Muslimwoman
Coexistence insha'Allah
How do you know that you are much more likely to be raped, robbed or murdered in the West than elsewhere?
Because I have lived in both places, have read the statistics and continue to read both English and Arabic newspapers.
Let’s be honest. Religious fatwas’ can be the impetus for peaceful inner strugglers to go hunting humans in observance of the fatwa. Did you ever hear of Salman Rushdie as one example?
You are correct, it can be the impetus for people turning to or supporting violence. Just as Bush's administration lied to the whole world about Saddam's regime and their weapons capabilities ... lies uncovered by the UK press I do believe and yet gathered tremendous support in the US and Europe for a war that has killed countless civilians. Now tell me which has caused more human deaths, the Rushdie fatwa or the Bush lies?
You’re hoping to side-step the question. In the KSA, for example, it’s reported that 100% of the population is Islamic. Are you really going to assert that every member of that society is Islamic by choice?
I am not attempting to side step anything, I am using a different example to make a point. Now can you deal with my argument .. you were suggesting that if Muslims are using suicide attacks that demonstrates that it MUST be taught by the faith. My argument is that if people are committing murder in the US then by your argument that must be ingrained in your laws or constitution.
As for the KSA I would imagine that a vast majority are Muslim by birth.
The question posed previously remains fully unanswered. There is overt discrimination toward competing religions in moslem lands™. There are numerous sources to document that so there really isn’t a conflicting argument. There are numerous sources to depict historical examples as well.
It does not remain unanswered, I stated my opinion very clearly, as you quoted "deciding that "come one, come all" is right for your country does not mean that the rest of the world is duty bound to agree with and follow you". If I live in a Muslim country and the population decides that it does not wish to open it's doors to all other faiths or people of no faith then that is up to the people of this country .. you can't force us to accept what we find unaccpetable just because you chose to have a come one come all society.
Well, according to the record, Mohammad led how many wars of aggression? I think three is the number.
and you accuse me of side stepping arguments. We were discussing slavery not wars, I gave you a statistic from historical data and you changed the subject.
Slavery is dehumanizing and attempting to claim that slavery is acceptable if the slaves are “Islamic slaves” is ridiculous.
Yes it is, which is why Islam dealt with the issue while your country was still an open landscape with Red Indians and buffalo wandering around it.
We are talking 1400 years ago, when Islam required Muslims to free slaves for the slightest thing. To treat slaves with dignity and fairness, to feed them and dress them in the same way as their masters, for their masters to help them with arduous work .. it was a requirement not a request.
Now show me any of that in your countries history of slavery, which was far more recent than the 7th century.
It's still tacitly and literally accepted in the Arab world, though. We see that in places such as the Sudan.
Yes shamefully for Sudan, and the KSA for that matter, forms of slavery still go on.
Of course it also still goes on in the UK too, where eastern european women are smuggled into the country and forced into prostitution (of course without English men willing to pay the price it would not happen). There are also the sweat shops, which despite a couple of decades trying to stamp out still do unfortunately exist. There is also the issue of western companies continuing to buy in products produced by small children (effectively slaves) earning a few pence a day in countries like India so that westerners can have cheaper products and keep the economy rolling along by shopping.
That in no way excuses the Sudan or KSA but perhaps demonstrates that these seemingly Muslim attitudes have much more to do with greed and petty human base desires than with religion.
Here’s an object lesson toward that. 1962 sounds correct. Almost fifty years ago.
Exscuse me but you were the one that wanted to point to what a group of Muslims were doing in KSA and Yemen in 1962 (when slavery was made illegal) .. when I counter that with what was happening in your country in the same period it is suddenly an issue of history.
I’ll say that as a nation, the U.S. can be proud of the progress it’s made in the correction of attitudes and prejudices regarding race. Did you ever hear of a guy named Obama?
Yes and I have also been on US military bases (as recently as 10 years ago) where whites and blacks have seperate disco's .. I also listened to the news reports and even commented on this forum about my astonishment that the US still allowed news reporters to say "America isn't ready for a black President". I believe I even started a thread on this forum asking Americans whether race was still such an issue in the US.
In Iran, they’re considering casting people off of cliffs for certain offenses.
This is the first I have heard about this so I did a search. I found a number of blogs and forums discussing the same article but can't find a reliable news source that talks about it at all.
I looked up "This is a chilling sentence," said Iranian human rights activist and lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah" as I thought this would be quoted in news articles but the search returned 4 entries, all blogs.
The searches for Iran+casting (or cast) of cliff bring back 7 sites and all blogs or forums.
Maybe this is like the thread about "Jew calls Americans stupid and says they will kill every man woman and child in Palestine"?
Can you find a reliable news source for it?
However that said .. the discussions I can find say the punishment is for rape .. so I have to ask if the punishment is so cruel and revolting how many men will be willing to risk the punishment and rape a woman?
People are entitled to their religious beliefs, but when a belligerent group has the ability to cause death and destruction on a massive scale (and in fact has announced that goal), I’d just feel a lot safer if I knew they are operating on the basis of rational principles and the customary rules of logic. Once people with money and power begin to think they are being inspired to do gods work through mayhem, then we are at risk from mad men dictating policy. This is particularly onerous when you consider the virulent hatreds espoused by the islamist jihad all-stars.
To be honest I agree with you, I would like to see religious belief as a private individual matter and not a political system.
However, from where I sit in the middle east I can verbally condemn the radical extremists within Islam for their actions but must also do the same with the US and their actions in the ME. To us here Bush and his policies regarding the ME also appeared to be a mad man dictating policies and trying to force American accepted culture on us. He was trying to achieve his goals through total mayhem in Iraq, Afghanistan and in support of political Israel.
The Middle East is filled with nations that went from warring bedouin tribes to insanely wealthy ruling regimes in what-- 20 years (mid 1940's to OPEC in 1968 I believe)? The rest of the world gradually grew up out of its saber rattling over the course of centuries, and even we in the west aren't fully in control of our emotions versus our technological might. That there hasn't been a nuclear war since WW2 is astonishing, almost miraculous. But moslems are only now going through their theocratic crusade period, and the problem is it's not just with horses and swords. Add a jihadic mindset, a martyrdom desire and genetically altered biological weapons, and all humanity is at risk!
This is a discussion I have had before with Bobx. I accept that places like KSA are exactly as you describe but places like America demanding they grow up tomorrow and tow the party line is not the answer. Remember Bush's posturing about bringing rights to Afghan and Iraqi women ... how many are now dead in his crusade and yet in both countries the rights for women are drastically diminished now.
The crusades of islams past maybe could have killed a few million people over the course of a few centuries, but the crusade of al-Qada could take out billions and leave nothing but a tattered shoe flapping in the silent wind as the human race's epitaph.
and yet history shows that your country to date is the only one that has been insane enough to use weapons of mass destruction against another countries civilian population.
What is more scary, an imagined threat that someone could maybe do it or proof positive that they will and have?
This mustn't be allowed. I have no intention of dying because someone else's "god says" I should.
Good and we in the ME have no intention of dying because the US wants ME oil or wants to provide Israels military might in creating a Jewish state and wants to impose it's standards on ME culture. Is that stalemate then?
You see there is something you seem to be missing in your argument. Imposing America's worldview of what is right and proper on countries by military force or political power is an exact mirror of what creats Islamic extremism. This "we are right and you will conform to our views or else".
This is best demonstrated in two ways:
1) French cheese .. sounds silly I know but bear with me. Because Europe refused to import hormone filled beef from the US because of health concerns the US retaliated by upping import taxes on one brand of French cheese by 300%. That is what the outside world see's of the US .. a petty administration that will listen to nobody but itself, we WILL accept hormone laden beef or we WILL be punished.
2) UN resolutions .. we see US representatives in the UN purple faced with incredulity that Iran will not adhere to UN resolutions .. yet "their mate" Israel has ignored (I believe) every single UN resolution ever issued regarding Israel and we hear not a peep out of the US administration.
So how can the US then stand on the world stage and say we are the champions of equality and fair play?
So I stick to my assertion that the US should get it's own house in order before it runs around the world playing chess with other countries and slaughtering civilians in the process of it's world vision.
Then you have people like Ms Rice turning up in the ME and saying astoundingly arrogant things like "we are creating the new map of the Middle East" .. then wondering why Arabs get a bit aggravated and tell the US to sod off and mind it's own business.