The Sort Of Thinking That Is Not Permitted In Islam
Part of the reason it is highly likely that Islam cannot be reformed is that it is designed to be fundamentalism in the strongest ways -- for example, in how the Quran is considered the word of Allah, handed down from the heavens, and is not to be questioned. (And "not to be questioned" means "on penalty of death."
I'm an atheist, but I appreciate the self-reflection and self-criticism I see encouraged in Judaism.
For a recent example, in Haaretz, in the wake of the tragic stabbings at the gay pride parade in Israel, Dr. Samuel Lebens, an Orthodox rabbi and a research fellow at Rutgers, writes:
In the midst of Jerusalem's Gay Pride Parade on Thursday, a "religious" Jew stabbed six people. The assailant was apprehended and it quickly became clear that he had committed an almost identical crime before going to prison for ten years, only to be released last month; free to vent his blood thirsty hatred again.When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein delivered an address in the yeshiva that he headed. He lamented the fact that the religious Zionist community had produced a murderer. Don't say that Yigal Amir, who murdered Rabin, was a bad seed or an aberration, he said. Instead, recognize that our community has allowed a rhetoric to buzz around that was so violently opposed to Rabin's policies that a sick individual could get it into his head that Judaism would sanction such a heinous crime.
Rabbi Lichtenstein was a moral hero. He lived up to the Jewish value of heshbon hanefesh - which is the process of self-critical reflection essential for moral growth.
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