with all of the legal mumbo jumbo and technicalties that the organization uses (recently brought to light in the australian case), i couldn't help but wonder what power the "no longer one of jehovah's witnesses" really has or even means from a technical standpoint, since the organization is so technical.
we know what it means when the announcement is made, but in reality, so-and-so never really belonged to any of the groups in the first place.
the law says that association or membership is voluntary, therefore the organization has the right to expel and shun someone for not following the guidelines expected of members.. what are the rank and file members of?.
I think it is just the announcement that they will shun you from that moment on.
I have always wondered how active Jehovah's witnesses would react if someone were disfellowshipped in, say, Australia, moved to the US and attended a Kingdom Hall. How would they find out that Mr Australian was disfellowshipped?
islam more lenient on apostates than the wtbts!.
this morning i came across this thought provoking comment in a cnn news article:.
harris zafar, national spokesperson of the ahmadiyya muslim community usa, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a huffington post opinion piece that "islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy.".
00DAD: If I'm not mistaken (my memory is not that good), once I saw a picture of Justitia Themis and she is a very beautiful woman. Great eyes, if I'm not mistaken (I didn't get to see much of the rest). She's smart as well, and that I can see even without my eyes. I'm afraid, however, that most people -even Mr Zafar- would find me too poor a match for her. My loss.
Inquiry Man and everyone: No wonder the Ahmadiyas claim that "Islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy". This is one of the things you'd expect from a group that the rest of Muslims consider "apostates". They are mistreated everywhere.
Religious Tolerance in Indonesia - Part 1 (RAW Video)
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DzNiQfpvtKOo
Religious Tolerance in Indonesia - Part 2 (RAW Video) [Graphic]
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHL6GD5xUYig
The first one of these links is one I uploaded when I first posted on this thread. It is "the first part" of "two parts". Both parts show how an Ahmadiyah place of worship was attacked, and how three members of the Ahmadiyah were murdered by a mob, while policemen were there doing absolutely nothing. The fact that many of those pious murderers or bystanders were recording videos of such a fun thing to watch does tell us something about them. The fact that the Indonesian police did nothing tells us something about the kind of political regime that prevails there.
This is an article published on The Economist about this heinous murder:
Lightly on the lynch mob
http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/07/religious-persecution-indonesia
"SO, WHAT sort of sentence do you think a man convicted of killing someone by smashing in his skull with a stone might get in Indonesia? Life? Thirty years in prison? Twenty? Five? No. Three months, apparently. (emphasis added).
At least, that was the sentence handed down by a court in Java on July 28th against Dani bin Misra. He was part of a frenzied mob of Sunni Muslim chauvinists, about 1,000 strong, that hacked and beat to death three members of the minority Ahmadi sect of Islam in February. Eleven others were on trial (including the cleric pictured above, white turban on the left). None of the guilty received more than six months for their crimes; none of them were even accused of murder. The ringleader was convicted of nothing more terrible than illegal possession of a machete; he got just over five months. (emphasis added)
Considering the horror of the killings, these verdicts were risible and have been condemned as such by all and sundry—human-rights groups, the American government (which usually leans over backwards to be nice towards its new friend and the world’s largest Muslim country), the EU, as well as Indonesian civil-rights organisations.
It’s a terrible verdict for Indonesia, and for Indonesian justice. On the subject of religious tolerance—and the related matter of Islamic terrorism—it’s as if the country always takes two steps forwards and then quickly takes another step back. A few weeks ago a court finally sentenced one of the country’s most culpable terrorist leaders to a meaningful prison sentence; now another court gives these perpetrators nothing more than a slap on the wrist for what was clearly an awful murder. Furthermore, no one could have been in any doubt as to the savagery and barbarity of the attack on the Ahmadis; it was all caught on film and posted (temporarily) on YouTube.
Most worryingly, the verdicts would seem to give a virtual green light to anyone else who wants to attack the Ahmadiyah, a sect that many Muslims regard as illegitimate and heretical (they face terrible persecution in Pakistan).
There's more but I don't need to copy all of it.
Lest we think it's only the Ahmadiyah that get the heat,
Under attack
The jailing of a jihadist leader still leaves plenty to worry about
http://www.economist.com/node/18867318
THE ordeal of a 22-year-old female Pentecostal trainee-pastor began on the evening of June 9th in Situbondo, a town in east Java. Aprilia Dyah Kusumaningrum was set upon by three men after leaving a church service. The details of what she then suffered are disputed. But she was abducted in a car, ending up hundreds of kilometres away. She managed to make her way home only after local farmers cobbled together a bit of money for her bus-fare.
Theophilus Bela, of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, an NGO, says the abductors, who wore serban, a type of turban favoured by Muslims, were Islamic radicals. He tells the story as an illustration of the sort of religious violence that has become all too common in Indonesia. This year has seen perhaps two dozen attacks on churches, mostly on Java, Indonesia’s most populous island. And Islamist attacks are not aimed solely at the Christian minority in a country with the largest Muslim population in the world. In February an Islamist mob lynched some members of the small Ahmadiyah sect, regarded by some orthodox Muslims as apostates, killing four. Members of the Shia minority have also been victims of violence.
There's more, again, but I don't want to make this post exceedingly long.
http://www.economist.com/node/15266768
Pakistan's abused Ahmadis
A mosque by any other name
Members of the Ahmadiya sect face a new rash of persecution
Jan 13th 2010 | Lahore
AS AFZAL TAHIR was reciting the Koran last month, and otherwise minding his own business—an electrical repair shop—four Muslim fundamentalists came to threaten him. If they caught Mr Tahir masquerading as a Muslim again, they said, he would pay for it: with up to three years in prison, which is the penalty for members of the Ahmadiya sect who are convicted of that crime.
AP
Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, though they differ from the Sunni mainstream on an important point: they believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the 19th-century Indian who founded their tradition, was a latter-day prophet. In many Muslims’ eyes, this makes them un-Islamic and blasphemous. Pakistan’s Ahmadis, of whom there may be 4m, were declared to be non-Muslims by the government in 1974. In the 1980s, under General Zia ul Haq, a fundamentalist Sunni dictator, most aspects of Ahmadi worship were in effect criminalised—in some cases by blasphemy laws which carry the death penalty.
The Ahmadis are an educated minority, who do well in commerce and produced Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate. But they are not permitted to call their mosque a mosque, nor to issue the Muslim call to prayer, display Koranic inscriptions or otherwise present themselves as Muslims. Under an arrangement re-established by Pervez Musharraf, the country’s most recent military dictator, Ahmadis have a separate voters’ list and parliamentary seats reserved for their candidates. But most Ahmadis choose not to vote at all. And some, including the leader of Lahore’s Ahmadis, Munir Ahmad Sheikh, argue that those holding the reserved seats, having implicitly accepted their status as non-Muslims, are not really Ahmadis at all.
Seated at Lahore’s main Ahmadi mosque—where an engraving of the Kalima, the Muslim profession of faith, has been crudely planked over—Mr Sheikh diagnoses a new outbreak of anti-Ahmadi thuggery. This is a roughly decennial event, he says, and has manifested itself in recent attacks on Ahmadi mosques in Lahore and intensified intimidation of Ahmadi traders.
A general rise in Islamist militancy, in which jihadists’ competing agendas have tended to merge, may explain this. Economic hardship, which aggravates the property disputes that so often underlie sectarian and religious violence, could be another factor. As can mundane political rivalries: a fiery dispute last September between Pakistan’s central “moon-sighting committee” and the government of North-West Frontier Province, over when to end the Ramadan fast, escalated to the point that supporters of the government likened their opponents to the Ahmadis—in effect, using the sect as a paragon of religious deviance.
So long as anti-Ahmadi sentiment is sanctioned by law, there is little prospect of breaking the decennial cycle. Nor is any political party likely to dare antagonising the Islamists by trying to repeal Pakistan’s anti-Ahmadi laws. It was, after all, a government of the relatively liberal Pakistan People’s Party that first declared the group to be non-Muslim. With most mullahs, the government and the law all ranged against the Ahmadis, it would be surprising if most Pakistanis were not too.
The shop next to Mr Tahir’s is pasted with anti-Ahmadi slogans. One screams “Every Ahmadi is a blasphemer like Salman Rushdie”. Asked whether this wasn’t rather un-neighbourly, the proprietor, Muhammad Rafiq, replies, “Whatever the mullahs say must be right.”
My sincere apologies to Mr Zafar, then. He was not lying. He thinks that Islam prescribes no punishment for apostasy. My sincere apologies again. I can but hope that whoever read my first posts about him can read this now, so his name is clean.
Of Mr Zafar's beliefs, however, the least we could say is that they are not necessarily shared by many of the people one traditionally identifies as Muslims. And that is the relevant point for us.
Is Islam more lenient than the Watchtower towards apostates? Depends on what you understand "Islam" to mean. Justitia Themis (smart and beautiful woman) wanted the original poster to compare apples to apples. Maybe - I speculate here - Ms Justitia would find Mr Zero Zero's comparison fair in that case.
Me, Asshole, thinks that Mr Zero Zero was wrong in his original post. Many people say that only the intolerant few issue fatwas and kill Theo van Goghs and do "honor" killings. Or hang homosexuals because they are homosexuals. The problem I have with this belief is that "the intolerant few" have political and armed power in many of those countries, first, and, second, the "tolerant many" apparently have no way to make their good hears prevail over those of the intolerant few. I would say what the good ole Spanish saying states: "Tanto peca el que mata la vaca como el que le detiene la pata". He who kills the cow is as much in sin as he who only holds the cow's leg.
It's interesting to me that secular governments (including that of asshole Ghadafi) were able to bring the fanatics to restraint.
Now, since the thread was redirected to this
"Imagine, just imagine, if the WTBTS prescribed"absolutely no punishment for apostasy"!
I can say that in that case only a few people would be witnesses. In my humble opinion, it is punishment, in the form of disfellowshipment and the loss of friends and relatives, or the threat of it, on the one hand; and FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), on the other, that keeps people in. A small minority is there just because they are power hungry.
One could speculate what the power hungry would do if they controlled a small land and could create their cherished "theocracy" there. Maybe an Indonesia but by another name, and with a different god, and with similar holy killings.
islam more lenient on apostates than the wtbts!.
this morning i came across this thought provoking comment in a cnn news article:.
harris zafar, national spokesperson of the ahmadiyya muslim community usa, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a huffington post opinion piece that "islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy.".
I sure am a piece of work. But I don't want to have the last word. Would you please reconcile your two statements above?
islam more lenient on apostates than the wtbts!.
this morning i came across this thought provoking comment in a cnn news article:.
harris zafar, national spokesperson of the ahmadiyya muslim community usa, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a huffington post opinion piece that "islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy.".
I understand this is about JWs. I disagree with your idea that the Watchtower is worse than Islam. The evidence of Islam's misdeeds is there to help you see that point.
Ok, now accuse me of misquoting you again:
BTW, and as you speculated in your last post, I too am sure some of the more "True Believer" type JWs wish they could stone apostates to death. There are plenty of them that would make sharia look like a kinder, gentler form of worship.
Please let me know how this goes with
"I suppose in retrospect, I should have ended the title with a question mark instead: Islam More Lenient on Apostates than the WTBTS? Please accept my humble apologies."
Anyone misquoting you?
In my humble opinion, the answer to your question above is no. Not that anyone should take this to mean that the Watchtower isn't evil enough.
once people have come in, and the doorman and the mic men are in place, why are there a few other suits scattered about at the back?
i saw a guy get up, sit down, get up, sit down, get up and when i looked what he was up to he was reading the noticeboard and looking around, waiting for a bus.
i figured he wasn't doing much at that point, but anything to not stay seated.
Interesting. Bookmarked.
islam more lenient on apostates than the wtbts!.
this morning i came across this thought provoking comment in a cnn news article:.
harris zafar, national spokesperson of the ahmadiyya muslim community usa, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a huffington post opinion piece that "islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy.".
00DAN:
All right, you didn't "write" what Zafar said. You just quoted it as part of your essential point, as stated by the title you chose for this thread, namely
Does your quoting it, not writing it, means that you don't agree with it? No. You did write this in the post above:
That was why the statement by Mr. Zafar was so striking. It shows the contrast of viewpoints among muslims, something NOT possible among JWs.
The use of the exclamation mark in the title that you chose for this thread denotes surprise. That is to say, you are aware that Islam is intolerant in the extreme, and the point you are trying to make is that the Watchtower is even more intolerant than Muslims.
I am fully aware that there is a witness out there that would gladly stone apostates to death, or the like. But, in the world as it is now, you don't see any Overseer ordering the death of a translator because he dared translate what a supposed apostate said. Or the death of a filmmaker because he dared make a movie with an apostate. So I beg to disagree with you, on the basis of what I have learned about Islam.
By the way, if Mr Zafar made such a statement, then apparently he is a very uninformed man, or a liar. In my humble opinion, his being uninformed would not suit the position he occupies. How he can say that "Islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy" is beyond my understanding. I assume he would not lie, however dear his religion were to him, if he had evidence that apostates are indeed severely punished in Islam. What's more, even unbelievers are punished -Theo van Gogh comes immediately to my mind- if they dare speak against Islam.
I trust you will examine the evidence, 00Dan.
Again, this is not a defense of the Watchtower. I would never do such a thing. It is just that, in my opinion, it is extremely intolerant, only not as intolerant as Islam. Maybe it is because the Watchtower has to coexist with secular authorities, and with far larger groups of other religious people. Maybe it is because only secular ideas allowed for groups such as the Watchtower to exist in the first place, or to survive persecution. I would like to see what would happen if the Watchtower tried to sentence someone to stoning. In the balance of power as it is now, the Watchtower wouldn't win, and they know. But, what happens in Britain, with their Sharia courts? Would Muslims "win" there? No, but they bully the English to get what they want. What happens all over Europe with the so-called "honor killings"?
Sometimes it's best to admit that one's point was wrong, and leave it at that. I suggest you do that.
has anyone heard about this?
we received an email from an old friend who is still an elder and doesn't know what we are up to.
"a change, they are no longer training missionaries and sending them into foreign fields.
I wonder if this change would also reflect the fact that the WT does not seem to be growing in developed countries. Years ago, Catholic missionaries were still mostly white. There seemed to be millions of French nuns and Canadian (Quebecker), Italian and Spanish priests. I honestly don't recall ever seeing a young French nun. So maybe something like this is happening to the WT?
Mormon missionaries used to be blond Americans, invariably, but these days there's always a blond and a brown. The brown is sometimes American born, but not necessarily. I think this reflects demographic changes within Mormonism.
Was Gilead the only place around the world where they trained missionaries? What about other countries?
I assume that they will try to convince older couples to live in Third World countries so they can "stretch" their money, as Painted Toe Nail said. Maybe you guys are aware that, for example, Central American countries and Mexico are attracting American baby boomers, because their income would follow them. Some countries even have laws to this end. I assume the Watchtower would ride that wave.
I met American witnesses who, as a matter of routine, travel South to receive medical treatment.
Shopaholic made a good point. If there are no sponsored visas, then it can be somewhat harder to stay in the country of choice. Your residence visa is approved on the basis of your own merits for it, not on anything related to freedom of religion. It also means you have to prove you can work. But Third World countries generally don't impose restrictions on migration, for reasons that, I assume, are obvious to all of us.
islam more lenient on apostates than the wtbts!.
this morning i came across this thought provoking comment in a cnn news article:.
harris zafar, national spokesperson of the ahmadiyya muslim community usa, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a huffington post opinion piece that "islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy.".
00DAD,
You wrote that
Harris Zafar, national spokesperson of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a Huffington Post opinion piece that "Islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy."
English being my second language, I am not sure if there are any nuances to the expression "mincing one's words". I would take this to mean speaking clearly, honestly, boldly and in an upfront way. I think you are giving Mr Zafar more credit than he deserves. As a head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, I would assume Mr Zafar is an informed man. If he is, then he was lying, and he knew.
Mr Zafar spoke about "apostasy". That is to say, about those who leave the faith. He didn't make any reference to "blasphemy". Because it is blasphemy that Rushdie was charged with. Let us read what the Wikipedia says about this matter. This is Khomeini's fatwa:
In the name of God the Almighty. We belong to God and to Him we shall return. I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, and those publishers who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, where they find them, so that no one will dare to insult the Islamic sanctity. Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, God-willing.
Mr Khomeini did not "mince his words". He imposed a death sentence not just on Rushdie, but also on those who published the book. Whether the publishers are Muslims or not is irrelevant. Islam is a religion where clerics issue death sentences even against unbelievers. And why shouldn't it be so? The Koran itself instructs to "Slay all unbelievers wherever ye find them".
According to the website No God But Allah, with which I am not familiar, but seems to be a website that cannot be accused of being anti-muslim,
"To kill the Unbelievers is applicable only during the time of battle; and even then Muslims are urged to take prisoners and to set them free–(Qur’an 47:4); and more importantly, to make peace with the enemies when they desire peace: “And if they incline to peace, incline thou also to it”–(Qur’an 8:61). In fact, Muslims are required to make peace even in the face of possible deception by the enemy–(Qur’an 8:62). Thus, to “slay the unbelievers wheresoever ye find them,” refers only to those who fight against the Muslims–(Qur’an 2:191). Even today we have nations flying thousands of miles to another country in pursuit of their enemies. And Mohammad was no occupier, no oppressor, no usurper, no exploiter; no transgressor; and those who were dedicated to annihilate him were on his own soil.
...
That Muslims are urged to fight the Unbelievers until they say none has the right to be worshipped but Allah does not mean that the Unbelievers must accept that Allah is the only One that has to be worshipped. All it means is that just as how they (the unbelievers) have the right to their belief, they must also accept that the Muslims have the right to practice their belief that ‘none has the right to be worshipped but Allah.’
It would a most glaring contradiction for Allah to instruct Muslims to kill all Unbelievers and yet tell us to not revile their gods–(Qur’an 6:108); that Mohammad’s duty was only to deliver the Qur’anic Message not enforce it–(3:20; 5:95, 102; 16:82; 24:54; 29:18; 46:35; 64:12); to invite people to Allah through wisdom and best arguments–(16:125); and that there is no compulsion in religion–(2:256; 6:107; 9:6; 10:99-100; 17:7; 18:6, 29; 42:15; 50:45; 76:3; 109:1-6). “We have truly shown him (man) the way; he may be thankful or unthankful (or he may accept or reject). It is only ignorance or bigotry to claim that Islam forces religion at the point of the sword or to kill all Disbelievers. To propagate Islam with the sword or to kill all Disbelievers is no where mentioned in the Qur’an. For: “The truth is from your Lord, so let him who please believe, and let him who please disbelieve”–(18:29).
When, exactly, do Muslims feel they are "at battle"? September 11, for example? Where they at battle with America, or where they at battle with the foreign-born people of so many nationalities that got killed there?
And since when is it right to kill in the name of your God?
Check the website: http://nogodbutallah.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=684:a-god-who-hates-wafa-sultan-3&catid=4:content&Itemid=6
An uninformed person could claim that the fatwa was not executed (nice word). Well, again, according to the Wikipedia again,
In the mean time there were several attacks on those involved in the publishing of the book and who "were aware" of its "contents." Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book The Satanic Verses, was stabbed to death on July 11, 1991. Two other translators of the book survived attempted assassinations.[27] Ettore Capriolo, the Italian language translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing the same month as his Japanese counterpart. Aziz Nesin, the Turkish language translator, was the intended target in the events that led to the Sivas massacre in July 1993, which resulted in the deaths of 37 people. William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, barely survived an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993.According to the Wikipedia, Salman Rushdie apologized, on advice from Ali Khamenei, and this was the answer
The imperialist foreign media falsely alleged that the officials of the Islamic Republic have said the sentence of death on the author of The Satanic Verses will be retracted if he repents. Imam Khomeini has said:
This is denied 100%. Even if Salman Rushdie repents and become the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell.
The Imam added:
If a non-Muslim becomes aware of Rushdie's whereabouts and has the ability to execute him quicker than Muslims, it is incumbent on Muslims to pay a reward or a fee in return for this action.[30]
Author and scholar on Islam, Anthony McRoy said that Khomeini's interpretation of the Islamic law that led him to refuse the apology follows the same line of reasoning as the eighth- and ninth-century Muslim jurist Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i. In Al-Risala (Maliki Manual) 37.19 Crimes Against Islam, Shafi`i ruled that an "apostate is also killed unless he repents... Whoever abuses the Messenger of God … is to be executed, and his repentance is not accepted."[15]
Now let's look at another case. According to Ibn Warraq's "What the Koran really says",
"The plight of Nasr Abu Zaid, an unassuming Egyptian professor or Arabic who sits on the encyclopaedia's advisory board (reference is here made to The Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an) illustrates the difficulties facing Muslim scholars trying to reinterpret their tradition.
"The Koran is a text, a literary text, and the only way to understand, explain and analyze it is through a literary approach", Abu Zaid says. "This is an essential theological issue". For expressing views like this in print - in essence, for challenging the idea that the Koran must be read as the absolute and unchanging word of God- Abu Zaid was in 1995 officially branded an apostate, a ruling that in 1996 was upheld by Egypt's highest court. The court then proceeded, on the grounds of an Islamic law forbidding the marriage of an apostate to a Muslim, to order Abu Zaid to divorce his wife, Ibtihal Yunis (a ruling that the shocked and happily married Yunis described at the time as coming "like a blow to the head with a brick").
Abu Zaid steadfastly maintains that he is a pious Muslim, but contends that the Koran's manifest content -for example, the often archaic laws about the treatment of women for which Islam is infamous- is much less important than its complex, regenerative, and spiritually nourishing latent content. The orthodox Islamic view, Abu Zaid claims, is stultifying; it reduces a divine, eternal and dynamic text to a fixed human interpretation with no more life and meaning than "a trinket... a talisman... or an ornament".
For a while Abu Zaid remained in Egypt and sought to refute the charges of apostasy, but in the face of death threats and relentless public harassment he fled with his wife from Cairo to Holland, calling the whole affair "a macabre farce". Sheick Youssef al-Badri, the cleric whose preachings inspired much of the opposition to Abu Zaid, was exultant. "We are not terrorists; we have not used bullets or machine guns, but we have stopped an enemy of Islam from poking fun at our religion... No one will even dare to think about harming Islam again".
"Absolutely no punishment for apostasy"
00DAD, you also said
"That being said, there are of course still many hard-core "True Believer" muslims that see things differently than Mr. Zafar, as the particular issue that prompted the CNN article make obvious."
I just thought it was interesting that even among muslims, there are some that are more open-minded and less fanatical. Among active JWs there is NO room for a difference of opinion, none. You can't even discuss having a discussion about doctrines. The GB simply will not allow it.
I would like to emphasize that I am no Watchtower apologist. It would not even suit me to do it, because I am what they would call a worldly. I speculate that the most religious witnesses would not behave very differently from Muslims if they held a similar power. There is even a famous quote about not being able to kill apostates because witnesses live in a secular world. But, whether for external pressure or for internal decision, the Watchtower does not go to the extreme of issuing physical death sentences on someone like me, for example. I have done and said many a thing that the Watchtower would find grossly insulting and disrespectful (and true, if they were honest), and, to my knowledge, there is no Watchtower fatwa on me.
I have also met Muslims and they do treat you nicely and they do mingle with you in a way that Jehovah's witnesses don't. And some are much less fanatical than others, yes. I have no question that many of them are nice and decent and kind people. When I met a very likable girl of Palestinian descent, however, I could but notice that she never left her home, and my friends and I agreed that it would be insane to even entertain thoughts about that girl "considering her seven brothers". I have run into Iranian-born women and you can admire their beauty, but from a distance; you can never be as stupid as to court them. And I can but wonder how come these very people do not revolt against things such as the morality police in Iran, or madrassas in Pakistan, or the rulers of Saudi Arabia. And I wonder how it is that these nice people are involved in so many so-called "honor killings" throughout Europe.
I believe that many of them are hostages to the same kind of mindset as many a religious fanatic of a different persuasion. And then, every religion has fanatics. Only those fanatics hold real power in their countries, and they enforce it. And they also enforce such things when there is a sizable number of them in a single country.
i think that for many people, and i've noticed particularly for those coming out of religion, logic is held up as the ultimate tool for understanding the world, and non-logic-based methods are derided.
but even for those who accept a certain amount of intuition, emotion or other non-logical elements in their decision making processes, there is still a pervasive norm priviligeing logical over illogical thinking.. .
i question that, though.
the use of logic as the supreme (or only valid) way of figuring things out requires that you consciously know and mull over, verbalize and theorize about, everything in life. The part of your brain that is verbal and can construct logical arguments is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the processing power your brain has. The rest of it is constantly taking in data, summarizing it and drawing conclusions and laying down memories (or not) and suggesting responses. The study of how to manipulate those responses (marketing is one branch of this) is fascinating, and certainly someone who has more knowledge of how the unconscious human mind works will have great power over large swathes of humanity - so there is danger that if you follow a solely intuitive approach, you open yourself up to abuse and manipulation. But...
Yes. In my humble opinion, this is why people want to give up their logic and have the answers given to them. They don't stop to think that this is the way you put yourself in somebody else's hands, and this other person often does not have your interest in mind.
Think of catching a ball. One way to do it would be to have someone throw it to you, note down the approximate mass, momentum, distance from the centre of mass of the earth, air pressure and wind resistance, etc., and use quadratic equations to figure out where the ball will land, and then put your hand out. Perfectly logical, and if you do it right it will tell you precisely where to put your hand, every time (if you mess up a step in the calculations you could be off by a mile, though, but moving on...). Because computers are better at working with complicated math than our conscious mind is, we are programming robots to catch balls by doing the equations involved. But, we have another alternative. We have specialized areas within our brains that can quickly figure out where stuff that's being thrown at us is going to land, and we can just use that ability that we have. Granted, someone who has a deep knowledge of how that part of our brain works can set up optical illusions, and we'll never catch a ball they throw (or we'll put our hand where they want us to put it, thinking we're doing the right thing). Not understanding and using advanced mathematics opens us up to manipulation, but also allows us to make decisions in everyday life 100's of times faster than we otherwise would be able to do. It's a tradeoff. And the tradeoff makes sense because when someone throws you a ball, knowing where to put your hand 3 hours from now is no good, you need to know now. And so it is with many decisions in life - any decision can often be better than no decision, and computing power costs energy as well as time, so decisions that use shortcuts, imperfect-but-often-good-enough heuristics, etc. end up wired into the human brain. And the same is true with an emotional reaction as is true with catching a ball - very often, our emotions serve us well in making decisions.
This is a false alternative. Do the test yourself: have a ball thrown and see if you have the time to do the calculations you suggested. Obviously you don't. But then, if the ball came to your right, would you do the illogical thing and extend the left hand?
Wouldn't you know that your human physical limits wouldn't give you time to do such calculations, and then wouldn't do them?
Now, if you had thousands of balls thrown at you and you could summarize all the factors into one single equation that could be fed to your brain and converted into an action in the split second it would take for you to catch the ball, you would catch the ball.
On the other hand, would you ilogically kill the fun in catching the ball, namely being able to catch it with uncertainty about where it is going?
Even though those emotional or intuitive decision-making processes are sometimes wrong in systematic ways that can be exploited, they use the full range and power of human thinking abilities
If I had only used my intuition and gone with your good prose, I wouldn't have noticed the fundamental mistake in this statement: you're saying that "emotional" is also different from "logical". When you're in love, it's very logical to go after the person you love. If you're thirsty, it's only logical to find water. It's also logical to build all the things that will get you tap water.
But let's go with your assumption and say that "emotional and intuitive", on the one hand, is opposed to "logical", on the other. Then you're wrong on your own terms: "emotional or intuitive decision-making processes" DO NOT "use the full range and power of human thinking abilities".
This last part of my post does not intend to be disrespectful, at all. But this post reminds me of those old Merry Melodies cartoons featuring Foghorn Leghorn and Egghead.
islam more lenient on apostates than the wtbts!.
this morning i came across this thought provoking comment in a cnn news article:.
harris zafar, national spokesperson of the ahmadiyya muslim community usa, does not mince words on the subject, stating in a huffington post opinion piece that "islam prescribes absolutely no punishment for apostasy.".
I believe the original poster has been terribly misinformed. And I find that surprising at this time and age.
Anyone ever heard about what a fatwa is? Remember Rushdie? Ayan Hirsi Ali? Ibn Warraq? Theo van Gogh, who wasn't even a Muslim?
Here's an example of some Muslim religious tolerance towards other Muslims:
http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DzNiQfpvtKOo
There is a part two of this video. You'll see pacifism in action.
Sometimes you don't even have to be an apostate. You just have to do something one of them fanatics does not like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo6uRwwnFH0&feature=related
