Everything you say is also true of the Bible, you know: it’s entirely one-sided. God is the only power, the only truth, the only giver of laws, the only definition of good.
That’s what religious texts tend to do: extoll the virtues of their faith, with harsh castigation of dissent.
The context is easily available: there are tons (literally!) of books that can explain how the Koran was written, when it was written, the circumstances, and the meaning.
(You may have some difficulty selecting one that you can accept as moderate and objective. The same, of course, is true for books that introduce and explain the Bible. Some will be fulminating fire-breathing hyper-fundamentalist creationist dogshit, and some will be reasonable, fair, and educational. Caveat Emptor.)
Believe me, I in no way meant to imply the Christian Bible was any better.
Genesis is all about the strength of bargaining and making sure you get the better of the deal, even if it means to manipulate your older brother into trading his birthright for your food. God wants ruthless bastards to lead his people.
The Koran does help me understand the mindset of Muslims better if nothing else. There is no compromise. You either side with Allah unquestioningly or you’re the enemy. Yes, some Christians are like that too, but the Koran seems to be a lot more blatant about that.
Eh, in practice (like basically all religious stances) it varies. I spent a couple years in a largely Muslim village in West/Central Africa, and the approach was definitely relaxed.
People converted back and forth between Christianity and Islam easily, and I heard quite often that it’s different approaches to the same God. Whenever people asked why I was not Muslim, my explanation (“My parents aren’t Muslim”) was immediately accepted and nobody questioned or lectured me. Things like alcohol and even adultery were tolerated.
It was a laid back place. Unfortunately, Boko Haram is currently terrorizing the area and doing their best to ruin things.
Not always. There is this somewhat accommodating verse that, at least to a degree, suggests coexistence:
"Chapter 109:
Al-Kafirun
The Unbelievers
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
1 Say: O disbelievers,
2 I serve not what you serve,
3 Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve,
4 Nor shall I serve that which ye serve,
5 Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve.
6 For you is your recompense and for me my recompense."
Given your posts here, I very much doubt you accept concents like feminism or secular government, but nobody is questioning your value.
Democratically(-ish, in some cases) elected heads of government are excluded if they are related to prior heads of government? Does Maggie Thatcher get excluded because her dad held elective office? Hillary Clinton will probably be the next US president. Will her accomplishment not count because she’s married to a former president? Nepotism knows no borders. Anyway, Bhutto had two brothers, one of whom was a politician (among her most vocal opponents in the Pakistani government).
It’s a fucking holy book. That’s how they’re supposed to read. Nobody signs up for religions where priests say, “this is what god wants, or at least that’s what we think. Nobody is sure, frankly.”
I get that. I’m just voicing slight frustration that this particular fucking holy book starts off with so much pejorative and discourages feedback. At least other fucking holy books I’ve read strive to relay sacred principles and don’t try to hammer worshippers into non-questioning drones.
After the initial dressing down, the Koran encourages fighting against anyone who would deny Allah’s word to his worshippers. Then it offers advice on how to handle divorces and property disputes, without any sort of segue. Why was it organized like that? That’s the problem with ancient texts. They weren’t proofread. To interpret them any other way than literally is tantamount to blasphemy.
One commonplace explanation is that the verses are arranged (roughly) by length as an adjunct to memorization.
This is one of the reasons it is wise to read the Koran in parallel with a guide book. (The same is true for the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad Gita, the Iliad, the Divine Comedy, etc.)
You have the to remember as well, the Koran was written by a small group in a relatively short period of time and has been essentially unchanged since it’s inception. The Bible is a collection of writings from many authors spread out over many years and has had more rewrites, translations, and edits than a movie script. And half of it is from another religion altogether, with undesired pieces left out. So it’s going to come off as a more edited and polished piece of literature, if nothing else. Also, there is a reason that most Muslims insist the Koran be memorized and read in the original Arabic - it is a fine piece of Classical Arabic, arranged like poetry to make it easier to memorize and quote.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are people of the Book, the Judaic Old Testament so by default Islam very much acknowledges other religions.
Intellectually Islam provides us with a mass collective input (The Koran Mo was illiterate) bit like a forum that is a more poetic and articulate presentation of the nonsensical monotheistic concept
Since when did sodomy come to mean only gay sex? The laws outlawed sodomy no matter who practiced it. The SC Justices werent criminalizing homosexuality; they believed that states could outlaw certain behavior. The Justices werent trying to criminalize sodomy in states where it was legal. They werent trying to say that in states where sodomy was illegal that it couldnt be legalized. And in no dark corner of any of their opinions did they try to criminalize homosexuality.
Boy, that’s a whole lot of rebuttals to things I didn’t say. I didn’t say that sodomy meant only gay sex. However, it is, by definition, the only kind of sex gay people can have. So, yeah, laws against sodomy are also laws against gay sex, even though it covers some of the sex acts practiced by straight people. I also didn’t say that the SC tried to outlaw sodomy, I said they didn’t see a problem with it being outlawed.
So you think sodomy is the only kind of sex gay people can have? Wow. So they werent trying to outlaw gay sex. You said that the 3 Justices ‘… saw absolutely no problem with criminalizing homosexuality.’ But where did they say that?
Well, in practical terms it may have happened prior to Bowers v. Hardwick, when Michael Hardwick was arrested in a state that had not seen a single prosecution under anti-sodomy laws in over 50 years. He was not arrested for sodomy, he was arrested for being gay…and charged with sodomy.
I suppose there are perfectly happy couples who limit themselves to mutual masturbation. But when one eliminates both oral and anal sex, the options are awfully limited, no?