I will say one thing...these threads tend to get things going around here...many people join in and it goes on and on.

Mr. P.

Dissident Heart wrote:not because of the West wants to bring democracy and freedom to the Muslim world...but because of Western hubris and its drive for hegemony in the Middle East and the rest of the world. The Teddy Bear incident is just one more example of how the West demeans, denigrates and disregards Muslim values.

Possibly. My main point in this is that without the belief in the myth, there would be no law such as this. A trivial law WHEN you look at it from the POV of me and Frank and others that realize there is NO god and thus all of this is mindless. Look at it from that POV. Without the religion, there would not be this arbitrary law to enforce in the first place. Yes, I realize that something else would need to take its place (meaning there would be another law covering something else) but as I see it, if more people rejected the imaginary, we would be a little harder pressed to persecute based on imaginary insults.

And if the Muslims succeeded in their conquest...I think it would be the "West" that was fighting against the hubris of Muslim civilization. They are no angels, we are no devils...we are just ignorant humans all of us. Tides have a way of turning throughout history and yet the sides always look eerily similar.

Mr. P.

Mr. P: My main point in this is that without the belief in the myth, there would be no law such as this. A trivial law WHEN you look at it from the POV of me and Frank and others that realize there is NO god and thus all of this is mindless. Look at it from that POV. Without the religion, there would not be this arbitrary law to enforce in the first place.

True, if religion just disappeared and people abandoned myth, then, well...well, I don't see it happening.

I think we are faced with three options:

1. Work to minimize the influence of religion in politics and public affairs.

2. Work to eliminate religion from all aspects of politics and public affairs.

3. Work to highlight those elements of religion that support human and civil rights, as well as ecological sustainability.

I think all three are difficult, perhaps impossible. Perhaps different circumstances require different options. I think the third is the least impossible of the three.

]quote="Chris OConnor"]Frank is asserting that this is a religious problem. The problem is Islam. Neither Frank nor I have argued that this case should be analyzed in a vacuum where political and social factors can be held constant and ignored. It is just that the real core problem is the biggest factor and the one that gets our Underoos in a bunch.[/quote]

Chris, you do see that reiterating the position isn't the same as substantiating it, right? The question I've been asking is, How did you guys determine that Islam was the "real core" of the problem?

We'd have the same nightmare in the US if Christians actually read and honored the teachings of the Bible word for word.

So, to your mind, the only difference between a dangerous religion and a harmless religion is the level of piety evident in each?

The politics of Sudan naturally come into play, but they are in themselves effects of other causes, namely irrational and nonsensical religion.

I've pointed out earlier in this thread that countries don't typically adopt a theocratic system out of sheer piety. There's usually a political and historical motivation. In this case, adopting Shariah law was likely a way to consolidate support for a localized nationalism in the face of British colonialism. I haven't read enough Sudanese history to know for certain that's the case, but it would at least be consistent with the historical process in other African and Arab states. A number of very liberal and progressive industrializing nations have actually veered towards theocratic government as a way of fighting off what they perceived as imperial influences from abroad. The rationale behind such swerves is much the same as the urges which gave rise to collection of folk tales during the Germanic push towards nationalism -- namely that local religion and local traditions are part of what distinguish one population for another, so to emphasize those local elements is to assert the local identity against the intrusion of foreign powers.

As I said, I don't know for sure that the Sudan was subject to a similar political growth, but acknowledging that as a possibility at least keeps us from blithely accepting the myth that people simply jump onto the theocratic bandwagon for no better reason than that they subscribe to that particular religion. If you can point me to some examples of nations that adopted theocracy out of sheer piety, then that's something we can reasonably discuss.

We all do it at times, but the answer just might be right below your nose as you diligently scan the horizon for something more complex and academic.

It might. I certainly wouldn't count out of hand that the answer is quite simple. But how do you know unless you've tested that hypothesis?

I have some background in journalism, and perhaps that's what makes me more skeptical of newspapers and tele-journalism as a good source for drawing conclusions. The amount of pertinent information you get in either source is dictated by very narrow time and space constraints, by the editor's judgment of what will best serve the reader's interest, and by a thousand business decisions made in numerous departments. There are practically no newspapers or television news programs that have the time or space sufficient to give you more than 1/100th of the background that would be necessary to render a competent judgment of the deeper issues involved with a story they've reported, and very few of those news outlets are going to risk driving you to some other publication by giving you the sense that they've told you anything less than the full story. If you want anything like the full story, you've got to invest some effort into finding fuller information.

How about the truth that thousands of Muslims throughout Sudan were calling for her execution? Or are you really expecting me to document and prove this assertion?

I, for one, am willing to accept that as fact. All I ask is that you give me some reason to believe that they were rallying because they were Muslim, and not for some other reason -- like, for example, that they were Sudanese.

I find it comical that you consider Mad tripping up anyone. Heck, this is what pulled me into this thread.

Well, I certainly haven't shaken your confidence, or Frank's, or Mr. P's. But you might consider the fact that others also read these threads. Some of them probably agree with you. Others don't.

Mad is indeed an indoctrinated theist.

For the record, I used to be. Indoctrinated, that is. Since I don't actually hold any doctrines regarding religion, I don't really qualify for that label anymore.

Frank wrote:This question has some merit... is Islam slowly being defanged in western countries where cultural differences change the importance of some of the religious laws?

Since some historical Muslim societies have been as tolerant, and in some cases, more tolerant, than their Western contemporaries, I'd say that the explanation that Islam is being defanged misses the mark. A better question is that of who put the fangs there in the first place. There was a long period in which Islamic civilizations were among the most progressive civilizations on two continents, both politically and scientifically, but the course of history was such that it turned inward and conservative. The 19th and 20th century incursion of European political and economic interests into the middle east seems to have accelerated that process. It would be fruitful to examine the causes of those fluctuations in Islamic history, but that would, of course, require some extra-curricular reading.

But just as it is important to note that not all Muslims are crying out for death I think it is equally important to note that only Muslims are calling out for death.

What scope are you talking about? Do you mean specifically within Sudan? If you mean worldwide, that statement is patently absurd. If you mean within the Sudan itself, it would make sense that only Muslim's are crying out for death since only Muslim's would support an Islamicist government. Either way, I'm not sure how that point would be decisive.

You were trying to analyze the motivations of the accusers, but you totally left out the influence of religion because it is immeasurable focusing solely on secular reasoning.

I didn't leave out the influence of religion, but nor did you demonstrate how it would be possible to determine in any particular case that a person involved in the witch crazes was acting from piety and not from one of the dozen other motivations that might have prompted their involvement.

Later you attempted to downplay the level of religious influence of that era, but there is far too much evidence against that idea for it to hold any weight.

Evidence you never provided. As I recall, you simply insisted that everyone knew that religion was far more influential during the middle ages. Mr. P and I actually set out to inquire as to the influence religion had over medieval politics (and inquiry time constraints forced him to put on haitus), and most of the material I encountered suggested that medievals drew a sharp line of demarcation between the two.

What evidence can there possibly be that makes it acceptable to arrest or execute someone over the naming of a teddy bear? Find some Ill look at it.

I don't think it's acceptable, at all. The Sudanese government sounds totalitarian to me, and totalitarian governments will do lots of unacceptable, seemingly irrational things in the interest of conserving their own power.

Mr. P wrote:I will say one thing...these threads tend to get things going around here...many people join in and it goes on and on.

Yeah, and leaving a pie out on the sidewalk will attract ants, but that doesn't make it worth a damn. What have gained from this thread?

Without the religion, there would not be this arbitrary law to enforce in the first place.

No, there wouldn't. There'd be some other arbitrary law in its place. Someone would be getting punished for naming a teddy bear Tito or Chavez. The point is that governments of this type draft and enforce laws not out of respect or piety, nor even necessarily because they believe the creeds that inform those laws, but because the laws are a politically expedient tool by which to control populations. This particular case presents such a clear analogy to historical instances that have nothing to do with religion that I don't see how it's possible to reject out of hand the possibility that the Sudanese government would be holding the same sorts of trials with or without clerical support.

Dissident Heart wrote:

Mr. P: My main point in this is that without the belief in the myth, there would be no law such as this. A trivial law WHEN you look at it from the POV of me and Frank and others that realize there is NO god and thus all of this is mindless. Look at it from that POV. Without the religion, there would not be this arbitrary law to enforce in the first place.

3. Work to highlight those elements of religion that support human and civil rights, as well as ecological sustainability.

I think all three are difficult, perhaps impossible. Perhaps different circumstances require different options. I think the third is the least impossible of the three.

The thing is, the more we move towards what is supportive about religion, we will see that we do not need religion to espouse those supports as they can be justified by replacing gods interests/dictates with human interests/dictates.

And I do not say we should get rid of or foressake myths...just not rely on them to make laws that govern humanity. There are so many different myths so this should be seen as a bad method for an overall approach.

Mr. P.

Chris, I find it extraordinarily revealing that you actually quote the specific request that I made to you: to point me to where in this thread Frank had demonstrated the "truth" you speak of. And yet, after quite a lengthy post, you never actually respond to that request.

You state, unequivocally: "The bottom line is religion is the real problem and not politics. I think Frank and Nick have done a fine job in showing this rather obvious truth." [emphasis mine] All I ask is that you point me specifically to where in the thread that "truth" has been concretely demonstrated, rather than merely asserted, so I can use it as a starting point for research. And yet, all you do is reassert the same baseless claim

We had a stabbing at the prison yesterday, because of this I will be working a lot of overtime. Sorry but I will not have the time to post again until things quiet down.

Later

Rose wrote:I direct you to former U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Donald Petterson's book Inside Sudan: Political Islam, Conflict, and Catastrophe. (Note, I've never read Petterson's book myself. Actually, I've heard it's a horrid read. But I have seen it cited more than once, specifically with regard to English-speaking news agencies' poor and inaccurate reporting on Sudan.)

I've never read it either, and for all I know, it may very well be the worst of English-language books on the Sudan, but it has the special merit of being the book recommendation made in this thread, and that's reason for applause. At the very least, that's a gesture towards what I've been urging -- that we look for ways to better inform our opinions.

Mad, I think I remember reading that Shariah was used even before British colonialism, within the civil conflicts, as a way to unite tribes.

In the broader scope of Islamic history, that's true. Islam initially functioned as a reform movement in a region that was highly factionalized, continually violent, and mostly tribal in terms of social and political structure. That historical circumstance -- Islam's apparent facility at ordering societies into internally unified and cohesive wholes -- may very well have been what recommended it to modern African and Middle Eastern nationalists as a rallying point for regional (v. Imperial) identity.

That said, what I'm talking about may well be distinguishable as a modern phenomenon. Specifically, during the 1950s, European imperial interests began to pull out of Africa, at least as "owners". The perception among the newly emancipated African states was that those European interests might still manage to control African destinies if the natives of those countries were unable to find some means of centralizing power and public interest in local affairs. The situation of post-colonial India may very well have served as an model to avoid. The period immediately following the emancipation of the African states was rife with ironies -- eg. the retreat to ethnicities, such as Hutu and Tutsi, that were essentially fabricated by European imperialist governments -- and one such irony may have been a Sudanese attempt to build a local identity out of a religion that was not at all indigenous (the Sudan is located on the cite of two former empires, one based on indigenous religion, and a later one founded on African Christianity), but was imported by Arab traders.

I do know that current Sudanese law is founded on the model of British common law, and that the Shariah additions were introduced shortly after the British handed power over in the mid-1950s. That in itself doesn't solve the matter, but I do think it's highly suggestive.

The Muslims that are demanding she be executed would probably laugh (right before they cut your head off) at your desire to link politics with this issue.

I went back and looked over some of the articles concerning these presumably blood-thirsty protesters, and noticed some interesting omissions in our discussion.

The following is from the New York Times' coverage of the protests, in an article called Calls in Sudan for Execution of British Teacher

Despite the display of outrage, witnesses said that many of the protesters were government employees ordered to demonstrate, and that aside from a large gathering outside the presidential palace, most of Khartoum was quiet. Imams across the city brought up the case in sermons after Friday Prayer, but few of them urged violence.

"This woman gave an idol the name of Muhammad, which is not acceptable," said Ahmed Muhammad, the imam at a mosque in Khartoum 2, an upscale section of town. But, he added, the proper response was more nuanced: "We have to first respect ourselves, and then others will respect us."

If this report is true, then it would almost seem that the government arranged the protests, which the religious institutions themselves had no inclination of provoking. It's also interesting that the article talks of their being hundreds of protesters, not "thousands" as cited in this thread.