OK, I’m not sure this is an illuminating line of discussion.
Let me try a different question. Do you think it is ever possible to say that an ideology or doctrine is more or less inherently harmful than another? If so, what examples come to mind? If not, I’m not sure that any further arguments put forward are going to appeal to you.
No one in this thread has “claim[ed] that we can’t criticize the bad ideas espoused by Islamic ideology because it’s Islamophobic to do that, because colonial history, because whattabout Christian ideology.” No one. Nadie. Niemand. никто. No one.
Then go argue with them. Attacking people here for things no one has said doesn’t really make for a great argument.
No one in this thread is attempting to silence criticism of Islamic doctrine.
Way I look at it is this: there are absolutely things in Islamic theology that are objectionable, specifically concerning homosexuality.
Those are often the very same things that are objectionable in Jewish and Christian theology as well, and come from a similar source: that all these religions arose within cultural contexts in which homosexuality was considered impermissible (and a whole lot of things we today find objectionable were considered permissible - such as slavery). All three, in other words, internalized and were a product of their cultural context.
On the other hand, all three contain attempts to reach beyond the cultural context of their day, to critique aspects of existing culture on the basis of moral values. They were, if you like, a mixture of attempts to reach some sort of universal moral truths, combined with a bunch of dross that mirrored existing prejudices.
The difference between a fundamentalist and a non-fundamentalist is that a non-fundamentalist, whether they know it or not, is always seeking to distil from their religious background (or non-religious moral background, if they happen not adhere to a religious tradition) the gold of moral truths from the dross of background of existing prejudices. You see this process again and again.
A fundamentalist, on the other hand, absolutely refuses to make such discriminations - they are likely to cling to every crumb of dross, all the moreso if others are questioning the validity of a particular crumb. They are likely to take the position that the dross is among the absolute essential parts of the religion or moral philosophy - so to discard it, is to discard the religion (or philosophy).
Now, no religion has a monopoly on fundamentalism. In some no doubt it is more prevalent than in others, due to all sorts of factors. It so happens that right at this moment Islamic fundamentalism is the most problematic variety, and its most obvious manifestation is fundamentalists clinging to the dross of homophobia - probably all the harder, because acceptance of homosexuality is so widespread among those they consider their enemies.
How to deal with this? I’d say, to encourage as much as possible those non-fundamentalists within Islam who are attempting to engage in the process of discarding the dross of homophobia. The worst approach is to assert that the fundamentalists within Islam are, in fact, correct. That is, that somehow homophobia is essential to the religion, and so the only choice is to accept it or to reject Islam.
Hear hear. This is wisdom. Thank you for one of the best posts in the thread.
The only flaw in that process is that the fundamentalists are doing the asserting and the result is terrorist attacks against other Muslims.
There is no Martin Luther moment in the history of the religion to rally around.
Maybe he’s arguing that instead of supporting politically expedient causes that in turn support radical ideology, our government (and those who vote for it) ought to consider the long-term consequences of our behaviors more carefully. If you’re asking does Islam influence homophobia, I would argue that it absolutely does – as do other religions, as do other cultures. At the same time, though, I would also agree with those who point out that the US supports extremist factions of Islam that really, really drive the homophobia within the broader Muslim world. We have supported extremist factions directly with cash and weapons, and we continue to provide political and economic support, almost without qualification, to those regimes which sponsor extremist ideology – Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others. And then we act surprised when there’s blow back.
There may be some truth to what you say but the Middle East is imploding on itself. It’s a power struggle between groups of crazy people and calling one group extremists suggests there’s another group who isn’t in the same extremist category.
As I said before, there is no Islamic Martin Luther anyone can point to with definitive assurance. The way the religion is structured it may never be possible for that to happen. It’s a very flat distribution of power which creates many chiefs but no leadership on a grand scale.
Wrong again. My remark about the relative proportions of the world’s Muslims in the US and in a few other countries, and how I thought their “representativeness” should be viewed, was just an addendum to my response to nachtmusik’s rather silly assertion that Muslims willing to emigrate to the US are somehow least representative of all Muslims.
You’re the one who then spent several posts trying to twist that remark into something I never said. If you’ve now decided that wasn’t a fruitful line of discussion, don’t blame me.
There doesn’t seem to be a lack of leadership in Islam, or around the Middle East. Heck, that’s how we got Jesus.
Jesus: I’m God!
The people: Okay!
Mohammed: I"m the last prophet!
The people: Okay!
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad: I’m the messiah!
The people: Okay!
Ali Khamenei: Who’s your daddy?
The people: You are, you are!
It’s just the leaders who say stop oppressing women and killing gays and forcing your religion on everybody else don’t get many votes.
Sure. To take just one random (ha) example, I’ve been saying over and over again in this thread that radical-extremist theocratic repressive Islamist ideologies and doctrines are extremely harmful. They’re certainly way more harmful than, for example, the form of Islamic doctrine espoused by Muslims for Progressive Values, or than various forms of Christian doctrine espoused by non-violent non-homophobic Christian denominations, and so forth.
I have no problem whatsoever with comparing specific ideologies and doctrines in terms of what I consider to be their relative harmfulness. But I remain very skeptical of the extremely speculative and simplistic attempts to extend such comparisons to the alleged “inherent” nature of entire religious traditions spreading over millennia of history, hundreds of diverse cultures, and billions of adherents.
That kind of broad-brush hypergeneralization is just ignorant and silly.
Its simple observation of cause and effect when looking at the exponential amount of Islamic inspired terrorism. To say it’s not directly connected to the religion is ridiculous. No other religion exhibits the extreme reactions both numerically and intensity to any form of criticism.
Nobody is in the least attempting to deny that terrorism by radical fundamentalist Islamist extremists is indeed directly connected to the particular radical-fundamentalist Islamist-extremist version of the Muslim religion that they profess.
[QUOTE=Magiver]
No other religion exhibits the extreme reactions both numerically and intensity to any form of criticism.
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And this is where the broad-brush ignorance and silliness comes in. It’s not logically valid to look at a religio-political situation of one particular historical period and attempt to explain it by overgeneralizations about the supposed “nature”, as I said, of entire religious traditions spreading over millennia of history, hundreds of diverse cultures, and billions of adherents.
To help you see what I mean, here are some examples of religion-comparison statements, both true and false:
Modern radical-extremist fundamentalist Islam is more harmful than modern liberal Methodism. Undisputedly true.
Modern radical-extremist fundamentalist Islam is more harmful than modern liberal-egalitarian Islam of the sort espoused by Muslims for Progressive Values. Also undisputedly true.
Modern liberal-egalitarian Islam of the sort espoused by Muslims for Progressive Values is more harmful than modern right-wing Christianity of the sort espoused by homophobic bigoted hate groups such as Christian Identity. I would call that unequivocally false.
Medieval Islamic Chishti Sufism was more harmful than Christian orthodoxy of late antiquity. Comparative analysis of earlier historical developments is more tricky but I would call that false too, given that the Chishti sect stressed love, compassion and charity including “ecumenical” welcome to members of other faiths, while 4th-century Christian orthodoxy introduced the official persecution of Christian heretics that produced so much schism and violence.
Islam is more harmful than Christianity. Ignorant, silly, and historically meaningless bullshit.
You’re doing it right now. Ther e is no mis-interpretation of the actions of Mohammad. That some Muslims choose to ignore it is grand but that doesn’t remove the direct connection to Mohammad’s actions and deeds. You’re dismissing the exponentially higher levels of violence directly associated with Islam by trying to play a numbers game. The fact that some Muslims choose not to follow Mohammad’s words and deeds is a credit to humanity as a whole and not a misunderstanding of the religion.
To help you see what I mean, here are some examples of religion-comparison statements, both true and false:
Modern radical-extremist fundamentalist Islam is more harmful than modern liberal Methodism. Undisputedly true.
Modern radical-extremist fundamentalist Islam is more harmful than modern liberal-egalitarian Islam of the sort espoused by Muslims for Progressive Values. Also undisputedly true.
Modern liberal-egalitarian Islam of the sort espoused by Muslims for Progressive Values is more harmful than modern right-wing Christianity of the sort espoused by homophobic bigoted hate groups such as Christian Identity. I would call that unequivocally false.
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Fred Phelps didn’t kill anyone he was about as obnoxious as it gets.
Medieval Christianity was subverted into a political system which was destroyed by Martin Luther. It’s progenitor did not did not kill anyone and allowed himself to be sacrificed. That’s what made it so easy to deconstruct. Mohammad was a war lord who killed people and espoused the same behavior. That aspect CANNOT be removed from the religion without removing Mohammad. It’s logical that people who gravitate to religion for moral guidance will ignore violent abstracts. But it’s also logical that people who focus on the progenitor will emulate him. When you apply the concept of “What Would (your progenitor) Do” you get a much more violent result with Islam vs Buddhism or Christianity.
Mohammad was a violent warlord who codified that violence. We see the result today of a seemingly unending list of terrorist groups who emulate him.
It is illogical to dismiss this direct connection between the Mohammad and these terrorist groups. You continue to confuse the religion with those who follow it and claim that because not all Muslims involve themselves with the violence it’s not the religion causing it. It’s a direct result of the religion’s teachings and actions of it’s progenitor prophet that’s causing it.
There’s no “correct” and “incorrect” version of way to interpret any religious text. They all require interpretation.
Further, there’s nothing inherently more violent about the Quran than the Bible. Differences in statistics related to violence aren’t explained by scripture, just like at certain points in the past when Christians were probably statistically more violent than Muslims, it wasn’t because of scripture. It’s because of other societal and cultural factors, like it always has been.
I’m sure it’s hard for religious people to accept that there’s nothing special about their religion, but it’s true.
And that can be seen in the different factions of Islam slaughtering each other.
That’s complete nonsense. There is a distinct difference between the lives and teachings of Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammad. When you talk of the Quran it was the direct words of Mohammad. He died a warrior. The Bible was never written by Jesus and he willingly died a martyr. The core messages are quite different. All it took was a sheet of paper and a nail to bring down those who bastardized Christianity as a political tool. Islam is specifically designed as a political/legal system and as such it’s much harder to fix.
Yes, exactly. That’s at the center of the violence.
It is more illogical to look at a religion that has demonstrated periods of violence and also periods of peace over the course of 1400 years and insist that one’s perception of its founder provides the only explanation for its current situation while ignoring both the periods of peace and compassion and denying the relevance of the political situations that have helped shape the current violence.
You are in no position to make a claim for logic in your polemics.
There have been long periods of history in which the Islamic world was far more peaceful, open, tolerant, and free than the Christian world. This alone demonstrates that there is nothing intrinsic to these religions that makes one more or less likely to inspire bad behavior. As always, it’s geopolitics, societal, and cultural factors that influence these things, not scripture.
Would you agree that different religions can inspire different kinds of bad behaviour? For instance, it’s not very difficult to justify deliberately suicidal violence with Islamic scripture. The actions of ISIS make absolutely no sense without Islamic scripture. Conversely, there are probably certain kinds of violence that can be more easily justified by Christianity than Islam. Could we agree on that, at least?
It’s possible, though I recall many historical Christian martyrs, many of whom are saints, I believe.
But that’s just scripture (both of which, in my understanding, could be used and have been used to justify suicidal violence in certain circumstances) – for various other reasons, at this time suicidal violence (aside from various non-religious murder suicides) seems to be restricted to segments of radical Islamic groups.
Well yes, but they were killed FOR their religion by other people and not by their own hand in the name of their religion.