Why is Islam incompatible with Western cultures?
Western culture, or more precisely people who were raised in the western culture, will not find any necessary reason to fight off people who happen to believe in what is posed as a different interpretation of the same God (Elohim, Alaha, Allah) they believe in. The crunch comes when somebody attempts to impose Islamic behavioral restraints or behavioral demands on the people who grew up in the western culture. It doesn’t bother me if somebody in India sacrifices a sheep to Kali. It doesn’t even bother me if they do so in a humane way in the USA. It does bother me if somebody tells me that I must buy a sheep, prepare a proper sacrificial area, and sacrifice that sheep to Kali.What happens with people who believe in some version of Islam that insists on parents being able, e.g., to practice corporal punishment on people who fall within their own imported cultural group? The law of the state says you can’t do things that are defined as child abuse, but what if the religion (according to the immigrant or nth generation children of immigrants) says that just those extreme forms of punishment are required to be practiced?We already have enough of this kind of problem within the USA just because of so-called fundamentalist Christians who want to forbid the teaching of Darwin in the school system. Even my own quasi-Christian mother would have done something drastic if she thought that the public primary school was going to tell children enough about sex that they know who sticks what where, and that to avoid venereal disease it is best that what gets stuck in there should be sheathed in latex.Western culture, and more specifically the Constitution of the USA, says that religion doesn’t get to tell people what to do and have their demands enforced by the legal apparatus of the state. It’s o.k. for the church to tell kids not to masturbate, and to try to convince them that they’ll go to hell or the insane asylum for doing so, but they cannot use the authority of their church to force the state to make laws according to their religious precepts. The most they can do is to try to convince people by evidence and analysis that doing x is bad for the society and ought to be banned by law.Some religionists can’t live with those restrictions on their behavior, so they are incompatible with the culture of the majority.
Why have feminists cozied up with Islam?
Feminists go on and on about women needing rights but they never seem to care about women who are beaten in the Middle East for disobeying their husbands or who can’t drive or vote. They seem to not condemn it neither even though it’s incompatible with women’s rights. Why do they do this?
Why doesn't Islam integrate well in Western society?
So called ‘western society’ is a result of a fight between the proponents of theocracy and the proponents of the ‘civil society’ and democracy. This fight has officially started in Renaissance and culminated in the Age of Enlightenment.Over the course of several centuries, we managed to come out of the system where The Church and The Ruler had absolute power over their subjects to a system where religion is considered a private matter and the rulers are chosen every couple of years in elections. The freedom of speech became a new mantra, and the following quote became famous:I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say ItAfter the atrocities of WW2, we have also learned that everyone can be a scapegoat (First they came ......) and decided to extend this freedom of speech to “freedom to live and believe as you see fit” - as long as you do not stop other people from exercising the same freedom.While some “western” countries still have an official state religion, all of them are de-facto secular democracies and the religion (ANY religion) is tolerated as long as its members aren’t killing other people. The rules that forbid inter-confessional marriages have been dismantled and a large portion of the population is either agnostic, atheist or only nominally religious(*).Many Muslim states haven’t gone through this transition (yet?) and their citizens find it far more difficult to identify with such legendary figures of the past as Galileo Galilei, Voltaire, Denis Diderot or Erasmus Darwin(+).This said, a whole lot of the Muslims has integrated nicely in the western society (or societies) and accepted the ideas of Enlightenment just as well as the Christians do. A minority of orthodox Muslims did not(§). Unfortunately, a small portion of this minority is absolutely convinced that the western society and the less orthodox Muslims must be brought to the RightPath(TM) with guns and bombs.(*) Whole lot of people declare as religious but do not really practice the rites.(+) Or more recently, with the likes of Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking or Steven Weinberg. Even more recent and more prominent examples: Most Famous Atheists/Agnostics.(§) Which by the way is also true for some orthodox Christians and Jews. Hopefully they will never be able to seize the power again, the way they did in the medieval times.
Why do many Americans seem to blame or hate Muslims in the US?
As a Muslim currently living in a conservative american county (more conservative than most Muslims are) it’s been really funny to see how they people here react after I tell them I am Muslim.I usually try to fish out what they really think about Muslims, usually about ISIS and the political chaos currently occurring in the Middle East. At the end, they will eventually make jokes about terrorists and how immigrants are coming into America and how nobody really knows what they are bringing into the country.Some of them quote Trump and xenophobic jokes about immigrants and them knowing I am a foreigner, I would ultimately make a joke about how I’m also a foreigner and how they wouldn’t know who I really was.“Hey, I’m a foreigner, who knows what I have under my jacket!”This will normally be immediately accompanied by crackles of laughter and slaps on the back.“Nope, we all know you’re a good guy. You wouldn’t blow things up like those Muslims!”Eventually, I tell them I am Muslim. This is followed by an awkward 20 seconds of silence.What I am showing to them is that we, Muslims, live a normal life. A Muslim can successfully integrate to american “normal” culture. We don’t blow up people’s homes and randomly shoot at people while shrieking in Arabic.Because we Muslims are the same as you guys. We eat the same stuff, study the same stuff at school, walk and talk the same way. Most of the billions of Muslims on earth lead a fairly normal life. The only thing that’s different is that we pray to a different god and in a different language.This is a complete shocker for many Americans. They are constantly told that America is a safe haven and because they live so comfortably in a first world country, they picture a third world country as lower than their standards of living. My standards of living back home are the same, or maybe even better than half of the people who attend my school here.That combined by the constant bombardment by the mainstream media (read: Fox News) about how the Middle East, where Islam is concentrated, is a warzone and “Islamic” terrorists being able to freely acquire firearms and shooting at people in bars (I’m looking at you, 2nd Amendment) totally explains to me why people in america are not very fond of Muslims.
Why is the Christian faith allowed to dictate the lives and lifestyles of non-Christians?
For example, despite 80% of British citizens and 64% of Britain's G.P's being in favour of Euthanasia being made legal, parliament will not legalise it mainly because the Church of England view is that “physician assisted suicide is incompatible with the Christian faith and should not be permitted by civil law". The same goes for other things like gay marriage and until as recently as 2008, it was illegal to be "blasphemous". Personally, I'd rather not have to live my life dictated by a religious cult. If I want to die for whatever reason, marry another man or even voice a negative opinion about Christianity, I should be allowed to do so. I'm all for Christians having their freedom of faith, to believe whatever they want to believe in, but it's wrong for a religious community of any flavour to force their values and beliefs onto others. If Christians don't like euthanasia, gay marriage, working on Sundays or speaking out against God then they're welcome to refrain from doing so, but they shouldn't be allowed to stop others from it.