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Author Topic:   The Search for Moderate Islam
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 432 (736845)
09-13-2014 7:14 PM


We see the media overrun with stories of abhorrent, violent, and extreme acts committed 'on behalf of' the Islamic faith.
From the looks of things there's not much good going on in Islam today.
But perhaps that's just 'from the looks of things'.
Maybe things are different under the surface.
So I went digging; I went on a search for moderate Islam. And here is what I found:
 
 
 
 
 
Edited by Jon, : Removed forum suggestion to Admins.

Love your enemies!

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Adminnemooseus
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Message 2 of 432 (736847)
09-13-2014 8:45 PM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the The Search for Moderate Islam thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 3 of 432 (736853)
09-13-2014 9:42 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jon
09-13-2014 7:14 PM


I assume you are saying that your web search came up empty.
I'm not sure that means much. We are currently in a climate of hostility towards Islam, so web pages that are hostile will dominate the search results.
Personally, I don't know enough about Islam to comment on whether there is a moderate branch.
The main problem I see, is that it is difficult to separate what is the religion from what is the culture. They are tightly connected.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


Message 4 of 432 (736858)
09-14-2014 2:13 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jon
09-13-2014 7:14 PM


Have a look at the Muslim Council of Britain's website: We have a problem
They promote a very moderate and widely held interpretation of Islam. Have a look at their recent press releases, condemning IS atrocities.

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 432 (736863)
09-14-2014 4:44 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by vimesey
09-14-2014 2:13 AM


Not sure what Jon means...
Have a look at their recent press releases, condemning IS atrocities.
Surely this cannot be the standard Jon is using to judge whether Muslims are moderate. Because it is nearly impossible to construct a search that won't find articles accusing Muslims of not opposing IS answered by identifications of Muslims doing exactly that. Simply typing Muslim and 'ISIS' into a web browser turns up plenty of condemnations of IS by Muslims.
Perhaps he is noting that Muslims tend to be socially conservative or that they tend not to believe in evolution. Perhaps he cannot find many Muslim atheists. But it is equally difficult to find Methodist atheists. But surely he cannot be talking about condemnations of ISIS.
I wonder what happens when the words moderate muslim are typed into a Google search edit box. Nope, that does not manage to avoid anything.
I recall an earlier discussion covering some of this ground. Evil Muslim conspiracy....
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 6 of 432 (736868)
09-14-2014 7:32 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jon
09-13-2014 7:14 PM


Yeah it's not a simple issue is it. I know it can be tempting to blame it all on Islam-belief but I myself haven't read the Koran so I can't vouch for it.
I would say personally that we can ask ourselves a question about sin, and what sin is, we are told the heart is "desperately wicked above all things". This doesn't mean everyone is willing to chop another's head off of course, but I think it can be easy to ATTACH sin to certain groups but this shouldn't be done really as it's individual.
Right now it's easy to say that the Muslims are the cause because of Islam. There is certainly some truth in that, but ultimately people sin for their own reasons. Perhaps the people that wrote it were of the same sinful inclinations as their descendants? Here is my question:
Do we suppose that if Islam did not exist, that the people who chop off heads would not find SOME OTHER JUSTIFICATION in their hearts, for chopping off those heads?
In prayer this morning, I was saying to God, "how can it get that bad? How can another person saw someone's head off". I looked at the 7-foot Muslim standing there with his knife, ready to do his chopping, and I wondered what it must be like to be like that person. How could that be your purpose in life? How could you physically destroy someone in such an evil way, it makes me shiver almost with fear to be in this world sometimes. I also wondered how, with my anxiety disorder as intense as it has always been in me, I would cope before my slaying, I should think perhaps what I went through before my death would match the actual event.
The answer I can only come up with, is that people have always been this bad. Look at the past, the Romans and so forth, look at the bloody histories. It's as though God wants to thoroughly prove our sin-state beyond a shadow of a doubt by showing us just how thoroughly disgusting we are as humans, in the things that we do. I also saw a Rhinoceros-baby, left with it's head half-chopped off, slowly dying, so someone could make a profit and I again, just can't understand how a conscience can be so seered as for a person to act so cruelly toward a gentle and harmless little Baba-saurus. it is unbelievable to me, and the only answer that satisfies me is SIN. It is the only explanation, that people left to their sin-nature can end up doing terrible things.
I can only be a witness and tell the truth, that personal sin can be dealt with, on a personal level, whatever your problems are, through the Holy Spirit. I wouldn't say this if I had not experienced it. It's not something you can fabricate. What can I say? I watch none-believers and how lax their morals can be because they don't answer to God or worry about what He will do, but I certainly worry, I think this is the "conviction" of the Holy Spirit - that now, I can't even steal five pence, whereas before belief, it was just a personal call, I did not worry as to what God thought because I didn't know He was there, for sure, but now I do, I can't get away with even those small things, and nor would I want to! I don't boast but I'm trying to show you the SOLUTION to SIN in this world - by dealing with what is wrong on the inside of us, and getting it put right!!!!
So I won't blame "Islam" perse, because that is not fair to the ones who practice it without doing any harm, they should be allowed to do that, and to show that it can be done without violence, to show up the ones that choose the extreme version.

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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 432 (736873)
09-14-2014 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by mike the wiz
09-14-2014 7:32 AM


I think we should understand the mindset a little bit. Here is pretty much a copy-paste from another forum where a similar topic came up (Religions and Cultures ... in America ... and Europe
This view [that atrocious acts are simply being justified by religion instead of being rooted in religion] is built largely on Western secular morality. In the West, people derive their morals secularly; they do not decide what is right or wrong based on what is in a bookany bookbut based on their own judgement of decency, fairness, equality, humility, and humanity. We may find plenty of people, especially in the U.S., who argue that their morality comes from God, from reading the Bible. But when we ask them the typical questions asked of such people ("If God told you to rape children, would you start raping children?"), their inability to provide a resounding "yes" responseand instead weaving around various excuses to dismiss the issuebetrays the fact that their morality is secular; it is not religious.
That any of their morals have correlates in religious texts is coincidental: they established their morality first, and found the religious morals that agreed with it later. And this attitude toward morality is the basis of questions such as "Do we suppose that if Islam did not exist, that the people who chop off heads would not find SOME OTHER JUSTIFICATION in their hearts, for chopping off those heads?" They would find other reasons were they ultimately holders of a secular morality; but not if they are holders of a religious morality.
By and large, they are the latter.
So I won't blame "Islam" perse, because that is not fair to the ones who practice it without doing any harm, they should be allowed to do that, and to show that it can be done without violence, to show up the ones that choose the extreme version.
That's kind of what I was getting at with this thread. Of course there are moderate Muslims. But is there a moderate Islam? NoNukes brushed over the difference between a Muslim (a single person) and Islam (a religion) when he suggested googling "moderate Muslim", but, of course, that's not what this thread is about.
This isn't a search for moderate Muslims; this is a search for moderate Islam.
Where is it?

Love your enemies!

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Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 432 (736876)
09-14-2014 11:48 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by Jon
09-14-2014 10:55 AM


NoNukes brushed over the difference between a Muslim (a single person) and Islam (a religion) when he suggested googling "moderate Muslim", but, of course, that's not what this thread is about.
This isn't a search for moderate Muslims; this is a search for moderate Islam.
Where is it?
If you look at the search results even for moderate muslims, what you will find is Muslims explaining that their religion does not tell them to do what IS is doing. The results will include Islamic leaders explaining such things. Exactly what searches did you conduct?
As has been noted in past discussions, the Bible also contains passages instructing the commission of genocide.
Do we suppose that if Islam did not exist, that the people who chop off heads would not find SOME OTHER JUSTIFICATION in their hearts, for chopping off those heads?"
By and large, they are the latter.
Do we really need to describe how easy it is to find people who practice the religion and who do not cut off heads and are actually appalled by such things? There are over a billion people in the world practicing this religion. Maybe a half million or so practice the religion in this country.
ABE:
From Wikipedia
quote:
An adherent of Islam is called a Muslim.
Just what are you arguing here?
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : replace "churches" with discussions.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Replies to this message:
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 9 of 432 (736905)
09-14-2014 4:52 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Jon
09-14-2014 10:55 AM


This isn't a search for moderate Muslims; this is a search for moderate Islam.
But what does that mean.
If we look back through history, there were times when Christianity was pretty violent.
So what changed? I really don't think Christianity has changed that much. We still hear pretty harsh rhetoric from the religious right. What I think changed, is that religion and culture became partly separated with a rise in secularism. So Christianity and culture are now not nearly as tightly connected as they were in the past.
We have not seen a comparable rise in appreciation of secular values in the Islamic cultures.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 10 of 432 (736906)
09-14-2014 4:57 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Jon
09-14-2014 10:55 AM


By and large, they are the latter.
Or it breaks down on how fundamentalist the people are, just as we see fundamentalist christians inn the US advocating and carrying out executions of abortion doctors and bombings of clinics.
Where I lived in Michigan we had neighbors that were muslim, and I know of no beheadings there. There are moderates, many have moved away from the war zones leaving more of the fundamentalists to cause mayhem.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 11 of 432 (736912)
09-14-2014 5:34 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Jon
09-13-2014 7:14 PM


So I went digging; I went on a search for moderate Islam. And here is what I found:
Really? Did you go to any Shisha bars? Attend Mosque? Did you put even the slightest bit of effort into it, or did you try a search within your Google filter bubble? I can find moderate Muslims by looking at my address book. Suhayl, Rashid, Iqbal, Ahmed, Farhad. They've all done the Hajj I believe, but most of them have drunk alcohol or eaten bacon (which they rationalize in much the same way Christians do for their sins). Farhad once gave me the keys to his car when mine had been written off and paid for the insurance on it until I got a replacement sorted out.
I have attended Mosque, been to their weddings and done general week-to-week socializing with them. They abhor violence, but are slightly homophobic (it's just idle talk, not of a remotely violent nature (the usual, 'disgusting' 'unnatural' etc)) and occasionally distrusting of Jews and Americans. They think that Western Civilisation is losing its sense of community but they also decry when Muslims use their community to collude to cover up crimes, but they believe that those issues will normally be sorted 'internally', though they know there are the corrupt. They believe in Shaitan and djinn (most Muslims I know, after I've grown to know them well, well tell me the time they met a djinn).
They all think the world is young, they have no free will, and that if we don't revert we will burn in hell. On the other hand, with a handful of exceptional exceptions, they don't proselytize (if I ask, they tend to give 'just the facts, ma'am', with a little bit of editorializing).
All of these people are second generation immigrants, ancestral cultural influences become less strong for each generation (generally). In short, they have strange beliefs, a somewhat alien cultural background, and have slightly different characteristics than moderate Christians, but there are plenty of them.
Hey - maybe the American internet is not a reliable medium to learn about moderate Muslims?

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Replies to this message:
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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 12 of 432 (736917)
09-14-2014 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by RAZD
09-14-2014 4:57 PM


It's different with Christianity, sometimes people think the No True Scotsman fallacy applies but it actually doesn't apply as it's predicated on actions contrary to the definition of Christianity as outlined by Christ and the New Testament teachings which are very overtly anti-violence. I am a "fundamentalist Christian", in every sense of the true meaning of the phrase. But I have no part in any overt sin that can be categorized as crime nor do I know any genuine Christians that would act in a manner that is anti-Christ.
People tend to want to say that everyone is a Christian, even Hitler, but atheists largely do that so as to make Christianity look bad. But actions that are anti-Christ can't be "Christian", it is like saying: "a none-Christian, Christian, murdered someone."
No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. Of course "sugar on porridge" as a predicate, doesn't contradict what it means to be Scottish, but murdering DOES contradict what it means to be Christian for the fruit of the spirit are love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, self-control etc......

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mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4752
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 13 of 432 (736920)
09-14-2014 6:40 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Modulous
09-14-2014 5:34 PM


which they rationalize in much the same way Christians do for their sins)
The whole point of becoming a Christian is to have indwelling sins dealt with. I also wonder how you would define "sin" as an atheist since that would only become a relative-term to a secular person. It would only be your opinion that I was sinning, if I perhaps told a lie but I know atheists that think it's okay to lie, and most people think it's okay to tell "white lies" or "fibs". (euphemisms)
Christians can sin, but to rationalize them? That's pointless to us, totally pointless, because it's the world that wants to not deal with sin which is why people don't want to know Christ.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 14 of 432 (736921)
09-14-2014 6:44 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by mike the wiz
09-14-2014 5:59 PM


fanatics are fanatics no matter what brand of religion is used
It's different with Christianity, ...
No Mike, in my book anyone that kills people and justifies it with their religion is a religious fanatic and irrational\unsane, and it doesn't matter to me in the slightest what religious cloak they wear.
And their existence doesn't preclude people holding the same religion to be sane rational people that don't want to go around murdering people.
I also think that wars tend to turn otherwise rational people insane.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 15 of 432 (736924)
09-14-2014 7:51 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by mike the wiz
09-14-2014 6:40 PM


which they rationalize in much the same way Christians do for their sins)
eg
The whole point of becoming a Christian is to have indwelling sins dealt with
My only point with this statement is the nature of the rationalisations are quite similar to those of Christians (which you deny exist). Maybe the Muslims aren't rationalizing either? I notice you didn't give reasons why I was misrepresenting Islam?
I also wonder how you would define "sin" as an atheist since that would only become a relative-term to a secular person.
Sin is a religious concept not a secular one, both Islam and Christianity have it. Individuals vary on how they use the term, but there are general similarities. In general, sin is that which goes against the word or law of God. It is not a relative term.
As an atheist I don't believe sin exists, so I don't generally sweat the details and concern myself more with how my actions and inactions impact those around me which I think is more important than worrying about what a hypothetical being might think of them.
It would only be your opinion that I was sinning,
This is true of Christians too, which is why Jesus reminded them not to worry about judging other people's sins and to worry about their own and that God is the only judge on the matter. I fail to see what being an atheist has to do with that.
If you want to talk about how Christians are unique and special snowflakes rather than them being human beings who operate just like other human beings in that rationalizations are an essential part of their psychology - start a thread. Because that isn't anything to do with moderate Islam.

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