Posting photoshopped pictures of baby's with bombs strapped to them and such. Come on man, there's a difference between arguing for something (non-violence, reason, logic, etc) and arguing against something... or even worse, just trying to piss people off. And that's not even opening the whole can of worms that is the "ass in the air" thread.
Sorry, I thought I had seen you write that 90 % of written material nowadays of Islam was sponsored by them. "Scriptures" was the wrong word.
Ok, point taken - it needs to be seen in context, though - pissing people off is sort of part of the whole D&D thing, and obviously things are posted in response to others' posts. When Mathloom says he will post as many pictures of people praying as he can just to piss me off (not that it actually pisses me off), he'll get a response...etc. Some of the stuff some people post aggravates me (like the complete lack of understanding of freedom of speech) and then I might go back and forth between serious points and just provocative posts. That picture might have been tasteless, but the truth is that I did not photoshop that (I wouldn't have the skills and wouldn't have the idea to photoshop something as tasteless as that) - to the best of my knowledge, that is an actual picture of Muslim (Palestinian?) parents who dressed up their child like that, which is sad enough.
I won't put my interpretation of the Quran into this, because the goal is I want people to learn about the Quran as it is rather than my interpretation. The Quran is supposed to be THE law, it wouldn't say that any law needs to be created. A key observation, however, is that it doesn't prohibit the creation of a secular human law. Quran does talk about rights. Right to practice your own religion, leading to freedom of religion. It talks about right of a nation to defend itself. Is that the kind of stuff you mean? Some of the moral responsibilities required of Muslims is to protect the non-Muslims in their country if they are attacked. I think an interesting document, though made for very specific circumstances is the Constitution of Medina , drafted by the Prophet PBUH, signed by all the tribes if the Islamic empire at THEIR request for the Prophet PBUH to come up with a workable environment. There are a few different translations and the authenticity of the exact words is somewhat disputed, but the general body is agreed upon. Here's a link to a site that offers a couple of translations: http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/con_medina.htm FYI, those tribes listed are mostly Jewish/Christian and include most Jews/Christians, and people of other religions as well. Also, a common point of criticism is the article about protection of women without consent of their tribes - this was placed at the request of the non-Muslims because they were not comfortable with taking each others' women into protective custody as it had led to a couple of bloody confrontations through misunderstandings (essentially, the reason for creating the constitution). Also, the Quran rejects dictatorship. It recognizes the inability of human nature to hold total control over such a position and the Prophet PBUH apparently repeatedly said that it is easier for a "camel to go through the eye of a needle" than a person in that person with unlimited riches to do so. THe Prophet had an independent treasury. The Quran requires Zakat - which is essentially a tax which goes to social welfare. I feel like I'm all over the place and I don't know if I'm hitting the heart of your question. Maybe if you offer some examples from other religions or countries, we would be more on the same page?
People getting pissed off is definitely part of the D&D. It's bound to happen because of the topics and the fact that its mostly subjective opinion mixed in with lots of sacred stuff. But the *point* of the D&D isn't to piss people off/offend them. If you're going out of your way to do so, or doing so without being humorous or insightful, that's just kind of lame. I don't condone that kind of behavior from him, or from you. Two wrongs don't make a right, etc. Indeed. We've all noticed. Perhaps photoshop was the wrong word. "Fabricated" might be better. The origin of that photo is still hazy and using it as anecdotal caricature to make an ambiguous and emotionally driven point about Islamic violence just seems like a bad idea. And then you add in the fact that public prayer, especially Islamic public prayer, pisses you off, and you're making it mighty easy for people to think you're just picking on a particular sect of people (i.e. a bigot).
Regarding rights, I think rights, when you get down to it, are very simple: (1) right to life (2) right to property There may be others I'm missing, but those are fundamental. Many other "rights" like right to free speech or right to practice religion are contingent on the non-violation of the above rights. For example, we can say that people have the "right" to practice religion. But, clearly, no civilized society would tolerate such a right if part of the religious practice is human sacrifice. Similarly, even free speech is contingent. If I knowingly use speech to incite violence or theft, that's a crime. You said that the Quran is law. This would imply that the moral edicts that are prescribed therein which are not justified in terms of protecting people's rights should be viewed as abridgments on freedom (by my definition, where freedom means being allowed to do anything so long as you're not violating others' rights). So, I guess what I'm asking comes down to moral obligations that are placed on men and women which, according to Islam, should be enforced as law. That is, if any man or women violates an obligation, their society should punish them. You gave some examples of moral (legal?) obligations that men have which women don't have. Another question that could be asked is whether women are as free as men in a Muslim society that adheres to the Quran. So there are things that women can do that men can't do, and vice versa. But when you tally all the various obligations, do men have more control over the direction of their lives compared to women? What are your thoughts on that?
Those two rights certainly exist in there. It also prescribes the rights of people (wrt to the second one), for example, in case of marriage, divorce, being an orphan, taking in an orphan, etc.. Right to life is key. The punishment for taking someone's life unjustly is the worst possible punishment. Unjustly is not some vague word: basically you can't kill anyone except out of self-defense if it is absolutely necessary. Suicide is under the same umbrella. Regarding your body, it does not belong to us. It belongs to God according to the Quran, therefore you should treat it in a way which you would treat anyone's property if they lent it to you. This may be more metaphorical than literal, but this factors into many things that harm your body such as smoking or being overweright. For property, it also belongs to God. We are renting it. However, for our intents or purposes, we treat it as if we own it. Certainly, the same things hold true in the Quran. Everyone has a right to practce the religion of choice, there is no compulsion in religion. Human sacrifice is murder/suicide. A key factor to note regarding the Quran is Halaal and Haraam. Halaal is everything allowed (good) and Haraam is everything not allowed (bad). There are varying degrees of each as well. But more importantly, a key concept which was not very clear to me before is that: Everything is Halaal (good) unless the Quraan says it's Haraam (bad). Not the other way around. So if the Quran doesn't say anything about eating leather, then it it Halaal. Another good thing to know is that, within the Muslim Empire, non-Muslims had the freedom to do what they liked except under a few conditions which can basically be summed up to: don't kill/hurt anyone and don't force/trick others into things (human sacrifice, magic, etc). So towns all around Mecca were drinking and partying it up, strippers, dancers, religious people, rituals, celebrations of Christianity/Judaism, anything and everything goes as long as they do it in their "state" within the state. I didn't quite get you here. It is incredibly rare that the Quran asks humans to punish humans. Extremely extremely rare (if any). It is the law which God will judge by and we are to llive by on an individual basis. It doesn't say anything about ensuring that they are copied into human law and judged by a human judge. Because the nature of these laws is such that you have to know the heart/intent and the only judge that can do that is God. No human judge would be in his place to use the Quran as a book of law for a country and attempt to come to a conclusion on a murder case for example. We don't know the heart, and it is fundamental to the laws of the Quran. That's why, the Quran is between you and God. What you do in your every life should be lived according to THAT, but no one else has to live according to that and people can't judge EACH OTHER based on this law. If it were that simple, we'd do our judgement day rulings right now lol. I swear sometimes I think the really extremists ones keep notes and think they know their Good/Bad deeds "score" lol. I dont think any is more free than the other. According to the Quran, no I don't feel that. Women get to choose where they want to work, dress as they want to dress, marry who they want to marry, etc etc. It is the same. I have to plug in a defense for my more conservative friends though. Men have more duties/responsibilities in more conservative interpretations of Islam (i.e. Hadith) and I'm sure they'd be glad to give these up. They are not gifts or priviliges or allowances for control IMO. I don't know if that's what you were implying. They are duties and responsibilities for which they get nothing in return and are expected to get right 100% of the time, usually for themselves and their family. Direction is not important as everyone should, fundamentally, be going in the same direction and that is moreso in the case of husband-wife-family.It is a flawed system IMO, but this specific thing is not merely a male-dominated part of their religion. These are cultural things. It is an Arabic Culture thing which has leeched on to Islam - it is incredibly difficult for Muslims to weed out what is clearly an Arab practice versus a Muslim practice. Growing the beard, for example, clearly can't be an eternal command from the Prophet PBUH because not everyone CAN grow a beard. Every Arab 12 year old has a full beard though lol. Forced/arranged marriage? The Prophet PBUH didn't really do this. Not allowing two people to speak to each other before getting married - this was done pre-Islam because no one would bring their pride down by having their daughter rejected. For me, it's more easy to see because I'm a 3rd culture kid. Also because I actually read lol. A lot of the GCC nationals are reverting to pre-Islamic culture thanks to certain idols they have. The difference between bedouin arab culture and other cultures is that bedouin arab culture is unbelievably uncivilized and unwilling to change. Extremely stubborn. I would venture to say that it literally has not changed for 4-5,000 years AT ALL. Nothing changed. The camel is the car, the falcon is the expensive jewelry, the desert is the mall, the poetry now has background music, they are overprotective of their women, gossip is done through text messaging, polygamy has transformed into having 1 wife and multiple girlfriends, etc etc and so on and so forth. This is a problem for someone in Indonesia, who's wearing a scarf on his head thinking that it's somehow connected to religion. Ask him if the Prophet would wear those clothes if he was born in Siberia. Anyways, feel free to keep asking. I'm enjoying responding and picking up a few areas to discover along the way.
