To All,
One of the issues that was brought up in a class I was taking is the tremendous overlap of "Arabic" culture over Islam. There are teachings of Islam that are ignored or watered down due to conflict with how a subset of Middle Eastern male culture with the entirety of Islamic teachings.
I believe that any religion can be used as an excuse to perform the most horrific atrocities. We need only look at Christian depravities during the crusades, or the witch hunts, or the catholic wars with protestant and Lutheran reformers.
It is easy for us today to say, "Well... They weren't real Christians." But that is a copout in my opinion. We are applying modern 21st century morality on a culture that is radically different in its viewpoint, but that doesn't make that culture "wrong."
Even in the 20th century the KKK would use the bible to justify demeaning treatment of blacks and any nonwhites, and within a certain segment of American culture their rhetoric seemed reasonable.
I believe the biggest hurdle with Islam is in their viewpoint the State derives all power from God, thus necessitating in one form or another a theocracy. Christianity acknowledges that the State does not need God to be credible. The only democratic country that seems to have successfully navigated this issue is Turkey, so it gives me hope that others can do so as well.
With ISIS you can see a group of disenfranchised people taking advantage of an extremely chaotic situation. It doesn't matter why Syria or Iraq are unstable, the simple fact that they are is enough to allow an opening for an organized and motivated group to shove its way in.
Regards,
Doug
NOW, it does... but for most of it's existence, it did not.