I was at a talk by Maryam and the issue of whether Islam can reform came up. I said I believed it could like Christianity has. Maryam said Christianity hasn't really been reformed but it has been marginalized and made irrelevant and that was what she hoped would happen to Islam. I am beginning to think she is right.
btw - yes I saw that program when it was aired a few Snday's ago - I wish Maryam had been given more time to talk - she's a great public speaker!
Well, even if a religion has to reform & stay, it needs something to hold onto, otherwise it is reformed out of all existence!
In Christianity's case, what needed to be reformed, ridiculed & marginalized was the Church & bigots, what Jesus taught & did wasn't particularly abhorrent by themselves, in Muhammad's case, not only do we need to reform, ridicule & marginalize the followers, a possible task but we need to also find ways to do the impossible-reform Muhammad's actions.
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As for Christianity, even where it hasn't been marginalized, or even amongst people who still take it seriously, they have found a wriggle room by simply avoiding the OT God, & focusing on Jesus(despite the fact that the OT God is Jesus Daddy & also Jesus
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Thus people like Sparky can easily explain the flaws of Christianity away by claiming that he's under Jesus, & the OT Commands were for another place & time-which seems absurd to an unbeliever, but its possible for people to see things that way as believers.
Indeed, the OT is like an old piece of Constitution of any country, to give an analogy, its like the American Constitution of the 18
th century, when they still had slavery, while Jesus' teachings are like the present American Constitution of the 21
st century.Christianity isn't significantly OT religion, they don't circumcise their boys' or eat kosher food, its possible for a believer to explain those stuff away as important only till Jesus arrived to put matters straight(although it won't convince skeptics)& still imagine that their Lord & founder of their faith, Jesus was a good person,worth emulating for all time.
There's nothing particularly appalling in Jesus' words, & certainly nothing appalling in his conduct.
In Judaism, while YHWH is certainly unpleasant, Jews have practically never imposed their faith on others, & they have a legacy of surviving in the face of tremendous persecution, while Islam has very often imposed itself on populations the world over.
A Christian can well look at their past atrocities, & convince themselves that their actions were contrary to Jesus' teachings, whereas when Muslims look at their history, they'll have to face up to the unpleasant fact that they were acting exactly as Muhammad had.
Nor can Muslims continue to overlook all that is sordid in Muhammad's character, some try to do that by becoming Quran only Muslims, but even if we're left with only the Quran, there are passages advocating peace, others advocating violence & the violence gets the upper hand via the doctrine of abrogation in the Quran itself. To explain the violence in the Quran, we need to turn to hadiths, & then we get all the unpleasant stuff in the hadiths.
What aspect of the faith can Muslims hold onto after reform, if they're forced to take a long, hard look at their faith, as Christians(& most others) have been?
Christians can still have a meek, mild, loving Jesus who's their Lord & religion's founder,Jews can revel in the fact that they've survived such intense persecution & still survived, Buddhists have the Buddha & his essentially benign teachings, etc-Muslims have an unpleasant Allah, who unlike YHWH demands world conquest, & a founder Muhammad, who did most unpleasant stuff a person could do.
Its
difficult to avoid looking at either Allah's or Muhammad's flaws, & still remain believers,
possible but requires loads of mental gymnastics, & if Muslims are forced like Christians to be very critically analyzed, that might be just too much for Islam to bear .
Topic: Traditional Islamism