The Religion Of Peace They Say!

[RATTER15]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077658/The-Arabic-textbooks-children-chop-hands-feet-Sharia-law.html#ixzz2UW7d9oay

[Octavius]

Old news from 2010......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11799713

It may well be a religion of peace in name (salam) but we know differently don't we, nudge nudge wink wink.

[FredPuli43]

How far behind Europe does that make them ? Homosexuals and Jews were being persecuted and killed 70 years ago. We hanged people up to the 1960s in the UK. We weren't strong on mutilation in England. Prynne had his ears cut off, some had their tongue slit, and there was drawing and quartering, but nothing much after 1750 or so.

[naomi24]

You might want to have a look at this.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1247206.html

[emmie]

i agree that our respective governments have been sleepwalking into this, and quite honestly it won't be them who will pay when there is another outrage, or more on our streets, or when you start seeing more segregation of the sexes because that is what their religion preaches, women as inferior.

[emmie]

what the hate preachers achieve is more groups like the far right BNP, EDL and more will spring up, then all hell breaks loose, don't they see that coming, and will end up mopping up the mess after it all kicks off, then the political elite will start hand wringing, oh we didn't this would happen.
why is it always after the event that things get done, lessons are never learned, never.

[idiosyncrasy]

The saying is "Actions speak louder than words". And if Islam is a religion of peace, where?

I remember reading an article in the Reader's Digest some years ago where it was claimed the sole purpose of Islam is to bring World Domination. When we look at the many terrorist acts it would seem to be heading that way. They claim that Islam cannot be defeated and that the teaching of the Qu'ran will prevail over all the world.

To the Moslem, Islam is not just a religion it is a total way of life. The name Islam means "submission, surrender or commitment" t o Allah.

They are certainly on the increase as I read a report somewhere sometime ago, where they claim 19.2% compared to Catholic 17.4% of the world population. So that percentage may well be even more now,
Even within Islam there are many sects, the main two being the Shia and the Sunni.

[goodlife]

Ratters@ One who pursuing peace is especially careful in his use of the tongue. James warns: “The tongue is a little member and yet makes great brags. Look! How little a fire it takes to set so great a woodland on fire!” (James 3:5)

So one who says Mischievous gossip, criticism of others behind their back, unkind and harsh words, murmuring and complaining, as well as dishonest flattery for the sake of personal advantage—all of these are works of the flesh that disturb one peace , but not true of God’s true people.

[naomi24]

Goodlife, //as well as dishonest flattery for the sake of personal advantage//

You need to watch out for that one.

[jim360]

In the past Islam (or at least Islamic cultures) used to be towards the top end of the world when it came to being civilised. We seem to have traded places with them. What happened?

[naomi24]

We progressed - they didn't.

[jim360]

OK, that's answered that question... :)

Why, though?

[naomi24]

Because. regardless of the progress made by the rest of the world, they cling to a doctrine that is many hundreds of years old. They're still teaching their children that Allah made the mountains to pin down the earth - because that's what their book says.

[jim360]

If it had just been staying stationary I'd accept that. But it seems to have gone backwards in some ways too! That's why I'm puzzled -- at one time Islam was the progressive faith, albeit progressive in a time which we would probably look down on in many ways. But progressive all the same -- and all of that has stopped. It can't just be clinging on to their Holy Book, although undoubtedly that's at the heart of it. But something must have happened so that over a time such societies became more fundamentalist than before, not just as, and that's a puzzler.

[Khandro]

jim; I think the reason for the 'stepping back wards' of Islam is to do with the quality of the present Imams. I believe at one time they were more rounded in there education, with a knowledge of philosophy, politics, poetry and science etc. as well as complete comprehension of the Koran.
The actual requirements to become an Imam are basically nothing more than knowledge of the Koran, so almost anyone can, and sadly,does, become one. These are the blinkered 3rd-raters spitting out hatred, and stirring young uneducated Muslims into violence while themselves remaining in the background of the mosques. I think it behoves the better quality imams to speak out to tackle this problem.

[naomi24]

Jim, Whilst Imams have an enormous influence upon the faithful, and are to a great extent responsible for what we see now, they are not the sole reason Islam has not progressed. I haven’t got time now, but I’ll get back to you asap.

[naomi24]

Jim, Islam has always craved power, and whilst some of what it did in the past is commendable, the reality is that most of the knowledge it claims as its own was derived from earlier civilisations. The Koran was based almost exclusively on the bible and ancient Jewish folk law, and its science predominately on that of the Ancient Greeks. That is borne out by the errors in the scientific thinking of the time that Mohammed was unaware of, and hence, copied – and today, Islamic scholars make truly mind-boggling efforts to ‘prove’ that the glaring flaws in the Koran are not flaws at all. The so-called ‘Golden Age’ did produce scholars who were academically adept and positively instrumental in preserving some of the world’s ancient documents, going to great lengths to translate practically everything they could get their hands on into Arabic.

The fundamental problem is, and always has been, Islam’s dogged determination to cling to the ‘truth’ of the Koran – and moreover to the infallible words and deeds of the Prophet Mohammed, who is considered to be beyond criticism. There are influential people in the world today – among them academics and qualified medical doctors – in countries that we would consider the more liberal of the Muslim nations, such as Egypt – who still champion female genital mutilation – simply because Mohammed advised it. The Koran makes no mention of male or female circumcision - in fact it specifically commands that Allah's ‘creation’ should not be altered in any way - so although no faithful Muslim will ever agree, the word of Mohammed, in that instance at least, clearly overrides what they consider to be the word of Allah. Advice on every aspect of Muslim life is to be found either in the Koran, or more worryingly, in the hadith – the pronouncements of Mohammed, who was, in truth, nothing more than a dangerously ambitious warmonger. Nothing is neglected in the teaching – from rules on prayers, to marriage and childbirth, to rules on how to use the lavatory – and despite the claim that women in Islam are revered, they are not. They are considered to be inferior to men, and are expected to be subservient. Additionally, Mohammed married a six year old girl, consummating the marriage when the child was nine – hence, the practice of grown men marrying children continues - even in this country - and so in many ways Islam has not gone backwards – it has simply never progressed – and it never will.

Now, of course, with the relatively recent return of the Jews to the ‘Promised Land’, resulting in the ejection of Palestinians from their homeland, we have seen an upsurge in the hatred towards the west that has existed since the times of the Crusades. That has been, and continues to be, fired by the mad Mullahs and the crazy Imams– but we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking the mindset of radical Islam has changed in recent years. It hasn’t. Its ambition to conquer remains as resolute as ever.

[jim360]

My problem really is that I'm aware of (some of) the history of the Science of early Arab-Islamic Society, and not much of the full context. From that somewhat narrow view I had assumed that at the start Muslims must have taken a somewhat enlightened view of the cultures they'd conquered, absorbing the best bits and allowing people to pretty much get on with things.

Then, given that fanatical adherence to Religion seemed to be very much the "in" thing for Christians at that time, I've again assumed that there must have been some point at which the two cultures sort of swapped over. We grabbed their Science, Maths, Number system, Medicine and (eventually) relatively enlightened and open attitude to other cultures -- while they stole our dependence on an old book for all the answers to everything ever.

It may be that this is completely mistaken -- as you can see I know far too little to be able to argue with you on this one -- so at some point or other I really ought to do some reading into this.

If your points about Islam being "always like this" in some way are true, then perhaps the other question is, rather than them changing, how did we change? There's little denying that Christian cultures were equally barbaric and backward in their own special way, for the first half of the last millennium in particular. And yet we moved out of that. We too stuck by the Bible as infallible -- and some still do, sadly. Presumably there was a gradual change from this viewpoint that is still continuing today, but that takes people to challenge the system and is hardly an easy task. So, the question would then be again how is that that we were able to move on and the Arabic Muslim community still are not?

I would expect the same thing to happen, eventually, in Islam too. Indeed it has, mostly, for Muslims of the Western World. But that expectation is based on some of my earlier assumptions about Islam moving backwards.

[naomi24]

Jim, I don’t think there was ever a time when we ‘swapped over’. The fact of the matter is we progressed despite some very stiff opposition from the church. Having said that, unlike Islam’s stance on the Koran, the church has, over the centuries, allowed for some interpretation of the bible – in fact when it’s suited the church’s purpose, interpretation has been actively encouraged since the beginning. The Koran, on the other hand, is considered to be accurate and completely infallible in every respect – as is the word of Mohammed. What it amounts to is that when science or new innovations put the church in a tight spot, it looks at the bible and says ‘Well, that must mean *that*’, or ‘*that* doesn’t mean exactly what it says’ – whereas Islam looks at its literature and finds justification in absolutely everything – no matter how much it has to go around the houses to do it. Therefore, in Islam, nothing changes - ever.