholic who is not openly appalled and disgusted by the abuse scandals in the Church . Ordinary Catholics were not involved in the cover ups - that was church clergy. We all agree it was shameful and Catholics are still reeling from the shock. We all acknowledge what happened. We all feel shame and disgust about it.

I’m not getting involved in this thread beyond this comment because I think there is prejudice and Islamophobia on here .
A lot of the negative comments are directed at the whole Muslim community ( not just the extremists) . There are things that I am angry about ( the treatment of the teacher in Batley)
and things I am uncomfortable about ( burqa and niqab wearing as I find it disturbing not to see someone’s face)
But the Muslims I personally know are gentle and good. To give one example- my local newsagent is so generous and humane to a ( white) homeless man who camps outside his shop door. They have established a friendship that is heartwarming.

Are the four claims you attribute to the PP capable of being true, or are they in your view inherently false? (ie is your disagreement with PP fundamentally an empirical one).

Interesting. Do you agree with the dictionary one that you posted?

I don’t, because it includes ‘dislike of Islam’, which I think is far too broad.

Regarding the second point on your list, do you really feel that there’s no difference between the numbers of attacks committed in the name of Islam and other religions?

Yes, because that's the definition.🤷‍♀️

When you use two dictionaries and they have conflicting definitions, what do you do?

Can you give me an example of conflicting definitions in different dictionaries because I can't think of one.

I don’t, because it includes ‘dislike of Islam’, which I think is far too broad.

I agree

Holistically, yes. My list is about how the post demonstrates islamophobic tropes and Islam being a violent religion is one of them. That is not to say that Islamist violence is not a problem, but that wasn’t the question. The problem is the extrapolation, There’s Islamist violence, therefore Islam is violent. As has been argued at length here, Muslims are the largest group affected by Islamist violence.

Your two definitions provided earlier conflict in this sense:

Person 1: “I dislike Islam”.

Has this person done Islamophobia in feeling this?

Oxford definition: Yes.
Wiki definition: No.

[edited for precision]

The response here is trying to shift the discussion into a debate over whether the post’s claims could be factually true. It attempts to confound and obfuscate. It’s not where I’m going to engage as it’s just a derailment and hence may not be in good faith.

I think it bears repetition, edit, regarding the definition of Islamophobia

I disagree that discussion on religion is an irrational fear.

It may cover the good aspects of religion, but also the negative can't be disallowed

‘I disagree that discussion on religion is an irrational fear.’ I don’t think anyone said that it was, so what exactly are you responding to here?

My question was the opposite of an attempt to obfuscate. I asked a clarifying question to try to understand your position.

And it’s hardly derailing to ask a question about the logical properties of your definition, on a thread about definitions.

As for bad faith: I struggle to think of any possible rules or norms for civil discussion of ideas that would put my question out of bounds.

Anyway, you felt my question was in bad faith so I’d like to reassure you.

Conversation would go something like: you make a claim, I ask a clarifying question, you clarify your definition, I say where I disagree or don’t disagree and why.

We each get to think a bit more about the topic under discussion and where or positions might be strong or weak, refine our thinking a bit and pass a bit of time on MN.

@smooththecat discussion on religion should include the negative parts, even if there are positive elements

There are negative aspects to the religion which is the subject of this thread which stand out to me.

I'd like to have a blunt discussion on what those are. It's not entirely possible.

And I don't think being blunt on religions and their harms is irrational

The definition given in a dictionary is not prescriptive. It's not telling you what the word means, but is trying to describe how the word is used - and that is subjective and changes over time. That's why you sometimes have different definitions in different dictionaries and people don't always agree with them.

Dislike clearly isn't a phobia even

If you apply it to anything else, I dislike many things idk say I dislike getting rained on if I forget an umbrella but only have a couple of phobias - arachnophobia and claustrophobia

As I said upthread, wiki isn't a dictionary.

@TooBigForMyBoots do you think if you dislike something it's a phobia?

Sure, but it illustrates that definitions that differ can contradict. This isn’t a gotcha. I’m trying to understand how you reconcile cases where two dictionaries have different definitions of the same concept.

I get that, but can you give me 2 conflicting dictionary definitions?

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It is not compiled like a dictionary. It is website that is edited by people on the internet, with varying degrees of accuracy. It is brilliant but it is not a dictionary. Anyone can edit the page on Woman to include eunuchs and men in dresses. They can't do the same to the dictionary.

Holistically? There have been numerous attacks in the name of Islam in recent times. The same doesn’t seem to be happening in the name of any other religions.
Only yesterday there was a deadly attack in France, defined by Macron as an Islamist terror act, and the day before that, a stabbing of a Spanish tourist at Berlin's Holocaust Memorial by a Syrian man suspected of ‘a religious motivation’ according to the German police.
That’s only in the last two days and within Europe.
So if someone expresses concern about it, how is it irrational fear?