freediver wrote on Mar 21
st, 2014 at 7:17pm:
Why is it twisted to assume that the example set and decreed by Muhammed is the Islamic way? Doesn't this make Islam itself twisted? Was Muhammed twisted?
ooh lets get FD to refute FD...
freediver wrote on Feb 25
th, 2008 at 12:46pm:
Islam does not see religious law as static (from what has been posted here anyway). Many see that as a bad thing, but it is actually a good thing. Muhammed was a political ruler as well as a religious leader. Unfortunately this means a lot of his teaching were very specific, whereas most religions focus heavily on values. To forbid people from changing the specific laws would be bad.
The problem is not the religion, but the conservative culture that has grown up around it. To lump politics, culture and religion together as one is misleading and unnecessary. You can change the culture and politics far easier than you can change the religion.
....
freediver wrote on Apr 27
th, 2008 at 8:44pm:
So if the extremists are right and Islam really is antithetical to democracy, how do you account for countries with a majority muslim population that hold on to democracy? Has democracy destroyed Islam, or has Islam merely adapted, like Christianity, to the will of the people?
FD also posted a few articles in that thread arguing how Islam is not inherently opposed to freedom and democracy.
FD, why are you so adamant now that the specific examples and laws laid down by Muhammad as a political leader are intractable, set-in-stone tenets of Islam today? Why do you so relentlessly bang on about the banu qurayza "example" today to argue about devout muslims having no choice but to be brutal thugs - when you had already acknowledged such an "example" was something for that place and time, which could - ney
should be changed and done so without necessarily abandoning the values of the religion? Sure you will cite the testimony of Abu and others - but why are you no longer open to the views of muslims such as the ones you quoted in 2007 arguing for Islam's compatibility with the values of modern liberalism?