I think we should respect all religions (people might not know their friend is devoted to muslim or Chrisitanity etc)

[JuliusHackebeil]

Eagle367 said:

JuliusHackebeil said:

A few things up front:
Outlining how bad Islam is could still be seen as part of the topic of this thread, since it shows how not every religion should be respected just because.
Outlining how bad Islam is, is not me badmouthing all muslims. Surely some muslims. But my concern is about ideas, convictions and their consequences, not people. (And just to be super safe - I know that there are hundreds of millions of muslims who are super nice people. And I don't have a problem with them.)
Outlining how bad Islam is does not mean I do not sea the bad sides of other religions aswell. The catholic church (just as an example) has a very sorry history of opression, torture, bigotry, homophobia, war, child molestation, etc. 

And this is already my first point: For the catholic church most of these horrendous offences are firmly in the past. For Islam the problematic and downright rotten things happen in the present.

My second point: The catholic church is still backwards in many ways. But that does not matter too much to western societies, since there is a clear break between the church and the government. This is one of the most fundamental ideas of the western world. The emancipation from and separation of the curch from the government. This does not and did not happen in islamic dominated countries because Islam, in many ways, is built to be the government. I read the Qur'an. And in favour of the bibles allegorical stories to give vague moral guidance, much of the Qur'an is just laws. There are multiple detailed sections just about inheritance law for example.
When a country is governed by a text and its laws are directly taken from that text that is hundreds of years old and officially (even though it happened in the past) cannot be edited, that country and its culture almost by definition is backwards.
But who is really in favour of making sharia the law of the land? -A lot of people. % of muslims in favour of islamic law as the official law in their country: Niger 86%, Djibouti 82 %, Congo 74 %, Nigeria 71 %, Uganda 66 %, Irag 91 %, Pakistan 84 %, Afghanistan 99 %, Malaysia 86 %, etc. -This is already hundres of millions of people and the list goes on and on. This is a big problem. Your country cannot be modern, or free, or democratic, or fair, if it is ruled by the church. Data: pew research.

My third point: You cannot be openly gay in many of the islamic dominated countries and expect to have a good or long life. Again from pew: "Publics in Africa and in predominantly Muslim countries remain among the least accepting of homosexuality. In sub-Saharan Africa, at least nine-in-ten in Nigeria (98%), Senegal (96%), Ghana (96%), Uganda (96%) and Kenya (90%) believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society." And: "Overwhelming majorities in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed also say homosexuality should be rejected, including 97% in Jordan, 95% in Egypt, 94% in Tunisia, 93% in the Palestinian territories, 93% in Indonesia, 87% in Pakistan, 86% in Malaysia, 80% in Lebanon and 78% in Turkey."

My fourth point: Misogyny. In many of the detailed laws found in the Qur'an women just get the short end of the deal. I would refer to inheritence laws again, just as an example of many. For the bigger picture there is again some pew reserach data: % of muslims who completely or mostly agree that a wife should always obey her husband: Tajikistan 89 %, Uzbekistan 84 %, Kyrgyzstan 75 %, Malaysia 96 %, Indonesia 93 %, Afghanistan 94 %, etc. Again hundreds of millions of people. The list goes on and on. Completely unacceptable.

My fith point: Criticism and mockery. There is no single religion in the world, there is no single organisation in the world powerful and savage enough that you have to fear for your life if you draw a picture that they do not like. Not a single one, except for Islam. Again from pew: Violence against civilian targets can be justified in order to defend Islam: French muslims 16 % often or sometimes, 19 % rarely; Spanish and British muslims 15 % often or sometimes, 9 % rarely; Nigerian Muslims 46 % often or sometimes, 23 % rarely. Again the list goes on. Hundreds of millions of muslims believe that violence against civilian targets can be justified in order to defend Islam. When so many people are okay to kill innocent people something is majorly wrong with the belief and value system of these people.

My sixth point: Apostasy. Pew: "19 Certain hadith either state or imply that the penalty for apostasy, or converting to another faith, is death. See Sahih al-Bukhari 52:260 and 83:37." And: "Nevertheless, in six of the 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half of those who favor making Islamic law the official law also support executing apostates." And: "In the South Asian countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, strong majorities of those who favor making Islamic law the official law of the land also approve of executing apostates (79% and 76%, respectively). However, in Bangladesh far fewer (44%) share this view. A majority of Malaysian Muslims (62%) who want to see sharia as their country’s official law also support taking the lives of those who convert to other faiths. But fewer take this position in neighboring Thailand (27%) and Indonesia (18%)."

Honestly, I could make many more and more detailed points. But I think the picture is quite clear already. Islam is way worse than a lot of people would like to believe. And it can be an absolut nightmare for women, gays, trans people, free thinkers and critics.

So let's go through these points. If you think islam is built to be the government,  you don't understand Islam. Ask any real scholar about Islam and they will tell you it's decentralized and doesn't mesh well with the modern state at all. Regarding sharia law, you do not seem to understand it. Then again many Muslims don't either. Sharia is supposed to be your own personal code as a Muslim, not a legal thing for society. Sharia is not one thing. It's many things to many people. The legal framework of Islam I'd called fiqh and people study it endlessly and there are variations of how they interpret law. These sorts of differences are why different sects exist. Asking Muslims about Sharia is a useless question. It's just one of these stupid things people chose to focus on much like jihad, which means to struggle and entails anything from struggling against your own personal demons to struggling against oppression. It is not holy war.

Your point about blaming Islam is a little bit confusing seeing as there are oppression and backwardness and all of that in underdeveloped and developing societies.  These societies have backwards views regardless of which religion they follow. Hell the evangelicals have such a sway in US politics and are not exactly separate from the governments in ways people pretend they are and the hindutva are bringing an extremist view of Hinduism to their government and in Myanmar, an extremist view of their religion is also being used to commit genocide against the rohingya. Point is religions are malleable and that might be a critique you can levy. Other factors determine how reactionary people are going to be. For example, Muslims in the US have more progressive values than Christians on average in the US and that is true for Canadians as well. Stability and development create progressive values. Instability and war and such stuff create reactionary ideology. Wahabism wasn't born from the golden age of Islam(because Muslims were way more progress back then) but was born when the colonial powers ravaged across the middle east. It's a new more reactionary interpretation of Islam that did not exist classically. 

Most of your other points also relate to this factor of the less developed countries having backwards values. It is the fault of a lot of societal factors but also the views of the Muslims there. And violence for mockery is wrong but the stats you show also show that a super majority of Muslims in more developed nations are against it. There have been polls that show Christians in the US are far more supportive of violence than the numbers you showed for Muslims in France and other places. With regards to women, Islam teaches about there being no superiority of men. Of course misogynists will ignore those parts.

The apostasy thing is again about interpretations. Christians used to kill people for not being part of their religion,  not just apostasy. But again, these views diminish through progress.  You showed how Afghanistan and Pakistan have such reactionary views. Have you seen the state of those countries? Afghanistan has gone through war after war since the 70s and pakistan has a huge economic problems and has been facing terrorism for decades.

As I have said before, there is nothing uniquely wrong about Islam. The problem of Islam and other religions is that they are too malleable. People can twist them to mean what they want. The things you pointed out are also not unique to Islam. None of them are. And your assertion that it's just Islam in the modern age is also not true. Most Muslims live in underdeveloped and developing countries and that leads to reactionary thinking. You can see it happen to Hinduism in India, Buddhism in Myanmar, Christianity in many African nations, east European nations and the US. What can be the key point to focus on should be the reactionary elements themselves. Islam is followed by billions and has a lot of interpretations but some are just wrong and anti human. The focus should be on those reactionary elements like wahabism, evangelicism, hindutva, etc. I have said this before but it bears repeating,  the problems you described are not unique to Islam, they are a product of instability and underdevelopment. 

I will have a more detailed answer later, but I am too curious not to ask right now:

You say that hundreds of millions of muslims wanting sharia law as the official law of their countries is not a problem, or not real?

And christians in the USA are more okay with and likely to commit violence against innocent civilians to defend Christianity? I am curious about these polls. Could you direct me to one please? Also: even if this was true - the numbers I provided about so many muslims who are okay with violence against civilians are a disturbing problem, no matter who else might also be that crazy.

And Islam does not provide a good framework for misogyony? How is it that it is such a big problem in islamic countries? Are there not countless different parts of the Qur'an that put women beneath men? Is there no connection?

And you say the apostasy thing is about interpretation. Sure. But is seems like hundreds of millions of people have a very bad interpretation of it. That is conviniently not part of Islam?

What would you think are actual problems of Islam then? Many religions have problems unique to them. What is Islams problem? Or are there none?