Ahmed: How to move away from religion when Islam forces itself on us? Read about the Jaipur bombings two days ago.

Submitted by Plato (India), May 15, 2008 at 11:58

Ahmed, you have a much more sophisticated and layered approach than other Muslim posters like Mansoor, who invariably end up shooting themselves in their feet.

But I see a plea under those layers for a sympathetic understanding of Islam. Understandable but not called for.

>>You seem stuck on the whole religious thing. I can yank out statements from the Bible promoting death and war, but that is not my point. My point is to try to move away from the religious debate - it is a debate anchored in absolutes -<<

If you have read the posts of Muslims on this forum you may perhaps have noticed who is hung up on religion. Just read any of Mansoor's posts to get a flavour of how hung up people like him are with Islam. I am trying to loosen the grip that Islam has on their minds. I am non-religious.

>>Even raised as a muslim I don't believe in this concept of Allah any more than I believe in the Christian God or the veda gods but to debate the superiority of one over the other is a huge waste of time.<<

Debating the superiority of one religion over the other, I agree, is an absolute waste of time as religion is a useless mental appendage of our remote past like the appendix.

>> My disagreement with Mr. Pipes is he somehow believes an imposed infusion of western values will somehow alleviate the situation in the middle east - you on the other hand seem to believe the death of Islam will alleviate the situation.<<

Islam has meant the death many religions and cultures. The Zoroastrian in Iran, the Buddhist in Afghanistan, the Malay, the Hindu culture of Indonesia. It is still bent on the death of all other religions. Islam makes its intentions clear in the Koran.

3;85 If anyone desire a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him….

61:9 He it is who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion however much idolators may be averse.

9:29… fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day…..until they pay the jizia with willing submission.

The salafis/wahabis proclaim this mission in their preachings.

It is these verses, such preaching, and people like Mansoor that will mean the death of Islam, not my postings on forums such as Danielpipes. I do not wish the death of any religion, I wish religions like Islam will find a way to overcome the hate that is found in their scriptures. Many have, Islam is lagging behind in this regard.

>>I do not believe either of these would make a bit of difference - the death of Islam would lead to a profound sense of loss in the region far greater than the sense of loss already felt by these people as the faith of their fathers is ricdiculed as backward, barbaric and violent.<<

The death of Islam is not the way forward. The dilution, when and if Muslims crank up the courage to do it, of the call to kill (9:111), the abuse of unbelievers, the curses heaped on Jews and hypocrites will be sufficient to ensure Islam's survival. Muslims must come to terms with the fact that because of some verses their religion will be seen as backward, barbaric and violent.

>>Just as in the old Holy Roman Empire christianity was the state, was the culture, for gods sake here in the US our own christian fundamentalists think christianity should be the state and we should all bow down.<<

Where is the Holy Roman Empire now? How many avowedly Christian countries are there today? How many Hindu countries are there today. The last of them Nepal, will soon become a secular democracy. All these countries self-consciously overthrew the religious underpinnings of their societies to give equal rights to their citizens. Islam abhors the unbeliever.

What chance of a Christian fundamentalist takeover of any country today. Muslim countries which were once fairly secular are slowly falling under the Islamist influence.

>>Islam and politics are locked together in an eternal dance the question is what tune do we want to hear played.<<

Yes it is an eternal dance because the Koran is the constitution all Muslims swear by have perforce to follow.

>>Religion as an absolute is irrational so it is impossible to have a rationale conversation.<<

True. The religions of the pagans are also as irrational, if not more than that of the monotheists but you can still carry on a rational conversation with a polytheist. Try it.

>> I am not here defending any one portion of Islam or any one persons right to kill another - but I am saying that rational conversations, a mitagation of the problems between the muslim world and the west is not even slightly conceivable unless the cultural imperatives of these people are respected-whether they respect ours or not is irrelavent - for want of a better analogy "we are suppose to be the grownups here" we need to start acting it.<<

To continue with the analogy, grownups do sharply rap the knuckles of their obnoxious or violent teens. Your teen comes home drunk or high on drugs i.e. religion and insists on turning your life upside down (implement the sharia).

What cultural imperatives are we supposed to respect? The burqa, demeaning of women by considering them second grade citizens, chopping off hands for minor thefts. You expect us to respect the demands of these mindless teenagers? When such are the demands we need to act to shake them out of their religion induced mindset.

>>These people are no different than you or I - Islam does not reach out for them - Islam is a thing an idea - they reach out for Islam as a means to fight back -<<

They are different, Mr. Ahamed, they have Islam which explicitly allows them to use violence to fight mindlessly to appease a violent deity, not to fight back as you claim. Fight back at what?

>> the west is richer, more powerful, a greater military, the arab has been as Lawrence of Arabia was quoted as saying, reduced to a "little people, a barbaric people". <<

Who reduced them to that state? The Ottomans ruled the world for quite some time. The west grew richer, more powerful and the Arabs instead of competing with them reverted to becoming a little, barbaric people and grew more and more jealous of the west. Other people in the same boat instead of growing resentful of the west competed, imitated and pulled themselves up. Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and now China and India. There is no whining from these countries that they were beaten down by the west. Even India which suffered under a thousand years of Muslim rule and a hundred years of the British have shrugged these off as the workings of history and are neither resentful at what the Muslims did in India nor jealous of the British for growing rich on their resources.

>>When you are that you turn to the thing that says you are a "chosen people".<<

When they admit they have not been chosen above the rest of humanity, will be the day they are emancipated and be at peace with the rest of the world.

>>I know the history of my religion - you should study its underpinnings more- before the prophet the arab was a little people in the desert worsipping gods long ago rejected by their cousins the jews, pressured by the new christian faith <<

If you know the history of your religion you must know that from a little people the prophet converted the Arabs to an imperialistic race which raced across the better part of the then existing civilizations, destroying and trampling underfoot many cultures and people. This religion taught the concept of jahiliya i.e. contempt for their own forefathers' culture and civilization.

This contempt was carried forward into their contempt for other people's cultures when they succeeded in invading what were unarguably more civilized people. Instead of trying to reform what they had, Islam taught the Arabs to jettison everything before Islam, good or bad.

- these historical truths still echo in the arab world and we ignore that culture at our own peril.

Wise words. We ignore Islam and its preaching at our peril.

Regards

Plato

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