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Islam: religion or not? — 84 Comments

  1. A very sophisticated and nuanced analysis by Neo that would get her head chopped off by the King of Saudi Arabia. No First Amendment allowed in the Kingdom!

    Here’s my main thing with Islam. A real religion doesn’t run around and kill people who oppose or disagree with it. All the Supreme Being and other religious attributes are just gloss.

    So I am proclaiming myself the new George Keenan. We need to CONTAIN Islam. Keep them in their corner. Don’t let their people come here. Don’t let them have nukes. Become energy independent with our fossil fuels. Dump this Green energy nonsense with wind and solar. We don’t need their oil. If they want to cut each other’s heads off in the desert, go right ahead. Sunni v Shia? We don’t care.

    /s/
    Cornhead a/k/a Mr. X from Omaha

  2. Suggesting helps, once again: Religion and the Commonweal

    Not least because the question whether the term “religion” as such is adequate to the task — is sufficiently universal in address — is taken up immediately before turning our attention to the primary topic (the relation of religion and politics) gets underway. Piety is suggested as one alternative appellation to describe human dealings with the divine, because piety seems more universal.

    But then acceding to popular speech, Strauss remarks: “Let us say as we are entitled to say by our western tradition that religion simply means every human concern with a personal God, with a God who thinks and wills, and is concerned with men, with every man. Or, to use the current expression, a being who is a ‘thou’.” And then goes about his business.

  3. I’ve just changed the name of my new policy. It is the policy of DISASSOCIATION.

    Containment isn’t the right word and it is too derivative of Keenan.

    It is disassociation as in “My complete disassociation from you two creeps” as stated by Kevin Kline to Meryl Streep and Stingo in “Sophie’s Choice.”

  4. Well, thanks for that, Neo. Sounds like you’re in a legalistic frame of mind.
    Other than concluding, “Heads up, Islam wins; heads down, we lose”, what should we do?
    I think your discussion has merit only in the event of a Supreme Court hearing on disallowing Islam the religious freedom it has seized for itself. But I do not believe you can argue for both sides simultaneously before the Court.
    So the Constitution is a suicide pact after all. Is that it?

  5. Frog:

    Coming from you, I’m well aware that “a legalistic frame of mind” is NOT necessarily a compliment.

    This post is not meant to have to do with anything explicitly legal. It’s just a personal—and, I hope, philosophical and logical—reflection on a topic that’s been discussed many times on this blog and others. The two-sidedness of Islam is a dilemma in the real world, because religions are protected (not just legally, but in people’s minds), and Islam is and almost certainly will continue to be treated and thought of as a religion.

    I was also pointing out that Islam, as a religion making assertions about what will happen in the afterlife, can offer people rewards that go beyond this life, and that can be a potent motivator.

  6. Thing in common amongst each of Judaism, Christianity and Islam? . . . is the origin of each in divine revelation. None of these “are” prior to the deity of each making revealed what is what. This revelation seems, in other words, to precede anything like belief or faith in each. What is revealed in substance in each is a separate question, or are separate questions. But that revelation is prior and common, seems clear.

  7. Neo said:
    “Are all Muslims followers of a “murderous apocalyptic death cult”? No…”

    That is the only part of Neo’s post I disagree with. In my opinion, the answer should be yes. Even moderate Muslims are members of a murderous apocalyptic death cult.

    Neo concluded:
    “, but (a) they are followers of a religion that in its most fundamental form can easily become one, and often has; and (b) they are followers of a religion which, if adhered to at all strictly, is antithetical to our Western doctrines of liberty and human rights.”

    I realize Neo is not using the term “fundamental” technically but it is well to remember that fundamentalism is a term Christians invented to describe Protestants who adhere to a more literal interpretation of the Bible. The attitude all Muslims towards the Koran is far more worshipful than that of the most conservative fundamentalist Christian. Muslims believe the Koran is a word for word dictation by Allah himself and is reverenced almost as much as Allah himself. Fundamentalist Christians usually acknowledge that the Bible is written by inspired prophets in their own language. Even if they adhere to verbal inspiration they still recognize that there have been copyist errors in the manuscripts and translation errors.

  8. Islam is IMO a religion for all the reasons neo notes, although I came to this conclusion many years ago. However, those who worship satan are also engaged in a practicing a religion. Islam is a religion that worships death and destruction even if many muslims are not ‘extremists’. It must be contained, and when necessary severely punished. There are two places to strike, saudi arabia and iran. Quarantine both, nothing goes in and nothing goes out. Blockade their ports and enforce no fly zones, and they surrender within 6 months, 12 at the most. Then the rest of the ME surrenders.

  9. Islam is a religion of empire, made at the origin of an empire and fitted to that. Doesn’t have to be any more complicated, does it? Christianity too, in its way, was at one time also a religion of empire, displacing Roman paganism, and then that empire passing, a religion of state in other places. Still is in some places. America is distinctly peculiar among nations about these relationships, however. Or was anyhow. It may be changing now. Hard to tell.

  10. Religion: the belief in a god or in a group of gods:
    also, an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods.

    Theocracy: a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities.

    Democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

    What the radical Islamists/Salafis/Wahhabis want is theocracy. What most Muslim countries have is dictatorships/oligarchies/kingdoms. Iran comes the closest to a theocracy, but it is a Shia theocracy and not acceptable to the Sunni radicals.

    Democracy is not compatible with a religion that wants to impose theocracy on it because theocracy requires every citizen to adhere to the same religion. That was one of the major points of the Founders was that there were many differing religious beliefs in the colonies. They knew that favoring one religion over another was a sure route to trouble. Most of them seemed to believe that religion is about each person’s personal relationship with their God – a spiritual issue. On the other hand, they saw government as being about the citizens’ relationships with each other – a temporal issue. Judeo Christian ethics guided many of the elements of government and law, but almost nothing was ordained as being guided by spiritual revelation or the unchanging will of God.

    Therefore, I believe that, when a radical imam preaches the Salafi doctrine (calling for a state religion [Islam] guided only by Sharia law) in the U.S., he is preaching treason and/or sedition of our system. I believe there is reason to codify that in our laws. Outlawing theocracy and those who want to force it on our country makes perfect sense to me.

  11. sdferr claims “Christianity too, in its way, was at one time also a religion of empire, displacing Roman paganism.”
    I beg to differ. Yes, it “displaced” Roman paganism, but not by the sword. Christianity is a universal religion, but not a religion of empire as Islam clearly is.
    There is no “convert or die” in Christianity.

  12. Theodosius did not persecute paganism? Or he did? But just not as a Christian? The Mohammedans looking at the Byzantine Empire did not see Christianity as the religion of the Empire? Or they did? But just not as the religion?

  13. What is the difference between a religion and a cult?
    Cult: noun
    “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.” (everything in Islam rests upon veneration of Muhammad*)
    Religion: noun
    “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods”

    I can think of no major religion that does not present itself as a pathway to re-connection with the divine.

    Islam claims to be a correction of wher Judeo/Christian religions have gone astray. So Islam claims to be a restoration of the correct path to re-connection with the divine.

    However, Islam’s path is antithetical to both Judaism’s and Christianity’s path. It overturns Judeo/Christian tenets. The Judeo/Christian God bears little resemblance to Islam’s Allah. It is logically untenable to attempt to reconcile the differences. Christ would never agree with Muhammad, nor would Abraham and Moses. Rather than a correction, Islam is an abomination of Judeo/Christian precepts.

    Which leads to but one conclusion;

    Islam is a violently expansionist, totalitarian ideology wrapped within a facade of religious pretense.

    As long as the West continues to go along with the charade that is Islam, it will continue to be attacked by Muslims because they must attack all that is not Islamic. It is a basic tenet of their ‘faith’, a theological imperative commanded by Allah himself.

    * arguably, such is not the case with Christianity. Christ claimed to have come to fulfill the law.

    “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

    I cannot imagine Muhammad saying that. Yet Muslims claim to respect Jesus as a holy prophet and then deny the contradiction between Christ and Muhammad.

  14. From Fr. James Schall, SJ (retired Georgetown political science professor):

    “…Islam has no central authority. Passages in the Qur’an and its commentaries advocating holy war may be interpreted literally, symbolically, or poetically, but they are there. The reason why this jihadist inspiration always comes back to incite some Muslim believers is because it is found in the sources as the only true interpretation of Islam. ISIS members insist that their religious motives be taken seriously. This earnestness is what motivates them. We insult them, while at the same time playing into their hands, by refusing to understand what they say and, indeed, give witness to with their lives. It is those Muslims who have died killing in western cities–not those who are murdered–who are considered to be, yes, martyrs. The so-called “Muslim terrorists”, then, do not think of themselves as “Muslim terrorists”. They consider themselves to be the only real followers of Mohammed. They see themselves as doing exactly what he and his first followers did in the saga of a rapid conquest of much of the African, Arab, and Middle Eastern worlds. The conquest of Europe would complete the stymied efforts at Tours and Vienna, victories that allowed Europe to remain Europe and not become Muslim much sooner. Moreover, jihadists have a perfectly intelligible explanation for what they are doing and how they are doing it. It is a sophisticated intellectual theory deftly designed to explain exactly why these “terrorist” acts are both legitimate and indeed praiseworthy in the eyes of Allah. The voluntarist metaphysics behind such reasoning is by no meant unfamiliar to western thinkers. And it is this intellectual battle that we are unwilling to or unable to fight.”

    Read the whole thing:

    http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/4421/the_shootings_in_san_bernardino_another_view.aspx

  15. sdferr, you may somehow, some day see the difference between someone calling himself a Christian and the Christian faith itself. Between a Theodosius and Jesus Christ.
    If a Charlie Manson calls himself a Christian and then proceeds to slaughter pregnant women, those murders become Christian acts?

  16. Spengler (David Goldman) just wrote a piece that’s worth a look — Separating violent and peaceful Islam:

    I never thought the day would come when I would admonish Americans to show understanding and forbearance towards Islam. In fact, Islam is neither a religion of violence nor a religion of peace: it is an ambiguous set of doctrines from which Muslims may choose peace or violence as they will. To penalize all Muslims for the actions of those Muslims who choose violence is as morally misguided as it is strategically stupid: It repudiates those Muslims who explicitly embrace a peaceful interpretation, for example the president of the largest Arab country, Egypt’s president Fatah al-Sisi. Western countries in their own self-defense need to draw a bright line between peaceful and violent Islam.

    He quotes from a speech by al-Sisi this past January:

    The problem has never been that of our faith. The problem lies in our ideology, one that has been sanctified by us… We have to take a painful and difficult look at our current situation. It is inconceivable that the ideology that we have sanctified helps make our nation a concern, danger, killings and destruction throughout the world it is inconceivable that this ideology — I am not referring to religion, but ideology — that is to say, the corpus of ideas and texts we have sanctified in the centuries — is rendered to a point where it is almost impossible to challenge. This ideology has reached a point where it is a threat to the world. It is inconceivable that 1.6 billion Muslims want to kill the rest of humanity, or 7 billion people to live only among themselves… Let me say it again: we must revolutionize our religion. Honourable imam of the Grand Mosque Al Azhar, you wear this responsibility before God. The whole world awaits your words, because the Islamic nation is falling apart and destroying itself. It goes directly to his loss and it is we who are responsible.

  17. Yes, good, Frog, let’s not be harsh. Let’s suppose we each understand the distinctions you like to preserve, and so make an adjustment to the proposition to take those into account.

    We can say rather: that Empire adopted Christianity, and not the reverse, although we allow that the Christians did not too strenuously object with one voice in a unison, as for instance saying — We thank you Emperor for your vote of confidence in our Lord and God, but we Christians prefer to keep our status as martyrs at the hands of your foul and vice-ridden Empire. We chose to stand with our brother and teacher Augustine of Hippo, preferring to keep to his City of God, and leaving you to your City of Man, thus to maintain our fidelity to our Savior and keep ourselves from participation in the vices of Empire — murder, rapine, theft, and all such vile behaviors.

    Things didn’t seem to go that way, although they might have done. And surely, because being the true Christian is a hard hard road.

  18. Islam is a religion or moral philosophy and a faith, which is marred through marriage to a left-wing or totalitarian ideology.

  19. Ann,
    David Goldman’s take on Islam is much the same as mine. He believes that it is capable of reform, because there are differing schools of theological thought within Islam. Only the Salafi or Wahhabi school teaches that the Quran must be read and followed literally. Salafi theology has spread and become so powerful because the Saudi’s petrodollars a have been hard at work spreading it since the early 1970s.

    I believe the West should encourage the voices of moderation such as al Sisi, Zhudi Jasser, and a growing list of Muslims willing to speak out for reform that gets rid of the intolerance and adherence to Sharia law pushed by the Salafis.

    It sure beats trying to kill or convert 1.5 billion people. Unfortunately, we will have to kill a lot of the Salafis before it’s over.

  20. Sigh, Sharia is not something only of the Salafi’s, it comes from the Quran itself and is held as true by both Sunni and Shia and all schools under each.

    All Sunni and Shia schools of sharia rely first on the Quran and the sayings/practices of Muhammad in the Sunnah. Their differences lie in the procedure each uses to create Islam-compliant laws when those two sources do not provide guidance on a topic.[105] The Salafi movement creates sharia based on the Quran, Sunnah and the actions and sayings of the first three generations of Muslims.[106]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia

    You can’t get rid of Sharia law and still be a Moslem because because Sharia is in the Quran and the Quran is the direct and everlasting word of Allah and is perfect and is not open to change by man. Again this isn’t just Salafi’s or Wahhabists it is the central tenet of Islam as a whole.

    To put into terms that westerners can grasp, to declare yourself as Muslim and not obey what is the direct word of Allah in the Quran is the same as declaring you are Christian but you do not believe Jesus is the Savior. You can’t be one without the other.

    Also trying to state Islam is just a religion or not a religion at all is a false dichotomy since Islam is a complete way of life telling the adherent how he is to live and interact with the world in all aspects including economics and politics.

  21. The cartoon depicts an ugly and dangerous truth. Islam could not be a religion as we understand it in the west for the simple reason that Mohammed, Muslims’ so-called prophet, was a military leader who (among a host of other despicable acts & behaviors) ordered people killed.

    By definition, life taking, for any reason, is incompatible with religion or any god westerners would regard as such or want to believe in.

    Imagine if Hitler’s Mein Kampf was enriched with parts of the Old and New Testaments and he proclaimed himself a prophet. It would be a close approximation of who Mohammed was in the 7th century.

    It is pointless to point to good Muslims & say Islam is good. Islam is intrinsically nasty. People are good. And millions of them happen to have been born in the Muslim “faith”. But whenever, for whatever reason, they come closer to their religion truly abhorrent things happen. Because Islam justifies and encourages them. Sadly any act blessed by religion, even a pseudo-religious doctrine, is by definition a good one.

    A Muslim’s last line of defense is: “but what can I do, it’s my faith”. That is why the answer must be “my good friend, your faith is not worth the paper it is written on because your prophet was a fake”.

    I know I won’t get many likes for this post. But that would just be a sign of your weakness, lack of understanding or need to be likable, to fit in. Not mine.

    Or perhaps you are a moderate Muslim for whom the option of speaking against Islam does not exist. Because your so-called faith forbids it.

    Ps. Turkish Cypriots are moderate Muslims who use Islam to their advantage, by abusing its apartheid notions to secure rights in Cyprus they don’t deserve, at the expense of the majority, the Christian Cypriots of Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Latin or Maronite denominations. Their sword are the 40.000 strong Turkish occupying force and the non-stop colonization and cultural rape of illegally occupied northern Cyprus.

    http://antifon.blogspot.com.cy/2015/12/the-fake-teachings-of-pseudo-prophet.html

  22. A good post Neo-neocon

    My only criticism would be that you continue a secular tradition of defining down religion. Marxism fulfills all the roles of a religious belief. Christianity has political implications as well, it is just that Christianities political implications are antithetical to islam’s (and Marxist’s)

  23. It seems that we have a few options:

    1. Go through the checklist of the characteristics of religions and take a purely intellectual approach, treating Islam as a legitimate religion with a small fraction of dangerous adherents (only a few million worldwide). Then hope for deus ex machina as Western society’s commitment to freedom of religion becomes increasingly suicidal.

    2. Treat Islam as a religion and give up on freedom of religion.

    3. Take an aggressively pragmatic approach and treat Islam as an apocalyptic death cult wedded to a totalitarian political ideology (bearing in mind that Muslims who want to belong to Western societies have the option to become atheists or to convert to a religion that isn’t inherently antisocial).

  24. Islam prevents people from all religions from exercising their 2nd amendment rights. Therefore Islam has forfeited protection by the Constitution. Islam should be treated like we treated Communism.

  25. I am not sure you have asked the right question. I believe the correct question would be, “Is Islam a totalitarian political ideology with aspects of a religion that promote extremism?”

  26. Neo, I suggest that before you spend any more time trying to analyze the subtle differences between Islam and other religions, you spend some time, you know, actually reading about the subject. For one thing, you could read Muir’s “Life of Mahommet” or his “The Califate”. I know the books are more than 100 years old and all but you will quickly see that you’re mixing up is commonly referred to as “Political Islam” with the religion. Mohamed was a bit of a megalomaniac and ending up using his overall control of the religion he created to become a tyrant. His immediate predecessors saw the wisdom in that and a new form of politics was established. Unfortunately, for those who became believers, 13 centuries of misery have followed.

  27. Cornhead said “A real religion doesn’t run around and kill people who oppose or disagree with it.”

    What? Virtually every religion does, or at some point in time has done, this. How many hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in the name of Christianity over the centuries?

    That comment is just beyond ridiculous.

  28. Islam is an ideology which was packaged in the trappings of a religion because that was the best way for it to be sold at the time and place it came into being.

    Progressive-ism/socialism/whatever nameism, is a religion [it too makes promises of an ideal future to be worked towards] which was packaged in the trappings of a political ideology because that was the best way for it to be sold at the time and place it came into being.

    They are both methods/means [tried and true] for some group to obtain and maintain complete power/control over a larger population. They both do so both by the use of terror and mind control of that larger population. Submission is what they seek. Islam is the more forthright about this goal.

  29. Dan Palmer Says:

    “How many hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in the name of Christianity over the centuries?”

    Muslims murder because of their “religion.” Christians murder in spite of their religion.

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  31. every member of the Mafia isn’t a contract killer … still a member of the Mafia … every Nazi wasn’t a prison camp guard or a member of the SS … there are plenty of “peaceful” members of the Mafia and there where plenty of “peaceful” Nazis too … so what ? Islam is a dangerous religion (yes its a religion) its expansion since its founding has only come via violence … it should be contained and rolled back and yes, banned from polite society (i.e. the West) …

  32. Dan Palmer Says at 9:00 am”

    “What? Virtually every religion does, or at some point in time has done, this. How many hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in the name of Christianity over the centuries?”

    Dan asked the question. I don’t know the answer. Can Dan answer his question for us and provide the documents to back up any claims he might make?

  33. The word that Islam uses for the worldwide Muslim community is “Ummah”, which means “nation”. They consider themselves a nationality (while they deny the rights of nationhood to the Jews), so let’s treat them like a nationality, as the Ummah wants, without the privileges our society gives to religions.

  34. Several here have noted that at one time Christianity acted like Islam does today. What they do not do is consistently note the circumstances under which both religions did so. Those are the circumstances of imperial control.

    *Every* Islamist group I have heard of admits to wanting to revive the imperial Caliphate in its initial 7th century form. The Caliphate was formed when its model, the Roman Empire of Constantinople, was the strongest State in Western Eurasia, claimed universal dominion in the name of its religion, and had a single civil, military and religious (he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople) ruler whose titles included “Equal of the Apostles.” The Arab copy of this model was simply Arabized, and then pushed into the most prosperous lands of the Roman and Persian Empires, from Tangier to the Talas River.

    In both cases, the religion served the State far more than it did the relationship between man and God. It did this through scriptural literalism. The State picked and chose what was acceptable scripture, either by writing the Koran, or by Ecumenical Councils deciding which of the 300 years of pre-imperial Christian writings were acceptable. Then, each demanded that such were to be accepted as literally true.

    Islam did have one disadvantage. It did not have those 300 years to become a separate institution without State control. It did not have even one decade.

    To My Knowledge, there exists no hierarchy or network attempting to revive the Roman Empire of Constantinople. Certainly there is none supported to the tune of $Billions each year by donations from Christians. There is the essential difference between both Christians and Islamists, and between Non-Imperialist Muslims and Islamists.

    Neither Christians, nor Non-Imperialist Muslims, will support picking specific scriptures and demand they be taken literally to support building imperial hierarchies. This, then, is the test for telling which Muslims demand to subjugate us through Jihad, and which will live beside us as neighbors, in peace and equality.

  35. I’m not sure why people think that smearing Christianity somehow solves the problem with militant Islam. There have to be some unstated assumptions which the people making those claims have in mind which would make their arguments cogent to the present problem. Perhaps I’m the only one trying to follow the reasoning, but perhaps those making the argument will fill in the gaps.

  36. Dennis,

    Comparisons of Islam’s terrorism to Christianity’s worst past excesses are an excuse, in an attempt to maintain their denial of the inherent nature of the threat.

  37. It’s not a religion in terms that Westerners know it.

    It’s rites are totalitarian, extreme and bizarre.

    So much so that without coercion born-in Muslim quit attending.

    In the MENA, being a Muslim means heading off to the Mosque FIVE TIMES EVERY DAY.

    That’s why there are so many — so many that everyone is within walking distance of a mosque.

    We’re talking absurd numbers of mosques.

    %%%%%%

    Next, the form of the rites is bizarre. Most of the Arabic chattered away is nothing but a rote submission to Allah, fealty to his messenger — Mohammed — sandwiched by curses against the kafir.

    This is done five times a day. Since most Muslims don’t speak Arabic, these are mumble -alongs, and comprehension is nil.

    It’s easy and practical to attend five times a day — when you are shiftless and lazy. The latter being an entirely apt description of Arab culture.

    They see themselves as warriors and sex-machines. They absolutely do not see themselves as proletarians working their way through life.

    Such tasks are to be relegated to their slaves, hirelings, and wives.

    That such is so can be seen wherever the Arabic ethos is dominant. Considering the climate, this attitude actually makes sense.

    The Moors probably invented the ‘Siesta’ which is merely a shortened version of an Arab’s non-work day routine.

    In the famous film, Lawrence of Arabia, all of the scenes feature fighting, spoils, and marching. In which case, culturally, it’s right on target. That’s all that Arabs lived for.

    Their remaining energies are spent watching the flock and guiding this or that caravan of camels.

    It’s with that cultural baggage that they come to the First World.

    Asking them to work HARD is to insult them.

    Laying around collecting welfare from the fools // kafir — that’s something that replicates their ‘function’ back home. In Saudi Arabia, — every Arab is — de facto — collecting welfare.

    The outlays given require nothing productive out of the natives.

    They are simply his right for being of the tribe — and alive.

    You might note that very, very, few Saudi citizens actually attempt to make their way in the West. They’d have to be flat crazy to try.

    Islam has to be Constitutionally BANNED.

    Rather than revisit the Inquisition or the Holocaust, the practical solution is to zero out all mosques.

    Such a policy would mirror that of Saudi Arabia, itself. You can’t practice Christianity there — nor anything else.

    Without imams preaching jihad and brimstone, Muslims simply walk away from it’s nutty creed.

    That’s why the first Muslims to enter America ever established a mellow reputation. They had no fanatic to urge them to rage and action.

    Due to the nature of the creed — you can’t suffer even a so-called mellow or moderate imam.

    The elimination of mosques and public displays of Islamic practice will cause Islam in America to whither and mellow.

    It’s just too goofy of a creed.

    Horses flying into the heavens…

    God sitting in an oversized chair on his tush…

    Five times a day of totalitarian control in an alien tongue…

    Without outside funding from the King of Saudi Arabia — the entire enterprise will run out of gas.

    Right now, ALL of the Wahabbist imams are foreign agents of influence… paid for by the King of Saudi Arabia.

    The KGB is jealous.

  38. The Bible is considered to be written by men, about God, some by revelation from God. Because it is written by men it is subject to interpretation, by other men. Even the accounts of the life of Jesus have variations by the different authors.

    The Koran is considered to the the actual words of Allah. These words were dictated to, and written down precisely by the prophet. The Koran is considered to have been co-existent from the beginning of time with Allah. It is not just a book, even a holy book like the Bible.

    Unless and until this way of viewing the Koran changes Islam can’t change. It had its reformation 1000 years ago and what we see as “radical” Islam is what that reformation set, in stone, as the true faith.

  39. blert:

    You have shown the reason the Saudi Arabia builds mosques and maddrassas worldwide, for free. Without them close by the faith dies off.

  40. Now wait a second there Geoffrey B., for we’re to be persuaded that there are no such things as “Christianity’s worst past excesses”, due to any such excesses in error being entirely outside the bounds of proper Christian doctrine (which doctrine was never, mind we, developed under the tutelage of empire or state) and therefore these “excesses” are not, yea never were, Christian as such. We put away all such simple reasonings for much better parsing. We’ll not speak of Christendom without explaining that Christendom isn’t Christian, and to be sure, Voltaire himself has explained away that absurdity once known as the Holy Roman Empire. And we may laugh along with that Papua New Guinean man who in the course of his rudimentary education about Western Europe first learns the history of that Holy Roman Empire (because he is very fond of novel stories, let’s say) only to be told a little later by Voltaire that western Europeans like to name their important institutions with words meaning something akin to the negation of the institutions themselves. And if our New Guinean fellow remarks “What a strange people are these who name things thus!”, we’ll just assure him we’re no better off, no less confused than he — but that Christians don’t make Christianity, no, they mostly only represent what it isn’t: we’ll helpfully explain that making Christianity, that is God’s work alone. He’ll no doubt be properly mystified.

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  42. “A real religion doesn’t run around and kill people who oppose or disagree with it.”
    In the Western, or, Westphalian definition of religion, Islam is not one. We Westerners have trouble agreeing what constitutes religion or secular authority, just as fish cannot see water.

  43. Fwiw, Christianity had its “coming to Jesus” moment with secularism. Islamic scholars know exactly what Western secularism is, and expressly reject it.
    Except, perhaps, for the public comments of the Islamic scholars who live or speak in the West.

  44. Islam is most certainly a religion. The definitions given above are , in my mind, excessively simply and western-centric. Buddism, Zen and (unless I err) Tao are all examples of religions that have no ‘god’ and demand no worship. It seems to me that a better definition of ‘religion’ will focus on the aspects, perhaps like: a self-consistent philosophy, that provides emotional support and rules for proper conduct of it’s believers (at least), and is non-falsifiable by outsiders.

    That such a definition also captures athiesm, agnosticism, communism, Nazi-era aryanism, Marxism and CAGW is, I think, an argument that the definition is more likely correct than one that focuses on worshiping a god.

    The biggest problem comes from those religions that are also political systems. This category has been and continues to be responsible for more death and destruction than any other set of ideas.

    I would have no problem with a muslim that believed that his religion simply told him how to relate to Allah and to his neighbors. I see no reason to be tolerant of a person who, regardless of reason, wants to see the liberties of this nation destroyed and replaced with slavery.

    I’m not objecting to the religion of most Muslims. I object to their politics. It’s not my job to disentangle the two, or to accept the poison of one to prove my tolerance of the other.

  45. Reading Quran, hadith and sunnah Islam is a complete life style with religion, politics, culture, economics and everything to RULE a society … period.

    Islam per Mohammad is the WORD of GOD (Allah) and cannot be reformed, changed whatever.

    Ask ANY muslim. How can you reform the WORD OF GOD? Forgetaboutit!

  46. Judge them by their fruits. The Koran says to kill the unbelievers. Some call that poetry, but I consider it a threat. I will discriminate against those who want to kill me. Any Muslim, who wants to discuss religion, will need to explain (justify) those passages. I have talked to about 15 Muslims (some Imams) about this, and everyone of them assured me that the threat was real.

  47. “Ask ANY muslim. How can you reform the WORD OF GOD? Forgetaboutit!”

    A related interesting fact. Early passages in the Koran talk about being friendly with the Christian and Jew. Later passages are violent. The correct way to resolve these contradictions, per Islamic scholarship, is that the later verse is correct.

    So, Allah changed his mind constantly, right up until Mohammed died, then everything was set in concrete. Right. Totally not a cult.

  48. I am delighted this question is being addressed. This may be of interest, a theologian’s descriptions of differences between genuine and demonic religion: http://theological-geography.net/?p=624

    The analysis is phenomenological rather than doctrinal. It was made, unasked for, to assist US field commanders during the 2006/07 Surge in Iraq. Feedback indicated it was much appreciated in situ.

    Its companion is this phenomenological analysis of differences between genuine and demonic clergy and scholars: http://theological-geography.net/?p=601 Again, made, unasked for, to assist field commanders during the 2006-07 Surge in Iraq and, according to feedback, much appreciated in situ.

  49. Graffiti is art but is also still vandalism and thus not protected by the 1st Amendment. Perhaps Islam is a religion and also incitement to violence and defamation and thus not protected by the Constitution either.

  50. It isn’t smart to deny that Islam is a religion; it’s a religion in the most ancient sense of the word, a public affirmation of common piety entwined with the State. The Zoroastrians called it “den”, which is pretty exact to what the Dome of the Rock calls it (“din”).

    If anything it’s the western Christianities that aren’t religion anymore.

  51. David Goldman’s take on Islam is similar to mine but with one difference — I think it is colossally stupid and arrogant to think that we can, or should, “encourage” the kind of Islam we would like to see in the world. That’s no different from Buddhists saying, “We only want to talk to Messianic Jews, not any of the other kinds of Jews or Christians, because we like the way they combine Christianity and Judaism, and they are very reasonable people, so whatever the rest of them say about themselves or each other, THOSE are the people we want to encourage.” We have no power to change Islam by “encouraging” the kind we like. We have no business doing it. And we are incredibly full of ourselves if we think we can accomplish it.

  52. Dennis Says @ December 12th, 2015 at 4:40 pm
    I realize Neo is not using the term “fundamental” technically but it is well to remember that fundamentalism is a term Christians invented to describe Protestants who adhere to a more literal interpretation of the Bible

    As regards “fundamentalist” creeds (and hermeneutics).

    There are fundamentalist groups (indeed, Christian sects with some having membership numbered in the millions) that subscribe to the doctrines of biblical inerrancy and/or biblical infallibility.

    These fundamentalist groups very much believe (akin to Muslim beliefs of the Koran) that the Bible, including both Old and New Testaments, is the veritable Word of G_d as spoken by G_d.

    it is a barrier to understanding their beliefs to emphasize inspiration as “process” …the creedal understanding of “inspiration” is not the typical definition “a process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative“, but more akin to the Greek concept of θεόπνευστος, ον /theopneustos …G_d “breathed”: IOW, G_d literally spoke through the Bible’s writers (and continues to do so).

    Fundamentalist’s believe G_d Himself “wrote” the Word …all human agents were merely His pen-and-ink if you will.

  53. There is only one issue–ONE– and that is whether Islam as a totalitarian theocracy is compatible with the American Constitution. It is NOT.
    Muslims may try the old One Man, One Vote, One Time approach once their migrant numbers increase sufficiently. then get rid of the First Amendment. But in the meantime they will assert their theocracy is consistent with the First Amendment, that is is just another monotheist religion, so no big deal. The CAIR approach (the unindicted co-conspirator to mass murder) works with the help of the (ahem ) media.
    They have learned the Progressives’ techniques and ploys. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.
    They allied themselves with old Adolf in the 1930s.Their position on women is well-known; On top whenever the spirit moves me!
    We just have to watch the Courts to see how,when, where the Judges will surrender the USA to infidels. It is coming. Preemtive action will be needed.

  54. I care not what Islam is called. I don’t think that “is” is the core of the issue as far as the US is concerned.

    What I care about is what the legal definition of Islam under American law is.

    I would argue that it should be defined in Law as a theopolitical system, rather than allowing it to self-define itself purely as a religion.

    For one thing, it is a theopolitical system, since it self-defines as being transcendent to the secular body politic. Making it quite inconsistent to define it as a typical religion “per se”.

    For another thing, such a secular definition would also preclude its members from claiming certain Constitutional protections accorded religious belief (and places it – I would argue – under provisions of corporate law or suitably modified treaty law, é  la the mainly 19th century treaties governing the NA tribes).

    Christianity can “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” without cognitive dissonance under US constitutional and regulatory law. Christians are self constrained to abide secular authority to an extent [that Islam is not]; Christianity (amongst other religions) is basically cooperative with civil law (even if you do not understand or believe that Christian beliefs are the basis underlying most Western law, there’s several hundred years of Western Civ history proving that cooperation).

    This legal definition would extend – and accord and constrain – to Islam those same regulatory prerogatives, essentially defining both the laws, and constraining a too-liberal Court (which is a real problem here) from its currently greater-than-equal “rights” vis é  viz other religions (since its currently accorded both political rights and religious protections). And legally deny Sharia any current or future co-equal status under the law.

    —————————
    …not that I think that this will happen, however much it should.

    I know (personally) enough about Islamic moderates to know that they are, have been, and can be rational citizens (and will self-correct their religion’s inherent excesses).

    And enough about modern history to understand that the future of Islam today is rather different than 60 years ago …as a result of the Wahhabi poison still being spread to the House of Islam by execrable misuse of Saudi oil money (and to a lesser extent the Sunni/Shia conflict’s regional madness).

    So what I actually foresee is the Clash of Civilizations that unleashes the Kraken and leaves the West with a black stain that will take centuries to erase.

    …and a somewhat greater period to make the territories now comprising the House of Islam habitable again.

  55. I surprised one thinks Islam not religion although she is Judaism woman.
    You my well informed what your grandpa went through in Christian believe countries does that make Christianity not a Religion?

    Neo either miss read the history of neglecting it.

    Let read:

    The first large suicide bombing campaign after the Second World War occurred in the 1980s during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

    The largest bombings occurred on 23 October 1983, a truck was driven into a US Marine base in Lebanon. The driver detonated 2,000 pounds of explosives he had packed inside the truck and in so doing killed himself along with 241 military personnel. Seconds later, another bomber struck the operations building of French paratroopers and killed 58 people.

    The bombings were blamed on Shiite militant groups supported by Iran. They eventually became the militant group Hezbollah. They would go on to be responsible for a series of around twenty suicide attacks directed at the Israeli and Lebanese armies in the 1980s.

    Car bombs in Lebanon had already become a regular occurrence with abandoned vehicles near targets like embassies and military bases treated with extreme suspicion. Suicide attacks added a new dimension to the threat. They required a broad range of security measures and their novelty captured widespread media attention.

    Muhammad Hussein Fadalallah, a spiritual guide of Hezbollah, described under what circumstances suicide bombers were deployed:

    ‘We believe that suicide operations should only be carried out if they can bring about a political change in proportion to the passions that incite a person to make his body an explosive bomb.’

    These attacks were not pointless acts of brutality but were carefully considered to have a real political impact.

    The bombing of the military bases successfully undermined US public support for continued involvement in the Lebanese war. The Multinational Force withdrew from Lebanon shortly afterwards as the cost of pursuing the current policy became too high.

    A short history of suicide bombing

    So in history of humanity, how old per Neo calling “Islamic terrorist” which as religion its not correct linking them together?

  56. Gail Finke: “I think it is colossally stupid and arrogant to think that we can, or should, “encourage” the kind of Islam we would like to see in the world.”

    The Salafi/Wahhabis are at war with us. Our C-in-C is treating their violence against us as a law enforcement problem. Treat the non-violent actors nicely and kill/capture the violent ones is the MO. We have been trying this approach for a total of 15 years+ if you add up the Clinton and Obama years of dealing with the jihadis. Bush decided to go over there and give them a bit of their own medicine. It was working better than the law enforcement model, but the gains were modest when compared to the size of the problem, and were lost by going back to the law enforcement model. We’re worse off today than in 2008.

    Few want to recognize that there are 1.5 billion Muslims in about 49 Muslim majority countries. If only 10% are Salafis/Wahhabis who are wanting to establish a world-wide caliphate with sharia law, that is 150 million people (about half the U.S. population) and they are spread out among most of the 49 countries. Given these facts, how do you defeat such an enemy? We are not wealthy enough or patient enough to send expeditionary and occupying forces to all these countries to rid them of the violent ones who want to make war on all infidels. In the meantime they continue to wear us down with cheap terrorist attacks whenever they can. Eventually they hope to exhaust us, bankrupt us, infiltrate us, and bring us down. Many laugh at their plans and call them a non-existential threat. Well, they’ve been attacking us for 46 years (since 1979) and they have grown stronger over that period, while we have no idea how to defend ourselves much les defeat the enemy.

    The answer, it seems to me is that you outlaw the Salafi/Wahhabi theology in the U.S. as being a threat to our nation, government, and way of life. You also recognize that there are Muslims here and elsewhere who want the reform of Islam. You encourage them because what they do is very hard and dangerous. Without encouragement, they will probably fail. And, unless Islam reforms, the eventual outcome may well be a bloody conflict that will make WWII in the Pacific seem like a romp in the park. And there will be no assurance we will come out on top. It is truly an existential threat.

    There is a Muslim reform movement in this country:
    http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7009/muslim-reform-movement
    They need encouragement because the Salafi/Wahhabi movement embodied in CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all imams financed by Saudi money will work hard to sabotage this effort by Muslims who want to combat the violent, intolerant, expansive version of Islam being pushed by the Salafi/Wahhabi believers.
    It’s a lot better to encourage peaceful change than to stumble down the path that leads eventually to enormous bloodshed and destruction.

  57. I know (personally) enough about Islamic moderates to know that they are, have been, and can be rational citizens (and will self-correct their religion’s inherent excesses).

    &&&

    You are fooling yourself. Reasonable Muslims are, de facto, apostates.

    The VAST bulk of the early arrivals from the ummah were FLEEING Islam.

    They were apostates who had no intention of carrying on the bad work.

    Since their status would harm the entire extended family, they ALWAYS made the motions.

    Lapsed Muslims are, by Islamic definition, apostates — no ifs ands or buts.

    A Muslim not only can’t leave the ‘body’ he can’t stop chanting the jibber jabber. The latter being a pretty good description of what Arabic sounds like to non-native speakers.

    Unlike Latin — of the Catholic mass — Arabic is wholly alien to most of the Muslims as a spoken tongue.

    ( Pakistan
    ( Bangladesh
    ( Philippines
    ( India
    ( Indonesia — most Muslims deem Indonesia fake Islam
    ( Afghanistan — dittos Indonesia

    [ OBL was actually deemed a PITA zealot by the Aghans. ]

    And so forth.

    Only True Believers go the extra mile to learn what the jibberish means.

    BTW, the actual (original) Koranic script is NOT modern Arabic.

    So, the Koran has to be translated into modern Arabic even for Arabs. (*!!!*)

    I’ve long held that Mohammed’s ancestors migrated down from Petra. The very script used in the oldest texts uses ‘lost letters’ that hail from the north. This link is so strong that many assumed that Mohammed spent a lot of time up north. (Petra)

    It never occurred to Western scholars that the ENTIRE population of Petra — then living — had to move — an exodus — to the Hajiz. For the rains stopped coming for about four years straight.

    This world wide calamity explains the dire recordings from Constantinople and Asia — and the end of Indo American culture 536-539AE — just Poof — it was gone.

    Yes, the brainiacs have yet to put two + two + two + two together.

    Contemporary frescoes show TOTAL crop failure — the whole world as a death camp.

    This was also the time that Sweden’s biggest lake froze over. Beowulf dates from this exact trauma.

    This staggering population collapse was the Black Death before the Black Death. It was MUCH worse than the Black Death. It wiped out entire cultures — and had everyone running to the sea to eat.

    In extremis, the ocean provides.

    The connection to Christ and his fisher-folk must be obvious.

    Such traumas had to litter our ancient past.

    Hence the scribblings about the “end of days.”

    Such missives aren’t predictions — they are legacies.

  58. You’re using a modern interpretation of “Religion”. Human sacrifice, people burning children to death, suicide, torture, and shrine prostitution have all been forms of religious worship.

    Religion is any systemic belief in a nature beyond the obvious(a super-nature), accompanied by a moral code.

    People who say Militant Islam is “not a religion” are trying to pull a PR job – by shamming terrorists they can make them conform. Which is ridiculous.

  59. davisbr Says at 9:46 pm:

    “As regards “fundamentalist” creeds (and hermeneutics).

    There are fundamentalist groups (indeed, Christian sects with some having membership numbered in the millions) that subscribe to the doctrines of biblical inerrancy and/or biblical infallibility.”

    Some Fundamentalists may in theory believe that some parts of the Bible was dictated by God word for word except that much of the Bible contains stories which convey conversations between people which of course wouldn’t be God’s words at all. It is a rare fundamentalist who doesn’t know that the Bible has been copied many times over with numerous copying errors. In other words Fundamentalists who believe in verbal inspiration believe that the original autographs which no longer exist were infallible. Since Fundamentalists usually use a translation that further adds distance between them and the original autographs. Most Fundamentalists adhere to either Covenant theology or Dispensationalism both of which allow them to sequester large portions of the Bible as not applicable to us in our time. For these reasons, among others, fundamentalists who talk about Biblical inerrancy usually mean that the message in the Bible when properly interpreted is inerrant not that they have access to God’s exact words. Fundamentalists talk about “the Word of God” but they are generally sophisticated enough to know that their English translation (or the Bible in any other modern vernacular) is not literally the very words spoken by God. They recognize that it is the thoughts that count not the exact words.

  60. blert Says

    So, the Koran has to be translated into modern Arabic even for Arabs. (*!!!*)

    Some spreads false words and statement just like the above.

    Its so bazaar and funny some make themselves very claver and knowledgable about islam specifically the arabic language putting stupid and rubbish far from reality statements

  61. Jj
    The Salafi/Wahhabis are at war with us. Our C-in-C is treating their violence against us as a law enforcement problem

    But those The Salafi/Wahhabis are very close friend to you?

    Its a puzzle you figure out

  62. Japan Says at 2:27 am
    “Jj
    The Salafi/Wahhabis are at war with us. Our C-in-C is treating their violence against us as a law enforcement problem

    But those The Salafi/Wahhabis are very close friend to you?

    Its a puzzle you figure out”

    Japan, what is your point? Are you denying that the Wahhabists are at war with us?

  63. VL Says:
    December 14th, 2015 at 12:50 am

    Religion is any systemic belief in a nature beyond the obvious(a super-nature), accompanied by a moral code.

    People who say Militant Islam is “not a religion” are trying to pull a PR job — by shamming terrorists they can make them conform. Which is ridiculous.

    &&&

    You are off on an entirely incorrect tangent.

    The thesis is that Islam is NOT to receive 1st Amendment protections as a religion as it really is BARBARISM.

    It’s Barbarism with Mohammed’s sanction.

    This obvious reality would be made plain when you chat it up with EX-Muslims.

    Go to

    faithfreedom.org

    The posters do so at the hazard of their lives, for anyone discovered would be assassinated by Muslims.

    Yes, there are fatwas aplenty on Al Sina.

    ” Dispelling the ‘Few Extremists’ Myth — the Muslim World Is Overcome with Hate [ it seethes with hatred — barbarism ]

    “By David French It is simply false to declare that jihadists represent the “tiny few extremists” who sully the reputation of an otherwise peace-loving and tolerant Muslim faith. In reality,…

    Today’s leading article. ^^^^^

    ( Barbarism is a reference towards bearded heathens — So it would appear that the Greeks knew of our Arab brothers two millennia ago. )

    As previously argued — Islam needs to be explicitly called out and excluded from Constitutional protection — AND explicitly declaimed as flat out prohibited.

    Functionally the Islamic creed is anti-Constitutional barbarism.

    The WHOLE purpose for fleeing Europe to establish a New World was to avoid religious persecution.

    Islam means UNIVERSAL persecution of all others.

  64. Dennis? – I provided links; pray avail yourself of the courtesy provided. I also am one of those “fundamentalists”, and have been for many decades. My expertise in that area isn’t merely opinion; I’m also a bit of a lay scholar on the subject, and have devoted no little amount of study (many years and thousands of hours) therein lol.

    —————————
    Blert? I wasn’t talking about “theoretical” moderates in the Islamic community. I was speaking from personal experience of families – and indeed, a community, primarily of Iranian ex-pats that had fled Khomeini – that my wife and I were closely involved with for several years when we lived in Sac’. We had many close friends while living there …good and gracious people, and thoroughly “Americanized” if you will.

    They would not have considered themselves – nor would I have described them – as “apostate”. They most certainly considered themselves as devout Muslims (just not traditionalists). Heck, they considered us as devout lol (i.e., Christians, of course …they would joke about our “fundamentalism” actually).

    …just sayin’.

  65. Dennis,

    Do you homework to know the answer
    Tip for you

    Early of this year marks the 70th anniversary of the beginnings of that relationship. It began when President Franklin D. Roosevelt on board the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal

  66. davisbr Says: at 4:39 am
    “Dennis? — I provided links; pray avail yourself of the courtesy provided. I also am one of those “fundamentalists”, and have been for many decades”

    What did I say that you disagree with?
    1. Are you saying that you believe that you have the exact words found in the original autographs without copyist errors? What do you do with the differences between the various manuscripts found among the Dead Sea scrolls? What about the hundreds of differences found in various Greek manuscripts such as the Codex Sinaiticus or the Codex Vaticanus vs the many versions of the Received text?
    2. Which version of the Old Testament do you follow, the Greek Septuagint which Jesus’ disciples quoted in the New Testament or the Masoretic text? You do realize that they are different don’t you?
    2. Do you think that God spoke King James English?
    3. Do you follow Dispensationalism or Covenant theology?

  67. Islam, is undeniably a religion: a fact which does not make its fundamental tenets respectable or its existence benign.

    I have not read through all of the posts, so I may repeat, but it takes very little to make a religion per se.

    We seem to have somehow come to imagine that religion necessarily, or definitionally has something to do with respectable supernatural beliefs, or a worldview informing and life-meaning value imbuing system, the validity of which, is largely taken on trust or faith.

    That latter is how people might say that Marxism has the traits of a religious belief system and then elide that into calling it a religion.

    Those who are used to thinking of religion as something largely private and spiritual would tend to deny that Islam was respectable enough to be assigned the term religion.

    But religions, “religio” are systems of moral and cultic binding, publicly practiced, and which purport to a primeval authority, which we would nowadays would call metaphysical; rooted in the ultimate reality.

    The first Christians were in fact as most here know, charged with atheism, as their abstract practices deviated so seriously from the public cultic practices of sacrifice, propitiation, and allegiance then demanded.

    Islam is a religion. It is a bad one, and one that is an enemy not only of liberty, knowledge and conscience, but ultimately of virtually all that is positive and good, natural or supernatural, either here or in a possible hereafter.

    But it is a religion; for what contemptibly little that makes it worth.

  68. Islam is a strange duck, part religion, a lot of totalitarian ideology, a lot of warrior creed.

    Andrew C. McCarthy has suggested legally defining the warrior creed and totalitarianism out of the “religion” so America can regulate it, much as was done with Nazism and Communism.

    A non-suicidal country would not have a hard time doing this. But the left is so fanatically determined to destroy America it would support any ideology no matter how self destructive.

  69. Harold Says:
    December 14th, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    Islam is a strange duck, part religion, a lot of totalitarian ideology, a lot of warrior creed.
    You think so?
    Let’s compared with this one

    Or read this

    But I do agree with Zimriel Says:
    December 13th, 2015 at 6:28 pm

    If anything it’s the western Christianities that aren’t religion anymore.

  70. The reality is Islam is both a religion, and a totalitarian political ideology like Communism or Fascism. The murderous difference in Islam is unlike other regular religions, their prophet was both the chief religious leader, and the head of state and war leader of an expansionist violent empire. If you emulate Mohammed solely as a religious leader, you can be peaceful, much like any other religion. But if you emulate Mohammed completely, and also include him as the war leader of a murderous expansive totalitarian empire, then you are a violent threat to any non Muslim, and even to other Muslims.
    In most other religions, if as a fundamentalist you more closely emulate the ideal, like Jesus or Buddha, you become more peaceful. But if you are a fundamentalist in Islam, you must also emulate Mohammed as the violent vicious war leader. Thus unlike other fundamentalists, Muslim fundamentalists cannot live peacefully with others. Only those Muslims who ignore the Mohammed as war leader part of the Koran, thus only embracing part of the religion, not all of it, can live in peace with others.

  71. richard40,
    Its not uncommon, let read this:

    David Ben-Gurion, born David Green in Russia, was Israel’s George Washington and first Prime Minister. He engaged in acts of terrorism, such as the Semiramis Hotel massacre. On January 5, 1948, he and other Haganah leaders blew up the Jerusalem-based hotel, killing 20 and wounding 17. Ben-Gurion was also involved in the King David Hotel bombing (91 deaths). But far worse, Ben-Gurion presided over the deliberate ethnic cleansing of around 750,000 Palestinian Arabs, and the destruction of hundreds of their villages. It is impossible to carry out large-scale ethnic cleansing without killing innocent women and children, so Ben-Gurion was guilty of crimes against peace and humanity. Here is an excerpt from Yitzhak Rabin’s memoirs about Ben Gurion: “We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. [Yigal] Allon repeated his question, ‘What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘Drive them out!’” (Yitzhak Rabin’s memoirs, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979; Rabin’s description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet).

  72. Lol Dennis. Faith sometimes requires the exercise of quite a bit of compartmentalization by the believer/practitioner to avoid the cognitive dissonance of the point you seem to be trying to make.

    The point is that for fundamentalists, the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility serve as explanation of why archeological findings aren’t necessarily pertinent to the practice of their faith.

    More directly to your point, the differences in the manuscripts and codicils are rather less dramatic than you seem to imply especially in regard to the doctrinal issues.

  73. Dead thread, but Legal Insurrection just posted First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people which I take to mean, “First, we’re going to kill the Jews, then the Christians”. The article contains some important quotations from Bernard Lewis’ article in the Jan. 1976 issue of Commentary Magazine (paywalled) The Return of Islam. The money quote:

    “This recurring unwillingness to recognize the nature of Islam or even the fact of Islam as an independent, different, and autonomous religious phenomenon persists and recurs from medieval to modern times….Modern Western man, being unable for the most part to assign a dominant and central place to religion in his own affairs, found himself unable to conceive that any other peoples in any other place could have done so, and was therefore impelled to devise other explanations of what seemed to him only superficially religious phenomena….

    To the modern Western mind, it is not conceivable that men would fight and die in such numbers over mere differences of religion; there have to be some other “genuine” reasons underneath the religious veil….This is reflected in the present inability, political, journalistic, and scholarly alike, to recognize the importance of the factor of religion in the current affairs of the Muslim world and in the consequent recourse to the language of left-wing and right-wing, progressive and conservative, and the rest of the Western terminology…. “

    It might be worth the $30/yr. to subscribe.

  74. I was mistaken about the paywall. My NoScript was blocking the rest of the article.

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