Crunchy Wrote:Quote:Mister Agenda Wrote:
The Quran forbids divorcing your wife while she's actually menstruating. It has nothing to do with her being too young to menstruate.
Quote:Quran 65:4
And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women - if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated. And for those who are pregnant, their term is until they give birth. And whoever fears Allah - He will make for him of his matter ease.
The rule for divorce is that there is a three month waiting period for those women too old to menstruate and the same waiting period for those too young to menstruate. This is how this this has been interpreted by Islamic clerics.
By Sunni clerics. Sunnis have a vested interest in making Aisha out to be as young as possible because it makes her 'transmission of the faith' more miraculous. Shia have a vested interest in making Aisha out to be older, to make it more reasonable that Ali transmitted the faith. As I'm neither Sunni or Shia, I have no vested interest in interpreting that surah according to Sunni precepts and since I think it is harmful and foolish to interpret it that way, I don't. Why would I want Muslims to interpret it that way? And Quranists observably reject that interpretation.
Crunchy Wrote:Quote:The Quran is no more hostile to unbelievers than the OT.
Why bring up the bible?
If I told you Pol Pot was a terrible person would it help if you pointed out that Stalin was as well? Would that make Pol Pot any better? Why are you behaving like an apologist?
Why not bring up the Bible? If Jews and Christians can cope with having scriptures that tell them to murder unbelievers without following through on it, so can Muslims. They have just as much a right to cherry pick to fit into modernity as anyone else.
You're not just saying Pol Pot was a terrible person...you're making claims about why he was a terrible person, presumably because of communism. Comparing and contrasting him with Stalin who was also a communist leader to see if your claims hold water is perfectly appropriate.
I'm on the side of facts, justice, and progress and couldn't give less of a shit if that sometimes puts me on a different side than some fellow atheist. Islam isn't special. It's another fantasy sanctified by tradition that can be used to justify just about anything. Religions aren't their books, the books will say anything if you torture them enough. Religions are the people who claim them. The religion changes when the people do, not the other way around, and people (en masse, not as individuals, there are always outliers) change as a result of their geopolitical circumstances. The geopolitical circumstances in the Middle East and North Africa currently suck, and so there's a lot of trouble there, even though that's not where most Muslims actually live. Christians in the CAR and Buddhists in Myanmar are persecuting vulnerable Muslim populations not because Christians and Buddhists suck, but because the CAR and Myanmar suck. Problems aren't solved when you misidentify their roots. Religious primitivism and violence are symptoms of other problems; like war, poverty, political polarization, foreign exploitation, and inadequate education.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
