Northwest

@Dave follower of The Way The approach is self-defeating. One cannot trust in good deeds until one accepts that a hypostatic being has died on one’s behalf and that one’s deeds by themselves do nothing to work toward one’s eternal spiritual fate. So by trusting in a sacrifice or expiation that nullifies the importance of good deeds, one then begins to “naturally” perform good deeds via supernatural power. While the Christian perspective does offer a supposed corrective for overweening pride, it also seems to imply that good deeds do not effect spiritual change in an individual, making said endeavours meaningless, because good deeds neither purify one spiritually nor work toward one’s eternal spiritual fate. It is a self-contradictory creed. Also, it did not prevent Trinitarian Crusaders from asserting their beliefs by killing Jews and Muslims for their refusal to believe in the Trinity and abandon “legalistic” ritual observance such as circumcision, dietary law, etc. Even today religiously observant Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox hate, dispute, and contend with one another almost more fervently than they work together to fight liberal degeneracy, if at all. That is why liberal ideology is successfully spreading: because the “religious” Christians are too busy fighting one another.

@layman According to your perspective, is there any objective way to measure this, especially if people’s innate intellectual capacities differ, and even reasoning and evidence may fail? Couldn’t this, theoretically, serve as an argument against the nature of religious faith in general, or at least the religious mentality that forces reason to fit bounds of revelation? For example, look at the manner in which religious or quasi-religious zeal drives Christians to believe in the Trinity, or Wahhabi–Salafi militants to engage in suicide-bombing. Disentangling blind emotion from cool logic can be a very difficult thing to do when religious zeal, united to deeply rooted belief in revelation, is at stake, given that religion also believes in a deeper, spiritual logic that exists beyond time and space but may permeate the latter—the same spiritual logic that enabled the infallible Prophet Khidr to kill the child. Too many “religious” people (non-infallible) cannot distinguish between their delusions and genuine spiritual experience/revelation/insight. Of course, atheists and “hard” secularists fall into the same trap, more often than not due to faulty logic, but religion adds a volatile, unstable dynamic by introducing supernatural elements. From the previous link: As you noted, “capacity” implies a fixed limit, the highest potential (zenith) that an individual may attain in his spiritual and other development throughout life. But doesn’t there need to be an objective way to measure whether that “simple event” is truly a divine message instead of an illusion concocted by the nafs and subjectivity? By “us” are you including yourself? I don’t doubt that I myself have the same problem, but obviously my presence here indicates at least some self-introspection. But discernment is required when deciphering a situation in which one must determine whether one is being misled by one’s (limited) reasoning and evidence. One would need to be aware of the shortcoming in the first place, and obtaining that objective awareness is not as simple as it seems to be. After all, everyone “trusts” respective sources of emulation to some extent. I do my best to avoid trusting any single source of authority in its entirety, because too many people, “secular” or “religious,” end up falling into delusion by doing so.

Source Source Both the Turkish-Islamist synthesis under Erdoğan’s AKP and the promotion of the Polish-backed Three Seas Initiative (a legacy of the older “Intermarium” project) are part of a broader globalist strategy aimed at fostering several aims simultaneously, synchronising and synergising disparate forces and their respective strengths, aims, etc. into a formidable bloc vs. Russia, China, Iran, and eventually India. As mentioned previously, only Turkey has the demographic, economic, and military potential to serve as a formidable leader of a pro-NATO, pro-Zionist “Sunni” bloc vs. Russia, China, and Iran. (Just look at the maps.) The Western financial elites realise this, and see that the Saudis, besides being incapable of defeating Iran, Ansar Allah, Hezbollah, the PMUs, et al., are also slowly drifting toward Russia, China, and Iran over time, as well as becoming somewhat too “nationalist” for the globalists’ anti-national tastes. So now the West is encouraging Turkey to integrate Saudi- as well as Qatari-backed Wahhabi–Salafi ideology into a broader vision that encapsulates pseudo-“Ottoman,” pan-“Sunni,” and pan-Turkic as well as pan-Wahhabi–Salafi “populism.” By promoting the consolidation of the Polish-fronted Three Seas Initiative, thereby reviving the old Catholic, pro-Habsburg Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as embodied in the “Intermarium,” the Anglo-Saxons and their Zionist partners hope to sever commercial ties, including energy-related, among Russia, Germany, and the Franco-Italian sphere. In doing so, the Poles, the Vatican (mainly its P2/GLADIO faction), the Anglo-Americans, and the Zionists hope to prevent Eurasian integration. Russian-Chinese economic penetration is a lynchpin of cooperation between the East and West via Germany and the Franco-Italian bloc. The maritime, Protestant powers of the “Rimland” such as the U.S., U.K., the Netherlands, and Sweden cannot afford this and so are seeking to create a buffer and black hole of instability, sponsored by Poland via the Baltic States and Ukraine, that would simultaneously contain Russia and China while keeping Germany, France, and Italy dependent on the Anglo-Saxons and Zionists. Note that “COVID-19” struck Italy shortly before that country was scheduled to sign up for China’s BRI. The revival of anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi, pro-Zionist fascism in Ukraine not only puts pressure on Russia and China, but also allows the Zionists to scare Eastern European Jews into relocating to Israel, thereby resolving the Zionists’ desperate demographic predicament. (Anti-Semitic incidents elsewhere in the West, often provoked by Zionists, have also stimulated fear among Jews that the Zionists have exploited, encouraging Jewish immigration to Israel—indeed, a central plank of Zionism, which complements the notions of Nazism, is that Jews cannot live alongside non-Jews and must have their own ethnic homeland in Palestine.) Furthermore, European fascists have long been deeply associated with the Zionist movement, especially its Revisionist (pro-Likud) faction, as well as certain Wahhabi–Salafi elements of the Muslim Brotherhood. This can be seen in the collaboration among anti-Russia, anti-Chinese, anti-Iranian, and pro-Zionist forces such as Ukrainian Nazis, pan-Turkic fascists, Zionist oligarchs, evangelicals, Hindutva elites, and “Sunni” Islamists. The West is also counting on the fact that traditionalist religious forces such as Catholics (i.e., Poles) and Orthodox (i.e., Russians) tend to fight one another rather than unite vs. liberal degeneracy. In the United States, for instance, traditionalist evangelicals tend to be as hostile toward traditionalist Muslims as liberal globalists are, if not more so. Instead of uniting on a shared basis vs., say, feminism, sodomy, “woke” ideology, dysgenic influence, and atheism, the various religious forces are kept at loggerheads on the basis of theological, political, ethnic, and even racial lines. All too often the various religious adherents fall prey to a narrow religious mentality that refuses to cooperate vs. a seemingly shared enemy. “Sunni” Wahhabi–Salafi extremists therefore prefer to collaborate with the Western/Zionist globalists to kill rival Muslims rather than unite with traditionalist Muslims and other religious communities vs. the globalist monolith. In other words, many “religious” people also have themselves to blame for the success of liberal globalism, for the “religious” have all too often degenerated into mutual enmity and bickering and massacre, enabling globalist advances.

As an outsider looking in, I am putting this thread up for some insight. Abrahamic tradition does not hold one to be responsible for others’ deeds. Islam is no exception: one is not held responsible for the sins of one’s ancestors, but only one’s own. However, it is also acknowledged that the cumulative actions of one’s forebears can lead to certain inborn tendencies, as shown in the dynamics of alcoholism among certain demographics. Of course, there is a dispute as to the degree to which one’s actions can affect one’s genome, and the role of woo in distorting matters has not aided understanding. Still, if one is born into a family with a “generational curse”—be it diabetes or addictions—even if one is not responsible for one’s ancestors’ behaviour, one can still feel stigmatised relative to people who did not belong to a lineage with the said “curse.” One can, perhaps, better oneself, but remain at a disadvantage, in absolute terms, relative to others who were not born into one’s lineage and its attendant problems. In other words, one’s best would still be less than the worst (or best) of the others. Has anyone grappled with this dilemma and its attendant, complicated emotions?

@Dave follower of The Way How did you come to the conclusion that the collective Church’s theological reasoning on this matter was sound? Perhaps I could then understand your position better. I am currently a Deist, but I could not find an option for “Deist” in my profile, nor could I type it in, so I chose “Agnosticism” instead.

@layman ^

@Eddie Mecca Regarding the verse, I have heard of alternative interpretations that suggest it supports marrying within one‘s own lineage, and identifies biological race as a sign of one’s spiritual heritage, whether good or evil, thereby indirectly supporting a kind of caste-system, in which the most righteous Semites (the Prophetic lineage) rule over non-Semites and others, while not mixing. (Under this circumstance, there would be discrimination based on linking race to piety, but not necessarily genocidal racism per se. I think that the Qur’ān condemns deterministic, genocidal racism like that of the nineteenth-century “scientific” model [eugenics-driven Social Darwinism], but I am still unclear as to whether it prohibits other, less lethal, more “paternalistic” expressions of racial discrimination. After all, segregation in the post-Civil War U.S. and apartheid-era South Africa was based on race but did not necessarily escalate into outright genocide, unlike in, say, Nazi Germany. Also, Jewish and Christian tradition does contain references to a “curse of Ham,” but I am unsure as to how much of an influence it exerted in Islamic tradition; the “curse” in the Tanakh actually fell on Ham’s firstborn son, Canaan, and not on his other three sons, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut, so it would not necessarily apply to all blacks per se.) This depends on how one interprets “so that you may identify (or distinguish) one another.” Other interpretations claim that the verse cannot be used to support racial discrimination, interpreting the excerpt as “come to know” (as in “mate with”) rather than “identify” or “distinguish.” After all, if man is but one race and is commanded to intermarry, then racial and tribal distinctions would become superfluous. Also, if it is truly inclusive, the verse would have to explain the following: Of course, this may have more to do with kinship rather than race per se, but closely related individuals tend to share similar biology as well. Yet why did they prefer their own?

@Haji 2003 These “perceived features” reflected the fact that Muslim societies then were opposed to economic nationalism and collectivism, favouring instead open borders, free trade, supranational governance, and capitalistic economics. Within this context the lower classes were said to be responsible for their state, either by genetics or irresponsibility, thereby reducing the incentive of the ruling bourgeoisie to offer charity, except as a last-ditch, pragmatic measure in the direst circumstances, while also preventing the nationalisation and collectivisation of resources. “Social justice” is a rather vague term that fits comfortably within bourgeois charity and supply-side economics (see below): Removing tax exemptions and abolishing usury would not necessarily challenge the Western-led economic order in toto. After all, plenty of Western elites argue for value-added, sales, and income taxes, while retaining the capitalist system. Many of them even support austerity, deregulation, and privatisation in addition to these measures.

@Eddie Mecca ^ Do you care to address some of my points above? Also, I would like to add that any group is capable of extremism. Bedouin Arabs have been recruited into Wahhabi–Salafi ideology, for instance. ”Xenophobia and fanaticism” are not the sole preserve of Europeans. Every ethnic group is racist to at least some degree, or at least suspicious of outsiders. Also, at least in the West, many “Sunni” Islamists conflate religion and race. When a Westerner criticises “Sunni” terrorists, the terrorists claim that the Westerners are “racist,” seemingly implying that, in their minds, religious fanaticism is biologically inherited. For the record, while people in Iran might praise Black Lives Matter’s activities in the West, I doubt that they would tolerate BLM’s activities in Iran. After all, in Iran, as elsewhere, interracial, inter-ethnic marriage is still relatively uncommon. To be fair, I am also not in favour of a “hard” secularism that tries to destroy any and all religious and/or traditionalist social values in society. Outside Iran, I think the best solution is a pluralist society and a secularist state that respects and promotes religious harmony as well as upholds traditionalist moral values. Examples include Syria and India. Iran’s, to my knowledge, is the only theocratic government that has managed to respect religious minorities and restrain social liberalism. All other theocratic governments have tended to tyrannise rival communities of faith. In Iran, even “Sunni” terrorism tends to inflame only a minority of the Sunnis, suggesting that most Sunnis are content with their lot in Iran. My point is that I am equally hostile to the degenerate social liberalism that I see in the West and the religious bigotry and extremism that has been all too common throughout history till the present. Did I clarify myself?

@Ashvazdanghe Personally, I view the conflict between the Saudi leadership and factions of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a fight between competing elements rather than distinct camps. Many of the MB militants in the KSA are not ideologically distinct from the Wahhabi–Salafi clerical establishment, but merely differ in their opposition to elements of the Saudi political elite (royal family). In many cases, the MB militants are, if anything, more bigoted and sectarian than some of the pro-establishment clerics. The MB militants are trying to establish a more “populist” version of Wahhabi–Salafi governance than that which is promoted by the Saudi political elite. These MB militants have often sided with pro-Qatari elements of Daesh in criticising the corruption and modernising influence of the Saudi royal elite, especially under MbS. These elements are also being courted by the West and Israel: given ongoing concerns about the KSA’s slow drift toward Russia, China, and Iran, NATO and Co. need to utilise disaffected Islamists within the KSA as “leverage” vs. MbS. The Saudi elite under MbS has unsettled the West and Israel by forging closer economic ties with China, considering Russian military aid, and making on-and-off overtures to Iran. Although MbS has sided with the West and Israel on Yemen, in other respects he has proven more unpredictable than, say, pro-Western puppets such as Muhammad bin Nayef (MbN) and Alwaleed bin Talal (AbT), both of whom, like longtime Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan, represent the “comprador” vs. the “nationalist” elements within the Saudi elite. These latter elements are close to the Bush–Clinton–Obama consortium as well as Qatar-linked, pro-Turkish elements of the MB. Bin Sultan, in particular, has long enjoyed good relations with Turkey’s Erdoğan and played the role of senior operative in coordinating Saudi–Qatari–Turkish operations in Syria at the behest of the Anglo-Saxons and Zionists. Hamas sided with this nexus vs. Assad, too. So the matter is clearly more complicated than the simplistic view of the MB as “good cops” vs. Saudi “bad cops.” In the event of a wider war in the MENA, Turkey and its financial patron Qatar would likely support Wahhabi–Salafi “populists” within the MB, including Yemen’s al-Islah, and Daesh as weapons vs. the “nationalist” Saudi elite by supporting the detachment of Hejaz from the KSA. At this point I think the West realises that it is gradually losing its influence over the KSA and must take drastic measures to prevent the KSA from entering into rapprochement with Iran over time, given that Russian and Chinese influence in the kingdom is undermining Western hegemony. The West and Israel will increasingly support an alliance of the MB and Daesh under MbN, AbT, bin Sultan, and Erdoğan vs. the “nationalist” Saudi faction (MbS). Turkey, Qatar, and Pakistan are already unifying their support for a pan-Islamist “Sunni” bloc vs. Russia, China, and Iran. I think the risk of a Western-led coup vs. MbS within the next five years is rather high.

@Meedy The Pashtun Wahhabi–Salafi terrorists are only “brainwashed” because they are willing to be brainwashed and used as foreigners’ puppets. It is all too easy to excuse subhumans such as terrorists by claiming “misguidance” and “brainwashing,” when in fact the terrorists willingly choose to stop thinking rationally and blindly follow religiously bigoted “leaders.” They are ultimately to blame for their predicament and that of Afghanistan. If not for their willingness to stop using their God-given intellect and serve foreigners’ interests (by killing rival Muslims and non-Muslims alike), NATO and Co.’s activities could not continue for another day.

@Haji 2003 To be fair, I would opine that his tweet probably applies to 99.9% of the clergy from most, if not all, faiths throughout history. The Shia clerics tend to be better than the vast majority of other ecclesiastical authorities, however, given their concessions to the use of reason. Nevertheless, Sunni, Jewish, Trinitarian Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and even some (though far from all) Shia clerics have definitely been more of a burden on than an asset to religion, given that the line between faith and obscurantism can often be quite blurry. Anyway, I think that all this talk of “secularisation” in the Wahhabi–Salafi KSA is more cosmetic than indicative of actual reforms. The Saudis and their ilk are still financing and arming the religiously motivated Wahhabi–Salafi terrorists in the MENA and South-Central Asia, among other regions. Until the Saudis stop exporting religiously driven terrorism and show toleration toward non-Wahhabi–Salafi creeds, secularisation is a moot point at best and a PR smokescreen at worst that only serves the interest of the Saudis’ Western masters. After all, since the 1960s countless Western media have harped on the Saudis’ supposed drives toward “modernisation” and “secularisation.” All these moves turned out to be motivated by the desire to curry favour with the Western public rather than a sincere desire to alter the Saudis’ domestic and foreign policies. Mark my words: the Saudis’ “secularisation” is just more theatre designed to deceive a captive foreign audience. A truly secular, or rather pluralistic, Saudi state would stop relying on religious bigotry and terrorism. @Abu Hadi The reason for their silence, in my view, is that there is no independent evidence of “genocide,” aside from the harpings of Western NGOs, media, and governments such as the USG and its NATO puppets. Iran has not blamed China for committing “genocide,” nor have other Iran-friendly governments such as Russia and Venezuela. The whole “genocide“ charade is a Western ploy to distract the masses’ attention from Western and Zionist actions elsewhere. It is projection in action. For example, the West (including Israel), which has a history of eugenics (see the forced sterilisation of nonwhites, Palestinians, and so on), is falsely blaming China for allegedly sterilising Uighur Muslims. The Rohingya “genocide” being promoted by Western NGOs and regimes is another such diversion that is based on half-truths and distortions that whitewash the role of Wahhabi–Salafi terrorists in attacking Buddhists and Rohingya alike in order to smear the regime in Yangon, so that the West can detach Myanmar from China as part of its new “Cold War” vs. Chinese economic influence in South-Central and Southeast Asia. It’s no different from the West’s shenanigans in the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, and so on, in which the West tries to manipulate Muslims into serving as proxy warriors vs. governments that oppose the Western/Zionist agenda. “Muslim” groups such as the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its fronts such as CAIR that are financed by the Zionist-allied GCC (Saudis, Qataris, and so on) pretend to speak on behalf of Muslims while parroting the Western narrative about, say, Gaddafi’s “rapes” and Assad’s “chemical weapons” while requesting the West‘s intervention to “protect innocent Muslims” (read: Wahhabi–Salafi terrorists, as was seen in Libya and Syria and elsewhere).

@Eddie Mecca Is there any evidence that sayyids during the Safavid era intermarried with, say, sub-Saharan Africans? I haven’t located evidence thus far, but am interested in additional sources. Collectively, Persians, Arabs, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Kurds, Turks, and Berbers encompass a significant chunk of the total population in the MENA. Also, a number of these groups are fair-skinned yet feature dark hair and dark eyes. Look at Imam Khamenei, for instance. His skin is clearly fair, yet his hair (excluding beard) and eyes are dark. He is neither blond-haired nor blue-eyed despite having fair skin. I am Caucasian yet consider the Imam to be more “white” than “nonwhite,” notwithstanding certain Europeans’ prejudice vs. considering Semites to be “white.” It is hardly “bygone” in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brunei, and a number of other “Sunni” (Wahhabi–Salafi) states, to not mention Turkey’s bigoted Islamist leadership. It is hardly “bygone” among traditionalist Christians in the West; look at the Catholic–Protestant divide, evangelicalism, and so on. Currently the U.S. is supporting religious tyranny more than secular tyranny abroad, given its preponderant support for bigoted Zionist missionaries, Hindu fascists, and Wahhabi–Salafi terrorists, to name but three. Outside the West, the feminist, sodomite, and other “progressive” (degenerate liberal) groups tend to affect only a narrow, upper-class stratum of the non-Western population. Most Iraqis, for instance, have nothing to do with these secularist elements. Among the non-Western masses the West relies more on spreading religious and racial sectarianism. At this very moment the U.S. under Biden has begun financing the Taliban once again. The usual “but the secularists do it too/are worse!” is not sufficient to excuse religious tyranny, much less that which is Western-sponsored. Are you implying that European bigotry is genetically (biologically) conditioned? I don’t necessarily disagree, but that would be a racialist conclusion.

With due respect: your rejoinder doesn’t address a single point and also ignores the fact that several of my posts contain questions. Preachers don’t ask questions. Why do you Trinitarians despise independent reasoning and logic? Why don’t you use your God-given intellect to question your priests and popes? After all, if you would discard the Church’s commentary, you would arrive at a position on the Trinity that is basically Judaeo-Islamic. Your religious mentality encourages sheeplike behaviour while despising self-improvement and making excuses by relying on vicarious atonement/expiation via the sacrifice of a hypostatic being. Your worldview is fatalistic and does not link personal self-improvement to eternal salvation, viewing the two as separate. According to you whether a person is addicted to drugs or not doesn’t have any intrinsic bearing on his salvation, because overcoming addiction, like adopting circumcision for hygienic benefits, is not compulsory and has no intrinsic bearing on one’s spiritual state. Please do not confuse bluntness with personal hatred, as an aside. Sometimes the truth does hurt.

@Haji 2003 My main point is that many educated Muslims seem to concur that Islamic economics are basically “capitalist” in tenor, securing private property and commerce based on bureaucratic legal contracts, open borders, free trade, and a minimalistic state, as evidenced by encouragement of self-betterment vs. begging for communal assistance. Although terms like “capitalist” may seem misleading because, per these Muslims, there is no other economy than the Islamic economy and the Islamic economy is fundamentally capitalist, it is true that this understanding of Islam shares more with Western economic (classical) liberalism, or even Calvinism (the so-called “Protestant” ethic), than with socialism, aside from the prohibition on usury. If this is the case then “Islamic” economics would basically be no more than an interest-free copy of the (Western-run) IMF and the World Bank’s policies, including large-scale privatisation, elimination of subsidies, reliance on free trade vs. autarky, and so on. The West already relies on voluntary, corporate charity via the private sector, and many modern Islamic scholars seem to treat zakat, aside from its being obligatory, as functionally similar to Western-style charity, except in the realm of usury. If redistributive, socialistic, and autarkic measures are much more inefficient than capitalistic ones, then I wonder why the West and its financial elites have consistently sought to prevent nationalisation, land reform, and autarky in the so-called “Second” and “Third” (developing) worlds. For example, the West supported coups in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to preempt socialistic and nationalistic movements that threatened foreign capital with expropriation, trade-barriers, and so on. On the other hand, Sunni Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) have frequently allied with the West vs. socialistic and nationalistic movements. Erdoğan’s AKP, for instance, came into power in 2001 with Western support and blessing that lasted until 2013 (Gezi Park protests) or so. Even today Turkey’s volume of trade with Israel is large and continues to develop. One should thus ignore Erdoğan’s “anti-Zionist” politicking and look at the economic facts on the ground that indicate Turkey’s continued loyalty to the Western/Zionist capitalist model. If some Islamist groups are in basic overall agreement with the Western/Zionist financial elites on economic policy sans usury, then they can hardly be called “anti-imperialist” or even “anti-Zionist” movements. Even the Iranian government has adopted Western economic prescriptions in several areas.