I may refrain from insulting you. I may refrain from publishing a cartoon of your prophet. But it’s becuse I fear you. Don’t think for one minute that it’s because I respect you.
Dawkins: Don't Confuse Fear With Respect
May 27, 2010 By 17 Comments
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I think the good doctor has rather missed the point. “Radical” Islam couldn’t care less about respect. They want fear. Look at how Muslim theocracies work; they’re about control through terror. Denounce the Mullah’s divine right to rule you? Denounce Sharia law? Apostasy, for which you will be stoned to death. Same with all the protests over the Dutch (and other) cartoons: They’re not about respecting Islam. The message of the murders and riots was pretty clear: “Follow the rules of our religion or we will punish you. We don’t care that it isn’t your religion. Do what we say or suffer”.
And for the record, I genuinely thing that “radical” Islam is a lot closer to “moderate” Islam than the cogent paradigm in Christianity. I’d go so far as to suggest that in my experience “moderate” Muslims are a tiny minority.
I’ve worked with and spoken with several Muslims here in California (USA) and their attitude is the same as mine toward fundamental Christians … that those people are crazy. The ones I’ve met say we should all get along without violence, and terrorists are committing a sin. It leads me to believe a significant proportion of the Muslims in the home countries feel the same.
Just to clarify, these are people who grew up in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and India.
Custance, I can’t agree with you on that. Like you I’m UK based and speak to a range of Muslims pretty much every day. The vast majority are very moderate and as horrified by radical Muslims and Christians the same as we are. They do however have a more rational viewpoint than most in the West as they correctly fear the radical Christians a lot more as they own the weapons and kill far more people!
“I think the good doctor has rather missed the point.”
I think he is rather smart with his answer and besides, he is not from those countries.
I’m not from a Muslim theocracy either. That hasn’t stopped them from suicide bombing my capital city, though.
It’s not a risk worth taking for him, but he made is point, it’s not about respect, by his words.
I understand what he’s saying and I’m sure he’s right. My comment isn’t really about the accuracy of his statement so much as about the reactions of the intended recipients. It would be nice to think that it might makes some radical Muslims think “Hmmm, actually, he has a point”, but I suspect the majority will just think “So what? He just admitted to having the reaction that we want him to have”.
But he is not Bush. He can’t speak for all, but he can speak for those silent individuals.
Hey, have you seen this web?
http://www.americaspeakingout.com/
Some “ideas” (most of them sarcastic, I hope) are hilarious.
I have to agree with you Custad-oreo.
Although in North America this is an important distinction to make; I don’t think that Radical Islam cares which one they get, so long as they get one. Somehow I image having their enemies fear them would be something they may relish.
I even recall my boss saying, “Fear or respect, I’ll take either.” Or something along those lines, and he’s a P.Eng! =P
I agree, they don’t really care what you give them, so long as the end result is you don’t do what they don’t want you to do. The quote is short, so I can only speculate on the context as I’m not sure where it is drawn from, but it could be Dawkins’ point is simply that the rest of us shouldn’t think that anyone who refrains from doing these things necessarily respects radical Islam, and any society-level shying away from blaspheming against the prophet is far from an endorsement of these people as respected members of society.
For the violent Muslims themselves, however, I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of either fear or respect. They are used to it working to maintain the supremacy of their faith, but I hold no faith to be supreme and certainly none to be worth harming someone else for. They have to learn that the world was not built to suit them and throwing a violent group tantrum cannot be allowed to get them the result they want, through either fear or respect. It’s the same with any faith, and many of them make threats to cajole us into behaving how THEY want, it’s just with certain Muslims it is more immediate than “you’ll burn forever… later”. Faith deserves no respect until it can grow up and stop trying to strongarm people into playing the game the way it wants.
I think it’s just a question of being coherent with what he stated in “The God Delusion”: religion doesn’t deserve a special status of automatic respect. May be his position would make something against catholic antiabortionists, but against violent catholic/protestants/muslims/jews/sikh/(put your favorite deluded asshol here) it is at must a bitter pun. I agree: they don’t want respect, they want things their way. Is there any religious (or non-religious) fanatic who thinks any form of respect is valid if it’s not their comrades’?
I hope my point is clear. I don’t trust my English very much.
I refuse to fear any radical Muslim. I will not bend, bow or flinch. They can take their ignorance, their hate-mongering and their Islamic theocracies and shove ‘em sideways into every orifice they can find amongst their own kind, but I’ll live my life as I see fit. I will do and say as I please. I will defend myself with a vengeance when threatened, but rest assured I’d rather die in defiance than give any radical theist even a modicum of fear, deference or compliance.
This.
I think this is one of his finer moments, playing subtlety on the difference of what fear brings and what they hope to achieve.