1) My views on Islam are basically similar to my views on any religion. The texts (of Abrahamic religions) themselves contain passages that are both peaceful and violent. Both loving and empathic and violently primitive. Early Islam itself is greatly responsible for the 2) dispensation of knowledge… for the advancement of science and Aristotelian reason. For mathematics and astronomy. Islamic culture was flourishing and advanced when Europe was a tribal pit. Without Islam, reason might not have waver found its way into Europe and generated 3) what we call the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. But there was a point at which the search for knowledge outside religious texts became anathema. Any religion that ropes itself off from the world (as orthodox expressions of religion do) can become dangerously 4) disengaged from advancements in ethics (rights) or law (due process). Orthodox religious communities in Massachusetts Bay colonies Burned people at the stake.. whipped men for kissing their wives in public and hanged people for being witches. 5) Islamic communities that hold the death penalty for adultery, homosexuality, or apostasy are no different from orthodox communities anywhere else at any other time who commit grave injustices in the name of God. 6) tell me where I’m wrong.
@MarkRPellegrino
1) Ok. I hope you see my view of your religion is not phobic. It’s also not entirely uninformed (most of my ex Muslim friends are very passionate in their dislike of religion… as are many former Christians, theirs). I’m simply against violence and outspoken against ideas that 2) lead to violence and intolerance. A dear friend of mine @raif_badawi is rotting away in a Saudi prison as we speak for being an open advocate for tolerance, women’s rights and equality… he was considered an apostate and given a lenient sentence of ten years and 1000 lashes 3) he hasn’t seen his three children growing up… my friend @GadSaad is a Lebanese Jew who had to flee for his life because of religious persecution. Ideas matter… that is my point. You can drop the bad ideas in any religion and be predominantly secular and personally 4) religious and harm no one.. even live a beautiful, meaningful and fulfilling life… but when you can point to toxic ideas that have no place in a modern world as the animus for violence. I will call you out.
@MarkRPellegrino
