Is Islam not big enough to look after itself?

I’m guessing that Jo Clifford or her family did not receive the death threats which Sarah Maple did?

Alas I’m not in London tomorrow otherwise I would have gone to this.

Please post a report.

Please don’t link to articles like that telegraph one – i’ll only go and read them… and the inevitable comments after them and work myself up into impotent rage.

Clifford’s right to put on the play should be supported and Maple should also be defended but my sympathy for people who persist in a belief in the supernatural despite the fact that gods clearly hate women is rather limited.

If you can disregard the faith’s teaching on one point why not disregard it on others?

Walk away – liberate yourself properly.

Modernising religion is as pointless as modernising the royal family.

yep. There’s no polishing a turd.

Hi cjcjc,

With you on Islam – I think all religions are big enough to look after themselves, and indeed should be cut loose from civilised society to do exactly that in a little corner somewhere.

Will send the link to Jo, so she might come back and comment.

All the best, Kate

They thought I was trying to take the piss

She probably was!

@Blanco LOL surely not…!

Hey ho. Sometimes hard to know what planet these Arty types are on !

“Jesus Queen of Heaven is a literary work of fiction exploring the artist’s own personal journey of….”

It’s just a work of fiction, not a ‘literary’ work of fiction.

“This work is not intended to incite or offend anyone of any belief system. However, we respect your right to disagree with that opinion.”

I can hear the organisers thinking ‘Hey, controversy gets bums on seats’.

i didn’t express myself very well about Islam.
Of course as a religion it can look after itself.
But with individual Muslims, it’s another story.
I am really fond of the Muslim couple who run my local corner shop. he is so friendly and respectful of me as a transsexual woman.
The other Saturday I went to buy some milk; he looked frightened and preoccupied, but unwilling to say why.
And then I came out the shop I saw a bunch of racist thugs who were clearly assembling for the “English defence League” demonstration that was scheduled later than morning.
A christian shopkeeper would not have to go about their business under that kind of threat.
There’s some vile, vicious and shockingly ill-informed attacks on Islam and Muslims around just now. I want to have nothing to do with that.

And no, I can’t “walk away” from religion. “Spirituality” is an imperfect and misunderstood word for something very crucial inside me. And the fact that almost every attempt to give institutional expression to that whatever it is has been so appallingly flawed doesn’t diminish its importance.
And i can’t be the only one to feel like this, or religion wouldn’t play so important a role in human society and history.
It makes me uncomfortable to say this: but spirituality is as important to my identity as sexuality. And like my sexuality, it can’t be suppressed or denied..

Jo,

That doesn’t mean you’re spiritual beliefs are not wrong. The human mind is a fantastically complex organ that tricks our ‘minds’ in all sorts of ways every day – just think about how your brain fills in parts of the scene that your eye doesn’t actually take in properly. Which is more likely, really, that there is some sort of invisible, unprovable force controlling everything (cf. Han Solo), or that we all just have imperfect, damaged understandings of the world around us?

Jo,

I am glad you made the distinction between Islam, which is a nebulous concept, and Muslims, who are real people.

There is no scriptural basis for all sorts of discrimination perpetrated in the name of one religion or another. But you have to be careful. People who actively despise religion, ignoring that it can be a powerful motivator for acts of kindness, will use your suffering to attack all believers.

@Kate B

There are plenty of ways one could challenge Islam’s attitude towards women’s rights and so on, that couldn’t so easily be interpreted as sticking two fingers up at a religion adhered to by a billion people, and then expecting them to come round to your way of thinking. If you want to push people away, ridicule them. If you want them to change their mind and see your point, engage with them in a constructive manner.

@Sanbiki

I personally adhere to the Force theory. After all, wasn’t Mr Solo proven wrong?

Rob, fictionally, yes he was. But don’t forget that Han is now in a superposition, endlessly stuck both shooting first and not shooting first

Han shot first. End of.

Everyone says Avatar ripped off Dances With Wolves. But did no one spot the clear parallel between the Navi taking down the human helicopters and machines, and the Ewoks bringing the Empire to its knees on Endor?

You might be interested to know that they killed Chewbacca 11 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca#Death

“she turned to the bible, and although she saw ‘no scriptural basis for prejudice against gays, or transsexuals there,’ ”

Er, Leviticus?

“A man shalt not lie with another man; God hates that”, etc etc etc

Old Testament, mate. Get with the times, Christians tend to ignore the old stuff, cos Jesus Is My Logo!

Han Solo was just a petty bigot hanging around with notorious Sithophobes.

Rob

> I am glad you made the distinction between Islam, which is a nebulous concept,
> and Muslims, who are real people.

I’d agree entirely that Islam the religion is different to Muslims the people who follow it.
Except I’m not sure what you may mean by ‘nebulous concept’.

Islam being on the whole more proscriptive about day-to-day life than many other religions – it has many non-nebulous, concrete out-workings.

Rob

> There are plenty of ways one could challenge Islam’s attitude towards women’s rights and so on, that couldn’t so easily be interpreted as sticking two fingers up at a religion adhered to by a billion people

I’d be interested to hear more detail about those ways.

LC on the whole seems remarkably silent about about women’s rights under Islam, all the while covering women’s issues at high frequency.

For example, on a thread about faith schools I was surprised that not a single person, (not even the outspoken Laurie Penny!) commented on the islamic primary school’s web site that says:
“What age groups do you cater for? Al-Noor is a mixed school teaching children between the ages of 4- 11 years old Insha Allah. Children are taught about the etiquette of segregation and how to interact with children of a different gender.”

I wish people would make up their minds whether Muslims are a minority of individuals who should not be criticised because of their minority status, or whether they are members of a community a billion strong who should not be criticised because their sheer number demands automatic respect.

It’s terribly confusing.

As to this:

‘And no, I can’t “walk away” from religion. “Spirituality” is an imperfect and misunderstood word for something very crucial inside me. And the fact that almost every attempt to give institutional expression to that whatever it is has been so appallingly flawed doesn’t diminish its importance.
And i can’t be the only one to feel like this, or religion wouldn’t play so important a role in human society and history.
It makes me uncomfortable to say this: but spirituality is as important to my identity as sexuality. And like my sexuality, it can’t be suppressed or denied..’

…it sounds like your ‘spirituality’ is all about YOU, not about some god or other.

I’m with Shatterface …..

a) in what way is Islam an “embattled minority”? Maybe in parts of the UK, but there’s a whole world out there ….

b) and no, you can’t modernise religion. Catholicism is more repressive, etc than the C of E because it has remained truer to the Bible. The C of E has pretty much imploded because it has tried to reconcile itself to the modern world.

c) Sarah Maple states that her art ‘was supposed to be a commentary on the contradictions that you have if you’re Muslim in a western society”. She should be more positive, and present them as a celebration of the freedoms she has as a Muslim in a western society.

A Christian shopkeeper would not have to go about their business under that kind of threat.

Well not in the UK anyway…

Sarah Maple is indeed an heir to Emin, in that she knows how to make art that attracts media attention, but lacks imagination or craft skills. The kind of artist that doesn’t just do “conceptual bullshit”, but knows how to sell it.

Now we will be able to say that all the religions start from one basic belief. Once we accept this or think like this way, we can say all the religions believes in one God or a same God with different names and personalities according to the regional and religious creeds. Now we can say that “Y H V H”, “The Holy Trinity’, “Allah”, “Brahma” and all other are the different names of a Single Personality or the Supreme Being. Once we realise this fact, we will be forced to think about the values of religious terrorism. If we think like this way, we can say that there is not having any values in our community for the religious terrorism. Once we realise all the religions originate from a common belief and all are worshiping a common God, we can create our world as a peaceful planet.

If everyone thought like me, the world would be a better place, eh?

If everyone thought like me I’d shoot first.

Well not in the UK anyway…

Look! Over here! He’s being racist! Forget what I’m doing, look at him!

We are in the UK, you whatabouterry cunt.

Frankly, I think it is pretty stupid and ill-mannered to put on plays that trample on other people’s religious sensitivities. It shouldn’t be against the law, but those who find it offensive have every right to demonstrate and say so.

I wouldn’t like it much if some playwright put on a performance in which my mother, my wife or one of my kids was portrayed as a transexual. So I can quite understand why those who enjoy a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ might be a bit miffed too.

I think people should have the right to demonstrate against what they dont like, as long as they then dont physically stop the play/exhibition from going ahead. The atheists have the freedom to insult religion, religionists have the freedom to insult atheists. But there are limits – if one wants, one can make the argument that certain freedoms should be restricted. For example, atheists like Kate Belgrave call for the banning of faith schools. Clearly there is more at stake here than just “the freedom to insult” – it’s about values.

Frankly, anyone who said we should allow Nick Griffin onto the BBC then said we should ban the Islam4UK march, should be shot.

“Frankly, anyone who said we should allow Nick Griffin onto the BBC then said we should ban the Islam4UK march, should be shot.”

A bit drastic surely? They should be held up to ridicule as being totally inconsistent perhaps (well definetly), but shooting people for inconsistency of thought would rather thin the population. We’d run out of Liberal Democrats in a couple of hours… (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Anyone has the right to protest, so long as it does not involve intimidation (physical action or threats of violence). There is certainly no right not to be offended (one of the more useful libertarian phrases) so there has to be the right to protest to point out you are offended.

Thread starter: “Tomorrow, Amnesty International holds a panel discussion on the impact of religious fundamentalism on gay and women’s rights.”

The implicit implication seems to be that anyone who isn’t gay or female doesn’t matter very much.

Thanks.