We’re in the 21st century, and the vast majority of us still believe in an utterly and obviously fictional creator deity. Plenty of people, even in developed countries with decent educational systems, still believe in ghosts or magic (e.g. voodoo). And I–an atheist and a skeptic–am told I need to respect these patently false beliefs as cultural traditions.
Fuck that. They’re bad cultural traditions, undeserving of respect. Child-proofing society for these intellectually stunted people doesn’t help them; it is in fact a disservice to them to pretend it’s okay to go through life believing these things. We should demand that people contend with reality on a factual basis by the time they reach adulthood (even earlier, if I’m being completely honest). We shouldn’t be coddling people who profess beliefs that are demonstrably false, simply because their feelings might get hurt.
I think that often, people use the word respect in a different way when it comes to magical thinking. Religious people often use the word to mean exempt from examination, or beyond reproach. While it’s undoubtedly disrespectful to subject a person to an assault on their beliefs for no good reason, when those beliefs begin to play a role in decisions that will affect others, they can and should be challenged; people oughtn’t be shocked to learn that if they bring their beliefs into the public discourse around a policy decision, they’ll be subject to the same level of scrutiny as any other way of thinking or approaching a problem.
I am Muslim, and Islam encourages thought, scrutiny and pondering.
On social media the more vocal are from Europe and NA who have been in contact with (the remains of) Judaism and Christianity. So when talking about religions, in fact they mean just these two; or they extrapolate thinking the conclusions apply to all religions.
I think the average person knows close to nothing about Islam. Worse, they only know what is portrayed by the media or islamophobes online which is mostly wrong or twisted.
Mostly, anyone in the US that mentions Christianity mean Evangelical Conservatives as those are the loudest. And Evangelicals on average know next to nothing about the Religion they claim others must follow.
I’m glad you made a strawman of ignorance because I have read the Quran, I specifically enjoyed the “religion of peace” prescribed methods of dealing with a disagreement with a wife and the stoning of apostates.
I know Islam is as despicable as all other Abrahamic religions because they are all rooted in cruelty, superstition and ignorance.
No, you know only your own bigotry.
And I take it you already read the explanation of the Prophet (pbuh) of that verse, meaning as a light flick with a pen, and not putting your own understanding of the translated verse. How violent!
Also that you are fully aware of the setting in which the apostasy laws are applicable (I will not help you with that, you should know).
Could you objectively demonstrate how it is cruel? How is Islam superstitious? And finally how is it rooted in ignorance?
You’re putting a lot of stock in the words of a pedophile and expecting me to do the same.
Where is the verse that says women can admonish, withold sex and beat their disobedient husbands? It doesn’t exist because the goat fuckers who wrote that vile book viewed women as property.
Cruel? There are guidelines for slavery in all Abrahamic religions.
Superstitious and ignorant? Believing in a magical sky fairy. Enough said.
Ok, there is a lot to unpack. Let’s discuss each point :)
You must be referring to Aisha. How is he a paedophile? This is known as a fallacy of presentism: judging something that happened at a different time using current day standards disregarding the context.
Some sources say they were bethrothed when she was at the age of 6, others say 7. They then consummated the marriage when she was 9 when she reached puberty as was custom at the time. A time where a 10 year-old boy could inherit his father and become the head of the house. In a society where there was only 2 categories: kids and adults, adulthood being reached at puberty. At a time where the average life expectancy was around 27 against around 80 in current western countries. So now you get the context.
No body at the time used this argument because it was just the way society was. It is illogical to judge a distant society with the arbitrary norms of nowadays. There is no consensus amongst western countries about the legal age of marriage or of consent. There is even divergence within the US. It even changes in the span of half a century, in these countries, from 12 to 16. So how can we objectively judge societies from 14 centuries ago?
The premise of this question is false. It implies that there should be a symmetry for there to be equality, otherwise one side is considered less than the other. Islam’s view is coherent with the fact that both man and woman are different physically and psychologically different. It gives to each his role within the society and family at a smaller scale. None is considered less than the other.
Who wrote the book? (Also, language?)
Not the same slavery as what happened in America, but yes, having servants was widespread at the time and the genetic guideline is free them.
Are you implying you have evidence God does not exist?
Fucking a 9 year old is abhorrent if it happened two thousand years ago or today. A 9 year old is not an adult. Having a period does not make a girl an adult. If your “god” is the source of all knowledge then why wouldn’t he inform the so called profit before he was off raping children? The whole thing is disgusting and anyone that defends it should be summarily executed.
Infant mortality skews this, it wasn’t unusual for an adult to live to 60, assuming they made it to adulthood in the first place.
Well the religious claim is they’re the source of all fucking morality because they do what their god told them! Did your god suddenly up and change the age at which someone matures into an adult or was he just along for the show when the dirty prophet was off raping a 9 year old?
So women aren’t allowed to preach, aren’t allowed to own land, aren’t allowed to admonish their shitty goat fucking husbands, but they’re somehow equal. Not buying it and thankfully many women aren’t either, because women are far more likely to stop practicisng Islam than men.
The aforementioned goat fuckers.
Any and all slavery is abhorrent and cruel.
The burden of proof is on the nut jobs claiming there’s a magic sky fairy not on me.
You are not backing any of your emotional claims and just keep repeating how cruel, abhorrent and “bad” what things that differ from what you perceive as “right” are (also slurs). Also calm down with the hate speech (“summarily executed”).
Calm down (if this not just a rhetoric you are using since you know you have no logical ground) and use your brain.
You missed the whole point that whatever morality you are holding is subjective. If you accept yours as valid, it means you cannot disagree with whatever morality others may have because they followed the same process as you to have theirs since it is subjective to them and their context. If you disagree with your views being subjective, you are invited to demonstrate how they are objective.
You postulate that a 9 year old is not an adult. Today I agree with you. Kids spend a lot of time at schools, watch cartoons, play games etc. So by the age of 9 they have no experience of the world and cannot be responsible of a household. At the time however things were completely different, they were directly confronted to life, had responsibility caring for their brothers and sisters and working. You can still find pictures of 3 year old working in the US from the late 90s.
They matured faster then compared to current days.
The question is at what age do we reach adulthood? Even in current days, with children living in somewhat comparable conditions, many disagree. Each country decides what is the legal age, which is different from its neighbours (and even differs within the country, eg. the US) but that is what each society decided. You claim there is a universal and atemporal age? The world and history disagrees with you. So at that time and in that society they decided the rule was to reach puberty. You don’t like it? It’s normal, it’s subjective.
Just a note: Islam doesn’t fix the age of consent but says the norm of the society should be followed. Which means the condition of reaching puberty cannot be applied wholesale today, and the local customs should be followed.
This question was directed to you and you evaded it.
False, they can amongst women and only of necessary if men are around. You might bicker about this but this is normal since you are not familiar with the concept of حياء (there isn’t a word for it in English and gets mistranslated as shyness) and the respect of women.
False, Islam came and changed that. They can inherit properties instead of being inherited themselves. And whatever women possess, whatever money they earn (of course they can work) is solely theirs and the husband has no right whatsoever on it. She can come from a rich family, the husband still has to provide for her and the house. Of course both can agree to share however they see fit, it’s up to them but she had every right to just keep her money.
They can and they can even ask a judge and get divorce.
Wrong answer. You can say “I don’t know” if you don’t know.
Not true for all. Islam forbade taking free people as servants, exception for prisoners of war since there was no prison system. Also in many occasions pushed to free slaves, for the expiation of sins for example. Islam put the framework so that in the end many of those who had servants when Islam came had none over time. People bought some in order to free them: a notable example is Bibal ibn Rabbah, an Ethiopian slave bought to be freed by Abu Bakr (the 1st Caliph); he later became the treasurer of the state.
Your belief of what “Religious People” mean is no more relevant than their belief. Respecting their belief means not demanding they believe what you can no more prove than they can disprove. And just as they must respect your belief, so to must you respect theirs. To do otherwise makes you exactly the same as the Evangelicals who are demanding you change your beliefs.
Why must I respect someone’s belief? Is this some fundamental law of reality?
Literally all religions are making claims. Claims they cannot prove. I have no reason to respect fools who make claims they cannot prove.
Enjoy your bigotry, but don’t pretend your beliefs are any more valid than anyone else’s. And yes, that is the Law, at least in the US. You can’t discriminate against other’s for their beliefs.
Atheism is more valid though and there is an abundance of proof.
From biology we know there is no life after death which disproves most religions. From experiments we also know that praying doesn’t affect physical world. None of the known miracles couod have been reproduced under controlled conditions which makes it likely they are all made up or hallucinated.
The moment you declare that your belief is more valid than another Person’s belief is the moment you out yourself as a bigot wishing to impose those beliefs upon others.
So not a fundamental law of reality, not applicable to me, or even most of the world.
By the way the very idea of freedom of religion and respecting beliefs grew from non-religious sectarian elements of the enlightenment era.
You know, the era that started out with the burning of churches and lynching of priests because they were a blight on society and allied with the monarchy.
Religions have always discriminated against nonbelievers so hearing you small minded fools cry about it is really just music to my ears.
My “beliefs” are based in observable, testable, proven fact and not superstitious nonsense written down by goat fuckers 2,000 years ago.
There are no fundamental law of reality, only our perception of the power around us.
The rest of it is utterly irrelevant whining about how your feelings.
In no way do your beliefs out weigh anyone else’s beliefs. If you think otherwise you are nothing but a self important bigot.
Gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force and strong nuclear force are the fundamental forces (or laws) of reality.
You are a moron far out of your depth.
https://openstax.org/books/physics/pages/23-1-the-four-fundamental-forces
All theories that have been proven to be facts but whose exact workings we still don’t remotely understand.
And while insulting People attempting to get a rise so you can feel all superior as you strut about isn’t the flex you think it is.
Particularly when you blatantly have not a clue about any of the subjects you claim support your position.
Your lack of comprehension has no impact on what the rest of us, who possess more than far more than the two brain cells you are misusing, can comprehend.