How many of you are familiar with Armin Navabi's condemnations of Islamic reform? You can listen to it from 3 minutes on here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G5ojHshjPU and in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujFMg_N_Q60
at around the half hour mark.
He essentially says the following thing about reforming islam "most modern muslims are not reforming islam, they're just ignoring islam, they're nice people and better than islam" . "reforming islam isn't going to work because you're have to convince people to abandon a lie (islam) for another lie (claiming that islam doesn't say all the awful things it has always said in classical tradition) "
However it seems to me that Navabi doesn't address one very big factor of the overall strategic equation here, which is that that when average muslims feel that their overall religion is being attacked, they could easily find themselves becoming closer to the traditionalist salafi and traditionalist shia muslims since they feel an outside enemy is attacking them both.
On the other hand, if you just attack the traditionalists, the ones who know full well what classical sharia law is and think that the ideal legal system is to adopt the same legal system as in 8th century medina , then that's something ordinary muslims won't feel as threatened by and can actually join in with as we see that salafi types are extremely unpopular in places like north africa. Then the hope would be that just as relaxed, casual christianity isn't a serious threat to secular democracies in europe and north america anymore, in time so will nearly all muslims passively relax as waves of globalisation and social media wash over them.
What do you guys think about this? Is Armin Navabi right and the reform movement is a waste of time and attacks should be made against islam in general which is truly represented by the traditionalists? If so, what are the best ways to try and critique, de-convert, attack, etc. the belief system of islam without pushing relaxed and casual muslims to have closer solidarity with the traditionalists who genuinely hold appalling religious beliefs because they feel their identity being attacked?
I find myself going in circles about this and I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this , especially Mr. Navabi if he reads this, haha.
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Well what he said sounds a lot like how Christians in Western countries seem to deal with their religion: for the most part, they just ignore it. When was the last time someone was stoned in the USA/France/UK/etc for working on the Sabbath?
But what is actually happening in the Muslim community as far as reform or whatever? I don't really know, I'm pretty far removed from it.
Ignoring it, as bad as it is, really is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, Islam will be the number one religion in the world relatively soon. America is losing its Christian population. The new generation under 25 is 30% Atheist. All the Muslims are learning how to do is Cherry pick their way through the Qua'aran just as Christians have learned to pick their way through the Bible. It took the Christians 2000 years. If it takes the Muslims as long, we can expect to hear from them for another 500 years at least.
Here is something I said at the Q&A session after a live debate about seven, eight months ago (back in late February). This can be applied to literally ALL religions, especially Islam.
Audience Member: “Why do you say Christians have a death wish?”
Christians are all for the second coming of Jesus, which means they entirely desire the complete apocolyptic and cataclysmic annihilation of all humanity, the entire Earth, the entire universe. Read the Bible book of The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. All they desire is to get to this Heaven and away from this heathenistic Earth. Well, I say, why don’t we just help them on their way and go ahead and execute them all? Why not? Because it is inhumane. It goes completely against the humanist views and convictions and principles and morality held by most Atheists. However, it does kind of make sense, from a sarcastic…, yet respectful…, point-of-view. All they wish is to get to Heaven as soon as possible, ASAP. They cannot wait to get there. Since they cannot wait, let’s just euthanize them all and help to get them to their Sky Faerie and Magic Zombie Virgin and their promised misogynistic paradise filled with virgins. If you are wondering, on one side of the coin, I am deadly serious about speeding these viscious vipers to where they so wish to go. However, on the other side of the coin, I am just as serious about such a heinous act being against the very nature of humanism practiced by atheists. A nice revision of the Catch-22. Wouldn’t you say? — arakish, transcribed from a live debate, Q&A session
rmfr
@arakish
Heh, a valid if scary point.
I do think a vast majority of christians are not that involved in their faith. You won't see any of them lining up to be euthanized even if they think it means they will go to heaven.
Even the most devout christians will frequently in the actual push/shove of the world will take reality over their sky fairy belief. Kind of like the example I seen here on the boards of:
If a highly religiously devout person choking to death on a piece of food at a restaurant, and someone skilled and knowledgeable on the heimlich maneuver as well as CPR came up and said: "I know how to save you right now, but if you rather I just let you and your family pray for help from god rather then get saved by an atheist, I will wait until you are saved by god" I am pretty sure 99 out 100 times people will be a lot more interested in the life saving procedure rather then wait around for god's miracle that will "most assuredly" to them, manifest; or even if they do die that they are counting on a better place, heaven that they will go to. (After all it is god's will for them to choke to death even though human intervention was right there, but only respecting their "beliefs.")
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I hear ya dude. My statement at that Q&A session was to enlighten the die-hard Christians to see reality for what it is. At least that was my hope in using sarcasm, although somewhat truthful. I wanted them to think about what I had said and maybe, just maybe, begin to think how ridiculous this heaven/hell bullshit really is.
Maybe planted a seed or two. ***shrugs shoulders***
rmfr