What do you think of Arabs, Muslims and Islam?

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About Arabs: I'm fascinated. I have a lot of respect for "real" Arabs (the ones from the Arabian peninsula, which is not to say that I don't respect non-real Arabs. . . but for this topic I'm only discussing the ones rooted in the Arabian peninsula). I find their Bedouin roots, unique rebelliousness, tribal obsession and history to be intriguing.

About Islam: Low regard. Like orthodox [lowercase "o"] Christianity and Judaism, it carries a fowl stench of smug self-righteousness and superiority while simultaneously being insecure about every little thing that doesn't agree with it. While the majority of Christianity and Judaism has--and is--moving towards modernity and secularism, Islam seems to have a particular obsession with remaining in the Stone Age.

~String
 
I don't really have an opinion on Arabs, but I really don't have an opinion on Europeans, Asians, Africans...either. People are people the world over and there are...well assholes...in every group that make the rest of the group look bad. Different regions means different societies and different isn't bad.

Muslims/Islam: pretty much the same as above. Muslims are really no different than Jews or Christians. I don't have a high regard for organized religion to begin with, but again, I know every group has its fanatics. I really don't like the way the strict followers of the Big 3 religions treat women.

It's the extremists, the fanatics in every group, organization I don't like. A Christian pulls a gun and shoots up his workplace and no one screams Terrorist, but have a Muslim do it and the media and politicians come unglued.

As long as you are not trying to push you beliefs on me, I have no problem with you.
 
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certenly not, i'm not trying to push any beleifes,
about treating women, i agree, but not the relegion "islam" say so, but the extremists and the norrow old minds do,
it's even forbiden in islam to be extremists, but those exremists think that being extremists is good, so, not all the people are like that,
also not all the arab contries are like that, you just don't know the soft side of islam, if people that care about relegion, if they followed everything in islam, they wouldnt be extremists, cause it's forbiden in islam to just pray all the day, or to be an extremist, islam just encourage, to be balenced, enjoy life, work hard,search for knoledge, but don't forget your relgion and your duty to god, wich is to pray for him(not staying 5 hours in the mosque, one pray just take 5 minutes)

another point, there's no arab race anymore, arabs, are a mixte of everywhere, first arabs, egyptians, romans, europeans, asians, berber, indians, just from everywhere,

about stucking in the stone age, how do you know that, how do you know that we're not developping by time,
take teh maghreb contries as an example, tunisia for example in maghreb,
tunisia cant just stop getting better, toaday, tunisia is the first exporter in north africa, also the safest airlines, also, goign to be the most important industrual power by 2016 in the medeterenian, and the maghreb union, and the medeterenian union also,
u.a.e., qatar, abudhabi, syria, just cant stop getting better, esspecialy u.a.e.
arabs will soon enter the space age,
in dubai, spacetourism,
in abudhabi, it will be there the first arabic spacestation, for all teh arabic contires, to attrackt the arab scientists that they immegrated to the developped contries to find their place,
 
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TBodillia said:
I don't really have an opinion on Arabs, but I really don't have an opinion on Europeans, Asians, Africans...either. People are people the world over and there are...well assholes...in every group that make the rest of the group look bad. Different regions means different societies and different isn't bad.

Muslims/Islam: pretty much the same as above. Muslims are really no different than Jews or Christians. I don't have a high regard for organized religion to begin with, but again, I know every group has its fanatics. I really don't like the way the strict followers of the Big 3 religions treat women.

It's the extremists, the fanatics in every group, organization I don't like. A Christian pulls a gun and shoots up his workplace and no one screams Terrorist, but have a Muslim do it and the media and politicians come unglued.


As long as you are not trying to push you beliefs on me, I have no problem with you.
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that's the best answer i heard, we are all people, there's always good, and there's always bad, about treating women, not true, if you mean extremist women that cover their faces with black cloth, they choosed to, and some yeah, forced, by bad people,
but most choose that, and also, not most women wear like that,
in other arabic contries, women are ecaule to men, work what men work, study, military, health and everything the men do, but i'm not denying that there still some old norrowminded pearsons, that can never understand, or change their mind, i think we all know those kinds of people, that they take an idea, and make it stuck in their heads, but still there's a law protect verybody, even if a woman is misstreated, most times, she can send him to a cort, to just solve it nicely, by talking, or by yalling, lol, i think this problem is just everywhere in the world, that some men, cant accept the idea that women arent ecaule to them, don't deny
:)
 
a blood thirsty bunch who place a very low value on community and peaceful living.
sexist
racist
religious extremists who wish to wage genocidal religious war on everyone else given half the chance.

they have hate in their hearts and breed hate into their children.

they find pleasure and satisfaction in the torture and murder of people and call it shari law in the hopes they can stave off their own genocide long enough to commit genocide upon everyone else.

have you ever met a middle eastern Muslim who opposes capital punishment and shari law and chooses to live peacefully in another country not trying to convert that country laws and culture ?
 
ripleofdeath said:
a blood thirsty bunch who place a very low value on community and peaceful living.
sexist
racist
religious extremists who wish to wage genocidal religious war on everyone else given half the chance.

they have hate in their hearts and breed hate into their children.

they find pleasure and satisfaction in the torture and murder of people and call it shari law in the hopes they can stave off their own genocide long enough to commit genocide upon everyone else.

have you ever met a middle eastern Muslim who opposes capital punishment and shari law and chooses to live peacefully in another country not trying to convert that country laws and culture ?
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O K! weirdo!
 
Shadow1 said:
a simple question, what do you think of arabs,...
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Energy collection machines.

Shadow1 said:
...and what do you think of muslims
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Deluded energy collection machines.

Shadow1 said:
and islam?
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Defective.

Shadow1 said:
how much do you know and what do you know about them?
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That's not a question that can be answered without educating you full-time for a few decades so you can understand the answer.

Shadow1 said:
i think that you're going to say, terrorists, marry at the age 15, or a man marry 4 women( it is, but it's only in egypte, and other two contries, not all, in egypte, cause there's alot more women than men, because of the world war in the past, many men died at wars) kill every one that he's not muslim, force women to serve them, bomb their selves, sucieders, naiif, stupid, primitive,...
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Ok.
 
superstring01 said:
While the majority of Christianity and Judaism has--and is--moving towards modernity and secularism, Islam seems to have a particular obsession with remaining in the Stone Age.
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In my earlier post I explained the reason for this: Islam is 600 years younger and hasn't gone through as many centuries of development as Christianity. In fact Islam has been tracking a fairly steady 600 years behind Christianity since it arose.

It's now at the point Christianity was in the 15th century. Within the span of four centuries:
  • The religion split into multiple competing denominations, and government and religion were separated: the Reformation.
  • Music and other art works were created that did not have Christianity as their predominant motif: the Renaissance.
  • Rational thinking, skepticism and science replaced dogma; democracy replaced theocracy and monarchy: the Enlightenment.
Some scholars see signs that Islam has already entered this phase in its development: the spread of secularism, the rise of democracy and the schism between rival sects.

Judaism can't fairly be measured on this same timeline because of its much smaller number of adherents. Because it is not an evangelical religion its people only expand by reproduction rather than conversion, and it suffered a huge setback in WWII. There are at most 40 million Jews in the world and only one country has a dominant Jewish culture; compared to roughly 1.5 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians, dominating the cultures of dozens of countries with diverse ethnic roots. This does not give Judaism and Jewry the critical mass that the other Abrahamic religions have.
 
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Shadow1 said:
O K! weirdo!
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You have to remember most of these people have not traveled to Muslim countries. Or met many Muslims from different cultures. You have to also remember that they are not brought up to be polite or civil to guests and strangers since in an unbroken chain for the last few centuries, their countries have been engaged in torturing and killing people who are not like them and their media restricts what they know about others. Compare al Jazeera to CNN for instance - the average Arab is much better informed about the world than the average westerner. The kind of news analysis you see on al Jazeera, even related to Africa, would be unthinkable in the US. Not that its not there, if you hunt PBS or read the books they recommend on Book TV, you'd get the news. Unfortunately, its not what the mainstream knows or even remotely thinks about
 
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The same would presumably be true in equal measure of anyone from Islamic countries also.
 
GeoffP said:
The same would presumably be true in equal measure of anyone from Islamic countries also.
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Not really, even the most backward Bedouin has watched a western movie or keeps up with the news in the west.

How many Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Iranian or Iraqi movies have you seen? Or even Indonesian, Pakistani, Malaysian?
 
S.A.M. said:
Not really, even the most backward Bedouin has watched a western movie or keeps up with the news in the west.

How many Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Iranian or Iraqi movies have you seen? Or even Indonesian, Pakistani, Malaysian?
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How interesting. So Hollywood is your chosen benchmark of cognition? I suppose this explains the backwoods rednecks in Pakistan runnin a-bouts, stabbing female relatives to death when they show an ankle.

Sam, no particular country has a corner on politeness, fairness, awareness or erudition. I have known Muslims and non-Muslims both ignorant and enlightened.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
In my earlier post I explained the reason for this: Islam is 600 years younger and hasn't gone through as many centuries of development as Christianity. In fact Islam has been tracking a fairly steady 600 years behind Christianity since it arose.

It's now at the point Christianity was in the 15th century. Within the span of four centuries:
  • The religion split into multiple competing denominations, and government and religion were separated: the Reformation.
  • Music and other art works were created that did not have Christianity as their predominant motif: the Renaissance.
  • Rational thinking, skepticism and science replaced dogma; democracy replaced theocracy and monarchy: the Enlightenment.
Some scholars see signs that Islam has already entered this phase in its development: the spread of secularism, the rise of democracy and the schism between rival sects.

Judaism can't fairly be measured on this same timeline because of its much smaller number of adherents. Because it is not an evangelical religion its people only expand by reproduction rather than conversion, and it suffered a huge setback in WWII. There are at most 40 million Jews in the world and only one country has a dominant Jewish culture; compared to roughly 1.5 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians, dominating the cultures of dozens of countries with diverse ethnic roots. This does not give Judaism and Jewry the critical mass that the other Abrahamic religions have.
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Does one maxim from a specific subject apply with certainty to another? This having been said, Judaism should be somewhere EONS into the future, having been around for--what?--4 millennia?

As usual, your logic is very sound, Fraggle, and I am loath to disagree with you on this subject (as, I admit, your information is far deeper than my own). But I don't buy the formula that religions (or in this case, Abrahamic faiths) are born and follow a comparable growth pattern. Islam is different. WAY different. The Koran, as a holy book, is and always has been far more "holier" than the Bible. One comparison holds it on the same level to Muslims as Christ is to Christians. I think that Islam won't "change" until technology proves that creationism is nonsense and Muslims begin fleeing en masse to rational, modern thought and philosophies.

Islam won't change. It will simply die 'round about the same time that most religions do, and that will probably happen within the next 150 years when our understanding reaches a point that will no longer permit religious delusions, except for the deranged, insane and cerebrally malformed.

~String
 
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i agree on the idea that islam is still young comparing to other relegions, even in koran, it says that one day, islam will deverse into 50 parts, 50 ways or kinds, just like chiristanity, and one other, all relegions, will desepear,
i also agree on that, it's already predected in islam, that one day, all relegions will no more exist,
 
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SAM said:
You have to remember most of these people have not traveled to Muslim countries. Or met many Muslims from different cultures. You have to also remember that they are not brought up to be polite or civil to guests and strangers since in an unbroken chain for the last few centuries, their countries have been engaged in torturing and killing people who are not like them and their media restricts what they know about others.
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In the US, being touchy, taking offense at how people treat you based on false or exaggerated assumptions of how they think, or not being able to take a joke, is rude.

So is parking your car in everybody's way, making people wait and blocking other people's travel, without necessity. So is hitting things with your car routinely, and running away or refusing to take responsibility.

So is covering your face in social situations - even hiding your eyes is aggression, as the use of sunglasses by street thugs and police shows.

So is running your hands through the flour and grains available in the bulk bins at the local coop.

So is refusing to shake hands with strangers you are meeting, for any reason not directly medical.

And so forth.

The Somali Muslims who immigrated into my neighborhood were quite rude to the neighbors, uncivil and impolite. They took offense at everything from people's dogs to pork chops for sale in the stores, and gave offense in multitude of unpredictable ways. I still recall the hate stares a friend of mine - young, blonde, pretty, modestly dressed woman - got from the older Somali women in a nearby park, for walking down the sidewalk. It was striking - I understood the concept of the evil eye in an instant, in a way I had not before. She said it was common - she had taken to avoiding the park, with its pleasant shortcut, her former standard route home from work. She was reassured by my presence - without me, there was a threat there.

Courtesy. Complicated subject - let's take the existence of good will as our standard?
 
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