There is nothing fundamentally "wrong" with Islam, or Islamic "culture".....

Great Debates
1

…at least, nothing that is not fundamentally wrong with organized religion, itself.

Consider: offhand, I can think of four times in the last 2,000 years when Jerusalem was conquered – twice by Muslims, twice by non-Muslims. Can you guess which armies massacred the population when they took over the place?

Romans take Jerusalem, 70 AD: massacre.

Arab Muslims conquer Jerusalem for the first time (600s): no massacre.

Christian crusaders from Europe take Jerusalem, 1099: horrible massacre of 40,000 Muslims.

Saladin takes the city back from the Crusaders (1100s): no massacre.

Overall, I would say Muslim history is no more blood-stained than “Western” history. Point to a terrorist or criminal from the Muslim world, and I’ll point to Serb war criminals, Ugandan enslavers, Northern Irish bombers, American abortion clinic terrorists and murderers of gay men – all “Christians”.

BTW, this thread is not only in response to a certain Doper we all know, but also in response to my fundamentalist Christian cousin who keeps trying to convince me that Islam is inferior to his own religion. He gets frustrated when he sees me making a “moral equivalency” between religions, and I have to tell him, “Uh, yeah, I am making a moral equivalency.”

You may be really, really into your religion, but that doesn’t mean you have to look for ways to tear down someone else’s.

2

This doper wouldn’t be me? Would it???

My quarrel was with the British legal system not Muslims.

3

Muslims massacre people in the world trade center 3,000 dead.

Take hostages in Moscow.

Bomb people in Bali 100 dead.

The rise of the Taliban countless dead

These are done by Muslims and those atrocities are done by Christians. WHATS YOUR POINT?

4

I am definitely not an expert on the history of Islam, but the feeling I get is that Islam seems not to have gone through some of the modernization that Christianity has gone through since around the time of the Enlightenment – mustn’t forget, Christianity had some pretty blood-curdling practices back in the 1500s.

To some up my beliefs: while there is nothing fundamentally ‘wrong’ with Islam, when compared to Christianity, it may be that at this point in time there are substantive differences in their respective teachings on conflict, other faiths, and the like.

PS: FTR, I am not a Christian, though I was raised in the faith.

5

I disagree with your analysis, tclouie. Cultures aren’t constant over centuries or millenia. Taking a total over 2000 years doesn’t adress the state of a culture today..

I’d say there was a big flaw in the Christian culture at the time of the Crusades, but that particular flaw doesn’t exist in Christianity today. Maybe the Islam culture was better than the Christian culture 800 years ago, but that has no bearing on what is or isn’t wrong with Islam culture right now.

6

Ah, but is it all a result of Islamic culture-or a smaller piece of that culture?

7

I think Islam is fundamentally flawed because it is not a religion of peace. Yes, there are a few token references to social justice in the Qu’ran, but Muhammad, according to the sources of Islam itself, spread his religion by the sword. And always the astute businessman, he led raids on competing caravans. I think the life of the founder shows the true essence of the religion. Yes, there can be peaceful Muslims, and indeed the majority probably are, but the religion itself is flawed if its founding does not reflect a total condemnation of violence.

Other religions, like Christianity and Buddhism at least give better values. Jesus willingly went to death on the cross without any violence or the least resistence. Buddha was attacked several times by his cousin Devadatta, but never retaliated. While Christians have often started wars, and a couple of times in history we’ve seen violent Buddhists, at least one can say that their actions do not follow the example of the founders of their respective religions.

(Yes, some would argue that the Old Testament, which Christianity is somewhat based on, is full of gore and cold-blooded killing, but theologians have shown in several ways that this makes little difference on how Christianity is to be followed today, such as in the moral relativism of Saint Augustine).

Of course, Muslims could say that Islam is only fundamentally flawed if you are looking at it from a religion that abhors violence, but if that’s all you can reduce it to, what’s the point of the thread.

UnuMondo

8

Good point, Guin. It’s always a mistake to assume that all persons, or even most persons, who are gathered together in a particular religious (or political) community think with a single mind. Human beings are not like termites, performing certain functions unvaryingly in response to chemical stimuli. If someone wants to believe that all Islamic people think alike, he has only to examine recent history in, say, Lebanon, where deadly conflict has gone on between Muslim factions within their own country regardless of “common” enemies without.

I think tclouie’s point is that no religion is fundamentally better or worse than another, although some people are. I would add that, while all religions purport to teach some kind of morality, the morality they teach generally applies only to persons within their own communities. In a historical context, outsiders’ belefs, rights and persons tend not to have been so well respected.

Geezer

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
– H. L. Mencken

9

What a wide brush you own. A flaw in Xtian culture… now repaired. Let’s move on. Since we are talking ‘terrorism’ and not empires, how do you explain the IRA and ETA? The change you speak of in the western hemisphere is more social and economic than due to a religious reformation. One only has to look at the leading lights of evangelical christians in this country and hear them talk to realize how far they are from mainstream thinking. There is no question Islamic civilization (if one could call what is now a hodge-podge of numerous cultures all over the world) is facing a crisis but again it is more social and political than it is religious.

10

There isn’t anything “wrong” with Islamic culture for the simple reason that no such entity exists. There is not such thing as “Islamic culture” that can be seperated out and defined, this is Islamic culture, this is not. Due to recent incidents, we are focused on the jihadist radicals, which are no more representative of Islamic culture than Jerry Falwell is representative of Xtian culture. How many of us know a Sunni Muslim from a Shi’ite?

11

tclouie: don’t use the past to justify the present. Yes, more people have died in the name of jesus than in the name of allah/mohammed, but the muslims are catching up pretty damn quickly. I don’t care about what horrors christians did 800 years ago, I care about the religious violence going on today, 2002. As long as you stay away from abortion clinics and gay funerals, you have nothing to fear from christians. You are not safe ANYWHERE from muslims.

While other religions have “mellowed” out over the years and become less violent (sure they all have their wackos), islam has gotten more and more violent. I’m an atheist, so I dislike them all, but anyone who justifies today’s islamic violence with the christian violence of 800+ years ago is missing the point.

Remember, Islam is founded on a warlord “prophet” and clearly teaches that “if they won’t convert, force should be used” … IMO religions that believe in spreading-by-force are against public policy and need to be wiped out. Yes, wiped out. Zero members left. Religions should spread SOLELY on their own merit. Proselytizing is bad enough, but the “convert or die” and “all non-members of our religion are our enemy” attitudes have to go. Islam is the preeminent form of such a religion.

I am aware that there are “peaceful” muslims who don’t believe every word of the koran and thus don’t turn to violence. Like the bible, torah, or any other religious text, it’s not a la carte. All or nothing. You can’t decide to believe in the (very few) ‘be-nice/love/happy’ parts and ignore the ‘kill the virgins/stone the children’ stuff.

If you see someone (i’m sure one is bound to post in response to this) who says they’re a muslim and are against violent conversion and slaying of non-muslims, they’re simply not a real muslim. They’re like the homosexual christian who has convinced themselves that “the bible doesn’t really mean homosexuality is a sin.” Peaceful muslims are fake, half-assed muslims who, i suppose, have no hope of going to heaven to get their 72 raisins. That is the innate problem with islam. Christianity has the same problem, but to a much lesser extent.

The only purpose religions serve is to control behavior. There are so many people out there who think “if there’s no god, then what stops us all from killing each other?” … in other words, “if i didn’t believe in god, i’d go around killing, raping, stealing…” These are the people we need religion to control. Mere laws that threaten jail, fines, or even the death penalty can’t control them because they only see themselves getting away with it. But, if they believe in an omnipresent god who sees all of their actions (i.e. they can hide from the law but not from god), coupled with an eternal reward of heaven for being good and an eternal punishment of suffering for being bad, they tend to stay home and not cause trouble. Religions like islam which don’t encourage their members to conform to a civilized society simply serve no purpose whatsoever and have to go. And don’t buy into the “it’s a social problem masquerading as a religious one” excuse. Sorry, this is a problem deeply-seeded in the fundamentals of Islam. It’s not about oil or politics. It’s about Allah. Nothing more, nothing less.

The only thing more amazing to me than how religious people can actually believe the crap they believe in is how they can take the nasty stuff in their respective religious texts (this goes for all religions, not just islam) and convince themselves that “it doesn’t really mean that.” My favorite is: *“that’s just the english translation, it doesn’t really mean ‘kill them all,’ it means ‘love them all like brothers.’ You’re just not reading it right.” *

I have absolutely no idea how to get rid of a religion, by the way. It clearly has to be done, but don’t think for a second I’m advocating concentration camps / genocide. The only idea I can think of is snatching their children from them before they can become brainwashed with islam, and brainwash them with a peaceful religion instead. Then give them back to their parents after 25 years of learning about peace, democracy, and the golden rule, and I think we could get rid of islam within 80 years. Yeah, taking kids away from parents is a “sucky” thing, but we do it all the time when a court decides certain parents are not suitable to raise their spawn.

12

So, when I was visiting Belfast, Northern Ireland, the RUC and the military were searching everyone entering the City Centre to make sure we were all safe from those terrible Muslims, hey?

13

Why should a religion that doesn’t totally condemn violence be considered flawed? Are you able to offer an objective argument that violence is inherently wrong?

Simply comparing another belief system to your own and then criticizing it because it doesn’t match is utterly insane. By that logic, everyone must judge their own personal beliefs to be the One Truth and all else must be peverse evil.

14

**
So PolyCarp, who does not believe homosexuality is a sin, is not a real Christian?

**
There’s a word for the kind of person you describe-sociopath. A sociopath lacks a conscience and has no empathy. Athiests may not believe in an afterlife, but they have conscienes and a sense of empathy. DaLovinDJ has said(This is my interpretation of his posts. DJ, if I’ve misunderstood and misrepresent you, I apologize.) that he hates established religion because he sees it as lying to people, stealing from them and controlling them. DJ feels that this wrong, that is unacceptable to do this to other humans. His behavior is controlled by his conscience.

**
How much do you know about Arabic, Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin? Are you aware that the Torah has no chapters, no punctuation, no diacritical marks, and no vowels?

15

Kalt, having demonstrated your complete lack of knowledge of Islam, your arguments carry no weight. You may be atheist, but your disinformation about Islam carries the same weakness that generations of Christian missionaries and propagandists have suffered from: spreading untruths about Islam and then as a result being ineffective and unprepared in dealing with the reality of it. The bile you have regurgitated here is the sort of nonsense that Christian missionaries have been repeating for years, but it hasn’t gotten them anywhere. You obviously have no clue as to what Islam is really about, still less have you any business determining who is or is not a real Muslim.
Have you any idea of the debates carried on within Islam over the centuries about that question? Can you cite any of the main positions and their proponents?

Thought not. Go away and learn something about the subject first before you come in here and vomit hatred.

16

>Why should a religion that doesn’t totally condemn violence be
>considered flawed? Are you able to offer an objective argument
>that violence is inherently wrong?

Because the only viable purpose of organized religion is social control. If a religion doesn’t cause its followers to think twice before they kill someone, it’s flawed. If it actively encourages people to kill others, it’s really flawed and has to be abolished. Religion can only do so much to control people, but it’s by far the most powerful method of social control man has ever created. It a religion serves no social-control purposes it’s useless, and if it actually promotes what is in effect anarchy, it’s flawed.

Is violence inherently wrong? If people can freely go around beating/killing whoever they want, society falls apart. We’d have anarchy. Yes, there are occasions where organized violence is necessary (i.e. war) to protect a nation’s interests, but on a person to person level, violence has to be wrong or else society falls apart. Violence used to spread a religion is always wrong. No exceptions.

Jomo Mojo: rather than calling my position names, why don’t you give me some facts about how islam really is (despite what the koran says, and despite the islamic terrorism the world has to deal with) a wonderful, peace-promoting religion? Yes I realize it is politically incorrect to criticize a religion, but too bad.

>How much do you know about Arabic, Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew,
>and Latin? Are you aware that the Torah has no chapters, no
>punctuation, no diacritical marks, and no vowels?

Yes, I am aware of this. Practically it doesn’t matter in the least. If the koran is mistranslated, FIX IT or don’t follow it. If “kill the non-muslims” really means “love the non-muslims” don’t you think it’s about time for a revised edition of the koran? That’s a pretty bad mis-translation, don’t you agree? Considering people are going to be basing their entire morality on this book, I think it’s pretty darn negligent to have such egregious mistranslations being printed, taught, and propogated… don’t you? Also, considering the most violent muslims are the ones who learn from the original arabic, not from the english translations, I think the whole “mistranslated” argument is complete and total bullshit.

Just because it doesn’t sound happy doesn’t mean it’s “hatred.”

>So PolyCarp, who does not believe homosexuality is a sin, is not
>a real Christian?

I don’t see any other way to view it. Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against homosexuality whatsoever, and am very vocal for gay-rights (I think it’s a travesty that gay marriage is not allowed in america), but if PolyCarp doesn’t believe homosexuality is a sin (both the old and new testaments unfortunately leave absolutely no doubt that it is) then s/he’s an “a la carte christian,” which is no christian at all. ALL OR NOTHING, you can’t pick and choose which parts of “the word of god” you want to believe in. Go find another religion if your morals conflict with what your current religious text says is “True” (with the capital T). I’m sure there are plenty of faiths/belief systems out there that have no problem with homosexuality. I suggest polycarp pick one of those to believe in and dump christianity, because it’s incompatible with him/her.

17

Or 500 years ago in the Americas?

So the “conversion” of Europe to Christianity was accomplished by eloquence, no swords anywhere in sight?

I agree that the world might be a better, or at least less turbulent place if all religion were gone. Wiping it out, however, is impossible, and it’s dying out by natural progression of civilization will likely proceed at about the pace of continental drift. Religion is here to stay. Live with it.

Preeminent today, maybe. But in its spurts of greatest growth, Christianity was the archetype of such a religion, and at least as bloodthirsty overall as Islam, as the OP points out. Do you imagine that most of the peoples of South America who had contact with the Spanish and Portugese conquerers became Catholics because of the intellectual persuasiveness of the Europeans? Did the Europeans merely insist that the indigenous people accept their presence, but allow them to keep their own religions? Successive generations may have been sincere Christians, but the original “converts” had no choice. That was not Islam.

And you are qualified to say who is or is not a Muslim (or a Christian) because of…what…your vast and intimate knowledge of the teachings, customs and individual persons of both…?
I’m an agnostic (or atheist, as some on these boards like to say), and I see, as you do, the basic flaw in the logic of those, Christian or Muslim, who claim that their religions are inherently peaceful. History shows that that is not true. However, Most Christians and most Muslims today would rather live in peace. Your belief that true Muslims all want to kill unbelievers is simply not supported by sufficient evidence. But your insistance on that claim, if believed by enough people, will surely make peaceful Muslim Americans less secure than they have every right to be. Your comments amount to bigotry, not enlightenment, and will more likely propel people to violence than help to perpetuate peace.

Geezer

18

Yeah…And, one might also want to ask who the Bosnians had to fear in Sarajevo or the Albanians in Kosovo.

19

Moreover, that flaw was specific to the Roman Catholic church, rather than Christianity in general. This, despite frequent attempts by revisionists to lay blame for the Crusades squarely at the feet of Christendom as a whole.

20

And a far greater number have died in the name of atheistic worldviews. (Look up “Mass murders” in the Guiness Book of World Records sometime.)