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Islam is not beyond critical judgement I reacted rather badly the other day to Baroness Warsi’s weird rant about ‘bigotry‘ towards Muslims but it is gratifying to see I was not the only one who her remarks rubbed the wrong way.
Warsi seems to be of the view that unless you have a positive view of Islam, it is not really acceptable for you to express your opinions in polite society even in private ‘around the dinner table’. That someone who is a member of the establishment in the UK could think that notion was going to fly is a measure of the disconnect between some people ‘at the top’ and us oiks out in the real world.
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And what sort of conversations about the natives go on at the Baroness’ intimate dinner parties?
islam is a vile “religion”. give me christers. yes mo sucks.
Warsi is right, of course. If you don’t have a positive view of Islam, it is illegal to express your opinion of it at any time.
I’m a little tired of both sides of this argument. Um, I don’t mean, like this posting. I mean, I’m not sure that either side has much of a useful conceptual framework. On the one hand you’ve got the multi-cultis talking total ballcocks, and on the other side you’ve got the “anti-jihadis” talking total ballcocks. It was quite nice for instance to see Gates Of Vienna the other day admit that stuff like “mo was a paedo” and the particularly silly “Islam isn’t a religion” slogans are just propagandist rubbish.
Thing is, here in Western Europe we have considerable historical experience in neutering and destroying invasive post-Judaic religion. We have plenty of experience from history in how these cults tend to go through phases of flaring up in extreme violence. In the past century notably we’ve successfully reduced the Christian variation of Yoohoo worship to a largely ignored rump. We ought to be able to do the same to the Arabic version without too much trouble.
(The exception of course is the USA which in many areas stays stubbornly Yoohooist in religious terms, but even that ought to be useful data).
Christianity met its Waterloo in Europe with the Englightenment, which can be reliably interpreted as Europeans’ rejection of the Yoohooist ideological framework after a thousand years of jihadi-type terrorism. Until the development of the scientific understanding of nature, every society had needed gods simply to explain how the world works. What makes everything happen? Gods do. They are the engine of the universe. Then you discover science and realise the universe doesn’t need gods to keep running, and that ought to be that, and it nearly was.
So Christianity reinvented itself as a social care institution. A furious period of what Saul Alinksy called community organising resulted in our landscape dotted with methodist chapels, mission halls, christian orphanages, etc etc and christian organisations like the Sally Army, all designed to weave themselves into communities as providers of social services and social networking. It was a very successful strategy.
The interesting thing is, that analysis shows that this was a strongly feminine phenomenon. Women led the charge in everyday life. And we can understand why; women are the primary social and childcare providers, so were the primary interface with the “new christianity”. It was in their practical and economic interest to imbed themselves in this practical social care structure. Men joined in because that was what women required them to do; and in Western Europe, which has always had a relatively high status for women, men basically do whatever will make them look good in front of their womenfolk.
But then we developed and embraced the welfare state. Ironically, many of the supporters of it were christian organisations (the Labour Party is jokingly called The Methodist Party for a reason) who failed to grasp that they were shooting themselves in the foot. The Welfare State began officially in 1945. By the 1960s, less than a generation later, women- who could now find social support from a reliable, ideologically neutral state apparatus- had largely abandoned the church for such services, and simply abandoned it; and their men with them. By 1970, the average Christian congregation was two old ladies and a jack russell.
America? They have a welfare state too, but the right wing have successfully kept it despised by large sectors of the population, thus retaining a strong social security role for the Churches, at least in the stereotypical Bible Belt. If America wants to properly free themselves from Yoohoo, they’d be advised to considerably expand their welfare state and lure christian women away from church dependence. Knowledge of this- if even at a rather primitive level of animal cunning characteristic of lower order Yoohooites- is probably the primary reason for the fierce Christian Right rejection of welfare, which is nothing to do with economic liberalism and everything to do with protecting their turf.
So, we have a lot of knowledge of how to smash Judaic cultism. The question is how much of this we can apply to Islamites. The women would appear to be the key again. Women are central to Islamism- note the burka as the primary symbol of their movement. We know they’re certainly happy to take as much welfare as we can give them.
So why isn’t it weakening Islam? Or could it be that it already is, and we just aren’t seeing the results yet due to a continual influence of fresh, first generation Islamites? Well one problem is probably that they are in the grip of a fundamentalist revival. Another might be that they have an ideological source outside the West in the Islamite heartland, which Christianity didn’t have. Another bigger problem may be that of family structure; the arabic family is strongly male dominated extended family, compared to the female dominated Western European nuclear family model. So perhaps that’s a crucial difference; Christianity, at least after the 18th century, was primarily a structure of social support for females, whereas Islam is primarily a patriarchalist support structure. Perhaps one glimmer of hope in this is to note that Islamist groups in the Mid East, such as Hezbollah, have built much of their support by providing social services- health clinics and the like- so perhaps they aren’t so different after all. And we must remember that pre-Englightenment christianity was, just like Islam, a masculist terror organisation. It was forced to change, so perhaps Islam can be forced to change, and driven down the road to destruction, too.
Anyhoo, I’m increasingly convinced that the rhetoric of both sides is useless. I feel that emotional fear of an Islamic takeover that millions of other people do, but I also suspect that we’re in the grip of a moral panic. It certainly can’t be ignored that much of the “anti-jihad” movement is an articulation of the fears of fanatical Yoohoo worshippers like Robert Spencer, who very much want to cast this as a Christian vs. Islam thing, and thus force people to take a side and fall back into the suffocating grip of mother church. It is certainly very important to make sure that fear of Islam isn’t used as the fuel for yet another Christian revival. We beat them once, let’s not have that battle all over again.
So I think we need to stand back and be calm and look practically at the social forces currently active in Islamism, and see how they can be undermined, just as was (largely accidentally) done to the previous Yoohooite invaders of Europe. It took more than a thousand years to vanquish them. Let’s hope for a more rapid resolution of the Islamic version.
” So perhaps that’s a crucial difference; Christianity, at least after the 18th century, was primarily a structure of social support for females, whereas Islam is primarily a patriarchalist support structure. Perhaps one glimmer of hope in this is to note that Islamist groups in the Mid East, such as Hezbollah, have built much of their support by providing social services- health clinics and the like- so perhaps they aren’t so different after all.”
Thinking aloud here on Ian’s conjectures (and perhaps this has been shot down before), but would something like a ‘property-rights-union/charity’ for the poor be the kind of organization which could, in practice, (a) help alleviate poverty and other social problems better than either state welfare or religious groups (of course I’d say the answer is yes, but trying to put it into practice will not be easy for reasons we’re all familiar with), and (b) thereby help to improve popular understanding of how to apply libertarian principles…?
You certainly weren’t the only one, Perry. i think she got the message fairly quickly.
Or as I just made the point slightly better elsewhere, perhaps I may repeat it here:
“This is a rough (and probably ill-informed) conjecture, but might it not be possible to wrong-foot and outmanoeuvre the Left with something like an explicitly non-religious “community organizing” type movement which attempted to alleviate social problems through the application of property-rights based solutions? Agitating for reductions in government regulations so that property-rights based solutions could be put into practice?”
I expect this sort of thing has been shot down before of course, but if it has, I missed it and therefore wouldn’t object to seeing it done again.
@ Ian B
I recognise the general point you are making, but how are slogans stating that Mohammed was a paedophile (which he was) ‘propagandist rubbish’?
I can understand the point that it may not be an effective method at combating jihadist Islam, in many ways I entirely agree with you, but it’s hardly ‘rubbish’. The counter argument presented by Gates of Vienna to the ‘Mo was a paedo’ meme is that marrying a child was ‘accepted practice in his day’ – but this, to me, seems like the very worst kind of moral relativism that completely undermines our ability to make value judgments about differing cultures or belief-systems.
The argument essentially boils down to ‘because lots of people married children in those days, its perfectly acceptable to rape a child – and any suggestion to the contrary is presentism’
If we acknowledge that having sex with children is unacceptable, we are implicitly accepting that Mohammed could not have been all he claimed to be. If God had truly bestowed upon him the knowledge of universal morality, how could he have subscribed to paedophilia, a practice the vast majority of us find so abhorrent? – Because God never did speak to him up that mountain. He made it all up as he went along. He was, in fact, nothing more than a fraudulent nonce.
And thus Islam is defeated. Well… not really…
Gates of Vienna admitted that he is a propagandist – well, no shit, Sherlock. And what are you Ian, or me, for that matter? He pretty much nails it with this:
For the record, I don’t read his blog, because I think that I already know all I need to about Islam, and also because I think Islam is a mere pneumonia latched onto a body whose immune system has been compromised by the virus of home-grown statism. But someone still has to do the job he does, and so more power to him and the likes of him.
This comment is about Ian Bs comment.
If I have understood Ian’s argument he believes that secularism has twice smashed Christianity, so we should leave Islam to smashed by secularism and all will be well, just have faith.
The two examples he gives are the creation of the welfare state and the enlightenment.
Taking the welfare state first, I agree with what Ian says about the impact on the Church, the welfare state took over most the the roles that the Church had previously performed, and thus ended most peoples day to day involvement with the Church.
Yet as Ian also says this was an “own goal” as Christians created the welfare state. So in what way was secularism responsible for this? It may well have benefited from it, but it did not cause it.
In a similar way, I would suggest that the enlightenment required at least two things to take place. First a sufficient surplus wealth to allow time for enough people to be able to spend time doing nothing other that thinking, experimenting etc. Secondly a general culture that allowed encouraged free thinking.
This culture was and is Christianity, not necessary in all places at all times, but in sufficient places and times.
In the main the people who drove the enlightenment were Christians seeking to understand God’s world better. Again secularism may have benefited, but it didn’t cause it to happen.
So while Ian may put his faith in secularism his examples don’t back him up at all. The changes in Christianity came from things that Christians started.
So I wouldn’t expect secularism to counter Islam at all.
If push comes to shove will a secularist die for his faith or become a MINO.
Steve T
The argument against Ian B I put forward is to examine the origins of Christianity and Islam, they come from totally different beginnings. Christianity evolved from the teachings of a Jew and spread largely by evangelism, adapting itself to the society it infected, by the time Constantine converted his empire was practically a Christian one anyway.
Whereas Islam was a violent death cult from day one, invented specifically for the purpose by its founder.
Beating Christianity was easy because the theology did not lend itself very well to government and was better suited to “social care”, the same cannot be said of Islam, it was a military political ideology from the start.
The main reason Christians (and I mean proper Christians) are pushovers is because they don’t tend to cut your head off when you upset them, most people can survive a good drubbing of forgiveness better than suddenly having nothing above the shoulder line.
Christianity didn’t “reinvent” itself as a “social care institution”, it reverted to one because that’s basically how it started, it really was hijacked by politicos and used for power. Islam evolved observing this happening to the Roman Empire, and made itself a political force from the start, it hasn’t been hijacked and there’s nothing for it to fall back to, what you see today is the real deal.
I don’t think Islam can be defeated in the same way, my own opinion is that UDHR Article 18 represents the best weapon libertarians have, it should be the gold standard, you either agree that people have the right to choose belief or you don’t, and Islam needs to accept that, and the only way it can be forced to accept it is to be made to realise it will only survive by accepting it.
Over at Harrys Place they quoted JFK:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Big Mo basically said “I’ll fight until there is no more disbelief”, JFK basically said “I’ll fight until there is liberty”, and that, I’m afraid, is going to be the only option, we need more people with balls like JFK (for all his faults), not people with worn out knees bowing down to the Islamists.
The problem for many people is not some dry and dull argument about the nature of religion, it is about that fact that –– for those who have to live among muslims — that it is what is going on in the community, or if you prefer, down their street. It is apparent in certain places in the UK there is a huge divide between “us” and “them” and as far as a lot of Brits can see the flaws lie almost exclusively with them.
Of course people can follow any religion they like, but when that religion demands that its adherents do not merge into the greater society then there will be divisions. Saying you are superior (and often while acting in a hypocritical and shallow manner) is not enough.
I seriously doubt if the majority of muslims have any nastiness in them, but they do wish to remain separate by culture, clothes and attitude. There are language barriers (though time may erode those) but it is an attitude problem many ordinary people have been handed; the idea of unfettered immigration of people who may or may not dislike their host country while taking all the benefits that come with living here, makes it tough to want to feel at one with them.
I have no idea what sort of dinner parties Warsi goes to, but if she went to Oldham and Bradford or other places and asked around at any dinner parties she can find there she may get a better idea of the way non-muslims feel about the way vote-seeking politicians imposed a difficulty on the rest of the nation.
Mike, that’s certainly an interesting idea. I think the question we have to ask is, what social needs is this religion satisfying, and how can we undermine that with alternatives? My analysis was of late stage Christianity, but Islam is probably somewhat different; for instance an obvious one is that Islam, like Judaism, provides a cultural identity in a foreign environment.
I think my general point is that we need to stop treating Islam as this foreign, incomprehensible alien thing and understand that our culture has dealt with all this before. It is a very familiar thing. There are lots of historical precedents and lessons we can learn.
Moving to Ian F4’s comment gives us an example-
-this is the “Christian story” but it historically is not true. At the time Constantine stole the purple, it’s estimated the Christian population of the Roman Empire was just 5-10%, mostly clustered in communities in the East- Antioch, Alexandria and so on. That’s not much more than the current Muslim population of Britain. Of oriental cults, Mithraism was considerably more popular at the time. But the western usurper Constantine needed an allied bloc in the Eastern Empire, and the Christians fitted the bill and he rewarded them for their assistance with legalisation and then, rapidly, preference. Rome was Christanised not by gentle evangelism but by State force, culminating in the ferocious tyranny of Theodosius who, for his services to the church, is commemorated as “The Great”. When you look at Christian history (and before that, Jewish history), Islam starts to look a lot more familiar.
Regarding Lee’s comment about Mo’s “paedophilia”, we do have to be moral relativists. Different cultures do have different moral frameworks. Virtually every culture outside the modern West would be counted, by our standards, as “paedophilic”. The conceptual construct of “paedophilia” is extremely specific to our culture and extremely modern, having taken its current shape within our own lifetimes. You simply can’t use that conceptual framework in other places and times. Picking cultures at random, ancient Egypt and pre-christian Polynesia both considered it normal to begin sexual activity around the age of 10 or 11. Is everyone a paedophile?
It makes no more sense than trying to retrospectively label the Empreror Hadrian a homosexual and a pederast because of his relationship with Antinous. Ancient Rome had neither concept as we understand them. It’s a different moral landscape. We simply can’t judge these historical figures as if they were living among us today, and to do so in the name of propaganda is nothing short of lying.
“Mike, that’s certainly an interesting idea. I think the question we have to ask is, what social needs is this religion satisfying, and how can we undermine that with alternatives?”
Agreed, but I’d say the idea ought to be applied against the Left to whatever extent possible. Islam is a secondary enemy.
“We simply can’t judge these historical figures as if they were living among us today, and to do so in the name of propaganda is nothing short of lying.”
No, but that doesn’t mean such history cannot inform the judgement you make of habits or predispositions of the descendent culture. I have just written a little essay on Martin Luther King for example with an eye to what the Chinese dissidents may learn from him.
Ian B, with respect, that wasn’t my point, I’d happily admit that Christianity was adopted by Constantine and later emperors as a political strategy, but Christianity was not originally intended to be that way, so it was fundamentally flawed as a government tool of control, whereas Islam, probably taking Rome’s lead at the time, was, and was never intended to be anything else.
Constantine did not state mandate the religion in the way you suggest, the Edict of Milan gave religious freedom to all religions, I agree, this was a political ploy more than anything else, and certainly the state imposition of Christianity came later, but again, for political reasons and not because of Christianity itself.
If Christians were at 5-10% that would have been after the Diocletian purge, it was a worrying fact to emperors that so many were in the army, so they could not have been that small in number. In an empire with very few organised religions Christianity was significant even in small groups, and was certainly more significant than the 4% or so that Islam has in the UK.
My point stands, you can’t address Islam the same way Judeo-Christianity was via the enlightenment, there is no peaceful “social care” stage for Islam to return to or appeal to. Even without violence, Islam will still vie for dominance and create tension.
Regarding the kiddie fiddling, remember that devout Muslims consider Mo to the “perfect man”, nothing he did was ever wrong or sinful, that is why it does differ from anyone else, because of the divine attitude to his deeds and motives as considered today, regardless of modern standards.
I’m afraid I completely disagree with you, Ian B.
Firstly, I think it is a sweeping generalisation to imply that virtually all cultures and societies outside the modern West engaged in pederasty. It’s simply not true. Some civilisations, during some periods of history have tolerated forms of pederasty to some degree. That is not the same as claiming everyone was a paedophile.
For example, whenever people use this line of reasoning, the common example of historical pederasty is ancient Greece. But of course, the Greeks, as an entire civilisation did not engage in pederasty, some Greek city states such as Athens and Sparta did, at certain times in their history. And it was not a widely accepted practice, as a common insult aimed at Athens and Sparta by their enemies was that they were ‘boy-lovers’ – a despicable thing to be.
Another example cited is Rome, as you yourself highlighted. And yet, for large periods of Roman history a man was only able to have sexual relations with a slave-boy. Pederasty with a free-born child was a crime. Essentially, the Roman state was willing to turn a blind eye to men raping children as long as the children were slaves (i.e. not really ‘people’, anyway)
The point I’m making is that pederasty has rarely, if ever, been a wholly accepted practice, even within the civilisations that are held up as being particularly tolerant of it.
I just can’t subscribe to this kind of moral relativism. In my view, a civilisation that was authoritarian, theocratic and allowed people to have sex with 8 year old girls was a ‘bad’ civilisation – and the people who contributed the most to the development of that civilisation (i.e. Mohammed) were ‘bad’ people. If that means 10%, 20% or even 99% of all civilisations that have ever existed are ‘bad’, then so be it.
And, as both Ian F4 and myself have pointed out, Mohammed’s morality was ‘perfect’. It was that of God, himself. So, a Muslim must accept that paedophilia is morally (not just ‘culturally’) correct, or else their morality is at odds with the divine word of God.
Did Mrs. Warsi register a similar complaint when diplomats at a dinner party talked about Israel as “that shitty little country” and uttered similar anti-Semitic nonsense?
Didn’t think so.
Oh, and IanB: excellent comment. More than makes up for the utter twaddle you posted in the other thread about Sarah Palin.
The inherent difference between Judeo-Christianity and Islam (politically speaking) is that other than a few penumbral connections to the Pentateuch (“do no murder” etc), Judeo-Christianity is hardly ever used as a basis for government. Not so for Islam, whose ultra-orthodox dogma insinuates itself into every facet of life, whether social, political, or cultural. Unlike Christianity, Islam is noted more for the universality of its proscriptions than for its manifold indulgences.
I’ve often thought that if America puts an asterisk on the First Amendment’s freedom of religion (i.e. *except Islam), it will be because we redefine Islam from being solely a religion into what it really is: a socio-political creed like Communism. I also think that any attempts by radical Muslims to insinuate shari’a law into our legal system would certainly prove the necessity thereof.
Normal antiChristian stuff from Ian. Very much on the David Hume level – miracles are outside the laws of nature, things outside the laws of nature can not naturally happen, therefore I have “proved” that miracles can not happen.
Christians have many different political points of view (as do nonChristians), but I never thought I would see a libertarian argue for an expanded Welfare State – simply out of hatred of Christians.
Errr – are not libertarians supposed to be anti Welfare State?
Perhaps libertarians are to go the same way as 19th century liberals (after all we just had a mention of “liberalism” as a good thing). For example in Italy – conscription (for example in Sicily where it had not existed before the liberal conquest), large numbers of killings (again Sicily again – but not just there), language persecution (in Venice and many other parts of Italy), endless rigged elections, compulsory state education, and government anti poverty schemes.
All justified by Liberals on the grounds of undermining the ulitimate evil – the Church, especially the Roman Catholic Church, which stood in the way of a “modern nation state”.
It was much the same in Switzerland (in Cantons like Zug after 1847), or even (in a more restrained way) in Scotland (Act of 1845 on poverty, Act of 1872 on schools – both to break previous church dominated efforts).
In Germany it is famous – the Liberal alliance with Bismark, partly to defeat “reactionaries” (in Free Cities or old Kingdoms and so on) and partly to break independent Churches (especially the Catholic Church – hence the “War of Culture”).
Of course Bismark betrayed the liberals (as anyone with a brain could have predicted – and many people did predict it) and new political parties (such as the Social Democrats and the British Labour party) grow up to go much further than the liberals had or would go (in the direction of a Welfare State).
Yet many liberals, in the famous words, “continued to wave in a senile way at anything with the label PROGRESS upon it” – seeing their true enemy, not as statism, but as Christianity or even secular tradition in any form.
There was much that was GOOD in the liberal tradition – but it was overwhelmed by what was bad. The anti statist elements within liberalism (which did exist – some were Christians and some were not) were overwhelmed by elements who viewed liberalism as simply a war against tradition (including, on the continent at least) the Christian tradition. And viewed the state as a vital ally in this struggle.
It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if libertarianism were to die the same “strange death” as liberalism (turning finally into the “New Liberalism” of Lloyd George or the “New Freedom” of Woodrow Wilson).
Libertarians SHOULD attack Christian excuses for statism (such as “Low Church” desires to ban everything in sight, although not all “Low Church” people think like) – the same as libertarians should attack nonChristian excuses for statism.
But if libertarianism just becomes a war against Christianity (and the Western tradition generally) it will do liberty no service.
Indeed it will be doing the dirty work of the enemies of the West – whether they be Marxist, nonMarxist “Progressive”, or Islam.
Lee, I think we’re at slightly crossed purposes. I’m not saying you have to approve of the behaviours of other civilisations, or that you cannot pass judgement as a matter of personal opinion. To take an extreme example; Aztec civilisation. It was by our standards a monstrosity. I myself feel nothing but glad that it was destroyed.
But look at it this way; in our society a person who took their child and roasted them alive on a fire, or tore out their heart, would be considered without doubt an insane psychopath, who must be isolated from society forever. To the Aztecs, this was normal behaviour. It’s no use trying to judge them by our standards; by our standard every Aztec was an insane psychopath. This was what every Aztec grew up to consider normal behaviour. Any Aztec free thinker who questioned their sacrificial rituals would have been considered, in their society, a dangerous subversive. Our societies and moral structures are apples and oranges. To pick out some particular Aztec (e.g. Moctezuma) and declare him an insane psychopath makes no sense. In his time and place, he was just doing the normal thing.
The same goes for Mohammed’s marital arrangements.
Well Paul, another interpretation of what I wrote would be that in my analysis, it seems that whoever provides the welfare wields the power. In Europe, we shifted that to the State, and thus destroyed the Church. If we shifted it back to the Church, that would imply that the power of the State would be strongly diminished. Which appears to be at least partially the Conservative strategy.
But as a libertarian I am interested in reducing hegemonic power over individuals, rather than shifting it around two wings of a dualistic power structure. So Libertarianism gives me my answer; we must reduce the needs of the populace to rely on welfare from any source. That is my preferred outcome; neither Church nor State.
I thus seek a libertarian strategy of (a) economic growth and (b) redistribution of production via market forces. A free market would rapidly reduce housing costs, food costs, energy costs, childcare and education costs, and so on. Fewer and fewer people will need welfare. The power of welfare providers will be reduced. Everyone will be freer. Everybody wins[1]. That’s what I’m fighting for.
[1] Except the likes of Mervyn “Mr Inflation” King, that is.
Still returning to the matter of Islam:
Islam has benevolent elements – and, oddly enough, they are often the opposite of the people that we might think they are.
Take two Muslims – one is a man in a neat suit talking the language of the Western universities, the other is dancing about (litterally) seeking an individual spiritual relationship with God.
Which one is more likely to be a terrorist?
The FIRST.
A rationalist approach to Islam is one that concentrates on the TEXTS of Islam and on the LIFE of Muhammed.
For what that leads to – see the works of Robert Spencer (if Baroness Warsi wishes to refute these works I will be happy to read her refutation).
Most Muslims are actually NEITHER.
They are still in traditional societies – dominated by family and clan (and local traditions) far more than by Islam.
However, the most educated and wealthy Muslims (and Muslims in the WEST – where clans and local traditions apply rather less) go back to the texts of the religion and to the life of the “Prophet”.
It is natural that they should – and they have done so before, many times in Islamic history.
Reform movements rise in Islam repeatedly.
“Ah reform – how good” say some Westerners (that “senile wave” again) not understanding that “reform” in the Islamic context has normally (although not always) meant the struggle against the “corruption” of local cultures.
One does not need to be in the West to see this – as far off as Indonesia and Malasia (and so on) where many Muslims now wear special Islamic clothing. This they did NOT use to wear.
Of course there are other strains in Islam.
There is a “Western” strain (although that is often, although not always, a trick a cover for the Muslim Brotherhood – which is, in turn, a front for the strictest forms of Sunni Islam, intent on conquest).
And there is also the centuries old Sufi tradition – those mystics who do not bother much with texts “God can not be trapped in words” and have been famous (down the centuries) for their tolerance and kindness (yes Muslims – famous for their tolerance and kindness).
But a Westerner is not exactly likely to come into contact with them – they have little interest in us (and there is no particular reason why they should be interested in us).
“We will fight Islam with drink, drugs and bare breasted women”.
Try that game and OBL will LAUGH.
Where do you think that the true hardened killers in Islam (down the centuries) have tended to come from?
From the MOST corrupt, not the LEAST corrupt.
It is those Muslims who have indulged in drink, drugs and women (and so on)who then tend to go off and kill and expand the Islamic power.
Partly to show they have reformed (Muslims who have not done these things have nothing to prove) but also for another reason….
TO CARRY ON DOING THEM.
It is O.K. (if one looks at the sacred texts) to rape – if it is enemy women.
Just as it is O.K. to drink and use drugs (and so on) IF IT IS TO TRICK THE ENEMY.
It is only the Muslim who is NOT engaged in war who needs to be careful not to indulge these vices.
Including LYING.
“Oh he is my mate – we went out drinking together and he told me Muhammed was a tosser”.
That may be the very Muslim who is going to cut your throat.
However, it can even be SINCERE – for, I repeat, it is the Muslim who has rejected the teachings of their faith (in their youth) who (down the centuries) tends to be the sort of Muslims who leads the fight later.
Sorry but Islam is not going to be defeated by VICE – by drink, drugs and so on.
A belief system has to be replaced by another one – not just by a void (by vice).
Perhaps athiests have a belief system to offer – (Randian Objectivism springs to mind – that might work), but if not you had better find one. For vice is not going to do anything postitive.
Or hope that large numbers of Muslims in the West convert to (horror of horrors) Christianity.
Lastly on Baroness Warsi herself:
The lady has done a service.
Her own words clearly show that both freedom of speech and the use of reason are INCOMPATIBLE with the doctrines of “diversity”, and “anti discrimination”.
Of course, that was obvious anyway – but it is useful for the noble lady to (perhaps without knowing it) show that by her own speech.
Ian – oddly enough I actually AGREE with part of what you say.
For example, it makes no difference (from the point of view of liberty) if the person torturing you is working for the State or for the CHURCH.
Just as it makes no difference if the person taking money by force (TAXING you) is working for the state – or for the CHURCH.
The Christian Church is hardly a force for liberty if it is (for example) following the ideas of Augustine – and YES such theologians have been wildy influential (even though they could neither read the Old nor the New Testiments in the languages they were written in, and were greatly influenced by ideas that had nothing whatever to do with Christianity).
The “voluntarist” tradition may seem normal to an American (at least to an American who only looks back to the Great Awakening of the late 18th century – and not, say, to the Salem witch trials) but, as we both know, there has been much EVIL done in the name of Christ down the centuries.
However, it also true that the main alternative to the STATE (in health, education and welfare) down the centuries has been religious (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox – Jewish and so on).
It is true that there have been athiest voluntary efforts in all these areas (health, education, poverty, culture, art…..) – but they have been SMALL.
If religious faith is weak the state will grow – it is as brutal as that. It fills the void left by the decline of religion (vice is not a postive thing – it can not serve these purpose).
After all – that has been the history of modern times. The decline of relgion has been mirrored by the rise of the state – of a RETURN to the dominant “all-in-all” state of the late Roman Empire and of the late Greek City States.
Remember the PHILOSOPHICAL element.
Even statist Christians (such as Augustine) stood for the INDEPENDENT EXISTANCE of the Church outside the State.
If the Church has rights – then the precedent is set for other folk.
After all no pagan priest (or secular philospher) could possibly have done what Bishop Ambrose did to the Emperor in Milan.
The independence of the Church and its right to oppose the actions of the state – both of these things are part of the foundations of the West.
Before undermining those foundations you had better be totally sure you have INSTITUTIONS (large groups of people cooperating) that you can put in their place.
An appeal to reason WITHOUT having institutions to back it, will not avail.
Certainly the voluntarist elements within religion are not the only elements (there is much EVIL also) – but without those voluntarist religious elements, the defeat of liberty is certain.
Thus attacking them – is to do the work of the ENEMIES of liberty.
However, an athiest SHOULD BE AN ATHIEST.
No one should say “I believe in God” if they do not.
I have no objection whatever to you Ian (or anyone else) denying the existiance of God.
If you do not believe in God you SHOULD say that you do not believe in God (that is your “duty to truth”).
But that is a very different thing from hopeing that vice undermines religion. Such an approach also undermines liberty.
Either people control themselves (via their own moral reasoning – either backed by religion or by some athiest form of philosophy such as Randian Objectivism) or they are controlled – by the state.
To undermine SELF CONTROL (to cheer for vice) is to open the door for the state.
A door it is only too happy to use.
The country currently with the biggest problem with Islam is: Pakistan.
This is a country specifically created to provide a nation state where Muslims would not be persecuted by a (more) dominant religion.
Clearly, it has not gone well: their artificially created dominance has now (de)generated into a significant level of intolerance against others: the very thing their politicians of the 1940s feared would be exercised against them.
Where (and more specifically what) next?
Best regards
Kim, nothing has changed for Ian B. You and I New Worlders are egalitarian and can do to the core so we see Sarah Palin differently – as an egalitarian can doer in fact. Europeans are addicted to hierarchy and judge individuals not by their abilities but their positions in the social strata. By that standard Sarah Palin doesn’t stand a chance with the British or the US soi-disant elites. End of story.
“Europeans are addicted to hierarchy…”
… and is not Millie Woods “addicted” to inferences pulled out of the comments-pot before they’ve been thoroughly cooked?
“Regarding the kiddie fiddling, remember that devout Muslims consider Mo to the “perfect man”, nothing he did was ever wrong or sinful, that is why it does differ from anyone else, because of the divine attitude to his deeds and motives as considered today, regardless of modern standards.”
– Ian F4.
That is the key point about kiddie-fiddling. To this day the age of consent for girls in Iran 9, boys 15. It would be easy to say, “They’re backward” but they don’t see it that way because Islam is eternal, complete and Muhammed was perfect. Islam utterly forbids “innovation” in religion on pain of getting an Abysinian disembowelling cutless up the Gary. The difference between Christianity and Islam fundamentally is that Christianity is essential a set of moral principles and Islam is a rigid set of laws.
I read at a fatwa bank this gem…
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/103991/mermaids
Yes, it is generally regarded by the scholars that mermaid meat is halal.
That’s my point. Islam is total, absolute and absolutely true in every detail and it always has been and always will be. Note the Qu’ran was with Allah before the creation. To talk about temporal moral relativism in terms of kiddy fiddling totally misses the point. If marrying children had been unknown in C7th Arabia makes no difference from an Islamic perspective at any point in time or space.
Gender studies fail at the outset because human beings are governed by their ideas – not their “interests.”
If you want to understand Muslims, past and present, The Closing of the Muslim Mind by Robert Reilly,(Link) is a good place to start.
Sigh.
Take heart Ian, there is always the next thread.
Take heart, all- you can always confound a Muslim be asking which of these two statements, both found in the Koran, is true. Surah 4, verse 158, about Jesus Christ, “Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself- and Allah is exalted in power, wise.” This clearly says that Jesus did not suffer death. A contradicting Surah, 19, verse 33, has the infant Jesus saying “… So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day I shall be raised up to life again!” either dying, or not dying- which is it, mohammedans?
And you can get them on the claim by the Koran that it is the unchangeable word of Allah- where allah admits that He abrogates commands as he sees fit! (Surah 2, verse 106).
It is true that one can find support for good and for reason (as well as for evil and for nonsense) in the Koran. I tend to the view that the bad outweighs the good (and that the good verses are often early ones – written before Muhammed had large scale military forces at his command, and so wanted to give the impression he was fluffy).
However, I am not a scholar of Classical Arabic (or any form of Arabic) – so the Robert Spencer (etc) view of the Koran may be wrong.
Where the debate closes is (as the link John W. gives us points out) is with the Hadith.
The struggle within Islam (in which both sides used violence – i.e, the pro reason and pro free will side did not have clean hands either, no one tends to have clean hands in savage struggles) ended about a thousand years ago.
Whatever the fools (or worse) in Western universities (and schools and media outlets) say – Islam today (and for about a thousand years) stands AGAINST reason, and AGAINST moral responsiblity (free will).
Mainstream Christianity (that emerged by the end of the Roman Empire) was a compromise position – NOT all good, for it had a lot of evil mixed into it (from Augustine and other sources – predestination [although this was held to be compatible with free will – but an absurd dodge], the use of force in religious disputes, the denial of progress in THIS world, the injunction against studying any scientific theory that seemed to contradict the Bible and …… on and on), but mainstream Islam is NOT a compromise position.
It is much worse than that.
Of course by “written” I mean “spoken”.
Muhammed was a poet (as well as a theologian, and a politician, and a military commander) he delivered his verses (which he claimed were not created by him – but just transmitted from their existance with God) by means of verbal performance.
Nuke,
I suppose on the subject of abrogation and the episodic revelation of the Qu’ran a Muslim would argue that it told Muhammed what he needed to know when he needed to know it.
A bit like The Oracle does with Neo in the Matrix, really except the shades aren’t as cool and there are fewer chase sequences.
As usual, I agree with Paul Marks – the historical similarities to events and disasters in Christian culture in the past are largely superficial – Christian culture has, after all, succeeded where classical culture failed.
The fact that Christians have acted with shocking violence in the past does not mean there is some sort of political equivalence between Islam and Christianity – violence which is inherent to Islam and God’s Holy Warrior is clearly not an essential feature of Christianity and The Lamb of God.
My view is that Islam has NOT been reformed because it CANNOT BE reformed – it is all or nothing.
This is a rather troubling assessment since the inevitable economic catastrophe that is about to befall the Muslim World will mean huge numbers of desperate Muslims knocking on our door in need of assistance – given Muslim history, I don’t expect them to refrain from violence for long.
NickM, the trouble with this ‘need to know’ system is that some of the revelations contradict earlier ones, they don’t add to them. For instance, wine was first allowed, and then abrogated in Islam (When Mo saw what it did to warriors.)
Also, some earlier verses in Mo’s book are tolerant of previous faiths- then, when he’s a successful warlord, and doesn’t need them, he starts giving nasty sermons about them (especially the Jews- apparently Allah changed some of them to apes, though this is nowhere recorded in the history books!) And, as i showed about Jesus, some of the quotes about fixed history are different- in one verse, Jesus was not crucified, but was taken up into Heaven! And in another verse, the precocious infant prophet talks about his own past, present, future death, and resurrection! And both of these are infallible, contradictory, quotes about the fixed past! So Mo’s book is self-contradicting, not on-going revelation.
John W.
Do not be too quick to say that Christian culture has won out where Classical culture failed.
After all Christian culture is in decline (even in the United States) and has been in decline for many years – the same trend to the state as “all in all” that first undermined Greek city states (often limited governments at first) and even the Roman Republic, may well be at work.
For a Glenn Beck there is still a lot of hope – for he believes that if human beings really call upon God (and live in a way that shows they are worthy of aid) He will help them – although in his own way (for example they may still be horribly killed, but their deaths will have meaning, lead to ……).
For those of us who do not include Divine Providence as a central part of our theology the world is a much darker place.
Also remember the crimes of Christians were not just the result of people being bad – they were also the result of bad THEOLOGY.
Even leading theologians (I make no apology for mentioning Augustine again) tell you that one should not look for improvement in this world – it is understandable that people do not look for it.
And if leading theologians (such as …..) say it is justified to use force in matters of religion – then force will indeed be used.
“But Augustine would not have supported……” X, Y, Z, horrors.
Most likely NO.
However, once you say that a little force (including a little torture) can be used to promote the true interpretation of the faith……..
Do I have to go on?