Many people have been emailing me John Derbyshire's latest piece, "Islamophobophobia," in which I figure prominently. Yes, of course I will answer, and of course my answer will be entitled "Islamophobophobophobia," but today I am unfortunately quite busy with other matters.
I also have a "You talkin' to me?" email in to Jonah Goldberg, asking if he means me in this Corner piece, when he says, "For some on the Right the mantra is 'Islam is the problem.' They will not stomach D'Souza's fine distinctions between good Muslims and bad ones....We aren't near the point where a respectable conservative says 'the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim,' but one can smell the whiff of sulfur bubbling to the top of certain swamps." I get the impression that Goldberg has imbibed of D'Souza's relentless and uncorrected mischaracterizations of my positions, in which he persisted even after I corrected him repeatedly, but I am confident that all this will be sorted out in the near future.
[UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg writes: "Naw, I certainly didn't have you in mind when I wrote that. Seriously. I have interactions, professional and from general readers, where people call me dhimmi simply because I don't 'hate' islam enough for their tastes or show sufficient zeal. You weren't part of all that." Thanks, Jonah.]
So if you'll permit me the self-indulgence of announcing that I am going to write a piece before I actually write it, allow me also to explain that I'm only doing so to set up this reply to Derbyshire by my good friend Jeff, who sent this to Derbyshire and has kindly allowed me to post it here also, and in many ways it surpasses anything I will eventually be able to write on these issues.
A fascinating piece, but let me play Devil's advocate a bit. I think what I'm up against in a way is the positive version of your mild anti-Catholicism, and any riposte to your essay will fare about as well as an attempt to make you a fellow traveller of Pope Benedict!Greco-Roman civilization and Christian civilization were open-ended and forward looking. Chinese civilization and Hindu civilization were more static but not closed to influence from outside, so that they could incorporate the forward looking elements of Western civilization with relative ease.
Islamic civilization is a "whole system," as a Muslim friend told me recently. It tends toward totalitarianism, and toward constant renewals and self-purifications that push Western-type influences out. It's much more like (but not completely like) communism. When communism learns to incorporate economic dynamism and individual rights, it ceases to function.
Perhaps part of the reaction of Islam today is not just religious pride in the ordinary sense of the word. Rather, it is a last-gasp defense of people with a religion that cannot adapt to the influence of free-market democratic secularism, and so feel the lime between the bricks dissolving.
One can be sympathetic with that to a large extent. But I think your mental image of non-intellectual Christians doesn't quite fit the bill. You're thinking of cultural Catholic and Anglicans and Orthodox, whose religion is more or less inherited.
Perhaps you'd do better to think of evangelical Christianity in the US. There is a constant tendency among evangelicals to "get religion," though not all of them do. When they do, there are certain text-based core ideas that they will return to again and again.
And when Muslims "get religion," those text-based elements will also come to the fore. Since Islam is fundamentally ABOUT social organization and law rather than inner spirituality (ask them! they will tell you so themselves!), those totalitarian, aggressive impulses and ideas will naturally appear.
And Muslims are wonderful at tiring out their competitors and conquerors. The Mongols and everyone else eventually decides that the easiest thing is just to become Muslims...then there won't be such a fuss all the time.
The trouble is that then this systematic element of social dessication is there at the heart of what we are. Is it only Christians that have an interest in seeing that we don't gradually Islamize to appease these irritable folks in our midst? Can one be a non-Christian and still see that the Greco-Roman and Christian elements at the root of our civilization are not random and incidental, but rather constitutive? Or does one have to be a "booster" to think so?
It’s real easy to prove or disprove. Lets see these Islamic experts stand in front of a crowd of muslims and state their views on islam. We can sit back and watch the muslims call for their heads or reach out to them in unity. Any bets?
Thank you for this. I look forward to reading your reply as well, Mr. Spencer.
I just shook my head when I read Mr. Derbyshire's article the other day. It's a bit disjointed: he starts out one way and ends another way. It's like the beginning of one essay was tacked onto the beginning of another. I thought the second part was fine.
Islamo-faux-bia.
Chinese civilization and Hindu civilization were more static but not closed to influence from outside...
While I don't take issue with anything else in this quote from Jeff, I do with his statement about Chinese civilization (of which I do know something). While the classical culture, as is most commonly known, i.e., late Ch'ing, was very static, even reactionary, it was due to the impact of Western challenges, especially military challenges. But that was an anomoly.
During the earliest periods, the Ch'ou (Spring and Autumn, Warring States), there wasn't much else around in that area but China (even without a China per se; China, "chung kuo" at that time just meant "central states," i.e., the states in the Yangtze valley area and North China plain); however during the Han (221BC-220AD), Buddhism entered China, it was a period of great military and cultural expansion. Flash forward to the T'ang: it was a long period of (mostly) further outward expansion, to Tibet and Central Asia, and vibrant cosmopolitanism, a society in which Nestorians, Moslems, and Jews, along with Buddhists (until about 840AD) were quite welcome. I believe the capital, Ch'ang-an, was the largest city in the world for quite a while. China was in no sense reactionary and certainly not static.
While certain aspects of Chinese civilization, through several thousand years, seemed unchanging (Confucianism, the Salt Monopoly; the Imperial form of government) in fact, it was extremely dynamic (while the government's outward form remained rather stable, Confucianism underwent rather radical changes, especially starting with the Northern Sung).
China did lack two things the West had: the rise of independent science and an independent economy. China did have many scientific discoveries and inventions but they were always rather isolated and not much was built on them; and the economy was, in large part, always subservient to the civil bureaucracy.
"Can one be a non-Christian and still see that the Greco-Roman and Christian elements at the root of our civilization are not random and incidental, but rather constitutive?"
YES!!! This atheist says so.
Absolutely. I hope that wasn't a rhetorical question. However, I do see a lot of post-Christians, for lack of a better word, who are unduly harsh and contemptuous of people who have faith. That 'fairy-tale' bit, especially. No need to be so abrasive or disrespectful. Or ungrateful. Ingratitude is an ugly thing.
And Muslims are wonderful at tiring out their competitors and conquerors. The Mongols and everyone else eventually decides that the easiest thing is just to become Muslims...then there won't be such a fuss all the time.
Again, I hate to nit pick (and they are not tasty: there is a description of a T'ang noblewoman picking nits from her daughter's head and chewing on them), but Mongolia is Buddhist. I assume Jeff is being somewhat flippant here (or perhaps referring to the Mongol conquest of Iraq) and that's OK, but if you are going to flip about, you should do it correctly.
One of the topics of discussion on today's JW has been the Muhammad the Cat cartoon. Just look at how a "Muslim society or culture" deals with such a controversy - there is no comparison with anything in the Judeo-Christian world. I'm not a Judeo-Christian, really not much of anything, but I recognize and appreciate the historical context of my country, culture and society. Not in Islam. And though not a religion expert, is there any other "religion" out there that says you cannot leave it without facing death?
WHY ISLAMOPHOBIA IS A BRILLIANT TERM
By Dennis Prager
"Whoever coined the term "Islamophobia" was quite shrewd. Notice the intellectual sleight of hand here. The term is not "Muslim-phobia" or "anti-Muslimist," it is Islam-ophobia -- fear of Islam -- yet fear of Islam is in no way the same as hatred of all Muslims. One can rightly or wrongly fear Islam, or more usually, aspects of Islam, and have absolutely no bias against all Muslims, let alone be a racist.
"The equation of Islamophobia with racism is particularly dishonest. Muslims come in every racial group, and Islam has nothing to do with race. Nevertheless, mainstream Western media, Islamist groups calling themselves Muslim civil liberties groups and various Western organizations repeatedly declare that Islamophobia is racism."
Read the rest, here:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2007/07/31/why_islamophobia_is_a_brilliant_term?page=full&comments=true
Aww, Robert,
Pay the Derbster no mind. He face is obviously still stinging from that open-hand slap you gave him as for his intellectually lazy and disinterested review of your latest book.
I do find it curious, however, for Derb, who went out of his way to be explicit that the subject matter of religious extremism and religion in general is a bore to him, that he would follow up shortly after with a piece on Islamophobia, a term equally as difficult to validate as the existence of a divine being.
So Derb has moved on from faith over to fairytales?
WHY ISLAMOPHOBIA IS A BRILLIANT TERM
By Dennis Prager
"Whoever coined the term "Islamophobia" was quite shrewd. Notice the intellectual sleight of hand here. The term is not "Muslim-phobia" or "anti-Muslimist," it is Islam-ophobia -- fear of Islam -- yet fear of Islam is in no way the same as hatred of all Muslims. One can rightly or wrongly fear Islam, or more usually, aspects of Islam, and have absolutely no bias against all Muslims, let alone be a racist.
"The equation of Islamophobia with racism is particularly dishonest. Muslims come in every racial group, and Islam has nothing to do with race. Nevertheless, mainstream Western media, Islamist groups calling themselves Muslim civil liberties groups and various Western organizations repeatedly declare that Islamophobia is racism."
Read the rest, here:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2007/07/31/why_islamophobia_is_a_brilliant_term?page=full&comments=true
CAIR has a case of Islamosavvyphobia. And it is getting worse.
John Derbyshire apparently still thinks Robert's latest book was all about proving that Christianity is better.
As I see it, the book is mainly about honesty. False comparisons between Chrisitanity and Islam are a large part of the denial and deception campaign underway to discredit our heritage, with the goal of paralyzing and eventually demolishing our civilization.
"Naw, I certainly didn't have you in mind when I wrote that. Seriously. I have interactions, professional and from general readers, where people call me dhimmi simply because I don't 'hate' islam enough for their tastes or show sufficient zeal. You weren't part of all that."
Jonah Goldberg
O, how good you must feel, Mr. Spencer, to know that Jonah Goldberg, Mr. Syndicated Columnist, Mr. Talking Head and expert in all that he puts his pen to, did not mean YOU! What a relief it must be, not be denigrated by the wonderful, marvelous Jonah Goldberg.
As for D'Souza's "fine distinctions between good Muslims and bad Muslims," does Jonah Goldberg know the difference? He's a Jew, so maybe he could tell us the difference between a good Jew and a bad Jew. I'll give him a hint: A good Jew is a practicing Jew. A good Jew is one who DOES EXACTLY what his religious texts instruct him to do. A good Jew is bearded and hatted and will not sit next to a female non-relative unless absolutely necessary. A good Jew eats kosher, and a good Jew is busy morning to night fulfilling 613 mitzvot(commandments). Luckily, none of those 613 mitzvot call for crucifying, or amputating, or beheading.
And a good Muslim? What does a good Muslim do? How is a Muslim true-believer expected to act, based on the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the Sira?
And Muslims are wonderful at tiring out their competitors and conquerors. The Mongols and everyone else eventually decides that the easiest thing is just to become Muslims...
To tirelessly counter the aggressions, absurdities, and viciousness of Islam’s irrationally closed minded extremist onanism is tiring. For now we are still defensive against their regressive attacks on our progressive civilization – they have not yet seen us on the offensive. Perhaps then they will be put back under that putrid black rock from which they spawned. Push them back, all the way back to the 7th century where they belong. Islamic aggression is Arab expansionism -imperialism. Their imperialistic Jihad has nothing to do with any sane religion of this world, nor the next.
Until then, we should think our defensiveness against their irrational aggressions as “Islamofauxbia” as the right term, (Josephine beat me to it), and not “Islamophobia” against this vicious politicized cult passing itself off as religion. They lie as usual, then cry victimhood when questioned, which is their phobia, not ours. What an unnaturally unattractive cult to be pushed back tirelessly over and over again like some old black and white grade B movie, where the monster just won’t die.
Derbyshire's article is full of...drivel and pap.
I thought most of Derbyshire's article was on the money, and very helpful, but it still strikes me that he has merely skimmed Spencer's book, the only rational explanation I can come up with for such a well read, articulate and intelligent commentator so badly mischaracterizing Spencer's arguments.
John, if you're listening, read Spencer again -- or pick up and skim one of his other books. I think you'll discover that Spencer is just as appreciative of laudable elements of Islam, and very gracious both in attribiting good things to the religion he criticizes, where such are to be found, and granting validity of criticisms of the religion he defends. You don't do yourself justice by railing on about him being a plain and simple "Islamophobe" or accusing him of Christian boosterism.
Much of what Jeff writes is helpful, but I fail to see either the relevance or even the aptness of the distinction he draws between the Catholic/Anglican and protestant/evangelical varieties of Christianity. I have never felt that one group was intellectual and the other, non. The monastic movement and the Vatican's openness to progress in science and intellectual inquiry are good signs of the intellectual health of Catholicism, but protestantism and, yes, even in evangelicalism, there is plenty of healthy intellectual tissue. The charicature of protestants/evangelicals as madly struggling to "get religion", which is seen as some blind, antiintellectual cantation of dogmatic creeds is not only far from the mark, it is downright insulting and really lowers the value of Jeff's piece.
Indeed, one needn't look farther than the principal progenitor of protestantism, Luther himself, to see that protestantism is a movement that encourages free thought. Although the so-called Enlightenment took place in both Catholic and Protestant domains, it was in Protestant Europe that it gained momentum and drove toward the modern world, scientifically and philosophically.
The early anabaptists were even more committed to free thought -- the birthpangs of modern evangelicalism resides largely (but not totally) among this movement, whose distinguishing features were almost entirely intellectual. While they were dedicated "back to the text" types they did not stop at blind parroting of the text but brought them to bear in all manner of philosophical enquiries. Out of these communities' thoughts and words came early articulations of many of the great progressive ideas that engage our world today: pacifism as a response to violence, strict separation of church and state, equal value of all people, etc. Though there are many anti-intellectual streaks in evangelicalism today, the scholastic tradition among evangelicals runs deep, and much currency is given to general academic pursuit, even free thought, in evangelical circles; to pretend otherwise, or to confute evangelicalism with what is sometimes referred to these days as "Christian Fundamentalism", is shallow and disingenuous.
I found the "explanation" Jeff gives of Catholic "intellectualism" (religion more or less inherited) and Protestant "non-intellectualism" (getting religion) actually to work in the other direction. There is a tendency among those who regard their religion as an inheritance never to subject it to critical scrutiny. Whereas the process of "getting religion", rightly viewed, very often, and possibly inextricably, involves an intellectual struggle -- one must ask the deep questions, and not settle for surface ritual, incantation or tradition. This is why protestantism is dynamic, and also why it is so deeply divided. Freed up to think for themselves, protestants have come to perceive the faith in many different ways, and have divided like clockwork, over largely intellectual (though generalyy silly, in my opionion) matters. The monolithic nature of Catholicism can just as easily be attributed to it being "right, and rightly viewed" by its adherents as to a laziness of thought, and an unwillingness to scrutinize too closely.
In my view, Catholic and Protestant strains of Christianity are both intellectually alive, and sound -- but in strikingly different ways. And I hold that each needs the other; perhaps more today than ever before.
A Ditty for Derb
Derb won't read the Islamic Trilogy
as it makes his head ache and seems so silly
but his head would roll if Islam takes control
and so what he thinks doesn't matter.
This man Derbyshire is facile and flippant. His writing may seem entertaining to some but it is truly juvenile and superficial. He is a bad writer who loves argument just for the sake of it...reminiscent of the self important youth found at university debates indulging in gratuitous verbal sparring. Given the gravity of the subject under discussion, I find his lack f seriousness particularly repellent and certainly not worth engaging with. Like cheap tawdry celebrities, the best response is to ignore him.
I look forward to what will undoubtedly be a clear and concise reposte by Robert, but I think it is important to consider one fact:
On the positive side of things . . .
If 51% of the U.S. population could get as far as Derbyshire, we could cut off ME immigration and otherwise deal with some of domestic issues arising from the Muslims who are already here. He may be full of "pap" but what he said is still further along than any Presidential candidate I have heard except for Tancredo.
On the negative side of things . . .
His piece does represent everything that makes National Review so frustrating on this topic---close on so many levels, and yet off the mark as a whole. Bill Buckley never hesitated to criticize Communism as an ideology while acknowledging that individual leftists could be fine and decent individuals (National Review has printed very positive obituaries on leftist intellectuals who it characterized as Marxists). Why they cannot take an analogous position with regards to Islam is interesting.
Too many have trouble understanding Infidephobic thought. Some would better serve the cause by saving the Ink in their Printers.
Derbyshire: "It is none the less true that Islam, whatever its failings, is an ancient and respectable religion that comforts and sustains hundreds of millions of souls, and has provided one of the organizing principles for numerous substantial civilizations. Possibly those civilizations weren’t to your taste. They probably wouldn’t have been to mine, either. If you have ever thought seriously and imaginatively about what life is like in a state of barbarism, though, you will acknowledge that even not-to-your-taste civilizations are a vast improvement on the other thing."
At the risk of sounding naïve, but weren’t all Muslim civilizations based upon the ‘strong man’ concept, from the Caliph on down, which is why there are none now, nor ever were, Islamic states that enshrined personal freedoms and the value of the individual? Is this not another way of saying Islamic civilizations were ‘slave based’ civilizations where the populace scraped and cowed to please their masters at all tiers over them, from father or husband, local sheik, up to the Caliph, with women at the very bottom? Does Derbyshire find these “numerous substantial civilizations” on par with our western civilizations, those that eliminated slavery and serfdom, and enshrined our individual human rights as an a priori condition of our laws and organization? What is his comparison between Islamic civilization and others? The barbarians, with their code of honor based on pure obedience? I fail to see the difference in any substantial way, where this “respectable religion that comforts and sustains hundreds of millions of souls” as anything other than a repackaged barbarian strong man cult of total slavelike submission for the masses. If they find comfort in this, and Derbyshire seems to also, then both are left behind in the dust bins of history, because slavery is no longer a civilizational influence. We of the west have moved on to a higher civilization than the ‘strong man’ obedience model, and instead we have laws to protect our rights of freedom as individuals. There is a difference Virginia, the strong arm tactics of Mohammad’s Allah are not equal to your rights as a free human being before constitutional laws.
So when Derb writes ”I’m therefore inclined to cut Islam some slack. It’s a religion, bringing the consolations of faith to multitudes. Most of its believers are decent people, who pay no attention to the fiercer verses of scripture.”; he is assuming the ‘strong man’ slavery to pure obedience is “a religion” that somehow merits value because of its “consolations of faith to multitudes”.. because they don't really believe the scriptures?!.. absurd statement. Would he have lauded as well the slave states of the South, because it offered the slaves ‘economic comfort’ of the multitudes? Seen this way, Derbyshire’s complaint against Spencer’s analysis is of the unequal worth of Islam’s ‘slavelike comfort’ versus Christianity’s ‘personal soul saving’ comfort. Derb's Islam “for numerous substantial civilizations” is absurd small drivel, and should not even be considered on par with any other civilizational worth, certainly not equal to ours. Slavery is unacceptable as a model for substantial civilization.
Derbyshire’s reasoning is in bad taste. Islam's failings are not only many, but fails as a humanized civilizational religion. Cut them no slack.
Perhaps you'd do better to think of evangelical Christianity in the US. There is a constant tendency among evangelicals to "get religion," though not all of them do. When they do, there are certain text-based core ideas that they will return to again and again.
Posted by: Stendec
As I see it, the book is mainly about honesty. False comparisons between Chrisitanity and Islam are a large part of the denial and deception campaign underway to discredit our heritage, with the goal of paralyzing and eventually demolishing our civilization.
Although I generally get what Jeff was doing when he stated the above. What Stendec states unfortunately is what I see happening when Christianity and Islam are compared. All to often the word "fundamental" is used interchangeably with Christianity and Islam with both being implied as a negative. This is very subtle and most don't say anything to refute the comparison. The term "get religion" is just as derogatory.
The major and most important difference is that Islam at is core is the antitheses of what we would refer to as virtue. It steals, redefines and corrupts everything it touches to its own ends. It is based upon lies and half-truths and is an anathema to everything the civilized world holds as valuable. It majors on the base things of man thinking that it is virtuous and religious in doing it.
I could go on but I just wanted to make the point that comparisons need to be carefully thought about when dealing with this plague.
2Cor 2:15-16
Our lives are a fragrance presented by Christ to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those being saved and by those perishing. To those who are perishing we are a fearful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?
2 نور 2:15-16
حياتنا هي العطر الذي قدمه المسيح الرب. ولكن هذا العطر الذي ينظر اليه بشكل مختلف ، وتلك التي انقذت من الموت تلك. لمن الموت نحن يخشون رائحة الموت والعذاب. ولكن لمن يجري انقذ نحن الواهبه للحياة العطور. والموجود كاف لهذه المهمة ما هذا؟
johndoe:
Exactly my thoughts. Plus, given Derbyshire's usual insistence on good logic and argument, I find his article oddly incoherent and poorly argued and written--actually not argued at all.
Robert should have a ball dismantling this piece of self-important fluff.
"And Muslims are wonderful at tiring out their competitors and conquerors. ..."
...pretty good at raping, torturing and executing them too....
(PLEASE POST THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AT OTHER WEBSITES)
The U.S. Senate Project (an initiative to increase congressional awareness of the nature and goals of jihad) currently has 91 volunteers in 41 states.
WE ARE STILL SEEKING ADDITIONAL CITIZEN VOLUNTEERS FROM ALL 50 STATES, ESPECIALLY THE FOLLOWING 10:
Connecticut
Delaware
Mississippi
Montana
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Dakota
Vermont
West Virginia
Wyoming
THE PROJECT: We're looking for people in every state of the Union who would be willing to purchase, from Amazon or any other source, a copy of Robert Spencer's new book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is And Islam Isn't and mail it, on an agreed upon date, to one of the senators in your state. We want to get the book simultaneously to all 100 senators, in order to send a strong message. If we get more than two people per state, books can also be sent to the U.S. House of Representatives.
If you'd like to participate (or you just have questions), please write to me at traehnam@yahoo.com under the subject heading "Senate," and tell me the state your senator represents, and a nickname. No need for your real name. And I will never share your email address with anyone, not even with other volunteers for this project.
And visit jihadawareness.blogspot.com to get more info on this project and to leave comments other volunteers can read. You can also see there the growing list of participants in this project, and the states their senators represent. I've also designed a graphic that might amuse. Scroll down when you get to the site.
Once we have at least two people from every state, we can agree on a mailing date and then each of us can mail a copy of the book on that date.
Right before each of us mails the book, we’ll issue a press release to media outlets in as many states as possible, and in that way announce and explain the mailing. And perhaps we can come up with some other ways of maximizing the effectiveness of this project and gaining as much positive attention as possible.
One of the project's volunteers suggested contacting Rep. Sue Myrick, who started the Anti-Jihad Caucus in Congress. When we reach the goal of having all 100 senators covered, I'll call Rep. Myrick's office and see if she can help. I've called several congressional offices to get advice on how best to proceed.
Yankeedoodl sez:
'A good Jew is bearded and hatted and will not sit next to a female non-relative unless absolutely necessary. A good Jew eats kosher, and a good Jew is busy morning to night fulfilling 613 mitzvot(commandments).
We could debate this statement tll the cows come home, but let me just say that there is no Jew alive today who is 'busy fulfilling 613 mitzvot'. There are 'only' about 250 that apply.
Battle of Tours:
Thank you very much for your exact and deep analysis, spot on!
I think for Mr Spencer to argue with Mr Derbyshire would be like using a bazooka to shoot a mosquito.
Sweden restored to sanity? This judge got it:
Sweden judge: ‘Islam is not a race and depicting Mohammed as a dog does not incite racial hatred’
Sweden judge: ‘Islam is not a race and depicting Mohammed as a dog does not incite racial hatred’
I wrote an email to John Derbyshire about how much he is embarrassing himself and should leave commentary on Islam to people who have actually studied the religion and how he is making a fool of himself. This is his reply to me, which I received a few hours ago: "Nobody's going to read the Koran & the rest--it's BORING. The great mass of us depend on interpreters like Spencer, and it's in that spirit I reviewed him."
Well, I and many of us here have read the Qu'ran and the Hadiths and Sira, and find these texts very disturbing. He admits his ignorance on Islam because it is "boring?" Yet he chooses to comment on Islam and Mr. Spencer's writings on the subject from an uneducated viewpoint.
I can't wait for Mr. Spencer's response. Derbyshire is a fool and has proven it to me personally now.
The term "Islamophobia" in reality is a lot of Islamophobophooey!!!!! NO ONE should be using it at all since it is NOT legitimate ENGLISH!
Someone please tell the global left wing constituency (AND CAIR) I said that!
Derbyshire: "It is none the less true that Islam, whatever its failings, is an ancient and respectable religion that comforts and sustains hundreds of millions of souls, and has provided one of the organizing principles for numerous substantial civilizations.
There is so much wrong here.
1. Whatever its failings - how much failings? 70 million deaths in India. The wiping out of Buiddhism in India. The butchers yard of corpses all over where Islam invaded.
2. ancient - it is youngest of the three montheisms
3. respectable religion - I dont know about respectable. It was detested by just about everybody in the ME and Asia till they were forcibly converted.
4. Sustains hundreds of millions - captured and enslaved that is, with no freedom to leave without being beheaded.
5. organizing principles for numerous substantial civilizations - Organising principle of Islam is to destroy all that is not Islam. The civilisation that was, was simply the flicker from the embers of a dying civilisation that preceeded it.
John Deryshire is an intelligent man. It is dangerous though to take on a person such as Robert Spencer, who actually does his homework.
Despite that, his acceptance that Muslim immigration to the West has to be stopped, and Muslims who are here already, encouraged to go back, is correct. It is the only way to not only safeguard us, but to prevent large scale clashes with the West, in which Muslims will come off much the worse. If Muslims are left to themselves, they may work this Jihad thing out off their system. One can hope.
"I boxed a couple of brief rounds with Robert Spencer over at Pajamas Media last month. Robert is the author of a raft of books on the general theme that Islam is a bad religion — not merely bad in some current misinterpretation, but bad root and branch, its badness planted right there in the Islamic scriptures".-Derbytrotter
But what if he's right, Derbytrotter? BTW, "Islamophobia" is a propaganda term and as meaningless as your horse poops dropped as you trot around the track. You are a boring bourgeois horse's ass, Derbytrotter.
It's an interesting question as to whether one must be a Christian to robustly oppose Islam. I would say that having any sort of strong, non-Islamic identity helps, though it also probably helps to not be a fool. Just because you're not religious, doesn't mean you have to be stupid.
As for D'Souza's "fine distinctions between good Muslims and bad Muslims," does Jonah Goldberg know the difference? He's a Jew, so maybe he could tell us the difference between a good Jew and a bad Jew.
Goldberg may have a Jewish name, but his mother is a gentile, so he is not really a Jew at all. (Even the Nazis would only have regarded him as a Mischling.)
Is it just me or does anyone else think derbyshire sounds like a (new term of the week) "phobophobe"?
lol
Oh, please. Robert Spencer is right. There is no "debate." Derbyshire - hang it up. Ditto D'Souza.
And a reply to "jewdog" up above, I'm both 1. Christian. 2. Not a fool. End of Story.
Archimedes2:
Bravo! From a basic Protestant fundamentalist your writing is like Robert's (and the Bible's) concise and extremely well written. Truth is God's.
John Derbyshire's assessment of Islam is living testimony that semi-ignorance of a subject can arguably, under certain conditions, be more dangerous, more lethal, than complete ignorance of the same area of human knowledge. I suppose with Derbyshire we have a fine proof of the old refrain that a little knowledge is a bad thing. Please rip him to shreds when you get the chance, Mr. Spencer, as I have come by now to know you are exceedingly able to do.
Amazing ignorance.
All on display by a guy who finds the Islamic scriptures 'boring'- and thereby admits that he knows next to nothing. Who allows such A-soles to stand on a soap-box?
The Hypocrisy of the Brits: Saudi arms deal puts Blair back in the spotlight
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/09/22/the-hypocrisy-of-the-brits-saudi-arms-deal-puts-blair-back-in-the-spotlight/
Resistance is building in Columbia uni:
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/09/21/poison-dwarf-will-not-desecrate-ground-zero/
Are these guys for real here?
They keep sending me the same e-mail over and over:
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2007/09/swedish-cartoons.html
Derbyshire’s article makes sense to me. He argues that (1) Islam is a great religion and (2) that Islam has some good qualities.
(1) Islam grew from a small band of thieves to a major force in the world. If you measure greatness by achievement, Islam is a great religion.
(2) A Muslim society was probably better than what preceded it. Human beings are not inherently good. Muslim men were limited to four wives, were not allowed to beat obedient wives, and had to honor old family members. I’ve heard that before Mohammed, Arab traders had one set of scales for buying and a second set of scales for selling. Mohammed reportedly abolished the practice. Islam does have good qualities when compared to Arabian anarchy.
Derbyshire goes further than Spencer when he argues that Muslim non-citizens should be sent home and that new Muslims should not be brought in.
Looking forward to Robert’s response.
By the way, I see that Columbia is hosting a talk by Ahmedinejad. It's part of their Lowlife Lecture Series.
That school is totally brain dead, which is why it's part of the "I.V. League".
It's also part of David Horowitz's Campus Watch, & one major reason he founded Students of Academic Freedom http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/
& quite an expose` on them at
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6636
sublink "Campus Support for Terrorism" @
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?is_campus_support=1
...they're not dissenters, they're enemy collaborators...
...a truly despicable place...
...and they're not the worst!
Below I quote Derb's piece and respond:
Not accurate. Robert writes:
Robert has been consistent in refusing to tar “Islam” as a whole. That’s why his site is called “Jihad Watch,” not “Islam Watch.” Robert does have some allies who are just plain anti-Islam (though, like Robert, they are not anti-Muslim), but being anti-Islam has not been Robert’s own position. Derb in the above quote is simply wrong.Derb continues:
(my bolding) There is some narrow-minded ideological boosterism – i.e., propagandistic warfare in disregard of the truth -- in the “Islamophobe business,” but I don’t believe Derb will be able to cite many examples of boosterism in the works of Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Andrew Bostom, Bat Ye’or, Hirsi Ali, or others at the top level in this field. What Derb perhaps doesn’t like is that because this is something of a mass movement and therefore naturally includes large numbers of people who are not academics or intellectuals, boosterism comes in.Who are these “noisiest” Islamophobes? These “angry,” committed Christians? If Derb is just referring to unknown strangers who send him emails, well, probably any intellectual position one can think of, including the view that 2+2=4, could be tarred by associating it with random strangers who write angry emails about how 2+2 is 4.
I wish I knew which fanatical Christian Islamophobes Derb is referring to. This particular attack by Derb offers no charge specific enough to respond to. That’s a bit too convenient for Derb. Yes, but let's not forget how that is counterbalanced by some Christian Islamophiles, who mistakenly fear that honest criticizing of Islam will reflect negatively on Christianity. (my bolding) In the above quote, the most Derb seems able to say for Islam, is that it’s better than state-of-nature barbarism. And critics of Islam are supposed to be relieved by that? As if what people criticizing Islam are on about is merely that we fear Islam will remove our right to live in a barbarous state of nature! What about the U.S. Constitution vs. Islamic law? What about Islamic law ruling Europe in a generation? Derb here seems unaware of a point many critics of Islam have made. Polls have shown that almost half of UK Muslims want to live under Islamic law. Thus terror is not the main problem with Islam. The problem is the drive to Islamic law, fueled in Europe by perhaps half of Muslims, hundreds of thousands of whom support terror as means (5 to 9 percent of Muslims in the UK support terror as means), and tens of thousands of whom are interested in directly participating in that terror. “a mere aspect” ?– Not so. Non-Muslim Asian and African immigrants have no plan to impose a totalitarian theocracy on the West. Here, Derb, however unintentionally, is giving ammo to those who say opposition to Islam is just a subset of ethnic or racial prejudice against immigrants in general. The Diversity Theorum, in the form quoted by Derb, is so extreme that of course it’s false. But diversity is a boon of Western civilization. Fjordman, despite all his excellent work, makes the mistake of making enemies of “multiculturalists,” instead of pointing out to them, as does Gregory M. Davis, that “Islam embodies a multiculturalist’s worst fears…” (p. 5 in Davis’ book Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World). Thus Fjordman unnecessarily divides Left and Right in what should be a united struggle against Islam. And Fjordman, like Derb, inadvertently plays somewhat into the hands of those who would equate resistance to Islam with resistance to ethnic diversity. This is another confusion of resistance against Islam with resistance against ethnic diversity. The first -– resistance against Islam -- can and should have mainstream appeal to all who love pluralism and the non-extreme varieties of multiculturalism. The second -- resistance against ethnic and cultural diversity in general -- is and should be at most a marginal viewpoint in a Western, pluralistic culture. The above quotes fail to note two elephants in the room. 1) Non-Muslim immigrants to the West are successfully integrating and have no plan to impose a totalitarian theocracy on the West. 2) Statistics gathered around the globe every year from every nation in the world show that Muslim-majority countries, on average, have been more prone to dictatorship and unfreedom than any other kind of nation. See, for example, www.freedomhouse.org. Muslim-majority states are also more likely than any other kind to impose religious discrimination. See, for example, the 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom. Despite whatever commonalities non-Western civilizations may have, they are not all alike.
An interesting kind of slack Derb is willing to cut: send all the foreign Muslims home, don’t let any more in, watch Muslim citizens closely. I agree with all that, but wouldn’t call that “cutting Islam slack.” Roughly half of Muslims in the UK want Islamic law to replace Western legal systems. And it appears that the rest of Europe’s Muslim population feels similarly attracted to Islamic law. So it’s small comfort to hear from Derb that all those Muslims don’t care much about texts. If so, I guess that means they’ve delegated interpretation of texts to the most pious Muslims, the imams. The results we see everywhere today are not reassuring. There is undoubtedly some appeal to Islam. There are varieties of “attractiveness” in the world. A poison can be deliciously intoxicating and have a pretty color, but would experiencing that intoxication be worth dieing for? Or a milder example would be potato chips: they can be very appealing, but would you want to allow for the possibility that they might become the largest portion at all your meals from now on? The fact that Islam has some appealing aspects seems to be accepted as obvious by all the top level critics of Islam. But maybe Derb feels the need to point out the obvious, since perhaps some of the “rank and file” Islam critics – the man on the street or in the pub -- are not always prepared to grant even an atom of goodness to any part of Islam. (my bolding) Derb here seems to think that if one cannot make an absolutely unqualified distinction, then one cannot make a distinction at all. Christianity is not perfectly and absolutely without any martial component, therefore it can’t be called a religion of peace. But that is false. All that is necessary to be justified in calling Christianity a religion of peace is that the central teachings of the religion be predominantly peaceful. And likewise for calling Islam a religion of the sword. To call Christianity “a religion of peace,” though only a kind of shorthand for a complex reality, is not essentially incorrect. What is the dominant content of the central teachings and how dominant is that aspect? That’s what matters. Wrong. The whole problem with totalitarian belief systems and polities is that they find it difficult or impossible to reform themselves, to permit self-criticism. Just as the Soviet Union fell in significant part because of relentless outside criticism for decades, so Muslim reformers absolutely require non-Muslim help. Anyone in touch with what is going on can easily see that that is part of what is now happening. Wafa Sultan didn’t arrive at her criticisms of Islam by living isolated from Western viewpoints. I have no complaint about any of that, nor do any reasonable “Islamophobes” claim there is nothing good in Islam.
Traeh,
Superb dissemination of and analysis of Derbyshire's rant, in my opinion.
His position as originally posed by me on this thread, is most curious indeed.
Btw, where is Hugh? I do indeed miss his presence.
Thanks very much, awake.
And I agree with you. The fact that Derb has written another article about this subject is somewhat curious, given that his interests lie more in other areas. But then again, since he wrote the first two pieces, it's not unnatural for that to develop further.
Maybe Hugh is in the Bahamas? Listening to this?
lol guys...cut the poor chap some slack...everyone has to sleep SOMEtime...lol
(just kiddin, fellas!)
By Dennis Prager
"One can rightly or wrongly fear Islam, or more usually, aspects of Islam, and have absolutely no bias against all Muslims, let alone be a racist"
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2
In fact, islam is islam, sent down to the followers, from Allah's great tablet in heaven. As such, one must take it all, nothing can be passed over or not followed.
If a aspect causes trouble, it is still the word of allah, sent down to be followed, and can not be seperated from the whole. This fact is why a reformation will be nearly impossable.
Race is not the factor, as he states correctly.
jcom972, you're right...I hope it didn't sound like I was getting on Hugh's case. All I meant to do was kind of wish the hard-working guy a nice vacation in the Bahamas, listening to Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun"...
lol...nah, it's ok...10 to 1 I bet Hugh gets a kick out of it, lol
Then again, I must've missed the part on the Bahamas-if he is, I hope he has a damned good vacation!
Derbytrotter-
The Quran is set up longest to shortest verse, but what matters is chronological order. Later verses that contradict earlier verses are replaced by the later verse (as in wine is good, alcohol is later banned, etc.). So called earlier "peaceful verses" in the Quran have been abrogated by the mandate to convert, reduce to Dhimmi status, or kill the unbeliever. What don't you understand about that unpleasant reality, Derbytrotter? Stop with the "Islamophobia" propaganda word crap and address that question, Derbytrotter.
http://www.canadianhorseracinghalloffame.com/standardbred/images/GlorysComet.jpg
Traeh, you've done a terrific job of analyzing John's rambling article point by painful point. I find it amazing that though John admits that Islam has been (and continues to be) one of the bloodiest religions and agrees that it makes sense for us to keep a watchful eye on muslim immigration (points which Robert Spencer and most of us on JihadWatch would agree mwith) he still finds means of romanticizing about the militantism in Islam. To my mind John is a TRUE Islamophobe since he clearly exhibits an IRRATIONAL fear of Islam; after all he claims that we should keep muslims away from us at arms length and yet provides no reason for why we should do so. In contrast, Robert Spencer has been very rational in his explanation of why we should be worried about Islam and why the threat from Islam is the result of the central teachings of Islam which is forever at war with the rest of the World till it has completely been subjugated under Islam. No other religion in the World gives such an open-ended commandment to its followers!
I was somewhat intrigued by John's romanticizing of 'militantism' in various religions including Hinduism. He gives the example of the 'sacred' (I put the term 'sacred' within quotes because Hinduism doesn't hold any single book as an ultimate authority) book of Hindus the Bhagvad Gita which is literally a sermon given by Lord Krishna on a battlefield between two opposing camps who are related to each other (cousins). Arjuna (a great warrior), asks Shri Krishna who is his charioteer (and who to us Hindus is the Lord come to earth in human form) to take him to the midst of the battlefield before the battle has commenced so that he can survey the people he is about to fight with. After surveying his 'enemy' camp which is filled with people he has grown up with, and many of whom have taught him, he is filled with a sense of revulsion at the thought of going to battle and the ensuing bloodshed that would occur. Shri Krishna, at this point, explains to Arjuna why it his duty to fight such a righteous war even though it will mean that he will have to slay his cousin brothers who have wrongfully usurped the kingdom from he and his brothers. Shri Krishna then goes on into a detailed explanation about the meaning of human existence, about how our actions need to be guided by a deeper understanding about our true nature and about how we can all lead more meaningful lives; all of which are central to the Hindu view of Dharma.
I think John is right in saying that pure pacifism is something that is not desirable; and I agree also with his rejection of Gandhi's path of ahimsa; which I think is utterly useless, for example, when faced with an enemy like Islam. The crusades, for all the negativity that has been projected on it, did save Europe from Islamization. So while there have been aspects of militantism that exists in most religions; however, neither Hinduism, nor Judaism, nor Christianity, nor any of the other religions (including atheism) gives its followers a carte blanche to indiscriminately kill and convert everyone to their religion the way Islam's central teachings demand of its adherents. To romanticize this form of militancy within Islam is, to my mind, pure idiocy.
Traeh -- Well done; thank you.
Ignoring the first two paragraphs and the last lame sentence, John Derbyshire's latest piece, "Islamophobophobia”, IMO was succinctly cogent. The key questions he mentions (and answers yes to), his contrasting description of Western Civilization and his trashing of the Diversity “Theorem” and are what everyone in the world should read.
However, I think he fails to appreciate enough the structural differences between Islam and the other major Western religions, esp. Christianity, which makes it easiter for the latter religions to evolve from occupations like the Sapnish & Roman Inquisitions and accept democratic institutions – but only reluctantly, and really only after a lot of bloody sectarian religious wars & revolutions (remember the Catholic Church supported fascism esp. Franco’s) and only after a lot of people, fed up with arrogant religious imperiousness, demand secular governments. The Islamic world also goes through these internecine wars and in some places tries to be secular but the tendency is always stronger in the Islamic world for “purification” or reversion to an imagined better state. The structural reason is alluded to in the above paragraph:
Islamic civilization is a "whole system," as a Muslim friend told me recently. It tends toward totalitarianism, and toward constant renewals and self-purifications that push Western-type influences out. It's much more like (but not completely like) communism. …
Secular governments will always be inimical to even the moderate strains of Islam and anytime a Muslim gets annoyed with the Infidels of his Western home he can always crack open his Koran and read that infidels are the most vile of creatures (98:6) with a consequent devaluation of their lives. In short, Islam as a whole in the modern world, in contrast to the low-tech British imperialist world Derbyshire spoke of, is just too damn dangerous and should be watched like the AIDS virus if it cannot be outlawed altogether or driven away.
Islopob, RE: "...meant to be followed..."
the purulance of ISLAMOPHOBIA deigns make the demand by its very expression that one call neither upon the Holy One of Israel nor the Son of God, or any other save the obscurrant deity Allah. a bludgeon it is and should be forbidden in jurisprudence and the market place. it is the gurgling whelp of the ancient Serpent, dying, spewing saprogenic ilk.
All these small-minded dhimmis that believe it fine to be apathetic or "culturally cool" while the USA and Europe go down the crapper can fully expect to come under hotter and hotter scrutiny from myself and plenty of others. Oh my, does the 'debate' actually go both ways?!
Pardon us if we choose not to indulge in the massive appeasement of the scourge of Islam just because it would be so "easy" to do. I'm made of tougher, smarter stuff -- and I respect where I came from enough not to be satisfied to act as if I have no responsibility to protect where I'm going in this life.
I'm tired of even discussing this because it is all so painfully obvious what the problem is.
Islam is the Enemy. STAY OUT.
That isn't good enough for some? Please request Churches and Temples constructed in Mecca and Medina then, and let us see how far that idea goes. We are infidels with no rights in the eyes of true Muslims. Democracy is a tool to be used to destroy us. If Democracy mattered to the Islamic world for Democracy's sake, they would have adopted it willingly by now. What do we get instead? Our dead girls and boys wasting blood on dirty, oily sand because the Muslims can't stand up and free themselves -- most of them do not want to be free in the manner we believe in to start with!
Muslims = "Those who submit to Allah"
How can you free people that are already slaves to their false god!?
And us? We have so little respect for our own way of life now that we invite destruction.
Foe,
They don't live by the golden rule,
("do unto others as you would have them do unto you")
they live by a primitive version of the rule of expediency
("the end justifies the means"), that primitive variant is known better as a "pecking order", more common to most all primitive animal species.
I'm sure they're going to raise holy hell about that, and try to spin it so much it would make a washing machine green with envy, but hey... actions speak louder than words, and their actions and words are 180* absolute complete opposite of each other...
...and they still wonder why we're not falling for their spew (or fewigning bewilderment, one).
Who cares about all this intellectualized drivel? Foehammers got it right:Islam is the Enemy. STAY OUT.
I would add 'GET OUT!!!. Short, and sweet, even the unwashed masses can get it. Well almost, leftists and Geo Bush don't seem to 'get it', they never have and they never will...The only reason we are having this ongoing discussion is because Robert is right.
If RS was wrong, the lights would have gone out at JW/DW long ago...
Good response traeh - I liked your analysis, too. And word to jcom.
As for pez, who wrote the following:
"Derbyshire’s article makes sense to me. He argues that (1) Islam is a great religion and (2) that Islam has some good qualities.
"(1) Islam grew from a small band of thieves to a major force in the world. If you measure greatness by achievement, Islam is a great religion.”
Sorry pez and Derbyshire - I don’t measure ‘greatness’ and ‘achievement’ by how many people a system manages to deceive enslave, or murder. What’s the difference between a million thieves and two hundred? even if they use their stolen goods to build a few fancy monuments (using dhimmi labour, mostly).
"(2) A Muslim society was probably better than what preceded it. Human beings are not inherently good. Muslim men were limited to four wives, were not allowed to beat obedient wives, and had to honor old family members. I’ve heard that before Mohammed, Arab traders had one set of scales for buying and a second set of scales for selling. Mohammed reportedly abolished the practice. Islam does have good qualities when compared to Arabian anarchy."
Well, actually Islam did sweet damn all about "Arabian anarchy". Indeed – Islam or Arab anarchy? – what’s the difference? The unpleasant truth appears to be that Islam reproduces Arab anarchy everywhere it goes. See V S Naipaul, “Among the Believers” for descriptions of this process in operation in the 1970s in Pakistan and Iran, which were busy re-Islamising after a period of Western influence. He says of Pakistan that they had taken the rule of law which they had inherited from the British, "and replaced it with nothing" - and he demonstrates what that 'nothing' meant for ordinary people.
Recently I read James Parkes, "Whose Land"? His account of the effect of successive Muslim dynasties upon 'Palestine', from 636 to 1917, is a classic object lesson in the results of bad government – a process of total social, moral, political and ecological collapse. The downward trend was interrupted just once: by the much-maligned Frankish Crusader Kingdoms, which were observed (by contemporary MUSLIM observers] to be much more stable, productive, peaceful and orderly than that of the Muslim countries next door. In other words – those supposedly half-civilised 11th-century feudal Christian Franks were BETTER at government, law, justice, and protecting peasants from bandits, than the 7th-10th century Arab Muslim rulers who preceded them, and demonstrably better also than all of the Muslim rulers (Mamluks, then Turks) who took over after them.
Parkes observes in the same book that Islam not only in ‘Palestine’ but throughout its domains, did not foster the same ‘decentralisation’ of virtue and creativity that Christendom did: all the energy went to a few centres of power, but nothing flowed back out; Islam has nothing to compare with the cathedrals, guild-halls, monasteries and lovely parish churches that proliferated all over Christendom, West and [Russian] East. Indeed I am prepared to bet (Hugh – I’m sure you can back me on this) that the descent into hell that Parkes describes for the Holy Land under successive incompetent, greedy and cruel Muslim despotisms, wracked by interdynastic, intertribal and intrafamilial war, is much the same as what happened, over time, to ALL territories conquered by Islam – e.g. Egypt, North Africa, Spain, the Balkans, Aghanistan. Once they had killed or Islamised a sufficient percentage of the conquered populations, everything fell to pieces, oscillating henceforth between tyranny and chaos.
As for what preceded it? – who knows, for a fact, what pre-Islamic Arabia was like? The pre-Islamic culture was pretty thoroughly erased. There are hints, though that Mohammed’s non-Muslim Arab contemporaries were shocked by some of the things he did – i.e. that he was WORSE than what was currently on offer.
And outside Arabia? We know for a fact that Islam was NOT, morally, spiritually, intellectually or politically, an improvement over either the Judaism or the Christianity of those whom it murdered, absorbed or enslaved. Neither Jews nor Christians were practising polygamy or infanticide; they already knew all about honouring parents (as do most human cultures – nothing new there!) and although wife-beating occurred, nothing in the scripture commanded it [unlike Islam!] and Christian scripture contained many positive injunctions to love and cherish one’s (one and only) wife. As for trade etc: the Bible says much, much more, and much more clearly, than the Qur’an ever does, about truth, honesty, covenant-keeping, and just weights and measures, so anywhere that Islam went in the Christianised world at least, they were not introducing anything new. And in any case the visible fruit of Islam in the Arabised/ Islamised world has been, for centuries, a culture of corruption and deceit that boggles the mind.
Some time ago, someone here at jihadwatch posted a link to an article on The Autonomist web-site. Friday April 28 2006, ‘Life in Iraq Part II, A Civilisation of Deception’. It bears revisiting – for example: “Q: Why are there no democracies in the Muslim Middle East?
A: Democracies are based on the possibility of mutually held Agreements between people. Democracy is unsustainable in cultures where lying is acceptable and constant.
Q: Why is every Muslim Middle Eastern country characterized by either rigid oppression or chaotic violence?
A: The coercive use of violence is the only way to ensure Muslims in the Middle East [and elsewhere!] will live up to any obligations, including basic social order and function. Middle East [more accurately: ‘Islamised’] countries where chaos currently reigns, like Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, are merely examples of what Muslims are like without coercion.” Islam does not RESTRAIN barbarism - it CREATES barbarism.
I don’t know how Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism compared in the area of morality – they were certainly no worse than Islam, and probably somewhat less aggressive – but as regards visual arts, sculpture, music, literature, poetry, agriculture and government, these three civilisations were clearly ahead of the chaotic Islamised despotisms into which they were degraded after conquest.
Moreover: we know that in at least one case when Islam encountered a thoroughly evil and barbaric custom – FGM - it did nothing whatever to stamp it out and did indeed, in fact, absorb it and in some areas sanctify it, such that it is now its main perpetuator.
No. Islam is primarily destructive, not constructive. A force, in the immediate and long term, of disorder and death. Combine gnosticism with a corrosive ethos of deception and aggression, and you have a recipe for disaster, indeed for pure evil, hardly equalled anywhere in human history.
What I liked most about the article is that Derb gave a shout-out to George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels. They are my favorite series of novels, so the more publicity, the better!
The first one takes place in Afganistan, and as I remember--it's been awhile--the Muslims are fierce fighters, and frighten Flashman out of his wits (of course).
Although Mr. Spencer and Mr. Derbyshire obviously disagree on specific policy prescriptions, such as bribing Muslims to leave the West, the arguments they separately make about Islam actually contain many similarities. For example, they both agree that Islam is the most intolerant religion.
I wonder if Mr. Derbyshire fails to realize that he himself is not immune from the title Islamophobe. Perhaps he feels himself exempt because he is an atheist. However, whether one thinks he deserves this title or not, I have little doubt that the so-called “Islamic civil rights groups,” such as CAIR, would indeed attack his writings with great vitriol and call Mr. Derbyshire an Islamophobe. I do not know if this has been done yet, but I suspect that Mr. Derbyshire may soon be the target of a CAIR slander campaign.
After having read and reread both this article and the previous book review, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Derbyshire’s real disagreement with Christian criticisms of Islam is not so much with the criticisms themselves, but rather with the simple fact that Christians are saying these things. In other words, I feel that Mr. Derbyshire believes, to a large extent, that the very fact of being a Christian disqualifies the person from making criticisms of other faiths. In his world, only an atheist has the moral authority to criticize Islam because an atheist does not favor one particular religion and can therefore criticize all equally and dispassionately. He seems convinced that Christians cannot survey Islam in a rational manner that is free of their theological pre-dispositions and beliefs.
I can easily imagine Mr. Derbyshire’s inner monologue crying out, “God, why won’t these annoying Christians just shut-up and leave this matter to us (atheists)” (No irony intended with use of the word God. Many atheists say it often.)
Mr. Derbyshire’s argument is fallacious and puerile. More than this, however, it is exclusionary and infused with arrogance and bigotry.
I have come to conclude that Mr. Derbyshire is a Christophobe
Some boys just want to have fun, and something in them prevents them from conceding the rightness of someone else's view. In Derbyshire's case, he concedes a great deal; he surely must recognize that he has come a long way, in the last year, on the matter of Islam. But others, just or possibly even more busy, have come along in their understanding even further. And among them are many of those who, quite capable of seeing what is unacceptable in Derbyshire's position -- including that uncharacteristic solicitude for the "millions of Muslims for whom Islam is such a "solace" (in a phrase that echoes closely one from "Why I Am Not A Muslim") -- have given him whatfer, and then some.
A pleasure to read so many scathingly well-informed rebuttals.
dumbledoresarmy,
Thanks very much. Your post was excellent.
Razdan and Josephine, thanks very much.
Hi patagonianplato,
Unless he's changed his position in the last five years, John Derbyshire (not to be confused with Jonathan Derbyshire) is not an atheist. He designates himself a Christian. About five years ago, Derbyshire wrote this:
Maybe Derbyshire is a kind of inside-out version of Oriana Fallaci in this regard: Fallaci was a "Christian" atheist. Maybe Derbyshire is an "atheist" Christian, if that makes any sense.
Dear Treah, thank-you for the information. I do not personally believe that one can be an “atheist” Christian, as you phrase it. To me, this is an unimaginable contradiction in terms. Mr. Derbyshire indicates that he is neither devout nor observant. The book review he wrote is rife with contempt for all religions but he reserves special contempt for practicing Christians. By the way, although I write it, I consider “practicing Christians” to be a bit redundant.
You may recall that some disagreed with me when I previously stated that I had concluded that Mr. Derbyshire had never read the Qur’an. I came to this conclusion based upon my analysis of only his book review. It was only afterwards that Mr. Derbyshire made a clear factual admission that he had not done so. Only then did I know for certain that my conclusion was correct. In the same way, I have come to a new conclusion, again without reading an explicit statement form Mr. Derbyshire. Only three quotes should suffice in this case.
“To an irreligious person, it all looks a bit like a game of theological mumblety-
peg.”
“No doubt this is all very reassuring to the faithful.”
“I understand that this bogus equivalence must be very vexing to a committed Christian, but Spencer seems not to understand how wacky all religions seem to the irreligious. All religious faith, after all, depends on magical thinking. To people who eschew such thinking—people who prefer to ground their beliefs in the strict rules of evidence used in modern law and science—Mohammed’s flying through the air to Jerusalem on a white steed is no more preposterous than the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception”
It is possible, though very unlikely, that he may believe in a superior being. However, he is not religious, and he certainly is not a Christian.
Dear Traeh,I just received a reply from Mr. Derbyshire at my personal e-mail. As I am new to blogging, I am not certain if it is considered proper to post a direct reply. What is the correct etiquette in such a circumstance?