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bobzills
Guest
This is not fair, because out of 1.8 billion Muslims, what is the number doing this? Would it be fair to compare the abortion rates between the two groups?
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andzy
Guest
Bobzills,
Just because European/US Catholics don’t have large families, doesn’t mean they love their children less than Muslims (or so called “third world” countries’ Catholics). The main reason for small families is that European Catholics are very secularized, materialized and have fully accepted the worldly culture - for most large families is “irresponsible” and takes away from their comfort and convenient lifestyle. In general, they are also more carrier-oriented than Muslims.
Muslims, on the other hand, are not as wealthy (remember, poorer Catholic countries also have large families) and not so well integrated in the European culture (it’s quite a big “issue” in Europe these days). As a result, they hold on to their traditional values of having larger families, and are not so well educated and/or accustomed to birth control.
Also (and this is my assumption only, as I’ve known Muslims, but not what their family life is like), it is quite possible that the husband in a Muslim family has more say than a husband in a Western family, and thus the wife has less say in the number of children.
P.S. I think Muslim polygamy is irrelevant here, as most European Muslims practice monogamy, and even then polygamy in no way indicates the degree of love towards children (it says something about love towards wife/s, but it is something very different).
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andzy
Guest
I believe we should not take extreme cases here and present them as a norm. This only increases the prejudice and hate towards Muslims, which in turn increases their reaction and extremism.
As one poster noted earlier, I could take separate incidents and present all Catholic priests as pedophiles, or all Protestant clergy as greedy and adulterous bunch, or the Western society as alcoholics and child abusers.
So, please, let us not fuel each other’s extremism, hate and bigotry.
P.S. I’m sure Irish Catholics (for example) were pretty good in teaching their children how to hate their enemy the British (except that they didn’t have quite the same situation and methods). The same can be said about so-called WASP parents teaching their children how to hate blacks or Catholics.
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bobzills
Guest
In other words, European Catholics place their comfort and convenient lifestyle ahead of their love for children in contrast to Muslims who place children first and their comfort and convenient lifestyle second. This more or less would indicate that Muslims do love having children more than European Catholics, would it not?
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jrnami
Guest
Muslims have a lot a children, that doesn’t mean they love them more.
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bobzills
Guest
However, would it be reasonable to assume that it does mean that Muslims value children more than they value their own comfort and convenience.
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bobzills
Guest
I thought that artificial birth control was strictly forbidden to Catholics under pain of mortal sin?
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jrnami
Guest
Muslims are sexist and women have few rights in Muslim countries and are treated as sex objects and brood mares.
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bobzills
Guest
Someone else had brought up the question of polygamy and I was only responding to that question.
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bobzills
Guest
It seems like Muslim women love and cherish their vocation as mothers and are willing to sacrifice their convenience and comfort so that they can have large families.
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mgrfin
Guest
I never said you wern’t pro-family. Europeans and others may prefer smaller families, if that is true, but it is not because they don’t love children (less than Muslims), which you said in one of your other posts.
I’ll be interested to watch what side of the street you are on in various other topics as posted.
No personal argument intented.
peace
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jrnami
Guest
I think that a load of horse solid waste products. I think Muslim women are oppressed
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Kaninchen
Guest
A good source for such discussions is the CIA fact book – in this case the ‘fertility rate’, the number of children born to women during the course of their lives.
cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
The rates for these countries with majority Muslim populations may be of interest:
Albania – 2.09
Turkey – 1.89
Islamic Republic of Iran – 1.71
cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
The rates for these countries with majority Muslim populations may be of interest:
Albania – 2.09
Turkey – 1.89
Islamic Republic of Iran – 1.71
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andzy
Guest
No, because: a) the size of the family does not indicate the degree of love towards children; b) you cannot say that a European Catholic loves his one child less than a Muslim loves his five children, just because 5 > 1; c) just because Muslims don’t have as comfortable life, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want it and wouldn’t act the same way if they had such opportunities.
No, because one does not lead to the other (there could be many other causes).
Yes, but as I said, most Western Catholics are “very secularized, materialized and have fully accepted the worldly culture”.
No, not necessarily. There could be several other reasons for larger families (as discussed in this thread numerous times).
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andzy
Guest
And all Catholics are Mary worshiping idolaters? And all Americans are fat and stupid, and don’t care about anybody else but themselves?
Too much generalization and prejudice will do no good to anyone. Yes, in general, women are more oppressed in Muslim countries than in Western countries, but not all Muslim countries are equal, and even in the West women couldn’t vote less than 100 years ago.
Besides, I don’t see how women are not treated as sex objects in the West; I’d even say that it’s quite the opposite (of course, it’s a different topic altogether).
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bobzills
Guest
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bobzills
Guest
That is one possibility. But the other possibility is that Catholics see too many children as a burden and as inconvenient, whereas Islam teaches Muslim women something different - that large families are more pleasing to Allah.
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Montalban
Guest
Most Moslem women have little choice but to have families.
Muhammed said that women should give in to a man’s desires or they will be cursed.
You seem to think this is liberation
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Kaninchen
Guest
Though not, apparently, in major Islamic countries like Turkey and Iran.
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andzy
Guest
It’s possible, but even then this possibility says nothing about love towards children (rather about a religious duty).
I’m not saying it couldn’t be true, that Muslims love their children more than than the Westerners, however I haven’t come upon any tangible evidence that would indicate it. Having met a lot of Westerners and some Muslims, I wouldn’t say that one group loves their children more than the other.
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