Yet more religious based nuttery

[Minimalist]

How do you separate islam from the culture over there?

[Borunel]

How do you separate islam from the culture over there?

Maybe you can't. Like I said I think the the two inevitably feed off each other. I'm just suggesting that cultural issues can spring from historical roots and not just religious ones and may still exist even if the underlying religion was taken away.

The problem occurs when religion is justifying or defending the cultural problem as it so often does - I'm not seeing that in this article to be honest although I'm not saying that it isn't there on the ground.

[Norfolk And Chance]

The problem is of course that unless I read the article wrong (and I may have done so as reading Huffington gives me nosebleeds and dizzy spells) there is no claim that there was a religious motivation here.

I won't defend (presumably) Islam but I think that here the problem is more tribal stone-aged idiots and stupid outmoded local social norms which may exist with or without religion.

This is every bit as hateful a thing as religious atrocity and indeed cultural and religious horrors tend to feed other.

The answer here though is not to crush religion (in this case) but to globally suppress cultural abnormality and to force errant societies and enclaves up to more universally acceptable standards of behaviour - simple things like not allowing any justification for maiming then allowing your daughter to die through denial of medical treatment just because they did something that annoyed you and you feel entitled because in cultural terms you actually own their corpus.

Also I don't believe we are going to have to lose a few billion people - I think we are going to have to get our fingers out and colonize other planets so that humanity can spread across the galaxy like a plague - although hopefully with a unified standard of social behaviour..

It was an honour killing.

[Rayaan]

And honor killings are a tribal practice that fall under a social and cultural frame, not an Islamic one. It doesn't have any basis in Islam at all.

Some people in Pakistan or Afghanistan kill their daughters in the name of "honor," but it's a primitive way of thinking and it was just a way of eliminating female members in the community who are generally seen as an economic liability since they are unable to provide heavy labor and must be fed by the family. So, their parents get rid of them by killing them or by drowning them, but, again, it has nothing to do with Islam. On the contrary, Islam is strictly against such killings, as the Quran says.

"And kill not your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Surely, the killing of them is a great sin." (17:31)

[Utracia]

"And kill not your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Surely, the killing of them is a great sin." (17:31)

Doesn't seem to stop them though no does it?

And are you saying honor killings mostly happen in Pakistan and Afghanistan and not throughout the Muslim world?

[The Grand Nudger]

I do recall there being some muslim "wisdom" about "he who keeps two daughters" - which amounted to my getting a free pass into your wine soaked heaven Rayaan...despite not believing..lol.

[Edwardo Piet]

"Don't kill your children" shouldn't need stating.

[The Grand Nudger]

But they gots to be some children somewhere needs some killin DV.

[Kousbroek]

...... as the Quran says.

"And kill not your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Surely, the killing of them is a great sin." (17:31)

You guys need a book to tell you not to kill your children ?
Oh dear ... it's even worse than i thought ...

[Aroura]

...... as the Quran says.

"And kill not your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Surely, the killing of them is a great sin." (17:31)

You guys need a book to tell you not to kill your children ?
Oh dear ... it's even worse than i thought ...

And even though their book says not to...they do it anyway.