tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post5948371087004901167..comments2024-03-22T17:35:52.045-04:00Comments on Extra Thoughts: Willingness to die: True religion and fakeryLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-51381285265730007842014-08-11T10:26:17.380-04:002014-08-11T10:26:17.380-04:00Besides, the argument, "The Koran doesn't...Besides, the argument, "The Koran doesn't contain suicide bombings, so Mohammad would have disapproved of them" is a fairly weak argument from silence. Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-82338368582215532282014-08-11T10:21:58.918-04:002014-08-11T10:21:58.918-04:00Steve, that is true of most schools of Islam (all ...Steve, that is true of most schools of Islam (all Sunni and Shia schools), but there is a Koranist stream of thought that is analogous to "sola scriptura". Like Karaite Judaism, it is a small minority.Srnechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10474493908162946111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-9358243534902977122014-08-10T17:32:37.377-04:002014-08-10T17:32:37.377-04:00Islam is not a Koran-only religion. It's not t...Islam is not a Koran-only religion. It's not the Islamic counterpart to Protestantism (i.e. sola Scriptura). <br /><br />Islam is also governed by a history of authoritative tradition. Even if the Koran didn't justify suicide bombers, Islamic tradition might still sanction that. stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-41909160349290552942014-08-09T20:11:03.183-04:002014-08-09T20:11:03.183-04:00Perhaps one of the stranger things to a Christian ...Perhaps one of the stranger things to a Christian about understanding Muslims and the Quran is that (unlike the Bible) apparently you don't interpret the whole Quran as if earlier texts can shed light on the later ones, it is always and only the other way around: the later ones completely control the earlier ones. This apparently for 2 reasons, first because the book was written sequentially in Mohammad's life, so it is semi-biographical. Secondly, because (from what little I can glean) the earlier temperate passages are cast into meaninglessness by the later immoderate violence was demanded. Thus apparently the inspiration for the earlier texts was not quite up to anticipating the later texts all that well, and any apparent inconsistencies are resolved by effectively saying that they are inconsistent and thus the later ones tell us to disregard the earlier. <br /><br />Which doesn't really say much for it being an inspired book, I grant you. But hey, we knew that much. <br /><br />I still see little in what passages I have seen to suggest Mohammad would approve of suicide methods just in order to kill non-Muslims, but again I could be wrong. There is a big difference between saying "go out and kill the heathen, and if you die your reward will be in heaven", and saying "go out and intentionally kill yourself while killing the heathens." Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-7896812878163789002014-08-07T23:49:49.017-04:002014-08-07T23:49:49.017-04:00This page has some useful verses and summaries.
h...This page has some useful verses and summaries.<br /><br />http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm<br /><br />I hadn't known that bin Laden had issued a corporate invitation to Americans to embrace Islam before 9/11. How he would have known if "enough" Americans embraced Islam is unclear. The on-going situation in Israel with the "Palestinians" is *undeniably* such that they would be regarded as, corporately, refusing to embrace Islam and therefore ripe for destruction. I think it is probably a projection of our Western individualism if we take it that the "invitation" to convert must be given on an individual basis before killing.<br /><br />Note too the hadith in which killing noncombatants is justified.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-77290535724459957752014-08-06T22:39:45.777-04:002014-08-06T22:39:45.777-04:00I agree that historically, conversion by the sword...I agree that historically, conversion by the sword was central to Islam and suicide terrorism wasn't. However, there are a couple more things to throw into the mix. First of all, there is Islamic anti-semitism, which really does go back a looong way, and which I would say is _not_ foreign to Islam. So in this scenario, they are fighting a Jewish state, and that makes a difference to what they consider religiously justified.<br /><br />Second, there is the issue of war. The argument is that this is a kind of total war and that there are no real Israeli civilians. That argument has been made explicitly by apologists for the "Palestinian" cause. Even, unfortunately, some Christians get their heads all messed up ethically when someone says, "What about in war?" So it's entirely plausible that this is not thought of as a war in order to spread Islam in a traditional way but just as war, period. As war to regain "sacred" ground that belongs to them by right. Hence, that activities are justified that would not be justified in an "ordinary" situation where one is merely trying to spread the religion by the most effective means.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-23605421236877983462014-08-06T22:30:53.126-04:002014-08-06T22:30:53.126-04:00I have wondered about this "I hope my kids gr...I have wondered about this "I hope my kids grow up to be suicide bombers" too: I wonder if it might even be counterfeit <i>Islam</i>. <br /><br />Now, there is a lot I don't know about Islam, so I could easily wrong. But it seems to me that Mohammad preached conversion by the sword: either convert or die. I can imagine a so-called "good" Muslim secretly, at night, stalking non-Muslims with a sword, pinning them to a wall, giving them an immediate choice, and killing the ones who even hesitate. And I can imagine a few who are willing to do this by the light of day and become martyrs when after the 3rd or 4th the police come and he is killed in a fight. In a strange, (yes, twisted) sense, this would be following the explicit prescriptions of Mohammad and in that twisted way would be a "hero". <br /><br />But a suicide bomber fails at 2 things: one, he fails to give the others an opportunity to convert, he never makes the choice available straight up. Secondly, there is (as far as I know, which is tiny) nothing in the Koran or haddiths that <i>promote</i> killing yourself just in order to kill the enemy. It seems like a cowardly way to behave for a soldier of God. A true religious warrior should be willing to go out there and actually fight with the enemy, actually let God's power flow through him to give him victory OVER the enemy, not give him defeat WITH the enemy. A suicide approach (when you are not already captured) seems completely foreign to the whole notion of being God's hand to smite wrongdoers. (That's treating non-Muslims as wrongdoers, instead of as potential converts, of course, which speaks to the other problem above). <br /><br />Now I have heard (by hearsay) that there are Koran parts that say that God prefers the conversion of an infidel rather than his death, though I don't know if that is true. I just think it unlikely that Mohammad told his warriors to be suicide killers. <br /><br />Which leads me to the plausible conclusion that (a) this suicide teaching is actually false <i>even within Islam</i>, and (b) probably those who teach it know it is not really there in Islam, and thus (c) it is manipulative and hypocritical of the teachers to teach it. (Which says nothing about like <i>murder</i> and religious war being against Islam.) Even if one were to grant that these leaders and teachers are religious zealots, it still wouldn't be true that their teaching others to suicide springs <i>out of</i> their religion, so it would really have to be zeal for some other goal or principle. That is, they are really not <i>religious</i> zealots so much as some other kind - like political. Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-58393830145953646022014-08-05T23:46:16.604-04:002014-08-05T23:46:16.604-04:00The Indian analogy is useful and instructive, beca...The Indian analogy is useful and instructive, because it shows that, even if we were to grant all manner of premises about the founding of Israel which we aren't required to grant, the inveterate hatred and refusal to bury the hatchet (pun intended) would be utterly unjustified. Nobody thinks that Americans should give back the site of some great city to the Indians, even if a true tale could be told of the Trail of Tears. Nor would Indian suicide bombing be an accepted "thing" in the name of the stolen land.<br /><br />Certainly there *is* something in Islam that nourishes that hatred: There are explicitly anti-semitic hadiths, for example, including the infamous one about killing a Jew hiding behind a rock which you've probably read.<br /><br />In fact, though my main post implies that Islam is a counterfeit of Christianity, it is at least as much a counterfeit of Judaism. The dietary laws have obvious similarities. The insistence upon ritual washing is a rather striking similarity, as is the strict observance of particular days. The explicitly anti-Trinitarian monotheism is common both to Islam and to Judaism as it has developed in the AD period. Muslims have a reinterpretation of Abraham himself, making him out to be some sort of proto-Muslim before Mohammad. And so forth.<br /><br />So the competition there is fierce from the Muslim side, and a *Jewish* state, particularly, in the midst of the Arab world, is a kind of affront and stain that cannot be wiped out in the Arab mind until and unless the state itself is wiped out.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-20189528228223378442014-08-05T23:20:59.682-04:002014-08-05T23:20:59.682-04:00The source of this mother's hatred (and of all...The source of this mother's hatred (and of all like her) is still a mystery to me. It's as though in much of the Arab world the Jews are a sort of virus that needs exterminating. Imagine the entire American Indian nation - every man, woman, and child - spending all its time in hatred and thinking up ways to kill the rest of us. It makes me wonder if there is not something in Islam that facilitates, or nurtures this hatred.William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.com