Why not war against Islam?

[armageddonman]

I've had quite a few discussions with Muslims over the last few years and from what what I learned, Islam teaches (among many other things):

1. Muslims need to spread Islam.
2. Islam is spread by "inviting" the kkuffar to join.
3. If they refuse, they need to be conquered through offensive Jihad.
4. After the conquest, "people of the book" will be second-class citizens with very few rights.
5. Prisoners of war and their female relatives can be sold as slaves.

Now, I know that the vast majority of the Muslims have no abitions to actually go on such a Jihad and the idea that "The West is at war with Islam" is silly but for the sake of the argument, why would anyone who adheres to an ideology which in itself is a declaration of war against anyone who doesn't adhere to it be surprised if those people took the war to Muslim lands pre-emptively?

Not really expecting an answer from anyone but it's a question no Muslim I've talked to has ever been able to give a rational answer to.

 

[Mudcat]

I'm not sure if I follow you, but isn't this SOP for all old world religions?

 

[Squid]

"Kill them all, let God sort them out."

Really... any large, powerful, group of people with enough weapons could do this. Doesn't matter if you're religious or not. Power is the goal.

 

[armageddonman]

I'm not sure if I follow you, but isn't this SOP for all old world religions?

Many religions have been spread through conquest but apart from Islam I don't know any religion which actually actually requires that from it's followers in writing in it's holy book.

Basically my argument is: if you're telling me that you are planning to invade my country, enslave the ciutizens, make sex-slaves of the women and discriminate against everyone who doesn't want to follow your ideology, why would you be surprised if :

1. I view your ideology with suspicion.
2. I take active steps to prevent you from implementing your plan.

Again, I'm not advocating point 2 but there are Muslims who think that "The West" is wagin war against Islam and I'm just wondering why those people think it strange.

 

[dirtywick]

Perhaps someone with more education on this can comment further, but I am under the impression that portions of specific action can depend on which hadiths a particular sect follows. One could get wildly different answers on how to treat non-Muslims based on that alone.

 

[Fishstick]

Many religions have been spread through conquest but apart from Islam I don't know any religion which actually actually requires that from it's followers in writing in it's holy book.

Christianity does that, too. It's not exactly a unique thing:

Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

--
2Co 6:3 Giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed:
2Co 6:4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
2Co 6:5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;
2Co 6:6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
2Co 6:7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
2Co 6:8 By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;

1Jn 4:6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Mar 6:11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.


Of course, just like christianity, the amount of people that actually act on it are massively outnumbered by moderates that pick and choose what they wish to live by, depending on local culture, societal constructs and heritage as well as what branch of islam/christianity they follow.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

Many religions have been spread through conquest but apart from Islam I don't know any religion which actually actually requires that from it's followers in writing in it's holy book.

If you're actually going by a specific passage of a holy book written by jerks in robes that's where your problem is. This is kinda like how the bible is so adamantly against gay men, but apparently has no problem with gay women. Take it literally and it makes no sense. Some people do take it literally I admit, but as has been stated here that's not a majority. Even if it became a majority that problem can't be solved with bullets and bombs because those are both delicacies in the confirmation bias diet of extremists. The symptoms can, and sometimes must, be treated with bullets but don't expect that to cure the disease.

 

[Brainache]

Why not war?

Maybe because lots of innocent people would be killed?

 

[Cavemonster]

I'm not a fan of religion, but I think a trap many critics fall into is reading religions, their documents, rituals and proclamations as though they were legal documents or software manuals.

I highly recommend that everyone, everywhere read the chapters of Godel Escher Bach that deal with record players.

Imagine a jukebox, that instead of having one record player and several records, works the opposite way, one record and multiple record players, each constructed to contort the data of the record to play a different song (this actually works much better with CDs, but the book was written a while back)

Information comes not just from texts, but from the system used to read those texts. Meaning comes from the interaction of the two. Without a record player of some kind, you can't hear the music. With the wrong record player, you hear the wrong tune. When you read religious texts and utterances with the "record player" of simple instructions, you're doing it wrong.

In the Jewish tradition, before the destruction of the temple, there were two central texts of Judaism, the Torah itself, and the oral tradition, their very formalized "record player", the way the Torah was going to be interpreted. This was then written down and became the Talmud and being a written text from a bygone era, it needs it's own decoding system nowadays.

In the Torah, it commands the stoning of disobedient children, adulterers and more serious stuff like that. These laws are still very much in force today, and if you read them with the "record player" of modern legal writing or even general conversational language, you'd wonder why these Jews today don't bury all their disobedient kids under stones! The reason is that while the torah has been preserved of centuries, the system for decoding it has evolved with society, and so the message you get when you read the torah interpreted through the Talmud and Jewish culture as it has evolved lacks the call for violence.

You can say,
"But look at Deuteronomy 21:21! It says 'All the men of the town must then stone him to death!'"

But that would be almost as silly as looking at the word "Kill" written in Dutch and insisting it must mean the taking of a life rather than a body of water.

When I'm drunk with my buddies and I say "You're a real ugly bastard" we don't have a problem reading that differently than we would take the same phrase screamed during a fight with a significant other. We switch modes easily. If you're watching someone on a stage, you instantly move into a mode where you don't take their words literally, but as a story. We switch record players every day.

Even in our legal system, we have an interpretation that varies. Massachusetts law clearly states that driving above posted speed limits is illegal. Specifically, exceeding a posted limit is considered evidence of unsafe driving. Police are charged with protecting public safety and enforcing the law. Yet on I-95 when there isn't traffic, the vast majority of cars travel at least 5mph above the limit, right along with and past police officers. Our "record player" for reading the law gives us a different outcome than a strict reading of the law text would suggest. That's why we have a supreme court and the concept of precedence- because the language of the law is incomplete until it is decoded by the most current version of the decoder, the newest legal record player.

But since the way religious text is decoded in real practice is both so all pervasive to the religious and so alien to those who don't practice, and since the texts are so massive and most people aren't academic at all, the decoding is neither obvious nor easy to approach from the outside.

At the end of the day, a religion is the practices of it's adherents, even if that differs wildly from a literal reading of the texts.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I've had quite a few discussions with Muslims over the last few years and from what what I learned, Islam teaches (among many other things):

1. Muslims need to spread Islam.

All large religions have had this requirement (it's a Darwinistic thing).

2. Islam is spread by "inviting" the kkuffar to join.

How else?

3. If they refuse, they need to be conquered through offensive Jihad.

One word: Crusades.

4. After the conquest, "people of the book" will be second-class citizens with very few rights.
5. Prisoners of war and their female relatives can be sold as slaves.

The Bible has similar stuff.

Now, I know that the vast majority of the Muslims have no abitions to actually go on such a Jihad and the idea that "The West is at war with Islam" is silly

Ahh, exactly! That answers your question.

but for the sake of the argument, why would anyone who adheres to an ideology which in itself is a declaration of war against anyone who doesn't adhere to it be surprised if those people took the war to Muslim lands pre-emptively?

But the point, which you just made yourself, is that the majority don't adhere to that ideology.

If there was any reason to believe that any 'land' was aiming to attack us, for this and any other reason, we would most likely, if not attack them, then be prepared to defend ourselves against them.

Not really expecting an answer from anyone but it's a question no Muslim I've talked to has ever been able to give a rational answer to.

Perchance that is because it's not a rational question?

Hans

 

[DC]

I've had quite a few discussions with Muslims over the last few years and from what what I learned, Islam teaches (among many other things):

1. Muslims need to spread Islam.
2. Islam is spread by "inviting" the kkuffar to join.
3. If they refuse, they need to be conquered through offensive Jihad.
4. After the conquest, "people of the book" will be second-class citizens with very few rights.
5. Prisoners of war and their female relatives can be sold as slaves.

Now, I know that the vast majority of the Muslims have no abitions to actually go on such a Jihad and the idea that "The West is at war with Islam" is silly but for the sake of the argument, why would anyone who adheres to an ideology which in itself is a declaration of war against anyone who doesn't adhere to it be surprised if those people took the war to Muslim lands pre-emptively?

Not really expecting an answer from anyone but it's a question no Muslim I've talked to has ever been able to give a rational answer to.

wow scary, i have never come across a moslem that would say something like that.
how many did say they want that?

 

[armageddonman]

wow scary, i have never come across a moslem that would say something like that.
how many did say they want that?

Try here:

http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f18/

Anyway, as I said, the point I was trying to make was NOT to promote war against Islam but exploring the midset some Muslims seem to have in regards to their perceptions in that regard.

 

[armageddonman]

One word: Crusades.

What about them?

The Bible has similar stuff.

I don't think so but that;s rather off topic.

But the point, which you just made yourself, is that the majority don't adhere to that ideology.

They adhere to Islam but they don't practive offensive Jihad. Big difference. You will find it difficult to find any Muslim who would openly say that waging offensive Jihad for the sake of propagating Islam is un-islamic. Go ahead and try.

If there was any reason to believe that any 'land' was aiming to attack us, for this and any other reason, we would most likely, if not attack them, then be prepared to defend ourselves against them.

Exactly, Yet there are Muslims who one the one hand think that Islam should conquer all the world by waging war yet complain when people object to this ideology.

And those Muslims who do not think that Islam should conquer all the world still adhere to an ideology which orders it's followers to do exactly that. So even though they would never wage war themselves, they adhere to an ideology which not only promotes war but in the past has threatened western society numerous times.

Therefore, even though I do not feel threatened by Islam and I do not think that we'll see an offensive Jihad anytime soon, I think that it's understandable when non-Muslims are very suspicious of Islam for the stated reasons.

That's the whole point of my original post, not wether we should actually wage war against Islam or not. My aopologies if that wasn't clear enough.

 

[DC]

i think the people you talk about have already a war on them. the war on terrorism.

 

[SezMe]

Try here:

http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f18/

Anyway, as I said, the point I was trying to make was NOT to promote war against Islam but exploring the midset some Muslims seem to have in regards to their perceptions in that regard.

I would encourage you to not take the postings of some Muslims on an Islamic forum as being at all representative of the faithful. You can find a subset of any religion to be fanatics.

 

[MRC_Hans]

What about them?

(Crusades). Just a reminder that our own culture is not more than a few centuries away from having actually practised the equivalent of aggressive jihad. When judging others, keeping an eye on the mirror never harms you.

I don't think so but that;s rather off topic.

(bible advocating similar practice)

I know it does. It is on topic because it shows that you cannot judge a culture by what is in its holy books.

They adhere to Islam but they don't practive offensive Jihad. Big difference.

Like Christians adhere to Christianity, but don't practice crusades, slavery, etc.

You will find it difficult to find any Muslim who would openly say that waging offensive Jihad for the sake of propagating Islam is un-islamic. Go ahead and try.

Actually, prominent Islamic scholars have declared just that, in public.

Exactly, Yet there are Muslims who one the one hand think that Islam should conquer all the world by waging war yet complain when people object to this ideology.

There are, indeed. So we might consider waging war on those, if it can't be avoided. It is always best to try to avoid way. In case you haven't noticed, people tend to get killed in a war.

And those Muslims who do not think that Islam should conquer all the world still adhere to an ideology which orders it's followers to do exactly that.

Try and read that statement again, carefully, and I'm sure you will spot the self-contradiction.

So even though they would never wage war themselves, they adhere to an ideology which not only promotes war but in the past has threatened western society numerous times.

OK, I'll spell it out to you: They don't adhere to that ideology. They adhere to the religion. Just like most modern Christians do not support the ideology promoted by the OT.

Therefore, even though I do not feel threatened by Islam and I do not think that we'll see an offensive Jihad anytime soon, I think that it's understandable when non-Muslims are very suspicious of Islam for the stated reasons.

It is understandable, but it is not rational. By maintaining that general suspiciousness against all Moslem, people are maintaining the "them against us" atmosphere, making it difficult for moderate Moslem to join the dialogue. I seems to see you asking for the moderates to more distinctly denounce the radicals, but as long as you lump them all together, how can they do that, without denouncing themselves?

That's the whole point of my original post, not wether we should actually wage war against Islam or not. My aopologies if that wasn't clear enough.

You said that clearly enough, but it is a bit illogical to say, essentially: "I don't think we should go to war, but wouldn't it be the right thing to do"?

That makes it appear mostly as a CMA (Cover My Ass) clause.

Hans

 

[Fishstick]

What about them?



I don't think so but that;s rather off topic.

Yet I quoted them above. Your last post works just as well for any religion, really:

They adhere to Christianity but they don't practive offensive Crusade. Big difference. You will find it difficult to find any Christian who would openly say that waging offensive Crusade for the sake of propagating Christianity is un-Christianlike. Go ahead and try.

Exactly, Yet there are Christians who one the one hand think that Christianity should conquer all the world by waging war yet complain when people object to this ideology.

And those Christians who do not think that Christianity should conquer all the world still adhere to an ideology which orders it's followers to do exactly that. So even though they would never wage war themselves, they adhere to an ideology which not only promotes war but in the past has threatened western society numerous times.

Therefore, even though I do not feel threatened by Christianity and I do not think that we'll see an offensive Crusade anytime soon, I think that it's understandable when non-Christians are very suspicious of Christianity for the stated reasons.

Practically every oldworld religion has archaic ways noted down to spread the influence of their religion, christianity and islam are not unique in that regard.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

By that argument all Jews and those Christians that do not reject the OT should be kept away from your daughters, as they are allowed to rape them and then take them for their wives.
After all, it says so in their holy books, so even if the majority do not use that law, they follow a religion that advocates it.

Spreading Islam trough violence was pretty much stopped in europe by the turn of the millennium. The Ottoman empire attempted a bit more conquest somewhat later, but that was more politically than religiously motivated. Since the 1500's the islamic nations have been invaded and attacked by christians far more than the other way around.
The occasional terrorist notwithstanding on the whole islamic nations are far more inclined to fight each other than launch a massive jihad into the west.

 

[Delvo]

Just stopping sending them food to prop up their artificially inflated overpopulations at our own environmental expense would be much easier.

 

[Fishstick]

Just stopping sending them food to prop up their artificially inflated overpopulations at our own environmental expense would be much easier.

Who is 'them' and 'our' in this case?