In a page filled with Islamic scholarship (that was illuminating actually) I want to introduce a simplistic argument.
How about don't bomb mosques, Churches, Temples and leave other people in peace?
Is that so hard? The idea that other people and culture have their own religions?
Think about it in this manner - here you have several pages of arguments between muslims, about how to interpret old scriptures, what they really mean, whether blowing up historic structures is justified or not. They can argue about this from a religious POV until the cows come home, until the sun becomes a red giant, until you and I and they are dust.
And if they can argue about or justify attacks on other sects for being unislamic, then would they have any hesitation to destroy the religious and cultural accomplishments of others? Would they blink an eye before destroying temples or gurudwaras, as they did in the Indian subcontinent by the thousands? Would any of them care that the Taliban blew up millenia old Buddhist statues at Bamiyan using artillery and rockets just a few years back? Would they care that "unbelievers" are treated as less than themselves, with lesser rights and worth?
Here on this feel good thread (that's what this is, despite the odious news) you have muslims condemning ISIS for attacking other sects, and even a dialogue between a christian and muslims about how all Abrahamic religions teach the same thing, and therefore they shouldn't attack each other. The irony is lost on them that even this feel goodish conversation is an exercise in propping up an "us versus them" mentality, which has been the bane of humanity for millenia.
Sometimes it is eminently beneficial to step back, and take an outsiders' view of things, instead of getting tied up abstruse discources of a particular POV. I have said this before, that instead of arguing back and forth about whether something is islamic or not, muslims should simply ask themselves if it is right or wrong. That's a much easier question to answer. So is it right or wrong to destroy other people's places of worship? Is it OK to go about bombing shrines or churches or temples that according to your beliefs may be heretical? Any normal human being will say that it's wrong. Everybody on this thread, if they take off their religious glasses for a moment and don their humanistic ones, will say that they will not personally go out and destroy a shrine or mosque or temple. But here you have even think tanks and older members trying to figure it out using hadiths and quran and whatnot.
Was it Voltaire who said that without religion good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things, but only religion can make good people do (or condone) bad things?
FFS people, stop debating such things from an islamic or hindu or christian POV. Just ask yourself if it is OK to destroy other people's property. It's quite easy to answer that. Some of you live in countries with significant non islamic populations. Would any of you happily go destroy those people's places of worship? If not, then why this endless debate about whether the actions of ISIS are justified or not?
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