But Islam is an Abrahamic religion, and Christianity is all about the New Testament percentage-wise. So it’s both less important to Christianity and more important to Islam than implied in your statement.
Now if Jesus had done everything you stated, then it would be comparable, since the argument is about actions done by the major prophet of a religion.
Early Christian church studies are fascinating. I have read maybe fifteen-twenty books on the subject, which is to say, I have dabbled. Stuck a toe in. To get into it with any real seriousness, you have to have a thorough grounding in the Greek idiom of the time. A solid grounding in Latin, par for the course. Aramaic and Coptic as needed.
It is a Bermuda Triangle for the cerebrally overburdened, a place where brilliant minds go to be flumoxxed and confused. The books ought to be housed in a special portion of the ilbrary, locked, with a sign that suggests that Art History might well be a better choice. At least there, you get the occassional solid fact. Lautrec was French. Picasso, Spanish. You got something to work with, there.
Did Jesus say “X”? Dunno, Mark says he did, Matthew doesn’t mention it. What did Jesus mean when he said “X”? Luke says Jesus meant “Don’t bugger fishes!”. Some scholars point to the prevalence of fishermen amongst the early disciples and presume there was some necessity for this injunction. Others point out that the term for “fishes” previously was an obscure term for “salamander”, so it should be read as forbidding unnatural congress with amphibians. Others insist that since axolotyls were unknown to the Middle East, such restrictions do not apply to them.
This way lies madness.
I would like to believe that most Christians practice the teachings of the New Testament — compassion for the poor and all that. But as I noted earlier, many of the most prominent Christians, especially those who have or are seeking political power, are big fans of the Hebrew Bible — they favor a strong and aggressive military, the Ten Commandments posted in schools and courthouses, literal interpretation of Genesis, intolerance of homosexuals, etc. I think the only Republican candidate for President who believes in evolution is pulling down a nifty 1% support.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that Islam was even further removed from the Hebrew Bible than Christianity, since Islam considers Muhammad as the last great prophet, following Jesus, who followed Abraham, Moses, et al. Not only that, but I also thought that it is Islamic doctrine that the Hebrew Bible has been corrupted over the years. The whole point of Muhammad’s revelation was supposed to be getting us back on the path that the Jews and Christians have strayed from. The Quran retells some of the incidents regarding Hebrew patriarchs like Abraham and Noah differently, and therefore one cannot assume that it accepts anything from the Hebrew Bible that is not explicitly contained in the Quran.
LOL, that’s damn big of you. In order to “be comparable” to something that Muhammad did that was perfectly legal and acceptable by the customs of the time and place, Jesus has to commit all the worst crimes of Jewish history. Glad to see someone so fair-minded here.
The New Testament says slaves should obey their masters, and that verse was used to support slavery for centuries. Which do you think caused more misery: that, or Muhammad’s marriage?
Actually, we don’t know ANYTHING about what Jesus did until he was 30 years old, except the one incident where he treated his parents like idiots when he was 13 (lucky he wasn’t stoned for that). So you have no grounds for saying he was better, worse, or even with Muhammad.
He did seem to spend a lot of time thinking about sheep and goats.
Yes, glad to see you agree.
Too bad that wasn’t the example you chose.
So I’m supposed to refute your arguments BEFORE you give them?
Geez, tough crowd.
I was responding to the argument that only Christians need to answer for the outrages of the Old Testament, and that these are just as relevant as the actions of a religion’s major prophet.
If you want to argue that the New Testament has been cited to justify slavery, I will not disagree with you. But I was not addressing that argument, which like you say I cannot refute before it is given if if I did want to.
The whole “slaves obeying masters” theme is ultra-murky. First off, its Paul’s riff on it, and a number of scholars suggest that Paul was trimming back on Christian doctrine iikely to offend the Roman establishment, which was very heavily invested in the legitimacy of slavery. TL:DR: if God didn’t want you to be a slave, you wouldn’t be one, therefore disobeying your master is disobeying God.
I have heard of, but not read, recent scholarship that suggests that Paul got a bad rap, being reinterpreted and creatively translated to fit the needs of a later, more established, church.
Personally, the Islamic take on Christianity I find most intriguing is the refusal of orthodox Mohammedism to accept the Crucifixion, insisting that God/Allah simply wouldn’t do something like that to His Messenger.
I’m an atheist. All religions are bad. Trying to sway my opinion that one should be given a pass because of what others have done, isn’t going to work.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
We’ve been through this once before, pressed Uzi on the sources of his certainty. “Weak” is probably the most generous description.
[/QUOTE]
elucidator’s definition of ‘weak’ is the Quran and the Hadiths. Apparently, they aren’t good enough sources.
Saw your “sources” the last time you tried to pull this happy horseshit. You wouldn’t know a hadith if it kicked you in the balls and fucked your sister.
Use your damned head! Pedophiilia is about as universal in terms of revulsion as the species gets. If it were the truth, it wouldn’t be there, the reference would have been scrubbed clean fourteen hundred years ago! Your only test to vet your “sources” is whether or not they are as ignorant and hateful as yourself.
My sources were the hadiths you ignorant fuck. You just don’t like what they actually say.
So, Mohammed didn’t marry a child? Please explain what sources you are using to disprove that.
Marrying a child isn’t paedophilia. Glad to see you’ve given up on defending the other claims, though.
Juliet was 13 which was probably the age Aisha was when she and Muhammad got married. Obviously there’s disagreement within the Hadiths regarding her age.
My point was that back then nobody thought there was anything wrong or weird with people marrying as soon as they went through puberty because they didn’t have the same concept of adolescence that we have.
Well, that’s strange. Here, you say it was the Koran and the *hadiths. *Now you say it was the hadiths
You ought to at least keep your story straight, you sorry ass sumbitch.
Not how it works, shit for brains. You make the positive assertion, you prove it. If someone says “Jesus fucked a goat!”, I’m not obliged to point out a biblical verse “And the Lord said 'Verily, I fucketh not a goat, I kid thee not!”
And, as has been pointed out to you to little effect, it was entirely common for the formal ritual of marriage to be performed for a variety of political or social reasons that have nothing to do with sex. Perhaps she had enormous…tracts of land!
Then, of course, there is the nature of the hadiths themselves. which are roughly parallel to commentary on the Torah. Though respected, they are not the Torah itself, they are not revered. Similarly with the hadiths and the Koran, they are not expected to be “gospel” truth, like the Koran itself. I am given to understand by people who’s opinion I respect that there are any number of Islamic scholars who question things in the hadiths.
I hardly know much of anything about Islam, but even I know that.
Seriously? That’s your answer? You’d have no problem with an adult male marrying your 9 or 13 year old daughter? Even if he ‘promises’ not to have sex with her until she reaches puberty? Hey, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had ‘sex’ with her in the Bill Clinton definition of the word. That’s okay, is it?
Why should I defend them, no one has refuted them. Unless you count elucidator’s view that if he really did these things they would have purged the documents. Well, that is unless the early Muslims thought such things were peachy keen until it was too late to do anything about it. But that was a long time ago you say? Link. A rather balanced article, if I do say so myself. It even mentions the 9 year age of Aisha.
Obligatory wikipedia link. Quite a few Muslims in Yemen (and Saudi, btw) follow their prophets foot steps essentially saying, “Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed”. I’m glad that there is a movement to try and stop it. Oh, and just for shits and giggles take a look a little higher on the wiki page at the last sentence under Pakistan. 10 months old. Nothing to see here people, just move along.
Now I’m sure someone will be along to educate me on how it is a cultural thing rather than a religious thing. Don’t bother. I’m know other primitive societies do similar. But this is one area where people do follow what their prophet preaches and use his actions to defend their own.
Explaining what “likely” means- since you didn’t know- wasn’t a refutation?
Was my 9 or 13 year old daughter alive 500 years ago? Were all the other 9 or 13 year old girls being married off? I would have a problem with my 18 year old daughter being married - though not on the same scale.
Quite proves my point. This is an argument amongst reverent and practicing Muslims. If it were a matter of the Koran, there would be no argument, the Koran is “gospel”, the hadiths are commentary. Thus, disagreements over the interpretation and the value of the hadiths are more or less common. An Islamic scholar can use the hadiths to support a case, to suggeste it is more plausible, but not to prove it.
If it were, in fact, the actions and preaching of the prophet, there would be no argument.
I don’t have to dig for proof that he married a child. Prove that he didn’t when it is common knowledge that he did. You want proof that Muslims would have purged any reference to pedophilia? The argument that she was 13 is that they are trying. Better that he is a hebephile instead? Okay, if that make you sleep better at night.
Sure. Prove that Mohammed didn’t have sex with his bride given that is the major reason people get married. That’s the way it works. You make a positive assertion and you have to prove it. You just said so yourself.
I don’t think you know much about the Quran other than what you wish it to be, not what it is. Link
It reads like it was written by a Muslim. I’m not digging further for the pit. I’ll pull this quote, “Muslims are commanded by God to follow this Sunnah, together with Quran, as sources for Islam religion teachings and rules.” That sound like there is no reverence?
FWIW, and ignoring the trainwreck:
I had the opportunity to speak with someone who is semi-high up the FBI food chain with one of the divisions headquartered at Quantico. She pointed out to me that trainee analysts are, as part of their training, required to do presentations that are open to whoever shows up, and keep doing these periodically throughout their tenure; sort of like piano recitals or student art displays open to the public.
These sessions do not necessarily reflect the Bureau’s position, and are not neccessarily vetted by anyone … and if this guy got a negative performance review, we’d never know.
You mean the age at which they consummated the marriage; Aisha was younger when she married him. And two early teenagers getting together is different to an early teenager and an adult man, and a play is different to a religious text about the prophet of said religion, said to be the word of God.
Btw, in Romeo and Juliet, they were not treated as full adults - Juliet still had a nursemaid/governess - and their relationship was very clearly set out as juvenile but nonetheless heartfelt. (You have watched or at least read the play, yes?)
There are also some misconceptions about marriages in that time period. Teenagers getting married was not common - hell, 13-year-old girls already being well-advanced in puberty was uncommon.
That doesn’t mean I think that Islam is bad, just that your analogy was.
Well, in those days money and property were often the reasons for marrying, not sex. Procreation was the other reason, which doesn’t usually happen till well into puberty (we have more teen mums now because puberty is starting earlier - well, among other reasons, of course). I can believe that someone would marry a 9-year-old and not consummate it until she looked somewhat like a woman. Still horrible when the husband is an adult, but not on the same level.