Atheist billboards go up in NYC neighborhoods targeting Islam and Judaism as a “myth”
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aziz
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aziz
European Christians allying with secularists against Islam are basically dupes. The secularists want to destroy us all. If anything, they are the common enemy against our shared values.
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Mc Kiernan
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aziz
??
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Hitch
I guess I am your enemy. If only I knew.
No secularism is your friend. Secularists wrote the treaty if Tripoli for example, but it’s long been forgotten what kind of religious toleration was expressed in that text.
But I am quite aware that there is an odd boogey-man forming under the label “secularism” and that there is an attempt to organize a movement that indeed sees it as the problem, and tries to counter it. Some of the “interfaith” movement is in that category. It’s actually quite troubling, because it’s just yet another form of “otherization”. Given that non-believers are already heavily stereotyped in the US for example it’s warrant a little more reflection than just state that “secularists want to destroy us all”.
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aziz
This is a classic case where you are simply applying a label monolithically. Would you prefer I write, instead of the term secularist, “persons who object to any spirituality on display in the public square”? How about “people who condescend on theists as intellectual pygmies to be marginalized politically for the Greater Good”? How about “so-called defenders of Enlightment Values who have wrongly interpreted the Enlightment as a validation of Reason as a truly objective process” ?
I mean, take your pick, and tel me what YOU want me to call these people. Obviously they aren’t you, but since you insist on calling yourself a secularist, AND you absolutely refuse to allow me to use the term because you insist that my usage of it to describe the people above MUST also include YOU with no possible nuance opr distinction permissible, I await your pedantic instructions.
Or maybe, you can cut me some slack and understand the obvious context of my use of the word secularist, just as I would be willing to cutt you slack on using the words Islamist, Jihad, Fundamentalist, Shariah, etc.
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Hitch
I wasn’t applying the label at all. I was quoting you use the label. But let me address this in turn:
“persons who object to any spirituality on display in the public square”
Ok let’s get this right. In the US secularity simply means that the STATE cannot create, fund, or give any other space, visibility or support to any religious display. But note that to say “public square” serves as a beautiful confusion. This is only stuff that the state has anything to do with. On any land that anyone but the state owns, and that space can be as public as can be, everything can be displayed. And yes that is precisely what secularism is and should be. So why not describe this as what it is: Simply the establishment clause of the 1st article of the bill of right of the US constitution, which does not contain a word about “public square” (for good reason, because that “public square” thing is just a meme to misconstrue what secular means).
“people who condescend on theists as intellectual pygmies to be marginalized politically for the Greater Good”
Aww. Yeah another stereotype. No secular says nothing about people’s attitudes towards other’s points of view. They may think what you say or not. But yeah, religion is hardly marginalized anywhere I have ever lived. But let’s get real again. You don’t like to be marginalized? I don’t like to receive death penalties. Reality is that people like me have historically been subject to death penalties and in some countries still are subject to such. And you get upset because someone may think your ideas are bad and don’t want them to have weight in the marketplace of ideas? Well I sympathize, but it’s not the kinds of problems actual critics of religion face.
“so-called defenders of Enlightment Values who have wrongly interpreted the Enlightment as a validation of Reason as a truly objective process”
What are enlightenment values? Freedom (liberte)? Equality (egalite)? Toleration? “Brotherly” Love (fraternite) (today we’d call it empathy, solidarity). Yep, these are “horrible” values to defend.
No the problem is that some sectors of society and some intellectual strands fail to live up to these good standards. Freedom only for some, equality in an Orwellian sense (some are more equal than others), toleration with a footnote (we are tolerant, except when you criticize us), and empathy and solidarity, but only for the in-group.
So what should you call “these people”. Well how about friends? How about human? How about critics? And certainly not people who want to “destroy us all”. At best they disagree with aspects of your world view, and allowing that is what a free society allows.
As for cutting slack, don’t cut me slack. If I misuse a word in your view, please do issue your perspective or correction.
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aziz
the Enlightenment values I referred to are the ones that place human reason as the ultimate, objective ideal of human thought, that value empiricism over spirituality. There are aspects of the Enlightenment with which I agree strongly, but they were never unique to eth Enlightenemnt and found expression in Islamic societies as well – partuicularly the value of free thought and reason as a means towards Truth. The difference is that the Enlightenment era equated reason *with* truth. The simple truth about Truth is that it’s not true – and now we are going back to the old “super-rational” debate which I’ve linked before and represents a true tangent: http://superrational.blogspot.com
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Hitch
Yes, it’s an interesting topic. Before the enlightenment the public was not expected to participate in democratic decision making. What we forget about these ideas of the Enlightenment is context. The whole point of telling everybody that they need to reason is precisely because deliberation, evaluation of the facts and data and a joint decision is what underlies the process. It’s no longer an authority (monarch, church) who decides this for you. So what is the process to make those decisions. Enlightenment philosophers were concerned to educate the public about being those decision makers. To be “enlightened” simply means you are capable of that participation. It’s the “age of reason” not because reason is a dogma, but because if you are not used to reason through a situation you won’t be helping the democratic process.
As for “truth” with all sorts of capitalizations, Yes the enlightenment has allowed that we challenge each other’s notion of truth. If you know a better way to allow a market-place of ideas and pluralism, again I’m happy to hear how to do it better.
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Arwi
You frequently use “secularist” to mean atheist or agnostic, but that is not right at all, secularism is about the relationship between religion and the state. Plenty of pious people are secularists, Soroush for example favors secularism on teh grounds that state power corrupts piety.
(posted this in the wrong thread a few seconds ago, you can delete that one)
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Hitch
But even if we substitute secularism with atheism it’s still not correct to say that “atheists want to destroy us all”… just saying , but yes the problem that secularism and non-belief is conflated is problematic. Secularism simply means that your state concept is not theocratic, but decided by some mechanism through the voting citizen and nothing more.
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aziz
no, the peo;ple we are worried about are the ones who do not advocate freedom of religion, but the ones who advocate freedom FROM religion. And don’t pretend that the latter types arent disproportionately powerful and motivated. The hijab and minaret bans are irrefutable evidence.
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Hitch
You are aware that Sarkozy is catholic. The party who spearheaded the minaret ban in Switzerland? Eidgenössisch-Demokratische Union. Right wing Christian(!) party.
No my friend. What is going on here is not secularists wanting freedom from religion. It’s right wing religious people defending their “values”. Much of the left parties that work hard on integration and toleration in Europe are actually the secular parties. The president of Austria? Atheist. And 60% of Austrians _oppose_ minaret bans. Yeah, “horrible” secularism.
You attack a boogey-man my friend, not understanding what actually happens.
But let me keep it real, some new right wing demagogues do call themselves secular. Just like not all Christians are right wing, so are not all Secularists left wing. But your narrative of what drives those bans is plainly false and it mostly refutes that you don’t understand what is going on.
The truth is that the trouble is the intolerant right wing, which is largely (though not exclusively) religious (in the case of Europe, Christian). Even populists who pose as secular, like Geert Wilders make appeal to “judeo-christian” values. Why? Because that’s the crowd and the mind-set he looks to appeals to. He is not really a secularist because he DOES want to wield state power to limit religious expression.
The insane murderer Brevik? Christian wielding heavy Christian symbolism (crusade, templar, etc) and advocated for a reconversion of protestant churches to Catholicism. Right win violent anti-immigrant groups in both Europe and the US (EDL, BNP, … David Duke…)? Christian. Check into the background of the most fervent political islamophobes in the US, especially congressmen. You guessed it…
There is a duped narrative here about that the problem is “secularists”. But it’s false.
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thabet
“but the ones who advocate freedom FROM religion. And don’t pretend that the latter types arent disproportionately powerful and motivated. The hijab and minaret bans are irrefutable evidence.”
This is just plain wrong — see what Hitch said with respect to the parties which are pushing against banning Muslim “symbols”.
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aziz
it may be that hijab bans and minaret bans are being driven on the ground by tapping into rightwing (and religious) xenophobia, but the framework under which they are even remotely legal is the european style secularism. France is the most extreme with Laïcité
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9
The language of secularism, like any -ism, is an absolutist one. That it enables religious xenophobes to further persecute religious minorities is a feature, not a bug, and that is why I called those same xenophobes “dupes” in my original comment.
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Hitch
I think it is historically relevant to understand why France and the US are not carbon copies in this domain. The one line summary is that Europe had strong and dominant and constantly interfering churches that undermined pluralistic democracy, a problem that the US did not have to content with as they were able to actually escape that predicament.
But let’s take away Laicite. You think it would be any better? No. The same religious right wingers would oppose minarets but just be openly religious, perhaps worse, force muslim kids into christian conversion or prayers, force that christian church authorities have legal and legislative power or influence.
Yes secularism is an -ism. If you have a better system to have multiple world view coexist I’m happy to hear it. But by better I mean better for all, not better for one doctrine.
So the idea that secularism enables religious xenophobia is basically ahistoric. In fact the inverse is true. European enlightenment has lead to a range of improvements, such as the Jewish emancipation that were strictly unthinkable before.
In fact I said it before but let me say it again. Secularism even in the sense of Laicite means (your source): “absence of government involvement in religious affairs” and what is the problem here is that governments, under the pressure of Christian right wing politicians _fail_ that principle.
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thabet
We had this debate at e dot org once.
‘Secularism of the right’ vs ‘secularism of the left’.
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aziz
sigh. I feel like TI perpetually lives in e-org’s shadow. sadly I cannot maintain (nor deserve) the same cult of personality that matching e’s success would require.
Still, TI has certainly outlived its predecessor. The big flaw is the reliance on any one person. I’d hoped that by broadening the base of who contributes, we’d avoid that problem.
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Abu Noor
I am a little confused as to what we are actually disagreeing about here, but as far as I can tell I am generally with everyone else in thinking that Aziz is off base in the way he thinks about the alliance between Christians and anti-religous people. Further confusing me is that HItch’s comments about atheists and secularists appealing to or working in coalition with right wing religous followers seem to support Aziz’s contentions more than disprove them.
At the same time, I agree completely with Aziz that you guys are being slippery in your use of “secularism.” It is well know that secularism means different things in different contexts and one cannot simply say things like “secularism means this and not this…”
Also, there are definitely real issues with people who nominally belong to a religion themselves but are still anti-religion or anti-some religions in the public sphere.
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Hitch
Two points as I see it. One is that alliance. The second is clarity of terms. I do not think that you can address this if we are not clear in terms.
But I’m sorry that if someone says “The secularists are going to destroy us all.” I will have a reaction because I am in a sense of it a secular humanist (not that labeling works too well in that arena).
In many ways this is no better than saying “The islamists are going to destroy us all.” It’s sloppy and stereotypical language and it is not me who chose the sloppiness.
So let’s address the latter first. The word secular has indeed two meanings. Both of them I think are understood. The problem is of course that the two meanings superficially have an overlap and that being unclear what one means is problematic. I have actually extensively addressed the elaborations that Aziz gave what what he means to be secular and I think it is quite obvious that his description of secular is not at all far from me. Yes I do criticize religions and think we all are in the marketplace of ideas. Yes I do defend enlightenment values. Yet I do not advocate for a secular society to destroy diversity of viewpoint. In fact I advocate the exact opposite, and further I claim that enlightenment values too advocate the opposite.
So the twisting and confusion of terms is actually not isolated with the word secular. What enlightenment means too is contested and confused, in fact what disbelief means too is often confused.
But let’s actually take secularist to mean a person who thinks that a society is best in which political discourse is dominated by reflection and deliberation and advocacy of citizens needs. I.e. religion is either private or plays no other particular role.
Who are the people who hold this? Well it is people on the demagoguic end (typical far right, populist right etc), but it is also people on the end of multiculturalism, toleration, integration, pluralism etc.
That is you both have people who indeed could be argued to want to “destroy” one world view or another, and you have people who actively oppose said destruction.
But that is not the lone part of the narrative here. Aziz basically claims that the attitude of the “secularists” is the problem and Christians are somehow tempted into a dangerous alliance with those. What I think is evident if people actually look at the players, the truth is much more complex. Large swats of motions that demonize Muslims are Christians and they demonization is not driven by some secular notion at all.
Aziz paints those Christians as dupes. In reality they are the main faction of the ring leaders. People like Breivik are not atheists inviting in Christians. He’s a Christian inviting in atheists (if they adopt and fight for Christian values).
But I get where the stereotypes come from. People in the US like Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins criticize Islam and write op-eds on hijabs. Leave alone that some of these are demonized in their own ways with claims that indeed they want to literally destroy Muslims, when in reality they of course want no such thing.
That image is transplanted into Europe, as if that drive what is going on there. The European reality is grossly misunderstood by doing this though.
Now reality is complex and I do not deny that there are right wing anti-pluralistic secularists. But the idea that Christians get duped into allying with folks who want some destruction is basically wrong. It’s these right wing Christians who themselves have those sentiments. Further it denies reality to define secularism around those particular people. As said, most of the pluralistic attitudes in Europe are carried by secular folks. To recognize that is just reality and a reality on which I challenge Aziz’s narrative.
So to paint secularism with this brush basically serves to demonize secularism, and yes I will be damned with I just let that slide. Frankly I know this narrative. I see it quite a bit by some. Eboo Patel can fall into this though he has complexified his position (it seems). John Esposito at times will paint secularism as the problem, not unlike the Pope… but it’s easy to forget what the Pope says about Christianity and Islam in turn later. And such are the narratives formed what the supposed problem is. It’s “secularism” that we ought to be afraid of (because “they want to destroy us all”). In fact it’s a boogey-man that many like. Christians are happy to off-load blame. So much so that you can hear people claim that European fascism was secular (a cruel joke at best, it was in fact right-wing Christian). Further it is a narrative that is sellable as a kind of pan-abrahamic bulwark against those wicked seculars. And as it further actually synergizes with some aspects of varied Islamic thought, one can construct this strawman of an enemy: the disbeliever. But it is a strawman. So question is, do we want to discuss reality or do we want to live by some stereotypical narratives that defy it?
I have no problem with criticism or debate on what secularism means. In fact I am positive that we don’t have the same or likely compatible world views. But if there is that debate, we should have it on what is real.
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aziz
I’ll re-read your arguments Hitch and reconsider. But you say that it’s obvious that what I painetd as secular and what you claim as secular are the same thing. If that is so then you would agree that hijabs and minarets be banned. If so, then yes, I guess we are enemies. If no, then you’ve written a lot of words that obfuscate rather than elucidate.
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Hitch
No I do not agree that hijabs or minarets should be banned. There are limits to liberty, and those start where people are discriminated or harmed, but none of these come even close.
We may well be enemies, but it’s only if you chose to advocate against freedoms that a person of conscience should have. I have yet to see that.
What I do think is at play are bad stereotypes. These are things that well meaning people can discuss.
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Arwi
there are definitely real issues with people who nominally belong to a religion themselves but are still anti-religion or anti-some religions in the public sphere.
There are real issues with people who claim that secularism is only supported by atheists and the ‘nominally religious’. I think I have mentioned and linked Soroush’s work several times, for what good it does.
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Abu Noor
Arwi,
Never said “only supported by” so I’m not sure who you are arguing with here or why you quoted me before making your statement.
Salaam.
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Abu Noor
To clarify Arwi, I am just saying that I of course agree that there are sincerely religious people who support secularism, but in some ways that still goes back to a definition of what is secularism. I surely understand how a sincerely religious person can be wary of government involvement in religion, in fact I would expect it. But I do not understand a sincerely religious person who is opposed to supporting and accomodating religious expression in the public sphere.
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thabet
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SidwellFriends
That’s funny, I thought you had already proven once and for all that he not an islamophobe:
http://talkislam.info/2010/04/11/richard-dawkins-wants-to-arrest-the-pope/
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thabet
Agreed. But I don’t think he holds a special animus against ‘Muslims’. You can be sure he has as much hatred against Catholics (not in the news enough) or religious Jews (too small a group in the UK).
I think he is a stupid man when not working in his own domain.
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thabet
Religion may become ‘extinct’ in nine nations:
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
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Shams al-Nahar
AMG more links to this dumb religion survey.
Why Do Atheists Know More About Religion?
Its not that hard– SMART PEOPLE KNOW MORE STUFF, including stuff about religion.
Atheists are smarter than religious people.
quod erat demonstrandum. -
thabet
(American) atheists know ‘more about religion than (American) believers’:
• 57 percent of Protestants can name the Bible’s four gospels.
• 55 percent of Catholics know their tradition teaches that sacramental bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood.
• 15 percent of white evangelicals know Jonathan Edwards participated in the First Great Awakening.
Here’s some responses to this story I have read from American bloggers: Daniel Larison, ED Kain, and S Brent Plate.
You can take a truncated form of the the quiz at the Pew website.
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razib, murtad fitri
15 out of 15. of course.
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shams
the survey is flawed.
the experimental designers did not control for education level or IQ and g.
it is well known that atheists have higher IQ.
religiosity correlates with lower IQ. -
razib, murtad fitri
http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx
“Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.”
dumbass.
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shams
ok i didnt read it. tant pis.
still no control for the negative correlation of religiosity and IQ.
atheists have low religiosity, and are known to have higher IQ.
this is actually more support for the emergent IQ gap in political affiliation isnt it?In the case of atheists/agnostics and Jews, their main knowledge advantage over Christians comes from their much higher levels of knowledge about non-Christian “world religions” (mainly Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism). Jews got an average of 7.9 questions out of 11 in this category, atheists/agnostics 7.5, and Christians a mere 5.0 (the Mormon average was 5.6). While Jews, atheists and agnostics also outscored Christians on knowledge of Christianity, the margin was much smaller.
i would have rounded mormons down into the xian category– 5.6 is closer to 5.0 than to 7.5.
I suspect the emergent between group IQ gap between liberal and conservative political affiliation….mormons and christians are largely conservative– agnostics, atheists and jews largely liberal. -
shams
oh and while PEW controlled for the QUANTITY of education they didnt control for the QUALITY of education.
BYU != MIT
Mormons are missionaries.
they have to know more about other religions to proselytize them. -
shams
i guess the result of the survey is that smart people know more than stupid people.
shockant! -
shams
haha, i read the whole thing. that is two minutes ill never get back.
the dumbest survey evah.
smart people know more stuff.
big whup.
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thabet
A deluded Dawkins groupie:
[Richard Dawkins' anti-Raztinger] speech ranks above Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
(Via @mattwardman.)
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thabet
Andrew Brown notes:
And here’s Laurie Penny happy to oblige:
I wonder what ‘desert patriarchs’ could refer to?
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Lawrence of Arabia
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thabet
“Science flies you to the moon…”
Erm, it’s engineering that gets you to the moon.
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Hitch
Science, engineering & technology, human perseverance and a bit of luck gets you to the moon.
Without understanding general relativity you may be able to engineer the navigation computer, but you won’t be going where you wanted to go.
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thabet
You’re talking my statement too literally — it’s a little in joke with Aziz.
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Hitch
I see. Well Hollywood might get you to the stars, so there
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aziz
lol. in this case i will agree halfway. Engineering can get you as far as the moon. Science ensures its the moon you actually get to!
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thabet
The feelings of Adnan Sarwar, a former Muslim who served in Iraq with the Royal Engineers, and Alom Shaha, another former Muslim, seem to sum up the views of people I have known who have lefi Islam: there is no Ayaan Hirsi Ali type of vitriol, no ‘hard on for attacking Islam’ as Shaha says where they jump on board with another band of oppressors and warmongers. The people I have known just tend to drift away, perhaps driven by an event or two in their lives, but usually believing they don’t ‘need’ faith, religion or God. (Of course, people turn to religion under similar circumstances, and I have known some people to do this too.)
What I’d ask Sarwar is if he can rest easy at night knowing what immense destruction our political class and armed forces, and those of his former American colleagues, have wrought on Iraq and its people. Perhaps if we’d had enough of this sort of scepticism amongst our ruling classes and elites who drove the war prior to the invasion, we wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place. Without this sort of introspection, I personally don’t think Sarwar seems to have learnt anything from his experiences in Iraq.
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thabet
Following the Church of England’s declaration that is ‘right to convert unbelievers’ (pdf) to their faith, The Grauniad set up a new series on whether religions should compete with one another.
Mehdi Hasan argues that Muslims should not compete in the ‘marketplace of religions’:
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Shams al-Nahar
yes dawa by example.
da is poison, dawa is the cure.
i<3 thabet….for the moment.-
thabet
I was pretty much always taught “God guides whom He wills”.
That’s why ‘evangelizing’ and ‘missionary’ (and modern ‘dawa‘) type of work seems alien to me.
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Shams al-Nahar
Sufis don’t proselytize. it is forbidden.
Neither do jews.
Is that why we are both so hated?-
thabet
Beyond a few fringe fanatics, I don’t think people really ‘hate’ Sufis. Even ‘Wahhabis’ will now recognise bit and pieces of Sufi works and texts, especially of the conservative sufi ulama.
(Sadly, I do know a lot of pathetic people who hate Jews.)
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Shams al-Nahar
The Taliban hate us. Historically conservative fundamentalist muslims have always burned sufi schools. I think the Taliban are like american conservatives. you just know the teabaggers would kill intellectuals and liberal elites and burn down liberal universities if they could.
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abunoor
Shams, the term “sufi” is too broad in meaning to make this discussion really make sense. Many of the Taliban are sufis, maybe not sufis like you but sufis. Also, many sufis are conservative fundamentalist musims.
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thabet
Shams, what Abu Noor says is very true.
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shams
but….calling themselves sufi is like al-Q killers calling themselves muslim.
they simply aren’t.
what does it mean to be Sufi then?
how can one be a conservative fundamentalist and follow the Caravan, or murder innocents and host the garden amid the flames?
not possible.
callin’ oneself a sufi does not mean one is a sufi.Common people repent from sin, the sufi repent from ignorance.
–Zunnun -
shams
and the Taliban proselytize by the sword.
they cannot even a one of them be a sufi. -
thabet
There are loads of conservative sufis, Shams, all over the Middle East, the Subcontinent and SE Asia.
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aziz
exactly. the word “sufi” is a broad term. The Taliban have many naqshabandi among them, for example.
saying someone isnt sufi because they dont conform to your idealized vision of sufism is not that removed from salafist declaratiuons that shia arent muslim. A matter of degree.
ultimately what makes a sufi is a desire to be closer to god – and varying sufi sects take that to varying degrees, from meditative to th ephysical (the dervishes).
the ultimate symbol of Sufism is the circle with a dot at teh center. Sufism is the search for the radial line. the dot is Allah, the circle is human existence; can we bridge the gap? In generic sufism, the key to doing so is love. it sounds cliche but there is a reason there are many tales of unrequited love told by sufis – these are metaphors for the human and divine.
some sufis bear arms and others drink wine. Its not for any of them to judge another.
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shams
But how can someone declare themselves a sufi without embracing the garden amid the flames and wahdat al wujud?
the love of Allah MUST extend to all creation.
conservative sufi or taliban sufi is an oxymoron.
it cannot be. -
shams
And one meaning of Sufi is seeker….how can a fundamentalist or a conservative be a seeker?
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aziz
these “how can..?” questions are reductive and simplistic. Faith is defined by axioms, not intuition.
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shams
meh.
im like the Elephant’s Child of this blog.
when i ax questions you all scold me.salafist declarations that shia arent muslim are not supportable.
shia practice islam. by definition they are muslim.
“a desire to be closer to god” or a “balanced life” are not definitions.
How can one get closer to Allah by slaughtering innocents? Did Rabi’a al-Adiwyya live a balanced life?im going to go ax the Crocodile what he has dinner now.
>:( -
thabet
conservative sufi or taliban sufi is an oxymoron.
You’d need to take that up with all those Sufis who take seriously the need for their fiqh and aqidah to be grounded within the tradition.
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shams
i think we must have different operational definitions of “conservative” and “taliban” brother thatbet.
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thabet
I agree, it looks like!
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shams
For conservative, im goin’ wid teh biology.
Researchers at UofT have shown that the psychological concern for compassion and equality is associated with a liberal mindset, while the concern for order and respect of social norms is associated with a conservative mindset.
“Conservatives tend to be higher in a personality trait called orderliness and lower in openness. This means that they’re more concerned about a sense of order and tradition, expressing a deep psychological motive to preserve the current social structure,” says Jacob Hirsh, a post-doctoral psychology student at UofT and lead author of the study.
The study, which appears in this month’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, may even lend some legitimacy to the term, ‘bleeding-heart-liberal.’
“Our data shows that liberalism is more often associated with the underlying motives for compassion, empathy and equality,” says Hirsh.The Taliban are definitely conservatives.
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abunoor
Thabet, the concept that God guides whom he wills does not negate doing da’wah. In fact, the implications of such a notion would be quite serious. The fact that Allah is in control of results (not just in da’wah but in everything) is supposed to give us comfort in our hearts after we make the best effort we can, it is not to make us say, well it is in Allah’s hands so we don’t make effort…this is the cartoonish negative stereotype of the muslim fatalist.
I think the discussion around this issue is confused by semantic issues. It is clear in the texts that da’wah is an obligation…but the means of da’wah are not narrowly specified and there is room for people to do da’wah in different ways.
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thabet
I am not saying it negates it, only that I did not grow up with the attitude of ‘aggressively’ preaching to the unconverted and that this was something which not part of Islam as taught to me and my peers — and we all grew up stereotypical strict and conservative Muslim households.
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abunoor
Did you grow up in UK? Anyways, it is clear that the Prophet (saw) preached the message quite frequently (‘aggressive’) is hard to pin down here.
Obviously many of the techniques that some modern groups that say they are doing da’wah seem modelled on Christians or others…which is my point I think Islamically it is clear that da’wah is an obligation but the methodology is open to different views and ideas.
But what happens to be the prevailing view among most people in most muslim communties is probably more a function of other factors about the community and the society around it then about Islamic teaching.
Allah knows best.
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thabet
But what happens to be the prevailing view among most people in most muslim communties is probably more a function of other factors about the community and the society around it then about Islamic teaching.
Quite, but I don’t think the two are so easily separated.
Yes, I grew up in the UK. I only encountered people proselytizing for the faith at university. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this sort of thing in a Muslim country I’ve worked in, but then I concede I wasn’t looking (and religion is also controlled by the state).
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shams
but….if muslims proselytize….what exactly are they proselytizing?
Don’t the people of the Book have the exact same Allah?
i guess muslims could proselytize to atheists or pagans….
are muslims supposed to proselytize AGAINST the Jesus godhead? -
Abu Noor
Shams, again not sure what you mean by proselytize..it is a word with a negative connotation, perhaps deservedly so. But yes, Muslims should invite people to worship the one God and Muslims should attempt to convince people that shirk is wrong. There are many many verses in the Qur’an where the command is given by Allah Say: and a message/invitation is given to the people.
People should be invited to accept the Qur’an and the Prophet (saw). He (saw) was a prophet for all of humanity. The Qur’an was a revelation for all of humanity.
Again, specific techniques are not ordered so one does not have to engage in behavior that is counterproductive or will create resentment but one should “invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful admonition/preaching” and “who could be better in speech than the one who invites to Allah and says I am one of the Muslims”
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shams
But Abu how can you invite someone to Allah when they already believe in the same Allah? Don’t the People of Book have the same Allah we do?
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AA
It is clear in the texts that da’wah is an obligation…
Isn’t this as same as saying Americans have rights to own firearm? Well, where is the context in this debate? The right to hold guns does not work in city like Chicago because apparently it is more injurious than it is satisfying the clause in constitution. So no, it is not obligatory if there is no context.
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Abu Noor
AA, I have stated repeatedly that I agree da’wah should be done in the best of ways and that will vary by context. But I think people are quick to wave away the requirement without thinking seriousl about the context. Was the open, public invitation to the message in Makkah by the Prophet (saw) welcomed by the powers that be? Did everyone love it? Or did it in fact make some people angry? Did people want him (as) to shut up ?
I am just saying the mere fact that public preaching will not be accepted by everyone or will not be liked by everyone does not automaticall mean it does not have a role to play.
We have to think more seriously and intelligently about such issues, rather than just hand out pamphlets on the street corner as if that is the only “da’wah” or never once communicate the teachings of Islam to those who may not know them because that is more comfortable for us.
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AA
Abu Noor, I can respect your opinions; however, I am of the opinion that in current times and age, the dawah by action is more appropriate than dawah by words. One can be a best Muslim with his/her actions and deeds and you won’t even need a personal intention to convert anyone or preach. The best of action and deeds is the Muslim dawah.
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plimfix
If Muslims want to do dawa, then it’s up to them – after all, if you think Islam is objectively the ultimate truth, surely you’d want people to be part of that? And don’t people get individualist materialist consumerism dawa-ed down their throat? – we should endeavour to compete with that nonsense if nothing else. Personally, I agree with Terry Pratchett who apparently once said the best way to educate people is to build a library and then open the doors. Just make sure some decent books about Islam are on the shelves. And on schools’ bookshelves, too.
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thabet
Nothing wrong with preaching if that’s your thing. Not only religious groups preach, of course: many leftists are quite good at it too
I stuck up the link to get some discussion going on here.Even Hasan doesn’t say no to ‘dawa’: he seems to be arguing for a different kind of dawa, one of practice, rather than pamphlets and stalls.
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Lawrence of Arabia
the whole discussion reminds me of St. Francis’ famous dictum:
“Preach the Gospel always; if necessary, use words.”
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Abu Noor
Excellent advice. By the way, I have never once in my life gone up to a stranger or even a friend or family member and started telling them about Islam unsolicited. This is just to say I understand the concerns about what people usually think of as da’wah.
Alhamdulillah, being someone who is visibly Muslim, and a convert and who speaks in various interfaith or other educational programs, people will often ask me questions which allow me to talk about Islam.
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Abu Noor, 
thabet, and 3 others are discussing. 
thabet and 
SidwellFriends are discussing. 
shams and 
Hitch, 
AA, and 4 others are discussing. 
Yer pushing the envelope or maybe the envelope is pushing you.