6 ms·

If rule of law and due process are arbitrarily ignored then the only real difference is time. Given enough time all can degenerate.

boxed 1y ago
> If rule of law and due process are arbitrarily ignored then the only real difference is time. Due process isn't a part of any religion afaik. And "rule of law" in Christianity and Islam is "suffer not a witch to live" and stuff like that. Not good. > Given enough time all can degenerate. "Degenerate" is a strange word in this context. Islam started as an imperialist death cult. Any movement towards liberalism and sanity is not something I'd call "degenerate". Christianity is hard to pin down where it started because it started small and without power. As soon as it got real power it turned evil real fast.
- cannonpr 1y ago
  I don’t mean to say Islam is perfect, very little is, but it does have a lot of due process and it hardly started as a death cult… I’d spend some time researching due process in shariah and try to remember that in many ways Islam was highly innovative for its era in combining a legal code with its religion in a very integral manner. Now later Islam in particular othoman Islam was indeed somewhat warped and coupled with an expansionist empire, kinda like Christianity, and is another game altogether.
- defrost 1y ago
  Due process is selective in the US. Current deportations sans due process aside, have a look at recent history in Mississippi: ‘Lynchings in Mississippi never stopped’ (2021) - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/08/modern-day-mississippi-lynchings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/08/modern-day-...
- adrian_b 1y ago
  Despite how bad a few modern Islamist societies may be, it is very wrong to write sentences like "Islam started as an imperialist death cult", like they would be true and universally applicable. While after conversion to Islam the Arabs had a few centuries of great territorial expansion, when they have conquered not only their neighbors in Asia, but also the North of Africa and a part of the Iberian Peninsula, this was the standard behavior at that time for any population that was strong enough to be able to do this. It does not make the Arabs more "imperialist" than any other of their contemporaneous nations, e.g. when compared with Charlemagne. Moreover, for many centuries, until relatively recently, most conflicts in Islamic countries, such as the Turkish Empire, were more likely to be settled by judges according to the law and without making discrimination based on religion, nationality or wealth, than in the contemporaneous European countries, where the enforcement of the laws was frequently arbitrary and biased. The Europeans who have lived in countries occupied by Islamic Turks or Arabs have survived many centuries without losing their religion or traditions, in contrast with what happened with those that have been occupied by European empires, like the Russian Empire (or its Soviet descendant) or by the Austrian Empire (or its Austria-Hungary successor), where complete denationalization has frequently happened, due to intense discrimination. Anti-scientific interpretations of the Islamic religion rules have prevailed only many centuries after its appearance. Only then claims like "there is no need to read any books but the Holy Book, as it contains all truth that has to be known by humans" began to have supporters and enforcers. Moreover, taking into consideration the recent history, the US citizens are the last who should be mocking this kind of ideas, because many of them appear to think in the same way.
  - boxed 1y ago
    > Despite how bad a few modern Islamist societies may be, it is very wrong to write sentences like "Islam started as an imperialist death cult", like they would be true and universally applicable. I said "started" didn't I? I think the historical record is very clear. I meant during the time of the founder.
    - defrost 1y ago
      The greatest conquest during the time of the founder ... In December 629, after eight years of intermittent fighting with Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The conquest went largely uncontested, and Muhammad seized the city with minimal casualties. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca hardly sounds like the work of an "an imperialist death cult"
    - adrian_b 1y ago
      The founder may have had an "imperialist" mindset, where he dreamed to succeed to convert everybody to follow his rules, but in this respect there was no difference between him and any European king or noble, or the Pope, or the Patriarch of Jerusalem, or any Chinese emperor or any successful ruler from any part of the world, at that time. So you cannot single out Islam as a special religion from this point of view. At most it can be said that all monotheistic religions are structured to support imperialism, because they replace the previous multitude of gods, all of which had their specific jobs, at which they could not be supplanted by others, by a single all-powerful God who knows everything and who can do anything, and this structure of the celestial realm is supposed to be mirrored on Earth, where there must also be a single all-powerful ruler, whom everybody must obey without questioning.
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    Islam did start that way, and over the centuries it has been moderated by Muslims who proved themselves much better people than the founder.

boxed 1y ago

> If rule of law and due process are arbitrarily ignored then the only real difference is time. Due process isn't a part of any religion afaik. And "rule of law" in Christianity and Islam is "suffer not a witch to live" and stuff like that. Not good. > Given enough time all can degenerate. "Degenerate" is a strange word in this context. Islam started as an imperialist death cult. Any movement towards liberalism and sanity is not something I'd call "degenerate". Christianity is hard to pin down where it started because it started small and without power. As soon as it got real power it turned evil real fast.

cannonpr 1y ago
I don’t mean to say Islam is perfect, very little is, but it does have a lot of due process and it hardly started as a death cult… I’d spend some time researching due process in shariah and try to remember that in many ways Islam was highly innovative for its era in combining a legal code with its religion in a very integral manner. Now later Islam in particular othoman Islam was indeed somewhat warped and coupled with an expansionist empire, kinda like Christianity, and is another game altogether.
defrost 1y ago
Due process is selective in the US. Current deportations sans due process aside, have a look at recent history in Mississippi: ‘Lynchings in Mississippi never stopped’ (2021) - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/08/modern-day-mississippi-lynchings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/08/modern-day-...
adrian_b 1y ago
Despite how bad a few modern Islamist societies may be, it is very wrong to write sentences like "Islam started as an imperialist death cult", like they would be true and universally applicable. While after conversion to Islam the Arabs had a few centuries of great territorial expansion, when they have conquered not only their neighbors in Asia, but also the North of Africa and a part of the Iberian Peninsula, this was the standard behavior at that time for any population that was strong enough to be able to do this. It does not make the Arabs more "imperialist" than any other of their contemporaneous nations, e.g. when compared with Charlemagne. Moreover, for many centuries, until relatively recently, most conflicts in Islamic countries, such as the Turkish Empire, were more likely to be settled by judges according to the law and without making discrimination based on religion, nationality or wealth, than in the contemporaneous European countries, where the enforcement of the laws was frequently arbitrary and biased. The Europeans who have lived in countries occupied by Islamic Turks or Arabs have survived many centuries without losing their religion or traditions, in contrast with what happened with those that have been occupied by European empires, like the Russian Empire (or its Soviet descendant) or by the Austrian Empire (or its Austria-Hungary successor), where complete denationalization has frequently happened, due to intense discrimination. Anti-scientific interpretations of the Islamic religion rules have prevailed only many centuries after its appearance. Only then claims like "there is no need to read any books but the Holy Book, as it contains all truth that has to be known by humans" began to have supporters and enforcers. Moreover, taking into consideration the recent history, the US citizens are the last who should be mocking this kind of ideas, because many of them appear to think in the same way.
- boxed 1y ago
  > Despite how bad a few modern Islamist societies may be, it is very wrong to write sentences like "Islam started as an imperialist death cult", like they would be true and universally applicable. I said "started" didn't I? I think the historical record is very clear. I meant during the time of the founder.
  - defrost 1y ago
    The greatest conquest during the time of the founder ... In December 629, after eight years of intermittent fighting with Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The conquest went largely uncontested, and Muhammad seized the city with minimal casualties. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Mecca hardly sounds like the work of an "an imperialist death cult"
  - adrian_b 1y ago
    The founder may have had an "imperialist" mindset, where he dreamed to succeed to convert everybody to follow his rules, but in this respect there was no difference between him and any European king or noble, or the Pope, or the Patriarch of Jerusalem, or any Chinese emperor or any successful ruler from any part of the world, at that time. So you cannot single out Islam as a special religion from this point of view. At most it can be said that all monotheistic religions are structured to support imperialism, because they replace the previous multitude of gods, all of which had their specific jobs, at which they could not be supplanted by others, by a single all-powerful God who knows everything and who can do anything, and this structure of the celestial realm is supposed to be mirrored on Earth, where there must also be a single all-powerful ruler, whom everybody must obey without questioning.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  Islam did start that way, and over the centuries it has been moderated by Muslims who proved themselves much better people than the founder.