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Topic Review (Newest First)
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| Sep 2nd, 2004 09:52 PM | |||
| Ant10708 | I read that they are considering allowing Muslims in some Candian province to use Sharia law because the Jews are allowed to use theres relgious law system. I'm sure it wouldn't be the Sharia law of the Middle East but its still a little strange considering how bad the current Sharia law is praticed. | ||
| Sep 1st, 2004 10:32 PM | |||
| Sethomas | I posted an article put out by my school several weeks ago about the decline of the Protestant majority. DON'T MAKE ME DO IT AGAIN. | ||
| Sep 1st, 2004 10:26 PM | |||
| The_Rorschach | For the record, Protestantism is on the recline, as per Time Magazine's late August edition. | ||
| Sep 1st, 2004 10:19 PM | |||
| Perndog |
And as the fundamentalist percentage rises, so does the atheist/agnostic share to offset it. Kinda like the Renaissance. On one hand, you had the secularists multiplying like flies and on the other hand, you had the Church doing its damnedest to keep the fear of God in people. I expect it all to balance out in the end, as always. |
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| Sep 1st, 2004 10:15 PM | |||
| conus |
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| Sep 1st, 2004 10:11 PM | |||
| Sethomas | The difference is that fundamentalists, waxing as they are, still represent only a minority of Christians in general. Most of the advanced West comprises only Sunday-morning Christians or the religiously indifferent, whereas Islam permeates just about every facet of Arab society. | ||
| Sep 1st, 2004 09:53 PM | |||
| Perndog |
However, despite the growth of fundamentalist Christianity, the West is still developing as rapidly as ever. So no, the same thing isn't happening at all, and I can confidently state that you didn't actually get the topic. |
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| Sep 1st, 2004 08:26 PM | |||
| conus |
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| Sep 1st, 2004 07:56 PM | |||
| AChimp |
I read somewhere that, when compared to Christianity, Islam is currently in its Dark Age, characterized by a lot of fundamentalist, xenophobic sabre-rattling. Even just a century ago, Arabs had one of the most enlightened and open-minded cultures in the world. One of the only reasons why we still have copies of classical literature is because of Arabian scribes. It just seems like once they reached a certain point, it was as if they just stopped everything and stuck their heads in the sand. |
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| Sep 1st, 2004 12:46 AM | |||
| Zhukov |
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| Aug 31st, 2004 03:37 PM | |||
| ItalianStereotype |
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the West may be decadent, but it's still better than any of the alternatives. |
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| Aug 31st, 2004 02:06 PM | |||
| ziggytrix | I think it's depressing. | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 01:16 PM | |||
| Perndog |
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| Aug 31st, 2004 01:14 PM | |||
| Perndog |
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Point still being, the most advanced things in a lot of those areas are the methods of killing people. What a happy world. |
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| Aug 31st, 2004 01:06 PM | |||
| Sethomas | Well, I certainly think that only two of those posts would have been insufficient. | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 12:59 PM | |||
| conus | What happened? I only posted one time. I went into edit mode, but didn't change anything. | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 12:56 PM | |||
| conus | I was about to preface this with a few words about not meaning to offend any religious-minded readers, but fuck that. Anyone who buys into any of that fundamentalist crap is a savage. The novelist Jim Harrison once said: "Once you remove the social nicities from even a mainstream religion, you're not too far removed from the tom toms." | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 12:56 PM | |||
| conus | I was about to preface this with a few words about not meaning to offend any religious-minded readers, but fuck that. Anyone who buys into any of that fundamentalist crap is a savage. The novelist Jim Harrison once said: "Once you remove the social nicities from even a mainstream religion, you're not too far removed from the tom toms." | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 12:54 PM | |||
| conus | I was about to preface this with a few words about not meaning to offend any religious-minded readers, but fuck that. Anyone who buys into any of that fundamentalist crap is a savage. The novelist Jim Harrison once said: "Once you remove the social nicities from even a mainstream religion, you're not too far removed from the tom toms." | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 12:40 PM | |||
| ItalianStereotype | bah, there hasn't been a socially "advanced" Islamic country since the Ottoman Empire. | ||
| Aug 31st, 2004 09:55 AM | |||
| Zhukov |
Soviet-era Kaleshnikovs can be considered Eastern, and places like Iran make their own. I actually thought this thread was going to be all about the Afghan revolution. :/ I shouldn't get my hopes up. |
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| Aug 31st, 2004 07:50 AM | |||
| Perndog |
I knew the title of this thread was a joke. The only advanced culture half of the Middle East ever gets is when foreign troops are sent in. Oh, and those fancy Western rifles they seem to be happy to use even though the West is evil. |
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| Aug 30th, 2004 11:47 PM | |||
| ArrowX | And the people rejoiced | ||
| Aug 30th, 2004 09:32 PM | |||
| The_Rorschach |
Social Advances in the Middle East http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../29/do2903.xml Death and the maiden in Iran By Alasdair Palmer (Filed: 29/08/2004) Atefeh Rajabi appears to have been a fairly normal 16-year-old: sulky, disobedient, and eager to have sex. In London, those attributes earn lectures from parents and teachers on the importance of acting responsibly and not being offensive. In the city of Neka in Iran, where Atefeh Rajabi comes from, they get you hauled up in front of a judge. Atefeh's typical teenage behaviour meant that she was charged and found guilty of "acts incompatible with chastity". The judge in the Islamic court ruled that the appropriate penalty was death. That's right: death. Her sentence was confirmed by Iran's Supreme Court. Two weeks ago, on August 15, the 16-year-old girl was hung from a crane in the main square of Neka, in full public view, in order to keep "society safe from acts against public morality". Sharia law, the Islamic code which is supposed to govern punishments in Iran, states that unmarried people who have sex should be punished with 100 lashes. That was the chastisement meted out to the single man with whom Atefeh was accused of "committing acts incompatible with chastity". Married women who have sexual relations with someone who is not their husband should, according to Sharia, be stoned to death - although Iran's chief justice, apparently revolted by the cruelty of pelting women with rocks, ruled two years ago that stonings should be abandoned. Hanging is not prescribed for either category of transgressor. So what was the judge (one Haji Rezaie) doing sentencing an "unchaste" 16-year-old to hang? He said that she had a "sharp tongue" and had "undressed in court". It seems that all she did was to take off her headscarf and insist that she was the victim of an older man's advances: but even if she had stripped naked and called the judge a fat ignorant bastard, those actions would hardly merit death, even under Islamic law. Nevertheless, the judge was so outraged that he decided he would personally put the noose round the child's neck. That disgraceful and disgusting "punishment" has excited a great deal of condemnation in Iran among the reformists. As far as I can see, it has not produced any comment here. Amnesty International issued a statement expressing outrage at the execution (the tenth of a child in Iran since 1990) - but no British newspaper or television station has reported this. Why not? The two extremes of pro- and anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain are now united in not expecting even the most minimal ethical standards from Islamic countries such as Iran: the pros because they think that Islamic laws should not be criticised for fear of giving offence; the antis because they think all Muslims are just a bunch of irredeemable barbarians. Those two extreme views have infected media coverage. What would be headline news if it happened in America (can you imagine the response if a 16-year-old girl was executed for having sex in Texas?) is, because it happens in an Islamic state, apparently too banal to count. That attitude guarantees that more children will suffer Atefeh's fate. Of course, it suits our Government - which is pushing for greater trade links with our new-found ally, Iran - just fine if people think that criticism of Islamic judges is inappropriate because standards are different. But respecting Islam does not require accepting the judicial murder of 16-year-olds (or indeed anyone, of any age) for having sex. That's wrong wherever it happens. We need a Government, and a press, that says so. |
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