Because Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus living in messed up societies pursue their own flavor of gross violations of human rights. Cite, cite, cite.
Nothing to do with apostasy.
Sure they do. Religiously motivated violence is religiously motivated violence.
That’s too broad a view. It’s like saying murder is murder, and not acknowledging the difference between spree killing, serial killing, honour killing, crimes of passion etc…
But am I to take it that you believe the reason at least 1 in 5 Muslims believes apostates should be killed is a direct consequence of their religious beliefs?
India: MP Sakshi Maharaj vows death sentences for Hindus converting to Islam or Christianity
See also the Hindutva movement, with its program of Ghar Wapsi - converting former Hindus back to Hindusim.
Wherever you have tensions between groups, and group identity trumps individual rights, there will be great pressure not to defect to an opposing group.
Perhaps they’re just following the example of those 2 billion Christians.
More seriously, I think people living in secular democracies tend to ignore the parts of their religion that aren’t compatible with the values of secular democracies. Many of the worlds Muslims aren’t living in secular democracies. To understand why that is, I think you’d really need to consider the history of those countries.
Look, you’ve clearly made up your mind that it is a religious belief.
But concluding that it is a religious belief does not explain why Muslims in some countries strongly believe that apostasy is a capital crime, and Muslims in other countries strongly disagree that it is a crime at all.
If this is simply an issue of religion, shouldn’t Muslims generally agree on this issue one way or another, regardless of where they live?
Personally, I don’t see a basis for treating those crimes differently from a legal perspective, but that’s beside the point.
As to your question, yes and no. Consequences for apotasy are a matter of religious belief. But I don’t think a lot of Muslims believe that just because the Qu’ran says so. I expect many of them believe that because it’s a point of emphasis in the mosques they attend, just as many Christians think abortion is morally wrong even though the Bible doesn’t say that.
The scriptural basis underlying the death penalty for apostasy is what makes it so hard to overcome. To most devout Muslims, no amount of rational, humanistic, justification to abandon the principal can budge their position, when instructions believed to be the word of God, as well as the example of their prophet, indicate otherwise.
These laws and beliefs are very dangerous:Pakistan’s blasphemy law is a relentless guillotine for minorities.
The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa said: “The essential question before us is : Can a person who is a Muslim choose a religion other than Islam ? The answer is yes, they can, because the Quran says, ‘Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion,’ (Quran 109:6) and, ‘Whosoever will, let him believe, and whosever will, let him disbelieve,’ (Quran18:29) and, ‘There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is distinct from error’ (Quran 2:256).” He added, “These verses from the Quran discuss a freedom that God affords all people. But from a religious prospective, the act of abandoning one’s religion is a sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgment. If the case in Question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment.” He went on to state, “If, however, the crime of undermining the foundations of the society is added to the sin of apostasy, then the case must be referred to a judicial system whose role is to protect the integrity of the society……According to Islam, it is not permitted for Muslims to reject their faith, so if a Muslim were to leave Islam and adopt another religion, they would thereby be committing a sin in the eyes of Islam. Religious belief and practice is a personal matter, and society only intervenes when that personal matter becomes public and threatens the well-being of its members.”
I tend to agree with him. Faiths and beliefs are a personal issue.
Adam and Eve are dead, too, and it’s a fundamental tenet of many Christian denominations that you carry their sin.
Yes, but as has already been discussed, the Bible includes similar exhortations and yet outside insular religious communities there is no penalty for apostasy (and even those penalties are social rather than legal).
Sorry, I thought my sarcasm about Deuteronomy was pretty obvious. As for the death penalty for apostasy, my understanding (and I claim no expertise in Islam) is that while it’s not in the Quran, it is in the Hadith.
This is due to our post-Enlightenment society, in which “because the bible says so” is generally not considered a legitimate justification for cruel and barbaric codes of conduct and punishment.
So in that light, the answer to the OP would be “because of the tendency of many Muslims to unquestionably follow the example of the words and deeds of their prophet, as recorded in hadith.”
No, because local culture greatly influences religion. Look at the huge disagreements about basic Christian tenets between Catholics and Protestants. It hasn’t been so long since you had a very good chance of guessing correctly whether a stranger from Europe was a Catholic or Protestant (or Orthodox), just by knowing his country of birth.
Note that I’m not saying religion explains everything about this complex issue; I’m saying that Muslims having different views on it doesn’t rule religion out as a key factor.
Yes, but surely you agree that there’s a hell of a difference between “a key factor” and the only factor.
In fact, the examples you use only further illustrate the point that people are quick to jump to religious explainations for things at the expense of the real reasons. For example, lots of people in the US thought of Northern Ireland as a religious conflict, even though Martin Luther or the Pope had jack-all to do with it.
I’m about a micrometer thick in this subject, but it’s worth noting that the concept of state and religion is much different in Islam than in our conception. I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of apostasy is closer to our concept of treason, as opposed to what seems to be many people’s assumption that it is “we hate Christians” or whatever.
Well, sure. No matter how much Trump fans wish it, there are rarely simple answers to complex issues.
I agree. Countries under Sharia Law are effectively theocracies, and theocracies, of any religion, are notoriously intolerant. Right-wing America almost deifies the Founding Fathers as it is; imagine what they’d be like if the Constitution had been written by Jesus.
Christians like to flatter themselves by thinking that the essential difference between their enlightened countries and the oppressive Muslim regimes is religion, but it’s actually the loss of temporal power by Christianity that’s the difference. When the Church was as powerful as the mosque, the Muslim countries were generally more tolerant than the Christan countries, especially toward Jews.
Certainly, but this then leads to the question of whether or not there are characteristics of Islam that make it more difficult to neuter than Christianity was. It seems likely that the notion of the Koran as the direct word of God, and the fact that Mohammed was himself a politically and militarily powerful man who engaged in violence, inhibits a similar journey down the path of enlightenment. On the other hand, the Pope has a much easier time marketing his religion as one of peace and love, all while belief in the “other” as infidel has contributed so much disregard and contempt for earthly lives that it might outweigh Islam’s political and military origin story in terms of damage done. Sometimes I think that Islam is, ironically, actually potentially less dangerous, simply because it is* more obviously* dangerous, and therefore easier to oppose and resist.
Considering that Islam is a pretty comprehensive critter composing religion and law, some Muslim countries make me think of late Middle Ages Europe. Christianity was not only religiously powerful but politically/legally powerful as well.
The Torah was allegedly the direct word of God as dictated to Moses, who was a politically and militarily powerful man who engaged in violence, so that angle may not be a fruitful pursuit.
However, the Messiah was supposed to be a politically and militarily powerful man who engaged in violence, but in the Christian scriptures, he’s kind of a wimp, so maybe you’re on to something after all.
The battle for supremacy between emperors and Popes is a fascinating historical subject, and I’m going to have to read up on it. I know that the Church could bend the medieval kings of England (notably Henry II) to its will, and that a Pope forced the Holy Roman Emperor to kneel in the snow for three days and seek forgiveness, not all that long before the cracks in the Church began to split open. Maybe it was the gross corruption and sybaritic lifestyles of the medieval Popes that weakened the Church beyond the breaking point. Maybe the Church got lax because it required much less effort to keep European peasants in line than it did Arab tribesman. Maybe it was completely random. Yeah, gotta read up on it.