(No) honor killings

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Which brings the question, what is normal reaction among muslims? I'm pretty sure what would be considered "normal" differs in Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Bosnia. I don't remember any instances of self-proclaimed honor killings here, for example, though it's hard to separate them over other domestic killings when the killer has not proclaimed loudly he wanted to kill his daughter over whom she was in love with.

 

I challenge you to demonstrate this on a day-to-day basis in both American foreign and domestic policy making. Amercans tend to be both pragmatic and materialists by nature, (they are capitalists and pleasure seekers), and to a large extent, the government exhibits much of the same tendencies. I will agree that GWB has pushed the envelope a bit regarding this, (with his so called Faith-based initiatives and other policies), but really, I can't imagine him getting up in front of the American people and saying that Hurricane Katrina was the result of "God's wrath because of gays living in NO," the way that some evangelical leaders commented. He may even believe it himself, but he knows he would be laughed out of office by most Americans if he did (not that he already isn't, but that's a whole other matter...).

Most Americans are "Sunday Christians," and they tend to want that in their presidents. They like all the lip service and trappings of the president with his family, and wholesome looking wife in tow, while walking up the steps of a (any) Protestant Church on Sunday morning, but that's about as far as religion goes for most Americans. Even most evangelical preachers are capitialists and materialists - just ask them and they will ask you: "Is God poor?" I can see them on Sunday, with all the "tithes" they rake in, throwing all the money over their heads into the air, and at the same time saying: "God, anything you can catch, you can keep; the rest is mine."

 

Religion should not enter politics whatsoever. They should be completely apart from one another. I'd go so far as to say no person who strongly practices religion shuld ever be the leader of the country. Any decision they make is bound to be motivated by their beliefs in some way, and that's wrong. I seem to recall GWB saying something like God told him to attack Iraq or something equally as ridiculous. That lone should have been enough for the American people to think 'Wooooah, wait a minute, we've elected Christianity's version of Bin Laden!' He's always spouting religious stuff like how God is on the side of Americans and other such pish. The man's a complete looney, and an arrogant one at that. I stand by my belief that no athiest or agnostic will ever get that popularity to even CHALLENGE the Presidency in America, nevermind ascend to it.

'One nation under God'. Give me a break.

Wonderful country, completely nuts about religion!

I don't know much about the Quran, but I'm sure it's general message is peace. Don't forget that Christianity changed it's testament. Some of the stuff in the Old Testament is absolutely horrendous - worse than the Quran at a guess. But that's for another thread.

 

AFAIK the old testament is the foundation of both the Quran, the Bible and the Jewish religious books. Then the Christians added the new testament and I might be wrong here but Mohammed and his followers took the Bible and added their additions. So from what I know the three big monotheistic religions have the same basic book with some variations and additions.

 

Aye, the Islam strives for wordly peace. The problem is that this peace can only exists when the Islam completely controls the world and that everyone in it surrenders unconditionally to Allah. That is what Islam means, submission; and until people fight against the Islam, there can be no peace. The Quran calls out its followers to fight the evil in the world, sounds nice, but what if you're evil one? According to the Quran, homosexuals, women, Jews and anyone that exercises his universal rights are the enemy.
This peace that the Islam calls for is something like - but infintely worse than! - the Peace after the first world war. It can only mean suffering.

No need, I can give a short answer. The Bible exists of stories. All of the acts taken - including the bad ones - are applied in that time and that setting. The bible does not tell its followers to do these acts and any Christian should remember that when he reads the Bible. The Old Testament with its stories of war and atrocities is also of very little use in the Christian religion, the New Testament supersedes it in almost any way possible with a message of peace and and common sense.
The Quran however, contains only a very small amount of stories, it's not even chronologically ordered. Most of what is found in the Quran are guidelines on how to live and on how to be a proper muslim. These guidelines are actually vague enough to mean almost anything, a muslim can find good justfications for terroristic acts if he looks close enough between the lines. The Quran is really vague - for a word of God! - and Islamic theocrats resort to 'logic by analogy' if they want to know if something is legal or not.

 

All three religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions" because all three trace their roots through Abraham, a character present in the Old Testament, Torah, and Quran.

 

I'm getting a bit tired of responding to random hate-comments by people who don't seem to have any idea what they're talking about, so rather than answer each point (which would take several hours and make a hefty essay) I'll throw in a few comments addressing some of the more off-the-wall remarks.

First, the Quran does not consider homosexuals, women or jews to be the enemy (it says pretty much nothing about the first and a lot of good things about the other two). The Quran does not tell muslims to go take over the world and turn everyone to Islam, hence why it coexisted quite happily with Chrisitans and Jews for several hundred years. Oh, and that 72 virgin idiocy - guess what? Morgoth, if you're going to quote a book, please read it first and make sure what you're quoting is actually there in the first place. And while we're on the subject - the New Testament does not supersede the Torah, it adds to it while making it very clear that everything in the Torah still applies. Including stoning the gays, women responsible for all bad things, and so on.

Martaug - if by the "rest" of the muslim community you mean the ones with common sense, they have already condemned honor killings several zillion times, something that (of course) tends not to be considered news-worthy. And while you can rage as much as you want about the current government in Iraq, please keep in mind that this government was installed by none other than yours. Think they could so something about it? Oh I know! You can go invade all over again! Oh wait, you're already there...

NOG, if you're going to make a statement as bold as "Islam is more prone to fanaticism than any other religion in the world" than you had BETTER have numbers to back it up, and they had better be reliable numbers.

Barmy, Tarrasque, DR and Chandos - great posts.

 

Well, that was the rap on Thomas Jefferson, and he won anyway....As I commented there's a lot of pretence about religion, but little follow through. Nevertheless, I agree with your comments about GWB. But I don't recall anything about "God" telling him to attack Iraq. But it might be that Exxon has changed its name....

 

Well, what can you say when the police congratulate this murderer for what he did. If they all believe they're in the right, there's not a hell of a lot you can do, except leave them behind in the stone age and move along. If one was brought up like these men, without knowing any better, one would behave in just the same way and think it justified.

As for religion and politics. Yup, ideally they shouldn't mix whatsoever. Someone's personal beliefs should not have anything to do with running a country.

 

Ziad, Before I start commenting on the sections in your post that were directed at me, I'll have to say that I cannot help but feel a nasty accusation in your post. I do not hate muslims, nor the Islam, nor the Quran. Sure, the murder of Theo van Gogh left me quite bitter, but I do treat muslims fairly (I think!). Just in case you forgot, criticism is not hate.

The Quran tells that it contains the word of God as it was written down by the mortal man Mohammed. He made no mistake and thus the Quran is the perfect materialisation. It is complete and it is the only source of law (Surah 6:114.) As I said, the Quran is vague and thats why there are four important types of literature surrounding it. These are the Hadith, which are the oral traditions that tell the deeds and words of Mohammed and his companions, the Shariah which is base of the Islamic Law, the Fatwa collections and the Tafsir, the comments on the Quran. These four works are very important in the Islam, and can be placed near the level of the Quran. The Shariah is based on the Quran and the Hadith. Before a muslim consults the Quran for the solution for a problem, he consults the Shariah or preferably a Imam or Mufti who issues a fatwa, a judgement. These fatwas are collected into works not unlike those big collections of books that lawyers seem to keep in their bookcases.
I do have a Quran in my collection of books, but yesterday I found out that it is from the Ahmadiyya movement. Which is not even an accepted muslim faction, members even have to fear for their lives in Pakistan, So, I guess I just have to fall back to one on the Internet, this one

I made one mistake there. Women are indeed not seen as the enemy, but rather as lesser beings than men. They have less rights (2:228) and are less competent or - just should not be trusted - (2:282). Also, a man may beat his wife but lightly (that makes it okay I guess!) Homosexuals are mentioned in 7:81,

The Shariah condemns these men to death.
Jews are seen as apes, evil swines and donkeys who actively alter the word of God (2:65, 5:59-64, 62:5). Jews and Christians did received the Word, but they change it and thus are astray and have evil in their hearts.

I never quoted anything. I looked it up and yes, again I'm wrong, there's no mention of 72 virgins. (Rallymama misled me, she is BTW a female. Turns out the Quran was right again! ) However, according to 44:54 and 52:20, every righteous one is joined with companions. And those companions have beautiful, big, and lustrous eyes. Which leaves little to the imagination. The number 72 apparently comes from the Sunan al-Tirmidhi Hadith collection, that one also mentions a bunch of slaves and a nice palace.

Mohammed is seen as the best standard for a muslim, anyone should take him as his model(33:21). Since Mohammed the general conquered the Arabian peninsula and executed lots and lots of prisoners. That is what a proper muslim should do. I do have trouble recalling countries where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together happily before modern times. Morocco comes to mind, but that never was much of a muslim country. Mohammed personally ordered the executed of hundreds of Jews who surrendered to him at the (IIRC) Oasis of Khaybar. Saladin executed a large number of Christians in 1187 at Hittin, the Jews and Christians that did not escape Jerusalem in time were sold of as slaves. The Turkish committed crimes in the Balkan, and actually at every place they set foot. Qaliph Umar required that Jews and Christians were not to be treated with respect, they were not allowed to build churches and synagoges, not allowed to own horses and they even had to pay special taxes. I guess happily coexisting is just another term for not being murdered and beaten all the time.

Well, it's been a long time since I was a Christian, but please point me to the passages that tell that the Old Testament is still as valid as the new one.

 

Really ziad? How about posting to one site were muslims are condemning honor killings. Oh, and they weren't made illegal until the government went into power that WE helped to create, but since you are a muslim apologist i really dont think i will get a response. As to your other points morgoth pretty much blow you out of the water

 

Bloody hell Morgoth, you have way too much time on your hands!

 

If you think the Founders crafted the "Pledge," you know even less about America than I thought...Here's some help...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

 

DR -- I guess we have a fundamental disagreement on the best path for the LDS church leadership to take -- I think they more they talk about the compound, the more people will SEE a relation where there is none. But I can also see what you're saying. We'd need some hard research on that one.

As for you, Morgoth, right on, buddy -- you kicked butt on that one!

As I have mentioned before, I teach Muslims, mostly poor, uneducated, reactionary ones. It is very clear to me, working in close proximity with these people, that there is a large community of Muslims who have ZERO respect for anyone who is not a Muslim. They certainly do not make much effort to understand those different than they are. This is the ground the zealot / terrorists grow out of.

That said, there is ANOTHER group of Muslims I teach who are educated, decent people who make an effort to be pluralistic. They are the ones we need to encourage and support in the hopes that they will eventually influence their radical brethren.

 

Agreed Chandos.

The words "under God" were added during the height of the McCarthy era. McCarthy and goons were busy trying to convince everyone of the threat of the Godless communists.

I personally feel it should be removed from the pledge.

 

Since a lot of folks here seem to be unaware, I feel compelled to point out that honor killings pre-date Islam. This bears repeating: The cultures in which honor killings are conducted have been doing it since long before they ever embraced Islam. It is true that Islamic nations in which such practices are conducted now mis-use Islam to justify their barbarism, but if Islam were truly the cause of honor killings, how does one explain the Christians living within parts of Africa and the Near East who are carrying out this crime even today? If Islam is the cause of honor killings, how does this explain the honor killings being conducted by Hindus and Sikhs of India, South Asia, and even the UK? How does that explain the honor killings that occurred -legally- in the predominantly Catholic nations of Brazil (until 1980) and Columbia (until 1991)? To this day, honor killings in these nations occur with alarming frequency.

Sure, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and even Christianity are blatantly mis-used to justify these heinous acts, but I've read the bible, the Koran, and Baghavad Gita. While I have lots of bad things to say about any and all of these faiths, I can assure you that neither Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and, hell, not even Santeria condone this ****. Folks, honor killings are not a religious problem. The problem is always cultural. I defy anyone on this forum to come up with even a single mainstream religion that actually condones honor killings.

 

Actually about the LDS vs FLDS, there is a passage in scripture that is relevent here:

This means that if Warren Jeffs wants to call his faith/cult the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or Fundamentalist Mormons, there's squat all we can really do about it. We can speak the truth as respectfully as possible, but there is little that we can do to stop them as private citizens.

That said, we can denounce polygamy and statutory rape until we are blue in the face, but the same legal principles that grant us the freedom to worship as we choose grant them the same rights. Polygamy and statutory rape, however, do not follow under the heading of worship.

Just as the mainstream church has the Word of Wisdom (forbiddance of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea and illegal drugs, dietary council), they have doctrines which allow them to have multiple wives and marry them at a younger age. This however contradicts the seperation of Church and state. As long as the state does not make efforts to revise religious doctrine, religion can't place themselves above this law.

Many things in a religion will sound bizarre or outright wierd to those outside the faith. Even within faiths of the same root (Catholocism and Mormonism for example), some doctrines may be so different that one may not understand the other. This does not mean that attrocities can be written off, only that closer examination is needed to determine whether the attrocities are written in the cannon or are abuses of that which they teach as sacred. I think you'll find the majority of such attrocities fall under the latter...

 

Why should there be a pledge of allegiance anyway? I fail to understand why it's necessary. Sounds like nationlist overpowering bumkum to me.

 

If you think that's bad, you should see the oath of allegiance California requires its substitute teachers to take. I couldn't stop laughing while I was repeating it.

Yeah, I'm really going to defend the USA and the state of CA from all enemies, foreign and domestic, now that I've signed up to be a sub. Jackasses.

 

Would the Ottoman Empire do? The Ottoman Empire left pretty much alone the Greek Orthodox Church and let it go on with its functions. Also the Ottoman Empire was often a place where persecuted and exiled jews went from hostile Europe. While the tolerance of the Ottoman Empire was far from perfect and religious minorities did not enjoy the same priviledges as muslims it for a long time was more tolerating towards minority religions than Christian Europe.

There is a very nice quote in the bible of this one and I'll try to search it up shortly.

EDIT: Having little luck in trying to find it, however it was about Jesus saying that he was not there to change the old laws of the prophets and that no stroke of pen would be erased by him. Which pretty clearly goes on to state that the old testament is still consdiered quite valid. I think I saw Drew quote it once or twice on these forums so perhaps he could help providing the exact quote.

As to the topic itself these honor killings have more to do with the backward culture than the religion, as Drew says they pre-date islam. That is not to say that Islam does not provide the tools to justify these killings but just like with the bible it's all about inteprenting it all correctly. Horrible things have been justified with the bible too in the past so it's more about social and theological development than some inherent tendency towards murder and violence within the religion.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/...h-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503543392

Would that one do?