boboblaw

the progressivism of now-fallen socialist governments does not outweigh the majority of current societies. east and west are both predominantly patriarchal, largely but not exclusively because of european christian exports and imperialism

Fair enough. I guess after they've fallen to the American Empire, they're not even really a Muslim culture anymore. Capitalist vassal states first and foremost.

Like, what happened to usury being haram?

john brown was good because of the side he was on but venerating religious fanaticism is fucking dangerous because he could've read a different part of the book

He doesn't sound good at all by your reckoning. He just happened to be "on the right side" after flipping a book to a random section and believing utterly what he read. He was just a crazy person. Like Nat Turner and Louverture. Getting themselves killed just because they read the wrong section of a book.

Anyway, how'd it turn out for the people who flipped to the Israelite slavery how-to section? Did any go out and risk their lives to capture some Canaanites or whatever? Did any just reject it, become atheists, and then go start a slave rebellion?

jesus never wrote anything down, the supposed gospels were written decades later and canonized centuries later.

True, I can't claim to know anything for sure about the historical Jesus. But he's at least a literary character and you say the works were canonized. So we can at least speak of him in the way people can argue over what Darth Vader said.

this is wildly off-topic from OP's question.

Maybe so. Would it be sufficiently on topic to say "Islam is pro-slavery because it endorses the Torah, which teaches the proper ways of buying and selling slaves"?

I think we largely agree.

My issue with the "militant atheism" (not meant pejoratively) is just when it's directed towards the marginalized or countries of the global south. I have no problem with implenting state atheism in the wake of the revolution. Even on reddit, it was fine when it was directed at Christian fundamentalists in America, who wield substantial power. There was a sinister rhetorical shift with the reddit crowd and now it's just Nazi shit.

and there's probably a reason why the current flavors of Christianity rose to dominance while the harder-to-corral gnostics were stamped out

I suspect the "gnostics" were much closer to the original ideas than the Nicaeans were. Also Jesus gives me some real apocalyptic cult vibes.

The idea that religion is too entrenched in the Global South to be deposed has a whiff of paternalism and glosses over the secular and indigenous religious movements that have had to struggle against the dominant, colonially-imposed religion.

I kinda assumed things like indigenous religions would be included in the category of religion but I guess it's a good idea to make a distinction between organized religion centered on a strict institution like the Roman Catholic Church and disorganized (?) religion. I am mainly just acquainted with one form of European "paganism" and I don't really know much about pre-christian religion in general.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness

Agreed. I apologize if I've been overly combative. I've been seeing some surprisingly islamaphobic takes lately and may have overreacted.

I'm not even at all religious, and was myself one of those fedoralords. I just can't help but side with the underdog lol (it's why I side with the gnostics).

Something something Muslims are the real racists.

It's actually racist to deny that Muslim cultures are inherently misogynistic.

I will never stop Hoxha-posting.

Americans (and their simps) will literally devastate a Muslim country, install the most psychotic fundamentalists in power, and then have the audacity to say shit like

"I'm a leftist but why is it that despite being 20% of the population, Muslims commit 90% of the misogyny and homophobia? Must just be characteristic of the Islamic brainpan."

Fun fact: The word "Hoxha" means

Noun

hoxhë m (plural hoxhë, definite hoxha, definite plural hoxhët) imam

The man from a family of Islamic teachers led the majority Muslim country through the most extensive improvement of women's rights in history. Women went from being essentially chattel property and rarely getting rudimentary schooling, to being almost half the government, scientists, doctors, engineers in a few decades.

The sheer audacity of westerners to make such presumptions about "Muslim cultures" is mind-boggling. A Muslim country hit the communism button and completely rebuilt the social order, uplifting women to a position better than that of any in the west, and how does the west respond?

By trying, tooth and nail, to destroy it. And after they've destroyed it, western so-called leftists will opine that Muslim cultures just be misogynistic like that.

you are not the authority of "true" christianity.

I'm not the authority of Christianity, that would be Christ. Christianity is the teachings of Christ, yes?

I don't think any of the above is controversial, so I hope we can agree on this basic definition.

And yes, the teachings of Christ include what one could argue is the "worship of a genocidal entity".

But do you not feel utterly ridiculous?

Like your immediate response to the sermon on the mount is "fuck you you worship a genocidal entity"?

Your immediate response to John Brown is "bro you worship a genocidal entity"?

Your immediate response to Malcolm X is "you worship a genocidal entity (and in the worst way bc Islam)"?

Can you so casually dismiss every religious person who has fought, struggled and died for a just cause? Because they believed in the Abrahamic god, while you're here smugly patting yourself on the back for having the correct opinions?

Did you read the linked thread?

Yeah lol, I'm in the replies there too.

My point is that it seems hypocritical for westerners to single out Islam, or otherwise imply that Islam is particularly bad, considering that the west (America) is the cause of so much of it. America has wiped out so many progressive or revolutionary Muslim states and installed repressive regimes in their place.

So if religion is to blame, then these are ultimately the crimes of Christianity.

But I don't think it's fair to blame religions. It seems imperialists could weaponize any belief system at all. Even the most innocuous religion, only preaching peace and love, could be co-opted and used as a smokescreen for endless bloodshed. That's kinda what happened with Christianity -- a pacifistic anti-imperialistic religion got co-opted by the empire it was resisting, and used to further imperial endeavors for centuries.

Or like in Dune, when the liberatory religion of the Fremen gets co-opted and used to launch the galactic jihad.

Practically speaking, I think being completely anti-religion is counterproductive, since the vast majority of people (especially in the global south) have some kind of religion. You have to meet people where they're at. Also, it's kind of a bad look when it's mostly militant atheists in the global north condemning the opiate of the masses.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

I don't see how there's anything necessarily bad inherent in Christianity. That Jesus guy seems like a pretty cool dude. kind of a revolutionary figure.

He was big on pacifism, and the guys that killed him co-opted his name and went on killing in his name. Kinda messed up to conclude that his ideas are responsible for the killing.

This has happened with countless groups over the centuries. Those truly following the teachings of Christ won't murder at the behest of empire? Exterminate those heretics and replace them with ones that will follow orders and pay lip service.

In modern times, any Muslim state that tries to do anything remotely good will be decimated by the US, who will then support the most violent reactionaries in the region.

Are all the oppressive reactionary Muslim states to be blamed on the nature of Islam?

Personally, I see religion as a versatile tool. People get so many different things out of it.

Personally I take issue with fedoralords who were raised Christian constantly spewing hate about Muslims while having suspiciously Christian reactionary takes on everything.

when the religion is a culturally dominant force enabling oppression

Ok...we can all think of a few examples...

as is absolutely the case with Islam

Hmm...a Christian country and a Jewish ethnostate are committing Genocide against a Muslim populace, but yeah Islam is a good example of cultural domination and oppression.

Have there ever been any Muslim societies that weren't super oppressive as a result? What happened to them?

My favorite CS professor confessed that was how he'd gotten into the field. Just straight up lied about knowing how to program for some niche system. He got the job and then taught himself as he went along.

Later went to school for it, got his PhD, and became one of the leading researchers in his field.

One of them Muslim cultures:

(WARNING: heteropatriarchal)

Binary Large OBject

It's not that it's a bad tool, it's that

it also removes human bias element from the equation

is an impossible standard.