Virtual world for Muslims debuts

Source: BBC

A trial version of the first virtual world aimed at the Muslim community has been launched. Called Muxlim Pal, it allows Muslims to look after a cartoon avatar that inhabits the virtual world.

Based loosely on other virtual worlds such as The Sims, Muxlim Pal lets members customise the look of their avatar and its private room. Aimed at Muslims in Western nations, Muxlim Pal's creators hope it will also foster understanding among non-Muslims.

"We are not a religious site, we are a site that is focused on the lifestyle," said Mohamed El-Fatatry, founder of Muxlim.com - the parent site of Muxlim Pal. "This is for anyone who is remotely interested in the Muslim culture and the Muslim lifestyle," he said.

"From what we have seen from our market research is that most Muslims have a lifestyle that is not so different from everybody else," he said. "They all share the core values which are from Islam then beyond that they actually have made identities, they have many interests."



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7768601.stm

The site create states "We are not a religious site, we are a site that is focused on the lifestyle," This strikes me as odd, is not the Muslim lifestyle heavily dictated by the Muslim religion? Does not the Muslim faith dictate the clothing, music, etc. I don't see how you can easily separate the lifestyle from the religion.

To call it a Muslim site and to say it focuses on the Muslim "lifestyle" and that it respects Muslim core values and then to say it is not a religious site is dishonest.

And I think most Westerners understand Islam pretty well. For many of us, the apprehention is not because we don't understand it, but because we do. I wonder if the "House of Islam" can hope to have the same understanding of liberal, Western democracy.

Most western people understand Islam? I don't think so. I think you're painting with a pretty broad brush stroke. There have been numerous Islamic cultures throughout history that have been more tolerant than those in the so-called "west."

Right now Islamic states stand for the proposition that the world is divided into the "house of Islam" and the "house of war." It is their stated goal to spread Islamic rule as far as it will go. The doctrine of Islam is clear in this. There may be disagreements among true believers about how vigorously Islam should be taken to nonbelievers, but there really is no dispute amoung practicing Muslims about what that doctrine is. And that explicit doctrine is to spread Islam at the point of a sword, an AK47 or, eventually, a nuclear warhead. It is as if the Christians of the 14th century were presently running the Western world.

Do not misunderstand. I am in no way saying a Christian state is preferable to a Muslim one. What I am recognizing is that Christianity in the West has become sufficiently weak to allow mostly secular, liberal societies to occur despite the majority religion.

Name 40 Muslim countries.

There's a difference just like there is a difference between a Christian theocracy and a secular majority Christian country. Turkey, for example is a majority Muslim, secular (or at least as secular as Islam allows) state. Hopefully it will stay that way. While Jesus' denial of Earthly power is part of the basis for seperation of secular and ecclesiastical authority, Mohammed was both king and high priest.

Anyway, even if I spend the next hour with a globe pointing them out, so what? The doctrine is still clear. Those who disagree with the Koran are wrong. While it was once a learning center for the world, Islam as an institution has back-slid into an eyes-shut and fingers-in-the-ears self-imposed hatred of modernity because nothing is allowed to disagree with Islamic dogma.

Does it matter if one country or thirty countries allow women to be killed for the "crime" of being rape victims? Or any of the other oppression and subjugation of women that's part of this "peaceful" religion?

How about you give us some numbers? Like the number of women who have been killed in the name of Islam?

Muslims are on the same level as those psycho fundie Christians. They all use God as an excuse to justify their sins.

Most of them are rather pleasant countries who don't bother anyone.

Maybe you should educate yourself before spewing bigotry all over the internet.

then you present the backwoods, "Obama is a terrist muslin" view on Islam.

And how young do you have to make your female avatar in order to NOT get married off to some male char old enough to be yer avatar's grandad?

curiously,
Bright

That way Muslims angry at my decadence won't take it out on me!

Why can't Muslim players simply be virtual Muslims in one of the generic simulated reality games?

:shrug:

Judging on the actual facts is not bigotry. It's honesty. I know liberal thinkers cannot bring themselves to admit that religion matters, but the fact is it does. What people think governs how they act. Beliefs that encourage insularity and out-group hostility are worse than ones that don't by any meaningful standard. So I reject the Chomsky-esque view that jihad (the violent variety) is due solely to western prejudice and imperialism. If I am phobic of Islam, then it is because it has give us amble reason for fear. On the other hand, the insistance of being tolerant or even accepting of those who are against every liberal development we support is a kind of suicide. To deny the facts is to be dishonest to oneself.

Anyway, I don't think Western prejudice is the problem. It seems to me the real issue is that Muslims cannot stand to be exposed to ideas and behavior that offend its religion despite the fact that other players are not part of its religion. Seeing cartoon avatars of non-oppressed women or alcohol consumption or to hear ideas freely expressed or evidence of sexuality are things that a true Muslim believer will not tolerate. It is no different than having special TV shows, schools or theme parks for Christian Fundies because they cannot stand to be exposed to ideas that disagree with the Bible.

... Called 1,352nd Life.