Islam belief and "western liberal" values, compatible?

Filan

Ok on recommendation from Amz I've decided to place this question here. I worry that Islam and Western Liberal values cannot co-exist. "Western Liberal values" is I realise an imprecise term, with slightly different connotations for different people. According to my own brains fallible dictionary such a term is linked with freedom of expression (that includes freedom not just to say the right thing but also to say or do the wrong thing) , freedom to criticise and be criticised, pro-choice, equality of men and women...freedom for gay, lesbian , transgender and other monorities to be themselves withour fear of reprisal. I am aware of many cases where Muslims , not just Muslims admittedly, people of other or no faith also, but yes some Muslims have attempted to subvert these liberties which I hold dear...and few Muslims who I have met share my values. I am really worried that as numbers rise that we will not be able to co-exist as the Koran in many passages appears to convey a very intolerant doctrine which would seek to subvert many of the values which I cherish.

I do wish to state though that I do not dislike Muslims, nobody deserves to suffer prejudice merely for being a Muslim..I have no wish as a member of one minority to oppress another. That would be two wrongs. Many, probably most Muslims are good, well meaning people. My concern is not related to Muslims as human beings to but Islamic doctrine. In fact many secular Muslims themselves may be concerned about these same issues.

Hagar

You could say the same of almost every religion. Do you think Christianity is pro-choice, pro-gay or pro-anything for that matter?

The only problem I can see with Muslims is that they seems to be overly protective of their god to the point that nobody may offend him in any way. How you can offend an all powerful being is beyond me but they seem to want to stick up for him as if he were a special needs god who can't defend himself from harsh words spoken by non-believers.
If their god is any use he should smite a few non-believers, without his followers help of course, just to show us who's boss. Until he does, as far as I'm concerned, his existance, like that of all gods from all religions, is very much suspect.

Oh and one other small detail, the Muslims seem to control the world's oil stocks and have everyone over a barrel, no pun intended, so a blood thirsty god is just the thing to keep the locals in check and the foreigners at bay.

Liberal values to me amount to "Live and let live".
Is that to much to ask of the great Muslim god? Or any other god for that matter?

Filan

No I don't view Christianity as a particular Matriarchal or tolerant faith either...however at least in this part of the world it appears weak and has compromised itself... at lot in certain quarters..in order to meet the contemporary needs of society...My local Anglican Church has a female minister...There is gay bishops and even a sprinkling of transgender clergy within the Church of England....Where are the gay Imans? Where are the gay Muslims or could it be that no Muslims are gay? I recently watched a documentary about gay and lesbian Muslims in England...how most of them are forced to marry...for fear of retribution.and they really suffered a terrible torment...because they were in fear of their own communities...Some lesbian women actually praised the Burqua as it enabled them to avoid detection at lesbian gatherings!.

Either way I don't mind Muslims having their beliefs...my problem is born when they attempt to prevent me from following mine....and nobody...not me...nor them..should be beyond criticism.. Yes quite akin to your term Hagar "live and let live"...whether this ethos is compatible with a growing Islamic minority..whether peaceful co-existence is possible ...I am sceptical thereof .

I stress again though that I do not dislike Muslims...It's the impact of their religion , if they follow it...that concerns me. I have met Muslims who had never read the Koran...yet considered themselves Muslim...what percentage are Muslims of this variety I don't know. Nor is Islam an entirely negative religion..there is peaceful verses...but parts of it appear very intolerant and concern me

Dontico

Filan wrote:

Where are the gay Muslims or could it be that no Muslims are gay? me

there are gay muslim underground movements. islam and christianity is just as strict. the only difference is that islamic countries are also usually developing countries, developing countries are usually not thgat liberal. we were anti-gay and suppressive to women once. and now we are considered to be leaders of human rights.

the christian democrats in the EU have an islamic party in them.

Filan

What exactly does Christian Democrat mean? Interesting point about Islam and belonging predominantly to Developing Countries...I hope that they continue to develop...To me it appears both Homophobic (to put it mildly...stonings and hangings as punishment in some countries!) and misogynistic....and I fear that they will and a minority arguably already have started to compromise the country I live in...This country was in the dark ages , blind for such a long time....in parts still is... I fear that we may be 'importing' more...

Around the time of Catholic Emancipation, 1830 and Daniel O'Connell...an argument proposed by many British Politicians against allowing Catholics an increase in Civil Rights was that the Catholic Religion and in particular the pope were opposed to many of the values which the Crown espoused. They asked how could Catholics be loyal to the British State if they were also loyal to Rome which contradicted many of it's values. They were right...on independence we developed into an inward looking racist, priest ridden peasant and depressed society.

Likewise is it legitimate to ask whether Muslims can be loyal to Irish liberal values and the Koran? Are they not in contradiction?

Are they compatible? Can they co-exist?

Bottle_of_Smoke

Maybe western liberalism should swallow it's pride & take few leaves out of the Islamic outlook book.

I mean gender equality has gone insane in the west. Sure women should earn the same as men for the same work, be allowed to vote etc but why have we lost the ability to accept there are differences between the sexes?

For example - In January, Ian Robertson - a Professor at TCD was on The Panel(RTE comedy show) - he said that on average men are more likely to be better at maths/engineering. Then he goes and denounces it because of pressure from some fckwits who can't accept reality. He did also mention that women are more likely to be better at multitasking - for some reason there was no objection from anyone to this.

Now what I like about Islam is that it recognises a difference between the roles of the sexes. I certainly don't like everything about Sharia but a healthy mix would be nice.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it's not true that men are better at math though, genetically anyway... most of the reason there are more men in the math/science industries is that women have been told for generations that they just can't do all the man-math, so very few try.

most women here don't have that drilled into them from birth anymore, and these days (i don't have any statistics, but I read it.. think it was in carl sagan - the demon haunted world) more and more women are entering the math/sciences and are doing as good a job as any penis holder.

Zombrex

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

I mean gender equality has gone insane in the west. Sure women should earn the same as men for the same work, be allowed to vote etc but why have we lost the ability to accept there are differences between the sexes?

I would imagine because the differences don't really mean anything. Saying that on average women are "better" at something than men has little relevance on an individual basis. It is impossible to draw any meaningful conclusion. What, are we going to say someone can't do something because they are a man and men in general aren't good at doing this, say for example nursing or teaching? What if the man is actually very good at doing it?

Most of the time I would imagine it isn't even that women are better than men at something, it is that for some reason less men thing of this thing as an option, so the ones that would actually be good at it don't end up doing it so you can't see them.

I would also point out that the Judeo/Christian religions, of which Islam is one, don't teach that there are differences between the sexes, they teach that women are inferior to men.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Mordeth wrote:

it's not true that men are better at math though, genetically anyway... most of the reason there are more men in the math/science industries is that women have been told for generations that they just can't do all the man-math, so very few try.

most women here don't have that drilled into them from birth anymore, and these days (i don't have any statistics, but I read it.. think it was in carl sagan - the demon haunted world) more and more women are entering the math/sciences and are doing as good a job as any penis holder.

Are you entirely sure about that first line? Note I did say "on average" too. YOu can't just say something as vast as a sex is better at something there's always going to be exceptions.

In school I remember the genuinely gifted ones at maths were all male. There were plenty of girls good at maths but the top ten were all male. Needless to say there were probably some girls in other schools who would be in the top ten of my school.

Now every girl in our year had been doing maths as long as those guys & in our day girls were encouraged to do higher maths/applied maths/physics just as much as guys(I was in school 97-03) but I don't remember going to any of the girls for help with maths. Also when I was helping people with maths or physics guys just always seemed to get things faster.

Girls did seem to be much better on average at German/Irish & I would have went to them for help there.
Does this not suggest some average difference in aptitude?

Wicknight wrote:

I would imagine because the differences don't really mean anything.

It doesn't really mean anything that woodlice are grey but we don't go around saying they're black.

What, are we going to say someone can't do something because they are a man and men in general aren't good at doing this, say for example nursing or teaching? What if the man is actually very good at doing it?

No of course not! We let people do what they can do based on their individual merits. I'm trying to say men or women are *more likely* rather than *are* better at different things.

I just think people like Ian Robertson shouldn't be silenced on an interesting topic because people get offfended.

the_new_mr

Wicknight wrote:

I would also point out that the Judeo/Christian religions, of which Islam is one, don't teach that there are differences between the sexes, they teach that women are inferior to men.

I wasn't originally going to take part in this thread but I felt compelled to comment on the above statement. I would advise anyone to check up on these things before making wild sweeping statements such as this one. I would also recommend against taking anything you read as fact without sufficient research.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/notislam/misconceptions.html#HEADING3

pH

the_new_mr wrote:

I wasn't originally going to take part in this thread but I felt compelled to comment on the above statement. I would advise anyone to check up on these things before making wild sweeping statements such as this one. I would also recommend against taking anything you read as fact without sufficient research.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/notislam/misconceptions.html#HEADING3

Your link 'clearing up' this is full of sexist rubbish and wriggles out the the 'inferior' accusation with mealy mouthed nonsense about them being different but not inferior.

Islam does not confer equal rights to women, I and many others would argue that the rights it confers to them are in many ways inferior to the rights it confers to men.

Do you believe that men and women are equal? Equal in terms of their rights and their access to opportunities with society?

I do. I believe that no laws should apply differently to women than to men, and that no career/lifestyle/opportunity available in our society to men should be denied to a woman. Can you say that?

PoleStar

Just a quick note on:

Differences between men and women: Yes there ARE differences. Apart from the bleedin obvious, men have been shown in independent test score score higher on visuo-spatial and mathematical tasks, whereas women score better on verbal and language tasks.

However if I were to write in the papers "Women are better than men at languages" you wouldnt get hundreds of replies stating that the statement was sexist and that men are the same etc etc. Why cant the sexes be different? Whats so wrong with that?


On Islam:

Think we gotta stop taking the specific example of Islam and perhaps include the fundamentalist Christians in the States who are nuts!

Regarding criticism of Islam however, for some reason its seems to be drilled into Muslims that any criticism or humor involving Islam is disgraceful and most Muslims take great offence. The example of the staff of the newspaper in Denmark that were held hostage for printing cartoons of the prophet! When Tommy Tiernan let loose on the Catholic Church on The Late Late Show, yeah sure a few people wrote letters, but nothing was burned and no-one hurt. Its the likes of this that scares me. That and the fact that the numbers are growing. And while we always here that Islam can co-exist alongside other religions, I think that is until Islam is a majority. And then I think you will see homosexuality and other offences becoming offences under law in the relevant countries. Or am I wrong?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

imo, the protests over the cartoons of the prophet were a bubbling over of a lot of anger frm muslims towards the west... being fair, it's not like we in the west have been at all helpful, generous or even respectful to muslim peoples throughout our history.., and while we may like to forget all this, it doesn't look like they do. If most muslims lived in moderate prosperity and had access to much of the same standards of living that we had, instead of being forcibly held down by western backed dictators and western backed wars on muslims.. the cartoons prob wouldn't have had such a reaction.

it was just one more straw in a long long series of straws that broke the camels back a long long time ago, but it was very insulting to those people.. we in the west with our multitide of priviledges can't really talk about tommy tiernan on the late late or such, because we're not starving, opressed, chronically unemployed and vilified day after day in the media and in public speech.

They've got a lot to be angry about, but this was one thing that they could all be angry about together.. which is one reason why I think it elicited such a strong response... it fed into the us V them sentiment, and while the danes were within their rights to print them.. I've no sympathy for them... it was bloody stupid.


edit - re the math thing

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february9/math-020905.html

http://www.psychologymatters.org/thinkagain.html


and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/09/000913083409.htm

now, if only we could get people to stop spreading that idiotic rumour.

Belle Ende

The question is about the compatibility of liberal western values and islam... and so immediately the thread replies are rutted into equivalances with christianity. It is very possible to discuss an aspect of islam without immediately resorting to comparisons with xtianity.

fly_agaric

Filan wrote:

I worry that Islam and Western Liberal values cannot co-exist.

Perhaps they can't really. But whether it actually matters depends on the proponents/"believers" of each and how much they can compromise with each other, doesn't it?

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

why have we lost the ability to accept there are differences between the sexes?

Wicknight wrote:

I would imagine because the differences don't really mean anything.

But if the differences favour women in a given area, there's no problem talking about them and no stink will be raised [why? - because that's compatible with certain brands of feminism].

No. (IMO). The reasons people can't seem to publically talk about such differences are the anger it engenders in outspoken feminist-types + the resultant shame and fear it causes people who believe in feminism when the differences seem to favour men somehow in a particular area.