[ExI] Religions and violence

[Tomasz Rola]

On Sat, 31 Jul 2010, Ben Zaiboc wrote:

> Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> 
> > All I am telling is that there is much
> > potential in 
> > Islam to improve and become acceptable in modern times. And
> > they should do 
> > so not for us merely, but for themselves too.
> 
> Well, I'd love for that to be true.
> 
> The thing is, I'm skeptical of it.

Guess what, maybe I am a bit sceptical too. But how about not prejudizing 
and giving a chance? I didn't judge them yet. I will have to know more (a 
lot more) before I really judge them. News alone are not telling enough 
(even if they tell the truth).

> How do you think Islam could become more humanitarian, more egalitarian, 
> more tolerant, less violent, stop oppressing women and homosexuals, stop 
> trying to control people's sex lives, stop trying to convert the whole 
> world to Islam, etc., and not destroy itself?

They were able to be very much like this in the past, I believe. True, it 
was distant past. But if people are irreversible, then everybody should be 
shut in the head after going past some point in their development. 
Including us (yupie! - corruption, scandals, lies, dumbing down, breaking 
of bonds, loss of perspectives, disillusionment - is it the time, Ben?).

> Or do you mean different things by 'improve' and 'become acceptable in 
> modern times'?

No.

> I'm struggling to understand how an 'improved' Islam, in any meaningful 
> sense, could still be Islam.  Unless you're talking about very minor 
> things, like for instance stop telling guys what haircuts are 
> acceptable. 

Would you believe, 500 years ago, that Catholic Church will have their own 
stem cells research and astronomical observatories?

I think Islam doesn't have a problem with accepting modern natural 
sciences, so this part of the job could be marked as done.

BTW, AFAIK in our own part of the world, guys were told about haircuts, 
too. The Beatles and hips, no-no. Punks? No-no! Homos? Oh no! Catch those 
homos, they're kissing! You are going to jail, you bastards! And women, 
you know, women are to sit at home and behave. And students are not 
allowed to protest - if they do, well, somebody could shoot one or two of 
them.

Times are changing, are they? History of intolerance, now that would be 
interesting book. Probably very different from what we use to think.

> What's your vision of a modern, acceptable Islam, that can co-exist with 
> the rest of the world? 

I am sorry to tell you, I have no vision of Islam as it is right now. So I 
would rather not try to answer this one question... for some time. My very 
trivial guess is, there should be division between state and religion. To 
what degree it can be done, I simply don't know. Besides, every Islamic 
country has slightly different situation. Too much input, not much time 
:-/.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **