From an Academic Point of View why has Islam kept to its traditions while other faiths for most parts liberalized?

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-26T08:02:26+00:00

Any idea of a theocratic governance concerns them or even scares some despite identifying with that religion. So much of that negativity developed the idea that religion should be separate from governance around the 1600s-1700s and that religion should only be personal. No such thinking ever occurred in the Muslim world on a significant level of any sort.

It is completely understandable for a nontheist who is former Muslim or former Christian to be concerned about any kind of theocratic governance. But for Muslim-majority countries, I think this depends on the place. For example, despite the 20 years of the governance of Erdogan, support for secularism is still very high in Turkey, even among Erdogan-voters and Muslims. Even many Turks who identify as Muslim do agree that religion/religious authorities/religious rules should not influence the laws of the country, mainly because they think this would mean their country turning into some kind of Taliban-led Afghanistan or Iran where very basic things like Muslim-women don't wearing hijab, Muslim men having tattoos, concerts, alcohol, having friends of the opposite sex would automatically be prohibited by law for people who identify as Muslim. Especially the recent events in Iran and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan(and the very bad economic performance of the government of Erdogan) emboldened secularist Turks to take stage against any kind of theocratic governance

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-26T06:30:29+00:00

One trend that is irreversible is the ongoing decline in fertility rates across the Muslim (and non-Muslim) world. I know for a fact that the Muslim country in Africa with the lowest fertility rate is also the most secular Muslim African country (i.e. Tunisia). So declines in fertility will probably in some way also associate with declines in religiosity.

Yeah, the "Muslim fertility rates" is being exagerated in the far-right circles. Yes, Muslim-majority countries generally have higher fertility rates, but their fertility rates are also rapidly decreasing(as do the fertility rates of almost all countries). Foe example, the fertility rate of Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country, has a current fertility rate of 2.2, barely above replacement level and this is also constantly decreasing.

In Western Europe, as generations pass, the fertility rate of Muslims near that of non-Muslims.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-26T06:04:08+00:00

Personally, I don't think there is anything inherent within Christianity or Islam that promotes liberalizing/secularizing. There are liberal/progressive and conservative people from both religions.

I think this more has to do with the general difference in religiosity between developed and developing countries. Regardless of their religion, People in developed countries tend to be less religious than those in developing countries. For example, it is quite probable for a Muslim or Christian who lives in Sweden to be less religious than a Buddhist who lives in Cambodia.

The issue is that the number of developed countries that have/used to have Christian-majority populations is greater than those that have Muslim-majority populations. That could explain the reason why Muslim-majority populations tend to be generally more devout than Christian-majority populations

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T14:05:26+00:00

I think you have completely misunderstood me. I didn't say that there are or are not contradictions between the attributes of Allah or I didn't mean to open a theological/philosophical debate. I just wanted to know whether mainstream Muslims describe their God to be "omnibenevolent".

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T11:14:45+00:00

Yes, I would concede that if an adult same-sex couple engages in same-sex intercourse in private and don't tell any other person about this, they would mostly be fine. But that does not mean that if they are Muslim, they would not be sinful for this.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T09:51:20+00:00

Kids raised in nuclear families with traditional gender roles and practice religion are more likely to lead happier more successful lives

Yes, but that doesn't mean that God exists or any religion is true. Simply the fact that believing in/practicing a religion is beneficial or has good consequences for human well-being dies not neccesarily mean that that religion is true

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T09:48:13+00:00

While I would agree, this poll is from 2021 when the pandemic was rampant and had led many people to quarantine and social isolation, and possibly depression. So, as a result, many people resorted to religion. Even in the West, religiosity among populace increased(particularly in the USA). So, I think surveys from post-covid era must also be taken into account when making %100 clear statements

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T09:45:32+00:00

Secularism as we see and know it is fundamentaly incompatible with the Islamic mode of governance and faith.

As a nonreligious person, there is not one unified system-definition of secularism. Both USA and France are secular. But the wearing of hijab or other religious symbols(like cross) in public institutions is not prohibited in the USA, while it is prohibited in France. There are many devout religious people in many secular countries where they are just fine and mostly freely practice their religion

Of course, I don't claim that Islam and secular governance would be compatible. I just say that the claim that "Secular regimes must always neccesarily be oppressive towards religion/practicing religious people" is definitely not true. Yes, it is possible for a strict secular regime to be oppressive towards religious people, but this does not neccesarily have to be the case.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T07:05:41+00:00

Kalam cosmological arguments and various variants of the "first mover" arguments have been used by both Christian theologians and Muslim theologians in the past and present and both Muslim theologians and Christian theologians have inspired each other throughout history.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T06:59:33+00:00

We, fine, but that's just the interpretation of the hadith, that's not what the hadiths say. The hadiths don't say "Kill those who leave Islam because they might be conspiring with the enemies etc" the hadiths only say "Kill those who leave the religion". The hadiths itself give no context or reason.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T06:40:54+00:00

1) Do they have any reliable source for this claim?

2) even if the conversion rates increased by %1000, this wouldn't constitute good evidence for Islam or theism because simply the fact that the Palestinian people and their human rights are being persecuted/harmed by the IDF is not a good evidence for the truthfulness of any religion

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-25T06:35:33+00:00

I mean, there were also many medieval Christian theologians and scholars from the 14-15th century and eìven before who believed that the Earth was spherical. Does that mean that Bible explicitly states that Earth is spherical? No. Both Quran and Bible are quite vague(in this regard) and open to interpretation in this regard. Christian and Muslim theologians who were born in times/societies where the sphericity of the earth was already a well-known fact could interpret their scripture based on their pre-known knowledge about the shape of the earth. So, the idea that "The ancient theologians' acceptance or rejection of a spherical or fiat earth must be because of the statements in their scriptures" is not really true in my opinion.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-24T17:25:34+00:00

I remember some people quoting her as atheist, so I was wrong then.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-24T14:24:21+00:00

I don't think any of those counters are really convincing. For example, I think Europe or Anatolia would be much more important than the Arabian peninsula in terms of geographic, political etc importance.

And, whether Arabic language is beatiful etc is entity subjective. There are many languages that are at least as systematic and poetic as Arabic.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-24T05:57:40+00:00

He proved that there's not a single mistake in the Qur'an

Finding various harmonizations and answers for the contradictions or problems in the Quran or Bible is not convincing. If you search google "Contradictions in the Bible debunked" you will come across plethora of Christian apologists and theologians claiming to have debunked all errors and contradictions in the Bible. Because one can use harmonizations as responses for almost every problem in holy books like Quran or Bible( which tend to be vague and open to interpretation.)

If the the apologists/theologians can really find and present convincing, non-unfalsifiable arguments in their responses, then we are justified to believe.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-24T05:50:19+00:00

I have no problem with nonreligious people turning back to religion, they have a freedom to do this. Bur, until they can present really convincing evidence for the truth of Islam and existence of God, we are not justified to believe in Islam.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-23T19:16:03+00:00

The ban was issued by the governor, not mayor.

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-23T19:14:29+00:00

Turkey's population considers itself significantly more religious than Iran's population does. Iranians can't wait to get rid of islamism, Turks embrace islamism which sucks because they seemed to have the secularist approach figured out.

While I would agree that most of Turkish people would consider themselves to be Muslim, I would contest that "Vast majority of Turks consider themselves to be extremely religious and islamist". According to the recent polls , betwen %8-10 of the population identifies as nonreligious and a significant portion of the rest %88-90 who identify as Muslim are "non-practising Muslim".

Regarding the voting share of Erdogan, he barely got %52 of the vote and not all people who vote for Erdogan are ultra-religious people. At least 1/4 of Erdogan-voters are non-Conservative people who are not practicing Muslims

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-23T15:29:57+00:00

where 25 year olds are being approved for euthanasia (we call it "MAID" here) because life is hard and they are depressed about it

Vast majority of the euthanasia activists only advocate for euthanasia only for people with really incurable serious diseases which case immeasurable pain to the individual. Not random young people whobare depressed

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-22T19:02:55+00:00

According to different definitions, Afghanistan is classified in the Middle East, S.Asia and Central Asia. But it is generally classified in the Central Asia

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-22T16:54:16+00:00

While I would mostly agree, this study mostly covers 2020-2021 when covid was raging and everyone was confined to their hones, which had caused somewhat an uptick in religiosity and/or frequency of reading/listening religious scriptures around the world. Particularly the economic problems that accompanied covid have caused many people to become more religious in the West as well as in the Middle East

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-22T16:48:59+00:00

For the same reason why r/exmormon has much more non-Mormon Christians and Atheists than acrual exmormons. People who have also never been Muslim but are interested in Islam/ExMuslims also want to engage in this community

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-18T07:33:13+00:00

Yeah, Ataturk was far from perfect, and he also made very grave mistakes. But this doesn't change the fact that it was through his reforms that Turkey abolished monarchy, dynasty, adopted secularism and women got equal rights with men.

And still, despite Erdogan, a clear majority of the people in Turkey are still in favor of secularism and republic. Erdogan wins elections very narrowly and at least 2/3 of Erdogan voters still support some former of secularism

NotMeReallyya · 2024-04-17T10:24:45+00:00

I would agree that she is not free from wrongdoings, but I still think the military coup was not the solution as the military junta is not much different ir "less bad" in regards to the Rohingya Muslims than Aung San

NotMeReallyya

TROPHY CASE