I'm tired Baal... really tired - not sure what the heck I'm doing here coz I sure am tired of constantly trying to defend Islam from the charge that it it is all bad and produced nothing good and should be wiped off the face of the earth.
Well, if there's anything good in Islam using architecture as an example hasn't worked too well to get that message across.
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(as well as the belief that some seem to hold that my Muslim family should be forcibly deported and Islam suppressed using violence if necessary.)
I don't know if you're talking about your biological family or the ummah in general but if it's shown that certain families purposefully create enmity towards those they consider "outsiders" (be they Muslim or anything else) and if they immigrated to another place with the view to imposing their ideology on others then such measures should be considered. Let's put it this way: If a bunch of neo-Nazis from another country moved into your neighborhood and starting raising hell while their other members stood by passively or rationalized the violence perpetrated by fellow neo-Nazis and did this for years would you not think that there is something drastically wrong with immigration policies that allow such people to move into your neighborhood in the first place and that something needs to be done? Come on. How about it?
I keep hoping that this place will move away from this - but there are always ppl who keep bringing it back to this.
With all the lies and falsehoods being perpetrated by Muslims as well the ridiculous claims that make use of conflations such as "Islamic civilization" and "Islamic architecture" more non-believers will question such assertions and find them wanting. More and more people are just not awestruck anymore by photos of nice buildings and cool calligraphy. Especially when they start to understand that all that cool calligraphy contains some grotesque messages and that some of these "beautiful" mosques have a horrible history. So it's not a matter of people "bringing it back to this". It's a matter of the reality of Islamic brutality and the behaviors of so many Muslims that causes them to at first doubt the "nice things" in Islam and then to realize how sketchy those claims are.
I guess too many ppl believe that's what an ex-Muslim forum is for and just can't leave us alone.
Then is an ex-Muslim forum created to promote the idea that there are good things in Islam and that "good things" have been produced due to this ideology though the course of 1400 years? There may be but the bad things are generally considered to outweigh the good things and that's not going to change any time soon. So much so that
even this thread has shown how the usual claims to back that up have been debunked. Maybe something else that is "good" and Islamic should be used as an example. Any ideas?
And this idea of "leaving us alone" does echo the sentiments of much of the Muslim community in the West. Somehow or another too many Muslims think they can forever keep their enclosure system functioning smoothly if they are not confronted by criticisms from outside but it has never been truly a "functional" community. Those who leave Islam but still entertain this yearning to be "left alone" are showing that denial isn't just a river in Egypt - it's also a clear sign of not having the will to confront their problems.
For example, should anyone just listen passively to Mi'Amo Jihad and ignore the fact that that same person also wrote Get Raped? Should such a person just be "left alone" and not called to account for it? Should a wall of excuses be built to keep away prying eyes and crucial questions just so someone else can have a sense of well-being and security? I think not.
But I'm really, really tired of it and have better things to do.
In light of the fact that this thread has shown that some things that appear to be "good things" produced by Islam are not so good should not make you tired or even discourage you from developing your own intellect. Withdrawing into yourself at this critical juncture simply delays the confrontation with your own
shadow. Which, I feel, is inevitable no matter how well buffered your immediate environment is.
Topic: Nice things about Islam and Muslim culture.