Issues with Islam that need to be addressed

[Jim]

(edit)These views that I'm discussing here are not mine. They're a rough approximation to some issues that I think other people have with Islam, which I want to address. I might not be doing them justice. I'm hoping that people who are concerned about those issues will explain them better. Otherwise I'll have to go searching myself, for the best explanations I can find of the issues that people have with Islam.(end edit)

I've been studying the thread The Qur'an: Intentions vs. Effects. to get some ideas about issues with Islam that need to be addressed. I'm only on page 4 of 17, but I see one issue that I can start to discuss now. It's an idea that goes something like this: Violence, torture and other atrocities in the name of Islam will never stop as long as there are multitudes of people who believe that the Quran is from beginning to end the words of their God, Himself. If anyone has a better way of explaining that, I would be glad for you to post it.

 

[Jim]

Another issue goes something like this: Allowing multitudes of people who believe that all the words of the Quran are the words of their God, Himself, to live in any democratic society, puts that society and everyone in it in grave danger. Again, if anyone has a better way of explaining that, I would be glad for you to post it.

 

[sun rise]

I've been studying the thread The Qur'an: Intentions vs. Effects. to get some ideas about issues with Islam that need to be addressed. I'm only on page 4 of 17, but I see one issue that I can start to discuss now. It's an idea that goes something like this: Violence, torture and other atrocities in the name of Islam will never stop as long as there are multitudes of people who believe that the Quran is from beginning to end the words of their God, Himself. If anyone has a better way of explaining that, I would be glad for you to post it.

Atrocities and torture in the name of Christianity basically stopped after the Inquisition ended.

As to religious violence, how many don't know the history of the atrocities committed by both Hindus and Muslims in the partition of India.

I can think of no better answer to the issue of violence than offered in the movie Gandhi:

 

[Wandering Monk]

Show me another religion that even comes close to these numbers in modern times, then we can talk about 'moral equivalency:'

List of Islamist terrorist attacks - Wikipedia

 

[sun rise]

Another issue goes something like this: Allowing multitudes of people who believe that all the words of the Quran are the words of their God, Himself, to live in any democratic society, puts that society and everyone in it in grave danger. Again, if anyone has a better way of explaining that, I would be glad for you to post it.

As far as democracy goes, there are Christians who want to see a Bible-based government just like Muslims who want to see a country ruled according to the Quran. To me, it's important to recognize that these views are only part of a spectrum of views. I can be against theocracies, Christian, Muslim or Jewish without drawing a black/white boundary. Islam and democracy - Wikipedia discusses the various Islamic perspetives.

 

[Jim]

Another issue for some people might be that they think Muslims aren't doing enough to police their own people, to stop the atrocities in the name of Islam.

 

[Terry Sampson]

To me, it's important to recognize that these views are only part of a spectrum of views. I can be against theocracies,

American Vision: Culture Through the Lens of Scripture
https://store.americanvision.org/

 

[Wandering Monk]

I CAN be against theocracies that promote hatred and division.

 

[Jim]

Another issue for some people might be thinking that Islamic doctrine empowers extremism and murder.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

As far as democracy goes, there are Christians who want to see a Bible-based government just like Muslims who want to see a country ruled according to the Quran. To me, it's important to recognize that these views are only part of a spectrum of views. I can be against theocracies, Christian, Muslim or Jewish without drawing a black/white boundary. Islam and democracy - Wikipedia discusses the various Islamic perspetives.

The difference off course, is that christianity has no explicit religious call to rule a country.
Islam does.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Another issue for some people might be thinking that Islamic doctrine empowers extremism and murder.

Isn't it kind of obvious that it does?

I mean, how many more militant islamic radical groups need to be formed before it will be obvious to you to?

Al-qaida, isis, al nusra, muslim brotherhood, hamas, hezbollah, taliban, boko haram,...

The list goes on and on and on.

 

[sooda]

The difference off course, is that christianity has no explicit religious call to rule a country.
Islam does.

South and Central America are 95% Christian .. and that has come about in the past 500 years.

Further, the American Indians were decimated by Christians .. even up thru the 1960s we put Indian children in Christian boarding schools, cut their hair, changed their names and forced them to abandon their language and culture.

 

[Jim]

One issue with Islam that I see is the idea that what Muslims believe about the Quran makes them more dangerous than other people.

If anyone has any better way of saying that, or you think I’m missing something, please tell me.

 

[sooda]

One issue with Islam that I see is the idea that what Muslims believe about the Quran makes them more dangerous than other people.

If anyone has any better way of saying that, or you think I’m missing something, please tell me.

Have you been threatened or mistreated by a Muslim?

 

[Jim]

Have you been threatened or mistreated by a Muslim?

Maybe, many years ago, but it might have been a prank call.

 

[Jim]

Maybe what some people are trying to say is that there's a lot more danger from Islam than most people think, and that what makes it dangerous is what Muslims believe about the Quran. That creates concerns that decision makers and policy makers don't understand the dangers, and consequently are not doing what needs to be done, to protect us from them. If that's true, does anyone have any ideas about what any of us here might be able to do about it?

 

[LuisDantas]

Maybe what some people are trying to say is that there's a lot more danger from Islam than most people think,

I agree. There is even more danger in Islaam than most Muslims realize, although probably not quite as much as the Far Right and the Alt-Right proclaim.

and that what makes it dangerous is what Muslims believe about the Quran.

Indeed, although the Qur'an itself is hardly commendable in itself. Islam is not dangerous because it abuses the Qur'an, nor (as many Muslims seem to want to believe) because the Qur'an is not followed faithfully enough. It is dangerous because it takes the Qur'an way too seriously.

That creates concerns that decision makers and policy makers don't understand the dangers, and consequently are not doing what needs to be done, to protect us from them.

That is a real concern, but IMO it is ultimately a secondary and derivative one. Those people are only relevant because they are enabled by political support of some form or another. The decisive factor is indeed the awareness and will of the masses. The future of Islaam (and of most or all other ideas) will unavoidably be that which the popular will allows it to be.

If that's true, does anyone have any ideas about what any of us here might be able to do about it?

Extending bridges towards Muslims is always a good idea. Unfortunately, that must be tempered with an awareness that Islaam does not have a history of being very reasonable. But there is no situation where having some amount of mutual acceptance, understanding and dialogue is not better than lacking those.

And we should study and learn about the Qur'an and Islaam. We definitely should. There will be a temptation to confront it violently later to be dealt with, and that too we must learn to transcend.

 

[Jim]

@LuisDantas I trusted you to have a good response to my question, but I never dreamed it would be such a winner.

 

[dybmh]

some ideas about issues with Islam that need to be addressed...

Based on this thread and your other current thread about Islam:

1) Terrorism
2) Forced Conversion
3) Criticism is Prohibited / Discouraged
4) Male dominance / Female subordination

#3 and #4 , I think are misconceptions misunderstandings.

Forced Conversions seem to be something that is performed by Terrorists. So solving the Terrorism problem ( if that's possible ) would also solve the forced conversion problem.

hyperlink >>> wikipedia.org - Islamic Forced Conversion

"Islamic law prohibits forced conversion, following the Quranic principle 'no compulsion in religion' Qur'an (2:256). Episodes of forced conversions are recorded in the history of Islam. Historians have qualified such instances as "rare" or "exceptional"

Solving the Terrorism problem involves befriending Muslims and making them feel safe, understood, and appreciated in secular societies.

I think your efforts on RF to date are a very good role model for me and others in working towards a more peaceful world for us and for future generations.

May G-d continue to bless you and yours on your journey.

 

[Jim]

@dybmh I have reasons of my own for thinking that campaigning against Islam and the Quran is barking up the wrong tree, but I can very well sympathize with people seeing a lot more danger, and a lot worse danger, in the religion of Islam itself than in any other religion.

A year ago or maybe more, when I was doing research on fallacies in anti-Muslim propaganda, I decided to read the Quran again, looking for everything I could find about good character and conduct. At first all I saw was page after page after page of denouncing enemies and calling for war against them. Then in desperation I used an app to search through the Quran for something about good character and conduct, and I found maybe ten or twenty verses about it that I might have never even noticed if I had just read through it

I think that it's easy, reading the Quran, to think that the target of all that denouncing and calling for war is all non-Muslims. I think that it's reasonable to imagine that a considerable number of Muslims everywhere in the world believe that all the words of the Quran are the words of God Himself. I think it's reasonable to imagine that a considerable number of Muslims everywhere in the world want to be governed as much as possible by the laws of the Quran. If that was all I knew about the religion of Islam, then I might be tempted to campaign against it, myself. None of the apologetics for Islam that I've seen look very convincing to me, as ways of reassuring people about that.