There was a cartoon once with a guy lying on the ground with a sword at his throat looking up at the guy holding the sword. The guy on the ground was saying, “So, tell me about this Jesus Christ fellow?” Around the time of the Spanish Inquisition (didn’t expect that reference, did you? ), it was illegal to be a non-Christian in Spain. The Jews who lived there mostly either nominally converted to Christianity or left the country, if I recall my history correctly.
If someone’s life is at risk for not practicing a religion or if someone can’t find a job or a place to live because he or she is the wrong religion, that could also be a way to forcibly convert that person. I don’t approve, but it has happened and, I’m afraid, will continue to happen.
Evil as they are, surely they aren’t really a forced converting than a forced adoption of behavious related to that religion? I mean, I could go to church, get baptised/confirmed, go every sunday, and pray all I want, but that wouldn’t make me a christian - I don’t believe in God. I’d just be acting like I did.
By who? And even if I said to them, “Yes, I’ve done all that, but I don’t believe in God and didn’t at any point”?
Sorry about this hijack, btw. IMHO, someone who treats apostasy as a crime has no right to try and convert others to their belief system. To not have either both looked on as a crime or neither makes no sense from a legal standpoint (unless of course, as in this case, the legal system recognises one system to be “true”, and others have pointed out the flaws with that).
In the previous example, by the Spanish Inquisition. And if you said you don’t believe in God, they’d probably subject you to whatever punishment Catholics who go on to deny the existence of God got, which I’d assume wouldn’t be pleasant.
For a later, 19th century example, look at what happened to Edgardo Mortara. The Mortaras were a Jewish family living in the Papal States. When Edgardo was six, in 1858, he got very sick with a high fever. A Catholic maid in the household secretly baptized him. The government found out about it, and took the boy from his parents, because he was considered a Catholic, and the law said that a Catholic couldn’t be raised by Jews.
Interesting. I guess I just assumed that believing in God/Allah/whatever deity was pretty much the founding principle behind religion, and that the behaviours associated with them were important, but not vital to being part of that religion. So working backwards, someone who exhibits the behaviours but not the religiousity wouldn’t be counted as a member of that religion. I suppose, like most things, it’s whoever in power that gets to decide that.
Well, every religion has different rules that determine who’s a member or not. In Judaism, you’re a Jew if you’re born to a Jewish mother, or you convert by being circumcized, having a ritual bath, and being examined by a Jewish court. In Islam (I believe), you’re a Muslim if your father was Muslim or if you say the shadahah (“There is no God but God and Muhammed is the prophet of God”) in front of witnesses. In Christianity, you’re Christian if you’re baptized.
The same sort of thing would happen if you secretly practiced rituals from your former religion and the authorities found out you were doing this. That’s what happened to some of the Marranos, or Spanish Jews who pretended to convert to Catholicism but secretly continued some Jewish practices.
You’d be forcibly converted by being compelled to practice rituals of the state’s religion, while being forbidden to practice those of another religion or publicly say that your old religion was true and the state religion wasn’t. If you didn’t pretend to go along with the state’s religion or publicly practiced or defended a different one, you’d face torture, execution (possibly by some painful method like burning at the stake) or other punishments directed at you and/or at your family. You’d have to be very brave and/or suicidal to stand up for your old religion under those circumstances.
At the crudest level they stick a sword in your face and say “convert” :). The idea was by making you adopt the outward trappings of the religion, over time your community would eventually come to embrace whatever true faith was being pushed. Such social engineering plans obviously have had only a very mixed success rate as the example of Spain ( all communities at one time or another ) clearly shows.
In Islam the greatest success of such a scheme was sectarian in the purest sense - the conversion of Safavid Persia from largely Sunni to largely Shi’a. But that was obviously a lot easier to pull off than wholesale conversions from another religion. A decent Christian example would be pagan Saxony.
Well obviously this is all pre-modern in conception. I don’t think a case of forced conversion has occurred in quite some time. It wasn’t an Ottoman policy for example.
In the question of forcible conversion to Islam, it was in fact looked at as a crime, hence the exception made for punishment. However the fact that such an exception had to be made by some jurists also points to the fact that it did occur on occasion.
Sure there is but it was still fairly miserable living un Islamic rule as a non-Muslim. Like Europe, there were often pogroms against the non-believers.
Regardless, intolerance like this sort of nonsense happened several hundred years ago in Europe. It’s happening right now in a fair number of Islamic countries. These reactionary, backward assholes are doing their very best to make their world as miserable and medieval as possible.
Let’s focus on the here and now rather than trying to justify what is going on by reference to “oh, well Christians did it back when”. Well ok, Christians were assholes too and I’m glad we so much further advanced that the barabrians that seem to make up a sizeable minority of many Muslim countries.
But there’s a price on Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s head for apostasy.
Dutch leaders issued with the death threats since the murder [of Theo van Gogh]include: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee and former Muslim who is a liberal member of the Dutch parliament and high-profile critic of Islam; Geert Wilders, a right-wing populist opposed to Turkey joining the EU; the Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, and Job Cohen, the Mayor of Amsterdam. *)
Ms Hirsi Ali and Mr Wilders have both been taken to safe houses by Dutch police. Dutch newspapers reported that police are worried that the threats – by telephone calls and e-mails - were evidence of a co-ordinated attempt by Islamic radicals to target politicians seen as “enemies of Islam”.
The police released the note pinned to Mr van Gogh’s chest, which was written in Arab and Dutch with phrases from the Koran, addressed to Ms Hirsi Ali.
It complained that the Netherlands was controlled by Jews, and called for jihad (Holy War) against infidels, America, Europe, the Netherlands and Ms Hirsi Ali. It said: “Islam will be victorious through the blood of martyrs. Only the death will separate the truth from the lies.”
It was addressed to Ms Hirshi Ali, declaring: “Since you stepped into the political arena in the Netherlands you have been constantly busy terrorising Muslims and Islam with your remarks. With your apostasy you have turned your back on truth and you are marching with the ranks of evil.”
*) The only reason I can think of as to why muslims want Job Cohen dead, is that he’s Jewish.
He’s perfect in appeasing Islam, though.
Don’t worry folks. I expect all those moderate Muslims, that everyone says are the great majority, to rise up and put a stop to this nonsense any day now.
), it was illegal to be a non-Christian in Spain. The Jews who lived there mostly either nominally converted to Christianity or left the country, if I recall my history correctly.