May 17, 2004
PALLBEARING:
Does Islam have a prayer? (Spengler, 5/18/04, Asia Times)
Critics of Islam - in past essays I have cited Rosenzweig and Besancon - portray the religion as a throwback, a "monistic paganism" (Rosenzweig) or an "idolatry of the God of Israel" (Besancon). That cannot be quite right, for pagan religions express the aspirations for immortality of individual ethnic groups. The pagan knows not only that he will die, but that his people will die, that his language will be shut up in dusty books, and that a different people some day will occupy the hills and valleys where his people now live. "The love of the gentiles for their own ethnicity," said Rosenzweig, "is sweet and pregnant with the presentiment of death."
Islam acknowledges no ethnicity (whether or not one believes that it favors Arabs). The Muslim submits - to what particular people? Not the old Israel of the Jews, nor the "New Israel" of the Christians, but to precisely what? Pagans fight for their own group's survival and care not at all whom their neighbor worships. A universalized paganism is a contradiction in terms; it could only exist by externalizing the defensive posture of the pagan, that is, as a conquering movement that marches across the world crushing out the pagan practices of the nations and subjugating them to a single discipline.If the individual Muslim does not submit to traditional society as it surrounds him in its present circumstances, he submits to the expansionist movement. In that sense the standard communal prayer of Islam may be considered an expression of jihad. Again Rosenzweig: "Walking in the way of Allah means, in the strictest sense, the spread of Islam by means of the holy war. The piety of the Muslim finds its way into the world by obediently walking this way, by assuming its inherent dangers, by adhering to the laws prescribed for it."
What threatens the ummah today is not the invasion of territory, but creative destruction: social mobility, equality of the sexes, global communications, and all the other pallbearers of traditional society. The encounter of mainstream Islamic practice with the creative destruction of the West is tragic.
No one asks much anymore "Why do they hate us?," since our readiness to use even military force to alter the region amply demonstrates that the meeting of the West with Islam will result in a radical transformation of the latter. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 17, 2004 9:56 AM
What threatens Islam is that it is religiuosly committed to an endless war of conquest without the physical means to conquer. If they had any sense, they'd suspend jihad for a hundred years and concentrate on acquiring the means to actually succeed out her is the Dar-al-Harb.
But they haven't got any sense.
Posted by: Brandon at May 17, 2004 11:40 AM"out here in" not "out her is".
I never have been a very good typist.
Posted by: Brandon at May 17, 2004 11:43 AMI wonder how much Isalm contributes to the root causes of Why Arabs Lose Wars, or more generally how much Islam is a function of Arab culture and vice versa.
Posted by: Gideon at May 17, 2004 12:38 PMBrandon;
The problem is that an Islam that could create the means to conquer the West is not Islam as it currently exists, so it's a Catch-22 for unreformed Islam.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at May 17, 2004 12:56 PMaog:
The End of History means that in order to be a hyperpower you need to be like us.
Posted by: oj at May 17, 2004 1:03 PMAfter reading the Qu'ran, I'm beginning to see Brandon's point. The contradictory passages and misrepresentation of old and new testament scripture as well as the entire premise of book, i.e. the final, prophetic "recital", I found, in light of 9/11, and the pompous pronouncements of Islamic preachers, kind of disturbing.
The fact is that Islam's founder was, at times, a violent, vindictive and xenophobic man. Why should anyone be surprsed that some of his most vocal adherents are as well?
Islam appears, at least to this observer, to be a dead end. I would enjoy hearing from those more knowledgable, precisely why my understanding is incorrect.
Posted by: Tom Corcoran at May 17, 2004 1:06 PMIt's not a religion, it's a cult. Not much different from Manson's except that usama isn't as charismatic as Charles Manson, and does not (that I know of) have a swastika carved in his forehead...
Posted by: M. Murcek at May 17, 2004 1:11 PMM, a religion is just a socially acceptable cult.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at May 17, 2004 1:22 PMRobert:
Close, sciencism is just a socially acceptable religion, so long as its adherents conform to the morality of Judeo-Christianity, real religions.
Posted by: oj at May 17, 2004 1:48 PM"You join a cult, you are born into a religion." A cult becomes a religion a majority of its adherents are from birth and never leave. For a successful modern example, see the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at May 17, 2004 1:57 PMReligions emphasize family and its obligations, cults don't.
Posted by: Peter B at May 17, 2004 2:09 PMLarge crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.' (Luke 14:25-26)
'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' (Matthew 10:34-36)
Nice try, Robert. What He meant was, if one's father or mother or sister were immoral, then one would even have to break loyalty to the family in order to follow the Good, which is God. God superceded all earthly loyalties to tribe and even family IF NECESSARY. For an excellent example of this, Robert my lad, recall the UNABOMBER's brother turning in his own brother. He did so for moral reasons.
Your hatred of Christianity is palpable. But since you're into quoting the man from Galilee:
"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you."
Well done, G. Gaudi. Robert, are you under the impression hatred and desertion of the family has traditionally been a feature of Christianity?
Posted by: Peter B at May 17, 2004 3:48 PMG, don't get all defensive. I'm not here out of hatred of Christianity, otherwise I would have blown a fuse long ago. I do like to point out its inconsistencies and foibles, though, and many people take that as hatred.
Peter, if you go back to my original comment I said that a religion is just a socially acceptable cult. Any new religion has to start out as a heresy within an established cultural tradition. New followers of that tradition will no doubt have to cut ties with family and friends, because the existing tradition won't abide with the heresy. These early followers most likely weren't hating and abandoning their family as much as their family had hated and abandoned them. Cults attract the loners and outcasts from society. Cults either are killed off by the larger culture or survive and become respectable religions.
It is you guys who are using cult as a four letter word, not I.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at May 17, 2004 5:55 PMa sure sign of egotism is someone who adheres to the morality of the two billion people in his civilization but thinks they're a cult.
Posted by: oj at May 17, 2004 7:26 PMOJ, you really have to start paying attention. I said that religion is a socially acceptable cult. Christianity is socially acceptable, so it is a religion, not a cult.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at May 17, 2004 8:14 PMOJ, you really have to start paying attention. I said that religion is a ... cult.
Posted by Robert Duquette at May 17, 2004 08:14 PM
Posted by: oj at May 17, 2004 8:26 PM