Can you expand a bit on that?
Certainly.
Most of my direct interaction with theists involves Brazilian Christians and Spiritists of some variety or another, with a few occultists, Hindus and Buddhists thrown in for good measure.
Muslims I have rarely actually met in person, and when I did we did not really talk about religion or beliefs. There are very few exceptions, at least one of those being probably what I would call a "cultural Muslim", not entlrely unlike the very many cultural Catholics that I know. That being, people who had a family environment that demanded or strongly expected them to attain a degree of familiarity and nominal adherence to the doctrine, but left to their own devices would probably not choose to claim such adherence.
I don't really disapprove of cultural adherents, by the way. There is value in learning a common vocabulary with people we care about. I don't even necessarily disapprove of the expectations that make cultural adherence necessary, although I am sorry that they are so frequent and long for the day when such is no longer the case.
My impression of Islaam and of Muslims therefore owes a lot to what I have read in various venues, mainly in these forums. And I have come to accept that I had extrapolated unfairly from Christianity into Islaam.
Christianity, at least in my experience, is very heterogeneous. It lent a lot of concepts and language to people that don't really care about it that much; it brought a form and an opportunity of expression to many theists that I have no doubt would find some other venue to their faith if it came to that; and it enables quite a few dangerous, self-entitled maniacs that cause a lot of harm both subtle and overt to people that deserve better, including themselves.
Islaam is a lot like Christianity in some senses, but very much unlike it in others. One the contrasts is that, despite itself, Christianity is often a true religion, with due space for personal development and contemplation.
Islaam, I have found to my considerable surprise, actually chooses not to be a true religion, despite its own protestations. It likes the trappings and the prestige, but it forbids itself from actually becoming a religion - a self-inflicted trap which the Bahai Faith has largely learned to raise itself above, despite being so much alike the Islaam that originated it in so many respects.
Islaam is an imitation, a caricature even, of what a stereotypical monotheistic religion would be. It has very little doctrine proper, but it exacerbates monotheism to the point of an actual disease. Most Muslims are not even
acquaintanced with the idea of religion, if the apologists that I have seen in these last fifteen years or so are any indication. They are utterly unprepared to even attempt to learn about it, and it shows. They have been told that obsession with monotheism would constitute "religion" and that it is Very Important Indeed to believe "correctly", and for the most part they believe in that.
And boy, does that cripple them. Does it ever. I feel real sorry for the world's Muslims. They waste so much good will in their fears of displeasing God, in their pointless obsessions and discussions about simple scripture, in their vain hopes that people will eventually "revert" and prove them right. Quite simply, they never had much of a chance of learning better.
Unfortunately, the end result is still a group that is dead set on "being true to God" and that has littlle ability to deal with us so-called "kuffar" in any constructive way. It will take a lot of sorrow and several generations before that trap can be undone. Until then we will have to deal with that unnecessary mistrust and fear as best as we can, and be on guard for occasional clashes of various degrees of gravity.
