Is Islam nothing but an international religious mafia?

[Metempsychosis]

Is Islam nothing but an international religious mafia?
Why single out Islam?

Because no one can publicly criticize Islam beheaded without getting beheaded/physically attacked and many Islamic countries explicitly ban conversion from Islam.Example.Saudi Arabia converted from Pagan religion to Islam and converted back to Pagan religion is banned, Iran and parts of Afghanistan converted from Zoroastrian religion to Islam but converting back to Zoroastrian faith is banned. Pakistan and Malaysia converted from Hinduism to Islam and converted back to hinduism. There is the informal death penalty for blasphemy (from Islam) in India but the blame is on Hindu nationalists. There is the context of this in the early days of Islam itself.

Christianity,Hinduism,Buddhism and Judaism all have progressed to a point of coexistence without much violence.

 

[danieldemol]

I find the rules of the religion impossible to make sense:
1. Death Penalty for blasphemy and apostasy.
2. Playing victim after committing a crime
3. Blurring the lines between defense and violence, good and bad?
4. Being both a religion and a state.

Lots of Muslims are wonderful people just like people of many other religions are humanitarian despite the religious teachings themselves. But the core of their beliefs is extraordinarily medieval and completely unamenable to reforms. Anyone else who is wondering the same?

I find some types of Islam to be very Mafia like, however Islam is not a monolith or any one teaching, rather there are many Islams.

So I guess the challenge is to try and judge them on an individual level, especially when we have little information to go on about the less noisy Islams.

In my opinion.

 

[lukethethird]

Because no one can publicly criticize Islam beheaded without getting beheaded/physically attacked and many Islamic countries explicitly ban conversion from Islam.Example.Saudi Arabia converted from Pagan religion to Islam and converted back to Pagan religion is banned, Iran and parts of Afghanistan converted from Zoroastrian religion to Islam but converting back to Zoroastrian faith is banned. Pakistan and Malaysia converted from Hinduism to Islam and converted back to hinduism. There is the informal death penalty for blasphemy (from Islam) in India but the blame is on Hindu nationalists. There is the context of this in the early days of Islam itself.

Christianity,Hinduism,Buddhism and Judaism all have progressed to a point of coexistence without much violence.

Religions have their militant members, it could just be that your sample size is small and selective.

 

[Kooky]

Because no one can publicly criticize Islam beheaded without getting beheaded/physically attacked and many Islamic countries explicitly ban conversion from Islam.

People publicly criticize Islam in Europe, India and the US all the time and nobody gets beheaded or physically attacked over it. Meanwhile, Muslims very much do get physically harrassed in Europe and the US (once again, I can't say much about India because I don't really follow current events there).

 

[danieldemol]

People publicly criticize Islam in Europe, India and the US all the time and nobody gets beheaded or physically attacked over it. Meanwhile, Muslims very much do get physically harrassed in Europe and the US (once again, I can't say much about India because I don't really follow current events there).

Its a bit of an exaggeration to say nobody gets beheaded etc over it.
Samuel Paty certainly was;
Murder of Samuel Paty - Wikipedia

 

[Metempsychosis]

Saudi Arabia et al are vile and oppressive regimes, but they are traditional monarchies whose relationship to organized religion is otherwise not at all different from the King of Spain's or the Grand Duke of Luxembourg's (or, to use more accurate analogy, they resemble the old Czars of Russia, minus Russia's widespread socialist opposition)

Pakistan is officially a federal parliamentary republic much like India, though their identity is apparently much more strongly tied up with religion than India's used to be until the BJP swept into power utilizing its particular brand of Hindu nationalism.

Afghanistan is a failed state currently ruled by the victorious faction of a 40-years long civil war.


I can't speak of Hinduism because I honestly don't know a great many Hindus to begin with, but you seem to be under the misconception that Christians follow the rules of secular society out of deliberate choice and conviction, but nothing could be further from the truth. We only need to look to the US to see how much Christian fundamentalists chafe under a secular order, and will use any semblance of power to forcibly re-instate what they see as god-given, intrinsically correct values.

And the reason why we live in a secular society, to begin with, is that Christian sects just couldn't stop slaughtering one another in order to determine whom their God loved more. Secularism was a compromise solution when it became obvious that more theocratically minded governments couldn't be maintained.

Looks there are fundamentalists in every religion. But I am concerned about the fundamentals of Islam itself. Jesus was not a warlord. Hindu nationalism is a reactionary political movement caused by Gandhi (and his allies) and Pseudo-Secular policies and growing Islamic separatism in India i.e in the last 100 years. Sati is not mentioned in Hindu texts just like the Muslim caste system In India which is not based on Islam itself but a percolation from the Hindu medieval social order. There is caste distinction in Hindusim' religious texts (they don't form the critical portion of scriptures) but the reforms are having an effect because the teachings were peripheral, to begin with. Christianity has a much easier time accepting secularism in today's world than Islam. Why can't Islam agree on secularism like today's western Christianity- maybe because it started a political movement, to begin with.


I don't want to discuss christianity,hinduism etc.let's focus on islam only...because it is so much difficult to get any reforms in Islam.

 

[Kooky]

Its a bit of an exaggeration to say nobody gets beheaded etc over it.

It is also disingenuous to equate an unlawful murder that was thoroughly prosecuted and generally taken extremely seriously by all responsible institutions with the organized and legitimized killings of vocal dissidents and critics in an authoritarian state.

 

[danieldemol]

It is also disingenuous to equate an unlawful murder that was thoroughly prosecuted and generally taken extremely seriously by all responsible institutions with the organized and legitimized killings of vocal dissidents and critics in an authoritarian state.

Its just as well for me that I did not do that then ;-)

 

[Kooky]

Its just as well for me that I did not do that then ;-)

And I am glad to know that we agree that these two things are not the same, and therefore need not be debated within the same breath.

By the way, the United States of America, Russia, and a host of other secular countries also execute prisoners (and in the case of Russia, political dissidents) so evidently Islam is not a deciding factor in this regard, nor when it comes to political assassination.

 

[Kooky]

Why can't Islam agree on secularism like today's western Christianity- maybe because it started a political movement, to begin with.

Historically, secularism was itself a reaction to the bloodshed caused by Christian religious differences.
Arguably, one reason why it is so widespread these days is the way it got transplanted outside Europe by the colonial bureaucracies of 18th and 19th century European colonialism.

There is nothing intrinsic to Christian religion that makes it suited for a secular society, and there is nothing intrinsic to Islam that makes it unsuited. The current situation is historical happenstance, and in many ways, a reaction to opposite trends of the mid 20th century - just 50 years ago, the overwhelming portion of the Middle East was ruled by secular regimes, but these regimes eventually failed, which started to produce a movement of anti-secular reaction from the late 1970s and onwards.

 

[mangalavara]

Death Penalty for blasphemy and apostasy.

I once read somewhere that during the early days of Islam, Islam was a civilization, which I assume at least half of Muslims today believe it should always be. To apostasize, therefore, was to renounce the Islamic civilization that one was a member of. During war, an apostate might join the enemy of the Islamic civilization and fight against the Islamic civilization as a traitor. That's why apostasy called for the death penalty. However, there were cases where known apostates were not executed. There was a Jewish man, for example, who had converted to Islam and later apostasized and reverted to Judaism. He was not executed for his apostasy from Islam because he was not going to join whoever the Muslims were at war with at the time. I would supply names, dates, and countries, but I read about this a long time ago and cannot remember the details. Unfortunately, historical context does not matter to some rulers and adherents today. It's kind of like how lots of Jains refrain from eating and drinking after sunset even today. Historically, the reason for refraining from eating and drinking in Jainism after sunset was to prevent oneself from unknowingly killing insects that crept into one's kitchen.

I think one problem with the perception of Islam is that there are no recognised leaders, like The Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury, who can 'proclaim' what is the correct way of Islam.

The Nizari Ismailis have such a leader, and so do the Ahmadis. Twelver Shias have one, but he is currently in his occultation.

 

[Stonetree]

What concerns me the most?....Those Muslims who live in your neighborhood are individuals and are not to be persecuted because of crimes of the individual Muslims who may have actually committed crimes and claim to be doing so in the name of religion.

 

[WhoIsBeast 750]

why do you attack other religions and ignore everything like that above yours? what's wrong? in people and in the fact that they want to be the right ones


and the soul hovered over the waters

and the truth is exalted above the nations

which of these lines is true? are you saying first I say both of you are asking me why?

because all religions have symbolism in them and yours is no better

and disobedience always comes because of the people and their sense of uniqueness

 

[stevecanuck]

Islam do also have the inward path (esoteric teaching) called sufism but even in sufism some chose to do those things you describe, others chose a pasifistic path where harming others isn't a way of life.
Where unconditional love is the main focus.

You just described individual people, not Islam as defined by its teachings.

 

[stevecanuck]

It's going through a bad patch, due to the rise of political islam, which is a late c.20th phenomenon. Oil money, the speed of international communication and global migration do not help.

I am far from convinced that the religion is not amenable to reforms. There are many varieties of islam. The ones we hear about are the noisy ones, just as the Christians many of us hear about are mostly the noisy Bible Belt fundies in the USA, who are primitive and unrepresentative of the religion in general. But it is a bad patch for Islam, there's no getting away from it.

It's a bad patch because too many Muslims are rededicating themselves to the Islam of the Qur'an.

 

[stevecanuck]

I don't consider Islam significantly different from Christianity on paper.

Christians and Muslims each revere a Semitic desert god, Yahweh and Allah, that is an angry, vengeful, jealous, judgmental, sadistic, prudish, strongman that requires worship and submission.

Believers of both attend temples (Mosques or churches) and obey paternalistic, misogynisitic clergy.

Both religions embrace magical thinking, mythology, dogma, the supernatural, and ritual.

Each feature demons angels, prayer, an afterlife, a judgment, and a system of reward and punishment after death.

Each has its now centuries old holy book of internal contradictions, failed prophecies, and errors of history and science. I'm not as sure about the Qur'an, but it likely also contain vengeance, hatred, tribalism, violence, and failed morals that endorse slavery, rape, infanticide, and incest.

They each think they have the right to determine who should be allowed to diddle whom how, who should be able to marry whom, and what women must do regarding their bodies.

Both are patriarchal, authoritarian, misogynistic, sexually repressive, anhedonisitic, atheophobic, homophobic, antiscientiific, use psychological terrorism on their children, have violent histories featuring torture, genocide and terrorism, and demand obedience and submission.

Each consider faith a virtue and reason a problem.

Each has a history of opposing human rights and science.

Each advocates theocracy over democracy.

Very well stated to this point. Quibble to come on the next bit.

With all of these similarities - and that is a lot of parallels, most not found elsewhere - why should these two appear so differently in the regions where they predominate? The differences are in the rendering, which reflects the history and the culture of the areas in which each has flourished over the last few centuries. The Christian West has been under the influence of the secular democracies that emerged from the rise of Enlightenment values and secular humanism and has been dramatically influenced by its rational ethics. Hence, Christians no longer execute people for homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft, fornication, apostasy, impiety, blasphemy, and other crimes against Yahweh, whereas Muslims are still free to kill such people. They have largely accepted democracy, human rights, individual freedom, and secular government, all of which lags behind in the Middle East.

If you extract Christianity and Islam from their surrounding cultures, they appear very similar, as outlined above. If you traded the ideologies out, and put Christianity in Saudi Arabia and Islam in America, the results would be the same: Christian Arabs still relatively sheltered from the influences of secular humanism would still be cutting off hands and heads, pushing homosexuals off of Towers, doing honor killings, genital mutilation, suicide bombings, and flying buildings into airplanes.

And Americans would still be going door to door asking if you know Mohammed rather than Jesus. America would still be a secular state with a Muslim majority forced to tolerate "infidels" thanks to humanist values, and Saudi Arabia and Iran would still be a brutal, intolerant theocracies, but Christian ones instead. You might be blown up for drawing a picture of Jesus, or have a fatwa placed on you for speaking ill of St. Paul.

If you consider Christianity less brutal, less medieval than Islam, thank those that led us from the Age of Faith into the Age of Reason - the scientists and philosophers of the Enlightenment, and those who implemented their ideas.

You did a great job of stating similarities, but you didn't explore the differences. And when it comes to comparing the two, it's the differences that makes all the, well, difference.

I'm leaving the house shortly, so I'll have get back to this later.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Christian Arabs still relatively sheltered from the influences of secular humanism would still be cutting off hands and heads, pushing homosexuals off of Towers, doing honor killings, genital mutilation, suicide bombings, and flying buildings into airplanes.

You are aware that there are ancient Christian communities throughout the Middle East and they have never acted like this, right? Right? Christianity and Islam are not interchangeable on a 1:1 level.

And lmao at "flying buildings into airplanes".

 

[Metempsychosis]

You are aware that there are ancient Christian communities throughout the Middle East and they have never acted like this, right? Right? Christianity and Islam are not interchangeable on a 1:1 level.

And lmao at "flying buildings into airplanes".

I cannot for a minute remember Christians doing these things.Christians may have done these 300-400 years ago during the colonial period, but Islam takes barbarism and brutality to a whole new level.

 

[Metempsychosis]

Historically, secularism was itself a reaction to the bloodshed caused by Christian religious differences.
Arguably, one reason why it is so widespread these days is the way it got transplanted outside Europe by the colonial bureaucracies of 18th and 19th century European colonialism.

There is nothing intrinsic to Christian religion that makes it suited for a secular society, and there is nothing intrinsic to Islam that makes it unsuited. The current situation is historical happenstance, and in many ways, a reaction to opposite trends of the mid 20th century - just 50 years ago, the overwhelming portion of the Middle East was ruled by secular regimes, but these regimes eventually failed, which started to produce a movement of anti-secular reaction from the late 1970s and onwards.

Death for apostate and blasphemy is intrinsic to Islam - may that makes it secular because no other religious group will be alive.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I cannot for a minute remember Christians doing these things.Christians may have done these 300-400 years ago during the colonial period, but Islam takes barbarism and brutality to a whole new level.

There were times when Christians did act in savage ways, but it was usually hardline Christian rulers, and they would often be opposed by the clergy, including the Vatican (they tried to put the kibosh on witch-hunt hysteria, for example), when they took it too far. For example, it wasn't the Church that would burn people at the stake, that was the punishment under civil law. The Church had no power to put people to death.

I can see some Middle Eastern Christians practicing honor killings or FGM, because those are cultural practices, but they have no religious standing in doing so. The rest of the stuff he mentioned? No.