How it is Supposed to Work

[Leonardo17]

I recently wound this video on Islam on youtube:

Bjorn Andersen

This is a video of a Norwegian man who simply say openly most of what people think about Islam and will not say it in public. It’s not a racist or right wing populist either. Just some ordinary guy making videos about nature, Vikings etc.
 
And no. I am not going to answer to his arguments. Any teenager with a migration background from the Middle-East can do this better than me.
 
But I will still dismantle the Al-Qaida mentality for a starter:
 

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 Jihad in the way that religious extremists are understanding is a null and void concept. It doesn’t exist. See Al-Baqarah 193 (or 2:193):
 
“Fight against them ˹if they persecute you˺ until there is no more persecution, and ˹your˺ devotion will be to Allah ˹alone˺. If they stop ˹persecuting you˺, let there be no hostility except against the aggressors.”
 
In the first phrase year there is a mention of “people who persecute you” so Jihad is a defensive attitude above anything else.
 
In the second phrase the term that is used in the original Arabic Quran is “Oppressor” or “Zalim” in Arabic. This term refers to people who have power and are willing to use this power to do harm to others (because they don’t care or are willingly doing so). And it says “There shall be no enmity other than enmity toward the oppressor”.
 
So if that person isn’t being a tyrant or he/she did not start it first, we are supposed to “turn the other cheek” in Islam too. (This “turn the other cheek attitude is also something worth debating in some future discussion).
 

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But I am not saying that this Bjorn Hansen is wrong. He is absolutely right about everything he says. There are people who understand Islam exactly the way or even worse than the way he describes it. So how do we solve this problem?
 
A) I need to say that most of the people’s understanding of Islam in the West are actually based on millennia old church doctrine. Just like in the Jihad issue above, Muslims are still perceived as brown Saracens with crescent shaped swords willing to destroy anything on their way.
 
Not only is this not true, but The Quran happens to be the newest Abrahamic book actually. Through the centuries, many religious scripture simply get modified or much of the meaning gets changed or distorted during multiple translation works during the centuries. This book is still there exactly the same as it was written some 1400 years ago.
 
B) We need to talk about how people approach religion as a whole. I’ve never been a Christian so I cannot talk about Christianity. But I can set some basic rules to understand the Quran as it is:
 
1) You need to be willing to believe. If you believe in the material only, I don’t know how this is going to help you so let it go.

2) You need to be willing to doubt. At one point or another (if you are not a scholar yourself) you will need to trust some academics or mystics who will break down some basic issues for you. But you still need to be critical of these people too. There are all sorts of “Scholars” out there. The Founder of the IRI was also a scholar of some sort. So I think that someone needs to know some of the basic things about mathematics and philosophy before choosing a religious path.
 
See: If you are too skeptical, you will be an atheist and therefore not be a Muslim. If you are too faithful you will be manipulated by people with the wrong motivations or some fool who think they have got all the answers already. So you need that balance.
 
3) Only then, you may start researching things for yourself. The best way to do this being to refer to the Quran with no other major guideline for yourself.
 

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Many religious / spiritual tradition do mention “people who have chosen the wrong path”. These are not Norse Pagans or atheists. At least the ones that are mentioned in the Quran are
1) People who follow a tyrant blindly and sacrifice themselves to that oppressor.
2) People who become like a back of animals by completely surrendering to group dynamics without ever questioning anything for themselves.
 
I know this is true because these are the ones who have historically done the most damage to all of us as a whole.
 

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And these are my Islam-based ideas or approaches. I choose to explain it because that’s a subject I know about. And I know that very similar approaches are possible in other Western religious and spiritual approaches too.
 
We can even say (for instance) that Christianity has already abandoned all concepts of “holy war” already.
 
So all we need to do is to wait and give people time to adapt to the realities of our age. The reason why I say this is that religion is not “evil” in itself. In most cases it is seen as something “good” that you want to teach your children before they get to puberty if you can. When I see, for instance, an adult encouraging some younger kid to come to the Friday prayer if possible, I don’t see an act of evil. I think it’s a good thing if parents do their bests to come to the church etc. especially when they are small children.
 
But having said this, we need to ensure they this inner peace of inner connection to God is not violated in this or that way. Cult places should be places of peace and security where no one should fear (for instance) to be indoctrinated with this or that nonsense or to be radicalized in this or that completely irrational attitude.

[The Grand Nudger]

You don't think there's a fundamental conflict between (and within) the belief that children should be taught this garbage before puberty... and also that the indoctrination centers should not be centers of indoctrination? Are you sure that christianity abandoned all concepts of a holy war already? How does this square with the existence of our very vocal..and now very powerful, christian nationalist crusaders? How does it square the shared christian and islamic jihadist belief in just wars given defensive pretext by the writ of an almighty god in a magic book? Does it matter how new and unchanged a magic book is if it was garbage from the start? Broadly, what should we expect from people who take their social, political, and moral ques from the various land deeds written by warlords in this century or that...if not exactly what has, and continues, to happen?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Leonardo17

We can even say (for instance) that Christianity has already abandoned all concepts of “holy war” already.

This statement is so wrong, so flies-in-the-face-of-reality, that it has passed through the Veil of Wrongness and has entered the domain of Anti-True.

You may now construct another of your thousand-word mega-posts to explain that that isn't what you meant to say.

Boru

[Deesse23]

We can even say (for instance) that Christianity has already abandoned all concepts of “holy war” already.

Reality and the secretary of war of the economically and militarily most powerful nation disagree with you.

[Leonardo17]

GrandNudger:
 
1) It wasn’t so in my time or I was simply too young to notice the more political approaches within religious settings. Today I don’t even think of going to the mosque anymore. But that wasn’t always the case.
 
2) These crusaders are simply populist politicians who have become specialists in the manipulation of people with low intelligence. They are still nothing close to the raw material we have available in abundance here, all over the Middle-East. That’s what this Bjorn Andreas is talking about. In my opinion the Prophet was not whatever this Bjorn is saying he was. I think he was a highly spiritual man and a good example to anyone who aspires to become spiritual. But there are people here (probably even in my city) who will commit these disgusting acts on children and then say that the prophet himself did it. + We have local authorities turning a blind eye on these because they don’t want to lose them as voters (these things have happened and I am not exaggerating). And yes, if you don’t know how to differentiate (I do because it’s in my culture), you may come upon people who claim that all non-Muslim territories are territories that must be conquered by Muslims for the good of their inhabitants (because if they die as Muslims, Buddhists or whatever they will be sent to eternal flames when they die).
 
   So correct me if I am wrong. But the West got over all of this stuff after the great plague. The new religion that came after the renaissance was still very oppressive and is still very oppressive today, but it was nothing like all of the irrational stuff we still have to deal with here today. Ex: At the beginning of the last century we even had “wise men” who believed that the usage of blackboards (you know with chalk pens etc.) was un-Islamic because it was the invention of non-Muslims.
 
The remaining part of the message: As I said, the Western perception of Islam is still largely based on medieval church doctrines. It’s normal for all sorts of dogmatic belief system to try to make one belief system bad and their own belief system good in some way. In this century we can value one, also value the other, even value the skeptical approach and unite forces against the irrational or the sum of approaches that are harmful to all of us as a specie. But as I said, first you need some Norwegian guy who is willing the express all his negative toughts about something without any restriction. I see it as a good thing


 
 
BrianSoddingBoru:
 
- I don’t really know about the New-World. But in Europe, it is my impression that even in strongly catholic countries of Southern Europe that aggressive stance has been left aside centuries ago. Someone even told be once that “Christianity did not have an ideology of conquering to world to spread religion”. That was in the 1990’s and I had to explain to them that Islam did not have any such policy either
 
Desse23:
 
- Is this the guy who said that “Help is on it’s way” and then left the place after wasting almost all of his tomahawk missiles  

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Leonardo17

- I don’t really know about the New-World. But in Europe, it is my impression that even in strongly catholic countries of Southern Europe that aggressive stance has been left aside centuries ago. Someone even told be once that “Christianity did not have an ideology of conquering to world to spread religion”. That was in the 1990’s and I had to explain to them that Islam did not have any such policy either 

Did you miss all that recent fun in Belfast? In case you did, a Muslim lunatic brutally injured an innocent man in a knife attack. The response of those good Northern Irish Christians was  to attack innocent Muslims, with good Christians of the US and the rest of the UK cheering them on.

Putin has described his illegal attack on Ukraine as a ‘holy crusade.’

Do yourself a favour and look up The Lord’s Resistance Army.

Israel is currently conducting religious genocide on two fronts that has overwhelming support among Christians throughout the Middle East.

So, before you make the absurd and unsupportable statement that Christian holy wars died out centuries ago, be more aware of what’s going on in the world right now.

Boru

[Angrboda]

Mohammed was a thug and a scoundrel who did horrible things. Evil trees bear evil fruit. Both traditional and reformist Muslims try to whitewash Mohammed, but he was a right bastard.

[Belacqua]

[...]

We can even say (for instance) that Christianity has already abandoned all concepts of “holy war” already.

[...]

The Wikipedia article on "religious war" discusses this pretty well, I think. 

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

In the past, various religious groups were more likely to start a war against another group based on religious belief. Arguably the Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century was a war of this type. The Pope at the time thought the best way to stamp out a heresy was through violence. It's worth noting, however, that most of the people who actually did the fighting did so from more worldly motives. French aristocrats were told that they could keep any land they captured from heretics. 

More recently it's pretty clear that wars fought in the name of religion always have worldly motives. Colonialism is often the cause -- people who oppose colonial powers find religion a useful tool to rally forces. Then the colonial powers have the advantage that they can deny their exploitation of weaker countries has anything to do with the violence -- they can say it's all the fault of those horrible religious fanatics. 

Someone on this forum even claimed a while ago that the Catholic vs. Protestant troubles in Ireland were ENTIRELY the result of theological disagreements. Which of course ignores the entire history of the region ever since the 12th century. 

So the US funds Islamists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union, and then act surprised when the groups they created don't like being exploited by the US either. But we can ignore all the political and economic factors if we just hate Muslims enough.

[The Grand Nudger]

1) It wasn’t so in my time or I was simply too young to notice the more political approaches within religious settings. Today I don’t even think of going to the mosque anymore. But that wasn’t always the case.

Maybe it wasn't so in your time..but it is so in your suggestion.  You both believe that children should be indoctrinated but also that the indoctrination centers shouldn't be indoctrination centers.  I'm assuming you think this was better in your time..but if so, are you not suggesting that kids should have it worse than you did?  
 

2) These crusaders are simply populist politicians who have become specialists in the manipulation of people with low intelligence. They are still nothing close to the raw material we have available in abundance here, all over the Middle-East. That’s what this Bjorn Andreas is talking about. In my opinion the Prophet was not whatever this Bjorn is saying he was. I think he was a highly spiritual man and a good example to anyone who aspires to become spiritual. But there are people here (probably even in my city) who will commit these disgusting acts on children and then say that the prophet himself did it. + We have local authorities turning a blind eye on these because they don’t want to lose them as voters (these things have happened and I am not exaggerating). And yes, if you don’t know how to differentiate (I do because it’s in my culture), you may come upon people who claim that all non-Muslim territories are territories that must be conquered by Muslims for the good of their inhabitants (because if they die as Muslims, Buddhists or whatever they will be sent to eternal flames when they die).

They aren't -just- populist politicians.  IDK what kind of raw material you have over there but even if they weren't whatever that is our crusaders have more and better weapons and money than yours.  The entire world is their hostage.  

I didn't actually watch the video, I'm guessing it's some reich wing nut...but if he called big mo a pedo and a warlord and a terrorist he managed to get something right in spite of himself.  Now...most guys like that have an upper victim limit.  They die and victimize no more.  However, as you pointed out, big mo is the inspiration and holy justification for a spree that's 1,400 years long...and still counting.  One wonders how many people enabled the great slaughterers of history and the epsteins of the world for fear of losing the public.  A statement which, all by itself, is damning.  Maybe big mo was a nut high on his own supply...but you're telling me that contemporary leaders who don't really believe in that shit pretend not to notice so they can hold onto some tiny sliver of power.  Is that supposed to be better, because it seems worse? Whichever way, I can tell you the ones over here actually are true believers in the stupid shit they say. They're not pandering to ignorant belief, they're championing it.
 

   So correct me if I am wrong. But the West got over all of this stuff after the great plague. The new religion that came after the renaissance was still very oppressive and is still very oppressive today, but it was nothing like all of the irrational stuff we still have to deal with here today. Ex: At the beginning of the last century we even had “wise men” who believed that the usage of blackboards (you know with chalk pens etc.) was un-Islamic because it was the invention of non-Muslims.

You're wrong.  No abrahamic culture has yet gotten over this stuff.  They've all got these jihadis and clerics who believe insane shit and are willing to do violence to neighbor and stranger alike on the basis of that belief - and as evidence of that I would ask you to just read the news.  Zionists are wilding out.  Dominionists are wilding out.  Islamists are wilding out.  The supposedly more moderate and thoughtful cultural variants of each are at the very least going along to get along or maybe just to hold on to their privilege and power.  To an outsider, that seems to suggest that's there's something very and deeply wrong with the whole abrahamic god concept.  
 

The remaining part of the message: As I said, the Western perception of Islam is still largely based on medieval church doctrines. It’s normal for all sorts of dogmatic belief system to try to make one belief system bad and their own belief system good in some way. In this century we can value one, also value the other, even value the skeptical approach and unite forces against the irrational or the sum of approaches that are harmful to all of us as a specie. But as I said, first you need some Norwegian guy who is willing the express all his negative toughts about something without any restriction. I see it as a good thing

The thing that you're missing is that the abrahamics actually cannot value the one -and- the other.  No more than they can value anything other than themselves.  It's a defining characteristic of monotheistic beliefs systems - literally in the name. The idea of valuing the skeptical approach is fundamentally nullifying.  You'd think desolation of pagan europe and africa and the middle east and the americas would be instructive - that the internecine genocide in gaza and lebanon would be instructive. That the attempt to establish and invest power within a state church would be instructive.  No, no, you...and in fairness so many other people.... keep insisting that a degenerate belief system established on a murderous foundation by charismatic sociopaths is going to start doing something else, going to stop doing what it's been doing all along.  

Your OPQ is a good one....but I don't think it has a very convenient answer for the big three.  How is it supposed to work?  Exactly as it is and has been.  None of this is a bug, it's a feature..hell, it's the whole goddamned raison d'etre. In short, theism..is evil. Not when it's done wrong...when it's done right. The whole fucking world needs more and more theists to do theism wrong, and quick, because as it stands a bunch of apocalyptic quacks have their hands on all the apocalyptic weapons and we're one bad plate of shrimp away from armageddon. On a scale of one to ten what do you think the odds are of the last words spoken in any human language right now being some variant of "and god bless our troops"...?

I'm guessing Eleventy.

[The Grand Nudger]

In the past, various religious groups were more likely to start a war against another group based on religious belief. Arguably the Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century was a war of this type. The Pope at the time thought the best way to stamp out a heresy was through violence. It's worth noting, however, that most of the people who actually did the fighting did so from more worldly motives. French aristocrats were told that they could keep any land they captured from heretics. 

More recently it's pretty clear that wars fought in the name of religion always have worldly motives. Colonialism is often the cause -- people who oppose colonial powers find religion a useful tool to rally forces. Then the colonial powers have the advantage that they can deny their exploitation of weaker countries has anything to do with the violence -- they can say it's all the fault of those horrible religious fanatics. 

Someone on this forum even claimed a while ago that the Catholic vs. Protestant troubles in Ireland were ENTIRELY the result of theological disagreements. Which of course ignores the entire history of the region ever since the 12th century. 

So the US funds Islamists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union, and then act surprised when the groups they created don't like being exploited by the US either. But we can ignore all the political and economic factors if we just hate Muslims enough.

Worldly motivations, worldly motivations, worldly motivations.  Are you trying to cast a magic spell?  Is the end result supposed to be that the outcome of abrahamic culture is not the fault of abrahamic culture?  Theism is itself a worldly aim.  It doesn't fuck with the distant and impersonal god who doesn't intervene.  That's deism, and heresy.  The god theism fucks with is personal and intervenes in the world. Obviously, on a given theists behalf, slaughtering or starving all the unclean others and taking their things which were the rightful gifts of the god to the in-group.

Political and economic factors....you mean the ones happaning under an abrahamic society?  A colonial empire?  You mean the ones cosigned by an abrahamic god? You couldn;t wash the blood off of abrahamic religion by deflecting to politics if you had a whole truckload of apartheid pods. The mere attempt is an insult to good conscience and intelligent thought.