My principle is simple: there’s nothing wrong with throwing stones, so long as you don’t forget you’re standing on the doorstep of your glass house.

But as you can see, most of my windows are already broken, and these sorts of rants are my revenge ;)

Harigast

This has been such a discouraging year to be Pagan… not because of the actions of others, but because what a few blow-hards from our own communities are saying and doing.

The whole anti-Islam kind of thing has much to do with ignorance. An ignorance that humanity likes to repeat that leads, after final analysis, to the same results again and again and again: suffering and violent death. We at Elhaz Ablaze identify with the higher principle of the Sophia Perennis, not the idiot’s hear-and-say. We are the Ain in the Eye of the Storm, riding the waves of the curative self-suspension, walking the edge between the “I” and dissolute unity, where the wild gods abide – forgotton, but not forsaken, once asleep, but now awaken.

Ok, so much for freestyle poetry. Back to the matter at hand: The whole issue is an old one in the west and we can call it Orientalism Reloaded.

“Orientalism is the 1978 book by Edward Said that has been highly influential in postcolonial studies. In the book, Said writes that “Orientalism” is a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the Middle East. This body of scholarship is marked by a “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture.” He argued that a long tradition of romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for European and the American colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who internalized the US and British orientalists’ ideas of Arabic culture.

So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have instead is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.” (wiki)

For further information go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_(book)

In reply I’d like to quote my article:

“Of course any major organised religion, Islam included, is riddled with tremendous flaws, but that isn’t the point I’m debating here. The point is that these sorts of ignorant people, by indulging in shallow stereotypes and self-congratulatory hubris, have found a fantastic way to make themselves feel elite without having to lift a single finger or make the slightest effort. In fact, the more stupid, shallow, and pathetic they make themselves, the more elite they feel. What a perversely brilliant achievement.”

This article makes no judgement either way about the virtues and vices of Islam. It is a furphey, a straw man, to respond in the way you have, and a furphey that I expected someone would attempt to foist.

That said, to make a generalisation about a religion as incredibly varied as Islam such as “it is fundamentally antithetical to human freedom” is rather cavalier to say the least, and suggests to me that you are not as well informed as you would like us to think. I have in mind, for example, the not uncommon harmonious pagan/Islamic syncretism in Indonesia, and even the many Hindu/Islam fusion myths (which with the rise of Indian and Pakistan nationalism [a product of modernisation to be sure] have fallen out of favour funnily enough).

But as I say, the post was not about Islam in any but the most circumstantial fashion. It was about the way in which folk project their shadows onto others in order to avoid facing themselves. You might like to consider getting off your podium of pomposity – the view is actually much better from the ground.

Harigast

I’d welcome you to openly declare Heathenry or set up shop as a public Chaos Magician in most Muslim nations and see what transpires. You’ll either be subject to civilian violence and/or stiff blasphemy laws (extending to execution in certain countries).

I’ve read widely and deeply regarding historical Islam and its modern manifestations, and I am convinced it is *fundamentally* antithetical to human freedom due to its basic memes. There are inescapable reasons the Bill of Rights or anything remotely like it didnt evolve in any Islamic society.
Delve more into Islamic history (ie India’s), and you’ll see its body count rivals that of Christianity’s. Islamic Toleration for the other Peoples of the Book (christianity/judaism) has and does run the gamut , but the status of “pagan” and other religions? forget about it.

It is difficult not for a religion to be judged in the public sphere where open communication takes place. Then also comes the question of demographics.

As heathenry concerns itself mainly with the preservation or revival of a “folkway” and its ties to the old gods, demographics will always come into discussion, especially with the globalisation of immigration in the background. In liberal societies we leave it to market forces to sort it all out, but this is an illusion. There are other issues at stake.

I had a look at a couple of heathen Facebook pages: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heathen-Nation/332703158329 and mk-mk.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=29072822611&topic=12199&perpage=30&post_index=1&start=-58&post_id=122661&hash=8db507f210f9388c2b96987514435250. Among heathens there are different positions on the growth of Islam in Western society and their arguments come in different shades.