Suddenly I remembered that one of the foremost, courageous advocates of tolerance and engagement with moderate Muslims, and openness to Syrian refugees, is Angela Merkel - the new Leader of the Free World, as some (including me) see it.

The fact that she is on the Right of German politics is a good demonstration that this is not a left-right issue. It is simply about compassion and open-mindedness. There are compassionate, open-minded people on both 'sides' of politics.

Although the OP isn't about the relationship between 'the Left' and Islam, that alleged relationship has featured strongly in the discussion, and articles with titles like 'The Left has an Islam problem' have been frequently cited. Really those articles should be entitled 'the Compassionate and Open-minded have an Islam problem', in order to capture Angela Merkel and people like her on the 'Right' within the scope of their disdain.

A finer example of Poe's law I never did see.

See my comment about careful reading. You've produced three quotes, each of which use the word 'individual', and you have projected onto that that I must be saying that 'only individuals are real' even though none of the quotes contain those words, or anything to that effect. Please take the time to read what is written carefully, and respond to what is actually said, not what your presuppositions lead you to expect to be said.

Surely you can tell the difference between a statement that what matters to our prospects of a peaceful society is the beliefs of individuals about things like tolerance rather than the labels we put on them, and a statement that only individuals are real. Can't you?

With my current worldview I would not say anything like 'only the individual is real' because I am a communitarian politically and incline towards the Vedantic spiritually.

You're advocating liberal individualism — Wayfarer

Again, absolutely not. I see an overemphasis on individualism as one of the cancers of Western society. Nothing in what I said argues in favour of individualism in the libertarian sense. What I am against is stereotyping. Do you understand the difference between being libertarian and being anti-stereotyping?

Fair enough. It looks like you and I are using different meanings of 'religion' - one personal and the other communal. Since countless threads on here and elsewhere have debated that meaning without reaching a consensus, I guess there's no point in trying to bridge that gap right now.

You read a book that convinced you of something that you already wanted to believe. How does that amount to an argument that is relevant to anybody else?

It would be good if you can point to where I said 'only the individual is real'. I'll be very surprised if I said it. I suspect this is just another case of careless reading leading to imputing beliefs to others that they do not hold..

If you say that religion can be a "wonderful" thing on a personal level, you must also admit that institutionalized religion can (and has been) also a "wonderful" thing. — Heister Eggcart

Why?

Without Christianity's institutionalization in Western society, Western civilization would never have gotten off of its feet. — Heister Eggcart

This claim is often made by Christian apologists, but never credibly substantiated. The arguments made for it are usually circular - eg all the scientists were Christians, or literacy was centred in the Church - therefore without Christianity there would have been no scientists and little literacy.

It also doesn't gel with the observation that Chinese civilisation was more advanced than in the West until at least the late medieval period.

I fully agree with Benkei's observation that religion can be a wonderful thing at a personal level, but terrible things happen when it becomes institutionalised.

I'd go further and say that it is desirable for there to be some way for people to form spiritual communities to share their experiences and help one another. But I've yet to figure out how that can be done without power structures arising and the inevitable corruption that comes with that.

Sometimes I think the Quakers might have it figured out, but I'm not even sure about that. No doubt somebody will be able to come up with an anecdote of terrible abuse of power within Quakerism.

They cannot truthfully say that unless they agree with it. It seems they don't agree with it. So is your complaint simply that the current government does not share your opinion on Islam?

If so then we're in the same boat. There are many topics on which the current government does not share my opinion - much more important topics than terrorism or the possibility of a worldwide Caliphate. Climate change, road carnage and poverty pop to mind.

I would say that what democratic governments ought to do, is acknowledge and address public unease — Wayfarer

That's a very vague request.

How would you like them to address it? Governments in all countries historically have been very poor at easing people's unfounded fears. That's why we have law-and-order auctions so frequently in election campaigns, despite falling rates of crime.

Do you have any suggestions as to how a Government might be able to assuage these fears?.

So if you want to know what public policy I see coming out of this, I think it's called 'vast confusion', — Wayfarer

That's not what I want to know.

I thought I had been perfectly clear, but apparently not.

What I want to know is what public policy you, and others that advance the argument that 'Islam is fundamentally more violent' would like to see coming out of this. What are your public policy recommendations?

In the absence of such recommendations, all the discussion about whether any religion is 'fundamentally more violent' than another is just hot air.

It would be silly to call Hirsi Ali's statements 'hate speech', and I regret that some people do that. It makes it difficult to have a constructive discussion.

But it is also silly of Ali to say, as per your quote:

'the liberal, democratic west, especially its political leaders but also western Muslims, have made a dangerous mistake in insisting, for well-intentioned reasons, that the rise of Islamist terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.'

To say it has nothing to do with Islam is like saying the Westboro Baptist Church, or a Christian abortion-clinic bomber, has nothing to do with Christianity. Of course they have something to do with their respective religions.

But whether roots for anti-social behavior can be found in a religion is irrelevant. Roots for anti-social behavior can be found everywhere, even in the most benign forms of philanthropy. You'd understand that better than most, given your familiarity with Nagarjuna and the notion of Dependent Origination (Nothing happens in isolation from anything else!). The relevant question is (1) does somebody belonging to that religion of itself make it likely that they will be violent or abusive and (2) if so, what do we want to do about it?

Neither Ali nor anybody else has provided any evidence of 1, nor have I seen them make many practical suggestions about 2. The only practical suggestion I've seen from Ali is that Western governments ought to promote Christianity as a defence against Islam. Personally I think that's a terrible idea, but if anybody here seriously wants to back it, we could try to discuss it dispassionately.

To credibly argue the path taken by the West is a mistake, she needs to outline what alternative action she would take. Has she done that, other than the Christian thing? If so, what prescriptions has she made that you like? Suggesting we 'talk about how Islam is the problem' is not a prescription. Talk is cheap, and is not a public policy stance.

As for Canada, all I can find is the private members' motion M-103, which was passed this month - see here for a report on it by The Independent. It is a non-binding motion expressing disapproval of racism and religious discrimination, with symbolic importance, but no legal consequences. More detail here.

I am inordinately fond of Canadians - even so far as to enjoy their much derided drama series Between - and am very pleased to see continuing evidence of their good sense and high degree of civilisation.

Re whether criticising Islam in the UK is 'a crime': From the UK 'Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006':

29J Protection of freedom of expression

Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.

But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good witch-hunt.

But, notice, that you've given a reductionist account of revelation, i.e. one might have 'spiritual experiences' but these are 'conditioned by genes and environment' — Wayfarer

No. You are reading it wrong. I did not say that spiritual experiences are conditioned by genes and environment. I said that a person's beliefs are conditioned by their genes and environment. The parenthesis clarifies that 'environment' encompasses everything that happens to a person, including any spiritual experience, revelation or other such thing. It is not necessary for us to guess whether the experience is a hallucination or a genuine interaction with a deity. Whichever it is, the experience is still part of somebody's historical environment.

You are much to quick to pull your 'reductionist' gun from its holster.

As I've acknowledged, the implication of my view is that I think there ought to be more examination of the implicit notion that Islam can be an 'equal partner' in a liberal-secular framework, and a consideration of the hidden premises in the arguments from both sides. — Wayfarer

Who holds that notion? Not me. I have repeatedly said that the idea of 'Islam' as an entity or agent with which one can converse and do deals, is a chimera.

It is individuals, not labels, that can be, and are needed as, partners in our liberal, social-democratic society. Forget the label and focus on the individuals and their beliefs. Then you don't need any pre-suppositions or implicit notions, be they liberal, conservative or something else.

but not, it would seem, by any actual revelation — Wayfarer

Revelation was covered in my very next six words. Why did you leave them out of your quote? Here they are again:

'including, in some cases, spiritual experiences'

Can we cut to the chase now and hear what restrictions you would like to see placed on people that self-describe as Muslims? Unless you have a concrete proposal, it all starts to look like just an attempt to feel superior to 'the Left' (which is as much of an over-simplified cardboard cut-out label as is 'Muslim').

secular liberal Westerners, who take a more benign view of Islam mostly because they assume that all religious ideas are arbitrary, that it doesn’t matter what Muhammad said or did because tomorrow’s Muslims can just reinterpret the Prophet’s life story and read the appropriate liberal values in. [That's the kind of view you're advocating] — Wayfarer

No I'm not. One's religious ideas are deeply conditioned by one's psychology, which is in turn conditioned by genes and environment (including, in some cases, spiritual experiences). One has very little choice in the matter, so I certainly would not say they are arbitrary.

I wouldn't bother continuing to quote that article. It's a gross over-simplification of a complex situation and, furthermore, contains no realistic policy proposals.

Of course it matters what the Quran says, just as it matters what the Bible says - because some people take them literally. But it does not follow from that that it is reasonable or fair to assume that all people who self-describe as Muslim (Christian) agree with and actively promote the implementation of the literal English translation of every line in the Quran (Bible).

As I've said so many times before, what matters is what people actually believe, not what beliefs we project on them based on a label. This has nothing to do with secularism. It is simply recognising that each person is an individual and deserves to be treated as such. Racial and religious profiling is unfortunately a necessary evil in detective work - because detection is crucially dependent on profiling and uses whatever profile information it can get. I would be very sad to see it starting to play in public policy. The last time we had that was the White Australia policy.

We've agreed - I think - that it would be a good idea to have psychological testing for aspiring immigrants to ensure they are supportive of our liberal, democratic society. Such testing can be applied to all prospective immigrants regardless of ethnicity or superficial religious label.

If you want to impose some additional restrictions, based on religious profiling, then tell us what that would be, and we can discuss it.

What do you think, if you asked a Muslim, if there were 'such a thing as authentic Islam', that he or she would say? I bet they would not even comprehend the question. The response would be: of course there is, 'authentic Islam' is the word of the Prophet. — Wayfarer

You are using a story that an imaginary Muslim might make a certain claim, as proof of the truth of the claim. If we ask the same Muslim 'Is there life after death?' they might say 'yes'. Is that then proof that there is life after death? We then ask Richard Dawkins, and he says No, so we now have proof that there is no life after death. So we now have two conflicting proofs. Of course, neither is a proof.

In short, you are confusing an observation of someone that self-describes as belonging to group G saying they believe there is an essence of group G, with evidence that there is an essence of group G. Remember the True Scotsman. He was convinced there was an essence of being a Scotsman, and he was a Scotsman. Does that make him right?

I'd hazard a guess that most adherents of most religions believe there is an essence of their religion. The trouble is that their views as to what this essence is vary from one to another, which means many of them must be wrong - and Occam's Razor suggests they are all wrong. [For those that don't read carefully - not you Wayfarer - let me spell this out. I did not say their religious beliefs are wrong. I said their belief that there is an essence of their religion is wrong.]

and I think you believe that to be tantamount to 'scientific fact'. — Wayfarer

Surely you know me well enough by now to know I'm not a reductionist. I don't believe in scientific facts. Science is just a tool for helping us construct useful narratives. A lovely, lovely tool. But still just a tool.

I really don't believe Western liberalism and any kind of truly authentic Islam are going to find it easy to co-exist. — Wayfarer

I think much of the public controversy about this topic arises from that word 'authentic'. It is typically assumed, without examination, that there is such a thing as 'authentic Islam'. There is no apparent reason to believe there is any such thing, just as there is no such thing as authentic Christianity or authentic Buddhism. Adherents of a particular sect, who have dogmatic tendencies, will insist that their sect's version of the relevant religion is the only authentic one, but very few people outside the sect believe them.

Religions are at best family resemblances - a la Wittgenstein. To speak about authentic Islam makes as much sense as saying that a particular activity is an authentic 'game'. If one wishes to insist that there is an authentic version of any particular religion, one must be an Aristotelian Essentialist.

Now there's something we can agree on X-) Let's not judge people by their superficial religious label at all, but rather by what they actually believe about what makes a good society. That way we can bar gun-toting, hyper-capitalist Republicans from coming to live here, because they are dangerous extremists, while allowing in those people who don't see guns as part of a civil society and who just want to live their lives in peace - even if they are Muslims [shock-horror face-icon-thingy].

It's not a no, but to satisfy your nosiness, the answer does happen to be no - although that has no bearing whatsoever on what we are discussing. Now can you answer my questions?

Are you a Jew or a female? — Thorongil

Is there any philosophical content to that question, or are you just being nosy?

Have you spent significant time in any of those countries yourself?

I'm afraid that doesn't give me any greater clarity about what you mean by 'accommodate', or what the question is that you want discussed.

At least Hanson has concrete proposals: like Trump, she wants to bar immigration from people who self-describe as Muslims, and maybe also from some Middle-Eastern majority Muslim countries. I oppose those proposals, but at least they are clear and concrete and can be discussed.

What is it that you want to discuss? What is your policy proposition? For instance, do you want all potential immigrants to be interviewed comprehensively to determine whether they support a peaceful, secular, democratic society, and rejected if suitably impartial and qualified assessors form the view that they do not? If so, I'm all for it.

Your question is still not comprehensible. What do you mean by accommodate? It sounds to me like you're asking what rights we should withdraw from people that we choose to categorise against that ideology. You say it's not about withdrawing rights. OK, well then what then do you mean by 'accommodate'? What does it mean to 'reduce our accommodation of an ideology', in concrete, practical terms that involve real people?

I don't think we can even have context-based certainty like a short mathematical proof, and even the Cartesian certainty of existence.

Because our knowledge of the truth of those propositions is based on our remembering having mentally worked through the proof, and on correctly remembering the meaning of the words used. How can we be certain that our memory of working through the proof is valid, and how can we be sure we didn't miss a subtle flaw?

So I find it simpler to just approach knowledge on the basis of 'degrees of confidence'. There is nothing at all of which I can be completely confident. But I can be confident of some things more than others, and for some - like maths proofs and the occurrence of thought - I am very confident indeed.

Why can't such a question even be raised without the implication that it's discriminatory? — Wayfarer

I am not asking you not to raise it. I am asking you to make it comprehensible. Which rights are you proposing to remove, and from whom?

So I think it's a fair question to ask, should rights granted to religious groups be done on the basis of mutual recognition? In other words, why would a pluralist culture recognise the rights of a theocratic totalarianism, like Wahabism, part of the aim of which is the abolition of secular culture. — Wayfarer

The question is not so much unfair as just incoherent. Exactly which rights are you suggesting should be taken away from these 'groups'? And given the fuzzy boundaries of Islam, like any other religion, how are you going to determine to whom this stripping of rights should be applied?

I would be interested to see some examples [of violent intolerant quotes] — Wayfarer

We could start with the one saying that homosexuals should be killed. Next up might be the admonition for parents to kill their children if disobedient.

The 'Christian West' does recognise the separation of Church and State — Wayfarer

No, it doesn't, because the Christian West is not an agent. Perhaps you mean that certain legal systems in some Western countries encode that separation in their constitutions. That's an entirely different thing and is to do with politics and law, not religion.

Further, such separation is not nearly as widely encoded as one might think. It is encoded in the US, but not in Australia or the UK, both of which facilitate Christian indoctrination in public schools.

Islam can't in principle recognise the separation of religion and state — Wayfarer

Forget the 'in principle' bit. Islam can't recognise things because only agents can recognise things and Islam is not an agent but a loose term for a bunch of beliefs that, like any other bunch of beliefs, has fuzzy boundaries.

So sure, Islam cannot recognise separation of church and state, in the same way that Christianity, Buddhism, communism, liberalism, conservatism, nominalism and asceticism cannot recognise it.

To escape this, the Islamophobe might try to say 'Oh I don't mean Islam the bunch of beliefs. I meant people who adhere to those beliefs'. Then one runs directly into the brick wall of reality: how does one explain the very many Muslims that do wish for the separation of church and state - especially those that live in countries where the state persecutes them for their minority religious status - like India or the USA.

For every violent, intolerant quote one can cherry-pick from the Quran, one can find a violent, intolerant quote from the Bible (yes, including the New Testament), or from Marx or Lenin, and then observe how few current adherents of the relevant religion - be it Islam, Christianity or Communism, actually believe in that quote.

In which case, the question ought to be asked, ought a liberal and pluralistic democratic order accept a political philosophy which is opposed to liberal democracy as a matter of principle? — Wayfarer

The question is easy to answer. The answer is No. The difficult bit is the sneaky pre-supposition that Islam is such a philosophy in a way that is not equally applicable to other religions as indicated above. The onus is on the Islamophobe to justify their presupposition.

To be fair to Pauline Hanson, she doesn't just hate Islam. Her hatred is very inclusive, extending to all non-Caucasians. Indeed, she got her start by spreading hate against East Asians. She's only moved on to Islam because she found that she could no longer get much political mileage out of whipping up hate against East Asians.

Scapegoating will always pick the easiest target. Sometimes its Jews, sometimes homosexuals, sometimes unmarried mothers, sometimes East Asians, sometimes Aborigines, and the current fad is Muslims.

From what I do know though, alcohol is not uniformly abstained from in the Islamic world. — VagabondSpectre

That's correct. That's why I chose my words carefully in my post, and did not say something like 'Muslims don't drink', which would have been incorrect. the actual claim was that Muslims have 'a far lower rate of alcohol consumption', which is entirely consistent with the fact that some Muslims do drink.

What is important is that there are, on average, far lower levels of drinking in Muslim countries, and hence lower levels of violence. I felt much safer walking back streets in Pakistan, Iran and Turkey than I would in many neighbourhoods of the urban USA.

The question 'Is X system of belief more violent?' can only be made sense of if interpreted as something like 'Do people that would self-describe as holding X system of belief commit more violent acts on average than those who would not so self-describe'.

With that interpretation, I suspect that the answer is almost certainly No.

One reason is that the majority of the violence in the world appears to be alcohol-fuelled, and Muslims have a far lower rate of alcohol consumption than non-Muslims. There are other reasons too, but this one is enough.

if we must 'fight back' against sources of violence, the first port of call should be the promotion and glorification of alcohol consumption. But there's no way that will happen, because the vested interests that profit from that are way too rich and powerful. It's so much easier to pick on those that are not.

I'm afraid I don't follow this. Surely you're not suggesting that before Foucault all political discourse was purely rational - all logic and no rhetoric, are you? What about Gorgias?

I quite liked Common Sense. The pamphlet by Thomas Paine, that is, not the everyday notion. I am very much opposed to the everyday notion of common sense.

Do you really endorse that? OK, let me read this chapter and I'll comment later. — Pierre-Normand

Good for you! I for one will look forward to reading your comments. This thread could yet turn into something worthwhile and educational - for me at least.

[Insert 'I'm not being sarcastic' icon here, because the internet always makes it look like one is being sarcastic whenever one expresses enthusiasm]

Under such premises it is futile to argue against anyone's detailed ideas. — jkop

Not if one is arguing for the benefit of the audience - and ultimately of the voters. As I said, the yardstick there is what convinces the voters, not what one's opponent accepts. It is futile only if I fail to convince the voters. I very much doubt the average voter uses a Foucaultian paradigm to decide what cause to support.

The fact that I personally am useless at convincing anybody of anything speaks volumes about my lack of charisma and my incompetence at rhetoric, but not about the futility of someone less rhetorically-challenged publicly opposing a political view espoused by Foucault (not that I am currently aware of any political view of Foucault's that I particularly want to oppose).

What I wonder is why somebody with an interest in philosophy would want to debate a 'post-modernist'. Isn't one of the main joys of philosophy the diversity of perspectives available to us? Personally I find more emotional power and beauty in some works of Beethoven than I find in any of Mozart, even though I love Mozart too. But I can't imagine anything more pointless than having an argument with a Mozart fan about whether the Requiem is better than the 5th symphony.

Perhaps the anti-PM enthusiasts feel that's a bad analogy because they feel PM has no worth whatsoever. Well, I am unable to find anything in John Cage's 4'33", yet I am undismayed that some people do, and don't think that I am 'right' and they are 'wrong'.

I very much like some ideas some post-modernists have put forward, and there are others that I strongly dislike. If one that I dislike has actual social implications, I will argue against it on a political level. But that's arguing against the idea, not against a nebulous 'ism'. Further, the argument is aimed at persuading not the interlocutor, but the audience of the debate. Hence I am not constrained to use techniques that the interlocutor accepts as valid. All that matters is that the audience sees them as valid.

My observation - based on no formal statistical analysis whatsoever - is that in most cases where this phrase is used it relates to a value judgement, which even the most ardent of anti-post-modernists might agree does not necessarily have anything to with truth. BC's example of capitalism vs communism exemplifies this: what one considers to be a 'good' economic system depends on one's values, especially in relation to (but not limited to) the relative importance of freedom and equality.

Also, the implicit assumption that the available options are restricted to the line segment connecting the two points is rarely valid. In cases where there is arguably a truth against which two competing points of view may be judged, and it is not simply equal to one or the other of them, it usually lies off the line segment that connects them. Life is not one-dimensional!

I don't see any inconsistency between the grammatical and the non-grammatical senses of 'subject' and 'object'. The sentence 'The ball is red' does not imply that the ball is observed (for instance it could have been painted red while in a totally dark room), so it does not imply that the ball is an 'object' in that non-grammatical sense. A sentence in which the ball is observed is 'I looked at the ball'. In that sentence 'I' is the grammatical subject and 'ball' is the grammatical object, which is consistent with the other meaning of 'object' as something that is observed.

If the defence is that the Problem of Evil accusation is too anthropomorphic, CS Lewis is not a suitable lawyer for the defence, as he, being a very traditional, orthodox Christian, is deeply mired in the anthropomorphic concept of God - the 'God made man in his own image' idea that is encouraged by the Bible.

A better choice would be a Christian mystic - say somebody like Simone Weil.

I also think that Lewis is wrong to say that God is in the dock. What is in the dock is the anthropomorphic concept of God promoted by doctrinaire apologists like Lewis. If that concept were to be convicted and sent into exile (which, alas will not happen), everybody would be a winner, including Christians, who could then flourish with a more authentic religious form of devotion.

You may be pleased to know that at least one academic philosopher sees this as a serious argument:

Stephen Law's 'Evil God' challenge