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Comment by gnull | Hacker News Reader

Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country?

In the end, you will have one of the two encompass the other. Either you have a secular country living by democratic, progressive law which allows people to be Muslims modulo this. Or you have a Muslim country living by Shariah law, but tolerating secular non-believers in it.

First won't work because Muslims (in the traditional sense) won't tolerate some other framework encompassing their worldview. They have taboo topics nobody should ever question, and secular ideology based on science will question things.

And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers.

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> Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country?

It is. There are plenty of more or less practising Muslims who behave perfectly well and are strongly opposed to theocracy. In the same way that there are plenty of white Christians who don’t feel the urge to take a gun and mow down blasphemers.

> And second won't work because Shariah law gives very concrete directions on dealing with non-believers.

It’s a false dichotomy. Lots of Muslims do not believe that Shariah law should be applied. On the Christian side there have been debates for centuries about this sort of issue, and pretty much nobody believes that the laws in the Old Testament should be applied or have any relevance nowadays. By painting the whole of Islam as being one simple shade of fundamentalism, we contribute to making the situation worse. People need to realise that there are old Muslim traditions that don’t advocate for stoning people, and that what we take for standard Islam is the creed of a particular cult and not universal.

To underline the point, nearly half of American Catholics are pro-choice. Religions really aren't a monolith, even when the stern Official Doctrine is quite clear.

> pretty much nobody believes that the laws in the Old Testament should be applied or have any relevance nowadays.

The Ten Commandments are in the Old Testament, and there are lots of conservative Christians in the U.S. trying to get them posted in courtrooms and public school classrooms.

You're right, I shouldn't be generalising.

> Lots of Muslims do not believe that Shariah law should be applied.

I feel that one big difference of Islam is that it makes the rules very explicit, from how the government should be organized to the last detail of how you should wash your hands (and how often). Christianity, on the other hand, has very few concrete regulations, but instead a ton of metaphysical, mystical and ethical things from which people are trying to deduce those regulations.

So Christianity was easier to steer away from being a concrete manual for life to being a philosophical thing, a matter of choice that people who live within secular ethical framework can voluntarily practice. My question is, if you do the same to Islam will it still be Islam given how deeply the practical instructions are ebedded in it?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I have a rather rudimentary education in both topics.

"Christianity, on the other hand, has very few concrete regulations"

Well, have a look in the old Testament then. There are very explicit rules about how to treat homosexuals and heretics for example and they are not nice.

(I like the brick testament - famous bible quotes illustrated with Lego stones)

https://thebricktestament.com/the_law/homosexuality/lv20_13a...

And yes, there is also Jesus, but among other things he has (supposedly) said,

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law of Moses or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them."

https://thebricktestament.com/the_teachings_of_jesus/on_the_...

So it is really not that simple. But the basic comparison between Jesus and Muhammed, well the one seemed to be mostly a love preaching hippie and the other mainly a warlord. But I know I have met Muslims who were devout believers, but who would never use violence, except to defend themself.

That still fits my idea of "few".

And also doesn't Christianity give some good excuses to question or review these? Especially, considering that New Testament builds up on top of the Old Testament. I'm asking about the stuff around the quotes you've shown (otherwise we could fall for confirmation bias).

Please understand me correctly. I'm not saying Christianity doesn't have cruel or bad things. I'm saying it doesn't give one concrete, final, unchangeable set of rules. With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them. I'm not saying there's no rules.

"I'm saying it doesn't give one concrete, final, unchangeable set of rules."

Like I said, it is complicated and up for debate. I have heard many conflicting viewpoints about it. Some take the whole bible literal, including the literal laws of the old testament - and they are not just a few, but many, many explicit laws about everything. More are mainly literal about the 10 commandments. And for some the only law is Jesus saying: "Love other people like yourself".

Since being raised catholic, I know quite a lot about the bible and less about the coran, but as far as I understand "With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them." this is possible there as well, as Mohammed also said conflicting things, was softer in the beginning and harsher in the end, so you can also pick what you like. Hijab for example is not an explicite rule. And about Homosexuals, well, you probably won't find anything tolerant in the coran about it, but I think you won't find something in the bible either. What matters to me, is what people are doing.

Ok, maybe I was wrong, I don't know. I'd really like someone who knows about both to comment on what I wrote.

> And also doesn't Christianity give some good excuses to question or review these? Especially, considering that New Testament builds up on top of the Old Testament. I'm asking about the stuff around the quotes you've shown (otherwise we could fall for confirmation bias).

To some extent, yes. Also, there is a long tradition of theological debates in Christianity, right from the beginning. Christians are much more comfortable with the idea that the Bible should not be taken literally.

Of course, there are 2 points that show up immediately when you say that. First, some Christians are literal fundamentalists so a long tradition is not enough. Second, Islam also has a long tradition of theological debates, and many different views and movements. I am not familiar enough with the History of Islam in the 20th century, but the fact is that there are lots of aspects that we associate with the religion without second thoughts that are actually Wahabbi practices. The rules against sex and alcohol are no less strict in the Old Testament than in the Quran. There is no reason why Islam would have to be more literal than any Christianism.

> With Christian rules, it's easier to find excuse to augment or re-interpret them. I'm not saying there's no rules.

That’s because we let a fundamentalist sect (well, mostly 2) redefine a whole religion.

>It is. There are plenty of more or less practising Muslims who behave perfectly well and are strongly opposed to theocracy.

Bit of a false scottsman. Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.

> Bit of a false scottsman.

That’s a bit disingenuous. It’s easy to see who is Muslim and who is not: you just need to ask them. I don’t see a reason to say they aren’t when they identify themselves that way and believe in that religion. I am not saying that only moderates are true Muslims, just that there are more believers than the fundamentalists.

> Not every Italian eats Tagliatelle and joins the Mafia but it's still an Italian recipe.

I’d be surprised if Italians were the majority of tagliatelle-eating people these days.

Wahhabism is a view of the religion. It is the mirror image of Christian supremacism, just with a different book and different sound bites but with the same goal of subjugation. I would not say that all Christians are murderers, either.

Strawman on top of the false scottsman. Nobody said that all Muslims are murderers.

Saying Islam feels far too strong. There are still groups of Christians who demand the death penalty for practicing gays.

Certainly some Islamic groups are incompatible with secular values.

> Saying Islam feels far too strong. There are still groups of Christians who demand the death penalty for practicing gays.

If you read the news there is certainly a stronger impact by one group.

> Is Islam at all compatible with secular values in the same country?

Yes it is. I don't know about Shariah law, but all muslims I know are just like anybody else. I think you're conflating some zealots with a large group of people who are mostly secular (just like lots of christians don't do anything christian besides celebrating Christmas and the occasional funeral at the church). The real issue here is some school administrators bending over because a fanatic complained.

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