I say yes, provided no crime is committed. Free speech and religious liberty are human rights. That said, I renounce the aatacks on these Muslims as acts of terror. There is never a good reason to kill in the name of color or creed. If people aren't causing harm, leave them alone.
Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
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"Should we be allowed to criticize Islam?"
What makes you think we aren't already??
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Every day approximately 150,000 people die worldwide. In some corner of the world a few dozen Muslims were killed - orders of magnitude more Muslims died in that very day in their deathbeds around the world. If we are to use people's deaths as an excuse to silence ideas, then nobody should ever be allowed to say anything.
Our culture has a strange religious attitude to death, seeing it as something sacred, something that warrants "minutes of silence" and similar rituals. We should learn something from Taiwanese people, who see their relatives' deaths as a reason to dance the night out. Death is an inherent part of human life, and being so benevolent before it makes little sense.
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In light of the recent terror attacks on that Mosque, should we be allowed to criticize Islam?
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Are you saying that the act of criticizing is a form of discrimination?
And yes, Islam, like any other monotheistic religion is authoritarian ideologically... I don't see any "discrimination" here, it's just a fact...
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"recent"
"terror"
"attacks"
"Mosque"
"criticize"
"Islam"
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Well, it's good to know that we have to know what we're talking about, I guess?
These just tell us the "what, when and where" needed to any discussion...
That is discriminating against another synonym "Evaluate", which is quite applicable here for "criticize"...
It's a categorical mistake to equate the 2...
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I never advocated for legal discrimination against the followers of Islam. I merely characterised one property of Islam. There is no law in the US that prohibits me from expressing my opinion - and, in fact, there is a clause in the Constitution that prevents such laws from being implemented.
Islam is totalitarian by its very structure: it advocates for total submission to a supreme entity. Either you bow your head before Allah, or you are purged as an infidel. These are fundamental postulates of Quran, and while there are Muslims who do not take these postulates literally, they still are what they are.
If a few Muslims die, facts do not suddenly change, and Islam does not suddenly start deserving a special benevolent treatment. Same goes for Christians and their totalitarian ideology, for Nazis and their totalitarian ideology, for Communists and their totalitarian ideology, and so on.
Being afraid to call things what they are is one of the most worrying things in the modern Western society in my eyes. People shift more and more towards replacing what is true with what sounds nice. Facts become secondary, after feelings.
It is not that it has ever been different, but it is surprising that in the 21st century we are still not done with these trends.
Gandhi in particular was a nice guy, but as a result of his actions India moved from being a relatively prosperous colony to returning to its cultist caste roots and becoming one of the most impoverished nations in the world. He is just one more example of the fact that simply being peaceful and nice does not lead to success. It is not about how nice you are, it is about how much substance there is in what you do.
Sugarcoating religions is not going to lead anywhere good. You have to be able to face harsh truths, no matter how they feel, if you really want the world to change for the better. And the best way to get people to get used to facing those truths is to unapologetically speak them.
There is a lot of people in the US who discriminate against Muslims. This is not good. This, however, does not mean that any criticism of Islam is discriminatory. I am aware of our dear president's ideas about Muslims, and I do not share them. But Islam is what it is, and nobody can change that. The problem of totalitarian Islam will be solved when Islam stops being taken seriously by any significant fraction of the population. Until then, we will have places like Saudi Arabia and Iran on the map, and abusive husbands in immigrant families on the West.
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* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.
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It is a categorical mistake, whether you recognize it or not...
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* Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.
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If you read the Constitution carefully, you will see that libel and slander are just as protected forms of free speech as any other. That the government has managed to persuade people that libel and slander threaten them more than ignoring the Constitution and infringing on basic freedoms - is another topic entirely, and a manifestation of the notion you made about no authority being absolute. No matter how fundamental the document is, it can always be thrown away when the majority agrees that it is the best thing to do.
Regardless, the topic is not about whether we are allowed to criticise Islam - what one is practically allowed to do depends on the environment. The topic is about whether we should be allowed to criticise Islam. And the answer is resounding "yes". Anyone who answers "no" or even "yes, but..." is pretty far gone from the realm of free individualism into the realm of social autocracy.
In fact, the very idea that criticism should be "allowed", that there is some authority that should choose to allow it, is insulting to the concept freedom. Freedom must exist by default, and the question should be not whether to "allow" it, but how to protect it.
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... should we be allowed to criticize Islam?
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Religions are ideas, like Politics are ideas, and no idea deserves any special treatment, it would be discriminating...
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We all know that followers of this vile religion are like spoilt children when their primitive religion is mocked especially if one draws a cartoon which has them seething at the mouths like rabid lunatics.
Islam is a belief system that’s regressive and divisive and fully deservering of criticism, if Islam is as great as itS followers claim how is it in any way progressive and inclusive?
Every day people suffer horrendous discrimination , torture and death under Shariah law which is to a Muslim the only just system of law as it’s inspired by the Quran.
Women are treated like dogs, genital mutilalation is still commonplace , Apostasy is punishable by death as is homosexuality and the tragic list goes on and on, Islam is a societal poison and it takes a certain kind of lunacy to think otherwise.
The term “islamphobe “ is thrown about by P C idiots which as Christopher Hitchens correctly pointed out is used to shut and scream down any opposition to this vile belief system.
Criticise away I say and I see it as a duty to do so even draw a cartoon or two Muslims love a good laugh don’t they?
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“Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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“Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.” Christopher Hitchens
That doesn't negate or nullify civility."Religions are ideas, like Politics are ideas, and no idea deserves any special treatment, it would be discriminating..." Pv
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Your points on the legal matters exactly support what I was saying: no written law is absolute, no authority is absolute, and any law or norm can be changed given enough desire (internally or externally induced) to do so. The Constitution does not put the government above the people, yet there is a lot of actual rules that make the government far above the people - that technically violate the Constitution, but nobody talks about it, because they see it as justified violations.
We are talking about what should be the case. What is the case in actuality depends on more than just the law and the Constitution, but the Constitution still sets the general mood in this regard. The Second Amendment can be interpreted in many ways, but (for now, at least) it does offer pretty solid guarantees of my right to criticise Islam.
Regarding civility, it is a good thing, as long as it does not get in the way of honesty. Civility's aim is to facilitate constructive interaction between people, it is not to make people feel good at the expense of everything else. I am civil towards Muslims, I have had several friends who were Muslims, and I will be the first to speak against things like "Muslim immigration ban", "Muslim clothing ban" and so on. It is not the people or their freedoms my criticism targets.
My criticism targets the ideology, and the people following that ideology are criticised only from this standpoint. I do not know anything about them, and most of them are really good people, I would guess. Does not mean I cannot see faults in their views and speak about them.
If my criticism of their ideology insults someone, then they are not ready to live in a civilised society where one of the responsibilities of every individual is being able to handle opinions they dislike. People criticise my views all the time, and I have never been insulted by it; in fact, if nobody criticised my views, I would think that something must be off. Criticism is what holds a free society together, what makes its members accountable for their actions, what prevents the government from straying too far away from the course set by the people, and so on.
I have never understood all these rituals people resort to in order to demonstrate solidarity with the dead. Spending thousands dollars to build a grave for a corpse... Organising yearly events to talk about the deceased... Issuing minutes or days of silence in their memory... What is all this? The dead will stay the dead, what is the point?
I once told someone that if someone is foolish enough to spend their money on a grave for me after I die, then they should carve the writing on that grave saying, "May Caesar, who was so cunning, he received income from us fools even after death". I stand by that judgment to this day. Someone died and became a corpse. It happens. There is nothing to be done about it now, and wasting time and energy mourning them, let alone forcing others to mourn them through weird ethical arguments, is pointless.
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" The Second Amendment can be interpreted in many ways, but (for now, at least) it does offer pretty solid guarantees of my right to criticise Islam." MC
"Make your words soft and sweet. You never know when you have to eat them." Prince Bandar bin Sultan / Saudi Ambassador to the U.S.
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