saveliberty
Diamond Member
- Oct 12, 2009
- 58,692
- 10,748
If you read a good biography of Mohammed, you can learn a great deal about what shaped the religion, the upheavals and conflicts of the time. What Mohammed saw, in the Arab culture, his own culture was an excess of extravagance, pride and honor motivated violence that was moving people away from God. Widows and orphans suffered impoverishment, the poor were ignored and wealth was concentrated and wasted in the hands of a few. That's an oversimplification, but it was what led him to try to change his culture and bring his people closer to God within the context of values of the times.You kinda scare me when you suggest that Mohammed was demanding submission "to him" and not Allah. .
Mohammadism and Islam are interchangeable terms. The warlord created this new quasi-religion placing himself as the sole authority in order to prop up his power by investing his actions with Godly sanctioning.
It is hardly a stretch to say he was demanding submission to him when that is exactly what he was doing.
You seem to be caught up on the word "religion", the assumption being that Islam operates just like Christianity or Judaism. It doesn't and it never did.
It does in America. We provided a context for it's practice without all the baggage. Not that "our brand" of Muslims are gonna win at defanging Islam in general. But from an American prospective, it CAN BE just like Christianity or Judaism if the ties to the outside are severed.
The Quran is full of verses about war and conflict, but those verses are often stripped of their context, much like some will do with the Bible. Unlike the OT however it is also full of rules as to when it's permissible to conduct war, how to treat those captured etc.
It is also full of verses on peace, justness and compassion. That often gets ignored, both by its detractors and its extremists.
What I don't understand is this attitude that insists Islam cannot ever work within a culture of western ideals, freedoms and rights. Followers of the Bible, a book full of bloody vengeful intolerant actions and commands have done so. They place an emphasis on the peaceful and compassionate aspects, and view the violence in a metsphorical fashion rather than literal. The Quran contains the same potential. So have many Muslims in western countries, including many in Europe. It isn't the rarity people think it is, it's often that you only ever here of Muslims behaving badly and Europe is under intense pressure with the migrant and refugee situation.
It isn't that Islam cannot coexist with western values, it does, every day.
No the Koran allows for Infidels to be lied to and killed without any trial or process. There are "religious police" who can kill anyone on the spot.