Humans and Islam

[Breakingthewall]

58 minutes ago, Raze said:

again, you’re ignoring that islam can be interpreted just like any religion, here is a counter example

Again thanks for the clarification about slavery. Anyway, another example: Jesus saw that they were going to stone an adulteress and said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," and he stopped the stoning. Muhammad saw that they were going to whip two adulterers. He asked why they didn't stone them, and they answered that the chief's son was an adulterer and was not stoned. Since then, they hadn't stoned. So Muhammad ordered the couple to be stoned to death. Do you see a essential difference in the message?

[Raze]

26 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Again thanks for the clarification about slavery. Anyway, another example: Jesus saw that they were going to stone an adulteress and said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," and he stopped the stoning. Muhammad saw that they were going to whip two adulterers. He asked why they didn't stone them, and they answered that the chief's son was an adulterer and was not stoned. Since then, they hadn't stoned. So Muhammad ordered the couple to be stoned to death. Do you see a essential difference in the message?

In Mark 7:10 Jesus affirms the Old Testament rule of stoning unruly children. 

Stoning isn’t prescribed as a punishment in the Quran. 

If we follow your train of logic, we’d expect to see the radical islamists not using stoning , but Christian’s still practicing it. But it’s the opposite. 

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, Raze said:

In Mark 7:10 Jesus affirms the Old Testament rule of stoning unruly children. 

Stoning isn’t prescribed as a punishment in the Quran. 

If we follow your train of logic, we’d expect to see the radical islamists not using stoning , but Christian’s still practicing it. But it’s the opposite. 

You will agree that Islamic societies have stagnated, and the cause of this can only be Islam. Islam is against evolution, its goal is spiritual salvation through obedience to laws, many of them arbitrary, such as not drawing human figures or not eating pork.

Could Islam be interpreted in such a way that eating pork and drinking alcohol is not a sin? Or drawing animals?

I suppose you will also agree that the treatment of women in Islam is humiliating, in the sense that it allows each man to have 4 wives legally. How could evolve a society that accept those premises?

[zazen]

@Breakingthewall  You should watch this video brother.

In conjunction with this: 

 

Edited Monday at 11:31 AM by zazen

[Breakingthewall]

@zazen 

5 minutes ago, zazen said:

@Breakingthewall  You should watch this video brother.

 

I watched the half, later I will watch all, but for now, my opinion it is demagogy, I respect your views as they are usually accurate and backed by real information, but this guy says things like the West is more violent than the East and wants to give lessons in peace, or that in terms of respect for women it is at the same level. This is demagogy, the West is historically more violent because it is more efficient, therefore it conquers and makes total war.

Regarding women's freedom, in the West since the Middle Ages there were queens of enormous power, this is not a possibility in the East. Obviously in the West women were also subject to men, but a king could not have a harem of 300 wives guarded by eunuchs and be proud of it

[Fluran]

On 05/01/2025 at 10:18 AM, PurpleTree said:

I don’t know if it’s true but i heard that

Christianity in the beginning was very different to jewish and roman culture. That’s why they were persecuted. Women were very integrated in the beginning and it was very spiritual and not about possessions and anything. Not about conquering.

While Islam in the beginning was very warlike and about conquering.

 

This guy talks about early Christians in the Roman empire.

 

Islam In the beginning yeah there were wars and conquering

But most tactics used for expansion was subtle assimilation 

Conquering a region -> not persecuting people much but favouring Muslims over others -> overtime converting to Islam

 

Islam is a religion of peace(relatively..) compared to the situation in the harsh desert, similar Mongolia

It was shit hell war!!

When Islam reached golden age with Sufism it was indeed peace and Mecca of rationality

 

Though I do not know if Islam can thrive again or it should better vanish

 

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, Fluran said:

When Islam reached golden age with Sufism it was indeed peace and Mecca of rationality

Islam reached excellence in that era. They were a positive culture, lovers of life, researchers, philosophers of the highest level. Ibn Arabi or Rumi are much superior to any European mystical philosopher.

[zazen]

On 04/01/2025 at 9:16 PM, Breakingthewall said:

Islam, regardless of debates about its spirituality, Sufism, its level of spiritual truth, is an ideology that creates an enormous level of abuse and domination of men over women. Millions of women are forced into something as transcendent for a human being as marriage using violence. It doesn't seem like a very nice thing. It also generates enormous hypocrisy. Muslims are a bunch of fakes, since according to their religion they should all be saints, and any deviation is despicable. Shame and contempt for themselves as humans makes them false, twisted, dark. In short, it's a big piece of shit.

Ancient fanatic Christianity is negative and limiting, but in the end the message of Christianity is: love. That of Islam is: obey. That of Buddhism is: realize yourself. One of them seems quite negative. What could be its evolution?

These kind of conversations need more nuance man. Things are being conflated and selectively picked, omitted or reduced. Islam isn't uniquely restrictive or violent - it does has more visibility because a quarter of the world’s population is Muslim. We also can't reduce religions to bumper sticker words as Nilsi pointed out. Theres plenty of calls for love and mercy in Islam, for example - In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate (Bismillah ir rahman ir rahim) is often said. Anything can be twisted to be violent and oppressive - even secular ideologies or high sounding ones. Look how democracy and human rights / liberation has been weaponised by the West for their own interests across the world. Does that make democracy inherently evil? Or Christianity? Of course not. Both religions adapted to their times and circumstances and were shaped as much by politics and survival as by their spirituality.

Christianity has been used to morally justify crusades, inquisitions and later colonisation. I'm not going to reductively jump to demonise Christianity because of that. Buddhists have also been violent - look at Sri Lanka or Myanmar - but no one paints Buddhism as violent because there aren’t as many Buddhists to pin incidents on. The scale skews the perception. But violence is still being committed today by the West - at scale in the Middle East - what do we pin that on? Christianity? Probably not because Christian rhetoric isn't driving it. A more secular state is behind it - so what, does that mean secularism is now inherently violent? No - and that's the problem with conflating things.

Just look at homicide rates per 100'000 inhabitants. Malaysia's is 0.7, Indonesia is 0.3 - in the same region Cambodia is 1.8, VIetnam 1.5, Philippines 4 - which are non muslim countries. Majority Hindu India is 2.8.  In the Middle East - Iraq is 15, Afghanistan is 4 (both high mainly due to Western intervention and destabilisation so it’s an unfair comparison) Syria's is oddly low at 2. Egypt is much lower at 1.3 and Jordan which is in the same volatile region as Iraq is 1 - because it hasn't gone to or been involved in war.  Meanwhile over in Americas - Mexico is 24, Brazil 20 and US is a 5.7 (a developed non muslim country - the worlds superpower in fact). The point is - I can take these statistics and conflate that Christian nations have much higher homicide rates than muslims ones (except in the cases of war) and come to the conclusion that their respective religions or ideologies are inherently violent. (Source I used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

But I won’t because we can't ignore environmental or economic factors. If Bhuddists lived in a geopolitically fractured Middle East facing colonization, invasions and warfare over resources - they may exhibit similar behaviours and resort to extremism far more often as a last resort. If Muslims lived in isolated regions like Bhutan or Thailand which are geographically hard to penetrate and thus be bothered by outside meddling or hostile actors - maybe they'd be blissing out too over there - in fact there are many Muslims in the South of Thailand bordering Malaysia who live happily side by side with Bhuddists.

Everyone can be deemed a hypocrite because humans are messy. Every faith has followers stumbling their way to growth. Thats why theres the idea of repentance in both Islam and Christianity. Also, why be selective about hypocrisy? Just look at the Western actions with regards to backing Israel as the most latest and blatant example of hypocrisy.

On 04/01/2025 at 9:43 PM, Breakingthewall said:

That's a good analysis, Islam threatens directly, but also allows the use of violence. Jesus or Buddha never speak of violence or war except to condemn it. Mohammed does, it is an essential difference.

Another essential difference is that Christianity has precepts of universal moral: don't steal, don't kill, don't have sex like fun (now seems fool but without contraceptives, abortion or medicine it was dramatic), and another normal rules. 

Islam have precepts like a dictator would do: don't eat pork, don't drink, do that, don't do that, obey because it's my will. 

Bhuddist monks have hundreds of precepts on how to live every day life that would make Islam looks lax. Obviously the average Bhuddist doesn't follow them, they just have the 5 precepts / principles which align with Islam and Christianity also - no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying or intoxicants. Are we going to say Christianity is restrictive because Jordan Peterson tells us to make our bed, bear our own cross and sacrifice for something higher? Faiths have their restrictions and guidelines.

The irony of the argument about development is that the very thing your criticising (Islam's rules and regulations) is what makes it more developed, not less. Similar to the argument against libertarianism - the fact we have complex societies that function, only do so because of the framework of rules and regulations, not because we live in a free for all society of anarchy.

Islam was religion made worldly - they developed a framework for governance , ethics and society - to buffer against the excesses of human nature, not to indulge it. A powerless religion like Christianity when it was born - could afford to preach nonviolence because it’s wasn't in the business of governing or surviving tribal warfare. Islam was born in a different context. Also, in a time and world of little to no rules or ethics , you would rather have rules and ethics around domains that are inescapable for humanity. Wars will always come and sexuality announces its arrival at the sight of the opposite sex - best we have rules and ethics around how to conduct human affairs than not. This isn’t some hippy commune being run, a civilization requires a framework.

A Islamic foundation for a society isn't a strait jacket for societal development - although ISIS would like to make it one. Only the minutest minority of Muslims are approaching Islam in the way ISIS do. If it were true that a sizable portion of Muslims follow Islam the way ISIS do, the world would be carnage - but it isn't because most muslims don't. It's not just about the text (Quran), but the context in how it was revealed, to whom and where. A Islamic foundation doesn't mean its inherently limiting - the Islamic Golden Age wasn't called golden because Muslims sat around feeling limited and oppressed by their foundations - because they still had flexibility in operating their societies with diversity and autonomy.

As for being the Quran being the word of God. A man who's had enlightenment experiences as say Leo - speaks to us in videos and on this forum - yet we discuss at length everything he says and shares. If Leo's ideas are discussed at length, what of God? Theres a whole field in Islam called Tafsir (explanation) where scholars go into explaining the Quran. Some things in the Quran are descriptive of the history at the time it was revealed, some things are prescriptive, and other things are broad principles like justice, compassion and kindness that are supposed to be adaptive to different times and contexts. Which is why there is no monolith in how Islam is practiced across the world - from Turkey to Malaysia.

On 06/01/2025 at 11:41 AM, Breakingthewall said:

@zazen 

I watched the half, later I will watch all, but for now, my opinion it is demagogy, I respect your views as they are usually accurate and backed by real information, but this guy says things like the West is more violent than the East and wants to give lessons in peace, or that in terms of respect for women it is at the same level. This is demagogy, the West is historically more violent because it is more efficient, therefore it conquers and makes total war.

Regarding women's freedom, in the West since the Middle Ages there were queens of enormous power, this is not a possibility in the East. Obviously in the West women were also subject to men, but a king could not have a harem of 300 wives guarded by eunuchs and be proud of it

Again, this highlights the problem of conflating cultural or imperial practices with religious teachings. Islam itself neither prescribes nor endorses the use of eunuchs or harems - in fact it caps polygamy to 4, and only in certain strict conditions and for specific reasons (war deeming there less men available to protect/provide for women etc). In Malaysia and Pakistan for example polygamy is permitted but men need permission from the first wife. In Tunisia its outright banned - again, emphasising that Islam isn't a monolith.

Harems arose from political and cultural contexts, not religious doctrine or prescription. In fact, Europe was one of the largest sources of eunuchs historically, as castration was not prohibited in Christian lands but was prohibited in Islamic lands according to sharia law. Thats why they would be sourced from Europe by rulers in Islamic empires.

The presence of queens in medieval Europe doesn’t reflect respect for women as a whole. Queenship was tied to aristocratic bloodlines and dynasties. In the backdrop witch burnings, keeping women illiterate and no property rights was the norm. Meanwhile, Islam drops into 7th century Arabia and says women can inherit property, get educated and run their own businesses.

Edited 14 hours ago by zazen

[Breakingthewall]

@zazen 

I think it is an objective fact that Islamic societies are more violent. By violence I do not mean murder but oppression of individuals. It is true that the golden age of Islam was golden, and Islamic mystical philosophers were great. But Christian societies always left more room for creativity and individual freedom.

Something like the Renaissance or the Enlightenment would have been crushed in Islam, and would be crushed today. No Islamic country today would allow a revolutionary philosophical artistic movement, it would suppress it with violence. Yes, in Brazil there are more killings than in Iran, but in Iran each and every one of its inhabitants is subjected to the crushing violence of Islam, like a slab on them, while Brazilians are not. 

Islam oppresses and castrates. Christianity did it too, but by leaving more space it allows creativity to flourish. Islam prohibits drawing or sculpting humans! Why? Why the hell can't I sculpt a human figure? Because Mohammed said so? That's castration. Mohammed prohibits me from eating pork and drawing humans because he says so, and I bow my head and obey, and by doing so I am a castrated being, mentally inferior to a non-castrated being, that's what Islam does. You can give whatever data you want, but the facts are like that.

Edited 18 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[zazen]

18 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

@zazen 

I think it is an objective fact that Islamic societies are more violent. By violence I do not mean murder but oppression of individuals. It is true that the golden age of Islam was golden, and Islamic mystical philosophers were great. But Christian societies always left more room for creativity and individual freedom.

Something like the Renaissance or the Enlightenment would have been crushed in Islam, and would be crushed today. No Islamic country today would allow a revolutionary philosophical artistic movement, it would suppress it with violence. Yes, in Brazil there are more killings than in Iran, but in Iran each and every one of its inhabitants is subjected to the crushing violence of Islam, like a slab on them, while Brazilians are not. 

Islam oppresses and castrates. Christianity did it too, but by leaving more space it allows creativity to flourish. Islam prohibits drawing or sculpting humans! Why? Why the hell can't I sculpt a human figure? Because Mohammed said so? That's castration. Mohammed prohibits me from eating pork and drawing humans because he says so, and I bow my head and obey, and by doing so I am a castrated being, mentally inferior to a non-castrated being, that's what Islam does. You can give whatever data you want, but the facts are like that.

It isn't objective fact though, but even it it was - we can't attribute the reason for violence being inherent to the ethnicity, religion or ideology of such and such group. More accurately, you are saying that Islamic societies are more oppressive, is what you mean. But by your version of oppression being ''too many rules to follow'' we could say US is the most oppressive place on earth because it has the most laws on earth - which is a point the guy in that video makes - and which is false. Just as woke progressives frame everything as oppressive - this is doing the exact same.

We're equating spiritual dietary and aesthetic practices with oppression. Hindu's don't eat beef, Jews only eat Kosher, Jains don't eat any type of animal product, Sadhguru's or Osho's ashrams only serve vegetarian - are we going to complain that people are being castrated by the vegetable industrial complex?

Cultures can prioritize different values like spirituality, humility, or a connection to the divine over the glorification of human ego in the form of portrait art. Not everything needs to fit the Western mold to be valid - what if they didn't focus on calligraphy and geometry - those are beautiful in their own right. They had their own reasons at the time which was to stop idolatry and instead to re orient people towards a transcendent One God that is formless, and that they found the material world of form which has many forms was a hindrance to. Despite that - it doesn't even say that this type of art is forbidden in the Quran - it just came out of a preference. There's plenty of figurative art in and from the Islamic world too - https://asiangeo.com/culture_and_people/the-face-of-islam-in-praise-of-an-inimitable-creation/

Every society has dress codes and norms. The difference is in degree, not principle. There's public decency laws that prohibit nudity and require you to cover certain body parts. But it's oppressive for other cultures to do the same, just with slightly more fabric. The priorities need to be straight here - sure, it is restrictive and women should definitively have a choice in whether to cover their hair - but Western critics cry oppression about the covering of hair while justifying wars in the Middle East that blow their entire heads off.

Again - what I keep saying is that Islam isn't a monolith. Out of 50 Muslim countries only 2 legally mandate it - Iran, Afghanistan-  Saudi who just recently removed the law under MBS - so 4% of Muslim countries. I'm aware that even if not mandated, social pressure and discrimination can coerce women to still wear it. But I wouldn't call that oppressive, it's more but discriminatory and stifling. Just like how white males may find DEI to be discriminatory in hiring practices - to equate that with being oppressive is just a bit of a stretch - unless there is state sanctioned enforcement where no choice is given.

 These things should change though - but the way isn't to legislate it away - it has to be more organic and grassroots. A lot of these Islamic countries are still dealing with the hangover of Western colonialism and military intervention - declaring this is their natural state is like bombing someone's house and then criticizing their interior decorating. We need to allow them to develop and not judge so quickly.

It's just unfair to view Islamic societies as some oppressive hell hole based off of a rigid interpretation of Islam by such a minority of Muslims. This is a caricature created by Western propaganda the same way China and Russia are painted to be boogeymen. 

 

Edited 43 minutes ago by zazen

[zazen]

From Chat GPT:

The Islamic Golden Age was its own Renaissance and Enlightenment, building on Greek and Roman works while innovating in science, philosophy, and art. It wasn’t just about preserving knowledge—it was about expanding it, creating advancements in medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and more. This intellectual flourishing didn’t happen despite Islam—it thrived within it, shaping a vibrant, creative civilization.

But like all empires, the Islamic world faced decline, with invasions and instability curtailing its momentum. Europe, through contact with Islamic Spain and translated texts, picked up the baton. The Renaissance and Enlightenment were fueled by the intellectual groundwork laid during the Islamic Golden Age.

Here’s the part that gets erased: Europe’s development wasn’t isolated genius—it was built on the foundation of Islamic brilliance. But the narrative conveniently skips this because it disrupts the myth of self-made "Western progress," rooted in whiteness and colonial superiority. They disconnect from their own history to maintain the illusion of unchallenged exceptionalism.