- "Sophisticated" critics usually react to the
word "evil" with condescension and derision. Describing something
as "evil," in their view, generally brands one as an unenlightened
throw-back to the dark ages -- or the equivalent of a televangelist preaching
hellfire and damnation. Who forgets the outcry when President Reagan described
the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire?" Or today, when President
Bush refers to the "Axis of Evil?" Commentators unequivocally
condemn the word as an outmoded judgmental term unfit for today's multi-cultural
world. Unless, of course, one wants to use it to describe the United States
of America or Western Civilization itself.
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- The question, "Is America evil?" is routinely
discussed not just on message boards and in chat rooms -- the Internet
equivalent of bathroom walls -- but by tenured professors and in respected
newspapers. A New York Times book review on January 11, 2004, quotes author
Lance Morrow from his book: "Evil, An Investigation". "Americans
are struggling now with the possibility that their country may be evil
-- or, to be more practical, that their country may be doing evil in the
world." Just two weeks later, the front page of Book Review section
reads: "Is America an evil empire? Seven new books seem ready to think
so."
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- Most Americans are shocked at the notion of an evil America
. Considering our history, the attack on our country's character is hard
to fathom. Over the last two centuries immigrants came in droves, seeking
refuge from tyranny and poverty. They found unequalled freedom and opportunity
secured by a stable democracy. During that time, totalitarian barbarity
threatened to consume the world. America played a crucial role in defeating
European and Japanese fascism in WWII. However, Europe was left in ruins
and half enslaved by Communism. In Asia, Japan was in ruins and China soon
became Communist. We then faced the Communist strain of totalitarianism;
one that would result in the deaths of 100 million people and threatened
to engulf the world. Once again, our military might was crucial. We contained
Communism until it fell of its own internal contradictions. In short, America
has saved civilization.
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- Given the recent worldwide attacks by Islamic terrorists,
why isn't the question "Is Islam evil?" With few exceptions (
Turkey , for example), Islamic countries are fascist, autocratic or theocratic,
where women are subjugated and minorities persecuted. Islamic countries
are rife with poverty and have been for centuries. Polls show that in many
Islamic countries a majority of Muslims lionize the man responsible for
the atrocities of September 11th and the terrorist gangs who routinely
slaughter civilians in Israeli buses and restaurants. In Arab schools and
on Arab television, children are taught the glory of becoming suicide bombers.
Almost everywhere that Islam borders other cultures, there is violence.
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- The idea, then, that Islam is evil has far more plausibility
than the idea that United States is evil. But merely, raising the question,
"Is Islam evil?" provokes an instant, inevitable outcry: "Bigot!"
"Racist!" "Zionist!" Indeed, the attempt to suppress
debate on this question is so intense that few people in the mainstream
will ask it.
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- The level of banality goes beyond the empty name-calling.
Typical knee-jerk questions are: "How can you call all Muslims evil?"
"Have you ever met a Muslim?" "Don't you think Muslims have
children, too?" Notice the switch from the religion to the demographic
group. Muslims, as individuals, range from lapsed to devout, from "in
name only" to fully practicing Jihadists. As in all religions, some
individuals retain the label even if they don't practice the religion.
Indeed, knowledge of the religion varies from person to person. It is not
at all unusual to find members of a religion who don't understand the doctrines,
practice, or history of their religion. As a broad label, "Muslim"
is nothing more than a meaningless demographic term. To judge a religion,
one considers those who understand and practice the religion. Would we
judge Catholicism by someone who, following the tradition of their parents,
calls themselves Catholic but has no knowledge of the teachings of the
Church, the Pope, the Saints, and the Bible?
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- Why is Islam exempt from critical analysis? In Western
society, there is no shortage of critics of Christianity. Indeed, on many
college campuses it is open season on anything that has the faint odor
of Western Civilization -- Christianity included -- even though Christianity,
like Islam, originated in the Middle East . One might wonder why Islam,
which sees itself as a continuation or fulfillment of Judeo-Christianity,
is not subject to the same intense criticism. Instead, multi-culturalism
treats Islam as a protected species -- an indigenous ethos inseparable
from a people. Consequently, self-appointed Politically Correct thought-police
stifle debate on Islam by shamelessly playing the race card -- even though
Islam is not a race.
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- We Americans are incredulous to hear the vilification
of our country, our traditions and our principles. Yet, we hesitate to
publicly condemn Islam as evil when that is far more plausible. Or even
raise the question! Yet, it is clearly on people's mind. So much so that
it is often answered in a pre-emptive manner. "Don't blame Islam for
the acts of a few", we are told. "Islam has been hijacked by
militants," say our leaders. No discussion. No one explicitly asks
the question. No one dares. We must not allow ourselves to be deterred
by this intimidation. The question is both legitimate and important: "Is
Islam evil?"
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- Negative moral pronouncements - bad and evil - are unavoidable
if we are to take the requisite actions to avoid what is harmful to our
lives and well being. Belief systems and ideas should be judged in the
similar manner. Ideas have consequences; if they lead to inimical results
they are harmful. If, by their very nature, they are blatantly horrific
in their implications, are they not evil? Tyranny, slavery, subjugation,
and irrationalism are clear cases. However, most evil ideologies are packaged
to sell - including religions. Let's dissent Islam and ask if it is inherently
evil.
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- How shall we address this question? To understand how
a belief system, like Islam, can be evil, we have to start by asking: what
do the ideas mean in practice? When Islam is practiced, what kind of person
does one become? What kind of society is an Islamic society? Islam has
1400 years of history to help us answer these questions. And we should
compare Islam to other religions and philosophies. However, let us proceed
with caution. Merely listing historical atrocities by demographic group
-- whether Christian, Jews, Muslims, or secular -- tells us little. We
need to provide an attribution analysis to determine whether it was because
of the religion or despite the religion. By carefully considering the interplay
between ideas and events, we can understand what ideas mean in action.
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- To get to the heart of Islam, start with its founder:
Muhammad. Like Christianity, Islam's essence is tied to the nature of a
central figure who gives the religion its distinctive soul. Muhammad's
professional life as a religious leader can be divided into two, roughly
equal periods. In the first, he preached tolerance while he struggled for
acceptance in Mecca. But in the second period, after he rises to power
in Medina, he became increasingly harsh, mean-spirited and warlike.
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- In Medina, he inaugurated his reign of terror by assassinating
two critics who posed no physical threat: an elderly man and a poetess.
Unaccustomed to the farm life of Medina, he tried his hand at raiding caravans
traveling to and from Mecca. After several failed attempts he finally succeeded
-- during the holy month. (As usual, he conveniently had a revelation to
justify this breach of regional ethics.) Muhammad had found his calling:
plunder.
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- The mere existence of the Jewish tribes in Medina threatened
Muhammad's authority. Muhammad packaged his religion as the completion
and perfection of the monotheistic religions: Judaism and Christianity.
His converts were Arabs; Jews refused to accept him as an authentic prophet
of their religion. In a policy of ethnic cleansing, he banished two of
the three Jewish tribes and slaughtered the third. Of the several dozen
battles fought either by Muhammad or in his behalf, only one, the Battle
of the Ditch, was defensive. Islam, however, classifies them all as defensive,
virtually removing any meaning from the word. Muhammad had perfected his
technique: slaughter.
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- The chapters in the Koran, called "Suras",
are Muhammad's "revelations" from God. The Suras from the Medinan
period reflect the corruption of Muhammad's rule. Sura 9, one of the last
revelations, contains some of the most uncompromising doctrines of aggression
and belligerence. The progression from the early Meccan Suras to the latter
Medinan Suras transforms the nature of the religion. The Koran and the
Hadith (the collection of Muhammad's deeds and sayings, often called "the
living Koran") paint a bleak but unmistakable picture: Islam is a
warrior religion of conquest and oppression.
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- Compare and contrast Muhammad's life to the life of Jesus.
Is Jesus a violent warrior? His worst act of violence is overturning the
tables of the money-changers in the Temple. In fact, in one part of the
Gospels he appeared to be advocating pacifism. Although he is called "King
of the Jews," he never ruled and gave no indication of ever wanting
earthly rule. According to the followers who recorded his deeds and sayings,
Jesus' career consisted of a few years as an itinerant preacher ending
with his crucifixion. According to the Gospels, he didn't rise to power
but rose to heaven.
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- As a devout Jew, Jesus' holy book was the Old Testament,
which does have some harsh passages and violent episodes. But the Jesus
of the Gospels is more concerned with the spirit of the law than with the
letter. (Witness his preaching on the Sabbath.) He boiled his religious
beliefs down to two essentials: love God, and love thy neighbor. In effect,
Christianity modified the religion of the Old Testament's ever-jealous,
ever-vengeful, take-no-prisoners Yahweh and his never-ending rules and
regulations (see Leviticus and Deuteronomy) with a more benevolent and
less legalistic message. Paul solidified this transformation by exempting
converts from Jewish law.
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- By contrast, Islam is a more of a throwback to the harsh
old days when, for example, Moses (acting on God's orders) had a man stoned
to death for gathering wood on the Sabbath. It is true that Muhammad's
early revelations have the more tolerant and peaceful aura we associate
with the New Testament. (Interestingly, it is these early passages that
are often shown to American audiences and university students, creating
a distorted picture but one that more closely matches the Western view
of a religion.) But his revelations grew more "Old Testament,"
as it were, as his power grew.
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- Christianity began as a reformation of Judaism. Early
Christians didn't focus on living well in this life but on saving their
souls before the impending return of the Messiah. As a result Christianity
has no political doctrine, except, perhaps, "Render unto Caesar, What
Is Caesar's." Thus, the Roman Empire could become Christian while
remaining an empire. Many centuries later, Christian apologists for the
monarchy preached the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings to justify
royal supremacy, but John Locke could argue for individual liberty and
against the Devine Right doctrine while still remaining a devout Christian.
The lack of an explicit Christian political doctrine enabled Christians
to consider differing political forms and philosophies without clashing
with the authority of a revealed text. Muslims have no such advantage.
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- Of course, both Christianity and Islam share the problems
of dogma and authority, elements that lend themselves to illiberal societies.
In suppressing Christianity, Roman Emperors were fighting what they considered
an intolerant monotheistic cult. After the Emperor Constantine legalized
Christianity in 312 AD, Christians rose to power in the empire and by the
end of the century nearly suppressed all other religions. It wasn't long
before pagans were fed to the lions. It would be more than a thousand years
before religious tolerance returned to Christianized Europe.
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- In theory, Islam allowed for some toleration for Christians
and Jews. But they were subjected to slavery and a second-class status
called Dimmis, which was far worse than "Jim Crow". Due to Islamic
proscriptions on domestic slavery, Islam invented a large-scale race-based
slave trade. Arab Muslims imported slaves from Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Islamic slave raids were common in southern Europe and sometimes reached
the shores of Ireland.
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- Christians and Jews are called "People of the Book"
in the Koran, and as such are allowed to live and practice their religion
in subjugation. Polytheists, atheists, pagans and idolaters aren't so lucky:
they must convert or be killed. One of history's bloodiest atrocities,
prior to the 20th Century, took place during the Muslim conquest of India.
Hindus were massacred wholesale. India's Buddhists, no military and political
threat to anyone, were virtually wiped out. The vast destruction of Buddhist
buildings, art and culture was a terrible loss to history.
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- It is true that the 1400 years of Islamic history were
punctuated by periods of tolerance, in which Muslim scholars, with the
aid of Christian and Jewish scholars, managed to salvage some of the ancient
Roman and Greek wisdom. Under Islamic rule, mathematicians adopted Hindu
numerals and advanced algebra. However, the greatest minds of the Islamic
world, Avicenna and Averroes, were persecuted.
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- Averroes (ibn Rushd), one of history's preeminent Aristotelian
scholars, was banished by the Caliph; his books burned. Aquinas did for
Christianity what Averroes couldn't do for Islam: he reconciled Aristotle
with Christianity -- thus setting the foundation for the secular, rational,
scientific (and Hellenic) worldview, with its emphasis on living well in
this world, that, with the Renaissance, became the dominant worldview in
Europe; and via the Enlightenment, America. Along with the growth of secularism,
religion also transformed. The work of Aquinas reformed Catholicism and
ultimately set in motion the questioning spirit that led to Protestantism.
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- Why was the Christian West able to move forward while
the Islamic East proceeded to decline? Was it just the fluke of Aquinas'
demise on his way to a tribunal and possibly escaping a fate similar to
Averroes -- with similar consequences for Europe?
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- Proponents of a moderate Islam point to a time when Muslim
countries allowed the study of philosophy and science. But given its history,
one has to wonder if Islam can furnish the environment for the stable and
long-term development of modern civilization -- or if it is just a place
to occasionally hide the great works and great thinkers during an otherwise
vast period of darkness.
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- What is undeniable is that, over the centuries, the Islamic
world decayed. For a while the stagnant systems Muslims lived under were
limited in their harmfulness because the authorities had only primitive
means of forcing submission. As soon as modern technologies became available,
Muslim leaders had the tools to increase the oppression. They did so by
adopting the modern collectivist policies of fascism and socialism while
marginalizing Islam. The failure of this faux modernization sparked an
Islamic revival. Instead of turning to the individualism and freedom welcomed
in Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim, Muslims turn backwards. With the
Islamic revival came a renewed interest in the full practice of the religion
-- including its bellicosity and its imperial ambitions of world conquest.
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- We are told that the answer to fundamentalist Islam is
moderate Islam. The word "fundamentalist" comes from Protestantism,
but used in a generic sense means a literal interpretation of a religion.
In Christianity, fundamentalist denominations are considered different
sects of Protestantism. In Islam, fundamentalism is called "Islamic
Revivalism." Is this a different kind of Islam, or just a different
degree of devoutness? Do moderate Muslims belong to a different Islamic
sect, or are they just less dedicated (or perhaps even lapsed)? If by "moderate,"
we mean "reformed to reflect moderation and modernity" -- like
reformed Christianity -- where are the reformed Muslim theologians and
texts like there are in Christianity? Is there a "moderate Islam,"
or is this just an oxymoron?
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- Perhaps, in theory, there could be a reformed, tolerant
Islam, based on the revelations of Muhammad's early Meccan period; but
an omission of intolerant, political Islam could merely leave young Muslims
enraged at the hypocrisy of the reformers who deviate or ignore the true
Islam. We are left with the following problem: it only takes a few true
Muslims, who want to practice Islam in its entirety and heed the call to
Jihad, to take weapons of mass destruction into Western cities and destroy
civilization. At this point in time, these weapons can only be created
with state sponsorship - a temporary limitation. Thus, we must return with
some urgency to our original question: Is Islam evil?
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- http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/JasonPappas40401.htm
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