Follow Bill Maher’s lead, not Donald Trump: There’s a way to critique ideology behind religion...

[trotsky]

(headline cont'd)...without resorting to hate

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/13/follow_bill_mahers_lead_not_donald_trump_theres_a_way_to_critique_ideology_behind_religion_without_resorting_to_hate/

...Islam has long provoked little but confused, misleading commentary from well-meaning journalists, especially those eager to side with the oppressed and show solidarity with the downtrodden. In the West, the 1,400-year-old faith serves as a guiding light for its predominantly (nonwhite) adherents, who come from lands with histories of colonialism and often suffer discrimination from the various, mostly white European and North American societies in which they dwell. Not surprisingly, as a result, Islam has secured a place in the identity politics of our time. Criticize Islam, and you are perceived as attacking a minority community, which leaves you open to charges of racism.

More specifically, the charge is usually of “Islamophobia,” which feebleminded thinkers equate with racism, though Islam is neither a race nor an ethnicity, but a religion with devotees of all skin pigments on every continent. Criticize Islam — its doctrines of jihad and martyrdom, its accordance of second-class status to women, for instance — and you really are attacking an ideology. Yet our reigning state of politicized hysteria and linguistic decadence ensure the word, which is nothing but a shoddy semantic ruse inimical to free speech, lasting currency and even a sort of vogue. True freedom of speech, however, means being able to criticize the most contentious subject of all — religion. There is, thus, nothing “phobic” about attacking Islam. We all are, or should be, perfectly free to attack Islam, or, conversely, to laud it. It is just one religion — that is, ideology — among many, and all religions are fair game for critics.

...

Those assaulting Muslims are engaging in criminal acts and should be prosecuted; those who express bigotry against Muslims as people deserve opprobrium. But those critiquing, however vociferously and irreverently, the illiberal doctrines of Islam and the bloodshed carried out in its name stand well within their First Amendment rights and merit no name-calling, the leveling of no spurious charges of “Islamophobia.”

[Cartoonist]

1. Can we stop calling them a minority?

Once you reach a billion adherents, the word is dishonest.

[rug]

2. You're right.

It's the result of first world privilege.

But Jeffrey Tayler wrote it. It's to be expected.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The only time the article says 'minority', it's talking about 'in the West'

and "white European and North American societies".