[Skybird]

And again, alienating the moderates just isn't a good idea. Just gives more credibility to the conservatives. I mean, great, you've made a fine technical point by stating that most who identify themselves as Muslims and Christians are not technically because of their religious texts. But it doesn't accomplish anything. Those religious texts are thousands of years old, and robbing someone of their identity because they don't follow them to a T is just counterproductive.

But the willingness of others not to confront Islam for it’s inner contradictions, it’s historic record of aggressiveness and conquest and subjugation, and the inability and even lacking willingness of most Muslims to do that, allowed Islam in the past to grow, to spread and to become stronger, because nobody gave Islam any reason to question itself and eventually see any need to change. It never was forced to think critically about it, and those starting that inside Islam, for the most good murdered or landed in prison, some highly originally thinkers amongst these: human mind is not so easy to beat, you see. These potential reformists never saw as much support as they would have needed to succeed – or to survive. In a wider context, oil also plays a negative role here, because it allowed many Muslim nations to live by oil and form societies and wealth in the modern time that again does not force them to ask questions about wether their way of living culture really is that clever and survivable and competitive. There was no need to break through the historic fatalism the dogma is causing, and to develop their world beyond it. But “von nichts kommt nichts” = from nothing there originates nothing. They have their income, they can already live by it, their dogma tells them how and why to accept the social differences and injustices that are there and why to accept tyranny and that it all is not really important as long as all this serves the praising of Islam and spreading it’s causes - no need to adapt to other standards, ways of living, thinking, working – so no need for social reform, for education systems taking into account that there may be a world beyond Islam’s dogma. Pat Condell often says the problem with religion is not that it is not been given enough respect – but that it already has been given far too much respect and acceptance for it’s claims of things that are not it’s own. He is absolutely right in that. What you call for, I do not see as the remedy, but the cause of our troubles with Islam in special, and any form of fundamental religion in general. If you want to help Muslims reforming not Islam (that is not possible I think), but to reform their culture and societies to move beyond Islam and for a new, more pleasant form of religion and/or spirituality – you need to force them to confront the uncomfortable inner truths and contradictions in the dogma they believe in right now, you shall not allow another century passing by appeasing this dogma only, and seeing it grow and spread and learning another century that there is no need at all to ever change and ask questions about itself. You want to help Muslims develop their culture? Then confront them without compromise. I want to say that I managed to talk three or four former Muslims out of their religion that way, despite the very massive consequences this caused them with their families. They suffered more or less from these consequences, but none of them ever accused me for having fought with them sometimes very bitterly. As I see it, they turned into free thinkers, and gained a level of intellectual freedom and free life that really was worth it. Freedom is no right, but an ability that must be learned, and that must be taken when the opportunity arises, and that must be defended when it is threatened – but it is no right. Who says, where is it written that it is? Nature doesn’t know it, it only knows needs adaptation to these, or failure to do so, which means extinction. Muslims are not being born as dumb idiots – but Islam tries to turn them into dumb idiots by education. So, there is always - hm – most often – a rest of reason in most men’S mind that you can use to motivate them asking questions all by themselves. As the saying in Zen goes: “ small doubt: small awakening. Big doubt: big awakening. No doubt: no awakening”. Believing but not knowing is no virtue: it is a lethal disease. It also is no trust, because trust is coming from empirically justified experience. In “Kingdom of Heaven”, Sybilla sums it up so very nicely: “ Jesus said: decide! Muhammad said: submit! ”

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that some of the core principals of Islam are born of an age where tribal banditry was the norm (and was until very recently). Context in formation of religion is very important. Islam was expansionist not because Mohammed was an evil guy, but because it had to be to survive.

The man called for murder of critics, launched almost 70 wars and predatory raids against neutrals and enemies being inferior after the starting years, told people they only fear death because they do not know that getting killed in battle earns them so high credentials in paradise, praised women only when they were submissive and obedient, but called for their penalty if they dared to have a will of their own, etc etc. Sorry? Context-sensitivity? Assuming for a moment it is like that, and maybe it is, I said myself often enough that the clash of civilisation also is a clash of different time ages, the modern colliding with the medieval. Muhammad was nevertheless expansionist because he was suffering from narcissism and an inferiority complex he compensated by becoming a megalomaniac and showing all world how great and fearsome a leader he is. I told it before: when he fled from Mekka to Medina in 621, or was it 623, he was confronted not only by the initially critical Medanese people, but also by the three Jewish tribes living in the region around the city. For ten years he had educated himself on Judaic religion, due to him having led the caravans of his uncle up and down in Arabia and having come into contact with the man different cultures and civilisation – Arabia at that time was a truly multicultural place (compare to the tristesse and monoculture it is today!) . But Judaic religion has a very grim, unforgiving deity in it’s centre, the brutal oppressor and penalizer you also read about in the old testament. Jewish scholars had formed a very sophisticated, hairsplitting think that until today is proverbial and for which the Pharisees already back then were famous for. They had to do so in order to find a good, man-loving warm God in their scripture nevertheless, it was and is efforts to turn a tyrant around by finding arguments that allow to paint him as a loving, forgiving father. Exactly what Muslim’s popular belief is trying, do you see the parallel? Muhammad was no match in theological dispute for these highly trained Pharisees, and they let him know it. If you think he learned from that that he overestimated himself and need to learn more, you are wrong. Instead his ego felt so offended (another pattern in Islam that repeats until today: to be constantly offended of others being not below oneself) that he took bitter revenge and launched war against them, he drove off two tribes, and then made a treacherous peace with the third. A peace he broke by surprise and captured all their people. By the population of that time, what followed was a biblical massacre: he ordered that all males, boys, men and old men, should be slaughtered and buried on the central place in Medina, and all females, women and girls were led into slavery, the tribe’s culture and tradition was wiped out that way. By the UN convention of modern times, this fulfils what today we call “genocide”. 800-900 males were murdered – now you know that until today any archeological research and digging in the town centre of Medina is forbidden until today: one does not wish to produce images and solid evidence of what the prophet of the religion of peace used to do if he did not like somebody. Also, two of Muhammad’s secretaries had to flee to save their lives after they noted that he used words of their own in his sermons and labelled these words of his secretaries as the word of Allah that were revealed to him – which of course was a contradiction that to realise put your life in danger.

I see Muhammad in one line with the great tyrants and suppressors of human history, and considering that after 1400 years Islam is still at war with all non-Muslim mankind and that it has achieved the biggest military conquest we ever knew of and that it is short before the greatest victory of it’s history: Europe falling to it, and even peacefully and voluntarily, then I think I have good reason to label it as the greatest cultural catastrophe mankind was ever haunted of.

Christianity was forgiving because the Jews of the Roman era had already accepted their place as second class citizens (very established second class citizens, but second class none the less)

Are you kidding? Judea was the most rebellious province for much time of the empire! The Jews were seen as a notorious source of trouble and uprise. And at the time Jesus lived, almost nobody knew him, he was a local guru about whom the first tales were put down in writing not before many decades after he had died! For somebody being world-famous in the empire at the time of his living, you would expect something different, don’t you think?

and "turn the other cheek" was a value of the time as tribal warfare was just as big a value in the context of the tribes of the Arabian peninsula.

Sorry, but Muhammad was born roughly 600 years AFTER Jesus.

You remark that Islam is fundamentalism. But really, what religion is this not true of? Those who wish to claim the "true" credentials of ANY religion will always trend towards fundamentalism. This is true both in Saudi Arabia and the United States.

True, and note that I attack, like Pat Condell does, fundamental Christians as bitterly as I attack Islam. However, I cannot see Jesus’ teachings to be fundamentalist, or supporting violence, in fact he preached for mental calm, reason, giving up on being aggressive, and accept responsibility for your own deeds and decisions, and not to believe, but to act in that way that the consequences are helpful to your peace of mind and calm of soul.

Excursion: it was the church saying that there are sins, but if you are sorry for them, God will forgive you and lead you to heaven anyway. It did so to claim influence and power by presenting itself as mediator between God and man. Jesus never said something like that. He said that the way to heaven leads over him, by that he gave his own acting and thinking as the example others have to follow. Automatic transportation to heaven, no matter what? Jesus dying at the cross in our place? You see, it is stupid lying BS like this that additionally makes me so hostile to churches, and religion. Jesus gave man the responsibility for himself, what he says compares better to the concept of karma – action has reaction – than to the gentle mind-appeasing fairy tales the chu8rch is telling, and he did not die in our place, but for the sake of man wanting to find true freedom. He set an example, and if anybody thinks that frees him from doing that effort himself, he will find a very nasty surprise by the end of his life: Jesus said exactly the opposite, loud and clear:

“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.” (Luke 13, 24-25);
“ If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14,26);
“But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7,14);
“Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’ (Matthew 8,21-22);
“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8,34-38).

Now, Islam does not tell you to train your reason, it tells you to give it up, and instead be satisfied by simply believing what you have been told (by Muhammad). You shall take care to follow his orders carefully, but you shall not experience yourself, shall not decide yourself, shall not take responsibility for claiming your freedom. You shall believe that you will be fed and cared for when you agree to live like cattle in a barn, following the farmer’s demand. This is the same in any kind of fundamentalist religion, it is like this with fundamental Christians alike. They tell you: “heaven is right there waiting for you, and all you have to do, is die!” (Pat Condell). The churches did like this for a long time, and for the most still do. That is the nature of religion: you do not gain freedom by believing, but you give up your freedom by believeong, and declare that to be a virtue. You do not experience yourself and test and check and falsify or prove claims being made, but you submit to a dogma that you do not ask questions about anymore. That is the heart and nature of institutional religion! If there would be a god that really loves mankind and wishes for it’s best – he must HATE it, and ask man why he is distorting and abusing the good of free thinking and reason given to him so perversely!

The problem of religion; unlike, say the US constitution, is that the constitution is widely accepted as a "living document". Religious texts simply will never be, because you can't just go ahead and change the "word of god" to fit the times as easily as you can the constitution. Yet, Christians have managed to do this GRADUALLY over time. Not by literally changing the text, but widely accepting that it doesn't need to be followed literally.

Yes, the old testament turned towards the new testament which focussed onto the glad tidings – but afterwards, others came trying to somewhat reverse this development again and interfering with it by their own selfish narcissism. Especially Paul is on my mind, on whose negative role I agree with one of my favourite philosophers, Nietzsche.

But such thing did not happen in Islam. Both sections of the Quran orginate from Muhammad’s lifetime. There is no old and new chapter in the Quran, and nothing equivalent to the glad tidings. Islam got stuck to what compares to the Christian churches during the inquisition, ignoring the glad tidings and focussing on the god-concept of the old testament.

You say: "Christianity formed a tradition of splitting into several sects and churches, some branches being not as strict as others, but in islam, this is a big no-no. Muhammad wanted to keep his community (his power basis) together at all cost, and for that totalitarian control and uniformity, no chance for rebellion by threatening apostacy with death (like Mafia does today, for example), it was necessary to rule out any chance to ever leave Islam (muhammad's party) alive, or not to follow the cult completely."
By formed a tradition, you mean experienced several centuries of the worst warfare mankind had seen to that point? It was a pretty big f'in "no-no" for Christians at first as well! I think you take the Christian church splitting into sects and becoming moderate a little lightly. It took a lot! Of time, argument, and blood.

Yes indeed, and in no way I am ignorant of that. Note that I often said something like “our today’s freedoms and rights and values being bitterly fought and suffered for by our ancestors”, I use this phrase often in order to cut certain things and historical arguments short. Amongst political nationalism and feudal ruling, I also mean religious power struggles by that.

However, all this took place not because following Jesus’ orders, but by violating the principles he taught. That is one reason why I differ so determined between the church, and the following of Jesus named as the Christ’s teachings. And the church has not much to do with the latter. The term “Christianity” precisely refers to Jesus – not the church, although popular understanding is different and does not make that distinction. But that is imprecise use of terms.

This ended with several Christian sects, and even the grandfather sect (Catholicism) was moderated over time. Something that hasn't happned to the Islamic religion for many reasons, not because those that "run" the religion are inherently evil. But because the conditions that surround them have caused them to act inherently evil to survive.

No, again you link it to situations, where you ignore that the dogmatic difference of Islam to the teachings of Jesus. Note that the church became “evil” and brutally suppressed heretics by becoming somewhat more equal to the procedures of Islam. Islam by it’s own dogma just was more consequent and thus: effective in fighting against the heresy of reformation and alternative thoughts. If somebody thinks there have not been attempts for that, he is wrong: they were there, and sometimes it were highly originally, we would even say: modern thinkers. But they got smashed to a much greater degree and for much, very much longer time than it as done by the church, which after the inquisition nevertheless had to give room and accept that it’s power was forced back.

As I recall, one of the events that caused such reform in the Catholic church was the Crusades. Young men were being sent to die by religious figures promising them entry into heaven.

You mix up the goal with the means somewhat here. Originally the crusades were intended to answer a call for help by the Byzantine emperor who was under pressure by the ongoing Islamic offensive that already had captured north Africa, Spain, the former roman orthodox-christian province of Judea, and the city of Jerusalem. Note that Islam was on offensive here, it was the aggressor, the attacker, the invader. The first crusade was not yet for innerpolitical reasons of European kingdoms, but an effort to defend against advancing Islam and to get back what had been gone lost to the attackers. This was the goal. To tell fighters Jerusalem were the kingdom of heaven were all sins would be forgiven and peace could be reached was the mean to motivate the armies. It cannot be stressed often enough: initially, the crusades were a truly defensive effort of taking back what had been lost, it was a counter-offensive. Later, of course, it degenerated into a fight for land and wealth and political influence of European feudal lords, and religion was abused to excuse the slaughtering and deceive one owns fighters on the real motives, leading to perverse things like the children’s crusade.

These Christian religious figures used religion as a mean of politics.

In later crusades, yes. And many churches and American fundamentalist Christian still do like this today. The bitter thing is that we might need them nevertheless to form a final, solid front against Islam – a front that the “standard” churches are not willing and not capable to form, that’s why they are constantly giving ground to Islam, and Europe falling to Islam more and more on the grounds of it’s own legal procedures, because we allow ourselves the luxury of constitutions that differ between religion and politics, while Islam does not. This is a major weakness of ours that gets exploited to the maximum by Islam pushing it policies while demanding not to reject them by declaring this to be free practicing of religion. Like Muhammad invented Allah to make himself unavailable to political criticism, so uses Islam our laws that protect free practicing of religion to forbid us to criticise it’s policy. But what people do not understand is that not only does Islam not know the separation of politics and religion, but that Islam by far is more politics than religion anyway. Note that I often do not call it a religion, but an ideology.

Furthering their own causes and that of their allies under the name of god, which is pretty hard to argue with. Eventually, this caused a turning point in the Christian faith. One that lead to moderation and several different sects. I'm not saying that Islam is there now, but I think they're getting to that point. It's hard not to see the parallels unless you are trying not to.

Well I am not trying not to see it, but still I have a hard time to share your optimism, I admit. What I see is that democracy in Muslim countries for the most have boosted the power and position of the orthodox, radical orientations and sects of Islam spreading much faster than “moderate” ones (Kosovo being the latest example), and that democracy is used as a train Islamists ride on until they have reached their destination – where they then leave it or intend to leave it and don’t care for it anymore, like we see things developing in Turkey.

I hope this explains my position. Most of it already has been told several times before in several place over the past two years on this board. I have confronted “information stands” of Muslims in the pedestrian zone and made them finally withdrawing, and I have helped a “Bürgerinitiative” that finally succeeded in preventing that an existing small mosque in a part of the town where absolutely no Muslims do live and have no community could nevertheless increase - and they even tried to betray by giving wrong information and lying about the identity of the customer who tried to buy the additional needed land for that. I will never forget –and never forgive – by what naturalness they told us that they needed to lie and had to hide their intentions because else they would not have been able to buy the land, for the neighbourhood completely refused their project, and even there alraedy existing presence. That means that lying and betraying and deceiving is very much okay for them if it helps to bolster the position of islam, and that the neighbours of that pplay does not have any say at all, and that it is not about supporting an existing Muslim community in that part of town, but to erect a new beachhead in an existing infidel community where so far no Muslim community exists. Mind you, historically, towers are symbols of claiming power. By these activities, and me not being shy to talk in my real life like I write here in the forum, it may be caused that I repeatedly got death-threads via paper-mail (so somebody obviously knows my address) in the past two years. Which also tells something about the nature of the enemy that I have identified to be nobody’s friend, but all non-Muslim mankind's enemy, forever. I see this fight as being enforced on all mankind, and that we do not feel happy and do not wish to fight will not save us the fate of getting crushed. We must resist and confront and challenge Islam and deny it any more time to not starting to critically ask questions about itself, or all will get lost. But the challenges of the future, from pandemic diseases over rare food and sweet water to poisoned environment hardly will be solved by a global Islamic society that rests fatalistically in the arms of it’s self-induced superstition that is based on the belief that all ways of gaining knowledge that can lead to questioning the Quran and not seeking all answers only in the Quran shall be forbidden. But we will need sciences and technologies that an only be developed through traditions that even do not stop at the doorstep to Quranic self-interest, or the dogma of any other religion there is. Gods will not help and save us. We need to find the way ourselves, and when we fail, we will face extinction. That is the situation – not more, not less.