The claim that Islamic society is more moral than Western society

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Lady_Bug

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Hi,

No matter how friendly I try to be in this thread, this thread may go south but I have a burning question about something that I can’t get off my mind.

If you are a Christian living in the Western world and you are encountered with claims that Western society is morally inferior to the Islamic societies, how would you react - or rather, what would you say?

Such claims can be that in Muslim societies,
  • People aren’t going around having sex before marriage like Westerners do
  • Adultery isn’t so rampant like it is in the West
  • People aren’t getting drunk (Ok haven’t heard that one - but this one I can imagine being said)
  • Marriages are more stable and the likelihood of divorce is a lot less and pointing to the fact that the divorce rate in the U.S. is so high
  • Western civilization is more decadent than the Muslim world and has a lower standard of morality
  • Women are better protected
I really hope we don’t attack individuals here but I really would like (name removed by moderator)ut on this if possible.
 
Western society is not inherently Christian, in fact it’s inherently secular. Our society allows the things you mentioned precisely because Christianity doesn’t have a stronghold on government. In other words, one cannot accurately describe “Christian morality” based on the morality of the greater western culture.

Also, I cannot fathom how Islamic society (as in Islamic theocracy) can in any way be considered more moral when the main thing deterring its citizens from committing such immoral behavior are the very immoral punishments doled out by said society.

ETA: Another thing: Who is the truly moral person in this scenario:
  • An Iranian man who doesn’t commit adultery because he fears the legal consequences
or
  • An American man who doesn’t commit adultery because he knows it to be inherently wrong?
 
Lady_Bug said:
Hi,

No matter how friendly I try to be in this thread, this thread may go south but I have a burning question about something that I can’t get off my mind.

If you are a Christian living in the Western world and you are encountered with claims that Western society is morally inferior to the Islamic societies, how would you react - or rather, what would you say?

Such claims can be that in Muslim societies,
  • People aren’t going around having sex before marriage like Westerners do
  • Adultery isn’t so rampant like it is in the West
  • People aren’t getting drunk (Ok haven’t heard that one - but this one I can imagine being said)
  • Marriages are more stable and the likelihood of divorce is a lot less and pointing to the fact that the divorce rate in the U.S. is so high
  • Western civilization is more decadent than the Muslim world and has a lower standard of morality
  • Women are better protected
I really hope we don’t attack individuals here but I really would like (name removed by moderator)ut on this if possible.
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Don’t be confused. It is because they use the Quran as the basis of judgement. No one has better understanding of Quran than the Muslim. No wonder.
 
Divorce:
Divorce rate KSA
arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=116776&d=28&m=11&y=2008
The divorce rate has increased in the Kingdom, reaching 60 percent in 2007, prompting the need for an institutional system to safeguard women’s rights in divorce.
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Divorce rate USA:
The divorce rate in 2005 (per 1,000 people) was 3.6 – the lowest rate since 1970, and down from 4.2 in 2000 and from 4.7 in 1990. (The peak was at 5.3 in 1981, according to the Associated Press.)
divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml
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Sounds like one is much more likely to be divorced under Islam.

My experience from living in KSA for nigh on 20 years is that quite a number of Saudis like to get drunk. Black market booze is freely available. So is hashish and opium. The punishment if they get caught with it is severe, but it doesn’t stop them.

Sex before marriage - well, since the girls are married off at an early age to prevent just that it is no wonder they don’t have as much. There is usually no mention of young men experimenting with each other because there are no women available. This will never be admitted to, but it has a high occurance. They aren’t really homosexual, but this does constitute sex before marriage.

Other crime: Yeah, it is probably safer to walk down an alley in Al Khobar than in Chicago, even for a woman on her own. I did it many times as a teenager (walk down an alley in Al Khobar that is). However, I was far more likely to be groped in the street by passing males. I really had to keep my eyes open and be on guard against it. Even then, I don’t think I ever had a trip on my own to Al Khobar without getting groped at least once. Then, you have to consider the fact that girls/women are very reluctant to report being raped. In KSA, this usually results in, at least, flogging and imprisonment.

Reported crime rates do not acurately reflect what is happening. Position within society affords protection from prosecution or even arrest. The royal family for instance, and the rich can get away with murder, literally, while the poor man will face the full force of the law. While a pickpocket will lose a hand, a rich person just bribes the appropriate person and continues dealing in blackmarket whiskey, hashish and opium.
INCIDENCE OF CRIME
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The crime rate in Saudi Arabia is very low compared to more industrialized countries. An analysis was done using INTERPOL data for Saudi Arabia. For purpose of comparison, data were drawn for the seven offenses used to compute the United States FBI’s index of crime. Index offenses include murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. The combined total of these offenses constitutes the Index used for trend calculation purposes. Saudi Arabia will be compared with Japan (country with a low crime rate) and USA (country with a high crime rate). According to the INTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2000 was 0.71 per 100,000 population for Saudi Arabia, 1.10 for Japan, and 5.51 for USA. For rape, the rate in 2000 was 0.14 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 1.78 for Japan and 32.05 for USA. For robbery, the rate in 2000 was 0.14 for Saudi Arabia, 4.08 for Japan, and 144.92 for USA. For aggravated assault, the rate in 2000 was 0.12 for Saudi Arabia, 23.78 for Japan, and 323.62 for USA. For burglary, the rate in 2000 was 0.05 for Saudi Arabia, 233.60 for Japan, and 728.42 for USA. The rate of larceny for 2000 was 79.71 for Saudi Arabia, 1401.26 for Japan, and 2475.27 for USA. The rate for motor vehicle theft in 2000 was 76.25 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 44.28 for Japan and 414.17 for USA. The rate for all index offenses combined was 157.12 for Saudi Arabia, compared with 1709.88 for Japan and 4123.97 for USA.
www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/asia_pacific/saudi_arabia.html
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I don’t believe that women are more protected. They do not usually experience violence from strangers. It comes from within the family and is mostly unreported.
There are many forms of abuse in divorce, from withholding alimony, child support or denying visitation rights to physical or sexual assault, kidnapping the children in the wife’s custody, and, in some cases, murdering them.
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“We get women who come to us and ask that we protect them from their ex-husbands,” said Moody Al-Zahrani, supervisor of the Social Protection Department of the Ministry of Social Affairs. “Divorced women are often exposed to physical violence and need protection.”
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Many women who choose to divorce their husbands do so in hopes of ending an abusive relationship, but few find the support they need to successfully do this. “Society’s view of the divorced woman is more difficult for some than the actual violence. Some will put up with it for 15 or 20 years,” Al-Zahrani said. “What also stops her is that she can’t support herself, financially or emotionally, and she isn’t personally able to leave her husband.”
Click to expand...
arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=116776&d=28&m=11&y=2008
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“Presently, there are no statistics about the number of cases of family abuse, because of an absence of proper documentation and because most victims, such as wives and daughters, are too afraid to report abuse. But now they have a place to go for help,” he said.
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He added that women and girls who are abused by relatives keep it secret and do not ask for help openly. He said that in such cases, doctors are trained to identify cases of abuse and read body language.
arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=113894&d=6&m=9&y=2008
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arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=111265&d=26&m=6&y=2008

arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=110489&d=2&m=6&y=2008
 
Everything the OP mentioned happens in the Muslim countries, the only difference is that it is under the table. Girls fleeing homes, homosexuality, divorce, drunkness, prostitution, temporary marriages, sex before marriage ecc.
 
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Salaam/peace
xixxvmcm85 said:
… Who is the truly moral person…
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A person who is not doing anything wrong because s/he fears God is better than who is not doing a wrong thing just because s/he is not getting a chance. But there is another question .

God ordered us to encourage people to do good & forbid people from doing evil . If you are good but u don’t try to stop your bro/sis from adultery , that makes u a sinner. In the past God punished a whole city though there were some good people. Their fault was they did not do anything to prevent people from doing immoral acts.

That’s the difference between a Muslim majority country & the western culture . We don’t have gay marriages , gay Imams , no Muslim couple will announce here that they have love child etc.
 
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Salaam/peace
inJESUS said:
…the only difference is that it is under the table. .
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Thanks God , Muslims still have some guilty conscious ; they still have some shame. So , they try to hide their immoral acts. When they drink , they try to find some excuses. Is not it better rather than becoming totally shameless & have no guilt in mind that we are doing wrong ?
 
xixxvmcm85 said:
Western society is not inherently Christian, in fact it’s inherently secular. Our society allows the things you mentioned precisely because Christianity doesn’t have a stronghold on government. In other words, one cannot accurately describe “Christian morality” based on the morality of the greater western culture.
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Hi

My opinion is that after being disgusted and after suffering bitterness from the Catholic Protestant religious hierarchy, the West slowly became secular.

Now there exists no Christian society, to me, in the Weststrictly speaking. Even the religious West have conveniently opted to put a label of the Christian society on the Western Secular Society and be happy.

This is my opinion; others are free to have their own opinions with reasons.

Thanks
 
Muslim_Woman said:
That’s the difference between a Muslim majority country & the western culture . We don’t have gay marriages , gay Imams , no Muslim couple will announce here that they have love child etc.
Click to expand...
I can tell you there are homosexual, transexual, and lesbian Muslims whether they are imams or laities. There are lots of divorces among Muslim couples in Eastern Muslim countries, in fact higher than those of other ethnic groups. There are perfectly many love-childs - most of which are swept under the carpet. Nearly everyday you’d see news report of infants being dumped in in garbage areas and they are by Muslim single mothers.

So what does that tells you about morality and the quality of your marraiges and families? Let be practical - Muslims have their own garbages and they are not altogether pleasant. There is no utopian Muslim society. Those perfect sharia you mentioned is just that - a myth.
 
Muslim_Woman said:
http://theislampath.com/smf/Smileys/default/salam.gif

Salaam/peace

Thanks God , Muslims still have some guilty conscious ; they still have some shame. So , they try to hide their immoral acts. When they drink , they try to find some excuses. Is not it better rather than becoming totally shameless & have no guilt in mind that we are doing wrong ?
Click to expand...
The threat of beating, death, humiliation, and all the other possible outcomes is not the same as shame.

If you do not do bad because you fear man and not God, you worship man.
 
Muslim_Woman said:
That’s the difference between a Muslim majority country & the western culture . We don’t have gay marriages , gay Imams , no Muslim couple will announce here that they have love child etc.
Click to expand...
You are always too quick to pass judgment without looking over your shoulder. There are Gay Imams, and Muslims who produce ‘love childs’. Just a couple of years ago, our secular government suggested the Islamic religious council in Singapore educate young Muslim men and women from having unprotected sex. This is because teenage pregnancy amongst Malay-Muslim girls were on the rise and many were left to bring up their children alone. Of course, its better to refrain from having unprotected sex than to rely on condoms - which only escalates the problem.
 
Muslim_Woman said:
That’s the difference between a Muslim majority country & the western culture . We don’t have gay marriages , gay Imams , no Muslim couple will announce here that they have love child etc.
Click to expand...
Of course there are gay Imams; there are gay Muslim men and gay Muslim women! It’s just that if theyr eveal those feelings in backward Islamic countries, they will likely be at the receiving end of an “honor” killing.

Homosexuality is just a worse stigma in Islmic nations than in Western nations. But even in America, there is such a greater stigma in black and Hispanic communities than white communities. It’s called the “down low,” and that is common in Muslim countries.
 
thanks guys for your responses so far.

I don’t want this to turn into a thread about attacking individuals - at the same time I felt I really needed to ask this question because I feel that I could be faced with this claim in my own life. It’s likely that I won’t be, but I would just like to be prepared.
 
Lady_Bug said:
thanks guys for your responses so far.

I don’t want this to turn into a thread about attacking individuals - at the same time I felt I really needed to ask this question because I feel that I could be faced with this claim in my own life. It’s likely that I won’t be, but I would just like to be prepared.
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This discussion is a good idea.

One issue, as has been mention by others, is the inability to see that Western Society is not by default CHristian Society. Our governments are not controlled by religious laws or religious groups and we have long since outgrown the concept of the divine right of kings.
 
**Such claims can be that in Muslim societies,
  • People aren’t going around having sex before marriage like Westerners do
  • Adultery isn’t so rampant like it is in the West
  • People aren’t getting drunk (Ok haven’t heard that one - but this one I can imagine being said)
  • Marriages are more stable and the likelihood of divorce is a lot less and pointing to the fact that the divorce rate in the U.S. is so high
  • Western civilization is more decadent than the Muslim world and has a lower standard of morality
  • Women are better protected**
**I’m sure that that poor 13 year old Mahometan girl who was raped, and then stoned as an adulteress because she didn’t have 4 male witnesses, would have different opinions on the Mahometan ideas on sex before marriage and how Mahometanism protects women.

Isa akbar!

Isa akbar!

ISA AKBAR!

I bear witness there is NO GOD but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and Jesus is God Incarnate risen from the dead.**
 
Muslim_Woman said:
http://theislampath.com/smf/Smileys/default/salam.gif

Salaam/peace

Thanks God , Muslims still have some guilty conscious ; they still have some shame. So , they try to hide their immoral acts. When they drink , they try to find some excuses. Is not it better rather than becoming totally shameless & have no guilt in mind that we are doing wrong ?
Click to expand...
both are equally bad, being hypocrite or rude. Besides, it depends on the strictness of the country. Many Saudis leave their country and are worse than “Westeners” when they travel abroad. I can say, with full conscience, i have never ever seen a “Westener” wear what Muslims from SA or the gulf wear when they come here. Just yesterday, i was in a mall full of Saudi tourists because of the Eid, and if i were to judge Saudis by the men we see here, i’d say most of the Saudis are gays. When it comes to Saudi women, i saw everything that opposes “lowering their gaze” because they stare shamelessly at men, if not women, and when it comes to drinking, any pub employee , be it Muslim or none, will tell you how much much these people drink and what they do afterwards…but when they return to their country, they become different people because they fear men, not Allah.
 
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