:smack: Mea culpa.
Despite being a lefty myself, I am somewhat troubled by the position that some of my liberal brethren hold concerning this issue. To oversimplify things a lot, the two positions are something like:
Conservatives: A disproportionate number of terrorists are Muslims, and Islam is the only religion that you can’t publicly mock without fearing for your life. This is clearly because of something about Islam itself, therefore it’s reasonable to be at least slightly suspicious of all Muslims.
Liberals: Hey, there are lots of terrorists that aren’t Muslims. And lots of Muslims who aren’t terrorists. And to the extent that there IS currently more violence in the Muslim world than the west, that’s just due to cultural and economic factors that happen to be present in countries with large Muslim populations. Islam as a religion is no more or less inherently violent than Christianity. Hey, look at the crusades.
I certainly agree with that oversimplified liberal position more than the oversimplified conservative position. But (granted I’m responding to my own description of the position here) my problem is with the “Islam as a religion is no more or less inherently violent than Christianity” part. The thing is, I don’t think that liberals say that because they KNOW that it’s true. They say it because it certainly MIGHT be true, and it would be very nice if it were true. So sure, conservatives are wrong to claim that it’s somehow self-evidently true that Islam as a religion is somewhat-more-prone-to-violence. But liberals are also wrong to say that it’s somehow self-evidently true that Islam is NOT somewhat-more-prone-to-violence.
Now, I don’t know enough about comparative religion, sociology, etc, to claim that I have a good answer to that question, and I know plenty of facts (particularly about how tolerant and enlightened Islam was for many centuries in the middle age, etc.) which in fact argue against Islam-is-inherently-violent. But what I can’t do is act as if “Islam is inherently no more violent than Christianity” is a clearly demonstrated fact like gravity. And, as others have pointed out in this thread, there’s no reason why it’s ridiculous for one set of religious teachings to be more violence-compatible than some other set of religious teachings. In fact, it’s pretty unlikely that two entirely different holy books and sets of oral traditions, telling different stories and histories and parables and lessons, would, purely by coincidence, end up exactly equally likely to lead adherents to violence.
(Note that there’s another entire way of looking at this question… even if the Bible and the Koran are equally violence-compatible, it may be the case that each of those books can be interpreted and taught in a variety of different ways, from 0 on the violence scale up to 10 on the violence scale. And if the average violence-scale-level of all the Christian clergymen and teachers in the world right now is 2.0, and the average violence-scale-level of all Muslim clergymen and teachers in the world right now is 2.5, then is reasonable to say that Islam, currently, is a more violent religion than Christianity? Frankly, it’s a confusing and complicated topic, but again one where I don’t think that the right answer is automatically the peaceful and friendly kumbaya one.)
(One final point that I want to stress: even if someone magically proves that Islam is currently 1.5% more violent than Christianity, that doesn’t mean that it would suddenly be reasonable to start treating all Muslims as presumed terrorists or anything. In fact, it wouldn’t make any difference at all in how you should treat individuals. CLEARLY the vast, vast, vast majority of Muslims in the world are NOT violent or terrorists, and if I hadn’t spent so much time typing this stupid response I might not post it just because I don’t want people to misinterpret my position as anything other than a purely intellectual exercise, NOT a practical call for any kind of discrimination.)
In any sufficiently large population sample, you will get the entire spectrum of personal character, from the very good to the extremely evil. That by itself is not surprising, because it is the nature of human character. If the minority of the extremely evil people of a particular population take it upon themselves to create havoc across the world, the majority cannot be sensibly blamed. Fair enough.
But what incites the Islamic minority to violence? Economic deprivation? Political compulsion? No - In the case of Islam, it is religious doctrine, explained and illustrated in great detail in The Book itself. I am not a student of comparative religion, but I am sure that among the “mainstream religions”, only Islam actually preaches violence as a way to handle specific situations. Islamic injunctions meticulously detail how punishment applies to Muslims and non-Muslims, even going so far as to suggest how it must be carried out (stoning, amputations, beheadings).
War or peace, Islam has a way of dealing with the kafir that is far from tolerant, much less inclusive. The effect is far more visible in Muslim-majority countries than open liberal societies. The effect is also plainly visible in Muslim-majority areas in a non-Muslim country. In India, which has a large Muslim population, they actually prefer to ghettoize to achieve street presence and political power. They will not mix with the rest of society, preferring to live like a drop of oil over water. I have lived in many Indian cities and it is the rare, rare Muslim that will buy a house in a non-Muslim locality. There are some Muslim-dominated areas which are no-go for non-Muslims at certain times, on pain of death.
While individual Muslims can be perfectly nice - I have several Muslim friends - Islam as a billion-strong religion has an extremely threatening character. Evil is present everywhere, but it is only Islam that openly advocates its use in innovative ways to achieve political and material dominance in the world.
Oh, and BTW, converting out of Islam is punishable by death.
Hardly my definition of a “religion of peace.”
I take it you’ve never read the little-known book called “The Holy Bible?” Start with Exodus, then catch up on Leviticus. It’s full of them, and for fairly minor offenses, as well.
My “liberal oversimplification” this this whole debate is that the anti-Islam voices here refuse to apply the same level of scrutiny to their own religions, positions, and populations, and until people are willing to have that debate honestly, there’s really no point in arguing.
Let me ask a very simple question.
Has any group of Jews, anywhere on earth, actually executed anyone based on the teachings of Leviticus or Exodus or any other part of the Torah, within the past couple generations? Or failing that, have any Jews committed torture, amputation, or handed out lengthy prison sentences, based on any part of the Torah?
I believe the answer is ‘no’. Perhaps you will surprise me and show that the answer is yes. But it’s a plain fact of the matter that Jews do not apply any command for execution or anything like that, from the Torah, in any legal system in any court today. Whereas Muslims do execute and torture and amputate, in ways that they view as justified by their scriptures, in many countries. And thus mandala is correct; your counter-argument against his statement is wrong. Islam preaches a religiously-based system of law and justice condoning brutal violence, which neither Judaism nor any other religion does.
I’m talking about the Christians, even today, particularly in Africa: African churches denounce children as ‘witches’ as an example. Within your “couple of generations” timeframe, there are a many more examples, the Bosnian war being the biggest one.
But that’s beside the point, as I’m sure you know, because the claim made was:
[QUOTE=mandala]
I am not a student of comparative religion, but I am sure that among the “mainstream religions”, only Islam actually preaches violence as a way to handle specific situations.
[/QUOTE]
To which I pointed out (correctly) that the Bible does, in fact, preach violence as a way to handle specific situations.
Exactly so. The Koran may, in fact, preach violence…but many of its followers are able to put that aside, every bit as much as modern Jews and Christians have put aside stoning for doing work on the Sabbath or burning at the stake for denying the Trinity.
Religions have been shown to be capable of moderation and modernization. It’s absurd to single out Islam as the only religion which, for no reason ever stated, is not capable of reforms.
Bosnian war, WAR right?
I read your statement as you comparing the actions of the militant Muslims are on par with those Christian Africans. You are not saying that Christians in first world countries are still doing those things. Right?
There were slaves being sold on the block in the USA not that long ago. But not so much now. Hopefully we have learned.
Apparently many Muslim controlled countries have not learned that yet. Or is that just a cultural or freedom of religion thing?
If we are talking about in past history, then there are not many religions that could claim ‘never.’ Why nitpick over something like that?
The root of the problem is that Islamic leaders do not decidedly renounce their extremist brethren, and even passively condone hateful teachings rather than come across as “moderate.” The catastrophe that was Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt is a clear example of this. A relatively moderate, educated society elected guys who regularly spoke bigoted views towards Jews and other minority groups.
Any Christian leader that actively calls for the murder of others is shunned from society and is appropriately discarded as an idiot. Why doesn’t this seem to happen in Islamic countries where all these terrorists are bred? Why are Muslims so bat-shit scared to criticize other Muslims?
Thank you all for the feedback. It was illuminating.
Answer: Yes.
Reasons why Islam will not reform in the way other religions have done in the past and are doing in the present have been stated. Anyone who’s knowledgable about comparative religion could state them. It’s been fashionable among some latte-sipping pseudo intellectuals in recent years to say things like “Islam needs to have a Reformation”, as if all religions followed a natural growth path and went through a Reformation just as surely as teenagers go through puberty.
Islamic religion is centered on, and could be defined as, belief that God’s ultimate revelation to mankind came through the Prophet Mohammed, as presented in the Koran (primarily) and other Islamic scriptures. So they believe that at a certain point in history, this book appeared containing all that needs to be said on matters of religion, philosophy, law, and family, and no new revelation of any type can ever add, subtract, or alter any part of the previous revelation.
Jews do not believe this, nor do Christians, although some clueless people would certainly characterize Judaism and Christianity that way. Moreover, some books present a worldview much more, expansive, open to debate, flexible than others. Those of us who have read the Koran know that it is none of these things. It rivals Atlas Shrugged in its insistence that there can be no discussion or mutual respect with anyone who disagrees with it. Obviously I’m well aware that plenty of people on this board think that Christians relate to the Bible in exactly the same way that Muslims relate to the Koran, but is there any expert on world religions who believes that?
Do we really need to do this kind of thing? “It’s also been fashionable among Bud Lite swilling troglodytes to say that Islam is incapable of reform.” Is that how you want to conduct a debate? Is that really your idea of a valid rhetorical point?
Human institutions, in general, follow certain patterns with some repeated and recognizeable trends. Extremist institutions tend either to move toward moderation (reforms) or to become extinct. Islam is in the process of throwing away its extremist subsects, just as Christianity and Judaism have done.
Neither.
But I don’t think Islam is a particularly peaceful or tolerant cult.
At times, it has been. The height of the Caliphate of Baghdad was a pretty good example of an advanced, tolerant, enlightened civilization. They were ahead of their European neighbors in a lot of ways.
They were screwed, not so much by their own internal shortcomings (although their great schism didn’t help any) but by nasty waves of invasion from the east. Tamerlane and Genghis fucked them over big-time.
(It wasn’t all external. The Mamelukes were an internal detriment to moderation.)
I’ll defer to your knowledge on that.
I wanted to add something before but didn’t want to double post:
I also think modern Islam has a greater share of uneducated, poor people and for that reason is more prone to religious extremism (the US not withstading).
I have a fairly cynical view of religion, as you may have guessed. The only reason the Roman Catholic church reformed into this wishy whashy balooney they sell today was survival.