Yeah, it's some Islamists trying to dictate what all Muslims should believe. That's what you're doing too.
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What is wrong with sharia law?
- Thread starter sovietchild
- Start date
Yeah, it's some Islamists trying to dictate what all Muslims should believe. That's what you're doing too.
Notanumber
A Free Man
That just about sums up Islam.
Unfortunately, it wants to dictate what the rest of us should believe, not just Muslims.
BTW, I hope you do not take anything I say personally. I do not wish to offend anyone.
This is based on your assumption that Islamists define Islam, which is utterly baseless.
Certainly, I don't take any of this personally. I just think what you're saying is baseless and ignores the reality on the ground.
Notanumber
A Free Man
Muhammad and his cohorts defined Islam and left us to try to clean up the mess that it has caused over the centuries.
WWMD: What Would Muhammad Do?
After 1400 years, it is not surprising that people have different views on how, or indeed if, Muhammad defined it.
Notanumber
A Free Man
They still take hold Quran up as gospel though.
While ever they do that, they will be Islamists and carry all the baggage that that entails.
Quran: List of Reasons Why it Isn't from Allah
Can anyone read #1 and keep a straight face?
Wouldn’t a perfect book teach perfect morality?
Again, you think holding the Qur'an as scripture makes you Islamist, when there are Muslims who disagree with you. There are many ways to see the Qur'an as well, even from within Islam. Not all Muslims are even literalists, just like not all Christians are. Liberal theology exists in many faiths.
Sakeenah
Well-Known Member
You need a new hobby
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
True, but in Islam, liberal interpretation of the theology is practically nonexistent. It certainly is nowhere near mainstream and more akin to an obscure fringe group.
Notanumber
A Free Man
More importantly, Muslims need a new religion.
I'm not sure what practically means in context. Liberal forms of Islam are really gaining some clout in North America now, and are getting going elsewhere too.
Do we count this as proselytising? I am unsure. Trying to get someone to change their religion does seem to be against RF's ethos.
The Emperor of Mankind
Currently the galaxy's spookiest paraplegic
It certainly seems more fringe than the extremist groups we keep hearing are 'fringe'.
It doesn't change the fact that they are perfectly valid expressions of the faith, and neither defines the religion.
More to the point, the ability of the mainstream to learn better from it is tentative at best. And it is not at all clear that anyone can affort to wait and hope for the best.
It strikes me that the spread of more tolerant understandings within Islam is far more plausible than its abolition altogether.
In communities where Islam does not exist in politically significant numbers that is a given.
The history of Islaam is rather discouraging on whether that might conceivably happen where it is politically significant, though.
Well there are progressive imams and activists etc working in the Muslim world, there are strong secular movements in many countries there, and while certainly there's a lot of change to be made still and lots of work to do I don't think such pessimism is merited.
If you want to help progress in this area I will happily suggest causes and groups to donate to.
How strong can those movements be when the mainstream is so vociferous and full of venom against secularism, though?
Sometimes I wonder what you know that so few other people do not. Donating and otherwise supporting those groups is fine, but there is only so much that can be done when people are endemonized.
Where you focus influences what you see. The secularist voices are pretty damn strong, and even the progressive groups have a lot of good voices now, they're getting in there.
I guess I just don't find that anywhere near promising enough, particularly given what I know of the mainstream.
Instead, I favor presenting a clear and emphatic message to those silent and otherwise peaceful hopefuls that expect us kuffar to eventually "open ourselves to the truth of the Qur'an". That being No can do. Stop presuming to know what we should believe in. There is no honor in hiding behind scripture.
Crude, probably, and more than a little traumatic. Still, far as I can see it is the most constructive of all realistic treatments of the matter.