See above. I believe there are hardline Sufis, but the people under discussion aren’t Sufis. They are Wahabbist Sunis and Shia fanatics.
They won’t change their religious book. They believe the same religious book forbids it.
You’ve got it backwards, I think. Religious adherents modify their interpretations of their scriptures according to changes and developments in contemporary religious thought. They don’t rewrite the texts of their scriptures and then change their beliefs to correspond.
These fraud individuals can be exposed badly in proper debates. Depends very much on where most of the Mullahs stand. If most of them are fraud, then our endeavor fails, otherwise there’s good chance that it passes.
They won’t participate in debates, end of story. And their interpretation is not necessarily fraudulent.
I think such an endeavor is inevitably doomed even in the total absence of any kind of fraud, simply because, as Marley23 noted, sacred texts are considered sacred, meaning that nobody’s allowed to tweak their wording.
I support your general ecumenical outlook, though, and wish you success in smaller-scale and more feasible efforts of interfaith reconciliation.
You mean, you don’t really have one so, go away?
I am sorry but citing vague platitudes like “realized their true selves” proves nothing one way or another. The idea that all religions are basically the same is a delusion so naiive that it is dangerous, especially as Muslim immigration into western democracies brings Islamic values into conflict with western secular values. Until we understand and accept how different Islam is from modern, secular democratic thought, there will be conflict and more conflict.
Sam Harris is a world-famous atheist author you might like to consult. By the way, like Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed, Harris is an enlightened soul (downright brilliant).
You can find any number of YouTube videos by Harris, but in one of them, he shoots down your idea about religions being the same along these lines:
We have a single word “religion” just as we have a single word “sport”. But if you look at what “sport” covers, you realize that it includes anything from badminton to extreme fighting, a sport so brutal that people are not infrequently killed or maimed for life. They are both sports, but they have little in common other than breathing.
By the same token, if you look at what the word “religion” covers, and analyse the different belief systems it includes, you will realize that they are very, very different.
For example, there is a religion called Janism that preaches absolute reverence for life. So what do extremist Janists do? They cover their mouths with surgical masks so as not to breath in an insect, and walk with their eyes cast to the ground lest they step on an ant or other living creature. What can you expect an extremist Muslim to do? Hijack planes filled with innocent people and fly them into skyscrapers secure in the belief that they will receive virgins in paradise for their murderous act.
Even when the scriptures look similar or are from similar sources, the actual practice can make two religions as different as chalk and cheese. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have scriptures prescribing the death penalty for homosexuals.
But Israel, and democratic western countries in general, have long ago decriminalized homosexuality. In fact, protection of the human rights of gays is a condition of entry into the European Union. And get this! Even though the Pope consistently condemns homosexual practice as sinful, HOMOSEXUAL ACTS ARE NOT CRIMINALIZED IN THE LAWS OF THE VATICAN STATE! The Swiss Guard might eject you from the Vatican if they find you having gay (or straight) sex in a back corner of St. Peter’s, but it is still not a crime. Over a dozen jurisdictions (states and sovereign nations) now allow 100% full marriage equality to same-sex partners.
Now, compare this to Islam. Seven of the seven countries that have the death penalty for homsexuals are Muslim. Dozens of other Muslim countries have flogging, prison sentences, and in Iran, either death or compulsory sex changes. Not every Muslim country criminalizes homosexuality, but not a single Muslim country recognizes gay marriage or even protects gays from discrimination in housing and employment. And yes, there are non-Mulsim countries like Uganda and Jamaica that are very homophobic. But look at the difference between the west and Islam overall.
Finally, I would challenge you to find anything in Buddhism that is equivalent to the following quotes from the Koran:
*The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom. *-- Quran 5:33
But they who disbelieve, and deny Our revelations, such are rightful Peoples of the Fire. They will abide therein. 2:39
Yeah, I remember having that attitude towards my younger brother when I was 10. I don’t remember it working very well.
It doesn’t appear to work very well for Israel either. Even the Nazis couldn’t threaten enough violence to stop people resisting what they thought was wrong.
Quite to the contrary. My argument is not that you should never say anything bad about a person or persons you disagree with. Certainly you should - with MLK or Luther, their declarations would have had little impact or affect, or would not have honestly put forth the results of those creeds they disagreed with, had they not said one bad word. It’s a pretty ludicrous notion, for sure. My point simply is, well, what I said. Insulting someone is not the best means of convincing them to change their mind. There is no yawning gap of nonexistence between “deliberate offense” and “servile agreement”, luckily for us, because it means that we can point out criticisms of someone or their views without resorting to insults. In fact, I myself said that earlier in the thread.
Really, though, my best argument that this is so is you. You’re disagreeing with me; yet, you aren’t going out of your way to insult me. You didn’t pepper your post with insults or threats or whatever. You criticised my argument calmly in an attempt to convince me that i’m wrong; you appealed to analogy, and a cite to famous figures that I might hold in esteem. We disagree utterly. Yet, here we are, being cordially argumentative in the hopes of persuasion.
For the sake of discussion, list the lies. All I’ve heard by way of a protester on the news is that it shows Mohammad had sex with women, and killed people.
well for the zillion’th time, nobody was insulted. This movie was not (to my knowledge) brought to Muslims. It’s insulting to them in it’s content, but it was not brought to them. Nobody was insulted (as a verb). This isn’t some trivial argument point, it’s the whole argument. The internet is chock full of this kind of content.
From the Wikipedia article, (barring contrary evidence), it actually was “brought to” Muslims.
I have seen no evidence that any Muslims were wandering around Southern California looking for films over which to be offended. One anti-Muslim jerk seems to have promoted the film and found a willing dupe among the Islamists to promote the hatred that he was trying to incite.
while I agree with this there will always be variations of the intensity of belief in any religion. This, IMO is where religions differ over time. While it’s possible to interpret scriptures to suit changes in societies it’s not possible to alter the recorded actions of the progenitors of the religion. Hardcore adherents will attempt to emulate the main prophet of the religion.
To add to what Tom is saying . Al-Nas, the TV station that promoted the idea that this film was financed by the US government(which is what prompted the riots), is based in Egypt, but owned by a Saudi businessmen and is a radical Salafists station which makes the Muslim Brotherhoid look like the Quakers.
It’s virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Christian.
The Salafists who run it probably orgasmed when they saw the movie.
I’m still not seeing where it was brought to Muslims unless it was emailed to Sheikh Khalad Abdalla. This is the person who broadcast the trailers in Egypt. Morris Sadek was not even allowed in the country.
The citethat tomndebb posted shows the list of objectionable material so I’m answering my own question.
from wiki -
Muhammad as a:
philanderer and a religious fake
a womanizer
a homosexual and a child abuser
Muhammad’s followers are portrayed as "savage killers hungry for wealth and bent on killing women and children
In the excerpt of the film and the trailer, the character of Muhammad calls a donkey “the first Muslim animal” with Time describing the scene as showing Muhammad having a “homoerotic, one-sided conversation with a donkey”.
A relatively minor nitpick. There are lots of radical Sunnis who certainly aren’t Salafists(called Wahabbists by their opponents). For example, neither Hamas nor the Muslim Brotherhood are Salafists, nor is Sheikh Yusef Al-Qaradawi.
For that matter, most Salafists, though not all, would be better described as conservative than radical.
I had thought that Sadek, (or whoever), having dubbed in the Arabic slurs, put the trailers up on YouTube, then made sure that they were brought to the attention of various others.
I am not sure that the actual movie has ever been seen in the Middle East; I had thought that the trailers were the only parts actually viewed there, after they had been hyped (by both the anti-Muslim extremists and the Muslim extremists), relying on the internet.
Well the trailers are enough of a finger-poke-in-the-chest for the purposes of discussion. Did he actually forward the links?
It costs them nothing to kill infidels. In fact, it’s their moral duty to do so. The only way that they will even stop to consider the value of free speech is if retaliation is done to them disproportionately for any attacks they make on free speech. I’m sick and tired of these barbarians.