Can Islam Be Reformed?

Townhall.com ^ | August 2, 2011 | Dennis Prager

[mike-zed]

It’s rather absurd to believe that a religion founded by an inerrant sociopath and pedophile can be reformed.

[tbpiper]

Can Islam Be Reformed?

No. They would have to repudiate their fundamental beliefs.

[Eureka_Lead]

Frog + excreta

reformed.... right, got a bit of swamp land that is just waiting for the author to come and buy as well...

EL

[BCW]

This Shura Council Member believes it has to be:

Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zxuMKP_kqg&feature=youtu.be

Arabs came out of the desert to conquer, not learn, to teach, not to study? This is the most important statement made by this guy - who probably has a thousand fatwas against him at this point...The “everything” he mentions even means the religion of Western nations (Christianity) - has allow prosperity - unlike that of Islam, which has rose to conquer and teach through forcible submission...

[Paladin2]

"What is necessary is that Muslim reformers: "

1. Renounce Mad Mo'

2. Renounce Jihad.

3. Renounce Sharia.

[C210N]

Always treat a muslim as if it's loaded.

[PeteB570]

No.

Islam is the sea in which the terrorist shark swims. It aids and comforts the shark on it’s journey. The deeper the sea the larger the shark can grow.

[ClearCase_guy]

Islam can be reformed if Muslims are willing to re-write their holy book.

I recognize that the Protestant Bible and the Catholic Bible are not quite the same book (or collection of books), but the Protestant reformation was not an effort to re-write the Bible -- that wasn't needed (rather, an effort was made to translate the Bible so that more people could understand and follow the teachings).

I don't wish to get into a Protestant vs Catholic discussion, but the "reformation" was not an effort to fundamentally change the theology. It mostly sought to reform church practices. That's fairly mild stuff.

If people follow the teachings of Islam, they basically go to war against non-believers. Jihad is a core practice. Unless you're going to re-write the Koran, that's not going to change.

I say no reform is possible.

[expatguy]

No and there are several reasons why it cannot be - I've listed them numerous times here before.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[MuttTheHoople]

Islam can be reformed if all Muslims would accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and repudiate Mohammed as a false prophet.

[palmer]

I have gotten to know one a bit and based on my very small sample size (her circle of co-religionists) I believe they are clueless. They could read an article like this and not get it until it is too late (the radicals take over).

[Mr Ramsbotham]

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he’d been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was agoing to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn’t be ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap said he’d been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his hand, and says: ‘Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. There’s a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain’t so no more; it’s the hand of a man that’s started in on a new life, and’ll die before he’ll go back. You mark them words — don’t forget I said them. It’s a clean hand now; shake it — don’t be afeard.’ So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The judge’s wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge — made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beauti- ful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sunup. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it. The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way. — Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

[Red Badger]

It is odd that the meaning of ‘peace’ in the old Soviet Union and Islam are the same...................

[Fred Hayek]

— There was a burst of intellectual and scientific creativity in the Muslim world for a few hundred years, but then the opponents of reason came to dominate Islam, and with it came a loss of scientific and intellectual curiosity.

This was in spite of Islam. Any progress was due to the remaining influence of Western thought. And the concept of the zero in mathematics originated in India. I have to disagree with Prager on this one.

[PoloSec]

Islam is a deadly cancer, best treated early with massive amounts of radiation.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

Wow. I thought Prager was brighter than this. Reformed Christianity is more Christ-like, right? So what does reformed Islam look like? I rest my case.

[Red_Devil 232]

Only with a sword.

[Steve Van Doorn]

There are a number of incorrect statements in this.
This one stood out and repugnant and flat out wrong:
"Muslim treatment of Jews and Christians in places like medieval Spain was morally far superior to the treatment of non-Christians by European Christians during the same period."

This guy needs to stop reading propaganda reports

[freekitty]

No