DescentBB

There are several ways in which Islam differs from all other major religions. For starters:

It sanctions militant proselytization, mandating forcible imposition on other peoples by coercion, threat and overt violence (Koran 8:39, 9:29, etc.), a practice unique among religions today.

It punishes apostasy with death (Koran 4:89; Hadith, Bukhari 9.84.57), also a practice unique among religions today.

It countenances no separation between church and state, that is, it cannot render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The scope of its ambition is khilafil, that is, the establishment of a Caliphate requiring that a state—ultimately a universal state—be ruled by Islamic law. As Muslim scholar Jaafar Sheikh Idris explains, “Secularism cannot be a solution for countries with a Muslim majority or even a sizeable minority, for it requires people to replace their God-given beliefs with an entirely different set of man-made beliefs. Separation of religion and state is not an option for Muslims because it requires us to abandon Allah’s decree for that of man.”

The “religion” itself takes precedence over the transcendent values it should strive to attain: the flourishing of the individual soul, the love of God’s Creation, the grace and miracle of life, the conversation with the Divine, freedom of conscience and the inviolability of personal choice in determining one’s redemption. Instead, it elevates conformity to a set of stringent rules, down to the smallest detail, as a prerequisite to salvation, whose effect is primarily to perpetuate the faith itself at the expense of the individual votary. Admittedly, this is a literalist practice common to most restrictive and comparatively minor orthodoxies, but regarding the massive following enjoyed by Islam and its susceptibility to violence and the subjugation of other faiths and peoples to its hegemony, we are remarking a radically greater economy of scale and the havoc it can wreak.

The propensity to violence is not an aberration but an intrinsic element of the Islamic corpus. As Lee Cary has written, Islamic terrorists are “legacy, Koranic literalists” who use terror “to enforce a dogma that defines behavioral practices that comply with the Koran and [defines] the regulations of daily life.” The much-bruited notion that there is such a thing as “Islamism,” a form of extremism that has nothing to do with Islam proper, or is a perversion thereof, is a pure canard, another in a series of timorous progressivist memes bleaching the blood out of the Islamic ideological jalabiyya. Islam, not “Islamism,” promises paradise for martyrs and jihadis killed in battle (Koran 3: 157), thus palliating and even inciting feral attitudes and fanatical actions—a patently non-spiritual way of earning beatitude.

As Howard Kainz points out in an illuminating essay, “Islam and the Decalogue,” Islam reverses the Golden Rule, which is central to Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism (Koran 48:29, 2:191, 3:28, etc.). For this reason, Kainz concludes, “Islam may best be understood,” not as a religion, but “as a world-wide cult.”

Grendel wrote:Kind of stating the obvious. Every organized religion is a cult in my eyes and many of them declare non-believers outlaws.

snoopy wrote:

Grendel wrote:Kind of stating the obvious. Every organized religion is a cult in my eyes and many of them declare non-believers outlaws.

...Just curious... does that make secular humanism a cult?

snoopy wrote:

Grendel wrote:Kind of stating the obvious. Every organized religion is a cult in my eyes and many of them declare non-believers outlaws.

...Just curious... does that make secular humanism a cult?

Grendel wrote:

snoopy wrote:

Grendel wrote:Kind of stating the obvious. Every organized religion is a cult in my eyes and many of them declare non-believers outlaws.

...Just curious... does that make secular humanism a cult?

As far as I can tell it's a philosophy, not a religion.

snoopy wrote:It's organized and people have regular meetings to talk about it's tenants - so how is it different from other religions - more specifically what exempts it from your "cult" criteria?

callmeslick wrote:where are these regular meetings held?

snoopy wrote:It's organized and people have regular meetings to talk about it's tenants - so how is it different from other religions - more specifically what exempts it from your "cult" criteria?

re·li·gion
the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

cult
a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

sec·u·lar hu·man·ism
humanism, with regard in particular to the belief that humanity is capable of morality and self-fulfillment without belief in God.

Organized religion, [..] is religion as a social institution, in which belief systems and rituals are systematically arranged and formally established. Organized religion is typically characterized by an official doctrine (or dogma), a hierarchical or bureaucratic leadership structure, and a codification of rules and practices.

callmeslick wrote:sigma and I seem to share the same religion.

Grendel wrote:My crochet circle is organized and has regular meetings where we talk about stuff.

callmeslick wrote:sometimes, the God of Nature that Sigma and I ascribe to has the last laugh on wannabes who'd piously declare 'God's Will'
http://deadstate.org/guy-who-says-god-s ... -disaster/

Jeff250 wrote:I think the confusion comes from language. For instance, there are Nazi beliefs (Hitler, eugenics, holocaust), and if you espouse those beliefs, then you are a Nazi. But the belief that Nazism is wrong, that in a weaker sense can be called a Nazi belief insofar as it is a belief concerning Nazis. But if you have that kind of Nazi belief, you are not a Nazi. In the same sense, there are religious beliefs (God, miracles, afterlife), and if you espouse those beliefs, then you are religious. But the belief that religion is wrong, that too in a weaker sense can be called a religious belief insofar as it is a belief concerning religion. But if you have that kind of religious belief, you aren't religious.