polite_gandalf wrote on Oct 11
th, 2013 at 10:33pm:
freediver wrote on Oct 11
th, 2013 at 7:07pm:
That's great. It means there is no need for you to attempt to forbid people from making the accusation. Right?
Perhaps you can refer me to where I have attempted any such thing.
polite_gandalf wrote on Oct 10
th, 2013 at 10:32am:
Freedom to criticise must be protected, but protecting people's right to not be vilified is just as important. Especially when it is based on outright lies. A good example here is the common smear on muslims that they love pedophilia - based on the claim that the Prophet was a pedophile. This has been thoroughly debunked in another thread - but don't expect the pedophile smear to stop any time soon. In a rather more spectacular example, we had Soren declaring that the recent Swedish riots were caused by a muslim being shot by police after he threatened to "honour kill" his family with the kitchen knife. The victim was not even muslim.
Quote:but definitely *NOT* dictating what people think
That's right.
Quote:OK. My take on it is that you consider Brian "spineless" for thinking he doesn't have a right to criticise others for carrying out acts that amounts to human rights abuses.
Correct. He also considers it their "right" to carry out these acts. He considers himself incapable of criticising it. He also justifies this position by saying he is not a member of the nation or religion. Do you have a different interpretation of any of this?
Quote:What about if it is the way I interpret it? Just hypothetically, do you consider it spineless to refuse to group (say) all the impoverished and uneducated Iranian peasants into the same basket as the undemocratic ruling elite - and condemn them all collectively for the human rights abuses of the ruling elite?
If Brian's position was limited to that then he could be taken for normal. But I think you are deliberately leaving bits out, like Brian insisting that it is their right to carry out these human rights abuses, and justifying his position by saying he is not a member of the nation or religion, and his curious insistence that he is not even capable of criticising. Am I confused about that?
Quote:The "eternal example" is to wait until a girl is biologically and psychologically ready for marriage. The physical age is neither here nor there.
So the eternal Islamic example could include girls even younger than 9?
Quote:is there a magic numeric age at which girls are suddenly "mature" enough for marriage? What is it? 12? 15? 18?
Not really. I noticed you did not include 9 as an example. At a young age there are serious risks to a girls physical health (and that of the baby) from carrying a pregnancy to full term. I find it hard to believe that Muhammed was unaware of this. We don't see it much today because of minimum age legislation and advances in medical assistance. Muhammed lived in a time when even adult women often died in childbirth, and the rates for little girls giving birth were much higher. And that is just the purely physical side of it. You personally seem to value the idea that people fall in love with and choose who they marry. You even attempted to suggest Islam promotes this view. Negotiating your marriage to your neighbour's 6 year old daughter is obviously not romantic in any way. Neither is chopping a man's head off and taking his wife as a sex slave. It is an inevitably abusive relationship. The fact that Aisha made her way through it apparently unharmed (ignoring the fact that she never gave birth to live young for some reason - let's not go into "safe" assumptions) does not contradict this any more than stockholme syndrome excuses taking hostages. It merely shows her own personal strength and her acceptance of a bad situation she cannot change.
Quote:I'd like to here a case for why a post-pubescent 9 year old (rare, I know, but possible), who is living in a society that socialises children to be ready for marriage at puberty
In other words, marrying off your 6 year old daughters makes it normal to do this, therefor it is acceptable, and the little girls simply put up with it, being only 6 years old. Is that the goal of Islam - a return to 7th century norms?
Gandalf, if a modern Australian family raised their girls to be ready for marriage at 6 to the 50 year old man next door, would you consider it acceptable and support any necessary legislative changes to accommodate it?
How exactly do you raise a child like that anyway? Regular beating? Constantly telling her that it is her role in life?
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