Do you think Islam is facist? — Wayfarer

I am not sure fascist is the word to use. But there is a kind of brutality in the traditions of the Abrahamic religions.

I have read William Lane Craig rationalizing what was done to the Biblical Amalekites. Today we have the Islamic State actually doing more or less the same thing. Then, Midianite virgins, today, Yazidi.

So theoretically at least, Islam is no more "fascist" than Christianity or Judaism. It's just that Christians and Jews have stopped doing that sort of thing.

So theoretically at least, Islam is no more "fascist" than Christianity or Judaism. It's just that Christians and Jews have stopped doing that sort of thing. — Frederick KOH

You will find nothing equivalent to the Sermon on the Mount in the Quran.

You will find nothing equivalent to the Sermon on the Mount in the Quran. — tom

http://al-quran.info/?x=y#6:151

Starting from there the Qu'ran states:

Avoid idolatry
Honor your parents
Reject infanticide
Live a pure life in every way
Refuse to take a life unless it is necessary (which calls into question some popular depictions)
Treat orphans justly, especially when money is involved
Say only what is truthful and fair
Keep your promises

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%205-7&version=NIV

The Sermon on the Mount (loose interpretation):

idolatry = Matthew 6:24
parents (metaphorical for God) = Matthew 5:45; 6:8-9; 7:11
infanticide = Matthew 6:21-22; 7:9-10
purity (especially sexual) = Matthew 5:27-32; 7:12
murder = Matthew 6:21-22; 38-39
justice (especially financial) = Matthew 5:23-24; 6:2-3; 12; 19-21
truthfulness = Matthew 5:36-37
reliability = Matthew 5:33-37

You shouldn't forget either that Jesus is considered an Islamic prophet and what he said, according to the Bible, does carry some weight with Muslims as hearsay. Muslims will sooner turn to Hadith as a verifiable source of what Jesus said or didn't say as part of the sermon on the mount (apparently such a Hadith exists) but I have no idea what it says. In general though, most Muslims will agree that the sermon does not conflict with the teachings of the Qu'ran and as such is likely to be the word of God as well.

It might be required, Tom, that you open yourself up to a reading of the Qu'ran without preconceptions.

Along with everyone else,

1. Their children are required to go to public school and receive 12 years of training in the secular, liberal language, history, science, and civic institutions of the society.
2. Their young adults are liable for military service (unless physically unable)
3. Children, youth and adults may not impose their dietary restrictions on public kitchens
4. Children, youth, and adults may not engage in group religious rituals or wear specific religious clothing in public places (like schools, public institutions, public transit, etc.)
5. Standards accepted by the larger society in the area of dress or undress may not be challenged on a religious or specific basis. Don't like 95% of a body's skin exposed at beaches? Don't go there, then. Don't accept men and women sitting in the same whirlpool at the Y? Don't sit in the whirlpool, then.
6. Religious institutions (of all denominations) must fit into the surrounding community with respect to architectural styles, noise, outdoor events, and so on. Can the Holy Rollers open the windows and doors for their all night soul jam with highly amplified music and associated screaming? No. Can mosques broadcast the call to prayer 5 times a day hearable beyond 500 feet? No. Can a 4-spired big-domed box be built in an area with colonial era architecture? No.
7. Employees of private firms can not claim exemption from contact with unclean or holy meat. We eat pork and we kill sacred cows. Don't like it? Tough.
8. Apply anti-discrimination law (on the basis of gender) where applicable.
9. Expose everyone to non-stop commercial messaging about products, consumerism, pornography, etc. — Bitter Crank

Point 4, ok when it concerns religious rituals in a group. I don't agree where it concerns clothing in public places unless they are acting in an official capacity where the image of independence and secularity is important.
Point 7, I'm not sure what you're saying. Can you elaborate? What does it mean to "claim exemption"?

Personally I can do without 9 myself. I want more graffiti and other 'cave-man' art on the streets than commercials.

I'm speculating that what's going on is that people are thinking that if

A. Christianity does have a fundamentally pacifist message, and
B. Islam's origin actually did involve violence and bloodshed on the part of its prime figure, and
C. For various reasons, Muslims don't feel free to stray from the literal,

that this must mean Christianity is morally superior to Islam and by extension, Christians are morally superior to Muslims. And that can't be true, so A, B, and C can't be true.

A,B, and C actually are true. People are trying to conjure facts with which to fight racism and in the process, misconstruing. Maybe it would help to realize that facts are useless against racism, anyway. Love defeats racism. For love can not fight without winning. Love never fails.

To me, the more fascinating question: Jesus and the Prophet have a lot in common. So why did one become a spokesman of peace and the other a military leader?

I felt much safer walking back streets in Pakistan, Iran and Turkey than I would in many neighbourhoods of the urban USA. — andrewk

Are you a Jew or a female?

I don't think he realizes his line of thought is about to get really racist. Or maybe he does.

General comment: Read the NT all the way through. Then read the Quran all the way through. Then compare. Arguments to the effect that "Islam hasn't had enough time to develop" (which leads to a kind of soft bigotry of low expectations) or "you can find some verses in the Quran that sound alright" (which ignores the general flow of the book) are red herrings. Even opponents of Christianity, like Nietzsche, recognize its pacifistic, democratic tendencies, while Jesus' line about "rendering unto Caesar" is the kernel of the separation of church and state. It's hard to say those things about the Quran and Islam.

Even opponents of Christianity, like Nietzsche, recognize its pacifistic, democratic tendencies, while Jesus' line about "rendering unto Caesar" is the kernel of the separation of church and state. It's hard to say those things about the Quran and Islam. — Thorongil

I seem to recall Nietzsche also observed that Christianity bears the seeds of its own destruction, in that it recognises two roads to the truth: faith and reason. Reason will, of course, lead to conclusions different from faith.

Islam lacks any appeal to reason, or even reasonableness. And the 109 sura that exhort violence towards the infidel, stand in stark contrast to the Sermon on the Mount.

Islam lacks any appeal to reason, or even reasonableness. And the 109 sura that exhort violence towards the infidel, stand in stark contrast to the Sermon on the Mount. — tom

Probably because Arabs weren't afflicted in the reason department. Islam created a fruitful environment for philosophy, math, science, and poetry. Contact with the Muslim world is the reason Europe didn't continue to sink backward culturally during the medieval period.

There was a brief period during the Abbasid Caliphate when I think faith and reason coexisted in the Islamic world, especially in Baghdad and Persia. Incidentally, this is also when Sufism, the mystical and ascetic branch of Islam, was at its height. Sometimes this is called the Islamic Golden Age, but note that the implication of this phrase is that subsequent ages were less than golden, which is true. Around the 13th century, the Mongols destroyed the material and governmental stability of the empire while the mullahs and clerical hardliners were largely successful in casting philosophers, scientists, and Sufis as heretics.

I have heard this before. I think a way of looking at it is that where Christian fundamentalists and the like failed to overcome their moderate Christian contemporaries and secular thinkers in Europe, the Muslim fundamentalists succeeded.

I think a way of looking at it is that where Christian fundamentalists and the like failed to overcome their moderate Christian contemporaries and secular thinkers in Europe, the Muslim fundamentalists succeeded. — Chany

Right, but the question is whether, given the scriptural and theological bases of both religions, these developments were more or less inevitable. I think they were.

Around the 13th century, the Mongols destroyed the material and governmental stability of the empire while the mullahs and clerical hardliners were largely successful in casting philosophers, scientists, and Sufis as heretics. — Thorongil

Nevertheless the fact remains that in the 21st century, people are put to death for questioning Islam.

Indeed.

Arguments to the effect that "Islam hasn't had enough time to develop" (which leads to a kind of soft bigotry of low expectations) or "you can find some verses in the Quran that sound alright" (which ignores the general flow of the book) are red herrings — Thorongil

Thinking of me? But I have no "high expectations" of any kind where (organized) religions are concerned, and if that's bigotry, it applies to all of them, not to any in particular. I merely note that the religion of Christianity has had a notably bloody history; something to bear in mind when comparing it with other religions, including Islam. The fact that the gospels don't preach violence or intolerance has had little or no effect on the conduct of Christians, who've been cheerfully killing and persecuting themselves and others for centuries, for religious reasons.

If Christians themselves disregard the gospels and the NT in their conduct, why should we "regard" them it in coming to conclusions regarding the conduct of members of other religions, or in comparing them to Christians? That merely establishes that Christians haven't honored their holy books, which doesn't say much for Christianity, the religion.

The fact that the gospels don't preach violence or intolerance has had little or no effect on the conduct of Christians, who've been cheerfully killing and persecuting themselves and others for centuries, for religious reasons. — Ciceronianus the White

But this is massively misleading. Were there such Christians? Sure, but there were many more who did follow the example of Jesus and the principles found in the NT. Anecdote battles are pointless, though. We're talking about the overall historical trajectories of the religions in question and the societies they formed. On that score, Christianity clearly has the better record than Islam.

That merely establishes that Christians haven't honored their holy books, which doesn't say much for Christianity, the religion. — Ciceronianus the White

But they would simply point to original sin, a doctrine which is, interestingly, absent in Islam.

Religious and political ideologies are so readily able to inspire violence against non-adherents because the human animal is evolved to profoundly identify with tribe and be hair-trigger hypersensitive to actual or imagined threat from anyone perceived as other. Because adherents commonly believe that their very survival literally depends on their faithful adherence to the doctrines and prescriptions, any violations are apprehended as mortally threatening.

Note that religious and political ideologies invariably characterize non-adherents as categorically "other"--not really one of us, morally inferior or downright evil, sometimes even as some other ontological category of being, and ultimately a threat to our tribe and our survival. Their elimination, sometimes sooner, sometiems later, is readily seen to be necessary. Some ideologues take it upon themselves to do the elimination of the evil others, some leave it for the End Times, when God will do it once and for all.

Islam is jist one variety of this phenomenon.

But this is massively misleading. Were there such Christians? Sure, but there were many more who did follow the example of Jesus and the principles found in the NT. Anecdote battles are pointless, though. We're talking about the overall historical trajectories of the religions in question and the societies they formed. On that score, Christianity clearly has the better record than Islam. — Thorongil

Christian intolerance and oppression, not merely of pagans but of others believing themselves to be Christians, began almost immediately as Christian orthodoxy took form, starting with the reign of Constantine. Constantine issued edicts prohibiting Christian heretics from assembling and confiscating their property. The Christian emperor Theodosius was zealous in extirpating heresy (and also closed pagan temples and schools) and barred Christians who didn't follow the dictates of the Council of Nicea from holding public office and decreed that only Nicene Trinitarian Christian was the true religion. Augustine famously claimed that religious error has no rights. A fifth century abbot commenting on the religious violence taking place claimed: "There is no crime for those who have Christ." In 1095 at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II sanctioned the idea of bellum sacrum ("holy war").

Forced conversion of heretics, pagans and Jews, violence against Jews, the Inquisition, the Crusades, all led up to Christian religious wars on a large scale (which probably first commenced in the 16th century in Europe). The importation of Christianity outside Europe into the Americas and the East had very unfortunate results for native peoples as well.

So, I'm not sure which religion has been more violent over time. I have no desire to defend Islam against claims of violence, but I think violence is inherent in any belief that a particular religion is exclusively true and God wants us to act only in a certain way and believe only certain things. Muslims have not been and are not the only people who have held, or hold, such a belief.

I see the dance from the opposite angle:

Christianity does have fundamentally violent (and peaceful) messages, and throughout it's history Christians have practiced violence.

Islam does have fundamentally violent (and peaceful) messages, and throughout history Muslims have practiced violence.

(QED Christians are morally superior to Muslims???)

This is where I see contradiction and sloppy comprehension. If we rewind time to a period when both Christians and Muslims were engaged in widespread religious violence (or peace), there's no longer any sharp teeth to the claim that Islamic doctrine is inherently more violent and Christianity is inherently not violent.

You can try to bolster that argument by arguing Christianity is really really peaceful (but it's not).

You can try to bolster that argument by arguing Islam is really really violent (so is Christianity).

Finally you can try to bolster that argument by once again arguing that since present day Muslims are more violent, Islam is inherently a more violent religion; which brings us back to my current point: If we rewind time to a period when Christians are happily practicing OT violence, what happens to your claim that Christianity is inherently pacifist?

Is Christianity of old not the same Christianity of today? Did Christianity or Christians change? Is that what Islam and Muslims needs to do?

"There is no crime for those who have Christ." In 1095 at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II sanctioned the idea of bellum sacrum ("holy war"). — Ciceronianus the White

In 1095 you say?

Meanwhile in Muslim countries, atheists are killed, children are raped, homosexuals are thrown from high places. In the putative Caliphate, Yezidi children are placed in industrial bread-kneeding machines and fed to their parents, while the girls are bought and sold as sex-slaves. This, in full compliance with Sharia in the 2017.

In 1095 you say?

Meanwhile in Muslim countries, atheists are killed, children are raped, homosexuals are thrown from high places. In the putative Caliphate, Yezidi children are placed in industrial bread-kneeding machines and fed to their parents, while the girls are bought and sold as sex-slaves. This, in full compliance with Sharia in the 2017. — tom

That all sounds awful! I reckon we could raise an army and make it to Jerusalem by, let's say, 1099? As your liege lord I demand the use of your healthy sons and will require a larger portion of the goods you produce this season above and beyond the existing tax. It will be worth it though, after a few pit-stops your sons will be more than ready to execute those poor, poor child slaves.

Reason will, of course, lead to conclusions different from faith. — tom

Well, in some cases it leads to beliefs in intinite parallel worlds in which billions of replica selves are having nearly-identical debates - which I think Nietszche would be inclined to diagnose as the self-destruction of reason.

Christianity does have fundamentally violent (and peaceful) messages, and throughout it's history Christians have practiced violence. — VagabondSpectre

Meh. There have many episodes of violence in the name of religion, but I don't accept the characterisation. Christians also were responsible for the founding of Universities and schools, the hospital system and public health, and many fundamental characteristics of democratic governance. To atheists, all religions are species of delusion, but that is as much a matter of their own prejudices as of historical fact.

The gang-rapers tom mentioned specifically justified their actions by referring to the actions of the Prophet. At present, Sunnis have no way to address this issue.

I don't think it would kill you to admit that this is a serious problem. And to my mind, to ignore it is a betrayal of those young girls.

This is where I see contradiction and sloppy comprehension. — VagabondSpectre

Since you have yet to comprehend anything I told you, I think we're done.

Meanwhile in Muslim countries, atheists are killed, children are raped, homosexuals are thrown from high places — tom

One difficulty for this line of argument is that from 1930 to 1970, say, some of which were the days of my youth, it was in atheist countries where by far the greatest amount of hideous butchering torture and rape were taking place. I don't think atheism was responsible then and I don't think Islam is responsible now. We need to be clearer in our terms and our historical and political understanding.

I'm an atheist, against all monotheistic patriarchal religions and societies. I doubt all our pontificating does much good, compared to what we just do in our personal and civic lives, expressing our values through what we do and say, and not being hasty in judgment whose lives we barely understand.

In 1095 you say?

Meanwhile in Muslim countries, atheists are killed, children are raped, homosexuals are thrown from high places. In the putative Caliphate, Yezidi children are placed in industrial bread-kneeding machines and fed to their parents, while the girls are bought and sold as sex-slaves. This, in full compliance with Sharia in the 2017. — tom

Ah, I see. We're to ignore the history of the Christian religion, or perhaps history in general, in comparing Christianity and Islam for purposes of this thread. As you will; carry on then.

Some nice examples but you fail to causally link this to Islam. Just as the USA claims to be the best county in the world, when we know it isn't, the Caliphate can claim true Islam, when we know it isn't. There isn't one interpretation, there isn't one Sharia. Abhorrent legally sanctified practices (water boarding, war crimes) do not make the US constitution a violent legal system. Abhorrent legally sanctified practices (marriage of minors, stoning of adulterous women) do not make Islam a violent religion.

You're basically cherry picking and don't seem to even take the time to verify facts. First of, a sura is a chapter, not a verse. There are 114 sura and 6,236 verses. If I search for your 109 violent suras, the first I come across is 2:191. If I read the one preceding that:

Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.

And then the "violent" verse:

And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

And then:

And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

What terrible violence to defend yourself and to expel them and even kill them, which in the eyes of a Muslim is not as bad as being a disbeliever. But if they cease attacking, you must be forgiving and merciful (because Allah is).

Then there's the numbers themselves even without weighing whether the violence is contextually justified. Even accepting there are 109 violent verses that adds up to less than 1.75% in the Quran. It adds up to a religion of violence because people have been repeating it often enough. Probably originated on Breitbart or something similar.

Also, I have no clue about the number of verses in the Bible but Deuteronomy calls for the wholesale slaughter of infidels as well. I suspect the Bible has about the same percentage of violent passages.

All the Abrahamic religions are equally shite in my opinion.

So, I'm not sure which religion has been more violent over time — Ciceronianus the White

Then you need to read more. As I said, I'm not getting into an anecdote battle.

Also, I have no clue about the number of verses in the Bible but Deuteronomy calls for the wholesale slaughter of infidels as well. I suspect the Bible has about the same percentage of violent passages. — Benkei

The scriptural history of the Hebrew capture of the "Promised Land" is a description of genocide.

I think we should do: who was more violent, the Greeks or the Persians next. Because it was definitely the Greeks.