Is Islam really a peaceful religion?

[Famous Mortimer]

Christianity is potentially violent but there are theological grounds for it not being violent. The fact that Jesus, considered to be the final authority on these things, said "don't stone people" and the general idea, accepted by most mainstream Christian denominations, that the Bible is not literal.

Islam has no such out. I mean, a Muslim could reject Koranic literalism but if they did that, what would be left of the religion? Islam is inherently violent and the only way for a Muslim to not be violent is to not be very observant (thankfully most aren't).

[Famous Mortimer]

I think this is a stupid question.  Any religion is as violent or as peaceful as you make it.  Just as some people twist the Bible to endorse violence, so do some with the Koran.

This is just stupid. Religions are equally violent regardless of scripture? So if there's a hypothetical religion with scripture that says "love everyone, never kill" it's just as violent as a hypothetical religion with a scripture that says "kill nonbelievers"? Obviously that's not true but you are saying otherwise. Why? Do you think that just by calling something a religion, it automatically defaults to a certain level of problematicness? Again, obviously not true. Or do you think Islam and Christianity, two wildly different religions with wildly different histories and lots of different factions, just totally coincidentally happen to be the exact same level of violent?

[Famous Mortimer]

Zioneer keeps saying people don't understand his point. We do understand your point. It's not a good point.

Christian society in the middle ages: Horrible by middle ages standards, horrible by modern standards

Islamic society in the middle ages: Okay by middle ages standards, horrible by modern standards

Christian society today: Good by current standards

Islamic society today: Bad by modern standards

Islamic society has never been good by modern standards. Christianity is. Islamic might not be capable of it. If it is, it has yet to demonstrate that.

[Famous Mortimer]

It doesn't matter what their holy books say? The fact that a book is violent doesn't have any impact on how violent the people are who believe it's the infallible word of God are?

Again, that's just stupid. There's no other way to say it.

Let's not talk about violence because it's too controversial and it's making people overly cautious.

It would be like if there was a religion that said God wants everyone to wear green pants and you said "hey, that's got nothing to do with the fact that all their members wear green pants!"

[Famous Mortimer]

Initial Islamic and Christian expansion was violent (and was happening at roughly the same time). Wahabbism and strands of Christianity that are expanding outside of our western bubble are passive agressive. In isolated incidents that can turn violent. Whether you hurl gays off buildings or try to exorcise them both are acts of violence.

The initial Christian expansion was not violent.

[Famous Mortimer]

But in any cause, I don't think it's fair to call Islam an inherently violent religion, just as it's not fair to call Christianity an inherently violent religion. Yes, Islam has more violent strands than Christianity now, but a lot of that has been exacerbated by events and trends that don't necessarily involve the theology itself.

Islam has always involved a high level of violence. Christianity has sometimes had high levels (even higher than Islam even) of violence but other times had almost none at all. Christianity is a mixed bag. Islam is consistently violent.

[Famous Mortimer]

Many religions have violence in them. Just because the violence exists in it's history doesn't mean that the religion itself is violent.

Correct. The people arguing that Islam is violent are not arguing that just because there is violence in its history. They are arguing that because its theology justified that violence.

[Famous Mortimer]

A whole thread of "No True Scotsman." Awesome.

You think there's a hole in my reasoning? Where abouts?

You think I've moved the argument away from the original assertion? How so?

I think I've been pretty consistent, but I could be wrong...

As I've been saying from the outset, the idea that you can throw away the parts of the Bible you don't like for purposes of this discussion is specious reasoning.

Tell that to the Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant churches, who all reject Biblical literalism.

Biblican literalism is not the cornerstone of Christianity. Koranic literalism IS the cornerstone of Islam though.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that there's currently something 'wrong with' (as it were) Islam that isn't as wrong with most other religions, but as with all else in religion this is historically particular and not because of some sort of inherently violent essence that the religion has.

You acknowledge that Islam is different but you refuse to consider that those differences might be caused by it's different beliefs.

Western liberals defending Islam have such odd reasoning.

Why do you assume "all religions are equally violent"?  It's such a bizarre notion.

Do you think the Mayan religion that called for human sacrifice was just as a religion which rejects human sacrifice?

Do you think that anything that calls itself a religion automatically happens to default to a certain level of violence? or do you think it's just a gigantic cosmic coincidence that Islamic doctrine and Christian doctrine are exactly equal in levels of violence?

[Famous Mortimer]

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that there's currently something 'wrong with' (as it were) Islam that isn't as wrong with most other religions, but as with all else in religion this is historically particular and not because of some sort of inherently violent essence that the religion has.

You acknowledge that Islam is different but you refuse to consider that those differences might be caused by it's different beliefs.

Its different beliefs, and you're (willfully?) misreading what 'historically particular' means. Religions, sociologically speaking, don't have their essence--if they do have an essence--primarily on the level of doctrine.

This is where we come to a fundamental, unbridgeable difference of opinion.

I will say though, while I think the idea that doctrine isn't the essence of religion is dumb in and of itself, I find it particularly bizarre that someone who is devoutly religious would put such an argument forward.

[Famous Mortimer]

Why MUST the issue of violence in Islam be discussed from a sociological point of view? Why can't it be discussed from a doctrinal point of view?

Because you're uncomfortable with the answer when it's done that way, that's the only reason.

[Famous Mortimer]

Why MUST the issue of violence in Islam be discussed from a sociological point of view? Why can't it be discussed from a doctrinal point of view?

Because you're uncomfortable with the answer when it's done that way, that's the only reason.

No, it's because violence occurs socially, is a social consequence, and is part of a religion's social context. I'm not 'uncomfortable' saying that there are deeply disquieting aspects with the way Muslim doctrine gets applied in situations of conflict and with the fact that it's constructed in such a way as to make it easy to do that, that's clearly a serious problem and I've admitted as much in this thread twice so far. The one who's completely unwilling to even approach discussing the issue through a lens other than your preferred one is you, because you're uncomfortable with any discussion of anything that doesn't result in people like you coming out as manifestly the best people in the world who have all the answers. Religion, racial politics, sexual politics, everything that people care about at all on anything more than an immediate material level, all has to be bent into service to Atlas Forum user WillipsBrighton's need to feel like youngish nonreligious white men from the Northeastern United States are masters of the universe who can explain it all. It's not even that you're mulish about this one issue, it's a ridiculously salient and consistent feature of your posting history on practically any subject of interest.

What an odd personal attack. You're attacking me because I think my positions are correct. How many people on this board debate things thinking they are wrong about them?

[Famous Mortimer]

Jesus said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. You said, "Show me where there is violence in the Bible, but the Old Testament doesn't count!" A lot of those laws, not abolished, call explicitly for violence, and there are people who hew to Christianity who believe that we ought to exercise Old Testament interpretations to violations of those laws.

But let's even leave that aside. Leave Christianity aside. Let's just talk about the Jewish people. Are they irredeemably violent because their scripture is full of violence, and they don't get to claim it doesn't count?

Any strain of Judaism that dictates the infallibility of the Torah is indeed inherently violent, yes. Most Jews do not believe in the infallibility of the Torah though. Infallibility of the Quran, on the other hand, is regarded as a central tenant of the faith by most Islamic schools of thought.

[Famous Mortimer]

The issues raised are moot. The vast majority of people dislike violence and avoid it for self-preservation; and if this is contradicted by scripture they will normally handwave it. People who act on violent impulses have something else going on.

Cop out.

Let's put it this way: If one person is raised in a religion that says it's okay to beat your wife and another person is raised an atheist and told beating your wife is wrong, true, both of them could end up beating their wives. Both of them could also end up not beating their wives. The guy raised in the wife beating religion though, who is taunt that God is pro-wife beating, is probably going to slip into the habit more easily.

[Famous Mortimer]

I mean, man, WillipsBrighton, this is hilarious and you'd bomb most religious studies classes with this stuff, but you're obviously fixed enough in your desire (need?) to think like this that it's useless to continue trying to correct you. But one thing I will ask, actually: Why, do you think, do most forms of Islam advocate a form of scriptural literalism? How, in your understanding, did Islam develop that feature? You don't need to go into any specifics if you don't know or have an opinion on them; I just want to know what your understanding is of the general type of reason that caused that.

What am I bombing? You're conceding my point and acknowledging scriptural literalism is a major component of Islam. You're just adding that there are reasons for that being the case that someone justify it.

Same as you did with violence. You say "yeah Islam is violent but there's historical context".

Basically it's the old "but he had a bad childhood!" argument but applied to philosophy instead of a person.

[Famous Mortimer]

but as to the reason why Islam mandates the infallibility of the Quran, it's because without the infallibility and the literalness of Mohammad's revelation, there basically is no Islam. It's the entirety of the religion.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm not denying that there is a sociological context. You seem to be denying that there's any theological context though. The two feed into each other.

Again, if there's a religion that says "It's the unchangeable word of God that beating your wife is cool" people who believe that religion are going to have a much easier time justifying beating their wife, a society that accepts that religion is going to have a much easier time accepting wife beating. A society without such a religion might also have wife beating, it might even have more at some times, it probably won't though.

[Famous Mortimer]

A book that says "beating your wife is okay" is inherently evil. If prosperous economic times make people feel comfortable disregarding that book, that's great. Doesn't make the book less evil though.

[Famous Mortimer]

How have I moved the goal post?

My position has always been that the religious texts of Islam are violent and immoral and that those texts constitute the whole of the religion. I don't know how you feel about the first part. I'm guessing you'd either agree or dodge the issue. The only thing you disagree about for sure is the second part.

I guess it's possible something other than Islamic theology might come to define Islam in the future. Islam might become Arabic flavored Unitarianism 1000 years from now. It will, however, be unrecognizable as Islam to most current Muslims. In the same way a Christianity which rejects the existence of Christ and says he was just a metaphor would be unrecognizable to most Christians.

Islam can change but it would have to disregard most of its theology. You say say theology isn't the whole of a religion but you must admit, it's a pretty big damn part.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm not denying that there is a sociological context. You seem to be denying that there's any theological context though. The two feed into each other.

Again, if there's a religion that says "It's the unchangeable word of God that beating your wife is cool" people who believe that religion are going to have a much easier time justifying beating their wife, a society that accepts that religion is going to have a much easier time accepting wife beating. A society without such a religion might also have wife beating, it might even have more at some times, it probably won't though.

How exactly do you square that with the fact that for several centuries the Islamic world was by all accounts a far more tolerant and (for lack of a better word) "civilized" place than Christian Europe?

It was tolerant by Middle Ages standards, which isn't really tolerant at all.

This would be like comparing a high school drop out to someone with a PhD and saying that the drop out was smarter because they got better grades in elementary school.

[Famous Mortimer]

Religions often change based on their social context. The problem with Islam is, it's very resistant to change.

Christianity is based on dozens of documents written by dozens of different people in several different time periods. For that reason, there are lots of loopholes that exist which allow people to be Christian and still function in the modern world and lead non-horrible lives.

Islam, on the other hand, is based on one document written by a single guy. You can observe the stuff he said, or you can ignore it. But beyond that, there's not nearly as much room for maneuvering.

This is not to say that every time a professed Christian breaks a rule, he has a theological justification. No, most of the time they're just ignoring it. The fact that it can be justified though has allowed society in general to progress. It has allowed secular governments to be formed and progressive laws to be passed without necessitating a large scale Holy War by religious Christians against the government.

[Famous Mortimer]

Yes, everyone was horrible in the middle ages but not everyone is horrible now. Islamic society was bad in the middle ages and it's bad now. Christian society was terrible in the middle ages and it's much much better now. Islamic society has always been terrible by modern standards. Christian societies have been slowly progressing.

And no, I don't think Christian societies have reached the apex of human development. They are certainly better than Islamic society though. There are few if any Christian countries where blasphemy leads to the death penalty.

What is factually wrong about my statement? Are you referring to the Hadiths? 1) The Hadiths are not as important as the Quran. Their infallibility is not as universally accepted. 2) The Hadiths are much more barbaric than the Quran. So I'm doing Islam a favor by not talking them. I don't have a problem with barbaric texts as long as they aren't held up as the infallible word of God. Same reason I give most Christian denominations a pass for the Old Testament, since they don't accept it as inerrant.

Lastly, you say you know next to nothing about Islam but here are you insisting that it isn't violent. This is a text book case of wanting to believe something and then working backwards to try and back it up.

[Famous Mortimer]

Apart from the Quran, Islam isn't violent.

Apart from the all the water, the ocean isn't wet.

[Famous Mortimer]

The problem with viewing religion from a purely sociological perspective, that's not how people who are actually religious view their religion. I'm discussing religion based on the way religion presents itself. The rest of you are discussing religion the way a detached Western academic might. If you ask a Jewish person why they keep kosher, they will say because the Torah commands it. They will not say "well, a long series of a historical happenings that are still ongoing". If you ask a Muslim beating his wife, why it's okay for him to do that, he will say because the Quran says so, not because "current interpretations caused by historical oppression." I was accused early in this thread of being pushing some elitist White man mentality. If anyone is doing that, it's all of you who don't view religion as sincere personal beliefs, but instead as unconscious reactions to historical events out of people's control.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's like you're on the verge of a breakthrough and just aren't willing to take the leap. What do you think has happened to make it less likely that Christians would do the horrible stuff that they absolutely could justify through reference to their scriptures?

Christians stopped being horrible when living conditions got better. Muslim people could do the same but my point is the religion of Islam makes it harder for Muslim societies to transition. Christianity is vague and adaptable. Islamic theology is nowhere near as elastic.