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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 6:27 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
On the other hand wrote:
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| I also agree that the issue is not rooted in religion, though religion may play a part in upholding societal norms that developed on their own. |
So the Islamic fundamentalist interpretation of a women's proper position in society has no bearing on their actual social standing? Are you kidding?
And there is a HUGE difference between domestic violence that is illegal and for which there is refuge in civic organizations and honor killing that is sanctioned by law and custom for which there is no escape.
Nice try to apologize for Arab/Persian fanaticism. |
I don't think that you can draw a direct connection between the fact that a founding text advocates a certain behavior, and the fact that people of that religion engage in that or similar behavior.
Jesus Christ said that people shouldn't take oaths. However, in most Christian countries, that proscription is generally ignored. Now, if someone asks me why Mennonites refuse to take oaths, I don't think it's enough to say "well, the bible forbids the taking of oaths." Because I also have to explain what it is about Mennonites specifically that made them unable to follow most Chirstians in abandoning that particular injunction.
BJWD:
I don't doubt that those passages exist, and that the author meant for them to be followed literally. However, that doesn't tell us why Muslims insist on doing so. I know you're an admirer of Irshad Manji. She considers herself to be a Muslim in good standing, but also rejects the idea that those passages should be followed in this day and age. So obviously, it's possible to be a Muslim, and not take the passages as a guide for everyday life. The question then becomes why more Muslims don't take Manji's approach to scripture. |
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postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 6:59 am Post subject: |
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Irshad Manji. She considers herself to be a Muslim in good standing, but also rejects the idea that those passages should be followed in this day and age. So obviously, it's possible to be a Muslim, and not take the passages as a guide for everyday life. The question then becomes why more Muslims don't take Manji's approach to scripture.
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Most don't because then you have to admit that muhammed was a man of his times and well....mistaken...In Islam muhammed is seen as God's perfect messenger.....I'll applaud Irshad Manji anytime and any place...the more of her type around in the middle east the better.....However her reading of the koran is a modern one....and if you read her book, 'the trouble with islam..today' you'll see that she reads the koran with a critical eye....maybe a good question to ask people is if there are mistakes in the koran...... |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:05 am Post subject: |
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| However her reading of the koran is a modern one....and if you read her book, 'the trouble with islam..today' you'll see that she reads the koran with a critical eye.... |
Yes, but this still doesn't answer my question as to WHY it took Islam this long to start reading the Koran with a critical eye. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:12 am Post subject: |
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I think you can find the answer built into the structure of the religion.
muslims must pray 5 times a day. 5 times a day they "connect" with the imaginary friend and devote their lives to him. mo' actually wanted his sheep to pray 100 times a day (really!) as he knew that the more often they dedicated themselves the more likely they would be to believe aggressively.
Imagine if George Bush went to a fiery baptist church 5 times a day. How would he be different? But yes, they don't have to go to mosque other than Friday but many of the men attend mosque for every prayer.
But islam is an extreme religion. Every aspect of your life is totally regulated. The word islam means to submit. It is designed to make people obey.
We can not discount the arrogance built into the koran either. They are told that theirs is the final religion over and over and over and over again. Their religion is defined by the muslim/kuffar difference.
It is very good at what it does. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:17 am Post subject: |
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| Also, lets not forget that their culture is quite younger than ours. And we haven't exactly totally tossed aside our religious quacks either. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:23 am Post subject: |
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Their religion is defined by the muslim/kuffar difference.
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Just as Judaism made a big deal out of the Jewish/gentile difference, what with the circumcison thing, plus some fairly xenophobic and even pro-genocidal passages in the Old Testament. But most Jews today have moved beyond that in the political realm, even while they retain a sense of religious and/or cultural identity as Jews. So clearly, Jewish culture was influenced by extra-scriptural factors which mitigated their interpretation of scripture itself. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:26 am Post subject: |
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Also, lets not forget that their culture is quite younger than ours. And we haven't exactly totally tossed aside our religious quacks either.
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I don't think it's a question of age, in and of itself. Otherwise, we would expect Hindus today to be more socially progressive than Christians, which I don't think is really the case. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:29 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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Also, lets not forget that their culture is quite younger than ours. And we haven't exactly totally tossed aside our religious quacks either.
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I don't think it's a question of age, in and of itself. Otherwise, we would expect Hindus today to be more socially progressive than Christians, which I don't think is really the case. |
I don't believe that all religion, once opened to criticism, will lead to Western style "progressive" outcomes. We must be careful about that. A secular islam will likely not look like a secular Christianity or Hinduism. The "bed of values" that the secular traditions will rest upon are to different. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:36 am Post subject: |
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A secular islam will likely not look like a secular Christianity or Hinduism. The "bed of values" that the secular traditions will rest upon are to different.
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Yeah, but if I had to make a list of religious communties indicating how politically and socially open they are, it would go something like this
(going from most open to least open)...
Jewish
Christian
Hindu
Muslim
Now Judaism and Islam are both more monotheistic and text-oriented than Christianity(especially when we include Catholics as Christians), and certainly more monotheistic and text-oriented than Hinduism. But yet they fall at opposite ends of the openess scale. |
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postfundie
Joined: 28 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| A secular islam will likely not look like a secular Christianity or Hinduism. The "bed of values" that the secular traditions will rest upon are to different. |
I don't know....there are a lot of 'Muslims' out there who are totally into drinking and other sins.....it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to get more people abandoning the infallibility of the koran crap....
..Irshad Manji is rather secular and she fits in just fine with all Canada's secular Christians......she's kinda how I'd picture a secular Islam..if it could ever take root |
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samd
Joined: 03 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 9:12 am Post subject: |
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Steve and BJWD,
Why so much hate? |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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| But islam is an extreme religion. |
This is as value (my values) laden a statement as it gets. And why there is so much hate. I suggest some courses in cultural anthropology.
Also a statement that makes no sense. Half pregnant? Completely dead?
DD |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Just can't bring yourself to admit that modern Islam is a very bad way, can you? Cling to that cultural relativism, oh thee of the naive flock. |
Stevie,
There is nothing "naive" about my view of "modern Islam". Cultural relativism???? Precisely not. As someone who has taken dozens of courses in anthropology, I'm conscious of the need to view the motivations of actions and to see and judge a culture based on its own merits. This is precisely what you are not doing. It is a question of culture, NOT religion.
Your view of Islam is coated with a unistrength, bland colouring. Islam is anything but what you imagine. You've popped the 9/11 pill and are still under the influence. Get thy to a detox centre.
DD |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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On the other hand wrote,
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Now having said all this...
If you're asking me to agree that 31% is too high a number, and that Americans(or anyone else) shouldn't try to minimize their own social problems by saying "yeah well at least we're better than those Muslims", then I would agree wholeheartedly. I also agree that the issue is not rooted in religion, though religion may play a part in upholding societal norms that developed on their own. |
Thank you for the reply and I can see that you are thinking for yourself and not reacting automatically as so many it seems, just carte blanche vilifying whole swaths of humanity and not looking deeper into the rationales of why their societies are such and also the closets of our own.
I did overstate my case and you are correct to seize upon that. My point was simply to stress how this issue is something which every culture faces and deals with in their own way. Christian , Muslim, preliterate, modern. We should scream against "honour" killing but at the same time not use it as a knife to cut up a whole culture. Should we vilify all Germans because they have thousands of men traveling to Thailand to dink 10 year old girls? Should we say all Americans are evil because of their incredible appetite for pornography and their promotion of this business worldwide? Should all Koreans be seen as "abhorrent" because they traffic in women slavery? I hope you get my point.
Also, I guess I didn't state well enough, how impossible it is to gather statistics and quantify this seemingly inherent part of our nature. (and that report does highlight this, as you noted). This is also the case in America where there is no database that goes beyond the community level and where regulations prohibit/stymie the collection of statistics.
The claim that Islam is to be hated and backward because of its disrespect and violence against women is wrong. All cultures have to wrestle with this problem and there is no "inherent" difference in Islam regarding this, than other ways of life. Because the issue is CULTURE and not religion. Islam expresses itself in a vast array of ways across many cultures. Religion is only one small variable. We'd do better looking at the dynamics of relationships -- communication, power, norms of violence and taboos....
[ to all those who just need it explicitly stated. This in no way condones any violent behaviour against women. It is only looking at things in an honest way. ]
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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Islam is indeed in a bad way at present. This Fundamentalist trend poses dangers for all of us and not just Middle-Eastern women.
But I agree with On the Other Hand's position on this thread: it is too easy and simplistic to reduce modern-day Islam and its problems to its original text. This is the same problem that plauged Sovietology in America and Britain in the 1950s: these Sovietologists proved immune to actual ground conditions, constant and dynamic change over time, and reduced Soviet Russia to Stalinism. John Lewis Gaddis still does this today, in fact.
There must be more to the contemporary Middle East and its numerous problems than simply its dominant and albeit intolerant religion and its original text. For one thing, it cannot account for the various factions who have opposed each other there for some time. And, ultimately, we are also discussing millions of individual human beings. Also, were there not times when Islam flourished and really sat on the cutting-edge of human history? And for all of his unprofessionalism and sneering, Edward W. Said's point is fundamentally valid: we have failed to appreciate these people as they are -- we have in fact mostly only succeeded in superimposing our own ideological constructs onto them. So, yes, we are an integral part of the problem.
But this does not let those Middle Easterners off the hook who chose to encourage, engage in, and/or indirectly support suicide-bombing bullshiat terrorism in the least. And just as we need to better understand them, they, too need to better understand us and indeed they need to stop playing the perpetual victim. Just as some Middle-Eastern men beat and kill Middle-Eastern woman, all Middle-Eastern peoples and cultures have decisively shaped their own history. And they, too, are an integral part of the problem.
Too many on this board try to force this as an either/or choice. I disagree with that. |
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