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).
But the tribal councils are notorious for simply molding their own pre-islamic tribal beliefs into Islam. The prevelance of Sharia law, which is the basis for the unfair treatment of women within Islam, is most prominent in poor countries such as Yemen, or in countries such as Saudi Arabia where a small group of people control every aspect of social life.
Sharia is basically the formation of pre-Islamic tribal customs into the religion of Islam in my opinion. If you look at Sharia in the Quran, it's nowhere near the Sharia that is practiced in most countries. And Muslim countries that are politically and socioeconomically advanced like Turkey do not follow Sharia law, and even outlaw it.
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.
Hadith, which is used to justify child marriage is not considered by Muslims to be the word of God. So can the words of a man be considered a religion?
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.
Indeed I agree. Hadiths are those texts, but they are the words of man even by their own adherents. So if the words of man can be called a religion, I can call anything I write a religion I guess. And if people choose to follow what I wrote than they have religious justification for it?
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.
Anything that it is in direct opposition to the Quran is not Islamic. Non-violence is in the Quran so anything violent would be against the Quran, and therefore not Islamic, except in cases of self defense. The people that purport that violence is justified in the Quran or not Muslim in my opinion.
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;
So religious institutions get to decide what texts are religious? Are the apochraphya religious because they were not accepted by the religious institution of Christianity?
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.
I agree that everyone is responsible at least in some small way, but everyone does not include the religion itself. Especially when the doctrine is not even contained within the main Holy book of the religion.
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.
I agree but nowhere do I put the responsibility on the religion itself, but rather the people that interpret the religion to fit their own needs. Especially considering what they support is not even supported within their own holy book. People are corrupting the religion in my opinion, not the other way around.
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.
Because when you claim Islam contributes to the problem that the OP originally posted, you are including everyone that identifies themselves as a Muslim as contributer to the problem, not that they are just responsible for preventing it, whether you intended to or not. And the other point is that what constitutes a Muslim is not a black or white line. And when you say Islam contributes to these actions, you are saying that every Muslim contributes to these problems, as they are Islam. While I agree with you that we are all responsible, both Muslims and non-Muslims, I don't agree that either are neccesarily contributing to the problem. Contribution requires an action to help allow the act to happen, responsibility does not.
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,
Indeed, and if a holy scripture says one thing in one place, and opposes it in another place. Whose burden is it on now to determine what to do given to choices?