There are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, and you can basically break
down Christians into three categories. Islamic people aren't all of the same
opnion on everything, either, but not only most but the lion's share are
conservative. 80-90% of Muslims are Sunni (orthodox). 10-20% are Shia (believe
Ali to be the last rightful Caliph and second in importance to Muhammad) and are
mostly in Iran, Pakistan, India, and Iraq--not the area of the world serving as
a beacon for human rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_secularism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_topics_and_Islam
I respect faith understood as such--a belief in a possible God beyond the
known proven things, that a person keeps up to speed with what those known
things are, and that nobody should be 'centric or intolerant, let alone make the
belief or non-belief stance law of the land, and that nobody should be hurt or
killed over it. You don't want someone saying birds came before land animals
(OT), or getting where semen comes from wrong (Qur'an), telling you to kill
someone because God needs it to be done.
Abrahamic religion went from an OT with religion as law of the land with
capital punishment and a militia to defend it, tribal war given as needed by
God, clothes and food rules that were ethically unneccesary and just set the
followers off in a 'centric way,
to a NT understanding of OT believers only brought along so far, faith
understood as such (blessed are they that haven't seen yet believe), no need for
a nation with religion as law of the land (go among all people w/o giving of-
fense to gain them to God--1 Cor.1:32-11:1), dropping the clothes and food,
etc., rules, (and my stance is the liberal translation/interpretation makes
better sense regarding homosexuality),
to a post-NT political addition making Christianity law of the land, an OT
regression beginning in the 4th cent.,
to Muhammad basically bringing back the OT in the 6th cent: back to religion
as law of the land with a militia to defend it and death for apostates, tribal
wars given as needed by God, clothes and food rules, and homosexuality defined
in the Qur'an as a crime (with hadiths prescribing serious punishment).
A liberal Muslim may say Muhammad isn't around getting messages from Allah via
Gabriel anymore, or Ali isn't around being rightly guided anymore, so the reli-
gion doesn't need to be law of the land regarding apostates, homosexuals, etc.
A conservative Muslim will say if you think being an apostate or homosexual was
a serious crime then you'd think it still would be--why would Muhammad's or
Ali's death make any difference? A liberal is more user-friendly for separation
of church and state but, unfortunately, the conservative has a better internal
logic about the source material and, unsurprisingly, has the majority view.
So criticism is complex, too. Some people of any group make ham-handed
broadside swings about whoever is different than them. When you write that a
small percentage of Islamic people are fighters, I assume you mean the minority
that are terrorists (not jihad understood to mean a peaceful abidance to liberal
religious views by a liberal minority). But a big percentage could do better at
getting up to speed on human rights, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
Muhammad himself got some things wrong (homosexuality, what part of the
body sperm comes from) yet had people murdered in the name of God, which is
religious fanaticism, and was a sadistic homophobe. It's understandably
confusing that someone wants to create a modern forward-thinking humanitarian
view on life by starting there--something more like the OT--and interpreting,
etc., to get there.
One popularly believed example of Islamic prophesy:
According to Wikipedia: "For example, some Islamic scholars believe that the
Qur'an had predicted the eventual defeat of the Persians by the Romans in the
620s. Syed Abul Aala Maududi claims that this prophecy (30:1-4: "Alif. Lam.
Mim. (1) The Romans have been defeated (2) In the nearer (lowest) land, and
they, after their defeat will be victorious (3) In a few (less than ten) -
Allah's is the command in the former case and in the latter - and in that day
believers will rejoice (4)") revealed in 615 AD, and within 6 to 7 years Romans
started overpowering the Persians."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur%27an_and_miracles#Prophecies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith_of_the_prediction_in_Sura_al-Rum
According to the harvardhouse.com site:
"Problem #1: The Einstein Method guidelines are that the words be frozen on
paper before the event occurs. The "official" Qur'an was not recorded and col-
lected onto paper until 653 CE (worst case). The best case date for recording
the Qur'an is 634 CE. However, the event foretold believed to be uttered by Mu-
hammad in 615 was completed by 627 CE (Romans would conquer the Persians).
Since the "official" Qur'an with this prophecy was written down in 653 CE, the
end event occurred 26 years before it was recorded. (Even the best case of 634
CE for the original Qur'an being recorded and collected is 7 years after the end
event). Was the prophecy changed to meet the perceived prediction after the
event occurred?
"Since the Qur’an was written after the event occurred, the scientific method
does not permit analyses as a truly prophetic event. Separate from the scientif-
ic method, it takes 'blind faith' to accept this event as being from outside
time-space. Muslims view these Qur’anic verses as prophetic since they believe
the verses were memorized and maybe they were written down before the event oc-
curred. No one will ever know.
"Problem #2: The Einstein Method guidelines require that the foretold event
cannot occur during the lifetime of the prophet. The scientific reason is sim-
ply that a so-called prophet can reason through the odds that an event could oc-
cur. If the odds are good, then the prophecy is given.
"Many Muslim scholars portray that it would have been difficult for Muhammad
to perceive that the Romans would defeat the Persians. However, the Romans
(Byzantines) were the world power of Muhammad's day. Therefore, most people
would expect that the Romans would be able to defeat the Persians as time
passed.
"Since we are using the Einstein Method to analyze religion, this Qur'anic
prophecy has low credibility based on the two guidelines above. The only po-
tential evidence that the prophecy is real is that it would have been memorized
and never changed. This cannot be verified based on the evidence for when the
Qur'an was published."
http://www.harvardhouse.com/Muhammads_prophecy_1.htm
Even worse for the case that the prophesy claim is a compelling indication of
divine intervention is that the traditional reading depends on the placement of
vowel marks, which make the difference between "they shall defeat" and "they
shall be defeated." The vowel marks were added after the Qur'an was written and
could easily have been placed to suit the idea that Muhammad made a prophesy and
not a mistake. See other reasons in the article at the next link: "Responses to
Understanding-Islam Muhammad's False Prophecies by Sam Shamoun."
http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Learner/prophecies.htm
So if the alleged prediction even happened as claimed, a political pundit
could have guessed the Roman Empire, the most powerful government in the world
at the time, would ultimately triumph over a group they lost some battles to
without it indicating anything miraculous. And, as with fans of people claiming
extraordinary prediction abilities today, the fans would remember the successes
and forget whatever the predictor got wrong. And the record of this example was
written down a good while after the fact. I wouldn't kill anybody for alleged
apostasy over it.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islamic_Prophecies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran_and_miracles#Prophecies
