{"id":15160,"date":"2025-01-05T12:05:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-05T01:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=15160"},"modified":"2025-01-05T12:23:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T01:23:17","slug":"the-trouble-with-islamophobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/05\/the-trouble-with-islamophobia\/","title":{"rendered":"The trouble with \u2018Islamophobia\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-excerpt\">\n    <p>Editor\u2019s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our\u00a0Publishing Guidelines.\nDear Editor,\nThe trouble with \u2018Islamophobia\u2019 is that the term conflates two things: (1) dislike of or disbelief in the tenets of Islam (the religion); and (2) fear of, or dislike of, people just because they are Muslims.\nI have no problem with 1, as it applies to me; but 2 is clearly unethical \u2013 as is dislike of people just because they are Catholics, Chinese, French, German, Irish, Jewish or Romanies. We need separate terms for each meaning.\u00a0\nAlso, religious beliefs should not be privileged. Someone should be allowed to say that Jesus was not the son of God (Yahweh), Mohammed was not the prophet of Allah, and \u2018sacred book X\u2019 is not worth believing.\nPeople are entitled to respect; ideas are not. I am offended by advertisements for meat, gambling, horse racing and a few other things. But that is just too bad. I am not entitled to be shielded from offence.\nNigel Sinnott<\/p>\n<p>Albanese grasping at straws in response to synagogue attack\nI felt sure that I would see comment from members of the Rationalist Society to the following two recent news reports: \u2018Anthony Albanese vows to financially support rebuilding of Adass Israel Synagogue\u2019 (ABC), by Jacob Greber on 10 December 2024; and \u2018Albanese calls for protest ban outside places of worship as critics warn against \u2018kneejerk reactions\u2019 (The Guardian) by Josh Butler and Caitlin Cassidy...<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <hr style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 1000px !important;height: 5px;border-width: 0;color: red;background-color: red\" \/>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3><em>You're part way through this article. Want to keep reading?<\/em><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Only members of the Rationalist Society of Australia can read our Premium articles.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"height: 20px\"><span style=\"color: #c83200\"><em><a style=\"color: #c83200\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalist.com.au\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member today.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Already a member? 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See our\u00a0Publishing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":15161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[75],"coauthors":[114],"class_list":["post-15160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-premium"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15162,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15160\/revisions\/15162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15160"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}