With Merkel's Foes in Disarray, Germany Defies the Trump Trend

[Dill]

(05-07-2017, 03:41 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: A phobia is an unreasonable fear.  As islam has quite adequately demonstrated that they are an ideology whose teaching should quite logically be feared by anyone who cherishes Western democratic and secular values then such fear cannot be considered unreasonable.

No, but you did use a Nazi comparison, an analogy so intellectually lazy and lacking in nuance that one wonders why you couldn't conjure up an example not so obviously loaded.  Your blatant attempts to equate your opponents with racism, a common tactic by your ilk or Nazi style fascism is noted though.  Nothed and sadly predictable.

Excedpt when the "other side" nominates a spokesperson you immediately dismiss them as not a "serious scholar".  Are you beginning to see the problem here?

I'm not familiar with any of the people you've mentioned so, unlike you, I wil not make a judgment from a position of ignorance.

He's using "quotes" from islam's "holy" books.  He's using real world examples and he's using the stated opinions of millions of muslims.  Remember, you seem to trust polls when they say things you like.

I do to, just not in a way you like.

Looks like you have the start of an argument here.

1. Your first premise is that Fear of Islam is not Islamophobia because it is justified. "THEY are an ideology"--I guess meaning all Muslims. (That is talking point now circulating right wing circles: Islam is not really a religion.) Not a troublesome few. And they have ADEQUATELY DEMONSTRATED that they are to be feared. That has me wondering how they have adequately demonstrated this? Have they recently invaded and occupied Christian/Western lands? Have they massacred 6,000 Christians? Perhaps their refugees from our wars are flooding Western countries, threatening to become 1.02 percent of the population in some particular country? Perhaps they have responded to a poll? No sample-size problem here?

Here is your chance to show what you know. Or your own knowledge failing, bring in Sam Harris and Bill Maher. Lay out their arguments. Let's see if they can stand a little cross examination.  Or it is yet another chance to throw up a smokescreen of invective and quips and bald assertions.  Your choice.

2. Guess I need to remind you that Nazis did not "equate" opponents with racism. They condemned them for criticizing racism. Remember their goal was to slander an entire religion and Semitic race, calling them a threat to Western culture as well as German values.  So I understand your sensitivity to Nazi analogies, even where they are not directly made. You also want to denigrate an entire religion and define its (predominately Semitic) followers as a wholesale threat to "Western values." If denigrating an entire people is what you want to do, then where do you see lack of nuance? Your wholesale denigration is not racist? I have met people who avoid this rather obvious question by presenting themselves as unfairly accused by it. They want to condemn a whole religion without any blowback in world where that always turns out badly. But rather than putting the issue to rest with a clear answer, they choose not to dignify it with an answer. Which doesn't work.

3. You are not familiar with any of the people I offered as Middle East scholars, and were totally unaware of movements within Islam critical of misogyny. But you want to "nominate" a "spokesperson" for the Islamophobes who is a serious scholar on the subject of Islam. And you don't want to make judgments "from a position of ignorance" (never mind you just assumed I have read nothing of Hitchens work).  But you are happy to nominate someone who is not a serious scholar of Islam, someone who will support what you already want to believe.  Another manifestation of our difference in standards. It looks like you are perfectly fine with ignorance when it suits your purposes. I am not. Another difference in standards.

4. "Quotes from Islam's holy books." LOL We see people using quotes from Christianity's holy books in this forum all the time but we (most of us) don't assume they are "experts" on those books or Christianity. The question of Islam is not how Harris reads the Qu'ran but how Muslims do.  And I still like polls just fine; I just question the way some people use them. Get some of Harris' arguments out there and let's have a close look at them.