Storm said:
I didn't mean sexual relations, but social. Like the man at the community center who couldn't shake my hand.
Sexual relations don't come except through the social ones!!
It's just that my Western, former neopagan instinct is to celebrate that astonishing Creation with everyone. Like displaying a work of art. I'm not saying my instinct is better or worse, just different. Your explanations are helping me to understand, but I'm not quite there yet.
Yes, and as I said modesty is a work of art as well, except it's a non physical moral value. We appreciate the moral and spiritual values over the physical.
Well... I'm trying to understand the mindset. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I still don't get why it's necessary to cling to 7th century dress codes. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Modesty was never limited to the 7th century. Different peoples appreciated modesty before the 7th century and until know, many do. So, nothing was changed regarding modesty to many people. In addition, in pre-Islamic Arabia, people didn't really appreciate the modest dress, people used to rotate around the Ka'ba nude! Islam came and called for modesty as a virtue that rule our behaviors including what we wear.
Well, to a typical American, it seems that women are treated as inferior and the segregation is just an expression of that.
But "segregation" (I call it regulation) apply on both women
and men. So I think "sexist" has no place in this issue.
In the post you quoted, I also said:
Tradition is one thing, resisting advancement another. 600 years ago we didn't have cars, but you don't reject those. Morally, slavery was perfectly acceptable, but you don't defend that in modern times. Muhammad married Aisha at the age of 9 (no, I don't think he was a pedophile, don't worry), today that's criminal and disgusting.
You did explain why modesty is important, but not why it's more important that other issues.
(For the sake of accuracy, the part I quoted was from your post #6 and the part you quoted from your post #8 which I didn't read then )
I don't know what you mean by "more important", Islam has its stance on many issues in the various life aspects. But, it's worthy to say regulating the relations between humans generally and the two sexes is very important.
As for something like age of consent for marriage, what changed about it? Morally, I believe it can start from puberty. But Muslims can set a legal age for marriage according to their social and economic circumstances and their best interest.
As for slavery, I think Islam worked in two directions, the first is encouraging freeing slaves, the second is dealing with the circumstances then when slavery was a part of the legal and social systems while at the same calling for improving their status and prohibiting their mistreatment. If the nowadays world could get rid of slavery all together, well and good, this is consistent with the first Islamic direction and there would be no need for the second direction, I believe.
