That's kinda the pointIt's mostly Islamic, yet still capable of being secular, modern and progressive.
Look at things you see in Britain, or the US that mention the word God - swap the word God and suddenly we sound more fundamental. eg: In Allah we trust; there but for the grace of Allah go I; or thank Allah for that!
But I'm in danger of either sounding patronising or stupid or something so I'll just shut up now...
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Sun 21 Oct 2007, 12:23,
archived)
Look at things you see in Britain, or the US that mention the word God - swap the word God and suddenly we sound more fundamental. eg: In Allah we trust; there but for the grace of Allah go I; or thank Allah for that!
But I'm in danger of either sounding patronising or stupid or something so I'll just shut up now...
Strange example to use.Turkey has a large population of Muslims and is a proud secular state, a more appropriate example would then be a Western country that is secular but has a large population of religious Christians - not that I can think of any; secularism in the West does not tend toward Christian fundamentalism.
Your suggestion that Britain is not a secular state though can only really be argued as a semantic point (there is not even a 'nation founded under God') - secularism as applied to a state is the separation of religion and religious influences from the state practices and state decisions; I don't think it is fair to suggest that Britain is anything other than secular even though some archaic laws can be rustled up containing God's name or pertaining to a religious law (which derives the concept of law in the first place). What is more, Britain is not recently founded and secularism is synonymous with progression in the West, not regression (at least in most people and all politics).
"In Allah we trust; there but for the grace of Allah go I; or thank Allah for that!" - certainly a point but again do any of those phrases suggest you live in a religion-dictated state?
"In God we trust" is written on American currency, hardly part of the common lexicon.
"there but for the grace of God" is a phrase so overused it is more of a soundbite used to denote not God but luck.
"thank God for that!" - well yes, but you are more likely to hear FUCK instead of God or Allah in most Western societies.
Indeed the word God in the West is closer to a profanity than it is a sacred deity whom you form a close, personal, spiritual relationship with.
So perhaps your entry is more valid than I thought - a Muslim state would portray the West like this; inappropriately, where we say God as a profanity or ignore the multitude meaningless references to 'our' religion, perhaps Muslim states hold these up as examples of our Christian-based irrationality?
That of course suggests that they see this as a weakness (as secularists generally think of them) which in turn contradicts their own belief-based - rather 'irrationality-based' dictates.
But certainly under the "Infidels!" banner of the competition, I know of several Turks who would not thank you for being banded together with more obvious examples of Islamic states (which Turkey is emphatically not) since they, like us ignore their cultural religious undertones at the political level (state secularism).
The difference being of course that Islam-dominated secularism tends toward Islamic fundamentalism (which mainstream Turkey continually fights) while Christian-dominated secularism tends toward secularism (or perhaps, eventually, Islamism).
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Sun 21 Oct 2007, 13:05,
archived)
Your suggestion that Britain is not a secular state though can only really be argued as a semantic point (there is not even a 'nation founded under God') - secularism as applied to a state is the separation of religion and religious influences from the state practices and state decisions; I don't think it is fair to suggest that Britain is anything other than secular even though some archaic laws can be rustled up containing God's name or pertaining to a religious law (which derives the concept of law in the first place). What is more, Britain is not recently founded and secularism is synonymous with progression in the West, not regression (at least in most people and all politics).
"In Allah we trust; there but for the grace of Allah go I; or thank Allah for that!" - certainly a point but again do any of those phrases suggest you live in a religion-dictated state?
"In God we trust" is written on American currency, hardly part of the common lexicon.
"there but for the grace of God" is a phrase so overused it is more of a soundbite used to denote not God but luck.
"thank God for that!" - well yes, but you are more likely to hear FUCK instead of God or Allah in most Western societies.
Indeed the word God in the West is closer to a profanity than it is a sacred deity whom you form a close, personal, spiritual relationship with.
So perhaps your entry is more valid than I thought - a Muslim state would portray the West like this; inappropriately, where we say God as a profanity or ignore the multitude meaningless references to 'our' religion, perhaps Muslim states hold these up as examples of our Christian-based irrationality?
That of course suggests that they see this as a weakness (as secularists generally think of them) which in turn contradicts their own belief-based - rather 'irrationality-based' dictates.
But certainly under the "Infidels!" banner of the competition, I know of several Turks who would not thank you for being banded together with more obvious examples of Islamic states (which Turkey is emphatically not) since they, like us ignore their cultural religious undertones at the political level (state secularism).
The difference being of course that Islam-dominated secularism tends toward Islamic fundamentalism (which mainstream Turkey continually fights) while Christian-dominated secularism tends toward secularism (or perhaps, eventually, Islamism).
I don't disagreeAnd I think you get my point.
In my research to do my image (yes, I did some!) I'm sad to say that although there are plenty of liberal Muslims, I couldn't recognise any of them and nor would anybody here! I chose Ataturk primarily because he is recognisable in most of Europe. I also found some of the US websites I came across to be distinctly worrying. There's an awful lot of Islamophobia being peddled over there. I had a lot of trouble finding similar UK sites, which I found gently reassuring.
I also find many Europeans' fear of Turkey and its potential membership of the EU to be... interesting.
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Sun 21 Oct 2007, 13:37,
archived)
In my research to do my image (yes, I did some!) I'm sad to say that although there are plenty of liberal Muslims, I couldn't recognise any of them and nor would anybody here! I chose Ataturk primarily because he is recognisable in most of Europe. I also found some of the US websites I came across to be distinctly worrying. There's an awful lot of Islamophobia being peddled over there. I had a lot of trouble finding similar UK sites, which I found gently reassuring.
I also find many Europeans' fear of Turkey and its potential membership of the EU to be... interesting.