Ellanoor wrote
Fuck Islam, so lets go ahead and set aside the thought "oh here's the former Muslim coming to the rescue of Islam." okay? This fear you have is irrational and if you know anything about Islam, baseless. The teachings found in the Quran aren't so profound that whole civilizations would convert voluntarily at the drop of a hat at a mere reading of it nor are Islamic countries so far advanced they they will convert masses by force as they were in the past. You do know that a majority of Muslims haven't a clue what the Quran says even though they speak the verses every single day? Quoting the Quran, bad verses/good verses, is absolutely useless when it comes to the formation of a Muslim. An average Muslim does not get their knowledge of their religion from the Quran, as I said, the average doesn't even understand it - even those Muslims who speak Arabic don't understand it because while their languages changed Quranic language has remained the same. For today's Arabs, the Quran is written in the language of Shakespeare to American.
All of them need an interpreter. Every other word in the Quran is "Love me, Fear me or I'm going to get you, my pretty." The way that Islam is taught now throughout most of the Islamic world, the type of Islam that won out over enlightened thinking - and yes there was a time when their was enlightened thinking in Islamic societies - (killing/silencing the leaders or followers of those thinkers) is on a course for self-destruction or if it continues, it will remain in stagnation.
They've eliminated higher reasoning, abandoned higher forms of thought and trounced on critical thinking, that is a society, due to its own ideaology, that can't advance, it can't move forward - they've frozen knowledge to set period in time. The Islamic world is not just billions of bodies with one collective mind. The desire to learn English and the popularity and high status of American culture in most Islamic countries are astronomical - which is why the response against American culture is so LOUD by zealots because they see it happening all around them. That is why they are so loud and pushing so hard, because they see those around them slowly changing, they are trying to stem the tide, they are not at the brink of a new explosion of ideas that would convert the world enmass.
The internet is reaching tiny villages in countryside of Afghanistan, new ideas are trickling in in this way and via other means every single day. In my mind, in this situation, eventually, something has to give, and I'm thinking it won't be the desire for advancement, the yearning for knowledge. It is no longer as easy as it once was to demonize non-believers.
I spent some time in the Middle East recently and kids who couldn't speak English would speak to me via Disney channel. When they learned I was an American, they surrounded me with their curiosity and questions, language was a barrier but I understood "Jonas Brothers" and we connected. Yes, this is a tiny thing, but yeah, it matters. They actually "know" a non-believer, they like this non-believer, and as inconsequential as it may seem, that is going to matter when they put their thoughts together.
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