Originally Posted by
ggggtotalwarrior
I disagree with the assertion Islam itself is rotten to the core. It just so happens that the religion itself existed in countries that have been slower to adapt to the modern era, mainly due to the terrible situations they were put in by colonialism and a failure to adapt to a changing world.n
I want to go into more depth in what you said. I agree that it would be incorrect to say Islam is "rotten to the core", since it implies religions have meaning and value independently of the meaning and values people ascribe to them. You could have a religion that had a sacred book that was full of explicit commands to kill and torture, yet live the most peaceful lives by interrpetating what the book says allegorically, and when it says to kill, they could say "well that really means to kill their bad ideas, not literally". Still, the plain simple meaning of the text of the book is not unlikely fo win out as some try follow the letter of the text rather than an interpretation that seems to go against what the text actually seems to say.
But the reason that Islamic societies were in terrible situations in the first place might have been bexause Islam contributed to the failure of the societies to adapt to a changing world, and colonialism might have merely been a symptom rather than a cause. As I said, Islamic societies failed to adopt printing for centuries, and religious pressure seems to have played a role. Religious opposition to interest and money lending delayed the development of financial institutions in thd Islamic world. Although opposed initially, Christians overcame their opposition to lending long ago.
I have many Muslim friends here in America who outside of basically Ramadan treat religion exactly the same way us mostly barely-practicing Christians do, following the common sense rules of the religion but not the more antiquated and medieval practices. In fact, at times I even sort of envy the greater sense of community my friends had due to their shared roles at outsiders in a mostly christian society. I'm not religious but maybe this sense of a greater community was one aspect of the muslim community here that I could really respect and didn't really see among Christians.
That many people living under an ideology are decent wonderdul human beings does not mean the ideology does not have fundamental problems. A Nazi John Rabe is remembered for working to save thousands of lives during thr Japanese massacres in Nanking during WW2. And the Nazis were the first to implement anti-smoking campaigns. Nazism was still a morally bankrupt ixeology. Many Nazis said their trials they were only following orders, and outside of their actions of killing a lot of men, women.and children as directed lived normal lives. Many neighbors of fugitive Nazinwar criminals.were surprised to learn of their identity.
Also, people in times of crisis often turn to their native religion after being rather different before. But while a Buddhist, or Christian who becomes religious might become a monk, a formerly not very religious Muslim can become a terrorist. A case in point is the Boston Marathon bomber, who did not become a terrorist until after he became religiouslly active. They became terrorist because of islamic teachings not despite of them.
I just think that if you took Christianity and Islam and swapped all their religious tenets, and made Muslims have the history of European Christendom while giving a religion exactly the same as Christianity to Arabia and the Middle East, with everything that occurred after being exactly the same, you'd see the religion that is a Christianity analogue having the same problems to adapt to the modern era and sensibilities as well.
You operate under a false belief that religion si completely shaped by its local society. While religion is shaped by its local culture, a religion can shape its culture. In the society that Christianity arose, divorce was easy. It was under Christianity that divorce became rare, and that you married one leraon for life that became the norm, not the exception. Under Islam, Henry VIII did not need to divorce his first wife he could have just taken another wife. There would have been no need to split with the Church.
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. Christianity has all the same problems in its teaching as Islam,
Ah, no. Problematic Islamic rules and practices stem from the Quran and Hadiths because they specify specific practices and guidelines Muslims are to adhere to. Muslims practice stoning of adultrry because that is the penalty the hadiths prescribed for adultery, and the Quran did as well until a sheep came and ate the verses (see
https://quranx.com/Hadith/IbnMajah/D...9/Hadith-1944/).
In contrast, rhe Bible does not prescribe specific penalties that Christians need to follow. It is made clear in the New Testament Christians do.not have to obey the specific laws and penalties in the Old Testament, only the moral principles. Because the Islam specific actions based on books written written many centuries ago, the actions may be woefully out of date today. Since Christianity is based on principles, not specific actions, it does not run into the same problem. Adultey is wrong, but how or if it is to be punished is left up to the society, whether to be mere social disapproval or fines ormother penalties, to decide. It gives Christianity a flexibility Islam lacks..
Since Islam's laws are base on the Quran, which is regarded as the perfect, completely preserved words of Allah himself, it is much harder to change them. A principle may be valid long after the specific rule it generated is not.
its just that we as a society have progressed
And the reason we have progressed in the West is that we are not dominated by religion that retards progress. Where would the West without the printing press? And yet Islam delayed the Muslim world from adopting it for centuries.
Thing is, a lot of those regimes are being propped up by the west for political purposes, and are keeping muslim countries from progressing like they should.
The worst offenders in Islam, counties like Iran and ISIS are not being propped up by the West. Much, perhaps most of the causes for lack of progress in Muslims counteies stem from internal factors, not the actions of outsider.
I'd be shocked if the rate of what I see as religious extremism among American-born Muslims was much if any higher than among Christian-born Americans.
Be shocked. While Muslims only make up 1.1% of the US population, Muslims account for 6% of the terrorist acts in the US, meaning that Muslims commit terrorist acts as 6 times the rate of other groups. As I mentioned before, the Orlando Night Club shooter was a native born Muslim as the Fort Hood shooter.
So, its a social issue in these countries rather than a literal flaw with the religion itself.
But it is the religion that shaped those countries. Iran has stoning for adultery because of its interpretation of Islam and long established writings like Bukhari show stoning was being practiced by Muhammad and it being in the Quran before the verse was eaten by a sheep.
By that logic basically all the most popular modern religions are inherently problematic if you're basing your judgement on the writings with centuries old books.
Not true. Islamic has unique inherent problems that other modern popular religions do not have. Among these elements are
1. The example of a founder that committed mass murder, robbery, torture, and rape. The founders of the other religions did not.do that
A. Muhammad married a 6 year old girl and had sex with her when she was 9. Buddha did not do that nor Jesus nor the founder of any other religion I know of. Here is a video by a skeptic that discusses
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ59DcIZCEs
B. Muhammad massacre all the men of the Jewish village of Banu Qurayza and enslaved all the women and children
C. Muhammad had Kinan b. al-Rabi tortured to obtain treasure than killed. (See Ibn Ishaq's "The Life of Muhammad" translated by A. Guilliame, Oxford Press pg 515) Buddha and Jesus never did things like these.
And lots more killigs. Here is a link for a list of killings sanctioned by Muhammad.
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_K...ed_by_Muhammad. As you can see that Muhammad provides a lot worse role that ths leaders of other religions.
2. The Quran has lots of violent commands to its followers and commands that specify inferior treatment to women and non-Muslims. Other religions sacred scriptures also have violent passages, but there are fundamental differences with the Quran that make it worse:
- The Quran is regarded by Muslims as being ucorrupted and completely preserved word of God, with Muslims believing every syllable coming from God. Since every word came from Allah, and it has perfectly preserved, it is difficult for anyone to question the accuracy of the Quran or suggest it is error. While at one time Christians had a similar view of the Bible, many do not nowdays, and the Christian view of the Bible being "inspire" leaves more wriggle room to admit error than the Muslim verbatim concept of ths Quran.
- The Quran is full of glaring errors, such as its assertion that Jews believe their propher Ezra was the Son of God (Surah 9:30) and that the Bible talks about Muhammad (it doesn't, unless you accept Muhammad is one of the false prophet the Bible warns its readers about.) Because of the Muslim believe the Quran is perfect, they cannot admit it is mistaken in anything, and thus spend a lot of effort and mental gymnastics, and flat out lies that the Quran isn't wrong. For example, because the Quran says the Bible mentions Muhammad, Muslims pull verses, change words themselves, and omit words to change the meaning of the verse in a desperate atrempt to prove the Bible mentions Muhammad. Here is a link to that discusses the Muslim pathetic attempts and discusses an example:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mMVKnxmE3KI
- The Quran is full of hostility toward others. For example, an analysis reveals that negative statements about the Jews comprise 6.7% of the Quran, and when you include the hadiths and Siras, about 9% of core Islamic writing has negative statements against the Jews, more than Mein Kampf, which only 7% of it is devoted to negative comments on Jews. (Lectures on the Foundation of Islam, Bill Warner, page 10). At the beginning of the Quran, after a few verses the Quran launches into a rant against others for about the next half page, calling them fools and diseased, ane promising all kinds of punishments toward them. The specifics of exactly what they guilty of is not mentioned. (The Bible also is full of criticisms of others, but as early in the writings as a he Quran.)
- The Quran is haphazardly organized, arranged by neither chronologically or topic. It lacks internal context, making it hard to understand at times without sources outside of the Quran (hadiths, Siras).
3. Islam has Sharia law and that was in large part has specific laws derived from the Quran and Hadiths. The Quran.specifies that women inherit less than their brothers. Buddhism, Christianity, and other religions don't have a similar codified body of rules and regulations thst apply to society's criminal and civil law the way Sharia does in Islamic countries.