tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13144649.post8148499643711645249..comments2023-10-21T08:02:56.571-07:00Comments on No Dhimmitude: Is Islam a Mental Illness? How to Reason with your Favorite MobDaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10664271893389366772noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13144649.post-50891925647255705352008-07-22T07:05:00.000-07:002008-07-22T07:05:00.000-07:00The issue of whether or not Islam is a mental illn...The issue of whether or not Islam is a mental illness based on activities is an interesting question.<BR/><BR/>My short answer is no, though I admit I have not looked at it from that direction.<BR/><BR/>But the real problem is that liberals who practice the politics of envy rearing up a generation of voters to believe that just by birth they have a right to a piece of my paycheck and who want at all costs and with the aid of all enemies to dismantle our republic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13144649.post-80219690672347256992007-12-03T01:46:00.000-08:002007-12-03T01:46:00.000-08:00With all due respect, Dag, I don't think you are e...With all due respect, Dag, I don't think you are engaging my argument; that is probably my fault because I have trouble articulating it; it is still in formation.<BR/><BR/>I am not making any arguments about "Islam, as it is". I am leaving that question aside. I am not interested in trying to define anything because the attempt to define reality is always a denial of the reality that what something is and what it means is an open book. The process of finding real-world confirmations for relgious imperatives written down 1400 years ago is anything but a straightforward process. It is simply not possible, even in the most totalitarian of circumstances, to simply live by the book as if it were transparent to reality. I think it's important to understand the anthropology behind why that is so... But that's what I have trouble articulating... it will improve in time...<BR/><BR/>Having said that, I am saying there is a hell of a lot of evil in the Islamic world that we can't negotiate with. You seem to misunderstand me on this basic point. But at the end of the day if there is one guy in the middle of that evil who wants to do good, I want to stand by him, or make him an ally, without being blinded by someone who thinks he has a water tight argument that you can't negotiate or deal with Muslims because the good guys aren't the real Muslims and they are dominated, inevitably, by the real Muslims. But I'm not in an argument to define Islam. So I don't care if I'm not negotiating with the "real Muslims". I only care about those who want freedom and doing what we can to pressure the evil doers to change.<BR/><BR/>In other words, deal with people as human beings, and don't get in a fight about what reality is or must be. i'm not interested in metaphysics.<BR/><BR/>I am much less interested in any model of reality, of "islam as it is", as in the question of why is it not possible for anyone anywhere to live up to any normative model - long story short, the means are always incompatible with the proposed ends. You, Dag, have an idealized view of Islam, one that is not critical about the fact that much of Islam is a fantasy or heresy that can never be what it wants to be, however much evil it gets into in the trying.<BR/><BR/>It's late, and I have just come across this post. I won't say more now. Why don't you go back and read that post at Covenant Zone I wrote about Bruce Tefft, on your request, and tell me what you think of the fuller, if still half-formed, argument there...<BR/><BR/>And remember, I don't care whether or not "Islam" is reformable. I care about how we can deal with human beings who want to be freer than they have been, and how we can help them defeat their oppressors. If that involves their thinking they are reforming "Islam", who am I to say they aren't? Why should we ever belive that Islam can be taken "literally"? What on earth can that mean? Explain to me the process by which reality comes into being... as some literal, ahem, interpretation, of a texttruepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.com