Is Islam really a peaceful religion?
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  Is Islam really a peaceful religion?
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Author Topic: Is Islam really a peaceful religion?  (Read 12113 times)
Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #125 on: March 27, 2016, 12:44:11 AM »

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.

Everyone is horrible now too. We just don't realize it because our moral standards are shaped by the level of horribleness we are accustomed to. Unless things go very wrong, people in a thousand years from now will judge us as severely as we judge people from the Middle Ages.


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Now. It was different in the past and it might be different in the future. What you describe has only been the case for about 150 years.


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There are multiple schools of thought within Islam that interpret the Quran differently - just like there are in Christianity and Judaism for the Bible (which, as far as I know, is also held to be directly inspired by God). If there is something specific about how the Quran is treated compared to how Christians treat the Bible, it has more to do with which currents prevailed within Islam and Christianity - which was clearly a highly contingent historical process.


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I'm saying that Islam "isn't" one and a single thing, because religions don't have an "essence" and anyone half-serious about studying them would know that.
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #126 on: March 27, 2016, 03:38:59 AM »

Apart from the Quran, Islam isn't violent.

Apart from the all the water, the ocean isn't wet.
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #127 on: March 27, 2016, 03:50:56 AM »

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.
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Figs
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« Reply #128 on: March 27, 2016, 06:52:03 AM »

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?
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #129 on: March 27, 2016, 07:23:19 AM »

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.
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Figs
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« Reply #130 on: March 27, 2016, 07:42:11 AM »

So close that you actually basically stated the answer, and then imposed your own biases over it and said they're more important.
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #131 on: March 27, 2016, 07:47:20 AM »

That Islamic theology is less elastic than Christian theology is not a bias. It is an unfortunate fact.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #132 on: March 27, 2016, 09:55:24 AM »

Few things are as elastic as Christian theology though. But anyway the current issues in the Islamic world and the rise of Islamism etc. are pretty clearly not that related to theology...
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #133 on: March 27, 2016, 03:05:52 PM »

Millions of brown people: We must have a political system based on our theology

Liberal White people: Clearly this has nothing to do with theology
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #134 on: March 28, 2016, 09:46:15 AM »

Yes, I'm sure that all of the people who have joined ISIS and then committed various vile crimes as a result did so because they read a theological tract.
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dead0man
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« Reply #135 on: March 28, 2016, 10:35:50 AM »

Why do they if it's not that?  Teen angst?
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #136 on: March 28, 2016, 11:48:33 AM »

Yes, I'm sure that all of the people who have joined ISIS and then committed various vile crimes as a result did so because they read a theological tract.

You don't think believing an act has divine sanction makes someone more likely to commit that act? Even if the desire predates the looking for justification, the fact that justification is so easily found helps pushes the person towards doing it, more than if there was no theological justification.
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Nathan
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« Reply #137 on: March 28, 2016, 12:04:27 PM »

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".

I don't even know where to begin with this.
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #138 on: March 28, 2016, 12:09:02 PM »

Every time I make a point you just come back with some crap like "ugh!" "I can't even!" "you're the worst!" Eventually you're just going to start responding with emojis.
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« Reply #139 on: March 28, 2016, 03:43:34 PM »
« Edited: March 28, 2016, 03:46:54 PM by LIVE THE DREAM. PURGE THOSE BOZOS »

Every time I make a point you just come back with some crap like "ugh!" "I can't even!" "you're the worst!" Eventually you're just going to start responding with emojis.

Okay, I'll respond in more detail than that statement deserves: You're assuming that Jewish people agree with you in seeing 'because the Torah commands it' and 'because of a long series of historical happenings that are still ongoing' as mutually exclusive, or even as inherently separate. This actually may be a legitimate point about Islam that you're making here--you're not convincing me of your position as this conversation continues but you are challenging me more than I'm letting on so I grant you that--but you're undercutting whatever legitimacy the point has, or your other points have, by making these terrible, sometimes morally reprobate analogies and comparisons. Judaism has a historiography to it that's at times almost eerily perceptive and self-aware and that is one of the first things anybody who really understands Jewish culture thinks of when they think of it. If you don't know that, but use keeping kosher as a basis for this sort of comparison anyway, then yes, you are the worst.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #140 on: March 28, 2016, 04:52:21 PM »

Every time I make a point you just come back with some crap like "ugh!" "I can't even!" "you're the worst!" Eventually you're just going to start responding with emojis.

It's hard to come up with anything else when your "points" are nothing but endlessly repeating the same argument after it's been challenged or making absurd strawmen with no connection to what was being discussed.

I note, among other things, that you still haven't answered the question: what makes right now any more relevant in determining the "essence" of a religion and its sociopsychological implications than any other point in history?

You can't make an absolutist argument about a millenary faith and base it entirely on examples ripped from the headlines.
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Boston Bread
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« Reply #141 on: March 28, 2016, 11:58:02 PM »

On the whole, no.
I'm basing this on concrete observations rather than any theological aspects of islam. Islam can be a religion of peace, but right now it isn't in practice. Violent islamism wasn't a huge thing until the 70's.

Even by developing country standards, muslim majority countries experience significantly more conflict. Polls also show muslims are more likely to hold violent beliefs, even when they live in non-violent societies.
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Famous Mortimer
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« Reply #142 on: March 29, 2016, 07:25:17 AM »
« Edited: March 29, 2016, 07:27:56 AM by Famous Mortimer »

Every time I make a point you just come back with some crap like "ugh!" "I can't even!" "you're the worst!" Eventually you're just going to start responding with emojis.

It's hard to come up with anything else when your "points" are nothing but endlessly repeating the same argument after it's been challenged or making absurd strawmen with no connection to what was being discussed.

I note, among other things, that you still haven't answered the question: what makes right now any more relevant in determining the "essence" of a religion and its sociopsychological implications than any other point in history?

You can't make an absolutist argument about a millenary faith and base it entirely on examples ripped from the headlines.

I never said right now was the most relevant time for determining the essence of a religion. I never said anything even close to that. I have no idea how you got that impression.

Islam has been violent since its founding. Christian countries might have been worse at some points but they got better. Islamic countries are unable to get better because of Islam's core belief that a warlord was God's ultimate messenger.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #143 on: March 29, 2016, 09:43:20 AM »

You don't think believing an act has divine sanction makes someone more likely to commit that act? Even if the desire predates the looking for justification, the fact that justification is so easily found helps pushes the person towards doing it, more than if there was no theological justification.

Kind of stretching the meaning of 'theology' to something so broad as to be almost meaningless (other than 'religion related') there. Its a bit like insisting that everything done by the weirder and more unpleasant Marxist groups in the 20th century was ultimately about philosophy.
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Famous Mortimer
WillipsBrighton
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« Reply #144 on: March 29, 2016, 10:26:37 AM »

You don't think believing an act has divine sanction makes someone more likely to commit that act? Even if the desire predates the looking for justification, the fact that justification is so easily found helps pushes the person towards doing it, more than if there was no theological justification.

Kind of stretching the meaning of 'theology' to something so broad as to be almost meaningless (other than 'religion related') there. Its a bit like insisting that everything done by the weirder and more unpleasant Marxist groups in the 20th century was ultimately about philosophy.

If the Communist Manifesto had included instructions for setting up gulags, when Communists set up gulags, it would indeed be very reasonable to think that's why they did it.

If the Quran said women are inferior and it's okay to hit them with sticks, and Muslim societies treated women as inferior and hit them with sticks, it would indeed be very reasonable to think that's why they did it.

As the world actually exists though, the Communist Manifesto doesn't have gulag instruction but the Quran does have indefensible, inescapable misogyny.
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i4indyguy
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« Reply #145 on: March 31, 2016, 12:23:40 AM »

The best statement that I can make, that strikes a balance between open-mindedness/non-demagoguery and historical honesty is this:

All religions I have encountered, especially monotheisms, that rely on a sacred book, text frozen in perpetuity from the bronze age till now (omit translations), as the basis for instructing the world view of adherents, carry within their nature a significant risk for ghastly perversion.  Many religions widely regarded as 'peaceful' now were for long stretches nothing of the sort. Much like the time when Christians pillaged the entire western hemisphere under the auspices of 'divine right', ISLAM is now going through a period of incitement towards violence. 

It is my earnest wish that the most despicable of acts done in the name of/with authority given by/ Islam are nothing but a fad.  Such has been the case for other religions, which have managed to mature and moderate in their theology (somewhat).   

I am willing to consider that environmental/economic/political gripes are playing a role in the number of muslims who seem to cherish destruction of the current world order. But these greviences fall far short of justification for much of the violence that has been carried out in the name of political islam.

Are arab muslims really the only people who suffer under dictatorships?  Lack economic opportunity?  Education?  Feel disrespected and dismissed by the strong world powers?   
PLEASE...  I would like to introduce to you 4 billion people who have legit reasons to B%T%H.

It seams to me that the vast majority of (crazy) violence carried out by muslims is done by people whose roots come from just a portion of the global footprint of this faith. And a small subset of people from those regions and cultures, at that.

None the less, I cannot help but conclude that there are particular doctrines, within the Quran and within the religious tradition itself, that are PARTICULARLY dangerous, vulnerable to corruption or misuse, and represent a threat to the current security and governance order wherever there are people who adhere to them.

To the initial question:   Is islam a religion of peace?   
The Dalai Lama and the Japanese kamakazi pilots claimed a common faith (in label at least).
 Do Not Forget That.

I believe Islam is a religion that can be adhered to peacefully. (Most muslims testify to this)  But I have enormous concern that within its doctrines lie the catalysts for truly destructive inspiration; the danger and popularity of these doctrines significantly outstrips concerns I have with any of the other monotheisms.


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