Quote:
Originally Posted by crucifissio
what you are saying is fundamentally wrong...there are 1000-s of churches in the 50+ islamic countries...if there was any truth to what you say there would be 0...there would be 0 "infidels" as well...
I lived in lybia, spent several months in other islamic countries, mostly riding off road ATV-s, I visited butt fuck places no tourist has ever seen and I have been greeted with nothing but kindness...I made it perfectly clear that I was an atheist and nobody gave a shit...there are churches and christians living normal lives everywhere...
I can say with a straight face that you can live a normal life in most islamic countries as an "infidel" as you can live in most western countries as a muslim...you will find assholes anywhere...
the only place where I was subjected to religious intolerance was the UK...I was accused of "blasphemy"  |
Again, this is a strawman. Besides the fact that there certainly are not "1000's of Churches in 50+ Islamic lands" unless they are the remains of the ancient, conquered classical world, and often converted to Mosques (this is now also already happening in France for example). Try to build a Church in all these Islamic countries, report back. Btw. Lybia in its time was perhaps the best functioning Islamic country in the world with strong push to secularism and modernization, one can only wish it wasn't destroyed in 2011 by our liberal "peace keepers". Now it's a Jihadi mayhem.
All of us may know a nice Muslim or two, they can be secular, they can be fine people, they may in fact also, especially in the West, know very little about Islam in the first place. But that doesn't change anything about Islam, as a distinct civilization and an ideology, described in detail in its doctrine (that no follower should ever stray away from). Of course the level of devotion to Islam varies on the individual level, that's why it makes little sense to discuss this on other than ideological level.
Anyway, one thing to remember is that Muslims have zero influence over what Islam is, it goes the other way - Islam should control every aspect of their life ("slave to Islam" or "slave to Allah" is a term commonly used in the doctrine). The only Muslim in the history, that ever had influence over Islam was Mohammad. And this influence is crucial since he established a system that is deemed "perfect, universal and final" and any violation of which should be severely punished (often by death).
Let's perhaps expand and illustrate a little bit about the role of Mohammad for those who may be interested:
One frequent misconception in the West is that Islam is a religion, and that it is based on the Qu'ran. This is not true.
As for the religious part, more than a half of the doctrine of Islam is concerned with the Kuffar (unbelievers, "worst of creatures") and how to plot against them in order to spread Islam and establish Islamic rule. If more than a half of the core text for your ideology includes a manual on how to spread it at the expense of those who don't follow it, this is political in nature. All in all Islam is a complete way of life, a complete civilization.
Btw. in general, according to the doctrine of Islam, the Kuffar can be treated well in case Islam is not strong enough to subjugate them, or if it could be harmful to the Islamic community and to spreading Islam. The eventual goal, however, according to the same doctrine, is to eventually establish Islamic rule.
About the Qu'ran - if you'd like to become a follower of Islam, you won't even find the five pillars of Islam in the Qu'ran. You won't even find and know how to pray. The key here is that the Qu'Ran commands in 91 verses that Mohammad is the "perfect example for every Muslim, every Muslim should emulate him in everything he ever did, or said".
Once again, everything Muhammad ever did or said became a rule that should be followed and never be violated, this is documented in the Sunna of Mohammad ("The Way") which consists of his biography and "traditions" - short records of whatever Muhammad ever did or said.
This includes rules for the Ummah (brotherhood of Muslims) and rules on how to deal with the Kuffar (those outside of Islam). These are two very distinct groups with a separate set of ethical rules, and one is always deemed to be superior to the other (thus no Golden Rule, no universal humanity).
Now why is this even important in the 21st century - Mohammad, based on these records was, for example: a polygamist, slave owner and slave trader, married his first cousin, married Aisha when she was 6 years old and "consumated" the marriage at the age of 9, involved in deception, warfare, persecution, torture of non-believers - since he's the "perfect example", all these things are not only permissible, but entirely justified according to the doctrine of Islam. Many have become sacred Islamic traditions.
Heck you can even, still today, find official accounts of Slavery in Mauritania, Sudan, the "new" Lybia, and other Islamic countries (even Slavery was officially legally abandoned in most of them, such as in Saudi Arabia in 1962).
Or do you also want to claim that the issues described above do not exist in the Islamic world?
This may have been the premise in Germany as well. Somebody could think that if they were able to integrate Turks so well (Turkey was officially forced to become secular post 1924), that they may be able to integrate groups that are vastly more devoted to the Islamic ways of civilization. For example Afghanistan, if we were to believe Pew Research, is a country with a 99 pct. of support for Shar'ia being the law of the land. This would mean a massive, absolute level of orthodox devotion to the Islamic doctrine (Sha'ria is basically a condensed manual on how to run a civilization that's 100 pct. in accordance with the doctrine of Islam, it includes non-Muslims).
Do we really want to believe you can now simply move such large numbers of these to the West, and colonize them into abandoning their civilization? Force them to accept Western values and concepts that are not only unknown, taught to be inferior, but often explicitly against the ethics and rules of their civilization?
Another very important, related topic would be the Islamic concept of the so called "migration for the cause of Allah", but that's again for another discussion.
P.S.: For Paul: no Islam is not shrinking, it is expanding, the minorities in Islamic lands are shrinking.