An Alternative View on the Koran

[Lunar]

All quotes in this are from Reza Aslan's book, No God but God[/b].  I know that using a single source so repeatedly is not advisable, but my goal is merely to offer another perspective.  I'm not a religious scholar like Reza Aslan and I've never studies the Koran, thus it would be unfair to expect me to be googling Geocities sites and 'learning' the subject for myself.

Women

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Aslan continues to list examples similar to the last one.

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Veil

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Violent Religion

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Nine-year-old wife

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[WMS]

Or in other words, a lot of stuff is ijma, not actually from the hadiths or Sunna. (I think I spelled the last part of that right...)

[Lunar]

Or in other words, a lot of stuff is ijma, not actually from the hadiths or Sunna. (I think I spelled the last part of that right...)

Yes.  That is one problem associated with the Koran.  Some things, like Sharia ('Islamic Law') are based off of things that should be treated with extreme skepticism since anyone who had the slightest bit of influence could declare that Mohammad said something he didn't. 

Another problem with Sharia is that the Koran only deals with a handful of legal issues, everything else needs to be extrapolated (the veils are an example of this - Mohammad's wives wore veils, thus it should be law).

Another problem is interpretation.  Arabic has a lot of words that can have vastly different meanings depending on the translator's viewpoint.  Two completely qualified Koranic scholars can [and do] interpret passages to have completely opposite meanings. 

[WMS]

Or in other words, a lot of stuff is ijma, not actually from the hadiths or Sunna. (I think I spelled the last part of that right...)

Yes.  That is one problem associated with the Koran.  Some things, like Sharia ('Islamic Law') are based off of things that should be treated with extreme skepticism since anyone who had the slightest bit of influence could declare that Mohammad said something he didn't. 

Another problem with Sharia is that the Koran only deals with a handful of legal issues, everything else needs to be extrapolated (the veils are an example of this - Mohammad's wives wore veils, thus it should be law).

Another problem is interpretation.  Arabic has a lot of words that can have vastly different meanings depending on the translator's viewpoint.  Two completely qualified Koranic scholars can [and do] interpret passages to have completely opposite meanings. 

Nice points. And the interpretation issue is true for Hebrew as well, which makes some passages in the Bible ever so interesting...

[??????????]

An article about the great chance that Mohammed himself planted the seeds of terrorism in Islam.

[Max Power]

An article about the great chance that Mohammed himself planted the seeds of terrorism in Islam.

Any article critical of Islam with the address bible.ca should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Everett]

I have read various articles and texts on Islam (many of them trying to portray the religion in a very positive light, some bashing the religion) and also studied a portion of the koran while performing religious studies. To be honest, I'm still not convinced that Islam is fundamentally equal with the sexes. A lot of people that go through great trouble to sympathize with Islam never seem to have an answer when I ask them about gender inequalities, and for the most part the only answers that I have ever received are 'What do you mean, inequality?! What are you talking about?' and 'Well, Christianity and Judaism are far worse, aren't they?'. I couldn't care less if Islam is, as someone insisted to me, a 'women-friendly religion', because if they don't prove thus, I have no reason to believe it. Of course Muslims will praise their own religion, much like any other religious person will praise his or her own religion. Neither am I convinced that Mohammed is really a great role-model. Compared with Jesus Christ, for example, he is greatly the inferior; Christ didn't teach violence, didn't make a number of contradictory comments about men being superior to women and then insisting that women were equal to men, didn't molest children, didn't take multiple wives for whatever reason, et cetera.

The main reason why I am a little suspicious of Islam is because of the sheer number of contradictory beliefs that seem to plague its large userbase. It is very confusing. I have no idea what to believe. And before anyone says that I am only exaggerating its flaws, note that like a car salesman, many people can make something that is inherently undesirable (not to say that Islam itself is undesirable; I am merely referring to its negative traits) appear otherwise. Some Muslims claim that their religion is peaceful and very eglatarian (sp?), others are proud to boast of their religion being sexist and obsessed with jihad. Some are peaceful, others are not. Some do not value the hijab and restrictive dress codes, others are quite arrogant about their attire somehow being superior to what other non-Muslims wear. Some seem to be very accepting of non-Muslims, others seem to have extremely annoying oppression complexes. They come in all varieties. In the States, some are nice, others are as obnoxious and snobby as what wealthy conservative Christians are stereotyped as.

Personally, I have encountered far more of the latter than the former. That isn't to say that there are no kind-hearted Muslims out there. That isn't to say that Muslims are somehow not like the rest of us. I fail to understand the resultant shock when people discover that there are plenty of Muslim strip-dancers and harlots, for example. I suppose that the underlying belief is that all, or perhaps almost all, Muslim women are good-mannered, timid, bundled in traditional clothing, and happy to be locked up inside their houses, isolated from males. No religion's userbase is free from variety.

I disagree with the religion in general, though if people are willing to practice it peacefully and without causing harm to others, there is no reason why I should complain about it. If they truly are bent on oppressing each other and their women, let it be so; as long as they do not oppress other non-Muslims. If they honestly felt that the 'oppression' taught by their religion (whether it actually exists or not) was really worth eradicating from their religion and/or culture, leave them the opportunity to correct their problems. It only angers Muslims in the Middle East that Westerners look down on their beliefs, and unless Westernized Muslims make a loud outcry against negative traditional beliefs, the problems won't go away of their own accord. Either way, I don't see much point in criticizing the religion and its followers to shreds or praising them both to excess.

People who ardently defend the religion when the voices of those who seriously have issues are louder than the voices of those who are fairly normal, law-abiding citizens amuse me greatly. If anything, those kinds of people annoy me far more than Muslims themselves. People who are perfectly fine with bashing Judaism, Christianity, and Catholicism over the head while passionately defending the slightest bit of discrimination against Muslims are, simply put, obnoxious and trollbrained. I have heard less BS (to my face) from Muslims about how terrible and oppressive Christianity is than from presumably atheist sympathizers of Islam who apparently have nothing better to do than troll religions they disagree with and attempt to uplift the 'oppressed' in this country.

[??????????]

An article about the great chance that Mohammed himself planted the seeds of terrorism in Islam.

Any article critical of Islam with the address bible.ca should be taken with a grain of salt.

A typical response I expected. If its an opinion you agree with aka Lunars post its "ok". But if you disagree with it then the source is definately wrong. But of course to understand Islam you don't have to look at what I say to see it. Just read 1000 years of their history to understand where they are.

[Max Power]

An article about the great chance that Mohammed himself planted the seeds of terrorism in Islam.

Any article critical of Islam with the address bible.ca should be taken with a grain of salt.

A typical response I expected. If its an opinion you agree with aka Lunars post its "ok". But if you disagree with it then the source is definately wrong. But of course to understand Islam you don't have to look at what I say to see it. Just read 1000 years of their history to understand where they are.

Read a thousand years of our history. The crusades, not denouncing the Holocaust, calling homosexuality a mental disorder and making up crappy numbers about saying the average homosexual lives to be 34, not denouncing slavery, sexual abuse with children, etc. Any church can be twisted to show a dark side. Even the Catholic Church,

[??????????]

An article about the great chance that Mohammed himself planted the seeds of terrorism in Islam.

Any article critical of Islam with the address bible.ca should be taken with a grain of salt.

A typical response I expected. If its an opinion you agree with aka Lunars post its "ok". But if you disagree with it then the source is definately wrong. But of course to understand Islam you don't have to look at what I say to see it. Just read 1000 years of their history to understand where they are.

Read a thousand years of our history. The crusades, not denouncing the Holocaust, calling homosexuality a mental disorder and making up crappy numbers about saying the average homosexual lives to be 34, not denouncing slavery, sexual abuse with children, etc. Any church can be twisted to show a dark side. Even the Catholic Church,

Not quite the same as :  Trying to conquer Europe, setting back Africa hundreds of years, destroying historical sites, raping and oppressing women, children, non-believers, blowing up innocent civilians in schools, flying planes into buildings, the pact of Umar, the shariah law.

[Max Power]

An article about the great chance that Mohammed himself planted the seeds of terrorism in Islam.

Any article critical of Islam with the address bible.ca should be taken with a grain of salt.

A typical response I expected. If its an opinion you agree with aka Lunars post its "ok". But if you disagree with it then the source is definately wrong. But of course to understand Islam you don't have to look at what I say to see it. Just read 1000 years of their history to understand where they are.

Read a thousand years of our history. The crusades, not denouncing the Holocaust, calling homosexuality a mental disorder and making up crappy numbers about saying the average homosexual lives to be 34, not denouncing slavery, sexual abuse with children, etc. Any church can be twisted to show a dark side. Even the Catholic Church,

Not quite the same as :  Trying to conquer Europe, setting back Africa hundreds of years, destroying historical sites, raping and oppressing women, children, non-believers, blowing up innocent civilians in schools, flying planes into buildings, the pact of Umar, the shariah law.

So trying to conquer the Middle East is worse than trying to conquer Europe? And Africa was not set back hundreds of years do to Islam, it was do to European Colonization. And the Church has tried to destroy historic sites, and they have burnt down entire cities during the crusades. And oppressing non-believers and women? Are you saying the Church, which taught students that Jews, Evangelicals, Muslims, Atheists, and all other non-Catholics were going to hell as recently as when my mother went to elementary school in the early '50's has not done so? And records kept by Middle-eastern scholars indicate that they did rape women and children. Who started a Holy War? The Church, it was the crusades. And the Pact of Umar was no differents of the treatment of blacks in the south after the civil war, no? And I find the Shariah Law strikingly similiar to the way the church refused to denounce poor treatment of women and how some Popes even encouraged it. And as for flying airplanes into buildings:

[??????????]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

[DanielX]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Deny Jesus as what? I don't deny there was a guy running around Judea circa 1st century AD who started an offshoot of Judaism that preached love and peace and then got the cross from some uptight Romans and politically motivated rabbis. It's the 'son of God' business that I'm skeptical about.

[Max Power]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Hmmm..... Who's standing next to Hitler? I hear his name is Mussolini or something. I heard he may be a Christian? Really?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Hitler was a Catholic. Sure, he didn't follow all of the teachings of Jesus, but the same is true for most Christians.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Hitler was a Catholic. Sure, he didn't follow all of the teachings of Jesus, but the same is true for most Christians.

The Nazis wanted to eliminate Christianity and replace it with some sort of pagan church, but those plans were much down the road. However they were not opposed to Catholics during the war as many Catholic-baiters here claim, otherwise they most certainly would've not have sided with groups like the Rexists and Ustase, nor would countries like Spain and Argentina give haven to Nazi war criminals.

[??????????]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Hmmm..... Who's standing next to Hitler? I hear his name is Mussolini or something. I heard he may be a Christian? Really?

Strawman.

[Max Power]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Hmmm..... Who's standing next to Hitler? I hear his name is Mussolini or something. I heard he may be a Christian? Really?

Strawman.

Nah, it IS Mussolini!!! Is states going to admit he was wrong?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hitler was not really a Christian so stop using him in your arguments. As for your assumptions about those who are going to hell. Well you are absolutely correct. If they deny Jesus their is no hope for them, sad to say.

Hmmm..... Who's standing next to Hitler? I hear his name is Mussolini or something. I heard he may be a Christian? Really?

Strawman.

Not really a strawman, more of a red herring.

Both are pretty poor examples of "violent Christians" though as neither one really incorporated religion into their ideology, much better examples would be Franco or the Lebanese Falange.

[Alcon]

States, what makes Hitler "not a good Christian" but Islamic terorrists good Muslims?

[??????????]

States, what makes Hitler "not a good Christian" but Islamic terorrists good Muslims?

Hitler wasn't even a practicing Christian and he persecuted many different Christians as well as Jews. So I don't see how their can be a connection between someone like him or Mussolini and the Shahs of Iran or all the Muslim CLERICS who have called for the murder of Europeans for hundreds of years.

[Gustaf]

Reese, Africa was damaged by Muslim slave trade (which affected a lot more Africans then the Western) and a lot of Muslim oppression. And Hitler was definitely not Christian. Not. At. All. Hitler had very little to do with any conservative or liberal philosophies whatsoever.

[??????????]

Reese, Africa was damaged by Muslim slave trade (which affected a lot more Africans then the Western) and a lot of Muslim oppression. And Hitler was definitely not Christian. Not. At. All. Hitler had very little to do with any conservative or liberal philosophies whatsoever.

As well many slaves that eventually ended up in the US were African Christians who were captured by Muslim invaders and sold to the Dutch.

[WMS]

As much as I hate to give States' ammunition on this topic ( )...religiously, Muslims are not supposed to enslave other Muslims - or other 'People of the Book' (i.e., Christians and Jews), I think. Historically, that was violated very early on in the Caliphate. There is a ton of hypocrisy in the history of Muslim regimes...

...as there was in the history of the regimes of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Political power does tend to corrupt religious faith, of all kinds.

The point I was agreeing with was that, even by the standards of the Koran itself, the Islamic world has failed to live up to those standards, on a massive scale. They are very, very, far from where they should be...although it would be nice if they would stop blaming 'the West' for their own failings.