I'll ask you a slightly different question. The American stereotype of Islam is predominately tied to Saudi style Wahhabi restrictions on women. (clothing requirements, no driving, minimal working opportunities, education restrictions, saudi religious courts that tend to rule against women, etc..) How does your view of Islam compare to the Saudi view? Those seem like obvious freedoms denied to women and those same freedoms are given to men. So whats your take on that?
What is freedom to earn money? You mean freedom to go out and work? Freedom of where to invest your money? Freedom on working in a certain place? If you mean it in a sense of "are women not allowed to work, or work in mixed gender environments" or something of that nature, the Quran places no restrictions on women in this regard. The fundamental difference is that men have a DUTY to earn money and women don't. Sucks for me, but that's how it is. Women can be lifeguards at a women's beach, Men can't. Is that a freedom taken from men? Again, it's super important that you describe what viewpoint you're asking for. If you're asking for typical Saudi Arabian Islam, there are hundreds of pages worth of restriction and in some of the very extremist branches/sects, basically women can never leave the house except if it's a matter of absolute necessity. What are you asking about? And how do freedoms relate to rights?
Wahhabi is not a sect or a branch btw. Abdul Wahhab is a guy, who passed away, who they deemed to be a "renewer" of Islam. His ideas were so appealing to the leaders of Saudi Arabia, who were not strict Muslims but were deeply entreched in pre-Islamic Arabism, that they funded his endeavors with amounts of cash people only dream of and tried to tell everyone that he is the renewer and this is the true Islam we should be following. Today, over 90% of printed Islamic materials come from Abdul Wahhab's ideology and Saudi Arabia's oil money. My views are that I follow the Quran to a T, I imitate the Prophet's decision-making process with respect to the application of the Quran, and I read Hadith and consider maybe 1% of them valid. The stereotype you're talking about claims to follow the Quran 100%, follows the Hadith 100% (consider a portion of it perfect) even if contradictory to itself or the Quran, follow the subsequent commentary of one/two/three generations after the Prophet PBUH, and place total faith in the centralized Islamic jurisprudence system of the "scholars". Practically speaking, my Islam is so different to theirs, that at any point I expect some of them to consider me an infidel, apostate, whatever. IMO, women should drive, women and men should wear modest dress, the workplace should adapt to women to integrate them fairly not vice versa, there are no educational restrictions even in "Wahabbi" Islam, religious courts should be fair. Those are obvious one, and the people who believe those are a minority of Islam. However, I must clarify that you would be hard-pressed to convince them that those are freedoms rather than duties and responsibilities placed on one of the genders by God.
I'm asking about your interpretation of the Quran. It would be trivial to point to actual Islamic countries (like Saudi Arabia) and show that women have less freedoms. As to how freedoms relate to rights -- I think it is fundamentally a very basic relationship. We have certain rights. Freedom means you're permitted to do anything under law, so long as you don't trample on the rights of others. In Islam, each gender has a number of responsibilities. Does the Quran talk about rights? Which of those moral responsibilities does the Quran say must be enforced by law?
I'm ****ing damn tired of people dissing my religion, saying it's violent, saying 2% of Muslims (20 million) are violent and bla bla. Just shut the **** up, christian have done way worst in every continent on this ****ing planet, what about KKK. To me it's a terrorist group. All Christians are racist because of a thousand morons killing and oppressing black people?
This thread, and all of the threads relating to it, are not a pissing contest about whose religion is less violent.
I think you are reading my intent incorrectly. Read "interesting" with a more befuddled tone and you'll get it.
Oh no, I totally get it. That was just my coy way of saying "I see what you mean... but I would've chosen a bit stronger language."
Get back to me when the KKK blows up an airplane (Pan Am 103), hijacks an airplane, bombs a shopping mall in Israel or flies a jetliner into a building...all in the name of religion. Thanks in advance. I am not saying that all Muslims are violent, but when those of your faith undertake these tactics, you have to understand where the impression comes from and combat it by example.
The thing about Mathloom's posts is that I don't doubt his sincerity - I think he really believes what he says, even though I can't help the feeling that he is ape**** crazy sometimes in what he says. The other thing is that we need to keep in mind that he is actually one of the "less fundamentalist" followers of his religion - he is willing to engage in discussion with us infidels about it, he thinks the (more fundamentalist) Wahabi sect of Islam is crazy (to paraphrase), etc. The scary part? If he is one of the LESS fundamentalist followers of the religion...and as he says 90 % of the scripture about Islam is funded by the Wahabi sect...then .
It's funny how you take random figures thrown out by people as fact when it suits your agenda. You are quite the crazy one yourself.
I don't read that and see "I don't like Muslims". I read that and see "I don't like violent/irrational/fundamentalists". Now, some of ATW's other posts, not so much...
Please be specific. Quote the posts which you have a problem with, and I can address it. Or are you just trying to blend in with the crowd that thinks it is en vogue to call ATW a bigot?
