If Islam is to become properly integrated into civilised secular countries, it needs a similar castrating to Christianity. They need to learn how to mostly ignore their religion while saying they are following it, like all nice Christians do. If you take the Quran at all seriously, it is clear from the start that it completely divisive.

(March 13, 2016 at 8:35 am)MysticKnight Wrote: Thanks for that. Something to keep in mind is that Imam Ali said disbelievers would fight Muslims if Muslims leave Islam as it truly is.

It's a natural consequence. The Quran convinces many by it's miracle nature yet the Shariah and Sunnah and interpretation of Quran is corrupt.

Do you know how vital a Guide and Leader is per Quran? When God veils people from the Guide, it's like the 40 years of the desert when Moses and Aeron left their people to themselves.

It's due to a sorry rebellious state of the community.

Yes we need reform, and the primary reform we need, is the recognition our fallible leaders can't represent Quran or Sunnah or God, and we need to pray sincerely for God and be willing to submit to the leader and guide of our time and anticipate his return.

Without the leader and Guide, as I said, there is no way justice will be established in the world. The hadiths are clear it is Imam Mahdi that will establish justice and he is been nicknamed the "the Mahdi" to mean he is the guided one from the nation. None of us can claim full guidance and represent Islam but him.

People follow their leaders like blind sheep.  Clear contradictions to Quran from ahadith or fatwas go unnoticed, and when noticed, people still turn away and are not submissive.

There is no celestial deity of any kind in this solar system.  There are no supernatural angels, demons.  There is no eternal heaven or hell.  When you die you will be forgotten unless you have done something remarkable while you were alive.  And even if you did, no one will know who you really were.  

Holy books are silly religious fair tales that are up to 95% pure BS.  No mystical magic man will save your soul because you don't have a "soul" and mystical magic men don't exist.  All good and bad things are done by ordinary people.

(March 14, 2016 at 3:26 am)robvalue Wrote: If Islam is to become properly integrated into civilised secular countries, it needs a similar castrating to Christianity. They need to learn how to mostly ignore their religion while saying they are following it, like all nice Christians do. If you take the Quran at all seriously, it is clear from the start that it completely divisive.

If non-muslims think that Islam should be revised then they should become muslims and revise it to their specifications.  That's what the Gentiles did to the ethnocentric Jewish religious fairy tale.  They took the whole thing and made it into what they wanted it to be.  So now, although the fairy tale specifically forbids certain things and commands others, people simply do what they want to do even though they claim to be believers.

(March 14, 2016 at 3:26 am)robvalue Wrote: If Islam is to become properly integrated into civilised secular countries, it needs a similar castrating to Christianity. They need to learn how to mostly ignore their religion while saying they are following it, like all nice Christians do. If you take the Quran at all seriously, it is clear from the start that it completely divisive.

Unless of course Muslims don't want to be properly integrated into secular countries.  Many do, just look at the US, plenty of Muslims here that are just regular folks.  But elsewhere, not so much.

(March 14, 2016 at 11:01 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote:

(March 14, 2016 at 3:26 am)robvalue Wrote: If Islam is to become properly integrated into civilised secular countries, it needs a similar castrating to Christianity. They need to learn how to mostly ignore their religion while saying they are following it, like all nice Christians do. If you take the Quran at all seriously, it is clear from the start that it completely divisive.

Unless of course Muslims don't want to be properly integrated into secular countries.  Many do, just look at the US, plenty of Muslims here that are just regular folks.  But elsewhere, not so much.

The Israeli Jews don't want to be integrated into a secular country either.  It must be something about those Middle Eastern religions that cause people to behave that way.

Sure. I accept some may not want to. That's going to cause major problems between nations.

Does Islam need a reformation? yes it needs dragging into the 18th Century, baby steps.

What's the technical term?

Hypocritizing. That's it, isn't it?

It needs that.

The Islamic world already had a Reformation* and the result of that were was the emergence of Wahhabism which can be equated with Calvinism in the Christian world. There are a lot of parallels as I see between the Puritans who settled New England or ruled England just after the Civil War in the 1640's and the Taliban or the Islamic state.

I would argue the Islamic world needs is an Enlightenment not a Reformation. Because the Western world was as intolerant or even more so than the Islamic world is now before the Enlightenment.

* The Reformation in Europe was an attempt to get back to the "True" Christianity of the New Testament. Wahhabism had much the same objective when it comes to restoring what they see as the "true", authetic" Islam of the Quran.

(March 14, 2016 at 11:32 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: Does Islam need a reformation? yes it needs dragging into the 18th Century, baby steps.

No, it needs to be abandoned in the 9th century, not dragged any closer to the current century.