Why are Progressives unable to attribute some of the cause of Islamist Terrorism to Islam as a religion?

Answer 1

Islam is a complete code of life. Basically, it can't be, and, should not be divided into Progressives or non-progressives. A Muslim must have faith in Complete Islam as complete code of conduct, not in parts.

Answer 2

The Progressive Left refers to people like Reza Aslan, CJ Werleman, Cenk Uygur, and individuals who think similarly on this issue as opposed to New Atheists like Sam Harris and Bill Maher, who are on the left on most major issues, but dissent on the question that Islamist Terrorism is related to Islam as a religion. The Progressive Left is plagued by three sets of parallel issues which lead to this conclusion.

(1) Imperialism Repetition: The first issue is that one of the key aspects of Imperialism historically was the subversion of ideologies and identities of Non-Europeans to European ideologies and identity schema. As a result, they are very hesitant to do something that remotely looks like the assertion that Western values are superior to Non-Western values (no matter what those values are) because it looks too similar to imperialism.

(2) Implicit Discrimination of People: The second issue is that many on the Left see a discussion of Islam, Islamism (the political ideology of making Islamic Law part of the governing apparatus), and Jihadism (the violent implementation of Islamism) to be a discussion that is actually about Muslims as people as opposed to religious and political ideologies, but is couched in language to make it appear neutral when it is truly one of discrimination. They see it as a parallel to how people would talk about crime coming from "poor communities" as a way to speak in a racist manner about Blacks without using that particular language.

(3) Opposition to Pure Capitalism: The Progressive Left sees any political ideology that opposes Capitalism to be the "enemy of my enemy" and do not do the calculus to realize that unbridled capitalism is the lesser of two evils where Islamism is concerned since Islamism is completely nonplussed by questions of socialism. In fact, most Islamists advocate some sort of socialism, which the Progressive Left supports.

Of course, all three are easily refuted. (1) Human Rights is an internationally developed concept recognized by people all over the world and which has consistently conferred benefits to all peoples that have embraced it. This is different from imperialism where European values were imposed on Non-Europeans purely as an accident of history. (If the Africans had conquered Europe, it would have been African values over European ones instead of the reverse.) The respectability and superiority of Human Rights are demonstrable. (2) You have parallel discussions condemning Anti-Muslim Bigotry at the same time that you have discussions about exactly how Islam, Islamism, and Jihadism create problems, especially for Muslims, showing a clear dichotomy. Care for people is why the Islamists are to be opposed. (3) You show how capitalism at least respects the concept of Human Rights as understood by the Left while Islamists do not and that Human Rights is much more important to a democracy than economic equality.