The Bible says a man can be punished for working on the Sabbath and that touching pig skin makes one unclean. Numerous references to killing people for various crimes. But the Church has moved on and modernise in keeping with the times. Islam is still stuck in the middle ages.

I watched the debate overnight.

Maajid Nawaz and Sam Harris are working from a false premise, imo.

The false premise,        that an overwhelming majority of moslems in the world can [somehow!!!] be persuaded to abandon the 'essential' and absolutely core doctrines of their faith.         ....I refer specifically to 'essential' and absolutely core doctrines of ISLAM,       .....which are underpinned by the utter respect within every moslem community for the life and person of Mohammed, and underpinned  by the utter respect within every moslem community for, and belief in, the absolute inerrancy of the Koran.

Respect and reverence for Mohammed, within every moslem community, is unassailable!

e.g.
"Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah [i.e. Mohammed] a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the Praise of Allah."
Koran 33.021

And, we see THE essential and absolutely core doctrine of ISLAM, being wholeheartedly endorsed by Mohammed [abhorrence and death, for apostasy].....

- DEAD.
hadithsunnah/bukhari/ #004.052.260


And there exists another implied false premise,      that somehow, an overwhelming majority of 'reformed' moslems could somehow be able to reign in, the remaining small minority of 'extremist' moslems and prevent them from undertaking acts of political violence.

They won't.

They would be unable to accomplish or enforce, such a 'prohibition'.




Further;
Maajid Nawaz self-declares as a moslem.

So what part of the Koran can Maajid Nawaz reject, and remain a moslem ?

As a moslem does Maajid Nawaz revere Mohammed [as every moslem must] ?




But coming back to the task of the reform of mainstream ISLAM, worldwide;

QUESTION;
Who has the means and ability, AND THE RESPECT OF THE WHOLE MOSLEM COMMUNITY, to achieve such an undertaking ?

n.b.
What Sam Harris is willing to openly CONCEDE;

"..i'm under no illusions that i or anyone else is going to convince 1.6 billion moslems to become atheists."

           goto 01 min 08 sec


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wE2jHf3RKk                              266 mb


Sam Harris actually states and concedes what an unacheivable task his camp wishes to embark upon;

"....the challenge really, is to find moderating voices [within the moslem camp].....where we can have, a real spirit of secularism and liberalism within the moslem community."

           goto 01 min 21 sec

Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz are deluded fantasists, imo.



.



PROPOSITION;
Lets assume that the task [the wholesale reform of mainstream ISLAM] was somehow achieved.

And that there were say, a tiny, tiny minority, say only 1 % of moslems, that remained unconvinced and decided to 'stand apart' from the reformers.         That would mean that would still leave an estimated 16 million 'hard core', 'extremist' moslems worldwide, who would remain committed to murdering infidels - in 'the cause of Allah' and in the cause of his perfect religion.        That is, an estimated 16 million 'hard core', 'extremist' moslems worldwide, would remain 'free' to pursue their political 'ambitions' through 'righteous' political violence !
n.b.      There were only 19 [only    n i n e t e e n  !!!] hard core 'extremist' moslems, who took part, in the attacks on 9/11.

And if the task [a wholesale reform of mainstream ISLAM] was somehow achieved and there remained only 1 % 'extremist' moslems that remained unconvinced and therefore they that remained committed to their 'extremist' modality, how could we identify who they were [seeing as we know, that Jihadists routinely will seek to protect their intent from detection, through the employment of lying and deceit and denial] ?

Think again, Maajid Nawaz and Sam Harris.



'Innovation',     ...is the English language word which devout moslems today have co-opted, in their narrative to describe and to denounce the idea of the reform of ISLAM.

Google;




If reform of ISLAM is impossible,       and, reform of mainstream ISLAM is impossible!!

What realistic alternative is there ?

I see only two possible outcomes/options/paths open to mankind today, with regard to its relationship with ISLAM.

SEPARATION of the 'camps' [i.e. absolutely separate development and 'quarantining' of the moslem world, from the non-moslem world].

or,

CONFLICT.       ....and it will be a protracted conflict which will result in the utter destruction of everything which the non-moslem world has come to cherish.




QUESTION;
Which of those two paths will we, mankind, take ?

The second path.

100%

polite_gandalf wrote on Oct 30^th, 2015 at 11:13am:


Very true. Yes, the West has some responsibility here, but we're dealing with an ideology that, in practice, stones people to death.

This problem is not just IS, it's Saudi Arabia. Enabling the Saudis has given this ideology huge support. Given the position of Saudi Arabia on top of all that oil, I'm not sure how the US could change tack. At present, however, the State Department, the White House and the entire US empire supports the Saudis 100%. There is no criticism of human rights violations whatsoever. They all get along famously.

Presumably, the Saudis have enough dirt on the US to make such moralizing useless. The Saudi torture cells are most likely to be a popular destination for enemies of the US, as is Pakistan - as was Egypt under Mubarak. We have first hand evidence of these destinations, along with the supervision of the CIA. Hicks and Habib both passed through these places.

The US have no right to preach to the Middle East and Central Asia, and they know it. It does, however, have the ability to influence moderates in these regions and work together.

Karnal wrote on Oct 30^th, 2015 at 11:37am:


The number of ISIS militants raping and pillaging as FD would put it numbers some 10s of thousands. The actual hardcore 'died in the wool' fair dinkum Islamists would in reality be a fairly small fraction of even this relatively small number. Yet they rule over a population running well into the millions. We are talking about just ordinary people in a crappy place at a crappy time, who want desperately just to lead something resembling a normal life and provide safety and security for their children. This is the context of the spread of ISIS. It is not an ideological issue, it is a safety and security issue. Just like the Afghanis who submitted to taliban rule, these people don't submit to ISIS because they adhere to their ideology - they submit to them because that gives them the best prospect of not getting beheaded or stoned on the one hand, or tortured and killed by ISIS's enemies on the other. In summary, the people that seem to be enabling and supporting ISIS cannot possibly be expected to make any sort of moral or ideological stance against them while ever ISIS exists within such a hopeless security vacuum.

Karnal wrote on Oct 30^th, 2015 at 11:37am:


While not defending the American apologetics of Saudi human rights abuses, it would be far easier to undermine the Saudi regime on human rights grounds if there was an alternative that was even slightly better. But there isn't. Literally the only alternative to the current Saudi regime is guys like ISIS - that is what Saudi political opposition looks like - political groups that are even more extreme than the house of Saud. It also goes some way in explaining the abuses of the regime - in truth there are (relative) progressives within the regime, but they have their hands tied, and any progressive reform must be done slowly and with the greatest of tact. That driving ban for women, by the way, has all but been overturned now.

Oh just more muslim mindless babble

As you all were.

Ajax wrote on Oct 30^th, 2015 at 4:15pm:


Russia is also not without it's own agenda.
So long as Assad remains in power and maintains his stance of blocking proposed alternative gas pipelines through Syria, Turkey and on to Europe. Russia gets to keep it's monopoly on supplying piped gas to Europe via Ukraine.

I'm sure America's Military Industrial Complex benefits from the conflict and there is also the possibility that Zionists in Israel desire destabilization and depopulating of the area to facilitate the implementation of their Greater Israel plan.
Added to this is the old Sunni vs Shia power play between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The ordinary people of Iraq and Syria are being put under the bus because of these power plays and now Europe is facing social turmoil and greater risk from Islamist based terrorism due to the influx of refugees.  

It's a nasty business with many layers of desired outcomes.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east...