From graph 1, if those were the restrictions her parents put on her she certainly didn't grow up a liberal Muslim. Perhaps a liberal Pakistani Muslim. Let's not let her coax us into the trap of painting Islam as monolithic. But some decent points.

Haider is amazing. She is speaking out against all odds of Islamic persecution and threats on her life ("religion if peace" after all). Religion, in genera, is a plague on humanity but Islamic theocracy is particularly vile and dangerous. Good job Haider! Planning on seeing her! And good job Katie for writing this. I am sure we will have a bunch of pearl-clutching, leftie snowflakes calling you an "Islamophobe", but we all know religion should be criticized and questioned.

Cut out the first five words and you could just keep this headline for daily publishing on basically whatever topic.

@1 I think that The Stranger's editorial stance is essentially only a reflection of their staff writers at this point. Additionally, certain senior Stranger execs have, for the past few years, made a subtle but noticeable shift away from the far/social-justice left towards a more "classic liberal" position - not just Katie.

"Western liberals"

It's not very honest to claim that "western liberals" refuse to criticize of Islam, which incidentally explains why you'll get the support of every rightwing troll on this platform and suspicion from many liberals that your motives aren't exactly stated (par for the course of a Herzog blogpost ...). Some people do go too far in their zeal to defend Muslim minorities from Islamophobes but there are In fact, plenty of "Western liberals" who condemn reactionary Islam because, for example, they understand how it has been enabled by Western imperialism in order to defeat secular Arab nationalism.

I'm an Atheist.
I think all religions are foolish, but I treat all religious Believers with respect until they treat me with disrespect.
I live in Detroit. There are a lot of Muslims in this area. They come from all over the world.

When I stand up against islamophobia I am not standing up for Islam, I am standing up for Muslims.
I would stand up against any religious bigotry. People have the right to their own beliefs.

I think it's telling that you didn't mention people on the left like Bill Maher, people who claim that Islam is the worst religion and the most violent religion. That feeds the right-wing narrative that Muslims are the "other" and must be feared.

In this era of trump we Progressives are losing our identity. We are adopting the tactics of the right-wing more and more frequently.

We need to learn to be ethically consistent.

All religions are stupid.

Did she really say:
"I've found Islam is treated as a racial group more than a religion and Muslims are treated as a racial group in a way that Christians aren't and a way that Jews aren't."

She doesn't think jews are treated as a racial group??? She must not know many jews. Or ANY jews for that matter. Even the least jewish jew fully and wholeheartedly believes jews are a distinct and separate racial group. Go tell a jewish person... ANY jewish person... that judaism is a religion, not a race, and watch the nuclear mushroom cloud of rage, contempt, and pent-up victimization envelop you.

This article talks about "western liberals" with the same broad generalizations people use describing Muslims. These aren't monolithic groups, but actually represent a whole host of varied, nuanced opinions. Islam encompasses a fairy wide spectrum of cultural practices. Liberal and leftwing politics encompasses a multitude of conflicting ideas. Also the endless conflating of "liberal" and "leftist" is highly irritating, and once more, compresses complex realities into a simplistic arguments. Pretending that Islamophobia, as it manifests on the far right, is somehow a-okay is just fucking irresponsible. BUY YOU KNOW, FREE SPEECH LOL.

okay, but i'd still go to defend a mosque under attack from proud boys, et al.

Waiting for the official red pill here.

As someone with a lot of friends who have a lot of different religions, I have only one response:

Tough.

What passes for 'tolerance' on the Left is just hatred of Christians.
To Muslims they extend the same infantizing patronizing bigotry of low expectations they harbor for blacks; overlooking and excusing a host of toxic social pathologies with a pat on the head.

And while Sarah seems uncommonly wise, poking holes in the traditions of a particular religion, or several, is not the same as proving there is no god.

@9 "Bill Maher, people who claim that Islam is the worst religion and the most violent religion" at this current time Islam is the most violent religion.

@15 I don't know but it seems like there is somewhat of a difference between opposing having religion rammed down your throat by zealots and persecuting a religious minority who completely lack the power to ram their religion down your throat, even if they wanted to. You might be onto something there except for the slight problem that 'innocent' Christians in this country are hellbent on extending the authority of the armed state into the uteruses of half the population.

15: Yeah it's really bigoted to uphold the separation clause. It's so mean of us to not place Christians or their beliefs on a special pedestal, or to suggest that pluralism is preferable to the unquestioned faith of a single religion. What gall to suggest that Christians shouldn't run everything or have to make way for other people's creeds and cultures. "Christians" (or at least the pharisees and hypocrites you call "Christian") control half of Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court, have completely seized control of state legislatures across the country, and openly and freely espouse bigotry. But hey, you're a victim, right, because we don't bend over backwards to make sure no one ever says anything mean to you. People say "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" and have the temerity to not immediately capitulate every single issue. The horror, the horror.

I know you're just a troll, but go fuck yourself anyway.

19: small correction: establishment clause, not separation.

@17

Do you have any facts to back up your claim?

Do you have any idea how much violence is committed in the name of any religion?

Don't worry, it was a rhetorical question. I know you have absolutely no idea.

The right to religious belief, like the right to swing a fist, extends no farther than the tip of your neighbor's nose. If you insist it goes farther, then you're an asshole. If you choose to enforce your religious beliefs at the ballot box, you're a blight on civilization. If you choose to enforce your religious beliefs with weapons, you're a criminal. Christian, Muslim, Jew, Pastafarian, or other -- doesn't matter. Non-religion is not religion.

Things must be bad when a person speaking simple rational truth like she is doing here seems like such an unexpected breath of fresh air, but here we are. She is awesome. It takes a lot of guts to say the things she is saying at this time and this place.

Yeah, we got to make up for that incredible shortage of critical commentary on Islam this country is known for.

Speaking as someone identifying as a member of the Radical Left, I think the Liberal Left has its head ups its post modern ass. Giving oppressive religions an inch, just because its members are a minority group, is par for the guilt-ridden, virtue signaling course.

it's the same religion; the same imaginary patriarch, the same prophets. I know Christians who practice tolerance and acceptance. they act on Jesus' words.

they aren't the ones "western leftists" have issues with. fundamentalist monotheism is the issue. Islam is overdue for liberalization, and this millenial is brave to do that.

however, broad-brushing your allies gives comfort to your enemies.

@23-exactly. Freedom of religion is the defining principle of this country and the thing that has let us make so much progress (we're sure as hell not done, but still, we've managed a lot) where other countries have been mired in religious wars. And the liberals I know are not any more tolerant of bad Islamic behavior than they are of bad Christian/Hindu/whatever behavior.

@15-there are a hell of a lot of "toxic social pathologies" in the Christian community as well. Your crowd is no better than any other. Christianity as a dominant influence in the West was installed through violence, war, the Inquisition, racist conquest and so much more. It may well be that certain Islamic countries are behaving badly now (does anyone expect the Saudi Inquisition?)* but that doesn't make Islam intrinsically any worse than other monotheistic social control systems.

actually, I totally DO expect the Saudi Inquisition. I'm sure they'll bring their bone saws.

The time for liberalization in the Muslim world might be now, as Haider suggests, but her reasoning betrays her youth. It's not a matter of how much information is available-- governments and society in the Islamic world were a lot more liberal 75 years ago than they are today.

In the interwar and postwar period, secularism flourished across the Middle East. The map of the entire region had just been redrawn (twice) and new ideas about Arab society were flowing across the new borders-- Kemalism, Pan-Arabism, Arab Socialism, Ba'athism, Nasserism. By the 1940s, women with uncovered heads and men in western suits were common sight from Baghdad to Tehran, and remained so until the early 1980s.

The governments presiding over these changes were leftist, often explicitly socialist. And like too many socialist regimes, they sometimes resorted to force to suppress ideological dissent-- conservative or fundamentalist Islamic movements (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) were brutally suppressed.

This radicalized the religious right, and the backlash eventually overcame the secular order in many nations, aided and abetted by the US, as @8 notes, in the Cold War (the secular leaders were Commies, you see).

So now you have our present situation, where e.g. Egypt maintains a secular state only through military dictatorship imposed by coup after a democratic state elected a conservative Muslim president and parliament.

Haider says "I think foreign policy colors the conversations around Islam in the West." I'd second that. She adds "This is what makes things difficult for people on the left." I'm less convinced there-- the conversation need not shy away from how and why fundamentalist Islam was radicalized, and what sustains that radicalization today.

The best thing - foreign policy wise and for the progress of the religious communities themselves- would be for everyone to stop talking about "Islam" or "Muslims" as if it's some monolith that has anything in common with one another.

We don't do that with Christianity. We know the difference between fundamentalist evangelicals and casual secular Christians and Catholics and quakers, etc.

Sunnis are different from Shias. And Salafist Sunnis are different from Pakistani Ahmadis like Sarah Haider. Houston has a big number of Ahmadis, and they are often involved in anti-fundamentalist activism, pro education, etc. This whole conversation is like if a lefty Quaker activist were trying to talk about fundamentalist Mormons to people who have no understanding of the differences between either group.

@21 "Do you have any idea how much violence is committed in the name of any religion?

I can't find anything that would come close to what ISIS has done so I guess that proves Bill Maher's point...

36: You're not looking hard enough you disingenuous fuck.

36: Sorry that comment was for 35.

31 and 32: Great posts, but way too much nuance for "critics" of Islam.

@35

The cartels and death squads in central America and Mexico are every bit as violent as ISIS. They are not motivated by religion but they arise in the same conditions- countries that were artificially created, that saw many years of war and imperialism, that then became failed states and have a rise in violent extremist groups that thrive in the power vacuum. This is the story of a lot of the world these days.

Regarding ISIS specifically, they are a salafi group- this is an Egyptian and Saudi exported ideology, spread around the world sometimes in cooperation with the US- all the terrorist groups that you hear about (al qaeda, boko haram, etc) are salafists. Makes you wonder about why the US keeps selling billions upon billions of weapons to the Saudis and fighting on their sides in all the wars and removing all the regimes that fight salafist groups- they did it with Gaddafi and Hussein, tried it with Assad, are trying it now in Iran- Pompeo today claimed that the AUMF gives them the right to start war with Iran, even though Iran is shia and has been fighting al qaeda and isis on the front lines for years and mostly managed to keep salafists out of their borders. The US has long since been working with the extremist elements in Pakistan as any good Ahmadi like Haider can tell you or any half punjabi hindu like myself- for a long time they preferred Islamic radicals to nonaligned nationalists or communists- it was US policy during the Cold War.

People need to stop talking about Islam and start looking at actual foreign policy and what gives rise to fundamentalism and who is funding that, who is promoting it, why it appeals to people, etc.

Sure, liberals are ignorant and tend towards embracing Islam with good we-are-the-world intentions in a way that adds to this confusion, but it's still bullshit to focus on them and not the actual material conditions that create the fundamentalism in the first place, especially including the role of US foreign policy which has been, inexplicably, to destroy all the enemies of salafists while funding/arming all the allies of salafists, and then when the salafists rise in power to drone bomb them and likewise kill anyone who happens to be in their families/neighborhoods/weddings/villages etc.

What liberals need to do is to stop talking about identity in general and learn a shit ton more about imperialism and it's role in dollar capitalism. It's their biggest massive blind spot. The rest of this is idle chit chat.

I think the idea that all religions, yes that includes Atheism, are the same as espoused by the left is flawed. To know what each religion teaches, one needs to study the life of its founder. So we have Jesus for Christianity, Muhammad for Islam, Cain for Atheism, Moses for Judaism.

Now which one of these founders led a life which showed love for all.

@31 and @40 Well said, thank you.

@37 Please prove me wrong.

@40 well-written. I agree with you on a lot of your points, but the fact remains that Islam is currently the most violent religion.

Also I'm going to beat a dead horse here. The wider left might mean "not right wing" but when are responding to an article talking specifically about "western liberals" let's not go on about what is "espoused by the left" or "thinking on the left" or "left wing politics".

Left is anticapitalist and antiimperialist - it consists of socialists, communists, anarchists, etc. Liberal is capitalist. It consists of reforms/regulations of capitalism in favor of individual rights and properties. While there are plenty of people in both groups who are concerned about identity and social justice, it's incorrect to think about it as a spectrum on which the further left you go, the more focus there is on identity politics or political correctness. This is simply not true, and it's a pretty massive misunderstanding of political leanings. While there are what we can call SJWs in both groups, typically the farther left you go, the more people focus on structural and material conditions (class, imperialism, resource distribution, organization) and less on identities and political correctness. It's always funny to hear general public understanding that "more left' means "more SJW" when in the actual left, there is an ongoing debate & criticism about the fact that leftists are often focused on material conditions to the exclusion of identity politics. These are currently liberal domains, not leftist ones- this is true in the US and especially true when you start talking about the international left. This psa has been brought to you by THE MORE YOU KNOW!

Just have to correct real quick that I had Sarah mixed up with a young activist from another family in Houston- sorry about that. I don't know if she is an Ahmadi or not (it's not relevant to my point anyway, I just don't want to spread misinformation). I just watched a youtube video of her and realized she's another young woman than who I thought.

@35- See previous reference to the Spanish Inquisition. See also Catholic/Spanish conquest of South America. See also Jonestown. See also the Crusades. rinse, repeat.

@41,

Atheism is not a religion. Atheism is the absence of religion.

Atheism is a religion where folks worship their own cleverness.
Grouch said he would never want to be in any club that would accept him as a member,
who would want to believe a religious value system that you made up yourself?
If you are your own hero (as the young kids like to say ythese days...) you really aren't aiming high enough,
double that if your are your own god...

Oh good, Katie has supplied a thread to keep all the Sloggers snarling at and trolling each other at least through the weekend.

49
...Grouch(o Marx) said he would never want to be in any club that would accept him as a member, ...

@48

I'm curious as to how you'd characterize agnosticism, then (unless you're one of those tedious people who insist atheism and agnosticism are the same thing, spare us a rehash of that slop).

Whether atheism is or isn't a faith turns on what definition of "religion" we're using, and I don't think we're going to find a definition that everyone agrees on, not any time soon at least.

@46

I'm with you in criticizing Muslim fundamentalists and Islamic radicals, but I find the term "Islamist" problematic, since it's a recent coinage that comes from the American far right, one deliberately designed to conflate the broader religion with its fundamentalist adherents.

When we talk about Christian fundamentalists and Christian radicals, we don't refer to them as "Christianists" or "Jesusites" to indicate their penchant for violence, and if we did we'd be rightly criticized for it.

A good, lively interview. Thanks for this!

@5
"Peaceful abrahamic religions"

There is no such thing as a Peaceful abrahamic religion. All three of them are violent, misogynistic beliefs. The very origin story has an aggressive bully of a God forcing his follower to to kill his son until at the last minute he changes his mind with "Oh just kidding!"

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are three branches of the same bigoted patriarchal religion. Their diety Yaweh/Jehovah/Allah is a horrible and vengeful petty being.

For Western liberals to disdain fundamental Baptists (or Catholic Bishops), without showing that same disdain for Wahhabis, or the Haredi is hypocrisy, for they are all three different faces of the same vile belief system.

@41
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have the same founder, Abraham. He's the guy who thought it was okay to listen to the voices in his head and kill his son.

I see a good number of comments coming from people obviously to mentally immature and/or have their head shoved too far up their own ideology to be able to actually, thoughtfully, wrap their minds around this article. Mudede may have a new, obscure name dropping, thought salad, fresh for the slobbering, that might be about your mind-speed.

Ah yes,
lessons on 'religion' from hate-mongering fascist Leftist Humanists...
priceless!

The Mosaic Law actually, by any objective and informed standards, establishes a remarkably enlightened social structure for a Bronze Age nomadic people.

And the teachings of Jesus Christ lay out the path to peaceful meaningful life for the individuals and societies that practice them.

The Judeo-Christian code of ethics have inspired the advances made by mankind for the past millinea, including the Founding Fathers and Dr Martin Luther King Jr, to name just a few.

To judge, condemn and dismiss a moral code based on the actions of individuals who clearly blatantly are not following it is ignorant bigotry of the worse kind.

55 56

You misunderstand the episode with Abraham and Issac.
Jehovah was giving Abraham a profound object lesson about the sacrifice that God Himself would make in giving His Son for the salvation of Mankind.
Abraham had faith that God knew (better than he himself did) what was good for him (Abraham); and was willing to submit to God's instructions even/especially when he didn't yet see or know the end game.
Such faith and willingness to obey a benevolent loving all-knowing Father who seeks to help us achieve our potential is necessary if we are to progress from our current state to a more exalted state of existence; to become (more) like our Father, to become "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ"
A key to such growth and advancement is recognizing Who we should listen to, and then listening and obeying.
Essential to that is developing one's own personal relationship with God.
No one can prove to another the existence of 'God'; but anyone who sincerly seeks Him will/can find and know for themselves His existence and love.
Atheism is an intellectually and spiritually toxic poison of Ignorance and Arrogance; ignorance of the existence of god (fed by a refusal to seek Him) and arrogance to insist that others also do not know Him (which arrogance also tends to block from sincerely seeking Him); leaving one with Eyes that will not see, Ears that will not hear- self inflicted intellectual spiritual blindness and deafness.
A sincere humble desire to know, to find that something better, is a first step.

@59 sounds quite upset that not everybody else believes in his imaginary friend.

I stand with the Herzogs and Haiders and the progressives who aren’t the cannibalist cancel culture left. The most important thing, however, is that the arguments for nuanced discourse aren’t mistaken for, or hijacked by, the sick separatist fucks on the other side, many of whom you see lurking about in Herzog’s comment threads. Fuck off you toads.

@60
Is it any wonder that people who have an abusive psychopath for an imaginary friend are so willing to kill and brutalize those who don't share their delusion?

@47 I believe I said currently. Is the Spanish Inquisition still going on?!?

"Sure, liberals are ignorant and tend towards embracing Islam with good we-are-the-world intentions in a way that adds to this confusion, but it's still bullshit to focus on them and not the actual material conditions that create the fundamentalism in the first place, especially including the role of US foreign policy which has been, inexplicably, to destroy all the enemies of salafists while funding/arming all the allies of salafists, and then when the salafists rise in power to drone bomb them and likewise kill anyone who happens to be in their families/neighborhoods/weddings/villages etc."

When we create shit-hole countries, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Combine free-for-all anarchy with drought and famine and Refugees are what we come up with. We just like to pretend not to notice.

"What liberals need to do is to stop talking about identity in general and learn a shit ton more about imperialism and it's role in dollar capitalism. It's their biggest massive blind spot. The rest of this is idle chit chat."

--EmmaLiz

Dude. You ROCK.

There’s a lot to be said for any attempt at a health code before the advent of the ice box, with not all men being worth their salt and all.

I just wanna know who the fuck actually handed Moses the slab, and I want to know why rape was not included in the commandments - to keep the idea from people’s heads, because it would have been too tumultuous a development with all of those hot 13 year old brides, or something else.

Which I guess does mean I believe people were told to live by these precepts.

Because they were. And still are.

I also wonder if the aforementioned exclusion contributed to the ...malleable... definitions of zina.

Handed Hamoudi a handful of fatwood(resinous pine) sticks yesterday. He’s taking his woman to Yellowstone and I had to help him prepare.

Guys who fuck little boys and poison the wells at schools for girls bad, ok?

I bet God could have stored a lot of meat in the snowpack up there.

I hear he liked that stuff.

Look rape was included in a way. The problem is that you are trying to think of a world in which women have desire and can consent anyway. That's not how fundamentalists think of sex. Sex is about laws- not about ethics or individuals- to these people. That's why religions concerned themselves with rules around marriage and adultery. The only lawful sex with a woman was with women who were either your property (slaves, etc) or women who you had been given permission to fuck through the laws of the religion (wives). "Rape" as a concept didn't exist outside of this. There were loads of rules around fucking others' wives/property (that was in the commandments) and also around fucking outside of marriage (also in the commandments) and throughout the bible there are loads of rules around fucking virgins or family members (unlawful, punished very strictly, touched upon in the commandments with the stuff to do with honoring family). The concept of people (and women especially) as individuals who could consent outside of these laws did not exist so there would be no reason to talk generally about "rape"- all of that was covered.

These religions are archaic and irrelevant for all sorts of reasons- trying to interpret them through the modern view of the world is just as stupid as trying to interpret the modern world through them.

My point is, I don't think 'rape' was intentionally excluded as a concept- it's just that it didn't really exist, like 'zina' had already covered every possible variation of sexual conduct or misconduct as it was conceived at the time. Yes I think a lot of this has to do with seeing women as property, but it has more to do with an entire worldview that did not really deal with individuals (except for some very powerful or special men)- we westerners have a hard time understanding how much the individualization in our culture affects how we see things- this is not a human historical norm. And of course, all this gendered bullshit arose because for most of human history, sex=pregnancy and so you had to make laws around it and order your society around that fact, this is why we have gender roles at all and why fundamentalists are all what we'd today consider misogynists. Trying to apply any of this shit to the modern world is backwards and insane and going to require much violence. In Saudi Arabia, they still stone women to death for adultery and they execute young men for homosexuality (among other htings), some of them tortured badly. They are the ones exporting this fucking backwards fundamentalism- the royal family is brutal, stupid, lazy and cruel. Let's sell them several billions in weapons and intervene on their sides in wars, right?

Love her and agree completely, except I wish everyone would stop using the term "Liberals" when talking about the "left" because they're two entirely different things.

“...we have gender roles at all and why fundamentalists are all what we'd today consider misogynists. Trying to apply any of this shit to the modern world is backwards and insane and going to require much violence.”

Ahem.

For some, it’s required, welcomed, and desired. I just don’t enjoy myself.

Carry on.

I can see a lot of validity in what she says, but she SHOULD add this to her argument: "That said, there can never be any possible way for Western military intervention to cause an Islamic Reformation, and liberalism can never be imposed on the Muslim world from outside as a spoil of conquest."
A lot of people are open to challenging repression within Islam-it's just that war against Muslim countries by Western countries can never be a valid way to fight that, and that, until the secular humanists forced Western Christian regimes to back off on the repression they imposed after about 1850 or so, those countries were often just as repressive as the Islamic world is now. It was no easier to be Jewish or atheist/agnostic or gay or a woman in 17th Century Europe than it is in Iran or Saudi Arabia now.

Alaskan,

The problem with this formulation is that it assumes there is any Western military or state interest in challenging repression within Islam in the first place. American goals in the region have absolutely nothing at all to do with reforming Islam and very little to do with combatting Islamic terrorism.

If there was an attempt by Western militaries to cause an Islamic Reformation, then we could have a productive argument about that strategy and its consequences/goals. But since there is no attempt to do any such thing, conversations about radical islam as a threat is actually just propaganda for the masses- for some people, it causes islamaphobia and pro-military sentiment, for others, it causes we-are-the-world tolerance in response to that islamaphobia. In both cases, these arguments obscure the reality of American imperialism and military defense of market hegemony, etc. The US might prefer that salafi terrorism did not exist, but combating Islamic fundamentalism is not a US goal. In fact, the rise in these terrorist groups and the tolerance of fundamentalist theocratic regimes is an acceptable (though perhaps unintended and undesired) consequence of US foreign policy in the region.

@72: Fair critique, EmmaLiz(especially since we can assume no Western countries will ever seek the overthrow of the House of Saud, which sponsored and developed the perversion of Islamic teachings known as Wahhabism, the form which combines repressive political values with an excessively harsh and punitive interpretation of the Q'oran), and I'll amend what I suggested there to "no Western military intervention can ever be assumed to even be INTENDED to end repression in the Islamic world".

I think an important thing to weigh when considering these texts is that most people were illiterate.

Oh? You can read? Well subduing the naked biting punching kicking horsie is ok then.

Any more though.

I do NOT know this woman but this is an interesting article. Islam is a very large faith. When Muhammad began colonizing the modern Middle East and the subsequent Ummayads, Persians, Mongols, and Turks continued to spread the religion there was neither an expectation of a unified faith nor an expectation of a unified belief system. Instead, the Caliphs spread the religion by combining it with the beliefs of the conquered populations. A practice most modern Muslims continue to use to convert others. Some of this author's beliefs as a South Asian aren't standard in the Middle East such as arranged marriages. When leading a conversation from orthodoxy to orthopractical Islam there is a lot of arguing. I haven't had a single long term discussion about Islam in the west or anywhere for that matter since I graduated with my B.A. studying the region and its faiths. I used to practice Islam but my family stopped associating with the communities in the area around the capitol because of petty crime, not any disagreement about clothing, practice or beliefs. As a result I don't have any animosity against the faith, only those who exploit congregations. Sarah has strong opinions about Islam but to use her faith as a means of ignoring the study of Islam, western academic or otherwise, subverts intelligent discussion. Also, this is a good interview Katie!

Jafar

75: Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity did the same thing, to varying degrees, in the places where those faiths spread by conquest. In Alaska, for example, the faith which was most respectful and supportive of Alaska Native culture was Russian Orthodoxy-that's a major part of the reason that, if you're in Alaska and you hear of a person with a Russian last name, that person is almost certainly Yupik, or Inuit, or Athabaskan(known as Dene outside of Alaska) or Tlingit or Haida, among other Native communities there.

@21 Currently Islam is the most personally violent religion and mostly to it's own followers. It's just a fact that in this day and age we have "Islamic" countries with laws based in Islam that most people would find to be barbaric and oppressive. No such Christian or Jewish theocracies at this time.

@72 - But of course. Islamic theocratic regimes are still authoritarian regimes, and authoritarian regimes are useful to imperialist powers, because selling your country out to imperialists seldom plays well at the polls. Witness what happened to Mossadegh in Iran when he tried to bring democratic reforms into the monarchy there.

Why let a few beheadings or stonings to death for homosexuality, witchcraft, or blasphemy get in the way of having a safe environment for western capitalists to operate in?

"Why let a few beheadings or stonings to death for homosexuality, witchcraft, or blasphemy get in the way of having a safe environment for western capitalists to operate in?" Well said, Blackap.

Hey -- it's only just BUSINESS.
As per usual....
So get Over it.

If you believe in cause & effect, then you must conclude that everything around us was engineered into existence. Just look at the similarities that exist between animal & human reproductive systems. Was this 100% by chance? Also look at the symbiotic relationship between plant life & animal life. Some animals breathe in oxygen & emit carbon dioxide as a byproduct of respiration while some trees take in carbon dioxide & emit oxygen as a byproduct. Did this design happen by chance or was it engineered into existence?

So the central questions are who, whom or what is responsible for all that we see around us and whose explanation accurately describes this phenomena? Personally, I don't believe any of the major religions have gotten it right. Christian theory, Muslim theory & Jewish theory all share a common root. Interestingly, all three theories hint at the existence of a team of creators and all three summarily dismiss the notion in favor of one paternal, supernatural being who must be worshipped. So is all life in our plane of existence totally by accident or is it the result of cause & effect? It's possible that we'll never find the answer to that question.

@78: Islam is a much younger faith, this makes it much more likely that it would be in a brutal, unforgiving form-its character is not much different than that of the Church in the 10th or 11th century, and complicated by the emergence of Wahhibism, the harsh, unforgiving distortion of Islam nurtured by the family which would eventually create the harsh, unforgiving distortion of a country called "Saudi Arabia". There will be little if any change in the Islamic world until the people of Saudi Arabia overthrow the House of Saud and the people of all the other Arab/Muslim countries-and in some places, like Sudan and Algeria, are now in the process of doing just that-and it must be the people of those countries doing that themselves, without any involvement of outsiders or any efforts by the West to try to turn any changes to their geopolitical advantages.

No, Sarah Haider, it's Trumpty Dumpty, Dencey Pencey, their fixers, lobbyists, lawyers (if Trumpty Dumpty is so squeaky clean, how come its ex-lawyer and #1 fixer, Michael Cohen is now in prison?), yes-men, trophy bitches, bimbos, snot-nosed brats, and shamelessly ignorant NRA-approved gun-totin', bible misquotin', fetus dotin' MAGA tools along with the insatiably gluttonous fossil fuel industry that are making things infinitely worse, globally.
Progressives and liberals didn't start the fire---we have for centuries been stuck with cleaning up messes created by the GOP.
@5 GermanSausage: Thank you. Agreed and seconded.
@34: Seriously, muffy, shave off that hideous rug, already. It does nothing for you except add a few fleas.