Some ideas for more respectful discussions.

Introduction:

I’ve been watching young atheists and x-Muslims debating Muslims for a while now and I’ve noticed a slight trend. I’m not sure if this happens when atheists and people of other faiths have debates but what happens is that whenever Islam is criticized as an ideology, even when they explicitly state they are not criticising any individuals that follow the faith but just the faith itself, Muslims inevitably get offended and often the atheist is labelled as an islamaphobe.

Atheists often don’t seem to understand why this is. In this article I aim to explain my opinion on why Muslims and perhaps people of other faiths get offended when their ideology specifically is criticized and some ideas for how people on both sides of the atheism vs religion debate could work past this issue.

In order to be able to learn, adapt, evolve and progress as a society, we need to be able to be critical of any aspect of society (but more importantly this needs to be done in a way that’s respectful to everyone in the discussion) because ideas and people that are thought of as being above the law can sometimes become dangerous regardless of whether those people or ideas are religious or not.

Edit: > Think of slavery. For most of the history of civilisation it was the norm accross the world. It was only when it was questioned that society began to transcend it. Humanity is still very much on that journey today but we have to agree things are at least slightly better now. <

So, why do Muslims (and perhaps people of other faiths) get offended or at least emotional when their faith and not they as individuals are criticised?

It’s a part of their identity.

To a Muslim, Islam isn’t merely a set of ideals or a philosophy to live by, it’s a central, intrinsic and indispensible aspect of who they are as a human being! Some people who I spoke to even said they believed faith is something they were born with and that it was inately a part of them almost a part of their DNA! Regardless of whether or not that is scientifically true this clearly illustrates just how strongly Muslims at least feel about their faith.

Therefore, to criticise their religion is necessarily to criticise them at least from their perspective. There is no partition in the mind of the average Muslim, separating religion from self.

There are similar examples of this that I can give where secular people think in a similar fashion, take for example LGBT+ or vegan communities. Criticising homosexuality would at the very least stir up emotions among homosexuals even if they them selves were not being criticised.

If you did the same with veganism however you might face actual death threats from militant vegans! And need I tell you what responses you would get if you were in America and publicly criticised the constitution or any of the amendments?

So you see, even when someone who’s not necessarily religious embraces an idea or way of thinking as part of their identity, it can become an essential part of their personality and who they are.

This is why religious individuals get offended when their religion is criticised. You’re attacking something that they consider to be a part of themselves. Whether or not that’s a literal, biological fact is irrelevant.

So what can we do to move past this and have better, more civilised debates and discussions?

Respect each others humanity!

Whether or not a religion is factually correct is less important than how people treat each other. Regardless of what a person believes they are still a human being and deserve at least that much respect so give them that at least.

I’ve seen videos of atheists tearing out pages of the Quran which regardless of their opinion of religion is just plain wrong! I believe in free speech but in what world does ripping up a book that 1.7 Billion people around the world hold sacred fall under it’s banner? In no world.

It’s just plain disrespectful and wrong to act in such an immature way and this says something about the people doing it. If questioned about why they did such an act they would likely reply with something along the lines of “You’re saying I’m disrespectful? Look at what the Muslims do!” referring to extremist organisations like ISIS and Al Qaeda as if that is an accurate representation of the global Muslim community (it isn’t by the way).

On the flip side I have seen things like people condemning atheists to hell for their views which happens in many religious communities not just Islamic ones.

Respect for each others basic humanity is an absolute requirement if any peaceful, civilised dialogue is to take place, which brings me to my next point…

What’s the end goal?

It seems like a lot of atheists in particular x-Muslim YouTubers are often trying to disprove Islam. That’s ok if both debators agree to discussing whether or not a religion is factually correct and so long as both people respect each others humanity but what’s really most important? What should the end goal be?

Is it more important to pull people out of their chosen faith¹ or to create a world where people of all faiths and none can co-exist peacefully together, respecting each others beliefs and freedoms? You don’t have to agree with someone to be respectful.

If freedom is to be a reality then it must be applied to all. Off course freedom and responsibility go hand in hand but if I want to have the freedom to be non religious I have absolutely no right whatsoever to deny people of faith to follow whatever religion they choose. So long as no one is being harmed it’s really none of my business what people believe.

Some advice for non-muslims and atheists.

First and foremost, as I’ve already mentioned, be respectful! I could almost end this section here.

If you are a person of another faith then this is an opportunity for you to reflect on how you relate to your religion and what it means to you. If you converted you can think about what drew you to your religion and think about the fact that, more likely than not, there are probably some similarities between your story and the story of the person sitting across from you.

If you’re an atheist or otherwise not religious, think of the things that you hold most dear to you. Your parents, your children, your closest friends your good health. For a lot of religious people their faith means even more to them than all of that put together! FAR MORE! If you’ve never been religious then that might be a difficult concept to grasp but you should try none the less because that after all is the meaning of empathy.

You’re both human! That’s what comes first, regardless of anyone’s opinions. Hurling insults at people and ripping up books that they hold sacred is not respecting their humanity, plain and simple!

Some advice for Muslims and people of faith in general.

Again, respect comes first. It’s possible to disagree with someone and still respect them and as I hope you figured out from this article, as a former Muslim I know how it feels to have something I once considered as a part of who I was be insulted.

But like I mentioned, what should the end goal be? You could say that the end goal is to convert everyone to your particular faith but that would not be respecting peoples freedoms. If you want the right to practice your faith you have to extend the same right to other people to practice theirs and that includes people of no faith.

The same goes for damning people to hell and giving them death threats, that’s unchristian, un-Islamic certainly disrespectful and not ok, after all, do most religions not preach that God and God alone can judge and decide the fate of people?

This is why I think the end goal should be to co-exist peacefully.

Now when it comes to debates and discussions it’s important to understand that if you’re speaking to someone who hasn’t been religious or doesn’t have the same relationship with their religion as you (or if they haven’t read this article), you should explain that your religion is a part of your identity and not something you consider separate from yourself, and it might help to use examples like I have.

I think, hopefully, once they understand this in the same way that you do then they will hopefully try to be a bit more respectful.

Now, if you’re entering a debate or discussion on topics such as the factual status of your particular faith it’s important to remember that the person your talking to is likely going to say things that you vehemently disagree with, but that’s part of having an open intellectual discussion, so long as they are not being derogatory or abusive.

In these debates it’s important to be able to “agree to disagree” as they say. Acknowledging that someone else believes something you disagree with will not make you less faithful, it just means you will be able to have meaningful discussions that, so long as everyone is being respectful lead to greater learning on both sides and that is the key to creating a world where everyone can peacefully coexist.

If a person you’re talking to or debating with is being disrespectful, insulting, derogatory, abusive or otherwise harmful or immature then you’re perfectly within your rights to end the discussion and cease all communication with them. You won’t have lost the debate because if a person is acting in such an immature way then there was no debate to begin with.

That last statement goes for people on both sides.

He who angers you, conquers you. (More advice for both sides).

That’s a quote from musician Elizabeth Kelly but I’m sure there are parralels in religion and philosophy going back thousdands of years for example Epictetus is quoted as having said “Any person capable of angering you becomes your master”.

If someone is being abusive, derogatory or insulting to you they are most likely doing it precisely to get a reaction, if you can control your emotions and deprive them of such a reaction then they have no power over you.

This is in no way somehing easy to do but it is in my opinion something the world needs more of. All too often in debates and discussions people only listen in order to reply and that’s not really listening! It skips over the step of respecting each others humanity which is crucial in order to have respectful, civilised conversations.

Unless you’re having some kind of science vs religion debate, proving each others arguments wrong should not be the priority so much as learning as much as possible from one another. The more we know about each other the less we have to fear and the less fear there is, the less hate there will be.

To illustrate this I would highly reccomend watching this video with Daryl Davis, a black American who decided to find out why the kkk are racist by actually going to speak with them!

Through not much more than simply respecting their humanity and having discussions with them (whilst obviously dissagreeing with their racial beliefs) he has directly caused at least 30 members to leave the movement completely on their own volition without ever asking them to.

His story is an absolute inspiration!:

Video title: Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies. | Daryl Davis | TEDxNaperville

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw&t=7s

In conclusion:

Peaceful coexistence should be the main goal not conversion or de-conversion unless you’re dealing with a cult or something like that.

Even if peaceful coexistence isn’t something that’s ever going to be completely achievable it’s still in my opinion something that should be strived for as that means that society will have a consistent positive progression over time meaning that society would almost only ever get better and better over all.²

In case you’re wondering about my affiliations, I would technically count as an x-Muslim (I think of myself as an atheist/agnostic) though I’d prefer not to use that phrase because of the way that I’ve seen certain (not all) x-Muslim social media influencers act when talking about Islam. It’s not something I’ve personally seen repeated by ‘x-Christians’ or people who have left other faiths.

It’s important to point out though that I don’t think it’s the majority of x-Muslims that act like this, in fact regarding the ripping of pages from the Quran I’ve only seen one YouTuber do it and heard of one other YouTuber doing the same thing.

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