God's law or private law?

[brewer]

Who/whom is the liar?

(don't even think about pointing at me)

This is such a nice reminder indeed. So Thank you for that. 
 
I’ll be working on this in coming days

I'd rather that you'd be working on me,............ yeah buddy........... boink-boink!


















(oops, sorry, channeling Vorlon, that happens this time of year)

[brewer]

While I had been pretty okay with Leo's posts, I am over the hatred for America and Americans.  Bel and Winter were quite enough.  The forum is over quota.

btw - to the American haters...Bel is American.

That is certainly debatable.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If coleslaw is shredded cabbage, then godslaw should be shredded Allah.

Boru

[Leonardo17]

But I think, even in the past. What we call religion had to be a matter of individual choice. Otherwise why would monotheistic prophets always be greatly challenged by the already existing order. I think that those rulers did not like the sense of personal choice and autonomy that were brought by these new religions. But that my point of view.  

It seems to me that "monotheistic prophets" being greatly challenged by rulers or the pre-existing status quo is a good demonstration that religion has never been a matter of individual choice.  We often note that the religion a person holds is mostly determined by the religion of their parents.  We could extend that observation.  Many of the parents in lands conquered by abrahamist warlords would be some other religion today if not for that fact of history.   Pockets of internal resistence alongside continuous tradition just outside of political borders  demonstrates that..for better and for worse, which of two groups of men did more killing than the other..on a single day, have determined the religions of untold millions of people who might have never thought of making any individual choice..or, indeed..who think of making one every day and are suppressed by the heirs to those "monotheistic prophets" authority.

Although I don’t know a lot about early History of İslam, I will try to answer these based on the historical facts.
 
1) As a beginner-level reader of the Quran I can tell you this: The holy books uses this phrase in many places while referring to the societies that were subjugated by God (Like the Egyptians, or the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomora or the people that were destroyed by the flood at the time of the prophet Noah): It says “They did not want to change their fathers way of doing things” or it gives a voice to these people and makes them say things like “Shall we abandon our father’s way to adopt the ways of your God?”.
 
Because of this, not all but many Muslims like to debate things rather than obey to some rules simply because it is “the tradition of our father (and mothers of course)”. A few days ago I had this debate with someone. She believed that the process of ritual killing was established so that we wouldn’t be killing humans for the sake of God. I was arguing that the aim here was to give some meat to eat to the poorest and that for that reason I had stopped to perform this tradition for many years now. This works in all areas of religion. Another debate concerns the fasting month of Ramadan. Again there are people who say “It’s an order given by God” and there are people who say “Any living creature can remain without eating for some time if we want them to, so the focus here should be the training of the Ego. Not the simple performance of remaining hungry during the day.” So true Muslims will not refrain from debating these thing and in the end it is the individual who decides. Because even in the minds of the most dogmatic believers, this “judgement by God” is mostly on individual level. It is only I who faces the consequences of my action. No one else. So this relation with God is understood as something deeply personal. A third person may show you the way, he/she may have advices for you. But that is all. Even the Prophet is only a messenger of God. (He is not “divine” like in Christianity).
 
2) For Early Christians: They were always persecuted until the reign of Constantine and the Edict of Milan in 313. In Cappadocia (and in other places) they built entire subterranean cities to avoid the prosecution by the Romans. Their expansion were entirely peaceful. It was only in the first Millennium that Christians adopted the notion of “holy war”.
 
3) For Islam, it’s more complicated (again this is all based on Wikipedia). At the time of the prophet, He was directly attacked by the inhabitants of Medina. And Mustafa Kemal describes this Battle of Badr a a sign of the extraordinary genius of the prophet because in terms of numbers etc. it was an impossible to win battle in many ways. So he only conquered Makkah at the time.
 
During the Rashidun Caliphate (or the four true caliphs who ruled between 632 and 661 AD) there were other issues. When the prophet died there started to be other “prophets” in many parts of Arabia. Since the Arabs of the time were very warlike, the logical solution was to subdue them all. Then they became neighbors with the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires. Arab sources say that it was the Byzantines who wanted to subdue them at first. Anyway, both the East-roman and Sassanid Empires of the time were very weak and corrupt empires. So they marched on them too. But conversions to Islam was not really like in the Spanish Reconquista. Religious minorities had rights and they were free to practice whatever religion they wanted as long as they kept paying taxes. This was maintained until the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.
 
Another subject of debate is around the term “Dar-al-Harb” in Arabic. In the classical interpretation this designates all the non-Muslim areas of the world (including Shias if you are a Sunni and Sunnis, if you are a Shia).Yet there is a modern scholar called Y.N. Ozturk who even taught Islamic thought at the Theological Seminary of Barrytown in New York as a guest professor for one year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%C5%9Far...zt%C3%BCrk). In his definition, this “Dar-al-Harb” is not “everyone who doesn’t accept you faith”. In his vision “Dar-al-Harb” is land in which the supremacy of law is not present, in which corrupt leaders are working for their own good instead of the good of people by not obeying to the rules of reason (and the Quran of course), that are oppressive and unrespect full toward their own people and aggressive and threatening toward the peoples of other countries. Or in sum this “Dar-Al-Harb” means “rogue countries” or “corrupt states”. So I believe The Byzantines and the Sassanids did fall into that category because (for instance) there are records of the Jewish communities in cities like Damascus, welcoming the Arabs as liberators. Because they had adopted “Islamic Law” which include the principle of rule of law in which they were given a status and they were more respected as individuals in comparison with the Theodosian Law which was a very complicated and inefficient system of law, that wasn’t functioning at all in an increasingly corrupt and decadent east-Roman Empire.
 
Just as a note: Islamic Law also became entirely inefficient starting from the 18th century. So Ottoman Sultans started to apply western legislature to their Jew, Christian and other minorities. But the System was entirely inefficient with Muslim populations as well. It had become a totally inefficient system (that required two female witnesses for on male witness for instance), it didn’t work in any area so in 1926, we had to elaborate a new system of law based on the Italian and Swiss legal system, not because of pure admiration but because this İslamic Law was seen as Obsolete by all jurists since at least a century.
 
   So I don’t believe that İslam is a war-loving religion (as it is claimed by the fanatical versions of Islam). I see it as a matter of historical reality. In the 7th century A.D. the only common currency of the world was violence. So maybe Early Muslim rulers had to adopt this language whether they wanted or not. What concerns me in this situation, is the definition of “Dar-al-Harb”. So in the 21st century there is no foreign entity that I perceive like the decadent east-Roman Empire led by the Emperor Heraclius. For me “Dar-al-Harb” could be exactly where I am actually . I understand this as “If your rulers don’t seem to know where they came from and where they are going anymore, you have the right to challenge them, and I will support you in this endeavor”.
 
   So I think there are two keys to understand ancient scriptures:
a) A certain level of spiritual understanding. The Mullahs of Iran (and many other dogmatic scholars) have in some cases memorized the entire scripture (this is true), and yet their spiritual understanding is around 0. So I think these books reveal their meaning to some people but not to others.
b) a scientific and rational approach based on reason and logic. This Y.N. Ozturk does that. He is a jurist and theologian and has written around 40 books on the subject. Many Wahhabi / Salafist scholars don’t have this scientific approach so they “end up repeating the mistakes of their fathers”.
 
Anyway. All of this is for interested parties only. You may just pick up Richard Dawkins’s book “The Greatest Show on Earth” and read it. The only reason why I am into this things (other than the fact that I happen to be a believer) is that I want to have some concrete evidence against I.sils who are banning women from Universities and are doing all sorts of stupidity “In the name of God”. I am only here to show that what they are obeying to is… themselves, not really God.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think it's a bit more complicated than just obeying themselves, they have their cultures - which does implicate their gods on one level. Ultimately, though, I agree that no one is obeying any gods in this - but I would think that, being an atheist and all, lol. There's a tendency among the faithful to zero out whatever bad things people are doing, and genuinely doing, because of their beliefs. That these people are not following the "real" message of their shared religions or gods. Often enough, this is paired with (their own) notions of fundamentalism as a cure, in the example you brought up that would be quranists - here it's evangelical protestants. You can probably see how a person of deep evangelical protestant faith, by acting out the dictates of their fundamentalist religion, can do bad things because of it, not in spite of it. It may be harder for you to see that in your own religion. They, likewise, can explain why your religion, genuinely and earnestly followed, can do harm - but often fail to see it in their own cases.

All of the abrahamic magic books are dated and wrong, so I don't find the fundamentalist position very compelling. Just a matter of selecting which magic book they want to fuck up by...and, as mentioned above, none of the competing claims to divine exclusivity and authority carry any weight with me, as none of you can demonstrate that these -other- claimants are doing something fundamentally different from what you're doing. A better argument against stupidity is that it's stupid, even if a god told you to do it...it would still be stupid. Banning women from universities, preventing half or better of your population from being fully educated, is national suicide. It doesn't really matter why you do it, who told you to do it, or how you do it. The us, for example, is making a run at that through poverty.

[Leonardo17]

   So you like putting us all in the same basket. I won’t even oppose to that. Because doing that is just simpler than trying to understand the root cause I’m trying to point at. There is simply too much war of words and misunderstanding that I can’t really be angry on anyone who decides to just clear all of the table rather than trying to identify one by one which objects have to go and which objects have to stay. The clear it all method is simply more efficient. So I am OK with that too.
 
   Yet one way of discerning real religion from fake religion is to look for contradictions. This debate on female education is also present among zealous people in my country. In the past, we even had to push people to make them agree to send their daughters to school. But these zealous people want their wives to be treated by female doctors only (for some reason I don’t even fully understand). Yet, If you don’t send girls to schools, how can there be female doctors to treat your wife to whom you are forbidding to be examined by male doctors.
 
   So this is one of my main methods of picking objects without clearing all of the table (and thus making room for new objects). I always ask is it rational? Is it beautiful? Is it usable? Is there a contradiction in this?
 
   In this way, I throw, I throw, I throw, than I pick other stuff, than I make some more room, and in time the mess seems to go away a little and leaves its place to a less crowded table with fewer but still useful objects. That’s my personal approach to all of this.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh god, please no, having a conversation with a muslim about contradictions is worse than a root canal. They won't be difficult to find, and finding them won't cause a given muslim to decide that their religion is, thusly, "fake". The real kicker, at least from my point of view as a member of the unafflicted....is that nothing prevents a religion from being contradictory. Nothing at all. No amount of internal or external contradiction would render any religion any less real, and no amount of internal or external consistency would make a religion any more real. The whole bit is just another self inflicted wound.

I can help you out with one thing, though. The idea that women should only be treated by women, more broadly that women should only ever be in the company of other women, is common to many cultures all across time and geography. It's an attempt to protect their perceived value as a commodity, through sexual purity. It is amusing that people with these sorts of beliefs shoot themselves in the foot, as you note, by setting up a situation where there would be no female doctors - but as I just explained above, religious beliefs don't have to be consistent, and they very often end up biting their holders in the ass through unintended or unconsidered consequences - just as any claim by you that a real religion would have to be free of contradiction would bite you in the ass.

Here again, you offer a great argument for why preventing females from going to universities is stupid, and whether or not god wants people to do that is entirely irrelevant to that point, don't you think? No girls in school, no female doctors to cater to their religious sensibilities.

As far as whether or not I lump you all into the same basket. Sure, particularly with respect to the accusation you levy towards them. That they're not doing what god wants them to do, they're doing what they want to do. Well, so are you with respect to your own beliefs, and in precisely the same way. None of you are doing anything a god wants you to do...and at this point it's impossible for me not to ask you the following question about all of this. Suppose, if you will, that you opened up magic book and it said "do not let girls go to school". Would you prevent them from going to school on magic books say so? What if the archangel gabriel came down and told you, directly, not to let girls go to school?

[Leonardo17]

1) I think I know what you mean. But we are not robots right? I think there is a great amount of irrationality in the human being itself. I personally see reason or “The mind” as a tool rather than a goal in itself. And that’s my objection to the positivist approach. The mind solves one solution and create 2000 other problems with this one solution. SO maybe there is something that is even greater than the mind.

But still. The general rule is to question your own beliefs if you see a contradiction with science or with reason in general. That’s why I see creationism a pure madness. In fact, many mystics will tell you that evolution itself is a wake-up sign to the intelligence that created the universe in the first place. Yet these are all debatable issues.

2) I use religion in its original sense. That means “reestablishing a connection with the supreme being”. So when I see this kind of nonsense, I ask the same question that Renée Descartes has asked: “If reason in inherent to all of us, Would God (Descartes’s God is Reason itself) want us to be irrational”. So no. This is the kind of stuff that goes to trash in the very instant. It’s the same as believing the earth is 5600 years old while evidence says the age of the planet is 4,5 Billion year. This is the opposite of reason. So if Reason is inherent to us, we are supposed to use this reason. (The Quran says “don’t become a flock of animals” + it reminds us in many places by saying “Don’t you ever use your reason/intellect?”)

3) There are religious sects who combine a cocktail of religious beliefs with some scientific facts to create UFO cults or use mass hypnosis to make all their followers commit suicide at one point. Religious sects like Scientology are said to be exploiting people’s money and energy + the bodies of young female devotees for the personal good of the ruler of these sects. (And the Quran is against religious sects / I think religious sects should be completely banned). So the holder of any faith should always ask questions. I am thinking of the rising Hindu nationalism in India for instance. The Hindus I met were the most tolerant people of the world. So it is their duty to ask: - “Yes but, my religion is a religion of tolerance. India is the state of Ghandi. Why is this jerk telling me to hate Muslims (Who live in India since perhaps 1000 years. There is Christianity in India since more or less the time of Jesus). So I always say: Think, think and think

4) a) That’s the biggest problem of all believers. We are basically “trying” to make things happen within ourselves. I am a modern believer right? In my first day in this forum I met a more traditional believer (who believed in the Hijab etc.). The thing is: There is nothing I can say to him because it may turn out that in his life he is much more spiritual than I am with far more spiritual knowledge that I have. So we don’t really mess with these things

b) That’s a huge debate also. I’ve had my time of atheism also. And the reason was exactly what you said. I opened a translation of the Quran, Decided it was all nonsense and put it back in the bookshelf. Than decades passed, I became more spiritual and I began to seen some “stuff” not only in the Quran but in other books as well (including Greek mythology for instance, or in the Baghavad Gita as another example). So I decided to give it a chance. But the answer to your question is “Absolutely not.” I think if that happened. It would be just another mythology for me. But knowing that similar wisdom is present in the old and New Testament also I sort of decided to look at these teachings from a different angle.

And The Quran is telling us to have a sense of respect toward people who have great scientific and philosophical knowledge. If there is a part of “true religion” that can be irrational, well these are the mystics. And I am not there yet. But, (If I understanding correctly) mystics believe in a divine intelligence that is even greater than reason itself (or something like that) So reason is obsolete for them. And they would probably laugh at everything I am writing here. But that’s the world of Lao-Tse, Rumi, or St-Francis etc. You and me, we are not there yet

[Anomalocaris]

While I had been pretty okay with Leo's posts, I am over the hatred for America and Americans.  Bel and Winter were quite enough.  The forum is over quota.

btw - to the American haters...Bel is American.

Bel is the sort of American that succeeds in being an embarrassment even to America.

[Leonardo17]

While I had been pretty okay with Leo's posts, I am over the hatred for America and Americans.  Bel and Winter were quite enough.  The forum is over quota.

btw - to the American haters...Bel is American.

Bel is the sort of American that succeeds in being an embarrassment even to America.

   I was a teenager in the end of the 90’s and I downloaded an inter book called “The Hacker’s Cookbook” or something like that. The book said that hacker had to be paranoid and that if something looked weird it was probably weird. So I am sort of used to the thought that maybe not everyone who pretends to be someone in internet forums is truly the person he/she is pretending to be.