Shari'ah and Afghanistan

[Redemptionsong]

You believe that the Taliban, who primarily are a poppy producing drug mafia bank-rolled by underworld drug lords...is interested in an honest attempt at creating an Islamic state?
Opium: Afghanistan’s drug trade that helped fuel the Taliban

Should l not believe a man who tells me he is a Muslim?

 

[Debater Slayer]

There was no such thing as the dark ages. That's just a myth that's been around since Enlightenment people decided it. And Christianity was mostly responsible for such flourishing in Europe with ideas such as imago dei leading to notions such as humans rights and individual freedom. To say Christian thought had nothing to do with the shaping of Europe is nonsense. Without Christianity there would be no Europe.

@Augustus

I'm sure there are some politically motivated dramatizations around Christianity in Europe, but there is no shortage of examples of abuse that resulted from rhe Church having too much influence on the state at different points in Europe's--or, for that matter, Christendom's in general--history:

When first summoned by the Roman Inquisition in 1616, Galileo was not questioned but merely warned not to espouse heliocentrism. Also in 1616, the church banned Nicholas Copernicus’ book “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres,” published in 1543, which contained the theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. After a few minor edits, making sure that the sun theory was presented as purely hypothetical, it was allowed again in 1620 with the blessing of the church.

Sixteen years after his first encounter with the church Galileo published his “Dialogue on the Two World Systems” in 1632, and the pope, Urban VIII, ordered another investigation against him. This time he was prosecuted, following the usual methods of the Roman Inquisition.

The truth about Galileo and his conflict with the Catholic Church

It seems to me it is both counterproductive and bizarre for any proponent of secularism to focus on dramatizations of Christian Europe when there is no shortage of examples of abusive, corrupt, and draconian practices endorsed by the Church both in earlier periods and the present day. In my opinion, those should serve as a substantial reminder of why separation of church and state is a crucial principle largely written in the blood of those who suffered under theocratic rule. Attempts to whitewash this (talking generally, not about you or anyone else in this thread) seem to me no less harmful than attempts to inaccurately dismiss Christianity's contribution to the shaping of modern Europe.

Any serious critic would probably do better to focus on an issue like the Church's facilitation of child abuse or contribution to the spread of HIV due to its refusal to embrace reform in these areas than to focus on historically inaccurate accounts.

 

[sayak83]

Should l not believe a man who tells me he is a Muslim?

If there is other strong evidence against that claim...then no.

 

[Redemptionsong]

If there is other strong evidence against that claim...then no.

If no, then tell me what a Muslim should believe.

 

[sayak83]

If no, then tell me what a Muslim should believe.

Dealing drugs is sin for one.

 

[Moonjuice]

There's lots of difference and I think it's much too generalising to say they're all basically the same. The Christian Law is especially different.

What is the "Christian Law"?

 

[Rival]

What is the "Christian Law"?

I'm referring to the Canon Law and other such bodies within different Churches. Such things as regulate what constitutes a marriage, what is a valid baptism and so on.

Comparing this to Sharia is nonsensical.

 

[Redemptionsong]

What is the "Christian Law"?

Vouthon's posts #42 and #43 are helpful, lMO.

 

[viole]

I'm sure there are some politically motivated dramatizations around Christianity in Europe, but there is no shortage of examples of abuse that resulted from rhe Church having too much influence on the state at different points in Europe's--or, for that matter, Christendom's in general--history:



The truth about Galileo and his conflict with the Catholic Church

It seems to me it is both counterproductive and bizarre for any proponent of secularism to focus on dramatizations of Christian Europe when there is no shortage of examples of abusive, corrupt, and draconian practices endorsed by the Church both in earlier periods and the present day. In my opinion, those should serve as a substantial reminder of why separation of church and state is a crucial principle largely written in the blood of those who suffered under theocratic rule. Attempts to whitewash this (talking generally, not about you or anyone else in this thread) seem to me no less harmful than attempts to inaccurately dismiss Christianity's contribution to the shaping of modern Europe.

Any serious critic would probably do better to focus on an issue like the Church's facilitation of child abuse or contribution to the spread of HIV due to its refusal to embrace reform in these areas than to focus on historically inaccurate accounts.

I could not have said that better myself. Christianity looks so tame now because it had no choice. If no age of reason, enlightenment, revolutions, etc. ever took place in Europe, we would live now in a regime that would make the old Talibans look like a congregation of sweet people.

Everything is historically recorded. And for the interested, it is all described in K.H Deschner Magnus opus "The Criminal History of Christianity". Strongly recommended.


Ciao

- viole

 

[Debater Slayer]

I'm referring to the Canon Law and other such bodies within different Churches. Such things as regulate what constitutes a marriage, what is a valid baptism and so on.

Comparing this to Sharia is nonsensical.

It may seem nonsensical until something like the Church's stance on same-sex marriage, contraception, or sex reassignment surgery influences state law and/or prevalent social attitudes and enables oppression and theocratic tyranny in a way strongly resembling what can be seen in multiple Islamic countries. As I elaborated on in post #47, from a secularist perspective, there are multiple parallels between the social and legal effects of Christianity and Islam when they seep into politics, despite the fundamental differences that exist between both religions.

I agree Shari'a is a lot more encompassing than Christian teachings, for the most part, but I can also see why a lot of people compare the two when they look at both historical and present-day instances of each religion's effects on politics when not strictly separated from politics and state law.

 

[Rival]

It may seem nonsensical until something like the Church's stance on same-sex marriage, contraception, or sex reassignment surgery influences state law and enables oppression and theocratic tyranny in a way strongly resembling what can be seen in multiple Islamic countries. As I elaborated on in post #47, from a secularist perspective, there are multiple parallels between the social and legal effects of Christianity and Islam when they seep into politics, despite the fundamental differences that exist between both religions.

I agree Shari'a is a lot more encompassing than Christian teachings, for the most part, but I can also see why a lot of people compare the two when they look at both historical and present-day instances of each religion's effects on politics when not strictly separated from politics and state law.

Basically you don't like that Christianity sticks to its moral foundations instead of just collapsing into modernity.

I feel like making a PSA that Abrahamics have a traditional moral outlook on social issues and they're not going anywhere. They're not going to throw them out the window just because current society wants to let everyone do what almost every culture universally saw as wrong or unholy for hundreds of thousands of years. It's just not going to change and I wish people would stop rambling on at us to just go with the flow.

 

[viole]

Basically you don't like that Christianity sticks to its moral foundations instead of just collapsing into modernity.

Yes, like the Talibans. They also stick to their moral foundations.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rival]

I cannot imagine where would we be now if we followed through our Roman and Greek culture, that is: engineering, mathematical, philosophical progress, etc.

Oh yes, those cultures that,

- Gave the father total control over his household to the point of killing them.
- Treated women like chattel and kept them inside (Greece).
- Gouged out slaves' eyes and hit them for no reason, just to remind them they were slaves.
- Practiced pederasty.
- Considered everyone non-Greek or Roman barbarians.
- Put non-believers to death (yeah, they did that too).

It would be a horrible society no-one wants to live in. The main reason Christianity caught on is because most people's lives were miserable under Roman law and Christianity called them all equal. Mediterranean societies nor any society had any notion of 'human rights'. Greece and Rome were horrible places to live unless you were a rich man.

 

[viole]

The main reason Christianity caught on is because most people's lives were miserable under Roman law

Not really. Europe embraced Christianity because the Roman Empire was falling apart, and most of it was a political decision of a few emperors. And that is what people naturally do when security disappears, they need a God that protects them. What do you guys say? There are no atheists in foxholes, right?

And for the rest, you commit the fallacy that I would like a system in Europe like in old Rome or Athen. I want that as much as you probably want the Spanish Inquisition or a new Luther advocating today for the slaying of all Jews, the latter being typical of historical Christianity. There would have been no Holocaust without Christianity, and it historically engrained Hass for Jews.

Nothing like that. I am just saying that, ceteris paribus in terms of barbaric behaviour, the Greek Roman culture was vastly superior.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rival]

Not really. Europe embraced Christianity because the Roman Empire was falling apart, and most of it was a political decision of a few emperors. And that is what people naturally do when security disappears, they need a God that protects them. What do you guys say? There are no atheists in foxholes, right?

And for the rest, you commit the fallacy that I would like a system in Europe like in old Rome or Athen. I want that as much as you probably want the Spanish Inquisition or a new Luther advocating today for the slaying of all Jews, the latter being typical of historical Christianity. There would have been no Holocaust without Christianity, and it historically engrained Hass for Jews.

Nothing like that. I am just saying that, ceteris paribus in terms of barbaric behaviour, the Greek Roman culture was vastly superior.

Ciao

- viole

This is why Christianity caught on,

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

But I see your hatred of Christianity is making a discussion with you impossible, so I see little point continuing.

 

[viole]

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Except that if you believe the earth rotates around the sun, we will burn you alive. But that is for your good, so that your souls is cleansed and will go to heaven, and you will be united in Christ, again.

Have you ever read any book of history and double checked how Christians authorities ever enforced that amazing noble unity within Christ?

I wonder how you can defend such a wicked system that, up to these days, is probably responsible for the deaths of millions, on account of their criminal policy on condoms, their ridiculous priority to the life of human fertilised eggs, while not caring about the virginity of 6 years olds. Their open discrimination to gays, women (try to turn a wafer into the body of Christ if you do not have a penis), and their criminal opposition to have a human help to terminate our lives, if we want to.

I mean, are you sure?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Rival]

Except that if you believe the earth rotates around the sun, we will burn you alive. But that is for your good, so that your souls is cleansed and will go to heaven, and you will be united in Christ, again.

See here Galileo, the Church and Heliocentricity: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

Galileo, Foscarini, The Catholic Church, and heliocentricity in 1615 Part 1 – the occurrences: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

Galileo, Foscarini, The Catholic Church, and heliocentricity in 1615 Part 2 –the consequences: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

(Thanks @Augustus )

 

[viole]

See here Galileo, the Church and Heliocentricity: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

Galileo, Foscarini, The Catholic Church, and heliocentricity in 1615 Part 1 – the occurrences: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

Galileo, Foscarini, The Catholic Church, and heliocentricity in 1615 Part 2 –the consequences: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

(Thanks @Augustus )

What about Giordano Bruno? He got burned for believing there are other worlds.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Debater Slayer]

See here Galileo, the Church and Heliocentricity: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

Galileo, Foscarini, The Catholic Church, and heliocentricity in 1615 Part 1 – the occurrences: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

Galileo, Foscarini, The Catholic Church, and heliocentricity in 1615 Part 2 –the consequences: A Rough Guide. | The Renaissance Mathematicus (wordpress.com)

(Thanks @Augustus )

Well, at least the author seems to acknowledge that the post in the first link is a personal "interpretation":

This is of course my interpretation but it is based on a fairly good knowledge of the most recent principal secondary literature on the subject and it is one that I think would find fairly general agreement amongst those who have seriously studied the subject. Those who disagree are welcome, as always, to air their views in the comments but I expect those who choose to do so to base those views on historical facts and not on prejudice.

The rest of the post is rife with bizarre, thinly veiled apologetics for the Church's tyranny against Galileo. Nowhere does the post deny that he was tried for promoting views that dissented from the Church's position; it merely seeks to justify what happened and tacitly glorifies the Church's tyranny in the process.

For a less apologetic and biased resource, I'm posting a link I have already used in an earlier post:

The truth about Galileo and his conflict with the Catholic Church

I find this quote notable, in contrast with the subtle apologetics in the previous links:

Kelly also noted that by the practice of the time, Galileo’s guilty plea, which denied actual belief in the heresy, triggered an automatic examination of his private beliefs under torture, a new procedure adopted by the church around the turn of the 17th century. Galileo was never tortured, however. The pope decreed that the interrogation should stop short with the mere threat of torture. This was a routine kind of limitation for people of advanced age and ill health like Galileo, and it should not be attributed to the influence of the scientist’s supporters.

Ultimately, Galieo’s book was banned, and he was sentenced to a light regimen of penance and imprisonment at the discretion of church inquisitors. After one day in prison, his punishment was commuted to “villa arrest” for the rest of his life. He died in 1642.

In his later years Galileo insisted on the truth of the geocentric solar system, Kelly said. The story that after he formally renounced the motion of the earth at his sentencing he muttered, “And yet it moves,” is a romantic invention of a later generation.

What I find most concerning about the incomplete or altogether absent acknowledgement of the more corrupt and violent aspects of Christendom's history is that this lack of sufficient acknowledgement may blind some people to the possibility of repeating history. We can already see the malignant social and political outcomes of hardline Christian thought in European and American right-wing politics. It isn't far-fetched to say that not recognizing the issues with involving Christianity--and religion in general--with government could pave the way for recurrence of theocracy, albeit to varying extents, in multiple parts of the Western world.

 

[Rival]

Well, at least the author seems to acknowledge that the post in the first link is a personal "interpretation":



The rest of the post is rife with bizarre, thinly veiled apologetics for the Church's tyranny against Galileo. Nowhere does the post deny that he was tried for promoting views that dissented from the Church's position; it merely seeks to justify what happened and tacitly glorifies the Church's tyranny in the process.

For a less apologetic and biased resource, I'm posting a link I have already used in an earlier post:

The truth about Galileo and his conflict with the Catholic Church

I find this quote notable, in contrast with the subtle apologetics in the previous links:

All history is interpretation. Each history book even by a scholar is interpretation.

All I'm trying to say is that there is nuance here that doesn't seem to be taken into account by those who just wish the whole thing never happened, and anything less than everyone praising the man and immediately changing their opinions and the RCC being welcoming won't be satisfactory.

It just seems to be all or nothing with some people.