Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Comparisons between the Bible and the Koran

I'm not glossing over the atrocities being committed especially against women in Muslim countries, TEEEJ. Do you remember that I started that thread about a young woman in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 200 lashes because she had been raped when she had accepted a ride in a car which was not driven by one of her male relatives?

However, while I'm very interested in why the oppression of women is so severe in many Muslim countries, it is true that my interest in how Christianity treats women is even greater. And the reason for why I'm so interested is that I grew up very close to people who were, in some respects, flaming fundamentalists. Except they weren't flaming and fuming, exactly. You can't get past the fact that my relatives lived and live in Sweden, which is a massively secular country. As a Christian fundamentalist in Sweden, you can be only so angry in public until all the secular Swedes start laughing at you. And since nobody wants to be laughed at all my relatives were well-behaved, but their beliefs were no less scary in spite of that.

And do you know what, TEEEJ? When the revolution happened in Iran in 1979, when the Shah had to flee and the U.S. Embassy was occupied and all those seemingly millions of people took to the streets and screamed and shouted and demanded a Muslim revolution, then I watched the spectacle in absolute horror:



I was so horrified because I realized that those screaming and shouting people who were dead set on taking the law in their own hands in the name of God and punish others and have their own way in the name of their religion, they could have been my own relatives. Yes, this is exactly what could have happened in my own back yard if Sweden hadn't been the secularized, modern society that it is.

I grew up terrified of my relatives. I felt that I could never quite foresee when I had done something that could make them sentence me to hell. Like when I had sewn a button on a blouse on a Sunday. Or when I formulated a forbidden word in my mind, never saying it, but thinking it. What if my relatives could read my mind? And what about the fact that my mother had contacted a children's theater group and made me join it? We performed an H.C. Andersen fairy tale on stage. And yet my mother impressed on me that I must never, ever, ever let my relatives know that I was doing this, because they would be horrified beyond belief and perhaps renounce our entire family for ever.

When I was eight years old my grandfather told me that Jesus was coming back any night now to bring his faithful ones to heaven. I knew without a doubt that I would never be let in there. I slept badly for months, wondering if it was tonight that Jesus would come and take my parents away from me.

Occasionally, very occasionally, my parents forced me to go to a Pentecostalist service with my relatives, for my relatives' sake. I was petrified with fear. The church was packed with people, everyone swaying and murmuring and shouting and crying. What if they suddenly "sensed" me, like a predator might sense a prey? What would they do to me if they suddenly sensed me sitting among them?

The reason why fundamentalist religions interest and frighten me so much is that I grew up so very close to such a group of people myself. And my impression remains that Christian fundamentalists are not so different from Muslim fundamentalists in their religous zest, and maybe in their wish to punish others. What separates the Christian fundamentalists in the West from the Muslim fundamentalists - what really, really separates them - is that they want to fit in a society that is basically secular, and that doesn't respect the kind of religious zeal that goes beyond a certain level. Western societies and western thoughts and traditions rein its Christian fundamentalists in. Muslim societies don't always do that with its Muslim fundamentalists, for a variety of reasons.

But when I was a kid I kept hoping that if my relatives and their Pentecostalist congregation finally "sensed" me, like a predator may sense a prey, then my parents would see what they tried to do to me and call the police. I trusted that there was a police force out there which wouldn't let the Pentecostalist do whatever they wanted with me, even though they may have felt that they had been given religious authority from God himself to deal with sinners here on Earth.

And that is why the separation between church and state is so incredibly important to me.

Ann

Unfortunately, I live in cold freaking Minnesota, one of the liberal meccas of the free world (and I call it mecca because they make liberalism to be their freaking religion) and every real Christian I've met, and every church I've been to(several since we've been trying to find a home church) never once suggested that women be stoned to death for cheating on their husbands, told us to stop eating hotdogs, or threatened to take our property if we don't pay a tithe(so far that's only the local liberal government).

Seriously? No extemporation or embellishment? for real? What denomination are they? I gotta see this doctrine to believe it.

Horse hockey and here's why. People rein themselves in. Real life mainstream Jesus loving Christians learned some time ago that being violent is not only against the the dictates of Christ, but it tends to turn folks off. That's just plain common sense. As I said before, anybody saying/doing different is after power, with no love of God involved.

...and here you see the powerplay in progress. It's their goal to establish a world wide Caliphate in the next 100 years and since regular preaching and witnessing isn't getting it done fast enough for them, they are turning to violence, a culture and belief system they've been nuturing since the 50/60's (Thanks for encouraging that, Jimmy Carter!)

Okay and when the rampaging terrorist Christians overrun Washington, we'll let you know how right you were.

TEEEEEEJ

Anne said:

OMG! At last we have something in common, Anne! I spent my entire childhood terrified of being alone, because I was positive that the Rapture was going to occur. I would be left stranded in some foreign country with no resources. My parents are actually great individuals for the most part, but the people they chose to associate with terrified me.

Seriously. I don't think they're crazy enough to do every single thing since they do live in the USA. I'm pretty sure if they were for stoning or animal sacrifice, they wouldn't tell me (since it's illegal). It all started out of a megachurch in my area that used to be a Bible church, but isn't technically affiliated with anything now. I also couldn't tell you if they represent the ENTIRE church or just a subsection of it, but there are an awful lot of people who do it that I've run into. I think it started as a backlash against liberal secularism and a desire to embrace traditional values, and turned into something incredibly nuts. I honestly don't get into too much discussion with them since I live a pretty non-traditional life. They probably see no hope for me

This is a picture of a witch burning in Europe, probably in the 16th or 17th century. The people who made the witch burnings happen were Christians, too. Why didn't they rein themselves in?

And why don't we burn witches? Is it because the Bible tells us that we shouldn't? No. The only thing that the Bible says, in Exodus 22:18, is that we should kill witches. It might be argued that this is a command. And even though Paul says that Christians don't have to obey Mosaic law, and therefore are under no obligation to burn witches, it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible that we are not allowed to do so.

So why don't we do it? It has nothing to do with the Bible. Rather, it was the general mood in Europe that turned against witch burnings in the 17th and 18th centuries. Eventually the witch trials were completely discredited. Rational scholars pointed out that the accused women were given no chance to prove themselves innocent, because the tests that might prove their innocence almost invariably killed them. For example, an accused woman was usually cleared of the charges against her if she was thrown into deep water and drowned. However, if she floated she had to be a witch, because it was believed that only the Devil could protect her from sinking.

In Sweden, a scholar demanded that those who accused a particular woman of being a witch should be cross-examined themselves. When and where did they see the accused woman do something suspicious? What exactly had she done? The testimony of the witnesses should be written down, and then they should be asked the same questions again a week later. This manner of interrogation quickly revealed that the witnesses couldn't remember what they themselves had said a week before, and when they they were questioned again they told quite different stories. It became clear that the witnesses lied. Worse, it was a revealed that a small group of orphaned young boys had travelled around in Sweden and made a living by accusing women of being witches and then witnessing against them for a small fee. One such boy had sent his own mother to the stake by accusing her of being a witch.

Well, even though these facts were revealed, quite a few Swedes still believed in witches. However, juridical Sweden was outraged, the King was embarrassed, the parliament was embarrassed, and the Church was embarrassed. The King and the parliament together a passed a law making witch trials illegal. Eventually, the very expression "witch trial" came to signify an outrageously unfair legal trial or some sort of horribly unfair treatment of a person. Now witch trials were not only illegal, they had also become impossible to "sell" to the general public. And I'm sure that more or less the same thing happened in the rest of Europe.

So that is why I don't believe that people rein themselves in. We grow up with all sorts of written and unwritten laws around us, and we quickly learn what is socially acceptable and what isn't.

No rampaging Christians will overrun Washington for now, and they won't ever do so as long as our societies stay the way they are now. But that is just it, the way I see it. The thing is, we want to follow the law. Most of us really want to do that. And we particularly don't want to break the laws that everybody consider, well, self-evident and "holy", for lack of a better word. We are so rarely proud of doing something that almost all other people find totally shocking and outrageous. There aren't many guys around who'd be telling everybody around them, 'Hi, I'm Stan, and I'm a pedophiliac and proud of it! Can I babysit your baby?'

And that's why you won't find a church anywhere in the United States whose members will tell you that they stone adulteresses and are proud of it. You can't do that in the United States. If you make a claim like that, the government will do their utmost to stop you, and the general public and all the media will cheer the government on. Everyone will want to see your downfall. Try to stone adulteresses or burn witches in the United States or Europe, and everyone will pounce on you and do whatever they can to stop you. Seriously.

That is what I mean when I say that our western societies rein the Christian fundamentalists in. But in some Muslim countries it is socially acceptable to stone adulteresses, which is why such things happen. (Actually, though, I heard on the radio a few months ago that there have been no documented cases of actual stonings of women anywhere in the world in recent years, even though there have certainly been other forms of executions of women for sexual crimes in Muslim countries.)

And my point is still that if we allow the teachings of the Bible to be our only guiding rule, then there is no obvious reason why we should not be allowed to burn witches and stone adulteresses.

Ann

Or been under the threat of being colonized since its sovereignty had long been undermined by the instalation of what was percieved as a corrupt puppet government. This is oversimplifying of course , I can't claim to know a whole lot about the Middle East, but I'm sure the revolution didn't happen only because of religion. It happened because of a general unrest in the populace that was engendered by the political situation. People will do horrible things when they're afraid and desperate about the status quo.

So religion was used to back up a nationalist project. Through Islam, the reactionaries could posit a stark contrast between "indigineous traditions" (more often than not, a distorted version of them to make 'em extra national and clean out differences within, hello fascism) versus foreign (Western) traditions that they thought threatened them. Place a charismatic leader on top and its a heady combo. Think about it. Where have we seen this before?

In that, it's nothing new. Nationalist movements have always posited their own "indigenous traditions" against what is felt as the encroachment of outside culture and religion is always fertile ground in this. Think of the Japanese with Shinto and the Emperor-directly-descended-from-the-Goddess in WWII or how Indian nationalist movements went back to classical Hindu myths and heroes or how Chinese nationalists employed Confucian symbols. These I know a bit more about and obviously they are different, but the structure of nationalism is pretty similar around the world.

In one sense modernity has everything to do with it because it definitely marked who was to live in fear and who was not (as much as "modernity" is directly complicit with imperialism). Most of us don't live with that fear, so I think we fail to recognize its power. But it's there and it's an important tool when you want to excersize control over a population.

And the links between nationalist projects and gender have been discussed. It just turns into a big ol' mess as women too are placed within the nation-building project.

Me and TJ have views at the opposite ends of the spectrum, but I agree with her that it's about power. Not just Christianity, but whenever religion gets coopted as part of nation-building, it's more about what it represents to a specific collective not what it is to an individual.

At this scale, it's always about power.

alcyone

Well, here I can agree with both TEEEJ and Alcyone. Religion that kills people in the name of God is always about power.

And I certainly agree with you, Alcyone, that most Muslim countries have been victims of colonialism and have had their national sovereignty undermined in various ways. I have sometimes asked myself why it is that we have had so few upheavals in Sweden, and one important reason is certainly that Sweden has never been colonized. (And that, in turn, may have been because Sweden was so far north that most potential colonialists couldn't be bothered to travel so far to conquer a country that was, particularly in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, so cold and barren.) Ever since the early 16th century, Sweden has had a strong national government. It has not been necessary for Swedes to defend themselves against others who tried to subjugate them. Instead, Swedes have been able to trust their own government.

Colonialism has many things on its conscience, that's for sure. Interestingly, when we speak about the Bible, we can say that the people who wrote that book has suffered more than its share of colonialism and oppression by others. And since the Hebrews/Jews themselves were a small people, it is no wonder that they cried out to God for protection. When they didn't get it, or didn't get enough of it, they tried to appease their God by becoming ever more religiously zealous. In the book of Ezra, you can read about how the Jews tried to purge themselves before God by breaking up mixed marriages and throwing non-Jewish women out of the land that used to be Israel.

So indeed, Alcyone, religion, fear and nationalism make a heady mix. Clearly other beliefs than religious ones serve just as well if you want to shore up and justify your nationalism, as long as you can find the right belief system to do the job. I take it you were referring to Nazism and Fascism in your previous post. (Although contrary to what some people believe, Nazism wasn't wholly atheist, and Hitler, for example, remained a member of his church all his life.)

Ann

As we all seemed to have concluded, it was about POWER, back in 16/17 century the land and property of the folks burned as witches (and it wasn't just women it was men burned too) got turned over to...THE CHURCH or whatever governing power was involved with the church at the time. Per everybody's reasoning so far, you have to blame the PEOPLE after power at the time. What it seems we have learned in our short 200+ years as a democractic republic nation is when some folk get too power hungry, they will get SHUT DOWN (and not quite understanding how other nations that have been around much longer haven't seemed to have caught on to this)

After the Jim Jones disaster(which was really more about communism than religion) a majority of mainstream MODERN Christian groups toned down the zealotry, not unenthusiastic about spreading the Gospel, mind you, but cutting off militant tactics.

Now we have folks like Billy Graham, Charles Stanley, and Jim Hagge out there, doing nothing with the power they've been given, but spreading the Gospel, trying to get as many folk saved before the Rapture as they can. To me that is a noble and loving goal, so I have a huge problem with theatrical hand-wringing about Christianity even being anywhere a danger that radical Islam is which is REALLY, honestly what this thread started out as.

Now you can go off wondering hypothetically what would happen if a bunch of Christians got voted into office(oh the horror )how they'd force all their policy on the poor liberal minority, but the fact is, the US is going exactly the opposite direction. You can comfort yourself knowing that recent events and trends have proved that a majority of folks nowdays have stopped raising their children with morals or ethics.

When policy on saving trees becomes more important than stopping the murder of unborn babies, it's time for Christians to start looking to the Heavens, because we all know we're not really meant to be here anyway and it's this knowledge(and hope) that comforts me when the realization of the hellmouth this nation has become crashes in on me.

DONE AND DONE

TEEEEEEEEJ

I was thinking of African countries and Latin American countries and the rise of dictators (the most violent manifestation of this "blotting out difference," nevermind the complexities of how these are enabled by foreign powers some times). I'm using fascism very, very broadly. But yeah definitely, Nazism fits the bill. I know only the basics of the situation in Germany then, but I remember hearing that it too was a movement that could be directly linked to a desperation over the political satus quo--only this time economic hardship was added to the mix.

Warning for EVEN MORE Thread Drift!

And you know, I don't need to look as far as the Middle East to be disturbed. That Chavez in Venezuela really, really scared me for a while. Why would you shut down the media that disagrees with you? Why would you try to end presidential term limits? Why would you give the State so much power? It all sounds like the worst case of deja vu. Thank god the National Assembly said no to those changes (even though I think the media outlet shut down was moved to Colombia, I think--not so sure).

It's a scary world.

alcyone

That's exactly how I feel Teej. That's what I meant in my earlier post when I said I don't really want separation of Church & State. My idea of church is not that of the old testament but that of a society that lives how Jesus lived. If a government could instill those values into people then I do think we'd see alot less of the violence/hate/unethical actions we see now.

Wow, I focus on classes for two days and come back to find a lot to catch up on. Apologies to anyone who thought I meant that entire cultures are somehow "bad" because of some beliefs or actions. What I meant was that some cultures have a lot more change to go through than others to be what God had originally intended--and those who don't look at it from a religious standpoint can certainly see the human rights standpoint. Some cultures have a lot less respect for human life than others, and/or separate humanity into various groups and subgroups (some marked inferior). Take cannibalism, which was only stopped in the last century in Papua New Guinea, or the twin killing that used to happen in various parts of Africa until Mary Slessor stepped in and started working to change it. Take the cultures where women are considered inferior to men, and have limited rights to education, health care, or any sort of independence. Those cultures run on a different set of morals than Western culture, and unless we go the route of relativism and say that all sets of morals are equal (and therefore their treatment of women or babies is perfectly fine because it's a part of their culture), we have to say that those cultures have serious flaws in their morals. Food, language, dress, those things are not morally related (except for the sorts of rules about not eating some things--like keeping a kosher household, and modesty does relate to dress). I will never call a culture's foods or language or dress evil or wrong. They might be very different from mine, but they're just as valid. But there's a big difference between those small things and the big issue of morality and related beliefs. And not all cultures are equal when it comes to morals. (And I still don't think ours is perfect--as long as abortion is legal, for instance, the sanctity of human life is not being respected as it should.)

I am also a huge supporter of separation between church and state, Ann, so I'm with you there. When beliefs and government mix (and someone decides to turn their beliefs into a country's laws), someone *always* gets deprived of rights (whether those beliefs are associated with a church or not). As it is, I believe that as time goes on, there will be a union of church and state once more--there are still old laws on the books that cross those boundaries. But that's a matter for a different discussion. The harder thing to tell is the careful boundary where secular laws and religious morals overlap, and how to determine the morals for secular laws when society changes so much . . .

I totally agree with you. Jesus' main message is 'love' and that is what is lacking in this violent world nowadays.

TEEEEEEEEEEJ wrote:
I have the impression that TEEEEEJ has left this thread, so perhaps she will not return to clarify this for me - maybe someone else can.

And maybe I'm just confused, but I'd like to know who this "majority" of folks are who aren't raising their children with morals or ethics. I don't have to be a mind-reader to feel confident that if I were to approach 100 different parents and ask them "Do you feel that you are raising your child with a strong sense of morals and the ethics of what is right or wrong?", that every single one of those parents would answer "Yes." Yes, none of us are perfect, and the problems in some families may be overwhelming and this really messes up a child's way of thinking, but doesn't just about any parent want to give their child a strong moral grounding. And it's a parent's choice as to whether or not they include organized religion as a part of that.

So who has decided that the majority of folks don't care? I really would like to know.

Kathy

So you want a religious state? But according to which church? Whose rules? And what about people who may still practice religion but whose religion does not have the exact same principles? What about people with no religion at all?

I've seen people disapprove of Islamic states. Isn't this just the same thing, but with a different religion?

I would want no part of any state which incorporates religious values into its laws, precisely because I value diversity.

Edit: I see Doranwen said it much better than I did:

Exactly!


Wendy

Isn't separation of Church and State one of the principles in the American constitution? So to change that would require a constitutional amendment, something that's really very difficult to achieve. I don't think they've even managed to ratify the ERA, have they?

c.

Carol asked:
The answer is "no." There is no constitutional premise for the doctrine of separation of church and state. The phrase comes from a letter which President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802. In this letter, he was trying to reassure a pastoral association that he, as president, would neither move to establish a state church nor would he attempt to disenfranchise those who were avid churchgoers from participating in this new democratic republic we call the United States.

And what many people do not know is that throughout Jefferson's presidency the House of Representatives was used as a place of Christian worship on Sundays. Jefferson was a regular attendee at these meetings.

The phrase "separation of church and state" was not made a basis for any judicial decision until 1947, but since then has been repeated so often that most people believe that it is Constitutional law. It isn't. It's set by precedent, which means that the courts have insinuated this principle into our legal fabric.

And I believe in Jefferson's principle of separation of church and state. I believe that the state should not directly associate itself with any church (or religion), nor should the state interfere with the peaceful practice of any organized religion.

But I also believe, unlike many in American government today, that one's religious beliefs cannot be conveniently "left at the doorstep" when entering public service. I do not believe that any religious leader should ever dictate governmental policy, but I also believe that if a president or senator or congressperson or member of the judiciary holds strong religious beliefs, they should not disqualify that person from serving in government. If one is a Christian, for example, those Christian beliefs will inform and guide that person's decisions whether that person is in public service or in private practice.

Thanks for the explanation, Terry.

c.

Much earlier, Ann commented:
Ann, the Gospels do not state that the entire nation of Israel wanted Jesus to die. The religious rulers, the puppet king Herod, and Pilate all awkwardly and almost unintentionally conspired to put Jesus on the cross. The majority of Jews didn't even know the trial was happening until it was over, and by then there was no way to stop the execution.

And Pilate, if we recall, was threatened with a report to his superiors that he was ignoring a situation which went against the current Roman religious system. The Romans didn't care if their conquered nations kept their own religions, but they did care if someone claimed to be a king without their permission. And that was what Pilate was threatened with. Remember also that Pilate wasn't eager to execute Jesus, and only did so when the mob outside his residence appeared to choose Barabbas over Jesus. All Pilate was doing was the same thing that politicians have done for centuries: cover his own assets.

Hi Ann,

I just discovered this thread and it's been a nice distraction from homework. I thought I'd pipe in with a thought that came to mind as I read your description of your relatives.

Tell me, what would you think of your relations if they firmly believed everything they do--deep in the firmament of their being--and *didn't* try to steer your down the path to God? What would you think of anyone who knew information that would bring *eternal* happiness (and that's a long time) to you and, more importantly, lead you to be (in the most completely objective sense of the word) a *good* person, but they just kept mum and took the "spoils" for themselves?

Especially consider if someone knew that in order to be A Good Person (we're still talking *the* objective definition here), they were required to let you in on what it would take to bring you eternal happiness, but they just decided not to. Or when they had the opportunity to take to the streets and bring it to their whole country, they stayed home and watched TV instead. Or participated in an H.C. Andersen fairy tale play.

What if there was some being out there that is so smart, so incredibly powerful, and so incredibly gracious that He made *everything*. That He thought you up and set you in motion. And all He asked in return was that people like you obey people who are made a little different from you (males vs females). That's your job. Perhaps its an experiment--how do people do when they are put in positions of power over others for arbitary reasons? How do people do when they are told by Me to be the property of other people for arbitrary reasons?

Whatever the reason He did this, this is the way He wants it. And if you put up with it for 70 years, be faithful to the One who made you and made everything and everyone you enjoy and hold dear, He'll reward you with an eternity of bliss. He'll answer your every question, give you love and respect and whatever you desire.

What if you knew this was the way the world worked, but your stubborn grand daughter was going to lose it all, because she would rather be in H.C. Andersen plays? (I'm being mildly absurdist here, but I'm sure you follow my point.)

I think if I were religious, I would be a crazy fundie. As an atheist, I became a physicist instead. Meh.

But it's interesting to think about. I don't think I'd have much respect for someone who really thought they *knew* something as important as how to be The Definition of a good person/how to have an eternity of paradise, and *didn't* try to push it onto others.

Then again, the wishy-washies who basically say "this is what I think but you're free to be a heathen" certainly make life easier, as I think their faith is mis-placed. But I wonder if *that* type of Christian doesn't, somewhere down deep, agree with me.

Isn't that the truth. I have class to prepare for tomorrow, but if I read any more on modernist aesthetics my brain is going to explode.

So I rather read about morality instead.



It's an awesome article.

alcyone

Wendy, when I say I want a religious state, I don't mean the word "religious". To me, Christianity isn't a religion (although I know that technically it is). Christianity is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord. I am a Christian and I don't think I could truly follow Christ if I thought that other people's religions were just as valid. I know that may offend many people on here but it's not meant in a condesending way at all. I say this because I believe with all my heart that what the Bible says is true, that Jesus Christ is our Lord and that the only way to Heaven is through Him. If I wish that other people felt that way also and wish that they would go to Heaven as well, it's not because of a judgemental spirit or any other reason; I only wish everyone had the hope that I have in Jesus Christ.

I've kind of rambled on here. I don't think I've really answered your other questions. In my ideal church/state government, the people who didn't believe anything or followed a different religion would follow Christian principals. I say again, not the Old Testament law, but what Jesus teaches. This I think, regardless, of what religion you practiced, would be a good thing. I mean, who doesn't want forgiveness, giving, faith, hope, love, honesty, generosity, etc. etc. shown and instilled by their government? That sounds like a great society to me. So in my mind, the government that I would like would be that of a Utopian society. It won't ever happen....

Mercy quoted:
Kind of what I was trying to say above...