Yes exactly! Thank you! We just had a national debate on Christianity so we could understand the takes that certain people were coming from (which were in fact horrible positions, so it's very important that they defined their position). Certain segments of Christianity have views that to me make them unelectable. And that is super important to know/understand. But I don't get to understand/we don't get to challenge a Muslim person's belief like that because it is somehow racist to ask.
I'm not claiming it's a Muslim problem. I talk about Christians, Scientologists, Mormons, heck even Americans and understanding how to reconcile our founding as a nation versus our beliefs now. I do understand how awkward it is because their religion literally says it is the perfect word of God. I understand that makes it complex for them. But that doesn't mean we don't need to understand. I don't know what it means to be a follower of Islam. But I do know what their perfect word of God says, and some of it is really bad stuff (just like the pre-Jesus Christian old testament stuff, yikes). I do know some horrible things about their founder, and I think it's reasonable to ask what those horrible things mean to a follower, just like calling out that my nation of freedom was founded on racism and slavery by men who raped their underage slaves. There is a taint to both, but I don't get to ask how a Muslim reconciles that taint, while I can challenge American taint. I don't know how to operate without being able to challenge, and get responses, and understand. Just like we had a Christian debate, or we debate what the founding of our nation means we should encourage the discussion and deeper understanding.
I just want the debate you yourself reference that we just had on Christianity. It's fair to want to understand, but for some reason we don't get to ask/challenge Muslims like we do the Christians, Scientologists, etc. Even though as you point out the discussion can be very eye opening.
Until we can have these discussions, people are going to have questions about followers of a religion that says the perfect word of God is that you can lie to people of other religions. People are going to question a religion that teaches sex, sex slaves, the inability of the being you desire in heaven to say no being rewards for men.
> Certain segments of Christianity have views that to me make them unelectable. And that is super important to know/understand. But I don't get to understand/we don't get to challenge a Muslim person's belief like that because it is somehow racist to ask.
I don't see anyone saying it's unfair to talk about the beliefs a specific Muslim candidate has expressed but Maguire wasn't talking about anything Mamdani has said. He made a sweeping claim about an entire culture, saying they considered it a virtue to lie when that is in fact broadly condemned. He almost certainly based that belief on propaganda about the concept of taqiyya which has been swirling around right-wing circles for the last couple of decades. That concept refers to a narrow exception allowing Muslims to conceal or disavow their religious beliefs when they fear for their safety. The term is derived from a root meaning of caution or fear, and dates back to when Islam was a minority religion whose followers had real examples of recantations forced under torture. Christians active in right-wing politics have claimed that it is both broadly practiced and interpreted to allow lying to spread Islam itself despite limited evidence and strident disagreement by actual scholars – there's a good summary here with a lot of links:
This is about as fair as finding a Seven Mountains Dominionist preacher who says that Christians need to control all aspects of society, claiming that they speak for all Christians, and then claiming that belief is secretly shared by a Christian political candidate who has never voiced supported for that sect and must override all of their stated views or past actions.
I'm an atheist now so I don't have a god in this fight but I've known enough people of each of the Abrahamic religions that I wouldn't make a general criticism of any individual except based on things they personally said or did.
> Because we can't ask Muslims politicians about their religion or their positions/interpretations, we depend on others than the actual individual we know about to try and explain, which ends up worse and potentially misinformed.
Who specifically is saying that we can’t ask them? You’ve made that claim repeatedly but I don’t see anyone saying it’s inappropriate to ask a candidate what they believe on topics relevant to their office. The condemnation is about sweeping assertions about large heterogeneous groups.
I'm not claiming it's a Muslim problem. I talk about Christians, Scientologists, Mormons, heck even Americans and understanding how to reconcile our founding as a nation versus our beliefs now. I do understand how awkward it is because their religion literally says it is the perfect word of God. I understand that makes it complex for them. But that doesn't mean we don't need to understand. I don't know what it means to be a follower of Islam. But I do know what their perfect word of God says, and some of it is really bad stuff (just like the pre-Jesus Christian old testament stuff, yikes). I do know some horrible things about their founder, and I think it's reasonable to ask what those horrible things mean to a follower, just like calling out that my nation of freedom was founded on racism and slavery by men who raped their underage slaves. There is a taint to both, but I don't get to ask how a Muslim reconciles that taint, while I can challenge American taint. I don't know how to operate without being able to challenge, and get responses, and understand. Just like we had a Christian debate, or we debate what the founding of our nation means we should encourage the discussion and deeper understanding.
I just want the debate you yourself reference that we just had on Christianity. It's fair to want to understand, but for some reason we don't get to ask/challenge Muslims like we do the Christians, Scientologists, etc. Even though as you point out the discussion can be very eye opening.
Until we can have these discussions, people are going to have questions about followers of a religion that says the perfect word of God is that you can lie to people of other religions. People are going to question a religion that teaches sex, sex slaves, the inability of the being you desire in heaven to say no being rewards for men.