As a society, we are total hypocrites. We celebrate love in songs and movies while fearing it in real life. When it happens in the movies, it is sweet and amazing. When it happens in life, it is something that brings shame to family. We really need to stop clinging on to "tradition" and "culture" and grow up without limits. As individuals we need to stop being fake - advocating one thing and practicing another.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Criticism of Islam - Some Thoughts
Criticism of an ideology should not be confused with criticism against people who belong to a community. The best example today is Islam. When you criticize Islam, the Quran or Prophet Muhammad, many people are quick to misinterpret or misrepresent that as hate speech against Muslims. Let me make it very clear that I'm not attacking Muslims in any way when I attack Islam for some of its evils. A frequently encountered argument is: "The real Islam is not what ISIS/Al Qaeda practice. Why do you generalize Islam based on the actions of a few extremists? Their Islam is not our Islam." A few important points to observe here:
1. When I criticize Islam, I'm not criticizing "their Islam" or "your Islam". I'm criticizing the Islamic example that is held in the Quran and the Hadiths. I'm pointing out certain clear evils in the Islamic doctrine (If you think there are no evils, we can talk about it).
2. I know that many Muslims I've met in life are clearly among the most peaceful and nicest people I've ever met. It is true that many people who identify themselves with a religion follow only the good parts of the religion they subscribe to and ignore the evil side. And this is how it should be.
3. However as long as Islam considers the Quran holy and Muhammad as the role model, there will be certain people who follow anything and everything held in Islam. Ultimately, every follower is inspired by the Islamic doctrine and gives their own interpretation to it.
4. Islam is probably the strongest religion today in the sense that its followers are the ones who regard religion in highest esteem overall. This is probably why Muslims (not everyone, but overall) get offended more than others on criticism of religion.
5. The problem with Islam goes well beyond ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Below the extremists who take up arms, comes extremist supporters who don't actually take up arms. Below extremist supporters, comes religious fundamentalists who don't support armed struggle yet support dangerous ideas such as legally executing people for leaving Islam (citing examples of how Muhammad did that in the Hadiths/certain moral examples from Quran). And this is not an insignificant number by any means - look at the support for the Sharia in Saudi, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. Dangerous ideas such as armed violence don't suddenly crop out of nowhere. They have their roots in Islamic fundamentalism.
6. The common tendency among religious moderates is to pretend that the evil verses/teachings in Islam don't even exist. This solves NOTHING, because Islamic fundamentalists know otherwise - only that they agree with these teachings considering God as a better moral judge.
7. Hence, pointing out moral errors don't work with many of these fundamentalists. What can actually help to deal with these people is to show the scientific/factual errors that clearly exist in Quran/Hadiths so it cannot be the word of God.
8. Another common folly is to assume that holy books don't play a significant role in influencing people's minds compared to social or economic factors (a common argument to disassociate Islam from ISIS). This argument fails because Islam is often considered larger-than-life, especially when it comes to people of middle east. If you are a weakly religious person or an atheist/agnostic in India, it is easy to be ignorant or oblivious of how highly certain sections of people consider religion.
9. Nobody really gets sentimental when harsh statements like "Israel is actually helping ISIS" or "USA doesn't actually want ISIS destroyed" are made, but even on moderate criticism of religion people seem to get offended. Religion should be given the same level of criticism as anything else. Why should Religion be immune to criticism?
10. The first step to solving any problem is to recognize that the problem exists. The less we recognize the existence of a problem, the farther we are away from solving the problem.
2. I know that many Muslims I've met in life are clearly among the most peaceful and nicest people I've ever met. It is true that many people who identify themselves with a religion follow only the good parts of the religion they subscribe to and ignore the evil side. And this is how it should be.
3. However as long as Islam considers the Quran holy and Muhammad as the role model, there will be certain people who follow anything and everything held in Islam. Ultimately, every follower is inspired by the Islamic doctrine and gives their own interpretation to it.
4. Islam is probably the strongest religion today in the sense that its followers are the ones who regard religion in highest esteem overall. This is probably why Muslims (not everyone, but overall) get offended more than others on criticism of religion.
5. The problem with Islam goes well beyond ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Below the extremists who take up arms, comes extremist supporters who don't actually take up arms. Below extremist supporters, comes religious fundamentalists who don't support armed struggle yet support dangerous ideas such as legally executing people for leaving Islam (citing examples of how Muhammad did that in the Hadiths/certain moral examples from Quran). And this is not an insignificant number by any means - look at the support for the Sharia in Saudi, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. Dangerous ideas such as armed violence don't suddenly crop out of nowhere. They have their roots in Islamic fundamentalism.
6. The common tendency among religious moderates is to pretend that the evil verses/teachings in Islam don't even exist. This solves NOTHING, because Islamic fundamentalists know otherwise - only that they agree with these teachings considering God as a better moral judge.
7. Hence, pointing out moral errors don't work with many of these fundamentalists. What can actually help to deal with these people is to show the scientific/factual errors that clearly exist in Quran/Hadiths so it cannot be the word of God.
8. Another common folly is to assume that holy books don't play a significant role in influencing people's minds compared to social or economic factors (a common argument to disassociate Islam from ISIS). This argument fails because Islam is often considered larger-than-life, especially when it comes to people of middle east. If you are a weakly religious person or an atheist/agnostic in India, it is easy to be ignorant or oblivious of how highly certain sections of people consider religion.
9. Nobody really gets sentimental when harsh statements like "Israel is actually helping ISIS" or "USA doesn't actually want ISIS destroyed" are made, but even on moderate criticism of religion people seem to get offended. Religion should be given the same level of criticism as anything else. Why should Religion be immune to criticism?
10. The first step to solving any problem is to recognize that the problem exists. The less we recognize the existence of a problem, the farther we are away from solving the problem.
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