Religions (I do need this info (Statistics))

[Azurain]

Here's another link, actually: http://secularhumanism.org/library/fi/perkins_24_3.htm

Provides some more than a little disturbing statistics, such as:

The number of scientists and engineers per capita is a third of the world average. The number of computers per capita is a quarter of the global average. The number of newspapers published per capita is a fifth of that of developed countries, and the little news that is disseminated is controlled and restricted. The few books that are published are censored, and the proportion of religious books produced is three times the world average.

Can you give me another reason other than Islam why Arabic states are so poor and uneducated CyberEd? Should we just blame the people there rather than focusing on a religious institution which dominates all facets of society and which systematically suppresses knowledge and freedom?

And for Bjarni's sake, since I'm sure he'll come here soon enough:

Blaming tyrants and extremists may be a convenient option; unfortunately, the problem runs much deeper than that

[Bjarni Herjolfsson]

I can and will give a reason. During the true Khaliphates, the Islamic world was the most advanced in all forms of education. They rivaled China and were the envy of all of Europe. But the governments either became too extreme or secular so Islam was abandoned and the intelectual power dwindled. And the problem is not any deeper than the tyrants. They opress the people and, just as you said, deprive them of freedom of speach and they keep them ignorant. Islam, on the other hand, gives the command to learn. The first revelation to the prophet was "read". That was the first word sent down by god.

I'm going to post this for mine and veryone's reference.

[quote="Azurain";p="400269"]

Would you know more about the Islamc world than me?

Manifestly so. Let me make this simple. Do you deny that I would be charged with blasphemy by the state and summarily executed in many (most?) Arabic nations if I were to stand on a street corner and shout out that there is no God and that Islam is a blight on the face of the earth? Do you deny that women suffer strict legal consequences that men do not for adultery and even for having the audacity to be raped? Do you claim that religious precepts are not the basis for all law in at least a dozen Islamic nations (and if not, do you like the idea of Theocracies? Are you that dense?)?

Can you address the fact that Muslim nations have the lowest level of literacy, freedom of speech, and economic prosperity of any nations in the world, including Big Bad Communist China?

Pointing out a few vague good things (which are rarely, if ever, followed in practice) does nothing to address the numerous terrible things that Islam is responsible for.

In any case, apologies YH for derailing your thread... Bjarni, if you would indulge me, please post your response in the Religion thread in Polls, if you desire to continue this.

-- Chris[/quote]

Yes, I deny all of those things. Victems of rape are not supposed to suffer any legal consequences for rape and the perpetrator is stoned to death, be they man or woman. The prophet was tolerent of all religions he ruled over and so were the Khaliphates. There was one exception but he was crazy. Not in a figurative sense. He was stark raving mad. Islam rejects the idea of a theocracy. What you see in the world is the act of extremists, not of Muslims. And why would I know less about the Muslim world than you? I have been to Morraco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. The Jews, Christians, and Muslims all live in Syria, Lebanon, Moracco, and Turkey. Saudi Arabia is not a Muslim nation so if you have been using them as an example (which from what you are saying, you are either talking about them or the Taliban) stop it because they are further from ideal than the tyrant of Syria. Don't think you can know more than me about Islam and the Muslim World just because you read a few articles. I have first hand experience and nothing beats that.

Now, what you mention is, de facto, true. The extremists who call themselves relgious governments do do some (not all) of these things. I understand why you hate them. I hate their perversion of Islam more than you. If you want, I'll help point them out and criticise them. Death to Taliban/ House of Saud/ George Bush. I will tell you this: There is no such thing as a true Muslim government in today's world. In practice, Islamic government has shown to be perfect (take a history lesson if you think I'm wrong). But Islamic governments do not exist today so forget all of your examples.

[CyberEd]

dude, being 3rd world has nothing to do with religion !
see most of central and southern africa

Islam does not supress knowlage nor freedom.
I don't know how they are doing in turkey but there are many muslims studying in western countries.
I don't know what goes on abroad but I can assure you that in Israel many of the muslim minority we have here go to uni... and there's a uni in the gaza strip (which is not israely - it's palestinian) there's nothing in the islam saying you shouldn't learn.

mind you the christians forced Galileo to publicly say the sun revolves around the earth... is christianity as "evil" as islam in your eyes ?
besides look at your own signature

The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery

the islam is the machinery the imam's, and moazins are the ones you should blame, don't blame the system, blame the people running it

[Deacon]

[quote="CyberEd";p="400267"]

The Islam of today is responsible for more human suffering than any other religion or philosophy on the planet, than all other religions combined.

hmmm... I'd say the natzi phylosophy brought more suffering to the world... how quickly do we forget the past if it's not our own, eh ?[/quote]
"The Islam of today..."

let me fill you in on something I just figured.
it's not religions that start wars, it's not money nor oil
it's people.
every generation must have it's villain, that man's religion is besides the point

That's actually a very valid point. However, people are driven by *something*. What often happens is that easy scapegoats are used to justify their actions.

[elroy]

You of all people should know correlation isn't the same as causation azurain, so the thing about the number of computers, papers and what not isn't relevant.
The article you linked to speaks of the dar al islam and dar al harb, but there's more to it than just that. explanation
As you can see there's also a third definition, dar al ahd, those that have an agreement or covenant with the muslim nation, and further dar al harb doesn't mean just any nation that isn't muslim, it's gotta be a nation that actively attacks muslims.
As for the article, you got zealots in every religion, and I agree with the thing he said, it's time people got educated about the real islam instead of the hate filled perversion people are seeing now.

[Azurain]

Bjarni, hopefully you've realized that I'm talking about the institution of Islam as it is today. You've realized this right? It seems that you almost agree with me about it, actually, to a degree, when you condemn all the Islamic governments of today. Your claim of the perfection of an Islamic government is, of course, ludicrous, but I readily acknowledge that in the past Islam was a much less terrible thing than it is today.

But today it is responsible for a vast amount of human suffering. If you say it's because it's misused and twisted in profanely on itself, I'm not going to disagree with you. But it's still causing suffering and stagnation in atrocious amounts.

I mean, hell, my mother practices the Islamic form of Sufiism. I've no innate religious discrimination in me that I'm aware of. But the Islamic Faith as a whole is a terrible thing these days. Terrorism isn't even what I'm talking about; I'm talking about the conditions of life for the people living in Islamic states. Terrorism is as much the fault of Western Civilization as it is of Islam (I attribute it about equally to both).

Apologies for implying that I knew more of Islam than you do; I didn't mean it in the context of more general knowledge, but of a more objective and clear analysis of the situation. Not to sound too offensive, but it seems rather obvious to me, at least, that you're strongly biased toward Islam yourself, and so are likely to ignore or excuse many things which I find utterly heinous about the situation in the Islamic world.

Believe it or not (believe it!) the greatest problem I have with the situation is that I can't stand the thought of so many people, with such a great underlying culture and history, living in such ignorance and repression. And it's rather undeniable that they are, and that the Institution That Is Islam (capitalized so you'll realize I'm not, specifically, talking about the original texts in this case) is the major cause.

Oh, and:

"Women are your fields: go then, into your fields as you please." The Cow or "Al-Baqara"; Sura 2:223.

Here is my daughter; she is a virgin; I will give her to you. Possess her, do what you please with her, but do not commit such an infamy against this man. Judges 19:24

Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them" Women or "Al-Nisa"; Sura 4:34.

These are reasonably accurate translations in which the meaning is clear that women are to be treated as inferiors. No amount of word twisting in translation could shift the meaning of these passages to the point where they did not originally refer to women as inferior. I can quote more passages of 'utter garbage' from the Qur'an if you desire. Mind you, I can do the same from the Bible, so that's not just something wrong with Islam, but with Monotheism in general.

-- Chris

Edit: Triple ninjaed, whee! I think my above post addressed most of what elroy said (if not, poke me, elroy). But:

[quote="CyberEd";p="400289"]dude, being 3rd world has nothing to do with religion !
see most of central and southern africa [/quote]
The only region of the world that is very much third world, and not progressing toward becomming significantly more developed and open, and which is the result of a centuries or millenia old civilization, is the Islamic world. Africa, South America, etc... these are places which were almost entirely subsistence level hunter/gatherer/agriculture societies until the last few centuries. Islam has been a pinnacle of knowledge and freedom in the past, and yet it is almost entirely Third World today. I'm disinclined to accept that this happened coincidentally to almost every Islamic nation, but not to the nations of any other still-standing major civilizations, for a reason that is unrelated to Islam.

mind you the christians forced Galileo to publicly say the sun revolves around the earth... is christianity as "evil" as islam in your eyes ?

Christianity no longer so blatantly suppresses knowledge and freedom. It has in the past. Have you been paying attention? Have you read the articles I've linked to? Islam and Christianity as doctrinal entities (ie. the bible vs the qur'an) are equally despicable. If you'd been around the forums more, in fact, you'd have seen me railing against Christianity time and time again. However, the Islam of today is far far more terrible a thing than the Christianity of today. I'm not talking about seven hundred years ago when Islam was a far better thing in the world than Christianity. I'm talking about now. And seriously, the whole 'you can't criticize Islam unless you criticize other religions too!' is so fallacious I don't even know where to begin...

[RubyJ]

Deism isn't just "I believe in God but I'm not part of a religion." It's the belief that God exists but He has no part in shaping the world we live in, having abandoned it long ago. Deists use nature and reason to explain the mysteries of the universe. So pretty much, what science can prove and what we can actually perceive to be real.

Oh, by the way, Other (Deist).

[Bjarni Herjolfsson]

Then say you hate religious extremism, not the institution of Islam. The are not Islamic institutions. They are extremist institutions who use Islam as a claim to acheive their own ends.

CyberEd, your nomanclature is a little off. The moazins say the call to prayer. They don't preach or anything, just the call to prayer. But you have a really good point on the Imam thing. Imam Ghazali (one of the guys from Muhamad's time) gave this long list of things you need to know to interpret the quraan. They included rhetoric and mathmetics and the list is REALLY long. But the problem is people without these skills are interpreting the quraan and getting these really strange interprations.

and then this goes back to the end of Azurain's post. I shouldnt be interpreting the quraan but here I go anyway. You might want to consult a sheikh about everything I say. The first passage Azurain brought up is a subtle way of saying make babies. Arabs are very subtle. The word for blind man also means some one who sees. The second passage may have been made up because the 19th chapter is called Maryam which means Mary in English. As for the third one, it is a bad translation. Contextualized, the word Azurain used for authority is better translated as physical strength. Men do have greater phyiscal strength than women because of human chemestry. I derived this translation from my own Arabic and the Nawawi foundation of Turkey agrees with me and vice versa.

Why did the Islamic world just sorta plummit? Time for a history lesson. in the 18th century, when the Ottoman Empire controled most of the Muslim world, the Sultan supressed knowledge. Some one made a hang glider and flew from the gulalat tower on the European side to the Asian side. He was then exiled to Algeria. This was done out of arrogance of the Ottoman Sultans. They believed they were already superior enough. So they took the Muslim world down with them. This belief they were already superior enough is very inconsistant with Islam. Islam warns about Kabrat al-Nafs (arrogance) and encourages thought and advancement in knowledge as stated in 7:199 and 6:119. So as the Ottomans did nothing, the Europeans became more powerful and then WWI broke out and colonialism reaches its hight. After Europe abandons the colonies, unjust rulers come out and opress the people and keep them ignorant. But this is just as prophecised. In a sound Handith the prophet said "First there will be an Islamic government with the consent of the people (the rightly guided Khaliphate who were elected) then there will be a less Islamic government with the consent of the people (the Khaliphates after them who were not elected until the late Ottomans) then there will be a government who will not be Islamic and do not have consent of the people (the late Ottoman to present day)" so this was going to happen and was unavoidable. So it can be concluded Islam did not bring down the Muslim world but the lack of Islam brought down the Muslim world.

RubyJ, the word you're looking for might be theist.

[Azurain]

Then say you hate religious extremism, not the institution of Islam. The are not Islamic institutions. They are extremist institutions who use Islam as a claim to acheive their own ends.

I do hate religious extremism. But today, the institution of Islam is an institution of religious extremism. So I hate that, too. Understand? I hate rape. If a man is a rapist, I'll hate him, too. I also, as I'm sure you know, hate the Catholic church, as it is another institution of religious extremism that causes significant suffering.

And, once again, even if you somehow manage to separate present day Islam from the original intent of Islam, I'd still hate it, as the original doctrines of Islam involve some pretty immoral, repressive and despicable things themselves.

Really, would you like me to continue quoting from the Qur'an about things like women's inequality (there are passages that imply equal status for women, yes, but there are many more that directly state inequality, and you should know it)? Shall I bring up some statistics from places like Pakistan or Iran or Jordan about the state of women's rights, both legally and societally? Do I really even need to bother? We both know full well that women are not afforded legal or social equality in the majority (entirety, really) of Islamic nations, and in most cases this is in large part based upon the Qur'an. Howabout freedom of speech? Shall I talk about the blasphemy laws which still exist and are enforced in a number of Islamic nations? Shall I point out the passages in the Qur'an that support these laws?

Incidentally, your weak explanation of the 'phsyically superior' passage still doesn't account for the part where it claims that good women are obedient and should be beaten if you fear they will be otherwise, now does it? I'll just keep finding passages, if you want, and you can keep trying to twist words and translations, but eventually it'll become rather improbable that every single translation I find that blatantly refers to the inequality between women and men is somehow mistranslated and, of course, you know a better way to translate it that doesn't quite sound so bad... it's ridiculous. The Qur'an is no better than the Bible when it comes to gender equality, and that's certainly not a good thing.

When a text says that women should be obedient and you should beat them if they're not, it's pretty damned hard to find some subtle interpretation that doesn't mean that women should be obedient and should be beaten if they're not. And it's pretty damned unlikely that that subtle interpretation is more valid than the direct, literal one with such a blatant statement as that.

-- Chris

Oh, and RubyJ is correct in her application of Deist. Deism is the belief in a diety that does not in any way interfere with our lives; generally it's taken to mean the belief in a god that does not interfere in the universe at all, and who is utterly indifferent to us as well.

[Deacon]

Azurain, that's what you get when you try to take ancient writings--regardless of their truth--and try to apply them against the ebb and flow of popular society.

[elroy]

Funny you should say 'it should be pretty damn hard to find a subtle translation' azurain, cause in fact it's not hard at all. Here's more about the 'wife beating'
link
I do realize many men abuse this verse to beat their wife and that's a damn shame. Yet another reason why people should be educated about true islam and not the hateful perversion.

[Deacon]

It sounds like the same person could construct an argument that Allah was actually a donkey in the barn in Bethlehem during the birth of Jesus reincarnated as man. Inserting their own words everywhere is lots of fun

[CyberEd]

Azurain:
1st sorry I don't know what you've posted around before, I'm a newbie *apologetic smile*

2nd let me understand what exactly you condemn here - religion as a whole or islam specifically ?
saying religion causes war and suffering is - I believe - wrong.
I'm not a very faithful man, but I like taking from my religion whatever is good - it's high standarts of moral which are there in all three monotheist religion. any non-fanatic does the same. the problem is, was, and will be that extremists would use any tool given to control masses, religion being one of these tools. you say islam today, but I keep going back to christianity in the past because I see no diference. the case is the same - bad people using a beliefe and a system of rules designed to make the world a better place to achieve their own goals.
I can find quotes from the bible, the new testament that are just as horrible as the ones in the quran

let me ask you this - say the monotheist religions were wiped out tomorrow, no one ever believed in one god only, all the bible books (including Qur'an) go poof and vanish in thin air, do you think something will change in the middle east ? do you REALLY think those in power would say: "hey, we were wrong to opress the people" ?

somehow I think they'll come up with a diferent excuse to opress...

[Bjarni Herjolfsson]

Azurain, you continue to make outrageous comments. Why are you still against Islam in its true form? Where are these other horrible verses? Do not bring anything from modern Islamic governments because they do not exist. They just might be the most unislamic things in the world.

My explanation for the "protecting women" verse is a very strong explenation because in addition to protecting women financialy and from other people, men must protect women from themselves. And I said your second verse is totaly off because Chapter 19 is not called Judges, it is called Mariam (which means Mary). Apperently, you hate Islam because you do not understand it and you only know what FOX news says.

and the "beat them lightly" verse is elaborated more in Al-Nissa. It is limited to poking them with a siwak (a soft stick about the size of a pen and this is according only to Imam Shafii, an accepted interpretation of the Quraan). Daraba means to have something collide with something.

Take note, you are not a scholar. You are not even a Muslim, Azurain. How can you interpret the Quraan. If you want to argue, bring accepted interpretations, not your own. The five most widley accepted interpretors of the Quraan and Sunnah are Shafii, Hanafi, Hambali, and Malki. Use their interpretation, not your own.

Edit: Forgot to mention Ghazali. There are others but they are not widley accepted as these five.

[Deacon]

[quote="Bjarni Herjolfsson";p="400548"]Do not bring anything from modern Islamic governments because they do not exist. They just might be the most unislamic things in the world.[/quote]
You do realize how silly that statement is, right?

Take note, you are not a scholar. You are not even a Muslim, Azurain. How can you interpret the Quraan.

Because he can read? By the way, that last part is a question and should be punctuated as such. There doesn't seem to be a form of punctuation available for indicating excruciating arrogance, however.

If you want to argue, bring accepted interpretations, not your own.

I would argue that your interpretations don't seem to jive with the "accepted interpretation" in the Muslim world today.