The Religious Misunderstanding
Reader comment on item: The Islamic Invasion: Confronting the World's Fastest Growing Religion

Submitted by Nathan (Japan), Oct 16, 2006 at 04:23

While this book is enlightening, it does have an objective agenda at discrediting Islam (one only need read the title). While the author is only too willing to point out the absurdities (of which there are many) in the Quran and the Hadith, no such discussion exists for the absurdities in the Bible (of which there are many too).

The book's greatest failing is that it makes the error of trying to prove that the Bible is fact and the Quran is fabrication. The fact is, we are dealing with religious texts, not historical accounts, or detailed scientific data. Religious texts are for the mind and soul, and that argument puts a bullet into the idea that "just because the Quran contradicts the Bible, means it is the wrong religion." The fact is, religious texts are allowed to be factually in error. They are allowed to tell stories as a metaphor to aid spread their message about life and the human condition. The Bible has the Creation story, for example, and the Quran has about 4 different remixes of the Moses story. That's not the point. Religious texts teach us TRUTHS, not facts. Big difference.

The books second big error is to not attempt to rationalize the Islamic point of view vis-a-vie Christianity. The Islamic point of view, or how issues of religion may have been tied together between the Bible and the Quran, are instead brushed off or ridiculed. For example, in the part where Morey discusses Muhammed accusing Christians of having three gods, Morey pushes this aside, explaining that Muhammed didn't have a clue about Christianity. Morey doesn't consider that perhaps Muhammed noticed that some Christians were getting mired in worshipping the symbols and imagery of their religion, but not what these symbols meant to represent in a holistic way. Morey makes the mistake which Muhammed warned the "People of the Book" about, by focussing on given facts rather than actual "big picture" meaning.

Morey shouldn't be worried about the "Islamic Invasion" anyway. Muhammed's real teachings actually make all religion, and indeed Islam itself, completely redundant. My only real fear is that there are an equal number of Christians who misunderstand their religion as there are Muslims who misunderstand theirs. Oh well, the billions of religious people in this world need to turn to *somebody* for guidance, who will be quite happy to tell them what to do while taking "donations". *sigh*

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