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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
One your first point, that is mainly directed to the person I had quoted, as they've happily posted and defended propaganda content from white nationalist organisations (specifically Britain First, which is a runoff from the neo-Nazi BNP and has links to NI terrorist groups). I just don't think it's appropriate for someone who posts content taken directly from neo-nazis and terrorists to make objective comments on the moral standards of anyone else, period. Brietbart gets laughed out of most political circles here, so I think most of would agree spreading neo-Nazi propaganda and defending it is many categories worse.
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Thanks for responding to my post, discussion is good. I have seen so many posts of hateful rhetoric that are lies in all sorts of political debates - neither side of an argument should resort to that.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
I can't "justify the positives" of Sharia, as I can only justify the positive interpretations of any religion. My first inclination is that religion is problematic and can lead to some fairly toxic beliefs (and justifications for those beliefs). Islam is no different. But, without the ability to eradicate religion, I believe the best possible path is to celebrate and support those who are progressive, and who are liberal, rather than blanket condemnation.
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I think you may want to invest some time into seeing why people criticize Sharia, see what types of countries it comes from, and then debate if it represents Canadian values.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
There are gay Muslims, feminist Muslims, but they are still Muslims who follow Sharia. Sharia is really no different than the teachings of the Bible in the sense that people can take some pretty horrible things from it, but there's a lot of light to be had. From the conversations I've had and the people I've been around, (for progressive Muslims at least) Sharia teaches self control, being at peace with your neighbor, respecting your own body, being honest, etc. I know Muslims who don't drink or smoke because of Sharia, those who observe Ramadan do so because of Sharia, it's just used as a tool to inspire good people to be better.
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People should not use a god to inspire people to be better - it is proving to be a terrible strategy. Sharia is bad for gays people and females, is there something that is misleading my view on it?
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Does it allow the exact opposite? It does, and that's a huge problem. As you said, there is an issue with institutionalised racism in parts of the Muslim world and while we have our own problems, we can still act as an imperfect leap in the right direction.
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You have posted positively about Muslims and I don't disagree. When people move here from (for example) Pakistan, is there some process where they suddenly lose the racist hate government/schools taught them? As a jew, I have first hand experienced absolute hate speech from Muslims, with wives, kids and dads screaming at us (they don't represent all Muslims, I get that). I assume they brought this baggage with them from back home. I think we must work on a solution to eliminate this mindset. Similarly, there was a police shooting on an immigrant and the believe was that the immigrant came from a country that simply did not trust or respect police, and when the officer tried to arrest the person, he violently resisted, leading to his death. One of the discoveries was that the community/city needed to more to reach out to the community to avoid a similar situation in the future. But if we ignore what is happening (or we isolate people by called them racist/islamophobic), then we are failing.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Progressive, liberal Muslims should be held up as the example and championed because those are the people that can affect the most change in Islam worldwide. That doesn't mean we stop criticising the bad parts of Islam or shouting down things like extremism and those who wish to override secular laws with religious ones, but those people are far fewer than the dramatic presence they seem to have to conservative westerners.
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I am not championing religion, period. I think what we are all trying to figure out is what is a progressive, liberal Muslim? Are they the Muslims that drink alcohol? Are they the Muslims that believe in Sharia law? I know that for the Jews, the minority are heavily religious, and the bulk of Jews do not agree with much of what they do with their lives. Progressive, liberal Jews often typify social justice, education, liberal laws, charity, etc with no religious following - on both sides of the political spectrum. Help me understand what the progressive Muslim looks like.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
I think the best thing we can do is talk about Islam with some nuance. Not as some concretely good or bad thing. I don't believe there's anything but ignorance to saying there's no problem with Islam, just as I don't believe there's anything but ignorance to saying Sharia is an evil perversion.
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I do my best to push religion backwards, and I think society should as well. I do not promote it, nor should I. Star Wars makes as much sense to me as God.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
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Thanks, I will have a look.
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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Instead of shovelling hate on him as some have indirectly done in this thread, we should be holding him up and making sure his words are heard by those who need the message. Change comes from within, and all that.
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Forget about the hate, and walk through solutions. Try not to engage in partisan politics, and instead talk through policy. Again, thanks for posting.