I don't see much difference. Taking as an assumption that the only way to parcel freedom is to give everyone the same amount, your parceling is not different from my idea of preserving freedom elsewhere. I'm not sure I get what you mean when you say "tangible", but as you suggested, freedom is a rather concrete unit as it can split and distributed: generally speaking if freedom is given to someone it will be taken from someone else, and vice versa. Give someone the freedom to kill and you'll take the freedom to live from someone else. And by taking away the freedom to kill, you make sure the levels of freedom are equal. The process sounds like what you would do do parcel freedom fairly: take away from those who have too much freedom, in order to give too little. If the killing example is a little too far fetched, we can go back to burqa: take away the freedom to impose it from someone, give back to someone else the freedom to chose by himself.
No, that is an assumption that is highly improbable and incredibly slanted. Why? Because it is impossible to give everyone the same amount of freedom. Is the right to smoke, but only in certain areas, thereby allowing other people to be free of second hand smoke giving everyone the same amount of freedom, OR trying to make the system as fair as possible, and setting up compromises? As a smoker, I would argue it's the latter, because I have few places to smoke, severely compromising my freedom.
Freedom CAN be given and taken, but that doesn't make it tangible, tangible referring to the fact that freedom can be measured, split, and done accurately, like a cake cut into equal slices. Freedom cannot be split accurately, because people have different notions of what is and equal balance and compromise in freedom given, unlike measurements of units which are clear cut definite. Let's give another example. I want to own a gun. But my owning of a gun might endanger someone else if I'm mentally unsound. So you take my gun away. I would argue that that violates my freedom. So who's freedom is more important? That's the question I'm getting at, which you don't answer. That's why Muslims, and say another culture have different views on freedom.
The burqa is only mandatory for a select few Muslim nations; if you want to slam Muslims, at least make sure to add the caveat that the vast majority DO NOT NEED TO, and are not the narrowminded parochial people you think they are.
Hum, did you just imply that the west has no culture and no tradition? Because we do, but that doesn't stop us to let everyone choose if he wants to follow the tradition or not, and our freedom hasn't destruced our tradition either (this also applies to your examples of progressive Muslim nations: mentioning them just makes evident how the impositions of the more radical communities are not only inhuman, but also unnecessary). Besides, a culture or a tradition is hardly worth anything if is forced on those who practice, don't you think? I doubt many people were ever proud of their tradition of being slaves. And lastly I think all this in unnecessary because personal freedom looks way more important to me than a tradition that comes from above. That's westernocentric, I guess. But I can't find a reason why external factors should matter in my decisions. It was already hard enough to convince myself of the freedom distribution thing.
No I did not. Go back and read my post again. And no, to refute your point that Muslim nations that are progressive are just evident that more radical communities are unnecessary; that lies on the egocentric assumption that Muslim nations will all follow the trajectory that Western nations have taken, and will become democratic. As any anthroplogist worth his salt will tell you, that's not the case, and most Muslim nations who are progressive have all stuck firmly to their own beliefs, and certainly not turned completely secular. They tried it in the 60s and 70s with disastrous results, as the populace clung fiercely to their religion.
Secondly, I think you have a very narrow-minded view of what Muslim culture is. It's not a tradition of being slaves, and Muslim nations were often afforded more freedom than Christian ones in the past, such as the right for a woman to initiate divorce. Thirdly, they are proud of their tradition, that is positive (Duh right? Go back and think through it.). Lastly, maybe it doesn't to you, but as an example, I come from a Chinese society, and I believe more in conformity and putting society over my needs in more cases than you, due to my Confucian roots. I am repelled by the liberal, rather self-centred values perpetuated by more progressive Western nations. And I resent being called backward, based on their own rather exclusive criteria which they judge by their standards.
I am not saying they should be limited from politics, where did you get that from? I was just criticizing their beliefs.
The fact that you called people who believed directly in God's omnipotence are dangerous as they can apply such beliefs.
As I more or less said in my first post in this thread, I distrust the fundamentalists that don't respect other people's freedom, as well as those who support Institutions that to such while doing nothing harmful personally because, well, they don't respect personal freedom. I distrust the ones that do nothing of the above but still call themselves Muslim, because they hold contradictory beliefs, and I find it hard to take their good intentions seriously when they regard as God's word a book that actually tells them to behave as the fundamentalists of the first two groups.
Even if I met only one Muslim in my life, I can use the example of all the Catholics I know to tell you that this third point wouldn't actually affect the way I would consider them if I knew them, because I know how little these people tend to care about what they call their religion and have no problems ignoring the part of their holy books they don't like while somehow considering the whole thing true and sacred.
Well, then sorry for your narrow-mindedness if you can't trust a Muslim because a small minority does all that, whilst you unfairly blame the rest of the moderates for not being able to overpower that minority, who are often in places of power.
That's an ignorant view, given that both religions are different. I could meet one Italian, and tell the Germans that all Europeans are like that. Or a Texan, and tell all Americans that they're like that. Is that fair? NO.
Also, the fact that they can disagree with certain parts of the book because it does not fit with their beliefs is not something to be slammed, but on the contrary, applauded, because it shows that they aren't as constrained by their religion as you think.
Ah, the good old No True Scotsman fallacy. No, Bin Ladin was a Muslim. However, you're correct in that he is not representative of all Muslims.
I disagree. They're not even saying that he's not a true Muslim, but not even a Muslim.
Person A: "All true Scotsmen drink ale"
Person B: "I am Scottish, and I don't drink ale."
Person A: "Then you are not a true Scotsman."
This is a valid argument and not a fallacy. In this case, Razer has already stated clearly that he believes that Muslims who commit such atrocities have already broke clear of the rest of the flock.
