Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Islam Needs More Competition


Cultural critic - and atheist - Ayaan Hirsi Ali explores modern concepts of deities, ranging from the forgiving god of moderate Christianity to the imposing god of traditional Islam. She suggests progressive Christians should proselytize to Muslims, claiming that most Muslims are not presented with enough religious options.
Complete video

11 comments:

  1. Progressive Christianity as a steppign stone to becoming secular?  Hmmmm... I don't know how to feel about that one.

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  2. Not enugh atheistic options I'd say.

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  3. I love Ayaan, however the only strategy I can see in her desire for more Muslim's to be exposed to Christianity is to undermine Islam.  

    Maybe she thinks Christian's are more easily converted away from faith and that Muslim's need to move to a "Christian" faith first.

    The fact that all of Islam preaches death to anyone that leaves the faith, it's hard to understand why she thinks people would give up Islam for Christianity.  It would probably be more likely that a Muslim would leave their 'faith' belief completely (for atheism) over just going to another faith.  Going to another faith is still believing and with the terrible brain washing that Islam does, unless you stop believing in their sky fairy, I'm not sure how anyone would leave Islam for fear of their death preaching.

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  4. Which christian group do we promote as alternative? The Phelps group? Catholics for Childhood Development? those promoting middle-east conflict to speed up the coming of Jeebus? Gay and Science haters?
    They all think they're "progressive," and "right".
    If we're going to promote religion as a lesser evil, perhaps Jainism. I'd go for a world of Jain fanatics.

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  5. The important point is to break the monopoly in so many places.

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  6. man_kills_everythingJune 10, 2010 at 8:30 AM

    I think some people commenting here are missing the point.  She's not talking about promoting any specific Christian denomination, she's just saying it would be better if Muslims were more exposed to other thoughts and ideas.  How can you disagree with that?

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  7. Oh I got ya.  Kind of how Dawkins first questioned his faith when he realized that other people believed in other things.  I actually (now that I think about it) first questioned my faith in first grade because I wondered why other other faiths exist, and if I only believed what I believed because it's what my parents taught me.  I totally get what she meas now.  Nothing allows you to see the bullshit in your own position like another perspective.

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  8. Saying she's only asking for Christians to "expose" Muslims to other thoughts and ideas is a little disingenuous. She specifically says she wants them to proselytize. To try and bring them over to their side.
    Besides, I don't think there's a single Muslim who isn't aware of alternative religions to his own.
    The problem is most aren't taught about the religions people around the world have faith in, but what religion to have faith in.

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  9. lasers for eyes jacksonJune 10, 2010 at 10:46 AM

    <span>I see her point. There isn't a logical application of her strategy though. The whole "encouraging" thing never works, and the idea of supporting christian groups by money and time seems counterproductive to our own ideals. You could just say "Christians are more tolerant," and that's about as far as the conversation should go for us.</span>

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  10. God, she's just so adorable...

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  11. I think her time at the American Enterprise Institute is starting to affect her objectivity, sadly.  She's now starting to become the spokesperson for their agenda (Christianize the world) rather than her own.

    I also reject the idea that it's easier for a Muslim to become a Christian than for a Muslim to become an atheist.  If you're a muslim, becoming an apostate is such a large break from everything you've been taught that you may as well break off altogether and go all the way to atheism at that point.  At that point it's all bathwater, no baby.  And even if you *did* think that conversion to another religion is the way to go instead of rejecting religion altogether, wouldn't Bahai's be a better choice than Christianity because then at least it's an allegedly more tolerant religion that grew out from Islam rather than an allegedly more tolerant religion that was its ancestor?

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