# Okay, fine, Islam is this violent, evil religion. What do you want us to DO about it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 1, 2015, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328 "2015-11-01T12:26:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![tooldtocare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@tooldtocare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tooldtocare)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/381 "2015-11-05T22:58:41Z")
To honestly judge a religion or the followers of that religion you must consider the time frame of the events. Our founding fathers exterminated the Native American people and then enslaved thousands upon thousands as slaves. Then our fathers fought the Civil War where more died than during WW2. Then we look at the present time and walla, America elects a black man as President of the USA for two terms. .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,It does seem .,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,Time heals all wounds ---
**Author:** ![A\_isha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@A\_isha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_isha)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/382 "2015-11-05T23:00:44Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The reason, I suspect, it’s not moving very quickly (or in any clear direction at all) is because Muhammad is still there as the messenger of God. Every slight change in interpretation still has to refer to Muhammad in some way and so it can never get all that far away. This is a pretty deep misunderstanding, but whatever. > [@](#): > > In contrast, no legal scholar asks what Julius Caesar would have done. The evolution can go as far as it needs from its beginnings. It’s not tied to its origins in the same way. Some of them certainly ask themselves what the founding fathers such as slave-owning pedophile rapist Thomas Jefferson [would have done](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_constructionism), though. ---
**Author:** ![Plumpudding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Plumpudding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plumpudding)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/383 "2015-11-05T23:09:53Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The reason, I suspect, it’s not moving very quickly (or in any clear direction at all) is because Muhammad is still there as the messenger of God. Every slight change in interpretation still has to refer to Muhammad in some way and so it can never get all that far away. > > In contrast, no legal scholar asks what Julius Caesar would have done. The evolution can go as far as it needs from its beginnings. It’s not tied to its origins in the same way. This is wrong, as history clearly shows. Just to give a little insight into why I dislike that way of speaking: Denmark is going to the shitter, Sweden is paralysed, in Norway(my home country) we have a party with a long history of racism in government. There’s the situation in Hungary, Geert Wilders here where I live, The Netherlands. In Italy I regularily witnessed people getting beat up by white suppremacists, while the police was watching and doing nothing other than arrest people who had a problem with the situation. I got picked up for wearing a t-shirt promoting equality once. I heard a guy in Poland say: “I love Poland. I’m french and there’s so many muslims in France. Not that I dislike muslims, only Islam.” I don’t wanna talk to people who say that and doesn’t get why it is offensive. This has to be marginalized. People need to be held accountable, within reason. This goes is to **Robert163 and Hank Beecher** and all others it may also concern: Muslims are people. You don’t dislike people for having different ideas than you. I don’t personally believe in whatever my norwegian/sami anscestors believed, but I don’t the ascribe motives and actions of an anscestor or person in history unto a person of faith. I’ll form an opinion by getting to know/know about that person. If a muslim does me harm personally, I’ll hold him or her individually accountable for that, within reason, as I try to do with everyone else. Don’t ascribe atheist motives to bigotry and hatred. If you sincerely do not believe in differentiating between people of a certain religion, but that fighting religion is more important than fighting bigotry, quit talking that way as it muddies the water. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/384 "2015-11-05T23:13:46Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Our modern legal systems have been in a process of continuous evolution since their first incarnations. What we explicitly have not done is declare the first iteration to be the immutable word of God and tried to continue using that in spite of societal progress. What we have also not done is declare the creators of these systems to be divinely guided or say that they had access to moral truths that we do not. > > Even founding documents like the US Constitution have the built-in capability for change, and although our founding fathers are respected, they are not seen as divinely inspired. Is your argument that Mohammad having a child bride influenced his otherworks to the extent that they became without value. I would fully admit that any modern day Muslim who uses Mohammads example as a dictum that they should obtain their own child brides are evil. But these seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Most Muslims seem to realize that that was a product of the time and separate it from the rest of his teachings. In much the same way we see value in some of the works of Aristotle even though his [ideas regarding women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle%27s_views_on_women)were clearly bonkers when looked at today. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/385 "2015-11-05T23:15:28Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > This is a pretty deep misunderstanding, but whatever. Please direct me to these interpretations of sharia which have wholly discarded their connection to Muhammad and his cohorts. > [@A\_isha](#): > > Some of them certainly ask themselves what the founding fathers such as slave-owning pedophile rapist Thomas Jefferson [would have done](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_constructionism), though. No. The man is irrelevant to the text. And besides, the text can be modified–in fact contains explicit instructions on its modification. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/386 "2015-11-05T23:19:03Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > _Their_ norms. I notice you skip over the first point and distort the second. > [@](#): > > You seem to think I have an obligation to cast Islam in the best possible light; I don’t think you have any obligation, but I do recognize the patterns of the prejudice and the bigotry in selective facts, in biases. it is no more charming from the atheists than it is from the religious. Mirrors of each others hatreds. > [@](#): > > In find it vaguely amusing that you use polygamy has a kind of excuse for Muhammad’s actions with Aicha. Excuse? I just use some > [@](#): > > Oh, sure he had sex with a 12 year old, this is not a fact, it is a supposition according to some but by far not all traditions, i note. in any case it is a silly excercise this waiving around of the age for shock purposes [really](http://discover-the-truth.com/2013/09/09/age-of-consent-in-european-american-history/) > [@](#): > > “In 1962, the American Law Institute recommended that the legal age of consent to sex- that is, the age below which sex is defined as statutory rape- be dropped in every state to age 10 (Katchadourian and Lund 1972: 439). In fact, until the mid 1960s, the legal age of consent in Delaware was 7 (Kling, 1965: 216). So a 50 year old man could legally have sexual intercourse with a 7 year old boy or girl.” [6] > [@](#): > > but he didn’t really enjoy it, I wrote nothing on this topic. > [@](#): > > and besides he preferred to spend time with his older wives. Of course I noted your abuse of the terms pedophile and hebephile which are used with meanings attached to a prediliction and a preference. It is simply to note that to use these terms - except as the empty terms of abuse and raging of the haters - one should be analytical and see there is not any real support in the Prophet’s history that says he had any special liking for the young girls. If there was a Phile tendency of this nature it should have showed and been justified. But Aicha is an exception in fact (and the more ordinary of the traditions have her more reasonably being aged in her mid to late teens). It is irrational to use the terms in fact. > [@](#): > > You would be laughed at if you used that to explain someone behaving that way today. A clumsy demarche, but actually it illustrates something - If I encountered now in say the Central African Republic or the Nepal a marriage by an older man outside of my modern expectations, but within the norms of the community, I would not be so stupid to call it a hebephilia or a pedophilia. If there is not a pattern, these are just words of abuse without any real content or meaning. They become childish emotional flags to wave in a disservice to a soi-disante rationalism. Otherwise, can you build a more distorted straw man? I suppose so, being very bound up in your emotional hatred and its semi-intellectual justifications. > [@](#): > > As I’ve said, it is the very fact that these figures are incomparable to modern society that tells us that their value system should be wholly rejected. Yes we can all wait for the day that all the humans become converted to the angry autistic atheism so that they can more purely find modern intellectualized reasons to hate under the thin veneer of a modern rational system of thought… I am sure it will come any day now. For persons, even non believers who are more rational about the possibilities of the human condition, or even the believer who is open minded and looks at the other religion that is not theirs, a more useful and rational (not expecting a magical transformation of the human kind into something it has never been) approach is to look to the lessons of a benchmark against other behaviour. This is hard perhaps for the autistic readers who insist on an autistic and narrow reading of any text, but for others it is a natural and human way to relate and build a morality. for the more ordinary believer in Islam, the lesson that is drawn from the Prophet comes more and comes essentially from the most repeated words, Mercy and Compassion, the two primary attributes of the God. Of course the bloody minded can always finds hatreds, even in “rational” and atheistic systems… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/387 "2015-11-05T23:40:14Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Is your argument that Mohammad having a child bride influenced his otherworks to the extent that they became without value. There’s been a lot of focus in this thread about Aicha, but that’s hardly the only thing wrong with Islam. It’s just something that’s easily seen to be reprehensible to modern eyes. Of course I find lots wrong with all religions. The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the worst stories about anything, ever; evidence that the Abrahamic god is psychopathic. I can’t accept any value system which uses that story as a defining aspect of their god. But this thread is about Islam and so we’re focusing on things exclusive to it. Further, these things revolve around moral questions: the treatment of women, children, homosexuals, slaves, “infidels”, and so on. These questions are directly applicable to whether Islam is useful as a moral system for today. They aren’t tangential side notes. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > In much the same way we see value in some of the works of Aristotle even though his [ideas regarding women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle%27s_views_on_women)were clearly bonkers when looked at today. I don’t want to get too sidetracked in this thread, but I think society did suffer some harm by elevating Aristotle above his ideas. He wrote a great many things, some of which are still valid today and some of which were nuts. His stature was such that he held great influence for many centuries. Unfortunately, it took until roughly the Enlightenment to really systematically go through all these old ideas and reevaluate them. Suddenly it was the idea and not the man that held primary importance. And many of the ideas were found wanting. For the ideas that did survive, we do not keep them because they originated with Aristotle. We keep them because they hold up to experiment and analysis. Aristotle could be erased from history and it wouldn’t make one iota of difference because the idea is the important thing. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/388 "2015-11-06T00:02:12Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > I wrote nothing on this topic. My apologies; it was **Kobal2** that made the inappropriate comment that while Muhammad might have had sex with Aicha, he wasn’t doing it for fun at first (but maybe later, pukey smiley face). > [@Ramira](#): > > Of course I noted your abuse of the terms pedophile and hebephile which are used with meanings attached to a prediliction and a preference. I am not using the terms in a clinical way. It’s a simple truth that a man today that has sex with a girl barely past menarche will be branded a pedophile, regardless of his reasons. > [@Ramira](#): > > If I encountered now in say the Central African Republic or the Nepal a marriage by an older man outside of my modern expectations, but within the norms of the community, I would not be so stupid to call it a hebephilia or a pedophilia. If there is not a pattern, these are just words of abuse without any real content or meaning. They are not merely words of abuse. They represent a few of the underpinnings of modern western morality: the idea that children have rights, that consent matters, that sex is a particularly horrendous thing to force on someone, and so on. Regardless of what we call Muhammad’s behavior with Aicha, his actions violate the same exact values that true pedophiles today violate. We feel the same degree of repulsion in both cases. And of course the same is true for any similar behavior today in Africa or elsewhere. We can decline to call it pedophilia, but there is still an older man having sex with a girl without her consent (without any possibility of her consenting). It’s a distinction without a difference. > [@Ramira](#): > > for the more ordinary believer in Islam, the lesson that is drawn from the Prophet comes more and comes essentially from the most repeated words, Mercy and Compassion, the two primary attributes of the God. You forgot “submission”. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/389 "2015-11-06T00:02:58Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > But this thread is about Islam and so we’re focusing on things exclusive to it. Actually, this thread was begun with the intention of exploring what can or should be done to alleviate the violence associated with the extremes of Wahhabism and the even more extreme proclamations from ISIS, with “Islam” used as a token word to avoid getting sidetracked (as such threads routinely do) into whether the violence is an outgrowth of the religion of a subset of it. That being the case, **EVERYONE** will take their beliefs and feelings about the evil of Islam or any portion of it and go open a new thread. Address the OP: **What should or can we do?** **Stop the hijack, now.** [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/390 "2015-11-06T00:14:08Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, this thread was begun with the intention of exploring what can or should be done to alleviate the violence associated with the extremes of Wahhabism and the even more extreme proclamations from ISIS The OP says nothing about ISIS or Wahhabism, regardless of how much you would like to push your narrative that the violence, and other damaging effects of Islam, only originate from some tiny minority within it. You are very persistent in your attempts to limit criticism of Islam, I will have to give you that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/391 "2015-11-06T00:17:41Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, this thread was begun with the intention of exploring what can or should be done to alleviate the violence associated with the extremes of Wahhabism and the even more extreme proclamations from ISIS, with “Islam” used as a token word to avoid getting sidetracked (as such threads routinely do) into whether the violence is an outgrowth of the religion of a subset of it. That’s not how I interpret the OP at all, which says: > [@Leaper](#): > > But what this brought to mind was, what do those people generally want to DO about their beliefs re: Islam? One answer–my answer–is that I do not have any of the concrete goals in mind that the OP listed as possibilities (such as war). Rather, I wish to simply have my say in setting the tone of discussion about Islam. My hope is that a persistent view of religion–and Islam in particular–as a violent, obsolete myth will eventually lead to its weakening. The OP doesn’t mention Wahhabism or ISIS at all and I see them as essentially irrelevant details in a broader cultural trend. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/392 "2015-11-06T00:22:11Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > So has _shari’ah_. It’s not only been developed and modified and argued about and discussed for 1400 years, there are still competing interpretations of it today, ranging from individual _faqih_ issuing different rulings from each other, all the way up to the fact that the different _madh’hab_ often do not agree with each other (and there used to be a lot more of them, too). White supremacists also have endless arguments with each other about the details of their ideology, with various adherents ranging from those who use the ideology only to inform their own personal behavior, to other extremists who support or use violence in the advancement of their agenda. This does not stop us from rejecting this belief system as a wholly unacceptable basis for modern morality. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/393 "2015-11-06T00:28:23Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > True. > > And the racism of “camel-flavored Christianity” aside, I find it interesting that **Hank Beecher** is so adamant that Islam is not like Christianity at all I never said Islam is not like Christianity _at all_, that would be stupid, and is merely another of your convenient fabrications. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/394 "2015-11-06T00:34:22Z")
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” - Winston Churchill (attrib.) ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/395 "2015-11-06T00:35:07Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > True. > > And the racism of “camel-flavored Christianity” aside, I find it interesting that **Hank Beecher** is so adamant that Islam is not like Christianity at all Also, I borrowed the phrase “camel-flavored Christianity” from an Arab ex-Muslim. She used it in frustration at those many simple minded Western liberals who see Islam as neatly similar to Christianity, and are ignorant of the important differences. Again, you are using accusations of racism and bigotry to shield Islam from criticism. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/396 "2015-11-06T00:36:08Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” > > - Winston Churchill (attrib.) Thank you so much for your snarky elucidations of, …something? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/397 "2015-11-06T00:49:29Z")
So, you do know, right, about that Muslim cab driver in New York, passed along info that thwarted a terrorist plot? How people all over New York were saying “Who was that mosqued man, I wanted to thank him.” ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/398 "2015-11-06T00:52:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > In other words, you’re not claiming it’s some kind of transcendent truth, you’re just claiming it’s the only historically valid way to interpret Muslim doctrine. No, I am saying that it is one very obvious way, and one that is very popular. Muslims are not stupid, they can see these ad hoc revisions for what they are just as I can. > [@](#): > > But claiming that the extremists’ interpretations are the only historically valid way to interpret Muslim doctrine is exactly the kind of anti-moderate undermining of reformist interpretations that **A’isha** is objecting to. By answering “it’s OK to abuse children because the Prophet did it” only with “no it’s not because he did not”, one implies that the behavior is acceptable if one can prove that he did. This is dangerous because of the very real possibility that these ad hoc interpretations will be rejected. > [@](#): > > There have always been alternative interpretations of religious scriptures in Islam and everywhere else. There’s no such thing as a sacred text that has been interpreted in only one way “throughout the centuries”. So what? > [@](#): > > Moreover, there have always been substantial numbers of adherents of all religions who have fomented violence and oppression because they follow an interpretation of their religious scriptures that encourages such behavior. Sure. So what? > [@](#): > > For example, nowadays there are quite a number of radical-extremist Jews who illegally foment violence and oppression in the occupied West Bank because they believe a literal interpretation of their religious scriptures that tells them that this territory was divinely assigned to Jews in perpetuity. But we’re not telling moderate peaceful Jews that their alternative interpretations of their scripture are somehow pointless or futile because they’re just “trying to convince people that the texts do not really mean what they say”. Jews have been at the forefront of religions innovation since before Islam existed. And many people do tell Jews, and anyone else who believes in the vengeful, manic depressive desert psychopath God, that it is stupid to base morality on Stone Age mythology and codes of conduct. And many, if not most, Jews agree. > [@](#): > > Somehow, it seems to be only Muslims who are expected to accept having moderate or reformist interpretations of their religious doctrines easily dismissed simply because there will always be extremists who prefer to interpret them “in the more violent and oppressive manner”. Odd, that. We are discussing Islam because of the high percentage of Muslims who favor barbaric punishments. > [@](#): > > In other words, **A’isha** and other moderate Muslims should continue to do the heavy lifting of actually supporting and defending modern moderate interpretations of Islamic doctrine. But they should stop inconveniently pointing out to you that your ill-informed sweeping generalizations condemning Islam in general are counterproductive and are in fact effectively endorsing the very type of extremist literalism that you claim to oppose. The subtext of her arguments is that it is favorable, or at least acceptable, to base morality, behavior, codes of conduct, ect on the verses of the Koran and the deeds and actions of the Prophet. In this way it is she who agrees with and lends support to the extremists. I am fully aware of and have admitted that the approaches I favor come with downsides, but she can not admit that her’s do as well. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/399 "2015-11-06T00:56:32Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > So, you do know, right, about that Muslim cab driver in New York, passed along info that thwarted a terrorist plot? How people all over New York were saying “Who was that mosqued man, I wanted to thank him.” Oh, so you mean that, like, not all Muslims are bad people and stuff. Golly gee thanks brah, I never would have, like, known about that. Duuude. ---
**Author:** ![Hank\_Beecher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hank_beecher/32/7275_2.png) [@Hank\_Beecher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hank_Beecher)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328/400 "2015-11-06T01:30:00Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But modern moderate interpretations of Islam aren’t some kind of deliberately invented “extremism-fighting” strategy. They developed from long-standing traditions of exegetical dispute and philosophical divergence within historical Islam. They are genuine religious traditions in their own right. There are also [genuine traditions in the Islamic world](http://www.alhewar.com/habib_saloum_averroes.htm) of placing rationality above scripture, and of [disregarding the fanciful claims of Islam](http://www.centerforinquiry.net/isis/islamic_viewpoints/ar_razi/). > [@](#): > > For us non-Muslim westerners to leaf through a translation of the Qur’an, carefully noting down all the references to bloodshed while listening to some Wahhabist radicals calling for fundamentalist _jihad_, and then to proclaim that we “know” that moderate interpretations of Islam are pointless effete “loopholes”, is simply pig-ignorant as well as arrogant. What is pig ignorant is your presumption about what informs these opinions. In my case, I almost exclusively have gotten my impression about what Islam is from current and former Muslims themselves. I have been told in nearly identical terms, for example, in Mosques both in different parts of America and on different continents, that Islam provides a “complete way of life” and that to be a Muslim means to submit to God’s wisdom, as revealed in the verses of the Koran and the deeds and actions of the Prophet as recorded in Hadith, even when our own modern morality would cause us to want to reject them. > [@](#): > > Sure. But once again, why should it only be Muslims who are expected and exhorted to discard all non-fundamentalist interpretations of their faith just because there are always going to be some diehard fundamentalists who refuse to agree with them? All of us should elevate humanistic principles above theological ones. That is what the revisionists like Aisha here are actually doing; attempting to cram Islam into a shape compatible with her and our modern values. But, until it is done _explicitly_, her efforts are very easily countered by those fundamentalists who will easily point out the greater scriptural and historical basis for their positions. > [@](#): > > If that’s intended as an argument in favor of secular civil law codes such as Turkey’s or France’s or the US’s, in which the basic operation of government is supposed to be religiously neutral, then sure, I’m all for it. > > But if it’s intended as advice to moderate Muslims to just dump their religious interpretations and beliefs, then it’s basically religious bigotry. The advise is to elevate humanistic principles above religious ones. This means that their moderate interpretations must be accompanied as such: “You can’t even prove for sure that the Prophet ever had a child bride since those sources are not reliable by the standards of modern historians, and\* even of he did that would be no excuse to do such a horrible thing\*, instead it would be a reason to abandon his example as a moral guide”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-fine-islam-is-this-violent-evil-religion-what-do-you-want-us-to-do-about-it/736328.md?page=21)