On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 10:48:00AM -0400, Dan Clemmensen wrote:
> Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> > http://www.islam-democracy.org/
> >
> > Freethought (former?) Muslims, serious to extremely irreverent:
> > http://www.secularislam.org/
> > http://www.geocities.com/muslimfreethinkers/Content.htm
> > http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/
> >
> > Libertarian Muslims:
> > http://www.minaret.org/
> >
> > Free market think tanks:
> > Turkey http://www.liberal-dt.org.tr/
> > Bangladesh http://www.moer.org/
>
> Should the Extropians, as an organization, contact these folks?
Doubtful, but individuals may wish to.
> This is a cross between the friendship-as-patriotism meme at
> the physical level and a broader attempt to avoid demonizing
> Islam as a whole for the acts of its extremists.
I think more or less, though I don't know what "friendship-as-patriotism"
might mean. I also think that working with existing sympathetic
individuals and organizations of Islamic (or whatever the group of
concern/interest is) origin is a cost-effective and necessary part
of any kind memetic effort. Let's imagine that we could do much
better than dropping windup radios and commented Korans, let's
imagine that we could magically communicate directly with every
Muslim at will. Would we, with second-hand knowledge of the audience
at best, be able to say anything convincing? Would there be any
community leaders to step up and agree? Or would we come off as
irrelevant gobbyldegook at best, dangerous lies at worst?
> We may decide
> that Extropy is not quite the appropriate organization for this,
> since Mike says these folks are in the "somewhat" category. Perhaps
> those of us who are also members of more conventional groups
> should work through those groups instead. (I'm a non-joiner,
> so I don't qualify.)
I rarely go to meetings of a local atheist group. I'm going to
make a point to go this month and mention reaching out to freethinkers
of Islamic heritage, including some of the above contacts.
-- Mike Linksvayer http://gondwanaland.com/ml/
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