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Hey, here's a good thing -- a possible deal with Boko Haram to release all those kidnapped schoolgirls in exchange for some prisoners: http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2015/07/boko_haram_offers_to_swap_over.html Sadly, deals like this one have previously fallen through. It appears that conditions in Nigerian prisons are pretty bad, to the extent that half the prisoners Boko Haram wants freed are already dead. Negotiation is possible. Maybe if BH gets 8 of their 16 prisoners back, they'll only execute half the schoolgirls. Progress.
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Jul 9, 2015 09:10
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Smudgie Buggler posted:The rest of your post would be a lot less dumb if you hadn't lead with this. What are the fundamentals of Islam? Like, identify them. Because, while I don't really disagree with much of what else you said about Islam (the way it is practiced generally speaking, Islam, like all Abrahamic religions, is more violent than Jainism, there can be no question), talking about the "fundamentals of Islam" as if there's anything that qualifies a person as being a Muslim other than I guess maybe believing the Shahada to be a true statement is pretty much necessarily rubbish. I think youve just highlighted my point for me. The level of distortion required to twist the dogma a Jain follows, or a Quaker or an Amnish, to allow for them to behead infidels, or blow themselves up in a crowd of innocent people would be so extreme and readily apparent that every sane person could come to the reasonable conclusion that a person purporting to be a Jain or Quaker or whatever, who did these things, is obviously not representative of the faith. If a Muslim does it, there is not that cognitive dissonance between extreme violence of the follower and the content of their religion because like it or not, such violence is fundamentally supported in the Quran and Hadith. Islam is not a religion of peace, if it were, extreme Islamists would be extremely peaceful. ISIS, it bares repeating, are Muslim, and its really dumb for religious moderates to say otherwise. They are too Islamic, and thats the problem. We would be much better off in the world if all Muslims paid a bit more lip service to their faith and the Quran and didn't really take it all too seriously, like the stereotypical western, modern Muslim does, picking and choosing carefully which parts of the Quran to closely model themselves against..
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Jul 9, 2015 10:15
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The thing is for ISIS to be ISIS, it requires closely and fanatically following certain parts of the Quran while paying lip service to others. For some followers of Islam those parts they pay lip service to or outright ignore are the very parts that are the fundamental parts of Islam. I don't really think ISIS is totally unislamic, religious devotion is also clearly a powerful draw in gaining followers for them. Going beyond that to agree with them that their vision of Islam is somehow the one that's truest to the Quran and that you wish they would be more pick and choosy, so identifying how devout a Muslim is basically by how horribly violent they are, is pretty insulting to every Muslim that sees those passages about peace and charity as the fundamental parts of their religion. You're doing exactly the reverse of what people rail against the strawman defenders of Islam for doing, taking part of the passages in Quran, declaring that's what the religion is and that you basically judge someone's devotion based on how peaceful/violent they are. The comparison with Jainism or Quakerism is also kind of off. Both of those are fairly minor in terms of religions and one of the advantages to always being a minority religion is that it tends to reduce dissension and disagreement; partly because there are fewer people to hold different opinions and partly because people are going to be attracted to those religions precisely because of their basic character. Someone who is inclined to violence is unlikely to convert to Quakerism and someone born into that religion who finds that aspect of it unpalatable is likely to just leave for another religion. When you don't have the latter option is when you start finding interpretations to suit your own needs and desires. Also revisiting the attraction of theocratic rule as a form of 'Consitutionalism', currently in Malaysia there's a fairly big push to introduce Hudud (the class of religious crimes and firmly fixed punishments) in some of the Northern States. There has been growing calls among Malay parties to bring in stricter Sharia law, though they still restrict it entirely to Muslims living in Malaysia (which means all Malay as they are automatically registered as Muslims when born and conversion is a crime under Sharia). The situation is complicated hugely by ethnic divisions in the country (legally coded in) which brings in Islam as it's considered a fundamental aspect of Malay ethnic identity. In a country with a constitution and, relatively, stable govnment since independence why is there such a draw for theocratic style government?
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Jul 9, 2015 11:42
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Rakosi posted:I think youve just highlighted my point for me. The level of distortion required to twist the dogma a Jain follows, or a Quaker or an Amnish, to allow for them to behead infidels, or blow themselves up in a crowd of innocent people would be so extreme and readily apparent that every sane person could come to the reasonable conclusion that a person purporting to be a Jain or Quaker or whatever, who did these things, is obviously not representative of the faith. Christianity and other religions can have wild differences in their adherency, yet Islam is somehow monolithic and is one sliding spectrum.
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Jul 9, 2015 12:07
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ToxicAcne posted:A lot of people in this thread think that's a good thing. You gotta bring the barbarians into the 21st century somehow right? So do you believe that Muslim women in Muslim countries simply don't desire the same opportunities and rights afforded to women in western secular liberal democracies? That attempts at introducing, say, women's education, are perfidious acts of western imperialism, and that to be "authentic" Muslim women they must be consigned to a life of inferiority and servitude?
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Jul 9, 2015 12:26
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No TIC, that is not an accurate representation of what ToxicAcne is saying at all.
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Jul 9, 2015 12:34
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The Insect Court posted:So do you believe that Muslim women in Muslim countries simply don't desire the same opportunities and rights afforded to women in western secular liberal democracies? That attempts at introducing, say, women's education, are perfidious acts of western imperialism, and that to be "authentic" Muslim women they must be consigned to a life of inferiority and servitude? When Sisi represents secularism it's no wonder that it doesn't take hold all over the Middle East.
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Jul 9, 2015 12:38
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MrNemo posted:The thing is for ISIS to be ISIS, it requires closely and fanatically following certain parts of the Quran while paying lip service to others. For some followers of Islam those parts they pay lip service to or outright ignore are the very parts that are the fundamental parts of Islam.... Going beyond that to agree with them that their vision of Islam is somehow the one that's truest to the Quran and that you wish they would be more pick and choosy, so identifying how devout a Muslim is basically by how horribly violent they are, is pretty insulting to every Muslim that sees those passages about peace and charity as the fundamental parts of their religion. You're doing exactly the reverse of what people rail against the strawman defenders of Islam for doing, taking part of the passages in Quran, declaring that's what the religion is and that you basically judge someone's devotion based on how peaceful/violent they are... What I am postulating here is exactly what you are implying is illogical; that the Qu'ran is violent, so the more closely you follow it, the more fundamental you are, and the more of a fundamentalist Muslim you are, the more violent you can be. I want to reiterate that I am saying Islam is fundamentally flawed, not that Muslims are fundamentally flawed. Whenever I bring up Islam, people keep strawmaning Muslims into my point. The question of the thread, I believe, was if there were inherent problems in Islam, the doctrine, not Muslims, the people. quote:The comparison with Jainism or Quakerism is also kind of off. Both of those are fairly minor in terms of religions and one of the advantages to always being a minority religion is that it tends to reduce dissension and disagreement; partly because there are fewer people to hold different opinions and partly because people are going to be attracted to those religions precisely because of their basic character. Someone who is inclined to violence is unlikely to convert to Quakerism and someone born into that religion who finds that aspect of it unpalatable is likely to just leave for another religion. When you don't have the latter option is when you start finding interpretations to suit your own needs and desires. I disagree that they are off. The point of the comparison was to highlight what an actual religion of peace (Jainism) looks like, specifically including extreme adherents, in comparison to a so-called 'religion of peace' (Islam), and I don't think it's a disingenuous comparison to make if I am trying to prove that Islam is not, at it's most basest and core level, a peaceful religion. That Islam can be followed in a way that is horrifically violent when other religions cannot is the point I am making. There is a very popular public perception among the more religiously liberal left that all religions are equally respectable, or equally valuable to society, or can all be distorted into violent interpretations and this is just simply not true.
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Jul 9, 2015 13:21
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Rakosi posted:Yes, but the Law of Abrogation (which is a very central tenet in Islam, to the point that if a Muslim reads the Qu'ran without use of it they are wildly outside of the mainstream in a cartoonish degree) states that latter verses in the Qu'ran trump earlier ones. The latter verses are more violent than the earlier ones. If you read that you should not kill apostates on the first page of the Qu'ran, and then that killing apostates is good on the second page, then providing there are no later contradictions, the actual correct Qu'ranic interpretation is that killing apostates is good. If you err on the side of the more western politically correct verses, and do so in a way that violates the law of abrogation, you really aren't reading the Qu'ran as it was meant to be consumed. I'm not saying that ISIS don't violate the law a little themselves, but that they do so to a lesser degree than the much more liberal, western Muslim that doesn't cause anyone problems. The law of abrogation is bullshit trotted out by Islamophobes. There is no such thing, unless specifically pointed out in Hadith. Its a complete invention. Edit: let me highlight why its crazy, the bolded part really needs a citation. Fizzil fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 14:27
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Fizzil posted:The law of abrogation is bullshit trotted out by Islamophobes. There is no such thing, unless specifically pointed out in Hadith. Its a complete invention. Qu'ranic verses. 2:106- "Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?" 16:101- "And when We change (one) communication for (another) communication, and Allah knows best what He reveals, they say: You are only a forger. Nay, most of them do not know." Sahih Bukhari Hadith: "A man from the companions of Allah's Apostle who I think, was Ibn 'Umar said, "The Verse:-- ‘Whether you show what is in your minds or conceal it ...’ was abrogated by the Verse following it."" Sahih Muslim Hadith: "The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) abrogated some of his commands by others, just as the Qur'an abrogates some part with the other." And endless others.
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Jul 9, 2015 14:38
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Rakosi posted:I disagree that they are off. The point of the comparison was to highlight what an actual religion of peace (Jainism) looks like, specifically including extreme adherents, in comparison to a so-called 'religion of peace' (Islam), and I don't think it's a disingenuous comparison to make if I am trying to prove that Islam is not, at it's most basest and core level, a peaceful religion. That Islam can be followed in a way that is horrifically violent when other religions cannot is the point I am making. There is a very popular public perception among the more religiously liberal left that all religions are equally respectable, or equally valuable to society, or can all be distorted into violent interpretations and this is just simply not true. Rakosi, Grand mufti and scholar of Islam. Kindly, from now on, assume ignorance on your part when talking about the Quran.
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Jul 9, 2015 14:39
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Fizzil posted:Edit: let me highlight why its crazy, the bolded part really needs a citation. John Burton, The Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 7, s.v. "Naskh," p. 1010. Edit: Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Religion of Islam (Lahore: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam, 2005), p. 32; Ahmad bin Muhammad al-Nahhas, An-Nasikh Wal-Mansukh (Cairo: Maktabat ‘Alam al-Fikr, 1986), pp. 2-3. Rakosi fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 14:41
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Fizzil posted:The law of abrogation is bullshit trotted out by Islamophobes. There is no such thing, unless specifically pointed out in Hadith. Its a complete invention. The Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about the contradictions needing to be pointed out in Hadith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_(tafsir) It does mention 3 Hadith that do so, but according to the article the determination of abrogated passages is an ongoing process for Islamic scholars. I'm not sure which part of that is "bullshit trotted out by Islamaphobes". 
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Jul 9, 2015 14:50
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Rakosi posted:Qu'ranic verses. Lets start: 2:106 "We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?" It says We do not, not whatever. Otherwise why even record an abrogated verse in the first place? The second aya, uses the word "aya" in arabic, it does not mean the verses in the qur'an, but in other "communications" because the qur'an as a book did not yet exist when Muhammed was alive, and communication could mean any other verse in other recorded books, such as the talmud or bible, its basically saying "yeah these holy books came before, but not everything is right in them" Hadith #1: Specific verse, again it isn't generalising the whole Qur'an,, also lacks context, because Hadith are context sensitive which determines their "health". Hadith #2: Generic statement, it also supports my argument. Narciss posted:The Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about the contradictions needing to be pointed out in Hadith: I'm just saying this requires like some known scholarly debate, academic in fact, because you can't just make up bullshit and then call it The One True Interpration of Islam. Besides its not a central tenet of Islam, its just another "interpretation" thing as far as peoples understanding goes. Fizzil fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 15:19
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Rakosi posted:Edit: Maulana Muhammad Ali, The Religion of Islam (Lahore: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam, 2005), p. 32; Ahmad bin Muhammad al-Nahhas, An-Nasikh Wal-Mansukh (Cairo: Maktabat ‘Alam al-Fikr, 1986), pp. 2-3. Scholarly text and debate on the nature of interpretation do not a central tenet of worship make. Also how is The religion of Islam a citation for Naskh? P.32 speaks of how dialectic differences between tribes, that of Quraish and others, were allowed in the recitation of the Quran. Since these Dialectic differences made it hard for members of tribes other than Quraish to pronounce. And then the book instantly appends that with that the practice was then abandoned due to the spread of education. Anyways: 16:10 (Supported by the rest of Surah 16) is a direct response to those who accused Mohammed had fabricated the Quran Stating that the divine conveyance of the Quran is god's work, and what does a mortal know of god's work. Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 15:25
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Panzeh posted:When Sisi represents secularism it's no wonder that it doesn't take hold all over the Middle East. If Sisi and the gang represent secularism they're not very good at it. khwarezm fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 16:39
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Smudgie Buggler posted:How dare misogyny be stomped over. Hey, if someone wants to go forcibly impose equal rights and nothing else, that's just fine with me. But for some strange reason, whenever anyone - foreign or domestic - gets it into their head that they have the right to reshape an entire society and culture any way they please, they inevitably bundle in a whole bunch of bad poo poo with the good things they do. The British Raj banned the practice of burning widows to death, but it also imposed explicitly racist policies and purposely perpetuated the caste system in order to take advantage of it, imprisoned and tortured or killed tens of thousands of protestors, made homosexuality a "crime against nature" punishable with life in prison, and allowed famine to kill tens of millions of people even as British authorities protested that anyone too poor to eat simply did not deserve to live (an attitude exemplified by the Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877). Stalin rapidly industrialized and modernized the Soviet Union at a practically unprecedented speed and practically banned religion, but he also engaged in major population transfers of minorities, imprisoned and executed massive numbers of people for basically any reason and sometimes no reason at all, and of course we can't forget the major famines he caused. For some reason, there aren't really any instances of someone successfully forcibly imposing human rights reforms on a society without pairing it with all-new human rights violations or slaughtering massive numbers of innocent people. Some would probably suggest that it's just a No True Scotsman problem and that a true human rights reformer could accomplish it just fine, but it is the nature of humans to be imperfect, and since there is no perfect human rights reformer, I'm inclined to think that the whole approach is fundamentally flawed. Relying on a single dictator (even a domestic one) to impose justice and human rights from the barrel of a gun without the consent of the governed seems to inevitably involve flagrant injustice and massive human rights violations. The goals may be partially noble (although always mixed with plenty of horrible) but the results always seem to turn out horrific.
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Jul 9, 2015 16:52
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Scholarly text and debate on the nature of interpretation do not a central tenet of worship make.  For the Islamic apologetics in this thread; can you give a hypothetical example of a quote or doctrine that would mark Islam as an inherently violent doctrine to your satisfaction (yet isn't obviously counteproductive to spreading the religion like "kill every non-muslim you meet, then yourself")? I understand your unwillingness to dismiss a faith practiced by so many as utterly rotten from the roots on up. But can you at least admit that the more literally you follow the Qur'an and the more certain you are it is the unchallengeable word of god, the worse a person you are going to be to live around?
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Jul 9, 2015 16:54
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a pretty baller-rear end dictator actually, the modernization of Europe would have been set back at least a century if it weren't for him and the modern world would be a 10 times better place if he'd won in Russia. Ataturk, although perhaps not strictly a dictator (but hardly purely democratic), had great success forcefully modernizing Turkey - notice that even with Erdogan it is leagues less barbaric than the rest of the Muslim world. Ho Chi Minh forcefully unified and modernized Vietnamese culture in order to put up a united front against western imperialism. The Bourbon Reforms in Spain were not at all democratic or egalitarian yet they succeeded in modernizing a badly-lagging Spanish government and culture. Democracy is the preferable option for reform of harmful laws or practices, all other things being equal, but it is not the only method that has EVER EVER produced positive results.
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Jul 9, 2015 17:04
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Liberal_L33t posted:Napoleon Bonaparte was a pretty baller-rear end dictator actually, the modernization of Europe would have been set back at least a century if it weren't for him and the modern world would be a 10 times better place if he'd won in Russia. Ataturk, although perhaps not strictly a dictator (but hardly purely democratic), had great success forcefully modernizing Turkey - notice that even with Erdogan it is leagues less barbaric than the rest of the Muslim world. Ho Chi Minh forcefully unified and modernized Vietnamese culture in order to put up a united front against western imperialism. The Bourbon Reforms in Spain were not at all democratic or egalitarian yet they succeeded in modernizing a badly-lagging Spanish government and culture. Democracy is the preferable option for reform of harmful laws or practices, all other things being equal, but it is not the only method that has EVER EVER produced positive results. I'll throw in Lee Kuan Yew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew Singapore went from one of the poorest provinces of Malaysia to having one of the highest standards of living in the world in just a few decades. I'm not sure how much 'cultural' progress was made, but I'm sure they're better in that department than "Islam is the State Religion"-Malaysia. ---------------- Narciss fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 17:07
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So scholarly tradition now is central to a faith that is largely non centralized? Like monascetism is a tenet of Christianity/Buddhism/any religion with ascetic monks. quote:For the Islamic apologetics in this thread; can you give a hypothetical example of a quote or doctrine that would mark Islam as an inherently violent doctrine to your satisfaction (yet isn't obviously counteproductive to spreading the religion like "kill every non-muslim you meet, then yourself")? I understand your unwillingness to dismiss a faith practiced by so many as utterly rotten from the roots on up. But can you at least admit that the more literally you follow the Qur'an and the more certain you are it is the unchallengeable word of god, the worse a person you are going to be to live around? And LL, I've noted that you have quite the violent impression of the Quran. You might even be better at that than the extremists, its shocking. Islamic apologetics. Hah. God knows why I keep humoring your obvious deep seated Islamophobia. Get banned.
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Jul 9, 2015 17:22
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Liberal_L33t posted:
As an unfortunately selective and literal minded reader, I have always held to the idea that the opening line of the American Declaration of Independence proves that the country is a Christian theocracy.
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Jul 9, 2015 17:38
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Rigged Death Trap posted:And LL, I've noted that you have quite the violent impression of the Quran. You might even be better at that than the extremists, its shocking. https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2015/01/maajid-nawaz-blasphemy/ "This brings me to the term ‘Islamophobia’, often deployed – even against other Muslims – as a shield against any criticism, and as a muzzle on free speech." Please stop using this term whenever anyone criticizes Islam. Religions do not exist in a magical bubble where they are free from being dissected, critiqued, or even mocked. They do not have special sanctity or status in this thread that is supposed to be about critiquing Islam or countering those critiques, depending on your view. "Islamophobia" should only be used in this thread when someone is literally discussing the virtues of the oppression of Muslims. We're discussing the tradition, not the people. I notice that the people in this thread that insist Islam is an inherently peaceful and non-violent doctrine haven't so far actually put forward any of their own evidence to back up their position, or tried really very hard to explain many of the more violent passages in Qu'ran or Hadith, or why a literal interpretation of those passages is wrong. Arguments of allegory used against the more violent passages usually, I feel, stem from religio-politically moderate/liberal convenience rather than any cited Qu'ranic precedence or law. We all know the real reason why the majority Christian countries don't put adulterers to death nowadays is more because of political and social modern convention rather than Biblical precedence, and I'm arguing that when a normal, peaceful Muslim says killing apostates is murder and bad, they're founding that belief more in our liberal western social thought than the what they have got from the Qu'ran, to the extent that they sometimes actually ignore some very clear laws.
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Jul 9, 2015 18:00
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Liberal_L33t posted:For the Islamic apologetics in this thread; can you give a hypothetical example of a quote or doctrine that would mark Islam as an inherently violent doctrine to your satisfaction Haha, good luck with that. I don't know why some posters insist on the view of "all religions are created equal and it doesn't matter what their holy books say its all culture & economics, man". Rakosi posted:We all know the real reason why the majority Christian countries don't put adulterers to death nowadays is more because of political and social modern convention rather than Biblical precedence, and I'm arguing that when a normal, peaceful Muslim says killing apostates is murder and bad, they're founding that belief more in our liberal western social thought than the what they have got from the Qu'ran, to the extent that they sometimes actually ignore some very clear laws. Thank you. Some posters have argued "well, the Old Testament is pretty violent and Christians hold that as scripture". I fully believe that if Judaism or Christianity were followed to the letter of the law, their believers would be more violent. The difference is that a follower of Christ's teachings can very credibly ignore large swaths of the canonical Bible, considering what a mess the assembly of it has been. God knows what Jesus' teachings actually were and how accurately the gospels reflect them; others gospels were of course left out of the bible altogether by priests hundreds of years after their initial writing. Islam, on the other hand, is very very clear on what the word of God is. There is the Quran, written in a single dialect of Arabic, and that is the perfect unquestionable word of God. You cannot be a Mohammedan without following what is stated in the Quran. To do otherwise is to be an imperfect Muslim; and to the degree that the majority of Muslims on earth are tolerant, civil people is proportional to the degree that they ignore their holy book. Islam is a cynical religion created by a warlord-wannabe and has been used to drive violent conquest since the time of it's creation. I honestly do not have much respect for it. ---------------- Narciss fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 18:04
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Rakosi posted:We all know the real reason why the majority Christian countries don't put adulterers to death nowadays is more because of political and social modern convention rather than Biblical precedence, and I'm arguing that when a normal, peaceful Muslim says killing apostates is murder and bad, they're founding that belief more in our liberal western social thought than the what they have got from the Qu'ran, to the extent that they sometimes actually ignore some very clear laws. "There is no compulsion in religion" is a really popular aya in the Qur'an, besides people have publicly told Muhammed "no i can't convert because [reasons]" and he let them go, even the passages that deals with killing apostates is in the context of violent apostates who fight or intend to kill muslims, its in self defense.
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Jul 9, 2015 18:36
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khwarezm posted:If Sisi and the gang represent secularism they're not very good at it. The only reason that Sisi is considered secular is because he is killing the Muslims that people want him to kill and people would feel bad about admitting they support a theocrat. He's pretty blatant about trying to twist scholars to his way of thinking so that they can give him carte blanche to do whatever he wants. Rakosi posted:I notice that the people in this thread that insist Islam is an inherently peaceful and non-violent doctrine haven't so far actually put forward any of their own evidence to back up their position, or tried really very hard to explain many of the more violent passages in Qu'ran or Hadith, or why a literal interpretation of those passages is wrong. Arguments of allegory used against the more violent passages usually, I feel, stem from religio-politically moderate/liberal convenience rather than any cited Qu'ranic precedence or law. That's because "inherently peaceful" is a myth. Islam accepts that violence sometimes occurs, and that most times it is unacceptable, but there are occasions where it is acceptable, such as self-defense. People argue that Christianity is "inherently peaceful" because of it's injunctions against all violence, but the reality is that, since Rome, the majority of Christians and various Christian traditions have followed that exact same attitude towards violence. If you go into a Lifeway Christian Bookstore right now, you will not find Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You" arguing that people actually should the other cheek, literally. You will find Pat Robertson arguing that turning the other cheek is a good attitude, but we live in a world of violence and sometimes responding with violence is actually the ethical thing to do. The only reason that people think that Islam is "inherently violent" is because it's open about this same attitude and doesn't try to cover it up, which isn't surprising since Islam being pragmatic is something that has scandalized orientalists for like two hundred years (See: "Being a Muslim doesn't make you a good person, and there are going to be a lot of evil Muslims in hell," or "If you are starving God is not going to be mad if you eat a black forest ham."). quote:We all know the real reason why the majority Christian countries don't put adulterers to death nowadays is more because of political and social modern convention rather than Biblical precedence, and I'm arguing that when a normal, peaceful Muslim says killing apostates is murder and bad, they're founding that belief more in our liberal western social thought than the what they have got from the Qu'ran, to the extent that they sometimes actually ignore some very clear laws. This, on the other hand, is a little accurate, but also kind of dumb. Most Islamic traditions accept that morality, like any knowledge, can progress, and new developments can render obsolete old ones. That is why we have schools of jurisprudence that accept disagreements as legitimate. "But this ethical development came from a liberal western thought!" doesn't mean that adopting it makes someone less Muslim, or less serious about Islam, or less pious. If a scholar decides that examining sexual ethics through the lens of consent is a really good thing to do, he or she is well within his rights to do that, because, as Abu Hurairah is reported to have heard The Prophet say: quote:“The wise saying is the lost property of the believer, so wherever he finds it then he has a right to it.
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Jul 9, 2015 18:54
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Narciss posted:I'll throw in Lee Kuan Yew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew At first I thought you were trolling me with this, until I looked at your rap sheet. Ugh, really? The guy who made it his life's mission to create the most stratified, plutocratic system of government possible? Medieval torture and punishments is why I'm against Islamic legal systems. Fizzil posted:"There is no compulsion in religion" is a really popular aya in the Qur'an, besides people have publicly told Muhammed "no i can't convert because [reasons]" and he let them go, even the passages that deals with killing apostates is in the context of violent apostates who fight or intend to kill muslims, its in self defense. Sorry, but Muhammad/the Qur'an/etc. really gets no credit for tossing in that little phrase. It's just an acknowledgement of the fact that someone violently forced to convert to your religion is likely to not sincerely believe in it and revert to his or her old religion in private. It perhaps makes them one step more progressive than the spanish inquisition torturing Jews if they were suspected of retaining some of their old practices; it's setting the bar pretty loving low. The fact of the matter is that non-Muslims are explicitly denied equal rights within the religious text. The New Testament stops well short of that, as do every single other major religious scripture that I'm aware of. Again, let's flip this question around. Can anyone give me an example of a religious text (aside from maybe the Old Testament) which is less charitable to people of other faiths, talks more about waging war against them, levys more legal restrictions on them, or is more aggressive in its urges to proselytize? Let's look at history honestly here. Islam didn't spread by convincing people on an intellectual level. It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of various pagan faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:10
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Fizzil posted:"There is no compulsion in religion" is a really popular aya in the Qur'an, besides people have publicly told Muhammed "no i can't convert because [reasons]" and he let them go, even the passages that deals with killing apostates is in the context of violent apostates who fight or intend to kill muslims, its in self defense. You so conveniently leave out the other passages posted in this thread saying otherwise with thorough explanations while continuing to fling poo poo towards people you disagree with after your "lol islomophebe get banned!!!" nonsense. Apologetics applies to you accurately. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 9, 2015 19:12
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Liberal_L33t posted:Again, let's flip this question around. Can anyone give me an example of a religious text (aside from maybe the Old Testament) which is less charitable to people of other faiths, talks more about waging war against them, levys more legal restrictions on them, or is more aggressive in its urges to proselytize? Let's look at history honestly here. Islam didn't spread by convincing people on an intellectual level. It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of various pagan faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Only one comes to my mind; Kokka Shinto, the 'State Shinto' doctrine of Imperial Japan, and even then Islam edges it a little in a couple of your criterion.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:16
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Immortan posted:You so conveniently leave out the other passages posted in this thread saying otherwise with thorough explanations while continuing to fling poo poo towards people you disagree with after your "lol islomophebe get banned!!!" nonsense. Apologetics applies to you accurately. Yo thats me.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:18
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Liberal_L33t posted:Again, let's flip this question around. Can anyone give me an example of a religious text (aside from maybe the Old Testament) which is less charitable to people of other faiths, talks more about waging war against them, levys more legal restrictions on them, or is more aggressive in its urges to proselytize? Let's look at history honestly here. Islam didn't spread by convincing people on an intellectual level. It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of various pagan faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Well first of all, its not very genuine of you to set aside the Bible since most people here only have much knowledge of the three Abrahamic religions anyway so you probably won't find many answers here. These are also the three book religions, not many even have "bibles". Secondly, neither the military means nor the economic means of coercion were very sharp in pressure. Essentially, Muslims effectively got a tax break in that the zakat was a lower sum than the jizya, but conversion wasn't even very appreciated in the early caliphates, and there wasn't a lot of Muslims in the new "Muslim" lands for a long time, which would be weird if the spread was so fiercely propagated as you say. The truth is that Islam propagated just like any other religion does, for social reasons.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:34
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Liberal_L33t posted:Islam didn't spread by convincing people on an intellectual level. It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of various pagan faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Indonesia and Malaysia did not require military conquest in order to convert a majority of it's populace. Neither did West Africa for the matter.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:36
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Liberal_L33t posted:Again, let's flip this question around. Can anyone give me an example of a religious text (aside from maybe the Old Testament) which is less charitable to people of other faiths, talks more about waging war against them, levys more legal restrictions on them, or is more aggressive in its urges to proselytize? Let's look at history honestly here. Islam didn't spread by convincing people on an intellectual level. It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of various pagan faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. This falls on deaf ears, but Hinduism and "various pagan faiths" (sic) did not grow "organically" in the sense you are describing here, or else Buddhism did not grow "organically". And in any case, as people pointed out, much of Islam's spread occurred "organically". Of course, you're a stupid, ignorant sack of poo poo who believes that all religions are based on a single central text.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:51
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Liberal_L33t posted:Again, let's flip this question around. Can anyone give me an example of a religious text (aside from maybe the Old Testament) which is less charitable to people of other faiths, talks more about waging war against them, levys more legal restrictions on them, or is more aggressive in its urges to proselytize? Let's look at history honestly here. Islam didn't spread by convincing people on an intellectual level. It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of various pagan faiths, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Sufism? What's that? Also, the Christian and Muslim scriptures are not comparable because the Christian scripture is a contradictory mess both in the literal text and in authorial intention, it requires further interpretation to produce a coherent religion out of it. It doesn't say "Kick all the Jews and Muslims out of your country and burn them at the stake if they stick around" in the Bible but that is what Pauline, Trinitarian, Nicene Christianity does, or did back when it had enough state power to do so. You can't equate Christianity with its scriptures because the scriptures alone don't produce a religion unlike with Islam. You could argue the only reason we don't execute people for heresy anymore is because we no longer live in Christian theocracies, but it doesn't make any sense to credit Christianity with that. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 04:37
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In the middle of the 19th century, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant organizations formed a political party in the USA, the Know-nothings or American Party. At the time, the Pope had declared Catholicism incompatible with liberal republicanism, and the majority of American bishops agreed with him and argued that the American republic should be overthrown. Given that, was persecution of Catholics in the USA acceptable?
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Jul 10, 2015 04:41
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Effectronica posted:In the middle of the 19th century, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant organizations formed a political party in the USA, the Know-nothings or American Party. At the time, the Pope had declared Catholicism incompatible with liberal republicanism, and the majority of American bishops agreed with him and argued that the American republic should be overthrown. Given that, was persecution of Catholics in the USA acceptable? This is actually not such a bad analogy, since there were a few reasonably prominent Catholic extremist movements running around overthrowing governments at the time; the Carlists come to mind. But A) the Know-nothings persecution of catholics never amounted to anything legally, and was limited to disorganized thuggery, and B) these people had some legitimate concerns, albeit entangled with racism, considering that the Pope you are alluding to was one of the shittiest assholes ever crapped out by the Vatican and more responsible than any other single religious leader for the putrid politics of the current-day Catholic church. This was a world before Hitler or Stalin - in fact, I think that Pius IX might have been one of the greatest villains known to civilization, at the time. In that context, an overreaction against Catholicism was more understandable, if not justified. The American Party obviously had some racist and anti-democratic elements but dismissing them as one-dimensional villains or bedfellows of the KKK is an oversimplification. They were about as close to a mass progressive movement as mid-19th century America got.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:05
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Liberal_L33t posted:The American Party obviously had some racist and anti-democratic elements but dismissing them as one-dimensional villains or bedfellows of the KKK is an oversimplification. They were about as close to a mass progressive movement as mid-19th century America got. lel (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 10, 2015 05:09
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Yeah, I know, abolitionism. But correct me if I'm wrong, but even by the time the civil war rolled around, wasn't actual full-scale abolitionism well below majority support in the North, nevermind the mid-west? Likewise women's suffrage didn't start making much noteworthy progress until the final decades of the 19th. Plucky little third party movements like Free Soil were nice, but not terribly consequential in the grand scheme of things. Edit: I don't think I'm so much praising the Know Nothings here as I am damning America of that era with faint praise.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:13
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Liberal_L33t posted:It was spread through a mix of military conquest and economic pressure, always very coercively, in sharp contrast to the organic growth of... Hinduism  I, uh, respectfully submit that you have a pretty optimistic view of early Vedic syncretism, never mind the Maurya and Gupta empires and the entire history of India in general. Hinduism as a structural entity was very much about swallowing up local religions and smashing their square pegs into the round hole of a nice established priesthood in ways that aren't so unpalatable to the peasants that they freak the gently caress out. It's actually a lot like the Romans or, well, Christian absorption of pagan traditions. Edit: Effectronica, Hindus totally work from a single religious text, or at least a collection thereof. Mughal scholars said so, when asked to come up with an excuse for the Emperor to declare Hindus People of the Book. Would they lie?  Double edit: The mainstreamest Hindu texts are a little short on prescriptivism, but man do they have a lot of killin'. The Mahabharata is about a catastrophic dumb dynastic slapfight (and, incidentally, exhorts Arjuna to stop being a wussy little girl and go fulfill his duty and shoot his family members on the other side of the battle), the Ramayana is about Hindu Jesus invading Sri Lanka and mowing down its inhabitants and king (but they're not human, so that's okay), and if we want to stretch the definition of mainstream a bit, the Devi Mahatmyam largely involves the All-Goddess systematically demonstrating why she is not to be hosed with one demon at a time. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 05:31
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That entire "organic" argument relies entirely on ignorance of the histories of Indochina and the Subcontinent.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:40
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