How Islam: Doctrine & Practice

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

This is a serious question, posed b/c I can’t find a simple answer anywhere else. Pls only answer if you have a reasonably informed opinion.

BEAR WITH ME WHILE I MAKE A FEW IMPERFECT STATEMENTS…

While there are exceptions, for instance, Christians firing at abortion clinics, Jews spitting at women who don’t cover their arms, etc. it seems to be a proportionate difference in the level of “violence in the name of religion” among Muslims compared to modern Jews and Christians.

The Torah, Bible and Koran texts contain violence and guidelines for punishments that seem primitive and abusive. Just to pick one example: blasphemy is punishable by death, adultery is punishable by death, heretics are expelled, etc.

My question was: why is it that modern orthodox Jews and Christians don’t seek to enforce these laws, dismissing them as “parables” or “normal for the times but not relevant today,” but there are millions in Islam that overtly feel connected to these laws and wish to enforce them?

MAYBE THE QUESTION SUCKS…

Depending on where you stand, there are at least ten way to poke holes in the question itself. For instance, you can come up with examples where modern Jews and Christians DO seek to enforce these laws, you can argue that most muslims do not feel connected to these laws, and that it’s only a fringe group; you can argue that the fringe group doesn’t in reality feel connected to these laws but rather uses them as justification for political violence or social unrest. You can point to the inquisition or israeli aggression. Just so many blind alleys and red herrings. I realize that anything short of perfect, quantifiable scientific assertions and statistics will fail to get us through these troubled waters toward an actual respect for the question and a sensible answer to it.

Yet I believe the question is valid, and that truly neutral and curious people should be able to sidestep the nirvana qualifications for the question and agree that it’s at least a sensible question.

ANECDOTAL BULLSHIT AHEAD

I have sat in temple with devout Jews. None of them, not once, in any situation, has ever hinted at wanting to bring back the San Hedrin courts and start sentencing blasphemers and homosexuals to death. Modern churches generally don’t preach these things in America either. Islam is different. There are millions who are connected with these ideas and long for them to be instituted, and they indeed are instituted in many places. My question is simply WHY is Islam different? It’s certainly not obvious that the texts are all that different. So what is it about Islamic people or the society structures that have lead to disproportionate extremist and fundamentalist views?

THE TYPICAL JEWISH ANSWER AND WHY IT’S WRONG

When asked this question, a Jewish friend offered some answers; I didn’t like the answers. They were essentially, the Torah is real, the Koran is fake; Jews have a respect for human life, muslims don’t; Jewish law of old always involved a rigorous court system (San Hedrin) and punishments for death were almost never doled out; because Jews have the Talmud, which outlines the legal conditions where these punishments can be enacted, and as it turns out, they were almost never enacted.

I rebutted this almost entirely. 1. “The Torah is real” is a useless statement for this argument and doesn’t warrant a response. 2. Islam has an extraordinary vast amount of literature and liturgy dedicated to respect for human life 3. They have the Uthmanic Codex and countless commentaries on how to decide right and wrong, similar to the Jewish oral tradition, and they even borrow from the Jewish oral tradition.

My discourse partner went on to point to suicide bombing of innocents as evidence that Islam doesn’t respect human life. But i argue that while these acts seem heinous, no such line can be drawn between the act itself and whether its perpetrators value human life. Clearly they believe a human life extends into the afterlife for infinity, and also they are killing for what they consider higher principles that will improve God’s plan for human life in an overarching utilitarian sense. Surely Truman bombed innocents for similar reasons, in order to end the war and save more american and japanese lives. What the Sbarro incident, or indeed 9/11 points to, is instead perhaps faulty logic or a different psycho-emotional profile from what we’re used to in the West, i’ll even allow that it points to all kinds of hideous evils and weaknesses, but I still don’t see how it necessarily implies a lack of value for human life as compared with JEWISH or CHRISTIAN doctrine. An argument could easily be made that in some scary sense, it reveals a GREATER value on human life, even if their definitions are unscientific or come from the frailty of human emotions and fears. Surely Abraham himself, when he went to slay Isaac, didn’t undervalue human life, rather he over-valued his own beliefs of what was ultimately the most moral act.

If you read the Torah or Koran in a vacuum, or cherry pick certain lines, you come away with misconceptions about what went on and what was believed, but if you read the Talmud or the Islamic oral traditions, you see that Judaism and Islam was historically sensible and humane in practice, coexisting peacefully with other faiths, and being lenient in punishments, seeing the text as a guideline or ideal, rather than an actual norm for punishment.

So again, my question is why the shift in recent centuries, why are we seeing more people in Islam finding ways to enact Sharia in a way that puts violent text into practice, and yet Jews and Christians generally haven’t done this. Why are we seeing Islamic groups like Al Qaeada finding loopholes and arguments that sanction the killing of civilians on American soil, and the use of suicide bombers?

Why do so few Jews want to enact Halachic law in the streets, and yet so many muslims long for Sharia law in the streets?

The potential answers are staggering, each worth exploring.

Is it possible that people in Muslim geographical areas carry a preponderance of a genetic emotional/intellectual trait that allows them to be swept up in the religion such that they are more susceptible to wanting to carry out certain tenets? Is it possible the doctrine of Islam carries something within it that leads to higher likelihood of its adherents wanting to interpret it in such a way as to enact sharia law in modern times, even at the tip of the sword? Conversely, is there some aspect in other other doctrines (could be seen as a flaw or as a saving grace) that prevents modern adherents from taking an extremist, violent fundamental approach? Is it a roll of the dice, i.e. have the weather patterns of the global socio-economic structure randomly selected a certain group to get persecuted or poor and then have to rely on religious texts to justify terrorism – one of the only means they have to fight back? Is it a combination of all of this?

Is it possible that all three abrahamic religions carry the cancer cells of extremist, they all three share the same fallacies and evils and misconceptions, and that any of them could make the leap to extremism at any point given the right conditions? Is it possible that Islam is just a whole lot better in terms of brand, marketing and influence, such that it got the whole “faith” thing right, to the point of people being willing to kill and die for it, even in modern times of science and moral advancements?

Our nature is to come up with a curt, simple answer to all these questions and move on. Our nature is to ridicule the person that poses these questions – to pretend you are too smart to be distracted by these questions because they are irrelevant.

But this doesn’t provide insight. It only adds logs to the fire of confusion.

Granted, at some point you have to take off the turtleneck and pick up a gun. There’s that, too. But I didn’t see a whole lot of guns here. So until that time we have to take up arms, I’m sticking with the turtleneck. you?

2

Just a quick response to that first part.

Islam is an extremely militant, masculine religion compared to the other Abrahamic religions, and it is practiced in an enforced theocratic society with very little media freedom to loosen that grip and expose middle eastern people to more liberal western culture.

There are also faction conflicts (Sunni and Shia), which causes Islamic doctrine to become nervously ‘over extended’, you could say. There is no time or room over there for Islam to relax like here in the west. I would also imagine that Arabs are more disciplined and committed to their religious doctrine, than westerns are to theirs, because the constant political turbulence seems to demand it. But mostly I think it’s the fact that the middle east is so culturally isolated from the rest of the world it hasn’t yet learned how to chill out, west side style, and become lazy, hypocritical religious slobs like everybody else in the western world.

I think Islam will be one of the last religions to finally be forgotten about as mankind learns to finally grow up.

3

Ok, so to summarize your points:

  1. The religion itself is different. Something about masculinity and militancy is baked into the text and faith itself.
  2. Theocratic societies are insular and isolated and the ways are self-perpetuating absent outside influence. They are cut off from the modern thinking that inevitably leads to liberalized religion
  3. Factions within are in conflict, forcing both sides to be vigilantly “pious” for fear of being considered the less zealous faction and fear of failing to keep the world on the true path.
  4. Significant ongoing political and war crises and events have forced people and govt to take a continuously pious, zealous and militant, desperate stance in order to feel in control and have hope and identity

I value this as substantive answer/hypotheses and I’m going to ponder the truths of these and see what I come up with.

That said, I’m far more interested in point number 1. Because it seems to me that saying they’re cut off begs the question of how this religion managed to cut itself off. I’m very interested in what about Islam if anything, inherently leads it to violence and primitive punishments in our times. And I think isolating itself goes hand in hand with this question.

4

Don’t do that. Don’t take something I said and say it better than me. It makes me look bad.

#1 is more of a philosophical point, one which I didn’t spend near enough time explaining. I base a lot of this/my opinion on some stuff I read in N’s WTP (I know you hate that book). There is an analysis and comparison of the different portrayals of ‘god’ in the Abrahamic religions. In summary, Judaism and Christianity are considered feminine there because they describe man’s relationship to ‘god’ as a kind of desperate parent-child relationship, in which man is made to feel small, shameful, forlorn, and guilty under the watch of an interrogating ‘god’. Allah, on the other hand, is less invasive, and man is made to feel more like an equal to ‘god’… or at least a kind of servant that has license to take responsibility for enforcing Allah’s will. There is an alliance there, a symmachia, as the greeks called it, with God. Therein lies the militant element in the practice of Islam; they are go-getters. The Hebrews were less militant and the spread of Judaism was the result of a kind of cunning pacifism. Nietzsche identifies this as a feminine characteristic. Judaism was underhanded; Islam was in your face.

5

Haha thanks for the compliment. I can do that with your prison stories, too, just say the word. You’d get all the credit, I’m a professional ghost writer.

And btw, they’re your ideas and they’re good ones. I just wanted to make sure I was clear and so I paraphrased.

I don’t hate WTP anymore and its a valuable observation. I hadn’t thought of tapping Nietzsche for answers to this question. Thanks for illuminating the path. As always, impressed by the ridiculous amount of knowledge rumpled outlaws can sometimes possess.

6

I would favor something along the lines of this explanation, although the exact answer might not indicate a cause that is as random as weather events. As my high school teacher used to say (and I forget the exact phrase he would use): “Hungry people are unhappy people”. As we know, some Muslim countries are among the richest countries in the world; nevertheless, the wealth is not shared, and tends to be concentrated in the hands of a few. Therefore, it may be something about Islam that favors the kind of social arrangement resembling feudalism.

Likewise, my answer to this question would be “yes”. You mentioned the Inquisition. Think of the Holocaust -which was religious/racial persecution. Germany was going through a very difficult time economically, when the Nazis came to power, as a result of sanctions imposed on it, following WWI. The relative stability we see in Europe, North America and Israel is undoubtedly related to the fact that few people are going hungry in these areas.

7

mafdet, hey man nice to meet you and thanks for taking this seriously.

“What about Islamic doctrine, if anything, favors or leads to feudalism?” strikes me as a fruitful question.

I’d like to find justification for the following statements:

  1. What qualities of the Islamic religious doctrine can be considered a “source of potential evil” and what geo-political conditions outside of the religion have caused these seeds to germinate.

  2. Name qualities in the other two Abrahamic religions that can be considered a “source of potential evil,” and name potential hypothetical conditions, if any, that could cause these seeds to germinate.
    2b. Examine statements of religious adherents claiming there are no inherent evils; or that there are failsafe protections built in, such that no situation could ever bring these potential evils into action in modern day.

  3. Compare and contrast the sources of evil, and the potential outside triggers, that could apply to each religion.

  4. Even if we could illuminate all the above clearly and precisely, it wouldn’t matter because x. (solve for x)

My goal in this line of questioning is to get people of other religions to begin to see that they share kinship with their enemies. If acts of faith-based terrorism and punishments that violate human rights can really be explained by pious people responding as rationally as they can to their doctrine combined with the political realities in which these people live…we may begin to see things in a different light.

This doesn’t mean we will excuse any behavior, but we will understand it. As long as we blame it on evil or stupidity, and alienate ourselves from the process taking place in Islamic hearts and minds, we will get no closer to a solution. The cycle of hate can only be broken by love.

I also want to support the idea that religious people should lead the charge in this kind of understanding, because the physics behind religion applies to all three religions. The fact is, when people believe things based on faith and scripture, it can be dangerous.

This is true of all three religions. If three people smoking cigarettes and only one gets cancer, are the other two going to stand around saying “oh, well they were stupid for smoking camels, we smoke american spirit…”

I know that people are scared, life is hard, many are weary, lazy or unequipped to sort this stuff out. We can be different. We who can think should not be lazy, we who are free should not be weary, we who have faith in the supremacy of one religion should rise above our bias and analyze the situation dispassionately, and we who read news stories or watch infotainment and then go about our business perpetuating simplified views should shut the fuck up.

It may very well be that Islam is a high-rise built on an unstable foundation. It could also be like a building built on a fault line that is not “earthquake safe” and so conditions are making it unstable or dangerous. It could also be that the two other religions are structurally sound such that they can withstand their own weight, and any earthquake that comes by. But these are hypotheses that need to be tested, discussed, examined. There is a shit ton of work to do.

The problem is these aren’t high-rises. But they may as well be. They are great soaring structures that are the only things standing between meaningless depression or oblivion and hell for billions of people. To admit of a structural flaw is too often equated to admitting of a flawed divinity – which is blasphemous. But if there’s a way within the religious system to find the flaws and correct them, or find safer ground, therein’s a path to unraveling the mess. If there is no way to do this within the fundamental fringes of Islam – now numbering in the hundreds of millions – we are in for quite a ride.

8

I guess you could call me a proponent of this “X factor”, Gamer. It seems to me that the whole basis for the Abrahamic religions is much too ambiguous to weed out the extremist views, and may perhaps even encourage them to some extent. But as to exactly why certain people take these extremist views (as opposed to a more moderate interpretation) is where the X factor comes in.

Now this X factor is really the part which I believe is broken, and perhaps cannot be fixed. But, of course, it is this X factor which we must try to fix, and it is Allah/God who gives us the formula for remedying it. And, of course, these remedies must be channeled through certain sensitive individuals we usually refer to as prophets. Now the trouble with our modern Abrahamic religions is that we tend not to like modern prophets. The prophets of the past were simply channeling wisdom/knowledge that was useful to humanity at certain stages of its evolution. But it is with great difficulty that Allah /God is able to convey new messages to humanity, because when religion becomes institutionalized, it becomes very resistant to new ideas, and yes, even resistant to new directives from above -religion is stuck in a rut, so to speak.

That is it exactly! If I were to tell you exactly what I believe Factor X to be, I’m sure there are many from all three religions who would consider it to be blasphemous. I will say that I believe that Arthur C. Clarke is one of our modern day sensitives, and that this divinity was trying to channel certain information about itself through Clarke -information about a broken Factor X. (Clarke was the author of the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Stanley Kubrik made into a motion picture.)

If I am right, perhaps there is a way of fixing it from without.

9

Hate to over simplify it, but Islam is just like what those other religions are like - given enough POWER [see; history].

Come to think of it pagan religions and every religion i can think of can be like that if they have enough power.

Religion has always been used since the birth of civilisation [the first civilisation i think was in turkey and it had a central temple] as a rational to prop up the people in power.

This is why religion ‘causes’ war and suffering, it’s because it is simply the means for brokering power, and if not religion it would be something else [see Nazism/politics]. Without religion ‘Islamic extremists’ would still hate the west, as it sees the way capitalism makes utility of everything external to it. There would still be the east/west thing, it’s just that those lines are drawn upon religion and respective cultures, so without religion their may be different lines.

How would capitalism survive without cheaper financial areas and cheap labour and resource collection?

…and then we have the cheek to complain about the refugees we caused.

10

I guess we’re all waiting for that monolith to come and illuminate us. I love the Arthur C Clark observation. I think you’re exactly right about everything you said. I guess I’m never satisfied unless it leads to a new question. What is that new question you were getting at? It should be the “real” question. It usually begins with who what when where why and how. One of those. That’s all the clues I’ll give you.

Amorphos, we could say this – that the extreme religion is a backlash to economic issues. but what if we’re getting it backwards? Maybe the political situation and inequality doesn’t stoke the fires of the religion and theocracy. What if instead the pre-existing religion and theocracy, girded by uniquely Islamic principles and intrinsic gravity unique to Islam has stoked the fires of the causes of the economic situation, caused these people to become “cheap labor” in the first place? And what exactly are these principles, and why did they awaken so vividly in Islam and not in Christianity, and how can it be redirected to the more loving and Godly tenets and interpretations in the Koran?

The question becomes, how might a religious fixation, a theocracy, prevent nations from thriving economically in a global economy where free market capitalism and secular values are the standard? It would seem easy to think of ways this could be true.

From what I know of religion, it changes the lens dramatically. It creates a whole different universe. It could easily create imbalances that lead to one nation becoming weak, where another can’t help but exploit it; simply by being good at business and government, the healthy country begins to encroach upon and threaten to absorb the theocratic one. It reminds me of how people resent Jews because they make it harder for everyone else, because they actually sit down and think very carefully about money and work very hard to get it, and while you can always think of examples of dishonest Jews or anyone, millions of Jews do it every day in a manner vastly disproportionate to the general public, without having to lie or cheat, which is the most frustrating part of it to anti-Semites.

This is a dangerous and tasteless analogy but in this case, modern capitalist societies are like the Jews, thriving because they are smart and dedicated and realistic, and the arabs are like the others, who wind up making less money because they are not doing money & power producing things because for whatever reason their ideology and the feudal system it yields doesn’t maximize such things, and that fact makes them vulnerable to being crushed by the rampant progress taking place all around them, and this turns an already suboptimal ideology toward the realms of bitter hatred and fanaticism. This is made so much more tragic when you consider that some of our noblest, smartest and bravest hearts on the planet belong to oppressed muslims who are only trying to do what’s right.

Instead of changing their beliefs, they are forced to redouble them, and redouble them again, for it’s the only way to save their core beliefs from disappearing completely, or so some of them think. If they are proven wrong, they will be shamed. Better to make it about martyrdom, extremism; better to make their lack of power and standing look like they “meant” to do it, better to convince themselves and others that they are perfect and everyone else is crazy and evil. This resembles the plague of the narcissist, the sociopath, the paranoid. And I just wonder what role religion might play, and specifically the fundamentalist’s interpretation of Islamic religion, in these pathologies. Also, I wonder if these things are inherent in all religion.

In the end, we all want peace. I simply want to see Islam grow up and have the gentler, wiser leaders in Islam win out. We want the true path of Islam to serve it’s purpose on this planet, and I refuse to believe its purpose is to go down in flames and bring everyone down with it.

We need Islam to be functional, but first we need to understand why it’s not.

11

jihadwatch.org/2014/03/new-s … wage-jihad

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

12

wsj.com/articles/SB104794563734573400

13

I think I see what you are driving at now, and I think it relates to this concept of John Locke of separation of church and state. This concept, which has been embraced wholeheartedly by most Christian countries, has undoubtedly contributed to their prosperity. Exactly why a society that separates church and state should prosper more than one that does not is perhaps another issue, and the question it raises of whether a country that does not separate the two can also prosper.

The issue of why separation of church and state is so abhorrent to Muslim beliefs is addressed in the following article:

english.islammessage.com/Article … icleId=778

The article suggests that Christians would also have a difficult time separating church and state, if not for the fact that Christians seem to have an easier time picking and choosing which items in Scripture are relevant to their particular circumstance. For example:

The article does not directly address the fact that there are many Muslim countries with secular governments, but I guess we are to assume that the faith of a Muslim in a secular state is always compromised.

14

Gamer

We may be, but if the economic conditions were changed then people change, they have more to loose and more importantly the feelings of satisfaction and independence from material gain. It seems that either way the better way forwards is an economical one, even where in conjunction with a cultural change.

They may well do, but nobody except extremists would turn charity away. Add technology and visible human rights to that and it is possible to change things at the ground level. I do believe there is a strong tradition of charity from the rich to the poor in islam, and we could evolve that by adding technology into the mix. Give them cars and phones in reasonably nice homes and bingo.

I agree absolutely on said point. Though we have to say that much of the problem in Israeli refugee camps and ghettos could be cured by giving the people >the means< to improve their conditions. I feel that generally bad mental health is generated by bad conditions. …and how can you hate someone who makes your life better? Especially if the Palestinians done the actual work themselves so they could be proud of their achievements. I mean we are simply talking roads and housing upgrades.

As an Englishman i cannot help but think that having an historic vast empire kinda helped in getting all the business connections in the world to work in your favour. Anyhow, to me it is still better to be charitable, as it takes far less wealth to make basic changes in peoples conditions than to make war.

I can see that too. That belongs to general antithetical politics in some way, i can remember being a young punk and anarchist, thinking in similar way though the details were changed. Everyone wants to be better than others and we are the same but in a different way i.e. Same boxes different ingredients - so to say. The more humanity moves towards singularity the more extreme any opposition gets, and to me that’s how simple duality works, ~ like yin and yang [the greater of one shade, generates smaller but stronger of it’s opposite]. It is surely wisdom that it is as much the movement of the western singularity, as it is the reducing of Islamic culture [not the religious kind]. We need to find ways to blend the shades such to reduce the duality, and helping people and improving their world may achieve that.

_

15

There are a few very good explanations for this. I’ll elaborate going further and further back in time:

  1. Nowadays, most Islamic countries are actually poor, have been in wars with the west and feel their values are being repressed by (at least) mainstream media. This ofcourse has the effcet that people will feel validated to ‘defend’ themselves, or to downright preach hatred. Looking at it from certain perspectives, this is not completely unreasonable.

  2. Not too long ago, say between 200 years and 50 years ago, Arabic states were reforming politically. They have a tolerant history: allowing other religions which worship the one true God to practice in the land and when they saw that the western countries were reforming into democracies, at some point, they also tried. However, at that time, the democracies did not hold and the countries were plunged into chaos and poverty. People started falling back on the fundaments of the Islamic religion; which created the deeply rooted power of the fundamentalists (as well as a feeling that the western ways are not for them).

  3. Let us not forget that the first conversions to the Islam were made by the sword: convert or die after losing a battle. So, it is perfectly normal to use violence on behalf of Allah. Mohammed himself ordered it as well.

I know I am taking big steps through history, but this is a general outline of how this is considered relatively normal.

16

Jewish radicalism in Israel is increasing. It is not said that Christians wont go back to their older forms of social structuring. But the real answer to your question seems to me that Islam was introduced as a political religion; unlike Christianity it envisions a religious rule on Earth. The same goes for Judaism, only this involves a factor 100 less people, is race- (or rather tribe-) specific.

Islam was born out of the people from the Arabic peninsula, but makes claims to all the world. This necessarily implies violence. Also, the word Islam means subjection or being subjected. Whats in a name? Quite a bit.

The texts do differ significantly. There is a lot of violence in the Torah, but in the Koran there is less diversity in the stories. In fact there isn’t a lot of storytelling at all, which makes it more difficult to interpret it as allegorical.

Most significant to me seems the character of the prophets of the various religions. Jesus was a pacifist; Moses helped his people escape from subjection, Mohammed was a warlord who eatablished his religion by military conquest.

If you would have asked someone based on these identifiers to predict which of the three religions would most likely evolve into violent radicalism, it seems not unlikely that Islam would be named most often. (There are no gods, only prophets.)

17

Islam believes in certain laws. All systems of laws involve punishments. The sharia law involves punishment that has been decreed by God through Muhammad.

Similarly the jews and Christians have been issued laws by their gods and prophets.

There is no doubt that all three Abrahamic religions do what their God and prophets tell them to do. Abraham in abrahamic obeyed God to slay Isaac. This obedience and faith is the key connector of all three religions.

Islam is simply what jews would be if God told the jews to follow the Koran. Islam is simply what Christianity would be if God told Christians to follow the Koran. Etc.

The only difference is in the set of rules, and possibly in the relative health and robustness with which they adhere to the original rules.

Jews claim that it is inherent in the rules that a) they must adapt to the law of the land except in matters that require blasphemy.
b) punishments must require a million different near impossible situations and agreements before they can be carried out. For instance the crime must take place in front of the court, and right after they’ve been warned not to do it.

These two taken together don’t constitute much in way of law. And it would seem any other laws regarding kashrut etc aren’t enforced with punishment.

Indeed the jewish Torah follows a set of laws with a built in interpretation of anti-authority. Indeed these laws are poetic or metaphoric and not meant to be real. But this, too, is part of the law. Jews have been commanded in these matters and are carrying it out obediently – to not literally punish.

Christians, too, have interpreted Jesus and apostles to not carry out punishments. So in that sense, they too are obedient.

In Islam, most feel that punishment law are guideposts and shouldn’t be taken literally often if ever. A minority however, had read a literal meaning, because in Islam it is a little easier to take a literal meaning. And therefore sharia law is simply another form of earnest obedience. And earnest obedience that mimics that of other religions.

Islam feels attacked. Islamic law allows for self defense. So even in the worst acts of violence that hurts civilians, in their minds they feel they are being obedient. They feel Islam is the only true way to live and that it is pure, and that satanic influences threaten their way of life, countries and ability to obey their laws, and so they fight back any way they can.

It should also be mentioned a second quality all three religions share: faith.

I believe faith itself is the dangerous element. It doesn’t matter what the faith is attached to, but rather how it attaches. For if it attaches in a certain way, it can be said to be malignant. Meaning it is a quality that will allow for the believer to follow literally any order no matter how violent.

Again, all three religions are Abrahamic and we only need look at Abrahams behavior to see why all three religions are theoretically capable of 9/11.

The laws we defend in America are held to be morally self evident. So we too, are abrahamic in some ways. But many laws seem more logic and rational based. We can examine what makes sense for maximum well being, and continue to change and evolve – not bound by a covenant. But even in America (or Uk) we have laws and punishments. In this sense, it is equivalent sharia law – laws with a morally self-evident basis. The difference is our allegiance is to reason, in theory. Not faith.

The political situation isn’t the cause for the violent terrorism, but it is a precondition that has made the sleeping dragon raise its head. This dragon is dormant in Judaism and Christianity, but is there. Perhaps it has more an easy path in Islam. But this is not an insult. It may actually mean Islam is the most earnest and committed of the three faiths – the most like Abraham.

The future is grim. They will not cease to retaliate as long as Israel and other countries have strongholds in the Islamic countries. They will not cease as long as western influences insist upon the global culture, including all the things Islam considers crime. In a global economy and digital world, it will be impossible for the USA to completely desist on everything Islam considers a crime.

What a clusterfuck. And all because of abrahamic faith.

Usa government telling a soldier to kill is also faith. The soldier pulling the trigger is also Abraham.