I think politics don't want to have problems with some religious.
In some countries they have a lot of power. Of course there's many associations who try to help the children and women but it seems to not change a lot.
Note that in Yemen they are tribes, and the country is not stable and not united.
The tribes have their own laws, they don't really care about the governement.
Thats why I tried avoiding the use of the word government but I suppose it still strongly implies that huh? I just meant whoever is setting, monitoring and enforcing the rules in that region (tribal council etc).
How can you hold an inanimate thought responsible for actions of a man?
I dont - nothing which is inanimate has 'responsibility' (if I have previously used the term that was technically incorrect) what I think is that it has been developed (probably by people) in such a way that it condones their actions - including pedophilia. But are religions entirely inanimate? Do they exist seperate to people - not entirely, their texts do, but not religions which include oral traditions, established interpretations, norms of behaviour and more.
Yet let us look merely at those inanimate portions you mentioned, the texts, their content and character therefore while not 'responsible' for the man's actions serves to act as justification (if not actually contributing to the desire for it, which it may for some and not for many) - obviously this can only be done by individuals, one needs to read the text (or at least pretend to have) in order to be able to use content within it as justification. If there is indeed content within the text that condones such behaviour it would mean one of two things - either that the content is immoral and/or incorrect or that the content - held to be indicative of what it means to be a good muslim, shows that the behaviour is moral. If indeed there is content in the texts which supports such assertions; regardless of whether or not
all muslims interpret them the same way or even accept them, those texts are indeed problematic in that the content within condones immorality in princple and has been used to justify it in practice.
Actually one of the quotes talks about the female children and taking them. The Quran does not state the age of Ayesha as far as I can tell, nor does it mention sex with them either. But when you say Islam, you are stating the entire religious community.
Once again, only mentioning the Quran. And yes, I am stating the entire religious community - though I recognise gradiated of responsibility not uniformity. In the same way I have some small responsibility over things that I have extremely limited control, I have more responsibility as my control increases, that is where responsibility comes from - our awareness of the situation and our ability to effect it without breaking the law or our acceptance of it.
I am not a Muslim in any traditional sense, if anything I would adhere to Sufism the most. The problem I have is how do you define a religion? If I say I am Buddhist, but I am a serial killer am I a Buddhist? Is religion decided by a certain amount of people acting in a similar manner that claim to be of that religion? If I were to claim that I was a Muslim, and to write an Islamic text saying that Ayesha was 16 when she was married to Mohammed, would that make it a religious text? What is the criteria for a religious text? How many people that claim to be a part of that religion declaring something as true?
I am not exactly sure what most of this is intended to mean, but on the last point? A text can be considered a religious text in the formal sense through acceptance of it by various religious institutions and so forth, i.e. its adoption; note that gradient of responsibility I mentioned before; one who adopts the text would be higher on th gradient than one who does not - but even for those who rejected it simply by being aware that the text is there and of its content (in order to reject it) by being aware of the content one has obtained responsibility - at the absolute least to ensure the reasons for that disagreement are disseminated to everyone who might one day be exposed to that content and need to determine whether or not to accept it. Even non Muslims are indeed responsible for this - it is merely that we are further down the gradient that muslims in general, who are further down from those muslims who accept the texts, further down from those who accept the interpretations, further down from those who accept the practice, further down from those who practice.
Are those that deny Hadith's Muslims? Are those that accept them Muslims? If so, where is the line between Islam? If you have a problem with those that accept Hadiths that support child marriage, why not specify, rather than saying Islam supports child marriage?
I have no idea how a discussion of what consistutes a muslim is relevant to this topic. I am willing to discuss it elsewhere (though would probably be vastly underqualified) but it seems inappropriate for this thread.
In the same way that Christianity (and its texts) support the hatespeech of the WBC (which it does) it can also at the same time denounce it (which it does) the two are not exclusive, just as is the case with Islam and pedophilia,
Why is Sharia not a religion? Who says it's not? Why do they have the authority to declare what is and what is not a religion? What particular religious communities as it a part of? What religious communities is it not a part of? Where is Sharia more prominent? What are the socioeconomic status where Sharia is more prominent? Does it remain a part of all Islamic religious communities? If Sharia is not part of a particular Islamic community, is the community still Muslim?
Sharia (the princple) is an ideal of theologically based justice; Sharia (the structure of the various legal systems) an attempt to codify the principle, Sharia (the practice) an attempt to implement that code on a population. The theological code is that of someone's interpretation of Islamic lore, it is no more a religion seperate to Islam than the formulation of certain rituals for religious observance (because that is essentially what it is). Saying Sharia is a religion would be kind of like saying that the structure of a mass is a religion itself, it is not.
If you take out religious of your first statement, I totally agree with you.
If you agree with the rest, then I am not sure there is a basis to NOT agree with the first. Responsibility is not an on/off deal, it comes in increments, in degrees - I personally bear some small portoin of responsibility with relation to how that girl suffered (it is indeed a small portion of responsibility, but certainly I do, because I tolerated what I believe to be nonsense, but was used as justification for rape, what control I might have exercised over the situation is negligible and thus the responsibility is minute, but it persists).
They are scared for their lives? The fear of personal harm is a strong motivator of people. Would you sacrifice your life for the well-being of another? If the people that promote these ideas have the power to have you killed, would you speak out against it?
Truly? You think the Imams in Turkey are scared of those in Yemen? You think the people of Iraq scared of those in Yemen? You think the Indoneseans scared of those in Yemen? Why is it that all of them - nations all over the world, many of whom are far more powerful than Yemen, all scared?
Apparently 'fear' is insufficient to prevent Imams from speaking out, or people from gathering on the streets to protest when it comes to a technologically overwlelming foe such as America, it does not prevent the overwhelming message of unity in cause against something that they deem to be wrong as espousal or rejection of perceived immorality. I highly doubt fear of Yemen fanatics is enough to still tongues that still wag even in the face of US force (far more potent than what Yemen might muster) - but even if it were the case, that would not alter the responsibility you or I have in order to try to ensure that some other little girl is not going to be raped to death again tonight, while a pedophile uses some religious interpretation as justification for their actions.
