sedonaman, we had asked franki to show from the Quran where it says “Kill any one who changes his religion”. But franki has gone quiet. And you have practically backed out from this challenge of Hadi. It means what franki had said was not true.
What kind of argument is this? It’s a catch 22: It says that a government would have to arrest him in order to arrest him.
That’s why Bibles and churches are kept out of Saudi Arabia … by the government. If the relationship was as nuanced as you say, the government wouldn’t care.
If the “traditional (or liberal) interpretations of Islamic law” existed, then that faction would realize that Islamic terrorists are not only the enemies of the West, but its enemies too, hostes humani generis, “the common enemies of mankind” ; and none of them would have any problem finding him and trying him [or turning him over to the international court like we did to Slobodan Milosevic].
I have asked you many times,
and you have never answered. I guess that means all of what you have said is also not true.
Not at all. It just says that they’d have to be *able *to arrest him. It’s silly to accuse the Saudis or the Egyptians or the Syrians or whoever of not arresting bin Laden when as far as we know he’s far way from any area over which they have control.
Both the word “nuance” and the thing it represents seem to be unfamiliar to you. You interpret a “nuanced relationship” as separation of religion and state. Why on earth would you interpret it that way? That’s not what I’m talking about at all. What I am saying is that the ulama do not simply run all Islamic countries. Saudi Arabia is certainly one place where the relationship is very close, but from what I understand the government is very much the dominant partner and doesn’t simply do what the ulama say. I don’t think the ulama are very happy with the luxurious lifestyle of the Saudi royalty, for instance.
No “if” about it. All you have to do is read. But you make it clear that you aren’t interested in informing yourself–you like your prejudices and are sticking to them no matter what. Well, hopefully some folks reading this thread will be a bit more open-minded.
That’s pretty weird. The U.S. military can’t find bin Laden, but you think the Saudis would have no trouble? It makes no sense. Milosevic was initially arrested by the Yugoslav government and was not in hiding at the time. The countries of Europe did not all collectively arise and scour the mountains for him, as you demand that Islamic countries do for bin Laden!
What does it take to “qualify” as a religion? I find that an odd term to use. “Religion” is a vague but handy term. I don’t see it as something for which one has to “qualify,” just a word that is more obviously useful for some human phenomena than others.
**
You think that labeling terrorists as the common enemies of mankind is weird? I guess we certainly can’t be prejudiced against them either.
While pinning down a precise definition might be difficult or even impossible, an ideology that leads people away from God is certainly disqualified in my mind. I would call such an ideology an “anti-religion”.
Then how do you classify Islam? I find it weird that you dismiss the idea of words so cavalierly.
**franki, please see the correct and full translation of verse 5:34 below:
Your other quoted verses are also similar, misplaced translations.
There are lots of people doing this against God and Jesus in the US, and I haven’t noticed any reports of crucifixions nor expulsions. Solution: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
Meditate on this:
Of course not. What is weird is your belief that every Islamic government on the face of the earth has both the power and the responsibility to arrest a man hiding in the mountains hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the borders of their countries (in most cases), and your completely bogus parallel with Milosevic (since in fact the European countries did not hunt Milosevic down–he was arrested by his own country and then handed over to an international tribunal, and he was not hiding in the mountains with armed followers at the time).
So other non-Christian religions do not, in your opinion, lead people away from God? I welcome this open-mindedness on your part, although I think making an exception for Islam is illogical.
I don’t dismiss “the idea of words.” I’m not even sure what that is. I disagree with your assumption that the word “religion” is an honorific that must be “earned.” Talk to any scholars of religion and they will tell you that religion is very hard to define. Some have even suggested that we should stop using it.
I think you underestimate their power.
I am assuming you read the article and would say that other non-Christian religions are generally neutral on Jesus and/or his roll of as a mediator between man and God the Father. Islam is not.
Then what does, “… just a word that is more obviously useful for some human phenomena than others” supposed to mean?
If we are to respect it, then don’t you think it should earn that respect? The IRS felt otherwise about the Church of Scientology which it battled in court for a long time over whether or not it was a religion, albeit for different reasons. It felt that the classification of “religion” was an “‘honorific’ that must be earned” for the Church to qualify for special tax treatment.
Yes, the most glaring is that, using my anthropology professor’s definition of “culture” as “the sum total of man’s learned behavior,” we can see that undesirable behaviors [Mafia, street gangs, terrorism, etc.] could all qualify as a religions because they are “cultural systems.” When I was in the military, I noticed it had its own unique “culture”; at work, we even referred to our office as having a “culture”; politics has its unique culture; but I can assure you these are not religions.
Well, you can think anything you like. So far your main argument was drawn from the Milosevic case, and I have shown that this is a false analogy. The European countries did not do what you claim they did. By your own argument, they didn’t really want to arrest Milosevic, because they waited until the government of his own country handed im over!
Well no, I didn’t, because I thought that what you meant was fairly clear. Having read it (or to be precise skimmed it), I still think that I understood what you were saying adequately. The article sees Islam as a “false prophecy” originated by Satan in *response *to Christianity. And I can see why you would regard that as different from many other religions. The problem is that this position assumes that Islam is to be contrasted solely with Christianity. That is illogical. For polytheists, Islam arguably leads people *toward *God. It all depends on where you start. That’s why evaluating a religion based on where it “leads” is not a reasonable approach. (Please don’t say that this is “relativism.” It’s nothing of the kind. My point is precisely that basing your evaluation on where a religion “leads” is a relative approach from the start, and sidesteps the much more important question of truth.)
Actually I couldn’t see that the article said anything like this. At any rate it isn’t true. Non-Christian religions are not “generally neutral” about the Christian claims concerning Jesus. You can make your case only by heretically modifying the Christian claim in the first place. Christians do not claim that Jesus is simply “a” mediator between humans and God (something that Hindus could accept, though Jews certainly would not). Christians claim that Jesus is *the *mediator. And no adherent of a non-Christian religion I can think of is neutral about that claim. Not to put your faith in Christ *is *to take a stance of rejection toward the claim that Jesus is the mediator between humans and God. Similarly, even though I’m not as hostile to Muhammad as many Christians on this forum are, by virtue of the fact that I am not a Muslim I necessarily reject the claim that he is the final and authoritative messenger of God.
It means that this particular word is not an honorific, as I keep saying. Furthermore, like all words, it can be used in a lot of ways and there is no absolute “right” or “wrong” way to use it. There are more and less useful ones given the history and common usage of a word.
Certainly. Or to be more precise, I think that anything in which human beings deeply invest themselves comes with a certain a priori claim to our respect given our call to respect all human beings as created in God’s image, but many human phenomena (“religious” and otherwise) clearly forfeit their claim to our respect, partially or in some cases pretty near entirely (Nazism, for instance, or your own example of Scientology). You’re setting up a straw man here. The issue between you and me is not whether we should “respect Islam.” I don’t see that as a very meaningful concept given how big and diverse Islam is. I respect Muslims because they are made in God’s image, and I respect some aspects of Islam because they seem to me to be good and true. Other aspects are clearly not worthy of my respect. Others I may not understand well enough to decide one way or the other.
I find your confidence in the religious authority of the IRS to be astounding, and frankly rather disturbing
The IRS was judging whether the Church of Scientology was a non-profit organization or not. That’s irrelevant to the question at issue here.As far as I can recall Geertz never said that all cultural systems were religions. But I agree: he doesn’t seem to me to have a good way of distinguishing between cultural systems that are “religions” and those that aren’t. We probably need some non-Geertzian ideas to do that. But I still think Geertz’ definition is a good starting point.
Well yes. We already have perfectly good ways of saying that a belief system is moral and admirable and so on. Why use a word that already does way too much work for such a purpose? C. S. Lewis complained about the way so many words seem to tend eventually toward meaning either “good” or bad." He pointed to “Christian” and “gentleman” in particular. But your use of “religion” is another obvious example. And I agree with Lewis that it’s a bad habit. It makes our use of language less precise. And God knows we don’t need that in our culture!
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