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no
It's not just Islam or Islamic nations either...
Do you know many others, in this day and age, where this incident would be deemed acceptable by the state? I'd be interested to know.
only acceptable to the religious police it seems, it's really incensed a lot of people in saudi actually
If the Saudi state did not prosecute or clamp down on the religious police in something as serious as this, then they are virtually sanctioning their behaviour.
It is a fucking nasty fundamentalist regime. Though they buy loads of F18s and Eurofighters so that's alright.
Nah, he's one sick motherfucker. Just like his Christian compatriot. One thing you can be sure about fundamentalists is that they know their religious book inside out, and God as described in these books is every bit as bigotted and intolerant as they are. Of course there's the other possibility that these books don't reflect "God's will" at all, and were in fact written by people who are every bit as bigotted as a lot of the material contained within (of course relative to their time, they weren't that bad).
Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in the same God.
Okay, maybe I should've referred to the Torah's representation, the Koran's representation and the Bible's representation of God then.
well, thats islam for ya...
Nobody was tarring anybody with the same brush. Islam as a set of ideas, perhaps though. Islam by definition is the contents of the Koran, and generally speaking, you'll find that fundamentalists follow it to the letter; they don't pick the bits that will serve them best (of course some people do that, but not true fundies of any religion). Fundamentalists generally act right, given what is commanded of them by their religious texts. And no, it doesn't mean that everyone that calls themselves muslim is as bigotted as them, but we're talking about the books themselves, not the individuals.
That is a bit of a generalisation, just as it would be if the latest case of brain-washing or brutal self-flagellation by Opus Dei members was rounded up with a "that's Christianity for ya" comment.
A more fitting description would have been "that's fundamentalism for you".
What is fundamentalism? A strict interpretation of Islam (or any other religion). It's not just the bad bits; it's all of it taken literally. Therefore that is Islam. The rest may be a version of Islam, but only in the same way that our political system is a version of democracy.
Of course the fact that there are so many contradictions in these books makes it difficult to define a strict idea of what the religion is, but even attempting to follow one of these religions to the letter will make it impossible to not include the huge amount of undesirable teachings in parts of these books.
I agree it can be an issue when people have different ideas when they refer to abstract concepts like Islam or Communism. For me Islam = the actual set of ideas that are contained in the Koran, and nothing else. But I know that a lot of other people consider it to mean the Islamic community and people who purport to be followers of said religion, even if they don't take all of these ideas literally. Just thought I'd clarify my definition, so you know I'm not a bigotted twat like all those muslims.
Mind you it's worth bearing in mind that all religious texts include a huge variety of directly contradictory messages, especially given the long period of time they tend to have been compiled over. The very act of following a faith to the letter tends to involve an assumption of which letters are the most appropriate. At that point the defense that someone is simply doing everything they should is moot. The very fact that all of the monothestic religions are internally divided by a number of demoninations is evidence of choice being presented within religious teachings.
Religious require ambiguity, otherwise they would have been rendered redundant by the passing of time. To claim that fundamentalism is simply trying to follow a faith as well as possible presents two clear problems to me.
Firstly it implies that people who follow a faith whilst avoiding extreme actions are some how less 'correct' or 'accurate' in their lifestyle. That's simply a bogus arguement. The good samaritan wasn't just a parable about helping a person on the roadside, but a clear message that the practical good, and real harm, done by the follower of a religion are more relevant than any word by word interpretation of a religious text.
Secondly the arguement seems to assume that picking the most restrictive elements of a faith are closer to its meaning than a more liberal interepretation. Again I'd argue that there is nothing in a religion to say that picking restrictive choices over more free options is somehow more appropriate. Religion isn't a hair shirt and faith isn't necessarily measured in how many flagelations a person can stand.
Fundamentalism is a difficult word, because it is so bound up in the choices different religious denominations have made about what is the word of God. It in no way has to be extreme, or include all the bad choices, and acting under the word of the Koran would never require the death of schoolgirls, under any reasonable interpretation. Ultimately fundamentalism has become linked with extremism - not because it has to be, but because it provides an easy justification for the most horrific actions that no reasonable understanding of any faith would accept.
The immense majority of Muslims are not fundamentalists, just as the immense majority of Christians aren't.
To you. To a fundamentalist, there is no ambiguity. God said do this, you do it. The only way you can claim otherwise is to claim that the Koran isn't the word of God, merely man's interpretation of it. And at this point, the whole idea that you are following a set of religious ideas falls down, because what you are actually doing is using something external to the text, to decide your idea of morality. That is the morals of an individual, which are generally reasonable and moderate, not of Islam. Incidentally, religions have been rendered redundant by the passing of time. Most religions that once existed have now disappeared. Many that do survive are now so far out of sync with the majority of people's morals that they will eventually bear no relation to something that a decent person would follow, and the texts will be edited or become obsolete.
Yes, and what does "real harm" refer to? Real harm, if you believe Christianity, would be to allow a fellow Christian to spend an eternity in hell, when you could prevent it, even if it meant committing a gross atrocity to them in this life. Given what the muslim preists believed, these police did exactly the right thing.
Well since I consider a religion to be the ideas presented in these books (as do the people who follow them), then yes, a more literal interpretation of them is closer to their true meaning. Even though they were written by men, do you not think that these men meant what they wrote literally? And therefore, if you choose to follow that, is it not more accurate and closer to the original meaning to follow it as literally as humanly possible?
Beyond a genuine fundamental belief that they will go to heaven, what other reason would some well-off, middle-class men fly planes into buildings? I don't believe that the vast majority of religious leaders, and people who have contributed to it, use their religions for any other reason than because they genuinely believe them to be correct. I don't think they use it for political reasons, or in order to influence others (beyond influencing others to do what they believe to be God's will). I think that moderates will be more likely to support fundmentalists for political reasons, and I believe that fundamentalists have used political situations to gather support for their cause, but the cause itself is instructed by thier religious beliefs.
I've actually now forgotten what the thread was originally about.
Just because they all believe in 'one' god, does not mean it's the 'same' god, which it isn't.
The same God talks to Moses in all three religions. And says the same things as far as I'm aware. So yes, it is the same God.
God I hate theology.
I was very careful not to tarnish all Islamic countries with the same brush as Saudia Arabia, and a few choice others. Please show me one 'Christian' state, for example, that would allow such a similar occurrence to happen today?
Erm, who mentioned Islamic countries? I was talking about God, as described in the Bible and Koran. If the information in those books is correct, he's one sick motherhubbard.
P.S. from what I hear, Turkey's quite a nice country. As is UAE.
No - you're wrong.
Firstly, neither Islam or Judaism accept Jesus Christ as God - so you fall at the first hurdle.
Secondly, Islam does not accept the god of the Talmud but considers the Jewish scriptures (and hence their interpretation of God), to be corrupt. A 'corrupted' god and a 'true' god could never be the same.
There is a huge difference between the two Testaments, let alone between the whole Bible and the Koran. I've read both and apart from references to (as per your example), Moses, they are all very different. The depiction of who Moses was in the Koran, is completely different to the Bible. One must remember that Muhammed came into contact with a lot of Jewish and Christian traders and gleaned scripture stories from them. Many of the accounts of figures in the Koran are completley mixed up with the stories of other ones - which indicates his memory and understanding of those stories failed him.
Edited because I misread your previous reply
See apology above. But my statement still stands - they are not the same god.