@Nestor - I've said today that theologically you can use Jesus Christ's message to deny the entire old testament and hence create a liberal, tolerant, pro-equality religious belief as long as you take the "Love Thy Neighbour" thing with conviction - As someone who was barely even Christian and went to church a few times, I noticed Catholic priests seem to defend a metaphorical interpretation of most of the bible and are required to be educated in scientific matters (and the Pope now has a scientist as a consultant).
I do agree that one of the highest problems in Islam is that it requires a literalistic interpretation of Allah's words and it becomes a problem, but I also know that I'm not qualified to talk about the Quran or interpret it. One thing I like to keep in mind is that academically studying a religion is different than living it as a believer yourself, and the experience can lead to vastly different conclusions. Whether this is intellectually honest or not there are Muslims who support reformism and are self-critical. The biggest problem right now is that groups like ISIS have about a quarter million people and others like Al-Caida have about 50000 people so obviously they don't represent 1.6 billion Muslims - But the moderates, the ones who don't commit crimes, work, have children and do other normal activities everyone else does - Remain conspicuously quiet when terrorist attacks happen. I do not believe that the majority of Muslims support terrorism, I do not even believe that 50% of them could be classified as fundamentalists, but I do think the moderates and liberals need to stand up more often. We may not realize it but the biggest victims of terrorist groups are Muslims themselves - People's families are killed and raped, their goods are taken away, their children are recruited forcibly - These people are Muslims like everyone else, but they never did anything b sides praying and the usual believing in Allah stuff.
I don't think you should take Sam Harris' opinion with much certainty because he does seem to have a special instinct to pick on Islam - I understand the horrible acts being committed by terrorists suck, but does Harris even wonder if the invasions of the US played a part? Does he wonder why before the 60's it was complicated to find movies depicting antagonism between the USA and the middle east? Does he know precisely why is it that throughout history you can find examples of the Arab empire (and persian) being as tolerant or more tolerant than Christian ones but suddenly they are portrayed by the media as the Islamic State? Do you think it is weird that countries like Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates all have Muslims in it and somehow have different systems and mentalities ?
I do agree that one of the highest problems in Islam is that it requires a literalistic interpretation of Allah's words and it becomes a problem, but I also know that I'm not qualified to talk about the Quran or interpret it. One thing I like to keep in mind is that academically studying a religion is different than living it as a believer yourself, and the experience can lead to vastly different conclusions. Whether this is intellectually honest or not there are Muslims who support reformism and are self-critical. The biggest problem right now is that groups like ISIS have about a quarter million people and others like Al-Caida have about 50000 people so obviously they don't represent 1.6 billion Muslims - But the moderates, the ones who don't commit crimes, work, have children and do other normal activities everyone else does - Remain conspicuously quiet when terrorist attacks happen. I do not believe that the majority of Muslims support terrorism, I do not even believe that 50% of them could be classified as fundamentalists, but I do think the moderates and liberals need to stand up more often. We may not realize it but the biggest victims of terrorist groups are Muslims themselves - People's families are killed and raped, their goods are taken away, their children are recruited forcibly - These people are Muslims like everyone else, but they never did anything b sides praying and the usual believing in Allah stuff.
I don't think you should take Sam Harris' opinion with much certainty because he does seem to have a special instinct to pick on Islam - I understand the horrible acts being committed by terrorists suck, but does Harris even wonder if the invasions of the US played a part? Does he wonder why before the 60's it was complicated to find movies depicting antagonism between the USA and the middle east? Does he know precisely why is it that throughout history you can find examples of the Arab empire (and persian) being as tolerant or more tolerant than Christian ones but suddenly they are portrayed by the media as the Islamic State? Do you think it is weird that countries like Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Emirates all have Muslims in it and somehow have different systems and mentalities ?
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
