OrangeOrganics, I hope that I would never be so foolish as to claim that all religions “are basically the same.” Even the same religion (so called) will inevitably differ from group to group, or believer to believer.
You’re right that the sutras don’t encourage killing unbelievers–rather the opposite. But Protestants to the contrary notwithstanding, religions cannot be reduced to their fundamental texts (although there do exist “Qur’an Only” Muslims–who tend to be liberals, by the way). In the Buddhist countries that I mentioned, Buddhism takes on a certain political role, and particular monks (or lay patrons) regularly arise to direct popular wrath against local Hindus (in Sri Lanka) or Muslims (in Burma and southern Thailand). In terms of texts, there is always that old standby of the Trimondis, the Kalachakratantra, although I haven’t noticed Buddhists rallying around its bellicose passages recently.
You object to “literally” following the scriptures, so it seems that you recognize the tendency of tradition to soften problematic passages. This certainly occurs within Islam.
Andrew, you point to what seems to be the ransom / satisfaction theory of soteriology as the essence of Christianity. Another Christian might point to the Nicene Creed, or the Greatest Commandment, or any of a hundred other things–some of which you would probably agree with, some of them not.
[quote=“Zla’od”]OrangeOrganics, I hope that I would never be so foolish as to claim that all religions “are basically the same.” Even the same religion (so called) will inevitably differ from group to group, or believer to believer.
You’re right that the sutras don’t encourage killing unbelievers–rather the opposite. But Protestants to the contrary notwithstanding, religions cannot be reduced to their fundamental texts (although there do exist “Qur’an Only” Muslims–who tend to be liberals, by the way). In the Buddhist countries that I mentioned, Buddhism takes on a certain political role, and particular monks (or lay patrons) regularly arise to direct popular wrath against local Hindus (in Sri Lanka) or Muslims (in Burma and southern Thailand). In terms of texts, there is always that old standby of the Trimondis, the Kalachakratantra, although I haven’t noticed Buddhists rallying around its bellicose passages recently.
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Where is your evidence for this?
The central tenant of Islam is that the Quran is the direct word of God and everything else Bid‘ah or innovation. Literalism is the current paradigm in most of the Islamic world and the Saudis are doing their best to stamp out groups who are not strict adherents like the Sufis.
So you’ve noticed that there are other forms of Islam with different tenets, such as the Sufis you mention…?[/quote]
Yes, Islam has taken different forms. Mainstream Sunni Islam and then Salafism/ Wahabbism are under the paradigm of liberalism and have been for centuries. What is your point?
So you’re comfortable with the suggestion that there are both liberal and conservative Muslims…? And both liberal and conservative ways to interpret the Qur’an…? In that case the problem would not be with Islam per se, but only with certain forms of it.
Look I get what you are trying to do, you are trying to conflate Christianity with Islam and they are different in form and content. What do these words liberal and conservative mean?
Oh, it’s worse than that. Not only are Christianity and Islam different from each other, but there is so much diversity within each, that it becomes hard to generalize.
What form of Islam would you consider “mainstream”? Taipei has two mosques–would you accept either of them as representative of the Muslim mainstream? The USA must have thousands–which group gets to define the religion?
You’re right that “liberal” and “conservative” can be difficult to define. Would you accept Alevism as a liberal form of Islam? (Look it up if you have to.)
[quote=“Zla’od”]Oh, it’s worse than that. Not only are Christianity and Islam different from each other, but there is so much diversity within each, that it becomes hard to generalize.
What form of Islam would you consider “mainstream”? Taipei has two mosques–would you accept either of them as representative of the Muslim mainstream? The USA must have thousands–which group gets to define the religion?
You’re right that “liberal” and “conservative” can be difficult to define. Would you accept Alevism as a liberal form of Islam? (Look it up if you have to.)[/quote]
Becoming tedious. Im talking about mainstream Sunni Islam. Go and find some pew polls, if you want to get an idea of what the majority of Muslims believe.
Nobody is an idiot, obviously there is diversity in thought between Muslims, but in general Sunni Islam has been in an 800 year slump of literalism. Focusing on the outliers, for whatever reason, doesn’t avoid the reality that much of the Qur’an and the Hadith is not compatible with Western liberal beliefs and the majority of Muslims in the world take the Qur’an to be the direct word of God.
This kind of extreme militant cultural relativism is dangerous.
I don’t know why this type of argument is put forth so often. Isn’t it obvious it’s flawed? The reason Buddhism doesn’t get criticized when certain individuals who claim to be Buddhist do horrible things is because the teachings of Buddhism don’t promote those violent acts. Those acts exist entirely separate from the core teachings of the religion. Please, find me somewhere in Buddhism that says atheists in Burma should be killed. You won’t find it.
When Muslims commit horrible acts in the name of Allah and Islam, the religion rightfully gets criticized because guess what, those exact horrific acts are encouraged and celebrated within the teachings of the religion from start to finish. It wouldn’t take longer than 2 minutes to find those teachings in the Quran.
I certainly hope you can see the difference between Buddhists killing people and Muslims killing people, at least from the perspective of what role the religion plays.
Islam is a religion of violence, intolerance, and injustice from top to bottom. Thank God most Muslims don’t understand their own religion enough to know that because most Muslims surprisingly are peaceful and kind, despite the direct and overt contradictions to that peace littered on every page of their holy books.
And just to appease the false equivalency crowd, yes the same can be said about Christians and Christianity.
Getting closer to the truth is better than appeasing them.
The same can be said about the old testament, but christian teaching is very clear about the importance of the new testament, which DO NOT promote violence, and that the old testament belong to pre-civilization times.
Getting closer to the truth is better than appeasing them.
The same can be said about the old testament, but christian teaching is very clear about the importance of the new testament, which DO NOT promote violence, and that the old testament belong to pre-civilization times.[/quote]
So vicarious redemption through human sacrifice is not violence? Condemning people to an eternity of torment in hell for the crime of being born in the wrong country or to the wrong parents is not violent?
There are many ways to define violence, but I’m quite comfortable saying the New Testament has it’s fair share.
“So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.”
What a lovely non violent passage from the wonderful new testament.
And just to appease the false equivalency crowd, yes the same can be said about Christians and Christianity. [/quote]
I’m glad you’ve finally come around to recognizing this [/quote]
Huh? I’m pretty sure when I was 7 years old I knew Christianity was a religion of violence and repulsiveness. I think on a spectrum Islam is the worst, and Christianity is a close 2nd place. How is that me coming around? Christianity is horrible, I’ve always thought so.
You said I’m coming around, meaning at some point before, I didn’t recognize that Christianity was also a religion of violence.
That is a mischaracterization of anything I’ve said on the subject, because at no time in my life have I not despised Christianity. Now it’s true that I’ve argued many times that Islam is worse, and I’ve also argued that Christianity is watered down and reformed to the point that it poses a lesser threat to the world. But at no time have I ever not recognized that it’s a religion of violence.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what you meant by I have come around. From where to where exactly do you think I’ve moved?
What I said in the other post is nothing more than what you said above as far as I can see, but you disagreed with me at length about it, specifically calling it a “false equivalence”, a term you used again above, though I’m not sure what you are referring to by it at this point.
Is it not fair to say that something more than the content of the Koran is responsible for Islamic political violence? That’s all I ever asserted.
I agree with you that I used the term false equivalence in two different threads, but the similarities seem to end there.
In the one thread you presented a false equivalence. I was speaking directly about Islam, and you came in and said yeah well, christianity and the bible is also such and such. It’s a common thing that when people are speaking negatively about Islam, others feel this need to try to include the Bible in the conversation. I find this desire to always bring up Christianity in conversations about Islam very odd.
In this thread, I said to APPEASE the false equivalency crowd (which I felt that after what I said about Islam would no doubt be coming shortly) I will get ahead of it and say yes, Christianity is ALSO a religion of violence. Of course Christianity is irrelevant to the question of whether Islam is a religion of peace, but I’m happy to throw out the appeasement to avoid the lengthy false equivalency arguments that are sure to follow.
Again I fail to see where “I came around.” Show me where I went from thinking X, to now thinking Y. That’s what coming around means does it not?
I’m quite sure I could quote mine myself dozens of times where I said exactly that. Of course it’s more than just the words, who ever said anything else. Of course it’s socio economics, politics, tribalism, etc etc… AND it’s the horrific nature of the Quran.
If that’s all you ever asserted, then aren’t we now, just like then, in total agreement that it’s a multitude of things? I’m so confused.
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