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Things that have been worrying me [2]-Muslim Imam refuses to condemn the stoning of female adulterers

  
  

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hoatzin
09:12 / 19.03.06
I feel I might be condemned for criticising aspects of the muslim religion, but this so upset me I need input from others. I was listening to radio 4 the other day and heard adiscussion between an imam and interviewer. The imam refused several times to condemn outright the stoning of women for adultery, because he maintained that this would also condemn the verse of the Koran from which it is derived. I do not know the Koran; I do not know the verse concerned; does anyone else and what do they think?
 
 
*
17:18 / 19.03.06
I think people are less likely to condemn you for criticizing Islam than to advance that there are problems with assuming that the opinion of one person can stand in for those of several very diverse groups, if indeed that's what you're doing (I can't tell). I have heard a Christian leader on the radio say that gays should be executed, but he doesn't represent all of Christianity, whether he has scriptural support or not.
 
 
hoatzin
18:19 / 19.03.06
The point I was trying to make relied on claiming of 'scriptural identity.' If the Christian leader was also claiming that a particular verse in the bible supported his opinion, then the question would apply there as well.
 
 
*
18:49 / 19.03.06
Okay, so what's a religious person to do when their god demands something of them that is ethically wrong?

That's an interesting question. In Hebrew scripture, Abraham had to be prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac because God demanded it. But at the last moment God turned him aside. That sets a certain precedent— Do what God tells you, even if it's wrong, and even if it contradicts something He said before. Are other religions this absolutist? I think of myself as a religious person, but if one of my gods told me to do something patently harmful, I'd respectfully disagree and wait for the lightning.

It all depends on how fallible the source is regarded to be. I have skepticism about my own ability to apprehend the commands of the divine with any clarity, and I have still more skepticism about the ability of divine truth to survive someone else's apprehension, generations of oral tradition, transmission to written form, and successive translations after that. This skepticism is not universally valued among all religious traditions and practitioners. I think it is an objective good, myself— but then, I would.

Scriptural identity is an interesting problem in world religions, and I'm glad you brought it up— I bet a search will turn up more threads on this topic. I'm afraid I don't know this particular verse of the Koran (in fact I don't know the Koran well at all yet), but I'm willing to bet it's interpreted different ways by different practitioners, including by different religious leaders.
 
 
elene
18:58 / 19.03.06
From which verse of the Koran is this punishment derived? As far as I know the Koran is quite explicit in this point.

The adulteress and the adulterer you shall whip each of them a hundred lashes. Do not be swayed by pity from carrying out God's law, if you truly believe in God and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their penalty. (Koran 24:2) ...

Those who accuse protected women of adultery, then fail to produce four witnesses, you shall whip them eighty lashes, and do not accept any testimony from them; they are wicked. (24:4)

Is the Imam in question following Mosaic law on this (Deuteronomy 22:21 ff, or Leviticus 20:10), perhaps?

Some Christians, not a few, use Leviticus 20:13 to justify the execution of gays, by the way. It says,

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:10 / 19.03.06
Couple of issues here. First up:

I think of myself as a religious person, but if one of my gods told me to do something patently harmful, I'd respectfully disagree and wait for the lightning.

This ties into something I've been looking at vaguely elsewhere - the relation of the individual and religion, and how religion functions with the individual. The bit of this that is relevant here is probably... well, yes. Would one? To do this, one has to believe that in certain circumstances your moral compass is better than your deity's. This is probably easier if you're polytheistic, and is certainly easier if you're not one of the Abrahamic religions. So, that's probably issue the first - waiting for the lightning is not really an option, in the sense of choosing to defy directly an instruction from God in the belief that you have a better sense of what the right thing to do is than your god, if you take it as given that your God is benign and omniscient. Abraham, after all, did the right thing by obeying God, and it turned out that God did not intend for him to lose his son anyway.

Second question is one that probably has to be anwered by somebody who heard the interview - was the interviewee saying that in all cases he would stone an adulterous woman to death, or was he saying that, although stoning was not the right way to punish adultery in the current social context, and he would not do it, he was not prepared to condemn the practice because to do so would be to deny what he believed to be a pronouncement in the Quran, which is to say something infallible?
 
 
*
21:48 / 19.03.06
To do this, one has to believe that in certain circumstances your moral compass is better than your deity's.

Or, as in my case, that my moral compass is more reliable than my ability to receive and interpret my deity's instructions correctly, but your point is taken.
 
 
hoatzin
22:43 / 19.03.06
Would Adam have been doing the right thing if his god did intend him to kill his son?
For those of us who are agnostic or atheistic, how are moral values to be justified, or upheld if they conflict with religious teachings, and can we ever claim a moral value as absolute?
 
 
SMS
00:38 / 20.03.06
To do this, one has to believe that in certain circumstances your moral compass is better than your deity's.

Or, as in my case, that my moral compass is more reliable than my ability to receive and interpret my deity's instructions correctly, but your point is taken.

We can make a distinction between Special Revelation and General Revelation, the latter of which is found in nature, human nature, and history. The former is given in scripture, visions, etc. To suppose that I am a better judge of right and wrong than God is would be a kind of blasphemy, but to suppose that God's General Revelation and Special Revelation appear (for the moment) to be in conflict is quite different. If I have apodictic knowledge and complete clarity of God's command to kill, then, of course, I would believe that it is right to kill. But most often, I have a firmer understanding of human nature than I do of anything in God's Special Revelation. If it appears to me that God is telling me to kill my son, I would most likely believe that I was delusional. If I could rule that out, I might suppose that some demon (which I had never quite believed in before) was speaking to me. If I was convinced that God was sending the message, one final possibility would need to be ruled out: that I wasn't misinterpreting. Yes, yes, "kill your son" seems mighty clear, but it isn't clear when put in the context of all of God's revelation, because it seems to contradict all that business about love and meekness and goodness.


On the point about criticizing Islam, it was mentioned that it would be inappropriate to take this radio interview as representative of the complex and polylithic religion. I agree with this, but I wonder whether it would be possible to criticize Islam on any basis that avoids the response (well, that's not ALL of Islam). It seems to me that to deny that possibility IS to criticize the religion as inherently inchoate, at least insofar as it is a religion in which members participate rather than a multiplicity of religions that assume the term "Islam" to form a political alliance.
 
 
SMS
00:45 / 20.03.06
Would Adam have been doing the right thing if his god did intend him to kill his son?
For those of us who are agnostic or atheistic, how are moral values to be justified, or upheld if they conflict with religious teachings, and can we ever claim a moral value as absolute?
I might ask an atheist this: if Justice itself demands that you kill your son, would it be right to do so? Suppose that attaining/following/? the Summum Bonum was only possible if you killed your son, would it then be right to do so? I don't know how you would answer, but I think the question is analogous, given that monotheistic religions tend to regard God as the highest good. Some even regard God as the source of goodness.
 
 
Joy Division Oven Gloves
02:17 / 20.03.06
Here's a couple of pieces by Riffat Hassan looking at Islamic Feminism and Islam and Human Rights.

Religous Conservatism and Feminism

Islam and Human Rights

They're interesting in themselves but also as examples of questioning religious belief and practice but staying inside a theological frame of reference.
 
 
elene
07:05 / 20.03.06
Thanks for the links JD.

So, there are hadith, reports, that say Mohammed punished adulterers with stoning, distinguishing between married and unmarried adulterers, and additionally some claim the Koran is missing a verse on this subject. This amounts to a tradition of stoning that some seek to maintained at all costs.

I think all that can be done about this is to support Muslim women educating each other.
 
 
Saturn's nod
08:09 / 20.03.06
I wanted to add an example of Christian feminist work on this issue of obedience/challenging God on what we know of God's nature: this midrash on Genesis 22. I learnt in my own church that since Scripture study was a male-only activity in the ancient times of Judaism (and Jesus was transgressing in teaching Scripture to Mary (sister of Martha)), we as Christians are missing the women's half of the tradition, because of the cultural fracture with Judaism in the early centuries of C.E.. Midrashim like these are an engagement with our tradition in that light, we know we are missing a lot but we also know that God is a God of the oppressed.

Genesis 22: a midrash.

And with heavy heart Abraham went to his wife Sarah and said, God has told me to take our son Isaac, whom we love, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.

And Sarah said, A shrewd move. This God is no fool. This is her way of testing you. What did you say to her? And Abraham replied, I said nothing. I want God to know I will obey Him without question. I will do as He commands.

And Sarah threw up her hands in despair and said, Abraham you are a bone-headed fool. What kind of a God do you think you are dealing with? What kind of a God would want you to kill your own son to prove how religious you are? Don’t be so stupid! She’s trying to teach you something: that you must challenge even the highest authority on questions of right and wrong. Argue with her, wrestle with her! But Sarah’s words smacked to Abraham of blasphemy, and he went into the mountains with his son Isaac.

And Sarah said to God, Sister, you are playing with fire. He is too stupid to understand what you are up to. He won’t listen to me and he won’t challenge you; if you don’t stop him he will kill our precious son. Is that what you want? And God said, Sarah, they have a long journey to the mountains; I’m hoping one of them will see sense. And Sarah said, Like father, like son. You’ll have to send an angel.

And it came to pass as Sarah foretold, and the angel of the Lord spoke to Abraham the first time and told him not to kill his son. And Abraham sacrificed a ram as a burnt offering. And the angel of the Lord spoke to Abraham a second time and told him his offspring would be as numerous as stars in the heavens and would possess the gates of their enemies.

And the angel of the Lord spoke to Abraham a third time and said, Because you were ready to kill your own son in the name of your God you will be known as a great patriarch and millions will follow your example. And they will believe that He is indeed a jealous and a demanding God, and they will willingly sacrifice their sons in His name and to His glory. And there will be bloodshed and slaughter in all the corners of the earth.

And Abraham returned to his wife Sarah and said, God is well pleased with me for I am to be a mighty patriarch. And Sarah said nothing. But she took the garments of Abraham and Isaac that were stained with the blood of the ram, and she carried them to the river to be washed. And the river ran red with the blood of generations to come, and Sarah wept bitterly.

And God came to Sarah at the water’s edge and said, My sister Sarah, do not weep. You were right, it will take time. Meanwhile hold firm to what you know of me and speak it boldly. I am as you know me to be. Many generations will pass and a new understanding will come to the children of Abraham, but before then I shall be misheard and misrepresented except by a few. You must keep my truth alive.

And Sarah dried her eyes and said, As if I didn’t have enough to do.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:21 / 20.03.06
So, there are hadith, reports, that say Mohammed punished adulterers with stoning, distinguishing between married and unmarried adulterers, and additionally some claim the Koran is missing a verse on this subject. This amounts to a tradition of stoning that some seek to maintained at all costs.

This was my understanding - so, in fact, the Imam above is not quoting the Quran as it exists, but rather one of the ahadith which describes what TPM did in a specific situation. This already provides wiggle room: Sura 157 says:

Those who follow the messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own (scriptures),- in the Law and the Gospel;- for he commands them what is just and forbids them what is evil; he allows them as lawful what is good (and pure) and prohibits them from what is bad (and impure); He releases them from their heavy burdens and from the yokes that are upon them. So it is those who believe in him, honour him, help him, and follow the light which is sent down with him,- it is they who will prosper.

This is generally but not exclusively taken to mean that the hadith are vital for interpreting what one should actually do with Quranic instruction. However, there are different levels of authenticity for different ahadith, and Sunni and Shi'a Islam accords different levels of authority to different ones - in particular, Shi'a Islam is less keen on hadith from the Caliphate.

So... hoom. I think the hadith in question here is about a woman who went to Mohammed and confessed her adultery. He told her to go and seek forgiveness from God, but she persisted, saying that she was pregnant. He told her to wait until after the child had been born and weaned, and then had her stoned. This presumably informs another hadith, which claims Quranic authority for stoning adulterous women, if there is a confession or a pregnancy.

It's not in the Quran, however, and there is a strand of liberal Islam that maintains that the law of Mohammed is contextual - that in a society which could afford to build jails, reform offenders and so on, the laws would have been different and by extension should be different now. So, that's another level again.

So, this Imam appears to be defending a hadith that claims that there is a verse in the Quran (which AFAIK there isn't) which states the adulterous women can be punished by stoning, which actually seems to refer to another hadith, in which under specific circumstances a woman is punished by stoning.

So, tricky. It's worth noting that those societies in which adulterous women are punished by stoning - parts of Nigeria, Afghanistan under the Taliban, not sure where else offhand - tend not to apply the rulings of the Quran or the hadith entirely consistently, as far as my limited understanding goes.

So, I don't think we can walk away from the question of who this Imam was, whom he represented, and whether he was saying that one cannot entirely condemn the practice, but one can set up codes of behaviour in which it does not occur, or that this was how modern society should deal with adulterous women. Otherwise, we fall into the trap of assuming that what we are allowed to hear about Islamic law - a BBC presenter asking a religious leader they have chosen to answer a question which is designed to highlight illiberalism - is what we need to know about it.
 
 
hoatzin
11:33 / 20.03.06
I can't find a link to this item, sorry. But I wasn't questioning the rights or wrongs of stoning, but whether a religious justification was valid. Those who have replied seem to take their moral beliefs from a religion.I suppose what I should really have asked was if anyone thinks there are any moral values without religion.
 
 
elene
11:48 / 20.03.06
Yes! That's brilliant, am464.

Thanks for the further elucidation, Haus. I've been reading bits about stoning on and off today and I'm feeling sick, really sick.
 
 
elene
11:59 / 20.03.06
I suppose what I should really have asked was if anyone thinks there are any moral values without religion.
Hi hoatzin, but of course there are, if none other than the position that my needs come first and I should do whatever I consider necessary to satisfy those needs. Personally I don't think one can move far from that position without some form of religion being involved though. This query might be better placed in the nearby religion thread.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:04 / 20.03.06
Hoatzin: you asked I do not know the Koran; I do not know the verse concerned; does anyone else and what do they think? - I think that's a question about the basis of the stoning of women in Quranic studies, whether the act can be criticised by followers of Islam and the implications of this for the rights (or wrongs) of Islamic practice.

If you're asking "Are there any non-religious moral values"... well, that's a huge question. It might fit into the "Religion" thread, but I think it probably deserves a thread all of its own.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:08 / 20.03.06
Oh, also:

But I wasn't questioning the rights or wrongs of stoning, but whether a religious justification was valid.

I think you've sort of got that, to an extent, albeit a somewhat abstracted one - one of the most important elements of that being that the religious justification appparently being offered is not actually intrinsic to Islam or monolithic within Islam; am464 has in a rather artistic way broadened that out to the role and rights of women in the Abrahamic religions...
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:50 / 20.03.06
On the point about criticizing Islam, it was mentioned that it would be inappropriate to take this radio interview as representative of the complex and polylithic religion. I agree with this, but I wonder whether it would be possible to criticize Islam on any basis that avoids the response

I think this is a good point, myself. I mean, I probably won't meet a whole lot of argument if I say that Western Europe is generally more culturally and economically liberal than the US, yet I hardly have to analyse the opinions and behaviours of every european and amercian to make this kind of generalisation. Similarly, such a generalisation is possible with Islam. (I get the sneaking suspicion that there is a fallacy possible here, whereby one resists any kind of generalisation for something one wants to defend yet pays no mind to generalisations one is happy to accept.)

Having said that, the propaganda effort being conducted against Islam in the west is such that one can be understandably reluctant to voice such criticism. I'm not sure how one deals with that and stays intellectually honest. I can certainly believe that the Koran is susceptible to various interpretations, but that doesn't seem to me to be a very interesting question. Just as a study of the Bible isn't all that relevant when evaluating the effect of culturally conservative christianity on the Republican party and US politics. Of course, it is worth noting that there is a breadth of interpretation avalailable, but one also needs to ask whether particular movements favour narrower, ethically questionable, interpretations of their religion.

I think the answer to that has to be yes, ethically dubious movements do exist within Islam, but positing Islam itself as the cause is rather more dubious. As to whether one can justify descriptive statements - "the majority of Muslims would be intolerant of gay marriage", say - I suppose that is plausible. Since I see no real need to be overly respectful of Islam, just as I see no need to be respectful of principled Republican opposition to gay marriage, I don't have too much of a problem with saying things like that. My only pause for thought would be, as I said, mainstream Islamophobia.

In short, I honestly don't see why people feel that they have to get tied up in knots when making a moral judgement (or ethical judgement, for those of you who see a difference). I have my own standards of ethics, and I evaluate things on those terms. This might make me intolerant on occasion, sure, in which case that makes a good argument for re-evaluation (by my own standards). But that doesn't stop me from having an opinion and, if I feel justified, judging something as wrong. Female "circumcision", for instance, is something I think is wrong despite the difference in norms that I would have with someone who might justify it.

A couple more comments:

I might ask an atheist this: if Justice itself demands that you kill your son, would it be right to do so?

You are still thinking like a theist. What is "Justice"? I have my own sense of what is just, and this would not allow the scenario you describe - I don't believe in the death penalty. And there is the court system, whose fallibility means that the killing of a minor, or my son, would be a tragedy, but hardly a moral dillemma.

Personally I don't think one can move far from that position without some form of religion being involved though.

I think you would have to do intellectual somersaults to really maintain this, though. I suppose it is possible, however, since one could plausibly argue that "some form of religion" is involved in atheism, for instance. But do people really still maintain that all or most morality comes from religion? Hmmm.
 
 
elene
13:41 / 20.03.06
do people really still maintain that all or most morality comes from religion?

Well, for a start, we actually get quite far without more morality than is implied by informed self-interest. One might well decide not to be overtly aggressive, to kill or rape or steal for instance, because doing so would be avenged. One might decide to play fair or to help one's neighbours because what goes around, comes around. One might also decide to suffer in order to spare a loved one, because one cares so much for that person that it would hurt too much not to.

I think though, that as soon as this logic is generalised, when I can't for instance take advantage of a much weaker person who has no hope of resisting me, I have entered the realms of religion. Why else if not fear of revenge, not trade, not love, Lurid?
 
 
elene
14:00 / 20.03.06
And of course there's the matter of image. Pushing over grannies might well look too nasty, weak or cheap to be a viable source of income, morality or no.
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:12 / 20.03.06
Why else if not fear of revenge, not trade, not love, Lurid?

Well, the short answer is...because.

The long answer is that this is a basic intuition I have. I'm not confident about justifying why I have this intuition, but I am more or less confident that it is an intuition that is shared (imperfectly, but nonetheless shared) by most people. That is, we tend to agree that taking advantage of the weak is morally wrong, despite the fact that many of us might do so in the right circumstances. I'm also pretty sure that this intuition is shared irrespective of religion. If you listen to evolutionary psychologists, they might argue that there is a good reason for this to be the case. Being in a group of people where everyone has, at some level, altruistic ethical intuitions is a good thing. The fact that these are pre-rational is, in fact, a bonus - otherwise, I'll convince myself that cheating you is really the best where I'm concerned - you could never trust me very much. Nevertheless, this intution remains imperfect, because my own wants do at some point (this would depend on the individual) become more important to me.

I'm happy to take a certain amount of morality as brute fact, in other words, coming about as the end product of a complex process of our evolution. This isn't without problems. However, using religion to justify moral sentiments that all of us feel regardless of our religion seems significantly worse.

Let me ask a question back. Do you think that non-religious people are more likely to cheat the weak than the religious (having no foundation upon which to base this morality)? Or do you think that non-religious people are ultimately basing much of their morality on religious principles? I think that answering "yes" to either question is pretty dodgy.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:57 / 20.03.06
One might decide to play fair or to help one's neighbours because what goes around, comes around.

I'm not sure a) that this is within the remit of this thread or b) that that's a convincing argument. Why should what goes around come around? By your logic, the irreligious person would have no motivation to play fair, as to do so would be to speculate on the intentions of others who might have no motivation to play fair, because it would be to speculate on the etc. The only people who would be incentivised to play fair with you would be religious people, and there'd be no reason to play with them because they would play fair with you _anyway_. So, yes.
 
 
elene
17:41 / 20.03.06
This is the same gap that appeared lately in the religion thread, Lurid. To me what you are describing is religious, one of several possible forms of religious experience. You're picking through human experience and claiming parts that are cornerstones of religion as the domain of science, but just because science is able to model these things an ascribe plausible evolutionary pathways to them does not mean that these cease to be religious. You can claim the golden rule is inbred, but I claim it is the core of our religious sense.

You want to restrict religious people to those who blindly follow Moses or Ian Paisley or whoever. I refuse that restriction.
 
 
Lurid Archive
18:12 / 20.03.06
I could reply at length, elene, but I'll try to keep it short because Haus is right that this is off topic.

You want to restrict religious people to those who blindly follow Moses or Ian Paisley or whoever. I refuse that restriction.

Actually, I think you have it backwards. I haven't actually said anything about religious people in this thread (some may even like the explanation of morality I gave - thats entirely up to them). I'm just saying that non-religious people - like myself - construct meaning and morality (for instance) in ways that aren't to do with religion. You can call these explanations religious, if you want, but your accusation more or less rebounds on you. I'm identifying this way, why do you need to insist that what I'm describing is religious?

However, I suggest that if we want to take this further we start another thread.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
20:58 / 20.03.06
At the risk of veering even further off topic, I'd just like to make a couple quick points:

Okay, so what's a religious person to do when their god demands something of them that is ethically wrong?

That's an interesting question. In Hebrew scripture, Abraham had to be prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac because God demanded it. But at the last moment God turned him aside. That sets a certain precedent— Do what God tells you, even if it's wrong,...

In Abraham's time, the practice of sacrificing something very important to you, including a child, to your god was not considered immoral or even a little strange. Abraham would have been saddened by the order, but the idea that he or any of us would have balked at the immorality of it does not fit in with the situation of the day.

Are other religions this absolutist? I think of myself as a religious person, but if one of my gods told me to do something patently harmful, I'd respectfully disagree and wait for the lightning.

The meaning of the word "Israel", according to Genesis, is "struggles with God". There are a few books that teach that a heart to heart relationship, with all it's messy struggling, is actually what the Lord wants from all of us. The book of Job, for instance, which has the honor of being the most misunderstood and mistaught book in the entire Bible, contains this very message.

Unless I'm mistaken, "Islam" means "submission". To Allah, one can safely assume.

Both Judaism and Islam are Abrahamic religions, so the difference between the two is especially striking. To me, anyway.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:02 / 20.03.06
Forgive my ignorance, but is Israel the name of the Jewish religion in Hebrew? Only, you seem to be comparing the name of a person (and a state) with the name of a religion...

Now, we were talking about Islam and the condemnation, or lack thereof, of the stoning of adulterous women, the relation of that action to the religion and the conflict of that with civil society, near as I can tell. "Is it possible to have moral values without religion" deserves another thread in the Head Shop, or possibly the Temple. "Is Islam bad?" neatly dovetails with the Switchboard discussion on Islamophobia.
 
 
Homeless Halo
23:52 / 20.03.06
As a Borderline atheistic (once had the traditional NDE with all the bells and whistles) amoralist, I find that I don't appear to fit into this discussion on any of the levels which have already taken shape, but my interest is entirely too piqued to leave it alone.

I'm one of those people who regards all discussion of "morality", "ethics" (in the sense of applied morals) and "right and wrong" etc, as a bunch of hooey.

I'd point out that our species managed to become the dominants of this sphere long before we even had the capacity for moralizing or practicing religion, and that because of this, neither is truly neccessary for making the kinds of decisions discussed above.

Further, I'd suggest that a lot of this internal sophistry is another example of our "user illusion", that is, of our brains' post-rationalizing its already made decisions to itself. That no one makes a moral judgement, regardless of what they've made themselves believe.

If your god requires you to kill someone, perhaps you should consider seeking professional help, as opposed to trying to reason with the voices in your head.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
05:43 / 21.03.06
... which id entity had already said above.
 
 
*
06:44 / 21.03.06
Excuse me, Haus, but I think you'll find I said something slightly different. It would be unfair of me to accept the credit for Halo's line of reasoning.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:14 / 21.03.06
A trenchant point, and noted. Thank you.

Halo - would it be possible for you to move to a slightly finer level of detail? We're trying to get this topic back on the track of discussing thhe rights and wrongs of stoning and condemning/not condemning the stoning of women, with reference to Islam, and specifically the pronouncements of a particular Imam, with a side-salad around the assumptions that are being traded on.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
07:36 / 21.03.06
Forgive my ignorance, but is Israel the name of the Jewish religion in Hebrew? Only, you seem to be comparing the name of a person (and a state) with the name of a religion...

Yeah, my bad (I was sort of hoping no one would notice). Still, I think both names are potent symbols of their respective religions.

I'll be the first to admit, however, that my knowledge of Islam is hardly intimate.

I'd point out that our species managed to become the dominants of this sphere long before we even had the capacity for moralizing or practicing religion,

I think I might disagree here, depending on your definition of "dominants" and when, exactly, we became such. Simple traditions like burying one's dead (which is a fairly strong idicator of at least quasi-religious beliefs) goes back a loooooong time, back when being eaten alive by a larger, fiercer animal was still a very real concern.

But I suppose if we achieved dominance the instant our brains clued us in on how to fashion and use simple tools, then you are correct.

and that because of this, neither is truly neccessary for making the kinds of decisions discussed above.

I'd like to agree but I'm not sure I can. This particular subject probably isn't pertinent to the discussion at hand, which sucks, because I'd like to see more written about it.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:48 / 21.03.06
Then I suggest starting a new thread. Possibly several - there are a number of offshoots from the original discussion.

Incidentally

Still, I think both names are potent symbols of their respective religions.

Well, yes, you would. They provide a handy antithesis, so can be worked backwards into a rather pat analysis to Islam's detriment. If you think something is sloppy, then that is probably because it is sloppy - don't try to fast-talk people into following a bad argument. One might as well argue that, as Israel means "struggles with God" and Mohammad means "the Praised One", Islam is clearly meritorious and Judaism unnecessarily contrary and combative.
 
 
hoatzin
11:32 / 21.03.06
Thanks for all the links, particularly haus, elene, am464. I now know a lot more than I did!

"Hoatzin: you asked 'I do not know the Koran; I do not know the verse concerned; does anyone else and what do they think?' - I think that's a question about the basis of the stoning of women in Quranic studies, whether the act can be criticised by followers of Islam and the implications of this for the rights (or wrongs) of Islamic practice."
Yes, haus, you're right. I've been working out what it was I wanted to say as I got answers- not the right way to go about things. I've been using you all as a sounding board....
 
  

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