Dreamer_87

Hello Dangin,

Speaking of the manuscripts found in the Yemeni mosque, I did a search and found a very interesting link, <a href="http://www.islamic-awareness.org," target="_blank">www.islamic-awareness.org,</a> that discusses the arguments about the Quran's textual integrity.

Tell me what you think bout the site!

Best regards,
Dreamer

[ November 09, 2002: Message edited by: Dreamer_87 ]</p>

Dreamer_87

Hey again you lot,

IM,

Good point, I don't necessarily agree but I think that's what's happened with many other religions. I don't think this will happen to Islam, though, mainly because there is a 'standard version' (perhaps original is a better word?) that still exists in a language spoken by millions of people, and from which the translations are created directly, rather than translating a translation etc.

I hope that made sense <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

You're correct that that argument is used, but I don't think mine fits into that category considering the context; wdog was the one who first mentioned not needing to understand the religion to judge it, my reply was (if I remember correctly) that I don't think he'd use the arguments he has if he really understood it, and that I thought it was an attempt to justify his stance, even though he knows little about the topic.

Excellent point; but does that mean you can criticise even when you know next to nothing? I came to the same conclusion after studying a verse from the Quran (which was if I remember correctly 'Oh ye who believe! Do not speak of what ye do not know'), that's why I try to start every one of my statements with 'From what I know' or 'From what I understood', because I realize that when it comes to ideas/religions/whatever that I disagree with it is very possible I have misunderstood or that I don't know all there is to it. You have to be humble and respectful even if you disagree, I think.


Hello Primal,

Sorry for not responding to your earlier posts.

First of all: there's no denying how backward muslim countries are today, but the fact that MUSLIMS THEMSELVES are the ones who are trying to create positive change, who are trying to encourage rationality and scientific study as well as to remove old customs that impose unjust laws on women and on all the weak and underprivaledged, all of that says something. So if there are muslims who promote equality of the sexes, social justice, rationality and science etc etc then doesn't that mean that, according to your logic, that islam is tolerant, NOT sexist, NOT barbaric....?

And personally speaking I think *your* reasoning is fallacious, not mine; to judge a whole group by the actions of one community does nothing more than promote ethnic prejudices and generalizations (and as I've shown more than once in this thread wether the generalization is in favour of or against group x depends soley on the individuals the person giving judgement has been exposed to, it's too subjective to be considered an accurate and rational way to examine a society)

As for your doubts concerning the accuracy of the given example, what do you found them on? The conclusion you've apparently reached, that since some muslims in the present are backward that ALL muslims in all times must have been the same? Again that's nothing more than a prejudice, a simplification, an attempt to minimize all other factors that make up an individual so the process of judging (and in this case, condemning) becomes MUCH easier. What do you know about the Caliph Omar? Have you read anything at all about him? and frankly I don't think he's the only counter-example to 'all this', but as I've demonstrated before one example IS ALL THAT IS NEEDED to show the irrationality of a negative stereotype.

Gotta go
Look forward to your responses!

Best regards,
Dreamer

Dreamer_87

Hi Wdog,

It's a matter of mutual-tolerance I believe; hypothetically speaking, if there is a city established as an 'infidels-only' zone, and in which building mosques (or any other institutes for worship) is forbidden, then (assuming people are allowed to worship and build temples elsewhere) I whole heartedly think this restriction would be accepted and respected. I honestly doubt you'd hear any objections from any religious folk.

Yes, I would stand with you, because according to Islamic law itself the law does not apply to any non-muslims (the only exception being, from what I know, is if a muslim is involved in murder, i.e. if a muslim is murdered by a non-muslim or vice versa) in other words, according to Islamic Law non-muslim communities can live by their own laws (to a certian extent). So, theoretically speaking, you could have a secular society allowed to rule itself as it pleases within an Islamic empire.

Gotta go sleep
Looking forward to your posts!

Dreamer

American Agnostic

It depends on the time period you're talking about. If you're talking about from the 7th century to the 14th crntury CE then I have a fairly positive opinoin of it. During that time peroid the Islamic world was the intellictual center of the world (or at least the Mediterranean) since Islam emphisized rationality and allowed for scientific envestigation. But in the 14th century fanatics decided to go back the the "fundamentals" of Islam and the Islamic world was yet to recover from they dark age those damn fanatics caused. The clash (or the percieved clash) between the mordern Islamic world and The West is, at it's core, a clash between the world of the Middle ages and the modern world. We don't have to us our imagination to see how religionists in the so called "age of faith" would view our modern world, just look at the hard-line Muslem clerics of today! Ultimately the Islamic world will liberalize as it has already started to do amoung those living in The West and the younger generation back home.
In short, my view of Islam is they same as my view of any religion. It's fine as long as it's not taken too seriously. When it's taken to seriously then it become EXTREMELY dangerous to everyone.

Primal

Nope because 1) We are looking at the mainstream traditions in which the religion has developed....not offshoots. Does the fact that there are kind Nazis mean Nazism was a benevolent/peace loving movement?

2) We are also looking at religious texts like the Hadiths, and how they have been interpreted within the historical tradition as well as literally(or as literally as we can). Again, do nice nazis turn Mein Kampf into a benevolent person's creed?

I'm not judging on the basis of a "few people" but historical incidents, how the societies practice largely in the present and past, its traditions and its writings. And yes, this does not mean that all Muslims are evil bastards, that's why I;m criticizing Islam and when I do Muslims I'm generalizing i.e. forming a statement that hold true most (at least 51 percent) of the time.


BS, so we cannot say that the Nazis tended to hate jews (generalization) well because its "too subjective". There are other ways of deciding the standing of a religion or religious group then pure anecdotes i.e. examining history,written material, modern manifestations of society.

Generally true, soceities in history have tended to become more advanced not less. I found them on the fact that you seem very biased on the issue as well as more then willing to adhere to ancient myths of "golden ages" long since passed. Care to even provide a link?


I never said my claim applies to all Muslims, that is itself a simplification. I am merely commenting on Islamic religion(which cannot be seperated from its mainstream traditions) and mainstream Muslims. That is why I'm going by generalizations; not universals. You seem to be committing the fallacy of hasty refutation via small samples, i.e. aspirin didn't cure person X's head aches, so its wrong to say aspirin tends to relieve head aches. A couple offshoots do not knock down the rule.


First off, nothing as I do not have time to research every religious groups history and every leader thereof. The second statement is pure BS, you do need more then a single example to overturn a generalization, do you know even basic logic?

That's like me saying "Its wrong to generalize and say most people can percieve color cause I've found 1 person that is color blind, yes, so reform the red/green light system cause that's stererotyping, I"ve found 1 person that's color blind and that's all I need."

Or saying I've found one person who had HIV but not AIDS so HIV does not cause AIDS.

One example hardly disproves a generalization, it only exposes sloppy thinking.

Answerer

Dreamer, actually the answer we want from you and Islam community is actually very simple . For example, if one day, you discover a muslim terrorist is preparing to perform a suicidal bombing on some Jews. Will you take out your gun(if you have) to shoot at him(by doing so, you will help the Jews) or will you pretend that you have seen nothing and move away from the area?
Your answer to the above question will be appreciated.

Peter Soderqvist

TO DREAMER 87

Soderqvist1: Take a look here what the scriptures has to say about it? Fair use of quote from the Bible, and the Koran, from the University of Virginia!

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Peter Soderqvist ]</p>

Peter Soderqvist

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - In the latest setback for reformists in Iran, a hard-line court has sentenced to death a prominent scholar and close ally of President Mohammad Khatami for insulting Islam's prophet, his lawyer said Thursday. Hashem Aghajari was found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad and questioning the hard-line clergy's interpretation of Islam in a speech he made in June in the western city of Hamedan, his lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told The Associated Press.
<a href="http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20021107/D7N5CPR00.html" target="_blank">http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20021107/D7N5CPR00.html</a>

By GLENN McKENZIE
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Beauty queens from around the world flew to Nigeria to compete in the Miss World pageant, defying calls for a boycott to protest death sentences by stoning against Nigerian Muslim women for having sex outside marriage.
<a href="http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20021112/D7N8EFCG0.html" target="_blank">http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20021112/D7N8EFCG0.html</a>

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Peter Soderqvist ]</p>

Sarpedon

For all our sakes, I hope Islam never has a "reformation."

The only thing that the christian reformation occurred was the starting of what was essentially a world war between the north europeans and the south europeans. This war lasted for hundreds of years, and was fought not only in europe, but in the colonies of those countries, on every continent. Germany was depopulated, flanders and belgium decimated, France and england ripped apart by civil war. What a "reformation" of islam would accomplish would be the addition of a new "reformed" sect of islam, that would be inimical to the others. This would inevitably lead to war, and the other powers of the world could not avoid becoming involved, given that the oil interests would be at stake.

a common misconception about protestantism is that the reformation was motivated by the corruption of the catholic church. While this was indeed a factor, it was mostly a political war. The monarchs of the north did not want to obey the orders of the Italian pope and the spanish emperor.

third, the protestants were in fact less tolerant than the catholics. Martin Luther is quoted as saying "Reason must be destroyed in all Christians." he was for ethnic cleansing, against the idea that the earth went around the sun, and was in short, a brutal fundamentalist that would make Jerry Falwell blush. The only difference between catholics and protestants is that catholics burn witches at the stake, while protestants press them to death with stones.

What the reformation DID accomplish was the weakening of religious institutions and the strenghtening of the State. This, of course, was not the intent of the "reformers" who basically wanted to be the popes of their own regions.

All religious sects come about for political reasons. Religion is just a form of politics, nothing more. The catholic and orthodox churches separated because the Byzantine emperor didn't want to bend the knee to the roman pope. Shia Islam separated from the Sunni because the persians didn't want to live under the arab caliphs. and so on and so on. lets not speak any more of an Islamic "reformation" that would be a tragedy of unspeakable proportions.

Primal

Sarpeon that's kind of a stretch to believe all religion stems from politics. Sounds somewhat superfluous, that could be reverse causation or the fact that the protestant reformation finally provided a strong ground for kings of the north. Religion though perhaps linked to politics has a life of its own beyond politics.