I read your comment and could apply the exact same thing to Christianity. The problems you described are not exclusive to Islam, so it seems very short sighted to blame their prophet.
It does have something to do with religion, but only because that is being used as _motivation_ to do bad things which isn't inherit to just Islam. I mean, Klu Klux Klan
> Klan members had an explicitly Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in
> part on a "religious foundation" in Christianity. The goals of the KKK included,
> from an early time onward, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in
> America by any means possible", and they believed that "Jesus was the first Klansman."
What this is about is radical _people_ finding whatever motivation they can do to force _their own views_ onto the world.
Well, I'am an atheist, but I wouldn't directly compare Christianity to Islam just because they are two Abrahamitic Religions. For example a huge difference is the way the "holy" books of those religions were created and are treated. The content of the Koran is more or less dictated by one person and is seen as the direct word of the religion's god (this is a mainstream islamic view). Bible was written over centuries and is only seen by a fringe group as the direct word of god.
What is your motivation in protecting islam? Why the finger pointing to Christianity and other religions? Sure, they also got problems, but do we currently really have a huge problem with those religions? What you are doing is like saying: "Well national socialism isn't that bad because other totalitarian ideologies also are stupid. Look at communism and how many dead people resultet because Stalin distorted the true teachings of marxism. See, national socialism isn't the problem."
I'm not comparing the two because they're both Abrahamic. I compare the two because if you're looking hard enough in both texts you'll find justification for evil. Extremist 'Muslims', ISIS, (I say in quotes, because IMHO they're not 'real Muslims') find justification in their text. Extremist 'Christians' (I say in quotes, because IMHO they're not 'real Christians') found justification in the Bible.
I'm not trying to protect Islam or bring Christianity down. I honestly don't care either way about any of them. What I'm trying to explain that blaming Islam is the wrong thing to do, is pointless, and if anything it helps disenfranchise the at-risk, on-the-fence-extremeists who are (getting) upset at how everyone else deals with their religion.
> I compare the two because if you're looking hard enough in both texts you'll find justification for evil.
Wrong again. You're not actually comparing. Go to the sources. It's not about "looking hard" it is on almost every page of Quran. Please try the reading sample, Sura 9:
All those are considered to be the direct words of god by Muslims. As long as they declare them so, the problems will remain. But suggesting them not to declare that is probably worse than suggesting to the Catholics to give up having the Pope. They surely need some kind of reformation. Unfortunately, "back to the original texts" can't be the basis of reformation as they are really filled with violence and intolerance. The only reformation that isn't disastrous for humanity can only be "don't take these original texts too seriously." Other Abrahamic religions managed to move in that direction, for Islam it's going to be much harder.
What I don't understand is that effectively not a single person of those who claim that there is equivalence in the holy texts of different religions try to read them themselves, because once they'd read they would not be able to even say such sentences like "if looking hard enough."
If this was true, how come the vast majority of Muslims are not blood-thirsty maniacs? They believe in the Prophet, do they not? Why aren't they killing infidels left and right? Are they simply not "true" Muslims? Or maybe they modernized their religion, just like the Old Testament is no longer followed to the letter?
> If this was true, how come the vast majority of Muslims are not blood-thirsty maniacs?
What "this" you mean? What I've written is true, specify what you doubt. Now...
> Or maybe they modernized their religion
There's no "modernization" as such but not every branch is as fanatic as the Wahhabis, the official branch in Saudi Arabia, and the direct religious base for ISIS. Saudis Invest billions in spreading their fanatical Islam branch.
> Why aren't they killing infidels left and right?
"The death penalty can be imposed for a wide range of offences[4] including murder, rape, false prophecy, blasphemy, armed robbery, repeated drug use, apostasy,[5] adultery,[6] witchcraft and sorcery[7][8][9][10] and can be carried out by beheading with a sword,[11] or more rarely by firing squad, and sometimes by stoning.[12][13]"
> Recommended reading: "The Phony Islam of ISIS"
Balderdash, the whole article. One more writer speaking from his ash instead of reading any primary source. How do I know? Because "the Quran is" "a complex and nuanced text that deals with legal, moral, and metaphysical questions in a subtle and multifaceted way" can be claimed only somebody who never read it himself. Nuanced my foot.
I've given one link (Sura 9). Read it and say what's nuanced there. Here another, Sura 111:
"The power of Abu Lahab will perish, and he will perish.
His wealth and gains will not exempt him.
He will be plunged in flaming Fire,
And his wife, the wood-carrier,
Will have upon her neck a halter of palm-fibre."
That's the whole Sura 111. What's nuanced about that? Reading Hadith, you can find that Abu Lahab was Mohammad's uncle who didn't believe in Mohammad's "I've received the message form god" pitch.
And that Sura was from the "peaceful part" of Quran(!). Fire of hell for unbelievers is preached in almost every Sura! Almost only those which are bad retellings of some less drastic Old Testament stories can happen not to mention at least "fire" or "hell" for "unbelievers." I don't care how nuanced is if they should pray five or 18 times per day, the view of unbelievers, Christians and Jews is very clear and repetitive.
> 27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
For another,
> 20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
...I'm afraid that your crusade of trying to prove Muslims violent by reading passages from Quran is not terribly persuasive, to anyone who have read the Old Testament. If you really want to persuade others, you will have to search harder.
I know Old Testament, but you obviously don't know Quran. Read it and compare, that's all I can tell you. One describes what happened in some ancient times, ancient times even for the first reader of these texts. Another gives pure "instructions." Read and compare.
Or read the "Gospels" from New Testament for the "deeds of Jesus" especially related to stoning:
"This" means that if Islam is so obviously blood-thirsty, and this is the only possible mainstream interpretation of this religion, then how come the vast majority of Muslims are NOT killing the infidel?
Yes, many Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia support ISIS; it's well-known this is a major source of funding. But how is this a counter to the fact the vast majority of Muslims -- are you aware that not all Muslims are Wahhabis, live in Saudi Arabia or, for that matter, are Arabs? -- are NOT trying to murder nonbelievers?
"Balderdash", you say about the article "The Phony Islam of ISIS". But what you say flies in the face of everything we know about religious texts; that they are anachronistic and self-contradictory in multiple places, and there is NO single interpretation of them. Evidently most Muslims choose not to acknowledge the part about spreading the word of Mohammed by the sword, or maybe you secretly believe they do -- all of them! -- and that they are biding their time?
The author argues that some parts of the Quran contradict other parts; that there are treatises and purported quotations of Mohammed that are meant to explain the Quran, but themselves are subject to interpretation and to varying degrees of reliability. I don't know about you, but I tend to trust the word of someone who studies religion for a living and specifically Islam to have read the Quran. Are you sure it's all "balderdash" and that this professor who teaches religious studies at college "has never read [the Quran] himself"?
But mostly I trust the reality of a world in which most Muslims are not trying to murder non-Muslims. I don't even need to appeal to authority here, just to reality.
Just read the Quran. See for yourself if a reader who decides to actually read the "actual words of god" would get that "contradictory" feeling or not.
After you read enough to have your view based on your own experience, also try to find out how many of those who believe claim those aren't the actual words of god but "some old contradictory texts." (As far as I know, only "apostates" dare to do so, once you read the original, you'll know why.)
In the Islamic invasions of India in the middle ages, ghazni and Timur, used that verse, to "slay the idolaters" to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Hindus - even after Indian cities surrendered. In Delhi alone, Timur slaughtered a hundred thousand men. He threatened his own court poet to slaughter idolaters or face execution.
So, you are saying that they (ISIS, Hamas, Boko Haram, Hizbollah, Al Qaida etc.) are not real muslims? They are also followers of Allah, see Mohammed as their Prophet and the Koran is their holy book. What makes them not real muslims in your eyes? Because they have a different (wrong?) interpretation of verses and hadith?
Morally wrong, sure, from my PoV. From their PoV they are the good guys.
Islam is a religion that teaches a few good things in verses and hadith from the early times of the religion when it was weak and had few members. So they needed to be tolerant and also wanted the Jews and Christians to be tolerant towards them.
Later, after the immigration to Mekka Mohammed changed his teachings and they become more and more intolerant and violent. The religion became more political as the teachings contained more and more text/rules about how to treat non-muslims. According to the koran, "Allah" knew that some verses contradict others, the later (more intolerant verses) abrogate (replace) the earlier peaceful verses (sura 16:101 and 2:106) - so you see that there is a bit of a problem with different verses telling different things.
Don't get me wrong, I would hope that all muslims would only follow the earlier peaceful teachings (and ignore the concept of abrogation) and many already do. But I don't think it helps in telling the others are simply "wrong" becaus that helps avoiding a much needed discussion (self-criticism). It would be better to acknowledge that there are intolerant verses and to understand why they are there and finally to come to the agreement that such intolerant teachings should no longer be accepted as part of the doctrine (well, only as some kind of "rejected part").
> Muslims are overwhelmingly the victims of fundamentalist attacks
The Muslims from the another "sects" are also considered "unbelievers" by the fundamentalists (unless they join them), so it perfectly fits their ideology to do to them "what Mohammad did."
"All Males who reached puberty and 1 woman beheaded"
Directly from the holy texts:
"No woman of Banu Qurayza was killed except one. She was with me, talking and laughing on her back and belly (extremely), while the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) was killing her people with the swords."
(The "Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him)" is how Muhammad is referred to in the texts. Whenever we write just "Muhammad" it already sounds "improper" to his believers.)
The fundamentalists know the content of the holy books of Islam.
Yes, we do currently have massive problems with other religions. But when I list those problems you're going to say things like "but those aren't christians" or "those are a distortion of christian teachings" -- exactly what the vast majority of Muslims will tell you.
It does have something to do with religion, but only because that is being used as _motivation_ to do bad things which isn't inherit to just Islam. I mean, Klu Klux Klan
> Klan members had an explicitly Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in > part on a "religious foundation" in Christianity. The goals of the KKK included, > from an early time onward, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in > America by any means possible", and they believed that "Jesus was the first Klansman."
What this is about is radical _people_ finding whatever motivation they can do to force _their own views_ onto the world.