But you have time to post. Got it ...
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Does culture and standards of the time affect morality?
- Thread starter ZooGirl02
- Start date
ZooGirl02
Well-Known Member
I started to read it and I read the first section but then my neighbor came over. I don't have time to read it right now but I will read it later, I promise. Please don't be so antagonistic with me.
Given what you read in the first section, how would you answer the question you posed in the OP?
I don't think Muhammad caused any harm to her. People generally married very young then.
More importantly, if all he wanted was some young stuff a man in his position could have had all the young girls he wanted. He could have used and discarded them by the wagon load. He made Aisha a queen.
But what a lot of modern people don't grasp is that Muhammad was a raging feminist. His first wife, much older richer and wiser than he, must have taught him well. In the culture of the day women were chattel.
He practically elevated women from livestock to personhood. Thinking he was a pedophile is just wrong.
Tom
More importantly, if all he wanted was some young stuff a man in his position could have had all the young girls he wanted. He could have used and discarded them by the wagon load. He made Aisha a queen.
But what a lot of modern people don't grasp is that Muhammad was a raging feminist. His first wife, much older richer and wiser than he, must have taught him well. In the culture of the day women were chattel.
He practically elevated women from livestock to personhood. Thinking he was a pedophile is just wrong.
Tom
Sleeppy
Fatalist. Christian. Pacifist.
Yes, and no.. depending on who and what. Marriage should not supercede parenting; parenting needs to be fulfilled by both parents, in those potentially most rewarding circumstances. Sex does not supercede marriage; marriage must be fulfilled before consummation and conception.
ZooGirl02
Well-Known Member
I thought it was interesting for a while but then I got bored with the article.
Nevertheless, I did read the entire thing.As for Normative Ethics and Nazi Germany, well they should have come up with a peaceful way to deal with any perceived problems. The solution should have been acceptable to all members of their society, including the Jewish people. It should not have been harmful to any members of their society.
Does that answer your question?
More than you know. Bye ...
ZooGirl02
Well-Known Member
Umm, okay. What exactly did I do wrong?
I agree with the gist of what you're trying to say, disregarding the specifics of the example you're bringing up as to whether or not they really happened, and with a few clarifications though. First, i think there should be two distinctions. One, judging an action itself, and two, determining the responsibility of an individual, if that's what you wanna call it. Or, what light should they be viewed in, in other words.
Keeping that in mind, i think one can recognize that people obviously do not all agree about what is moral and what is immoral, and that there is not a single body of morality out there. Different cultures hold and held throughout history wildly different ideas in this regard, and there are areas which are generally harder to determine upon than others. People also get affected by the cultures they're brought up in, and have had access to extremely differing levels of knowledge and understanding. It's fair to keep all this in mind while making a judgment, and extending whatever level of understanding suitable to different societies and the circumstances surrounding them.
However, from my perspective, keeping things like the above in mind does not entail tolerating actions themselves, deeming them morally justified despite of finding them immoral, or that a person should be absolved entirely of any responsibility for their actions, if we recognize for there to be any. One can recognize a separate system of morality, but disagree with it. There need not be acknowledgment for supposed equal validity of all systems, as not all of them will necessarily have a similarly reasonable basis in all regards or at all. I can acknowledge that someone's morality or view of morality is different than mine, but i need not recognize it as equally valid, helpful or 'good', in some parts, or in it's entirety. I can view their actions as immoral, despite realizing that in their view it's completely moral. In addition, there are usually commonly accepted basis for morality, and because of that, at least in some regards, the results would ideally be the same from all people's perspective, and not subject to cultural influences or commonly held views towards actions at any given time. But it's not because the world is not ideal.
To clarify, in this case, if we assume Muhammad did marry a young child, a few things follow. One, the act was wrong, from my moral judgment. That doesn't change. I view it as wrong then for the same reasons i view it as wrong for now. The impact of the actions, while allowing for very few possibilities of mitigation, is mostly the same if not entirely the same. The harm done, that is, doesn't vanish or change simply because people at the time were not aware of it, or didn't consider it a harm. The existence of a different system of morality at the time offers no justification or explanation on it's own. If an act is proposed as immoral for a specific set of reasons, then a response to that should be that it is not for reasons x and y, not by simply proposing that people have differing views.
In addition, since the person in this case is viewed as a prophet of truth, then these considerations become almost entirely irrelevant. If someone holds Muhammad as a person with access to divine knowledge, then whatever moral judgment applies to him disregarding the specifics of the time, and more so than people even today, since such knowledge would presumably supersede whatever most would have access to, and since this wasn't something he would have been forced to do in anyway.
For determining whether or not he would have been a pedophile assuming the event did take place, if it's defined as primary attraction to children, or as exclusive attraction to children, then he might not have been despite doing the act. If it's defined as any attraction, then the term obviously applies. Regardless of that, though, the act itself is still the same.
Last edited: