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Towards a bland Islam

From: Merle Kessler
Length: 00:01:41

Islam needs Unitarianism Read the full description.

Default-piece-image-1 Islam could use a bland sub-section, the Muslim equivalent of Unitarianism.

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Piece Description

Islam could use a bland sub-section, the Muslim equivalent of Unitarianism.

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Review of Towards a Bland Islam

Merle Kessler makes you laugh at Unitarianism's blandness; at the same time he gently treads on the toes of extremists, in this case, Muslim extremists.

His zingers hit the mark, he's consistently inoffensive, but in the boiling-point climate of world-views at war, both internationally and domestically, he manages to tell the truth without wounding.

In the tradition of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, H.L. Mencken.

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Review of Towards a bland Islam

I had quite a few problems with this piece.
First of all, it seems that the producer chose to give it a triple speed delivery rather than edit down his script which I personally think was the wrong thing to do. He barely pauses for breath as he dusts off the usual cliches - because of course its about Islam - so phrases such as fasting, jihads, muslim extremists are de rigeur.

I'm not a Muslim, or in fact allied with any particular relgion, but I found this little essay as offensive as most people would if one substituted the words Muslim for, say, Jew.

If the writer's point was to say that religion should be replaced by a secular New Left vision because then the world would be a better place, he needs to let us know that he really doesn't believe that its only Muslims who blow up things and that although fundamentalists of ALL religions are dangerous, they really only consitute a small percentage of believers.

By the way its not Islam that believes in an "angry God" - that would be the Old Testament. Islam believes in an all forgiving God who wants all people to be treated the same (fundamentalist interpretations aside.

Haven't we had enough cliches and jokes about Islam? This is a frightening time for us all - and we as broadcasters need to promote understanding between different groups, not re hash old misperceptions in the pursuit of filling in a slot. I'm not saying there's no place for humour, or even that humour always has to be PC. But surely humour lies in the unexpected insight rather than the same old sludge.

unitarian church - whaat?

- usual cliche.
do you know any muslims
"unitarians don't blow anybody up" meaning that only Muslims do?

Transcript

I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Sunni and a Shi-ite, frankly, any more than I could tell you the difference between a Southern Baptist and a Pentacostal. I don’t doubt that members of any of these groups could spend hours outlining their beliefs for me, in the hope of winning me over. Fat chance.

However, I did spend a recent Friday night at a lefty social event at a Unitarian Church. Now, I have spent many hours in Unitarian Churches over the years. Because Unitarianism is more than a religion, it’s a locus, at which musicians and performance artists can gather and do their thing, without fear of being accused of blasphemy, or even simple bad taste.

After the event, a guy came up to me, and said, “You know what the world needs? A Muslim version of Unitarianism.”

I went home and thought about it, and realized the guy was right. Unitarian Universalism, afte...
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