On "struggling with the idea of homosexuality""

Reminds me of an exchange between grumpy old Czech former dissident writer and skirt chaser Vaculik and younger gay (Catholic!) intellectual Putna.

Vaculik: (in mid- anti-gay rant), "I'm just horrified all the time, thinking of what gay men do to each other."
Putna: :"But what puzzles me is why you have to keep thinking about it..."

Sharia

The Qur’an is a compilation of a bunch of different verses and ideas. They are often contradictory and incoherent, never really lending themselves to a single “true” interpretation. For every question you have asked, there are about as many interpretations as there are readers. For the last 1400 years, Muslims have been debating what verses mean and how they should be applied. There is no one, consistent meaning that everyone can agree upon. Jihadis will tell you that the verse of the sword legitimizes their murder of non-believers. Other groups will explain away those verses to fit their own views. This, in my opinion, points to a great degree of shortsightedness and lack of wisdom on behalf of the author. Could Allah not have known that revealing a verse such as “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” would lead to all sorts of unnecessary bloodshed due to all the different possible interpretations? One of the things I find most fascinating about the study of modern “secular” law is how detailed and specific the clauses and statutes are. I’m no expert, but go to a library and spend a day reading through books of criminal law. Look at how deliberately comprehensive and applicable it all is. Nothing in the Qur’an or ahadith can even come remotely close to comparing. Instead, the Qur’an is a jumbled collection of contradictory ramblings that scholars have picked through in order to create the hodgepodge, backwards mess we call shariah law.

The Qur’an is a compilation of a bunch of different verses and ideas. They are often contradictory and incoherent, never really lending themselves to a single “true” interpretation. For every question you have asked, there are about as many interpretations as there are readers. For the last 1400 years, Muslims have been debating what verses mean and how they should be applied. There is no one, consistent meaning that everyone can agree upon. Jihadis will tell you that the verse of the sword legitimizes their murder of non-believers. Other groups will explain away those verses to fit their own views. This, in my opinion, points to a great degree of shortsightedness and lack of wisdom on behalf of the author. Could Allah not have known that revealing a verse such as “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” would lead to all sorts of unnecessary bloodshed due to all the different possible interpretations? One of the things I find most fascinating about the study of modern “secular” law is how detailed and specific the clauses and statutes are. I’m no expert, but go to a library and spend a day reading through books of criminal law. Look at how deliberately comprehensive and applicable it all is. Nothing in the Qur’an or ahadith can even come remotely close to comparing. Instead, the Qur’an is a jumbled collection of contradictory ramblings that scholars have picked through in order to create the hodgepodge, backwards mess we call shariah law.

One of the most striking facets of Islam among the young urban and articulate of our modern cities is the growing polarisation between the 'ultra liberal' and the 'all-in' fundamentalist. These are symptoms of an unhealthy lack of alternatives. Liberal Muslims who have gone through university with the voguish and uncompromising anti-americanism of Noam Chomsky have had to then reconcile this with the latter's unabashed atheism. Any thoughtful Muslim studying the humanities and post-structuralism will have to apply its main epistemological thrust to the grand-narrative of Islam. Coming out the other end leaves the western Muslim a wreck from the maelstrom of ideas that they cannot relate to without a deep critique of their own religion. Perhaps we should initiate an Ultra Liberal Muslim party to interdict demand for the atavistic, inward-looking groups with the severe persecution complex. These groups are mopping up a disillusioned moderate majority who rightly or wrongly feel the way to combat negative perceptions of Islam in the west is to go on the defensive and become deeper apologists for its worst tendencies.