David, Actually, even Islam has undergone changes, but in a sense you are spot on. Ijtihad, a sort of flexible approach as far as interpreting the Qur'an goes, never nearly as flexible as within Christianity, but something at least, was officially closed a thousand years ago. And that is where Islam has pretty much stayed all those years, a few exceptions, but not much to report. Buddhism, yes, you can almost divide it up into Protestant ( Mahayana ). Catholic ( Theravada ) and Orthodox ( Vajrayana ), plus it has many "new religions" ( their own versions, more or less, of Mormonism, the Evangelical movement, the Social Gospel, etc ) all in the past century or so. You don't have the details, but you certainly get the idea. Billy --------------------------------------------------- Most religions extant today have had a "Reformation-like" experience. The Jews have had to deal with not having a temple. The Protestant Reformation came out of the Catholic hegemony. The Catholics themselves have had Vatican councils that have changed the church tremendously. The Orthodox are making changes too in all of their various flavors. Hinduism has changed as you state below. Buddhism I don't really know much about, but I don't think that it has remained static since its foundation. The exception: Islam. It is basically where Mohamed left it when he died, if not worse. David _ “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”--Ayn Rand Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: Hi Billy, On May 21, 2009, at 6:09 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: We could go round and round about this forever. But let me simply say that my argument follows Ibn Warraq's scholarship in his 1995 book, "Why I Am Not a Muslim." Fair enough, though even his book seems to make one of the same arguments I'm making -- at least from the review I read: _http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ibn_al-rawandi/review.html_ (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ibn_al-rawandi/review.html) The fanatic who thinks that all unbelievers should be killed has just as much authority as the Sufi who thinks that all religions are true and that even atheists go to heaven. Both parties could adduce Quranic texts and hadith to support their positions, and both would be drawing, in their own minds, upon the immutable word of God. As Ibn Warraq observes: `Even if we concede that Muslim conservatives have interpreted the sharia in their own way, what gives us the right to say that their interpretation is the inauthentic one and that of the liberal Muslims, authentic? Who is going to decide what is authentic Islam?' Doesn't that argument also work in reverse: who is to say that the fundamentalist interpretation is correct, and the liberal interpretation inauthentic? If Islam is really so self-contradictory, then it seems that exogenous cultural factors and tradition may play a huge role in how it is interpreted in practice -- and those are amenable to manipulation even if the Quran itself is not. I completely agree that Islam is not "self-redemptive". Unlike you, though, I see traditional Hindusm as having been equally static and corrupt (albeit in different ways). I realize that widow burning, child prostitution, and casteism may not seem like real "Hindusim" to you, but the brutal truth is that Hinduism condoned and reinforced such practices until Christianity came to Britain. It is only after conquest and exposure to Christianity that Hinduism experienced major social work and reformers like Gandhi. Maybe Islam is more deeply corrupt that Hinduism was, but that doesn't mean it is impossible for some level of redemption. To be sure, it may well be true that the time and effort involved may be prohibitive. But then again -- given my Mafia analogy -- it is hardly obvious that your propposal is a guaranteed success, so it seems at least worthwhile to ask the question. -- Ernie P. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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