A brief history of political islam

[R_not]

What was the topic again?

If I am off topic, I apologize. I got off track with someone and promise not to do that again.

I was bringing up political islam in today’s world. If you think that is off topic - let me know.

 

[sedonaman]

Tomarin
Two things before we go further: 1- how do you define “religion”

A belief system that includes [as a bare minimum] the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” Muslims claim that Islam has the Golden Rule, but upon close inspection, it refers to “wishing for your ‘brother’” – the key word is “bother” – which means fellow Muslim, not others in general.

and 2- what’s your evidence for this claim (that Islam is not one)?

Didn’t you read the analysis in my post you are referring to, especially the last paragraph? How can “a self-serving message that was spread by the normal, natural human efforts of war and financial benefit” be considered a religion? And if it is not a religion, it certainly can’t be an Abrahamic faith.

 

[R_not]

A belief system that includes [as a bare minimum] the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” Muslims claim that Islam has the Golden Rule, but upon close inspection, it refers to “wishing for your ‘brother’” – the key word is “bother” – which means fellow Muslim, not others in general.

Didn’t you read the analysis in my post you are referring to, especially the last paragraph? How can “a self-serving message that was spread by the normal, natural human efforts of war and financial benefit” be considered a religion? And if it is not a religion, it certainly can’t be an Abrahamic faith.

Your thoughts are not unique. I have thought this for several years now and even got a warning for writing a sentence similar to this: islam is a political system that uses religion as a front… (it was the rest that I got a warning for so I won’t write the rest).

But, there are others with more backing and research into their analysis of islam not a religion that should be taken out of that category.

islam should be demoted

Here is the biggest problem if this happens either in a country, or worldwide - they will use this as an excuse to kill more, and more muslims will be doing the killing than previously.

The 2nd problem would be our own left wing liberals in their support of the them. they don’t care now if the muslims commit human rights atrocities against others and their own women, they continually apologize for them and they shout down, etc anyone who tries to bring this to anyone’s attention in places like our Universities, etc.

 

[tomarin]

A belief system that includes [as a bare minimum] the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” Muslims claim that Islam has the Golden Rule, but upon close inspection, it refers to “wishing for your ‘brother’” – the key word is “bother” – which means fellow Muslim, not others in general.

Okay. Interesting. I tend to think of religions as involving assertions about the supernatural world “beyond this world”. But I guess we think alike in that we both evaluate other faiths in terms of their closeness to Christianity.

Didn’t you read the analysis in my post you are referring to, especially the last paragraph? How can “a self-serving message that was spread by the normal, natural human efforts of war and financial benefit” be considered a religion? And if it is not a religion, it certainly can’t be an Abrahamic faith.

I read it twice, but I couldn’t see how it related to what you were saying about Islam not being a religion. (Especially since it refers to Islam as a religion in the last paragraph.) That is, they didn’t seem to be making the same argument you were making exactly. So that’s why I asked you to define what you mean by religion.

 

[tomarin]

If I am off topic, I apologize. I got off track with someone and promise not to do that again.

No need to apologize. The joke I made was largely at my own expense, since I’m the biggest offender when it comes to getting on tangents.

I was bringing up political islam in today’s world. If you think that is off topic - let me know.

I think it’s an excellent summary of the topic. Consider it duly noted by me.

 

[sedonaman]

Okay. Interesting. I tend to think of religions as involving assertions about the supernatural world “beyond this world”. But I guess we think alike in that we both evaluate other faiths in terms of their closeness to Christianity.

I didn’t include a “beyond-this-world” factor because it would eliminate Buddhism which has no gods but does believe that good actions are rewarded and evil ones are punished.

I read it twice, but I couldn’t see how it related to what you were saying about Islam not being a religion. (Especially since it refers to Islam as a religion in the last paragraph.) That is, they didn’t seem to be making the same argument you were making exactly. So that’s why I asked you to define what you mean by religion.

Actually, the author uses the term “religion” to refer to Islam in his next to last paragraph, and I think it was in a loose way so as not to arrive at his summary before his summary paragraph, in which he calls it a self-serving message. I have difficulty accepting a self-serving message as a religion, and I think the author would too.