Almost everyone would agree that Western civilization has advanced enormously since the Middle Ages in terms of cultural attitudes, wouldn’t they? Isn’t our present society tremendously more progressive in terms of religious tolerance, scientific knowledge, treatment of women, and general civility?
In fact, I don’t think you’d get much argument from anyone if you opined that the Middle Ages culture was generally a backward one compared to ours.
Now, when people try to justify the wacky shit that goes on in Muslim cultures (honor killings, stoning rape victims, holding hysterical marches and making death threats over cartoons and teddy bears perceived as “insulting” their prophet), seems like the apologists invariably point to all the wacky shit that Christendom got up to . . . in the Middle Ages.
I also particularly liked that. Took a second to sink in as being funny – I skimmed it quickly, then read half of the next post before hitting my head on the keyboard and laughing. Good stuff.
You folks are familiar with the meaning of “accused”, right? It’s not the same as “proven” or “convicted”.
On the other hand, reading the linked article, it’s hard to posit a scenario in which the husband isn’t guilty. Boy, the police chief doesn’t sound too brilliant.
ETA: Lots of guys kill their women when they want to leave them. They don’t usually cut their heads off, though.
I recommend you read Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation by Olivia Judson, an excellent book on the evolutionary biology of sex. She points out that it actually might make some evolutionary sense or be neutral to take the “if I can’t have you, nobody can” approach to a mate. In terms of being able to propagate your genes, someone dying is the same as them never having sex with you again.
ETA: If the possibility of being killed for leaving makes it more likely that a partner will not leave you, it becomes even more understandable why this might happen.
Of course, the standard disclaimer applies here about this not making it OK to kill someone just because they won’t have sex with you, even if it is understandable from an evolutionary perspective.
Now, if you wanted to argue that the beheading was probably premeditated because most of us don’t have anything lying around at our work that we could use to behead someone, I’d agree with that. I’ll admit I don’t know much about running a radio station, though- maybe you need to have something like that around to do the job.
I’ll admit that some Muslim societies do have problems that other societies don’t. But people killing their spouses because the spouse wants to leave isn’t one of them. That happens in lots of different cultures and religions all over the world.
People like irony, whatever the situation. I don’t think it’s necessarily prejudiced to connect the goal of his company to a quite counterproductive murder. But it takes about 20 seconds to figure out how sadly ordinary his actions were in America.
10 percent of homicides between 1976 and 2005 have involved an intimate relationship between the victim and offender (that’s almost 65,000 – with an additional 209,000 undetermined).
* About one third of female murder victims were killed by an intimate.
* About 3% of male murder victims were killed by an intimate.
* Of all female murder victims, the proportion killed by an intimate has been increasing.
* Of male murder victims, the proportion killed by an intimate has dropped.
Muslims and honor killings go together like adultery and really sharp heavy stones.
I’ve had to rush through Birmingham (UK) changing trains with a Muslim girl who had run away from home because if we were spotted her family would try and kill me. It’s a big problem in any European country with a Muslim population.
And look what is happening in Iraq now Saddam isn’t there to brutally enforce secularism.
Honour killing and Islam goes hand in hand and no - there is no point trying to parse some artificial distinction between some ‘Islam’ and ‘society’. That’s the whole point of Islam - it is a total way of life and ‘society’ and religious ideology has become so intertwined the distinction is meaningless.
Honour killings are done in the name of Islam so it is Islamic regardless of apologist parsing of the mumbo-jumbo.
And again - no-one bother coming in with the same old ‘No True Scotsman’ arguments. Religions are what the religious do in its name regardless of the underlying mumbo-jumbo.
If the guy killed his wife it was no coincidence it was a beheading.
Then why is it so rare in Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa?
There is no perfect society with no problems, but different societies have different problems. Honor killings are a problem in some Arabic societies, and are not a problem in other societies.
I dunno but it sure as hell isn’t BECAUSE they are predominantly Islamic is it. In fact I would say it is because until recently Indonesia has tried very hard to stamp out Islamic fundamentalism.
And I refer you again to my axiom.
If the religious do something in the name of their religion, that is where the buck stops. Sharia Law encodes the oppression of women.
i knew you’d come back with Indonesia. Apologists always do - it being one of the very few examples you can point to.
The question I’d ask is why honor killings are not so widespread (yet) despite it being a large Muslim nation.
The answer I’d give is that since 1975 they’ve been too busy committing genocide in East Timor and murdering their own people by the hundreds of thousands so if I were you I’d think more than twice about holding them up as some sort of shining example of anything.
Honor killings are a problem thoughout Europe, wherever in fact (or by shocking, inexplicable coincidence) there are large Muslim ‘communities’, which to give you a clue - mainly do not come from any Arab country.
Mainly Pakistan, Bangladesh and India - non arabic countries with massive problems with honor killings and Islamic terrorism.
The Flying Dutchman, and tagos, I’m not sure what you think you are establishing with tales of decapitation, generally associated with warfare: that Genghis Khan was Muslim, perhaps? At the times your stories occurred, decapitation was a common method of execution that really bore no religious significance. (The Jews executed for “conspiracy” were not tried under Shariah, but captured in a siege of warfare and condemned for “treachery.”)
tagos, we have dealt with your “honor killing” fixation in earlier threads. Honor killing is a horrible vice that occurs among several, (but hardly all), Muslim socieies, but it is hardly Islamic in nature. It occurs among the Christians of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Sicily. (It has been known to be carried out by Christians in Ireland.) It is a serious problem among Hindus in India and has been known to occur among other patriarchal societies of various religions.
It is Islamic in nature. Cite provided to show already. Islam and tribal societies have been intertwined since Islam’s inception. They are now one and the institutionalised oppression of explicitly done in the name of Islam. It is Islamic - the weak arguments of its apologists notwithstanding.
That other cultures infected by religious insanity engage in vile practices is only an argument for the human race growing the fuck up and letting go its assorted monstrous fairy tales.
You should get a job writing fiction with that sort of overheated imagination.
If it is “Islamic,” you should be able to show a lot more incidences of it in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, and you should not be seeing it among Christians and Hindus.
There is a correspondence between honor killing and tribalism, but linking tribalism to Islam alone is silly. This anti-Islam site notes:
