moses wrote on Nov 25^th, 2014 at 4:51pm:


Do you mean like Indonesia? Egypt? Turkey? And pretty much every Muslim country in the world who have almost identical age of consent laws to Israel?

Are they the sort of laws you mean, Moses?

I'm still curious.

Karnal wrote: Quote:


I'm curious also as to why apologists try to avoid mentioning the muslims who do practice child marriage / rape because their doctrine and prophet says it's O.K., plus the muslims who defend the doctrine and prophet's example as final, everlasting and perfect.

it's curious all right.

The Inquisition knew what to do with Muslim heretics:

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Sure. Like I already explained, there is the example of Jews using Jewish doctrine to argue against the existence of Israel on religions grounds. This is pretty much the polar opposite of Islam's approach to separation of church and state. Jews tend to be over-represented in politically progressive movements.

freediver wrote on Nov 25^th, 2014 at 7:58pm:


True - you provided the example of a tiny Jewish sect to counterbalance the existence of the state of Israel, FD, but I’m not asking about Jewish states.

I’m asking about the Jewish diaspora representing a turning point in Jewish theology and overturning the laws of Moses, as you claim. Do you have any articles or links?

You’ve clearly read something on this idea. What was it?

moses wrote on Nov 25^th, 2014 at 5:31pm:


I’ll give you one take on the success of Jews in business, science and the arts: money.

There’s a crucial reason for this. Until the 16th century, ursury was illegal for Christians. In many places, it was punishable by death. Only Jews were permitted to lend money with interest, and this established hugely influential European financiers, including the Rothschilds and others. This money became the foundation for the modern banking system. The foundation of capitalism in Europe and the world was Jewish money. Such wealth financed victory in a range of European wars and Empires, including the rise and fall of Napoleon and the Hapsburgs.

Innovation always follows finance. Individual Jews are successful in finance, patents, film, music, law, education, medicine, and a range of other high capital fields and businesses because they are members of social networks with money to invest.

Alongside this, Judaism places a huge value on education, success and what is known as being a "mensche" - a good man. These ethics are important, but they would amount to nothing without the historical ban on ursury in Europe and the centuries-old role of Jews in mediating global capital.

In Islam, ursury is prohibited. There are ways around this, but making profit from interest is banned in traditional Islamic society.

Economic development is facilitated by economic growth, which can only occur with savings and interest from those savings. Walt Rostow called modern development "the march of compound interest". A Keynesian economist, Rostow had a formula for this. India, Egypt, Indonesia and a range of countries were heavily influenced by this theory. All are now important economies. Two are in the G20.

This is just one view on economic advancement and the role of religious laws/ethics. To me, it makes some sense.

Feel free to add your own.

Soren wrote on Nov 24^th, 2014 at 11:03pm:


Which Christian doctrine says that women are worth half a man in law or that Jews must be killed off as are those who leave Christianity, non-Christians to be killed or taxed extra and humiliated?

~2,000 years of Christianity's history, Soren, where Christianity was used to oppress women, non-believers, Jews.  You have St.Paul's misogyny, you have the Churches' anti-Semitism, you have the churches advocating and promulgating it's doctrine of "holy war" against the inhabitants of the New World.  Soren, Christianity has a long, long, long, history of doing exactly the things you claim it doesn't and it did it often with the contrivance and cooperation of the Church. 

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Christianity accepts that deception is sometimes required for survival, Soren.

Deception is acceptable, if the circumstance calls for it, to protect oneself or others.  Taqiyya is  akin to the dissimulation practised by Abram (later Abraham) regarding the identity of his wife (Genesis 12:11-13), the deliberate deception by the Egyptian midwives to protect Hebrew infants targeted for government-mandated slaughter (Exodus 1:15-20), and Rahab’s use of the old “They went that-a-way” routine to conceal the Hebrew spies in Jericho (Joshua 2:1-7).

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Why then am I am to quite chapter and verse from The Bible, Soren?

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Ah, the comment from the Regensburg lecture of Pope Benedict XVI.  What a shame you, like the Muslims who took what was said out of context didn't read the rest or both to understand the context of that statement and of course, how ironical it was, considering Christianity's bloody history of spreading it's faith by the sword.   However, I'm not surprised because such subtleties are beyond you, Soren.  Your Islamophobia blinds you to them.   

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The differences are, as I keep pointing out, smaller than you actually understand, Soren.   Why don't you ever notice the similarities?  Does your bigotry blind you to them?