Rene Guenon, Alt Right, Traditionalism etc

[Ibrahim]

Point by point, With Strength:
" They pray towards Mecca, "
Prayer is not towards Mecca, prayer is towards god, it is the physical vessel which turns towards Mecca. The difference is quite significant.


"It seems to be you are more of a monist or panentheist of some sort"
I most decidedly am not, sir.

"the questions relating to being, the nature of reality, and etc.) are inextricably tied with the history of Muhammad "
How is this so, especially in your worldview? If the prophet is linked to the nature of reality then we seem to be in agreement more than we think.

"you wish to distance yourself from the bloody narrative of Islam's history. " History is expansive enough for the imposition of many narratives upon it, the narratives of blood, the narratives of grace, of wisdom and of stupidity- let's not be fooled into thinking, however, that such narratives turn history into their description of it. But i wish no distance from it, it is merely my contention that the realm of the spirit is different from the realm of the worldly, so the distance is inherent.

"This is at odds with the majority of Sufis and the majority of Muslims"
Are you saying that the truth is, what a majority says it is?

"Furthermore, by distancing yourself from the narrative, there is nothing to make one "Islamic" anymore, since value is no longer placed on Mecca or other "holy sites"."
It is exactly what makes one islamic. The value was never placed on the site. Value is placed on the soul & on its creator, and on worship of him. These things may intersect, but fundamentally they are different. The distance is inherent.

"A religion is based equally on metaphysics and narrative history."
If it is equally based on both then why do you take only one side into account, refusing to countenance the other?

"The effects of massive tragedies still linger and lead to issues in the present day." They do, but this is hardly an answer to my assertion that suffering is not cumulative. Furthermore, the effects of good deeds and benign inventions also linger and lead to issues in the present day (tap water, say). The ultimate question thus seems to be: do good things outweigh the bad? Or, further reduced: does a bad cancel out a good?

"he or she would abandon Islamic tradition and genealogy."
What, even, is Islamic genealogy? But seriously, all the bloody deeds and atrocities you speak of so indignantly (and rightly so) were committed not by an abstraction, but by human beings. It stands to reason that, according to your own displayed logic, you must therefore abandon your humanity, your being-human, to which these perpetrators belonged, as it is that which did cause all the suffering.

[Ibrahim]

Quote Originally Posted by Druidic

Actually, suffering can be cumulative--sorry, C. S.--for if you've ever watched someone you love suffer you know that that increases your own suffering. We foolishly regard physical and emotional suffering as separate things.

In that sense, yes, of course. But in the sense that two people who have each reached their maximum of suffering, somehow together suffer 'more' than a single person having reached his maximum of suffering- no.
Unless you would say that the lives of two people matter more than the life of one, because of their number? A life is a life, no?

[Druidic]

You can't blame Muslims who don't offer appreciable support to Isis for this current mess. Everything has become a bit muddied to western eyes after 16 years of bad leadership under Bush, Obama and Hill who gave us a viper-infested Libya.
But I agree with Strength, that Islam still carries its history of violence with it. It hasn't been 'tamed' like Christianity by the forces of democracy and science.