Friday, May 28, 2010

A brilliantly incisive articulation of the problem of Muslims


I've taken Lawrence Auster to task a few times, though I've never denied that he is often a fine commentator and analyst. In this response to a reader recently, however, he nails it out of the park (if I may so mix metaphors):


You see Muslims as people who are failing to behave morally, and who should be held to account for their bad behavior, and you're concerned that I seem to be rejecting that idea and denying that Muslims are human beings with a moral dimension who must be held accountable for their acts. But when I say that we should not see Muslims as people who are behaving immorally, I'm not talking about moral responsibility or accountability, I'm talking about the mistake of thinking that Muslims can, as a group, be reformed. They can't be reformed, because they don't share our moral framework, they don't even share it enough to reject it. What they're doing is following Islam, which is a radically different moral framework from ours and has nothing to do with ours. So long as we see them as people who are behaving immorally (that is, immorally according to our moral framework), and who therefore can be persuaded to reform themselves and behave better, we are failing to see what they are and why they do the things they do. From their point of view, their behavior is not a failure to conform to our moral framework. They don't care about our moral framework, it's nothing to them. They care about Islam. In killing infidels and funding jihad and immigrating into infidel societies and deceiving the infidels who welcome them and doing all the other wicked things their religion commands them to do, they are simply being good Muslims.

I'm not saying that Muslims are automatons or animals. I am saying that they are human beings who believe in Islam, who believe Islam is the highest truth. Because they believe Islam is the highest truth, they do the things that Islam tells them to do.

I think the reason you have difficulty seeing this is that you have not yet taken in the reality that (1) Islam is indeed a religion, and speaks to men's sense of the sacred and divine, but that (2) at the same time it is a perverted and wicked religion. To understand Islam, we must keep both thoughts in our head simultaneously: that it is a religion, and that it is a religion in which the highest fulfillment, the greatest holiness, is killing non-Muslims. When we understand that Islam is a religion, though a perverted one, then we understand that Muslims are not people who are failing to follow our morality; they are people who are following their morality.

This is not to say that individual Muslims cannot be converted out of their horrible faith. But it is outside our power to convert Muslims as a whole. Yes, it could happen by a miracle. But a miracle is outside our power. Since Muslims deeply believe in their religion which commands them to make war on us, to try to change them as a group by converting them to our point of view and our morality cannot succeed and leaves us helpless before them.

So, again, this is not about moral responsibility and accountability. Of course a Muslim living in our society who commits crimes in the name of Islam must be condemned and punished according to our moral standards. Of course we should condemn Muslims for the evil they wish on us and do to us. But I'm not concerned about condemning and punishing Muslims. I'm concerned about rescuing our society from Islam. And as long as we think that we can save ourselves from their religion by holding them to the standards of our morality and converting them from their morality to ours, we are blinding ourselves to that which makes them behave as they do. As long as they are Muslims, they are our enemies, and therefore the only thing for us to do is disempower them and remove them from our society so that they will have no ability or opportunity to act against us.

6 comments:

Sleeping Giant said...

@ whoever wrote this

There's nothing brilliant or incisive about this piece, primarily because it isn't based on any facts.

You said: 'They care about Islam. In killing infidels and funding jihad and immigrating into infidel societies and deceiving the infidels who welcome them and doing all the other wicked things their religion commands them to do, they are simply being good Muslims'

Fact 1: In no way does Islam encourage or condone killing of 'infidels'.

Fact 2: At the time Islam was introduced thousands of years ago there was no such thing as immigration. So it couldn't have possibly commanded Muslims to do so.

You said: 'To understand Islam, we must keep both thoughts in our head simultaneously: that it is a religion, and that it is a religion in which the highest fulfillment, the greatest holiness, is killing non-Muslims'

Fact 3: That is utterly false. The highest fulfilment is quite the opposite: laying down your life for God (jihad). But in order to actually achieve that a Muslim must first be physically attacked by a Non-muslim and that too with the purpose of eliminating, destroying or hurting Islam or a Muslim (specifically because of his or her religion).
Fighting back in response to an attack to settle a personal score doesn't count.

So yeah get your facts straight buddy!

B322 said...

"@ whoever wrote this"

You can't figure out who wrote it?

"Fact 1: In no way does Islam encourage or condone killing of 'infidels'."

Why did you put the last word in scare quotes?

[9:29] You shall fight back against those who do not believe in GOD, nor in the Last Day, nor do they prohibit what GOD and His messenger have prohibited, nor do they abide by the religion of truth - among those who received the scripture - until they pay the due tax, willingly or unwillingly.

[9:30] The Jews said, "Ezra is the son of GOD," while the Christians said, "Jesus is the son of GOD!" These are blasphemies uttered by their mouths. They thus match the blasphemies of those who have disbelieved in the past. GOD condemns them. They have surely deviated.

[9:31] They have set up their religious leaders and scholars as lords, instead of GOD. Others deified the Messiah, son of Mary. They were all commanded to worship only one god. There is no god except He. Be He glorified, high above having any partners.

[9:33] He is the One who sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, and will make it dominate all religions, in spite of the idol worshipers.

Hesperado said...

Thanks BLode. If 'Sleeping Giant' is the best they've got, maybe there is hope...

Sleeping Giant said...

Maybe you didn't read the words 'fight back'. You can't fight back unless you are attacked so that's that.
Secondly, the Quran was revealed thousands of years ago and contains several commandments that cannot be taken for their literal sense in this day and age. The Quran is not any other regular book. One needs guidance while reading it and help from Islamic scholars in understanding the meaning and context of every sentence. Its not meant for perfunctory reading..

B322 said...

I did read the words "fight back", and it is obvious that you can fight back without being physically attacked, if you consider a denial of your god to be an attack.

If a bunch of Muslim scholars say the book means one thing, and a bunch kafir scholar say it means another thing, and the latter's explanation fits the facts, that is who I am going to believe. Muslims have attacked my country on countless occasions, have lied about countless historical events (like the relative timing of the Crusades and the Muslim invasion of Spain) and physical realities (like whether the earth rotates), have attacked and disrespected the lands of my ancestors. They deny the Islamic role in trans-Mediterranean slavery.

They are aided in this by countless PC multicults. As far as I can tell, the large-scale movement in the US to accept Islam as a religion of peace dates about to 1972. So it goes without saying that I consider PC multicults to be extraordinarily dangerous opponents of my civilization.

Unknown said...

so called Fact 2: "At the time Islam was introduced thousands of years ago there was no such thing as immigration. So it couldn't have possibly commanded Muslims to do so."

Please google hijra in Islam. hint: means migration