11 year old girl facing death penalty for "blasphemy"

[Looncall]

Perhaps start by not making unsubstantiated and agenda driven claims.

What unsubstantiated claims? Isn't Mohammed supposed to be the final prophet? Isn't the quran supposed to be for all people and all times?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If secular philosophies came to overshadow religious philosophies you would see just as much "potential for abuse" as you do now. Utilitarianism, Nihilism,... I could easily twist those philosophies to justify something atrocious.

Sure but those philosophies don't have the history and power that religion do.

indeed!!!

Indeed?

Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Pot, the Red Terror, the Third Reich, North Korea, ...

 

[JohnLeo]

that wasn't cool.

Sadly, the truth is often, "uncool."

 

[Debater Slayer]

Indeed?

Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Pot, the Red Terror, the Third Reich, North Korea, ...

And oil, of course. Can't forget about the trillion-dollar war in Iraq. (And then there's the war in Afghanistan as well...)

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

What unsubstantiated claims?

Yes, indeed, but how can one deal with a religion that claims to be the last word on everything?

Isn't Mohammed supposed to be the final prophet? Isn't the quran supposed to be for all people and all times?

To Muslims, certainly, but that does not prevent ...

• The Quran from being misinterpreted and distorted, nor
• Islam from embracing science and philosophy.

Your comment was not simply sloppy, it was intentionally derrogatory and fundamentally ignorant. If you were not so fixated on denigrating Islam you might have done better.

 

[waitasec]

Sadly, the truth is often, "uncool."

i am of the opinion that the individual is to be held accountable for their actions, not the larger group of people they belong to.

extreme environmentalists do not speak for all environmentalists, do they?

and nazis were nationalists, an extreme philosophy through and though

to me, there is no comparison....as there is evidence that islam is not the same everywhere...there are millions of muslims that live in this country that are not extreme by any means

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

i am of the opinion that the individual is to be held accountable for their actions, not the larger group of people they belong to.

extreme environmentalists do not speak for all environmentalists, do they?

and nazis were nationalists, an extreme philosophy through and though

to me, there is no comparison....as there is evidence that islam is not the same everywhere...there are millions of muslims that live in this country that are not extreme by any means

Very well said!

 

[waitasec]

If you were not so fixated on denigrating Islam you might have done better.

i intend to fixate on the power of the idea of religion. if a religion claims for it's adherents (or an extreme ideology) that it is the last word of GOD, and i emphasize GOD to point the weight of such a conviction, then there is no telling what certain individuals will do with that understanding.

edit:
this is applied to christianity as well.


i guess what i am trying to communicate is that religion or any form of extremism is at the mercy of the individual

with regards to

Stalinism, Maoism, Pol Pot, the Red Terror, the Third Reich, North Korea, ...

my question to you, with the exception of north korea
is there a significant amount of adherents to these respective ideologies that can pose a threat to a large number of people today?
as we have been able to learn from history that these ideologies do not work

maybe that is why i question the power of religion, the amount of individual adherents and the power of numbers...as there are more religious people then there are of any other kind of people...maybe i am wrong

but do you know what i mean?

 

[Father Heathen]

Sadly, the truth is often, "uncool."

Comparing Islam to Nazism is a bit of a stretch.

 

[Father Heathen]

And oil, of course. Can't forget about the trillion-dollar war in Iraq. (And then there's the war in Afghanistan as well...)

So which ideology would that be?

 

[Debater Slayer]

So which ideology would that be?

Greed, lust for power, and desire for dominion over others.

I think some ideologies just combine those things in one set and rename them, but the underlying motives remain the same in either case (i.e. with or without any ideological labels).

 

[Alceste]

Exactly. I don't understand why people are so adamant about brushing these details under the rug.

Personally, I think it's the latter. Islamic extremists are not doing anything Christian fundamentalists would not be doing with the authority of the state supporting them. This is what makes the dominionist movement which has taken over the right wing of American politics so disturbing, not to mention the close ties between settlers in the West Bank and the Israeli army and government. And Putin's chummy relationship with the Orthodox Church.

Without the option of state-sanctioned violence to avenge affronts to the religious sensibilities of Islamic fanatics, this would have simply been a case of a disabled girls neighbors being outraged and offended for a few minutes, then getting on with their lives, just as the fundamentalists do in the West.

 

[waitasec]

for some reason i can't get to the last page of this thread

maybe this post will get there...


edit:
whew
it worked....that was weird.

 

[paarsurrey]

Girl, 11, Could Face Death in Pakistan for 'Blasphemy' - Yahoo! News

What aspect of a culture would bring it to the point of demanding the death of a child?

It is a cruel thing and sheer injustice done in the name of religion and must be condemned by everybody; there is no such penalty mentioned in Quran- the first and the foremost source of Islam, whatever the denomination.

 

[Father Heathen]

Greed, lust for power, and desire for dominion over others.

So human nature is an ideology? A desire for wealth, power and influence lies beneath all religious and political ideologies. In the end, people want to control what they can, and destroy what they can't.

 

[waitasec]

So human nature is an ideology?

interesting point!!!


and i mean that in a good way

 

[Debater Slayer]

So human nature is an ideology?

I'd say it's the other way around — a lot of ideologies share common traits due to human nature, but they carry different names and labels.

Unfortunately, some people blindly follow certain ideologies and not stop to think about them at all. I think this is when it becomes a problem and possibly leads to violence.

 

[Alceste]

Except these "same type of brainless animals" exist outside religion too.

China's cultural revolution springs to mind.

 

[Alceste]

Okay, so Islam in and of itself isn't to blame, and such actions don't reflect all muslims, nor is such actions exclusive to muslims. However, such actions do seem to be far more common in Muslim cultures and societies. Can we at least be honest about that?

I agree with you, but it also happens that governments in countries with an Islamic majority tend not to subscribe to the ideal of separation of church and state, so the option if using state violence to avenge religious affront is available to them. Wherever it's available, it's bound to be used.

 

[waitasec]

I'd say it's the other way around — a lot of ideologies share common traits due to human nature, but they carry different names and labels.

Unfortunately, some people blindly follow certain ideologies and not stop to think about them at all. I think this is when it becomes a problem and possibly leads to violence.

or some people blindly follow certain traits and not stop to think about them at all as well

of course people have the capacity to do what they will
and if an individual relies on excuses for any of their actions, then they are willing to disown their culpability