Islam by any other name is anti-reason

Submitted by Edward Cline (United States), May 13, 2013 at 12:51

Andrew McCarthy, in his Family Security Matters article, "Obama's Betrayal of Islamic Democracy," remarks that it is difficult for "moderate" Muslims to "democratize" Islam: "As we have seen time and again, however, this is a very hard thing for moderates to do." McCarthy sympathizes with them.

It is hard for "moderate" Muslims to do because it would entail repudiating Islam altogether, and then they would no longer be "Muslims," moderate or otherwise. Islam is already a "democratic" system; once it attains hegemony wherever it reigns, that is pure "democracy" or majority rule in its original and un-sweetened sense. But "moderates" want their Islam and to be able to eat it, too. Is there such a thing as "moderate" Nazism, or "moderate" Communism? Or a "moderate" totalitarianism? The "extremists" of Islam despise "moderate" Muslims because they know that Islam practiced consistently, that is, root and branch, gives them political power. A "moderate" form of Islam, were such a thing even possible, would deny them that power. A "moderate" form of Islam would be an emasculated form of it and no longer "Islam." The "extremists" or "radicals" know this, if the "moderates" don't.

The problem with Islam is that it is a religion. Religion is primitive form of philosophy that explains existence and purports to give men a moral guide to living. Qua religion, it depends on faith in the existence of a supernatural being, and a form of altruism and collectivism, an altruism that is extended only to other Muslims and the collectivism of the Ummah.

Allow me to pose this question: If one removed altruism and pacifism from Christianity, could one credibly call what was left "Christianity"? One could pose the same question about Judaism or Buddhism. Christianity, as a religion, has never been "moderated"; it has only been barred from acquiring political power. All religions dispense with reason and rely on faith on the unprovable.

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