# Afghan man faces death after leaving Islam for Christianity **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 22, 2006, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493 "2006-03-22T22:22:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![YaWanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bbce88/32.png) [@YaWanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaWanna)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/21 "2006-03-23T00:23:23Z")
The problem I have with the comparison is that these Dominionists don’t have control of any country in the world, and I’m not going to lie awake at night worrying that they will someday. Meanwhile, that man in Afghanistan is in an existing condition of peril because of state-sanctioned whacko-ism. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/22 "2006-03-23T00:26:43Z")
> [@yBeayf](#): > > You got a cite for that? As far as I know, the entries on that site are written by the maintainers of the site. Apparently I was wrong. According to the [site](http://www.religioustolerance.org/statbelief.htm), the articles are reviwed (and corrected if necessary) by those respective denominations but no written by them. My mistake. Still, it’s a fairly respectable and self-correcting site. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/23 "2006-03-23T00:34:12Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I gotta say, I have no idea quite what the point of the OP is, aside from the obvious (and universally agreed-upon by SDMB-ers of all stripes) observation that Sharia law is a Bad Thing? I don’t see what us-centric political tweaking can come of this in either direction… I’d like to be snide and say that if the US weren’t in Iraq things would be better in Afghanistan, and that’s probably true in many ways, but I see no reason to think that this type of situation would be any different. This demonstrates that this spreading democracy thing is not well thought out. I’d suspect that large majorities in both Iraq and Afghanistan would support Sharia law. Unless you impose Western-style constitutional guarantees, this kind of thing is going to happen. It’s not particular to Moslem nations - I don’t know for sure but I would strongly suspect that Turkey has no such law. It’s the stage of development, which is hard to impose. This situation would have happened if we had never invaded Iraq - though it shows why even the imposition of democracy goal for that invasion is a bit iffy. I don’t know the answer - but I wouldn’t invade anyone until I did. (And the invasion of Afghanistan, rightly, had nothing to do with imposing democracy.) ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/24 "2006-03-23T00:37:33Z")
> [@Anne Neville](#): > > Oh, and to the people who think this guy should be executed for converting from Islam, and to anyone who thinks I should be punished by the law somehow for leaving Christianity: And we all know this board’s readership is full of those people. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/25 "2006-03-23T01:10:21Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Hey, I can write a “cite” like that and put it up on the internet. Got an original source from the Dominionists saying this or a cite from a mainstream news organization? > > Again, I know these guys are whacky, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they advocated extreme punishment for things like homosexual acts. But exectution of non-Dominionists (or those who don’t practice their from of Christianity)… I need to see an objective cite before I believe that. They ae some scary, fucked up sonsofbitches. My quotes don’t flat out say “let’s start killing”, but that seems to be where their rhetoric woul take us - especially the very last quote… So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God. - Gary North, “The Intellectual Schizophrenia of the New Christian Right” in Christianity and Civilization: The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), p. 25. "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you.I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good … Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don’twant equal time. We don’t want pluralism. [TheNews-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Indiana), August 16, 1993] - RANDALL TERRY “Tolerance is the worst roar of all, including tolerance for homosexuals, feminists, and religions that don’t follow Christ.” - Josh McDowell The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers–the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel. - David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance “We are to make Bible-obeying disciples of anybody that gets in our way.” - Jay Grimstead We believe that institutionally Christianity should be the official religion of the country, that its laws should be specifically Christian. - Rev. David Chilton But integration and equality are myths; they disguise a new segregation and a new equality…Every social order institutes its own program of separation or segregation. A particular faith and morality is given privileged status and all else is separated for progressive elimination. - R.J. Rushdoony All men are NOT created equal before God; the facts of heaven and hell, election and reprobation make clear that they are not equal. Moreover, an employer has property rights to prefer whom he will in terms of “color” creed, race or national origin. - R.J. Rushdoony Segregation or separation is thus a basic principle of Biblical law with respect to religion and morality. Every attempt to destroy this principle is an effort to reduce society to its lowest common denominator. Toleration is the excuse under which this levelling is undertaken, but the concept of toleration conceals a radical intolerance. In the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions as though no differences existed. - R.J. Rushdoony The significance of Jesus Christ as the “faithful and true witness” is that He not only witnesses against those who are at war against God, but He also executes them. - R.J. Rushdoony ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/26 "2006-03-23T01:29:34Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Here’s a [Salon](http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/01/06/ahmanson/index.html?pn=5) piece which has some info on the founder of the movement, R.J Rushdoony. He’s the founder of the Chalcedon Foundation, a branch of Christian Reconstructionism, btw, not of “Dominionism”. It’s hard for me to figure out how many followers someone like Rushdoony has, since everything seems to be a small branch of a small branch of something else. At any rate, I have no doubt that we could find some “Christians” who think balsphemers should be executed. Whether they represent any group of any signficance is another thing altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/27 "2006-03-23T02:16:53Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Apparently I was wrong. According to the [site](http://www.religioustolerance.org/statbelief.htm), the articles are reviwed (and corrected if necessary) by those respective denominations but no written by them. My mistake. > > Still, it’s a fairly respectable and self-correcting site. Well, their coverage of Scientology is a bit too accepting of the Church of Scientology’s official line on things and comes off as yet another propaganda piece. I don’t know how good they are on other groups. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/28 "2006-03-23T02:39:44Z")
So, do we ignore the obvious problem with our “friendly Islamic allies”, over a practiced, current tenet of Islam, one that has been in place since its’ inception, or do we, mayhaps, split the topics. **Be it resolved:** **I** : That the preferred modern state is the constitutional republic, wherein the structures of church and state are formally and assiduously separated. **II** : That the religious kook-wads be free to practice their kooky waddiness freely, so long as innocent third parties are not harmed, and that none of the kooky-waddiness is transmitted into law. **III** : That past religious kooky-waddiness not be a mitigating factor in assessing a current religion’s kooky-waddiness. Can we agree? The Christians have gotten over their apostacy some time ago, at the time when the secular governments and churches parted ways, and the Catholics and Protestants stopped killing each other… One can quibble about modern-era Irish Catholic/Protestant violence, but issue there was and is more a matter of politics. It seems sufficient that one’s god, if so inclined, will mete out mighty and godlike punishment per the usual standards. If nothing else, these modern developments clearly illuminate the mixing of religion and state, even when the religions involved seem on the surface to be reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/29 "2006-03-23T02:47:18Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Actually, Islam was at one time much more tolerant than Christianity. Seems like these extreme measures are new. > . Tolerant of apostasy? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/30 "2006-03-23T02:47:46Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Actually, Islam was at one time much more tolerant than Christianity. Seems like these extreme measures are new. > . Tolerant regarding apostasy? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/31 "2006-03-23T02:50:00Z")
> [@cerberus](#): > > So, do we ignore the obvious problem with our “friendly Islamic allies”, over a practiced, current tenet of Islam, one that has been in place since its’ inception, or do we, mayhaps, split the topics. Well, if you’re going to be all _reasonable_ about it… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/32 "2006-03-23T02:51:50Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I don’t know for sure but I would strongly suspect that Turkey has no such law. Most certainly not. Turkey is secular to an extent that would be considered unnaceptable by US standarts. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/33 "2006-03-23T02:54:10Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Tolerant regarding apostasy? I don’t think so. Yeah, I’d always had the impression from my historical readings that Islam was _relatively_ tolerant of Christianity and Judaism (as other People of the book) only insofar as Islam tended to force conversion rather less often than Christianity did. But once converted, (or born muslim) they frowned _quite_ strongly on leaving the religion. Perhaps someone will be along soon with some better cites… ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/34 "2006-03-23T03:03:10Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Tolerant regarding apostasy? I don’t think so. To the best of my knowledge, I agree. Islam has, in the past, been relatively tolerant of believers in other monotheistic religions who have fallen under its political control. (Both Abraham and Jesus are recognized as minor prophets.) It has never been tolerant of believers in Islam who convert to other religions of any sort. The religious leaders should be allowed to be intolerant. That’s part of their religion. Allowing this intolerance to be incorporated into their legal system is bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/35 "2006-03-23T04:14:37Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > But once converted, (or born muslim) they frowned _quite_ strongly on leaving the religion. Yep, generally speaking, apostasy ( _ridda_ ) is technically just about the biggest no-no in Islamic jurisprudence. Traditionally, at least in most places and under most schools of jurisprudence, it has carried a formal death sentence, with major exceptions made for the mentally ill, the forcibly converted and the underage. However while this is the consensus view, it has always been a matter of debate. Even in classical times the issue was that the harsh penalty derived solely from hadith, not the Qur’an, could be regarded as contradictory to the concept of ‘no compulsion in religion’ and thus was pretty arguable. The minority Mu’tazila school of hilosophy I believe rejected the idea and even that exemplar of conservative Islamic values, Ibn Taymiyya, apparently regarded it as a discretionary offence that should have no fixed punishment. These days a common strain of thought, including among many conservative jurists , is to regard apostasy as coming in two forms - individual and seditious. Individual apostasy ain’t no biggee - you’ll just burn in hell :). A seditious apostate though, one who enjoins others to leave the faith and attacks Islam, may still merits the death penalty for trying to damage the fabric of society. So individual vs. societal transgression if you will. To quote Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, a man who sheltered Osama bin Laden for years in Sudan and was instrumental in imposing Shari’a law in that country: \*Within Muslim states, it has been a traditional view that public apostasy is punishable by death, subject to trying to persuade the perpetrator to change his mind and recant. But, from the early days of Islam, apostasy completely coincided with treason, because warring societies were based on religion and someone who publicly abused his religion would objectively join the other party as a combatant. Today in the Sudan such intellectual apostasy as Rushdie’s is not punishable by death. It must involve active subversion of the constitutional order.\* Go figure :). - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/36 "2006-03-23T06:34:21Z")
OK. UNCLE! I was wrong about the apostacy thing. It didn’t take 7 posters to convince me. Sorry, I’ve been watching “Lost”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/37 "2006-03-23T08:14:51Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > President Bush says he is “troubled” by this case, yet we see no outrage on the part of Chrisitian fundamentalists. Perhaps they are still too busy fighting the War on Christmas Actually, to be fair, the Family Research Council for one (who I agree are in most respects assholes) have been giving this major attention; see for example [Will the U.S. Government Rescue Afghani Citizen from Death?](http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR06C08&f=FR03G06) I’m on their e-mail list, and they’ve sent out multiple bulletins and alerts on this. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/38 "2006-03-23T08:29:05Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Oh, and can we have a cite that Dominionists extole execution for non-Christians? Not that I want to defend those whack-os, but I don’t believe they’re that whacky. And what can be “similar” to execution? I’ve got a [web page](http://bellsouthpwp.net/m/e/mebuckner/churchstatealts.htm) with Scary Quotes from Religious Loons. Obviously not all of the people I quote on that page are Christian Reconstructionists, or even Christians at all; but Rushdoony, the late Greg Bahnsen, Andrew Sandlin, Gary North, William Einwechter, and Brian Schwertly are or were members of various factions of the CR movement. Putting together the various things Rushdoony said about “idolatry”, he came pretty close to advocating execution for anyone who isn’t a Christian Reconstructionist; more precisely, death for any non-Reconstructionists who _openly_ engage in the worship of “false gods” (or espouse non-Christian Reconstructionist belief systems, whether you or I would think of those systems as “religious” or not), or who seek to convert others to “idolatrous” (non-Christian Reconstructionist) religions or systems even in private. Just thinking bad thoughts would not be punishable by the state, but then no state outside of fiction (e.g. _1984_) has ever succeeded in criminalizing bad thoughts. Reconsructionists also often speak of “private” non-Christian religious practice as being acceptable, but what the bounds of that would be is undetermined; and I suspect it would be pretty precarious. > [@](#): > > He’s the founder of the Chalcedon Foundation, a branch of Christian Reconstructionism, btw, not of “Dominionism”. Dominionism, the belief that Christians should seek “dominion” over all aspects of life, has been described (by the Reconstructionists themselves) as one of the five main principles of Christian Reconstructionism, along with Calvinism; Postmillenialism (as opposed to the Premillenialism which is much more popular among modern evangelical or fundamentalist Christians); Presuppositionalism (a form of apologetics or arguing for the existence of God, authority of the Christian Bible, and the truth of Christianity); and Theonomy (belief in the continuing validity of Biblical law). Of course other Christians accept some of those principles but not all, and the big one is theonomy: one might say that all Christian Reconstructionists are Dominionists, but not all Dominionists are full blown Christian Reconstructionists. In practice, these ideas (justly) got a real bad name, even among politically conservative and politically active fundamentalist Christians, and I suspect the remaining Reconstructionists have gotten less frank than they used to be. > [@](#): > > It’s hard for me to figure out how many followers someone like Rushdoony has, since everything seems to be a small branch of a small branch of something else. > > At any rate, I have no doubt that we could find some “Christians” who think balsphemers should be executed. Whether they represent any group of any signficance is another thing altogether. How much real influence the Rushdoonyites have had on the broader Christian Right in this country is the subject of much debate; naturally enough, the most ardent opponents of Christian Reconstructionism tend to agree with the Recons themselves in claiming a relativley high degree of influence, while non-CR members of the Religious Right would disagree vigorously. We’ve had several GD threads on the topic; see for example [Christian Reconstructionism: An extreme splinter group of the Religious Right?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=287919) ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/39 "2006-03-23T10:49:56Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Yep, generally speaking, apostasy ( _ridda_ ) is technically just about the biggest no-no in Islamic jurisprudence. Traditionally, at least in most places and under most schools of jurisprudence, it has carried a formal death sentence, with major exceptions made for the mentally ill, the forcibly converted and the underage. How could someone be forcibly converted? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493/40 "2006-03-23T10:51:07Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > How could someone be forcibly converted? Just to make it clear, i’m not questioning your statement’s veracity, just wondering how it would be done. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/afghan-man-faces-death-after-leaving-islam-for-christianity/349493.md?page=3)