The Search for Moderate Islam

I don't think you understand the meaning of 'purely academic'. Why are there Sunnis and why are there Shiites?

I understand how it's used by most people - to mean 'of interest only from a theoretical point of view and of no practical relevance'. I don't know if you're using it in some odd, idiosyncratic way, since it's always hard to say from the short, vague sentences you use in place of actually explaining what you mean. The split began as a dispute over who was the legitimate successor of Mohamed, if that's what you mean. Or are you asking why the distinction persists?

That's about what I mean.When people start shooting one another over the dispute, it is no longer purely academic. As far as I am aware, the Protestant/Catholic dispute is, at present, purely academic. Indeed. And when did the violence begin?

These are some of those who do not consider the Protestant/Catholic dispute academic: That's not an easy question to answer. The answer is certainly not 'on the death of the prophet Mohammed', as you're hoping for. There was violence at the time, but between Muslims and followers of other prospective prophets who popped up at the time. While it's hard to say much with certainty about the lives of Islam's early leaders, since everything we know comes from few sources heavily influenced by sectarianism, Ali (the first caliph according to Shi'ites) was still a collegue of the first three Sunni caliphs.If we want to put an arbitrary marker on the start of Sunni/Shi'a violence, we could say the Battle of Karbala in 680 - which was more a power struggle for control of the Caliphate that has retroactively gained religious significance by the growth of Sunnis as a sect.

I know there is crazy everywhere. I'm talking about the large-scale stuff, like was seen between catholic governments and their protestant subjects, for example.That kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore. But those things still occur between Sunni governments and their Shiite residents (and vice versa). That was the first one, huh?Edited by Jon, : No reason given.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

And some of those places have many Muslims. And some of the places that are filled with violence don't have many Muslims. Sam Harris suggests we should take the terrorists seriously when they inform us why they do what they do. Since they typically point to temporal crimes such as military base location, invasions, drone strikes, funding the Israeli military etc, if we are going by Sam we have to take that seriously.Even if Islam is blameworthy, we can't get rid of it. But since we're sending the drones, we might stop to think that maybe we do have some influence after all. Well that's obviously false. There are lots of villages who attack their neighbours who are not Muslims. Obviously most Saudis who do anything are Muslim, so that's kind of useless. Did you know most Sandal Surfers are Muslim too? Bastards. Have you found any interesting ones yet? I presume if you are interested you've gone and looked over the course of the last week, right?

Wow Jon, you really managed to create a high density of wrong here! They are certainly other words, but if you mean that in its colloquial meaning, then no. what you said was not a reasonable rewording of what I said. I don't find them to be false. I think I made this quite clear so how this serves as 'other words' for my post is baffling. Simplifications are perfectly acceptable in many contexts. Are you disputing this? CBS news is aimed at American audience right? I'm not wrong there?And they open the piece with this

quote:

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many of us have no idea what the actual difference between the two groups is, and why there is so much friction between them.

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So let's take a look at some of the history and the geopolitics to get a sense of what is really going on.

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Looks like the piece is aimed at Americans who don't know the differences between the groups, the history or the geopolitics. Not knowing something makes you ignorant of that something.Thus the piece is aimed at ignorant Americans.Did you think the target audience was well-informed Japanese people?Instead of attempting to clumsily reword what I said so as to impugn it as absurd, why don't you just focus on addressing the points I raised instead? When you really try and look for faults, it's funny the strange things you can come up with in desperation.The piece says that it started as differences within a religion (and face it, more than a religion but a civilization - an empire.) It then says that the continuance of the conflict is more than theology but that geography places a significant role. It points out that IS didn't exist until the Sunni of the area were politically marginalized after the fall of Saddam - so no it isn't saying it is just about religion. You didn't explain it at all. How is arguing that factors other than religion are at play constitute lies that advance Islam?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Like when my friend's business prematurely exploded in 1996?

Why not? I have been exceptionally busy, which is why all my posts lately have been short.

Not when simplifications obfuscate the issue and the issue involves people being slaughtered by the thousands.In that case I think anyone talking about the matter is obligated to discuss it honestly and completely, especially avoiding simplifications that sidestep difficult issues (many people find this a difficult issue because of some deep-seated false belief that all religions are equal, among other confusions). I believe this has been mentioned here already, if not in the thread, in a couple of sites I've linked to. It is correct to call Islam more than a religion: it is a complete system designed to govern every aspect of its followers' lives, not just in matters of faith and belief, but political organization, banking, relations with others, etc.So when I refer to Islam the 'religion', you shouldn't take it to mean that I am only referring to faith and belief. Of course, because simple theology disputes typically take place in the dusty basements of university libraries. As I said, though, Islam isn't a typical religion. What the fuck do you think Sunnis are? The political marginalization of Sunnis wasn't done because of the way they smell!Shiites hate Sunnis on religious grounds; Sunnis hate Shiites on religious grounds. And the fact that they both use whatever tools they have available to stick it to one another doesn't change the fact that their disagreement stems from the purely Islamic dispute over Muhammad's successor. The reporter downplayed and dismissed the religious components of the dispute; she did this for the same reason all reporters downplay and dismiss the specific role of Islam in the conflicts in the middle east: the Multiculturalism beliefs discussed in this thread and the Multiculturalism thread.

I've already explained this. Why don't you explain how we westerners can eradicate Islam quickly? Many have tried, and failed, and lots of people died as a consequence. What's your plan?

Stop whining about the obfuscation, and explain it. I already addressed the things you have so far called 'lies' as not being remotely lies. What else? You have failed to meet this requirement in this thread. You even just said that because you are busy your posts have been short just a few moments ago. This reporter had four minutes to explain to an audience who were presumed to come into with no knowledge, only prejudices, without alienating or insulting large swathes of people one of the most complicated geopolitical situations we're tackling today. Show me how you do better. If you succeed, there's probably a career you can make of it (contact the vlog brothers, they might be looking for writers!) So, where's the lie? Same was true of Christianity. Why is it not that way any more? Why is it still that way with Islam? Can the Quranists succeed at changing this? A group of people that live in certain areas of a certain ethnicity and cultural/political background. Just like the Catholics in Northern Ireland were fighting about more than Transubstantiation. No it was done because they are a minority who have for the past few decades enjoyed privileges and protections from Saddam Hussein which no longer exists. And that pisses them off. No. They hate each other for political and social/cultural reasons. Their religion exacerbates this through sectarian conflicts resulting in a cycle of violence and retaliation. Sunnis and Shias are perfectly capable of being friends with one another, and many people have in fact been so. So they aren't religiously obligated to war with one another.They are born into a 'team', and in some social contexts, they had better be seen to hate the other team. The details of the teams are relevant to various specifics - but they could easily be Catholics and Protestants and there'd probably be a shitstorm over who gets to rule what land and people. Which is what the report honestly states, right at the outset. Despite your protestations of their lies. But if you think the IRA was about whether Ireland should be religiously controlled by a King or a Pope, then you are wrong. Do you think that IS is really killing Shia for any other reason than they are very likely enemies who would undermine and fight against them? If so - why are they killing fellow Sunni who don't step in line?Sure, Iqbal a-Sunni-Muslim may be pissed off that Hamad-ShiaIslam does not pray often enough and that might be the kind of thing people use to rile up his anger to get him to execute the prisoner. Religion is great at motivating people to specific actions (Christians have been doing it just as much as Muslims). But why IS, why now, why there? That cannot simply be answered 'Islam'. LOL. Arnaud Amalric wants to teach you a thing or two about how simple theology debates can evolve and how geo-political factors can become significant factors in decision making.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Many of the practices of Islam are simply ridiculous and have no place in a modern society. France has taken some steps, such as banning the headscarf in certain places.You claimed we cannot get rid of Islam. I don't see why we couldn't. Of course, I don't really think getting rid of Islam is entirely necessary, as I've mentioned before. If Islam can join the modern world, then there is plenty of room for it here in the 21st century. But, as I've posted elsewhere, if Islam insists on living in the Middle Ages, the West has no obligation to recognize or tolerate it.

I'll give you that. Irrelevant. Have you read any of the stuff by Ayan Hirsi Ali that I've quoted and linked to? Her perception, as a former Muslim, is that the extremists are right: the texts of Islam really say what they claim they say.Her opinion is that the Qur'an itself (and other Islamic writings)and the fact that Muslims everywhere treat it as infallibleis one of the biggest problems with Islam.Did you watch the video I linked to in Message 386?Asim Qureshi can't bring himself to declare his disagreement. And how could he disagree? No matter how horrendous the writing, denying it is apostasy, punishable by death.This restriction on questioning even the most outrageous tenets of Islam is a major obstacle to reform in Islam. But no one addresses this. There is some weird attitude that Muslims can declare their devotion to the Qur'an (hadith, etc.) and all its evil while still maintaining the 'religion of peace' mantra. It doesn't work and Hirsi Ali gives good argument on the matter, which you can find by reading my other posts here. I am talking about the history of the matter. Of course not. And those teams have their origins in religious rivalry. And, of course, such conflicts aren't imaginary and were once major concerns in the west. However, two things should be said: this thread isn't about Christians; and, this stuff just doesn't happen in the Christian world anymore. As I've mentioned several times in this thread, our own history of failings doesn't excuse present behaviors (it didn't excuse our past ones, either).It's time to see how the disagreement began and commit ourselves to the stance that these behaviors, these religious wars, are simply inexcusable in the 21st century. They are killing everyone who they don't consider a true Muslim. And there are probably enough people who have joined the movement who simply like killing for no real reason at all.They aren't a monolithic group. That's the problem: you're only asking about now.

Many of the practices of Christianity are simply ridiculous and have no place in a modern society. England has taken some steps, such as allowing women to own private property and to initiate divorce proceedings. Seems like a solid claim. Nobody who has tried so far has succeeded for over a thousand years. Millions have died in said attempts. Well, Jon the Great - how do we achieve this? You talk on this thread like Islam intrinsically cannot do this, I've been arguing that it can and has done this on a number of occasions and that we should be doing what we can do foster this process rather than entrenching extremism.Denying that moderate Islam exists or can exist, is not - in my view - conducive to fostering its growth. It just confirms what the extremists are saying when they radicalize people. If we're all agreeing with them, that doesn't seem clever to me. Islam insists on nothing, it is an abstract collection of ideas. Instead we have to deal with the people. We could say 'they are opting to live in perpetual war' if we like, 'therefore we can kill them to keep the peace'. Alternatively we could do something other than sound like a 12th Century Pope and use our brains and experience and evidence and ask 'why are these people living this way? Why are they psychologically drawn towards violence? Why are they reverting (and compared with the Ottoman Empire, that region as reverted) or attempting to revert towards a more primitive cultural perspective? Why has this collapsed empire not fully settled down in the last century? Why the continued unrest, cries of injustice, violence and patriarchy?' Any answer is likely to include religious concepts, and their effects on human psychology which are probably real and I'm not here denying them. But that's simply not enough. Moderate Islam exists and has been practiced. So we cana) do what we've been doing for a thousand years and hope we're helping and not making it worse or perpetuating it.b) try fostering the kind of environment that Christendom had that allowed for the moderates to gain ground, whatever the important factors there were.You want to do a)?Any evidence that will work?My evidence that b) could work is that it has done so before. My evidence that a) doesn't work is by pointing out the persecutions of the Jews and Christians and how it doesn't work, and is in fact couterproductive towards the ends we're aiming at. Short of murdering basically everybody of a certain religion who refuses to convert, I don't see how a) is a path that has any merit whatsoever