The Middle East used to be the center of advancement. They were the leading in all the science and maths. We use arabic numbers. Most of the stars we can see have arabic names.
And then a religion that taught people that science was evil became more popular. Islamic countries haven't recovered yet. I'm still uncertain as to whether it is even possible for Islam to become more peaceful (Actually peaceful. I can't call it being Nice to someone just because I named my rocket launcer "Nice") and adapt to modern times like Christianity has and is still doing to some extent. Religions are very kind and considerate until they become powerful. Islam rose to power, and science became of the devil. Like some Islamic "scholars" say, if it isn't said in the Qur'ran, then it can't be true because all knowledge comes from the Qur'ran.
@spiderwoman I understand the misconception behind what is thought to be Islam. Unfortunately, in this era, as was the case for all religions, mere years after the passing of the pioneers the teachings are distorted to better serve the agenda of greedy leaders.
Not many people are aware of this, but Islam has laws that explicitly forbid the use of any form of violence that brings harm to civilians, infrastructure, and wildlife, including trees and grass.
But greedy people lead an unlearned mass into 'holy war' while they themselves reap the profits from it.
Guest, can you please provide sources for that information of Islam being against violence? I know that Sharia Law is Law based almost solely on the Qur'ran, and I would not declare that to be peaceful. And most of the Islamic world supports the notion of Sharia law being the official law of their country.
I still hold by one or my favorite descriptions of humanity. Good men will do good things and bad men will do bad things. But for a good man to bad things, that takes religion. Religion can do good things too, but so could torturing people to keep them in line. You don't have to take both the bad and good. You can have the good while leaving the bad with the rest of the myths such as Zeus. All the benefits of religion can be done without religion without having any of the negatives of religion.
Look up on Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah. It's supposed to be the body of consensus comprised solely of learned scholars. Few follow them these days but they have the responsibility to 'update' the sharia based on teachings from the Quran, Sunnah, Ahadeeth, and practice of the Sahabah.
Also every almost religion has used their own teachings as reasoning and hurt people. Focusing on Islam whilst ignoring the abuses of, say, the Catholic Church is just your own bias speaking.
(1) Understanding Islam is simple. Let me illustrate: Muhammad lived for 63 years, started Islam when he was 40. 23 years of teaching which is in turn divided into two parts. First ten years in Mecca and the next 13 years in Medina (which means the city shortened from Madinato Al Nabi: the city of the prophet) the first ten years is when all the loving good parts of Islam are coming from since he was among the great people of Mecca, he just talked about brotherhood, equality, and so on doing nothing but preaching.
(2) in a way that people of Mecca used to call him the (crazy poet). Fun fact: quran hates the term so much it mentions it a lot of times out of the blue saying some things about death and whatever and just randomly saying fuck the poets, those are crazy bitches. LOL. Anyways Muhammad gathered a lot of followers and then decided to go to Ta'ef a city near Mecca whose name was changed to Medina (the city of the prophet). They started raping and pillaging caravans going to Mecca for commerce. They started massacring nearby Jewish villages. Muhammad showed his true face. Anything in quran from this period is just about killing infidels, obtaining more and more resources. So there is this duality. Islamic scholars believe the later verses trump the earlier ones because they were "revealed" in Medina without the fear of families in Mecca. And thus every misery of middle east started.
Achamenids (Cyrus the Great) was long gone at this time. Iran was under the rule of the Sassanid Empire for a very very long time. Poverty and corruption was everywhere in Iran and then the Arabs came massacred a lot of people. Horrific stuff really. Then they conquered Egypt, Spain and so on. Those ISIS, vahabi, Saudi Arabia, hamas, fath, alqaeda and others are trying to go back to the glory days of Islam, raping,pillaging and murdering people in droves to start a caliphate (an Islamic government) you either become Muslim or pay money or get killed. This has been 1400+ years of suffering by the hands of this "peaceful" cancer. Stop defending Islam please. When you say it is a religion of peace, there will be no more progress with cutting out the shitty parts of Quran
If someone told you Islam is a religion of peace, ask him/her for verses from quran. Evry verse has a record of when and why it was "revealed". If its Macci (from the Mecca period) just call it bs and move on. Ask for peaceful verses among the Maddani (from the Medina period) verses. Doubt they will find any.
Whenever even Muslims themselves would question the will of Muhammad, he would miraculously "reveal" a new verse justifying his actions. Even Aisha, his child bride, after the verse Ahzab 51 telling Muhammad to fuck each one of his wives as many times he wants, told Muhammad : " I see your god grants your every wish"
How is so much of what anyone is saying about Islam here different from Christianity or many other religions? We could pick apart the lives and deeds of prophets and “great” figures of different cultures, weight the goods of every life to the bad- we could talk about how the largest body counts in recorded history belong to atheists- any faith, any idea, any thought or symbol can be used as a justification or a rallying cry to horrible things. The logic to condemn Islam is like saying that all Catholics are pedophiles or Nazi collaborators, all Christians are slavers and adulterers- look at American history and manifest destiny, treatment of native peoples by much of the West and the acts of missionaries in the name of god. Look at genocides in Africa for and against the name of faith or the purges in the east of Christianity through history. No one is innocent and the condemnation of Islam echos the anti Semitic sentiments leading to and beyond the Holocaust- the cries that....
... all Africans were barbarians by nature, or the sentiment through much of the world that all Americans are ignorant rednecks. None of these are true. Some people do horrible things and say it is the call of a greater power. This has always been true around the globe. The Japanese emperor was one of many examples of “living god” but it wasn’t largely his hand that turned the wheels of war, but men acting in his name. Is he innocent? Of course not. No one is. The more you do in life the greater the odds you’ve done terrible things to get there. Gandhi was a classist racist, and mother Teresa died on the record as an atheist or at least agnostic. There are facts and legends. Use your brain and realize the world is seldom clearly “good and evil” but that all things have aspects and parts that make a whole.
I wanted people to understand Islam as a whole. It has two distinct parts (much more distinguished that any other religion) good and evil is separated by a very bold line (the records of the verses). When saying Islam is shit (or any religion for that matter) I am not saying that others didn't do shit. However, I condemn all of that and I condemn Islam too. What is this sentiment that since others did shit, we shouldn't offend the Islamic thought. I love Muslims, I think the majority of them are great people under normal circumstances. I am not saying Muslims are bad. I am trying to help you make sense of the paradoxes present in Islam. I have helped many Muslims get out of this cult and you are saying let them be. this comes from naivety: let them be, this is their culture, let them migrate to Europe and America instead of making their own countries better. Please look beyond the short-term and think long-term.
That's where we disagree asteroid. Muslims aren't inherently evil, but the majority of them would be perfectly okay with me being sentenced to death to the point where they would throw the rocks themselves.
I am glad that people are trying to be understanding of other cultures. It is a good thing. But people aren't trying to understand Islam. They are defending it as a knee jerk reaction. Listen to people who actually know about Islam. Listen to ex-muslims and people who have escaped muslim countries describe what it is really like. I actually have this video bookmarked because of how well it shows the way I see the majority of muslims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVLx7pkCFjI
Don't you want every country in the world to become a good place for living, don't you want people to be able to repel these negative ideas wherever they find them? Don't you want people to stop killing children, raping Izadi people, Christian, Shiite, and other sects and let everybody live in peace. I want that and the only way is to show the good and the bad, to help people understand what's going on and why they need to resist these evil ideas. I don't even understand what you are saying, Catholics are bad? So? Buddhist in Burma are also bad. ISIS and Islamic groups (the list of which can take up many pages) are also bad. I am condemning all of them. helping my brothers and sisters in Islamic countries to become free. That's the noblest of objectives. speaking of other people who did evil shit, the post is about someone who didn't. He was able to be a real human many years before even Christianity began. Let's see the good too
@spiderwoman I don't see a disagreement between us. I am saying the same thing. Majority of Muslims are good "under normal circumstances". I dare anybody defending Islam (not Muslims, I am talking about an ideology not a group of people) to go to any Islamic country, go to the middle of a town, start drawing a stick figure (nothing special, nothing demeaning, just a simple stick figure) and write prophet Muhammad besides it and let's see how long you can survive.
@spiderwoman by the way, I am an ex-Muslim currently living in a Muslim country. So when people defend Islam (which took away years of my life that I will never get back), I don't understand them. I just think they don't know anything much about Islam or even history.
Then the issue lies in what we describe as normal circumstances. To the average muslim, the normal circumstances are what we would call a living nightmare. Under "normal" circumstances (e.g. a place where the teachings of Islam are natural), the murder of homosexuals is fine. I do want a world without violence and hate. I just don't see a world like that being possible with religion. Not all people who believe in Islam are evil. But you can't be good while also believing in Islam. Any good person who claims to be a muslim and good either doesn't really believe in Islam by ignoring most of what it teaches or is not really a good person. It's something I've talked about with people with Christianity. You cannot be a Christian while also not believing Jesus was the son of God. If you say you are a Christian who doesn't believe that, then you are either not really a Christian or so far detached from the teachings of Christianity that calling you a Christian is just silly.
Also, to clarify to some people, Muslims are not a race. A muslim isn't someone of middle eastern descent. A muslim is someone who believes the teachings of Islam. When I say muslims are horrible people, I am saying that anyone who follows Islamic doctrine is a horrible person. I am not saying that anyone with a slight tint to their skin is horrible.
Totally agree. When people in women march create hijabs out of the American flag for women though I don't know what's going on. It's mind boggling. It's become a fun quirk for people while women are suffering everywhere in the Islamic world. Where are the real feminists I wonder
When I say normal circumstances I mean everyday life, talking, going to a parkand having fun. But as soon as any of the pillars of this dogma is threatened in any way, their instinct is to annhilate you using any means necessary. Therefore, we need more education, telling people to stop believing in this thing that's making everyone's life a misery
Honestly guys, who came up with the whole idea of madni verses being harsh? Read about the conquest of mecca and tell me if that was hostile.
Any other victor would have punished and tormented the people of mecca for driving them out and torturing them for their beliefs. Instead, a clear order was issued to harm no one and nothing. If that's not enough, read the transcript of the last sermon.
The only instance of this happening mainly because the people of Mecca were close families of people in Medina. Honestly guys go and read about the other qazavat
Crusades ring a bell? Salah alDeen was the perfect example of a Muslim embodiment and he treated captive invaders with such kindness, many abandoned the crusades to settle peacefully... the same crusaders who attacked his people unjustly.
Yeah I know, obviously when I say islam has fundamentalists and radicals, I mean all Muslims. Who can even find one example of a great person. Amazing. You don't even understand what I am saying. I just translated the abstract of a dissertation for a PhD graduate of one of the greatest universities in the country. Do you know what was the topic? Ogling and staring at women in quranic verses and hadiths. Do you think these resources are better utilized if it was for something useful. Something with real consequences for improving people's lives. Name some Nobel laureates from the islamic world, great surgeons, engineers, phisysists, something fricking useful coming out of these majority wealthy nations
Well- hate to insert myself here. I’m going to assume that @asteroid means name some RECENT great minds of the Islamic world? Cause I mean- it was a leading force in science, philosophy, and math through the centuries. Even the word “Algebra” is loaned through its Arabic origins showing where the concept was invented. So we know historically Islamic countries have produced great thinkers and doers- but what about recently? Well- Farouk El-Baz, born in the 90%~ Muslim country of Egypt was the key scientist for landing site selection by NASA for the moon landing. He had other important contributions to the Apollo program and in other areas of science beyond his time at NASA as well. In fact- if one simply looks- there are 12 Muslim Nobel Laureates- most of which having been awarded in the 21st century. So... I think that answers that... onwards...
So I mean- if you form your opinion and then gather facts to support what you’ve already decided- that’s not quite the same as gathering all available information and then forming an opinion based off that. In other words- if you go looking for an answer and you already know the answer you want to find, that is exactly the answer you will find. We see what we want to see.
Well if you go and look at the golden age of "Islam", it happened because califs valued free speech, scientific discovery and scientific debate. That age has long gone. Again it seems necessary to reiterate: when I say name some successful Muslims, I don't mean there is nobody. I'm sure there are great minds in the Islamic world. However, the majority of them are getting suppressed and suffocated by the environment. Why do you think there are so many Muslim scientists in NASA or so many successful middle eastern people in Europe, Canada and the US? The environment is key.
I won’t argue that science doesn’t suffer under poor leadership and repression. Germany, Russia, China, even the US all suffered set backs in sciences and social sciences because of prejudices or political represssions. The Caliphs are by default heads of the Caliphate- the Muslim state. So my point is that you’ve held that it isn’t individual Muslims you say are a problem but Islam itself. However the very Islamic Caliphs ushered in a golden age of knowledge under Islamic law, and many modern regimes have created near Stone Age level education under Islamic law. We know both use Islam as the pillar of the community and government- what is different then is the politics and governments- not the religion. The actions and fall of communist Russia aren’t proof that all atheist nations would fail or be genocidal- or that atheists are genocidal by nature any more than the inquisition or crusades prove Christians are barbaric and ignorant- the majority Christian USA of the past century...
... was a world leader in thought and technology and science. As you say- likely largely in part due to freedoms. So under the repression of a fundamentalist and corrupt Christian government in the inquisition- science and thought languished- torture reigned, under a more free and accepting government it flourished. Under a repressive and corrupt atheist regime science and thought languished and genocide and violence were rampant. Under a free and open Muslim leadership science and thought did well, under a repressive one.... we can see that it isn’t any religion in particular that lends itself to subjugation of women or minorities, to violence, to ignorance. It is in these cases the freedom to learn and think and speak and act- the forces and systems in power that do so and not a religion. Religions have so many interpretations and enacting that we can’t judge a religion as much as we can judge the interpretation and enacting of it.
We can’t say atheists have no morality because they have no gods- even the Satanic Temple donates to charity, supports freedom of religion, opposes intolerance of the WBC, and has many community and charity initiatives. In many ways they exemplify “Christian Values” and yet their religion is dedicated to satanic worship. If we compare holy texts we can’t really say the Muslim holy books are any more or less violent or intolerant than Christian or many other texts. Free from Dogma and church rulings and interpretations- if you follow these books to the letter they both largely call for the killing of heathens, the stoning, shunning, and worse of “heretics” and the “wicked,” the subjugation of women, slavery, and more. But who actually does? Very few Christians and very few Muslims take such rigid fundamentalist views and actually live by them- and those who do do so differently. The WBC don’t live like quakers, and many Islamic nations don’t practice or even allow Sharia law.
It’s not about religion, it’s about government and about ideology. It’s about people and systems of control. As mentioned- the soviets were Athiest and the Japanese worshiped a living god emperor and managed to do just fine at being xenophobic, bigoted, and creating atrocities in the name of their greater causes. With any religion- without any religion at all- where those who would abuse power find a mechanism of control they will abuse it to their ends. Religion twisted into a tool to justify and rally people to oppression and to following the will of power hungry and evil men is not new and is not exclusive to Islam. It is important to differentiate between the execution of a faith and that faith. The Protestant Reich Church claimed to pray to the same god and read from the same books as any other Christian Church- it was their doctrine and “version” that was different, all while they committed genocide against the Jewish community because of the “fundamental nature of Judaism.”
I may be able to agree on lots of your points. However, it seems I need to clarify a number of things. First of all atheism is not a religion and the Stalin Russia didn't kill people because they were not atheists, this holds for Japan or China at that time. Secondly, I have to emphasize again for multiple times on this string of comments: the evils of the past must be condemned and the evils of today must be condemned as well. The fact that some countries, religions, regimes, schools of thought, schools of politics did wrong cannot justify the evils of today. They did shit and Muslim countries are doing shit now. You mentioned something jaw-dropping as well. You said not many Muslim countries enact or abide by Sharia law. I'm lost on that point. As far as I know the majority of Muslim countries have Sharia Law. I will be interested in finding out which Muslim countries don't. And are you a Muslim yourself? Are you living in a Muslim country? I am interested to know
We could argue all day if atheism is a religion. It meets the applicable criteria, especially as enacted by many self proclaimed atheists- a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. Atheism is specifically a disbelief in gods as opposed to agnosticism which has a scientific nature and is an openness to the possibility of a thing of sufficient evidence is produced as opposed to atheism which is a blind faith that no gods can exist while using a dogma of flawed logic and pseudo scientific rhetoric as it’s scripture. Science lacks the ability to prove no gods exist and therefore one cannot take a scientific approach to the statement, one can say it is improbable based on available information, but not impossible. Impossible does not exist in science, there is the observed and unobserved, the repeatable demonstratable and the not. Regardless of if atheism is a faith or not- it is a philosophy, and all religion at its core is philosophy as- to what I have said...
.. religion falls outside of the aspects of hard sciences and only touches on things like behavioral and social sciences. You can’t use the scientific method to prove or disprove their is a god, there is no equation which shows or does not show divinity. So in the end- we are talking philosophy, and any philosophy- unlike hard science- can be interpreted as an individual desires. As I’ve often said before on the subject- science and philosophy mix because humans are required for our science to exist and so it doesn’t exist in a void- and within the human mind we bring our own biases to bear, which is what allows humans to manipulate hard math and science to prove or disprove whatever they desire through manipulation of criteria, data, samples, application, etc. in short: we are talking philosophy when we discuss any matter of religion, spirituality, or lack of as well as nationalism, morality, et al. Stalinist Russia killed people under the claims they were in violation of their...
... philosophic tenants. The teal reason is not material as it both proves that any philosophy can be guided to great harms, and that the philosophy and what it stands for doesn’t matter when that philosophy is used as tool by those in power to support whatever their whims are. In fact- if we argue atheism isn’t a religion that only proves the point more so because that means in total absence of religion, violence through idealism being used as a tool of control is still posssible. So this point doesn’t really need addressed further, or I hope we can agree that it doesn’t- as the specifics end up not mattering since whatever stance we take it proves the point that such actions aren’t the purview of any religion let alone religion at all.
So on to other things... The evils of the past, the present, and the future must all be condemned. But we also must not forget them. We must not repeat the mistakes or fail to learn from what happened last time. We learned in Vietnam that asymmetrical warfare can make it hard if not impossible to distinguish innocent civilians from combatants and collaborators. We also lost that conflict in attrition despite having technological, economic, and military size advantages. We lost and a big part of that was due to our inability to win the civilian population. In a war of ideaolgies our heavy handed and often imprecise tactics which labeled pretty much anyone on the ground as an enemy caused more resentment and fear to us than the enemy. We failed to learn after we created not just the exact terrorist and the style of modern terrorism through training and arming groups world wide like the taliban, but through our actions which destabilized these regions and created the perfect breeding...
... grounds for terrorism. Much of the world population is Muslim, and world wide Muslims have met with conflict through the millennia. This has created many rifts, grudges, and conditions which along with the very human desire to not be a punching bag forever have escalated conflicts world wide. Escalation on our end and the labeling of the entire faith of Islam as dangerous and by relation labeling its practitioners such is pretty much akin to deciding to piss off a huge chunk of the world population who by and large at this moment are more worries about their own day to day lives than some holy crusade. It legitimizes fears of a “Christian” war against Islam and just as people claim the “Christian” world should prepare and preempt against this “violent religion” so to can Muslims who fear what trigger happy Christians will do to them.
We attribute 9/11 and other acts to Islamic extremists, and many Islamic countries can attribute carpet bombing, forced occupations, mine fields, torture, economic exploitation and so on to foreign “Christian” nations. So when it comes to past evils- it’s important to keep perspective that to many in the world eyes they were just herding goats or going to school the day Russia rolled tanks in to their town and killed their baby sister, or the coalition dropped bombs that killed their father and so on. These people have the same complaints about us that we do about them. Our people were minding their own business going to work when a plane blew them up- we can both say that. We can both look to the other and say that we have a religion or culture that is trying to destroy their way of life and replace it with ours, it’s the same shit and if everyone’s answer is “more bombs” then we will be fighting a very long time unless someone finally settles on genocide and we repeat another...
... wrong of history.
Oh. Forget. To your other questions-
1. Apologies I wasn’t clearer. I meant that most Islamic countries do not use Sharia as their government legal system. The entire league of Islamic cooperation does not use any Sharia law in an official capacity. From there the other largest grouping of Islamic countries only use Sharia law in limited capacities such as civil courts or family law. In these countries the extent of and execution of Sharia law in these capacities varies. Those two catagories make up the majority of Islamic countries, the next majority being countries that use exclusively Sharia law as official law, and the least majority being countries which only practice Sharia law exclusively on certain regions, or have multiple interpretations by region. Also- I don’t care to give out too much personal information online, but I am an American and I currently live in America, I was born in America and my ancestors have been here for a very long time.
You can learn a lot of things in classes, but that can be up to the teacher. I think the question is properly, "Why isn't this part of the curriculum?"
Of course, I don't know where you live. In my State in the USA, I don't remember learning of any place outside of America and Britain. Excluding geography where the teacher made us learn where all the most common countries are including various lakes and rivers in Africa.
I took an ap world geography class and we went extent on the middle east their rulers, greece, rome, and many other places. America had their history for a year by themselves but i mean depending on what classes YOU CHOOSE to take you can very easily learn these things. I learned how to do taxes save money and smart money decisions in classes i was required to take.
I was talking about High School at a maximum due to the nature of it being the last place many students will ever learn. Of course, you can choose what you learn about for college and beyond. In my area, the only choices in class I had were Chemistry or Physics. I took Chemistry, but I kinda wished I could have taken physics too.
Im talking about highschool I could choose to take a semester class on just major civilizations or go in depth and the curriculum talked about this guy other persian kings lots of middle east stuff actually. I took chemistry and physics too i had choices but i chose both and they let me. I dropped physics with that wack teacher i had but it was ok.
Oh damn. I've been to four different high schools, and you had absolutely no control over what classes you took. They just told you where you were going and that's the end of it. Even so, the fact that it's not mandatory that we can choose still limits what we can learn.
The stupidest thing I learned about my last high school before I graduated was that they didn't care. They actually had at least one class that was just sitting there that was supposed to be Environmental Science. I requested to leave because of that, and the principal and teacher agreed that the class was there so the people who couldn't pass a real class could still get their science credit. I know not all the environmental science classes were like that, but that was the most negligent thing that defied the entire idea of a school ever to me. I was only put into the class because I joined the school year a few weeks late. I actually transfered to Chemistry which was fun.
When I was in school you could choose electives (as available) and you had limited choice over things like math and science based on your qualifications, with more choice as you reached senior year. But the reason we don’t tend to learn about many things as part of a standard curriculum is mainly time. 8hrs a day of school and still so much is missed. Kids feel over worked and stressed as is. So instead of 14 hours of school and 6 hours of homework with 7 day school weeks, they try and teach those things most pertinent for a basic education and a taste of many things so you can specialize knowledge in college. The 21st century economy is one of specialists. People capable of outstanding work in a narrow field of expertise. Being a “jack of all trades” is great in life but it’s surprisingly limiting in career choice since most people want someone to perform a given task very well, and not someone who can do anything but be mediocre at each thing.
The problem with our education systems is that they focus purely on education from a secular point of view, never or hardly ever philosophical, spiritual, religious, or other perspectives.
People are simply taught what is and what isn't, not what could be, why it is or could be, and most importantly, how much of what is 'known' is merely theoretical and assumed.
I have to largely agree with famousone on this. Philosophy and other spiritual matters can be important to individuals lives- but beyond a basic sense of civics and government, the principals of the republic such as freedom, democracy, etc.... I don’t feel spirituality or philosophy belongs as a component of school instruction. That isn’t to say that offering classes like philosophy that expose children to varied ideas and concepts has no place- but beyond basic civics it isn’t for schools to approach things from a standpoint of direction. Like how news is supposed to be- information is supposed to be supplied and alternate views given for context- but it’s still up to the individual to process that information. That’s how people develop as individuals- by having their own (hopefully informed) views on things, not through indoctrination. Having a state institution teach spirituality or a guiding philosophy beyond basic civics is a slippery slope to a distopia of monothought...
... and by its nature would favor one or complete exclude or mark as foreign and alien any other beliefs of perspectives. A child’s spiritual and moral being and things they must forge themselves and are separate from the institution of learning.
And then a religion that taught people that science was evil became more popular. Islamic countries haven't recovered yet. I'm still uncertain as to whether it is even possible for Islam to become more peaceful (Actually peaceful. I can't call it being Nice to someone just because I named my rocket launcer "Nice") and adapt to modern times like Christianity has and is still doing to some extent. Religions are very kind and considerate until they become powerful. Islam rose to power, and science became of the devil. Like some Islamic "scholars" say, if it isn't said in the Qur'ran, then it can't be true because all knowledge comes from the Qur'ran.
Not many people are aware of this, but Islam has laws that explicitly forbid the use of any form of violence that brings harm to civilians, infrastructure, and wildlife, including trees and grass.
But greedy people lead an unlearned mass into 'holy war' while they themselves reap the profits from it.
I still hold by one or my favorite descriptions of humanity. Good men will do good things and bad men will do bad things. But for a good man to bad things, that takes religion. Religion can do good things too, but so could torturing people to keep them in line. You don't have to take both the bad and good. You can have the good while leaving the bad with the rest of the myths such as Zeus. All the benefits of religion can be done without religion without having any of the negatives of religion.
I am glad that people are trying to be understanding of other cultures. It is a good thing. But people aren't trying to understand Islam. They are defending it as a knee jerk reaction. Listen to people who actually know about Islam. Listen to ex-muslims and people who have escaped muslim countries describe what it is really like. I actually have this video bookmarked because of how well it shows the way I see the majority of muslims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVLx7pkCFjI
Any other victor would have punished and tormented the people of mecca for driving them out and torturing them for their beliefs. Instead, a clear order was issued to harm no one and nothing. If that's not enough, read the transcript of the last sermon.
Oh. Forget. To your other questions-
1. Apologies I wasn’t clearer. I meant that most Islamic countries do not use Sharia as their government legal system. The entire league of Islamic cooperation does not use any Sharia law in an official capacity. From there the other largest grouping of Islamic countries only use Sharia law in limited capacities such as civil courts or family law. In these countries the extent of and execution of Sharia law in these capacities varies. Those two catagories make up the majority of Islamic countries, the next majority being countries that use exclusively Sharia law as official law, and the least majority being countries which only practice Sharia law exclusively on certain regions, or have multiple interpretations by region. Also- I don’t care to give out too much personal information online, but I am an American and I currently live in America, I was born in America and my ancestors have been here for a very long time.
Of course, I don't know where you live. In my State in the USA, I don't remember learning of any place outside of America and Britain. Excluding geography where the teacher made us learn where all the most common countries are including various lakes and rivers in Africa.
The stupidest thing I learned about my last high school before I graduated was that they didn't care. They actually had at least one class that was just sitting there that was supposed to be Environmental Science. I requested to leave because of that, and the principal and teacher agreed that the class was there so the people who couldn't pass a real class could still get their science credit. I know not all the environmental science classes were like that, but that was the most negligent thing that defied the entire idea of a school ever to me. I was only put into the class because I joined the school year a few weeks late. I actually transfered to Chemistry which was fun.
People are simply taught what is and what isn't, not what could be, why it is or could be, and most importantly, how much of what is 'known' is merely theoretical and assumed.