An Opinion: Islam Is Not a Religion of Peace

[Saint Frankenstein]

Ooh, Islamic Hell is sexy. Sounds like Hellraiser. I can't wait to go there and taste its pleasures. Allah is the ultimate sadistic Master. I personally prefer sadistic Dommes, but I'll make an exception for him. Mmm.

 

[FearGod]

Thank you for this great thread idea, @Rival. I think it is necessary to expose the misconception that Islam is a religion of tolerance, peace, or pluralism.

I have lived my entire life with Muslims in two Muslim-majority countries, and Arabic is my native language. That allows me to understand the Qur'an better than people who don't know Arabic, and it also allows me to target the bare bones of Islam instead of "arguable" teachings that are uncertain. I'm not even going to use hadiths, not even saheeh hadiths (i.e., authentic hadiths as determined by the majority of hadith scholars), to support my arguments. I'm only going to use Qur'anic verses since it is undeniable that those are parts of the religion.

First, let's take a look at the concept of Hell in Islam. This one, in my opinion, is one of the most morally repulsive aspects of the religion.

Who goes to Hell according to the Qur'an:





Second, what kind of torture do those people supposedly face in the Islamic concept of Hell?



























But the God of Islam is supposed to be all-merciful, right? Well, apparently not to everyone:











Sexism in the Qur'an:





Lashing prescribed as a punishment in the Qur'an:



(Source of all Qur'anic translations above.)

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These things, at least most of them, have contexts that are clear as day. They are not from the hadith, so not even the most liberal of Qur'anist Muslims can argue that they don't exist in Islamic texts. I think that the verses about Hell and lashing alone are enough to show that Islam at its very core is neither a religion of peace nor tolerance. I even ignored the verse about cutting off thieves' hands because someone could argue that theft warrants such a punishment (which I would still disagree with).

My conclusion: Islam is not a religion of peace, and saying that it is usually means one of two things: the person who says so is either overlooking the above verses (sometimes on top of a plethora of authentic hadiths, in the case of Muslims who accept hadiths), or they see no signs of intolerance or hatred in those verses. In either case, the texts themselves don't change, further proving that the main problem of promoting intolerance and hatred lies with the religion itself, not just many of its followers.

One at atime,

Whats the problem with verse 2:24
((But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers))

Which is the answer for verse 2:23
((And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah , if you should be truthful.))

Taking verses out of context is a misleading.

 

[dust1n]

Thank you for this great thread idea, @Rival. I think it is necessary to expose the misconception that Islam is a religion of tolerance, peace, or pluralism.

To be fair, there is no religion of peace. With the exception of maybe Jainism.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

I wish people would stop saying "straw men" every single time. It's lost meaning now.

Then stop posting straw men. Address the argument Debater & Rival are making, rather than trying to turn the argument into something it's not.

What good does it do to criticize the religion itself?

The chance of giving its adherents an opportunity to see the religion for what it is; including the parts they don't practice. Ideas, concepts and systems only ever change & improve when people start criticising and pointing out holes in their make-up. A chance for them to look at the more bloody aspects of Islam and to think: 'Do I apply these distasteful practices to my life? Do I believe they are moral or necessary? Why do I feel this or that way about it?'.

 

[Deidre]

Are the verses in the OP meant to be taken literally across the board? In Christianity, while I’ve come to view the Bible as the word of God, I don’t believe all is to be taken with absolute literality.

 

[Theweirdtophat]

Then stop posting straw men. Address the argument Debater & Rival are making, rather than trying to turn the argument into something it's not.



The chance of giving its adherents an opportunity to see the religion for what it is; including the parts they don't practice. Ideas, concepts and systems only ever change & improve when people start criticising and pointing out holes in their make-up. A chance for them to look at the more bloody aspects of Islam and to think: 'Do I apply these distasteful practices to my life? Do I believe they are moral or necessary? Why do I feel this or that way about it?'.

I'm debating, not arguing. I brought up quotes she obviously overlooked and she doesn't see the big picture. Would you rather I lie and pretend to support such a cause or do I offer my opinion?

Again what does it matter? We know what it says. There's good and bad stuff in the Quran. That applies to other scriptures, too. What does anyone gain from this? The ones who know not to hurt innocents aren't going to follow the bad parts if the Quran. Not to mention it was written by multiple people? Doesn't anyone realize that. Some writers were peaceful and others were control freaks. And things change over time.

 

[Aquitaine]

His laws which some run over Muslims and some both non-Muslims and Muslims .
in this life and hereafter .

I don't think that who ignore Islam (don't hear about Islam) will punished . (God know best) .

eternal torture is His decision , it's like eternal death or eternal life , eternal happeness .
so His decision to eternal punishement is His judge over disbelievers . as human punish we each other for betraying , by eternal jail .



you know of course that we (Muslims ) used Tafsir to explain Quran ?

I still cannot understand why people support such totalitarian beliefs and defend a Dictator of the Universe like this. You believe in some Creator who will eternally torture people for completely trivial reasons, yet you support and accept it like a slave "It's his decision to torture people eternally and I accept it".

It's such an incredibly bizarre mentality.

 

[Student of God]

My question is whether or not it is actually relevant if islam says controversial stuff for example the death punishment for apostacy? I can bring a rational argument to support it, but why does it even matter? I can even bring rational arguments to make clear that the verses aren't sexistis, but by the end of the day who cares? If I can convince you of these trivial matters, what will change? I might be able to convince you that islam is peaceful, but is that what islam says about itself? Islam mainly says about itself that it is the truth, not that it is peaceful (not that it isnt, but thats subjective anyway), so why not look into whether or not it is the truth? If you keep this perspective of it being the truth in mind the laws and legislations should make sense. Islam says that it came from the one needless, intelligent uncreated creator, who created you against all odds in this immensely detailed universe for a purpose. You can go reread the quran while keeping this in mind, but islam tells you that this uncreated creator only guides whom he wills to the truth (aka to their purpose). Islam does on the other hand also tell you that this uncreated creator does not refuse a sincere request for guidance to the truth. According to islam if someone says something like " I don't know if you exist, but if you do exist God show me my purpose" sincerely then that will lead him to islam. There are also a variety of strong, rational arguments to support the claim(not talking about so called scientific miracles) and a lack of strong, non subjective arguments to disprove it unlike with every other religion. I won't mention them now, because I doubt people are interested, but if anyone is then they can ask. Anyway if I wasn't clear or didn't answer the question properly then here are two links that explain my point

 

[Debater Slayer]

disbelievers whom heard about Islam very well, but they disagree with (you for exemple) ,Yes you are correct .

disbelievers whom heard about Islam from ISIS ....etc they delusioned , you may wrong , because God is prefect Justice

disbeleivers whom never heard about Islam , you may wrong , becaue God is perfect Justice

Thanks for answering directly and honestly. Your answer confirms what I thought to be the case (which is not surprising to me).

 

[Debater Slayer]

I wish people would stop saying "straw men" every single time. It's lost meaning now. What good does it do to criticize the religion itself? You have every right, but what do you gain from it. Most Muslims don't participate in that behavior, so what's the point? You acted as if the book has nothing but bad stuff when it clearly has good stuff such as the quotes I mentioned

What were you trying to gain by criticizing behaviors that Muslims don't usually participate in?

Criticizing the hateful parts of Islam helps to shed some light on the behavior of the millions of Muslims who persecute minorities on the basis of religion, for one thing. For another thing, it also helps to counter them through rational discourse. One can only hope that such efforts can reduce the hatred and intolerance inspired by those texts, although that is far easier said than done.

 

[Debater Slayer]

-Hell is the outcome of your own decision so /care.

It's not people's fault if they find no evidence that Islam is true or that its deity exists.

-Jesus says that non-believers will be thrown in eternal fire but he is a nice guy tho right?

I didn't say that. I don't have much respect for Christianity either, actually.

-God is merciful to believers aka not you so /care again.

In other words, what I said is correct: many Qur'anic verses demonize non-believers and state that the Islamic god doesn't extend mercy to them in the afterlife as he does to believers.

-That is not sexism, those are facts according to science.

What? What does science even have to do with that?

- If there is any sexism it is the West where woman and girls are being brainwashed to think the sluttier they dress the more 'pretty' they are.
Women are being used as an object in the West and somehow Islam is against women because women are not judged based on how they look.
I feel sorry for women in the West who actually think women are treated equal .

1) You haven't defined "slutty" so that we can unambiguously speak of "sluttier" to begin with.

2) Regardless of how women are treated in the West (which I won't touch on now because that would require its own thread), that doesn't justify sexism in any religion's texts. Criticizing others' actions doesn't negate the criticism aimed at your own.

 

[Debater Slayer]

This is nothing but how you interpret the passages that you conveniently pull out of context.
I could do the same thing with the Christian book.

By the way, both books have the same origin.
But you will never be able to understand that because you think these books are literal
.
You say one thing someone else says another.
In the end It's all just something that is made up.
Misinterpreted because the books are not understood to be allegory.

The verses I posted about Hell are in context. They mean what the text states. How can you interpret away the belief in Hell when it is so conspicuous in the verses' wording? I have no idea, but I think that would probably require a huge amount of mental gymnastics. At least that would be better than believing in eternal torture for large groups of people, though.

 

[Debater Slayer]

One at atime,

Whats the problem with verse 2:24
((But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers))

Which is the answer for verse 2:23
((And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah , if you should be truthful.))

Taking verses out of context is a misleading.

This is the part for which I quoted the verse:

But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers

The verse that precedes it doesn't change that.

 

[FearGod]

This is the part for which I quoted the verse:



The verse that precedes it doesn't change that.

For not believing the message of Islam regardless of the evidences given to them, so
they agreed to be punished, their choice.

 

[Debater Slayer]

For not believing the message of Islam regardless of the evidences given to them, so
they agreed to be punished, their choice.

They weren't convinced, just like you aren't convinced that any religion other than Islam is true. It's not their fault, and an omniscient deity would surely know that humans were incapable of believing things they didn't find convincing.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Thank you for this great thread idea, @Rival. I think it is necessary to expose the misconception that Islam is a religion of tolerance, peace, or pluralism.

I have lived my entire life with Muslims in two Muslim-majority countries, and Arabic is my native language. That allows me to understand the Qur'an better than people who don't know Arabic, and it also allows me to target the bare bones of Islam instead of "arguable" teachings that are uncertain. I'm not even going to use hadiths, not even saheeh hadiths (i.e., authentic hadiths as determined by the majority of hadith scholars), to support my arguments. I'm only going to use Qur'anic verses since it is undeniable that those are parts of the religion.

First, let's take a look at the concept of Hell in Islam. This one, in my opinion, is one of the most morally repulsive aspects of the religion.

Who goes to Hell according to the Qur'an:





Second, what kind of torture do those people supposedly face in the Islamic concept of Hell?



























But the God of Islam is supposed to be all-merciful, right? Well, apparently not to everyone:











Sexism in the Qur'an:





Lashing prescribed as a punishment in the Qur'an:



(Source of all Qur'anic translations above.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
​

These things, at least most of them, have contexts that are clear as day. They are not from the hadith, so not even the most liberal of Qur'anist Muslims can argue that they don't exist in Islamic texts. I think that the verses about Hell and lashing alone are enough to show that Islam at its very core is neither a religion of peace nor tolerance. I even ignored the verse about cutting off thieves' hands because someone could argue that theft warrants such a punishment (which I would still disagree with).

My conclusion: Islam is not a religion of peace, and saying that it is usually means one of two things: the person who says so is either overlooking the above verses (sometimes on top of a plethora of authentic hadiths, in the case of Muslims who accept hadiths), or they see no signs of intolerance or hatred in those verses. In either case, the texts themselves don't change, further proving that the main problem of promoting intolerance and hatred lies with the religion itself, not just many of its followers.

So you don't like them then, eh?

 

[Debater Slayer]

So you don't like them then, eh?

Don't like what or whom?

 

[Kirran]

Like most scriptures, the Qur'an seems to contradict itself a lot. So every Muslim picks and chooses, producing variation.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Are the verses in the OP meant to be taken literally across the board? In Christianity, while I’ve come to view the Bible as the word of God, I don’t believe all is to be taken with absolute literality.

There is nothing indicating that they should be taken as anything other than the literal word of God. At the very least, the majority of Islamic scholars and mufasirs (scholars who interpret the Qur'an) and the majority of Muslims hold that position.

 

[Glaurung]

Like most scriptures, the Qur'an seems to contradict itself a lot. So every Muslim picks and chooses, producing variation.

Abrogation.