32 thoughts on “Islam”

  1. “It’s a totalitarian ideology masquerading as one.”

    Whereas the totalitarian ideology of Marxism is typically regarded by libertarians as a religion.

    That article (questioning Islam’s status as a religion) was pretty lame. The author contrasts Islam with features of religion which, oddly enough, are entirely Christian, and says that since Islam doesn’t have these features, it isn’t a religion. Further, the features he cites are fairly new, and are not even universally shared among “Christian” sects. Saying Islam isn’t a religion because it doesn’t look like his religion is just plain stupid. Buddhism doesn’t look like Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. But it’s a religion.

    He seems to just need to rationalize what some might construe as violation of Muslim’s First Amendment rights by dealing directly with jihad. In doing so, he trips himself up, and one of his citations (on how the founders “clearly” meant religion in America to be Judeo-Christian (which is it, btw? Judeo, or Christian? They aren’t the same). That’s the opposite of the First Amendment. When they wrote “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof…” they were telling Congress that it could not establish a religion, make any laws that pertained to private or state establishment of religion, or make any laws about the free exercise of religion. (Many states had religious establishment laws; the First Amendment says that Congress can’t touch those)

    So saying that the First Amendment clearly meant that “Judeo-Christian” religion was what the Founders had in mind (they were largely Deists, btw, reviled by Christians) is as wrong as it could be.

    But you don’t have to twist yourself in knots to rationalize opposition to Islam. Congress has made no laws, and is making no laws, preventing Muslims from freely exercising their religion. But it has made laws against murder, slavery, mutilation, rape, polygamy, etc. If you pick a religion which holds those as things to freely exercise, you’re out of luck in the United States. But it isn’t because of any anti-religious laws. Nor is it inconsistent with the First Amendment to consider Muslims potential threats, since their beliefs mandate breaking our laws.

    This isn’t that difficult.

    2. “(on how the founders “clearly” meant religion in America to be Judeo-Christian
      (which is it, btw? Judeo, or Christian? They aren’t the same).”

      Christianity uses new and old testament or the bible- old testament is
      Jewish.
      And Christ was a Jew.
      Judeo-christian is merely acknowledging a christian
      realty- that it’s based upon the jewish tradition. Though Islam is also
      acknowledges relation/connection to the bible or Judeo-Christian teachings.
      One could have Jewish hertiage which is solely jewish, but Christians
      have to have Judeo-Christian hertiage.

      1. They may de facto have such a heritage, but the gulf between Judaism and Christianity is so ancient, and theologically so wide, that it’s just nonsensical to speak of “Judeo-Christian” today.

        Virtually the only Christian religion from the fall of Rome until 1517 was Roman Catholicism. It evolved into a theology which was concerned almost entirely with the afterlife – since living according to its principles led to nothing but misery on earth. Judaism, however, has no heaven or hell, and is concerned with living life on earth as well as one can (one reason I respect it alone out of all religions). Judaism became the outcast because of this.

        The Reformation allowed a plethora of sects to arise, some of which were more concerned with life on earth than was Catholicism, and the adherents of those sects flocked to the Americas, where they built the greatest base of material wealth ever seen. But their connection with the Jewish roots of Christianity was so remote that it was broken completely.

        There are a lot of Christian sects today, and I consider Catholicism one. I was raised in the bizarro world of Christian Science, a “religion” held in esteem by the outside world because a) it has a highly respected newspaper, and b) no one outside of CS has the faintest clue what it’s all about. I can give it to you in a nutshell. Find someone who doesn’t know very much about Christianity, and write down what they think they know. Then apply Hegelian philosophy to that, and you will have Christian Science.

        I mention all of this just to emphasize another point. Just as there is no “Judeo-Christian,” there is in my experience no “Christian.” Christian Scientists don’t regard any other Christian sect as “true Christians.” And if you gathered all N Christian sects in the United States together in one room, you’d find that the only thing N-1 of them would agree on is that Catholicism isn’t true Christianity.

        1. Lots of good stuff MfK, most of it amazingly wrong. But I’m glad you expressed it.

          the gulf between Judaism and Christianity is so ancient, and theologically so wide, that it’s just nonsensical to speak of “Judeo-Christian” today.

          It’s easy to understand why you would say this because that which people call christian today is made up of so many divergent beliefs there is hardly any commonality (although some.) I can’t speak for other, but Judeo-Christian is just an acknowledgement that the god of the hebrew scriptures and of the greek scriptures (and a hint of aramaic) is the same god (unlike allah which has no shared history.) The early christians were all jews until Peter understood gentiles were to be included (not just gentiles that converted to judaism.) In the first century there was an ongoing discussion about what jewish traditions to retain or not. Abstaining from blood, for example, was retained.

          Virtually the only Christian religion from the fall of Rome until 1517 was Roman Catholicism.

          No. Catholicism was a state religion. As such it persecuted any it considered a sect. But even in the first century before Catholicism came around the bible refers to false christians leading the flock away from true worship… people desiring worshippers for themselves rather than god. But there have always been christians that held to the bible that have shown up throughout history.

          Judaism, however, has no heaven or hell

          Sheol is the hebrew word translated as hell. Hades is the greek word. It meant the common grave of mankind. Somehow this was confused with the lake of fire that symbolized destruction as when revelations talks about a future time when death and hades would be cast into the lake of fire. Obviously neither death nor hades could literally be thrown into a lake of fire.

          concerned with living life on earth

          The meek shall inherit the earth and live forever upon it. This is a christian belief of those that hold to the bible. Resurrection, by the many examples in both hebrew and greek was always to the earth. Those examples eventually died, but they presage a time when resurrection to earth would be permanent (which perhaps makes Rand right that my thoughts on mars are nonsense?)

          concerned almost entirely with the afterlife

          When Satan said, “you will not die but become as gods;” False teachings propagated this lie which is found in most but not all christian sects.

          their connection with the Jewish roots of Christianity was so remote that it was broken completely.

          Not completely. This is what the parable of the wheat and the weeds was all about. This good news of god’s kingdom will be preached throughout the earth (a kingdom the jews thought would come much earlier and even tried to recruit Jesus as its king, with others trying to kill him) then the end will come. Today the bible is being translated into hundreds of languages as part of the fulfillment of this prophesy.

          You may not recognize christians existing today, but the knowledge of god is prophesied to become as complete as the waters covering the seas (which seems to allude to it being pretty complete.) For some this may not be a good thing.

  3. Clarifying things: it is not that the left loves Islam. It is that the left hates America and Americans. They are not patriots. They are moles.

    We used to have patriotic democrats that would sacrifice themselves for our country. Mostly those patriots have been replaced. They still exist in the non-political class, who are gradually turning to republicans, while ‘republican leaders’ have joined the democrats in their treachery toward Americans.

    All of Trump’s many sins are forgiven for one simple fact. He does love America and Americans.

    1. This feeds directly into what I said.

      “Never Submit!” was a core founding precept – and the Left hates it.

      1. Seems to be the case for most politicians. The real question is if Trump wants America to succeed and empower the populace to pursue their own desires? I believe Hillary when she says she wants to raise taxes, give out more free stuff, and create a stimulus program to dish out government contracts to her donors.

        1. I think most of what she says qualifies as a shovel ready job…especially if you ever mucked out a stable or bull pen!!

      3. Donald Trump loves first and foremost himself.

        Something psychologists continually tell us we all should do. Ayn Rand said the same thing from another perspective. Face it, it’s not Trump you don’t like, it’s his bluster. You happen to agree with him on a great many things. Packaged differently, he’d be Fred Thompson but with fire in the belly.

        1. ” Face it, it’s not Trump you don’t like, it’s his bluster. ”

          I don’t dislike his bluster; I think, as he delivers it, it’s hurting his chances of winning.

          “You happen to agree with him on a great many things. ”

          Except that I have zero assurance he would do any of the things I agree with him on.

          “Packaged differently, he’d be Fred Thompson but with fire in the belly.”

          Oh please. Fred Thompson had a brain.

          1. Ignorance is not stupidity. Ignorance is easy to fix. OTOH, anyone who thinks they themselves are not ignorant is stupid.

            Fred, who was my choice, still got things wrong as once Rand pointed out.

            People that actually know Trump do not consider him stupid. Some of the brainiest people in history were also the worst.

            We’d all like better choices, but anyone that can’t distinguish between Trump and Clinton is beyond stupid.

          3. Rand, if the media had any inclination they could make you look stupid.

            When they aren’t inclined we don’t hear about 57 states or corpsemen.

          5. I don’t make it anywhere near as easy for them as Trump does.

            You got me there!

            But suppose you did run for republican president. I facetiously bet you’d soon be asking Sarah Palin for advice!

      4. True, Rand, but he plays the part well. That differentiates him in the minds of voters from those who play at playing the part at all. In addition He avoids legal and policy questions that cannot be one liners. This helped him beat Ted Cruz, who is both a patriot and a constitutionalist, but insisted on explaining it, and lost the audience to Trump, with the help of the media and his enemies in the Congress.

        1. Some patriot! Ted Cruz still to this day holds his Cuban citizenship (which he has under precisely the same logic that gives him American citizenship).

        1. She is one of those off kilter trans neptune objects. She needs Jupiter to keep her from spinning away into the ether.

    3. who are gradually turning to republicans

      They would if it wasn’t for identity politics and in/out group shaming. It is tough for Democrats to switch parties when they are labeled as racists, race traitors, or uncool for doing so.

      A lot has been said about persuasion but Trump hasn’t cracked this gordian knot, neither has anyone else in the GOP.

      It is a tough one because the strategy of stereotyping used by Democrats isn’t based in reality. There isn’t something the GOP can do to stop Democrats using the strategy. At best, they can do something to counter it but haven’t really tried yet.

      This isn’t a secret to those on the right, which is why it is so maddening to see people on the right use these same tactics against their own.

      1. It’s a bit worse, because those inclined even to just go along with Trump are being maligned by both Democrats and members of the GOP.

  5. Rand, the “Islam is not a religion” trope is silly. Lots of religions have holy books that explicitly dictate what would be totalitarian measures in seeking the ideal society. And even the ones that don’t have that can act in such a way.

    You can take virtually any ideology and impose it in totalitarian fashion.

    The “problem” with Islam is that it needs a reformation. One factor that made it particularly resistant to that was its phenomenally fast and early success. But also: the very notion of a reformation is seen by many as a manifestation of ‘western colonialism’.

    And one could go on…

    1. “The “problem” with Islam is that it needs a reformation.”

      The problem is that Islam has already had a Reformation – Wahhabism. I think what you really are asking for is for Islam to have an Enlightenment.

      I have my doubts that’s in the cards in the foreseeable future, though.

  6. The now classic (almost definitive) liberal meltdown over radical Islam or if you prefer a literal/fundamentalist reading of Islam:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60

    Sam Harris is a renown humanist and Bill Maher is an avowed atheist but was raised in the Jewish faith. I think we know where Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristoff stand. I think it was interesting having Michael Steele on the panel as well…

    Have your popcorn ready….

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