Sadras
Legend
All true. My initial post was that a lack of acknowledgement by the responsible Islamic world can give rise to Islamophobia.
Christian Persecution vs Persecuted Christians
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All true. My initial post was that a lack of acknowledgement by the responsible Islamic world can give rise to Islamophobia.
Sadras
Legend
Ryujin
Legend
I would disagree, based on my example to which you responded. The reasons for the persecution of Jews, in Medieval Europe, were also based in religion and yet we do not refer to that as Christian. That's basic inequity of reporting. It's not done because that's essentially the majority of us and we don't want to recognize, nor apologize for, the actions of our fore-bearers. Such a simple admission. So hard to make.
Ryujin
Legend
What good is it to be princess if I get no love. Empty title.
One free pink unicorn with every princess title.
A religion professor once pointed out to me that every world religion over 800 years old goes through a period of zealotry and militaristic expansion, sometimes by people hijacking the faith, sometimes backed by holy writ.
The Bible has several Genocides, for instance. In one, God tells the Israelites to kill everyone, man, woman and child, even though- similarly to the story of Sodom & Gomorrah- they plead for mercy for their foes, because God has already been patient with those to be slaughtered, and they did not listen. In Deuteronomy 20, we find this:
Think about that. In the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, God has already shown that He is perfectly capable of leveling cities without aid. So why does He need Israelites to commit genocide in His name, getting their hands all bloody? He could have done the deed himself and said "I have opened unto you a new land for your people." or the like.
Occam's Razor suggests that sections of the Bible like this were not transcriptions of God's word, but rather, were written by those seeking to justify their actions with a veneer of religious legitimacy.
So right there, both Christianity and Judaism lose the right to claim that they have "always" been religions of peace. And that's before we get to things like The Spanish Inquisition, certain Crusades, support of slavery and- mostly for Protestants- the KKK.
Hinduism has a history of atrocities against Dalits & Buddhists, plus ongoing endorsements of certain human rights violations.
Buddhists, in turn, have a history of attacking Christians & churches in Sri Lanka and Muslims & mosques in Burma.
Mormons don't like to talk about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, but it happened. As did calls for slaughtering Missourians, attempted assassinations of certain political officials, killings of ex-Mormons to redeem them and the like. All this despite being a relatively young faith.
NOBODY gets to take the high ground.
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Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
When it comes to Islam, I think there is also a problem that it is seen as more dangerous than other religions. It is not just a question of refusing to apologize for past crimes.
I think a large part of that has to do with the modern 24 hour news cycle. It isn't as if the Islamic world & the Judeo-Christian world haven't been at loggerheads for centuries, after all.
Prior to the rise of televised mass media and its eventual shift to an instantaneous reportage model bolstered by the ubiquity of the amateur reporters & their cell phone cameras, news of evil done in each (well, any) faith's name took time. Some stuff simply never got reported. Couple that with amateurs not having the professional's journalistic ethical framework driving (but admittedly not forcing) them to provide neutral and full context for what is reported...
Ryujin
Legend
The 3 hour news repeat cycle, fostered by cable network news (generic, as opposed to just CNN), has done much to erode the journalistic ethic. We now have supposed news sources, what I now prefer to refer to as 'media outlets', taking blogger posts as Gospel and running with them, on national broadcasts.
One of the complications we have in our PC world is that we got folks insisting something's bad, and folks insisting that everything's good.
What if a religion really is bad software?
What if the "it's all good" crowd are giving the bad software a leg up by not recognizing the wolf in the flock?
I'm sure every religion has bad sections in their book. And every religious group has done bad stuff.
But most religions I can burn a copy of their holy book and not have a mass riot in other countries happen. Anybody who thinks the rules of their religion applies to everybody has bad software.
Kramodlog
Naked and living in a barrel
I agree. The catalyst was 9/11, after that Islam was under the distorting lens of continious news. In the past it was the Red Scare and the aforementioned Yellow Peril (that as has evolved into "China will surpass the US!!1!"). Now its Muslims.
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