There are different strains of Islam.
Based on what I read in the Study Koran thus far, all people will eventually be saved after suffering in hell.
Extremists sects like Wahabbi that are bad for people. But overall, Islam has done tremendous good.
It’s not.
Paradoxically, that is the sect that Saudi Arabia supports, and as a result many terrorists have Saudi citizenship. But Saudi Arabia is also a US ally.
Right.
Do Indonesian Muslims fight each other like that? Of course not. The schism is due mostly to the sociology of Arab tribes, not Islam.
Indonesians seems more “live and let live” types, and they are pretty moderate by Islamic standards…
Wahabbism seems to be a thing that Arabs like to go with…
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The province of Aceh begs to differ.
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There aren’t many American Muslims who practice Wahabbi.
Most of my extended family are Muslims, but my parents are both atheists. In my teens, after 9/11, there was a weird period where working-class kids and young adults all over South London (where I’m from) where converting to Islam and so, with my natural fascination for religion and originating from a Muslim background (although I’m very Western and hardly even speak the language of my parents), I started hanging around with Muslims and tried to learn everything I could about Islam with the intention of converting. But then I finally sat down at read the Qu’ran. To be honest, after constantly being told about how “beautiful” and “merciful” it is, and how it’s so “perfect” that it would remove any doubts I had about Islam, to say I was disappointed would be an understatement. In fact, I was borderline horrified.
Now, that said, I was very young at the time, 9/11 was still fresh in my mind, and some of the Muslims I was hanging around with were less than savoury characters to say the least. So now that I’m older and much more knowledgeable about religions in general (I don’t expect any holy book to be perfect or to not have passages that can easily be interpreted to condone violence against “the other”), I wonder if I just focused on the negative parts of the Qur’an and should give it another try.
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Indonesia is almost totally Sunni… but as said, in Aceh they surely are a little extreme
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This makes sense also
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I don’t know. I tried to focus on the positive aspect of Islam, and how all the bad stuff Arabs do is just Arab tribal culture and not Islam. But the Quran is confusing as far as wanting to find stuff, and you really do need a companion (such as the Bible), which Imams tell you that you shouldn’t read bibles or you’ll get corrupted by satan or something. I just chalk it up to the Quran only being beautiful to those who understands Arabic intimately. Later on I found the various schools of thoughts, and how they really contradict each other at times. I thought in my heart that how can a perfect religion be so contradictory and how would I know that I’m on the right path? Like if I follow some school of thought, what if that was the wrong one?
And Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and many sub-Saharan countries
Islam is really just Judaism + Arab tribal culture
Thanks for chiming in.
In contrast, I keep hearing about how violent it is (especially from right wingers and people like Sam Harris who shamelessly exploit Islamophobia to get an audience). When I was little, before 9-11 hit I heard it was all plagiarized.
I’m liking it this far, though I have no intention of converting.
Ha, his massive audience, sure. He’s just making arguments; it’s hardly surprising for him.
For me, it wasn’t so much that I found the Qur’an violent (although I think it’s easy to interpret it in such a way that it encourages violence in some situations), but rather that I found it took more of a “stick” than a “carrot” approach. The whole book is full of passages demanding submission and warning of an eternal Hell for those who don’t submit in almost gleeful tones. It made me feel very bad about myself and my prospects for the future while reading it and it was a far cry from the ideas I’d developed over the years (particularly in attending an evangelical Protestant church a few years earlier in a very confused time of my life) of an ever-merciful and ever-loving father God.
That said, I’ve now read the Christian bible too (several times, and I’m currently working through the NT again now) and I honestly don’t think that the New Testament is as much of a “carrot” approach to salvation as is often made out. When I try to approach the New Testament objectively, including the Four Gospels, I really don’t see much of the “peace and love” hippie version of Jesus that so many other people see and I find the New Testament to be just as harsh and damning as I remember the Qur’an being. My deep love and respect for Christianity is based more on the theology that developed over the centuries after the Bible rather than what’s in the Bible itself.
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Sometimes I wonder if even God’s will evolves over time as well.
As in the old days the stick approach is almost the default approach to anything. Punishments were harsh and swift, and looking at the amount of wars fought in the old days it seems to make more sense.
Despite all the doom and gloom we keep hearing about on the news, today is actually far more peaceful than even just 100 years ago. In the old days wars were fought over the flimsiest of reasons, and those were only wars we read about. I mean in the 1800s dueling was actually legal in many countries. I like to think perhaps nuclear weapon and international trade made wars obsolete as in the old days, food production was tied to amount of land available, and the amount of food produced per acre was more or less fixed. It meant if you wanted more food to feed a larger population, your only choice was to kill your neighbor and take their lands.
I really think much of what you read in the Quran is more mentality of Arab tribes than the will of God, as in if you introduced Arab tribes to the one true God then you’d get Islam.
Some may accuse me of picking and choosing but I really believe that Jesus’s message of loving God and loving your neighbors, even your enemy, is the true intent of God. All the other hellfire, condemnation, etc. are just means to scare people into doing that, and the result is predictable… Which is why I have problems with churches that try to read the bible TOO literally.
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It’s almost like religious texts are written by man to suit their needs rather than the word of god passed down. 
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I’m not I understand your point, but he says outrageous stuff to get on the news (like Mr. Orange dude), then claim he was taken out of context. Like we should profile people at the airport.
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