The morality of allowing Syrian refugees into the USA

[Peter_Plato]

Don’t bother, because you are barking up the wrong tree again - i.e. changing the subject. Recall that this particular exchange goes back to my post 244, where I said

Where would you go in their situation?

at which point you challenged my knowledge of the “situation” the refugees find themselves in. I said it was clear they were fleeing a civil war. Rather than defend your admittedly indefensible claim that we cannot know they are in “that situation”, you are now apparently going back to an earlier exchange we had about moderate vs extremist Muslims. I guess we can talk about that again if you want, but first please admit that you were wrong to question why refugees would go to Europe, because that is where you would probably go to if you were in their situation.

The problem with being in “their situation” is that it is very difficult to know precisely what “their situation” actually is. I know that as a Christian – and admittedly not a “radicalized” one like Mother Teresa, St. Paul, St. Anthony of the Desert, etc. – my first option, I suppose, would be to move to country with like-minded compatriots or to a country where I might do the most good – at least, with respect to what my deeply held religious beliefs would propose to be “good.” At the very least, I would move to a country that didn’t inherently conflict with the most fundamental aspects of my religion, unless I had the conviction that I could help change those beliefs that I considered wildly in error.

I wouldn’t, for example, move to a communist country, a fascist one, one that enforced apartheid policies or one ruled by Sharia Law or one that was majority Muslim or Shinto, without at least some motivation to work towards changing the political/ideological situations in those countries. The reason for that would be that if those fundamental belief systems simply do not accord with my considered views on what it means to be human or what constitutes the moral good for human beings, then I would see it as morally incumbant on me to work towards positive change.

Now the question vis a vis Islam, that no one – and certainly not you – seems to want to broach is what are the fundamental beliefs of “moderate” Islam? Especially, what does it mean in terms of how moderate Muslims will seek to assimilate into or work towards changing the existing belief system in the receiving country. It is fine to use the words “moderate Muslim” as if that has meaning, but, at the very least, what the cherished beliefs and world views of “moderate Muslims” actually are need to be explicated more fully.

Which brings me back to the point about why “moderate Muslims” would seek to shut down permitting Ayaam Hirsi Ali to speak, if they, indeed, do respect the values of free speech and liberty? Or is there a fundamental aspect of Islam, moderate or radical, which is opposed to the very grounds upon which constitutional democracies exist?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The problem with being in “their situation” is that it is very difficult to know precisely what “their situation” actually is. I know that as a Christian – and admittedly not a “radicalized” one like Mother Teresa, St. Paul, St. Anthony of the Desert, etc. – my first option, I suppose, would be to move to country with like-minded compatriots or to a country where I might do the most good – at least, with respect to what my deeply held religious beliefs would propose to be “good.” At the very least, I would move to a country that didn’t inherently conflict with the most fundamental aspects of my religion, unless I had the conviction that I could help change those beliefs that I considered wildly in error.

I wouldn’t, for example, move to a communist country, a fascist one, one that enforced apartheid policies or one ruled by Sharia Law or one that was majority Muslim or Shinto, without at least some motivation to work towards changing the political/ideological situations in those countries. The reason for that would be that if those fundamental belief systems simply do not accord with my considered views on what it means to be human or what constitutes the moral good for human beings, then I would see it as morally incumbant on me to work towards positive change.

Now the question vis a vis Islam, that no one – and certainly not you – seems to want to broach is what are the fundamental beliefs of “moderate” Islam? Especially, what does it mean in terms of how moderate Muslims will seek to assimilate into or work towards changing the existing belief system in the receiving country. It is fine to use the words “moderate Muslim” as if that has meaning, but, at the very least, what the cherished beliefs and world views of “moderate Muslims” actually are need to be explicated more fully.

Which brings me back to the point about why “moderate Muslims” would seek to shut down permitting Ayaam Hirsi Ali to speak, if they, indeed, do respect the values of free speech and liberty? Or is there a fundamental aspect of Islam, moderate or radical, which is opposed to the very grounds upon which constitutional democracies exist?

OK, I’m glad you are getting back to your original point.

Your description of how you might behave in a similar situation sounds more like someone who is planning to travel for a vacation. You consider the pros and cons of the various destinations and pick one that is suitable for your particular disposition. That is, you might choose where to go to surround yourself with like-minded people who will make you feel comfortable. Or you might go to somewhere more challenging for the purpose of serving a greater cause. But this description assumes that all those choices are in fact available to you. For many who are fleeing from the turmoil of the war, they have fewer options. For most of them, their financial resources rule out many choices that you might take for granted. For many fleeing on foot, there are very few options indeed. If you are a mother with a child or two, your primary concern is going to be feeding and protecting your children. They probably have heard that there is opportunity and reasonable acceptance in Europe. Your suggestion implies they really ought to consider going to a Muslim country. Do they even have a way to get to a Muslim country that is reasonably stable and welcoming? One that is not itself on the brink of disintegration? The most straightforward reason I can think of for refugees trying to get to Europe is that it seems like the place that offers the best chance of survival. If you think there is some other reason, please say what it is explicitly so I know why you are questioning their choice of destination.

 

[Usagi]

Which brings me back to the point about why “moderate Muslims” would seek to shut down permitting Ayaam Hirsi Ali to speak, if they, indeed, do respect the values of free speech and liberty? Or is there a fundamental aspect of Islam, moderate or radical, which is opposed to the very grounds upon which constitutional democracies exist?

Christians have never protested a campus speaker whose position they considered inimical to Christianity? Heck, students do that out of purely political ideologies. Such a protest by Muslim students is no proof that Islam is incompatible with constitutional democracy, only that even in a constitutional democracy people often complain to the sponsors or hosts of speakers whose positions they do not like. I wish they would all choose to listen.a d then respond rather than do that, but lots of people from all manner of different groups do it. There was an uproar here on CAF when the President was invited to speak at Notre Dame.

Usagi

 

[Peter_Plato]

…Such a protest by Muslim students is no proof that Islam is incompatible with constitutional democracy, only that even in a constitutional democracy people often complain to the sponsors or hosts of speakers whose positions they do not like. …
Usagi

To illustrate the difference between Christianity and Islam, Brague draws upon the work of Ibn Khaldun, a fourteenth-century Muslim scholar. According to Khaldun the Muslim community has the religious duty to convert all non-Muslims to Islam either by persuasion or by force.

Other religious groups do not have a universal mission, says Khaldun, and holy war is not a religious duty for them, save for defensive purposes. The person in charge of religious affairs in other religious groups is not concerned with power politics. Royal authority outside of Islam comes to those who have it by accident, or in some other way that has little to do with religion, and they are under the religious obligation to gain power over other nations. According to Khaldun, holy war exists only within Islam and is imposed upon its leaders by sharia law.

Theological warrant aside, **Brague asks how Islam’s greatest philosophers view jihad. He puts the question to three Aristotelians – al Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. All three permit the waging of holy war against those who refuse Islam **– al Farabi and Averroes against Christians, Avicenna against the pagans of his native Persia.

thecatholicthing.org/2015/11/28/fictional-isis-and-the-true-threat/

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Brague draws upon the work of Ibn Khaldun, a fourteenth-century Muslim scholar.

OK, what if I found a bunch of 21st century Muslim scholars that said Islam need not resort to forceful conversion and that it is compatible with constitutional democracy? Would you take that as evidence?

 

[Peter_Plato]

OK, what if I found a bunch of 21st century Muslim scholars that said Islam need not resort to forceful conversion and that it is compatible with constitutional democracy? Would you take that as evidence?

Only if those scholars can explain how Islam is supposed to bring about the “submission” of every nation in the world to Allah without doing so.

If you mean this…

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=13467401&postcount=86

…there are good reasons to discount what was declared in the “open letter” as not being quite as “open” as it purports to be.

 

[Usagi]

Only if those scholars can explain how Islam is supposed to bring about the “submission” of every nation in the world to Allah without doing so.

Possibly the same way we are (ideally) to bring the whole world into the Good Shepherd’s fold without violence?

If you mean this…

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=13467401&postcount=86

…there are good reasons to discount what was declared in the “open letter” as not being quite as “open” as it purports to be.

What reasons?

Usagi

 

[Peter_Plato]

Possibly the same way we are (ideally) to bring the whole world into the Good Shepherd’s fold without violence?

What reasons?

Usagi

jihadwatch.org/2014/09/international-group-of-muslim-scholars-refutes-islamic-states-islamic-case-while-endorsing-jihad-sharia-caliphate

 

[Peter_Plato]

What reasons?

Usagi

The oft-quoted passage from the Qur’an to show that Islam is a religion of peace is the one (bolded below) cited by Obama and other western politicians and repeated in the open letter…

1. The Killing of Innocents: God says in the Qur’an: ‘And do not slay the soul [whose life] God has made inviolable, except with due cause …’ (Al-Isra’, 17: 33); and ‘Say: “Come, I will recite that which your Lord has made a sacred duty for you: that you associate nothing with Him, that you be dutiful to parents, and that you do not slay your children, because of poverty – We will provide for you and them – and that you do not draw near any acts of lewdness, whether it be manifest or concealed, and that you do not slay the life which God has made sacred, except rightfully. This is what He has charged you with that perhaps you will understand.”’ (Al-An’am, 6: 151). The slaying of a soul—any soul—is haraam (forbidden and inviolable under Islamic Law), it is also one of the most abominable sins (mubiqat). God says in the Qur’an: ‘Because of that, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever slays a soul for other than a soul, or for corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers have already come to them with clear proofs, but after that many of them still commit excesses in the land.’ (Al-Ma’idah, 5: 32). You have killed many innocents who were neither combatants nor armed, just because they disagree with your opinions [13].

But as Spencer points out, to lift that quote out of context conveniently leaves out the more complete narrative.

Outstandingly disingenuous. Qur’an 5:32 is followed by 5:33: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,” The Islamic State is killing those whom it considers to be striving on earth to cause corruption. Telling them that they’re killing innocents, without explaining why its victims are innocent, will not convince them.

Is this “without violence?”

 

[CatholicKnight3]

You deny they worship a false god and they deny Jesus is Lord. You then try to say NO terrorist has ever come from Syria? What, they only come from Saudi Arabia since none of the 19 terrorists were Syrian?

I will say this and only this to you.

JESUS IS LORD!!!

Muslims worship a false prophet. Period. How dare someone claim they are Catholic and deny those who deny Christ are worshiping falsely.

 

[pnewton]

How dare someone claim they are Catholic and deny those who deny Christ are worshiping falsely.

I have never seen anyone do this. I have, however, see those who dare to say they are Catholic and insist that the above paragraph from the Catechism, clear Catholic doctrine, is false.

 

[pnewton]

Much of the discussion on refugees (like immigration, death penalty, criminal justice, war, etc.) is worldly analysis, involving risk assessment versus the amount of humanity we should extend. This ought not be so. The goal of peace and protection in a society is worthy. It is not universal. The Good Samaritan had the right to be cautious for his own welfare. That caution did not justify him passing the one in need to avoid a potential peril. Our duty in the matter of Syrian refugees remains as it does in all things. We are to view these people in need, as we would Jesus. We are to treat them as we would Jesus. We will be judged as treating Jesus according to our response to them, as His own words in the Gospel of Matthew make abundantly clear.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Much of the discussion on refugees (like immigration, death penalty, criminal justice, war, etc.) is worldly analysis, involving risk assessment versus the amount of humanity we should extend. This ought not be so. The goal of peace and protection in a society is worthy. It is not universal. The Good Samaritan had the right to be cautious for his own welfare. That caution did not justify him passing the one in need to avoid a potential peril. Our duty in the matter of Syrian refugees remains as it does in all things. We are to view these people in need, as we would Jesus. We are to treat them as we would Jesus. We will be judged as treating Jesus according to our response to them, as His own words in the Gospel of Matthew make abundantly clear.

Well, I suppose when you have European elites, the Obama administration, socialist progressives, the Pope and assorted Christian clerics, Hollywood celebrities, ISIS leaders, the UN, most Christians, moderate Muslims, the EU, the government of Turkey, liberals and conservatives, and now Jesus himself, all agreeing on the “rightness” of what needs to be done, such unanimity would seem to make the course of action a no-brainer. What could possibly go wrong?

It is not every day that the opportunity arises where we can play at being the Good Samaritan when the cost and peril will likely not be borne our sweet and good selves but almost definitely by someone else, somewhere else.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Points to ponder…

youtu.be/uLA_eBI1C9M

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Only if those scholars can explain how Islam is supposed to bring about the “submission” of every nation in the world to Allah without doing so.

So you will accept as evidence only what your hand-picked Muslim scholars say Islam is and will discount what any other Muslim scholars say who do not buy into your per-conceived narrative. How open-minded of you.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So you will accept as evidence only what your hand-picked Muslim scholars say Islam is and will discount what any other Muslim scholars say who do not buy into your per-conceived narrative. How open-minded of you.

Well, given that I am the only one playing the game of “present the evidence,” it seems a tad bold of you to make claims about what evidences I will or won’t “accept.” You haven’t presented any, despite a promise to do so in post 263.

OK, what if I found a bunch of 21st century Muslim scholars that said Islam need not resort to forceful conversion and that it is compatible with constitutional democracy? Would you take that as evidence?

If I anticipated your “bunch of scholars,” and pre-empted your argument, the least you could do is provide a fair rebuttal to Spencer’s points. If not, then the honest thing would be to admit the argument is deeper than you care to or can engage at the moment. Fair enough.

Let’s not take this into the territory of personal attack. I am completely open to hearing a strong case against what Spencer writes. I just haven’t found one. I don’t find personal attacks that persuasive to tell you the truth.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Well, given that I am the only one playing the game of “present the evidence,” it seems a tad bold of you to make claims about what evidences I will or won’t “accept.” You haven’t presented any, despite a promise to do so in post 263.

I asked in post 263 if you would accept such evidence. Since you have ruled it out a-priori, I don’t see why I should waste my time gathering evidence that have already said you would not accept.

If I anticipated your “bunch of scholars,” and pre-empted your argument, the least you could do is provide a fair rebuttal to Spencer’s points. If not, then the honest thing would be to admit the argument is deeper than you care to or can engage at the moment. Fair enough.

The way I would refute Spencer’s points would be to reference other Muslim scholars. But since you have ruled them out, I am under no obligation to find other arguments you might accept.

Let’s not take this into the territory of personal attack. I am completely open to hearing a strong case against what Spencer writes. I just haven’t found one. I don’t find personal attacks that persuasive to tell you the truth.

Who is attacking you personally?

 

[mikekle]

What if the native americans had decided it was too dangerous to allow ‘foreigners’ into their land (and had the ability to prevent it)? What would a current map look like today?

Oddly the natives would have been right to stop this…makes you think.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I asked in post 263 if you would accept such evidence. Since you have ruled it out a-priori, I don’t see why I should waste my time gathering evidence that have already said you would not accept.

You seem not to understand the meaning of “a priori.” I didn’t “rule it out,” I gave Spencer’s arguments for why the “open letter” shouldn’t be taken to mean or imply what it has been taken to mean and imply. You have the opportunity to prove that Spencer is incorrect in his analysis and you have declined to do so. Don’t put your inability to do so back on me as if I won’t accept any evidence at all. The fact that you have no evidence should not be depicted as my failure to accept it. Let’s play it straight here.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Matthew Bracken makes some important observations about the current political state of the world in this article.

gatesofvienna.net/2015/11/tet-take-two-islams-2016-european-offensive/

As we roll into the New Year, we are witnessing the prelude to the culmination of a titanic struggle between three great actors. Three great social forces are now set in motion for a 2016 showdown and collision that will, in historical terms, be on par with the First and Second World Wars.

Two of these great social forces are currently allied in a de facto coalition against the third. They have forged an unwritten agreement to jointly murder the weakest of the three forces while it is in their combined power to do so. One of these two social forces would be content to share totalitarian control over large swaths of the globe with the other remaining social force. One of these social forces will never be satisfied until it achieves complete domination of the entire planet. So what are these three great social forces? They are Islam, international socialism, and nationalism.

He goes on to demonstrate quite forcefully how his take on current events would seem not merely plausible, but very likely.

If this is the case, then the refugee situation in Syria is less like the Good Samaritan story and more like a “set-up.” At least some of the refugees parading their desperate plight are playing out an orchestrated scenario with the intention to deceive. It would be like the robbers in the Good Samaritan parable playing the injured victim in order to turn upon the Good Samaritan when the opportunity arises. The fact that their plight is being promoted far and wide by a complicit “international socialism” should make people of “good will” a little more than merely skeptical.

If you are willing to suppose that world politics is being dominated by the the kind of “doves” who read the Good Samaritan parable and take it as an absolute imperative, I don’t know what to say to you. Clearly, the stage of world politics is heavily populated by snakes and lizards who move about in unseemingly ways using the lives of millions of people for their advantage because they can. Let’s not fool ourselves.

The steadfast refusal of one man, Charles Martel, to be the “Good Samaritan” of Europe in 732 saved Christianity for posterity. Today we live in an entirely different world order, one which needs to be understood clearly before we turn over power to those who will use it to enslave and abuse our children and their children. Be as wise as serpents but guileless as doves.