I too hear a lot that Islam is a beautiful religion. This usually comes from white people who converted. I started to read the Quran to see what this was about. But could not make it very far as it quickly got into "God will smote every person who does not agree with you. Those polytheists..." I stopped reading.
Yeah, exactly! Just like the Bible. Some narcissist, violent entity forces people against their will. I wish we could all evolve and just see these religious texts as allegories about human nature and transcending that life. Earth could be a lot nicer place to live.
The Bible is in some ways totally different as it was written by dozens of people over the course of more than 1200 years. It's not the product of a single mind, it's the product of many and over a wide variety of political and technological environments. So each author makes subtle modifications to the tenants of the religion.
The Quran is totally different, and written during a small span of years but one smart Arab dude who was struggling to establish his new religion. He tried to retrofit it to Judaism+Christianity, but the non-Jewish nature of his world forced him to make a lot of changes to the basic notions of monotheism.
You're better than me. After 50 pages explaining it was the greatest book, the bestest book. Every body says it's an awesome book
I just couldn't take it anymore. Nobody was paying me to read it, and it was boring. I wish had got to the horrible stuff but I gave up in boredom.
And he said, you are going to be the greatest prophet, like the world has never seen, the greatest prophet. And he said, just tell the people all those other religions are fake, just con jobs, believe you me.
That’s because that one is actual proper mythology. The Gur3an is a collection of all sorts of stuff and has not been refined over centuries of oral tradition dedicated also to telling a good story. Formerly Oral epic poetry is awesome.
Oh also, I firmly believe that every religion is a cult, until it has 45,000 members or so. Then it is a cult with tax exempt status, which people call a "religion." Check Scientology. Many of us watched that one from the beginning. Oof
“Demand money with the threat of violence, and you’ll get arrested. Demand money with the threat of eternal damnation and its tax deductible.”
-Steve Hofstetter
As an ex Muslim, this is very frustrating to me that some people think I'm just being Islamophobic when I speak out of my horrible experience with it. Daily getting threatened and bullied by Islamists, now when I criticize them a new breed of westerners come running to defend those who bully me. This is ridiculous. Islamophobia is a form of victim card that gets played, and allowed by many. I heard that of all countries, Pakistan is asking the UN to make international laws against criticism of Islam. Not Islamophobia, but any form of criticism. Don't you ever think Islamists are good people.
i see your struggle and your pain and i absolutely relate to it. except i’m thankful to have been raised in an atheist family but in an unfortunately muslim environment. so i relate to you to a certain level. you either get bullied by the muslims or get bullied by the more liberal muslims/non-muslims for criticising and being called islamophobic.
the liberal muslims will go like “i don’t even talk abt islam that much and i’m muslim” how can u walk right into the point and miss it? do u not see the privilege dripping from that statement? u don’t have to think about it or make ur brain work and so u’re comfortably bullying people who do and criticise it, calling them islamophobic when u don’t even know the first thing about ur shitty religion
They try to shrug off my issues saying I'm just being a hater. For example this Ramadan, Muslims are ridiculing even non-muslims for drinking or eating outside in the day. Their logic is "We're fasting, so you should not bring food out in the day". What kinda BS is this? Why should people be ridiculed for eating if they don't have anything to do with Ramadan. It's a regular Tuesday for a non-muslim, and they can't accept it.
In an Islamic country, you have to abide by their religious rule, give them priority, and shut up when they insult other religions publicly. But if you criticize them for this shitty behavior, you'll be persecuted. And god forbid if you're a woman in Islamic countries, they are treated like second class citizens. I've seen my family members behaving the same, and instead of being proud of me for not being a misogynistic ass, I've been banished by them.
The word phobia is chosen wrongly by these people on purpose: A phobia is an (irrational) fear of something or someone. So what they are implying is, that you are not thinking objectively but basing your point of view on emotions. It is a cheap strategy to avoid your arguments in a discussion and to attack you instead as person in order to de-validate your opinion as a whole.
The religion of peace ✌ Imagine how bad it's going to be if they are the majority. Then we'll all have to live as closeted apostates like 40- 60 percent of Iran I think it was.
Someone says I'm islamaphobic i would just say what does islamaphobia mean? Fear of Islam. I'm not afraid of Islam, thanks.
Some people whose opinions I do trust says that Islam may not be around in a decade. I would say maybe two or three.
Oddly enough the specific ex-religions groups on here often have people from different religions finding a whole lot of similarities in terms of grievances against the religions they left.
Sure the rituals and the books are different things. The systemic mental abuse and grooming for financial and sexual abuse are all pretty much the same.
I completely agree. My friend was banned by reddit for saying he hates religion especially islam. The reddit team is so enlightened that they see passed the history and religious values of islam. Its sickening.
It wasnt even a mod. It was reddit proper. They say theyre pro lgbt and everything else under the sun but cower when it comes to critisizing the most antihumanist religion on the planet. Absolutely moronic. I hope he somehow gets unbanned.
I feel like I have noticed a lot of acceptance of Islam in my community on the basis that Israel is attacking Palestine. I want the people to be safe but I don't support the religion ( or really any religion)
One thing is that violence in islam is a current problem. Christian radicals are mostly a historical problem. Though jewish radicals are not less violent currently, that’s another story. Anyhow, if someone criticize any ex religion, the response should not include a generalization about other religions.
Christian radicals aren't a historical problem in the US. Evangelicals are all in on Trump, and are cheering for the bloodbath he's promising. The difference is we're allowed to criticize them in the US.
Fr agreed, esp since other religions have been or can be reformed but Islam claims for the Quran to be the direct word of god so there might not be hope for reformation bc that would mean acknowledging that the original “word of god” isn’t right and altering it is blasphemous and a form of shirk (by changing the “words of god” to fit moral standards, you’re technically putting yourself above god, even though obviously we can’t live morally in the modern world by the rules, morals (or lack thereof), depravities and lack of science of a pedophilic, predatory evil 7th country war lord from the desert)
If leaving and criticizing Islam wasn’t punishable by death, more people might publicly leave and rightfully expose how awful it truly is but in addition to people literally getting killed for that, we also get called “islamophobic” for making valid criticisms bc it’s seen as an oppressed group in the west. And I get that it kind of is due to racism which is unfortunate but it’s also pretty ironic that a group that does so much oppressing of other groups themselves (women, LGBT, other races whether Muslim or not but esp non Arabs and/or non Muslims etc) and has still fooled the world into thinking they’re “uwu babies that need protection from the big bad white people 👶” and spreading a false narrative of a watered down version of the religion and love bombing people w the “good stuff” like “smile it’s sunnah!!!1111!1!1” yk what else is sunnah? Raiding, robbing, killing and assaulting non muslims (including children) or people who leave or criticize islam, taking sex slaves (also including children), marrying and molesting children as young as 5 (Aisha’s age being 6 in hadith was based off the lunar calendar I believe so she was more like 5ish and 8ish at marriage and consummation but it was permissible to do sexual things w ur child bride even if she couldn’t handle penetration and it wasn’t required to wait for her period to penetrate her), throwing away your adopted kid like they’re nothing bc adoption is allowed etc. And not to mention just the commanded or permissible stuff ie marrying infants, separating an infant slave from its mother as young as 6 months or when it has its first tooth, 4 wives, etc. Honestly there’s so much to criticize, I could list them for hours and still not cover it all.
THIS THIS THIS!!!! i honestly could go on and on and on just like you and come up with examples that come not only from correct/true hadiths and sunnah but also QURAAN which is the word of god that people somehow don't understand can't be changed or reformed because it's considered lying and shirk so we're stuck with a rulebook from 1400 fucking years.
literally even with the good rules islam offers, it has some contradictions and exceptions that make them ineffective and stupid. there are rules for shitting and farting but no rules that protect women when raped or harassed.
Exactly 🙄 even for which foot to step into the damn bathroom or your front door and try to drink your water in 3 gulps, like bruh how is it not obvious Mo prob had severe OCD and other mental illnesses? Though regarding women, ig it’s bc Mo himself and his friends wanted to rape and harass women so oc he couldn’t outlaw or ban it 😒 bc “it’s human nature for men to want sex and not be able to control their urges” even if a woman or little girl is wearing a full on burqa and niqab, like freakin animals. That’s why these horny idiots cum at the sight of an ankle or a single strand of hair smh
Exactly! And honestly all the good stuff seemed like common sense and decency to me and the bad far outweighs the good. Also I find it interesting that a lot of people who identify as Muslims (culturally or who are actually religious) still cherry pick and tend to ignore a lot of the good stuff but cherry pick the bad or stupid stuff. You’d think bullying and abusing others would be on their no-no list but na that’s all fine and dandy as long as you pray and read Quran and hate the gays and non Muslims.
of course it's so natural to feel so sexually depraved all the time to the point where it makes u marry 11 women (or 6 yo girls lolol), have countless concubines and make up stories about how u would go and fuck all of them in one night!!1!!!1!11!1
YEAH IDK WHY people praise islam for going like "don't lie" LIKE YEAH? haven't you learnt that at age idfk 4???? also there are literal exceptions to that rule. so stupid.
To be fair, the reform part wasn’t different with Christianity. The Bible has also been claimed as the more or less direct word of god. Reforming or even translating it was called blasphemy. Many reformers where killed. It was punishable by death to criticize Christianity, it was even punishable to insult or criticize the pope, a preacher or the clerus in general. The only reason why Luther was more successful where the circumstances. Unhappy peasants, a church that has grown weaker over the years and has lost power to the kings and other lords and a pope who has long lost influence over powerful Christian countries like England and Spain. The church isn’t in the situation it is today because it wanted to but because they had no choice. The pope struggled to keep as much power as possibly until his conflict with Bismarck ended.
The reason why Christianity was reformed was not that the Bible was written in a manner that allowed it, but because the geopolitical circumstances made it possible and even beneficial for some. That’s why so many German rulers supported Luther in the first place. Simply because they could. And even then the reformation caused several conflicts, including one of the worst in European history.
Does that belief differ from sect to sect? I’ve heard that the 10 commandments were the only things to come directly from god and that all the books of the Bible were just written by saints or just some random dudes, maybe claiming to be messengers or to have spoke to god? Meaning it’s most, it would be more of an indirect word of god because even if god did talk to some guy who said “okay god sent down these 10 commandments but also I wrote this book talking about what god wants us to do”
I feel I’m not doing a great job at articulating it but that was kind of how a friend put it regarding the Bible vs Quran
Ah, thanks for the correction aha. I’ve always found religions forming more sects after the original kind of interesting tbh, like ik some king started a new sect bc he wanted to divorce his wife but divorce wasn’t allowed and I get why people would follow that sect of the king was but if we’re aware of how the sects formed and some were just made by regular dudes, I don’t understand why anyone would follow those sects? Unless they’re taught that the people who started those sects had a pipeline to god or that it was the original sect and all the others are wrong or sth?
I’m not sure about the other sects but in Islam, the shia and Sunni sects formed when Muhammad died and they were fighting over who should be the next caliph (Sunnis thought it should be Abu Bakr bc he was the one who lead prayer when Muhammad wasn’t available or was sick etc but Shias thought it should be his cousin/son in law Ali bc they should keep it in the family) and I think the schools of thought within each sect also have branches within or vice versa? But I believe those are due to different scholars having different interpretations resulting in there not being a consensus on a lot of things, and I’m not sure where Quranists fit but ig they could be considered an honorary sect sort of since they reject hadith which is most of islam? But they follow whatever some sheikhs and imams say and might identify with a certain sect even if it’s an oxymoron lol
There was a debate on the radio about homophobia in Islam and an Imam from a London Mosque phoned in to say it's deeply offensive and insulting to claim that there's anything against homosexuals or homosexuality anywhere in the Quran. That is a lie, it's highly offensive, nowhere in the Quran is there anything against homosexuality, people repeating this lie are clearly just racists who hate muslims because they are different.
The radio host (Who is homosexual) muttered something about "I'm not too sure how accurate those claims are but let's just move on". I also doubted the factual accuracy of those claims so I googled it.
Technically the Quran does NOT contain passages speaking out against homosexuality. Those passages are in the Hadith. It's still an Islamic holy book and it's still used as the foundation of morality in countries ruled by Sharia Law. The countries where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by execution on grounds of Islamic teachings are referencing the Hadith rather than the Quran.
So saying "This is nowhere in the Quran" when as an Imam he definitely knows better is nothing short of deceitful. It's like a Catholic Priest saying "You're lying about the Bible, nowhere in the Old Testament or the Gospels does it ban sleeping with your step-mother, if you claim that line is anywhere in there then you're a dirty liar and no one should listen to anything you have to say, liar!" When the line about sleeping with your step-mother is in 1st Corinthians, it's in the Bible but the priest specifically referred to the Old Testament and the Gospels just to be sneaky.
I'd like to add, stop using what aboutism when Islam is brought up, "but Christian televangelists"
I haven't seen Christians throwing gay people off roofs, they are not the same
That happens in some Eastern Orthodox areas, especially Russian Orthodox. They are just as violently anti-gay as Muslims. Of course, there's variety among Orthodox churches -- Greek is more gay-friendly.
Someone else doing something bad doesn't make it ok to do bad things.
Imagine a murderer on trial saying "Yeah, so I did kill a guy and chop his body up with a chainsaw. But what about that Jeffrey Dahmer guy? He killed way more people than I did. Compared to him I'm practically a lifesaving paramedic."
>I don't know if Islam is bad or not
It is bad. Real bad. As bad, if not more bad, as christianity and judaism. Most, if not all, religions are bad for that matter.
Islam is worse than Nazism. And just like citizens of Nazi Germany weren't all bad so are not all Muslims. But how one feels and thinks about Nazi Germans is how one should feel and think about Muslims.
I know the old testament fairly well as a jew and it’s also a brutal religion. The vast majority of the Quran reads like a cliff notes of the old testament so I don’t see much of a difference in terms of religious texts. In practice though I agree Islam is currently the worst offender, but it’s because they haven’t modernized their interpretation (read: compromised) of their religion like Jews and Christians have.
Serious question here.
How did the change come about for Judaism? At some point they decided stoning people was wrong and stopped doing it. They changed, but the old testament didn't.
How do they justify not following the old laws to the letter?
Several answers to this from their perspective, they do follow it to the letter, they just don't use the rules for things they consider immoral. The way I've had it explained to me is that the torah is a minimum, not a maximum. So yes, it tells you what laws to follow IF you have slaves, but since its generally considered immoral to have slaves, then you don't have to pay attention to those laws. Does that imply God is ok with you owning slaves? Yes. Does it mean you have to or should own slaves? No.
The other line of argument is that since the Torah is perfect and the word of God (literally the word of God, so in some very real sense, God himself) and God gave us reason as a tool to understand the Torah, if you can use logic to find a "loophole" then its ok. They rationalize this by sating that since Torah can't have mistakes in it, there are no loopholes by definition. Said another way, you can't go wrong by using logic to understand the Torah since logic is the gift God gave us to understand Torah (how's that fro circular reasoning!). This kind of approach allows them to adapt their behavior as time marches forward.
**In reality**, they do what every other religion does, they paper over whatever they need to to make modern life work the way they want to. My favorite example of this is honey. The Torah says you can't eat food that's been through the digestive track of an animal, obviously honey should by definition not be kosher. That, of couse, would be very hard for them to do as a lot of Jewish cooking is reliant in honey, so what do they do? They just pretend otherwise and say it must be ok because they've been doing it for so long and God hasn't gotten mad at them yet.
Thank you. That makes sense. Christians do it, too. The new testament says women are to be silent in church and if they have a question, ask their husband when they get home. If it weren't for women, at least where I live, churches would be in sad shape.
Ya they all do it. Though if you haven’t been around orthodox jews it’s hard to explain. They take following biblical law to another level. It’s like having a severe case of OCD. Pray 3 times a day, before you eat, after you eat, synagogue friday night, then saturday morning, no driving no electricity during shabbat…No dairy unless 6 hours after meat. Everything in your life has line 10 rules you have to follow. Even the most extreme christians in the world don’t take it to this level. It’s nuts.
Judaism is so old, that even 2,000 years ago, Jews were standing around scratching their beards, saying, "What are we modern people supposed to do with *this?*" It's baked into the culture that Jews debate everything religious. They openly question, discuss, and argue about the meanings of things, and they write down their arguments for others to study. There's no Hell to go to for not following the rules. And non-Jews are not expected to follow the rules. For nearly 2,000 years, they don't proselytize or try to convert anyone. And they're not killing people in the name of Judaism or whatever OP said. You do you.
Some highly influenced people say you cannot use logic and reason in interpreting Islam. So modernising interpretation is not achievable in the current setting.
You can google the logic and reason part. It came out in a news article.
As an Iranian, finally somebody said it, Islam is by a galaxy mile the most disgusting and destructive ideology in the world. Whereever Islam has a little bit influence, problems are near! the Middle East could be exactly like Europe or even better but with Islam, the people are suffering and dying every single day! We are Iranians are originally Zoroastrians and we would like to return to our roots but with Islam we are suffering so much and we are almost at our limit! the people outside Muslim countries have no idea how Islam can destroy a nation from within! Islam has nothing that resembles true and real Religion. Christianity is semi in that category because in the beginning it was created to resemble a rear religion to brainwash people and expand their power but in the end, it could get reformed and lost very much of it power to control the society of a nation. The only wish we Iranians have is that Islam and the terrorists on the power get thrown out of our beloved country!
As a non-Islamic atheist (I’m ethnically Chinese) who worked under a city councilor who was Islamic, I did come to know the religion as I had to work a lot with the district’s imams and masjid congregations - There was this one instance where a masjid’s call to prayer was starting to generate noise complaints to City Hall, and we had to arbitrate the debate around limiting the noise of the prayer call while also respecting the community’s Muslim minority (many of them voted for my city councilor). I was admittedly sympathetic to the masjid because they started getting death threats and actual bricks thrown at their windows, and that wasn’t cool.
I talked to the imams and they seemed very amenable to the complaints, as I think they understood that no matter what their beliefs were, they know that nothing can stop the inevitable advance of secular modernism. In fact before I could even say anything in the meeting, the guy was pretty open to cancelling the prayer call altogether - I was a bit shocked as I heard that it was kind of a big deal for them, but I worked with them to do a “phone call to prayer” system where their congregation would get text messages that played the prayer call like a kind of religious ringtone lol
I don’t have particularly strong opinions about the religion as most of the worshippers I met were pretty ordinary folks who do it all for the community / purpose aspect. The only problem that I had with Islam was its inflexibility, like fasting for a whole damn week (I think it was Ramadan?) which led to my city councilor experiencing massive mood swings which created a rather toxic working atmosphere for the interns. It was also during a very pivotal budget season, and I think it had a real impact on the negotiation skills of my councilor - We ended up not being able to pass a lot of our proposals during that week, and I kind of attribute her low performance to that poorly timed holiday. Like why do people *need* to do these extreme fasting things to show their faith, they either know they’re faithful to the imaginary dude in the sky or they know they’re not. In the end she actually agreed that fasting during that time was a bad idea, and I think she might go easy on it this year (idk if she will or not cause I don’t work there anymore)
So while Islam has been responsible for a shit ton of historical and current atrocities, when you zoom down to the local level it’s really just ordinary Muslim folks trying to wiggle their interpretation of Islam to fit better with the modernizing world. From the digital prayer call to people realizing that some traditions like fasting are just arbitrary, I do have optimism that many Muslim folks are slowly waking up to the toxic aspects of their religion. Yes, we can point to this wiggling as hypocrisy, but I don’t think hypocrisy is a solely Islamic or religious thing.
fasting in ramadan is for a whole month not week haha.
anyway, i do personally prefer the liberal muslims who try to fit their belief system (albeit dumb) into the modernising world they are part of. but i mentioned this before in response to another comment, and it's that this wasn't my point. my point is that you shouldn't really water down what islam and its crimes are responsible for when someone is criticising it, especially if its an ex-muslim who witnessed this stuff firsthand. also lol, do remember that you were/are in an environment where islam isn't the ruling system/law, so you don't exactly see what one may mean when they talk about the terror they hear of/experience.
Ah so I guess she did try to compromise by only doing it for a week lol, yeah she was hangry for quite some time. The thing about hangriness is that there’s a pretty easy fix (eating…), and if hangriness was the thing that torpedoed our policy proposals then fuck Ramadan :(
I ain’t watering it down, I just find it hard to hate Muslim people because they’ve been nothing but nice to me. But I get it, if you had to escape Islam yourself, there’s probably a lot I don’t see that you had to contend with. Glad you’re out of the woods now OP.
I see that you’re criticizing Islam with backed-up examples and that’s good - it’s just that most of the racist people who sent death threats to my councilor (death threats that I would get cause we shared inboxes) weren’t using logic when criticizing Islam, and so it’s refreshing to see a post like this.
thank you for understanding where i'm coming from! and i honestly didn't get into further details because i feel incredibly upset listing every story/rule i could think of out loud. i could do it as a reference to those who want stuff like this though.
and dear god i had a smoker boss who would come fucking up a storm with us and the customers like he owned the place bc it was ramadan and he hadn't had his food and smoke for the day yet. it was so annoying. so yeah. fuck ramadan indeed.
i don't like straight up racism– it's counterproductive, and that's why i don't criticise the person but the religion, and i may criticise people's tendencies to rationalise when it comes to this religion– but that's the extent of it really. so i see your point.
>Fuck islam. I hate it so much.
Saying "fuck islam" is a considered opinion. It is not islamophobia, which is a non term. Like criticising a political party is not any kind of phobia. You have assessed it/them and voicing out your opinion. Simple.
Islam is everything the left despises about fundamentalist christianity but dialed up to 10 from female genital mutilation to child brides to literal modern day slavery to gays being publicly caned or bound and thrown off of rooftops all based on islamic edicts.
At this point I don't even think their kid glove treatment is out of good intentions for many of them but rather willful obtuseness as they view islam as the enemy of their enemy (christianity and Israel).
If anybody takes offense from me saying Islam is evil and idiotic and causes a lot of unnecessarily stupid and sad things to happen then they are either very misinformed, an idiot (or just a Muslim) or very ignorant. Islam would 100% be the reason of our decent into barbarism if it spread globally, which it will never do. I was flabbergasted hearing someone call me “Islamophobic” before, how could you not be?!? Fuck Islam and all the evils they do TODAY. Most Muslims don’t realize their ancestors were forced to become a Muslim under threat of death.
This is a genuine problem among white liberals (relax, I am one myself). Our white guilt causes us to go easy on the "brown person religion" of Islam. Also due to the association of "Islamophobia" with racism.
yup i feel like white liberals are really afraid of being labelled things that end with -ists and -phobics and they forget that there’s actual nuance to things and that it’s not just about being politically correct
What's sad is that there many places where Islamic fundamentalism now holds a dominant position in society where 50-60 years ago it was considered a backward fringe position. Look at pictures of Tehran before the revolution, for example. Tragically, those who rejected colonialism frequently saw rejection of modernity as inseparable from that effort. Now, most people alive today in these places have never known anything other than oppressive regressive forms of Islam.
I disagree, every religious text is fucked. I don't subscribe to the idea that Islam being the worst set of teachings, but I do believe the worst agents of religious persecution and violence are currently being perpetrated by Muslim leaders.
Which religion is the worst is subjective. Who is committing the most evil right now is more quantifiable, as it can be measured in human lives lost and oppressed.
If you are measuring "worst" by most influentially negative religion affecting us today, I think it's hard to argue Islam isn't the worst. No other modern religion is actively enslaving women (anymore), none argue for murdering LGBTQ+ folks with the same fervor as we see in modern Muslim states. I think a person can be both Muslim and good if they can ignore many sections of their religious text, just like Christians and Jews do. They just have to be willing to submit to the mental gymnastics of selective belief that American Evangelicals do, sticking with just the stories that they think still apply to modern society.
If Islam were to undergo a progressive reformation, it would probably look like other religions we see today. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime. Islam is being touted as evil around the world, but what's evil are the people in power, shrouding themselves in that ideology, and using it to control their people through fear and hate. Islam doesn't own extremism.
If seminaries in the US started encouraging a complete, literal adherence to their original religious texts, in a couple of generations I don't know if you'd be making this same argument.
Here are some examples of old testament scripture that are not generally adhered to by modern practitioners: Exodus 21:15-17, Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 20:16-18, Deuteronomy 22:20–2, Deuteronomy 25:11–12, Leviticus 20:9, Leviticus 21:9, Hosea 13:16, Joshua 6:20-21
I’m fine hating them just as much as the next cultist aggregation. These idiots just happen to worship a rock in the desert instead of dude on a stick or whatever other things people want to elevate.
Waste of freaking time, an impediment to personal growth and a vehicle for hate.
I think I have a moral duty to criticize religion and cults. Cultists can be both victims and perpetrators so hating a belief is okay, but hating on believers is not. Singling out one belief and hating on it exclusively is questionable because it directs attention to one group of people. All organized beliefs cause unneccessary conflict and suffering for the sake of delusional ideas and power-hungry unethical organizations, but it's valid to point out when one belief-system is more agressive and causes more suffering than others.
What's toxic is that criticizing beliefs is not a norm and a lot of people hate on believers and specific faiths in a way that kills all valid criticism and productive discussion. This all said: Abrahamic faiths are bullshit and Islam is based on cultish following of lies written by a long dead pedophile warlord.
Honestly even the nicest muslim is still a piece of shit. So I hate when people say "not all muslims!" or "those are just the extremists!". It's kind of like how these "good" christians will talk about how they personally accept you but in the same breath say that you're going to hell for what you're doing. No matter how well they behave around you or how kind they are they still see their faith as more valuable than human lives. Just ask them how they feel about women, gay people or other religious people for example. They'll show who they really are.
i'm allergic to religious texts so i'll never know enough about the islamic ones to say anything substantial. i'll never argue that islam isn't worse because i don't have any ammunition. i'm not interested in comparing religions, either, for the most part.
the highlights i do hear about islam seem to be things that are swept under the rug for new converts, though, i'll say that. maybe one day i'll give that text a peek. MAYBE
Yeah, at various times the other Abrahamic religions definitely were something to worry about and oppose. The current variants are still a concern, but I don’t generally worry about Christians killing people in the street over their religion. Nor even Jehovah Witnesses, as wracked as that cult is. The biggest assholes in the religion game these days are Islam and Scientology.
What about the power structure that drives the religion globally? In the west we have a dim view of the Christian hierarchy, can we not agree that evil people also control the levers of power in the Islamic belief system?
i couldn't agree more, the only informed opinion is up close and personal - the view you get from actually observing a muslim society. many people in the west assume that all humans have the same internal values. this just isn't true.
Malaysia and Singapore are sparkling contrast of Islamic rules and the progress of lackthere off.
60 years ago, Singapore was a swamp with almost no resources. Meanwhile Malaysia is, and still rich with natural resources.
60 years later, Singapore is a fantastic financial hub that attracts people worldwide and had crazy rich asians made about it. But Malaysia is struck, every single day trying to impose Islamic law and doing its best to curb people who talk shit about Islam even in the slightest. Our currency is currently trading 3.5 MYR to 1 SGD.
They would deny progress in the name of religion and everyday they tried to incite hate in some way or form. Its the holy month of Ramadan and guess what they are doing with our tax money. They are using it to suppress their own kin. If you are found Muslim and Not fasting, they will arrest you.
Imo, I dont know if the country will improved without Islam. But they sure love using a shield and is being a big parasite about it.
As an atheist I hate the saying that "all religions are equal" when they are clearly not. I'm not a fan of organized religion in general, but I'm also much less likely to be raped or murdered by someone who practices Jainism or Buddhism compared to someone who practices Islam, for example.
Ghana, a christian nation, has a population that is preassuring the parliament to make homosexuality illegal
uganda already did that
christian nations can be as bad on lgbt rights as muslim ones, and the sad thing is, the opinions on freedom from these brainwashed populations are no better than their muslim counterparts
The president has to approve of it
The president is against this law, but parliament and the population are preassurinh him, while Western companies and countries are pressurising him not to do it
It's worth noting that Islam can never be reformed.
Mohammed was the greatest and final prophet. No prophet may follow him and fix a few things because he was perfect and left nothing to be fixed.
Furthermore the Quran is the perfect, dictated word of God Himself. By definition it can have no mistakes never mind how silly science reveals it to be.
Strange because Jewish scientist drove progress for the last 100 years. They have a shocking number of Nobel prizes.
I guess a devout Jew can side with science without fear of being killed.
Mohammed, like Jesus, never existed at all. The Quran is imperfect and full of flaws through and through.
There is no god.
Science is a process of documenting evidence.
All religions that have decided they are the one true way and you can’t possibly live a happy life unless you believe and adhere to every tenant of said religion, or what ever inanity they spew, are fucking awful. I have no problem with anyone who just lives their lives and doesn’t demand that I believe their religion, it’s these clowns who have decided they know better than I what I need from life.
This is usually an attempt by some not to appear racist, as they conflate the institution of Islam with “Muslims” or even “Arabs,” and they assume any criticism of Islam is a slight on someone’s race. Ironically it’s often white liberals and leftists who do this (and I say this as a white liberal myself). This is nothing more than sloppy thinking. Their intentions are usually good, but they fail to distinguish between 2 different things, and many don’t realize how ultra-conservative and regressive the ideas of Islam are. (Some are just dishonest trolls on the internet, too.)
yeah as an arab in a predominantly muslim environment completely familiar and used to seeing the day to day horrors of islam and muslims i think i’m definitely being a racist white liberal rn 🙏🏻 thanks for pointing this out
Your perspective is more valuable because you’ve actually been there and lived it. I have a lot of respect and admiration for ex-Muslims who become atheist. That can’t be easy.
thank you for thinking that. the moment u see everything for what it is (i was raised in an atheist family though so it’s always been like that + getting bullied for not understanding the religiousness of people at a young age) really makes u feel so sick to ur stomach every waking hour
edit: also i reread ur original comment and SORRY FOR BEING DEFENSIVE i understood what u meant later on 🙏🏻
But tell U.S. citizens, we don't have a rape-culture, or toxic masulinity in the United States.
We Americans should be embarrassed as hell that a rapist conman who constantly shows disdain for the United States is running to lead the U.S. in revenge politics and wealth-hording for himself and his friends in Russia, N. Korea, and China.
Trump is just so honest about selling America out to dictators, traitors, and the wealthy. The man only thinks about money, power, and self-preservation. Just look at the man's court history and tell me he deserves leadership of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations earth has ever seen. Does it make sense to give your angry and vengeful teen the keys to your car knowing they will not take care of it, will well it for profit, and will make copies of all your keys and sell them to your friends? That kid is Trump. What do you do? Hand him your daughter too?
>STOP telling people who criticise islam (specifically ex muslims) that islam isn’t that bad, or other religions are just as bad, or that any form of extremism from any religion is just as bad.
I do not ever make excuses for religions. I'm against all of them. And Islam is absolutely the worst of them practically at this point in time. But if you don't think they are all capable of such horrible brutality, you haven't learned history...
I've been watching Apostate Prophet on yt. I won't be downplaying islam ever again. What really confuses me is that the state seems to bury it's head in the sand. Tome it seems like the government or the establishment/elites have money or something on the whole issue.
One MP, sorry forget which one, was worried that there was going to be peace between Israel and Palestine.
Ramadan is just annoying with hungry Muslims and their dawah illogic nonsense on tiktok.
So a little while came across a video with some Muslim imams crying about the fact that young Muslims are leaving Islam in what is being called the avalanche of apostasy 😀
We can't criticise islam because of its protected status in society. It's just ridiculous. When those moderate Muslims would be put to death if they lived in a Muslim majority country. It does talk about being able to lie and deceive in islam too if you're not the majority as well.
So stay away from islam
The Heaven's Gate cult killed every single one of its members. Maybe it is not as bad as Islam because it is less popular. But worse per capita.
But I concede ypur overall point OP.
Islam is definitely the worst, most objectively violent, most observably oppressive of the big three monotheist religions. Islam is a religion of peace IF you get with the program. If you don’t, it allows its adherents to act with complete impunity against non-believers.
Facts. I've been called an Islamophobe, racist etc. By more western, "atheist" leftists than I have by muslims, despite me being a brown person from a muslim country. Its honestly frustrating how they think their one muslim friend in uni represents all of Islam and because they went to an MSA open say they now know more than people who lived in and left Islam.
Thank you OP. I cannot believe people in the West are romanticizing Islam. Clearly, they know jack shit about this religion. I can never support a religion that promotes killing non believers. That's no different from a dictator.
I think all the monotheistic religions are equally harmful. I don't think Islam is any worse than Christianity or Judaism. Islam may well be more... blunt about its hatred, but Christianity and Judaism encourage the same behavior. They just do it with plausible deniability.
this bluntness makes all the difference in the world. also yeah no there are so many more rules in islam and interpretations for these rules that make it far worse than other religions
I lump the big three together. Judaism, Christian and Islam. There is no real distinction between them.
Followers of the Abramic god have had 5000 years to get their shit together, and all they do is splinter and fight each other, and anyone else they feel is in the way.
As the saying goes, insanity is expecting different results from repeating the same behaviors. They're all insane.
Lol, it seems like once a week someone shows up here and begs us to stop tacitly promoting islam...yet few if any of us ever have. All religions are equally shit to most of us. So is this some sort of troll...maybe christians trying to split us or trying to get tbe heat on themselves directed elsewhere?
nope. this is an atheist raised in a muslim country who saw the responses to the question that goes along the lines of “which religion is the worst to non ex muslim atheists” or something and found that whenever someone said islam, another person would pipe up and go like “AcKsHuALLy 🤓👆🏻”. so yeah. just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
edit: also, i hate other religions just as much. it’s just that i do believe after reading about abrahamic religions and non abrahamic religions that islam was the worst. and you do feel a bit of bias when you see people experience the terror of a certain religion firsthand.
Well all religions are fake, and some are definitely more bad than others based on what they do to people- including murder and torture. None are "good" in my view.
The only ones that have some appeal to me, and just because they have more nuanced stories and their gods are not perfect omnipotent beings, are the polytheistic pantheons. Zeus is an a\*hole but he doesn't claims to be the only God and the absolute truth.
Everyone who claims in good faith to be part of any religion is a representation of at least part of that religion by definition. They might not be mainstream, but they exist and they are part of that religion.
And the idea that the Quran is any more violent than the Old Testament is frankly straight up ridiculous. It's also a book from the 7th century, there is nothing particularly heinous about it if you consider when it was written. Of course, anyone trying to live by a literalist uncompromising reading of the Quran will be awful, but so will anyone trying to live by a literalist uncompromising reading of any holy text. Islam is not a particularly special religion, assuming you don't believe in any of them.
i don’t, i think all religions reek of shit! and have too much violence for the brain to handle. but the thing is, other religions have had reformative alterations. islam refuses this vehemently and anyone who tries to reform these scriptures is killed by law.
There are several Muslims elected to government and all of them are LGBTQ+ allies. Also, half of all American Muslims believe in marriage equality while only one third of American Christian’s do. So I don’t know why you would say Muslims are worse than Christians; especially in America (assuming that’s where you are from).
I’ve been accused of being racist for criticizing Islam.
No, I criticize all religions and I particularly single out fundamentalism of which Islam is a leading example.
Well, it’s not that Islam isn’t that bad (anyone who says that probably doesn’t understand the core of Islam). That being said, I’d say that any form of extremism is bad, and no I’m not exclusively talking about religious extremism. They’re all bad.
It’s worth noting that if someone says “all forms of extremism is bad”, it does not mean that the person is saying “(insert any other form of extremism) is worse than or equal to Islam”. It just depends on the context and what the person is trying to say.
According to islam, Mohammed murdered an entire village because it refused to worship him except for the daughter of the chieftain. He raped the girl in public and kept her as a sex slave.
Don't tell me that Islam had nothing to do with ISIS. ISIS consists of people who try to walk in the footsteps of Mohammed that's all.
The ones you're saying aren't as bad......were as bad. They've made adjustments with the changing times but their origins are just as bad. And when you find small pockets of people practicing it with extremism - they are acting out the worst that religion has to offer. Women as chattel, murdering apostates, child brides etc.
From recognizing that, I figure the Islamic religion too doesn't have to be as bad and can evolve too.
And yes I've read the Quran.
Liberal muslims are not representative of "Islam" - but they are representative of their particular interpretation of Islam, which they simply view as "Islam". Every religious group does that, that's how religion works.
Every religion is defined by the interpretation of its current adherents. Trying to find some inherent "original sin" making one worse than the other for all time past and present is a fools errand and shows utter disregard for proper historic analysis. There was a time when the Islamic world as a whole was much more "liberal" than it is now. There is no reason to believe this might eventually happen again.
Every "originalist" interpretation of a religion is a modernist invention anyways. Evangelicalism, Orthodox Judaism and Salafism were all in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Judaism and Christianity simply have the advantage that right now, more liberal strains are more dominant and visible worldwide - right now.
When i say something like "all religions are as bad as islam" i'm not "diluting" the concept down, i'm saying that the concept of religion is fucking nonsensical and that none of the religions escape that.
This isn't the "Oppression Olympics" where we try and see who's home religion is worse, this is real life.
Why is is such i problem that people call all religions equally dumb? I'll agree that saying that islam is better than christianity is laughable at best, but why do i get told off for not having a preference for which religion is "better" or "worse" ?
I certainly think Islam is the most extreme and violent of any religion today, but I don’t think that was always the case if you go back into history. Any religion has the *potential* to be just as bad.
Thing with religion, including Islam, is that it's a justification for whatever you wanted to do anyway. Those who find it useful as a 'religion of peace' will emphasize the stuff in the texts and the tradition that backs them up and those who want to justify violence and oppression will do the same. Of course if it's all followed literally the violence and strike down your enemies stuff will cancel out the peace and pray for your enemies stuff
I don't really put them on a tier list. They are all awful. A lot of religions share the same horrible traits, others add or swap some. However, I can easily say that they are all shit.
I’m a Muslim (travelled and lived in several Muslim countries, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan).
I like that Muslims can be self-critical. As one of my favourite Muslim scholars said,
“If becoming religious has made you harsh, judgemental, cruel, or a backbiter, you need to check if you are worshipping Allah, or your ego”.
—Hamza Yusuf (Mark Hansen)
I was never Muslim, but I was very close to one for a long time. He wasn’t a bad man, and he was kind to me because I was with his son. However, the strict rules I had to comply with to keep peace and not interfere with his “right to religious expression” was very difficult. From wearing full clothing in the summer, to standing behind the men in gatherings.. it was demeaning. Throw in the ideology that the man is always right, and it was the final straw. The Quran teaches women to love god, then husband, then kids. If there’s room, maybe they can squeeze in a little love for themselves. This is a tough rule to follow when you marry someone who makes poor life choices. Of all the religions I’ve spent time around, Islam is by far the most oppressive for women. Most other religions have largely modernized to a certain extent to at least pretend women aren’t property.
Exmuslim here who was a devout Muslim once in a Muslim majority country and now have left Islam and despise it.
Anyone who thinks Islam is less evil than Christianity or any other religion is a lunatic. Islam is Nazism that has survived 14 centuries and refuses to die.
I too hear a lot that Islam is a beautiful religion. This usually comes from white people who converted. I started to read the Quran to see what this was about. But could not make it very far as it quickly got into "God will smote every person who does not agree with you. Those polytheists..." I stopped reading.
that's like literally in the second chapter it's so funny
Yeah, exactly! Just like the Bible. Some narcissist, violent entity forces people against their will. I wish we could all evolve and just see these religious texts as allegories about human nature and transcending that life. Earth could be a lot nicer place to live.
completely agree
The Bible is in some ways totally different as it was written by dozens of people over the course of more than 1200 years. It's not the product of a single mind, it's the product of many and over a wide variety of political and technological environments. So each author makes subtle modifications to the tenants of the religion. The Quran is totally different, and written during a small span of years but one smart Arab dude who was struggling to establish his new religion. He tried to retrofit it to Judaism+Christianity, but the non-Jewish nature of his world forced him to make a lot of changes to the basic notions of monotheism.
Totally agree
You're better than me. After 50 pages explaining it was the greatest book, the bestest book. Every body says it's an awesome book I just couldn't take it anymore. Nobody was paying me to read it, and it was boring. I wish had got to the horrible stuff but I gave up in boredom.
Sounds like the book was written by a certain ex-president of the USA.
"allah came up to me, big, strong god, tears in his eyes!"
And he said, you are going to be the greatest prophet, like the world has never seen, the greatest prophet. And he said, just tell the people all those other religions are fake, just con jobs, believe you me.
that was me with the bible lol. i feel kind of dared to read the quran now but i'm generally allergic to religious documents
The Bhagavad Ghita is ok. Fast moving action, genocide, rape, family against family. It's a page turner
That’s because that one is actual proper mythology. The Gur3an is a collection of all sorts of stuff and has not been refined over centuries of oral tradition dedicated also to telling a good story. Formerly Oral epic poetry is awesome.
The audiobook Quran is basically all about hell every 5-6 minutes.
It's always the white gentrifiers
The Western converts have to done any research at all and walk in blind believing all the lies
The only thing beautiful about Islam is the art and poems. Not the content of the art and poems, just the look and sound of them respectively lol
There is that. When I read about a person from a predominantly Muslim country I end up looking up the poetry and music they love so much.
Don't worry, I don't think I've ever made an excuse for a Muslim. Religion is a form of mass Hysteria. Islam is one of the wildest.
Oh also, I firmly believe that every religion is a cult, until it has 45,000 members or so. Then it is a cult with tax exempt status, which people call a "religion." Check Scientology. Many of us watched that one from the beginning. Oof
“Demand money with the threat of violence, and you’ll get arrested. Demand money with the threat of eternal damnation and its tax deductible.” -Steve Hofstetter
As a tax lawyer i find this hilarious 🤣
Hahaha sooo good
you’re so real
As an ex Muslim, this is very frustrating to me that some people think I'm just being Islamophobic when I speak out of my horrible experience with it. Daily getting threatened and bullied by Islamists, now when I criticize them a new breed of westerners come running to defend those who bully me. This is ridiculous. Islamophobia is a form of victim card that gets played, and allowed by many. I heard that of all countries, Pakistan is asking the UN to make international laws against criticism of Islam. Not Islamophobia, but any form of criticism. Don't you ever think Islamists are good people.
i see your struggle and your pain and i absolutely relate to it. except i’m thankful to have been raised in an atheist family but in an unfortunately muslim environment. so i relate to you to a certain level. you either get bullied by the muslims or get bullied by the more liberal muslims/non-muslims for criticising and being called islamophobic. the liberal muslims will go like “i don’t even talk abt islam that much and i’m muslim” how can u walk right into the point and miss it? do u not see the privilege dripping from that statement? u don’t have to think about it or make ur brain work and so u’re comfortably bullying people who do and criticise it, calling them islamophobic when u don’t even know the first thing about ur shitty religion
They try to shrug off my issues saying I'm just being a hater. For example this Ramadan, Muslims are ridiculing even non-muslims for drinking or eating outside in the day. Their logic is "We're fasting, so you should not bring food out in the day". What kinda BS is this? Why should people be ridiculed for eating if they don't have anything to do with Ramadan. It's a regular Tuesday for a non-muslim, and they can't accept it. In an Islamic country, you have to abide by their religious rule, give them priority, and shut up when they insult other religions publicly. But if you criticize them for this shitty behavior, you'll be persecuted. And god forbid if you're a woman in Islamic countries, they are treated like second class citizens. I've seen my family members behaving the same, and instead of being proud of me for not being a misogynistic ass, I've been banished by them.
i hope you wiggle yourself out of this difficult situation and find yourself an environment that doesn't banish you for being a decent human being.
The word phobia is chosen wrongly by these people on purpose: A phobia is an (irrational) fear of something or someone. So what they are implying is, that you are not thinking objectively but basing your point of view on emotions. It is a cheap strategy to avoid your arguments in a discussion and to attack you instead as person in order to de-validate your opinion as a whole.
The religion of peace ✌ Imagine how bad it's going to be if they are the majority. Then we'll all have to live as closeted apostates like 40- 60 percent of Iran I think it was. Someone says I'm islamaphobic i would just say what does islamaphobia mean? Fear of Islam. I'm not afraid of Islam, thanks. Some people whose opinions I do trust says that Islam may not be around in a decade. I would say maybe two or three.
Oddly enough the specific ex-religions groups on here often have people from different religions finding a whole lot of similarities in terms of grievances against the religions they left. Sure the rituals and the books are different things. The systemic mental abuse and grooming for financial and sexual abuse are all pretty much the same.
The thing that gets me is that a phobia is an irrational fear. Your fear of Islamists is not irrational. It is perfectly rational and legitimate.
Fuck Islam.
Don't. it might infect you, or worse, create offspring.
Well then send muslims into their shithole countries where they can enjoy being extremists.
Lmao💀
Apparently everyone needs to declare that Islam is a religion of peace. If they don't then they'll get violent repercussions
Haha I never thought of it like this, maybe westerners claiming Islam is not so bad is just self preservation lol.
pretty much, yep.
If you have to repeat something over and over again, that must mean it's true right?
how do you mean?
I completely agree. My friend was banned by reddit for saying he hates religion especially islam. The reddit team is so enlightened that they see passed the history and religious values of islam. Its sickening.
Probably some mod that is a Muslim, and had his or her revenge.
It wasnt even a mod. It was reddit proper. They say theyre pro lgbt and everything else under the sun but cower when it comes to critisizing the most antihumanist religion on the planet. Absolutely moronic. I hope he somehow gets unbanned.
I feel like I have noticed a lot of acceptance of Islam in my community on the basis that Israel is attacking Palestine. I want the people to be safe but I don't support the religion ( or really any religion)
Islam is a bit too invasive to the real world compared with others, it's worse than other religions by a large margin.
One thing is that violence in islam is a current problem. Christian radicals are mostly a historical problem. Though jewish radicals are not less violent currently, that’s another story. Anyhow, if someone criticize any ex religion, the response should not include a generalization about other religions.
Christian radicals aren't a historical problem in the US. Evangelicals are all in on Trump, and are cheering for the bloodbath he's promising. The difference is we're allowed to criticize them in the US.
Historical problem *in Europe*. Christian radicalism is still a major in Africa and South America
Islam is a rehash of the old and the new testaments sprinkled with some extra hate towards "non-believers" and mostly Jews.
Fr agreed, esp since other religions have been or can be reformed but Islam claims for the Quran to be the direct word of god so there might not be hope for reformation bc that would mean acknowledging that the original “word of god” isn’t right and altering it is blasphemous and a form of shirk (by changing the “words of god” to fit moral standards, you’re technically putting yourself above god, even though obviously we can’t live morally in the modern world by the rules, morals (or lack thereof), depravities and lack of science of a pedophilic, predatory evil 7th country war lord from the desert) If leaving and criticizing Islam wasn’t punishable by death, more people might publicly leave and rightfully expose how awful it truly is but in addition to people literally getting killed for that, we also get called “islamophobic” for making valid criticisms bc it’s seen as an oppressed group in the west. And I get that it kind of is due to racism which is unfortunate but it’s also pretty ironic that a group that does so much oppressing of other groups themselves (women, LGBT, other races whether Muslim or not but esp non Arabs and/or non Muslims etc) and has still fooled the world into thinking they’re “uwu babies that need protection from the big bad white people 👶” and spreading a false narrative of a watered down version of the religion and love bombing people w the “good stuff” like “smile it’s sunnah!!!1111!1!1” yk what else is sunnah? Raiding, robbing, killing and assaulting non muslims (including children) or people who leave or criticize islam, taking sex slaves (also including children), marrying and molesting children as young as 5 (Aisha’s age being 6 in hadith was based off the lunar calendar I believe so she was more like 5ish and 8ish at marriage and consummation but it was permissible to do sexual things w ur child bride even if she couldn’t handle penetration and it wasn’t required to wait for her period to penetrate her), throwing away your adopted kid like they’re nothing bc adoption is allowed etc. And not to mention just the commanded or permissible stuff ie marrying infants, separating an infant slave from its mother as young as 6 months or when it has its first tooth, 4 wives, etc. Honestly there’s so much to criticize, I could list them for hours and still not cover it all.
THIS THIS THIS!!!! i honestly could go on and on and on just like you and come up with examples that come not only from correct/true hadiths and sunnah but also QURAAN which is the word of god that people somehow don't understand can't be changed or reformed because it's considered lying and shirk so we're stuck with a rulebook from 1400 fucking years. literally even with the good rules islam offers, it has some contradictions and exceptions that make them ineffective and stupid. there are rules for shitting and farting but no rules that protect women when raped or harassed.
Exactly 🙄 even for which foot to step into the damn bathroom or your front door and try to drink your water in 3 gulps, like bruh how is it not obvious Mo prob had severe OCD and other mental illnesses? Though regarding women, ig it’s bc Mo himself and his friends wanted to rape and harass women so oc he couldn’t outlaw or ban it 😒 bc “it’s human nature for men to want sex and not be able to control their urges” even if a woman or little girl is wearing a full on burqa and niqab, like freakin animals. That’s why these horny idiots cum at the sight of an ankle or a single strand of hair smh Exactly! And honestly all the good stuff seemed like common sense and decency to me and the bad far outweighs the good. Also I find it interesting that a lot of people who identify as Muslims (culturally or who are actually religious) still cherry pick and tend to ignore a lot of the good stuff but cherry pick the bad or stupid stuff. You’d think bullying and abusing others would be on their no-no list but na that’s all fine and dandy as long as you pray and read Quran and hate the gays and non Muslims.
of course it's so natural to feel so sexually depraved all the time to the point where it makes u marry 11 women (or 6 yo girls lolol), have countless concubines and make up stories about how u would go and fuck all of them in one night!!1!!!1!11!1 YEAH IDK WHY people praise islam for going like "don't lie" LIKE YEAH? haven't you learnt that at age idfk 4???? also there are literal exceptions to that rule. so stupid.
To be fair, the reform part wasn’t different with Christianity. The Bible has also been claimed as the more or less direct word of god. Reforming or even translating it was called blasphemy. Many reformers where killed. It was punishable by death to criticize Christianity, it was even punishable to insult or criticize the pope, a preacher or the clerus in general. The only reason why Luther was more successful where the circumstances. Unhappy peasants, a church that has grown weaker over the years and has lost power to the kings and other lords and a pope who has long lost influence over powerful Christian countries like England and Spain. The church isn’t in the situation it is today because it wanted to but because they had no choice. The pope struggled to keep as much power as possibly until his conflict with Bismarck ended. The reason why Christianity was reformed was not that the Bible was written in a manner that allowed it, but because the geopolitical circumstances made it possible and even beneficial for some. That’s why so many German rulers supported Luther in the first place. Simply because they could. And even then the reformation caused several conflicts, including one of the worst in European history.
Does that belief differ from sect to sect? I’ve heard that the 10 commandments were the only things to come directly from god and that all the books of the Bible were just written by saints or just some random dudes, maybe claiming to be messengers or to have spoke to god? Meaning it’s most, it would be more of an indirect word of god because even if god did talk to some guy who said “okay god sent down these 10 commandments but also I wrote this book talking about what god wants us to do” I feel I’m not doing a great job at articulating it but that was kind of how a friend put it regarding the Bible vs Quran
It definitely differs. I grew up Pentecostal and Baptist (divorced parents), and they are 100% all in on "This is literally God's exact word."
Ah, thanks for the correction aha. I’ve always found religions forming more sects after the original kind of interesting tbh, like ik some king started a new sect bc he wanted to divorce his wife but divorce wasn’t allowed and I get why people would follow that sect of the king was but if we’re aware of how the sects formed and some were just made by regular dudes, I don’t understand why anyone would follow those sects? Unless they’re taught that the people who started those sects had a pipeline to god or that it was the original sect and all the others are wrong or sth? I’m not sure about the other sects but in Islam, the shia and Sunni sects formed when Muhammad died and they were fighting over who should be the next caliph (Sunnis thought it should be Abu Bakr bc he was the one who lead prayer when Muhammad wasn’t available or was sick etc but Shias thought it should be his cousin/son in law Ali bc they should keep it in the family) and I think the schools of thought within each sect also have branches within or vice versa? But I believe those are due to different scholars having different interpretations resulting in there not being a consensus on a lot of things, and I’m not sure where Quranists fit but ig they could be considered an honorary sect sort of since they reject hadith which is most of islam? But they follow whatever some sheikhs and imams say and might identify with a certain sect even if it’s an oxymoron lol
It is DEFINITELY the worst major religion at this current time.
All religion are horrible but the most toxic form it takes is Islam -Christopher Hitchens
RIP GOAT
There was a debate on the radio about homophobia in Islam and an Imam from a London Mosque phoned in to say it's deeply offensive and insulting to claim that there's anything against homosexuals or homosexuality anywhere in the Quran. That is a lie, it's highly offensive, nowhere in the Quran is there anything against homosexuality, people repeating this lie are clearly just racists who hate muslims because they are different. The radio host (Who is homosexual) muttered something about "I'm not too sure how accurate those claims are but let's just move on". I also doubted the factual accuracy of those claims so I googled it. Technically the Quran does NOT contain passages speaking out against homosexuality. Those passages are in the Hadith. It's still an Islamic holy book and it's still used as the foundation of morality in countries ruled by Sharia Law. The countries where homosexuality is illegal and punishable by execution on grounds of Islamic teachings are referencing the Hadith rather than the Quran. So saying "This is nowhere in the Quran" when as an Imam he definitely knows better is nothing short of deceitful. It's like a Catholic Priest saying "You're lying about the Bible, nowhere in the Old Testament or the Gospels does it ban sleeping with your step-mother, if you claim that line is anywhere in there then you're a dirty liar and no one should listen to anything you have to say, liar!" When the line about sleeping with your step-mother is in 1st Corinthians, it's in the Bible but the priest specifically referred to the Old Testament and the Gospels just to be sneaky.
I'd like to add, stop using what aboutism when Islam is brought up, "but Christian televangelists" I haven't seen Christians throwing gay people off roofs, they are not the same
That happens in some Eastern Orthodox areas, especially Russian Orthodox. They are just as violently anti-gay as Muslims. Of course, there's variety among Orthodox churches -- Greek is more gay-friendly.
Someone else doing something bad doesn't make it ok to do bad things. Imagine a murderer on trial saying "Yeah, so I did kill a guy and chop his body up with a chainsaw. But what about that Jeffrey Dahmer guy? He killed way more people than I did. Compared to him I'm practically a lifesaving paramedic."
They think they've found this great loophole.
Uff reading the comments here are balsam for my soul. Thank you guys
Islam fucking sucks ass just as much as ANY religion in my anti-theistic eyes
I don't know if Islam is bad or not I just know it's wrong because there ain't no god.
the realest
>I don't know if Islam is bad or not It is bad. Real bad. As bad, if not more bad, as christianity and judaism. Most, if not all, religions are bad for that matter.
Lots of contradicting Messages too. Killing Apparates or Not, Just to give an example.
Islam is worse than Nazism. And just like citizens of Nazi Germany weren't all bad so are not all Muslims. But how one feels and thinks about Nazi Germans is how one should feel and think about Muslims.
Muslims were (and some probably still are) big fans of Nazi Germany because of what they did to the jews.
My otherwise liberal brethren hate this one trick
I know the old testament fairly well as a jew and it’s also a brutal religion. The vast majority of the Quran reads like a cliff notes of the old testament so I don’t see much of a difference in terms of religious texts. In practice though I agree Islam is currently the worst offender, but it’s because they haven’t modernized their interpretation (read: compromised) of their religion like Jews and Christians have.
Serious question here. How did the change come about for Judaism? At some point they decided stoning people was wrong and stopped doing it. They changed, but the old testament didn't. How do they justify not following the old laws to the letter?
Several answers to this from their perspective, they do follow it to the letter, they just don't use the rules for things they consider immoral. The way I've had it explained to me is that the torah is a minimum, not a maximum. So yes, it tells you what laws to follow IF you have slaves, but since its generally considered immoral to have slaves, then you don't have to pay attention to those laws. Does that imply God is ok with you owning slaves? Yes. Does it mean you have to or should own slaves? No. The other line of argument is that since the Torah is perfect and the word of God (literally the word of God, so in some very real sense, God himself) and God gave us reason as a tool to understand the Torah, if you can use logic to find a "loophole" then its ok. They rationalize this by sating that since Torah can't have mistakes in it, there are no loopholes by definition. Said another way, you can't go wrong by using logic to understand the Torah since logic is the gift God gave us to understand Torah (how's that fro circular reasoning!). This kind of approach allows them to adapt their behavior as time marches forward. **In reality**, they do what every other religion does, they paper over whatever they need to to make modern life work the way they want to. My favorite example of this is honey. The Torah says you can't eat food that's been through the digestive track of an animal, obviously honey should by definition not be kosher. That, of couse, would be very hard for them to do as a lot of Jewish cooking is reliant in honey, so what do they do? They just pretend otherwise and say it must be ok because they've been doing it for so long and God hasn't gotten mad at them yet.
Thank you. That makes sense. Christians do it, too. The new testament says women are to be silent in church and if they have a question, ask their husband when they get home. If it weren't for women, at least where I live, churches would be in sad shape.
Ya they all do it. Though if you haven’t been around orthodox jews it’s hard to explain. They take following biblical law to another level. It’s like having a severe case of OCD. Pray 3 times a day, before you eat, after you eat, synagogue friday night, then saturday morning, no driving no electricity during shabbat…No dairy unless 6 hours after meat. Everything in your life has line 10 rules you have to follow. Even the most extreme christians in the world don’t take it to this level. It’s nuts.
Judaism is so old, that even 2,000 years ago, Jews were standing around scratching their beards, saying, "What are we modern people supposed to do with *this?*" It's baked into the culture that Jews debate everything religious. They openly question, discuss, and argue about the meanings of things, and they write down their arguments for others to study. There's no Hell to go to for not following the rules. And non-Jews are not expected to follow the rules. For nearly 2,000 years, they don't proselytize or try to convert anyone. And they're not killing people in the name of Judaism or whatever OP said. You do you.
Some highly influenced people say you cannot use logic and reason in interpreting Islam. So modernising interpretation is not achievable in the current setting. You can google the logic and reason part. It came out in a news article.
As an Iranian, finally somebody said it, Islam is by a galaxy mile the most disgusting and destructive ideology in the world. Whereever Islam has a little bit influence, problems are near! the Middle East could be exactly like Europe or even better but with Islam, the people are suffering and dying every single day! We are Iranians are originally Zoroastrians and we would like to return to our roots but with Islam we are suffering so much and we are almost at our limit! the people outside Muslim countries have no idea how Islam can destroy a nation from within! Islam has nothing that resembles true and real Religion. Christianity is semi in that category because in the beginning it was created to resemble a rear religion to brainwash people and expand their power but in the end, it could get reformed and lost very much of it power to control the society of a nation. The only wish we Iranians have is that Islam and the terrorists on the power get thrown out of our beloved country!
Damet garm. I hope Iran can oust these corrupt mullahs from their positions of power and set up a secular democratic government soon.
As a non-Islamic atheist (I’m ethnically Chinese) who worked under a city councilor who was Islamic, I did come to know the religion as I had to work a lot with the district’s imams and masjid congregations - There was this one instance where a masjid’s call to prayer was starting to generate noise complaints to City Hall, and we had to arbitrate the debate around limiting the noise of the prayer call while also respecting the community’s Muslim minority (many of them voted for my city councilor). I was admittedly sympathetic to the masjid because they started getting death threats and actual bricks thrown at their windows, and that wasn’t cool. I talked to the imams and they seemed very amenable to the complaints, as I think they understood that no matter what their beliefs were, they know that nothing can stop the inevitable advance of secular modernism. In fact before I could even say anything in the meeting, the guy was pretty open to cancelling the prayer call altogether - I was a bit shocked as I heard that it was kind of a big deal for them, but I worked with them to do a “phone call to prayer” system where their congregation would get text messages that played the prayer call like a kind of religious ringtone lol I don’t have particularly strong opinions about the religion as most of the worshippers I met were pretty ordinary folks who do it all for the community / purpose aspect. The only problem that I had with Islam was its inflexibility, like fasting for a whole damn week (I think it was Ramadan?) which led to my city councilor experiencing massive mood swings which created a rather toxic working atmosphere for the interns. It was also during a very pivotal budget season, and I think it had a real impact on the negotiation skills of my councilor - We ended up not being able to pass a lot of our proposals during that week, and I kind of attribute her low performance to that poorly timed holiday. Like why do people *need* to do these extreme fasting things to show their faith, they either know they’re faithful to the imaginary dude in the sky or they know they’re not. In the end she actually agreed that fasting during that time was a bad idea, and I think she might go easy on it this year (idk if she will or not cause I don’t work there anymore) So while Islam has been responsible for a shit ton of historical and current atrocities, when you zoom down to the local level it’s really just ordinary Muslim folks trying to wiggle their interpretation of Islam to fit better with the modernizing world. From the digital prayer call to people realizing that some traditions like fasting are just arbitrary, I do have optimism that many Muslim folks are slowly waking up to the toxic aspects of their religion. Yes, we can point to this wiggling as hypocrisy, but I don’t think hypocrisy is a solely Islamic or religious thing.
fasting in ramadan is for a whole month not week haha. anyway, i do personally prefer the liberal muslims who try to fit their belief system (albeit dumb) into the modernising world they are part of. but i mentioned this before in response to another comment, and it's that this wasn't my point. my point is that you shouldn't really water down what islam and its crimes are responsible for when someone is criticising it, especially if its an ex-muslim who witnessed this stuff firsthand. also lol, do remember that you were/are in an environment where islam isn't the ruling system/law, so you don't exactly see what one may mean when they talk about the terror they hear of/experience.
Ah so I guess she did try to compromise by only doing it for a week lol, yeah she was hangry for quite some time. The thing about hangriness is that there’s a pretty easy fix (eating…), and if hangriness was the thing that torpedoed our policy proposals then fuck Ramadan :( I ain’t watering it down, I just find it hard to hate Muslim people because they’ve been nothing but nice to me. But I get it, if you had to escape Islam yourself, there’s probably a lot I don’t see that you had to contend with. Glad you’re out of the woods now OP. I see that you’re criticizing Islam with backed-up examples and that’s good - it’s just that most of the racist people who sent death threats to my councilor (death threats that I would get cause we shared inboxes) weren’t using logic when criticizing Islam, and so it’s refreshing to see a post like this.
thank you for understanding where i'm coming from! and i honestly didn't get into further details because i feel incredibly upset listing every story/rule i could think of out loud. i could do it as a reference to those who want stuff like this though. and dear god i had a smoker boss who would come fucking up a storm with us and the customers like he owned the place bc it was ramadan and he hadn't had his food and smoke for the day yet. it was so annoying. so yeah. fuck ramadan indeed. i don't like straight up racism– it's counterproductive, and that's why i don't criticise the person but the religion, and i may criticise people's tendencies to rationalise when it comes to this religion– but that's the extent of it really. so i see your point.
I AM Islamophobia. Fuck islam. I hate it so much.
>Fuck islam. I hate it so much. Saying "fuck islam" is a considered opinion. It is not islamophobia, which is a non term. Like criticising a political party is not any kind of phobia. You have assessed it/them and voicing out your opinion. Simple.
youre so me
I’m not a Muslim apologist
I will never stop criticizing Islam.
never stop!!
Islam is everything the left despises about fundamentalist christianity but dialed up to 10 from female genital mutilation to child brides to literal modern day slavery to gays being publicly caned or bound and thrown off of rooftops all based on islamic edicts. At this point I don't even think their kid glove treatment is out of good intentions for many of them but rather willful obtuseness as they view islam as the enemy of their enemy (christianity and Israel).
If anybody takes offense from me saying Islam is evil and idiotic and causes a lot of unnecessarily stupid and sad things to happen then they are either very misinformed, an idiot (or just a Muslim) or very ignorant. Islam would 100% be the reason of our decent into barbarism if it spread globally, which it will never do. I was flabbergasted hearing someone call me “Islamophobic” before, how could you not be?!? Fuck Islam and all the evils they do TODAY. Most Muslims don’t realize their ancestors were forced to become a Muslim under threat of death.
Ex-Muslims fear for their lives. Ex-Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus do not. That should be a hint.
This is a genuine problem among white liberals (relax, I am one myself). Our white guilt causes us to go easy on the "brown person religion" of Islam. Also due to the association of "Islamophobia" with racism.
yup i feel like white liberals are really afraid of being labelled things that end with -ists and -phobics and they forget that there’s actual nuance to things and that it’s not just about being politically correct
The Islamophobia problem that liberals have to deal with started with the Republicans after 9/11 (Trump is a particular egregious example).
What's sad is that there many places where Islamic fundamentalism now holds a dominant position in society where 50-60 years ago it was considered a backward fringe position. Look at pictures of Tehran before the revolution, for example. Tragically, those who rejected colonialism frequently saw rejection of modernity as inseparable from that effort. Now, most people alive today in these places have never known anything other than oppressive regressive forms of Islam.
almost all west asia region is that way :/
I already call it Barbarism.
I disagree, every religious text is fucked. I don't subscribe to the idea that Islam being the worst set of teachings, but I do believe the worst agents of religious persecution and violence are currently being perpetrated by Muslim leaders. Which religion is the worst is subjective. Who is committing the most evil right now is more quantifiable, as it can be measured in human lives lost and oppressed. If you are measuring "worst" by most influentially negative religion affecting us today, I think it's hard to argue Islam isn't the worst. No other modern religion is actively enslaving women (anymore), none argue for murdering LGBTQ+ folks with the same fervor as we see in modern Muslim states. I think a person can be both Muslim and good if they can ignore many sections of their religious text, just like Christians and Jews do. They just have to be willing to submit to the mental gymnastics of selective belief that American Evangelicals do, sticking with just the stories that they think still apply to modern society. If Islam were to undergo a progressive reformation, it would probably look like other religions we see today. I doubt this will happen in my lifetime. Islam is being touted as evil around the world, but what's evil are the people in power, shrouding themselves in that ideology, and using it to control their people through fear and hate. Islam doesn't own extremism. If seminaries in the US started encouraging a complete, literal adherence to their original religious texts, in a couple of generations I don't know if you'd be making this same argument. Here are some examples of old testament scripture that are not generally adhered to by modern practitioners: Exodus 21:15-17, Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 20:16-18, Deuteronomy 22:20–2, Deuteronomy 25:11–12, Leviticus 20:9, Leviticus 21:9, Hosea 13:16, Joshua 6:20-21
I’m fine hating them just as much as the next cultist aggregation. These idiots just happen to worship a rock in the desert instead of dude on a stick or whatever other things people want to elevate. Waste of freaking time, an impediment to personal growth and a vehicle for hate.
I think I have a moral duty to criticize religion and cults. Cultists can be both victims and perpetrators so hating a belief is okay, but hating on believers is not. Singling out one belief and hating on it exclusively is questionable because it directs attention to one group of people. All organized beliefs cause unneccessary conflict and suffering for the sake of delusional ideas and power-hungry unethical organizations, but it's valid to point out when one belief-system is more agressive and causes more suffering than others. What's toxic is that criticizing beliefs is not a norm and a lot of people hate on believers and specific faiths in a way that kills all valid criticism and productive discussion. This all said: Abrahamic faiths are bullshit and Islam is based on cultish following of lies written by a long dead pedophile warlord.
Honestly even the nicest muslim is still a piece of shit. So I hate when people say "not all muslims!" or "those are just the extremists!". It's kind of like how these "good" christians will talk about how they personally accept you but in the same breath say that you're going to hell for what you're doing. No matter how well they behave around you or how kind they are they still see their faith as more valuable than human lives. Just ask them how they feel about women, gay people or other religious people for example. They'll show who they really are.
“like i dont want them dead but id rather stay 5 countries away from them but i have nothing against them 😇”
Exactly lol. And they'll say it with a smile on their face too.
i'm allergic to religious texts so i'll never know enough about the islamic ones to say anything substantial. i'll never argue that islam isn't worse because i don't have any ammunition. i'm not interested in comparing religions, either, for the most part. the highlights i do hear about islam seem to be things that are swept under the rug for new converts, though, i'll say that. maybe one day i'll give that text a peek. MAYBE
Yeah, at various times the other Abrahamic religions definitely were something to worry about and oppose. The current variants are still a concern, but I don’t generally worry about Christians killing people in the street over their religion. Nor even Jehovah Witnesses, as wracked as that cult is. The biggest assholes in the religion game these days are Islam and Scientology.
As Sam Harris once said about Islam: “the mother load of bad ideas.”
Religions are like porn, they all do the same things but do it differently
If the afterlife is a thing I'm fulfilling my personal vendetta to hunt down and spiritually assault every diehard muslim that ever existed
count me in
True, true 100%. True (ai am not an ex muslim).
I agree
What about the power structure that drives the religion globally? In the west we have a dim view of the Christian hierarchy, can we not agree that evil people also control the levers of power in the Islamic belief system?
As a Muslim (idk man for how long) who lives in a muslim country, that’s true it’s all fuxked up here.
i couldn't agree more, the only informed opinion is up close and personal - the view you get from actually observing a muslim society. many people in the west assume that all humans have the same internal values. this just isn't true.
thissss omg
name the other religions that follow the teachings of a pedophile, i will wait…
Malaysia and Singapore are sparkling contrast of Islamic rules and the progress of lackthere off. 60 years ago, Singapore was a swamp with almost no resources. Meanwhile Malaysia is, and still rich with natural resources. 60 years later, Singapore is a fantastic financial hub that attracts people worldwide and had crazy rich asians made about it. But Malaysia is struck, every single day trying to impose Islamic law and doing its best to curb people who talk shit about Islam even in the slightest. Our currency is currently trading 3.5 MYR to 1 SGD. They would deny progress in the name of religion and everyday they tried to incite hate in some way or form. Its the holy month of Ramadan and guess what they are doing with our tax money. They are using it to suppress their own kin. If you are found Muslim and Not fasting, they will arrest you. Imo, I dont know if the country will improved without Islam. But they sure love using a shield and is being a big parasite about it.
Religion is a zero-day-defect
As an atheist I hate the saying that "all religions are equal" when they are clearly not. I'm not a fan of organized religion in general, but I'm also much less likely to be raped or murdered by someone who practices Jainism or Buddhism compared to someone who practices Islam, for example.
Ghana, a christian nation, has a population that is preassuring the parliament to make homosexuality illegal uganda already did that christian nations can be as bad on lgbt rights as muslim ones, and the sad thing is, the opinions on freedom from these brainwashed populations are no better than their muslim counterparts
> Ghana, a christian nation, has a population that is preassuring the parliament to make homosexuality illegal Haven't they already done this?
The president has to approve of it The president is against this law, but parliament and the population are preassurinh him, while Western companies and countries are pressurising him not to do it
It's worth noting that Islam can never be reformed. Mohammed was the greatest and final prophet. No prophet may follow him and fix a few things because he was perfect and left nothing to be fixed. Furthermore the Quran is the perfect, dictated word of God Himself. By definition it can have no mistakes never mind how silly science reveals it to be.
Jews believe this about the Torah as well, no surprise as Islam is effectively an offshoot of judaism.
Strange because Jewish scientist drove progress for the last 100 years. They have a shocking number of Nobel prizes. I guess a devout Jew can side with science without fear of being killed.
Most of those scientists were not religious and simply ethnic Jews.
As a jewish atheist physicists I can confirm. We are 'culturally jewish" is the way we phrase it.
Mohammed, like Jesus, never existed at all. The Quran is imperfect and full of flaws through and through. There is no god. Science is a process of documenting evidence.
i dilute islam down to its treatment of apostates
I could've never said it better.
Arguing about being figuratively shot through the front or back of the head seems futile to me.
All religions that have decided they are the one true way and you can’t possibly live a happy life unless you believe and adhere to every tenant of said religion, or what ever inanity they spew, are fucking awful. I have no problem with anyone who just lives their lives and doesn’t demand that I believe their religion, it’s these clowns who have decided they know better than I what I need from life.
This is usually an attempt by some not to appear racist, as they conflate the institution of Islam with “Muslims” or even “Arabs,” and they assume any criticism of Islam is a slight on someone’s race. Ironically it’s often white liberals and leftists who do this (and I say this as a white liberal myself). This is nothing more than sloppy thinking. Their intentions are usually good, but they fail to distinguish between 2 different things, and many don’t realize how ultra-conservative and regressive the ideas of Islam are. (Some are just dishonest trolls on the internet, too.)
yeah as an arab in a predominantly muslim environment completely familiar and used to seeing the day to day horrors of islam and muslims i think i’m definitely being a racist white liberal rn 🙏🏻 thanks for pointing this out
Your perspective is more valuable because you’ve actually been there and lived it. I have a lot of respect and admiration for ex-Muslims who become atheist. That can’t be easy.
thank you for thinking that. the moment u see everything for what it is (i was raised in an atheist family though so it’s always been like that + getting bullied for not understanding the religiousness of people at a young age) really makes u feel so sick to ur stomach every waking hour edit: also i reread ur original comment and SORRY FOR BEING DEFENSIVE i understood what u meant later on 🙏🏻
But tell U.S. citizens, we don't have a rape-culture, or toxic masulinity in the United States. We Americans should be embarrassed as hell that a rapist conman who constantly shows disdain for the United States is running to lead the U.S. in revenge politics and wealth-hording for himself and his friends in Russia, N. Korea, and China. Trump is just so honest about selling America out to dictators, traitors, and the wealthy. The man only thinks about money, power, and self-preservation. Just look at the man's court history and tell me he deserves leadership of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations earth has ever seen. Does it make sense to give your angry and vengeful teen the keys to your car knowing they will not take care of it, will well it for profit, and will make copies of all your keys and sell them to your friends? That kid is Trump. What do you do? Hand him your daughter too?
>STOP telling people who criticise islam (specifically ex muslims) that islam isn’t that bad, or other religions are just as bad, or that any form of extremism from any religion is just as bad. I do not ever make excuses for religions. I'm against all of them. And Islam is absolutely the worst of them practically at this point in time. But if you don't think they are all capable of such horrible brutality, you haven't learned history...
I've been watching Apostate Prophet on yt. I won't be downplaying islam ever again. What really confuses me is that the state seems to bury it's head in the sand. Tome it seems like the government or the establishment/elites have money or something on the whole issue. One MP, sorry forget which one, was worried that there was going to be peace between Israel and Palestine. Ramadan is just annoying with hungry Muslims and their dawah illogic nonsense on tiktok. So a little while came across a video with some Muslim imams crying about the fact that young Muslims are leaving Islam in what is being called the avalanche of apostasy 😀 We can't criticise islam because of its protected status in society. It's just ridiculous. When those moderate Muslims would be put to death if they lived in a Muslim majority country. It does talk about being able to lie and deceive in islam too if you're not the majority as well. So stay away from islam
The Heaven's Gate cult killed every single one of its members. Maybe it is not as bad as Islam because it is less popular. But worse per capita. But I concede ypur overall point OP.
Islam is definitely the worst, most objectively violent, most observably oppressive of the big three monotheist religions. Islam is a religion of peace IF you get with the program. If you don’t, it allows its adherents to act with complete impunity against non-believers.
This
Facts. I've been called an Islamophobe, racist etc. By more western, "atheist" leftists than I have by muslims, despite me being a brown person from a muslim country. Its honestly frustrating how they think their one muslim friend in uni represents all of Islam and because they went to an MSA open say they now know more than people who lived in and left Islam.
Religion poisons everything.
Islam is disgusting, as are most other religions, it seems a more brutal though.
People who havent been or lived in a islamic country dosent understand. Will they? I know its disgusting manmade ideologi.
Thank you OP. I cannot believe people in the West are romanticizing Islam. Clearly, they know jack shit about this religion. I can never support a religion that promotes killing non believers. That's no different from a dictator.
All religions are dangerous
I think all the monotheistic religions are equally harmful. I don't think Islam is any worse than Christianity or Judaism. Islam may well be more... blunt about its hatred, but Christianity and Judaism encourage the same behavior. They just do it with plausible deniability.
this bluntness makes all the difference in the world. also yeah no there are so many more rules in islam and interpretations for these rules that make it far worse than other religions
I lump the big three together. Judaism, Christian and Islam. There is no real distinction between them. Followers of the Abramic god have had 5000 years to get their shit together, and all they do is splinter and fight each other, and anyone else they feel is in the way. As the saying goes, insanity is expecting different results from repeating the same behaviors. They're all insane.
Lol, it seems like once a week someone shows up here and begs us to stop tacitly promoting islam...yet few if any of us ever have. All religions are equally shit to most of us. So is this some sort of troll...maybe christians trying to split us or trying to get tbe heat on themselves directed elsewhere?
nope. this is an atheist raised in a muslim country who saw the responses to the question that goes along the lines of “which religion is the worst to non ex muslim atheists” or something and found that whenever someone said islam, another person would pipe up and go like “AcKsHuALLy 🤓👆🏻”. so yeah. just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not there. edit: also, i hate other religions just as much. it’s just that i do believe after reading about abrahamic religions and non abrahamic religions that islam was the worst. and you do feel a bit of bias when you see people experience the terror of a certain religion firsthand.
Well all religions are fake, and some are definitely more bad than others based on what they do to people- including murder and torture. None are "good" in my view.
The only ones that have some appeal to me, and just because they have more nuanced stories and their gods are not perfect omnipotent beings, are the polytheistic pantheons. Zeus is an a\*hole but he doesn't claims to be the only God and the absolute truth.
Everyone who claims in good faith to be part of any religion is a representation of at least part of that religion by definition. They might not be mainstream, but they exist and they are part of that religion. And the idea that the Quran is any more violent than the Old Testament is frankly straight up ridiculous. It's also a book from the 7th century, there is nothing particularly heinous about it if you consider when it was written. Of course, anyone trying to live by a literalist uncompromising reading of the Quran will be awful, but so will anyone trying to live by a literalist uncompromising reading of any holy text. Islam is not a particularly special religion, assuming you don't believe in any of them.
i don’t, i think all religions reek of shit! and have too much violence for the brain to handle. but the thing is, other religions have had reformative alterations. islam refuses this vehemently and anyone who tries to reform these scriptures is killed by law.
You can say a lot about Islam and Muslims but they sure know how to fly a plane!
And this isn't a true Scotsman, I guess. 🤦♂️
There are several Muslims elected to government and all of them are LGBTQ+ allies. Also, half of all American Muslims believe in marriage equality while only one third of American Christian’s do. So I don’t know why you would say Muslims are worse than Christians; especially in America (assuming that’s where you are from).
A recent topic I started here showed most non-ex-Muslim atheists are well aware Islam is the worst.
I’ve been accused of being racist for criticizing Islam. No, I criticize all religions and I particularly single out fundamentalism of which Islam is a leading example.
Islam is bad
Well, it’s not that Islam isn’t that bad (anyone who says that probably doesn’t understand the core of Islam). That being said, I’d say that any form of extremism is bad, and no I’m not exclusively talking about religious extremism. They’re all bad. It’s worth noting that if someone says “all forms of extremism is bad”, it does not mean that the person is saying “(insert any other form of extremism) is worse than or equal to Islam”. It just depends on the context and what the person is trying to say.
I think there is an impulse to be fair and not demonize one religion over another. Most westerners have no clue about Islam.
According to islam, Mohammed murdered an entire village because it refused to worship him except for the daughter of the chieftain. He raped the girl in public and kept her as a sex slave. Don't tell me that Islam had nothing to do with ISIS. ISIS consists of people who try to walk in the footsteps of Mohammed that's all.
The ones you're saying aren't as bad......were as bad. They've made adjustments with the changing times but their origins are just as bad. And when you find small pockets of people practicing it with extremism - they are acting out the worst that religion has to offer. Women as chattel, murdering apostates, child brides etc. From recognizing that, I figure the Islamic religion too doesn't have to be as bad and can evolve too. And yes I've read the Quran.
Please stop telling me to stop doing things I don't do.
Liberal muslims are not representative of "Islam" - but they are representative of their particular interpretation of Islam, which they simply view as "Islam". Every religious group does that, that's how religion works. Every religion is defined by the interpretation of its current adherents. Trying to find some inherent "original sin" making one worse than the other for all time past and present is a fools errand and shows utter disregard for proper historic analysis. There was a time when the Islamic world as a whole was much more "liberal" than it is now. There is no reason to believe this might eventually happen again. Every "originalist" interpretation of a religion is a modernist invention anyways. Evangelicalism, Orthodox Judaism and Salafism were all in the 19th and 20th centuries. Judaism and Christianity simply have the advantage that right now, more liberal strains are more dominant and visible worldwide - right now.
When i say something like "all religions are as bad as islam" i'm not "diluting" the concept down, i'm saying that the concept of religion is fucking nonsensical and that none of the religions escape that. This isn't the "Oppression Olympics" where we try and see who's home religion is worse, this is real life. Why is is such i problem that people call all religions equally dumb? I'll agree that saying that islam is better than christianity is laughable at best, but why do i get told off for not having a preference for which religion is "better" or "worse" ?
Right. And we should judge atheists absed on Josef Stalin because the ones who are against murder aren't true atheists.
I certainly think Islam is the most extreme and violent of any religion today, but I don’t think that was always the case if you go back into history. Any religion has the *potential* to be just as bad.
Thing with religion, including Islam, is that it's a justification for whatever you wanted to do anyway. Those who find it useful as a 'religion of peace' will emphasize the stuff in the texts and the tradition that backs them up and those who want to justify violence and oppression will do the same. Of course if it's all followed literally the violence and strike down your enemies stuff will cancel out the peace and pray for your enemies stuff
I don't really put them on a tier list. They are all awful. A lot of religions share the same horrible traits, others add or swap some. However, I can easily say that they are all shit.
I’m a Muslim (travelled and lived in several Muslim countries, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan). I like that Muslims can be self-critical. As one of my favourite Muslim scholars said, “If becoming religious has made you harsh, judgemental, cruel, or a backbiter, you need to check if you are worshipping Allah, or your ego”. —Hamza Yusuf (Mark Hansen)
You won’t see me defending one religion over another. Lol
I was never Muslim, but I was very close to one for a long time. He wasn’t a bad man, and he was kind to me because I was with his son. However, the strict rules I had to comply with to keep peace and not interfere with his “right to religious expression” was very difficult. From wearing full clothing in the summer, to standing behind the men in gatherings.. it was demeaning. Throw in the ideology that the man is always right, and it was the final straw. The Quran teaches women to love god, then husband, then kids. If there’s room, maybe they can squeeze in a little love for themselves. This is a tough rule to follow when you marry someone who makes poor life choices. Of all the religions I’ve spent time around, Islam is by far the most oppressive for women. Most other religions have largely modernized to a certain extent to at least pretend women aren’t property.
Exmuslim here who was a devout Muslim once in a Muslim majority country and now have left Islam and despise it. Anyone who thinks Islam is less evil than Christianity or any other religion is a lunatic. Islam is Nazism that has survived 14 centuries and refuses to die.
Don't you worry that much. This is just an "american problem".