what, if anything, can be done to combat the excesses of Islam, such as ISIS?

[RussBLib]

While many Muslims will denounce ISIS for being "not really Muslim" or being far more extreme than regular Muslims (in much the same way "typical" Christians will denounce extreme Christian fundamentalists), I wonder if there is a role for atheism to play in this latest drama? Should we as atheists try to stay far away from it?

I fully realize that a self-avowed atheist in a predominantly Islamic country takes their life into their own hands if they "come out" as an atheist. Several Islamic nations have a stated policy of prison or death for atheists. Fortunately most predominantly Christian nations have stopped persecuting atheists. Islam has a really long way to go in this regard.

This whole ISIS fiasco effectively marginalizes atheism and the conversation is totally dominated by religion. Who's more devout? Who's off base? Who's going to heaven? And did you hear that (allegedly) some ISIS fighters are afraid to be killed by a woman, which would apparently deprive them of getting to heaven? Absurd, I know. They will be quite disappointed that there will not be 72 virgins waiting for them, but they'll be dead, of course, and won't even be able to realize it.

I sit here watching this crap with a sense of helplessness. These freaks want to annihilate all Westerners, religious or not, in the name of Allah.

What's it going to take for atheism and freethought to gain a foothold in these backward countries?

Sorry if I'm rambling...(edited to correct spelling)

[trotsky]

1. This link was given to me in another thread:

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sleepwalking-toward-armageddon

Great read.

[RussBLib]

3. thanks. I just read that article, but...

...I have to confess I am somewhat at a loss.

Quote from the article: "But today, we won’t even honestly describe the motivations of our enemies."

Honestly describe the motivations of our enemies? I'm not sure I can either. They are motivated by what? A "bad" interpretation of the Koran? A hatred of infidels? A misreading of the Koran? A fundamental faith in religion itself? The desire to remove Western powers from their lands?

I'm a little confused.

[trotsky]

17. Here's how I see it:

They are motivated by what they view is the divine will of their god.

Since we (as in our predominantly religious society) declare a priori that "knowledge" gained from religious belief is just as valid as that gained from real-world observation or reason, we are stuck in the trap of being unable to completely condemn their religious behavior. Especially in the context of a revealed religion like Christianity or Islam. Both religions are founded on the principle that god communicates with humans, and reveals new knowledge directly to them (but not others).

To be sure, there are other factors involved, but going down the path of "they aren't following their religion correctly" is utter folly.

[CJCRANE]

2. Bear in mind that the original Arab Spring

was mainly composed of secular groups who wanted liberal democracy, which also included anarchists, socialists and probably atheists.

[onager]

4. As a former resident of Muslim countries I'll try, but...

I'm not sure I can help a lot. This is a huge and complicated subject.

...I wonder if there is a role for atheism to play in this latest drama? Should we as atheists try to stay far away from it?

Only our usual role, IMO. Point out the insanity of slaughtering people over things one believes without a speck of real evidence.

But I suspect, to paraphrase GW Bush, "nobody cares what we think" on this topic.

I fully realize that a self-avowed atheist in a predominantly Islamic country takes their life into their own hands if they "come out" as an atheist...

The story of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is instructive. Amer was from Alexandria, where I lived. And his case was tried while I lived there, so I followed it in the Egyptian media.

The Wiki article doesn't mention a couple of things I remember. e.g., Amer's own father testified in court that he wanted his son to get the death penalty if he was found guilty of atheism.

At least that didn't happen. But Amer served 4 years in prison for "insulting Islam." (And also the lesser charge of insulting Pres. Hosni Mubarak.)

What's it going to take for atheism and freethought to gain a foothold in these backward countries?

Probably a few thousand years. My Egyptian co-workers were mostly Muslims and I outed myself as an atheist to a (very) few of them. The general reaction was - "That's cool, we know Egyptians who are atheists too."

Purely personal anecdote, I know. But at least we know a few of them (us) are out there.

Probably one thing we have going for us - Islam is not monolithic and is every bit as split and divided as Western Xianity. There are at least 32 different theological schools of Sunni Muslims, IIRC. The Shi'ites also have sub-categories.

Then there are the Fun Muslims, the Sufi mystics. Over in The Other Group, I've seen Sufis proclaimed as possible saviors of Islam. In reality, they're a very small and not very influential branch nowadays. I could always have fun when I got the regular Egyptian Muslims to start gossiping about the Sufis. e.g., they claimed that the Sufis were dancing and having sex right in the mosque during a famous annual celebration. Since the guests at that shindig included the American ambassador to Egypt and his wife, I was...skeptical about that claim.

Also, there's no guarantee Sufis will stay mystical and contemplative etc. There was once a young Sufi who wrote hot erotic poetry and celebrated the virtues of wine. He later morphed into the famous Shi'ite-head Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

[RussBLib]

5. "a few thousand years"

hundreds, at least.

I see another story this morning about an Iraqi woman lawyer/human rights activist was tortured and killed for apostasy by a "Sharia court" recently. We don't hear a lot of outcry from Muslim countries because they are still punishing apostasy themselves.

As with Christianity, I think change will have to come from within Islam and not imposed from the outside. Meanwhile, we are going to continue to hear about brutal atrocities. Could be that modern communications will hurry the transition of Islam to a reasonable faith. If we had satellites and 24-hour TV back in the dark ages, Christianity might have reformed a helluva lot quicker.

So meanwhile, fasten your seatbelts, and don't let their brutality poison your mind.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. 1. stop dancing at the end of their string.

ISIS dared us to start bombing them. Why would they do that?

[onager]

7. UAE’s first female fighter pilot likely dropping bombs on ISIS militants in Syria

Maj. Mariam Al Mansouri, 35, joined the United Arab Emirates' air force once the military branch accepted women. She graduated the academy in 2008 and now pilots an F-16 Block 60 fighter jet, likely among those taking part in the air strikes against Islamic State terrorists in Syria.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/uae-female-fighter-pilot-dropping-bombs-isis-article-1.1951052

[RussBLib]

8. how will those poor ignorant ISIS fighters know who killed them?

I mean, if they think a MAN dropped those bombs, they get to go to heaven.

But if they think that a WOMAN dropped those bombs, they don't get to go to heaven.

How on earth will they ever know who killed them so they know where to go in the afterlife??

Kinda highlights the absurdity of their beliefs.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. In their videos it will always be the US.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. What we need is a whole squadron of women

dropping bombs, so that they will know that a woman killed them. Well, the survivors will know. The dead, well they will be dead...and they will not be in heaven with their virgins.

Interesting how a culture that hides the women so much is so obsessed with sex that their paradise is all about virgins and sex instead of family and friends.

[onager]

13. Here you go...

Meet the Kurdish Women Fighting ISIS In Syria

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/meet-kurdish-women-fighting-isis-syria-n199821

[Curmudgeoness]

20. I salute them.

Actually, that was where I got the idea of an all women Air Force squadron. ISIS is terrified of being killed by these women. What a bunch of crap---killed is killed. But they don't see it as crap, so let's give them something to be terrified about.

[RussBLib]

22. it's probably better to have them killed by Muslim women and not American, French or British women

And it should be made quite clear that Muslim women are bombing their ignorant butts.

If we told them that American (Christian) (white) (Western) women were bombing them, it would just give them one more reason to hate the US and the West.

Yes, you religiously-ignorant pieces of shit (this is directed towards ISIS), other Muslims think you are so full of shit that they will kill you with bombs launched by Muslim WOMEN to take away your trip to heaven and all those virgins.

So change your ways!

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Put that alongside the fact that saudi money is at least partially funding isis.

This is all a game. Isis is useful on many levels. It destroyed the stability of the Iraqi government, part of the Saudi strategy to keep Iran off balance. It got the "Christians" - the US, France, etc. attacking Syria, where, now that military intervention is a reality, the transition to direct attacks on the Assad regime is only a matter of time. And most importantly it has these same Christians killing muslims, deeply reinforcing the extremist sunni ideological perspective that they are in a global war with Christian civilization. The US needs Isis to justify their intervention in both Iraq and Syria. The Saudis need Isis to continue to destabilize their arch-enemy Iran and Iran's Shiite allies in the region. And Isis needs us to kill muslims to rally more muslims to their cause. It is all grand Great Game fun, unless you are actually just a regular human being trying live a regular life in the region, in which case it is totally fucked.

[AlbertCat]

14. Put that alongside the fact that saudi money is at least partially funding isis.

Say..... didn't they fund and fly planes into the World Trade Center too?

So we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq!

Saudi Arabia is our enemy but we don't seem to know it.


I suppose atheists could support green energy.

If big industrial countries didn't need Saudi oil, they'd be ignoring that god forsaken desert....kinda like the way we ignore Africa.

[Act_of_Reparation]

18. Our ally, the Saudi government, is not representative of the Saudi people

House Saud effectively consolidated its power in 1744 with the Diriyah agreement, in which Muhammed bin Saud won the support of Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab in return for promising Wahhabi clerics complete control over all religious matters within Saud's state. Despite multiple invasions and occupations, this agreement is still on the books.

Though the family is too large to generalize, those members of House Saud in the highest echelons of power are markedly more progressive than the Wahhabis who still have near-absolute control over the nation's moral standards. The royal family largely wants to fulfill Abdulaziz ibn Saud's dream of making Saudi Arabia an influential world player, and realize that the clerics' strict adherence to medieval interpretations of Islam are holding the nation back (this is why the government-controlled media has made sure no one outside the country gets a good look at one of their famed public beheadings... they know it would embarrass them). But, at the same time, the royal family realizes that these clerics are really the only thing holding the country together. If they piss the clerics off, they will lose their support, and the same jokers who turned the terrorists loose on the United States could do the same to them.

Contrary to what some suspect, we aren't being played here... at least not by the government. They are basically walking a tightrope between doing what's in the best interest of the country (moving them forward into the global economy) and trying to satisfy a class of regressive, intolerant clerics who would rather the nation split back up into its respective tribes and retreat to the desert to subsist on dates and camel milk.

So, I think you'll find the Saud family wants the terrorists gone every bit as much as we do. As per the pact established between our nations near the end of the Second World War, the royal family relies on the United States for income and protection. Without that, they are totally fucked. The problem is, despite being pretty much absolutist, there isn't a whole lot they can do about it, because, as noted, the clerics command greater respect from workaday Saudis than does the government.

[AlbertCat]

19. So, I think you'll find the Saud family wants....

I just as soon have nothing to do with them if at all possible.

[Lordquinton]

11. what we can do is refuse to let anyone claim that they aren't islamic

A common claim is that they are not true Muslims, so don't group them with other Muslims, but islam has to ow up to their extremeists like Christianity has to own up to theirs.

[LostOne4Ever]

15. Disclaimer: I am woefully ignorant of the Middle east

So this all my uninformed opinion and is probably based on a ton of misconceptions.

I think of the problem is alot like the problem was back in the middle ages with Europe and I feel the solutions are similar.

The first thing that has to come is the realization that so long as the government is entangled with religion the horrors of totalitarian regimes will never go away. So long as their leaders can claim that they were chosen by god no one can challenge their authority.

Once this happened in Europe, the nobles then began stepping up and building their own armies to force the kings to give them rights. From this things like the Magna Carta were formed. And from here the common man began demanding their rights too.

IIRC the printing press and the satirical novel, the Prince, by Machevelli, despite its flaws, was a major reason for the change in Europe. The rulers at the time saw the book as saying that they were mortal men who had a duty first and foremost to protect their kingdom from outside threats. This gave them the power to disagree with the church and exert power over it, but at the same time stripped them of divine right.

There were set backs of course, usually where the state and religion joined forces like during the inquisition or the reign of the Tudors in England, but slowly and surely they began pushing forward common law and rights of the individual.

[center] [/center]

It took hundreds of years for the enlightenment to take form, but there are forces at play now that didn't exist back then. Back then the most advanced tool they had for educating the public was the printing press. Now we have the internet, and television, and phones, and so many other technologies that if we could just get the ball rolling I think they could progress a little faster than Europe did.

I believe the problem is, however, we have these bonehead politicians who keep on giving the extremist in these countries what they need most to keep people complacent. A scapegoat. Why does the Islamic State want a war with the US? So that they can blame everything that is wrong with their countries on the US. To make the average muslims in those countries to think there is a war between Islam and the "Christian" West. Our foreign policy and the way we treat the Iseali-palestinian crisis all play into their hands and make it look like EVERYTHING wrong is due to us screwing over their countries for our own interests.

I don't think thing will ever get better in the middle east until we end these wrongheaded foreign policies we have regarding the middle east. And it looks like Obama is going to let himself be manipulated into another war just as the theocrats there want. We (the US) should be using diplomacy and sanctions rather than bombs. We should quit playing favorites and favoring oppressive regimes like in SA and take a more neutral and less pro-isreal stance in the middle east.

I think the best thing we nonbelievers can do is support politicians who push a more even handed foreign policy. But I don't think America will ever do that. I think we are going to continue this dance of death for a long long time.

BUT again, the middle east is not really an area I know much about and I could be wrong headed on a lot of this.

[center] [/center]

[NeoGreen]

16. I think...

...we should pray for guidance...






(to be explicit for anyone who is confused)

We, as freethinkers, should do all we can to standup and be counted here, so that there will be a chance to counter act them there:



because,

[onager]

21. Some book recommendations...

Feel free to add your own, of course.

Hate to keep repeating this, but for new people who may wonder why I read all this stuff - I lived in Saudi Arabia for about 2 years and in Egypt for about 4. I always thought it was a good idea to learn about a new culture in which I would be living. Especially when some members of that culture might want to behead me. Just kidding...

These are books that helped me understand the Middle East a little better. You can find most of them at That Place Named After the South American River:

Ahmed, Leila - Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate - Ahmed was born in Egypt and became Director of the Women's Studies program and professor of Near Eastern studies at Amherst. She has some unique insights into her subject, especially how the status of women may have evolved in Islam. She concludes by warning that gender problems in the Middle East must be solved by the people who live there, not by foreigners.

Atiya, Nahra - Khuul-Khal: 5 Egyptian Women Tell Their Stories - 5 Egyptian women talk plainly and directly about their lives, including such subjects as FGM, how religion affects their daily life, etc. Four of the subjects are Muslim, one is a Coptic Xian from the Sudan border area. A fascinating and at times heartbreaking book. (Khuul-khal are the anklets worn by married women in some rural Egyptian cultures.)

Al-Aswany, Alaa - The Yacoubian Building - this novel caused a huge outrage in Egypt when it was published in 2005. Predictably, the author (a Cairo dentist) got many death threats from fundamentalists. His novel is a great snapshot of Egyptian daily life - the abysmal treatment of women, the status of gays, the outrageously hypocritical politicians and religious leaders, and how a moderate Muslim becomes a terrorist. Made into a movie, and every major actor in Egypt fought for a role in it. Read the damn book first, as usual the movie left out a lot.

Great scene: a politician is trying to convince his mistress to have an abortion, and tells her an imam has approved it.
Mistress, laughing bitterly: "That must have been an American imam."

Anderson, Scott - Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Fisk, Robert - The Great War For Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East - yes, the title is sarcasm. Fisk has lived in Lebanon for over 30 years, and in this book he travels throughout the Middle East looking at the lives of ordinary people. Not a pretty sight.

Fromkin, David - A Peace To End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Hourani, Albert - A History of the Arab Peoples - a bit hard to get thru, but worth it.

Lacey, Robert - The Kingdom: Arabia & The House of Sa'ud - Published in 1982 and badly needs an update, but one of the best looks inside the Saudi ruling family available. Almost half the book is a history of the country before oil was discovered.

Lagnado, Lucette - The Man In The White Sharkskin Suit - Lagnado grew up Jewish in Cairo, the "Paris of the Middle East" in the 1930s and 40s. She writes of a place where Jews, Muslims and Xians lived side by side in harmony. Until the 1952 revolution, when her family was forcibly exiled along with most other Jews. Included because this is a story we don't hear much about.

Pagden, Anthony - Worlds At War: the 2500 Year Struggle Between East and West - religious readers griped about Pagden's treatment of religion in this great book. Hard to see why - Pagden says right up front (in the Foreword) that he believes in liberal, secular democracies, and that mixing religion with government nearly always causes trouble. And that's a central theme of the book in describing our modern era.

Russian General Staff - The Soviet-Afghan War: How A Superpower Fought and Lost - when the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979, they discounted the mujahedeen as a few religious fanatics. The first but certainly not last mistake they made. Uneasy reading, considering what has happened in the country since the Russians left in 1989. And the way the latter war has been fought by That Other Superpower.

[Cartoonist]

23. Follow the oil

I see only AlbertCat mentions oil. I think this is the predominant issue here, not religion. I saw a documentary not too long ago that focused on America's relationship with the Sauds. Some kind of agreement was reached between our two countries around the time of the World Wars. Every President since then has had to kiss the ring of the Saudi King. That includes FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. Indeed, it's one of the first acts the newly elected president has to perform. Bush was all in to our submission, and would walk hand in hand with the the royal family.