Islam: Religion or Ideology

Posted by johnhouk on Apr 30, 2009
 John R. Houk
© April 29, 2009

If you have been reading my posts on Islam/Mohammedanism you may be aware I have been working out a stand concerning the religion founded by Mohammed (e.g. Here and Here).

The decision is between banning Mohammedanism in America or considering Mohammedanism a religion protected by Free of Religion and Free Speech ala the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. (Cornell University Law School)


There are three points that need to be examined pertaining to Islam:

    1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

    2. (Congress shall make no law) prohibiting the free exercise thereof (i.e. religion).

    3. (Congress shall make no law) abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.


A few other points could well be addressed pertaining to Islam however without an understanding of these three points the later is irrelevant or relevant depending on the conclusions of those points.

The first point about the Law and the establishment of religion is one of my pet peeves because Leftists over the last sixty years or so have extrapolated ex nihilo that this means a wall of separation exists between the government (Federal, State and Local) and religion.

This extrapolation has zero to do with the Constitution or with those attributed to reasoning out the meaning of the Constitution in the Federalist Papers. Rather it comes from a letter (A LETTER!) to the Danbury Baptists in which President Jefferson trying to calm the fears of Baptists about the traditional concept of Christian nations establishing a State Church.

Baptists had never been privy in any nation as a State Church. In those days part of taxation was to support the State Church. Many of the Thirteen Colonies and then the Thirteen States of the United States of America initially had State Churches on the State level.

Saying all this, the majority of America’s ruling elite from the Revolutionary War days considered the rule of law and morality based on Christian principles. My conclusion (though admittedly an opinion) is that the First Amendment did not prohibit religion from being involved in the State; rather it prohibited the State from being involved in religion. The religions of the day were the varieties of Christianity in the new USA with a smattering of Judaism. The Courts of the day would not even consider extrapolating ex nihilo a law prohibiting the involvement of religion in the government apparatus.

The second point is that Congress shall make NO laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. This opened the door for religions other than Christianity to practice freely in principle; however you have to be aware the populace in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s would look with prejudice upon a non-Christian religion such as Islam/Mohammedanism. Nonetheless the letter of the law in the Constitution is very concrete. The specific word “religion” was used rather something such as the “religion of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Although Christianity would have been considered the faith of America in post Revolutionary War days, an extrapolation of diverse religious worship is free to occur.

An uncorrupt Court would have to rule to prevent public or private harassment of non-Christian religions in America because Congress can make NO law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

There are over a billion people who consider Mohammedanism a religion. At this point one has to realize my quandary about banning Mohammedanism. I’ll back to this thought in a moment.

The third point is that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the press. This takes care of America’s atheists who choose to live by a philosophy, philosophical principle or merely not care about the existence of religion/deity one way or the other. It is the freedom of conscience without fear of retribution.

Even today ideologies such as Communism or Nazism are allowed freedom of expression in America as long as the expression does not lead to breaking the law via murder, assault, theft, incitement to riot disturbing the public welfare and so on.

Thus today fringe Leftist and fringe Rightist groups test how close they can get to the line of the rule of law without crossing it. Prosecution followed Communists in what was known as the McCarthy Era and today White Supremacists are prosecuted for arms violations and the breaking of other citizens’ civil rights.

It is the THIRD POINT I believe that Mohammedanism crosses the line.

Mohammedanism as a religion simply has too many tenets in their revered books or traditions that cross the line of the rule of law according to the American Constitution. Mohammedanism is a warrior religion that its revered books call to establish the ideological-religion globally first by peace. If peace does not work then war is forced on unbelievers of Mohammedanism until there is Mohammedan conversion or submission to second class citizenship forced to not do anything anti-Islamic or death in a heinous way.

So even though there is a theological nature of otherworldliness to Mohammedanism, the political nature of Mohammedanism in practice in this world tends toward an ideology of political world domination. This world domination mentality has the ferocity inspired by Adolf Hitler’s Nazis on the German population of a superior race. In the same way the German Nazis sought to exterminate human beings (not just Jews) considered as subhuman as not worthy of life. Those outside the Nazi vision of the Germanic Aryan nation not deemed subhuman would be second class citizens serving the Nazi German State.

The Mohammedan ideology of the days of Mohammed in which one can label as radical Islam today is really a Reformation movement on the scale that Protestantism was a movement to reform the Catholic Church to a return of the perception of the Early Church and Patristic Church.

Ali Sina has an awesome essay that points out that “reform” is a movement to go back to the way it was rather than a transformation to another a better way of thinking. The appellation of “Progressive” Churches is a case in point. Progressive Churches are not reforming Christianity; rather they are inserting Leftist humanism to eliminate what is perceived as archaic and of no value in today’s society.

Ali Sina thus stipulates Mohammedanism is not able to be reformed. If there is any reformation occurring in Mohammedanism it is the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi and Shi’ite aims to bring Mohammedanism back to a closer vision of the Prophet Mohammed.

The implication is that Mohammedanism would have progressive thinking added to it to bring it back to a religion that is otherworldly seeking inner peace in this life and the life to come. For this to happen a progressive Mohammedanism would have to deny Mohammed’s revelation from Allah pertaining to convert or die, sex slavery, honor killing and intolerance of everything non-Islamic.

Part of Sina’s point is to not trust Mohammedans that claim to be reform minded. Sina does not specifically point to a website called Muslims Against Sharia but implies that one should not trust Muslims who say they wish to reform Islam. The link for Muslims Against Sharia does not have its name in it, rather the link is http://www.reformislam.org/.

Sina implies there is a religion that is a progressive version of Mohammedanism. That religion is known as Bahá’í.

The Bahá'í's believe in an essential unity of the great religions of the world. However, this does not mean they believe the various religious creeds and doctrines are identical. Rather, they view all religions as having sprung from the same spiritual source. The social and outer forms of different religions vary due to the circumstances at the time that they were founded. Other differences in doctrine and belief can be attributed to later accretions, after the death of the founder.

…

Bahá'í beliefs promoted major social changes when they were first circulated in the 19th century: they supported gender and race equality; world government; freedom of expression and assembly; world peace; religious tolerance, and religious cooperation. In many ways, they were a century or more ahead of many other faiths. Their followers are heavily involved in promoting these concepts today. Also, unlike many other religions, Bahá'ís view scientific inquiry as essential to expand human knowledge and to deepen their members' faith. They feel that science needs to be guided by spiritual principles so that its applications are beneficial to all humanity. (Excerpted from Bahá'í Faith: Beliefs and Practices)


I have come around to the conclusion that if Mohammedanism wishes to evolve into a true religion of peace (Note as a Christian I did not say the true religion) then Muslims would embrace Baha’ism which is an actual root from Mohammedanism.

So now I am pretty much in the “Ban Islam” crowd even though it is not completely etched into stone in my thoughts. It is entirely reasonable to view Mohammedanism as a Theo-Political cult with the emphasis on political ideology. The inherent political ideology of Islam definitely crosses the line of American Constitutionalism and the rule of law to protect citizens from harm.

Thus to ban Islam could be viewed as terminating an ideology which would harm the Constitution of the United States of America.
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