@Tom Storm
You can call god what you want in your own language or use a name you feel comfortable with.
I'm talking about the god of conscience. Everybody has a conscience they feel. That's the one I'm referring to.

@javi2541997
Is that supposed to be an argument!
Many people know aristotle believed in a prime mover.
You disputing that?

@Hanover
You reject people's lived experience and think some academic can top what real Muslims actually feel?

As I said before not everything is online or reported.
It's like you want reams of online documents to disprove the guilt you've already imputed.

You are aware that many imams give a speech every Friday and that this is purely oral,it doesn't go online?

In your ignorance of this culture you feel fear and resort to suspicion and media propoganda.

Tell why do many western people on the ground live,work,befriend and marry Muslims,even shia ones!
Nor are they afraid of the average Muslim.

Your attitude is primitive just like a person who wants academic evidence that non white people are not dangerous savages.
Own your ignorance hanover.

@javi2541997
Aristotle believed in God ( prime mover) and Karma ( moral actions having consequences) as did plato.

And yes,God has different names in Arabic and hebrew and existed before the bible and quran.
God was also misinterpreted before these books and after!
The concept of God does not come from Books or priests.

@Tom Storm

Some people think that. Faith is the excuse they give for believing in something when they have no good reasons. If you have good reasons to believe something, you give those reasons. If you have nothing, you can say it's down to faith. And there's nothing you can't justify using faith - I remember well some devote Christian South Africans telling me that apartheid was god's will and that they had this on faith. No reason necessary.

Yes of course,many people use "faith" for the unjustifiable and immoral. Just like science is used to make weapons and torture equipment and enforce oppression.

Their are always reasons given for faith,its just what criteria of reason you accept.
I feel god in my heart is a reason. Its just that some people misuse that reason.

Bottom line,you will find all things depend on a certain type of trust. Philosophers of all people should know,after all these centuries of pontificating they still trust in "abstract reason" when they can even agree or prove much of anything!

@javi2541997
You know people had common sense before Aristotle right?
And yes,in addition to karma ( cause and effect!) being common sense so is Identity and contradiction,ish.

Hume may have doubted cause and effect but he still lived it practically.

@Yohan
There is lot to be said for your post on Intuition and Gnosis. Said like a true mystic!
My one additional but very important point is this.
Intuition is the natural normal innate born condition.
One must have a kind of "trauma" or fear to supress it.
And one can return to innate gnosis by various processes,by platos or other mystical paths,or even through sport.

I find it amazing that people want to go the epistemic justification route,when the infinite regress occurs with JTB!
Plato already told you their is intuitive direct knowledge.
Axiomatic and Trustworthy.

Common sense abdicated in favour of unreasonable doubt!

@Yohan
"Perhaps Faith is extreme or perfected Trust"
That's a great quote. No perhaps about it!
That's how I see my faith.

@Yohan
Of course it depends on one's concept of God.
Religions do not seperate God from morality or vice versa

With Karma how would you say it got enforced?
And would an ultimate being not get involved to rectify injustice?

Me myself,I'm a Sufi mystic so God is felt in the heart,so all these abstract definitions and a lot of theology is meaningless to me.

Faith means Trust.
Just like some people trust science and the media and Bill clinton...

@Yohan
Karma is the belief that good and bad is always rewarded and punished.
This is basically what theism is from another angle.
You can't seperate morality from God or karma in theist circles.

@Hanover
A fine piece of evasion and mealy mouthed misinformation hanover.

How would you know how the Muslim community distances itself from extremists? How many Muslims do you engage with offline regularly?

If the media is controlled by vested interests ( unless you really think the media is impartial!) why would they report extensively on imams condemning events?

Fact is I had the same complaint twenty years ago,the difference being there was a problem back then,but it's been addressed,now the problem lies with your countries media. What's more my knowledge of the problem came from personal knowledge of directly knowing Muslims.

You seem to think you can criticise purely from your knowledge of American media and Google without having any local knowledge.

Maybe get offline a bit and talk to Muslims if your really that concerned. Because your speaking from major ignorance and not looking at the "impartiality" of the media.
Very poor.

@javi2541997 @Yohan
Could it be said that the common sense default position is to be believe in moral cause and effect,AKA Karma?
Because God and Karma are the same concept from a different angle.

@Hanover
Fact is I will read between your lines.

I have repeatedly said Islamic theology is not a monolith,neither is the shia version a monolith.
There are many sects within shia islam.
There are many secular and nominal muslim Iranians.

The average shiah will not attempt this kind of attack and you KNOW this.

You are still terribly ignorant of Islamic culture and guilty of horrible double standards and ignoring what I've written.
Fact Is you probably fear being called out if you really said what you think.

Can you not distinguish between ordinary religious people and political rhethoric?
Or is the non western world held to different standards and looked down upon?
Please,spit out what you are really saying if you can.

@Tate
Yes,I have just seen hanovers post linking it.
So how many do you want off Google?
And was it reported by the media? Remember hsnover had to search for it...That's the point!

@Tate
https://munsifdaily.com/news/india-news/pan-india-news/muslim-cleric-condemn-attack-on-salman-rushdie/

@Hanover
Well,has he gone through a court of law yet?
The article you linked contains "reportedly","some stories","apparently" all less than certain phrases.

Let's say for arguments sake he legit did this in following Khomeini,does that mean the majority of Muslims agree with him? How many other people tried in all these years?

Also ignoring that not every Iranian or shia cleric agrees with Khomeini.

Finally,I waiting for you to engage fully with my other post rather than focusing on ONE extremist person.
Is it guilt by identity you are insinuating?

@Tate
There are numerous non famous Muslim clerics
who have condemned this Rushdie violence.
There are many others who have condemned terrorism in general.
A Google search will bring up some of them.

Thing is,the media have to report it.

@Tate
When I get the opportunity I try to explain to people that Muslims in general are not violent,nor do many even listen to their imams.

To many Islam is a basic personal faith consisting of belief in God,an afterlife,a time of judgement for good deeds,prayer,fasting etc.

Many have no idea of theology,fatwas and most haven't even read the quran in a language they understand.

Just as many Christians and Jews are not beholden to their priests or rabbis,ditto for Muslims.

Though most Muslims believe in God,their lives are otherwise "secular."

Twenty years ago or so ago I would criticise many Muslims leaders for not saying enough against fundamentalism,but in that twenty year span Muslims have learned and the culture is now a lot different and many Muslim leaders voice their disapproval.

The thing is,if your not on the ground or privy to imams its much harder to hear this disapproval as the media does not readily report these imams but instead sensationalises and tbh misleads the non discerning public.

I think many people do seperate God from organised or official religion.

Sometimes I think God should just be an umbrella term including belief in an Eternal morality with consequences.

Ergo morality is objective,eternal and supreme. Eg Karma.

@Baden
You are speaking to a Muslim here,and one who has condemned the attack on rushdie,and ALL public calls for political violence.

I'm trying to explain how theology is not a monolith,and how a lot of Muslims perceive things specifically and in a wider context.

Yet here you are censoring a previous post of mine and throwing in a red herring comment about people starting threads in defense of violence.

Either you want to hear from normal Muslims and get a better understanding or your just hearing what you've already made up your mind upon.
Bottom line,Muslims are not a monolith theologically or as people.

@Hanover
There are two points here,but related.
First,as I said fatwas are not universally binding or accepted by all Muslims. Many Shiah clerics do not accept the fatwa either.

There isn't a "muted" reaction,it's just the media doesn't report the councils and leaders who have condemned the attack,or those who disagree with the fatwa.

In the Islamic world it's extremely rare for a cleric ( who also happened to be the country's leader) to set a worldwide binding fatwa. Just like Christianity There are many denominations and subdivisions beyond Sunni and Shia. There is no one pope in Islam to usher worldwide edicts.

As a very loose analogy,the Marlborough baptist church does not represent Christianity as a whole.

Secondly,one must be consistent and think beyond a colonial mindset. Islamic theology is not a monolith.
At the moment the Eastern orthodox churches of Ukraine and Russia have issued edicts backing war against each others people. How is this not an equivalence?

My own position is crystal clear I condemn all sides religious and secular for using "law" to publicly endorse violence for political ends.

Finally,I'm not even sure if Rushdies attacker was a shia or just an extremist acting on his own steam? Why an inquisition before the facts are in?

@baker Raises some very telling observations.
The "law" is used arbitrarily by nation states when it suits their political and economic agendas. Flag burning is a prime example.

We have heard US politicians call publicly for the assignation of leaders of other nations when it suits.
The US has also blatantly contravened international law in engaging in conflict.

Personally I see double standards and an Elitist mindset from "western" nations and Iran.

There should be freespeech but also common sense.
Public calls for political violence are the limit of freespeech for all parties.

Thank you.
Defamation of Muhammed is considered insulting by many orthodox Muslim scholars.
As for the average Muslim,I think many are not happy with gratuitous insults,but that doesn't mean engaging in violence. Some more religious types might engage in public protests. But in that way it's no different from any other "group".

As for Shia Islam,its no more extreme than other religions in general. Some elements in Iranian politics do pump out propoganda and initially it was Ayatollah Khomeini who issued the fatwa against Rushdie way back. But still the vast majority of shia were not violent,and individual fatwas by clerics are not necessarily binding.

The media do really misrepresent Islam during these kinds of horrible isolated incidents. Fear sells!
Most ordinary Muslims want a good job,nice family and a peaceful-ish life same as most secular people.

As a Muslim (though a highly idiosyncratic unorthodox one!) I have observed that there is a huge divergence of interpretations on issues by Muslim scholars.
It's almost like asking what is the mainstream opinion on metaphysics in philosophy.

At the ground level it also varies a lot depending on the degree of "religiosity".
The media always seems to pinpoint the most extreme versions of Islam,but in reality most Muslims are harmless in terms of trying to assassinate someone.

Many Muslims are only aware of the basics of their faith or do not practice at all.
I have heard that many Muslim councils and leaders condemned the attack.
Just like Christianity or atheism it's only the extremists that are troublesome.

Islam as a whole is not dangerous,its extremists that can be.