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'The left is wrong on Islam - the right is wrong on Muslims'

Religion and Philosophy
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GJHarney
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'The left is wrong on Islam - the right is wrong on Muslims'

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Postby GJHarney » July 10th, 2017, 5:42 pm

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/atheist-muslim-islam-donald-trump-ali-rizvi-quran-religion-pakistan-saudi-arabia-libya-islamophobia-a7832346.html

Interesting article from an interesting writer, and I can't disagree with any of his points in it.

His comments about being an atheist but still celebrating things like Ramadan and Eid is on the one hand no different to other religions where, for example, millions of atheists are happy to celebrate Christmas and Easter (but in a completely non-religious way) and many Jewish atheists still celebrate Hanukkah and Passover, indicate that it is perfectly possible to be a 'cultural Muslim' but not a believing one.

I suspect that huge numbers of people in this country that self-identify as CofE have similar cultural reference points involving the Church (mainly around births, marriages and deaths) without at the same time involving God. It also underlines that much of organised religion is simply a set of established and separated rituals that are designed to transmit things like power and communication, as well as acting in a deliberate way to separate from the 'other' and bind the group. This applies to dress too, from Kippahs, to headscarves to turbans and dreadlocks, and where visual communication is key to creating a tribal identity that has nothing by itself to do with any deity.

But while I suspect that there are probably very significant numbers of 'cultural' Muslims who are agnostics or atheists, the issue of threats against 'apostates' can be very real (just as it once was in western Christian churches) and must mitigate against more Muslims joining 'cultural' non-religious Jews and nominal Christians, as does the far more rigid role ritual that still exists in Islam and the role of things like the expectation that Muslim children will attend the local Madrasa after regular school in many UK Muslim communities, which in turn can act against developing liberal and/or secular approaches.

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