Daniel J. Pipes

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Secular Bias blinds your judgement

Reader comment on item: Islam's Future

Submitted by Sam Meiselman (United States), Aug 13, 2002 at 12:50

Dr. Pipes,
I really enjoy reading your well thought out articles. This one, I think, has a bias blinding your position.

" If Turkish theologians can execute such changes, why not theologians in other countries, too? And if practices concerning women can be changed, why not those concerning jihad or the role of Islamic law as a whole? Islam can adjust to modernity no less than have other faiths. "

Secular Modernity is based on basic moral relativism, i.e. , there are no absolutes.

At the core of religious belief is the assumption of various absolute truths, moral and theological. While some of these truths leave a range of adjustment within application, fundamental theological positions only change via the rejection of what was previously held to be absolute.

Fundamental Islam , which has grown like wild fire over the last 20 years , shows absolutely no signs of rejecting fundamental Islamic theology. To the contrary, it shows a disability to be moderate with these ideas and weigh them against new situations.
If you believe that the outside world can " pitch in and help modernize this civilization." you are very very naive. Someone who holds their religion possesses absolute truth, will not accept your input . Period.

Only through demonstrating that Islam does not posses absolute truth will you be able to affect that part of the world. And that will spark a war and make you a target.



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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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