Moderate followers make moderate religions

Submitted by Alexandros (United Kingdom), Apr 1, 2014 at 08:27

Looking back in history, i think that the empirical analysis shows that moderate followers transform fanatic religions into moderate ones. So in our case we can't expect a moderate Islam to make moderate Muslims, but rather moderate Muslims to make a moderate Islam. it is not only Islam, it is all three monotheistic religions that work in the same way, in Christianity, people changed their opinions for life and existence and religion had to adjust, in Judaism again the moderate Jews differentiated the way they see life, even though the fanatic religious jews still exist, dressed up in their peculiar clothes and doing their thing.

The difference of Islam is that Islam is a system of governance in it's core, while the other two aren't, so this makes very hard the separation of state from religion. In Europe people earned democracy, because the state was successfully separated from the church. It is very hard if not impossible to do the same with Islam, but if it is ever going to be done, it the moderate Muslims who will succeed to do so. it is completely irrational and naive to believe that there are going to be moderate Islamic priests who are willingly going to drop their power in favour of a system that is going to reduce their power! Why would they do such a thing? As for the gay marriage that is given as an example, in my opinion this is probably a different question and i am affraid that it has nothing to do with modernisation of religions but the immediate interference of the state in religious issues...which could be effectively as dangerous as the religious state!

In any case and for the islamic world the best example for analysis is Turkey! Turkey supposed to be secular, Islam was moderate. All these assumptions proved wrong, especially after the last elections. The islamic fanaticism is deeply rooted in Islamists, even the effort of the Kemalists to destroy that power was worthless and probably had the opposite effects. This suppression of the religious sentiment enpowered the Islamic religion and the uneducated and poor masses of Turkey found support in their religion and this power was exploited, but an Islamic dictator intead of a secular one.

The mentality of those people can't be changed in the same way like in European countries or in America. His enemies tried to follow the examples of such countries so to beat him and organised PSOP against him like they would do in any other state, but they didn't etimate that the criteria of the Turkish people are different, they didn't estimate that Islamists and Europeans or Americans have different priorities, criteria, opinions, mentality! That's why they failed and the conspiracy theories of Erdogan along with neo-Ottomanism, Islamism and anti-semitic sentiments prevailed against financial scandals, lack of democracy and suppression of minorities! Equality and democracy are not a part of Islam and not only that, but they are considered as the enemies of Islam and Islam is the priority!

The Question i would like to ask Doctor Pipes is why America supports blindly the fanatics of Turkey and their aggressiveness, do they really want to rise from the dead a neo_Ottoman empire, an empire of submission, an empire that will want to go nuclear and collaborate strongly with Russia?

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