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My Problem With Islam

Started by Cain, April 07, 2012, 05:44:57 PM

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navkat

You're missing the point of why parents send their kids to non-secular private schools in the first place. To them, their mumbo-jumbo is a good education.

Placid Dingo

Quote from: navkat on April 10, 2012, 01:00:28 PM
You're missing the point of why parents send their kids to non-secular private schools in the first place. To them, their mumbo-jumbo is a good education.

Well I just learned a lot about my parents then, and where my long love of mumbo-jumbo comes from.

To put it with less snark;

I feel, and am willing to entertain evidence to the contrary, that generally parents will look for a best option availible.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.

Lenin McCarthy

The numbers are a bit more uplifting in Norway (but still, everything is not all roses). 14% say they want Sharia law in Norway, 15% say Norwegian society is 2immoral". 18% attend religious services on a weekly basis. The amount of Muslims who support terrorism seems to be less than 2-3%.

I think this is because
a) We don't have any Islamic private schools (and if one is ever founded, it'll have to follow the national curriculum with a few exceptions), and good public schools in immigrant-heavy areas.
b) There are a number of moderate Muslims who are vocal in the public sphere.
c) We also don't have as many Muslims as the UK, leading to a greater pressure on Muslims to integrate.
d) And probably some more reasons.


navkat

Quote from: Placid Dingo on April 10, 2012, 01:05:14 PM
Quote from: navkat on April 10, 2012, 01:00:28 PM
You're missing the point of why parents send their kids to non-secular private schools in the first place. To them, their mumbo-jumbo is a good education.

Well I just learned a lot about my parents then, and where my long love of mumbo-jumbo comes from.

To put it with less snark;

I feel, and am willing to entertain evidence to the contrary, that generally parents will look for a best option availible.

Okay, I see where you're coming from.

Yes, I will put MY kid into a catholic school if the public system's suckin'...and I HAVE.

Difference is, he comes home and does homework and plays video games like a regular kid. He's taught to focus on scientific fact and defer worrying about shit like god for later. The choice is his but mommy doesn't go to church.

Kids being indoctrinated get jesus 24/7. They get home from school and it's jesus jesus jesus. Jesus died for that candy you're eating. Jesus' daddy built America. Jesus wanted daddy to have th job so you can have nice things, that's why the black lady who went to college instead of church didn't get it.

See the difference?

So if you fix the schools, yeah, I'm gonna put my kid in there but the Jesus people will not. We should fix them ANYWAY bc wtf am I paying for TWO schools for?!?

Placid Dingo

Yep. I do see.

I'm not suggesting it would attract Zealots. Even if you burned the faith schools down zealots would home school. But if you can engineer things so that a school has be goddamn good to attract choosy parents (as non-choosy default to public system regardless) then extreme religious schools have a much much harder time getting the patronage they need to survive.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.

navkat

I would never send my kid to an extreme religious school. Those schools do just fine without my dollars. There's a difference between St. Vincent and "Jesus all Day" school. My kid would fit in there just about as much as I'd fit in at a Westboro rally. He'd be asked to leave.

Just like if I tried to send him to an Islamic school. We'd get the "we don't think this is a good fit" talk.

Why are you being so obtuse about this? You really don't understand how this works?

Deepthroat Chopra

I was in Portugal early in the year, and in a Southern town called Silves I stumbled across an education centre whose aim was to convey the Moorish history of the Iberian peninsula. I've got more details at home, and I can't remember the name of the organisation off-hand. But it was jointly funded by the governments of Portugal, Spain, and Morocco which seems like a diplomatic achievement in and of itself.

It's focus was on how the Muslims of that time (700 to late 1400's) influenced Iberia over time, with architecture and food being the most obvious legacies. But pressing that history, they paint a picture of a time of enlightenment in Islam, which seemed to extol virtues of tolerance, science and rationality. An example they cite is that Jewish communities on the peninsula at the time preferred to live in the Moorish Caliphates then the Christian Kingdoms, due to Christian persecution that was absent from the Moorish lands.

Bit of a poor summary, I know, but this initiative was a damn good idea, and it's something that probably needs to target Muslims at least as much as it should non-Muslims. Sorry for a Lennon moment, but wouldn't it be good if Islam as an institution traded on this history, of alleged tolerance and enlightenment values?

I know harking back centureies to an aledged golden age has it's own issues of accuracy and living in a past, but it's start.

Also visited the Paris Mosque on the same trip, impressive building. It seemed as though Islam has had more time to integrate into French society, the French having colonised most of North Africa. Tunisian cafe's are a mainstream institution, for example. So many Parisians "look" like they have Arabic features and descent. Yet, the Nationalists of Le Pen seem to do well there. Yet, in the cities I visited (Paris, Montpellier, Grenoble), Islamic/Arabic culture seemed strong, and the French didn;t seem at all stressed about it, on an overt level. The French seem to be doing something right. I haven't worked out exactly what though.
Chainsaw-Wielding Fistula Detector

Placid Dingo

Nav. My point is there are no schools called Jesus all day. Just schools called St Vincents which over time, or by design, become extreme in their school culture.

I suspect there are zealots who will take the most extreme option, but just as firmly suspect that they alone will not keep a school in business. That's why I'm saying the aim should be to make non faith options as competitive as possible.

DC I thought France would be a lot more Islam intolerant based on the hijab laws.
Haven't paid rent since 2014 with ONE WEIRD TRICK.

Deepthroat Chopra

I think you're part right about the hijab law, in that it's a law that pleases bigots, as well as pleasing those believing in the French tradition of secularism as well. As I pointed out, the relative success of Le Pen's party is also a sign of relative intolerance.

Stats are difficult to collect in France, as the Census can't be used there to ask people's religion's or ethnicity. But the stats used earlier in this thread are illuminating when looking at attitudes of French Muslims.

From http://pewresearch.org/pubs/50/the-french-muslim-connection

French Muslims are evenly split on the question of the effect of the victory by the radical group Hamas in this year's Palestinian election, with 44% saying it was good for Palestinians and 46% judging it bad. By comparison, British Muslims weighed in lopsidedly on the positive side (56% 'good' vs. 18% 'bad') as did Spanish Muslims (57% vs. 22%).


the French are heavily opposed (71%) to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran. British Muslims, in contrast, are evenly split on the subject.


With regard to...confidence in Osama bin Laden, French Muslims are virtually unanimous (93%) in their disdain. (By comparison, 68% of British Muslims submit a vote of no confidence in the Al Qaeda leader.

Most striking, however, is the difference between the views that French Muslims hold about people of other faiths and the views held by Muslims elsewhere in Europe and in predominantly Muslim countries. French Muslims even top the general publics in the United States and France in favorable ratings of Christians (91% of French Muslims vs. 88% of Americans and 87% of the French take that view).

Fully 71% of French Muslims express a positive view of people of the Jewish faith, compared with only 38% of German Muslims, 32% of British Muslims, 28% of Spanish Muslims and still lower numbers in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed. In this, Muslims reflect the view of the larger French public among whom fully 86% express a favorable opinion of Jews, a higher proportion than even than among the American public.



More French Muslims consider themselves French before Muslim -



Few Muslims living in France see a natural conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society. Seven-in-ten French Muslims (72%) perceive no such conflict, a view shared by a virtually identical 74%-share of the French general public. In Great Britain, however, Muslims split evenly (47% see a conflict, 49% do not) while only 35% of the British general public see no inherent conflict between devotion to Islam and adaptation to a modern society.


Nearly eight-in-ten French Muslims (78%) say they want to adopt French customs. Those under age 35 are equally as likely to say this as are their elders. This high preference for assimilation compares with that expressed by 53% of Muslims in Spain, 41% in Britain and 30% in Germany.


One big difference between the Muslim populations of UK and France is country of origin. The vast majority of French muslims are of North African descent (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia), while British Muslims mostly come from the sub-continent. Whether this makes a difference in the "radical-ness" of said groups, I don't know.

France does seem to have pursued a more inegrationist strategy, rather than a "multi-cultural" one, though France looks incredibly multi-cultural.

Chainsaw-Wielding Fistula Detector

navkat

Quote from: Placid Dingo on April 13, 2012, 04:02:23 AM
Nav. My point is there are no schools called Jesus all day. Just schools called St Vincents which over time, or by design, become extreme in their school culture.

I suspect there are zealots who will take the most extreme option, but just as firmly suspect that they alone will not keep a school in business. That's why I'm saying the aim should be to make non faith options as competitive as possible.

Are you srs? Like srsly srs?

No, they're not Jesus all day. They're called like, Mobile Biblical Baptist Academy or some shit and christ, have you not seen these kids in HS and college talking about how it's their fucking duty to "witness" to the youth of this "lost generation" of "misguided" teens? Please. Tell me you're not so naive that you believe that Friday mass in your dress-uniform is where this stops.

I mean no disrespect but here, in the South, it's real. I did not send Lex to Mobile Baptist Academy because of the "line" he'd be expected to toe. We'd both be expected in Church every Sunday and to show up for field trips to "spread the Great, Good News." It exists, baby.

I sent him to St. Vincent dePaul because the fifth grade reading pass rates were superior to poor, black, underfunded public school and he wasn't expected to show his face for Ash Wednesday or Easter unless the day after Mardi Gras he came to me and said "Mommy, I wanna go get dust on my head and eat fish-fry with Carter and Lee."

The choice has always been his there. He is not excluded from Spring Festival, he is not asked to leave if he opts not to go through confirmation. He still gets his little reindeer shirt at the Christmas assembly. They don't tell him silly shit like "Santa is "Satan" spelled sideways."

I had his ass signed up for the Magnate school every January. I chose SVS because the secular prep school was fucking $10k a year.

Not true of the Baptist shit which was $3k but the Baptist shit wanted to turn him into a Jesus-and-the-5000-hungry-believers-coloring, dancin in the aisles, tambourine-shaking robot.

While you're right about my decision to pay for a good education, you're slathering vanilla frosting over the whole argument and calling it cake. There are nuances here.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Placid Dingo on April 13, 2012, 04:02:23 AM
Nav. My point is there are no schools called Jesus all day.

Dingo, you have no idea.  For real.

It's hard to explain to an outsider what the American religious right is like.  You see bits and pieces of it on the news, but the reality IS that "First Baptist Middle School" IS "All Jesus All Day".

Molon Lube

Cain

Quote from: navkat on April 07, 2012, 08:28:55 PM
Dead on, Cain. It's frustrating. Your solution of pushing back hard with verbal dissent and social pressure is theoretically great for Britain. The problem here (and also rightly so) is that we have proven zero capacity for common sense, appropriate application or...uh...what's that stuff? Oh yeah, sanity.

In the way ideas are presented here, a lot of the subtle flavors are dumbed-down and shit tonnes of salt and sugar thrown in. It's created a perpetuation of the all-or-nothing polarized thinking that would make people miss the point entirely of saying "we can not allow these non-democratic ideas to fester freely." Democrats are programmed to see that statement as hypocrisy. Neocons are self-indulgent enough to believe that means we should stand the National Guard inside of Masjids.

Well, that's just the problem.  While non-democratic ideas should be allowed to be spoken freely, there is no reason why we should debase our education system to help propagate such ideas.  If they're that great, then they can withstand public scrutiny and being debate in public - not being hidden behind private schools and taught in secret.

And the conflation of Islamist extremism and Islamist terrorism and the military response to the latter is probably one of the worst aspects of this.  Extremism is not countered by armies.

Cain

Quote from: Placid Dingo on April 10, 2012, 12:34:59 PM
Wouldn't the ideal way to ensure this to be mainly a focus on quality, pay and conditions in government schools.

In Aus at least if you scrapped faith schools the whole government system would collapse with the influx.

No constituency for it.  Teachers are seen as overpaid, left-wing slackers with far too many holidays.  The Conservative government at the moment knows it can attack teachers freely, because they're almost universally Labour, Green or Lib Dem voters anyway, and so their opinions don't matter.  Government here has launched an all out assault on the education sector, and about the most ideologically rigid MP is Secretary for Education (Michael Gove...admirer of George W Bush, Tony Blair and peddler of insane conspiracy theories about Muslims).

Cain

Quote from: Placid Dingo on April 10, 2012, 12:53:14 PM
Quote from: navkat on April 10, 2012, 12:42:13 PM
You really can't lure zealots hell bent on religious indoctrinization into public schools by promising an olympic-sized swimming pool on the roof.

I think though most parents just want the best schools.

Make government education as competitive as possible on that line. Also, I should imagine there are limits on what can be taught in a non-government school.

Unfortunately, no.  Textbooks describing evolution as a lie and Jews as sub-human have been found in religious schools in the UK before now.

Chairman Risus

Among their crimes is the music genre family friendly christian rap. So, there's that.