Latest example that Islam and democracy cannot coexist, that doesn't necessarily mean that Islam is bad or democracy is good, but as a middle easterner I find the western lack of understanding Islam and Muslims is mind boggling.
EDIT: Does anybody dare to say anything that isn't suitable to the liberal and leftist tyranny on this website? I suggest you should live in an Islamic country for a while so you can understand. The west has a long history in misunderstanding the danger until the toll becomes in the tens of millions
> Isn't this like saying Christianity and democracy can't coexist?
Typical western misunderstanding of islam, treating all religions as equally stupid or equally good, islam, unlike christianity, is inherently immersed in politics since day one. Mohammed was a political figure and a "warrior" who subjugated the disbelievers to his will by all means, the "caliph" means in arabic, successor, the prophet's successor, it's his duty, according the quran to wage war on all the disbelievers until they submit to the true word of god.
Christianity itself, on the other hand, is almost has nothing to do with politics according to the new testament.
As middle eastern who was 100% okay with what you said you totally lost me when you said :
>islam, unlike christianity, is inherently immersed in politics
I wish you could time travel to medieval times. ;)
Islam, Christianity, juduism, etc all are same fundamentally. But the christianity has lost its power in recent centuries and become (a little) adaptated to the modern societies.
> I wish you could time travel to medieval times. ;)
I didn't say the in medieval times, things weren't shit for Europe. But Christianity itself is not immersed in politics like Islam. This is a fact not an opinion.
I didn’t defend Islam! I attacked all religions. You can not say Islam is essentially bad while Christianity is not that bad. They are fundamentally same. In my opinion they all are bs. But Christianity is transformed under presure, that pressure was not there for Islam until last 20, 30 years. So islam hasn’t transformed yet.
That doesn’t make Christianity better or Islam worse.
>>As middle eastern who was 100% okay with what you said you totally lost me when you said :
>islam, unlike christianity, is inherently immersed in politics
There are some fundamental differences though. Correct me if I am wrong but Quran is considered final the way as it is, any attempt to rewrite is illegitimate. Whereas New Testament is considered as valid as the Old testament in many streams.
The punishment for apostasy are also quite different across abrahamic religions. You can't argue for abolishing death penalty for apostates and yet, be considered adhering to Islam's core tenets.
These two things, among others, pose unique challenges for reforms in Islam.
Of course, this didn't stop people from interpreting the texts differently. Surely this has always been controversial and caused major strifes and wars between different Christian fractions. Isn't that pretty similar to how Islam has hundreds of different interpretations? http://theconversation.com/why-is-islam-so-different-in-diff...
The Bible was retranslated in 1611 (for example), and is regularly. It's not rewritten. New finds of historical texts show this to be true.
Some versions (ie translations) are presented with a political end, but they're relatively easily weeded out.
Translations tend to sit on a range from translating the idea to translating the specific words - that's why every Christian I know uses different versions, concordances, Bible dictionaries etc..
There are overarching themes that are not in dispute in these religious texts.
The core of the canon is still essentially the same as described by Athanasius[1]. He had the following to say about the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books:
there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness
Consensus changed, and the books were incorporated into the proper canon. Centuries later, Martin Luther thought the church to be corrupt and its traditions no longer trustworthy; he argued that doctrine should be re-derived from Scripture alone. Given that the canon was itself a product of said tradition, he re-examined it and came to the conclusion that the deuterocanonical books shouldn't be considered capital-S Scripture. Fewer people are aware that he had similar misgivings about parts of the New Testament as well (Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation).
Christianity's solution has been to no longer treat the bible literally.
There is a verse in the Bible that tells you to kill your children if they are disrespectful ("For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. ").
Noone gives a damn any more. Perhaps it will be the same for the interpretation of Islam at some point in the future. Otherwise the culture clash will not disappear.
To get a peacful Islam, all you need is a shift in pereception. Start seeing things allegorically and whatnot. Christianity could do it. Islam can do it. In fact it did. Check out Sufism.
I do consider the Sufis as part of the larger Umma. But not all islamic sects do. The differences often serve as an excuse for war.
"Modern" is the keyword for degeneration, religion has to be definitive, not something you can toy around. You can simply do not believe and move on...
"Christianity itself, on the other hand, is almost has nothing to do with politics according to the new testament."
Christianity has everything to do with politics. A critical facet of Roman empire were various religious cults. These were effectively replaced by christian service.
Constantine's embrace of christianity can be considered as a similar event as Mohammed's ride to Mecca:
Where Islam was crafted as a utility to govern Mecca, early Christianity after Constantine was basically crafted with the politics of governing Rome as one of the constraint. Regardless of the piety of early church fathers, their designs for the organization and creed were to govern the lives of people in a very concrete way. Hence - politics.
For a thousand year (or so) the Roman Catholic church was the kingmaker in Europe.
The rise of lutheranism was as much political movement as religious. While Luther's theology provided the philosophical context, the political driving force were german princes who were envious of the political power and wealth of the catholic church.
>early Islam was far more tolerant of other creeds
Jesus lead armies to murder those who wouldn't join his religion, then realised that he could keep some alive and tax them instead .. so the men then got a choice to convert or pay tax, women and children were still raped and taken as slaves however.
Oh wait, that was someone else as reported in other religious texts.
Mohammed was a historical character, Jesus might or might not have been a figment of cults imagination. I would not compare Jesus and Mohammed. If you want to find Muhammeds counterpart in christianity I would really look into the early church fathers, after emperor Constantine.
To quote from wikipedia, early muslim conquests did not mind other religions (they were not exactly equal citizens, though):
Jews were expelled from catholic spain, and the diaspora went to muslim countries, among other places.
Late christian sentiment is a bit different thing altogether, as affluent europeans finally started to actually think about the humanistic message in new testament in wider context, which led to termination of slavery and so on. Early christians were probably drawn to this powerful message. When christianity became a state tool, the effective practices diverged to acommodate the needs of the state and power.
I'm not raising these as examples to prove moral superiority either way. I'm raising these to point out that to claim one is bigoted in it's first principles while the other is not, or some such generalization, is empirically false.
Both muslim and christian civilizations have shown humanistic tendencies as xenophobic and brutal ones as well. Secular economics and politics have been the driving forces of historical development as much as the theological basis of the regionally dominants power theology, if not more so.
Organized religion foremost is a form of political control over people. It's complected with cultural identity in a deep, difficult way, but the identity of a people and the currently accepted dogma are not (necessarily) the same thing.
Christianity doesn't dictate a political ordering (it's highly uncorrelated with Western Capitalism however!), nor does it demand subjugation of people of other religions, and none, as Islam does (in the Koran and Hadith, and in Islamic states).
Christianity has no physical constraints; nowhere you have to go, nothing you have to do (beyond the initial acceptance of salvation, which is spiritual), no particular foods to eat, no particular clothes to wear, no particular people to venerate.
Mohammed was a warlord who took up political power ferverently; Jesus only association with violence is in stopping it, and he never sought any political power.
Roman Catholicism and Papistry perhaps resembles Islam somewhat, but that's in contradiction to the New Testament.
Your interpretation of Christianity seems biased by the modern, largely apolitical liberal Christianity practiced in Europe and in some of the United States and other allied countries.
Christianity prior to the 19th Century had quite a lot to do with politics, and some particularly large sects in the United States would still insist that their faith commands them to engage politically in ways you might consider "subjugation".
Roman Catholicism and Papistry perhaps resembles Islam somewhat, but that's in contradiction to the New Testament.
Half of all Christians are Roman Catholic. There are still a couple of Anglican, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox state churches today. Dominion theology is well alive within evangelical circles.
Sure, it's possible to make a case for secularism within a Christian context (render unto Caesar, my kingdom is not of this world, ...), but that's not the only case you can make: The God of Christianity is also the God of the Old Testament, and that guy was not a fan of the separation of church and state...
There isn't a big enough sample size of countries for you to conclude this. I mean for all we know democracy might be inherently unstable and we are living through a brief spasm of it looking stable of a few hundred years; it's an incredibly unlikely system for government and just saying blame Muslims is incredibly cheap. Most of the Turkish people I've talked to in London think Erdogan is a crook and they say their country is hugely divided but people are afraid to speak up.
Democracy failed repeatedly in Europe and has really only been in place throughout the west for a little over half a century and is under sustained attack from within and without right now.
For centuries, Christianity was believed to be incompatible with democracy _by Christians_, keep in mind.
Also, the USA lacks the infrastructure to block websites. They have to cut them off at the source, get every ISP to somehow cooperate, or maybe blow aware their DNS, but there is no equivalent of the Great Firewall of China.
Finally, to believe that everything is just black and white and that because the USA does X and the other country does X that they are on the same scale is itself a fallacy.
After 10 years in this wonderful place called Germany, while witnessing the deterioration back in my homeland, I sort of got over the meaningless dedication to Turkey rooted from the mere fact that I was born there. Why should I love Turkey? I kept asking this question to myself for so long that the process made the answer irrelevant.
I say, let it go worse, crash and burn. I keep thinking about the wonders that process did to many nations.
Well, maybe Erdoğan knows something we don't and in the end I'll look like those people who didn't invest in bitcoin when it was worth not even a Euro. Maybe Islamic Dictatorship was the solution after all? Hah. Never mind. I couldn't care less.
With the changing tides, these days, it feels like everyone needs to be, or at least needs to act like, a nationalist. I won't and I also won't write this stuff from throwaway accounts.
I feel you, though not born in Turkey (born in Germany to Turkish parents).
Where does "love for Turkey" come from? Patriotism / nationalism has been part of Turkish culture for a long time; the origin can be attribute to the state-supported mythology that recounts the succession of dozens of Turkish states over millenia, the Independence War and all that. It can also be attribute to the "collectivist" or nomadic origins of culture and language, the actual history as influenced by the fact that ethnic Turks moved to present day Turkey (to the extent culture and language can be traced; maybe that is not much).
There is no more Turkish republic anymore... but whatever you think of politics and whether a nation is something that can be loved, whether you are personally affected or not, I think seeing a democracy go crash and burn is disturbing.
Erdoğan has successfully built a climate of fear where expat Turkish folks are afraid to voice criticism because they have relatives in Turkey. (Sure, it is no different for, say, China today; but IMHO it was never as bad for so many people in Turkey. It was certainly just as bad for fewer people before).
A majority of votes can be organized for populist crude nationalist ideas. However, it is very sad that after the AKP claimed democratization and achieved stability, it swung back to create the same conditions that have created brain-drain before have been recreated.
And far worse, so that the whole development path for Turkey is blocked for decades to come.
There are bright and capable people who for these short-sighted reasons will never succeed; it isn't rational for a leader, even for one who only seeks to extract wealth from a country, to follow such a strategy. So it is just a waste. Which wonders will come out of it? Another authoritarian state.
The overall cake could have been bigger and everybody could have benefited. And the irony is - like with Trump - that the people who think they are in control because they voted AKP are going to be the ones who will suffer and lose most.
If you want "I don't care" to be your shield of protection, I can understand and respect that... but it is disheartening that there doesn't seem to be much that one can do as an individual.
And it is quite possible that if the majority of Turkish support this system, then there may not be a way to avoid it. However, since you live in Germany: the Nazi party also got in control by dismantling the democracy, and we won't be able to say "I don't care" the crimes against humanity they committed. There are disturbing parallels.
You are absolutely right. I just have a few notes to add.
You could probably guess that I still hurt inside a little bit when I suggest that I'd shut my eyes to the catastrophe happening in my homeland. My point is, with the despair caused by the lack of things to do and the abundant real-life "Ididocracy" going on, I got used to it to the point that I can ignore it. I don't want to live my life fighting an uphill battle against brainwashed folks.
In the unlikely event that it happens here as well, I guess I'd just take my wife and flee... again. Maybe I could say that not caring is not my shield, it's my only rational move.
I'm a westerner in Turkey, and I am breaking the law by posting this. Hundreds of thousands of people have been arrested since the "Coup" on fake charges. 1/2 of them have been arrested because of grudges or being of the wrong political party, the other 1/2 of them have been arrested for saying the wrong thing on Facebook.
Being in Turkey you get dozens of friend requests by people you don't know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, they're all spybots, I've tracked some of them down to turkish government ip ranges.
All cell phones and internet devices must be registered by the government. It's expensive, but most intelligent people buy their phones and computers outside of the country to ensure that Tayipp's goons in MIT haven't installed spyware.
I know someone who was arrested and detained for a week because he doesn't use social media.
It's illegal to insult anybody in this country, not just Tayipp.. but Tayipp has immunity, so he can insult anybody, and he does. I would go to jail for insulting Islam or Ataturk or Erdogan, but he regularly insults .. EVERYBODY. To him Kurds are zoroastrians, atheists deserve to be punished along with homosexuals. Anybody who isn't a staunch supporter of AKP is a terrorist (These are all things he says on a daily basis).
It all fell apart before Gezi Park. Gezi Park was a false flag event to take attention away from the recordings of him instructing Bilal to take all of the cash out of the house due to corruption procedings. Speaking of Bilal, he was going to be arrested in Italy for money laundering, so the saudis snuck him out of the country on a private jet.
Erdogan has arrested every senior member of the Kurdish party, the HDP (which the hippies and liberals co-opted before the "election"). Speaking of "elections", everybody predicted a major terror attack just before the re-election to ensure that he got his majority government the second time around. A new announcer said this on TV the day before the Ankara bombing which killed 103 people and harmed another 500. Most Turks who aren't uber nationalists believe Erdogan either did this, or allowed this to happen, because who cares if Kurds and Hippies are slaughtered?
What GDP/capita band was turkey at before Erdogan? Answer: $3k (google it yourself)
Also, why do you say ‘stuck’? Growth is still rapid despite ~4mil refugees, a war next door, and a difficult geopolitical environment. Europe collectivel lost their shit over a million refugees!
Banning wikipedia was stupid, but hardly matters to anyone with 3 neurons to rub together. Even free browser-extension class VPNs are enough to get around that ban (and the bans on porn sites as well)
I am sure many top tier developets and other talent have left Turkey, but this is a common problem across the middle class world. Look at tiny, free Estonia or other EU countries near Turkey. They are worse off already and are de-populating rapidly (bulgaria, romania, etc)
Turkey is far from perfect, but I continue to support AKP because they continue to deliver. The main opposition (CHP) are members of the Socialist Internationale and are unreformed old leftists. They ran the country for most of its Republican history and didnt deliver anything for the vast majority of Turks. We didnt get economic growth or freedom. Just google around for the level of Kurdish support for Erdogan, i think many on this site would be surprised.
Normally I don't bother presenting arguments to AKP supporters, but you cannot make statements based on GDP per capita growth without actually comparing the changes in income inequality, purchasing power parity (both inflation and exchange rate), and increased taxation with little government investment in return over public infrastructure. In addition to that, the opportunity costs and potential growth levels are also very relevant here.
Looking at Turkey in its own bubble might look great to you, but try to do so by also taking into consideration all that is not so rosy. You can ignore rampant corruption by showing off with the figures that go up, but you cannot possibly ignore the unsustainability thereof.
Finally, Turkey has had a turbulent past, even recently so. Attributing the bad times only to the parties in charge during those periods is an ignorant thing to do. AKP and Erdoğan got very lucky with the timing, and I strongly believe that any other party could have done a similar, and even better, job in terms of economic indicators.
And getting further from that sweet spot every day. Your president and his children quite openly supported ISIS and heavily profited from it. There are tons of proofs out there. Rest doesn't matter - he is evil, shakes hands with evil, profits from it and supports it. How many billions of $$ (that he stole from Turkish citizens like yourself) do you think he holds in amoral tax havens around the globe? You might not have enough fingers to represent it.
I can't change politics of EU nor my own country, but I'll vote with my money - I'll never set a foot in that country so I won't support their economy. Plenty of dictators out there already.
To think this country wanted to be part of EU. What an effin' joke. You guys have no clue what democracy, freedom and equality means. If Turkey would be taken in, then we can take Syria or Pakistan too
What exactly is the AKP delivering in terms of human rights? The genocide in Afrin? The arresting of all of his political opponents and critics? You're cool with this because the economy is slightly better?
Wikipedia was banned to hide his corruption. So was Soundcloud and Youtube, temporarily. I'm guessing you're just another paid AKP troll. Maybe Alparen Hearth?
Turkey is a nation of Muslim, heterosexual, very nationalist, ethnic Turks. The CS department funding did not simply disappear -- it was diverted to more productive avenues.
If funding goes towards political activism (rather than supporting the education of students) then surely it makes sense to remedy the issue.
These are not restrictive ideals, they are the bedrock of Turkish society.
The majority of jailed journalist are there under anti terrorn laws regarding the PKK. While its not something I support, you have to compare today’s Turkey with yesterday’s Turkey and not with today’s Sweden.
It was a crime to even claim to be Kurdish in the past. Elected mayors were jailed simply for saying they were ethnic kurds. Wearing a headscarf was illegal in schools, courts, etc. Even an AKP president’s wife was stopped from wearing a headacarf in a public hospital while visiting a wounded soldier!
In a way, I guess its a sign of Turkey and AKP’s success that we are now being held to European standards. There are 100 journalists in jail currently. Previous adminsitrations would have simply sent the government deatb squad to their doors and ended the matter rather more swiftly rather than subject itself to such Western critism over public statistics.
In a way, I guess its a sign of Turkey and AKP’s success that we are now being held to European standards.
As far as numbers of imprisoned journalists are concerned, Chinese standards would be an improvement. 150 journalists[1] doesn't sound like that much, until you realize that's something like half the global number...
Hey, why don't you try to support any terrorist group in your country? I am not talking about some pseudo-terror groups, talking about real ones, like PKK. The amount of civilians they killed might constitute a whole country.
The scope isn't quite the same, but Germany went through a series of left-wing terrorist attacks in the 70s.
There's a (German) article[1] by Günther Nollau, former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, that might be of interest. The title translates to something like Sympathy alone is no criminal offence.
I have only cursorily followed what has been happening in Turkey, but newspapers getting shut down, rulings by the constitutional court getting ignored and a president who unironically cited Nazi Germany as inspiration for a functioning presidential system raise quite a few alarm bells...
This is not 1977 unfortunately. Try ISIS in Germany or in social media, if you are confident enough about the division between sympathizer and supporter.
> Followers of Harun Yahya wear drag make-up and practice a “sexed-up, Disney version of Islam” that helps promote conservative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vision of a modern, Muslim Turkey.
Not true actually. There are many different forms of Islam. The Islam most people are familiar with today is the crappy one Saudi Arabia has been pushing. With Western oil money ironically.
While Turkey was only a half-democacy before, the current situation is far worse than in the 90's up until about 2008. Post-coup era 80's can maybe a good comparison, but the generals did leave power on their own, and free elections did take place. They won't now, for the foreseeable future.
I was in Turkey during that time, it was noy better for the bast majority of people. Turkey had a per capita gdp <$3k and i vividly recall seeing shoeless people even in the wealthiest areas of Istanbul. Totally changed today, Turkey is richer (per capita) than many EU member states.
The funny thing is, many people there believe that Turkey is one of the most advanced economies. The propaganda machine is amazingly successful. The person you are replying to has access to all the information to see how wrong those arguments are, yet simply ignores everything. I said funny but I mean more like a tragicomedy.
Growth like this happened globally. Politicians would have to be utterly incompetent or plainly steal 100% of any state income to not see this manifested in big jumps of prosperity of common people.
You know what brought the growth? Private sector coming in.
Some countries do not need to restrict the Internet because they have the means to manipulate public opinion.
Other countries have no other choice, but to restrict Internet access as this is a cheaper way to achieve same.
When I see some news title: "Turkey is restricting the Internet", I deduce a) we are being manipulated in this very moment in fine ways by countries of first group via this news title, and b) it seems Turkey has no means to fight back on same manipulation level, so they have to restrict Internet usage.
Not a justification for anyone to influence Internet, but also not that simple as the title suggests.
> You can have a lot of political 'change' in the United States, but will it really change that much? Will it change the amount of money in someone’s bank account? Will it change contracts? Will it void contracts that already exist? And contracts on contracts? And contracts on contracts on contracts? Not really.
> So I say that free speech in many Western places is free not as a result of liberal circumstances but rather as a result of such intense fiscalization that it doesn’t matter what you say. The dominant elite doesn’t have to be scared of what people think, because a change in political view is not going to change whether they own their company or not; it is not going to change whether they own a piece of land or not. But China is still a political society, although it is rapidly heading toward a fiscalized society. And other societies, like Egypt, are still heavily politicized. Their rulers really do need to be concerned about what people think, so they expend proportionate efforts on controlling freedom of speech.
Very biased and clumsy attempt to smear Turkey and its government. O.K. AK Party may not be the best in world history, O.K. President Erdogan may not be "the one" but they are in overall is O.K. Pretty damn good in fact... There are many shortcomings about both President Erdogan and AK Party but they at least try for their citizens. I am very well educated about the political history of Turkey and can confidently say that if the US archives will be opened for 1950s and 1960s we may be able to better understand these smear attempts. There are many suspectful grey areas that US might get involved.
Also apparently, Ms./Mrs.CARLOTTA GALL does not give any damn about reflecting realities. Rather she consciously prefers to be an instrument of perception management. It is a shame for her to give Adnan OKTAR as an example. She probably did not do her homework about him. Also, how the hell she just contacted the OKTAR cult with some freedom seeking activity? Is she mad? The guy even has a medical report for insanity, he did not get awarded as insane in near history, it goes to 1980s...
Moreover, the beloved Turkish left, the amount of intelligence operations Turkey leftist movements has been part of may be enough to eradicate the whole European governments, you can call it EU if you want, after WWII... It is partially also true for rightist but at least they are not trying to denigrate their own country...
I hope US public will try to know my country and our nation/nations, there are many-including Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, Greek, Hebrew etc. better and get their blinders,CARLOTTA GALL kind of blinders-there are many of them out there, off. And I also hope that US government and state get their shit straight because it will be helpful both countries and their nations...
Oh my. I find it amazing how many people came out of the woodwork to either defend this exact act or to defend Erdogan's Turkey.
> Don't get mad at him, you can work around it anyway, and he is great for us.
> Don't get mad at him, Israel is the real bad guy.
> Don't get mad at him, America is just as bad.
> Don't get mad at him, he is saving Syria and struggling to keep his nation together.
The next time I am outside the Turkish Embassy and Erdogan's associates are out there seeing if the toe of their boots fit firmly in the mouths of Liberal Turks, Kurdistan supporters, anyone who doesn't love the AKP, I'll remind those getting curbstompped that they shouldn't be mad at Erdogan because everyone else is at fault.
HN is no place for political battle, and this thread is full of violations of the site rules. It's not ok to do that, regardless of how right you are or how wrong your enemies. Maybe you don't owe them better, but you owe the community better if you want to post here. We all have an interest in not destroying the container.
If this sort of thing is where we're all headed as the world polarizes further, Hacker News is doomed. But perhaps we can stave doom off for a while longer. I'm going to ban the accounts that behaved the worst below and then shut down this thread.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadEDIT: Does anybody dare to say anything that isn't suitable to the liberal and leftist tyranny on this website? I suggest you should live in an Islamic country for a while so you can understand. The west has a long history in misunderstanding the danger until the toll becomes in the tens of millions
Perhaps it's true for some sects, it certainly was true of Christianity for over a millennia, but is it true of all?
Typical western misunderstanding of islam, treating all religions as equally stupid or equally good, islam, unlike christianity, is inherently immersed in politics since day one. Mohammed was a political figure and a "warrior" who subjugated the disbelievers to his will by all means, the "caliph" means in arabic, successor, the prophet's successor, it's his duty, according the quran to wage war on all the disbelievers until they submit to the true word of god.
Christianity itself, on the other hand, is almost has nothing to do with politics according to the new testament.
>islam, unlike christianity, is inherently immersed in politics
I wish you could time travel to medieval times. ;)
Islam, Christianity, juduism, etc all are same fundamentally. But the christianity has lost its power in recent centuries and become (a little) adaptated to the modern societies.
I didn't say the in medieval times, things weren't shit for Europe. But Christianity itself is not immersed in politics like Islam. This is a fact not an opinion.
I wish you could read the quran in arabic.
Wrong. Please search about relation between Christianity (or Judaisim for that matter) and power.
>I wish you could read the quran in arabic.
yeap, they did force us to read that stupid book for 12 year (elementary, middle, high school) in Iran. So I can say I am pretty familiar with it.
You can claim modern Christianity is not obsessed with power, but we know the old version was. Who knows about future version of Christianity!
The problem with Islam is it has not transformed to modern religion. But it will be! As Christianity did.
Isn't that grounds for legitimate criticism, then? Un-modern religions have no place in a modern world.
In tech we're so quick to throw even 5-year old concepts out as obsolete, why must Islam be defended in its obsolescence?
I didn’t defend Islam! I attacked all religions. You can not say Islam is essentially bad while Christianity is not that bad. They are fundamentally same. In my opinion they all are bs. But Christianity is transformed under presure, that pressure was not there for Islam until last 20, 30 years. So islam hasn’t transformed yet.
That doesn’t make Christianity better or Islam worse.
>>As middle eastern who was 100% okay with what you said you totally lost me when you said : >islam, unlike christianity, is inherently immersed in politics
Islam can't be modernised and still be Islam because it dictates a political order and holds a pre-medieval warlord as the ideal person.
They're fundamentally different in this respect at least.
The punishment for apostasy are also quite different across abrahamic religions. You can't argue for abolishing death penalty for apostates and yet, be considered adhering to Islam's core tenets.
These two things, among others, pose unique challenges for reforms in Islam.
Of course, this didn't stop people from interpreting the texts differently. Surely this has always been controversial and caused major strifes and wars between different Christian fractions. Isn't that pretty similar to how Islam has hundreds of different interpretations? http://theconversation.com/why-is-islam-so-different-in-diff...
Some versions (ie translations) are presented with a political end, but they're relatively easily weeded out.
Translations tend to sit on a range from translating the idea to translating the specific words - that's why every Christian I know uses different versions, concordances, Bible dictionaries etc..
There are overarching themes that are not in dispute in these religious texts.
Don't the apocrypha make that a bit more complicated?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha
The core of the canon is still essentially the same as described by Athanasius[1]. He had the following to say about the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books:
there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness
Consensus changed, and the books were incorporated into the proper canon. Centuries later, Martin Luther thought the church to be corrupt and its traditions no longer trustworthy; he argued that doctrine should be re-derived from Scripture alone. Given that the canon was itself a product of said tradition, he re-examined it and came to the conclusion that the deuterocanonical books shouldn't be considered capital-S Scripture. Fewer people are aware that he had similar misgivings about parts of the New Testament as well (Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation).
[1] http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm
There is a verse in the Bible that tells you to kill your children if they are disrespectful ("For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. "). Noone gives a damn any more. Perhaps it will be the same for the interpretation of Islam at some point in the future. Otherwise the culture clash will not disappear.
To get a peacful Islam, all you need is a shift in pereception. Start seeing things allegorically and whatnot. Christianity could do it. Islam can do it. In fact it did. Check out Sufism.
I do consider the Sufis as part of the larger Umma. But not all islamic sects do. The differences often serve as an excuse for war.
"Modern" is the keyword for degeneration, religion has to be definitive, not something you can toy around. You can simply do not believe and move on...
Christianity has everything to do with politics. A critical facet of Roman empire were various religious cults. These were effectively replaced by christian service.
Constantine's embrace of christianity can be considered as a similar event as Mohammed's ride to Mecca:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Chri...
Where Islam was crafted as a utility to govern Mecca, early Christianity after Constantine was basically crafted with the politics of governing Rome as one of the constraint. Regardless of the piety of early church fathers, their designs for the organization and creed were to govern the lives of people in a very concrete way. Hence - politics.
For a thousand year (or so) the Roman Catholic church was the kingmaker in Europe.
The rise of lutheranism was as much political movement as religious. While Luther's theology provided the philosophical context, the political driving force were german princes who were envious of the political power and wealth of the catholic church.
http://omaryoussefworldhistoryais.blogspot.fi/2011/10/why-di...
I would also like to point out that early Islam was far more tolerant of other creeds than early state christianity.
Jesus lead armies to murder those who wouldn't join his religion, then realised that he could keep some alive and tax them instead .. so the men then got a choice to convert or pay tax, women and children were still raped and taken as slaves however.
Oh wait, that was someone else as reported in other religious texts.
To quote from wikipedia, early muslim conquests did not mind other religions (they were not exactly equal citizens, though):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_other_religions#Earl...
Then compare this, for example, with Spain's expulsion of Jews:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain
Jews were expelled from catholic spain, and the diaspora went to muslim countries, among other places.
Late christian sentiment is a bit different thing altogether, as affluent europeans finally started to actually think about the humanistic message in new testament in wider context, which led to termination of slavery and so on. Early christians were probably drawn to this powerful message. When christianity became a state tool, the effective practices diverged to acommodate the needs of the state and power.
I'm not raising these as examples to prove moral superiority either way. I'm raising these to point out that to claim one is bigoted in it's first principles while the other is not, or some such generalization, is empirically false.
Both muslim and christian civilizations have shown humanistic tendencies as xenophobic and brutal ones as well. Secular economics and politics have been the driving forces of historical development as much as the theological basis of the regionally dominants power theology, if not more so.
Organized religion foremost is a form of political control over people. It's complected with cultural identity in a deep, difficult way, but the identity of a people and the currently accepted dogma are not (necessarily) the same thing.
Christianity has no physical constraints; nowhere you have to go, nothing you have to do (beyond the initial acceptance of salvation, which is spiritual), no particular foods to eat, no particular clothes to wear, no particular people to venerate.
Mohammed was a warlord who took up political power ferverently; Jesus only association with violence is in stopping it, and he never sought any political power.
Roman Catholicism and Papistry perhaps resembles Islam somewhat, but that's in contradiction to the New Testament.
Christianity prior to the 19th Century had quite a lot to do with politics, and some particularly large sects in the United States would still insist that their faith commands them to engage politically in ways you might consider "subjugation".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Borgia
Half of all Christians are Roman Catholic. There are still a couple of Anglican, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox state churches today. Dominion theology is well alive within evangelical circles.
Sure, it's possible to make a case for secularism within a Christian context (render unto Caesar, my kingdom is not of this world, ...), but that's not the only case you can make: The God of Christianity is also the God of the Old Testament, and that guy was not a fan of the separation of church and state...
Though, it's a matter of upbringing, if anything it's a Muslim mind, not brain. Homo sovieticus is also a thing.
It's all my personal opinion anyways.
For centuries, Christianity was believed to be incompatible with democracy _by Christians_, keep in mind.
The world: "Doesn't the US block sites under the Trading with the Enemy Act?"
US Media: "But that's different!"
Disclaimer: I didn't read it
Also, the USA lacks the infrastructure to block websites. They have to cut them off at the source, get every ISP to somehow cooperate, or maybe blow aware their DNS, but there is no equivalent of the Great Firewall of China.
Finally, to believe that everything is just black and white and that because the USA does X and the other country does X that they are on the same scale is itself a fallacy.
US Media: "But that's just for the bad guys, silly! Erdogan is Muslim and jails people - he's worse!"
Also I just realized that the Biblical saying “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” is literal whataboutism as well
I say, let it go worse, crash and burn. I keep thinking about the wonders that process did to many nations.
Well, maybe Erdoğan knows something we don't and in the end I'll look like those people who didn't invest in bitcoin when it was worth not even a Euro. Maybe Islamic Dictatorship was the solution after all? Hah. Never mind. I couldn't care less.
With the changing tides, these days, it feels like everyone needs to be, or at least needs to act like, a nationalist. I won't and I also won't write this stuff from throwaway accounts.
Where does "love for Turkey" come from? Patriotism / nationalism has been part of Turkish culture for a long time; the origin can be attribute to the state-supported mythology that recounts the succession of dozens of Turkish states over millenia, the Independence War and all that. It can also be attribute to the "collectivist" or nomadic origins of culture and language, the actual history as influenced by the fact that ethnic Turks moved to present day Turkey (to the extent culture and language can be traced; maybe that is not much).
There is no more Turkish republic anymore... but whatever you think of politics and whether a nation is something that can be loved, whether you are personally affected or not, I think seeing a democracy go crash and burn is disturbing.
Erdoğan has successfully built a climate of fear where expat Turkish folks are afraid to voice criticism because they have relatives in Turkey. (Sure, it is no different for, say, China today; but IMHO it was never as bad for so many people in Turkey. It was certainly just as bad for fewer people before).
A majority of votes can be organized for populist crude nationalist ideas. However, it is very sad that after the AKP claimed democratization and achieved stability, it swung back to create the same conditions that have created brain-drain before have been recreated.
And far worse, so that the whole development path for Turkey is blocked for decades to come.
There are bright and capable people who for these short-sighted reasons will never succeed; it isn't rational for a leader, even for one who only seeks to extract wealth from a country, to follow such a strategy. So it is just a waste. Which wonders will come out of it? Another authoritarian state.
The overall cake could have been bigger and everybody could have benefited. And the irony is - like with Trump - that the people who think they are in control because they voted AKP are going to be the ones who will suffer and lose most.
If you want "I don't care" to be your shield of protection, I can understand and respect that... but it is disheartening that there doesn't seem to be much that one can do as an individual.
And it is quite possible that if the majority of Turkish support this system, then there may not be a way to avoid it. However, since you live in Germany: the Nazi party also got in control by dismantling the democracy, and we won't be able to say "I don't care" the crimes against humanity they committed. There are disturbing parallels.
You could probably guess that I still hurt inside a little bit when I suggest that I'd shut my eyes to the catastrophe happening in my homeland. My point is, with the despair caused by the lack of things to do and the abundant real-life "Ididocracy" going on, I got used to it to the point that I can ignore it. I don't want to live my life fighting an uphill battle against brainwashed folks.
In the unlikely event that it happens here as well, I guess I'd just take my wife and flee... again. Maybe I could say that not caring is not my shield, it's my only rational move.
Being in Turkey you get dozens of friend requests by people you don't know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, they're all spybots, I've tracked some of them down to turkish government ip ranges.
All cell phones and internet devices must be registered by the government. It's expensive, but most intelligent people buy their phones and computers outside of the country to ensure that Tayipp's goons in MIT haven't installed spyware.
I know someone who was arrested and detained for a week because he doesn't use social media.
It's illegal to insult anybody in this country, not just Tayipp.. but Tayipp has immunity, so he can insult anybody, and he does. I would go to jail for insulting Islam or Ataturk or Erdogan, but he regularly insults .. EVERYBODY. To him Kurds are zoroastrians, atheists deserve to be punished along with homosexuals. Anybody who isn't a staunch supporter of AKP is a terrorist (These are all things he says on a daily basis).
It all fell apart before Gezi Park. Gezi Park was a false flag event to take attention away from the recordings of him instructing Bilal to take all of the cash out of the house due to corruption procedings. Speaking of Bilal, he was going to be arrested in Italy for money laundering, so the saudis snuck him out of the country on a private jet.
Erdogan has arrested every senior member of the Kurdish party, the HDP (which the hippies and liberals co-opted before the "election"). Speaking of "elections", everybody predicted a major terror attack just before the re-election to ensure that he got his majority government the second time around. A new announcer said this on TV the day before the Ankara bombing which killed 103 people and harmed another 500. Most Turks who aren't uber nationalists believe Erdogan either did this, or allowed this to happen, because who cares if Kurds and Hippies are slaughtered?
This post could put me in jail for 5-20 years.
Also, why do you say ‘stuck’? Growth is still rapid despite ~4mil refugees, a war next door, and a difficult geopolitical environment. Europe collectivel lost their shit over a million refugees!
Banning wikipedia was stupid, but hardly matters to anyone with 3 neurons to rub together. Even free browser-extension class VPNs are enough to get around that ban (and the bans on porn sites as well)
I am sure many top tier developets and other talent have left Turkey, but this is a common problem across the middle class world. Look at tiny, free Estonia or other EU countries near Turkey. They are worse off already and are de-populating rapidly (bulgaria, romania, etc)
Turkey is far from perfect, but I continue to support AKP because they continue to deliver. The main opposition (CHP) are members of the Socialist Internationale and are unreformed old leftists. They ran the country for most of its Republican history and didnt deliver anything for the vast majority of Turks. We didnt get economic growth or freedom. Just google around for the level of Kurdish support for Erdogan, i think many on this site would be surprised.
Looking at Turkey in its own bubble might look great to you, but try to do so by also taking into consideration all that is not so rosy. You can ignore rampant corruption by showing off with the figures that go up, but you cannot possibly ignore the unsustainability thereof.
Finally, Turkey has had a turbulent past, even recently so. Attributing the bad times only to the parties in charge during those periods is an ignorant thing to do. AKP and Erdoğan got very lucky with the timing, and I strongly believe that any other party could have done a similar, and even better, job in terms of economic indicators.
https://www.google.de/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&m...
Also, I searched for the Kurdish support: https://i.imgur.com/bWnm5Sb.png
I can say that I wasn't surprised.
And getting further from that sweet spot every day. Your president and his children quite openly supported ISIS and heavily profited from it. There are tons of proofs out there. Rest doesn't matter - he is evil, shakes hands with evil, profits from it and supports it. How many billions of $$ (that he stole from Turkish citizens like yourself) do you think he holds in amoral tax havens around the globe? You might not have enough fingers to represent it.
I can't change politics of EU nor my own country, but I'll vote with my money - I'll never set a foot in that country so I won't support their economy. Plenty of dictators out there already.
To think this country wanted to be part of EU. What an effin' joke. You guys have no clue what democracy, freedom and equality means. If Turkey would be taken in, then we can take Syria or Pakistan too
cok, cok ayip.
If funding goes towards political activism (rather than supporting the education of students) then surely it makes sense to remedy the issue.
These are not restrictive ideals, they are the bedrock of Turkish society.
It was a crime to even claim to be Kurdish in the past. Elected mayors were jailed simply for saying they were ethnic kurds. Wearing a headscarf was illegal in schools, courts, etc. Even an AKP president’s wife was stopped from wearing a headacarf in a public hospital while visiting a wounded soldier!
In a way, I guess its a sign of Turkey and AKP’s success that we are now being held to European standards. There are 100 journalists in jail currently. Previous adminsitrations would have simply sent the government deatb squad to their doors and ended the matter rather more swiftly rather than subject itself to such Western critism over public statistics.
As far as numbers of imprisoned journalists are concerned, Chinese standards would be an improvement. 150 journalists[1] doesn't sound like that much, until you realize that's something like half the global number...
[1] http://europeanjournalists.org/turkey-journalists-in-jail/
There's a (German) article[1] by Günther Nollau, former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, that might be of interest. The title translates to something like Sympathy alone is no criminal offence.
I have only cursorily followed what has been happening in Turkey, but newspapers getting shut down, rulings by the constitutional court getting ignored and a president who unironically cited Nazi Germany as inspiration for a functioning presidential system raise quite a few alarm bells...
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-40831680.html
http://www.dw.com/en/europol-probes-islamic-state-created-so...
If you like there is plenty and increasing and opposite to what NY Times claim they are all free to write and be communicated:
http://www.abcgazetesi.com/ http://halktv.com.tr/ http://www.diken.com.tr/
Sorry for them, they are not publishing in English. For your information take a look at this kind of news they report: http://www.diken.com.tr/thy-yakit-krizini-yalanladi-haber-ge...
They even report a delay, how come they will be silenced?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0dQVA5vwwo
> Followers of Harun Yahya wear drag make-up and practice a “sexed-up, Disney version of Islam” that helps promote conservative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vision of a modern, Muslim Turkey.
Of course, he also writes for the Huffington Post: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/harun-yahya
To be precise: than 2 of them, Bulgaria and Romania. Out of the 28.
https://www.google.de/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&m...
You know what brought the growth? Private sector coming in.
Other countries have no other choice, but to restrict Internet access as this is a cheaper way to achieve same.
When I see some news title: "Turkey is restricting the Internet", I deduce a) we are being manipulated in this very moment in fine ways by countries of first group via this news title, and b) it seems Turkey has no means to fight back on same manipulation level, so they have to restrict Internet usage.
Not a justification for anyone to influence Internet, but also not that simple as the title suggests.
> So I say that free speech in many Western places is free not as a result of liberal circumstances but rather as a result of such intense fiscalization that it doesn’t matter what you say. The dominant elite doesn’t have to be scared of what people think, because a change in political view is not going to change whether they own their company or not; it is not going to change whether they own a piece of land or not. But China is still a political society, although it is rapidly heading toward a fiscalized society. And other societies, like Egypt, are still heavily politicized. Their rulers really do need to be concerned about what people think, so they expend proportionate efforts on controlling freedom of speech.
-- Julian Assange
Remember what's going on, because Trump is doing the same thing, Turkey is just about 6-7 years ahead.
Also apparently, Ms./Mrs.CARLOTTA GALL does not give any damn about reflecting realities. Rather she consciously prefers to be an instrument of perception management. It is a shame for her to give Adnan OKTAR as an example. She probably did not do her homework about him. Also, how the hell she just contacted the OKTAR cult with some freedom seeking activity? Is she mad? The guy even has a medical report for insanity, he did not get awarded as insane in near history, it goes to 1980s...
Moreover, the beloved Turkish left, the amount of intelligence operations Turkey leftist movements has been part of may be enough to eradicate the whole European governments, you can call it EU if you want, after WWII... It is partially also true for rightist but at least they are not trying to denigrate their own country...
I hope US public will try to know my country and our nation/nations, there are many-including Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, Greek, Hebrew etc. better and get their blinders,CARLOTTA GALL kind of blinders-there are many of them out there, off. And I also hope that US government and state get their shit straight because it will be helpful both countries and their nations...
> Don't get mad at him, you can work around it anyway, and he is great for us.
> Don't get mad at him, Israel is the real bad guy.
> Don't get mad at him, America is just as bad.
> Don't get mad at him, he is saving Syria and struggling to keep his nation together.
The next time I am outside the Turkish Embassy and Erdogan's associates are out there seeing if the toe of their boots fit firmly in the mouths of Liberal Turks, Kurdistan supporters, anyone who doesn't love the AKP, I'll remind those getting curbstompped that they shouldn't be mad at Erdogan because everyone else is at fault.
If this sort of thing is where we're all headed as the world polarizes further, Hacker News is doomed. But perhaps we can stave doom off for a while longer. I'm going to ban the accounts that behaved the worst below and then shut down this thread.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html