A heads up that tonight's weekly meeting is going ahead after all.The Atrium of the Vancouver Public Library, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm, to discuss
the issues raised on our blog.
As ever, we'll be the ones sporting the blue scarves and bandanas, to help identify ourselves
to each other, and to you.
See you there!
3 comments:
There's a very insightful comment by 'Columba' about why it's impossible to reason with Muslims, at
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/012989.php#comments
"It's significant that most other belief systems (including secular ones) base their truth claims on ... well, truth. Someone converting to the belief system would do so on the grounds that the system had somehow proven itself to be a valid way of looking at everything.
Islam's call to conversion is entirely different; it's based on power. Not just the threat "convert or die," but even the claim that "Islam is stronger," a claim we've been hearing more frequently these days. Not that it's true, but that it holds power.
There's little attempt to convince intellectually, but rather a call to join the winning army: might makes right. And that's a powerful appeal to people already inclined toward arrogance and violence."
In other words, you can't have a rational discourse with mindless thugs whose mental powers don't stretch much beyond working out how they're going to kill you and rape your kids.
Yes, the descent into Gnosticism instead of the ascent to a true religion begins with the idea that power is truth, and that there is not an other-worldly or transcendent source of truth and order that our souls need to respect if they are to remain healthy. While it seems that so much of Islam today is in this sense Gnostic - and no doubt it has always had this tendency in it - I think we need a lot more knowledge and debate on to what degree there is a history of non-Gnostic forms of Islam where respect for a transcendent truth has been paramount. Only then will we have a fair idea how likely it is that Islam can be reformed and made compatible with modernity.
Reforming Islam sounds like a big job. And I don't need another job.
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