Should Islam be blamed for 'barbaric' acts?
By Spengler

Al-Jazeera television on March 9 apologized to viewers after a talk-show guest, Syrian-American psychologist Dr Wafa Sultan, described as "barbaric" the response of Muslims to a Danish newspaper's cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed. "The Muslims' barbaric reaction added to the value of these cartoons. It simply proved their rightness," said Dr Sultan on the Qatari network. "The Muslim is an irrational creature, and the things he learned overpower his mind and inflame his feelings. That is why these remarks have turned him into an inferior creature, who cannot control himself and respond to events in a rational way."

Despite the network’s hasty apology, Dr Sultan’s presence on the show is a sign of the times. The issue of Muslim "barbarism", including honor killings and other forms of violence against women, has risen in prominence in Europe's political agenda. The question appears to be: Do Muslims commit barbaric acts because they are bad Muslims or because they are good Muslims? Does Islam as such promote barbarism or suppress it? Within the vast collection of hadith, or apocryphal sayings of Mohammed, are to be found explicit support for female genital mutilation and wife-beating. Are such barbaric acts a residue of traditional society that persist despite Islam, or because of it?

I shall argue that this is the wrong question, for Islam by its nature cannot be separated from primitive life.

Many Muslims protest that Islamic law does not sanction honor killings, and that other ethnic groups (eg, Hindus in Britain) are guilty of the practice. Honor killings are a repulsive aspect of traditional society. We first hear of such an act in Genesis 34, when after Jacob’s daughter Dinah was seduced by a man of Shechem, after which his sons Simeon and Levi instigated the slaughter of the town’s men. But Jacob denounced the act and still reproached his sons for it from his deathbed.

The Hebrew Bible reports the practice of honor killing, but abhors it. Muslims remain divided on the subject. Strictly speaking, it is true that Islamic law forbids a Muslim family from killing an adulteress or a woman who has had relations with a non-Muslim man. But that is only because Islamic law specifies that Islamic courts, rather than families, should supervise the killing. It is not that women (and sometimes men) should not be killed for the crime of illicit sexual relations, but rather that the Islamic courts should arrange the killing.

For this reason, Islamic law views quite leniently honor killings that accomplish what the courts would have done given the opportunity, and many Islamic commentators do not see why families should wait for the courts at all. Until recently, Jordan gave "honor" killers sentences of as little as six months under Article 340 of the Jordan Penal Code, which stated: "Anyone catching his wife or one of his immediate family in a flagrant act of fornication with another person, and kills, injures or harms both or either of them, will benefit from the exculpating excuse ..."

Jordan's King Abdullah succeeded in revising this language, but as the Associated Press reported last year, "attempts to introduce harsher sentences for honor killings have been blocked in Jordan's parliament, where the predominantly conservative Bedouin lawmakers argue that lesser penalties [than honor killings] would lead to tolerating of promiscuity."

Islamic clerics, to be sure, tend to favor the idea that they rather than families should do the killing. According to a traditional ruling cited by Dr Mohammed Fadel and frequently posted on Islamic sites,
The prohibition against applying a legal penalty without legal authority (bi ghayri sultan) and without witnesses; cutting off the means to shedding the blood of a Muslim based merely upon the claim of his accuser, the one seeking the shedding of the accused's blood. [In this case] the truth of the claim would be known only by [the accuser's] own statement and Allah, may He be glorified and sanctified, has made the life of a Muslim a precious thing, and has made the sin in taking it great as well. Therefore, it [legal punishment] is permissible only under the conditions in which Allah has permitted it. [Application of legal punishments] is exclusively for the government so that it may apply that which Allah has commanded in His book or on the tongue of His Prophet.
There is no question that flogging and execution of adulterers is mandated by the Koran (eg, Sudra 4:15). As I observed in another context, this point is so clear in Islamic law that Professor Tariq Ramadan refused to condemn the practice in a televised debate with then French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

All Islamic commentary on the subject, though, applies to the behavior of Muslims in a country under Islamic rule in which the only only law is Islamic law. If no Islamic courts are available, what should an individual Muslim do? Is it then permissible to take the law into one's own hands? We have no clear record of Islamic jurisprudence on the subject, for only in recent years have large numbers of Muslims come to live in non-Muslim countries. But the reticence of Islamic clergy in the West to denounce honor killings is noteworthy.

The rest is here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JC11Ak04.html

soren,

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So what's the Bible's Halachic punishment for adultery?

You try to claim the Bible doesn't permit honour killings, in fact it abhors it, yet Islam permits it apparently, because the Islamic law considers adultery a capital offense. News: The Bible also considers adultery a capital offense.

Deuteronomy 22:22 "If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die."

Leviticus 20:10 "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death."

Leviticus 21:9 "And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (

This isn't honour killing???

)

locutius,

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These killings do occur in Muslim countries sadly, but not with the blessings of Islam, they do so out of their own tribalist ignorance and in direct opposition to Islam.

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What you quoted easel is not from the Hebrew Bible, it's from the Greek New Testament.

Abu - those quotes are form the OT, that's for jews.
The New T is for christians.

Thank you abu, my limited intellect and powers of perception have been rectified by your great insight.

Maybe you can use the same to show yourself that this is a discussion about Islam and it's alleged barbarism and taking the thread off course and on to a discussion about Judaism/Christianity is not the intended direction I assume this article was leading to.

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Anyway, back to Islam.

The acts of violence are sanctioned by Islamic spiritual leaders.

Christianity is not responsible for homosexuality, God is. If a Catholic condones homosexuality, is he/she speaking on behalf of the Church? Or is it only the clergy and the pope who can do that?

I'm pretty sure sodomy between two consenting adults is not illegal in Australia anymore, but I could easily be wrong. The Australian Defence Force accepts gays and lesbians and they were even officially represented at the Mardi Gras, so I think it has government backing in this country.

The article very, very briefly touched on aspects which were not Islamic, and admitted the acts did take place, which were then condemned within the same book, if you read the article.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 18^th, 2008 at 12:30pm:


Interesting that the act of sex between two consenting adults of the same sex is a barbaric activity but killing someone for a misjudgement is acceptable. In fact righteous if decided by council.

Easel,

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They are? Can you bring me a reputable Islamic 'spiritual leader' who's condoned honour killings?

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That's precisely the point. Just because a government in a largely Christian country condones it, doesn't mean Christianity condones it. Likewise just because a government in a largely Muslim country has light punishments for murderers who commit these [dis]honour killings, doesn't mean it's condoned by Islam.

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Actually it mentions the Hebrew Bible alone, indicating it's just talking about Jewish books, not Christian books. You must remember the Old Testament is a complete and seperate book by itself, used by Jews for thousands of years, without ever attaching the New Testament to it. The story mentioned is that of Jacob (pbuh), and Jacob (pbuh) lived in the time of the OT, he knew nothing about Christians, nor about their New Testament.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 18^th, 2008 at 2:36pm:


My copy of the Holy Bible has both the New and Old Testaments in it.

Easel,

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Ok, see the part labeled "Old Testament" that's the "Hebrew Bible" which soren's post referred to. Anything after that, is NOT the Hebrew Bible... are you catching on?

Locutius,

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Well I apologise for any confusion you felt. I just considered it quite obvious that the analogy to Christian society and homosexuality would'nt have been mixed with the origin of the analogy, Muslim societies and honour killings. Also I stated this, which could only logically refer to honour killings, since it's not the case for homosexuality:
but in all countries that I know of, it's illegal. Yes it might have light punishments, but the same goes for some Christian countries also, and the point is?

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Yeh perhaps in the tribal mountains of Pakistan, they have councils of elders or something, which organise "punishment rapes" for the sisters of those accused of rape. And I suspect that this is the kind of barbarity you're superimposing on your view of Islam. This kind of uncivilised barbaric tribalism has absolutely nothing to do with Islam. Islam strictly forbids it, and condemned it in the strongest of terms. Muhammad (pbuh) likened the one who carries tribalism, to one who is carrying a coal from the fires of hell.

Quite simply put, there's no such thing as 'honour killings' in Islam, and anyone who practises them, practises them outside of Islam. Likewise I'm sure you don't consider Christians who commit honour killings to be representative of you or anyone in Australian society, right? or even of Christianity.

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As mentioned in the thread about those found guilty of terrorism in Australia, circumstantial evidence alone is enough to convict a person. In the Islamic legal system, this is not the case. It must be direct evidence.

locutius,

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Firstly we need to be clear that the Islamic legal system ceased being implemented officially in 1924, with the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate, the last state that actually adopted in totality the Islamic state system. All the successor states, most of them drawn up in the Sykes-Picot agreement, implement a mixture of some European law systems, some Islamic laws and some bedouin laws. It would be noe more appropriate to blame the legislation on Islam than it would on Italy or France (the countries from which most Arab countries take their legal systems).

Yes some predominantly Muslim countries have light sentencing laws for so called 'honour killings', but so do some predominantly Christian countries.

According to the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (2002), the following countries have legislative provisions allowing for partial or complete defense in the case of 'honour killings': Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Peru, Syria, Venezuela and the Palestinian National Authority.

6 predominantly Judaeo-Christian states, and 5 predominantly Muslim states.

Haiti, Morocco, Brazil & Columbia also have legislation or had legislation in the recent past which diminishes responsibility of those killing their wife caught in the act of adultery.

3 predominantly Christian states, and 1 predominantly Muslim state.

According to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives."

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I have no problem it being taken into account, I just have a problem with it being the SOLE form of evidence that can be 'pieced into a mosaic'. A legal concept that you find to be quite acceptable.

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Agreed, and that's why in the case of capital offenses, Islam requires 4 witnesses, not just 1.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 18^th, 2008 at 12:30pm:



Dear Mr Amadinnerjacket, Islamic Persia was the home of a pederast culture second to none:




See the sufism, sodomy and satan thread next door. Dear leader Arafat, for crying out loud, was a drooling, slobbering shirt lifter of the first order. So much for revolutionary gun-toting.

And the youth are not far behind him, as it were. When masses and masses of muslims youths are unemployed and so have no hope to marry, and all the girls are off limit and there is only internet porn and the attendant RSI  - who you gonna call? No wonder there is never any shortage of young men going apeshit on the streets of muslim countries. They are frustrated out of their brains. And so its either the beardless youth at hand or paradise.

And look at the picture of islamic paradise. Get your war booty in this life but if you die trying, you will get the same earthly rewards in the afterlife - girls, wine, boys, teasure. It is sensual, bodily,  to the highest degree.

I am amazed you can belive it to be anything but a spur for the illiterate footsoldiers bursing out of Araby in search of slaves, booty and adventure. Spread islam and get rich and get pleasured - in this life or the next. And  I tell ya - you are spiritually superior as well. Can't make it fairer than that. SOLD!

So homosexuality is a small concern and relatively insignificant in the whole scheme of islamic, oriental, exotic pleasure-seeking.

soren,

Instead of continuing to project your sick fantasies onto the Muslim 'orient' as many orientalists before you have done, why don't you actually provide a concrete argument to back up your original claims, which quite frankly have been demolished. Perhaps that's why you've abandoned defending them?

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Again, agreed 101%, any state sanction of vigilantism is despicable. But I have a feeling you especially think so in the case of adultery and apostasy and that you still consider vigilante 'honour killings' (and lenient sentences for 'honour killers') to be an extension of the illegalisation of adultery and apostasy. You need to recognise it has nothing to do with it. Likewise vigilante slayings of other kinds of criminals and a state which gives them lenient sentences, have nothing to do with a state that has the death penalty for the crimes those vigilantes believe themselves to be acting against.

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In that case I find your views to be inconsistent. This means that you consider yourself the ultimate arbiter in which crimes warrant death and which crimes don't. In other words you're just arguing from your own subjective viewpoint and moral code, rather than from an objective viewpoint that finds the concept of the death penalty unacceptable.

Statements like this one you made earlier on:
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Have been rendered completely irrelevant and have made you appear hypocritical in your approach to the issue. any crime Locutius deems death-worthy, should be dealt with by the death penalty, and crime Locutius doesn't deem death-worthy should be dealt with by "exile, banishment, persona non grata, redemption, pious duty, conversion etc."

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What you must understand is that the Islamic texts that prescribe the death penalty for apostasy/conversion clearly state the one who abandoned his religion/ideology and his allegiance to it in favour of the enemy. In other words it is treason. And you must recognise that when dealing with this issue. As you quite clearly stated you believe the death penalty is warranted in cases of treason.

As regards adultery and fornication, since the secular world believe adultery to be a quite acceptable behaviour, and it's not a crime at all, that's why you oppose the death penalty for it. Some nations also prescribe the death penalty for things like drug offenses, when others consider drugs to be fine. There are differing views, and one simply needs to be weary of them when residing in any country that has the death penalty. In Singapore you can be lashed for littering (If I remember correctly) many other countries would consider that barbaric.

Since you're name is Locutius, I'm assuming you're a Star Trek fan (or interested in Roman history), I remember an episode of TNG when Wesley Crusher kicked a ball onto a lawn, in a society where such an act was a capital offense. It created quite the dilemma for Picard, as he had to weigh up the Prime Directive and the boy's life. I think in order to justify your own legal system and it's independance from outside interference, you need to respect the rights of others to do the same, even if you may not agree on their laws. Anyway as I pointed out earlier, adultery and fornication were mostly commuted to prison or fines under the Ottoman Caliphate. There is a book about this, which looks quite an interesting read called In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine by Judith E. Tucker.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 19^th, 2008 at 10:12pm:


Vey well...



Yar-Shater, Ehsan. 1986. Persian Poetry in the Timurid and Safavid Periods, in Cambridge History of Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986, pp 973-974.



(Hafez, 14th century)





(Al_Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 May 2006 Issue No. 793)




But see also:
Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures By Suad Joseph, Afsaneh Najmabadi
L Crompton - Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature, 1997
Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 By Khaled El-Rouayheb
L OUZGANE - Islamic Masculinities, 2006

And so on and so forth. (Imagine how long a list I would give you if I were gay with a bee in my bonnet about Muslims!)

In time-tested fashion, the good muslim will contort himself and resort to invective to deny something as plain and obvious as the nose on his face.  This is why the Koran and Mohammed, and by extension islam, cannot be questioned (that would be disrespectful and insulting and we know what awaits people who do that, don't we.) - who knows what might come to light. Dogma (fantasy) must prevail over life, facts and reality.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Sep 20^th, 2008 at 9:59am:



And nobody lives in denial about that, thanks be to the gods.

Oh, and mustn't forget Sappho. We in the west are stricktly equal-opportunity, especially when it comes to the ladies.

Undeniably (although 'promotion' of homosexuality in english public schools is an unnecessary overstatement.)

At any rate, we know about all of them ignoble taints from western sources because it is within its tradition to be unafraid to examine, criticise, denounce if necessary and ultimately correct aspects of both its religious (Judeo-Christian) and cultural (classical, medieval, modern) sources and heritage.  Islam is unable to do any of this.

That is the point.

Good if a bit light and fluffy.  I think this british comedian is much sharper and more incisive. And very funny.

Appeasing Islam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9dXGJ2rYdA&feature=related

The trouble with Islam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhN6CG1zCRc

More demands from Islam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHh0NdR5Jh0&feature=related

The religion of fear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3_qelW5qp4&feature=related


And funny as well. Very funny.

And this one.

What about the Jews?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vaw658Bow8&feature=related

Soren wrote on Sep 20^th, 2008 at 2:28pm:

Yep we've done Pat Condell here before, (or was it on Cracker?) Very sharp witted.

mozzaok - that was a good clip with the comedian.
many an honest word said in humour

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There's a difference between speaking about and claiming to speak on behalf of. You claim, out of some sick fantasy of your own, that Islam supposedly permits homosexuality, and your only evidence is Western orientalist writings, and their translation of a poem by a drunkard Persian which 'alludes' to something of a homoerotic nature...

When your Western orientalist sources are questioned, you proclaim that Muslims don't allow anyone to speak about them. You've claimed something about Muslims, and your only evidence is the words of the mortal enemies, at that time, of the Muslim world... Not very convincing, sorry.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 18^th, 2008 at 12:30pm:


Albanians are 70% approx Muslim and also uphold the Blood Laws of their peoples to the letter, including the intermediatary that acts to find an alturnative resolution or ensure the blood law is followed correctly.

Would you like a link, or can you navigate your way to the laws and customs I speak of?

Sappho, it's quite ironic that you've just posted something about Albanians subscribing to PRE-Islamic beliefs on blood laws, attempting to implicate Islam in the process. Then immediately after you've cleared Christianity of any connection to homosexuality because it's a concept linked to their pre-Christian society/beliefs.

As has been stated, enough times, Islam forbids tribalistic customs that call for vigilantism, as I'm sure Christianity probably does. Whether people in Brazil or Albania, Zanzibar or Columbia practise it has nothing to do with either Islam or Christianity.

Sappho wrote on Sep 21^st, 2008 at 11:05am:

Was I arguing that Christianity condones homosexuality or paedophilia? I think we're all aware that both Christianity and Islam condemn the practises. However, their practises are to be found in Christian and Muslim societies (and in probably every other society as well) with varying degrees of societal acceptance throughout history. Poets and philosophers may sing about it and extol it as a virtue, but I would bet that every religion's holy texts forbid the practice.

If you look at some of the paintings in the Vatican museum, you will see that its clear that paedophilic homo-eroticism was at least tolerated within the Catholic Church even by the Popes. This tacit tolerance has continued up to and including the great Pope John Paul II whose protection of Father Marcial Maciel, despite mountains of evidence against him, was an outrage against those boys who suffered, literally, at his hands.  

The Platonic Dialogues, as great as they are, have caused a great deal of discomfort in the modern era, as our understanding of the damage done by paedophilia has become more clear.

Of course, none of this is meant to imply that Christianity or Islam per se condones homosexuality or paedophilia, but the practices have occurred (sometimes with impunity and/or tacit approval) in both Christian and Islamic societies regardless of their respective holy texts’ prohibition.

helian,

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Whilst I appreciate you're just trying to appear 'even handed', I don't think you could back up such claims about Islamic societies. Perhaps Christian societies, I don't know, but certainly not Islamic societies. This kind of filth has never been given any kind of approval under Islam, tacit or otherwise.

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And in the opinion of others, in fact what would've been my opinion not too many years back, the death penalty altogether is wrong, for any crime whatsoever. You can incarcerate them for life, you can banish them, do as you please, but don't kill them.

Do you accept their case against your views is just as valid as your case against the Islamic view?

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Because you accept punishment for those crimes, but you consider the death penalty for them unthinkable, and therefore suggest other punishments that should be used instead. If you are consistent, and you don't accept adultery is a crime, then you shouldn't be suggesting any alternative punishment for it at all.

tallowood wrote on Sep 21^st, 2008 at 9:40pm:


The contention, as outlined in the initial article of the thread, is that generally beliefs motivate action, and specifically that "Islam by its nature cannot be separated from primitive life" and by implication, 'barbaric' acts are rooted in primitive life.
The author says that Islam is as Islam does - and Islam does as it does because it is not a  break from primitive, pagan, tribal life.
And so with any beliefs  - you know them by their actions, and if their actions are primitive and barbaric, then they are also primitive and barbaric. By seeing how people act, you can see what is in their hearts.
Islam continues to motivate primitive action because it is in no way a break from pagan, primitive life. It only reqires ritual, outward signs of adherence - see the 5 pillars of islam, they are all performative - and not any inner conversion or change. Islam leaves the primitive heart unchanged and so that heart can motivate and spur barbaric acts yet remain acceptably Muslim as long as it has carried out the outward signs of submission to a god.
That is what Spengler, the author, is expanding on in this article and some others.

helian,
You can assume and theorise it "must've" existed, but that doesn't make it so. et suppositio nil ponit in esse. Without any actual evidence of any kind, it doesn't mean much. Also you said that it occured with impunity and tacit approval.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2008 at 4:53am:

Abu

My point is not to accuse Islam of promoting homosexuality or paedophilia... It is clear that it does not. But to argue that it does not occur within Muslim societies seems to me to be unnecessary denial of the irrefutable. Sexual orientation (either hetero or homosexual) is part of being human and comes before one learns to be Christian or Muslim.

All Muslim societies (as do all other societies) recognise and deal with sexual deviance one way or another from harsh penalties (i.e. death in Saudi Arabia) to lightly or not at all (i.e. Indonesia).

As for sexual assaults on children, unfortunately Muslim societies are not free of this atrocity by virtue of the fact that they are Muslim.

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You did say it occurred with impunity and tacit approval, just wanted to point out it's not the case.

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I've not suggested sexual deviancies like this have never occurred, they have, and it's been documented that a few cases of homosexuality were found throughout Islamic history in the court records.

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I cannot really speak for post-Islamic societies like Pakistan which no longer implement the Islamic state system. My concern is only with the Islamic Caliphate, Islam cannot be held responsible for what occurs in states that were created when the Islamic state system was abolished.

But anyway, for a country of about 170 million, 500-2,000 cases is a pretty small proportion, doesn't make it acceptable, if it's happening then it's an abomination that must be harshly dealt with.

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Abu

Do you never tire of repeating that phrase Abu?

If Islam is so perennially unaccountable, then WTF do you bother with it?

Of course non muslims do not buy into the fantasy of, come the revolution, all will be milk and honey, but it is a great excuse for abrogating responsibility for your actions, of which Islam is the grand master.

Seriously, you need to accept that acts by muslims, for the promotion of Islam, or it's teachings, done in allah's name, just may have something to do with Islam.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2008 at 12:11am:

I agree that a religion can shape the person after the brute facts and influence or cause the conscious suppression of behavioural predispositions. Religion is usually very effective at this and the suppression would no doubt be even more effective where harsh penalties were meted out for behavioural deviance. This is true not only of sexual deviance but also for criminal tendencies. If the penalty for breaking a window in anger is 6 months jail, the number of windows broken in anger will quickly drop. Every despot understands this correlation.

Superficially it would appear that deviance had been eliminated or reduced to insignificant levels and so long as the repressive regime remains intact, adherents can claim (spuriously) to have eliminated the unwanted behavioural traits. However as soon as draconian penalties for deviant acts are abolished, the occurrence of the acts will rise accordingly.

To blind oneself to the strong probability that the regime has only suppressed the outward manifestation of the behaviour and has not eliminated it, is to risk making a fool of oneself, as President Ahmadinejad of Iran did when speaking at Columbia University. The fact that Iran continues to impose penalties for homosexuality (and carry them out) indicates that lawmakers are aware that the predisposition has not been eliminated and never can be… only suppressed. After all, there are no laws against flying your elephant within city limits.

Yes Helian, sadly some do try and suppress natural sexuality through violence.
The 4,000 or so homosexuals who Iran have executed certainly won't be doing it again.

Islam is not alone in this one, there was a poignantly sad you tube clip of a fundy christian teaching how to "beat" the gayness out of children, it was similiar to how Ned Flanders had the badness beaten out of him as a child in The Simpsons.

Aahh The Simpsons, more relevant than any religious text ever written, "save me jeebus"

abu, a woman revealing a bit of flesh is not a crime. You can't compare it to willful destruction of property.

What is a crime is a man who can't control himself and assaults that woman.

Here you are abu, whinging about how the governments of the world are destroying freedom, and you think it is perfectly acceptable to stop someone wearing a bikini.

Bravo senor hypocrite.

Edit: I am in the wrong thread, but I think this post makes a semblance of sense.

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If you check who made the comparison, you'd find this comment should be directed to helian, not myself.

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Likewise your country thinks it's perfectly acceptable to stop someone wearing nothing.

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Since you can't quantify what people are doing at homes in secrecy, you can't really use it as an evidence in a debate.

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Since we're not rams, that's not really relevant.

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Yes God did permit us to be tempted by such things, as he permitted us to be tempted to eat chocolate until we become diabetics, doesn't mean it's a good idea to act upon that impulse.

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Since I'm a proponent of it being outlawed, and you're a proponent of permitting it, your lame attempt to 'question' my position is just ridiculous.

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Not just Australia, but most countries on earth prohibit nudity to some extent, some more than others, get over it.

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Hop off your computer and go graze in the paddocks then. I'm not really interested in debates with livestock.

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We do not understand what God condones, by what urges and instincts humans might have. Some humans have overwhelming urges to kill, but that doesn't mean God condones it. This is a very flawed attempt at using something you're obviously not qualified to use, logic.

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People choose to act upon it, as they choose to act upon anything else they might be tempted to engage in. As I already mentioned, people choose to eat chocoloate and junk food until they become diabetics, and there's scientific proof they're genetically pre-disposed to do it, doesn't mean they should be doing it, and doesn't mean society should encourage it.

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Yes in science, not in the attempt of a human who thinks he's livestock to use logic.

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Actually i said God permitted us, speaking about humanity as a whole. Since you consider yourself one of the livestock, I'll let it go.

Yes God did permit us to be tempted by such things, as he permitted us to be tempted to eat chocolate until we become diabetics,

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That's a rather recent advent, and it's quite irrelevant, because in most places it's not.

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We are sentient beings. Different from animals in every single respect. Even though we are built from similar substances, we are not the same. Since you obviously don't seem to believe in God, and you believe that submitting to base desires is fine, that probably doesn't mean much to you.

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Aren't we just animals? With primitive instincts to survive and hunt? Many animals kill members of their own species, so therefore it's natural, and you shouldn't discourage it.

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What if you had a profoundly retarded person predisposed to diabetes who was placed in a situation where they were permitted and encouraged to engage in excessive consumption of junk food, to the detriment of their health? Would they be making a conscious choice or would they be acting on more primal base instincts?

And further, would we not be wrong in leaving them to do it?

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Unlike Christianity, lusting after your wife in Islam is not just permitted, it's encouraged, and considered a very normal and healthy activity.

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Why the 'other than' clause?

Humans kill for the same reasons, do you think it's ok? Cos it's natural and animals do it too?

Your logic is flawed.

abu, do me a favour and address my entire post. Don't answer a question with a question. Answer the question then ask another question if you so desire.

Surely a man with such 'logic' and 'intellect' as yours should have no problem doing so.

I'm pretty sure primates don't 'naturally' kill each other on purpose in order for their genes to survive and other such scallywag behaviour.

They do 'naturally' engage in lesbian and gay sex though.

Inside my questions, which are generally quite long, you will notice with your superior intellect and logic, that I have attempted to address your questions and answer them to my reasoning. I haven't just grabbed your question, changed the words and flipped it around to ask you the same question you asked me with different variables.

All animals are similar, but they are not the same.

You can't compare a feline to a ovine, or a canine to a bovine. Well you can.... but not in the sense of all behaviours. A ovine does not stalk and hunt prey, a feline does. However, one thing they have in common is sexual reproduction and sexual urges.

Just like a primate is different from a cetacean. We are primates.

Typical Muslim, everything is related to lustful desires. That is not the case. The point I am making is your religion goes against nature (God) by prohibiting the very things that are normal and in wide occurance in nature.

With your superior intellect and logic, abu, you should not feel the need to flip my questions around, rather you should just answer them and not take advantage of my feeble mind. Maybe you can't answer my questions? Is that the problem?

You concede that post?

So you concede that Islam goes against God?

I guess it must be true, never before have I seen you not defend your faith.

Finally seen the light abu?

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2008 at 1:21pm:

Hahaha. I can see you have a sense of humour, Abu... Nothing like a bit of comic relief!

helian,

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Well he was asking for it, so I couldn't resist spicing up the discussion a little.

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Right, so transpose my response to your analogy back onto the original issue, and you'll see what i mean. A society, that strives to be chaste and morally upright, would not tolerate such transgressors marching down the streets proclaiming their disgusting activities to be normal.

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Not necessarily. If the punishments are stern and serious, then people pretty soon realise it's just not worth it.

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That's because you believe homosexuality to be an acceptable behaviour. For many, perhaps most in the world, it is not acceptable, and we consider it to be a crime. Likewise there are things we consider acceptable, which you consider a crime. Not all people are the same, not all people hold the same moral views about things, you must come to accept this. Your moral code is not universal, not by a long shot.

Tell me, do you think incest between consenting adults should also get the same treatment as homosexuality? If not, why not? And do you not realise that the next generation of Australians will most likely (if current trends continue) consider you conservative for opposing incest, as you perhaps consider your parents (not necessarily applicable to your specific case, but on an inter-generational level this is the gap in views and morals that's largely occured) to be too conservative in theirs regarding homosexuality.

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Or perhaps the inclinations were just a temporary fixation, that the individual will overcome, and they'll go on to have a family and enjoy a normal and happy life. I'm quite aware that you believe a homosexual life to be normal and happy, I however don't, as neither do i believe an adulterous life to be normal and happy.

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A more likely conclusion to draw would be that it successfully helped people to overcome those desires and inclincations which were just a test for them.

It quite clearly didn't tolerate it in any way, shape or form.

easel wrote on Sep 24^th, 2008 at 11:53am:


what you are saying is rediculous.

the fact that the human body both female and male is such that only male to female sex works biologically in a reproductive sense indicates that homosexuality is not natural.

In fact unlike homosexuality incest can produce offspring with a chance of inferiority but offspring nonetheless. indicating that perhaps incest is less unnatural than homosexuality.

further more a 1982 study mentioned in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the anal cancer rate for homosexuals is way above normal, maybe as high as 50 times normal. And a 1997 New England Journal of Medicine study again drew attention to the "strong association between anal cancer and male homosexual contact.".

how is that natural?

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Nature is not really an entity that can 'condone' something. So this statement is just nonsense.

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Wrong, there's some species that do it as the norm such as the african cichlid pelvicachromis taeniatus.

Either way, if they're consenting adults who want to engage in such a relationship, why should society be able to dictate to them they can't? Don't give me this crap about genetics, because they can quite easily agree to be genetically tested for the possibility of any defects that might occur, and alternatively agree to be 'fixed'.

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It occurs, even amongst primates.

Your definition of what is and isn't natural, seems to be dictated by which sexual perversions you find arousing.

jordan484 wrote on Sep 24^th, 2008 at 1:11pm:


Wrong again. Amazing how one can be so wrong so often.

Incest is not ok in Islam, actually quite clearly it is prohibitted.

Like really Jordan...why do you even bother??

Abu, a cichlid is a fish. Some fish undergo sex changes completely naturally and are able to reproduce as either male or female.

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easel wrote on Sep 24^th, 2008 at 1:30pm:


Weasel...you cannot possibly argue that Homosexuality is natural. If we were all homosexual, then the human race would die out.

In addition, our sexual organs were naturally developed for hetrosexual releationships, not homosexual. Thirdly, animals have sex to procreate...this is its primary and natural purpose. Pro-creation cannot occur during homosexual relations. Yes some animals may practise homosexuality...however, I think you will find these instances are not the norm.

And finally...if your arguing in regards to 'natural' urges...then murder too is a natural urge....do you also condone murder? It can be argued that all 'urges' can be natural, therefore using your logic just about anything can be justified as being 'natural'.

easel wrote on Sep 24^th, 2008 at 1:35pm:


If we all had red hair, our species would not become extinct though would it. Cause red hair is natural, homosexuality is not...it is an abnormality. A mutation.....

I didread the thread, and in no way did you logically respond the murder piont. There are people who actually are considered ill, in that they have strong urges to murder and are susceptible to violent thought. It is a chemical imbalance in the brains which results in what is to them a very natural urge...just as chemical inbalance and illness results in homosexual tendancies.

The two scenario's are very similar, yet for some reason you can justify one without the other.

There is some speculation and evidence for a hormonal imbalance with homosexuals though.

Some gay men were exposed to too much testosterone which made them super sexual, some were exposed to too much estrogen which made them a bit feminine.

Or so the theory goes. The sciency part of it is a bit beyond me.

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Yes and you failed to address the analogy last time also. If you wish to keep arguing, perhaps you should address it.

pender,

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easel isn't interested in that. He's more interested in homosexuality of the female type. Check his thread in the women's section.

abu_rashid wrote on Sep 20^th, 2008 at 1:09am:


But all apostates are given the death penalty right, regardless of whether there was any treason involved?

freediver wrote on Nov 5^th, 2008 at 2:12pm:





"......regardless of whether there was any treason involved?"



In ISLAM 'unbelief'  is  treason, and it is an insult to ISLAM / Allah.

In ISLAM abandoning your faith, is  treason, and it is an insult to ISLAM / Allah.