Comments on: Christopher Hitchens vs. Tariq Ramadan: Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

By: Setarcose

Setarcose — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 16:41:57 +0000

This is worth reading another point of view on the debate:

http://www.inkpapermosaic.com/2010/11/ramadan-hitchens-debate/

Thoughts?

By: Melika

Melika — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:22:15 +0000

Islam itself is a religion of peace, because the quran details the importance of conducting a good, righteous life. However different people have different opinions of peace, as opinions are objective. Also, some muslims are not peaceful, but that does not condemn the religion itself. You wouldn’t judge a car by it’s driver – if a drunk man crashed a BMW you wouldn’t say the car is unreliable, so you shouldn’t judge Islam based on the actions of a few misguided muslims.

By: jibjib

jibjib — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:41:15 +0000

religion is another excuse to instigate cruelty to one another. Not always the case, but…..

By: Dirty Kuffar

Dirty Kuffar — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:29:05 +0000

Lenin – at least you’ve got the honesty to give yourself an apt totalitarian pen-name !
Islam is not just another item in the spiritual materialist’s supermarket, it is a stupid, bigoted politico-religious system of draconian social control that must be overcome in the same way that nazism and communism were overcome in the last century.
There is not the luxury of new age style cultural relativism here ; the world over, islamists are committing violence and oppressing freedom loving peoples, if they had had there way and the original “Incitement to Religious Hatred Act” was brought in, many of the people on this site would have been imprisoned.

By: atheist_gone_anon

atheist_gone_anon — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:35:29 +0000

@Lukie – I actually agree with the thrust of Lenin’s well articulated comments. So often I see Hitchens and many other atheists making simplistic arguments about problems that they’d be in no diplomatic position to help resolve.

As an atheist myself, it frustrates me to see people (here’s looking at you, @Richard May, and you too, Derren’s media collator) blindly agreeing with anything these celebrity atheists say; celebrities who have often become too big for their boots, revelling in the fame and sycophancy of it all.

Finally, nobody mentioned that the whole debate was hosted at the “Centre for Jewish Life” and participated in by temple’s around the USA. Hardly a neutral platform for debate.

This, to me, is problematic and slightly fanatic atheism.

By: Method

Method — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 00:05:54 +0000

I’m not a believer in religion, but I do think that if people choose to believe in something then they should believe in themselves first and foremost. I think the world would be a better place without any religions.

By: lenin

lenin — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:24:02 +0000

And by the way, can those of commenting here assume that Derren will read our 800 character ‘thoughts’ on his ‘thoughts’? Will he perhaps descend among us and comment, and say “Blimey ‘lenin’, that’s an amazingly well thought out argument. It simply hadn’t occurred to me to consider it that way. Everything will be different now. I love you, and miss you already, though we have never met. Please stroke my ginger chin fur and nibble my fleshy earlobes.” Or something like that?

By: lenin

lenin — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:14:32 +0000

That’s hardly fair, Lukie. I’m explaining a point of view, to wit: 1) Hitchens is a warmonger, thus not best placed to debate on peace; 2) the question of debate is badly, misleadingly framed; 3) the position advocated by Hitchens and his partisans in this debate reduces complex international problems to a unenlightened and unenlightening dichotomy between Islam and ‘the West’. That is something, and not nothing. Given that this is a point of view that’s rarely seriously debated among those of the Ditchkins persuasion, I thought it required proper explanation. In this case, it took something like 300 words.

By: Lukie

Lukie — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:46:09 +0000

Blimey Lenin, it takes you along time to say absolutely nothing.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 12:46:14 +0000

Some analysis from Vanity Fair
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/christopher-hitchens-and-tariq-ramadan-spar-over-the-peacefulness-of-islam.html