My Main Issue With Islam

I respect all religions, except there are a couple problems that arise with one. It doesn't reoccur in "Hinduism", "Christianity", "Buddhism", or even most forms of "Paganism".
The core establishment behind all religions (except Islam), throughout history, has been the philosophies of monasticism, asceticism, and spiritual enlightenment. Having studies Islam for many years, I know it does little of any of that.

I'm not crazy, I love studying religion. I just don't get why Islam drops the ball here where every religion before it hasn't. The Quran utters not a single word about reachinng a higher spiritual level, learning to abstain from sin, and loving others. It's actually just the opposite. The Quran often promotes the religion by encourage vice, such as violence, lust, and by most modern standards, injustice.

You can say whatever you want about Christianity, but the new testament denounces "Worldly pleasure", "Greed", "Violence", ect.
Like other religions, it promotes love, tolerance, and enlightenment. I find t silly that a religion dedicated to a creator rejects the belief of denying enlightenment.
Muhammed himself called it a "false invention"

Blackflag: By the same token, you must really disrespect athiests like me.

admin: Not for the same reasons. I don't disrespect Atheists, because I understand the reason for the belief.
Islam openly restricts spiritual enlightenment, and promotes vice in several manners. Atheism allows for a degree of freedom in choosing one's belief.
It isn't delivered as a set in stone doctrine.

Blackflag: So you understand why I don't believe spiritual enlightenment is possible (since I reject the idea of pretty much anything spiritual), but it's not OK if Islam agrees with me?

admin: People often confuse spirit and divinity. Spiritualism, is a very hard word to define. I interpret it as higher purpose.
Any man, religious or not, shouldn't be restricted from pursuing higher purpose.

Blackflag: Speaking as somebody who is pretty sure they are not confusing spirit and divinity I stand by my question. Even by your definition, can you understand why I don't believe I have a higher purpose than just making the most of a great life?

admin: If that is the highest purpose you have, then I think you should concede that utilitarianism is true.

Blackflag: My stance on that is complicated. I just think Islam sees things similarly. The highest purpose in islam is simply to follow the word of god, nothing more.

Blackflag: The is simply not true of Islam. The Koran most certainly uses the same phrases as Christianity to purge oneself of sin to attain a better relationship with God. The concept of jihad, for example, most accepted in the Islamic world is the the battle for self control and the avoidance of sin. For example:

“Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see -egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

The concepts of love and forgiveness suffuse the Koran. The amount of overlap between Islam and Christianity is extremely high. I am unsure how one arrives at the position that there is a lack of things clearly there unless they study the most extreme interpretations of the religion. If we think ISIS is 'Islam' then we might as well say that the Church of Jesus Christ Christian (Neo-Nazi Church) is Christianity. There have also been times in our history when that group of violent bigots held enormous sway in our political system, and used horrific violence to oppress ethnic citizens.

It is precisely for incidents such as this that we must study religions. For when a charlatan steps out of the shadows and says, "I am Islam - follow me to violence!," whether we be Muslim or not (or another religion doing this - like Buddhists in South Asia these days), we must know that this is false and without merit. To fail to this gives validity to extremist groups. That they find fertile fields to ply ignorance is a failure of education.