Quote:
Originally Posted by wdmso
You seem to be missing my point my response is not to what he said. its a response to your use of what he said to forward your vision of islam and how its related to Terrorism and thats the only reason you posted the video...
If you're going to respond to the notion that my use of what he said is a way to forward my vision of Islam and how it's related to Terrorism, then discuss your opinion on what you think my vision is rather than merely pointing out why you think I used the video. Is pointing out why I posted the video your silver bullet that makes the video unenlightening?
its your silver bullet not his .. As I have said he is 1 one man free to see things the way he see things ... and your free to use him to make your argument that Islam as a whole is Bad ...
I posted the video to help focus some definite opinion on our well-meaning but uninformed, or more accurately (in my opinion) misinformed, notions about Islam such as your relativistic morally equivalent view in your above statement.
It's not about a harmless equivalency between two personal views. There is a mirage of equivalency in this country, or the West in general, because we are all supposed to be free to see and say things the way we see and say them. Under Islam, however, we are not free to see and say things that run counter to it, especially so in Islamic States. But because we have faith in our mirage, we easily accept and believe it, without critical analysis, when Islamists say that, indeed, Islam allows such freedom. That it is a religion of peace. That it is completely compatible with Western democracy. That it represents no threat to the West.
So I posted a video which gives the view of someone that is not blinded by our mirage, but actually lived and studied and critiqued the actual sources of Islam, the Koran, the Hadith, and the Sunnah, and who read the Muslim apologists, and analyzed the scholarly works of the past and of current Islamic academic thought.
Farraj's early and formative years were spent in the U.S. So he understood and liked our way of life and law. When his family moved to Palestine, he experienced a different way, a different law, and he tried to reconcile it with his need for spiritual sustenance. He could not reconcile the way of the West, the laws of this country, the spiritual needs that were shaped by the freedom and love and equality that he experienced in the U.S with what he studied and experienced in the Islam of the Middle East. For him, there was no compatibility at all. Not because he had an agenda against Islam. Not that he wanted to make it "bad." Quite the contrary, he wanted the religion of his ancestry to be "good." To be spiritually fulfilling. But the truthful, honest study of it, and actual experience of it in the lands of its birth and current center of spiritual and ideological expertise, taught him that it was not what he wanted it to be. It was the opposite. It was antithetical to Western thought, to American law and culture.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7...eform-movement not all reform is Bad |
The fact that the Muslim Reform Movement, which is the subject of the article you linked above, is calling for reform is the clue (or silver bullet as you put it) that tells us Islam has a worldwide and major problem. It tells us that the "anti-Islam crowd" you've referred to is on to something. In its preamble, the movement says:
"We seek to reclaim the progressive spirit with which Islam was born in the 7th century to fast forward it into the 21st century.
But the so-called progressive spirit of Islam in the 7th century was not a progressivism which espoused the following ideals in this preamble. It was the opposite of them. It produced the progress of conquest and slaughter and enslavement and bigotry and opposed everything in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Even the highly touted so-called tolerant, enlightened 700 years of Muslim rule in Spain was a myth--it imposed the same harsh methods as it did elsewhere as recounted by the highly credentialed scholar Dario Fernandez-Morera as he recounts in his book The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise. "We support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by United Nations member states in 1948.
"We reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam.
Unfortunately, the actual sources of Islam do not reject those things. Nor do serious Islamic scholars who are not into the reform thing. The majority of Islamic scholars as well as the majority of Muslims do not think Islam needs to be reformed. Serious Islamic scholars as well as the highest in the pecking order of Islamic political rulers, don't seriously or truthfully recognize a need for reformation. Erdogan of Turkey doesn't even recognize the notion of radical Islam. For him, Islam is Islam. And the rejection of politicized Islam is the rejection of Islam as we know it. It is, in its essence a political system as well as a religious one. It is a theocracy. "Facing the threat of terrorism, intolerance, and social injustice in the name of Islam, we have reflected on how we can transform our communities based on three principles: peace, human rights and secular governance.
So they are saying that present day Islam has to be TRANSFORMED (where have we heard that called for in our own country?) so that there can be peace, human rights and secular governance. So they are saying that Islam is not there but may be there sometime in the future. "We are announcing today the formation of an international initiative: the Muslim Reform Movement.
"We have courageous reformers from around the world
Why do they have to be courageous? "who will outline our Declaration for Muslim Reform, a living document that we will continue to enhance as our journey continues. We invite our fellow Muslims and neighbors to join us."
Ahh . . . that living document thing. Goes well with transformation, and with hope and change. I recall a debate before an audience shown on PBS I think, not sure of the venue, which had four panel members, two "experts" on each side of the debate to determine, by vote of the audience at the end of the debate on whether Islam was or was not a religion of peace. The best that the two pro-Islamists could come up with after all the evidence was debated, and wrapped up as a closing argument, was a proposal and a
hope that Islam, in cooperation between reformist Muslims with the rest of an approving and accepting world, would
become a religion of peace. The audience kinda saw through the total weakness of the notion that Islam was, as in NOW, a religion of peace and the majority voted that it wasn't
So, like with the Muslim Reform Movement, it is, as Shakespeare would say, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But, as was said in the video I posted which you are unable to seriously discuss (and of which there are many more similar ones and growing in number as more people become aware)--that consummation has a very steep hill to climb, a dauntingly long row to hoe. The most difficult task it must succeed in is persuading those who hold the power in Islam to give it up. To convince them to accept a so-called "interpretation" of their foundational texts and structure and scholarly Islamic learning and teaching, along with the vast bureaucracy that supports it all, as really meaning that it is all wrong. And that they, basically, must lose their power and wealth.
That notion of "interpretation" is similar to how we are being transformed and reformed in this country and probably in the West as a whole. It is not an interpretation of how the law is applied and by whom it is applied, but a rewriting of the law by those who are merely supposed to apply it as written. It is transformation disguised as interpretation. It is creating law, culture, society out of whole cloth by those who are not doctrinally empowered to do so.
A group of Islamic self-described reformers who have no standing in Islamic law or jurisprudence, no legal or spiritual authority in the written structure of Islam, no elected or appointed position to do so, are going to somehow rewrite Islam. Actually create a new religion but with the same old name--presumably in order to capture the adherents of the old one under the umbrella of the new one.
Hey, more power to them. But if you're going to change something, you must not only have the power to do so, but must determine that something exists that needs to be changed. If you don't admit or discuss that, your chances of success are slim to none and slim just left town. If it's just a question of differing views, freely expressed, and equally valid, why bother with some undefined, indefinite, unnecessary reform just to satisfy somebody's whimsical opinion?