Do you think less of her because she's Muslim?

YOU are judging her for being Muslim and that you think it makes a difference.

If an idea is a good idea, it is a good idea no matter who says it.

Odd question. Your not so hidden agenda is getting tiresome.

What a strange question.

Every person has some aspect or view that I don't like. Most people have something about them I can admire.

There are no gurus, heroes or philosophers who are 100% admirable.

This goes for you, the pope, Sam Harris, or Malala.

Good luck trying to persuade everyone to align with people you like as authority figures rather than ideas here.

"Do you think less of her because she's Muslim?" No

Do I think less of you because of your questions? Yes

Thanks for saying what I tried to say, only 1000 times better.

+1
Indeed

Why not? You must realize that there are people who don't think she's a proper Muslim... Like the guys who tried to kill her. It would be the same as me liking or supporting a Mormon who expressed heretical thoughts and has a disciplinary council hanging over his head. Like John Dehlin.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2015 07:27PM by rationalist01.

What an enormously stupid question. She's a hero, her religion is irrelevant.

There are a lot of Muslims who think she is great too. Muslims come in lots of flavors. I am sure that there are Islamophobes who have reservations about her because she is Muslim, but they is not all atheists and this is not true of all atheists. More stereotyping.

Koriwhore, you seem to be asking atheists to judge those who don't share our lack of belief.

Malala - worthy? unworthy?

Atheism is not a religious belief which posits for others the answers to Great Questions and then condemns those who do not agree.

I can now respect you in spite of the differences in the paths we've chosen for our own spirituality. Why don't you try on that idea?

Imagine the freedom of having nothing to prove, nothing to sell and no need to label anyone.


Kathleen

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2015 11:47PM by MJ.

anagrammy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Koriwhore, you seem to be asking atheists to judge
> those who don't share our lack of belief.
>
> I can now respect you in spite of the differences
> in the paths we've chosen for our own
> spirituality. Why don't you try on that idea?
>
> Imagine the freedom of having nothing to prove,
> nothing to sell and no need to label anyone.
>
>
> Kathleen


How would he be able to label us as beneath him without first giving us a chance to fail his exams?

And what are the chances that no matter who answers "correctly", he'll keep asking questions until all of us have "failed"?

I just don't see these exercises of his as being beneficial to anyone but him. Has there been one person who's world view has changed?

Some of my favourite people are Muslims. Why would I care what someone else believes? I don't. It has nothing to do with me.

Since when does it matter a person's creed or religion? Actions matter. Religion is at the bottom of the list when it comes to my view of others. There are some Mormons I trust more than any atheist. There are atheists I trust more than some Christians. And so on it goes.

To insinuate that others will view the admirable actions of another as somehow diluted / less admirable due to their religious creed is to confer on them a point of view that they don't hold. It's an awful form of straw man attack, where you're not making assertions regarding ideology or argument, and instead making bigots of others in your own mind.

I can comfortably speak for most atheists (and, in fact, for most people, regardless of credo) when I state that it is the actions of a person that define him, not his beliefs or thoughts.

Koriwhore, what do you think Malala thinks of atheists? Do you think she hates them?

thingsithink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Koriwhore, what do you think Malala thinks of
> atheists? Do you think she hates them?

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of atheists, including Malala. What someone thinks of your beliefs, or lack thereof, doesn't change those beliefs. They just are what they are. You either believe something, or you don't.

One of my big concerns these days is the way that people are judged for things that they can't even help, like their sexual orientation, what they believe in, or still even sometimes the colour of their skin.

I have to part company with you on that point. I think it does matter what people think or believe - about atheists or blacks or gays or women or their children's choices in life, or science or Mormonism. I think it shapes the world.

I also part company with those who dislike Koriwhore's questions. I don't object to the questions. I'm not saying Koriwhore's questions are winning people over - I don't know. But the questions and resulting conversations could impact people in other ways.

Is my question intended to ferret out how Malala thinks about atheists? I've asked Koriwhore to reflect on the question.

Does it matter what other people think and believe? I'm interested in what other people think and believe. In their perspectives. Maybe I take something from their view and change my own view. Maybe not.

I have no problem with Muslims, even if I think their religion is absurd and dangerous. As long as they remain practical and tolerant, no religion bothers me. I have some very good friends who are nominal Muslims.

If you take Islam too seriously, however, then you become dangerous.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 08:10AM by axeldc.

Only stupid answers and yours qualifies.

I've never heard her say anything about Atheists.
But she's proud of being Muslim.
http://www.timesnow.tv/I-am-proud-to-be-a-Muslim-Malala/videoshow/4470659.cms

The reason I ask is because the Dear Leader of New Atheists (Cranky Old Atheists) called for a Jihad against believers like her,

"Mock them! Ridicule them! In public! Don’t fall for the convention that we’re all too polite to talk about religion. Religion is not off the table. Religion is not off limits.

Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated and need to be challenged and, if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt." Richard Dawkins, Reason Rally 2012
https://ladydifadden.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/transcript-of-richard-dawkins-speech-from-reason-rally-2012/

Does that include mocking the beliefs of little girls, like the youngest Nobel Prize Winner in history?
Or does Malala get a free pass because she was teh victim of misogyny?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 09:04AM by koriwhore.

If I were talking with her, I'd discuss each of he ideas on the merits. I'd agree with her that generally speaking it's not good to kill people. If she suggested a physical wound should not be treated, I'd disagree.

Cripes, what ignorance.

When you mock Mormonism, you're likewise mocking the beliefs of little girls. And little boys. And the elderly and widows! Nobody here seems to give it a moment's thought, though.

It is perfectly possible to disambiguate the beliefs of individuals from the individuals that hold them.

You make a statement, that:

"Dear Leader of New Atheists (Cranky Old Atheists)"

Us atheists are a pretty ephemeral bunch. I don't claim to have a leader. I doubt anyone else here would either. That's something you're projecting onto those you view as atheists.

Next, on the basis of a statement by somebody that few of us would deem our leader, you posit a binary solution set:

Either

A) We mock the beliefs of little girls; or
B) Malala gets a free pass because she was the victim of misogyny

Personally, (A) is fine, and something everybody here engages in whenever the Mormons/Christians/etc. get mocked, unless somebody wants to claim that there are no little girls among the adherents.

As far as (B) goes, yikes. Experience doesn't excuse ignorance in any context. Nobody's giving her a 'free pass;' we just choose to mock her beliefs rather than, you know, herself.

However, what you seem to be failing to understand is that it is perfectly possible to mock beliefs without resorting to ad hominem attacks on the people holding them. I'm sure Malala is a bright, capable, little girl. Doesn't alter the fact that Mohammed had wives younger than her.

So, let's try (C)
Malala is a good person who has done good things and who also holds nonsensical beliefs.

I was Muslim at one point in my life also, believe it or not.
When I was 18, living in Africa, studying culture. The way I saw it back then was that we all worshiped the same god, they just called that god, Allah. Islam is just the way people in that part of the world relate to the Cosmos and to each other. It's a tribal identity. If you're born into the tribe, you are one of them. If you come along afterwards, like me, and want to join the tribe, for whatever reason, you're greeted with skepticism and can't join until you learn the language, the customs, the rituals and are deemed worthy to join the tribe. I did all those things to become a member of the tribe.

I had no idea Mohammed was such a creep at the time. Nor did I really think about how misogynist it was.

I never resigned since there's no way to resign, I just quit believing in anything about Islam or any other Abrahamic religion after 9-11, other than the most universal aspects of religion, the Golden Rule, etc.

koriwhore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> The reason I ask is because the Dear Leader of New
> Atheists (Cranky Old Atheists) called for a Jihad
> against believers like her,
>
> "Mock them! Ridicule them! In public! Don’t fall
> for the convention that we’re all too polite to
> talk about religion. Religion is not off the
> table. Religion is not off limits.

What Richard Dawkins said, in context:

"... I see myself as an emissary from a benighted country that does not have a constitutional separation between church and state. Indeed it doesn’t have a written constitution at all. We have a head of state who’s also the head of the Church of England. The church is deeply entwined in British public life. The American Constitution is a precious treasure, the envy of the world. The First Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines the separation between church and state, is the model for secular constitutions the world over and deserves to be imitated the world over.

How sad it would be if in the birthplace of secular constitutions the very principle of secular constitutions were to be betrayed in a theocracy. But it’s come close to that.

How could anyone rally against reason? How is it necessary to have a rally for reason?...

...We need intelligent design. We need to intelligently design our morals, our ethics, our politics, our society. We need to intelligently design the way we run our lives, not look back to scrolls — I was going to say ancient scrolls, they’re not even very ancient, about 800 BC the book of Genesis was written. I am often accused of expressing contempt and despising religious people. I don’t despise religious people; I despise what they stand for. I like to quote the British journalist Johann Hari who said, “I have so much respect for you that I cannot respect your ridiculous ideas.”...

...So when I meet somebody who claims to be religious, my first impulse is: “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you until you tell me do you really believe — for example, if they say they are Catholic — do you really believe that when a priest blesses a wafer it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously telling me you believe that? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood?” Mock them! Ridicule them! In public!
Don’t fall for the convention that we’re all too polite to talk about religion. Religion is not off the table. Religion is not off limits.

Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated and need to be challenged and, if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt..."


He is attacking the theocratic encroachment on reason, free speech, and science.

I believe that Malala was doing the same.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 12:51PM by No Mo.

What I meant when I said that it doesn't matter what people believe, I meant it in the sense that it's not going to change what I believe. It can't affect those beliefs.

If someone said to me, "I hate you for what you believe," I can't just say, "Oh, okay, I'll change to what you believe then." It can't change my beliefs.

I simply meant that what others think of my beliefs has no bearing on what I believe.

If you can do that, hats off to Ya. Other people's beliefs affect me more than I'd like. A parent telling me I'm making bad choices might not change my belief about the choice, but it has affected my belief about myself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2015 11:46AM by thingsithink.

I guess, I don't fit the angry athiest stereotype, because I only look down on a religious person when they are actively using their religion to personally be a, atleast what I consider, a bad person, or encouraging other people to be a bad person and/or believe their religious rules and taboos must be followed by everyone.

I have a very low opinion of religion in general, Islam included. That does not mean I have a low opinion of Muslims. It's the same with Mormonism, which I dislike. But I don't dislike Mormons necessarily.

Agreed. Hate the vice, not the person.

Remember, atheism is not a religion. I'm an atheist, but I don't aspire to be an intolerant, arrogant jerk. I understand that many people believe things that I don't agree with, and that I might not consider rational. But that's okay, as long as they don't hurt other people or try to impose their beliefs on me.

In response to your comment: "The reason I ask is because the Dear Leader of New Atheists (Cranky Old Atheists) called for a Jihad against believers like her."

You loaded your question by calling him "Dear Leader". He is in no way like Kim Jong-un or any other cult leader. "Jihad"--this is no way a holy war or struggle, and certainly won't involve any weapons. And could you please show me a quote where he specifically mentions targeting Malala?

I am aware of his comment about mocking and ridiculing believers. I think this is wrong. I do think that beliefs can and should be challenged publicly without resorting to insults. Ideas should ALWAYS be open for debate, especially ideas that affect public education (evolution and science), and human rights (esp. women's rights).

Religions should not get a free pass to promote and harangue others with their irrational beliefs in the public without challenge. If they bring up their beliefs, they should be prepared to hear the other side. For too long, people have been silent while religious people spout off about their beliefs.

I love Malala : )

I'm an atheist and I didn't know I had a leader. Which, I guess, means I don't have a leader. I think that Malala is a courageous, outstanding young girl. I do not admire her less because she is Muslim. In fact I think it takes greater courage on her part to speak out for education of women because she is Muslim. More Mormon women should follow her lead and speak out against misogyny.

who is now on korignore.