The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

The Problems with Islam

A common saying about Islam is that it is ‘A Religion of Peace. However, its history has been far from peaceful, just as much as Christianity has been far from peaceful in its history. However, when discussing ‘Peace’ and peaceful religion, it is necessary to first determine if a religion is a peaceful religion. The best definition of Peace I have ever encountered is from a great Philosopher:

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
 - Baruch Spinoza

A peaceful religion needs to be a voluntary religion, where each person decides whether to believe or not believe the religious tenets. A peaceful religion cannot impose its religion upon another person, nor make another person subservient or subjugated to its tenets. You may believe the other person is wrong in their beliefs and try to convert them to your beliefs, but you cannot impose your beliefs on another person. A peaceful religion requires that its believers be polite and respectful in their speech and behavior for its own believers, as well as for persons of other religious beliefs and tenets unless those beliefs or tenets of the other religion violate the Natural Rights of a person.

And Justice requires an affirmation and enforcement of our Natural Rights and Legal Rights, which are the two basic types of rights of every person as defined by Wikipedia:

• Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable (they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights). Natural law is the law of natural rights.
• Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights.

Therefore, you cannot have Peace without Natural and Legal Rights. And Natural Rights require “Freedoms, Liberties, Equalities, and Equal Justice for All” to be the law of the land.

A vast percentage of Muslims believe that all the peoples of the world should believe in and follow the tenets of the Quran, or they should be subservient or subjugated to the Will of Allah. They also believe that Islamic law is the only acceptable law for all. Therefore, they are intolerant of any other beliefs or laws. Consequently, Islam is not a religion of ‘Peace’ and thus falls short of being a peaceful religion.

There are many passages in the Quran that espouse peace; however, there are also many passages in the Quran that are contrary to peace. The important thing is not what the Quran espouses but its precepts and what its believers practice. While it is important to examine the history of Islam to better understand Islam, it is more important to examine Islam’s current precepts and practices to better understand how to deal with Islam. Consequently, the remainder of this article deals with the current precepts and practices of Islam and Christianity.

The current precepts of Islam have many consequences for their society. These precepts of Islam can be delineated by the following differences between Islam and Christianity:

• In Islam, the religion and State are one, while in Christianity, the Church and State are separate. All governments in an Islamic State are subservient to the Islamic religion, while in Christianity, the State is subservient to the people.
• In Islam, the people may be converted to Islam by force, while in Christianity, the people are only to be converted to Christianity of their own will through the preaching of the teachings of Christianity.
• Islam is a religion that started out by persuasion to garner followers but quickly turned to the force of arms and persecution to obtain and retain believers, while in Christianity, preaching and persuasion are the only acceptable means of obtaining and retaining believers.
• In Islam, the faithful must submit to Islamic teachings and its dogma without questioning the dogma, while in Christianity, the faithful are free to challenge the dogma to discover the true meaning of Christianity.
• In Islam, a person is but a group member of the religious society, and any non-believers living in an Islamic State must be subservient to Islam and live under Islamic law, while in Christianity, all people are individual human beings, including non-believers, that have worth and importance and are treated equally under secular law.
• In Islam, there are differences in the social strata of individuals in that not all persons (i.e., men and woman, heterosexual and homosexual, Islamic and non-Islamic, etc.) are treated equally, while in Christianity, all persons, both believers, and non-believers, are treated equally under the law.
• In Islam, if a believer converts to another faith, they are declared an apostate and must be re-subjugated or put to death, while in Christianity, if a believer converts to another faith, they are free to do so.
• In Islam, there is no tolerance for the Jewish faith and faithful, while in Christianity, the Jewish Faith is acknowledged as the precursor of Christianity, and the tenets of the Jewish faith are incorporated in Christianity. This is so true that both Jews and Christians often refer to the Judeo-Christian values they share in common. And all Jews are welcome into Christian society, while Jews in Islamic society are not welcomed.

There are always exceptions to a general rule, but the exceptions in Islam are few and far between, and these exceptions have little impact on the practices of the vast number of Muslims. Some of these Islamic practices include:

• A religion in which the majority believes that criticism of the Prophet Muhammed is punishable by death.
• A religion in which the majority believes that apostates should be put to death.
• A religion in which the majority believes that non-believers should be eradicated or subjugated.
• A religion of which the majority believes that non-heterosexuals should be executed.
• A religion in which the majority believes that education should be restricted to males.
• A religion in which the majority believes that women should be subservient to and dominated by males.
• A religion in which the majority believes that female genital mutilation and honor killings are acceptable.
• A religion in which the majority believes that the rule of law is subservient to religious doctrine and tenets, and that fatwas supersede the due process of law.
• A religion in which the majority believes in a theocracy with no participation by individuals.
• A religion in which the majority believes that lying about their beliefs to non-believers is acceptable if done to advance Islamism.

In the history of Islam, after Islam had been established, they had a golden age where advances in sciences, mathematics, medicine, and some arts were encouraged and flourished. But this golden age ended, and religious dogma became the norm. Whereas Christianity started with the conflict of dogmas, settled into the dogma of the Catholic Church, then broke free from the Catholic Church dogma with the Protestant Reformation. After this freedom from Catholic Church dogma, the advances in sciences, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, theology, governance, and law began to flourish in Western Civilization. This flourishing led to the betterment of all the people, and in all aspects of their lives, within Western Civilization.

And the above differences between Islam and Christianity are what retards the flourishing of Islamic societies. The flourishing that does occur in Islamic societies comes about mostly by the incorporation of the advancements of Western Civilization. And it is not difficult to understand why this is. Science, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Theology, Economics, Governance, and Law need questioning and challenging for advancement. Without questioning and challenging, it is not possible to discover truths and to institute changes for the better. And the worth and importance of an individual person are necessary for questioning and challenging to occur. The current practices of Islam constrict or obviate questions or challenges to its religious dogma, and the free thought, exchange of ideas, and dissent between persons are severely constricted or prevented by Islam tenets.

Is it possible for Islam to reform itself to achieve better Islamic practices? Given the current nature of Islam, it does not appear that the believers are acceptable to reform. As the Quran appears to be set in stone for the Islamic faithful, it is therefore not subject to reinterpretation or reform. And because of the decentralization of the Islamic religion, there is no effective way to propagate changes when they occur. And when a change does occur, it takes several generations to incorporate these changes into Islamic society. Given the current pace of change throughout the world, this slow pace in Islamic society means that they fall further behind the rest of the world as the rest of the world advances faster than Islam can change.

Given the above, what can be done to deal with Islam in the present? People are free to choose or not choose what they believe. However, they are not free to impose their choices upon others. Therefore, the question of what can be done about Islam is to allow it where it occurs, but not allow even some of its tenets and dogma to be incorporated in other societies, as these tenets and dogma are inhibitors, and sometimes regressive, to the advancement of humankind.