• Ilya B Shambat
    194
    The Muslim jihadists continue to make the claim that they are morally superior to the West. It is time that this claim be addressed, not as part of war between Christianity and Islam, and not as some relativistic doubletalk, but on the basis of values and institutions that actually make the West superior to the Muslims.

    The West does not have people throwing sulfuric acid into girls' faces for going to school.
    The West does not have people setting their daughters on fire for getting raped.
    The West does not have children being sent to blow up marketplaces and themselves in the process.

    The West has free speech. The West has women's rights. The West has a lot of people working around the globe to extend to others development, opportunity and education.

    I do not say that the West is better than Islam for relativistic reasons. I say that it is better than Islam for absolute reasons. I say that West is morally superior to Islam, period. And that, instead of practicing a defensive posture or some sort of religious me-tooism, it needs to go to outright offensive against Islam and seize the moral ground that the Islamists wrongfully claim right from under their feet.

    The West's moral superiority comes from free speech. It comes from democracy. It comes from science and technology. It comes from women's rights. And yes, it comes from the belief that people are better authority over their lives than is a government or a religious institution.

    For all things that one or another person does wrong, the Western system has produced far better results than has the Muslim system. And while there will always be people who look for alternatives, even they will for the most part come to the conclusions that the Muslim system is far inferior to what is here now. The Muslim system is not only worse than the Western system; it's also worse than Communism, Hinduism or Confucianism. Its global reputation is this: The bottom of the world.

    Further, the Muslim people owe a lot to America and the rest of the West. If not for the Western democracies, the Middle East as well as the rest of the world would be practicing Communism; and that means that they would not be able to practice Islam at all. Whereas with the current world leadership they can be as Muslim as they want to be for as long as they aren't blowing up Western nationals in the process. Whereas if Muslims had their way, then everyone would be practicing Islam. And from what we've seen from the condition of the Muslim countries in Middle East, that is not a promising future.

    The Middle East used to host the world's greatest civilizations. At this time, and any number of decades past independence, the place is a quagmire and an obscenity. It is entirely not the case, as Hashemi Rafsanjani claims, that Islam keeps these places on the right path. The opposite is true. Islam has taken these places on a destructive path and has turned the world's greatest civilizations into its worst obscenities.

    Not enough people are brave enough to confront wrongs like this; and there need to be more. I for one do not care one bit if saying such things will bring onto me a fatwah. The issues here are too important, and they are especially important for the women - such as for example my daughter - who will be growing up in whatever world results from contemporary entanglements.

    The West is morally superior to the Islamic world. And it is time that more people say so outright.
  • aporiap
    223
    You're presupposing enlightenment values -universal basic rights, universal freedoms- as your metric for superiority. As obvious as it seems, it still needs a grounding or justification before this sort of argument can be made. Moral theists can always appeal to divine command to legitimate their system
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    thank you. you are a better man than me and i do believe christianity supports the fact that some people really are better than others.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    "You're presupposing enlightenment values -universal basic rights, universal freedoms- as your metric for superiority. As obvious as it seems, it still needs a grounding or justification before this sort of argument can be made. Moral theists can always appeal to divine command to legitimate their system "
    and now we are essentially getting into the whole debate about whether there is objective truth.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    I agree with some aspects of this.

    Except that it implicitly sets the Islamic world up as not liberal, not desirous of free speech, cruel, hateful and Other than Us.

    It's an argument that has long supported colonialism and now supports gratuitous wars fought by proxy.

    And it is an argument, as can be seen here, that Christians will see as supporting their morally bankrupt religion.
  • andrewk
    2.1k
    if SOME Muslims had their way, then everyone would be practicing IslamIlya B Shambat
    Fixed it for you.

    This sort of error of omission cannot be lightly excused, because the omission renders the statement both false and vicious.
  • Ilya B Shambat
    194
    Christianity is far from morally bankrupt. I am a part of the Salvation Army, and these people are completely sincere as well as ethical.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    My own 2 cents is that this dumb as fuck thread should be closed. Go to 4chan or some shit to spew this Islamophobic stupidity, not here.
  • christian2017
    1.4k
    if you say i lack character because this christian did this or that christian did that then you should remember that you can only judge me by my philosophical opinions. I could say i do this or that but at the end of the day this is a philosophy forum (philosophy forums include religion just as this philosophy forum includes religion).
  • Banno
    23.1k
    The attitude of the Salvos to drug use is a case in point of Christian immorality.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    but does their attitude make them morally bankrupt or does that make them have moral flaws. Do you see the difference?
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Ah, so Islam is immoral as a social system, while Christianity is a moral social system that happens to have a few folk with moral flaws...

    That'd be it.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    "Ah, so Islam is immoral as a social system, while Christianity is a moral social system that happens to have a few folk with moral flaws..."

    i'm not going to argue with you too much on that statement. I believe the OP is very in line with the truth or events in history. Mohomed had some serious flaws whereas the supposed Jesus had few to none (i would argue none). As to the various churches that popped up along the way there is alot i could say to that. Christian nations give more to charity than non christian charities. As to whether all christian principles are followed by modern christians in general is another topic.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Nuh. If folk want to air their hypocrisy, let 'em.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    That was an impressive slide, from liberal apologetics in the OP to whether Jesus was a nicer person than Mohamed...

    I'm not interested in a bigoted pissing competition.

    I don't think we do need to ground enlightenment values in something else. Rather, those who reject them ought explain why.
  • christian2017
    1.4k


    "↪christian2017
    That was an impressive slide, from liberal apologetics in the OP to whether Jesus was a nicer person than Mohamed...

    I'm not interested in a bigoted pissing competition.

    ↪aporiap
    I don't think we do need to ground enlightenment values in something else. Rather, those who reject them ought explain why. "

    Thats fair. I'll be back on this forum in a couple of days perhaps tommorow.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Highlight the text you want to quote and a popup will appear.
  • BC
    13.1k
    I say that West is morally superior to Islam, period.Ilya B Shambat

    "The West" and "Islam" belong to different categories. Christianity and Islam are in the same category--world religions--and the West and the East are in the same categories--regions of particular culture. The categories of religion and the category of cultural regions are both rather large. Within either one there are many subsets that may be quite dissimilar to the larger whole.

    So, are you claiming that Christianity is superior to Islam, or that the West is superior to the Middle East?

    My cultural bias is heavily on the side of The West, Christianity, and to the republic for which it stands... etc. Your cultural bias seems to be about the same. Which religion, culture, landscape, language, food ways, etc. are equivalent, inferior, or superior is difficult to determine, because none of us can be very objective about any of this stuff. 99.99% of people have a vested interest in their own cultures, religions, homelands, and so on.

    Most (not all) of the participants on this site are either somewhat disinvested in religion (if they aren't atheists), and many of the people here also eschew strong national affinities to boot. Race, ethnicity, religion, nationalism, and so on are all hot button issues. So, you aren't going to get a very sympathetic hearing for your OP.

    It might (or might not) help to detail your claims about superiority and inferiority. Much of the middle east maintains tribal honor systems. Honor systems (whether in the American South or Pakistan) cause a lot of trouble. When severe punishments are applied in Islamic cultures, they tend to be crudely corporal -- severing the hands of thieves, stoning adulteresses or homosexuals, and so on. We can and should condemn this kind of justice. The most conservative of Islamic countries (like Saudi Arabia) offend against western values in numerous ways. There's a lot there we can disapprove of.

    On the other hand, The West has had its fingers in Middle Eastern affairs for a while and we haven't accomplished a lot of good there. As dyspeptic as the Saud family might make us feel, they have kept the oil flowing. Oil counts for a lot. If the Middle East's main exports were dates and camel cheese, we'd have no interest in them, and they'd be too poor to annoy us.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    Why did you switch from this:

    The Muslim jihadists continue to make the claim that they are morally superior to the West.

    To this:

    Whereas if Muslims had their way, then everyone would be practicing Islam. And from what we've seen from the condition of the Muslim countries in Middle East, that is not a promising future.

    You seem to be asking a genuine question yet omitting and inferring so much that it’s quite incoherent. Are you talking about what a select group of extremists say, general attitudes of particular sects, or religions in general?

    I don’t believe anyone who says living by strict laws is the best way to live as being ‘moral’. As guidelines we can certainly hold more to some than others and laws are necessary in complex societies so people have a common understanding of how to behave in certain environements beyond their innate empathy and upbringing.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Ah yes, the same 'morally superior' west that has continued to ardently support some of the most wicked regimes in the Muslim world, allowing them to stomp on their own people and keep them economically and culturally wretched. The same 'morally superior' West that has played enabler and ally of the very forces it likes to denounce as backward. The OP isn't brave. The OP is the very picture of what enables the status quo. A just-so story for dunces for whom history is too complicated. This much is true at least:

    Further, the Muslim people owe a lot to America and the rest of the West.Ilya B Shambat

    Everything the West has touched in the Muslim world - and it has its filthy paws all over it - has turned to shit. For this, the Muslim people do indeed 'owe' the West. What 'moral superiority' the West can claim is swamped by its immoral complicity.
  • Ilya B Shambat
    194
    Where I live, Salvos have been running a drug and alcohol rehab and doing an excellent job. I got involved with their church and do volunteering there. I see no immorality here at all.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    They are fertile recruiting grounds.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    This is the doctrine of the Salvation Army:

    We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were given by inspiration of God; and that they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.
    We believe that there is only one God, who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship.
    We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost - undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.
    We believe that in the person of Jesus Christ, the Divine and human natures are united, so that He is truly and properly God and truly and properly man.
    We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness; and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.
    We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has, by His suffering and death, made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
    We believe that repentance towards God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and regeneration by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation.
    We believe that we are justified by grace, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and that he that believeth hath the witness in himself.
    We believe that continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.
    We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
    We believe in the immortality of the soul; in the resurrection of the body; in the general judgment at the end of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and in the endless punishment of the wicked.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Ah yes, Ilya's local salvation army are a bunch of good lads and lasses, so this must mean the West is all peaches. Reasoning for imbeciles.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    It may also be worth recognising that “western thought” is most definitely NOT confined to the west anymore. Many western ideals have been adopted all over the globe now and by doing so they’ve taken onboard non-western ideals too (or simply been reinforced by similar schemes already with their own long-held local traditions).

    The whole Judeo-Christian tradition is a culmination of other so called “pagan” views. It just so happens that ONE name is chosen to sell a broad set of human ideologies that have come to fruition under one common sociopolitical movement (be it more or less economic or theological it makes little difference to the fact that there is a constant ebb and flow to human culture).
  • Banno
    23.1k
    ...the endless punishment of the wicked.

    Nice people.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Othering.

    They are not us. We don't do this shit.

    That's the PM's excuse for Australia producing a nationalistic terrorist.

    And so he does not have to admit his culpability in the crime, despite years of presenting the sort of thing found in the OP here.

    The Christchurch terrorist was one of us. He was born in a town a few tens of kilometres away from my home town. He experiences the same sorts of things as we experienced. He chose to act based on those experiences. And what he did was appalling.

    If we deny that he was Australian. we lose an opportunity to address the issues that caused him to make his choice.

    But that goes for @Ilya B Shambat. He (She? Possibly, but I doubt it) is not other, either.

    Would that I had @Bitter Crank's humanity.
  • frank
    14.5k
    I do not say that the West is better than Islam for relativistic reasons. I say that it is better than Islam for absolute reasons.Ilya B Shambat

    But if this view were to be accepted by Muslims, wouldn't that mean the death of Islam? Is that what you want? Or do you want reform?

    Not enough people are brave enough to confront wrongs like this; and there need to be more. I for one do not care one bit if saying such things will bring onto me a fatwah. The issues here are too important, and they are especially important for the women - such as for example my daughter - who will be growing up in whatever world results from contemporary entanglements.Ilya B Shambat

    I hear you. What would you propose to improve things? For what it's worth, I think that in practice, social stability trumps most other considerations because however immoral things get in a stable society, things are much worse once that stability is gone. For that reason, it's immoral to call for social breakdown. I think that condemning Islam wholesale is basically a call for catastrophe. Am I wrong?
  • Ilya B Shambat
    194
    "I hear you. What would you propose to improve things? For what it's worth, I think that in practice, social stability trumps most other considerations because however immoral things get in a stable society, things are much worse once that stability is gone. For that reason, it's immoral to call for social breakdown. I think that condemning Islam wholesale is basically a call for catastrophe. Am I wrong?"

    I think that those societies would do well to adopt Christianity instead of Islam. That way they will have social stability without it being based on a terrible ideology that, among other things, promises boys in heaven.
  • frank
    14.5k
    I think that those societies would do well to adopt Christianity instead of Islam.Ilya B Shambat

    That's not very likely.
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