What causes muslims to be violent

[gaffo]

If any atheists had been violent and killed theists in numbers that is not because of their atheism but rather due to the other adopted ideology like communism, fascism, and others.

exactly!!!!!!!!

and BTW Atheism offers only despair/fear of death.

I've never wished to be and my best friend of 45 yrs is a christian (lapsed? - troubled), and never encouraged him to go my way.

Atheism offers nothing. and i'd advise you to not go there if you can keep from it.

by 12 yrs old, i just did go there, and since have not seen evidence of any Gods existing to lead me out of it.

-------fine with it, life is not meant to be easy.

---in the next realm (if there is one - deny it in this life) - your God will show himself to me and i'll be a belevier then.

god bless.

nothing against your God/s,

just do not beleive in them.

[gaffo]

Generally 'non-theists' and 'atheists' represent those who are 'absolutely' indifferent [especially emotionally, psychologically, and the likes] to the idea of a God.

Let me make sure of what you're committed to.

So according to you, an Atheist or non-Theist, has absolutely nothing in that ideological position but the denial that God exists, or the denial that it would be important if He did. Correct?

correct - though not the persone you asked - i'm an atheist as well know - is the person you asked the question to? i don't know nor care.

since being an Atheist does not define ones character - its like "is your fav color Blue or Green"?

it really has that much bearing upon a persons character (but you are prejudiced against me so "Blacks folks are a human as the rest of us" - seems apt to me.

I want to be sure you mean that. So the Atheist or non-Theist has no perspective to offer from Atheism or non-Theism on questions like morals, meaning, purpose of life, teleology...nothing. About such things, they have nothing to say, and nothing to defend...is that correct?

correct.

If not, then say now what additional claims Atheism or non-Theism, as you understand them, imply.

????WTF your talking about willis?

Atheism just is a statement in nonbeleive in your God.

nothing more!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF are you talking about?

[Immanuel Can]

i know your intent here - Atheist not being "believer" do not value life

Well, you're dead wrong. Not only did I not say Atheists don't value life, I positively insisted some did.

But Atheism since it is grounded in strict Materialism is morally, spiritually and intellectually vacuous as a creed.

To criticize the creed is not the same as to put the same criticism against the ascribers of the creed. For many times, those who claim a dogma as their own actually act better or more morally than the creed itself will warrant them doing.

And that's the case with Atheism.

Question to you Sir, was Mao an Athiest? (I don't know (I ask you, and would like to know myself) - he was a Communist but not the same thing, i the former but not the latter).

Marx said that the criticism of religion was "the first of all critiques." In other words, the very first thing a Communist MUST do is reject religion completely. And for the Marxist state to arise, this "opium of the masses," as he called it, "religion" (he meant particularly Judaism and Christianity) must be extinguished.

Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, the Kim Jongs, Castro, Mugabe, Hoxta, Ceacescu, Tito...and the list goes on, were all Marxists. And you can see by what they set about doing that they took Marx very seriously. Any "religion" they had in their past was long gone by the time they took power, and you can see that by exactly what they all did to "religion" when they got power.

(you excluded the Nazi 7 million BTW? why so? - because Hiter was not a Communist?

No, Hitler was a Socialist, though. He was a "National Socialist" (which is the meaning of "Nazi") and his issue with the Communists was not Socialism, but their Internationalism. They were International Socialists. So theirs was a kind of family quarrel. As to the appropriate methods, such as suppressing dissent, nationalizing all industries and centralizing control, they were on exactly the same page. They were only arguing over who should be in control when it was all over.

[gaffo]

i know your intent here - Atheist not being "believer" do not value life

Well, you're dead wrong. Not only did I not say Atheists don't value life, I positively insisted some did.

But Atheism since it is grounded in strict Materialism is morally, spiritually and intellectually vacuous as a creed.

interesting that you know more about Atheists/Atheism than i do- me being one and you not. Can i school you on christainity?

BTW you should know by now that I am an Solipsist, we deny materialism.

oh wait!............but im an Athiest!

hmmmmmmmmm interesting.

so - since you know more about Atheism than i do - me being one since 1978, and you never:

1. I must not be a Solipsist

and/or

2. i must not be an Atheist

------------

so since i don't know my head from my ass, school me wise one.



so about Pol Pot being an Buddist and Stalin a Christian prior to their rampage.

.............silence from you on that point.

interesting.

[gaffo]

IC? where did you go?

i need your schooling, you know more about Atheism than i do, though you never have been, and i have been for 41 yrs.

you seem from your posts to know more about what Athiesm is than i do.

School me!!!!!!

where did you go? i need your council - tell me what i disbelieve!!!

------------

where are you? Canadian time is my time, you ain't Brit so not 4 Am, nor an ausia/nz 1-2 pm sunday............well since that is midday you could be ausie/nz, but still think you are a cannuck.

your secret location is save with me.

[Veritas Aequitas]

You misunderstood "Do you think younger, more educated Muslims might regard the Koran as historical?"

By 'historical' I did not mean' of historical interest only'. I meant the Koran was appropriate to its time but is not everlastingly true, and should be treated like any other literature .

The British and American way to contain ethnic minorities is to place them beneath the rule of law like everyone else. Sharia law is not British or American law.

I got your point but I am trying to explain some elements of 'oxymoron' in your point, i.e.
Educated Muslims regarding the Quran as historical.
"Muslim" and 'Quran as historical' are a contradiction in the eyes of Allah.

I tried to explain a "Muslim" by definition is one who has entered into a contract with Allah to comply with the doctrines and commands within the Quran.
The point is the Quran which defined who is a Muslim, do not permit a Muslim to regard the Quran as a historical text but rather the Quran is the perfected book comprising the verbatim words from Allah revealed via the prophet.

A person who relegate the Quran as a historical text would be committing a sin and an insult to Allah. If a supposedly Muslim regard the Quran as a historical text, it is implied he is an apostate,thus cannot be a Muslim-proper anymore, if he insist he will be at most a pseudo-Muslim from our perspective.
But since Allah is omniscient, Allah will know immediately he had sinned and is an apostate.

It would be more proper to say, Muslims convert out of Islam and regard the Quran as a historical texts just like many other non-Muslims do.
As long as one claim to be a Muslim, he cannot regard the Quran as historical at all.

It seem many educated 'Muslims' may regard the Quran [or some parts] as historical in some way and relevant to certain pasts, but they are ignorant they are committing a serious sin in the eyes of Allah to make such a claim.

I think you are probably right that many if not most Muslims regard historical relativity as unIslamic. I don't know but I think educated Muslims sometimes do the rituals without believing the rationale for them, ans many of those do the rituals to reassure their relatives who are believers. I don't know if there has been any sociological study about this.

Not aware of any serious sociological study on the above.
In any case, whatever the study, the results are likely to be very skewed as most of such people would not likely reveal the truth that they are doing the rituals merely to reassure their relatives who are believers.
It is not only a matter of reassuring their relatives, they risk being killed by their relatives or friends if they declare they are no practicing as a Muslim.

However we do hear of many testimonies of ex-Muslims of how they [& friends] had to hide their apostasy and pretend to act like real Muslims prior to they escaped or converted out of Islam.

Many Christians literally interpret holy books . Muslims are not alone in so doing. Christians and Muslims should interpret their holy texts according to the theme, not literally. The Muslims' Holy Prophet interpreted Gabriel in such a way as to improve lives of Arabs. And that is the theme of the Koran. It is true that simple village tribal people take the Koran to be a book of instructions, but other Muslims can interpret the Koran as material for religious rites, and continue to revere Muhammad as a man of his time whose wisdom can inform our times.

From the secular perspective, as I had analyzed the Quran, there is not much of wisdom from Muhammad which can inform our times. We are better of in gathering wisdom from so many other religious founders and secular spiritual greats and philosophy greats.

The only people who would revere the scanty wisdom of Muhammad would be Muslims and as default Muslims they are obligated to comply fully with the Quran which contained loads of terrible evil* laden elements which they have to practice.
* to the Muslims these evil* laden elements are "good" for them to carry out and will earn more merit than ordinary rituals.

The political component of Islam is now in disarray, and Islamic regimes are strong by use of terror against their own citizens.

In any case, how would you yourself contain or forestall any possible political Islamic unrest within your own country?

Note the case of the Danish Cartoon related violence where what happened in Denmark triggered violence from Muslims all the world and many were killed all because of some cartoons

Thus approach for any place [especially where there are Muslims] has to be holistic throughout the Muslims world and if Islam is defanged, then Muslims who are evil prone will not have the psychological collective support to go on the rampage or commit other evil acts in the name of Islam.

At present the majority of Muslims are not informed of the real truth of the ideology of Islam.
The most effective way to 'defang' Islam is to tell the real truth of Islam and what Islam is all about. We cannot be wrong in telling the real truth [with solid evidence] and to ensure such truth reaches the ears of all Muslims over the world.

Recently Sheikh Yasir Qadhi an expert Islamic scholar revealed what many experts had known [but kept quiet] that the Quran has 'holes' in it and it is not the perfect immutable Quran it is claimed to be as believed by 99.9% of Muslims.
See this:
https://youtu.be/2V73m8RPIIg?t=24
and many related videos on this matter.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Those [not all] who are into atheism will condemn theists, burn their place of worship or even kill theists in the extreme.

I grant you that. Absolutely.

In fact, I'm certain that many of my Atheist friends are completely benign in that regard, and their antipathy to my personal beliefs never spills over into unkindness, let alone violence. We have not merely mutual respect, but actual mutual liking, and we get along very well despite our philosophical differences. So I can't emphasize strongly enough that a person who is an Atheist can be completely free of the antipathies to which Atheism itself might tend.

That being said, I think it very interesting that you are frank about the fact that Atheism statistically tends to be associated with "certain acts" of hatred, such as "condemning theists," "burning their churches," or even "killing theists." That's more than many Atheists will even admit. But it's been historically true, of course, so fair enough.

So there is no difference between "Atheist," "Non-Theist" or "Anti-Theist," in this respect? All make the affirmative claim that God doesn't exist?

I just have to be sure I've got you right. If you say "Yes," I'll move on.

Yes.

Okay. Well, for convenience, then, I'm going to bundle the terms "Atheist," "Non-Theist" and "Anti-Theist" together, and just refer to them as "Atheists3," since you yourself say they all make the affirmative claim God does not exist, as above. The "3" will remind us both that I mean the bundle of three specified above. Okay? If I want to mean Atheists but NOT Non-Theists or Anti-Theists," I'll just write plain old "Atheist."

Deal?

I would prefer the term "Atheists3" in this particular case.
ALL Atheist," "Non-Theist" and "Anti-Theist" are indifferent to the idea of God but not all of them are into the ideology of theism.

Therefore we have to differentiate them with the term 'Ideological-atheists3' to represent those who are ideological.
Or you can shorten the term to 'Ideo-Theists3'.

So Atheists3 all believe they know that there is no God. But of course, we both can see that's impossible. Because for such an affirmative claim, they would have to produce proof. And what proof will justify the claim that the Supreme Being doesn't exist? Only a proof that showed that at no time, and no place, and in no way, did the Supreme Being ever manifest himself. If He did, even once, anytime, any place to any person, then Atheism3 would be untrue, and absolutely wrong. So the Atheist3 has to have proof that no such thing ever occurred.

But how does the Atheist3 know that? Has he the evidence that Creation was not by God? Has he the proof that no revelation of any religion was ever true? Can he show that no miracle ever claimed was genuine? Can he show that no prayer in the history of the world was ever answered? Has he the basis to claim there were no prophets? Can he show that God did not manifest Himself in Jesus Christ, for example?

If he does have that sort of comprehensive proof, then why is he not showing it? Answer: because no human being could possibly have it. In order to get it, he would have to be in all places, at all times, witnessing every supposed 'miracle,' hearing every supposed 'prayer' and seeing its answer, have been exposed to all supposed 'revelations,' and have dismissed them all for empirical reasons...in other words, the Atheist3, if he had grounds for affirmative proof of the non-existence of God, would have had to be everywhere, at all times, in all circumstances since the beginning of time, with his instruments to measure and evaluate.

But if he had done that, the Atheist3 would be wrong: there WOULD be a "God." It would be the Atheist3. Nothing less than God-powers would be sufficient for him to acquire such evidence.

So there is absolutely no way that the Atheist3 can rationally make the claim that God does not exist and he knows it affirmatively. That's an obvious lie, a bluff, a ruse, a false posture of confidence, that is really no more than an ideological preference.

Therefore, let's dispense with the twaddle that might suggest the Atheist3 is operating on evidence or rationality. He's not. He couldn't be. He's operating on ideology.

So far, so good?

I have already provided the proof 'It is impossible for a God to exists as real'
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704
You do not agree solely out of desperation to cling to an idea of God.

Now, earlier, I wrote:

For the moment, all I mean to point out here is that it is you who has just said that Atheists et al still often want to get into the matter of morals, meaning, purpose, teleology, and so on. I want you to realize YOU said it...and I didn't have to. We're both conceding it, yes?

And you replied:
In life people live with many "hats", i.e. one can be parenting as a father, work as Scientist, a gardener in the weekend, etc. and an atheist [indifferent to a God].

Yes, of course.

But now I'll make my argument as to why Atheism3 so often historically has resulted in "certain acts" as you call them, of viciousness toward Theists and others, and why over 100 million people died in the last century at the hands of Atheist regimes.

Premise 1: Atheism3, as a belief, is devoid of any and all positive content regarding anything but a position on the existence of God. It has no information in it pertaining to which morals, motives, meaning, purpose, teleology and so forth. Atheism3 per see has nothing to say about these. (This, you have already said to be true, so let's move on.)

Premise 2: Atheists3 are still normal human beings, who "involve themselves" (as you have said) with things like morals, meaning, purpose, teleology and so forth. (This, you have also insisted repeatedly is true, so we need not debate that either. Let's go forward)

So now I'll make my argument informally. Atheists3 have no information from Atheism3 that will help them in their quest to orient themselves to morals, meaning, purpose, teleology and so forth. So where do Atheist3 invariably get it from? They always get it from ideology. It may be Materialism, Egoism, Nazism, Communism, Libertarianism, Capitalism, Humanism or any other ideology save a "religious" one; but if they still want to "be involved" as you say, with these things, they cannot avoid the necessity of thinking about what the direction and purpose of life should be, and what steps they "should" take to get themselves an our society "there," that is to whatever point they think is the desirably telos.

Since merely material facts are ambiguous on these things (and you can see they are by the range of contrary "readings" Atheism3 may take from them, while still being pure and true to Atheism3) they have no alternative but to adopt one of these sorts of secular ideologies, and act as if it is the right telos. Moreoever, if their chosen telos (end-point for the good life or good society) is ever to be realized, they will need to mobilize people to believe in it and support their telos.

So Atheists3 are uniquely forced to become both ideologues and propagandists -- that is, if, as you say, they still want to keep "involving themselves" in morals, meaning, purpose, motive, and so on. Since Atheism3 itself is so empty, so void of content, so utterly uninformative in these areas, every Atheist3 who is going to remain engaged with these things has to take on some ideology to fill the void.

The popular choice tends to be Communism. It alone offers the combination of a) Atheism3 as a starting point, but also b) mobilization of world-scale collective action to achieve its ends of "the ideal society." Other ideologies, such as Libertarianism, Egoism, Nihilism, and so forth, remain consonant with Atheism3, but do not offer any rationale or support for collective action, so make it far less likely for the Atheist3 to achieve any telos or conception of the universal good.

Communism commences, at the very first stage, with the elimination of religion -- but particularly, as Marx and Nietzsche have both said, of Judaism and Christianity. Thus Atheism3 tends towards your "certain acts" of violence against Christians and Jews, which it treats as its mortal enemies.

This is not just a supposition: it is exactly what has happened in EVERY SINGLE MARXIST REGIME in history. So it's an empirically-backed observation, as well as a logical deduction from Atheism3.

Atheism3 is violent. It ends up being that, because of its need for a supplementary ideology like Communism or Fascism or some other plan of social engineering, complete with its need to eliminate all rivals. But the void that made that move necessary was created by Atheism3 itself. It is because Atheism3 is so vacuous, so devoid of information that every human being needs in order to orient his or her life, so empty of transcendent value, that the turn to secular ideology becomes unavoidable for any person who is serious about morals, meaning, purpose, teleology and so on. Atheism3, all by itself, leaves a person with nothing but dust in hand.

As I say, Atheists, may not be, in some cases. But that is only true for those Atheists3 who stop short of caring much for morals, meaning, purpose, teleology and the good society. If they're generally only self-involved, and not concerned with such matters, they may remain amiable -- a thing for which I, as a Christian, am very glad.

I can agree the ideology of those ideo-theists3 can be atheism3.
In this case the ideology of atheism3 is an active ideology in terms of thoughts and actions against theists and theism.

But you made the mistake of conflating Communism and other ideologies with the ideology of atheism3.
In the case of Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Nazism and the like, they are primarily political and economical ideologies.
Nihilism and Egoism are primarily of certain philosophical leanings.
Other secular ideologies has their own primary distinct ideologies of which atheism3 may not may not be included in their specific Constitution.

One good example is;
There are atheist3 who adopt the free-sex ideology and it follow some will adopt atheism3 because the Western and most theism condemn free-sex. In this case, it is the interest in free-sex that is primary and theism happened to get in their ways.

So it is not that Communism, Fascism, Marxism, free-sex_ism were founded because of atheism.
Atheism3 is secondary and they condemned it because atheism3 is one of the hindrances that got in their ways.

Another supporting points is;
ALL these Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Nazism, free-sexism, and other secular ideologies will not hesitate to kill atheist3s from other secular ideologies.
IF atheism3 is primary, then they should not be killing atheist3 from other ideologies.

Therefore the 100s of million killed by ideo-theists were not because of the ideology of atheism but driven by the specific constitution and main doctrines of the respective ideology where atheism is only a small part of it.

[Belinda]

Veritas Aequitas wrote:

At present the majority of Muslims are not informed of the real truth of the ideology of Islam.
The most effective way to 'defang' Islam is to tell the real truth of Islam and what Islam is all about. We cannot be wrong in telling the real truth [with solid evidence] and to ensure such truth reaches the ears of all Muslims over the world.

Recently Sheikh Yasir Qadhi an expert Islamic scholar revealed what many experts had known [but kept quiet] that the Quran has 'holes' in it and it is not the perfect immutable Quran it is claimed to be as believed by 99.9% of Muslims.
See this:
https://youtu.be/2V73m8RPIIg?t=24
and many related videos on this matter.

But Muslims would not be interested in what you or I think about their beliefs. Who is to "tell the truth of Islam"? Whoever spoke "the truth of Islam" would most Muslims believe what an unbeliever said? Islam is a complete way of life which unlike Xianity cannot be reserved for review of sacred beliefs on Sundays at church.

In France they banned religious face coverings for women. In Britain the approach to unpleasant ethnic traditions is softer and relies upon the rule of British not Sharia laws, and most Muslims in this country ,UK, seem to be happy to observe British law.

I note how few Muslims speak out about how the Koran and Hadith are insufficient for modern times. This is because there is no worldwide authority, such as a Pope, to define good Islamic behaviour.

Regarding the truth in the Koran , the spirit of Muhammad's text is a spirit of peace, despite the Arabs' and Muhammad's contemporary enemies .All the big modern religions are based on the spiritual premise that peace is good.

[Immanuel Can]

i know your intent here - Atheist not being "believer" do not value life

Well, you're dead wrong. Not only did I not say Atheists don't value life, I positively insisted some did.

But Atheism since it is grounded in strict Materialism is morally, spiritually and intellectually vacuous as a creed.

interesting that you know more about Atheists/Atheism than i do

Well, it just depends on how carefully one thinks about what one believes.

A thoughtful Atheist might possibly know more about Christianity than an unthinking Christian. And likewise, somebody who's thought carefully about Atheism is sure to know more about it than an Atheist who has simply taken it for granted as true, and never really thought about what it means at all.

I can't say which situation pertains here...I don't know enough about you. Maybe you've been thoughtful in your Atheism, or maybe you've been casual about it. You tell me.

But if what you said were true, it would actually not be surprising.

BTW you should know by now that I am an Solipsist, we deny materialism.

Well, if one is not a very strict Materialist, then one has undercut one's own rationale for Atheism. For only if it were, for some reason, known to be utterly impossible for there to be any transcendent realities, any non-physical entities, or any other such things, then and only then would Atheism be necessarily true. Otherwise, the door is open again to the possibility of God.

So maybe you want to think about that...and maybe you don't. It depends on how you took on your own Atheism.

so about Pol Pot being an Buddist and Stalin a Christian prior to their rampage.


.............silence from you on that point.

interesting.

It wasn't a very good one, and I didn't really want to point that out.

Unless you can show that turning Orthodox Churches into Red Museums or creating the killing fields are somehow "Christian" acts, you've got a simple case for Marxist conversion to Atheism by both. And I think the case is pretty obvious there, don't you? The deeds speak very loudly.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Veritas Aequitas wrote:

At present the majority of Muslims are not informed of the real truth of the ideology of Islam.
The most effective way to 'defang' Islam is to tell the real truth of Islam and what Islam is all about. We cannot be wrong in telling the real truth [with solid evidence] and to ensure such truth reaches the ears of all Muslims over the world.

Recently Sheikh Yasir Qadhi an expert Islamic scholar revealed what many experts had known [but kept quiet] that the Quran has 'holes' in it and it is not the perfect immutable Quran it is claimed to be as believed by 99.9% of Muslims.
See this:
https://youtu.be/2V73m8RPIIg?t=24
and many related videos on this matter.

But Muslims would not be interested in what you or I think about their beliefs. Who is to "tell the truth of Islam"? Whoever spoke "the truth of Islam" would most Muslims believe what an unbeliever said? Islam is a complete way of life which unlike Xianity cannot be reserved for review of sacred beliefs on Sundays at church.

In general most Muslims like most theists are driven to strive for salvation or to deal with a subliminal existential crisis.
In such a case, there is no room for objective truths for these religious people rather they rely on faith i.e. beliefs without proofs nor reason. These theists will do what it takes to defend their faith, even to the extent to killing others if the perceived their faith is threatened.
And very evidently this dependent of faith had led SOME believers to commit terrible evil and violent acts upon non-believers.

I agree Muslims and others will not respect subjective views about the Quran and Islam. What we need are objective truths that are independent of personal opinions and belief which should be as close as possible to the standard of scientific knowledge as possible.
From the humanity perspective in striving for peace and harmony, it is only appropriate to get to these objective truths of the evil potentials of religions such as Islam.

As I had indicated above, the experts [Muslims and others] had admitted there are 'holes' in the Quran and Islam. This implies there are untruths and lies about and in the Quran and Islam.
The point is all Muslims are acting in accordance to the Quran which they believed to be the perfected truths from Allah.

These 'holes' [untruths] are verifiable and justifiable as objective which anyone can verify and justify. Since this is objective and independent of anyone's opinion and belief there is no room to deny such truths unless they can be countered with more valid truths [justified to be true beliefs].

Such objective truths about the Quran and Islam as 'fake' will surely shatter the faith of any Muslim, but obviously, Muslims will resist such truths by all means and ignoring it like ostriches. Most Muslims rely on their scholars and the scholars are either ignorant of the truths or if they know about the truth, they are not revealing to the masses.

But the truth will always prevails.
At present these truth are not well organized and had insufficient consensus. So it is a question of how effective and fast we can reveal the real truth of the Quran, Muhammad and Islam to all Muslims. Then it will shatter their sliver of belief that the Quran is the perfected holy book from Allah, and reveal the truth is the Quran was invented by a group of evil prone men for their selfish interests.

Humanity must strive to expedite the processes in revealing the real objective truths about the Quran and Islam so as to impede and resolving the advancing threat of Islamic-based terror.

Regarding the truth in the Koran, the spirit of Muhammad's text is a spirit of peace, despite the Arabs' and Muhammad's contemporary enemies .All the big modern religions are based on the spiritual premise that peace is good.

To maintain your own intellectual honesty and integrity, you cannot jump to conclude,
"Regarding the truth in the Koran, the spirit of Muhammad's text [Quran] is a spirit of peace",
until,
you have read the 114 chapters, 6236 verses and around 77,400 words of the Quran as revealed by Allah to Muhammad via Angel Gabriel, thoroughly and objectively to understand the real 'spirit' of what the whole Quran represent?

I suggest you read and research the Quran and Islam VERY thoroughly and seriously before you made any conclusions about the Quran and Islam. [include the Ahadith if possible]

Since we are in a Philosophy Forum, do you agree the above is a fair call?

[Belinda]

Veritas Aequitas, Yes I agree that is a fair challenge, but I am not going to read the whole Koran.

May I take it you believe the Koran is a heroic polemic for war and conquest ?

With respect, if so, could you possibly write as a neutral historiographer and less like a confirmed theist? I'd really like to read , not the whole Koran, but a serious account by a historian of Muhammad's views and motives.

[Immanuel Can]

I am not going to read the whole Koran.

I did. It wasn't fun.

You'd have to go a long way to find such a boring and annoying thing to read. It's basically a collection of "fortune cookie" sayings, arranged in order of size, with no coherence or real theme to anything, and contradictory as often as just bizarre in content. But it's not a bad thing to have read if one wants to be able to say one knows what Muslims are responding to. You'll see that the whole thing has no direction, no flow, no theme...just a bunch of rules and claims, coupled with some incorrect remembrances of what the Hebrew and Christian scriptures said.

Muslim scholars can tell you the following: Mohammed wrote nothing at all. He wasn't even literate: and Muslims hold up this fact as proof that the origin of the Koran must be a miracle; for how could this man be so "wise" if he couldn't even read and write? His alleged sayings, allegedly overheard by his followers, were compiled after his death, when he wasn't even around to say which saying were his and which were not. They were sorted by Muslim authorities into piles, and debate was waged over which saying were possibly "authentic," and which of the scraps were likely to be "inauthentic." The ones decided to be "inauthentic" were then burned, and the rest compiled in order of length.

And that's the Koran.

There are no real "books" in the Koran, because it's not coherent enough to have them. But they do have a kind of rough "chaptering." If you read anything, read "The Chapter of Women." It's not very long, but you'll find that interesting. And it will give you a very good sense of the level of the rest.

[seeds]

What you think?

I think that, clearly, one festering source that makes Muslims violent is because of Israel’s annexation and occupation of lands sacred to Muslims, not to mention the Israeli displacement and mistreatment of the Palestinians.

As a comparative analogy to what’s taking place in the Middle East, how do you suppose the general population of the United States would react if the Native American Indians...

(backed by the logistical support of an overwhelmingly powerful cabal of nations with dubious self-interests)

...claimed ancient ownership of the North American continent – a claim that is based on the fact that in their ancient mythological lore “The Great Spirit” said that it belonged to them.

And with the help of the cabal, they somehow managed to throw all of America’s present occupants out of their homes and cities and forced them to live in the equivalent of a giant prison camp somewhere in Arizona?

Don’t you think that those who have lived on the lands for hundreds of years might develop a little violent animosity in regards to the situation?

Furthermore, to carry the same analogy in a slightly different direction, imagine how the citizens of New York City would feel (and react) if the supporting allies of the Native Americans...

(in separate circumstances and, again, for their own dubious self-interests)

...took their fathers, and brothers, and children, and friends (all of whom were simply trying to defend their homes), and subjected them to the treatment depicted in the following images?:







I mean, seriously now, do you actually think that the citizens of New York City would simply lay down belly-up like frightened dogs and endure such treatment without exacting revenge in whatever way they could, no matter how long it might take?

(And I'm not even broaching the subject of the wide scale death and destruction the “cabal” has rained-down on Muslims in its endless pursuit to steal their oil and resources.)

The point is that if you are looking for reasons that might make Muslims violent, then I suggest that the preceding examples (of which there are innumerable others) are a good place to start.
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[Belinda]

These soldiers were simple thugs. The soldiers' political masters encouraged or permitted thuggery.

Please see my reply to Immanuel Can in the philosophy of religion thread, in which I wrote Islam, RC, and Xian fundamentalism are authoritarian religions due to their many strict rules and regulations which come from some authority such as the Vatican or the Holy Koran or particular bits of the OT.

Obviously Humanism, Unitarian Universalism, and the Society of Friends grew by historical process out of the more authoritarian RC.

Psychologically, Muslims like anyone else are disposed to be violent when they feel threatened by people who want to deprive you of your traditional inheritance which you perceive as a good.

[seeds]

These soldiers were simple thugs. The soldiers' political masters encouraged or permitted thuggery.

Right, B. And hence an obvious answer to the OP question of what causes Muslims to be violent.

(Continued in next post)
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