Re “If you go and read the Koran, sit back, afterwards, then honestly ask
yourself: what would Muhammad want?” says Harris.":
If Islam had remained a small cult in Mecca and someone today became curious
about their beliefs and so read through The Koran (I've read it twice) the
impression left would be that Muhammad was extremely intolerant of other
beliefs. A classical liberal he most certainly was not.
Apologists for Islam point out that at the time Muhammad was engaged in open
warfare between his own followers and others, like Jews, Christians and pagans,
so picking up on those passages which reveal his closed mind is like
criticizing anti-German propaganda during the Second World War. There's
something to be said for that but the sheer relentlessness of his constant talk
of unbelievers roasting in Hell does suggest someone with issues.
There is a strange, incantatory poetry about some passages and I've little
doubt that Muhammad did have a genuine spiritual experience ("Allah is Nearer
to Man than his Jugular Vein") and he did wish to see a united community at
peace. But it's a dangerous book.
I shall be getting Sam Harris's latest title when it becomes available.
---In [email protected], <dhamiltony2k5@...> wrote :
of a larger 'otherness', outside of rational-conscious experience:
consciousness.
..his father came from a Quaker background.
Harris looks to eastern religion — Buddhism, and more specifically, the
mediation practice of mindfulness — as a way of finding a sense of otherness,
outside of rational-conscious experience.
In this view, he explains, consciousness itself is identical to the very
thing one might otherwise mistake for God.
The main problem, Harris believes, is that the issue is far greater than
simply containing radical ideas from a handful of Muslim extremists.
“If you go and read the Koran, sit back, afterwards, then honestly ask
yourself: what would Muhammad want?” says Harris.
“You can call this idea Islamism, Muslim extremism, Islamic terrorism, but the
main point is this: it’s Islamic to the core. We [in the West] are not at war
with generic extremism. We are at war with a death cult that is animated by a
7th-century approach to Islam.”
---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote :
Atheist writer bravely disses Islam.
He seems confused about who the aggressors are in the Israeli conflict though.
Anyone would think that the Palestinians don't have the right to try and get
their land back that was stolen from them in 1948, and more every year since.
World must confront jihadism’s roots in Islamic doctrine, says author
http://www.timesofisrael.com/world-must-confront-jihadisms-roots-in-islamic-doctrine-says-author/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/world-must-confront-jihadisms-roots-in-islamic-doctrine-says-author/
World must confront jihadism’s roots in Islamic d...
http://www.timesofisrael.com/world-must-confront-jihadisms-roots-in-islamic-doctrine-says-author/
With a blend of science and secularism, Jewish-born thinker Sam Harris claims
Islam is uniquely problematic as a religion in today’s world, and anyone who
disag...
View on www.timesofisrael.com
http://www.timesofisrael.com/world-must-confront-jihadisms-roots-in-islamic-doctrine-says-author/
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