The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[LaCroix]

I don't think you understand the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. It applies to generalized statements about pre-defined groups, not axiomatic statements defining the group.

you've provided no evidence what you say is true aside from hand selected passages taken from a website which holds very little love for islam

[Viking]

What's the difference?

there isn't a difference. muslims don't believe allah literally sat down and wrote the quran and sent it to earth.

(edit) - itt, non-churchgoers discuss their own opinions about something they read academically 

Muslims believe that the Koran always existed and is a miracle in and of itself and is the will and nature of god itself. They believe that God send down the angel Gabriel to dictate the Koran to the prophet. It is gods revelation to mankind and in a sense he did sit down, write it and send it to earth. There just was never a time that the koran didn't exist according to muslim (that is to say non-mu'tazialite) theology.

[LaCroix]

Muslims believe that the Koran always existed and is a miracle in and of itself and is the will and nature of god itself. They believe that God send down the angel Gabriel to dictate the Koran to the prophet. It is gods revelation to mankind and in a sense he did sit down, write it and send it to earth. There just was never a time that the koran didn't exist according to muslim (that is to say non-mu'tazialite) theology.

this isn't much different from christianity. a few details are different, but nothing material

[Viking]

I don't think you understand the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. It applies to generalized statements about pre-defined groups, not axiomatic statements defining the group.

you've provided no evidence what you say is true aside from hand selected passages taken from a website which holds very little love for islam

I do not rely on spencer for my definition of islam. What makes you think that?

my definition of islam is the one the muslims use and is found in the shahada - muslim creed and statement of faith.

as for the christian creed, I avoided the pitfalls of the nicene creed to include nestorians and arian christians by reducing it to what is effectively jesus did something to save us.

So don't bring me your disingenuous crap here, words have meaning. Semantic relativism is not an argument it is the destruction of the meaning of words themselves.

[Viking]

Muslims believe that the Koran always existed and is a miracle in and of itself and is the will and nature of god itself. They believe that God send down the angel Gabriel to dictate the Koran to the prophet. It is gods revelation to mankind and in a sense he did sit down, write it and send it to earth. There just was never a time that the koran didn't exist according to muslim (that is to say non-mu'tazialite) theology.

this isn't much different from christianity. a few details are different, but nothing material

Yes it is, it is a category difference. The Muslims think that the koran has always existed. The Christians think the bible is a book written by people who saw holy shit happen. The muslims think the koran is a miracle in itself. The christians think the bible is a book written by people who were inspired by god. The muslims think the koran is the perfect and unalterable revalation to all mankind. The christians think that because the bible is written by men it has errors and thus can only be understood when read with the holy spirit (protestants) or the sacred traditions (catholics and orthodox).

This is a category difference.

[Tamas]

To this day it is not really a good idea for muslim scholars to study the origins of the Koran, since they face extreme pressure and condemnation for doing so, since it does not suppose to have origins other than eternity.
Compare that to the fact that in the Christian world the origins of the Bible have been studied extensively for quite a while now, and people are perfectly fine with staying Christian devouts while accepting that the Bible was written by some dudes who saw the happenings happen.

This is quite a major difference.

[Martinus]

Again, you are picking random supernatural tenets from one religion and extrapolating wild conclusions about it being crazy or unreasonable. So, Muslims believe Koran has supenatural origin - so what? They do not believe Mohammed was born from a virgin remotely inseminated by the God acting through a sexless angel.

Both Koran and the Bible are crazy and can be (and were) used to justify violence. The difference is cultural, as Arab culture today is primitive and violent as opposed to most Western/Christian cultures. That's the opposite to late middle ages.

[mongers]

More Beheadings in the Middle East:

Saudi beheads four men for smuggling drugs


Rights group condemns execution of two sets of brothers accused of importing "large quantities of cannabis".
Last updated: 18 Aug 2014 19:29       

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Saudi Arabia executes those found guilty of drug smuggling, apostasy and murder , among other crimes [AFP]

Four Saudi men have been beheaded by sword after being convicted of smuggling cannabis into the country, the interior ministry has said.

The government-owned SPA news agency identified the Saudi men on Monday as two sets of brothers - Hadi and Awad al-Motleq, and Mufarraj and Ali al-Yami.

They were beheaded in the southwestern city of Najran, found to have smuggled "a large quantity of hashish" into the country. The government did not say when the executions took place.

The beheadings raise to 32 the number of executions announced in Saudi Arabia so far this year, according to a tally by the AFP news agency.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International denounced what it called a "disturbing surge" in executions in Saudi Arabia.
.......

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islamic teachings.

Full article here:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/saudi-beheads-four-men-smuggling-drugs-2014818184317907443.html

[jimmy olsen]

More Beheadings in the Middle East:

That's a real beheading.

What ISIS does is far worse than that.

[Viking]

Again, you are picking random supernatural tenets from one religion and extrapolating wild conclusions about it being crazy or unreasonable. So, Muslims believe Koran has supenatural origin - so what? They do not believe Mohammed was born from a virgin remotely inseminated by the God acting through a sexless angel.

Both Koran and the Bible are crazy and can be (and were) used to justify violence. The difference is cultural, as Arab culture today is primitive and violent as opposed to most Western/Christian cultures. That's the opposite to late middle ages.

Here you miss the point. Religions make supernatural claims. Fair enough. Christianity has a form of Virus Software update in the concept of the Holy Ghost. Catholics think the knowledge of the TRUTH becomes better over time. Protestants think that with enough prayer and fervor you can come to a better understanding of the bible and find relevance in it for new and changed times. This is impossible in Sunni Islam. Islam has a Utopia and it is 7th century Arabia. Muhammed had the full complete and ideal truth. He didn't mis-understand, he wasn't limited in his understanding by his historical context. Muslim theology says he got it 100% completely right and he got it so right and nobody ever has to do this prophecy thing ever again.

It is not the same. There is no room for allegory in the koran, it isn't stories, it is quotes. Furthermore the correct interpreteations are the ones made in the 8th century. Sunni theology has it that the interpretations of the Salaf (companions of the prophet) and the Rightly Guided Caliphs are more right than any later interpreter. When an agreement is reached that ends the debate on a topic. Islamic theology very much lies in asking "what would muhammed do". In the cases  where we know specifically what he would do the answer is obvious.

The constant comparisons with the bible are not only irrelevant but they are also misleading. So what if the OT is evil too. I've gotten to that in other threads. It is also misleading because the OT and the Koran are completely different kinds of documents. They have different etymological claims for truth. Comparing the two obfuscates the issue. The Koran and the OT are not equivalents, they are books, that's about it. They have as much in common as an instruction manual for reparing a car engine and a novel about a car repair man teaching a kid how to box in his spare time.

[Martinus]

Viking, you are putting the cart in front of the horse here.

The mechanisms in Christianity/Catholicism you describe were not inherent in these religions - they were developed by the Western civilisation to cope with the issues you are ascribing to Islam (such as literalism, contradicitions, un-scientific-ness) - and it took the West a lot of blood and ink to reach these conclusions (e.g. dismissing more preposterous parts of the Bible as allegories). And these mechanisms were (again, as I said, none of us is a scholar of Islam, so our knowledge is based really on hearsay and websites with an axe to grind) also present in Islam as practiced for example in medieval al-Andalus - in short, they are what advanced civilisations develop to deal with the idiocy of religion.

[garbon]

Oddly enough the Koran itself notes that parts of it are allegorical. Though it also says that people will try to twist the allegorical parts to confused believers.

[Razgovory]

It is telling that Viking gets his information about Muslims from what the SPLC and the ADL calls a "Hate group leader".

[mongers]

More Beheadings in the Middle East:

That's a real beheading.

What ISIS does is far worse than that.

I think those are broadly in the same league.


My implied point was about the origination of the behavior .

[garbon]

My implied point was about the origination of the behavior .

Saudi Arabia?