[Jason00S2000]

Originally Posted by StylinRed

the problem here is your talking about the arab islamic world... but the majority of muslims lies in Indonesia and CHINA (with 10% of its population)
your also forgetting places like Turkey, Pakistan and even Iran.. sure radical elements exist in these 3 countries as they do everywhere but not in the whole or to the extreme as you paint your description.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Pray tell why the military in Turkey is required to keep the country secular?

as stated before it doesn't say death is a punishment, ur quote was a partial quote identifying a group of peoples from ancient times identified as the hypocrites, and it did not dictate their death the use of an arabic word which can be translated as "to fight" or "to slaughter" was used but in the same section it said to battle the hypocrites was only sanctioned if they sought to fight/attack islam; it does not allow for murder of any who sought to leave the faith

Again, there is evidence of the contrary:

Islamic law (shariah, based on hadiths) says you are to be executed. Usually you're given 3 days to return to Islam. Execution for apostasy is approved by all four Sunni as well as Shia madhabs (schools of law), but there are hadiths which say apostates weren't killed. So the hadiths contradict themselves. But the madhabs have chosen death for apostasy as the appropriate hadiths to trust, so it's applied in countries like Saudi Arabia.

granted its being misused by radicals in the arab world, but also not in its entirety

I would like to know if there have been any executions for apostaphy in Saudi Arabia?

all religions/empires faced an era of attacking knowledge.. but you can't mark the arab world today because of what was done all those centuries ago.. you have to look at history and see how that area of the world, once powerful, was sacked and stifled by occupying forces... if you really want to look into technology look at Iran who even though (in terms of history) recently underwent a total reconstruction is quite advanced in technology, etc etc... you seem to be painting Islam as being the only culprit of having once stifled technology but islam was not the cause of it; it was as with Christianity those in power wanting to assert their hold on the populace and finding an easily pliable excuse which would garner them support

I'd say half of the reason why christianity in the west is dropping fast is because half of the people are becoming more and more intelligent and aware. The other half of the reason is because people are being rasied by less and less moral individuals who choose to raise them on MTV and garbage culture.

Remember, there are no gays in Iran.

( Because they hang them all! )

You're right, all religions have held back science, but Islam continues to hold that part of the world back while the West has been enlightened for awhile now. We need to be aware that there are forces at work trying to allow creationism to be taught along side evolution. Teaching our children that magic happens is dangerous for the human mind.

you can't denigrate the philosphy because of a localized(certain leaderships of the middle-east) mis-use of it. (it also depends on which side of the coin your on the actions of those you criticize isn't necessarily wrong, its only so from certain perspectives)

Absolutely you can denigrate a philosophy because of a localized misuse.

That's why when I post this image:



Most people who view it will have a preconceived notion of what Nazi is, and stands for.


Think I could walk around with that on a t-shirt and not have people comment? With your logic, people should stop being Naziphobic and learn that just because Nazism was bad in WW2 Germany doesn't mean that Nazism in Canada would be the same philosophy.

The argument could be made that a Canadian person's interpretation of "mein kampf" would be more moderate than the pre-WW2 German interpretation

The argument can also be made that a Canadian person's interpretation of the qur'an would be more moderate than the modern Saudi Arabian person's interpretation.