Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Yeager on March 20, 2006, 01:36:15 PM
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How many Americans have died in Afganistan so that our freedom would be protected and thrive?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002876685_convert20.html
Islam is the problem.
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****ing hell. The US needs to make a threat.
That man should be acquitted. All fundamentalist muslim laws will be stricken. If these demands are not met, we will leave you to the dogs.
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If he weighs less than a duck, then he should float, and therefore is made of wood and he must be a witch......
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Though, we could **** them over hardcore. Offer to take any woman who feels "Oppressed" out of the country and set them up in america with the money we would be spending on the war.
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Believe it or not, there are some cute afgan babes........
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It is my understanding that according to Islamic law.
There is no converting from Islam. And for those that do, the penalty is death.
Inasmuch as Afghanistan has always been and probably will always be an Islamic state.
So this hardly surprises me.
What we need to understand is we cannot apply our standards and way of thinking and how our culture is to over there. It just doesnt fit.
Different culture, different way of thinking.
As much as we cant understand how they think the way they do. They probably cant understand how we think.
Our right side up is their upside down. and vise verce
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
What we need to understand is we cannot apply our standards and way of thinking and how our culture is to over there. It just doesnt fit.
Different culture, different way of thinking.
They better get their culture to the current, 21st, century instead of the 16th or so.
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
It is my understanding that according to Islamic law.
What we need to understand is we cannot apply our standards and way of thinking and how our culture is to over there. It just doesnt fit.
I agree, but it still doesn't justify a man being put to death for a different religion. Even if we cannot do anything about it.
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Originally posted by Stallled
I agree, but it still doesn't justify a man being put to death for a different religion. Even if we cannot do anything about it.
turn that part of the world into a glass parking lot
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Originally posted by Pooh21
turn that part of the world into a glass parking lot
:lol
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No blood for lapis lazuli!!!!
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Originally posted by Pooh21
turn that part of the world into a glass parking lot
And you'll still have Islamic religion, face it, it will never go away. Neither will the mass of misguided people willing to die because their god told them to.
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Originally posted by Fishu
They better get their culture to the current, 21st, century instead of the 16th or so.
Why?
Like I said. They see our culture as being just as backwards and wrong as we see theirs
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Why?
Like I said. They see our culture as being just as backwards and wrong as we see theirs
Because we stopped being medieval few hundred years ago.
Don't you see any similarities between the middle east and europe over couple of hundred years ago? I can find too many similarities.
Their culture has NOT progressed.
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
What we need to understand is we cannot apply our standards and way of thinking and how our culture is to over there. It just doesnt fit. Different culture, different way of thinking. As much as we cant understand how they think the way they do. They probably cant understand how we think. Our right side up is their upside down. and vise verce
[size=8]BINGO!!![/size]
Well said, Drediock! :aok I never thought I'd hear that from any American, let alone one on this BBS! And so true. If ever you are here in Limeyland, I'd like to buy you dinner, and would extend the same offer to any other American on this board who can step back and see the big picture as Drediock has. ^ I'm not worried about the expense - I believe it will happen so rarely that I can well afford it! :lol Islam is the problem.
Does the Koran stipulate that non-muslims must be killed? When the Koran was written, were its authors aware of any other faith such as Christianity?
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Originally posted by Fishu
Because we stopped being medieval few hundred years ago.
Don't you see any similarities between the middle east and europe over couple of hundred years ago? I can find too many similarities.
Their culture has NOT progressed.
Actually in some aspects, I can probably respect the culture of Europe a few hundred years ago more then our current one.
Hell, I can respect alot of aspects of our culture 50 years ago more then I can our current one.
In some ways our culture has not progressed bit Digressed.
But really thats not even the point.
The point is its "their" culture whether we agree with it or not,like it or not.
They dont particularly agree or like ours either.
And we have a way of screwing up a people whenever we try to impose our culture's and ideals on peoples and make them more "modern".
The Americon Indian and Africans are two peoples who immediately come to mind. Both of which had been doing fine for thousands of years without our help....Untill we decided to hel them
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Yep stringer.... just the other day the church down the street was talking about a good witch burning. Not like the old days tho...
beet... of course we can't apply our standards to other cultures.... this seems odd for a brit to bring up tho..... given your history and all..
It does seem odd that we can call murder because of religious belief a "cultural" thing tho... I would say that probly not every person in that culture would agree that it is a good idea.
If I felt that every muslim saw this as a rightious killing then it would seem that I would be within my "cultural" rights to exterminate every single one of the vermin would it not?
lazs
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the infidels (muslims) need to respect the western culture.
i really get tired of the nancy boys telling me i have to respect other cultures when they do not respect mine.
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John 9001
You expect anyone to respect your culture with that attitude......?
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Originally posted by expat
John 9001
You expect anyone to respect your culture with that attitude......?
i said respect my culture not my attitude.
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Originally posted by expat
You expect anyone to respect your culture with that attitude......?
Apparently, he's using the same respect system the Islamics are currently using.
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Well the muslims i see....and work with (on a usaf contract by the way ) do respect other religions and cultures.....god knows they work with enough of em....westerners ...indians sri lankans bangladeshies....Pakistani's
And in 4 n a bit years of being in the middle east ...(Oman and Bahrain) i have never heard a muslim slag of the western culture or religions..
You people are tarring a whole religion...be it arab or western because of a minority of nutjobs ....now try tell me there arent any notjobs of religious followings in the west.......You be a telling porky pies (lies)!!!
Tell me why should they respect your culture ...religion or what ever when your attitude is do what i say or else!
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where did i say"do what i say or else!" i expect the same respect for my culture as they demand for theirs.
i think you have gone native.
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i see..because i dont support your views... therefore ive gone native.....
hehe that wont happen ....like a bacon butty and a beer too much
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Originally posted by expat
Well the muslims i see....and work with (on a usaf contract by the way ) do respect other religions and cultures.....!
.....Tell me why should they respect your culture ...religion or what ever when your attitude is do what i say or else!
"Afghan man faces death for abandoning Islam"
I saw this headline too: "Prosecutors, judge, family insist convert should die".
Nice for the judge to give him a "fair trial" before it even starts don't you think?
You're right and I'm wrong.
The fact that this issue is coming to a prominent national trial, with the death penalty hanging over the man's head, shows clearly that I am mistaken and that Muslims are extremely tolerant.
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Sharia Law, the binding legal and ethical component of Islam derived from the Quran and Hadiths mandates that those who apostatize from Islam be put to death. In Islamic countries that base their civil laws on Sharia, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, this punishment is routinely carried out by the civil magistrate. However, in most Islamic countries it is far more common for the relatives of the apostates to carry out the killing themselves as a point of honor.
For instance, some friends of mine from Philadephia have been serving as Christian Missionaries in an Islamic country [forgive me for being purposely vague here, but I don't want to expose them] where conversion is illegal. As a result, while they have many Muslims attending their bible study, most of them balk at the point of baptism and none of them are willing to discuss their faith openly. A couple of years ago, one young woman was convicted that she should make an open profession of her faith and be baptized. When she told her parents of her decision, her family threatened that they would kill her if she went through with it. She decided to be baptized anyway, and that week her own father and brother slit her throat and left her in the gutter to die. The father was taken into police custody, but was not charged with a crime and was later released. In the eyes of the community what he did was quite justifiable and indeed necessary.
On the other hand, Muslims are delighted to be able to actively promote their religion in the West and to actively seek converts, while they deny the right to convert, evangelize or even build non-Islamic houses of worship in their own countries, nations like Saudi Arabia are pouring billions of Petrodollars into the promotion of Wahabbi Islam worldwide. The largest Islamic Study center in the world, for instance, was recently built in Fairfax, VA (near Washington D.C.) with Saudi funds.
Gentlemen, I know you are doggedly committed to the postmodern concept of cultural relativism, but the fact is some ideologies and worldviews are better and some are worse than others. For instance, in fighting the Second World War, the West took it for granted that Representative Democracy was superior to Fascism, that freedom was superior to oppression, and that man was endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights regardless of where he was born.
I would put it to you that some of the obvious consequences of that idea are that men have a right to Convert, a right to worship freely as their conscience directs, that women have a right to be educated, a right not to go about veiled from head to toe and a right not to be stoned to death if they venture outside their homes without their nearest male relatives.
All of those rights are denied by Sharia law, therefore either we accept that we are at war with Sharia as an ideology (just as we were at war with other totalitarian ideologies from 1939-1945 and from 1946-1991) or we will fail to promote any permanent change abroad, and gradually be overtaken by that ideology at home. As Edmund Burke wrote and Churchill repeated, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing"
- SEAGOON
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Originally posted by beet1e
who can step back and see the big picture as Drediock has. ^ I'm not worried about the expense - I believe it will happen so rarely that I can well afford it! :lol Does the Koran stipulate that non-muslims must be killed? When the Koran was written, were its authors aware of any other faith such as Christianity?
Right & wrong have always depended on the predominate culture of the geographical location. However, if you think it's okay to execute somebody for changing religions, because that's their culture, then you've entered the realm of moral relativism. This is inherrently a flawed concept in that anything becomes justifiable.
I'll give you a good example of why this is bad.. you wen't to the UAE recently iirc? I have a friend that can't go there anymore. A business associate of ours (A Somalian, not a UAE citizen), filed completely false claims that my friend had robbed him. They weren't even in the UAE at the same time, ever. Now, if my friend goes back, he'll be arrested and held until they can bring back this associate to testify against him. You never see a judge, and you'll only see your lawyer again if he wins your case. Due process is a completely alien idea here.
Is that "right"? Arrest without due process is most definately not an absolute moral behavior. Moral relativism can justify it by simply saying, oops, somebody has a complaint, so he must be a criminal. However, it's their culture, so that means we should accept it? I disagree. To quote, ironically, a mobster, "What's right is right,".
I think that's the viewpoint you're missing when you dismiss all these 1 liner posts that point out Islamic theocracies tend to be in the dark ages.
"If ye punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith ye were afflicted." -Sura 16:126
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Originally posted by expat
And in 4 n a bit years of being in the middle east ...(Oman and Bahrain) i have never heard a muslim slag of the western culture or religions..
You people are tarring a whole religion...be it arab or western because of a minority of nutjobs ....now try tell me there arent any notjobs of religious followings in the west.......You be a telling porky pies (lies)!!!
Tell me why should they respect your culture ...religion or what ever when your attitude is do what i say or else!
Hey expat! -couldn't help noticing the rhyming slang - are you a fellow Limey then? Within a mile of where I live, the Sultan of Oman has a large residence on top of a hill. I know people who have worked for him, and he was well liked and greatly respected. c1990, when Britain was languishing under the Poll Tax, the Sultan insisted on paying the poll tax on behalf of all his employees! I can see why he was well liked.
As for the Middle East - there might have been a time when I tarred all Arabs with the same brush. That changed after my first visit to the Middle East earlier this month.
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Yes, contrary to the public assumption, more than a few Arabs are real party animals. I used to hang with Sheikh G'raabr Boubi down on south beach. Very fun guy, but you had to walk around behind him apologising to everybody. I carried his cash for him. If the Sheikh pissed off a dude in bar, it was my job to go over to the offended party and peel off a C note to quell the thing out. The Sheikh stunk, and he had this disgusting habit of eating cold sheep's eyeballs out of a plastic baggie, but I didn't mind. The poontang around this guy was unbelievable. I guess it was the crisp cash that sloughed off him like dead skin cells...
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The Americon Indian and Africans are two peoples who immediately come to mind. Both of which had been doing fine for thousands of years without our help....Untill we decided to hel them
If you believe that it was only the 'White Man' who was taking advantage of africans, then you need to hit the history books again, and hard.
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Originally posted by Yeager
Islam is the problem.
Islam isn't the problem..Religeous Idealism is.
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Hi Sirloin,
Originally posted by SirLoin
Islam isn't the problem..Religeous Idealism is.
Let's think about that seriously...
Here we have the plight of a man, Abdul Rahman, who was working with a Christian relief organization, providing relief, assistance, and hope to countless people, who after being able to assess the claims of Christianity and watch how committed Christians live out their faith, converted. Certainly all of this required a considerable amount of "Religious Idealism" and yet in what way was any of this religious idealism harmful or evil? In what ways did Rahman's religious idealism make the world a darker place?
On the other hand, we have an ideology that says that because he converted, Rahman must die. That ideology has contributed little or nothing to alleviate the suffering of the people there who embrace it and has been a force for little but evil and oppression in that particular country and now it is proclaiming that a good man must die, merely because he loves Christ and desires to live a life of service to him. This whole thing reminds me of the scene from Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress in which Apollyon meets Christian on the road and insists that he return to his service and worship, or suffer death.
Have we really become so weak and indecisive that we can no longer perceive such a clear cut case of light vs. darkness? To say its all the fault of religious idealism rather than a particular ideology is rather like looking at the Holocaust and saying "the problem isn't Nazism, it's political idealism" or viewing the patriots at Lexington and the Khmer Rouge as exactly the same because they both took up arms against their current governments.
Thankfully, many people, even committed secularists, have realized exactly how absurd it is for the Western Democracies to be fighting to support the supression of the religious freedom they hold dear.
ABDUL RAHMAN, a 41-year-old Afghan, was a Muslim for 25 years before he began working for an international Christian group helping his fellow countrymen in Pakistan. Within a couple of years he had converted to Christianity.
Fourteen years later, the decision may cost him his life....
Mr Rahmans case is shaping up as a trial of strength between Afghanistans religious conservatives and reformers. The constitution says Islam is the religion of Afghanistan, yet it also mentions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 18 specifically forbids this kind of recourse, one human rights expert said in Kabul last night. It really highlights the problem the judiciary faces.
News of his plight is likely to cause outrage in predominantly Christian countries such as Britain and America, whose troops are fighting to free Afghanistan from the religious zealotry of the Taleban.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who leads the Church of Englands dialogue with Islam, told The Times: Im amazed that the constitution that has been agreed in post-Taleban Aghanistan under the very eyes of the international community should allow this kind of thing to take place for a person to be arrested for having been converted 14 years ago and to be threatened with execution simply for his beliefs.
The British Army in Afghanistan is losing soldiers there through injury and death. Is the Army there to uphold this kind of thing? I thought we were there to promote democracy and freedom.
Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, told The Times: We are asked to believe that in Afghanistan we are defending a more secular and democratic state when in fact the likes of Abdul Rahman face the death penalty. What sort of democracy are we defending? All reports suggest that the Taleban are coming in through the back door and their views through the front door. Hamid Karzai (the Afghan President) needs to be told that this absurdity must stop.
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HI Seagoon.
You are re-enforcing my statement...Religion & politics don't mesh.
The Koran is filled with passages of "Kill the Infedels!"..and maybe 1 or 2 passages of "Love thy brother"
Religion is scary when intertwined with politics .
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How DARE they practice their religion and create and enforce their laws on their citizens in their country. How in the heck can we let that happen?! And not letting Christianity in their country??? Why that...that's just not Christian!
And I just can't wait for the day when we end that foolish freedom of religion nonsense in this country and stick it to them dirty salami islamis.
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if they kill that guy for believing in christ then the taliban might as well be in control.
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Had they not had ties to 9/11, I wouldn't care if the Taliban were still in control of Afghanistan.
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Im inclined to agree.
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You get the government you deserve.
Same goes for Iraq.
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Originally posted by john9001
the infidels (muslims) need to respect the western culture.
i really get tired of the nancy boys telling me i have to respect other cultures when they do not respect mine.
You can only expect to get respect for your own culture in your own country.
When in or dealing with the culture of another country. Then you respect theirs
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
If you believe that it was only the 'White Man' who was taking advantage of africans, then you need to hit the history books again, and hard.
I never said that.
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
SNIP...
The Americon Indian and Africans are two peoples who immediately come to mind. Both of which had been doing fine for thousands of years without our help....Untill we decided to hel them
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
Ok and in what part of that quote did I say "Taking advantage"?
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werent the africans and indians murdering each other regularly before they even heard of white men?
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
werent the africans and indians murdering each other regularly before they even heard of white men?
lazs
Yes. They had their wars and enemies just like any other country and people.
French/British Spanish/british, American/British etc etc
But I wasnt talking about warring with them as much as I was talking about disrupting their culture by imposing ours on them in the name of "Helping them become more civilised/modern" and/or imposing our religeous beleifs upon them.
Seems we have a tendancy to make more of a mess with this then help
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Yea, it is just terrible some of the things we impose on other countries.
Food, clothing, protection from mass murdering tyrants.
I don`t know how we sleep at night.
Right is right and wrong is wrong no matter where you are located or what you try to hide behind.
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dred... from what I have read... the only thing nobel about their way of dealing with each other and the land was the fact that they had a huge infant mortality rate and a short life span so had little effect on the ecology...
Theirs was and (in some cases) is a culture of pain and suffering... freezing and burning and dieing of everything that comes down the pike and starving like beasts in the field... a culture of cruelty...
now they get italian guys to run their casinos.... the africans that live here live like former african kings.
Their culture sucked.
lazs
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Yep....We really helped out Vietnam, I mean that whole country is a democracy...oh, wait..no it's not.......and who can forget Granada, that was a huge coup for Truth, Justice and the American Way..
Well at least we got Panama straightened out. Plus Nicaragua was saved by Ollie North so we can put that in the plus column.
Of course Somalia was another success story, oh wait...ok what about Kuwait....yes We liberated Kuwait from autocratic rule....oh wait, we didn't do that either.
Of course, the people in Iraq can go to markets without fear of bombings, no they can't do that either.....
Replacing one fear with another fear is not giving them protection.
I saw Bush over the weekend stating that we will or are implementing a successful strategy for Iraq, and I thought to myself, 3 years later we will now begin to implement a successful strategy in Iraq?
Overthrowing a brutal dictator is a noble thing to do, but overthrowing a dictator and not be able to handle the predictable vacuum that occurs is negating a noble intention with poor execution.
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I remain eternally suspicious of any ideology/ government/system/culture which operates on a premise of accepting converts/citizens/members, while simultaneously threatening to kill or punish or imprison any who choose to move away...i.e. Wahhabist Islam & Sharia Law, the former USSR, the current DPRK, etc...
What I can't grasp is how the people at the top of such groups can maintain the self-delusion of their righteousness, while the very population they are dependent on for their power struggles mightily to get away as fast as they can? Why would you even want those people to stay? Doesn't the existance of laws which criminalize thoughts or questions or challenges to authority suggest that the system might be flawed? One might argue that a simple comparison of the pipeline of individuals moving from Western values to the rigidity if Sharia Islam, vs. those attempting to leave that system and make a life in the midst of Western values would be an interesting indicator of validity?
It almost seems some kind of pathology, to be so disconnected from the reality of the population. Or perhaps it's simply the ease by which one can label dissatisfaction, or independent thinking, as insanity or criminal tendencies or sedition. Maybe the failure to understand has less to do with specific philosophical differences, and really comes down to what "freedom" actually means to an individual or group. For us, freedom means a near limitless ability to make independent choices about life, work, faith, etc...while in these other societies, the only freedom they may understand or accept might be the freedom to be like everyone else, or simply to choose what village you'll live in. I don't mean to trivialize, only to suggest that some people may be culturally incapable of understanding our flavor of freedom, and what the word can potentially mean for them. Some may not ever want the freedom we demand...maybe they're too insecure otherwise, and appreciate a rigid system which precludes the need for independent thought?
In the final analysis of my own worldview, if you're not free to leave, you were never free for staying.
This leads me to wonder if certain systems only pay lip service to politically acceptable concepts like freedom, while the truth behind them is as old and dirty as human history...to keep those on the top, at the top...and absolutley nothing more. If you can convince the little people that they have all the freedom they'll ever need, you can stay in control.
If this is so, and the cultural gap is too wide, and moral relativism is invalid, what do we do? Turn away from that which we call inhuman and unjust and let others live as they will, or insist on imposing our way? Will taking a live-and-let-live strategy work, if the other side's strategy is "sooner or later, the world MUST be ours and those who will not comply must die"? What happens if that philosophy finally gains enough strength to begin imposing that ideology on the whole world? Not like a similar chain of events never happened before...
Or the last possibility...we are all terribly misinformed, on both sides, by the fact that we ALL get our information second hand, and from unreliable sources. Certainly, I know I can't trust any Western media outlet to NOT inject it's own flavor of political leanings into the mix, and I'm damned sure outlets like al-Jazeera are just as bound to the expectations of their customer base as Western outlets are to theirs.
I, for one, have no confidence anymore in my ability to sort wheat from chaff...
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Originally posted by lazs2
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Their culture sucked.
lazs
I'd almost be willing to bet the end of that statement would go something like..
"Cause my great grandpa told me so" LMAO
Our infant mortality rate wasnt a whole lot better.
We froze and burned also.
the Largest single killer of the american Indian was either white men. or the diseases we brought with us.
Be that as it may. Their culture was still their culture.
and they thrived in much greater numbers even with their hardships untill we came along
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Hello Sirloin,
Originally posted by SirLoin
HI Seagoon.
You are re-enforcing my statement...Religion & politics don't mesh.
The Koran is filled with passages of "Kill the Infedels!"..and maybe 1 or 2 passages of "Love thy brother"
Religion is scary when intertwined with politics .
The problem is that when we look at Islam, we generally try to force it through a Western grid and consequently we can't understand why "religion" has such a dominant role in the politics of Middle Eastern states.
The answer to that question is that Islam from its inception was designed not merely to be a faith, but the organizing principle of the entire society. In Islam, the head of the Religion (the Prophet Muhammad originally) and later the Caliphs, was also the leader of the faithful. The role of the prophet was to teach the people the commands of God, and the role of the Caliph was to ensure that they were carried out. Islam only acknowledges two nations - the Dar-El-Islam (nations of Islam) and the Dar-El-Harb (nations of war) and Sharia Law is supposed to be the civil code followed and obeyed throughout the Dar-El-Islam.
As such there is simply no room for Democracy in an Islamic state. How can one "vote" on the commands of God? And what need is there for political parties when Islam is supposed to consist of one unified body - the Ummah, or faithful - lead by one leader - the Caliph. It is a totalitarian system designed to implement a Utopian society. Therefore even in the "parties" that exist to advance Islamic ideals, as in Communism there is an acknowledgment that their ultimate role is to bring about a pan-Islamic unity. Hence the Muslim Brotherhood creed is intended to be a distillation of the Islamic way forward for all Muslims -
"Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes."
There have been attempts to create secular Islamic states, most notably Turkey, but most of those attempts either have failed or are in the process of failing. The past few elections in Turkey and Egypt, for instance, have seen a dramatic increase in the representation of self-consciously Islamic parties dedicated to returning those nations to a Sharia law footing. The current Islamic revival means that this process will only progress.
What does that mean for us in the West? Well it means that the possibility of creating stable permanent Democracies in Islamic cultures is roughly zero. As hateful as the idea is to many, there are reasons why representative Democracy was one of the results of the religious Reformation in Europe. Those Democracies were not possible until, in Christianity, the overriding concept of Constantinianism which inextricably wed Church and State under one ruler was overthrown. No such Reformation has occured within Islam, and isn't really possible. This is because while in Christianity church and state were supposed to be two separate spheres, and so the Reformation returned us to the biblical model, in Islam the Quran neither assumes nor allows for such a separation. To allow it, is to become an apostate in the eyes of the faithful.
- SEAGOON
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Seagoon - great post. There will now be three of us at the dinner table - you, me, and Drediock. Very few others, it would seem, have the mental capacity to understand that in certain Middle Eastern societies, there is no room for "democracy". I've spent only about 4 days in the Middle East, but it taught me a lot. Much more than I could have learned by sitting in a caf in London listening to some guys speak Arabic. One wonders if the American president himself will ever have the acumen to make sense of your post.
:aok
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I hope you don't sprain your arm.
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Beet, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or you just haven't been reading, but I think Seagoon's position is that Islam is wrong/evil in the same vein as fascism or totalitarianism and it needs to be stamped out.
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Originally posted by SOB
Beet, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or you just haven't been reading, but I think Seagoon's position is that Islam is wrong/evil in the same vein as fascism or totalitarianism and it needs to be stamped out.
See now in their eyes they see our culture as wrong and evil in the same vein.
The point is not whether it is right or wrong. but that we keep trying to apply our culture and mindset to their culture.
Just as we dont and dont want to understand theirs . They dont and dont want to understand ours.
Reminds me of an old quote. I forget who said it but its true.
"there is no real right or wrong really. It is only a common way of thinking that makes it so"
Their common way of thinking is not the same as ours.
therefore we see theirs as being wrong. And vise verse
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Originally posted by beet1e
One wonders if the American president himself will ever have the acumen to make sense of your post.
k
Don`t know which "ONE" you are talking about here, but I know of "ONE" who didn`t get it.
Boat. Missed it.
:aok
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Originally posted by DREDIOCK
See now in their eyes they see our culture as wrong and evil in the same vein.
The point is not whether it is right or wrong. but that we keep trying to apply our culture and mindset to their culture.
Just as we dont and dont want to understand theirs . They dont and dont want to understand ours.
Reminds me of an old quote. I forget who said it but its true.
"there is no real right or wrong really. It is only a common way of thinking that makes it so"
Their common way of thinking is not the same as ours.
therefore we see theirs as being wrong. And vise verse
One thing you're missing is that when you've got a god on your side, there is a right and a wrong. Your god's way is right, anything contrary is wrong.
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Originally posted by SOB
Beet, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or you just haven't been reading, but I think Seagoon's position is that Islam is wrong/evil in the same vein as fascism or totalitarianism and it needs to be stamped out.
I was referring to seagoon's most recent post and none other. I read it again and didn't see anything about Islam needing to be stamped out. Don`t know which "ONE" you are talking about here, but I know of "ONE" who didn`t get it. Boat. Missed it. - jack
Well pardon me for having an alternative point of view - I realise how unacceptable that is in certain circles. But my view is at least supported by the fact that I have actually been to the Middle East, if only briefly, and seen what goes on. Hence, I have seen islam in action. Indeed, in the countries I visited it's hard to miss. So... have yourself a Turkish coffee, and a smoke from one of those bong things (tried it once, but smoking's not my thing!) and you can pretend to be in the Arab world!
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Originally posted by beet1e
But my view is at least supported by the fact that I have actually been to the Middle East, if only briefly, and seen what goes on.
An you are now an instant, arm-spraining expert.
Well DONE, sir!
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Aw Toad. Beetle's just a joshin' ya. He's too intelligent to brag about having special knowledge of the middle east just because he spent four whole entire days there.
You ARE joshin' aren't ya Beet?
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Originally posted by SOB
One thing you're missing is that when you've got a god on your side, there is a right and a wrong. Your god's way is right, anything contrary is wrong.
I didnt menmtion that but that holds true as well.
they beleive God is on their side and thus they are right.
Just as we beleive God is on our side and thus we feel our side is right.
Be they right or wrong
The one thing they have is they by and large are more rigid and dedicated to their religion then we tend to be in the west, and seemingly become less so with each passing generation.
They, as someone else mentioned havent changed in hundreds of years
Where we, by and large have taken to only picking and choosing only what parts we wish to follow if we choose to follow at all. Becomming less and less dedicated and faithful to ours.
Cept for many a couple hours on Sunday
I think even Seagoon could agree with that statement
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did I get this right? it takes four days of restreraunt hopping in the middle east to understand that there is no way that any form of democracy can exist there?
That sounds very familiar... sorta like old imperial england used to be.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
But my view is at least supported by the fact that I have actually been to the Middle East
I don't think you believe in the validity of your statement any more than I do. You're just a mean-spirited man suffering the rest of us with your superiority complex.
My Islam experience has been one of extremes: either a suffocating hospitality and warm welcomes or a murderous, homicidal hatred burning behind wild eyes. I have very rarely seen anything in between.
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i think some of you are assuming that all Muslims are hard liners that pray 5 times a day and want to kill infidels.
i have a muslim friend that drinks alcohol and eats pork, when I said "but your a muslim", he said "i'm not THAT kind of muslim.
so just as there are christians and then there are CHRISTIANS, there are muslims and MUSLIMS.
the media wants to show us the bad not the good, blood sells.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Well pardon me for having an alternative point of view - I realise how unacceptable that is in certain circles. But my view is at least supported by the fact that I have actually been to the Middle East, if only briefly, and seen what goes on. Hence, I have seen islam in action. Indeed, in the countries I visited it's hard to miss. So... have yourself a Turkish coffee, and a smoke from one of those bong things (tried it once, but smoking's not my thing!) and you can pretend to be in the Arab world!
Don`t know what your trip to sandland has to do with SG`s post, but OooooK.
Don`t smoke a bong and don`t drink Turkish coffee. Juan Valdez is my supplier. :)
Would never pretend to be in the Arab world. I prefer the good ole U. S. of A. I certainly wouldn`t be stupid enough to go there at this time or any other time if I didn`t have to.
BTW....... Boat. Missed it again.
I may also have coined a new phrase. INSTAspert. :rofl
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in reference to the original post, the afgan that changed from muslim to christian, he will not be killed, they have decided ( due to international protests) that he is "incompetent to stand trial".
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Originally posted by Shuckins
Aw Toad. Beetle's just a joshin' ya. He's too intelligent to brag about having special knowledge of the middle east just because he spent four whole entire days there. You ARE joshin' aren't ya Beet?
LOL! Obviously at 4 days, it was a short trip - but it's still 4 days more than most people on this board have spent in the Middle East and yet still regale us with their "knowledge". Some things become apparent as soon as one arrives at a destination. In the case of Qatar, I'd say it was things like the way their religion is inextricably intertwined with their lives - the call to prayer going up at around 4:30am every morning (The sound of my air conditioner drowned it out on all but the last morning) and they take it very seriously. Instantly visible is the orderly nature of their society. In the west, we have become accustomed to teenagers rampaging in city centres. In Britain, the results of the binge drinking culture can be seen on the pavements of main streets every Saturday morning. Go into the newsagent's shop, and glossy magazines with lurid pictures of half naked ladies and thinly veiled captions about their exploits will stare down at you from the top shelf. It's all so... in-yer-face. There is alcohol related crime, and there is drug related crime - particularly theft. There is violence, homicide, you name it. We've become so inured to the "whoop-whoop" of police sirens in our city centres that we don't even notice it any more. But, as for Qatar...
...it is clear after the briefest of visits to the region that NONE of these unwelcome problems exists. It is a polite, ordered society. People treat others with respect, and there is an unwritten code of conduct as to how people conduct themselves in public. Theft is pretty much unheard of. It is perfectly safe to walk the streets at night. No-one gets shot. You won't hear any police sirens. This much I was able to discern in two days, never mind four.
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But we also don't get our heads chopped off with a butter knife should we choose to follow a non state-sponsored religion.
I guess it boils down to what you believe after all.
If you believe that there ARE universal "human rights", and that the right to religious freedom is one, then you are on the Western side.
If you believe that killing a Christian because his parents were Muslim is alright because "that is how it is done there" then you are not.
I wouldn't even consider myself a religious person... but I believe that people have the right to be. If someone wants to be a Catholic, then a Protestant, then a Muslim, then a Hindu, then a Buddhist, then an atheist, then a Scientologist, then an animist.. then he should have the right to do that. He shouldn't have to worry about Muslim or Buddhist or Catholic death squads coming from him for apostasy.
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Originally posted by beet1e
...it is clear after the briefest of visits to the region that NONE of these unwelcome problems exists. It is a polite, ordered society.
Either they're just better people than we are or they have a different way of handling problems than we do. Human nature being what it is, I can only guess they've discovered some form of crime deterrent.
I can only imagine what it might be.
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Originally posted by VOR
I can only guess they've discovered some form of crime deterrent.
I can only imagine what it might be.
If you're thinking of beheading or amputations, nope - not in Qatar. You're thinking of Saudi Arabia, which is next door. That's an entirely different society, and you wouldn't want to go there and neither would I. Besides, you have to be sponsored to go there, and there is no tourism, no cinemas. no theatres...
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Originally posted by SOB
Beet, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or you just haven't been reading, but I think Seagoon's position is that Islam is wrong/evil in the same vein as fascism or totalitarianism and it needs to be stamped out.
Hmmmm... I've been thinking about this all day, and have been trying to reconcile it against this: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.-First Amendment to the US Constitution
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If you're thinking of beheading or amputations, nope - not in Qatar. You're thinking of Saudi Arabia, which is next door. That's an entirely different society, and you wouldn't want to go there and neither would I. Besides, you have to be sponsored to go there, and there is no tourism, no cinemas. no theatres...
I bet that behind closed doors, some of the most decadent and depraved booze parties, banquets, drug extravaganzas, and sexual orgies takes place in Saudi Arabia, and probably much of it right in downtown Ridyah. The strict Islam is for the people, not the rulers, and for show by the government.
One thing about the Saudis though, they have the good common sense to ban women from driving automobiles and voting - you can't take that away from them ;)
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Well Beetle, having never been to Qatar myself, I can only say my impressions of that society are based on descriptions relayed to me by pals of mine who spent some time there while serving in the military. There descriptions of a polite and orderly society basically mirror yours.
As you may remember, I spent four weeks in Egypt and two in Israel in the summer of 1992 studying at the American University in Cairo and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Both countries had what appeared to be orderly societies, at least on the surface; yet there was an undercurrent of resentment and hostility in both.
The reasons for this resentment are almost too numerous to mention; however, only a few should be necessary to give you the gist of the problem.
Egyptians resent the fact that their country is unfavorably compared to Israel in regards to Israel's apparent success in "making the desert bloom." "Give us as much financial aid as you give the Israelis," they told us, and we can do the same thing.
Also, they don't really care all that much for European tourists who visit their country and exhibit an apparent contempt for their culture. For instance, since the beautiful beaches of Egypt's Mediterranean coast are closed to nudity, some Europeans refuse to acknowledge the fact that the cultural mores of their host country should be respected, and parade around topless or nearly nude at the public hotels and resorts.
At the sound and light show at the Pyramids one night I witnessed a member of the "repressed Muslim society" force a European woman and her two young children out of some seats near the front of the platform on which we were sitting. In all fairness, I'm not certain he was an Egyptian. This jerk must have weighed 350 pounds. His own wife tried to call him down, yelling "Hakeem! Hakeem!" He responded, "No I make scene! You are European! You will move"
There were literally hundreds of empty seats in the same area he and his family could have sat in...but he wanted to prove a point. The woman, by the way, was married to an Egyptian. Thoughts of bouncing my coke bottle off of his pate were nixed by my partner, who said "Hey...it's his country. No good could come of it."
Most Egyptians I studied with, be they student or instructor, were polite and mannerly. Nevertheless, occasionally we were yelled at on the streets. It didn't happen often, but it did happen more than once or twice. Sometimes by men, sometimes by women.
By the way, the most common type of crime one was prone to fall prey to was having one's pocket picked. However, as a non-Muslim foreigner, I can say I wouldn't feel safe walking through the darker streets of Cairo late at night.
As to the Israelis, their streets were orderly, in that they had little of the type of crime so prevalent in U.S. cities. Political violence was another matter. You could see evidence of it everywhere in the country: from the ubiquitous armed guards and soldiers and teachers everywhere, to kibbutzes surrounded by barmed wire and fences and dug in tanks, to bullet-riddled public buildings.
Palestinian hostility was evident in conversations on the street, although the intifada was taking a time-out while we were there.
At that time, there was a fair amount of resentment by the Israelis toward President Bush I, for he was placing pressure on them to enter into negotiations with the PLO. This was the summer that Clinton tossed his hat into the ring to run for President. Bush began the process of leading the two warring factions of Israel and Palestine together; a process which Clinton brought to completion at Helsinki.
Anyway, there was quite a bit of political graffiti visible in Israel's public "facilities" at that time; none of it complimentary and some of it pornographic.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Hmmmm... I've been thinking about this all day, and have been trying to reconcile it against this:
Fortunately, it doesn't reconcile.
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Well , being a humanist, much as I disagree with Seagoons Christain Evangelism I have to agree with what he says about Islam. I recently spent some time in a Middle Eastern country and my co-worker was a Palastinian born Jordanian who has lived in the USA for most of his life but is a devout Muslim.
I was amazed and somewhat dumbstruck.
After raising the issue of the cartoon publication we talked at length and over several days about the conflict in the region we were in. It was a very open and wide ranging discussion where we challenged each others views. Several points came out for me.
The first, and most alarming thing, that arose for me was for that for this man - a degree educated engineer who has lived in the USA most of his life - his love of the prophet was greater than the love for his family (his own words). He absolutely refused to accept that ANYONE has the right to disrespect the laws surrounding images etc of the prophet.
Second was that no law was above the Quran. He challenged that the fundementalists are not following the Quran but admitted that if civil law was in contradiction to the Quran he would obey the Quran - again remember that this is a man who has benefitted from the prosperity of a free country for most of his life.
Third was his knowledge of his religion and its history and how he kept alive the rifts between the sects - how the Shia and Sunnis parted and why they hated each other even after 500 years.[/b] - he was Sunni btw.
Forth and most important for this discussion - and in agreement with Seagoon - for a Muslim there is no difference between politics and religion. Because there is no law higher than the Quran there can logically be no political system better than the Quran. There can be elected officials who would run the administration of civil bodies on a day to day basis but NOT OUTSIDE THE RULE OF THE QURAN Democracy only extends to who is elected to oversee the implementation of Islamic law.
In reply to his assertion that the he loved the prophet more than his family I countered that I loved my freedom and in particular my freedom of speech more than my family - that family members had died in previous conflicts to protect that freedom. He said he couldn't understand it but could respect it - the basic problem is these views are diametrically opposed.
My problem with Islam is that it is a one way street - you can only enter - and in that respect it is a growing sucking vortex and the closer to the core you go the harder you are held.
Expat - you may find it all hunky-dory over there but I have worked with many many contractors who have done middle east stints and for every 1 who says it is all fine I find 10 who dislike it but do it for the money. My suspicion is you haven't had to deal with the dark side of them yet. As a western contractor you may be treated with politeness but I would wager when the chips are down you are just another infidel foreigner.
Beet - how on earth can you judge Middle east Islam on Qatar - probably the most liberal westernised of the states - get real !!!
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I'm dreadfully sorry Sparks old chap...but until YOU take a three day vacation in Qatar you can't REALLY be taken seriously as an authority on the Middle East and the religion of Islam.
Do book a vacation and get back to us afterwards?
Thanks!
:)
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Originally posted by Toad
I'm dreadfully sorry Sparks old chap...but until YOU take a three day vacation in Qatar you can't REALLY be taken seriously as an authority on the Middle East and the religion of Islam.
Do book a vacation and get back to us afterwards?
Thanks!
I say old chap, I do hate to be a bother, but I beleive to become an INSTAspert it requires four days.
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A recent update on the Afghan situation, also some of the sadder details in the life story of Abdul Rahman:
MORE CHRISTIANS ARRESTED IN WAKE OF ‘APOSTASY’
Two other converts from Islam in custody; another hospitalized after beating.
March 22 (Compass) – An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country.
Authorities arrested Abdul Rahman, 41, last month for apostasy, a capital offense under strict Islamic laws still in place in Afghanistan, which four years ago was wrested from the Taliban regime’s hard-line Islamist control.
During the past few days, Compass has confirmed the arrest of two other Afghan Christians elsewhere in the country. Because of the sensitive situation, local sources requested that the location of the jailed converts be withheld.
This past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten severely outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He woke up in the hospital two hours later but was discharged before morning.
“Our brother remains steadfast, despite the ostracism and beatings,” one of his friends said.
Several other Afghan Christians have been subjected to police raids on their homes and places of work in the past month, as well as to telephone threats.
First Known Apostasy Case
Rahman was put on trial in Kabul last week for the “crime” of converting from Islam to Christianity and faces the death penalty for refusing to return to the Muslim faith.
But news of his case did not break until March 16, when Ariana TV announced it. According to the TV newscaster, Rahman was asked in court, “Do you confess that you have apostacized from Islam?” The defendant answered, “No, I am not an apostate. I believe in God.”
He was then questioned, “Do you believe in the Quran?” Rahman responded, “I believe in the New Testament, and I love Jesus Christ.”
Although Islamist militants have captured and murdered at least five Afghan Christians in the past two years for abandoning Islam, Rahman’s case is the local judiciary’s first known prosecution case for apostasy in recent decades.
During Rahman’s initial hearing before the head judge of Kabul’s Primary Court, he testified that he had become a Christian 16 years ago, while working with a Christian relief organization in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.
But after his conversion, Rahman’s wife divorced him, so their two infant daughters were taken back to Afghanistan, where they have been raised by their paternal grandparents.
Soon afterwards Rahman left Pakistan, and over the next few years he managed to enter several European countries. Although he attempted to apply for asylum, he was never able to obtain legal immigration status. After nine years, many of them in European detention centers because he had no valid papers, he was finally deported back to Afghanistan in 2002.
Back in Kabul, Rahman eventually contacted his family. In recent months, he tried repeatedly to regain custody of his daughters, now 13 and 14 years of age.
“The father finally went to the police in order to stop Abdul from contacting him, by telling them that Abdul converted to Christianity,” a Kabul source said. He was promptly taken into custody, interrogated and sent to jail to await trial.
Although Rahman is allowed to have a defense lawyer, he has declined, insisting he can defend himself. But according to Christian sources in Kabul, the convert suffers from recurring mental instability, which could alter the Islamic court’s handling of his case.
Rahman is reportedly incarcerated with 50 other prisoners in a cell designed for 15 in Kabul’s Central Prison, where members of the press have been denied access to him. Since he is estranged from his family, and prisoners are traditionally dependent upon food rations supplied by their families, it is unclear whether he is being fed regularly.
Labeled a ‘Cancer’
If Rahman is found guilty of apostasy and given the death penalty, as demanded by prosecutor Abdul Wasi, Afghan law permits him two final appeals – first to the provincial court, and then the Supreme Court.
Calling Rahman a “traitor to Islam,” Wasi told the court he was “like a cancer inside Afghanistan.”
Wasi told the Associated Press (AP) that when he offered to drop all the charges against Rahman if he returned to Islam, the defendant refused. “He said he was a Christian and would always remain one,” Wasi said.
“We are Muslims, and becoming a Christian is against our laws,” the prosecutor concluded. “He must get the death penalty.”
Rahman is being tried by Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada, who has said he would issue a verdict on the case within two months.
“We are not against any particular religion in the world,” the judge told the AP on March 19. “But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law. It is an attack on Islam.”
On March 20, however, Judge Mawlavizada told the British Broadcasting Corporation that Rahman’s mental state would be considered first, “before he was dealt with under sharia [Islamic] law.”
President Hamid Karzai’s office has said the president will not intervene in the case. But today a religious adviser to Karzai announced that Rahman would be given psychological tests.
“Doctors must examine him,” Moayuddin Baluch told the AP. “If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.”
Although the Afghan government is clearly anxious to resolve Rahman’s case in order to satisfy international criticisms, the state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has reportedly called for Rahman to be punished, insisting that he had “clearly violated Islamic law.”
Rahman’s plight dramatizes the judicial paradox within Afghanistan’s new constitution, ratified in January 2004. Although it guarantees freedom of religion to non-Muslims, it also prohibits laws that are “contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”
At the same time, the constitution obliges the state to abide by the treaties and conventions it has signed, which include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In outlining freedoms of thought, conscience and religion, Article 18 of this convention explicitly guarantees “freedom to change [one’s] religion or belief.”
Less than 1 percent of the Afghan population is non-Muslim, mostly Hindus and Sikhs. Among the millions of Afghans living abroad during recent decades of conflict in their homeland, some have openly declared themselves Christians. But no churches exist inside Afghanistan, and local converts to Christianity fear retribution if they declare their faith.
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Originally posted by Sparks
Beet - how on earth can you judge Middle east Islam on Qatar - probably the most liberal westernised of the states - get real !!!
LOL What I actually said, several threads ago, was what you said here - Qatar is liberalised, which is not surprising considering that 75% of its population are expats. My point was that not all Arab/Islam states can be tarred with the same brush, but need to be assessed individually.
My friend in Qatar lives with his girlfriend - this is strictly illegal, but they get away with it. He always refers to her as his wife, and she to him as her husband. However, in Saudi Arabia which is right next door, they could not chance it. They'd get flogged - even if they were simply to be riding in the same car together. As I have pointed out further up in this thread ^ you wouldn't want to live in Saudi, or even go there to visit. My Qatar friend worked/lived in Saudi for 6 months, and hated every second of it. But he really likes Qatar. Even though Qatar is an Islaminc society, there are thousands of people from "Christian" countries living openly amongst the general population, and they are accepted. It's not like Saudi where the infidels are banished to communes. You can walk through the sougs and be made to feel welcome, not just by the shopkeepers but by passers by in general.
As for other liberalised Muslim states - we have Turkey, a popular tourist destination. I've never been there, but I understand it's an interesting place where "Christians" need not feel threatened. The religions there are Sunni and Shia muslim (!) and, as you know, it's on the cards that Turkey might one day join the EU! - in which case you and I would have the legal right to live there if we chose to, even as non-muslims.
To say that all Arab/Islamic states are bad or that "Islam must be stamped out" is to use way too broad a brush...
As for the smart alecs who think that 4 days is too brief a visit to a place to qualify someone to hold an opinion, well some people are never satisfied. It wouldn't make any difference to them whether my visit had been 4 days or 4 years. For example, I spent three years in the US - on two separate occasions - and worked in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Denver, and travelled to about 41 states. And yet there are still people on this board who would say that I "know nothing about the US".
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It think just about everyone holds an opinion. That's no trick.
The trick is to voice it without looking like .... well.....
(http://www.yankeepotroast.org/images/fowlerhorsetail.jpg)
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but....but.... what resteraunts did you guys go to? that makes all the difference in how you judge a country. weeks, or years, in a country are meaningless if the resteraunt doesn't have a decent wine list.
lazs
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Originally posted by beet1e
For example, I spent three years in the US - on two separate occasions - and worked in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Denver, and travelled to about 41 states. And yet there are still people on this board who would say that I "know nothing about the US".
Yeah, that would be folks from the US who call you on it when you start talking out of your bellybutton about "how it is" over here.
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I say........rightO old bean what.
The restaurants are the true cultural rule by which any nation can be learned from.
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beet.... I would say that spending 3 years here and not learning anything about the U.S. or it's people does not bode well for your expert status in the middle east based on a 4 day trip to some vacation spot.
lazs
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Lazs - I never claimed to have "expert status" on the Middle East. Those are your words, not mine. And... while I was there, I went to 2 restaurants for a total of about 3 hours out of the 4 days I was there. And I've already said that Qatar is no vacation spot. Do try to keep up!
:aokOriginally posted by SOB
Yeah, that would be folks from the US who call you on it when you start talking out of your bellybutton about "how it is" over here.
You mean I'm wrong about Oregon motorists not being allowed to pump their own gas? :lol
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I probably shouldn't have found this satirical commentary on the situation as funny as I did...
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2224
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Lol, I probably shouldn't have found this as funny as I did... pulled this off the guy's Wiki page.
This is from the Afghan supreme court justice who is trying the "case".
The chief judge and Afghan Supreme Court justice Ansarullah Mawlawizadah said that Rahman would be asked to reconsider his conversion: "We will invite him again because the religion of Islam is one of tolerance. We will ask him if he has changed his mind. If so we will forgive him." Judge Mawlawizadah further noted that "The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back" and that even while this is so, "Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told [Rahman] if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him".
I just find it ironic, in a retarded kind of way...
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Originally posted by beet1e
:aok You mean I'm wrong about Oregon motorists not being allowed to pump their own gas? :lol
Yes, your statement about "Oregon motorists" is incorrect. While is it not legal for an individual to pump their own gas at a standard retail station, it is legal for customers of unmanned commercial stations to pump their own gas. It is also legal for me to fuel up my state vehicle at the state motorpool.
See, there you are again, burping another half-truth out of your ass. Perhaps if you stuck to a subject that you had actual knowledge of, you wouldn't look quite so foolish.
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LOL SOB - I think you've been reading too many HoldenMcGroin posts!
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SOB, good observation but don't hold your breath.
As far as the Afghanistan Court issue. It seems that the court has had a change of heart, at least temporarily.
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/afghanistan
They are dropping the case but the attorney general is still investigating it. They are using the mentally incompetent angle as well, my guess is for face saving. They look good for sparing the "nut case" and since he would be a "nut case" he can't be held responsible for changing from islam either.
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Actually... it isn't a bad argument to use.
After all, refusing to say "OK, I renounce Christianity" and dying for it when it would be easy enough to say "Gee, I'm so sorry for leaving the fold", then moving back to Germany to practice his religion in peace seems a little crazy.
Would be rather like Moorish spain, where Christians said stuff to piss Muslims off because they wanted to be martyred. Gotta hand it to those folks, that is faith.