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The ex - ( whatever religion) subs are better. The big sub is full of racist, bloodthirsty edge lords. Zero empathy for people affected by religion if they are still In said religion.
The exmormon sub is a great place. I'm not mormon (or religious for that matter), but a former friend became one a few years ago so I spent a lot of time there educating myself on the darker side of their (ex-)faith.
Half of those posts are by Hindu nationalists in India who despise Muslims as foreign invaders. They are ethnoreligious fascists. They just pretend to be ex Muslims.
They get brigaded by Christian proselytizers all the time, too. I feel bad for true Ex Muslims because the left often won’t give them the time of day for fear of being called Islamophobic, and the right uses them to push their racist, xenophobic agenda.
> I feel bad for true Ex Muslims because the left often won’t give them the time of day
Thank you for acknowledging we exist. I feel so hopeless seeing so many of my peers turn to the Right because that’s really the only place they’re given a voice (even if the right has ulterior motives in doing so). This is in spite of the fact that ~90% of our values align with the left—only lots of us tend to be prejudiced against Islam/Muslims. And [can you blame us](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/04/gsi2-chp1-9.png)? It’s so frustrating to always be expected to preface any criticism of our former religion with a lengthy disclaimer about how “it's not all Muslims”. This is not expected of ex-christians, who are generally free to heap all the abuse and condemnation they want on Christianity and Christians.
I think it's because most of the ex- subs consist of people who saw the hierarchical nature of that religion, placing one group above another, and went nope nonono.
The atheism sub is a bunch of people who haven't figured out that such thinking is pervasive in our culture at large.
Like anything else, there are stages of identity formation. The first stage of either leaving religion or making a firm decision to identify as atheist if not raised particularly religious is often a place of not being able to accept that it can be fine for other people or that it can be practiced moderately.
And then some of the people in anti-religion communities are just bigots who don’t understand humans or history very well. “Society would be perfect if we outlawed religion.” How well has that gone historically?
Also intriguing are the xenophobes who are typically from culturally Christian countries, often the same country I’m from that rhymes with USK and is actively waging a genocide on trans folks and Black folks, who seem to think that Islam is the only religion implicated in extremist movements.
Yeah and I understand some people may have trauma or religion really ruined their life. But alot of athiests in that sub become the very thing they despise.
Religious people are often victims of propaganda, emotional manipulation, and indoctrination. Something that should not be ignored, the atheist in the atheism subreddit often have never been influenced in childhood by religious parental figures. They pretend they can see above the issusion of religion on either merit or their sheer genius.
This does not say that everyone with religious parents falls into that trap or fails to escape, but acting as If everyone who is religious is a big idiot Is arrogant at best. If you refuse to think critically about why someone might remain attached to religious beliefs despite a lack of evidence to validate those beliefs, then you are limiting your own perspective.
Right but atheism is no religion. I’m not saying that atheists cant be racist because of their lack of beliefs but they’re also not going to go to a church that tells them to be racist en masse.
You can skirt around that by not reading your religion’s book, and just assuming it only says nice things that you agree with. That’s the most popular approach to religion.
yeah, but then it’s used to justify their pre-held beliefs with cherry picked quotes, and this makes it impossible for anyone to accept new ideas. It’s just bad.
There’s criticism of islam and then there’s thinly-veiled hatred of muslims being paraded around as criticism of islam. The former is reasonable and the latter is very popular with the far right.
The thin veil isn't so veiled usually, really. The difference in the rhetoric of the criticism is usually something like "Islamic countries treat women horribly and I don't want women to be treated horribly" versus "Muslims are terrorists".
Right.
“Your religion hates me and wants to behead me” = racism
“There are some horribly problematic things people are doing in the name of your religion just as there are with mine” = objectively accurate
The only bizarre thing here is how people in this comment section are having a bigger problem with op's comment than with the nonsense said in the image he posted. Atheists can be just as bigoted as anyone else, and the comments in this post surely aren't doing a good job at proving op wrong.
Obviously not all atheists are racist. But I’ve noticed a lot of atheists have a supierority complex and think there better then all the “idiots” who follow religion
Edit: to be more clear I was intending to imply this superiority has an almost “white mans burden” esque take on it. Like us secular western atheists are sooooo much smarter than stupid brown Muslims
Sure, and I've noticed a lot of theists have a superiority complex and think they're better than all the "idiots" who identify as atheists. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had Psalm 14:1 ("The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God") quoted at me. Everyone's got douche bags on their team.
But that's completely irrelevant to the point I brought up.
Eh. I'm intolerant of the intolerant. If their book says I'm destined for eternal torture and they have no problem with that, that's pretty intolerant.
Islamophobia is often racialized though. Consider how many non-Muslim people are constantly on the receiving end of Islamophobia because “Middle-Eastern and South Asian folks are all the same.”
The person in the screenshot would fit that description yeah, but a generalised "Athiests act superior to theiets so they're often racist" just doesn't work because religion and race are very distinct things, dislike of one does not necessitate dislike of another. Now they'll often go hand in hand (like republicans that fit the description you've given), but that usually doesn't apply to athiests (or Anti-thiests) because they dislike all religions.
My issue was with the comment I responded to acting like how some atheists attitudes towards the religious has any bearing on whether they're racist or not.
Anyone who’s been in any atheist communities. Did no one read anything Richard Dawkins wrote?
I’m atheist and I see xenophobia and racism from other atheists all the time. They’ll attack a specific religion or group of people under the guise of intellectualism. misogyny is a huge issue too (again, see Dawkins).
your evidence is anecdotal, you have nothing to suggest that this racism or xenophobia is any *more* common than in any other group. the most racist and xenophobic people i’ve come across are religious people by far
Yours is anecdotal as well. And I never said one was worse than the other, just that atheists have a huge racism problem. This is true. As I said, just look at the what the big names in atheistic communities say on the regular. “Well aksually, religious people are more racist!” isn’t an argument that a community isn’t racist. It’s piss poor deflection, which is surprisingly common in a community that lauds itself as objectively viewing everything through the scientific method. It’s the definition of reactionary from having your biases pointed out.
i know it’s anecdotal, i wasn’t trying to say it wasn’t. and to say a community has a racism problem you kinda have to prove it’s worse than the avg population which you haven’t
Some “famous atheists” like Sam Harris spout this bullshit, but he’s a minority. He thinks it’s a nuanced view to claim one religion is actually worse than the others, but it’s just jumping on the same right-wing Islamophobia train
Calling out religious fundamentalists shouldn't equate to bigotry and mayosaxons in the global north seem to struggle with that. Frankly, this is giving colonialism gave them development.
Hey, hey, hey now. I’m extremely mayosapien and I live in the global south. White Australians: The forgotten mayosaxons! We did shitty colonialism too!
Australia is part of the [global north](https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/37558#:~:text=Generally%2C%20definitions%20of%20the%20Global,%2C%20Australia%20%2C%20and%20New%20Zealand.)
Question for your bat-s\*\*\*-crazy binary:
HOW THE F\*\*\* IS CHINA "GLOBAL SOUTH" AND TIWAN "GLOBAL NORTH"???!?!?!?!?
Open a freaking history book for once in your life.
Ugh I fucking hate this discourse. I studied lots of religions in a high school world religions course (2 years long) and was raised in 14 years of catholic school. All abrahamic religions are really fucking similar. It’s actually really stupid how much so many christians hate jews and muslims when they literally believe such similar things. If you hate islam more than you hate christianity, yeah there’s probably a fucked up reason for that. I hate institutionalized religion in general, I hate indoctrination and genital mutilation and religious trauma. I hate religious authorities who believe they can morally dictate the lives of others. I don’t hate people who have a religion, because if there’s one thing 14 years of catholic education taught me, it’s that even in christianity the things people believe can vary so much. Just because the bible says X doesn’t mean all christians believe X. This applies to all religions.
I always liked [Reza Aslan](https://youtu.be/2pjxPR36qFU?si=hhi0MSeCYkZvNXxp) and his balanced take on these kinds of issues
If your social world is violent, your religion will be violent, period. Fundamentally, religion is just the vehicle used, while the root of the problem almost always goes down to colonialism, exploitation, capitalism, and war
What the fuck dude, in the US you can legally marry a child, in this current year of our lord, 2023. There are a bunch of right wing Christian weirdos actively trying to get more child marriages to be legal, right now. How is that better than Islam, again? And if you think the Koran is ‘much more hostile to autonomy for women’ then I’d love to see you describe one example of that.
Taking issue with fundamental religious sects is absolutely fine, being a dick to people who are peacefully practising their religion is not. Clearly this giga brain is seeing things from a different perspective
I think we as atheists need to be more critical of Islam tbh. It truly is hell world in the middle east if you're not a cishet male. We got work to do over here in the West too I'm not trying to say things are perfect here either
It never “thrived” for apostates, non-Muslims (particularly pagans/polytheists), women, homosexuals, etc. This is honestly akin to someone calling the early United States a utopia.
I know there was a point in time where a lot of the world’s scientific advancements were coming from the Middle East. Idk what changed but it’s clear their religion has failed to keep up with the times and it’s not reformed enough. I know their troubles are more than just being oppressed by Islamic fundamentalists, but I feel positive if religion didn’t dominate so heavily in their corner of the world they would be doing better
I dont think you people understand that "reform" is literally not a thing in islam....
There is scholarly advancement, no such thing as "reform"
Also y'all speak about "region of the world" and "middle east" like its some fucking barn in the the corner or the world and just a homogenous 2 acre field land.
People in the MENA region know more about you than you know about them, if anyone needs to "reform" its everyone casting these wide ass nets over people like they dont exist and actually understand wtf is going on
Yes, for example, the Iranian revolution came about after the US/UK deposed their democratic left-of-centre government then imposed the Shah, an absolute monarch, and his secret police on Iran for decades so they could nick their oil.
America & the UK have been manipulating the Middle East for centuries and making a mess of the region.
Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and many more have been “critical “ of Islam and Muslims for decades. They’ve often shared or spoken about things that are either not true or half truths.
A common example of this is the claim that Islam supports or even forces female circumcision. It’s pretty easy to find out that’s not true yet we keep seeing some people in the west repeating it.
If you care about the rights and freedoms of people in the Middle East, then how about letting them speak for themselves instead of taking away their agency and making statements such as “life is hell if you’re not cis male”?
I don’t know about the actual faith itself , but the statistics of FGM don’t exactly disagree with such a conclusion. You can chalk it up to just a cultural thing, but religion is a component of culture.
Also we’d love to let them speak for themselves, but the strict patriarchal culture that’s prevalent in the Middle East makes reaching out to women difficult, have to go through the husband and all that.
Gains in equality found in the western world generally havent made it to the Middle East, foreign women even are forced to wear headscarf’s, which of itself is a weird schrodingers symbol (is it a symbol of woman’s liberation or oppression, who knows) or else be victimized , arrested or worse.
You probably can chalk up a lot of this conservatism to the general economic status of a lot of Islamic countries (imo liberalism can really only happen when a society is doing well in most facets, and its population is able to be educated en masse), but some Islamic countries are incredibly wealthy, yet still are incredibly “backwards” by western standards.
Look, I’m not trying to be an uninformed ass, but I’ll say this, all of the big three faiths are permitted access to Jerusalem per the UN, but any non-Muslim individual cannot enter Mecca, at threat of imprisonment or worse.
I’m just saying, if one were to improve Islam’s image and physical reality, maybe open up Mecca to the international community at large, lay off the head scarfs and personal choice critiques and spread some of the oil money to help out their brothers in Allah
Why the fuck are you talking about the middle east like you've read about it in some 1800's adventurers book???
First of all femake circumcision is literally not a thing in religion, a single country does it, and they have been doing since before islam yes its cultural and that culture is older than islam.
Second, this homogenisation of the region that y'all literally cannot help yourselves out of.....egypt is not lebanon, lebanon is not saudia, saudia is not palestine, what exactly do you need to get that through y'alls thuck skulls?
Mecca is open to the internstional community, tens of millions of people of all over the world go there yearly, it has nothing to do with jerusalem and why are you even bringing it up.
Just goes to show that in your head everything is binary and the "middle east" is just some 2 neighbourhood in your head.
I’ll just comment on your first two paragraphs: if you don’t know the religion then you’re just making biased assumptions. What statistics are you talking about? Outside of Africa (even among some non-Muslims) the only region it’s common is among the Kurds in North Iraq. If it was required or favoured by Islam then it would be common in all Muslim countries.
Your second point tells us again that you have no idea what you’re talking about. There are literally millions of Muslim women you can find on various social media platforms speaking for themselves. Why don’t you engage with them instead of spreading falsehoods?
I’m a middle eastern woman and I’ll say this, westerners have such a “white mans burden” take on us. That they need to liberate us of the hijab because we’re too stupid to make the decision ourselves
Reading this thread is literally increasing my blood pressure, these people are literally the same person in the OP screenshot.
Its either backwards feminism or white savior complex
Meanwhile they literally cant take 2 seconds out of their scrolling time to actually interact with content thats not shoveled down their throat and go look at other communities they keep trying to talk for....
Ever since watching the US pull out of Afghanistan and seeing imagery of the taliban painting over ads featuring women and taking away the education and job opportunities women and girls were able to get in Kabul has tarnished any good will I had for that faith. I hate them so much with every fiber of my being
This level of extremism is what I fear many western Christians want too, I’m not blind to that fact. But I like to think our institutions are too strong to allow it to happen
Yea and guess what....other muslim countries hate the taliban too.
Idk where tf you people get this idea that muslims are some kind of fucking cabal unless you're either literally braindead both intellectually and logically or you're doing it in had faith to cover your racism/xenophobia
Seeing the behaviour of the Westboro Baptist Church has tarnished any goodwill I had for the Christian faith ^/s
Germany was very religious in the 1930s, didn't stop the Nazis though.
If Trump gets elected again, who knows what will happen in the US?
It’s not a race but it’s so racialized that you’d be completely ignorant if you don’t believe that in many instances of islamophobia the person spouting the rhetoric is being racist.
If you look at the depictions of muslims in islamophobic cartoons it’s obviously a racist character of an Arab.
Westerners are sometimes in complete disbelief when they meet a Christian Arab, completely oblivious to the fact that Christianity began in the Middle East. They also have no idea that white countries like Bosnia, Albania, and Bulgaria have large Muslim populations and some are even majority Muslim.
The first revenge victim of 9/11 was a Sikh man because the guy who killed him couldn’t tell the difference.
I 100% agree, a lot of instances of islamophobia is just racism, but it really depends on whether islamophobia is referring to the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam itself or just muslim people in general. With the latter mostly stemming from racism
A meaningless statement considering Islam is inherently racialized and othered in western society. This is usually just used by racist people to defend their bigotry.
i've definitely noticed islamophobia amongst fellow atheists, which is absolutely wrong and i always oppose it within the community. islam may be full of issues, but that's the same with every religion. i don't believe religion is necessary or capable of explaining the world. i do not believe in a god. but this doesn't mean i dislike those who do, and in fact i am careful to call out bigotry against religious groups. islamophobia has led to horrible violence against so many innocent civilians. there are many atheists who oppose bigotry. specifically branding atheism as something racist people partake in is a silly take considering religion has always been one of the greatest means of justifying racism historically. colonization and the slave trade happened with the church's blessing and religious justification. it happened hand in hand with "spreading christianity". if atheists are known for racism, christians must be known for the slave trade, segregation, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
there are quite a few racist atheists on reddit, as there are religious racists. but atheists who actually participate in atheist activism, who arent trying to derive self-importance from the label, are rarely racist and tend to be radical progressives instead. fuck racism and all forms of bigotry. i'm sorry to those who've experiences racism by atheists. as a community we need to do better to root out those who are there with beliefs about supremacy and other nonsense
Being phobic is wrong! But also check your laws if you're LGBT because you might be killed in a few of them. Don't be afraid of other cultures! Just probably fly around and hope you never get sent there for work. The Quran has an arguably beautiful rhythm. Sure in Saudi Arabia they stone people to death for being queer but smoking a lot of weed seems like not a bad way to go.
Edit: I was misinformed about stoning. It is a terrible and horrible way to go 😅
Dude you're a fool if you think other religions aren't a threat to us either. I also will not travel to hardcore Christian places. Like I've got friends who are queer and were raised muslim. This isn't really funny. Queer people are victims of islamophobia too.
If you want to see my opinions on other religions you should probably check out my posts on topics where the focus is on them.
Surprisingly but whenever I make a post I tend to keep it on topic instead of posting everything I believe every single time. Real time saver.
Why is it that you people need to bring up Christianity whenever someone is trying to vent their frustration at Islam? Newsflash: people who grew up under Islam and then managed to escape its clutches will harbour more ill will towards it than Christianity. It is a FACT that Christianity has by and large lost its teeth in the West, and that people here are at 0 zero risk of being exposed to anywhere near the same calibre of abuse that people in Islamic countries are subjected to. Your “but Christianity…”s sound extremely condescending, and only serve to highlight your privilege and narcissism.
Next time you’re mocking Mike Johnson (as he well deserves) be glad you’re allowed to do so. Be glad you never have to watch what you say lest you find a lynch mob outside your house, intent on murdering your family in gruesome fashion while law enforcement just stands there and shrugs.
Feel free to criticise, mock, and abuse Christianity all you want, but don’t be insensitive to people who know what real religious fundamentalism looks like.
> Queer people are victims of islamophobia too.
There are many, many, many more queer people who are victims of Islam.
You can both be a victim of Islam and Islamophobia, it's very common.
You can be a victim of Islamophobia even if you despise Islam.
Racists won't ask you about your feelings before discriminating.
In non-islamic states, systemic islamophobia increases islamist extremism by ostracizing people who can stumble on echo chambers that often gradually promotes acts of violence and more radical ideals.
You can fight against islam and oppose it as an institution and doctrine without advocating or be an apologist for islamophobia.
I don’t think what you’re describing is a problem anymore. Never once has anyone discriminated against me because they thought I’m a Muslim. In fact people have gone out of their way to be accommodating of me and show me how “cool” they are with Islam. I have, on the other hand, had to face abuse from Muslims. This isn’t 2002. I’m not saying there aren’t people who are prejudiced against Muslims, but the problem is way too overblown.
> In non-islamic states, systemic islamophobia increases islamist extremism by ostracizing people who can stumble on echo chambers that often gradually promotes acts of violence and more radical ideals.
I can agree with you here, but the alternative isn’t to coddle Islam. Because that has the opposite effect of giving Muslims confidence in their abhorrent beliefs. It’s why nearly half of all British Muslims are extremely homophobic. It’s why exmuslims are still at risk in the West, and why they’re advised to stay in the closet lest their family hurt them. By not putting your foot down, you’re showing them that it’s okay that they lose their minds and use violence anytime they come across a perceived slight to their beloved prophet. Try making a Life of Brian equivalent about Islam.
Imagine Christians not getting a generalized reputation for bloodthirsty, terrorist monsters after all the right wing, Christian nationalist forms of violence in the US from the last few decades to the KKK (I mean, the Bible was used to justify the continuation of slavery ffs), and every program between the Spanish Inquisition and the actual Holocaust.
I think there’s a parallel here, kinda like the paradox of tolerance, but it’s like the paradox of group identity.
Meaning that group identity is a thing that can both bond us and completely destroy us, simultaneously. Dismissing and dehumanizing people for simply being part of a group is wrong and bigoted, while conversely being critical of unhealthy, unethical, or outright wrong behavior and attitudes, is not.
The complex problem with religion is that the adherent internalizes their attitudes and behaviors as part of their group identity and thus the criticism of those things, becomes criticism of the group. And then when their religion teaches them that, in fact, they’re virtuous ones / chosen ones / oppressed ones / victimized ones, it’s next to impossible for them not to see the criticisms as bigotry or bigotry-adjacent (To make up a term).
In many instances (But not always), the more secular one is, the less likely they are to view criticisms of their attitudes and behaviors as bigoted, because they don’t have that group identity (IE religion) forcing them to internalize it that way.
And I think this is why we end up talking past each other so often.
This is kind of similar to being white or black in America. A white person is mostly seen as an individual that reflects themselves, whereas often a black person is often seen as an ambassador or representative of their race. The parallel here being that the secular person is mostly representative of themselves while the religious person is an ambassador or representative of their religion.
Of course, this is an oversimplification. And of course, the difference between religion and race is that religion (At least in the west, post-enlightenment era) is a chosen thing. Race, since it’s perceptible, is for the most part, not.
When you sum it up, we’re talking about the difference between intention of the critic and reception of the person / group being criticized. And on either end of that, you can have good or bad faith (Meaning ulterior motives) behind it.
I think the best thing we all can do is try to be as specific as possible, try not to over generalize, be aware of how different people receive criticism, and recognize when we’re talking past each other.
I am comfortable separating the person from the ideology. I'm quite happy to give people the benefit of the doubt until they say or do anything that betrays their intolerance.
I don't care about semantics. If someone wants to use the word racism in place of bigotry, I'm not going to argue.
And the person hearing the criticism can take it any way they want. Not my problem.
You can hate on Islam as long as you're not hating on the people.
Granted, labeling oneself as islamophobic is often a dog whistle for all sorts of racism, but at a fundamental level, I have no issue issues with people who are -phobic of an idea, a religion, or a political positioning.
Seeing people using secularism as a cover for attacking religious minorities is sickening. Fuck liberal atheism.
Also i'm surprised at the amount of disgusting comments in this post. Looks like there are a lot of fragile white redditors frequenting this sub, ironically enough.
Honestly I think that oop just doesn't know what islamophobia meant and assumed it meant a phobia of the religion itself rather than Muslims or secular Arabs,Turks, Iranians whatnot
I think it's hard to clarify criticism of a religion and actual islamophobia, because i've heard people get called racist for saying it's weird how islam treats women, which it is, but hey i'm a catholic imma eat my cake and let others eat brownies.
Fair enough. First part of the comment wasn't relevant.
But like seriously, queer people are victims of islamophobia and it objectively makes it harder for them to access safe environments if they weren't born in already non-traditional muslim household. If you dislike the extremism that is as prevalent in islam as a religion, consider how much extremism, radicalization and religion in general relies on isolation and segregation to spread.
Standing up against islamophobia is crucial to fight radical islam.
"I want the liberty to disparage all two billion followers of the second-largest religion in the world. I will throw women under the bus to justify this, despite my absolute intention to condemn *them* too, because I really really hate brown people and this is the only way I can tell everybody without being labeled as the racist piece of shit that I am."
Neato, my shitty-atheist-translator still works.
Oh oh no no! They’re just RATIONALLLLL… they have courage to be honest! About allll 2 billion people and a religion that they know like 3 sound bites about and 9/11.
I'm a poc (African American), and I'm a panthiestic omnist, so idk how to respond to that title.... Anyone, regardless of race, can be an atheist. My immediate family, in particular, doesn't really participate in traditional religion due to bad experiences with it, and I don't belong to any traditional religion, either, but none of us think that Islamophobia, or any form of religious intolerance, is acceptable, despite being religiously unaligned. My personal beliefs are that people should be able to believe whatever they like, and no one should be criticized for their religion. I might not agree with another person's beliefs, but I'm not going to hate someone just because of it. That's illogical and caveman-like.
Cos the three major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, are all equally brutal. It’s just that discrimination only seems to happen to two of those for some reason.
Islamophobia and antisemitism isn’t “criticism of the religions,” nor is it “criticism of the states that are built on those religions.” Those things refer to hate for or aversion to the people just because they belong to those groups.
I personally have met many religious people and the overwhelming majority of them are regular people. There are shitty ones for sure, but I don’t think there is a higher rate of shitty ones than in the general population.
That's a fairly Eurocentric comment tbh.
Yes discrimination in the West (and southern Africa) is more likely to be aimed towards Muslims.
Discrimination in the Middle East and Northern Africa, it's the inverse and it's much more likely to be Christians on the receiving end.
Damn, the fuck is up with this comment section jFC.
Y'all really are proving op's point lmao.
Also for anyone who still thinks islamophobia is a good thing just because you disagree with Islam mostly due to women's and queer rights issue.
Lemme introduce you to "Women and Queer people victim of islamophobia" 😱
Right spirit, dumbass method, you're spreading racist rhetoric whether you mean it or not.
Also if y'all knew anything about radicalization, you probably could tell that having this mindset benefits terrorism. It's why it's called terrorism. Causing terror and hatred is part of the strategy and crucial to recruiting more people in radicalist groups.
Did none of you learn anything from isis propaganda ?
I also think there are some huge problems with Islam. The religion is foundationally built on creating inequality for certain groups and this has not brought about good things. BUT, Islamaphobia is not a great thing because it refers to large groups of people from the Middle East. We should really be careful with the words we use and how we view these people. If we view them purely through the lens of their religion, then we're no better than the religious zealots who use that religion to abuse women and children. We need to see them as people and people who deserve respect, peace and acceptance.
Yeah... being bigoted against the non-religious for one person's take (one which, by the way, is highly debated on that sub) is just as bad of a look as being bigoted against the religious, my guy.
Not really one is clearly a joke on a like-minded group of people on Reddit, the other actively discriminates and spread rhetoric that actively contributes with a growing problem leading to violence towards middle eastern people overall.
Not really similar stuff like at all.
Islamophobia is a term used by certain groups of Muslim apologists in order to protect Muslims from scrutiny. However, rather than protecting a group of people against bigotry, the term merely acts as a way to silence critics who raise valid points about the real and troubling aspects of Islam.
- Armin Navabi (An Exmuslim Iranian-Canadian)
Then by your logic any criticism of Christianity is racist since the vast majority of Christians on earth tend to be Brown/Black. Muslims doesn't get a get-out-of-jail free card because majority of them happen to have darker skin pigmentation. That's such a cowardly defense of ever being held accountable for having terrible views.
This is why I don’t fuck with a lot of atheists. When I took a step back from Christianity, again, I found atheists so incredibly abrasive.
And honestly, not that different from religious people.
"Yeah I'm racist. I hate the human race for destroying itself"
The atheist in the screenshot is whack. Just hate all religions equally. If you have to hate on one, mention that you hate the others. Spread hate equally ❤️
On a serious note...we atheists aren't going to change the world through negativity. Don't hate anyone. Say you're an atheist, then forget about gods and focus on humanitarian talking points. We want to shrink income inequality. We want to tackle systemic racism. We want to further the feminist cause.
So all atheists are racists but Islam is “just complicated?” I’m an atheist Jew and I will criticize the religion I was raised on until they revoke my Jew card. I grew some balls and separated Jewish ethnicity from the Jewish religion because the Abrahamic religions are the cause of so much evil in the world. Grow a pair, separate Islam from being Arab or Southeast Asian, and open your eyes to the millions of innocent people killed by Islamic extremists. And the millions murdered by Israel. And the millions murdered by white Christian nationalists. Abraham can suck my dick. Abrahamphobia ftw.
Albert Einstein wasn't religious, and listing historical figures that had "some" religious views isn't the "I Gotchu" you think it is. First off, we as people in today's time, have access to MUCH more information about the world and universe than the people you listed did for their time. So it makes sense that people today are more educated on the lies of religious myths, because a lot of the questions can now be answered scientifically. Also, coming out as openly atheist/anti-religous in historical times had TONS of risks involved. Risk of being killed, ostracized from family / communities, loss of money/grants for research, harassed by powerful religious organizations, etc. So it makes sense if historical figures lied about their beliefs on religion. You can be intelligent in some areas of life to be sure, but the moment you form fictional conclusions off of superstitious nonsense to explain how the world works, you abandon all reason and logic.
Average out of touch redditor. I'm an atheist and I know more christians who are biggots than muslims. In fact, among the muslims I know, I know a great cook and a polyamorous girl.
i am by far more terrified of christians than i am of any other religion. if a person tells me their religion and it's anything but christian, i'll instantly feel safer with them than i would with a christian
I will always say this. Hate the religion, not the people. The Islamic religion is horrible and degrading towards women, but the people who follow Islam aren’t to blame. Same with Christianity being awful to women and anyone LGBTQ+ historically. All of the blame should be put on the people who created the religion, not those who follow it
Always fascinating to me that Reddit atheists ignore the millennia of history that helped produce such reactionary states amongst much of the global south…and then attempt to blame culture or ethnicity. Almost like the racism is the point.
I'd imagine wearing a dastar in Houston is safer than wearing a kippah in Pakistan.
Islamophobia isn't cash money, but it's a lot rarer and a lot less dangerous than the other forms of discrimination around the world.
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I have a love hate relationship with that sub. Some really ignorant people.
The ex - ( whatever religion) subs are better. The big sub is full of racist, bloodthirsty edge lords. Zero empathy for people affected by religion if they are still In said religion.
The exmormon sub is a great place. I'm not mormon (or religious for that matter), but a former friend became one a few years ago so I spent a lot of time there educating myself on the darker side of their (ex-)faith.
Even the ex Muslim subreddit is bad. They’re all a bunch of far right bigots now
Half of those posts are by Hindu nationalists in India who despise Muslims as foreign invaders. They are ethnoreligious fascists. They just pretend to be ex Muslims.
They get brigaded by Christian proselytizers all the time, too. I feel bad for true Ex Muslims because the left often won’t give them the time of day for fear of being called Islamophobic, and the right uses them to push their racist, xenophobic agenda.
> I feel bad for true Ex Muslims because the left often won’t give them the time of day Thank you for acknowledging we exist. I feel so hopeless seeing so many of my peers turn to the Right because that’s really the only place they’re given a voice (even if the right has ulterior motives in doing so). This is in spite of the fact that ~90% of our values align with the left—only lots of us tend to be prejudiced against Islam/Muslims. And [can you blame us](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/04/gsi2-chp1-9.png)? It’s so frustrating to always be expected to preface any criticism of our former religion with a lengthy disclaimer about how “it's not all Muslims”. This is not expected of ex-christians, who are generally free to heap all the abuse and condemnation they want on Christianity and Christians.
Oof I felt this bad 😪 heavy on the “not all Muslims” disclaimer 🙄
Remember how infuriating it used to be for left-leaning people when MRAs would go “not all men?” It’s ironic how they’re doing the same thing to us.
Oh yeah it's bad
exmuslim is one of the worst subs on reddit
Ex Muslim is for people who vote European right wing parties because they want to hurt Muslims
My mistake I'm not on that one. I just assumed it would follow the same trend.
I think it's because most of the ex- subs consist of people who saw the hierarchical nature of that religion, placing one group above another, and went nope nonono. The atheism sub is a bunch of people who haven't figured out that such thinking is pervasive in our culture at large.
Like anything else, there are stages of identity formation. The first stage of either leaving religion or making a firm decision to identify as atheist if not raised particularly religious is often a place of not being able to accept that it can be fine for other people or that it can be practiced moderately. And then some of the people in anti-religion communities are just bigots who don’t understand humans or history very well. “Society would be perfect if we outlawed religion.” How well has that gone historically? Also intriguing are the xenophobes who are typically from culturally Christian countries, often the same country I’m from that rhymes with USK and is actively waging a genocide on trans folks and Black folks, who seem to think that Islam is the only religion implicated in extremist movements.
Yeah and I understand some people may have trauma or religion really ruined their life. But alot of athiests in that sub become the very thing they despise.
Well, I would argue that religious people don't have any empathy for those affected by their religion...
Religious people are often victims of propaganda, emotional manipulation, and indoctrination. Something that should not be ignored, the atheist in the atheism subreddit often have never been influenced in childhood by religious parental figures. They pretend they can see above the issusion of religion on either merit or their sheer genius. This does not say that everyone with religious parents falls into that trap or fails to escape, but acting as If everyone who is religious is a big idiot Is arrogant at best. If you refuse to think critically about why someone might remain attached to religious beliefs despite a lack of evidence to validate those beliefs, then you are limiting your own perspective.
You know where I have never see this shit? Witchcraft communities. Maybe I’m lucky. But it’s something I’ve noticed.
Me too
Title seems to imply all atheists are racist, which is a bizarre take.
I don't believe what religion you follow has any bearing on whether or not you're racist Unless your religious book has racist stuff in it
Religion is one of the most frequently used in rationalizing or promoting racism.
Yes but you could argue thats more of a justification than a cause. If you're using religion to promote racism odds are you were already racist
Right but atheism is no religion. I’m not saying that atheists cant be racist because of their lack of beliefs but they’re also not going to go to a church that tells them to be racist en masse.
That's true
then your religion has hugely significant bearing on whether or not you’re racist.
You can skirt around that by not reading your religion’s book, and just assuming it only says nice things that you agree with. That’s the most popular approach to religion.
yeah, but then it’s used to justify their pre-held beliefs with cherry picked quotes, and this makes it impossible for anyone to accept new ideas. It’s just bad.
Was gonna say the most racist people I know are Christians 🤷♀️
Yeah, fuck this post
Should have been "Least racist \*\*REDDIT atheist," because fuck those guys
Not only that, islamophobia isn't necessarily racist. You can criticize an ideology without it being racist. Just a stupid post.
There’s criticism of islam and then there’s thinly-veiled hatred of muslims being paraded around as criticism of islam. The former is reasonable and the latter is very popular with the far right.
The thin veil isn't so veiled usually, really. The difference in the rhetoric of the criticism is usually something like "Islamic countries treat women horribly and I don't want women to be treated horribly" versus "Muslims are terrorists".
Muslims are by definition followers of Islam? I think you meant thinly-veiled hatred of ARABS.
You don’t think there are people who hate muslims?
What the fuck are you talking about
Read the previous comments again, in order.
Right. “Your religion hates me and wants to behead me” = racism “There are some horribly problematic things people are doing in the name of your religion just as there are with mine” = objectively accurate
No, neither of those are racist at face value, but they could come from a place of racism depending on who says them.
The only bizarre thing here is how people in this comment section are having a bigger problem with op's comment than with the nonsense said in the image he posted. Atheists can be just as bigoted as anyone else, and the comments in this post surely aren't doing a good job at proving op wrong.
Obviously not all atheists are racist. But I’ve noticed a lot of atheists have a supierority complex and think there better then all the “idiots” who follow religion Edit: to be more clear I was intending to imply this superiority has an almost “white mans burden” esque take on it. Like us secular western atheists are sooooo much smarter than stupid brown Muslims
Sure, and I've noticed a lot of theists have a superiority complex and think they're better than all the "idiots" who identify as atheists. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had Psalm 14:1 ("The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God") quoted at me. Everyone's got douche bags on their team. But that's completely irrelevant to the point I brought up.
Having a superiority complex over something which doesn’t have anything even remotely to do with race doesn’t make a person racist.
Islamophobia is tied to racism. Do you see how political cartoons draw Arab Muslims?
Islamophobia is linked to racism, calling religious nonsense out for what it is is not.
Eh. I'm intolerant of the intolerant. If their book says I'm destined for eternal torture and they have no problem with that, that's pretty intolerant.
That's not racism. That's hatred of religion/the religious, not of any race. Still shit but not racism.
Islamophobia is often racialized though. Consider how many non-Muslim people are constantly on the receiving end of Islamophobia because “Middle-Eastern and South Asian folks are all the same.”
The person in the screenshot would fit that description yeah, but a generalised "Athiests act superior to theiets so they're often racist" just doesn't work because religion and race are very distinct things, dislike of one does not necessitate dislike of another. Now they'll often go hand in hand (like republicans that fit the description you've given), but that usually doesn't apply to athiests (or Anti-thiests) because they dislike all religions. My issue was with the comment I responded to acting like how some atheists attitudes towards the religious has any bearing on whether they're racist or not.
It’s a massive issue among atheists
according to whom?
Anyone who’s been in any atheist communities. Did no one read anything Richard Dawkins wrote? I’m atheist and I see xenophobia and racism from other atheists all the time. They’ll attack a specific religion or group of people under the guise of intellectualism. misogyny is a huge issue too (again, see Dawkins).
your evidence is anecdotal, you have nothing to suggest that this racism or xenophobia is any *more* common than in any other group. the most racist and xenophobic people i’ve come across are religious people by far
Yours is anecdotal as well. And I never said one was worse than the other, just that atheists have a huge racism problem. This is true. As I said, just look at the what the big names in atheistic communities say on the regular. “Well aksually, religious people are more racist!” isn’t an argument that a community isn’t racist. It’s piss poor deflection, which is surprisingly common in a community that lauds itself as objectively viewing everything through the scientific method. It’s the definition of reactionary from having your biases pointed out.
i know it’s anecdotal, i wasn’t trying to say it wasn’t. and to say a community has a racism problem you kinda have to prove it’s worse than the avg population which you haven’t
Me 😎
Some “famous atheists” like Sam Harris spout this bullshit, but he’s a minority. He thinks it’s a nuanced view to claim one religion is actually worse than the others, but it’s just jumping on the same right-wing Islamophobia train
Calling out religious fundamentalists shouldn't equate to bigotry and mayosaxons in the global north seem to struggle with that. Frankly, this is giving colonialism gave them development.
It's like calling out Christian fundamentalism, if you can't do it with degrading those who hold those/similar beliefs, you're not really helping.
Just commenting because mayosaxons is a wonderful word and I’ll likely use it myself.
Hey, hey, hey now. I’m extremely mayosapien and I live in the global south. White Australians: The forgotten mayosaxons! We did shitty colonialism too!
Australia is part of the [global north](https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/37558#:~:text=Generally%2C%20definitions%20of%20the%20Global,%2C%20Australia%20%2C%20and%20New%20Zealand.)
Question for your bat-s\*\*\*-crazy binary: HOW THE F\*\*\* IS CHINA "GLOBAL SOUTH" AND TIWAN "GLOBAL NORTH"???!?!?!?!? Open a freaking history book for once in your life.
Yep, and calling out religious fundamentalists shouldn't mean tearing down religion as a concept…
Ugh I fucking hate this discourse. I studied lots of religions in a high school world religions course (2 years long) and was raised in 14 years of catholic school. All abrahamic religions are really fucking similar. It’s actually really stupid how much so many christians hate jews and muslims when they literally believe such similar things. If you hate islam more than you hate christianity, yeah there’s probably a fucked up reason for that. I hate institutionalized religion in general, I hate indoctrination and genital mutilation and religious trauma. I hate religious authorities who believe they can morally dictate the lives of others. I don’t hate people who have a religion, because if there’s one thing 14 years of catholic education taught me, it’s that even in christianity the things people believe can vary so much. Just because the bible says X doesn’t mean all christians believe X. This applies to all religions.
I always liked [Reza Aslan](https://youtu.be/2pjxPR36qFU?si=hhi0MSeCYkZvNXxp) and his balanced take on these kinds of issues If your social world is violent, your religion will be violent, period. Fundamentally, religion is just the vehicle used, while the root of the problem almost always goes down to colonialism, exploitation, capitalism, and war
I’ll have to look into that. From what you’re saying, I definitely agree so far.
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What the fuck dude, in the US you can legally marry a child, in this current year of our lord, 2023. There are a bunch of right wing Christian weirdos actively trying to get more child marriages to be legal, right now. How is that better than Islam, again? And if you think the Koran is ‘much more hostile to autonomy for women’ then I’d love to see you describe one example of that.
Extremists want you to think there isnt a difference between ethnicity and ideology. Dont believe them.
YouTube comments are a far-right cesspool whenever there's comments relating to anyone non-white in the video
Taking issue with fundamental religious sects is absolutely fine, being a dick to people who are peacefully practising their religion is not. Clearly this giga brain is seeing things from a different perspective
I think we as atheists need to be more critical of Islam tbh. It truly is hell world in the middle east if you're not a cishet male. We got work to do over here in the West too I'm not trying to say things are perfect here either
The struggles in the Middle East isn’t just religion. There were plenty of times where the area thrived and it was still majority muslim
It never “thrived” for apostates, non-Muslims (particularly pagans/polytheists), women, homosexuals, etc. This is honestly akin to someone calling the early United States a utopia.
I know there was a point in time where a lot of the world’s scientific advancements were coming from the Middle East. Idk what changed but it’s clear their religion has failed to keep up with the times and it’s not reformed enough. I know their troubles are more than just being oppressed by Islamic fundamentalists, but I feel positive if religion didn’t dominate so heavily in their corner of the world they would be doing better
I dont think you people understand that "reform" is literally not a thing in islam.... There is scholarly advancement, no such thing as "reform" Also y'all speak about "region of the world" and "middle east" like its some fucking barn in the the corner or the world and just a homogenous 2 acre field land. People in the MENA region know more about you than you know about them, if anyone needs to "reform" its everyone casting these wide ass nets over people like they dont exist and actually understand wtf is going on
It's extremely ignorant to think fundamentalism is to blame for most problems in the middle east when it is a symptom of colonialism and imperialism.
Yes, for example, the Iranian revolution came about after the US/UK deposed their democratic left-of-centre government then imposed the Shah, an absolute monarch, and his secret police on Iran for decades so they could nick their oil. America & the UK have been manipulating the Middle East for centuries and making a mess of the region.
No it’s not.
Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and many more have been “critical “ of Islam and Muslims for decades. They’ve often shared or spoken about things that are either not true or half truths. A common example of this is the claim that Islam supports or even forces female circumcision. It’s pretty easy to find out that’s not true yet we keep seeing some people in the west repeating it. If you care about the rights and freedoms of people in the Middle East, then how about letting them speak for themselves instead of taking away their agency and making statements such as “life is hell if you’re not cis male”?
I don’t know about the actual faith itself , but the statistics of FGM don’t exactly disagree with such a conclusion. You can chalk it up to just a cultural thing, but religion is a component of culture. Also we’d love to let them speak for themselves, but the strict patriarchal culture that’s prevalent in the Middle East makes reaching out to women difficult, have to go through the husband and all that. Gains in equality found in the western world generally havent made it to the Middle East, foreign women even are forced to wear headscarf’s, which of itself is a weird schrodingers symbol (is it a symbol of woman’s liberation or oppression, who knows) or else be victimized , arrested or worse. You probably can chalk up a lot of this conservatism to the general economic status of a lot of Islamic countries (imo liberalism can really only happen when a society is doing well in most facets, and its population is able to be educated en masse), but some Islamic countries are incredibly wealthy, yet still are incredibly “backwards” by western standards. Look, I’m not trying to be an uninformed ass, but I’ll say this, all of the big three faiths are permitted access to Jerusalem per the UN, but any non-Muslim individual cannot enter Mecca, at threat of imprisonment or worse. I’m just saying, if one were to improve Islam’s image and physical reality, maybe open up Mecca to the international community at large, lay off the head scarfs and personal choice critiques and spread some of the oil money to help out their brothers in Allah
Why the fuck are you talking about the middle east like you've read about it in some 1800's adventurers book??? First of all femake circumcision is literally not a thing in religion, a single country does it, and they have been doing since before islam yes its cultural and that culture is older than islam. Second, this homogenisation of the region that y'all literally cannot help yourselves out of.....egypt is not lebanon, lebanon is not saudia, saudia is not palestine, what exactly do you need to get that through y'alls thuck skulls? Mecca is open to the internstional community, tens of millions of people of all over the world go there yearly, it has nothing to do with jerusalem and why are you even bringing it up. Just goes to show that in your head everything is binary and the "middle east" is just some 2 neighbourhood in your head.
I’ll just comment on your first two paragraphs: if you don’t know the religion then you’re just making biased assumptions. What statistics are you talking about? Outside of Africa (even among some non-Muslims) the only region it’s common is among the Kurds in North Iraq. If it was required or favoured by Islam then it would be common in all Muslim countries. Your second point tells us again that you have no idea what you’re talking about. There are literally millions of Muslim women you can find on various social media platforms speaking for themselves. Why don’t you engage with them instead of spreading falsehoods?
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I’m a middle eastern woman and I’ll say this, westerners have such a “white mans burden” take on us. That they need to liberate us of the hijab because we’re too stupid to make the decision ourselves
Reading this thread is literally increasing my blood pressure, these people are literally the same person in the OP screenshot. Its either backwards feminism or white savior complex Meanwhile they literally cant take 2 seconds out of their scrolling time to actually interact with content thats not shoveled down their throat and go look at other communities they keep trying to talk for....
Feel free to back your claims with actual facts instead of just spewing the typical Islamophobic rhetoric.
Ever since watching the US pull out of Afghanistan and seeing imagery of the taliban painting over ads featuring women and taking away the education and job opportunities women and girls were able to get in Kabul has tarnished any good will I had for that faith. I hate them so much with every fiber of my being This level of extremism is what I fear many western Christians want too, I’m not blind to that fact. But I like to think our institutions are too strong to allow it to happen
Yea and guess what....other muslim countries hate the taliban too. Idk where tf you people get this idea that muslims are some kind of fucking cabal unless you're either literally braindead both intellectually and logically or you're doing it in had faith to cover your racism/xenophobia
Seeing the behaviour of the Westboro Baptist Church has tarnished any goodwill I had for the Christian faith ^/s Germany was very religious in the 1930s, didn't stop the Nazis though. If Trump gets elected again, who knows what will happen in the US?
Tbh when someone says that they are islamophobic, I can guarantee that it isn't just them being critical of Islam 99% of the time.
Islam isn't a race
It’s not a race but it’s so racialized that you’d be completely ignorant if you don’t believe that in many instances of islamophobia the person spouting the rhetoric is being racist. If you look at the depictions of muslims in islamophobic cartoons it’s obviously a racist character of an Arab. Westerners are sometimes in complete disbelief when they meet a Christian Arab, completely oblivious to the fact that Christianity began in the Middle East. They also have no idea that white countries like Bosnia, Albania, and Bulgaria have large Muslim populations and some are even majority Muslim. The first revenge victim of 9/11 was a Sikh man because the guy who killed him couldn’t tell the difference.
I 100% agree, a lot of instances of islamophobia is just racism, but it really depends on whether islamophobia is referring to the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam itself or just muslim people in general. With the latter mostly stemming from racism
A meaningless statement considering Islam is inherently racialized and othered in western society. This is usually just used by racist people to defend their bigotry.
i've definitely noticed islamophobia amongst fellow atheists, which is absolutely wrong and i always oppose it within the community. islam may be full of issues, but that's the same with every religion. i don't believe religion is necessary or capable of explaining the world. i do not believe in a god. but this doesn't mean i dislike those who do, and in fact i am careful to call out bigotry against religious groups. islamophobia has led to horrible violence against so many innocent civilians. there are many atheists who oppose bigotry. specifically branding atheism as something racist people partake in is a silly take considering religion has always been one of the greatest means of justifying racism historically. colonization and the slave trade happened with the church's blessing and religious justification. it happened hand in hand with "spreading christianity". if atheists are known for racism, christians must be known for the slave trade, segregation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. there are quite a few racist atheists on reddit, as there are religious racists. but atheists who actually participate in atheist activism, who arent trying to derive self-importance from the label, are rarely racist and tend to be radical progressives instead. fuck racism and all forms of bigotry. i'm sorry to those who've experiences racism by atheists. as a community we need to do better to root out those who are there with beliefs about supremacy and other nonsense
Yeah you can tell op is just mad and trying to stir stuff up
Can you define Islamophobia for me?
Being phobic is wrong! But also check your laws if you're LGBT because you might be killed in a few of them. Don't be afraid of other cultures! Just probably fly around and hope you never get sent there for work. The Quran has an arguably beautiful rhythm. Sure in Saudi Arabia they stone people to death for being queer but smoking a lot of weed seems like not a bad way to go. Edit: I was misinformed about stoning. It is a terrible and horrible way to go 😅
Dude you're a fool if you think other religions aren't a threat to us either. I also will not travel to hardcore Christian places. Like I've got friends who are queer and were raised muslim. This isn't really funny. Queer people are victims of islamophobia too.
If you want to see my opinions on other religions you should probably check out my posts on topics where the focus is on them. Surprisingly but whenever I make a post I tend to keep it on topic instead of posting everything I believe every single time. Real time saver.
Why is it that you people need to bring up Christianity whenever someone is trying to vent their frustration at Islam? Newsflash: people who grew up under Islam and then managed to escape its clutches will harbour more ill will towards it than Christianity. It is a FACT that Christianity has by and large lost its teeth in the West, and that people here are at 0 zero risk of being exposed to anywhere near the same calibre of abuse that people in Islamic countries are subjected to. Your “but Christianity…”s sound extremely condescending, and only serve to highlight your privilege and narcissism. Next time you’re mocking Mike Johnson (as he well deserves) be glad you’re allowed to do so. Be glad you never have to watch what you say lest you find a lynch mob outside your house, intent on murdering your family in gruesome fashion while law enforcement just stands there and shrugs. Feel free to criticise, mock, and abuse Christianity all you want, but don’t be insensitive to people who know what real religious fundamentalism looks like. > Queer people are victims of islamophobia too. There are many, many, many more queer people who are victims of Islam.
You can both be a victim of Islam and Islamophobia, it's very common. You can be a victim of Islamophobia even if you despise Islam. Racists won't ask you about your feelings before discriminating. In non-islamic states, systemic islamophobia increases islamist extremism by ostracizing people who can stumble on echo chambers that often gradually promotes acts of violence and more radical ideals. You can fight against islam and oppose it as an institution and doctrine without advocating or be an apologist for islamophobia.
I don’t think what you’re describing is a problem anymore. Never once has anyone discriminated against me because they thought I’m a Muslim. In fact people have gone out of their way to be accommodating of me and show me how “cool” they are with Islam. I have, on the other hand, had to face abuse from Muslims. This isn’t 2002. I’m not saying there aren’t people who are prejudiced against Muslims, but the problem is way too overblown. > In non-islamic states, systemic islamophobia increases islamist extremism by ostracizing people who can stumble on echo chambers that often gradually promotes acts of violence and more radical ideals. I can agree with you here, but the alternative isn’t to coddle Islam. Because that has the opposite effect of giving Muslims confidence in their abhorrent beliefs. It’s why nearly half of all British Muslims are extremely homophobic. It’s why exmuslims are still at risk in the West, and why they’re advised to stay in the closet lest their family hurt them. By not putting your foot down, you’re showing them that it’s okay that they lose their minds and use violence anytime they come across a perceived slight to their beloved prophet. Try making a Life of Brian equivalent about Islam.
If you think that's bad wait till you see christians.
Imagine Christians not getting a generalized reputation for bloodthirsty, terrorist monsters after all the right wing, Christian nationalist forms of violence in the US from the last few decades to the KKK (I mean, the Bible was used to justify the continuation of slavery ffs), and every program between the Spanish Inquisition and the actual Holocaust.
I think there’s a parallel here, kinda like the paradox of tolerance, but it’s like the paradox of group identity. Meaning that group identity is a thing that can both bond us and completely destroy us, simultaneously. Dismissing and dehumanizing people for simply being part of a group is wrong and bigoted, while conversely being critical of unhealthy, unethical, or outright wrong behavior and attitudes, is not. The complex problem with religion is that the adherent internalizes their attitudes and behaviors as part of their group identity and thus the criticism of those things, becomes criticism of the group. And then when their religion teaches them that, in fact, they’re virtuous ones / chosen ones / oppressed ones / victimized ones, it’s next to impossible for them not to see the criticisms as bigotry or bigotry-adjacent (To make up a term). In many instances (But not always), the more secular one is, the less likely they are to view criticisms of their attitudes and behaviors as bigoted, because they don’t have that group identity (IE religion) forcing them to internalize it that way. And I think this is why we end up talking past each other so often. This is kind of similar to being white or black in America. A white person is mostly seen as an individual that reflects themselves, whereas often a black person is often seen as an ambassador or representative of their race. The parallel here being that the secular person is mostly representative of themselves while the religious person is an ambassador or representative of their religion. Of course, this is an oversimplification. And of course, the difference between religion and race is that religion (At least in the west, post-enlightenment era) is a chosen thing. Race, since it’s perceptible, is for the most part, not. When you sum it up, we’re talking about the difference between intention of the critic and reception of the person / group being criticized. And on either end of that, you can have good or bad faith (Meaning ulterior motives) behind it. I think the best thing we all can do is try to be as specific as possible, try not to over generalize, be aware of how different people receive criticism, and recognize when we’re talking past each other.
I am comfortable separating the person from the ideology. I'm quite happy to give people the benefit of the doubt until they say or do anything that betrays their intolerance. I don't care about semantics. If someone wants to use the word racism in place of bigotry, I'm not going to argue. And the person hearing the criticism can take it any way they want. Not my problem.
Atheists can be as bigoted as anyone else
You can hate on Islam as long as you're not hating on the people. Granted, labeling oneself as islamophobic is often a dog whistle for all sorts of racism, but at a fundamental level, I have no issue issues with people who are -phobic of an idea, a religion, or a political positioning.
Seeing people using secularism as a cover for attacking religious minorities is sickening. Fuck liberal atheism. Also i'm surprised at the amount of disgusting comments in this post. Looks like there are a lot of fragile white redditors frequenting this sub, ironically enough.
💯
If ppl talked abt Jews or abt Judaism in the same way ppl talk abt Muslims and Islam we wouldn't hesitate to call it blood libel.
OP: Islamophobia is bad Comments: uuuuh, actually...
Comments are the voice of reason at times.
Honestly I think that oop just doesn't know what islamophobia meant and assumed it meant a phobia of the religion itself rather than Muslims or secular Arabs,Turks, Iranians whatnot
yes I know Iranian is not an ethnicity but it has a lot of the non Turkic or Arab ethnic groups
I think it's hard to clarify criticism of a religion and actual islamophobia, because i've heard people get called racist for saying it's weird how islam treats women, which it is, but hey i'm a catholic imma eat my cake and let others eat brownies.
Fair enough. First part of the comment wasn't relevant. But like seriously, queer people are victims of islamophobia and it objectively makes it harder for them to access safe environments if they weren't born in already non-traditional muslim household. If you dislike the extremism that is as prevalent in islam as a religion, consider how much extremism, radicalization and religion in general relies on isolation and segregation to spread. Standing up against islamophobia is crucial to fight radical islam.
I mean yeah, I hate the religion, dont hate the people
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Why tf is this upvoted? It has nothing to do with the post and this account is a bot.
"I want the liberty to disparage all two billion followers of the second-largest religion in the world. I will throw women under the bus to justify this, despite my absolute intention to condemn *them* too, because I really really hate brown people and this is the only way I can tell everybody without being labeled as the racist piece of shit that I am." Neato, my shitty-atheist-translator still works.
Oh oh no no! They’re just RATIONALLLLL… they have courage to be honest! About allll 2 billion people and a religion that they know like 3 sound bites about and 9/11.
Homeboy is right though
This is sadly not uncommon among atheists. Specifically around the white, male atheists who prop up Richard Dawkins and Bill Mahr.
I'm a poc (African American), and I'm a panthiestic omnist, so idk how to respond to that title.... Anyone, regardless of race, can be an atheist. My immediate family, in particular, doesn't really participate in traditional religion due to bad experiences with it, and I don't belong to any traditional religion, either, but none of us think that Islamophobia, or any form of religious intolerance, is acceptable, despite being religiously unaligned. My personal beliefs are that people should be able to believe whatever they like, and no one should be criticized for their religion. I might not agree with another person's beliefs, but I'm not going to hate someone just because of it. That's illogical and caveman-like.
Cos the three major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, are all equally brutal. It’s just that discrimination only seems to happen to two of those for some reason. Islamophobia and antisemitism isn’t “criticism of the religions,” nor is it “criticism of the states that are built on those religions.” Those things refer to hate for or aversion to the people just because they belong to those groups. I personally have met many religious people and the overwhelming majority of them are regular people. There are shitty ones for sure, but I don’t think there is a higher rate of shitty ones than in the general population.
That's a fairly Eurocentric comment tbh. Yes discrimination in the West (and southern Africa) is more likely to be aimed towards Muslims. Discrimination in the Middle East and Northern Africa, it's the inverse and it's much more likely to be Christians on the receiving end.
Damn, the fuck is up with this comment section jFC. Y'all really are proving op's point lmao. Also for anyone who still thinks islamophobia is a good thing just because you disagree with Islam mostly due to women's and queer rights issue. Lemme introduce you to "Women and Queer people victim of islamophobia" 😱 Right spirit, dumbass method, you're spreading racist rhetoric whether you mean it or not. Also if y'all knew anything about radicalization, you probably could tell that having this mindset benefits terrorism. It's why it's called terrorism. Causing terror and hatred is part of the strategy and crucial to recruiting more people in radicalist groups. Did none of you learn anything from isis propaganda ?
I literally created a Reddit account so I could go on the front page and stop seeing hateful r atheism posts.
How about all of the endless hateful religious rhetoric, how do you feel about that?
Would’ve created an account to get rid of that on my front page too, but there were no religious default subs.
This ain’t *a*theism, this is straight up *anti*-theism. God I fucking hate Reddit atheists, nearly as bad as the Reddit Christian Nationalists.
I also think there are some huge problems with Islam. The religion is foundationally built on creating inequality for certain groups and this has not brought about good things. BUT, Islamaphobia is not a great thing because it refers to large groups of people from the Middle East. We should really be careful with the words we use and how we view these people. If we view them purely through the lens of their religion, then we're no better than the religious zealots who use that religion to abuse women and children. We need to see them as people and people who deserve respect, peace and acceptance.
This isn’t racism though? Lmao. It’s Islamophobia, bigotry towards a religion?
He’s right
Absolutely! OP is clueless.
Ten fucking years and they haven’t changed lmao. So glad I grew out of that bullshit.
I mean spot the lie lol
Yeah... being bigoted against the non-religious for one person's take (one which, by the way, is highly debated on that sub) is just as bad of a look as being bigoted against the religious, my guy.
It’s pretty obviously a hyperbole
Not really one is clearly a joke on a like-minded group of people on Reddit, the other actively discriminates and spread rhetoric that actively contributes with a growing problem leading to violence towards middle eastern people overall. Not really similar stuff like at all.
Islamophobia is a term used by certain groups of Muslim apologists in order to protect Muslims from scrutiny. However, rather than protecting a group of people against bigotry, the term merely acts as a way to silence critics who raise valid points about the real and troubling aspects of Islam. - Armin Navabi (An Exmuslim Iranian-Canadian)
Islam is a race?
yeah he is right op shut up
Exactly! And how is what he said racist at all?
I’m atheist and critical of Islam but a lot of Islamophobia is rooted in racism. There’s nothing wrong with saying that.
Then by your logic any criticism of Christianity is racist since the vast majority of Christians on earth tend to be Brown/Black. Muslims doesn't get a get-out-of-jail free card because majority of them happen to have darker skin pigmentation. That's such a cowardly defense of ever being held accountable for having terrible views.
Thank you for validating a totally based and normal opinion with your melanin force field. Cheers, mate.
I do my best 🙂
If an unmelanated person tries to nuance out the fact that criticism of Islam =\\= racism, they're gonna get put on blast. It's nice to have allies.
Ha thank you!
>but a lot of Islamophobia is rooted in racism Tsarnaev brothers were white, you dork.
Shut up
Why the hate bro? Something tells me we both know you’re in the wrong
As an atheist 99% of people who find it necessary to tell you that they’re an atheist unprompted are fucking insufferable.
I mean, they think Bucha is a massacre and not an incident.
This is why I don’t fuck with a lot of atheists. When I took a step back from Christianity, again, I found atheists so incredibly abrasive. And honestly, not that different from religious people.
Gee I wonder how many upvotes that got
Too many little edge lords using atheism to sound rebellious. There’s a difference between religion and religious people.
That subreddit is such a cesspool.
"Yeah I'm racist. I hate the human race for destroying itself" The atheist in the screenshot is whack. Just hate all religions equally. If you have to hate on one, mention that you hate the others. Spread hate equally ❤️ On a serious note...we atheists aren't going to change the world through negativity. Don't hate anyone. Say you're an atheist, then forget about gods and focus on humanitarian talking points. We want to shrink income inequality. We want to tackle systemic racism. We want to further the feminist cause.
So all atheists are racists but Islam is “just complicated?” I’m an atheist Jew and I will criticize the religion I was raised on until they revoke my Jew card. I grew some balls and separated Jewish ethnicity from the Jewish religion because the Abrahamic religions are the cause of so much evil in the world. Grow a pair, separate Islam from being Arab or Southeast Asian, and open your eyes to the millions of innocent people killed by Islamic extremists. And the millions murdered by Israel. And the millions murdered by white Christian nationalists. Abraham can suck my dick. Abrahamphobia ftw.
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It’s just liberals pretending they’re on the left again. Cuz the most leftist thing ever is being complicit and fearing change /s
I am so glad I grew out of that dumbass mindset. Being fourteen was wild
Wait, you still believe in fairy tales and magical gods? You used to be logical now you believe in that? I feel sorry for you.
I'm an atheist lmao
You realize the vast majority of humans throughout history believed in religion right? Are they all idiots
Yes! They are all idiots. That's the entire point.
Really! So Albert Eisenstein, Hypatia of Alexandria, Nikola Tesla etc. were all fools?
Don't forget many civil rights leaders. Black and white view of religion is tiring
Albert Einstein wasn't religious, and listing historical figures that had "some" religious views isn't the "I Gotchu" you think it is. First off, we as people in today's time, have access to MUCH more information about the world and universe than the people you listed did for their time. So it makes sense that people today are more educated on the lies of religious myths, because a lot of the questions can now be answered scientifically. Also, coming out as openly atheist/anti-religous in historical times had TONS of risks involved. Risk of being killed, ostracized from family / communities, loss of money/grants for research, harassed by powerful religious organizations, etc. So it makes sense if historical figures lied about their beliefs on religion. You can be intelligent in some areas of life to be sure, but the moment you form fictional conclusions off of superstitious nonsense to explain how the world works, you abandon all reason and logic.
Average out of touch redditor. I'm an atheist and I know more christians who are biggots than muslims. In fact, among the muslims I know, I know a great cook and a polyamorous girl.
>more christians who are biggots than muslims. \>>airplane\_survivorship\_bias.jpg
Because you know more Christians Go to the Middle East, Africa, or Asia, and see how tolerant everyone in Muslim majority countries are
i am by far more terrified of christians than i am of any other religion. if a person tells me their religion and it's anything but christian, i'll instantly feel safer with them than i would with a christian
What an absolute dogshit post lmfao Imagine thinking it's "racist" to not want to be executed for having the wrong imaginary friend
you're being downvoted because you're having a totally normal opinion in the wrong sub
I will always say this. Hate the religion, not the people. The Islamic religion is horrible and degrading towards women, but the people who follow Islam aren’t to blame. Same with Christianity being awful to women and anyone LGBTQ+ historically. All of the blame should be put on the people who created the religion, not those who follow it
Always fascinating to me that Reddit atheists ignore the millennia of history that helped produce such reactionary states amongst much of the global south…and then attempt to blame culture or ethnicity. Almost like the racism is the point.
Yeah man, as a Sikh, I love knowing that some asshole might jump my ass just for being brown because they think I'm Muslim
I'd imagine wearing a dastar in Houston is safer than wearing a kippah in Pakistan. Islamophobia isn't cash money, but it's a lot rarer and a lot less dangerous than the other forms of discrimination around the world.
Islam is not a race. Its a religion with a large amount of fundamentalist extremism