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Religion in America

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Comments

  • HamsakaHamsaka goosewhisperer Polishing the 'just so' Veteran

    @betaboy said:
    If ISIS or whatever does bad things, people like you place the responsibility NOT on ISIS .... but on the shoulders of every other Muslim, including the law-abiding ones. This is illogical because Mr. X can't be held responsible for Mr. Y's actions. So the only explanation for such an illogical leap in conclusion is ... well, you guessed it.

    How you arrive at your conclusion -- 'people like you' is some kind of deviant cognitive shortcut. There is much, much more to your life than being a big victim. I realize it seems to absolve you, or lift responsibility for your life from your shoulders, which is understandably seductive. But it is the source of your misery, which blares out of your posts. Your misery is so obvious to me I can hardly be insulted.

  • HamsakaHamsaka goosewhisperer Polishing the 'just so' Veteran

    @Chaz said:

    It isn't. Holding an entire race, via a common religion is, especially when the vast majority had nothing to do with any crimes perpetrated. This what we're seeing.

    Agreed. And agreed that there are those who take that same shortcut in their heads that I see Betaboy taking, holding an entire group, via a common idea is, although the vast majority commit no 'crimes'.

    Both 'ways' to unpack this are happening.

    @Frozen_Paratrooper's post about the pitfalls of many liberal thinkers applies here. To your response to my question. As if I can't be asking any other question than the one you think I am asking. Of course I can be. I deny holding an entire ethnicity or religious group responsible for a few of its members who commit disgusting, appalling and atrocious behavior in the name of their common god. That is not how I think at all.

  • WanMinWanMin Veteran
    edited October 2014

    @WanMin said:

    @vinlyn said:
    Here's the bottom line to me regarding the Maher show's recent discussion:

    "We" are awfully quick to condemn statements of policy by the Catholic Church (for example) that may or may not really affect many people since even many Catholics ignore what the Church governing bodies proclaim.

    "We" are awfully quick to condemn the statements made by Evangelicals about things like birth control or abortion or same sex marriage, etc.

    But it seems like we are supposed to pussy foot around the beliefs of Islam, even when some of those actions include female circumcision, stoning, beheadings, crucifixions, etc.

    In this recent case, but also in terms of religion in general, there must be some point when it is reasonable to say -- ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

    I'm under the impression that might be inacurate comparing political correctness about Islam in Christian countries with criticism about Christianity, because there is also it seems to me PC (maybe even more) about other religions practiced by minorities.
    Female circumcision for instance was there before Islam and is also practiced by other groups like Christians. Not to say these things shouldn't be condemned, they should.
    But the kind of violence you speak about is also advocated by people within other minority religions. Yet it often goes off the radar.

  • @betaboy said:
    As I said, selective outrage.

    The difference is that modern liberal democracies view wife beating and misogyny as vile crimes. Under the Islamic State, wife beating and sexual enslavement of women is a matter of policy. This is not selective outrage.

    If you are a woman not currently trapped in an abusive relationship, the relative quality of life exceeds 99% of women born in Islamic cultures.

    Ayaan Hirsi Ali would agree with this full heartedly.

  • @Frozen_Paratrooper said:
    The difference is that modern liberal democracies view wife beating and misogyny as vile crimes. Under the Islamic State, wife beating and sexual enslavement of women is a matter of policy. This is not selective outrage.If you are a woman not currently trapped in an abusive relationship, the relative quality of life exceeds 99% of women born in Islamic cultures. Ayaan Hirsi Ali would agree with this full heartedly.

    You have your excuses for wife-beating, and the Muslim extremists have theirs. Seems like you have something in common with them, lol.

  • @betaboy said:
    You have your excuses for wife-beating, and the Muslim extremists have theirs. Seems like you have something in common with them, lol.

    I must have missed the part where I "excused" violence against women. I specificlally spoke approvingly of the fact that domestic violence is a crime and punished accordingly. The punishments should be even more strict.

    It is very simple. If you are sexually assaulted in a modern liberal country and the offender is caught, he will be prosecuted. If you are sexually assaulted as a woman in say Pakistan, the onus is on the victim to produce 4 male witnesses to the crime. Failing that, the VICTIM will be jailed for adultery since she should not have been uaccompanied and bears the blame. That sir, is the difference I was highlighting.

    Toraldris
  • @Frozen_Paratrooper said:
    It is very simple. If you are sexually assaulted in a modern liberal country and the offender is caught, he will be prosecuted. If you are sexually assaulted as a woman in say Pakistan, the onus is on the victim to produce 4 male witnesses to the crime. Failing that, the VICTIM will be jailed for adultery since she should not have been uaccompanied and bears the blame. That sir, is the difference I was highlighting.

    So you admit that in both places - the modern liberal countries as well as Pakistan - women get sexually assaulted. Just that in modern liberal countries, the laws are strict enough to protect women somewhat. So you're basically talking about how laws in various countries may or may not protect women. Thanks for clarifying that.

  • @betaboy said:
    So you admit that in both places - the modern liberal countries as well as Pakistan - women get sexually assaulted. Just that in modern liberal countries, the laws are strict enough to protect women somewhat. So you're basically talking about how laws in various countries may or may not protect women. Thanks for clarifying that.

    I see what you're getting at. The point is not whether women are assaulted, because that happens anywhere. But it is fair to judge the values and decency of a society based on how it reacts to crime againt women. Pakistan and the Islamic State both punish and imprison women for the "crime" of being raped. Often forcing the victim to marry her attacker as punishment based on religious injunctions. This is barbaric and should be anathema to anyone who considers themselves a feminist or liberal.

    The fact that liberals fail to distinguish this fact and are virtually silent about it, and worse, run interference and sugar coat these abuses, is exactly my complaint and that of Harris and Maher.

    Toraldris
  • WanMinWanMin Veteran
    edited October 2014

    Less developed countries have a tendecy to show some traits developed democracies do not. Is a particular religion the sole reason for that to happen?

  • @WanMin said:
    Less developed countries have a tendecy to show some traits developed democracies do not. Is a particular religion the sole reason for that to happen?

    In all cases? No, of course not. But when reteograde treatment of women or gays or minorities is explicitly justified by religious texts and scholars, then we should have the honesty to say so.

  • @Frozen_Paratrooper said:
    In all cases? No, of course not. But when reteograde treatment of women or gays or minorities is explicitly justified by religious texts and scholars, then we should have the honesty to say so.

    Which is the case for most religions if not all. There is no religion that hasn't been used to do bad things, Buddhism included.

  • @WanMin said:

    Sure, but there is an unmistakable degree of magnitude in which these problems are present in Islamic countries. There is no Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian equivalent to the Islamic state or the thousands of like-minded groups.

  • WanMinWanMin Veteran
    edited October 2014

    @Frozen_Paratrooper said:
    There is no Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian equivalent to the Islamic state or the thousands of like-minded groups.

    Maybe we should look at the differences. India, the territory more populated by Hindus, for instance is not suffering constant military intervention by other countries. Yet just read about another witch killed in an Indian village.
    We also need to look at the percentage of the population. Muslims are the second largest religious group and they happen to occupy sometimes less developed countries, subject to the already mentioned foreign intervention.

  • ChazChaz The Remarkable Chaz Anywhere, Everywhere & Nowhere Veteran

    @WanMin said:
    Maybe we should look at the differences. India, the territory more populated by Hindus, for instance is not suffering constant military intervention by other countries. Yet just read about another witch killed in an Indian village.

    It might be worthwhile to consider the de facto state of war that has existed between Pakistan
    and India for decades and has it's roots in ethnic and religious divides and has led to largely unchecked nuclear proliferation.

    There is also the caste system, violence women stemming steming from bride price, dowry and so on, accusaations of child labor abuses.

    We don't spend much time with that, and Hindus repressent aa big piece of that little puzzle.

    Buddhists are't lilly white in this regard. Recent events in Myanmar, etc.

    We also need to look at the percentage of the population. Muslims are the second largest religious group and they happen to occupy sometimes less developed countries, subject to the already mentioned foreign intervention.

    AnD I'll stick to my guns on the aassertion that this whole ISIS thing is only superficially religious. It its core this is about politics and control. They're totalitarians at heart and Sharia Law is convenient as it sits well with a totalitarian view and they don't have to spend time creating a legal system from scratch. It's much the same as we saw in the former Soviet Union, China and even Cuba. They were hardly Communist even though they were labeled as such.

  • ToraldrisToraldris   -`-,-{@     Zen Nud... Buddhist     @}-,-`-   East Coast, USA Veteran
    edited October 2014

    It would really suck for ISIS if they didn't agree with Sharia Law...

    I think the more strictly it's about enforcing a particular religion's laws and tenets, the more it really is "about" that religion and the people who believe life should be lived that way. Power is only a means to an end... the end of forcing people to live by your own standards.

  • @Chaz said:
    AnD I'll stick to my guns on the aassertion that this whole ISIS thing is only superficially religious. It its core this is about politics and control. They're totalitarians at heart and Sharia Law is convenient as it sits well with a totalitarian view and they don't have to spend time creating a legal system from scratch. It's much the same as we saw in the former Soviet Union, China and even Cuba. They were hardly Communist even though they were labeled as such.

    It is not unusual for these groups to use religious morality as a form of control, while they find ways around it.

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