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Old 06-16-2010, 10:14 AM   #36 (permalink)
Willravel
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
Will.... please read the Haditha for which the Imams quote in such instances.
I've read some, but it's not always easy to tell which ones are popular at the moment. I read the Qur'an from cover to cover twice, though. I don't think it makes sense to get into a debate about what does or doesn't constitute a legitimate lesson from which Hadith, though. Plenty of Christians dismiss some of the more overt human rights violations in the Bible (in fact, in a competition of most rules that involve stoning, Christianity wins hands down). What's important isn't what parts of their religion religious moderates ignore, what's important is what the words of their religious texts actually say.

I'll give you an example: Surah 24:2 states very clearly the punishment for adultery is 100 lashes. It's not as bad as stoning, I suppose, but it's not exactly something we'd consider just in the western, industrialized countries. The young woman in Somalia that was raped and then charged with adultery by an Islamic court found herself in a very sticky situation despite being a victim. Regardless of how modern you might be, or how westernized your particular sense of justice, those words aren't going to change. The penalty for adultery, according to the Muslim holy book, is 100 lashes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
You'll quickly find that it was ancient cultures which adapted the relatively modern religions... not the other way around. In the same way that, while Jesus said absolutely nothing about homosexuality, homophobia had spread itself deeply into Christianity.
That's because it's in the Bible multiple times. Homosexuality is condemned in Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy, and Jude 1. While you're certainly right that the Jesus of the current Bible didn't have anything to say on the matter, the Bible itself certainly seems to have an opinion. When homophobes go looking for scriptural justifications for their irrational hatred for gay people, they can certainly find them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
You MUST separate the scripture and the implementation of the religion if you are going to attack the religion. Otherwise, you're falling into the same logical fallacy as Glen Beck (Germany had socialized medicine, Obama wants socialized medicine... Obama = Nazi!).
Whoa, whoa, this isn't an attack. I'm trying to keep this factual. Factually, the Torah, Bible, and Qur'an include rules which featured incredibly harsh punishment for seemingly victimless or small offenses. Because one cannot amend or modernize these laws (you'd get in a bit of trouble for amending holy texts), one would either have to implement all of these frightening laws or would have to be trusted to pick and choose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
In addition, I don't believe you understand how the Muslim world faiths are built. The Qur'an is a very, very, short book. It has a couple of laws and teachings, but one can pull very little from it. These are the words of God in their faith. Where the Imams get their bat shit crazy stuff from are almost always from relatively innocent statements in the Haditha.
I managed to pull an extreme punishment for adultery out of the Qur'an with a 3 second google search. I think that particular text has a lot more law than you suppose. If you'd like I can find some "bat shit crazy" stuff from the Qur'an, though I think it would be a waste of time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
Haditha is a collection of teachings from Muhammad, recited some 60 years post-facto from people who were there, and cross referenced to be relatively accurate. In the Haditha innocuous statements get severely misinterpreted and changed into something different.... to continue old traditions. Just like how in Lebanon/Egypt the veil is a simple had scarf, and in Persia and many of the 'stans the veil is a full separation.... these traditions existed long before and the interpretation shifted with the cultures it crossed.

You're completely incorrect when you point out "the scriptures don't change".. because they do.
The Abrahamic texts, Torah, Bible, Qur'an, are no longer changing. While, as I've said repeatedly in this thread, Hadith fall in and out of popularity, the Qur'an remains.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
Your mother should read older interpretations of the Bible. In the High Middle Ages, they actually understood the bible's complexity much more than we do today. They understood then that the Bible is not the word of God, as they had various Bibles which said different things. They also cared enough to research the historical allegories, to understand the meanings within different statements. Us reading the Bible today is like a Chinese man who's just learning English reading a statement of "one in hand and one in the bush". We understand the phrase, broken as it is, but there is no way that man would possibly understand it without the proper education on the phrase.
IThis seems to be getting off topic. Leave us say that once inerrancy goes out the window, so also goes the religion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seaver View Post
For example, if they pull out the Sodom and Gommorah tale about homosexuality... "...let them out so that we may know them..." It gets interpreted modernly that everyone in the city was gay so god smote it. In reality it was breaking the sacred duties of a host against his guest... a guest should never be gang-raped while the host can prevent it (especially angels I guess). If fundy's dont believe it... then simply ask them why would he offer up his own daughter to be gang-raped? The duty of the host/guest was more important than preventing the rape of your own daughters... something which could never be properly understood today. It said nothing about homosexuality, it was rape.

Another example off the top of my head which is always misinterpreted modernly is why Sloth is a deadly sin and the phrase "idle hands do the devil's work". The definition of sloth has changed over the centuries, most notably in the 1800s with our own knowledge of depression. Sloth isn't a deadly sin because everyone needs to pull their own weight to survive... but because of a misunderstanding of depression. Depression makes it hard to get out of bed, it saps energy and causes you to not care about work... and causes one to do the only unforgivable sin (suicide). So naturally they determined the actions they saw prior to the suicide made the suicide occur. Sloth as a sin is only misinterpreted in the modern interpretations, just as the previous one. So if you wish to give your mother ammunition against fundys, she'll have to go back to older (and more knowledgeable interpretations).
A lot of people disagree with your interpretation of religious law and you're using this as a defense of religious law? You sure you want to go down that line of thinking?
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