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r/atheism•
eton

#notallmen vs #notallmuslims

Involves atheism so I figured I'd post here.

So I think it is interesting how many progressives mockingly use the hashtag #notallmen to support feminism, but are now using the same argument in the context of defending Islam, 'not all Muslims are ...'

I just think they are trying to have it both ways. I guess they can, it is just hypocritical and biased, ie it is okay to use if it supports our argument.

EDIT: so I've been told that I'm not a good thinker. Fair enough, I appreciate the input, and I realize I could be wrong. Also, here is a link about the #notallmen I was referring to. http://time.com/79357/not-all-men-a-brief-history-of-every-dudes-favorite-argument/

To clarify, I'm saying that it is contradicting to use mock your opponent's argument against generalizations, and then to criticize others for making generalizations.

Posted Oct 13, 2014, 8:06 PM UTC · edited

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Pagrashtak•

why can't Christians and Muslims be tall?

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SpHornetAtheist•

how many progressives mockingly use the hashtag #notallmen to support feminism

is it really that many? I'm not so sure about that

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etonOP•

Maybe I'm wrong, but it was trending on Twitter awhile back.

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etonOP•

http://time.com/79357/not-all-men-a-brief-history-of-every-dudes-favorite-argument/

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JimDixon•

OK, how does it involve atheism?

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etonOP•

In the sense of atheists are being criticized for being critical of Islam.

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slayausAnti-Theist•

progressives mockingly use the hashtag #notallmen to support feminism

Mockingly? Left wing hippies don't tend to use terms like this mockingly, they're normally completely in favour of them.

but are now using the same argument in the context of defending Islam, 'not all Muslims are ...'

And? Not all muslims are anything other than muslim, so what's your point?

I just think they are trying to have it both ways.

Well, I'd suggest you think a bit harder.

I guess they can, it is just hypocritical and biased, ie it is okay to use if it supports our argument.

So, it's hypocritical and biased, but it's okay if it supports their argument? What in the fuck!?

Some people will not tolerate any criticism of islam, and that is something that infuriates me - no concept or belief should ever be immune to critical discussion. However, at least in Australia, the latest wave of anti-islam gets ridden by a bunch of knuckle draggers who really mean non-white people. It might not be like this elsewhere in the world, but here it is. It's not uncommon for someone to raise an issue about islamic violence and aggression that then morphs into how we need to stop all the asians from 'talking gook' and why are all the taxi drivers indian because they can't be trusted etc.

I'm happy to have an open discourse about the scourge of islam, but I ask that people support their claims with reasonable evidence as with any other discussion. If this is 'having it both ways', then I'll be fucked if I know how we're ever going to work anything out!

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etonOP•

And? Not all muslims are anything other than muslim, so what's your point?

My point is an examination of the argument against broad generalizations. It is my observation that people will pick and choose when view it an acceptable argument.

However, at least in Australia, the latest wave of anti-islam gets ridden by a bunch of knuckle draggers who really mean non-white people

That is what Bill Maher was saying as well with Affleck, I think you both are right. It matters where criticism comes from and the context.

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slayausAnti-Theist•

Okay, I clearly have no idea what your actual argument is... Who is it that argues against generalisations but then uses generalisations themselves?

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horsefootIgnostic•

"They"? That's assuming every single person that did one did the other too, or at least a notable amount did. Funny to note, that you just generalized as an argument against people who are against generalization.

Reality is, not all men are sex offenders, and not all of the Muslim faith are extremists/jihadists.

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etonOP•

I actually didn't want to make an argument for or against generalizations. It was more against the attitude finding generalizations acceptable only when it suits their argument.

Reality is, not all men are sex offenders, and not all of the Muslim faith are extremists/jihadists.

I agree. And that was the point Maher/Harris were trying to make. They never argued all Muslims were jihadists/extremists, Harris said that around 20% had radical beliefs.

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wataru14Anti-Theist•

how many progressives mockingly use the hashtag #notallmen to support feminism

I don't think I've ever seen that. And I have some pretty staunch friends.

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The-Mighty-MonarchTouched by His Noodliness•

I don't see the connection you're making. Some feminists mockingly use #notallmen because when they try to talk about rape culture, for example, inevitably people will chime in just to say "but I'm a man and I love women!" It doesn't contribute to the conversation.

As an atheist I, and most other people on the sub, am not going to have that reaction to conversations about Islam. We're not in the habit of coming to any religion's defense. If you have a critique of Islam, let's hear it instead of talking about nonsensical comparisons to other topics of conversation.

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etonOP•

Yeah I bungled that before, I wasn't being clear. I've tried to clear that up in other comments. Basically, I was just pointing to how some people make generalizations themselves, and then criticize other people who make other generalizations.

As far as giving a contrasting viewpoint, I think it can contribute to the conversation, otherwise it just ends up being an echo chamber.

My critique of Islam would be the same as other organized religions. Most religions contain violent passages against atheists, women, and gay people. They also have passages that talk about peace and non-violence. The amount of passages of each varies. The other thing to examine of religions is how much control they exert over their followers, ie in their day to day life how much does the religion demand of them, or does its holy text talk about a theocratic government.

My position is that Islam demands much of its followers, often more so than Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, Mormanism, Judaism, Hinduism, and others. Whether how many times a day for prayer, dietary restrictions, defending sacred things, clothing attire, a separate rule of law for its followers.

Now obviously each religion has a standard curve of how devoted its followers are, but that doesn't mean that the average belief or adherence to those beliefs is the same across the board. My position is sense Islam demands more of its followers, and so it makes sense that Islam's curve would be pushed to the right in comparison to other religions.

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The-Mighty-MonarchTouched by His Noodliness•

The old testament was pretty freaking demanding. Orthodox Jews have many of the rules that you describe. Christianity in particular has been reigned in by democracy and diversity, but, at least according to religious texts, they're really not that different.

I don't see any problem with being critical of Islam, but as you pointed out, there are people who are overly sensitive to criticism. I think, in part, this is because criticism to Islam is often poorly disguised racism.

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Ikth•

I'm not familiar with the core message of each hash-tag, so I'm going to assume #notallmen is about not all men being sexist and #notallmuslims is about not all Muslims being violent or oppressive. I'm guessing the main problem here is the total percentage of "not all".

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TheWrongHat•

#notallmen was a straw-man, and it tried to take feminist issues and make it all about men. Basically no-one was saying that "all men are rapists", so it was dumb when idiot MRA groups created the hashtag to say things like "not all men are rapists". Yes, not all men are rapists. Fucking obviously.

On the other hand, plenty of people actually do argue that all Muslims are at fault for terrorism and radicalisation. People do argue that all brown Muslims should be subject to racial profiling, and people do argue that all Muslims lie about their faith and can't be trusted. People try to lump all Muslims into one category, in spite of the fact that some of them have vastly different beliefs.

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etonOP•

Who are these plenty of people? Plenty of atheists? I haven't heard atheists argue such a thing. There is a difference between saying all Muslims are at fault for terrorism and radicalization, and that Muslim religious texts provide the justification for such actions.

Yes there are ignorant christians who dislike like all muslims because its like a rivalry for whose God is better. That isn't the argument coming from Maher/Harris, they went out of their way to say it wasn't all Muslims. Obviously there are vastly different beliefs among Muslims, on a spectrum from secular to radical/fanatic/conservative and what have you. As there is for almost any religion. That being said, the breakdown of percentiles I would argue is different among them(what Maher/Harris were saying), and the reasons for that are probably a combination of the religious text itself and geopolitical/cultural influences.

Religious extremists aren't drawing their beliefs out of thin air. It comes from religious texts and from its distributors. There are plenty of peaceful religious people, but they are reading from the same book as the people who do horrible things because of what their religion says. And when you ask the peaceful religious people if their holy texts are wrong, they say no and give excuses (different period, different context, etc), and its like well if your not going to criticize your holy texts, then don't act surprised when other people actually read parts of it and do bad things. Religious extremists aren't interpreting the texts wrong, its wrong the text continues to be there in the first place.

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HumboldtBlue•

I just think they are trying to have it both ways. I guess they can, it is just hypocritical and biased, ie it is okay to use if it supports our argument.

If that's an example of how you think you're not a very good thinker. Only very stupid people who post nonsense on sub-reddits use arguments that don't support their position, they're usually easily spotted as theists.

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etonOP•

In politics and PR campaigns, all is fair in love and war. I see hypocritical positions all the time in politics, and so long as they win the election, it doesn't matter.

As a point of logical and principled arguments, hypocritical positions aren't supposed to stand the test of time, I think.

I don't think I clearly separated those two ideas before. Does that make anymore sense?

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