The same kind of argument could be made about fundamentalist,literalist Christians
Reader comment on item: Analysis: Does the Islamic State Really Have 'Nothing to Do with Islam'?

Submitted by Contra Idolatry, Dec 11, 2014 04:25

Those who gravitate to literalist interpretations of sacred writings suffer from a kind of idolatry which infuses the Divine within finite concepts and practices prescribed over a thousand and sometimes 2500 years ago in their sacred writings. That is certainly true of fundamentalist jihadist Muslims in countries where education levels about modern knowledge is limited. But it also applies to literalist fundamentalist Christians. Christians do not stone couples who commit adultery or children who do not mind their parents or those who utter blasphemy. But if you are committed to a literal intepretation of the Bible as applying to you, you should do that. Alternatives to literalist fundamentalist religions are those who stress personal and immediate experience of God as of something ineffable but wonderful. Religion is a personal matter of one's relation to that that there is something and not nothing, personal responsibility, and love of fellow men and other creatures. They can interpret some things in their sacred writings as more primitive concepts of religion, relative to the cultural context of the writers, to the human fallibility of ancient prophets who proclaim the necessity of establishing certain practices about society of their times. There is no doubt that Muhammad had religious experiences of the Divine, but his leadership of a community beset with enemies often led to cruel and harsh treatment of them, uncharacteristic of one who saw the Divine through all things, and more characteristic of fallible humanity. Even by the time of Christ and the centuries following there were Christians, like the Gnostics who stressed personal religious experiences as opposed to strict observance of external practices prescribed by religious authorities.

So, just as Christianity had to make way for modernism and science, Islam too has to do the same. Rather than trying to force the liberal Muslims into the mould of the ultra-fundamentalist terrorists who believe they are doing God's Will and Work, we should give the liberals support. But this author, I suspect, is a literalist also, who wants to fight it out on text versus text, and hold all Moslems to the literal interpretation of the Koran, while perhaps ignoring the implications of literal interpretations of the Old Testament.

To me idolatry is treating finite things as one's Ultimate Concern. And Christ as God sacrificed on the Cross to atone for all men's sins is a symbol of a God that does not demand you sacrifice yourself to something finite, an idol, but sacrifices Himself that you may be saved. But establishing a Caliphate and beheading all those who do not accept that is infusing and confusing the Divine in a finite social structure. Anyone who knows modern astronomy and the vastness of the Universe will find it hard to take seriously such claims that humans must on pain of death submit themselves to a particular form of government and practices. It is but a finite idol asserting its finite powers to control men.

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