So what we've established here is that, according to Jurhum, a simple depiction of a person that is part of his religion, is equally offensive as racial slurs that were used to degrade and demoralize enslaved people for hundreds of years.
I read his point as being more that there is no comparison. There is no right and wrong. It's like if you believe in the sun and I believe in the moon. There is no way to unite the two. They shine at different times. Both of us would be wrong in believing in only one, and both of us would be wrong in suggesting the other person's belief is wrong.
I've always felt like the world in general underestimate and neglect the phenomenon of social conditioning. It's bad enough that formal rules and laws apply to everyone even though each individual is different in the way they take in, process, and use information. Some people are good at finding solutions, some people are good at finding errors, some people are good at starting something but have a short attention span, yet all these people are given the same expectations. Which is something that couldn't have been done in any other way. If we're gonna have a social structure with a law system, it will not incorporate every individual out there that is a special case and falls outside of all definitions that our laws and regulations define. Example: Homosexual marriage only became an issue in the recent decade. In the decades before there may have been individuals desiring homosexual marriage, but their individualism was ignored and neglected. Not directly, but as a result of the way our social system of rules and etiquette work.
In a similar fashion, people of the west fail to understand that we will never have one big country called Earth, with one currency, where everyone believes in the same. As a race, I don't see why we would even want to go there. Homogenization is a killer for creativity, which is the main ingredient in technological and social evolution. It would be counter-beneficial for us as a race to unite everyone under one banner and all believe in the same.
People who grow up in the Middle East are conditioned in such a way that certain things that people from the west might utter, things we might do, are things that no Middle Eastern would EVER do. Not because we're wrong, or because they're wrong, or because there is a right or wrong in this matter, but because social conditioning makes it unnatural for them to come to certain conclusions. Just like for us here in the West, conditioned by Western thoughts, could never understand why dying for Allah is something to be desired.
The best we can do is find a way to co-exist. The middle east wants to be left alone. Okay. Leave them alone. See if they start asking for help. If they don't just leave them there. WTF. Don't utter opinions about muslims and Islam and their teachings. No one here have a foundation to base any opinion on. If any non-muslim here has actually read the Quaran and the other Islamic teachings, then you may have something upon which to base an opinion on, but you read this in an adult age where your mind was in a certain mode where it didn't take in this information and use it as a foundation upon which to base further thoughts. You read about it, you learn it, you accept it. But you still can't understand what it means to have believed this for a life time. Learning something at a young age and learning something at an older age quite significantly changes how whatever it is you're learning affects you as a person.
This principle is widely known. It's why it's important to instill discipline in children at a young age. After a certain point they're no longer receptive to it. Look in popular culture. Star Wars movies. To become a Jedi you had to start your training at a very young age. See what happened to Anakin. He started late and demons had already manifested in him so he went to the Dark Side. (this is a joke in the middle of a serious post) Apply this knowledge of children, psychology and human nature, and apply it to the West vs. Islam debate, and you will see that none of us have no fucking clue what these people actually feel like. We assume and we think, but none of us know. From that fact alone it's weird to discriminate their ways. Jurhum had a good point. We can say that we are observing it, we don't understand it, we wouldn't do it like that, and we disagree with the logic behind it. But to say that it is wrong, and to compare the Middle Eastern society to ours and point at what we would have defined as flaws if they had existed in OUR society, that is what is truly wrong. Coming to the conclusion that the Middle Eastern society is flawed, because it is not like ours. Because we value human life more, and because physical pain is considered a bigger deal here. Because of our laws that teach freedom of speech and the right to do anything that doesn't harm others (except smoking dried plants - that is also very bad) doesn't mean that people in the Middle East hold the same values when it comes to physical pain, human life and freedom. In a sense, the whole of Middle East is trapped by the West, so for them, being trapped is a way of life. I don't see how having to cover yourself with clothes outshines that misconduct on the part of the West. It is not our business to teach them what to think and how to feel, all we can do is practice our own laws - freedom of speech, freedom of thought. We are not giving that to the Middle East.
With that said, I also believe that 'in my own country', I am somewhat relieved of having to respect the needs of others if they directly interfere with mine. My policy there is that in the end, my life is about me and no one else. I will always serve my own goals, and if a Muslim, Jew, Christian or Atheist come in between me and my goal (whatever it be), I will probably not accept it. This has to do with my own social conditioning. I'm conditioned to not make demands, but to adapt to those around me. This biases my opinion on the matter, but from my perspective, upholding that way of behavior is not something that always comes easy. I often feel like voicing my own selfish demands, but I believe in emotional discipline, and rarely do. So from my individualistic point of view it is perfectly reasonable to expect others to show the same amount of flexibility when it comes to adaptation as I practice myself. Which in itself is a flawed point of view, but w/e, at least I can admit it.
