Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

We need skilled wall posters on our side right now.

As much as I enjoy wallposting, I don't feel that either side really lines up with my beliefs at the moment. May I make a suggestion, though? Take Lisa's objections to supposed calls for violence in those passages and draw parallels with similar passages in the Bible. As she herself has made clear, if one religion is to be held up to a lens in which it appears violent, then that same lens could be used to justify calling all Abrahamic religions violent.

…or wait for Kourosh Kabir to find this thread. 'Tis his area of expertise, after all.

@Particle mare

I already wrote about it but Lombardo will not listen.

the Quran makes the distinction but doesn’t give them a name, only a higher and lower rank

You've been sourcing your material so far, not sure why you didn't source this one. I think this is the most important aspect of why you believe the standard belief to be terrorism and the "flawed" belief to be anything else.

The lower rank are what we call “Westernized Muslims” so the term I expected everyone to be most familiar with is the one I used.

Erin already made this point, so I'll post it again

"The problem is that you’re ‘shifting the goalposts’ so that no peaceful Muslims qualify as True Muslims in your eyes. And because all the peaceful ones aren’t really Muslims, it leaves only violent ones left to be the “real Muslims.”

Also, you can’t change the definition of Muslim to suit your agenda. A Muslim is someone who follows Islam and personally identifies as Muslim, whether they believe their books are the literal word of God or allegories is irrelevant."

Islam, like any other religion, is a belief. Not measurable by empirical data, but by interpretation. The most basic understanding of what it means to be Muslim is covered by the five pillars. And even then, depending on what sect of Islam you're in, there's the Ancillaries of the Faith (among others) that add additional rules or interpret the current rules in a similar but different way.

The fourth is jihad against oppressors and innovators (the West),

Oppression can come from anyone / anywhere. If you want to interpret "The West" as the singular, be-all oppression factory, sure. But don't pretend to claim this as fact. There's no mention of The West in the source material, that's only your understanding of it.

I've noticed we've mostly come to agree on each other's interpretation. Still not sure where this doom and gloom is coming from tough.

- May Allah destroy the polytheist idolaters, how are they so dumb? There is only one God, Allah is the God that rules over all religion, even though the Jews and Christians don’t like it.

Religion X says Religion Y is wrong. Believing in Religion Y is blasphemy because they don't do what Religion X says. That's a given. Don't Christians believe that everyone who doesn't accept Jesus as their savior gets sent to hell?

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. – Matthew 25:41-43

To each his own.

We could also mention the use of belief / separation of one belief from another in the media. In The Divine Comedy (it's not religious text, I know), it depicts the prophet in the 8th circle of hell for… not believing in Christianity. For dividing Christianity by creating another belief. It's kind of the bread and butter of faith, you know. "Don't listen to that book, listen to this one".

- Blatant command to give up your life physically fighting for Allah. Debatable reference to suicide bombing. When you are told to go forth in the cause of Allah you are too attached to the earth. You’re too afraid to die. Why are you more satisfied with your life than with what awaits you in Heaven? If you don’t, you’re going to be killed and replaced with someone else anyway, and Allah don’t have a single fuck to spare.

"go forth in the cause of Allah" can mean anything. Charity, prayer, fasting (this sounds familiar…) and yes, war. I'll have to partly refer you to the fist wall of text, regarding the war between the polytheists and the Muslims during the revelation period.

"if they were to resume hostilities, then the Muslims would fight back until victorious."

Although I'm sure you'll ignore this as you don't believe that "True Muslims" are that reasonable.

- Blatant command to give up your life physically fighting for Allah. Debatable reference to suicide bombing.

Not really. There's no mention of killing anyone, let alone yourself. The attachment to this world refers to earthly objects/desires that you have. Land, money, power, fame, a signed copy of The Room by Tommy Wiseau. You can't really bring this stuff over to the afterlife, and considering the afterlife is eternal, you may as well focus on getting somewhere nice by doing good deeds instead of amassing physical riches.

and Allah don’t have a single fuck to spare.

He seems to have a "Help me to help you" or "Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" kind of attitude to this. Do religious favours to get religious rewards.

- In these verses Allah specifically condemns “those who remain at home” to eternal Hell, rejecting them from the reward of Heaven and true Muslims. This is exactly what I mean by “Western Muslims aren’t real Muslims to the fundamentalists”.

You made the distinction of fundamentalists and not True Muslims. Fundamentalists do not encompass the entirety of Islam, only an unfortunately vocal group that use a religious book to start wars they can't win. And yes, sitting at home, doing nothing, contributing nothing to society, is a big no-no. If for example a person is incapable of leaving their home (parenting, sickness, etc) then they're covered by the "Only God can judge me" section (I'm sure we'll get to that part at some point so I won't source it)

"Go forth, whether light or heavy, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the cause of Allah . That is better for you, if you only knew."

Dedicate your time and money towards doing good things throughout your life that God would approve of.

" “If we were able, we would have gone forth with you,” destroying themselves [through false oaths], and Allah knows that indeed they are liars."

Anyone who pretends to be a part of the religion or makes an excuse that they can't join because it's too hard aren't worth your time. They lie to you and to themselves. They only act like they care because they want to be given a reward, but don't want to work for it. This specifically talks about those who act like they want to join the faith, not about people who don't believe whatsoever.

The last paragraph just reinforces "Hypocrites are bad and will cause you and themselves harm". If they tried, they would not be so heavily judged, etc.

- Literal ancient Islamic-modern English translation of the first paragraph: “haha good thing Allah hasn’t revealed anything about hypocrites not that we’re one of those” “Joke all you want but Allah will expose your fear and issue a new revelation and you’ll be sorry” “dude we were just kidding chill out” “you should be ashamed of yourselves”.

Yep. Even if one sin is not so bad, there are other things you've done that may be. Always look at trying to improve on yourself by getting God's seal of approval and don't take your beliefs to be a joke (or else). Religion is serious business.

- Hypocrites are just as bad as disbelievers

It doesn't say that. it says "you have disbelieved after your belief", meaning you have revoked your faith by saying / doing something stupid, like mocking your own belief and taking your actions for granted, and you'll be punished for it. That's considered worse than not believing to begin with. Still, everyone gets punished for something or another regardless of faith, doing good deeds just soften it. Going to heaven or hell is at God's discretion.

- (remember when I said the fundamentalists don’t believe that the hypocrite Western Muslims are truly any more Muslim than I am?) and they will burn together in the eternal fires of Hell.

Fundamentalists don't believe in many things, extremists don't believe in many things. In the end, anyone who has sinned, regardless of belief, goes to hell. Only those who seek mercy / forgiveness / justice / etc go to heaven at God's discretion. Same thing many other religions say.

Again, still not sure where this doom and gloom is coming from.

Shame on those who use wikiislam as an intellectual resource.

I'm not using any source other than the Qur'an site Lisa is using. I'm already late for work as it is I don't need another time sink.

So what is your opinion of the brutal actions of christians in the past?

Yall people need to understand
that every religion is fucked up someway
so all we gotta do
is cut the evil from the root
and by that i mean we gotta get "rid" of those "undesirable" people
BUT YALL KEEP SAYING RIGHT OF FREEDOM OR SOME SHIT EVEN IF THAT MEANS THAT WE LET THOSE SONS OF BITCHES SPEWING RACIST BULLSHIT SURE YOU WANT THEM TO STOP BUT WHEN SOMEONE SAYS "AREST THEM" YALL GON SAY THAT WE ARE OPRESING THEM OR SUM SHIT

so yeah

Referring to both the roman-byzantine empire and the english crusaders.

wtf?
how petty of you.

I literally just walked through my front door. Even though I can comment from my phone easily at work, I can't debate Islam. I'll edit this in two minutes, Allah forbid I get to eat lunch or piss first.

First of all, I think we need to re-address the history of the Abrahamic religions if you're all still asking me what I think of ancient Christian brutality. All of the Abrahamic religions are fundamentally extreme and violent. Judaism, Christianity, Islam; all of their texts are full of violence because they're all the gd same text, for what feels like the hundredth time. The Hebrew Bible is the base of all Abrahamic religion.

Even though they are all historically extreme and violent, as society evolved so did the meaning of "Christian" and "Jew". To the average practitioner, the texts are no longer viewed literally, the Church allowed regular Christians to base their faith on their own interpretations of God with loose everyday guidelines; i.e. even if you support gay marriage, your thoughts do not instantly damn you to Hell.

The meaning of "Muslim", however, is just as historically stringent as it has ever been. Islamic society didn't evolve with the time, it didn't loosen its expectations on the average practitioner, they've just barely begun splitting into denominations (which again, is fundamentally incorrect according to Islam itself, Islam is the only true religion, disagreeing with that statement means death, editing the religion to suit the interpretation of your new Islamic denomination means death).

You all keep saying I'm moving the goal posts around to make sure there can't be any peaceful Muslims, Islam itself says there can not be any peaceful Muslims. You mention the six pillars, well one of those is absolute obedience to and belief in what Muhammad said and did, another is absolute obedience to and belief in the Quran as the whole Holy truth, not edited or missing information like the Christian and Hebrew Bibles. Muhammad is the reason for Islam's turn towards drastically more aggressive violence and failure to modernize. Sharia Law is based on examples of Muhammad's life, actions, and words from the Hadith as well as actions and words from the Quran, which Allah revealed solely to Muhammad and the Arab people (who were to supersede the Israelites as God's chosen people, as supposedly told by Jesus, which is why the Muslim's consider Christianity's Bible incomplete and altered, because it says Christians are God's new chosen people over the Israelites).

In slightly more modern history (1600s and beyond), Islam jurists set out to create a definitive manual on Islamic Law for good. In the early 1600s, distinguished jurist Al-Amili wrote "Jihad against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam, or pay the poll-tax [Jizya] per Koran 9:29”. These jurists also sanctioned the killing of non-combatants during jihad campaigns. Allameh Helli insisted that if defeating the enemy meant killing women and children, then it must be done. Ali Tabatabai invoked Muhammad's campaign against Banu Nadir and siege of Taif to justify the slaughters.

Iran's constitution (and other Islamic countries' government declarations) still cites aggressive jihad tactics:

{ In the formation and equipping of the country’s defense forces, due attention must be paid to faith and ideology as the basic criteria. Accordingly, the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are to be organized in conformity with this goal, and they will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of Allah’s law throughout the world. }

Now, if we are all finally clear on the inherent difference between ancient Christian/Jewish war waging and modern Islamic terrorism, if someone could post below me so I don't double post (THE HORROR, apparently), I will get back to addressing the verses of chapter 9.

I'm not well known in the islam but I think you make the same mistake that ISIS and other extremists do and it's that you are interpreting the islam literally. In this age the modern point of view of any religion is to interpret their sacred text based in common sense and well being of the people.

Still I feel that the muslim world has been slow into adopting a more modern point of view, also keep in mind that Arab/African countries are in deep economical/social/political crisis, throwing religion as a scapegoat is quite convenient.

it’s that you are interpreting the islam literally.
Could you explain to me why it should not be interpreted literally? Seriously, what other way is there to interpret it?

Dear God, thank you, finally, I have so many things to say, is this no double posting shit legitimately a rule?

{ In this age the modern point of view of any religion is to interpret their sacred text based in common sense and well being of the people. }

Except Islam's historians and teachers (mostly the descendants of the Prophets) declared anyone who considers Sharia/Islamic Law not obligatory is a Ghulat, a Muslim who holds deviant beliefs who can not be considered a true Muslim. Many people don't understand how a fundamentalist group like ISIS could justify killing other Muslims, and they accuse me of NTS when I tell them that the fundamentalists don't consider peaceful Muslims to be real Muslims, but it's written right there in the Law. "True" Muslims are even forbidden from getting married to Ghulat (and there's a few other terms for different minority Muslim groups who aren't considered real Muslims by Islam but I'd have to look up their names).

The economics are in play far more significantly in Africa than the Middle East. Many traditional African cultures have been fully converted to Islam because they're promised better lives. The Middle East is simply continuing the same war they've always been waging.

~RESUMING VERSES~

I addressed the "no true Muslim" thing in my re:history post so I'm skipping it.

{ If you want to interpret “The West” as the singular, be-all oppression factory, sure. }

I intended that to be one example of many possible sources of oppression and innovation, but the reason that phrase is so commonly used as an example is because the fundamentalist terrorists call "the West" the innovators in their videos. When I need an example I go for what I think the most amount people will be able to most quickly and easily understand, it never infers a singular, be-all interpretation, just for future reference.

{ Don’t Christians believe that everyone who doesn’t accept Jesus as their savior gets sent to hell? }

I'm really only citing the obvious, common sense ones because they're needed for reference for a following verse. You (at least you seem to) and me have a better than average familiarity with these texts, some of the people who might be following along do not. We're gonna agree on all of these.

{ “go forth in the cause of Allah” can mean anything. }

"To strive in the cause of Allah" in Arabic is "al-jihad fi sabil Allah". It refers to any of the four main types of jihad (hand, heart, tongue, sword) which is usually specified in further verses. The verse in this case, 9:38, is literally asking if believers are willing to go all the way to death. Not directly commanding armed action, in this verse, but implying that a believer must always be ready to act and die if that time should come. The next verse:

{ If you do not go forth, He will punish you with a painful punishment and will replace you with another people, and you will not harm Him at all. And Allah is over all things competent. }

means if you're not fully prepared when the time comes, Allah will not hesitate to find you incompetent and disgraceful and "replace" you with someone more dependable.

{ Fundamentalists do not encompass the entirety of Islam }

According to Islam, they do. See: post this is edited on to.

{ Dedicate your time and money towards doing good things throughout your life that God would approve of. }

No, look at the verse again. { Go forth, whether light or heavy, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the cause of Allah } It says "al-jihad fi sabil Allah" again. It's not talking about merely doing things Allah approves of, it's talking about dedicating your money and lives to jihad, passive and/or aggressive, but active jihad, specifically spreading the message and truth of Islam to as many people as possible (can I reinforce one more time that jihad is not one word with one solely violent meaning, which is definitely how our mainstream media makes it out).

The last bits we seem to agree on.

{ Again, still not sure where this doom and gloom is coming from. }

From understanding, generally.

Squidward is kinda my spirit animal.

Why it should? Christianity have some texts that are as equally extreme as Islam but it no longer takes that things literally. As I said a modern religion interpret their sacred texts to fit a modern society.

{Except Islam’s historians and teachers (mostly the descendants of the Prophets) declared anyone who considers Sharia/Islamic Law not obligatory is a Ghulat, a Muslim who holds deviant beliefs who can not be considered a true Muslim.}

Why these people are absolute truth? I doesn't even make sense that the peaceful muslim which it is the majority is not a muslim, it's like saying that the true christians are only the Westboro Baptist Church members and anything else is a false christian.

{ Why these people are absolute truth? }

Adherence to Sharia (the law) is required for a Muslim to be a Muslim, that's what was decided hundreds of years ago and hasn't changed since. It can change, just like Christianity and Judaism, but the majority of people in the Middle East don't think there's anything wrong with how they're doing things now. Which leads me back to the actual question put forth by my OP: does the rest of the world have the right to step in even though they're going about things their own way and it's working for them according to most of them. Do we have an obligation to the oppressed minority to revolutionize their religion?

Lisa, what I'm really interested in is what you think we need to do about it. Do we need a Final Solution or will a killzone around the entire Middle East/Africa be enough to contain the degenerates?

That's the question I asked. What do you guys think we should do? I'm not the only one with an opinion.

I think we (I'm talking about the Western world here) reject the double standard and step in to enforce basic human rights. We enforce global sanctions. We stop buying Middle Eastern oil. We send these countries spiraling, then we step in and clean it up. We assist them in setting up a government that complies with human rights, we do not let them include anything in violation, no matter how deeply ingrained in their culture and religion it may be. We modernize Islam. Then we stick around and help them figure it all out for awhile. We'll need to remove certain political and religious figures from the scene completely, without doubt, but what's a handful of old fundamentalists in comparison to all the lives cut short daily in the name of fundamentalist Islam?

But Lisa, Islam has always been wrong.

So imperialism then? The only times the US has been successful in building a new government in a foreign country based on it's ideals have been long occupations after a war (Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, Iraq has become somewhat destabilized due to ISIS). Really the only way to forcibly change their government is by taking over the country and occupying it, which would cost a ridiculous amount of money and lives. As for the sanctions and halting of trade with the middle east, how well has that worked with Cuba? It would probably just cripple it's economies and lead to more fundamentalism and tyranical government.

Side note: I am a big fan of yours, so glad you joined the site.

That is literally one of the most naive and unrealistic suggestions I have ever heard.
Have you been paying attention to what the west (especially the United States) has been doing to the Middle East for (at least) the past half-century? We've sent these counties spiraling, we've installed pro-Western governments, we've stuck around in Iraq and Afghanistan to try to "help them figure it all out." Look at what that's accomplished.
And you're proposing we keep doing that? There is no indication that doing it again will have any better of an outcome. Ultimately, you have to have the support of the people being governed, and forcing them to change their culture and religion (no matter how barbaric and backwards it is or may seem) is one of the worst ways to accomplish that. What we've done so far has only created more hate and resentment toward the West, and consequently, more terrorism.
It is absolutely true that everyone deserves their basic human rights, and that institutions that perpetuate such inequality need to change or disappear. Only when the people themselves have had enough and choose to change will anything get better. But that change, in individuals' ideologies and in the system itself, is not something that can be accomplished by force.
I know that you're a good person and you truely want what's best for these people, but your suggestion is not at all tenable in the real world and would likely only make the problem worse.

@Lisa

Dear God, thank you, finally, I have so many things to say, is this no double posting shit legitimately a rule?

For the record, if you reach the character limit on your post, you are allowed to continue from a second post underneath it.

Double posting is not permitted when you could have easily used only one post. But if one post literally could not contain everything, then you wont be penalized

Yes it is a rule we require to keep discussions tidy and easy to read for other viewers. Without it, people take up pages for themselves

@lisa's first wall post

All of the Abrahamic religions are fundamentally extreme and violent.

Even though they are all historically extreme and violent

Here is the problem. You claim big things but you don't provide evidence to support your claims. I would like some evidence please.

The meaning of “Muslim”, however, is just as historically stringent as it has ever been. Islamic society didn’t evolve with the time, it didn’t loosen its expectations on the average practitioner, they’ve just barely begun splitting into denominations

No, the definition of a muslim is someone who states the shahada. How good they are staying muslim by faith is a completely different matter. If a muslim sins, he is still a muslim but now he is a sinful person, ok?

Ofcourse there was a very good reason why it did not change. The muslim must follow everything the Qur'an allows and restricts with complete understanding of every verse. Muslims remain objective because they are people who are very 'by the book' and in this case the book is the Qur'an. If a person changes his moral code it would imply that his previous moral code had imperfections, so if his moral code changes all the time then that means his rationale will never be perfect.

(your longest paragraph)

LISA LOMBARDO CHANNELS WAHABISM

When one understands a verse one must also understand the historical context behind the verses. The 109 verses of the sword in the Qur'an was written in the context of war between the meccans and the muslims. The Meccans were barbarians, plain and simple. So the muslims would be on the side on any sane individual.

The problem with wahabism is that they take hadith literature literally and Qur'an verses out of context. Hadiths can come from very unreliable sources, either the writer is biased or he acquired information from unreliable sources. For example the hadith passage where it says you will get an obligatory 72 virgins in heaven is from a terribly sourced hadith. So if the Qur'an contradicts a hadith it in fact invalidates that hadith and the Qur'an wins.

I can't refute every single one of those verses. When you see these verses try and imagine how the particular verse can fit the muslim and meccan wars description. See if a verse fits this description so here is an example:

Quran (2:191-193) – "And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing…
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)"

It basically says "they fight you! Well you fight them back! But if they retreat then have mercy upon them.". Now apply this rule of thumb to every single verse of the sword.

These jurists also sanctioned the killing of non-combatants during jihad campaigns.

if defeating the enemy meant killing women and children, then it must be done.

Iran is a shi'ite state. To comment on whether it is a proper government of islam is a completely different debate.

That post was a brief summary of the documented history we can attribute to the Abrahamic religions. To source each thing I said would be equivalent to posting a religious studies textbook, which I could do, if you want to start studying. See, that's another thing, I've been in religious studies since the beginning of high school (not Catholic school bible study, religious studies, as in the religions of the world). I was going to major in religious studies in college. Some things I take for common knowledge you might not, but it isn't on me to sit you down and teach you what I've learned in 8+ years of study. You are on the internet, look up the claims you doubt and learn about them. If you ask for a specific claim I can actually source, I will, but I'm not going to go back and source that post line by line.

As far as "sourcing" that they're all extreme and violent, hello, have you read the text? The Hebrew Bible, which all three religions are based from, is full of violence. It's only because of the additional requirements and conditions decided upon during the rabbinic era that Jews today are less stringently held to the literal text. See, where rabbis and priests modernized Judaism/Christianity into a more moderate religion, the imams of Islam reinforced fundamentalist law. You keep excusing the verses because of the various situations going on at that time in history, but you're not considering any other history past that.

I will get back to you after work, because I want to address the "what should we do" people while I have time.

{ Really the only way to forcibly change their government is by taking over the country and occupying it, which would cost a ridiculous amount of money and lives. }

Which is exactly what I said. How much money do we spend now appeasing them with half-assed enforcement? How many Middle Eastern lives are ended daily due to the fundamentalist law they're living under? How many women alone are "honor killed" every day? It's about 1,000 women per year in Pakistan alone.

How quickly we forget the sensational stories from last year.

{ On Tuesday, a pregnant 25-year-old woman was stoned to death by her family for marrying a man she loved.

The stoning took place in the middle of the day, outside a courthouse, beside a busy thoroughfare. Her husband said they’d gone to a courthouse to sign the marriage paperwork. Outside, the woman’s father, brothers and extended family waited. When the couple emerged, the family reportedly tried to snatch her, then murdered her.

“I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it,” her father told police, adding that it had been an “honor killing.” }

It's so easy to ignore these daily murders, out of sight out of mind, for us.
It's not so easy to ignore when you walk by one every day.

{ how well has that worked with Cuba }

lmao according to Obama just fine, he removed the from the list of state sponsors of terror and removed the sanctions, didn't you hear?

But in actuality, Cuba/etc what we're doing right now in all of those countries is not what I'm describing. It's half of what I'm describing. We've got the sanctions, we've got the isolation, but nobody stepped in to guide them, nobody stepped in to make the changes happen. We simply imposed restrictions on a regime of people who had/have no intentions of changing and stepped back to see what would happen.

{ We’ve sent these counties spiraling, we’ve installed pro-Western governments, we’ve stuck around in Iraq and Afghanistan to try to “help them figure it all out.” Look at what that’s accomplished. }

First of all, let's consider Iraq from the viewpoint of an Iraqi:

{ I'm from Iraq – Kurdistan.

Say whatever you want but America did save us from a tyrant. The awful things Saddam did, all the people he killed and tortured.

Do you know that every time the Iraqi national football team lost a game, they would get tortured. Every single game they played, they weren't fighting for a trophy they were fighting for their lives.
His son audday Saddam hussain was a sadistic, raping drug addict who loved torturing people.
Saddam chemically bombed a Kurdish city which is called halabja. Which killed thousands and thousands of families. Two days ago it was the bombing day's anniversary. Can you imagine. we have a day where we remember how much kurd people suffered. How much innocent families suffered just because they spoke another language and had a different culture.

And it's not just kurds all sorts of Arabic Iraqis suffered by the hand of saddam's family.
No matter what you think, there's more to the story than what the media shows you.
After 11 years we are free. It's true our country isn't still back to its old glory days but at least we are not afraid to share our opinion. And we can choose our president. We don't have guards at the voting table looking at you, threatening you not to choose any one else beside "our beloved Saddam".

And honestly it's all thanks to America. If bush didn't interfere.. I wouldn't be writing this post right now on Reddit. I wouldn't have known what a un-censored Internet means. And quiet honestly I wouldn't have known half the English I do right now. }

Despite that, what we did there, and are doing elsewhere, is still only half of what I described. We are acting alone. We, the USA, are heading these operations. We have troop support from a few other countries, but do we have sanction support? Is the entire Western world taking a stand? It can't happen any other way, that's the reason we haven't seen positive results with what we're doing now. What they can no longer get from us they turn around and easily get from another country less committed to the cause. We need a global, unified effort. It's WW3 in the making, we can collectively try to control it now and limit the causalities, or we can let Iran and China and Russia lead the world into another full blown war.

{ Only when the people themselves have had enough and choose to change will anything get better.}

Which people? The people who are oppressed have had enough and do want change.
The people in charge obviously like their current arrangements.
That's why my question was "do we have an obligation to the oppressed minority to step in and revolutionize their religion?"
You, apparently, do not feel we are.
I think we absolutely are.

As I said a modern religion interpret their sacred texts to fit a modern society.
So what is the purpose of religion then?
Many say religion is a moral compass, but if you change a religious text based on society, then that implies we get out morals from society, not religion.

You keep excusing the verses because of the various situations going on at that time in history, but you’re not considering any other history past that.

This is the Texas sharpshooter fallacy because you cherry pick verses in the Qur'an while completely ignoring verses that contradict your assertions. You believe that Islam commands people to kill those on the basis they do not believe.

Surat al-baqaarah [2:256] "There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing."

This directly states that Islam should not be forced on anyone. But you have misinterpreted the verse of the sword. Because 7 verses after the verse of the sword there was this:

9:15"And if they break their oaths after their treaty and defame your religion, then fight the leaders of disbelief, for indeed, there are no oaths [sacred] to them; [fight them that] they might cease."

Breaking a treaty would imply the meccans betray the Muslims which does precisely match up with these historical events.

In conclusion the verse of the sword is really just a military commandment 1400 years ago. It has no relevance today.

But I am not done yet. Islam will never be responsible for misdeeds in the future. The Qur'an is a law book to a Muslim. If they break laws commanded by the Qur'an they would still be Muslim but now they are sinful people. So to say it is responsible for a Muslim's sin is irrational. If you are going to criticise Islam,criticise Islam by it's core. Not the actions of proclaimed Muslims.

At Eurofighter Tycoon's request, I'll jump into this argument. I've read the majority of Lombardo's posts and a few of the replies. I'd like to address a few points here.

1. The Notion that, in general, Abrahamic in religion "is inherently violent"

Simply put, this notion is false because it conflates several factors of human history and civilization and diminishes the distinctions between them. Without going into the specifics of religious sectarianism and the relationship between scripture and practice (that comes later, Dr Pavel…) I'll just take a few moments to dispute this idea.

The issue with generalizing about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in this way is that the religions have changed drastically over time along with the historical circumstances of their practitioners and their exposure to new ideas. For example, the Israelite religion before the Exodus was not Judaism: it centered on the sacrifice cult and contended hotly with local paganism. Only after Cyrus liberated the Jews (and they were exposed to the Zoroastrian concept of Dualism and Monotheism) did their religion become what we could call "Jewish" today.

When understanding historical Judaism, you can't base their whole culture off the Bible: "well the Bible says kill x for y, so they did that back then" is a flawed statement for many reasons, chief among which is that the ancient Jewish legal tradition had Rabbis learn the Torah as children then spending their adult lives debating how to implement the Torah into everyday Jewish law. Even in ancient times, there was debate among the Rabbis about which laws should be followed: Leviticus was not interpreted literally in the pre-Christian era. Thus, you need to look at the legal texts rather than the scripture of a given era to determine how the ancient Jews practiced religious law. Of course, this issue becomes infinitely more complicated after the Diaspora, when there is no longer a central authority for the Jews.

Take the same lesson and apply it to Islam. The two religions are similar insofar as there is a complex relationship between scripture and law in both of them. In Islam, this tradition is called the Hadith: it began with the sayings of the Prophet and expanded into a record of Islamic legal declarations. It is the historiography of how religion and law interacted in Islamic history; it changed as empires rose and fell and schools of thought were born and fell out of favor. Because the Hadith was not written down for the first couple centuries of Islam and afterwards, not all manuscripts survived, there is no one canonical Hadith. When Sharia Law is drawn from the Hadith, it is from many different manuscripts and studied through many different theological lenses. Consequently, there is no one Sharia Law.

Finally, to call Christianity an inherently violent religion is patently and insultingly untrue and a slander against the religion. When in Mark the soldiers arrest Jesus, a disciple draws his sword to defend the Savior, but Jesus commands him not to fight, saying that he could summon a legion of angels to save Him, but it was necessary to sacrifice Himself to repent for the sins of man. Christianity teaches humble endurance through suffering. Since Christianity, unlike Judaism and Islam, was not initially conceived of as a state religion, it was never molded to guide and defend one people: it is a universal religion, and truly a religion of peace.

You might say "but Christians believe in the Old Testament too." Portions. We believe that God guided the hands of those who wrote the Old Testament, but when Christ visited earth, the Covenant laws of the Old Testament were partially annulled: those that applied to the people of god for all time stayed, but those specific to the kingdom of Israel as a state were abolished, because the Christian Kingdom of God is universal and not bound to one state.

2. The Notion that "Islam Went Wrong' at All.

To damn an entire religion is a fatuous notion borne of ignorance, mired in ignorance, and hamstrung by ignorance. As I expressed earlier, the history of Islam is enormously complex, with many sects and theological groups emerging over time. The manuscript tradition of the Hadith and the way Islamic scholars, lawyers, and judges molded the many interpretations of Sharia Law over time mean that there is no one uniform Sharia Law, just as there is no one Islam.

Now, does Islam sanction actions of violence to protect the faith? Absolutely. So does Judaism, so does Zoroastrianism, so does Hinduism, and so do the myriad pagan faiths throughout the world. Why is this? At the most fundamental level it is because violence is unconditionally a part of the human condition. Whereas Christianity at its purest level advocates for enduring rather than suffering violence, religions like Islam that were originally state religions have always needed to factor in the defense of the people. However, and this is an essential qualifier, the degree to which one needs to defend the faith shifts over time depending on historical and theological circumstances.

"Islam" never went wrong. "Islam" is too large a notion to be so easily condemned and without any qualifiers. The terrorism of the modern world is the result of Wahhabi-based ideologies, various literalist groups that propagate extremism. Furthermore, these literalists do not expose flaws in the Muslim faith; rather, they expose flaws in the corrupt power structure of Saudi hegemony. These literalists do no not use faith traditions as a means of seeking the good, but as a means of advancing political agendas. They have confused image for form, believing that the words used to describe the good are the good itself, which goes against the very principle of religion in general itself.

Conclusion

In fact, because I've gone on at length, I'll conclude with that point, mostly because it's the same glaring flaw in your argumentation. Religion itself is inherently benevolent because it positions the souls of men towards seeking the good; it unites communities towards common goals. Religion, however, is harmed by the ossified traditions and dead metaphors that have been used to convey truth. Ritual and language are means of understanding the eternal, that which mortal men cannot know. These tools are not the center of religion and if one focuses on them too much, they become objects of idolatry. To paraphrase from the philosopher KD Irani, "The priest ritualizes what the prophet makes evident."

Where your argument "goes wrong" is in assuming you can condemn an entire faith tradition that has had a rich, nuanced theological history spanning a millennium and a half. You have conflated religion for its uses in society and the tools used to convey the message for the message itself. While interpretations of a religion can stray from the good and one can argue that with reasonable effort, the denunciation of such a massive faith is bound to stem from more than a few misconceptions and the lack of understanding of more than a few essential religious principles.

{ while completely ignoring verses that contradict your assertions. }

Contradictions support my argument. The Surat Al-Baqara is considered the first revelation after Muhammad's Hijra (pilgramage) to Medina. It's the Islamic retelling of Adam, Abraham, and Moses plus some "newly revealed" Islamic law. This chapter also marks the first of only four chapters that refers to Christians as "Nazarenes" instead of "People of the Book" or "Helpers of Christ", as had been established. Almost everything that was "revealed" to Muhammad directly conflicts or contradicts the Hebrew Bible. That is literally the point I have been making throughout this entire thread.

While Christianity and Judaism were growing more and more moderate, Islam was inherited by a guy (who historians can confirm was a real person, unlike Jesus) who convinced everybody else that he was the next Prophet and immediately set about creating Sharia. Islam is a sham that shouldn't even exist in the form it does today, the Muslims were just like the Jews, waiting for their next Prophet, then somebody came by and said "yeah that's me, also God told me he wants you all to be like me and obey this law I've made up based on loosely interpreted Hebrew Bible verses and my own life experience as a Prophet, because I'm one of those". That's literally how the branch of Abrahamic religion known as Islam was formed, and the rest is history.

Here's the actual text of 2:191 { And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. }

The only line that refers to self-defense is the line I've bolded. You may not engage in battle at the Holy Mosque unless they bring the fight to you there, but anywhere else is fair game.

{ kill them wherever you overtake them }

means you're actively hunting or chasing these people and you eventually catch up and slay them.

The verses in this chapter do refer to stories about actual events, again, that is the whole point. The Hebrew Bible does not contain a blatantly stated set of laws on how people should behave, no religion does, except one . Sharia was made u-- oh sorry I mean "revealed" to Muhammad alone, way after the Hebrew Bible and New Testament had been written.

The verse sword, on the other hand, is in the only chapter in the Quran which speaks directly to Kafir, its references to past events are direct threats. Hence, "The Ultimatum".

You are getting desperate right now.

The Muslims ambushed, seized and conquered their assaulting enemies. This is simply the nature of warfare in general. It was "You declared war on us, So now we will hunt you down!". The goal of war is to conquer your enemies and what the Muslims did was no different To Britain in WWII sending armies to Germany to hunt down Hitler. Or more recently, The United States sending a platoon to hunt Osama bin laden.

bro I literally have no idea what you're even arguing at this point. You're agreeing with me while you're saying you disagree with me. Chapter 2, which you are now quoting, is a story of historical conflict. In the past. In no way advocating a lifestyle Muslims should strive to mirror today. Okay. We're good so far.

Where I seem to be losing you is where the laws governing Islamic society today, as in the laws of their government, the laws that say women don't have the right to their independent selves, the laws that say women can not go anywhere without their male guardian or have certain medical procedures without his consent, those laws which are justified by the Quran and Hadith, are not telling some story of conflict from the past. They are using those stories of conflict from the past to justify the laws of today, however, which is the point.

Now you tell me what about that you apparently have a problem with, because nothing you or I have posted thus far has led me to believe you disagree with anything I just said in this post.

{ the religions have changed drastically over time along with the historical circumstances of their practitioners and their exposure to new ideas }

Which has nothing to do with the fact that they're all based off of and incorporate texts from the Hebrew Bible, which is very violent. Christianity and Islam would not be what they are today if the Jews were never exposed to the idea of monotheism, that's why I started the timeline for this discussion at the Hebrew Bible (why we started discussing an actual chapter of the Quran when this thread was intended to discuss the political laws of Islamic countries today is beyond me, and now what looks like one conversation is actually two very distinctly different conversations that shouldn't be in the same thread at all).

{ that the ancient Jewish legal tradition had Rabbis learn the Torah as children then spending their adult lives debating how to implement the Torah into everyday Jewish law }

I addressed this in the middle of one of my posts, even quoted some of the legal texts you're talking about. How later people decide to interpret the text does not have any influence on the inherent violence of the text itself. When I said "the Abrahamic religions are inherently extreme and violent" I meant historically, not in how the hundreds of denominations between the three present themselves today.

{ We believe that God guided the hands of those who wrote the Old Testament, but when Christ visited earth, the Covenant laws of the Old Testament were partially annulled }

& again, literally exactly what I said. Christianity is inherently a violent and extreme religion, it wasn't until Jesus and the New Testament that things began to go a bit more moderately. The addition of the New Testament (and discovery of the foretold Christ figure before it) does not mean the historically violent past of Christianity's formation disappears.

{ the degree to which one needs to defend the faith shifts over time depending on historical and theological circumstances }

Again, we seem to agree.

{ The terrorism of the modern world is the result of Wahhabi-based ideologies }

The terrorism and governments of the modern Middle Eastern world is the result of Wahhabi-based ideologies. I'm not saying Islam invalidated itself as a religion, I'm saying Islam went wrong when it allowed itself to split into aggressively violent denominations that were somehow accepted as "Islam" and went on to shape the physical and political region into what it is today.

{ These literalists do no not use faith traditions as a means of seeking the good, but as a means of advancing political agendas. }

You can not say that for them. You can not say they don't seek the good, you can not say their interpretation is worth any less than any other, because that's what they are, interpretations of the exact same thing. Moderates interpret the texts to say that the Wahhabists are being too literal, they interpret the texts to say everyone else is not being literal enough. How can you claim one is right over the other, except based off your own interpretations?

As a guy that lives in the other side of the world i must say

you guys have a lot o spare time …

tl;dr ;)

This is the Serious Debate board. If you have a point, make it. And don't come here just to say TL;DR.- BSOD

{ Pakistani police say gunmen have killed 43 people in an attack on the country's Shiite minority.

Provincial police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali says a bus was en route to a place of worship for Ismaili Shiite Muslims when gunmen boarded it and sprayed the passengers with bullets. No one has claimed responsibility.

The Taliban and other Sunni Muslim extremist groups, which view Shiites as apostates, have long had a presence in Karachi and have targeted Shiites in the past. }

ehhhh that can't be right the Shiites are the extremists, the majority Sunnis are the real Muslims!!

They all support the Hadith though, you know, the religious authority only second to the Quran, which has no verses demanding death for apostates?

#ThanksMuhammad

Seriously, it's not our responsibility to find your sources.

Sry, sry, I didn't notice my screenshot cut it off. It's from my fav bit of Pew research on real Muslim opinion

Did i not just mention wahhabism? We have been telling you non-stop about the saudis using wahhabi ideologies to justify making these laws. While there are 4 schools of thought (hanafi, hanbali,maliki and shafi'i) educated in history to aid verse interpretation, wahhabism rejects all these schools of thought and believes that all you need is hadiths and qur'an with no other background knowledge.

Islam went wrong when it allowed itself to split into aggressively violent denominations

You are beyond wrong when you imply that an ideology is at fault for the misjudgement of scholars. You are supposed to blame the people who did it because Islam is not a culture, it is not a country and it is not a government. It is an ideology like atheism and humanism. In fact it is about as absurd as saying that atheism is at fault when it allowed the soviet union to persecute christians.

I think you're taking the title of this thread a little too literally.

Why don't you read my OP again and try responding to what I actually meant this thread to address?

That actually is an interesting study. Thank you.

In something tangentially related: About 90% of US Christians believe the Bible to be the actual or inspired word of God. Which is the same amount of Pakistanis who believe Sharia is the actual or inspired word of God.
I know 'The Bible' isn't directly comparable to 'Sharia Law,' but it's still something interesting.
Source.

To understand why Islam is so fundamentally violent

I receive no implication that it was a sarcastic metaphor. Either that or your english is terrible.

That isn't a metaphor… the Abrahamic religions are all fundamentally violent. I gave a quick summary of how the three are related, all being branches of the same basic ideology, which a lot of people don't recognize.

Then I started talking about modern terrorism and some recent stats about the current treatment of Muslim women, and asked what the forum thinks we should/should not do about it, even providing some extra spoons for people who struggle to form their own opinions.

This thread was never a witch hunt about Islam in general.

This thread I feel is WAY to entirely serious for a meme site.

Well, this is the serious debate forum. That's why I posted it here instead of trying to have this discussion in the comments of the ISIS entry.

Well go ahead then…

carry on..

because this is stupid.

and won't do anything.

Im sorry for your misfortune.

but take your efforts to a place where things can change…

this.. i believe belongs in a higher light than here. people do need to see this.

……it's just a discussion. It's not supposed to do anything but let people with different viewpoints share them with each other and possibly learn something new that might lead their position to evolve.

I'm sorry you don't like to talk to people apparently…?

What a way to give us a loaded claim. Abrahamic religions in general are so complex that I can not simply refute you in a single forum response. Unless you give me more specific claims I can properly answer them.

All of the questions I asked are opinion based, there is no wrong answer…

Maybe if you stopped trying to "win" discussions you'd find them easier to take part in.

Are you using deflection tactics right now? You claimed abrahamic religions are inherently evil so you came up with an excuse to say "there is no wrong answer".

I have explained why all the Abrahamic religions are inherently violent and extreme, repeatedly.

Which still has nothing to do with the fact that all of the questions in my OP are opinion-based and have no right or wrong answers.

Are you implying that non-Abrahamic religions are comparatively non-violent? If so, then why?

So your logic is, that Muslim militia groups have done military actions. Islam has some of the same values as the other Abraham religions therefore Abraham religions are inherently violent.

While Islam does share some values of Christianity and Judaism, it does not have the same ethical code as the 2 religions. So they are not the same religion. You know why Islam can not be responsible for atrocities committed by ISIS and other militia groups so i will not delve into it. What is fallacious is that you made a connection with the other abrahamic religions. That is like a 10 year-old hat has done a prank on someone and therefore his whole family is like that 10 year old boy. (Ofcourse i do not imply that Islam has committed atrocities of today)

What it is, is jumping to conclusions.

{ Are you implying that non-Abrahamic religions are comparatively non-violent? If so, then why? }

No? I didn't even mention any other religion? They have nothing to do with Abrahamic religions and the one guy who ideologically separated one from the other two, which is what this thread is about.

{ Islam has some of the same values as the other Abraham religions therefore Abraham religions are inherently violent. }

idk how you managed to get it perfectly backwards, but you have done so.

The Abrahamic religions have the same fundamentalist values because they're all based on the same texts, therefore they are all inherently as violent and extreme as each other. So why does only one religion feature such a large number of active, violent fundamentalists? Why aren't there groups of fundamentalist Christians and Jews waging war? Because the person who gave rise to modern terrorism, the person whose words and life allowed Islam to break into violent denominations, was Muhammad.

So what do we do about it? Going back to the original questions in my OP yet again….