Is Islam a religion of peace , or is it inherently violent ?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Arrian


One could say that people are inherently violent. People



-Arrian

yes your analysis is more correct. Since religions are born from people. I see athiests denouncing religion, and act like they are superior to religious folks.

We are all human. Including Jesus Christ. We all have our weaknesses.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by aneeshm
I do not think Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism , or msot other non-organised religions come under that category.

And Hindus have been so bloody peacefull since Independence?

[Heresson]

Humans are humans, and unfortunatelly even nominal obediance to a peaceful ideology doesn't change them enough.
However, while Islam had input in making Arabs more civilised, it was from the start involved in politics too much, and as such, it was involved in brutal conflicts from the start.
It's not about the massacre of Banu Qurayza even, but in general.
Muhammad was a politician. Brilliant, but yet a brutal one.
For me, he is no example of morality in any way.

I hate the voices such as "yeah? And what about the crusades?"
There's a fundamental difference.
While Christians may be objective in this and other matters, can condemn brutal actions in the name of Christianity, the Muslims can not, at least not to the extent Christians are able to.
Simply because it's due to political actions that Islam became a world religion, and the actions themselves were a part of Muslim history from the start, from Muhammad through all the caliphs.
Christians did not start as a political faction. We can always "come back to the (peaceful) roots".
Muslims can not. That's a difference, and that's a problem.
Being part of a religion whose founder was a politician, You can not seriously criticise deep involvement of religion into politics.
There's no "give to emperor what's his, and to God what's His" in Islam.
Muslims lived in a theocracy since Muhammad, and the law was based on what was claimed as words of God and example of his prophet.
If You don't deny the rightfulness of the hadiths,
You can not be a deeply religious Muslim and do not want the law to be based upon sunnah and Al-Qur'an Al-Karim.
The questioning of sunnah however is questioning of centuries of Muslim tradition, a part of Muslim word so deepened into it that treaten as something essential in it.
And I know just one example of getting rid of the sunnah, and it's modern-day Libia...

And even if You abandon sunnah, there's still Al-Qur'an that's left. And if it gives You direct sollutions to some problems, how can You ignore the will of God?

[Gibsie]

I don't think it is inherently violent really, but it has elements of violence inherent to it. For example, I've never heard of an equivalent to the fatwa being imposed on people like with Salmon Rushdie by Iran (now taken back).

[JCG]

It's a religion, just like any other. It's up to its followers and believers to make something good or evil out of it through their own conclusions and actions.

[Dis]

too many PC responses in this thread.

Mohommed a politician? I have trouble believing that.

[Sava]

people
religion
islam
violence

[MrFun]

religion

religious fundies

atheists

disrespectful atheists

[Ramo]

Do the massacres in Gujarat by Hindu nationalists imply that Hinduism is inherently violent?

[aneeshm]

No , they imply that that mob which did the killing was childish , uneducated , poor , mostly unemployed , and foolish .

This is the third time I am saying this - look to the holy books for the principles driving a religion .

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Ramo
Do the massacres in Gujarat by Hindu nationalists imply that Hinduism is inherently violent?

No, you'd need an established pattern of hundreds or perhaps thousands of years of such behavior that continues to this day to make such a statement. You'd need to have world wide strife in which the group in question can not get along with anyone at all, not even various sub groups of the main one.

[Pekka]

I don't see religion as a bad thing.

religion

Stupid people

THat's like blaming the metal workers who manufactured the substances used in gun manufactury, who then made the guns which was used to kill a person.

Religion is just fine. It's those aggressive loud bastards who make it seem bad. They use it as a weapon, to attack someone, or to gain themselves from it, be it money, be it more power, be it better status in society.

Where as the wise people and the good folks, the normal ones, they don't 'use' it. They just take comfort from the content, use it as a guideline to live their lifes, they use it to learn and uphold their faiths and stuff. That's it. That's the only function religion is supposed to have.

It's not supposed to do what it's now doing everywhere, ESPECIALLY in the islamic communities most recently.

I blame people, not the religion.

Stupid people should be shot anyway.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Dissident
Mohommed a politician? I have trouble believing that.

Why? He lead a political community, first in Medina and then over most of Arabia, established laws and a complete social order. The fact that this order has been religiously legitimized and argued doesn't change the fact that it's political.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Heresson
I hate the voices such as "yeah? And what about the crusades?"
There's a fundamental difference.
While Christians may be objective in this and other matters, can condemn brutal actions in the name of Christianity, the Muslims can not, at least not to the extent Christians are able to.
Simply because it's due to political actions that Islam became a world religion, and the actions themselves were a part of Muslim history from the start, from Muhammad through all the caliphs.
Christians did not start as a political faction. We can always "come back to the (peaceful) roots".
Muslims can not. That's a difference, and that's a problem.
Being part of a religion whose founder was a politician, You can not seriously criticise deep involvement of religion into politics.
There's no "give to emperor what's his, and to God what's His" in Islam.

You won't believe it, Hereson, but this is, basically, what I always argue.
Only with one exception. While it is *possible* for some Christian thinkers to "return" to the gospel on the mountain (?), this is not representative for Christianity. More often, pointing to these "peaceful roots" is part of an unfair argumentation from the Christian side, analogue to the "But you had Crusades and witchhunt"-defense from muslims [remember what I said about "Hey, look what YOU did?"-arguments generally?]. It's unfair, because only few Christian branches really concentrate so much on these parts, quakers maybe. Catholicism is not imaginable without "tradition" and papal dogmata, like islam is not imaginable without sunna. And the protestants with their "sola scriptura" very often focus much on the Old Testament elements of Christianity. So pointing to thew possible reduction of Christianity to the outstanding pacifist elements is not fair, unless you're member of a tiny minority within Christianity. And to argue with single phrases like "give to emperor what's his, and to God what's His" is like muslims arguing with the verse: "There is no force in religion"...

But you're right, the degree of self-reflection and judging the own past is much higher in Christian societies. But I believe this is more fruit of enlightenment than inherent to Christianity itself. No, I'm not claiming enlightenment for agnostics and atheists, part of it was developed within a Christian frame, but it's not "inherent" to any belief-system and I hope the muslim world will find ways to deal with their own history and a way for self reflection. Inner islamic criticism and discussion is mostly very flat, but it's not impossible. Lamentably, progressive and modern [insider: not backwards ] thinkers and developments are rather marginalized and threatened than taken into account in muslim world, but they exist.

[Atahualpa]

Much like Christians want to portray themselves as peaceful too.