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In Western nations it has not been usual to publicly criticise religious
groups or religious practices unless they pose an immediate threat to
human rights or infringe the law.
This has been (correctly) justified because of the desire to foster
tolerance of cultural diversity.
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Democracy Index as published in January, 2007.
The palest blue countries get a score above 9.5 out of 10 (with Sweden
being the most democratic country at 9.88), while the black countries score
below 2 (with North Korea being the least democratic at 1.03).
From Wikipedia
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(North Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and the Middle East are
predominantly Muslim.)
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However, I believe that the threat posed to democracy, to
traditional freedoms, and to the ideal of a rational society by the rise
of the modern, very intolerant, form of Islam being seen in a number of
countries is so great that it must be openly discussed.
What will happen to our work in fostering cultural diversity and
freedom of expression if it results
in a group of intolerant religious fundamentalists coming to power and
forcing everyone to live by their prejudices?
(Karl Popper called this problem the paradox of democracy.)
The justified concern about a religion that contains as much hate,
cruelty and intolerance as does Islam is very different to the racism and
xenophobia with which it is often naïvely confused.
The fact that most Muslims are very nice people and do not practice or
advocate the nasty bits of Islam is to a large extent irrelevant;
this page is more about Islam itself, and some of the discriminatory and
cruel cultural practices that come with Islam, than it is about Muslims
in general.
I live in a predominantly and traditionally Christian nation.
If the Christian delusion was on the rise like Islam, it would be a similar
threat to a rational society; fortunately it is moribund except for some
weird sects; they will come and go.
While the original form of Christianity, as taught by Jesus, seems to have
been tolerant and relatively benevolent, its practice
became very corrupt and cruel; consider the empire-building
of some of the Popes, the selling of indulgences and bishoprics, the
burnings and torturing of heretics (one man's heritic is another man's true
believer), and the bloody wars of the Reformation.
On the other hand, the original form of Islam was cruel, intolerant and
hateful, consider amputation as punishments for theft, stoning as
punishment for adultery, and execution as punishment for apostasy;
these were written in either the Koran itself or in the very early hadiths.
The Koran (60:4), states (referring to Jews)
"And there hath arisen between us and you hostility
and hate forever until ye believe in Allah only".
But over the centuries most Muslim communities tempered the
cruelty and hatred of the original Islam.
It is perhaps an over-simplification, but illustrative, to think of
Christianity as a religion that was originally benign, but became sadistic
in practice; while Islam was cruel and bloodthirsty in its original form,
but has been moderated with long practice (at least in most places at
most times).
Islam was forced on the peoples of many Middle Eastern nations,
North Africa, present day Pakistan, much of Malaysia and most of Indonesia.
I don't know of any religion that has a similar record of forced conversions,
with the possible exception of Christianity.
I need to say that Middle Eastern Muslim nations, because of their oil
reserves, have had to suffer a high level of interference from the
USA in recent (pre-Obama)
years.
The USA has also been very one-sided in its support for Israel, no matter
what the excesses of that nation in its struggle agains Muslim terrorists.
(Israel is fighting for its life, but does this excuse war crimes such as
the dropping of many thousands of cluster bombs in southern Lebanon?)
The recent rise of Islamic terrorism aimed at the USA must at least partly be
due to the Muslim perception of US imperialism.
In the other direction, the degree of the threat posed to the USA, in
particular, by
terrorism has been exaggerated for
political purposes.
No doubt most Muslims are more moderate than the suicide bombers and
embassy burners, but I wonder, where is the outrage that we might expect to
see in the Muslim community in response to the excesses of the Talliban,
al Qaeda, and the fundamentalists in places like Sedan?
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At least some Muslims hold that any man can murder another man if a fatwa
has been placed on that man.
How totally against all modern concepts of justice!
And it must be remembered that there is no formal hierachy in Islam;
who can legitimately place a fatwa?
Anyone?
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Where were the moderate Muslims objecting to the death fatwa placed on
Salmon Rushdie when he wrote The Satanic Verses?
Where were they when the mobs burned several embassies following the
Homammed cartoons incident?
But then a Muslim is not allowed to
criticise Islam and is discouraged
from asking questions regarding Islam.
In terms of adherents
I believe that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West.
Muslims have more children than most other citizens of Western nations.
If current trends continue, several Western nations will be numerically
dominated by Muslims within a matter of decades.
Overpopulation is one of the world's greatest problem.
All other factors being equal, the
climate
change problem would be halved if there were
half as many people on the planet.
The last thing needed if we are to control greenhouse/climate change is
more people.
Although it is not often mentioned, probably because it is unpalatable,
I believe that the Koran states that it is one of the duties of Muslims
to either convert or kill non-believers.
(If I am wrong in this belief I'd appreciate correction.)
One relevant Koran quote I came across was:
"kill those who join other gods to God wherever ye shall find them,
besiege them, lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush".
I believe that the Koran also holds that Muslims must place 'God's Law'
above the laws of states.
I suspect that if Islam was recently invented and had only a few adherents
it would be banned as a terrorist or subversive organisation for reasons
such as these.
With all the resource and environmental threats facing the world at present
there is a greater than ever need for
rational
government, but this
becomes less likely in any nations dominated by a dogmatic religious group or
groups, perhaps Muslims more than others.
Eurobarometer conducted a survey of beliefs in European states (including
Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim state included) in 2005.
One of the propositions was 'human beings, as we know them today, developed
from earlier species of animals'.
Only 27% of Turks answered 'true'; Cyprus (with a large Muslim population)
gave the second lowest response at 46%.
The lowest of the other European states was Lithuania at 49%.
This suggests an abysmal level of ignorance of science with a
correspondingly high belief in superstitious humbug among
Muslims, even in a relatively secular state such as Turkey.
Some Muslims would have us believe that it is only a few pockets of
fundamentalists (takfeeris?) in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are the problem.
That this is not the case was shown by the riots that broke out in many
countries following a Danish newspaper publishing cartoons featuring
Mohammed a few years ago.
If the problem were confined to a minority of people espousing a warped
view of Islam, then why do we hear so few main-stream Muslims criticising
the extremists and the embassy burners?
What to do about the threat?
Violence is not any part of the answer.
Perhaps the current rise of
fundamentalist Islam will prove to be a temporary thing, perhaps Western
Muslims will prove to be more tolerant and open minded than their
Middle Eastern brethren?
Education must be a part of the answer, but with
so much entrenched and irrational Christian belief and acceptance of
superstitious nonsense in most Western nations, trying to establish
a fully rational education system for Muslims will be a challenge.
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Work under way in this area