Is it true that Islam is a barbaric and completely violent religion? Or is that a bunch of nonsense?

>My point is not to say that Christianity is awful just that religions can change.
Islam doesn't want a reformation.

All I know is that its adherents never look awfully friendly when I see them in the streets, that's really all I need to know

They kill gays dont they?

whats changed?

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Islam doesn't want anything it's an idea. Many Muslims may not want to reform it but others may want to and who is to say that the sect that preaches peace won't be able to come into prominence.

I suppose it would be nice if the Muslims had a New Testament involving a less war like prophet, but any culture backed into a corner the way Islam has been will become violent - even Buddhists and secular humanists. (Particularly when the dominant group is short sighted and decides to back its most violent factions for its own ends.)

The Christians have at least as much tinder for violence ready to go, were they to be placed in similar dire straits, since they refused to abandon the Old Testament back when they wiped out the Cathars. And even Jesus himself is prone to the occasional bout of violence, and outlines certain situations in which it may be necessary.

It maybe Islam provides slightly more fuel for the fire than some, but in the end, people are people. At this point, violence is the only practical path, and practicality tends to win out over every religion, regardless of how peaceful its nature.

Not saying "all religions are the same" mind you - but in extreme circumstances, people, en mass, tend to be.

I didn't say everything changes but would you argue that Islam is fundamentally the same religion it was a thousand years ago and that it's believers believe in the same things.

It's hard to reform Islam because a lot of the Quran is not up for debate. It is clear commands and Muslims have to follow the example of Mohammad. Sufis and others who did try to reform Islam ended up being killed or pushed out to the fringes of Islamic society.

Yes, that's why it's the best religion

>reform Islam

What did he mean by this?

How is Islam in a dire situation?

I'd argue it's been extremely reformed in recent history, and is indeed being reformed as we speak - just not in a positive direction.

Maybe you haven't been following the events in the Middle East for the past century or so.

The Ottomans legalized homosexuality in the 1850s, and Persians until very recently had some kind of cultural loophole where it was okay for older men to have sex with younger, beardless men.

No idea. That is why I said it is almost impossible to that guy. The Quran and hadith speak out vehemently against "innovation" to the words of god and the prophet. Hence why Sufis and others who tried had very little scriptural backing and got blown the fuck out until they were fringe elements.

I won't argue that is harder for Muslims to change because of Islams emphasis on submission. That being said it has happened wahhabism is a reform of Islam that took hold in much of three world. It may not be the kind of reform we like but it is an extremely clear example of Islam evolving (obviously the founders of Islam would say they are just following the true Original form of Islam just the same as many groups that seek to reform they must pretend they are seeking to return to an old ideal)

It's no more violent or barbaric taken at face value than Christianity is.

It's the people who use religion as an excuse to do fucked up shit that have problems.

I think you don't understand what the world "reformation" means

*the word

>The Quran and hadith speak out vehemently against "innovation" to the words of god and the prophet.

>For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. - Matthew 5:18

So does the Bible. Books don't enforce their own edicts, people do.

That isn't a change or reform. That is what the Quran literally tells them to do in no uncertain terms. And it follows the example of Mohammad, which Muslims are told to follow by the Quran and hadith. Is it good? No. But "radical Islam" is just standard Islam, not a radical sect twisting shit around. The radicals were people like Sufis and Ahmadis who "innovated". And we see what happened to them and how they are treated.

The ottomans dont exist anymore, but countries like saudi arabia and Iran can legally kill gays, just like isis does.

But I guess all of them are not real muslems

The difference is that Christ was not a warlord and a lot is metaphor or seen as metaphor. In Islam it is viewed as the literal word of god, they are told to follow Mohammad's example (and to be honest he wasn't the most tolerant guy), etc.

Christianity ultimately was tamed. There was enough wiggle room to form ideas based on scripture that advanced with the times. The Quran and hadith warn time and time again against innovation in clear, flat out warnings. Making a literal interpretation of the Quran and hadith the "safe" way to obey god.

The rise of Wahhabism is definitely a radical change in the culture from what was progressing just before that.

There's plenty of demands for massive violence in Christianity. Every religion takes from their works what suits them.

I mean, if you wanna talk about a TRULY violent religion - look at Hinduism. There's a boatload of gods tearing each other's balls off in there, gods of destruction, of war, of murder, and calls to genocide of levels that should have been all but unimaginable to people of the era who jotted down the Bhagavad Gita and related texts.

...And yet, Hindus, not particularly renowned for violence (even if I do have a great uncle who was offed by Thuggies - again, occupation will do that.)

What's wrong with killing faggots? You do know that the Bible says that homosexuals should be stoned to death, right?

>But I guess all of them are not real muslems

The Saudis and the Iranians are apostates, yes.

Me, because the holiest cities of Islam are in Saudi hands, they're the ones with the money, they're the ones building the biggest mosques and printing the translations of the Qur'an in non-Islamic countries, and they're the ones responsible for Wahhabism.

The one chance of making Islam a religion of reason was the Mu'tazila. They're the guys where the Kalam school came from, yes, the Kalam of the Kalam cosmological argument, but now it is remembered for what the then Caliph did: an inquisition to repress those that disagreed with it. How very Islamic.

The Islamic Golden Age guys, the neoplatonists and neoaristotelians, the falsafa that Westerners read so avidly, ended because of Al-Ghazali, the very Al-Ghazali that argued for the separation of religion and philosophy, and against fundamentalists rejecting even the scientific knowledge of the philosophers he attacked. But we all know how well that went. How very Islamic.

Today the Sufis are persecuted - and as if there wasn't enough Wahhabism in the world, we've got ISIS. How very...

Wahabism isn't really a reform to anything but the original message of the Quran. The original Islam. They are actively fighting against their own enlightenment era because their holy texts say that such innovation is dangerous and leads you away from god.

And theres an example of muslim morals, its ok to kill people who arnt muslim

The Wahhabis are right, the Enlightenment was a mistake

Sahih International: You will surely find the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers [to be] the Jews and those who associate others with Allah; and you will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, "We are Christians." That is because among them are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant.

Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection [Quran 9:29]

New International Version
Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

>The difference is that Christ was not a warlord
This bit I'll agree with, even though he's kinda portrayed as one come Revelation.

>Islam it is viewed as the literal word of god
Yeah, that's completely unique to Islam... No other religion does that. [/sarcasm]

No, the Bible at least as many times declares itself the sole authority. But thankfully, a book can't enforce its own rules, so the bulk of Christian religions, during more peaceable times, abandoned that. Though there's still plenty of fundamentalists out there that would say otherwise. We're just lucky that we developed in such fashion that our "Wahhabists" aren't widely in power, nor are we under any pressure, nor external influence, that would likely to cause them to be so.

If you flipped this situation on its head, or replaced the main religion in the ME with any other, they'd still be blowing shit up at this point. It might have helped preventing the situation to begin with, possibly, maybe, but now that we're at this point, religion isn't going to fix it.

> It's the people who use religion as an excuse to do fucked up shit that have problems.

The difference is that, when committing atrocities;

Christians used religion as an excuse.

Muslims used religion as a guideline.

I'm not arguing for Christianity. I am saying that there is a big difference between Christianity and Islam and how they are meant to be viewed by their followers and what their respective prophets preached or did as an example to follow.

And Judaism would be just as bad with stoning and the like, except their OT does not apply as much since the destruction of the second temple leaving them without a priestly class to enforce all this until their messiah comes.

>It's no more violent or barbaric taken at face value than Christianity is.
>It's the people who use religion as an excuse to do fucked up shit that have problems.

Matthew 5:44 vs. Quran 9:5
John 8:1-11 vs. Sahih Bukhari 6:60:79

Bukhari is part of the Hadith considered to be authentic by Muslims, the Hadith are seen as the lens through which to interpret the Quran.

>how they are meant to be viewed by their followers
This is entirely determined by their followers.

Again, the Hindu texts are magnitudes more violent than any Abrahamic religion, yet we get Ghandi and the standard for non-violent protest out of it.

>Sufis and others who did try to reform Islam ended up being killed or pushed out to the fringes of Islamic society.
Well, maybe if someone had been forward thinking enough to back the Sufis instead of the Wahabists...

Though I suspect we'd still be in the same situation, given the material motives.

Many reforms hide themselves by stating they are returning to an older truer form. I would argue that it doesn't really matter if Wahhabism is similar to early Islam it is still a reform of the religion at that time. And despite what you believe books can be very selectively picked and quoted to serve many different beliefs even the quaran and haddifs

Do you not understand context at all? Violence in Hinduism is gods and demons doing shit, with most worshiping peaceful forms of those gods except for exceptions like Thuggees.

Violence in the Quran is what Mohammad did (so you have to follow his example), and a bunch of rules on who can be harmed, under what circumstances, etc.

Not all religions are the same. There are very different ideas and contexts to these faiths. The issue is that people who did try to reform Islam like Sufis ended up being killed or pushed out of society. Why? The Quran tells them to. The whole point of the Quran is "here is the final word of god and the examples to follow and the final prophet to follow". And what does the Quran say and what did Mohammad do? Take a guess. That is why Islam is very different. Because now that the examples are set, they are meant to stand for all time, no exceptions. And since Mohammad died there is nobody to change that.

Except at no point is Wahabism really cherrypicking. It does as the Quran commands and follows Mohammad's example. Just like Mohammad preached. Sufis and other reformers who were more tolerant were seen as the outsiders and innovators of religion that the Quran warns against. Because they tended to view a lot of it metaphorically and used more philosophy. A thing not backed by the Quran.

>The issue is that people who did try to reform Islam like Sufis ended up being killed or pushed out of society. Why? The Quran tells them to.
Maybe you should look up what we did to the Cathars when they tried to reform Christianity - you know, by percentage of population, the largest internal genocide Europe has ever seen?

The Thuggees aren't the only violent faction among the Hindus, we're extremely lucky that neither they nor any of those others rose to power, despite their gods telling them to do so in their own texts, specifically in the situation they were faced with (occupation by another deity literally calls for genocide down to the last woman and child and salting of their lands to boot - and yet it didn't happen).

We may have gotten lucky and had the Sufis take over. We just weren't.

But even if we had been, the actions we've taken in the region just beg for violence.

The verses from the Book of John that you mentioned do not mean that those who commit adultery shouldn't be stoned to death: christiancourier.com/articles/34-current-perversion-of-john-8-1-11-the

>Is it true that Islam is a barbaric and completely violent religion?
Yes

See: The Middle East.

>Except at no point is Wahabism really cherrypicking.
And yet anti-Wahhabist scholars accuse them of this on a regular basis, repeatedly pointing out parts of the holy works they are ignoring, sometimes even in the same verse they use to promote their violence.

You're missing the point every time. Be honest, are you just Muslim or never read any of the Quran, hadith, sira, or other Islamic works?

Because you keep making these comparisons to other religions and they don't apply at all nor are they relevant. How many times do I have to explain the different context that Islam has which make it far more resistant to change and violence?

Well I did read an English interpretation of the Quran, plus snippets of the Hadith, and found it considerably less violent than the Old Testament and Revelation, to say the very least.

But it doesn't matter... There's peaceful Hindus going directly against their texts in order to do. Peaceful Christians selectively ignoring huge swaths of their texts on a tenuous basis just fine. There's even been peaceful Nordic pantheon and Ares worshippers. And yes, peaceful muslims.

Books don't enforce their edicts. Religions and cultures change radically over time, entirely independent of their texts, and even the muslim world has seen many such phases. Books aren't responsible for their people's sins - people are.

Well look at this way I am saying that for intensive purposes it doesn't matter whether Wahhabism is cherry picking or not, because while the Quaran and Haddiths are important they do not define Islam. There are multiple ways to interpret and use the books. Now some of them are more reasonable than other but their is certainly a large amount of leeway. And if you continue to argue your pint I will say that whatever came before Wahhabism is a reform of Islam, because it "didn't follow the books".

There aren't many scholars that are anti-Wahabi. At least not different when it comes to the core teachings. About the only verse that can be seen as peaceful to unbelievers is surah al-kaffiroon. Which seems nice at first glance. To you your religion and me mine. Then why the talk of jizyah and subjugation? Go look up the revelational circumstances of that surah.

Spoiler: He said it as a snub when people asked him to make concessions and he refused as he believed Islam was the only correct faith. It was not a statement of tolerance.

Sufis aren't reformers. They're more esoteric and the majority fall under the Sunni denomination, with some who adhere to Shi'i beliefs. Esotericism is fringe by default because it's perceived as mystical and unknown. If anything, they were innovators (i.e. the few who introduced dargahs, pilgrimage to graves of saints, whirling dervishes who believe dance brings them closer to God). That doesn't make them reformers. Getting tired of these meme that Sufis are they're own thing.

Early Islam had a lot of reformers who failed because their claims didn't have purpose. They just wanted change for the sake of convenience. If you want to see real reformers who were BTFO by the majority of Muslims, look at people like Abdullah ibn Saba and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

>while the Quaran and Haddiths are important they do not define Islam.

>the books which lay out the morality and commands of the faith do not define it

I'm done. That is so fucking retarded and you keep dodging around the point. This is just desperate and intellectually dishonest on your part.

>There aren't many scholars that are anti-Wahabi
What, the, fuck. There are literally nations with nothing but among their religious scholars. Granted, especially outside of those nations they tend to get murdered now and again. But there ain't no shortage of em.

>look at these few outliers who disagree

>sure they get killed and are seen as fringe by every other Muslim bu-

I think there is a misunderstanding.

Obviously the books are hugely important to anyone who follows the religion, and they do set the bounds of what can be called Islam, but within those bounds which can be quite wide the books don't define what each section lie. In trying to make my point I came off as too far in one direction. Also, for an example of how books can change look at how in recent history the old testament has lost most of its influence over many sects of Christianity. These Christians have three same books as 1000 years ago but their believes are radically different.

Perhaps you are new here and have never heard the phrase, "Catholics aren't Christian!"

Religious texts rarely define the end result of the culture of the religion. You can radically different cultures operating under the same religious texts - as we see in so many flavors of Christianity across the world and the ages, and all the Abrahamic religions. You same phenomenon among the Buddhists across the world, and several other religions all sharing the same holy texts, often with radically different results, often resulting in conflict.

>There aren't many scholars that are anti-Wahabi

What? I'm a Wahhabi myself but that's just not true, most Islamic scholars are strongly against us

Hardly outliers when the entire nations defend them and propagate their views. It's also not as if Wahabists aren't getting killed by other muslims on a regular basis.

And I spoke about the OT. Jesus apparently reformed it for Christians, and Jews don't follow a lot since the destruction of the second temple.

Your comparisons are garbage and you seem to think the religions are equivalent. Islam has variance within boundaries, but it comes with an inbuilt culture surrounding it. Who or how many you can marry, what you can or cannot do, punishments for said deviations, etc. That is what sharia is. Islam comes packaged with many religious laws and culture. You get a variation typically only in what the Quran has no opinion on.

>You can radically
You can *find radically...
>You same phenomenon
You *see the same phenomenon

By the beard of Hephaestus, I am tired.

>Islam has variance within boundaries, but it comes with an inbuilt culture surrounding it. Who or how many you can marry, what you can or cannot do, punishments for said deviations, etc. That is what sharia is. Islam comes packaged with many religious laws and culture. You get a variation typically only in what the Quran has no opinion on.

Wow, just like Christianity, amazing

>Who or how many you can marry, what you can or cannot do, punishments for said deviations, etc.
Every Abrahamic religion, ever.

Did you even go over Deuteronomy and Leviticus? I mean when you've got separate punishments set aside for your Lesbians and Male homosexuals, and for beastiality, based the sex that committed the sin, you're damned detailed laws. Sharia (even if it sucks) is pretty simple set against the vast and painfully detailed set of legalistic dictates of the OT. And the reason that Christians feel fine ignoring so many of them the result of a tenuous interpretation of the NT, at best - as so many of the more extremist factions of said keep pointing out.

Well my point about the Old Testament is that Christians for most of their history treated it as a holy book only secondary to the new testament. In recent years it has lost much of its importance.

And I do agree with your points that religions are not the same, and I agree that Islam is a more rigid religion in general. But, I don't think it is as strictly defined as you state it is. There is a lot of variance in Muslim teachings already and the importance of certain teachings changes depending upon where you are located. Sharia might be common but which parts of sharia that are emphasized is not universal. So with that in mind I wouldn't say that is unreasonable that a teaching of Islam can find itself widely accepted and compatible with modern western values,

>Christianity has anything like Sharia law

So, ya know nothing about Christianity do ya? Actually, I'm hard pressed to even name another religion that has anything close to sharia. Most other religions adapt to the cultures they are in, Islam tends to define it, and only then does variation come into play.

>>Christianity has anything like Sharia law

Yes, it's called canon law

>Actually, I'm hard pressed to even name another religion that has anything close to sharia

Judaism has Halakha, for example

Islam has tons of variations of emphasis of Sharia even within its own culture and over time (sometimes even complete abandonment), even more than the Jews have variation attention to their own laws. There's been beer drinkin and even pork eatin muslims running about, and the more violent tenants being strictly enforced are so scattered as to nearly be the exception rather than the rule, often even inside theocratic muslim states.

Not that Sharia law doesn't have to go - but I say the same of the "not one latter of the law shall be ignored" fundamentalist Christians.

>mfw the Islamic Caliphate was in the cultural, economic, and intellectual position to become the next Rome and the most advanced civilization on the planet but they executed all their best artists and philosophers and became religious fundamentalists

> Unironically cites Christian courier

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Adultery is a sin, but a forgivable sin. No apostle or church father advocated for the stoning to death of adulterers, they advocated healing:
orthodoxcounselor.com/Articles/healing_from_lust.htm

There are three sins for which one is always required to die rather than transgress:

idolatry

sexual misconduct such as incest, adultery, or bestiality (see sexual immorality prohibited by Torah)

murder

I mean got but trucked by Mongols at Baghdad

That's nice... I know a nice camp full of self-proclaimed fundamentalist Christians that would love argue with you on that point, and you may even get out alive. You could imagine how different things would be if they were the religious authority for the bulk of Christianity - although you don't really have to stretch your imagination much, given the topic at hand.

There are many kinds of Islam; the violent one is usually in the middle east. They have different perceptions with the muslims in South East Asia/other part of the world. The muslims in SEA is more accepting and tolerant. Also they don't use the sharia law like the middle east countries do.

Yes but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
The people who practice it are just violent in general.

>The Ottomans legalized homosexuality in the 1850s
Wait, what the fuck? Seriously?

Islam resides in a part of the world that's pretty much constantly at war. Especially recently in the past century.

Would only make sense for its religion to be violent.

You are aware Wahabis used to be contained to the highlands of the Arabian pensuelia and get regurarly slaugthered by nearby Muslims when trying to expand from it? ((namely the Ottoman empire))

Except when early Christians were in dire situations they didn't usually bring out the swords. That came around after Rome decided Jesus was for cool people and more or less died out when the 30 Years War wrapped up.

American Protestants say the darnedest things

...

Islam and Muslim culture is fairly heavily Hellenized and Romanized, so it wouldn't count as barbaric, nor is it completely violent since the overwhelming majority of its writings and scholarship and rituals are mundane daily living precepts.

The current instability in the Middle East and among expatriate Muslim communities has been warped by so many political interests by now that the confusion and dogmatic insistence of Islam being all or mostly one thing or another can't be helped anymore. The two sides you're hearing from are sides for reasons having next to nothing to do with theology or historical study, and are instead the result of a new Great Game.

If you follow the Quran, it is, but if you call yourself a moderate and just call yourself a muslim without reading the Quran or just cherry pick a lot, then yeah, you can be a muslim without being violent.

If strived to be like the founder of Islam you'd likely turn out to be violent

Can't say the same for any other religion

The fuel is an Islamized nationalism alongside the spread of Al Qaeda's Jihadist ideology. You can point to nearly every single instance of a violent ethnic Muslim agitation in the world and find the hand of Wahhabi/Salafi preaching from Saudi Arabia, the influence of Muslim Brotherhood ideology, or Iran exporting its revolution. Meanwhile you have out-of-the-way Muslim groups like the Chams in SEA who were suppressed with barely any violent reaction whatsoever, and a very obvious difference between pre-Saudi meddling in conflict zones like Bosnia or Chechnya and their meddling after.

>If strived to be like the founder of Islam you'd likely turn out to be violent
>Can't say the same for any other religion

Jesus was pretty fond of boasting that before the end of his follower's lifetime he would come back from Heaven and burn pretty much the whole of humanity to death.

Most moderate Muslims are denial about Mohamed's violence but still view themselves Muslim (though Isis has specifically said these people were apostates).

To be fair, most Christians are in denial about usury.

lies

yes but I also believe usury is a really bad problem and the church was right to ban it

A lot of the confusion comes from a lack of understanding of how Islam is actually structured as a religion both historically and currently, and it affects both Middle Easterners and Westerners alike since all sorts of special interests are racing to redefine the religion to suit their political needs.

Ignoring for the moment Shi'a Islam, the big tent we call Sunni Islam is really three different intellectual movements - the mystical, the legalistic, and the fundamentalist. There's some overlap depending on each individual believer, but for the most part these three movements are fairly independent of one another and try to defer to schools of thought within one of these movements on different matters of faith.

Within these movements there's plenty of division as well, but for the most part they're rivalries between different schools of thought. And then you have the dozens of Middle Eastern regional cultures and subcultures that have in the past two centuries evolved into a variety of ideologies that marry one or more of the above movements.

If we ignore the very minor groups, in the end you could very well divide modern Sunni Islam into five different Islams, all of which are now fighting for supremacy as Middle Eastern society adapts to modern communications and technology.

One of these is a border reaver, holy warrior subculture that was segregated from the rest of Muslim society historically, and along with the modern political activist tradition forms the basis of the 'violent Islam' we all see and meme each and every day.

Imagine if the Church had no hierarchy, holy orders, or concept of territorial jurisdiction. Then imagine all the Crusader and Inquisitor LARPers today gathered around, revived an interest in Church scholars who dabbled in faith-militant aspects that had been suppressed by the overwhelming power of the nation-state until modern fears of globalism brought them back with a fresh coat of authoritarian paint. That's Islam today.

The radicalization of Islam is a result of political influence and factors. It could have happened anywhere, to any religion, and has happened in the past. It has happened today with Christianity and radical Christian militant groups in Africa.
Muslims are just the new scapegoat. We'll get a new scapegoat in 75 years, give or take.

Thing is, most Muslims moderate or not derive everything they know about Muhammad from the equivalent of gnostic testaments, and the Quran by comparison is a lot more tame and nonviolent by comparison. The difference between moderates and fanatics is that the moderates understood these extra-Quranic sources as being of dubious historical accuracy, or can only be read in a way that was most consistent with both the Quran and all other extra-Quranic sources, or specifically meant to give historical context for later doctrine.

The fanatics are those who believe everything is literal, 100% true, and 100% applicable without any of the above exegesis.

Who is going be the newest scapegoat in 75 years? Radical Hindus?

Islam has been intruding Europe a thousand years before you were born.

Christianity has been intruding 'Asia' a thousand years before you were born

Islam was undoubtedly a civilising force in the Arabian peninsula and the barbary coast, what Mohammed did was basically state formation and it came from a grassroots movement. If it hadn't been for him the Arabian peninsula would've been like most of sub-Saharan Africa for a long time until exogenous actors 'civilised' (i.e, imperialized) them

I'm talking major scapegoat here. The Jews were blamed for Germany's downfall, and half of Europe fell under their rule.
Although now that I think about it, the scapegoat really depends on the country you live in. For the USA, I'm guessing the Russians are going to make a comeback, but now they're no longer the Soviets.
As for the Islam pushing on Europe for so long, you've got a point. All people/nations do terrible shit though. Maybe that's why each nationality, race, or ethnicity has been or is a scapegoat for something.

This.