Islam

[shazashadeen]

do you know why many people hate Islam? I hope you Understand Islam before JUDGE about it.
please DO NOT judge Islam by the behaviour of the Muslims

 

[mathman]

do you know why many people hate Islam? I hope you Understand Islam before JUDGE about it.
please DO NOT judge Islam by the behaviour of the Muslims

How else are we to judge Islam or any other religion, escept by the behavior if its practicioners?

To use a non-religious analogy. Marxism looks good in theory, but it turns out to be awful in practice.

 

[Omniscientia]

do you know why many people hate Islam? I hope you Understand Islam before JUDGE about it.
please DO NOT judge Islam by the behaviour of the Muslims

Of course it would be wrong to judge Islam by the behaviour of fanatical Muslims. That would be like saying all Christians are nuts because of the behaviour of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. Although, it is difficult for the average person not to be judgmental in some way. The laws of Islam are far removed from Western laws; especially in regards to women.

I do not belong to any of the Abrahamic religions, so therefore there are no rules about how I dress. Yes, there are the obvious public exposure rules, but I can show my hair, arms and legs. According to your laws, this is indecent. Why is it indecent for a woman to dress as she wishes and a man is not confined by those rules? Now I'm sure you will offer me the explanation of wearing the hijab is for her protection, the lusts of men etc. So if men are so easily aroused by the sight of hair, arms, legs... why can't he just keep it zipped or find somewhere quiet to deal with it on his own?

Now I shall take this a step further, why the burka? I'm looking forward to your responses.

 

[kris]

I have no problem with voluntary participation in Islam.

I do not agree in any capacity with any forms of coercion used to ensure compliance with any form of ideological doctrine.

Can you comment on any inherent political doctrines of Islam?

Is it Islamic 'duty' to enforce certain practices regardless of voluntary participation?

 

[spidergoat]

do you know why many people hate Islam? I hope you Understand Islam before JUDGE about it.
please DO NOT judge Islam by the behaviour of the Muslims

OK, I understand Islam and I hate it, and that's before I consider the behavior of Muslims.

 

[Buddha12]

I consider all religions to be just something that were made up by humans to control other humans and give certain clerics, priests and clergy ways to do nothing but preach and get paid for it. Religion does very little in helping with the problems of humankind, science has, religion has made wars a part of their makeup to destroy those who don't think they way they do so that they can remain in power and control.

 

[GeoffP]

do you know why many people hate Islam? I hope you Understand Islam before JUDGE about it.
please DO NOT judge Islam by the behaviour of the Muslims

I don't. I think, given the conditions of that time, there was a predisposition to violence in some Sura. This has translated into theocratic repression and supremacy in many parts of the Islamic world today. This can be overcome - but it will take effort. I at least get what it's about - but socially speaking Islamic theocracy is not performing well. There is room in Islamic theology for tolerance, and that line absolutely must be pursued. As it stands now, it invites criticism.

 

[Yazata]

do you know why many people hate Islam?

I won't say that I "hate" Islam, but I certainly don't like it. Of all the major religions on Earth, Islam is the one that I like the least and dislike the most.

For one thing, Islam is all about mankind's total submission to a God whose existence I don't believe in. It's about privileging one set of purported revelations from that God, the ones supposedly channeled through Mohammed, over all the other religious traditions that have ever existed on Earth. Islam isn't unique in that, of course. I would criticize Christianity for very similar faults.

Unfortunately, in Islam's case the shape and form of those supposed revelations is thoroughly legalistic, in the ancient Semitic manner. And to my eye, the content of those supposedly divinely-revealed laws, or at least the interpretations that many Muslims traditionally give them, seems crude in the extreme. If interpreted and enforced literally, as seems to increasingly be the fundamentalistic fashion in an Islamic world that's reacting violently against modernism and the West, it threatens to establish a dark-age sensibility for all time, with no possibility of advancement or change. I don't like that.

My sympathies will always be with the proponents of modernist forms of Islam who want to craft a more personal form of their religion (as contrasted with the traditional communal and legalistic forms) that protects the religious freedom of individual Muslims (to say nothing of those who live alongside them) and is better able to participate as one more component in the increasingly mixed societies of our rapidly globalizing world.

 

[wynn]

I won't say that I "hate" Islam, but I certainly don't like it. Of all the major religions on Earth, Islam is the one that I like the least and dislike the most.

For one thing, Islam is all about mankind's total submission to a God whose existence I don't believe in. It's about privileging one set of purported revelations from that God, the ones supposedly channeled through Mohammed, over all the other religious traditions that have ever existed on Earth. Islam isn't unique in that, of course. I would criticize Christianity for very similar faults.

Unfortunately, in Islam's case the shape and form of those supposed revelations is thoroughly legalistic, in the ancient Semitic manner. And to my eye, the content of those supposedly divinely-revealed laws, or at least the interpretations that many Muslims traditionally give them, seems crude in the extreme. If interpreted and enforced literally, as seems to increasingly be the fundamentalistic fashion in an Islamic world that's reacting violently against modernism and the West, it threatens to establish a dark-age sensibility for all time, with no possibility of advancement or change. I don't like that.

My sympathies will always be with the proponents of modernist forms of Islam who want to craft a more personal form of their religion (as contrasted with the traditional communal and legalistic forms) that protects the religious freedom of individual Muslims (to say nothing of those who live alongside them) and is better able to participate as one more component in the increasingly mixed societies of our rapidly globalizing world.

What if those things are not faults? What if they are evolutionary advantages? What if they are advantageous for survival?

Where is there any evidence or reason to believe that living by a humanist, liberal outlook is sustainable, viable in the long run (for individuals as well as whole societies)?



Consider: Who wins in a conflict? The one who is willing to use whatever means come to mind.
In a conflict between someone with a humanist outlook and a "religious fundamentalist", who comes out the winner? The "religious fundamentalist".
In a conflict between someone with a humanist outlook and someone with borderline traits, who comes out the winner? The borderline.

As long as life resources are a scarcity, there will be conflict, on a number of levels, be it on the level of an actual verbal and physical confrontation over food, or on the level of office politics.
So conflict is something everyone needs to prepare for and consider how to possibly win it - or one will perish.

 

[The Marquis]

Well, Wynn.

Was that you actually being all intelligent, and stuff?
The only mistake you made was couching the questions... as questions.

 

[Yazata]

What if those things are not faults?

Sure, there's some theoretical possibility that the Islamic God truly exists and is the one and only God. There's some possibility that Mohammed's Quran and Islam's traditions are the final and binding revelations from God. And it's possible that what Islam says that God commands is precisely what God commands.

I don't believe that those things are true though. And this thread is ostensibly about what people think about Islam.

What if they are evolutionary advantages? What if they are advantageous for survival?

That might be great for the belief itself, provided that the ability of beliefs to perpetuate themselves down through time is defined as 'evolutionary advantage'. It probably wouldn't be nearly so great for the people that hold the beliefs.

This kind of model suggests that the most aggressive and intolerant belief might be the 'fittest' belief, because it will drive all other ideas out of contention (if only by motivating those who hold the least tolerant belief to kill proponents of all rival beliefs), and because it will be the most resistant to subsequent modification as conditions change.

(Somehow, I'm reminded of Hitler and his Nazis. His views didn't turn out to be nearly as 'fit' as he assumed they were. There's danger in attacking everyone around you, since it forces everyone else to become your enemy.)

Where is there any evidence or reason to believe that living by a humanist, liberal outlook is sustainable, viable in the long run (for individuals as well as whole societies)?

Well, sustainability long-term seems to imply some ability to adapt as conditions change. That's what drives biological evolution.

If modern transportation and communications have thrown people from all around the planet into close proximity, both physical and virtual, then whatever societies embrace that will have to be loose enough to allow for a great deal of internal diversity and multiplicity. That seems like a healthy condition to me. It certainly presents individuals with more options, with more opportunities for choice.

That doesn't imply the end of religion, but it does seem to imply that religions can only be binding on individuals and on voluntary associations of like-minded individuals, and not on everyone in the broader society as a whole.

The other alternative seems to be to seal one's society off, in particularist traditionalist-inspired opposition to the kind of heterogeneity that modern technological change seems to have thrust upon everyone else.

My sense is that the growing wave of fundamentalist Islam is in part about choosing the second separatist course of enforced internal homogeneity, in accordance with what all are expected to acknowledge as God's revealed Law.

 

[kx000]

I hate they claim to believe that loot as good, and divine in whole. Some of it only.

What about Christianity, and Judaism?

One God.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

What about Christianity and Judaism? One God.

And Rastafarianism, which is an Abrahamist religion like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And Baha'i, which may or may not be Abrahamic. These are also monotheistic.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

OP is a one post wonder.

 

[arauca]

OK, I understand Islam and I hate it, and that's before I consider the behavior of Muslims.

Why do you hate it are some kind of hate manger ? There are some very nice Muslims.

 

[spidergoat]

Why do you hate it are some kind of hate manger ? There are some very nice Muslims.

I didn't say I hated Muslims.

 

[arauca]

I didn't say I hated Muslims.

Sorry for misinterpretation .

 

[wynn]

This kind of model suggests that the most aggressive and intolerant belief might be the 'fittest' belief, because it will drive all other ideas out of contention (if only by motivating those who hold the least tolerant belief to kill proponents of all rival beliefs), and because it will be the most resistant to subsequent modification as conditions change.

But isn't this precisely the case?

Even in modern secular society, it is people with the most aggressive, most intolerant beliefs that get ahead. Hence the term sociopathocracy.

(Somehow, I'm reminded of Hitler and his Nazis. His views didn't turn out to be nearly as 'fit' as he assumed they were. There's danger in attacking everyone around you, since it forces everyone else to become your enemy.)

Sure, when done in the way the Nazis did, it backfires.

But someone who simply dominates others by manipulation, by sophisticated psychological abuse - there isn't really anything to be done against such a person without breaking the law, at least not in modern Western secular countries. Most people when faced with such a person, seem to just step back and let them win; some try to outmanipulate them.

If modern transportation and communications have thrown people from all around the planet into close proximity, both physical and virtual, then whatever societies embrace that will have to be loose enough to allow for a great deal of internal diversity and multiplicity. That seems like a healthy condition to me. It certainly presents individuals with more options, with more opportunities for choice.

More options doesn't necessarily mean greater potential for satisfaction (see link).

That doesn't imply the end of religion, but it does seem to imply that religions can only be binding on individuals and on voluntary associations of like-minded individuals, and not on everyone in the broader society as a whole.

I'm not sure that from the perspective of religious epistemology, this is a viable option.
Or at the least, what you suggest would limit religiousness to the very few individuals who already have a strong, innate drive for it, who are already sure of the veracity of particular religious tenets, and who can afford to act on their religious impulses (for example, they don't fear they will lose their job because of their religion).

The other alternative seems to be to seal one's society off, in particularist traditionalist-inspired opposition to the kind of heterogeneity that modern technological change seems to have thrust upon everyone else.

My sense is that the growing wave of fundamentalist Islam is in part about choosing the second separatist course of enforced internal homogeneity, in accordance with what all are expected to acknowledge as God's revealed Law.

On the level of the individual person, it certainly seems to be advantageous to be a my-way-or-the-highway kind of person.

 

[spidergoat]

Sorry for misinterpretation .

That's OK. The thing is, there are some beliefs that don't allow you to be nice, according to my definition of nice. It's not always completely their fault.

 

[seagypsy]

do you know why many people hate Islam? I hope you Understand Islam before JUDGE about it.
please DO NOT judge Islam by the behaviour of the Muslims

I used to practice Islam according to the Qur'an but "Muslims" told me I was doing it wrong and insisted that I follow hadith. As much as I have defended Islam in many threads on the same grounds that you had asserted, I have recently stopped because the reality of definitions has shown itself to me that it is not always what is written in the pages of an official book, ie dictionary or religious text, that determines the meanings of words. Islam as defined by common usage of the word BY MUSLIMS is not a faith that is respectable. The common interpretation of the faith is what defines it. It's a hard pill to swallow and I did fight it in the past. But many may see I avoid defending Islam anymore. Because those who oppose it are correct. The common interpretation is all that is relevant. What Mohammed intended no longer matters. No one practices Islam according to the Qur'an or according to Mohammed's teachings. They find whatever excuses they can by twisting the texts, creating false hadiths, following hadith in general, ignoring the Qur'an, to justify their arrogant need to assert their supremacy over others and violently so. It is true of many if not most religions.

The Qur'an was a nice try but no well intentioned spiritual leader can overcome human nature.

I stopped calling myself a Muslim when I decided for myself that I did not want to be associated with the actions of the majority of Muslims around the world. I stopped believing in God when I came to acknowledge and understand human nature for what it is.