Islamaphobia?

[Onnedheil]

So, as feminists, women, fighting against patriarchy, against rape culture against male violence to women. My question is this.

Are we suddenly now supposed to be supporting a religion that is an actual rape culture, Openly accepted paedophilia, actual supremacy of toxic masculinity an actual patriarchy Which is responsible for female genital mutilation , based on a the word of a paedophile warmonger who propagates a monotheist singular God who is male .

And when Anyone, speaks out about these things We're labelled as a racist and as islamaphobe and told to silence our voice for the religion of peace?

Have I ended up in the twilight zone or something?

[BertrandRussell]

Glad I offered some morning amusement.

[HermioneWeasley]

Science and evidence based research are not belief systems. They are the opposite.

Saying "I'm raising my kid Christian and if they convert to Islam I'd think I'd failed to teach them critical thinking" would be a nonsense.

[BertrandRussell]

It's no use, Hermione. It is impossible to explain to some people that atheism is not a belief system. Those people do seem to have acquired some unexpected allies, though, which is sad.

[HermioneWeasley]

I'll just leave this here...

[niminypiminy]

I agree that atheism in itself is not a belief system (though I find Ricky Gervais being wheeled out to reiterate it wearisome). But materialism, the idea that there is nothing in existence other than the material, empiricism, the idea that we can only know about the world through our senses, and scientism, the idea that only the investigative methods of science can give us true knowledge about the world - these certainly are belief systems.

It's often forgotten that atheism comes in many forms and has a long history. Many of the early Christian martyrs were condemned for being atheists because they did not believe in the Emperor-Gods of Rome. The current empiricist-materialist form of atheism is a historical phenomenon that has arisen since the eighteenth century and may well, as Buffy points out, be eclipsed by some paradigm shift we cannot yet see.

So, while it is true to say that atheism in itself does not constitute a belief system, the underlying ideas about why a person is an atheist, why belief in God is irrational and/or impossible, and what has replaced God in the person's thinking - all these do constitute a belief system.

It is currently an article of faith or many that science is a value-free and universal way of obtaining true knowledge and that it is superior to all other forms of knowledge - indeed, for many it is the only true form of knowledge. There's no evidence for any of this, and indeed most sensible scientists do not believe it. But it forms part of the dogma of popular materialist atheism.

[BertrandRussell]

"It's often forgotten that atheism comes in many forms "

No it doesn't.

Atheists do. Atheism doesn't.

[niminypiminy]

Slugs: if we limit scientific enquirer to reproducible phenomena then much of science is impossible.

And scientific method is completely inadequate to discuss ideas about how we know things (epistemology) or what existence is and what a fact is (ontology) - for these you need something outside science.

[niminypiminy]

Bertrand, I'm thinking of people who have written histories of atheism and have identified different forms and periods of atheist thinking. You seem to be making a claim that there's some Platonic form of atheism separable from the ideas of actual atheists. That seems quite a strange claim to me.

[BertrandRussell]

atheism is defined exclusively as an absen of belief in a god or gods. Nothing more, nothing less.

What an individual atheist goes on to say or do or believe does not change that definition. There is nothing "Platonic" about that- it is just affording words their proper meaning.

[niminypiminy]

I think that's logic-chopping but I don't wish to pursue it.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

My atheism is a belief system only in the sense I don't believe a god exists. The skiing analogy is quite good as far as I'm concerned. I literally spend all my time not skiing. So far as a god, other than conversations like this, I spend no time at all thinking about him/her/ whatever.

It is of little interest or concern to me if other people go skiing or believe in a god as long as they do not try to force me to go skiing or believe in their god or tell me I am wrong or deluded in not wanting to go skiing or not believing in their god.

I don't thin my utter lack of interest in skiing (or all sport for that matter) or utter lack of any belief in a god is the only true world view for anyone other than me.

I have no idea what people mean when they say they enjoy sport or that a god is a part of their lives or that they have a relationship with a god. Good for them if it means something to them. As long as they accept these things mean nothing to me.

I don't however see what the point is in a consideration of whether or not religion is oppressive to go "yeah but some atheists are horrible too"

We may well be, but atheism is not supported by the sort of structures which support organised religion. One might find Dawkins unpleasant but he does not speak with the authority of the Pope.

He may think say burning a copy of The Origin of Species is a bit silly but he will not , I would guess, take personal offence, nor consider it an insult to the book nor want anyone punished for burning it.

[HermioneWeasley]

I would be extremely disappointed if our understanding of science and technology hadn't moved on in 100 years. That doesn't mean it's a "belief" system - it questions, tests hypotheses, seeks to find repeatable results, and invites challenge and alternative explanations. It is because of this continuous quest to find the best explanation which fits the evidence and to explain and learn new things that science keeps moving forward.

It is the very opposite of religious belief which blindly continues regardless of a complete lack of evidence, and hasn't moved forward much in a few millennia.

[niminypiminy]

Hermione: that's one of the purest expressions of dogma I've ever seen.

Not only does it utterly misrepresent and idealise science, which you have confused with positivism, it betrays a facile view of and almost total ignorance about religion.

[BertrandRussell]

"I think that's logic-chopping but I don't wish to pursue it."

Fair enough. Does that mean you are only prepared to discuss with people who accept your own, incorrect, definition of atheism?

[CoteDAzur]

OP - Nobody is more anti-religion (of any kind) than me, but you are shockingly ill-informed and your OP is filled with nonsense:

• Islam is not "an actual rape culture" and it is not only offensive and inflammatory but also silly to say that over 800 million Muslim men in the world are rapists.
  

• Mohammad is not a "paedophile" since he did not lay a finger on his 'wife' until she had her period and "became a woman" as was the practice at that time, and not only among Arabs. You might like to look into what life expectancy and age at marriage was around the world around the year 600.
  

• God is not "male" in Islam. I have no idea why you think so. It seems to be male in Christianity, though, with all that talk of Jesus calling God "Father".
  

• Female Genital Mutilation has nothing to do with Islam. It is a local African tradition. Most Muslim countries don't practice it. Some Christian African countries do.
  

FYI I grew up in a Muslim country and don't need to read books written by an ex-believer Somali woman who used to sympathise with Muslim Brotherhood and agreed with the fatwa declared on Salman Rushdie's life to learn about Islam.

[HermioneWeasley]

niminy I'm obviously not as educated as you are on these matters, can you explain more about why my explanation of science is idealised and how my views show a total ignorance of religion?