Islamophobia != Criticism

What is Islamophobia? Islamophobia literally means "fear of Islam." What does that mean, exactly? It means to dance around the Muslim Problem. It means no one can talk about Islam for fear of getting killed. It makes people make blanket statements about Islam out of fear. It makes people dance around Islam out of fear of offending the Muslims. By the way: Muslims are not a race; they are people who subscribe to the religion of Islam.

What is criticism? Criticism is the practice of judging the merits and faults of something. That's it. I can criticise ideas and I can criticise people. I can criticise anything I want. Everything is open to criticism. Problems arise when certain things are deemed above criticism.

When Muslims screams, "ISLAMOPHOBIA," when their religion gets criticised, it tells me that they are immature, self-centered children who run to mommy and cry about how someone "hurt their feelings." Then they expect mommy to do something about it. In this case, mommy is equivalent to death threats and executing people. When I get criticised, I don't cry. I try to improve, or just tell the person to piss off. Why is this so difficult for Muslims?

This reminds me of the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound. The gods punished Prometheus for giving humans fire (I'm interpreting the fire as the quest for knowledge), we all know at least this. The gods know that if humans gain knowledge, then the gods could lose their power. The gods will fade into myth as humans gain more knowledge about the world. Once this happens, the gods will be powerless.

Relating this to Islam; the Muslims are using fear to keep people from criticising their religion. If you do not fear them, and criticise their religion, they will lose their power and become like the KKK; pockets of hillbillies that don't do anything and are nothing to worry about. Like the gods in Prometheus Bound, Islam wants power and will try to keep it. Any dissenting opinion will be met with blood. Prometheus is like the people who will criticise Islam with no fear. Not the blanket, pseudo-critical statements, but actual criticism. The humans are everyone else, the spectators.

Criticism of Islam is not Islamohpobia. Islam is a religion; an idea. Ideas can, and should, be criticised. This is a good thing. This is how we progress. Censorship slows, or just plain halts, progression. Muslims want censorship. They don't want anyone saying anything negative about their religion, no matter how true it is. Personally, I'd rather have the truth.

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