Some do, some don’t. There are, after all, “established churches” in some western countries.
How confident are you of that assertion?
Well, okay, there’s the Vatican, for one… And England has its established church, though it’s pretty close to powerless. Italy was officially Catholic until 1984 (surprised the hell out of me to learn that!)
So, yeah. But this, too, undermines, rather than reinforces, the charges against Islam. This sort of thing isn’t just an Islamic practice.
In some Islamic countries, the church has a lot of power…and in others, not so much. The Mullahs rule Iran, but not Pakistan.
The efforts among too many, including some here, are to blacken Islam’s name, and that’s just not good reasoning. Did we see an act of “Christian Terrorism” today in Colorado? Is “Christianity the enemy?”
Among everything else, it’s bad set theory.
It is just an islamic practise. The rest of the world got together in 1948 and created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Of course no country can live up to it but its at least a noble aspiration. Now Islam is the only major religion which has bowed out of that and had to create its own version which is a bad joke. (the CDHRI). There is no Jewish Declaration of Human Rights, or Hindu, or Buddhist ones because those religions and the majority countries representative of them are ok with the Universal one.
Islam is the only major world religion to reject the otherwise Universal UN declaration of Human Rights. In consequence its perfectly reasonable for people in the west to have a problem with Islam and Islamic majority countries. The west may have plenty of failings but the Islamics worlds ideals, as expressed in the CDHRI is something which we have a right to be repulsed by.
Putin said no such thing. He has agreed to “cooperate” with the US-led coalition, and it really would be naive to read into that word that he would be willing to be led by the US.
Outside America most of us don’t value separation of church and state. We are comfortable enough with established state religions *: like most other things, it’s all to do with how you use a thing.
But getting uptight about mixing religion with government is mostly American, and doesn’t travel.
- Even with Russia, which went from Orthodox to an Atheist State ( in which marxist-leninism was the state religion, complete with inquisition ) back now to Orthodox, with no discernible effect on the spirituality of the masses.
This is really missing the bigger picture. Go ahead and read the full text of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam and the criticism of it. Then realise that this is the ideal of perfect human rights that the world should aspire to which has been signed by 45 majority muslim countries.
If the shooter states that he was driven by religion then yes. Otherwise, no. A person can go to a Mosque or church and kill someone and it’s not because of the religion. When a person kills someone over a cartoon that insult’s that person’s religion and there are religious leaders calling for that behavior then it’s the religion.
Seriously? Do you think there was a chance this guy shot up Planned Parenthood because he didn’t like the wallpaper?
I see they’re about to stone someone to death in Saudi Arabia for adultery. She was only 17 when she did it too. Stoned to death for an irreligious shag - can you imagine how backwards that is ?
Is there scriptural justification for that ?
Scriptural as in Bible Old Testament, or scriptural as a way of referring to the muslim screeds, the Koran and the Hadiths ?
Even if both jews and christians now believe the injunctions of the Bible are no longer obligatory, and even if muslims revere their mother religion of Judaism, they are not bound by other scriptures or traditions. For themselves stoning is not prescribed in the Koran, nor mentioned, but it is traditional from the hadiths, Each denomination can make up it’s own mind on what to follow.
Having an old loony as a preacher will help choosing the severer path.
Not that it makes a difference, but the 17 year old is a difference case, sentenced for taking part in anti-government protests.
In a remarkable coincidence another 17-yr-old girl has just been executed by hammering; having tried to leave ISIS — who seem to take *No One Here Gets Out Alive *as an injunction.
As an Austrian teenager she and a co-teen, now dead, ran away to join the Good Old Cause on 2014. I had different priorities when 14.
**Haaretz : Austrian ISIS ‘Poster Girl’ Reported Killed While Trying to Flee Raqqa **
Of course it may be made up for all I know.
Let’s keep it polite, Claverhouse.
I’ll withhold judgement, but I think it’s very likely that we did see Christian terrorism in Colorado. Thank goodness this type of terrorism is fairly rare.
No one is arguing that Islam is unique with regard to wackos carrying out acts of violence in the name or religion. I would merely make the argument that at this moment in time, Islam is unique with regard to the percentage of its followers who either act in the name of religion or support such acts.
The Planned Parenthood shooter may very well qualify as a Christian terrorist. We know nothing about him but it seems likely he’s some kind of Christian extremist.
If I tried to argue “Christianity is a religion of love and therefore the shooter is not a Christian,” the secular leftists of the SDMB would laugh at me, and rightly so. But they’ll happily accept that argument about Muslim terrorists.
After events in Colorado Springs, it is clear that conservative Christians are a threat. Will Donald demand we register Christians and monitor their churches? Will Ted Cruz demand the President calls this what it is? Will Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum apologize for the actions of their co-believers?
Are you serious that you don’t understand the difference between someone acting on the instructions of a religious leader and someone being a member of a religion committing a crime?
I have no doubt the government was already monitoring suspected Christian extremist groups, and they’d have been irresponsible not to.
You would think anyone living in a crudely constructed shed with no running water who rambled to himself and looked like Charles Manson would show up on someone’s radar.