How to fix Islam?

[The_Laconic_Dead]

At this point, any objective view of the muslim world reveals that many Islamic societies at this point is history have become seriously broken. Gender apartheid, FGM, violence against ethnic and religious minorities, honor killings sex slavery, draconian laws against sexual "crimes", brutal theocratic laws and punishments, ect, ect.

We often argue the extent of these issues or their causes. The failure of secularism, wahhabism, western intervention, internal conflict and other causes have all played their part.

But the ultimate question is how to repair this damage. The endgame should be to see Islam enter the 21st century, leave behind the widespread violence and become a religion that we in the west, with our values, can coexist with.

We will not sacrifice our liberties and rights. We will not accept Sharia law. We will not contort our culture and values to placate islamists.

 

[Desk trauma]

But the ultimate question is how to repair this damage. The endgame should be to see Islam enter the 21st century, leave behind the widespread violence and become a religion that we in the west, with our values, can coexist with.

That's a question that the muslim countries and their people will have to work out. Our ham fisted meddling has only made matters worse for us and them.

We will not sacrifice our liberties and rights. We will not accept Sharia law. We will not contort our culture and values to placate islamists.

I would add #4: we will no throw away our blood and treasure attempting to force a reformation.

 

[The_Laconic_Dead]

That's a good #4.

 

[The_Laconic_Dead]

No takers? Really?

It should also go without saying that significant amount migration from these Islamic nations needs to be ground to a halt. Importing millions of people with completely opposite values to ours is in effect, cultural suicide.

Until the majority of the religion accepts and implements secular reforms, as a group, muslims simply can not be trusted in large numbers. We are already beginning to see it hamntrack Michigan with the first Muslim majority town council.

 

[AHH who-stole-my-name]

Have you ever thought that is was reform or as one Muslim said to me, innovation that placed Muslim on the minds of most Westerners? 30 years ago they were just images on a tv screen that we ignored because we didn't care who they are as long as we could fuel up our cars. We called them names that everybody knew who we were talking about and shoved the problems under the all so familiar narrative of them all being crazy.

Then they started bombing planes and they were updated to a nuisance. Now they fit our buildings and suddenly they are a terrorists and now that we know we will have to deal with them as if they are, quote/unquote people, suddenly we are asked if we think they should reform to make themselves pleasantly acceptable.

Maybe we should have been pleasantly acceptable to them, in their own countries and we wouldn't be having this conversation. We'd be having coffee with some of the very people who because of out activities there are trying to kill us now.

 

[The_Laconic_Dead]

Agreed. But that doesn't address how we deal with this broken situation. 2 generations of radicalized people numbering hundreds of millions whom the left want to import, and have been importing for the past quarter century. The current situation in Europe highlights the dangers of opening our doors to millions of these people.

Our corrupt and brain dead politicians have taken to breaking the Mideast and we kept electing them. It's done. How do we move forward with these people without wiping them off the face of the earth?

 

[AHH who-stole-my-name]

Agreed. But that doesn't address how we deal with this broken situation. 2 generations of radicalized people numbering hundreds of millions whom the left want to import, and have been importing for the past quarter century. The current situation in Europe highlights the dangers of opening our doors to millions of these people.

Our corrupt and brain dead politicians have taken to breaking the Mideast and we kept electing them. It's done. How do we move forward with these people without wiping them off the face of the earth?

I don't think the left is wanting to import them, like Cuban Cigars, but for them, not to be looked at as a disease that needs to be quarantined or rejected out of hand.

How do we deal with them is getting off fossil fuels, so we don't have to have western influences over there and with that our governments don't feel the need for having western-backed tyrants running over their own people for the almighty dollar. We don't send our money over there but material aid that will benefit the people, instead of the Warlords that terrorize their own people.

We seem to think that if we smile at them, when we go over there that hey will like us better, when what we really need is to remove ourselves from there, so they can take care of their internal disruptions the way we, ourselves would like to take care of our own internal issues. We might not understand them, but should it matter if we understand them. They understand themselves and they understand what it means to be a Muslim and we should grant them the dignity of not interfering in something we don't really understand, just because we want to feel all warm and fuzzy.

 

[MennoSota]

There is no fix for a lie, unless the truth is accepted. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
The fix to Islam is rejection of its lie and acceptance of Yeshua as Lord and Savior. Nothing else will do.

 

[AHH who-stole-my-name]

There is no fix for a lie, unless the truth is accepted. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
The fix to Islam is rejection of its lie and acceptance of Yeshua as Lord and Savior. Nothing else will do.

There is no spiritual cure for a secular issue.

We have our God and they theirs. You can say all you want to about being false. The issue is about respect for a people and them returning it. In this we have an overwhelming amount of baggage that has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with oil. We haven't exactly been Christian-like ourselves when it comes to being a nation. no Western power has.

 

[TLK Valentine]

No takers? Really?

It should also go without saying that significant amount migration from these Islamic nations needs to be ground to a halt. Importing millions of people with completely opposite values to ours is in effect, cultural suicide.

Until the majority of the religion accepts and implements secular reforms, as a group, muslims simply can not be trusted in large numbers. We are already beginning to see it hamntrack Michigan with the first Muslim majority town council.

No takers because it's not up to us to fix their faith system. How do you think it got broken in the first place?

 

[MennoSota]

There is no spiritual cure for a secular issue.

We have our God and they theirs. You can say all you want to about being false. The issue is about respect for a people and them returning it. In this we have an overwhelming amount of baggage that has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with oil. We haven't exactly been Christian-like ourselves when it comes to being a nation. no Western power has.

Christians ought to respect the creation of humanity as being wonderfully made, yet speak truth into false teachings. Love God's creation. Hate man's sin. In this case it is setting up other God's and attempting to earn salvation by works rather than by God's grace.
As for the US government, it has seldom acted in a Christ-like fashion.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Some reformations need to be made...no doubt about it.

The issue is that whenever someone dares to mention it, it's instantly fought off by claims of "Islamaphobia", or claims of "Oh yeah, well the bible and the Torah are violent books too!!!"...or they'll make some weak play of trying to pretend that "Army of God" is on the same playing field as ISIS/ISIL, simply so they can make the "Christians do it too" argument.

There's no doubt that all 3 doctrines have some violent teachings...what we really need to drill down to, is determining why it has been so easy for Christians and Jews to largely separate themselves from the violent teachings in their books. (...and yes, I realize there are some extremists within Christianity too...but let's not kid ourselves and pretend that fundamentalists in the deep south are causing the same kind of chaos that fundamentalist Islam is causing in the middle east)

As Sam Harris said in an interview on the Young Turks: "The Torah (Old Testament) is the most violent holy book, even more violent than the Qur'an...yet, we don't have packs of orthodox Jews terrorizing Brooklyn, stoning non-virgins, and throwing homosexuals off of rooftops, we need to figure out why the Jewish community has been able to effectively ignore the violent texts in their book, and then encourage a similar reformation in Islam"

 

[TLK Valentine]

As Sam Harris said in an interview on the Young Turks: "The Torah (Old Testament) is the most violent holy book, even more violent than the Qur'an...yet, we don't have packs of orthodox Jews terrorizing Brooklyn, stoning non-virgins, and throwing homosexuals off of rooftops, we need to figure out why the Jewish community has been able to effectively ignore the violent texts in their book, and then encourage a similar reformation in Islam"

The reason the Jewish community doesn't do that is because the secular legal system doesn't allow it... Middle Eastern nation don't have a secular legal system interfering, and if they want one, they're certainly not going to get one from us...

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The reason the Jewish community doesn't do that is because the secular legal system doesn't allow it... Middle Eastern nation don't have a secular legal system interfering, and if they want one, they're certainly not going to get one from us...

I guess that would bring us to another set of differences we'd need to look into.

How does a nation formed in the 1700's, by a committee that was 2/3 Judeo-Christian (possibly more), end up with a secular legal system? (The same can be said about many Western European nations as well)
...but
Nations that were formed by predominately Muslims don't end up with secular legal systems?

 

[TLK Valentine]

I guess that would bring us to another set of differences we'd need to look into.

How does a nation formed in the 1700's, by a committee that was 2/3 Judeo-Christian (possibly more), end up with a secular legal system? (The same can be said about many Western European nations as well)
...but
Nations that were formed by predominately Muslims don't end up with secular legal systems?

Simple -- they went out of their way to provide one, having seen what the alternative did in Western European nations... eventually, the Western European nations figured it out themselves.

It would stand to reason that the Middle Eastern nations will eventually do likewise. The seed of cultural reform are already growing in some parts, and can eventually take grow...

UNLESS we intervene. Religious Fundamentalism is reactionary in nature -- it's never a movement for something as much as it's a movement against a (real or imagined) threat. The more we push, the more they will push back.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Simple -- they went out of their way to provide one, having seen what the alternative did in Western European nations... eventually, the Western European nations figured it out themselves.

It would stand to reason that the Middle Eastern nations will eventually do likewise. The seed of cultural reform are already growing in some parts, and can eventually take grow...

UNLESS we intervene. Religious Fundamentalism is reactionary in nature -- it's never a movement for something as much as it's a movement against a (real or imagined) threat. The more we push, the more they will push back.

I guess my question would be at that point, does the citizenry of those middle eastern nations have the tools needed to get the secular government that many are seeking?

At the time the US did it, the balance of power between governments and citizens was a little different than what we see today. The citizens, and the nation's (the one we were trying to get away from) were somewhat equally armed and they all went out and shot each other in a field in order to get it.

The population in most of those countries has been practically disarmed (maybe with the exception of Yemen), so unless the people can win that fight with their words (which as you said, fundamentalism is reactionary)...and if that reactionary force has the national military behind it, that's very much an uphill battle and one that would probably end up looking a lot like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

 

[Armoured]

At this point, any objective view of the muslim world reveals that many Islamic societies at this point is history have become seriously broken. Gender apartheid, FGM, violence against ethnic and religious minorities, honor killings sex slavery, draconian laws against sexual "crimes", brutal theocratic laws and punishments, ect, ect.

We often argue the extent of these issues or their causes. The failure of secularism, wahhabism, western intervention, internal conflict and other causes have all played their part.

But the ultimate question is how to repair this damage. The endgame should be to see Islam enter the 21st century, leave behind the widespread violence and become a religion that we in the west, with our values, can coexist with.

We will not sacrifice our liberties and rights. We will not accept Sharia law. We will not contort our culture and values to placate islamists.

Christianity was allowed to (mostly) work out these issues for itself. I suggest, at most, we do Islam the same courtesy, and practise benign disengagement as much as possible with the less secular Muslim communities. No well meaning but ultimately clueless outsiders involved themselves in the 30 Years War, or any of the other myriad bloody internecine feuds that have plagued Christianity since almost it's beginning.

 

[Armoured]

I guess my question would be at that point, does the citizenry of those middle eastern nations have the tools needed to get the secular government that many are seeking?

This is one of the most "white man's burden"-y posts I've ever seen here.

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

I think TLK is onto something. their process to change is just slower and more violent. They've been "infected" culturally with western ideas due to globalization. They are starting to change, but it it is slower because of the fundamentalists fighting back against the cultural shift that is unavoidable. Sort of a super violent version of what is happening in the west. a cultural shift which happens in every culture every so often because of shifting populations from whatever and ideas get exchanged more and more. I think it is less moving peoples this time but information overload because of the internet shrinking the world of information.

 

[Armoured]

I guess that would bring us to another set of differences we'd need to look into.

How does a nation formed in the 1700's, by a committee that was 2/3 Judeo-Christian (possibly more), end up with a secular legal system? (The same can be said about many Western European nations as well)
...but
Nations that were formed by predominately Muslims don't end up with secular legal systems?

Remember we have 700 years development of our religion on them. In comparison, Islam should roughly be around the stage we were in the 1300s, which, broadly speaking, is pretty accurate. Maybe they have every bit as much tendency toward secular legal systems as we do, given adequate time? Maybe they'll get there faster, because of exposure to Western secularism? Maybe they'll get there slower, because we keep butting in and interferring and promoting a reactionary response?

Let's not pretend secularist government is inherent to Christianity. There's a great many Christians RIGHT NOW in the developed West who would be quite happy with a Christian version of Sharia law, to a greater or lesser degree. Think I'm exaggerating? Dip in to any discussion about homosexual legality, and just count the seconds until someone pulls out a Bible quote to justify their preferred legal position.