Islam meets to misguided human needs excellently.

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Oct 24, 2021 at 18:19

Dear Dr Pipes: M Tovey asks a very pertinent question: whether devotion to the Quran or the Hatred that quran projects is behind the Islamic desire for imperialism. Social behaviors do not have single causes. It is quite possible that both devotion to Quran -as devotion to a lifeless idols- and the methodology that Quran recommends play a role in the Islamic supremacism attitude. Answering M Tovey's question fully and correctly will take tens of historians working with dedication and honesty. But, it is our job as observers to generate possible hypotheses for the scholars (and hope that they work and speak honestly).

I will extend Mr Tovey's hypotheses further. It is quite possible that Islamic impudence is not entirely due to devotion toward Quran or its teaching. It might also be due to brainwashing, ignorance, or to a simple weakness of human psyche. You see, most Muslims on the planet are illiterate (in Arabic, any way). I bet that most Muslims have never studied Quran seriously and meditated on its teaching. Muslims' devotion to Quran is hardly different from, say, an idolator's devotion to his statue. (It is actually worse, but I will write about that some other time).

Moreover, there is a fundamental flaw in human psyche: we constantly need to be told that we are right. We want to be told that we are right even when -and specially when- we are actually wrong. We want to win and defeat others (many times, even when the victory is ill-gotten). Islam fulfills both these needs very well. Muslims do not mind killing others (just look at the most recent killing of a British MP in Oct 2021 or at 9/11 or the killing of the Yezidis). What can be easier than perfunctorily saying that these killings are bad and moving on with your life? Billions of Muslims do just that. And, Muslim brag about how great Muslims and Islam are 24x7. Thus, both human needs are simultaneously met by Islam. Unless you question your conscience daily, Islam is the perfect place to be!!!

So what is the remedy? Civilized societies use violence only in self defence. We need to take pledge that no one will be allowed to be killed without resistance. Britain, for example, should change its laws to allow death sentence for the killer of the British member of parliament.

Rest of the fight against Islam is intellectual. Islam has very shallow intellectual foundations. Human life and spirituality are much more complex subjects than discussing which foot should enter the bathroom all day long. The intellectual weakness of Islam must be exploited all day long.

Non-Muslims should also take blame for Islam's ascendancy. We are not teaching our kids the goodness of our thoughts. All our religions are better than Islam. I get reminded of a flight that I took out of Tel Aviv some years ago. For the first time in my life, I had some orthodox Jews as fellow passengers. I have seen Muslims praying all over the town and fighting about it. My fellow passengers in this flight were reading their scriptures constantly. They did not fight with me, called me a Kafir, demanded space from me, or announced their intentions to pray on loudspeakers. In fact, one particular gestures that these believers repeated in the flight, I inadvertently and silently adopted in my own rituals.

We need to tell Muslims that, currently, Islam is not a part of the solution. It is far from being a solution. And, we need to tell them that almost every other philosophy is better. I am doing that right now.

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