I would like to thank you so much for informing me that DIR sections of the forum are not for debate and apologize to you for not having learned that sooner. I will never start another thread such as this in any DIR section.
But, I feel it is important and healthy for me to start a thread where I voice my issues with and resentment of ANY Religion whenever it is used to trample the rights of others.
The Religion I have the least amount of issues with is the one that is responsible for the least amount of intolerance, bigotry, violence, and suffering in our world.
When I see Christians promoting bigotry, intolerance, hatred, or the torturing and disfiguring and executing of those who do not abide by their system of religion, it disgusts me no less than when it comes from Muslims and in fact disgusts me and shocks me that much more.
In our present modern world there is one Religion that stands out from the rest with the most violence and intolerance and complete disregard for the lives and feelings of those of different beliefs from it's members and that Religion is Islam.
The Scriptures say that you will know false prophets by their fruits. If Allah is most merciful (as he is referred to by Islam) than the fruit of his followers should be mercy!
I know what it is like to suffer and so do not wish it on others. My greatest issues with Religion are when it inflicts suffering on others and promotes intolerance, bigotry, violence, and war! I see no Religion that fuels more of this behavior than Islam and hence you know why I have my reservations about it.
I also have major issues with some of what Christ taught, but in our world I do not see Christianity oppressing people as I see Islam, not even close!
I do not see Christianity being a force in governments that call for the execution of people who do not obey Christian morality.
..and I see Christian holy wars and Crusades to be something from previous centuries.
what would we think if there was a big Vietnam war protest going on right now? it would seem ridiculous because America is not involved in the Vietnam War now. Likewise, I do not see any Crusades or inquisitions going on, so I am NOT protesting them.
however jihad is alive and well, and countless millions of lives are ruined as a result of Islamic laws and intolerant fanatic military Dictatorships being forced upon people in the name of Allah.
Does the religion of Islam have a problem?
Are Muslims inherently violent?
Is Islam inherently Evil?
Is Islam a “religion of Peace?”
Are the Islamists (Islamic radicals; Islamo Nazis; Jihaddists; violent Arabs and Muslims who kill for the sake of Allah; pick your own misnomer) in Syria and Iraq and Iran and Libya and Afghanistan, etc. the same as the Islamists among the Arabs called Palestinians and Hamas or, are they different because Israel is involved?
Survey Says!
Yes, the religion of Islam has a problem:
There is a worldwide phenomenon from Sweden to Kenya and from Indonesia to Nigeria where Muslims are specifically going to war or murdering innocents in the Name of their god. Tens of millions of human beings, mostly Muslims, have been murdered by other Muslims over the last century where the killers specifically claim that they are acting in the Name of Allah. There is currently no other religion (secular “isms” such as Naziism and Stalinism and Maoism excluded) that is, or that has for the last few hundred years, attacked and murdered its own practitioners or non combatant non Muslims in such vast overwhelming numbers.
This is a problem.
No, Muslims per se are not inherently violent:
Despite the hundred million or so Muslims who support killing in the Name of Allah, the majority of Muslims simply want to “go along and get along” with their own people and the rest of the human race. That is the default position of the human race.
No, Islam is not inherently Evil.
And, yes, Islam is… or was… a “religion of Peace” as much as any religion is or was…:
Muslims, since Islam’s inception by Mohammed, have not committed any more (or any less) “evil” depredations than any other religion or culture, including Hinduism; Judaism; Christianity; Buddhism; and other “pagan” and secular empires and cultures. The Jews had a period of sectarian civil war 2,000 years ago which resulted in the obliteration of the Kingdom of Israel and the deaths of millions of Jews. The Christians had a period of sectarian civil war 500 years ago which resulted in the total devastation and bankruptcy of Europe and the deaths of tens of millions of Christians. (And yes, Buddhists and Hindus and other “pagans” and cultures had their own sectarian civil wars that killed large numbers and/or devastated their territories.) The Muslims are currently undergoing their own sectarian civil war which, based on the previous paradigms, will result in the deaths of perhaps billions and the devastation of portions of the planet.
This is also a problem.
And, no – Hamas and the radical Islamists among the Arabs called Palestinians are no different from any other of those Muslims and Arabs who are murdering in the Name of Allah:
Witness to the fact that Hamas and the Arabs called Palestinians have spent the last 100 years murdering each other, as have all the other Arab/Muslim factions.
Solutions?
Islam was, for the most part, no different from any other culture or religion up until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
After that point, the Arab tribe known as “آلسعود Āl Saʻūd; the Saudis, conquered, for the third time in their bloody history, the Arabian Peninsula, taking the “Two Holy Cities” of Mecca and Medina, thereby becoming, de facto, the new “Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques,” a “royal” title that has been traditionally used by previous Islamic Sultans and Caliphates.
With the creation of Saudi Arabia, also came the establishment of the heretical Saudi cult of Wahhabism which has, for all practical purposes, replaced normative Sunni Islam.
The Wahabbi cult was created by a radical Islamist, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the early 16th Century. Contrary to accepted Sunni practices and beliefs, ibn Wahhab preached a dogmatic extremist doctrine of Islam that denounced Muslims and non Muslims alike who did not accept his fanatical teachings meant to “purify Islam.” He was censured and condemned by the Ottoman Empire of the time and by standard Muslim scholars of his day.
After being driven out of most Arab and Muslim towns and villages, he was invited to the tribal village of Diryah, deep in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, by its tribal leader, Muhammad bin Saud.
After the two made a pact in 1744 and joined their families in marriage, they used this new intolerant militant religion to take over the Arabian Peninsula, including sacking and looting Mecca and Medina, and thus established the First Saudi State. Due to both the heresies of Wahhabism and the political dangers of letting the Saudis control Mecca, the Ottomans dispatched the Khedive of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, to destroy the nascent Saudi kingdom.
The military campaign was a success and most of the Saudi clan was killed and their city of Diryah was razed, never to be rebuilt.
Nonetheless, the remnants of the Saudis regrouped and reformed, once more taking over the Arabian Peninsula in the mid 19th Century, until they began fighting among themselves over which fanatical interpretation of Wahhabism was the “true Islam.”
The last surviving Saudis fled to Kuwait until they remerged once again, taking the present Saudi capital of Ridyah in 1902.
They gathered followers and, taking advantage of World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, they once more successfully sacked and looted Mecca, driving out the Hashemite dynasty and establishing their Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The founding ruler, ibn Saud, was a clever diplomat who knew how to play the “Great Powers,” particularly England and the United States, with promises of oil and cooperation against their enemies.
The fact that the Saudis established an intolerant kingdom based on the fanatical and heretical doctrine of Wahhabism was of no concern to the non Muslim world in its new found thirst for oil.
However, ALL of the nominal Sunni sects that plague the world today, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Pakistan’s ISI; from the “Islamic State” to Sudan’s National Islamic Front; from Hamas to the Taliban; from al Qaeda to Boko Haram; from Indonesia’s Darul Islam to the Filipino Abu Sayyaf; and beyond, are the ******* children of Saudi Wahhabism.
Saudi Arabia today, in spite of the dissolute, sybaritic indulgences of its ruling Saud family, still preaches its repressive, hateful and bloody heresy of Wahhabism.
All of the radical fanatical cults of Sunni Islam that are hell bent on destroying the world today, look to “The Servants of the Two Noble Sanctuaries,” the death dealing Wahhabist Saudis, as their inspiration and doctrinal source.
Unless the Saudis ameliorate; reform; improve and rectify their heretical cult of Wahhabism to be more in line with the traditional Sunni teachings of the last 1400 hundred years, this current Muslim/ Arab Global Sectarian Civil War will continue unabated.
If the Saudis threw their weight and clever diplomatic instincts against intolerance; slavery; cruelty; and against the idea that any fanatic can establish his own murderous imitation of Wahhabism, they would solve their own problems and, they would establish Islam a force for good instead of letting its evil practitioners; the mufsidun, dominate.
If not, Islam will continue to destroy our world and more likely than not, billions will die.
