Isn't ISLAM such a peaceful and tolerant religion?
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The Sudan would still be a backwards shit hole even if they had no state religion.
The Sudan would still be a backwards shit hole even if they had no state religion.
The Sudan and south Sudan have been in and out of civil wars\religous wars for the last 50-60 years...mix in various forms of genocide(religious\tribal\etc)...
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International outrage grows for Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy
Meriam Ibrahim and Daniel Wani married in a formal church ceremony in 2011. The couple has an 18-month-old son, Martin, who is with Meriam in jail.
International outrage is mounting over the death sentence a Sudanese judge ordered for the pregnant wife of an American citizen — all because she refuses to renounce her Christian faith.
Meriam Ibrahim, 26, was sentenced Thursday after being convicted of apostasy. The court in Khartoum ruled that Ibrahim must give birth and nurse her baby before being executed, but must receive 100 lashes immediately after having her baby for adultery — for having relations with her Christian husband. Ibrahim, a physician and the daughter of a Christian mother and a Muslim father who abandoned the family as a child, could have spared herself death by hanging simply by renouncing her faith.
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"We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam," Judge Abbas Khalifa told Ibrahim, according to AFP. "I sentence you to be hanged to death."
But Ibrahim held firm to her beliefs.
“I was never a Muslim,” she answered. “I was raised a Christian from the start.”
Ibrahim was raised in the Christian faith by her mother, an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia. She is married to Daniel Wani, a Christian from southern Sudan who has U.S. citizenship, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"I was never a Muslim. I was raised a Christian from the start."- Meriam IbrahimThe cruel sentence drew condemnation from Amnesty International, the U.S. State Department and U.S. lawmakers.
“The refusal of the government of Sudan to allow religious freedom was one of the reasons for Sudan’s long civil war,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the House congressional panel that oversees U.S. policy in Africa, said in a statement. “The U.S. and the rest of the international community must demand Sudan reverse this sentence immediately.”
Amnesty International called the sentence a “flagrant breach” of international human rights law and the U.S. State Department said it was “deeply disturbed” by the ruling, which will be appealed.
Khalifa refused to hear key testimony and ignored Sudan's constitutional provisions on freedom of worship and equality among citizens, according to Ibrahim's attorney Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed.
“The judge has exceeded his mandate when he ruled that Meriam’s marriage was void because her husband was out of her faith,” Mohammed told The Associated Press. “He was thinking more of Islamic Shariah laws than of the country’s laws and its constitution.”
Ibrahim and Wani married in a formal ceremony in 2011 and have an 18-month-old son, Martin, who is with her in jail. The couple operate several businesses, including a farm, south of Khartoum, the country’s capital. Wani fled to the United States as a child to escape the civil war in southern Sudan, but later returned. He is not permitted to have custody of the little boy, because the boy is considered Muslim and cannot be raised by a Christian man.
Sudan’s penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims into other religions, which is punishable by death. Muslim women in Sudan are further prohibited from marrying non-Muslims, although Muslim men are permitted to marry outside their faith. Children, by law, must follow their father’s religion.
Islamic Shariah laws were introduced in Sudan in the early 1980s under the rule of autocrat Jaafar Nimeiri, whose decision led to the resumption of an insurgency in the mostly animist and Christian south of Sudan. An earlier round of civil war lasted 17 years, ending in 1972. In 2011, the south seceded to become the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.
Sudanese President Omar Bashir, an Islamist who seized power during a 1989 military coup, said his county will implement Islam more strictly now that the non-Muslim south is gone. A number of Sudanese have been convicted of apostasy in recent years, but they have all escaped execution by recanting their faith. Religious thinker and politican Mahmoud Mohammed Taha — a vocal critic of Nimeiri — was sentenced to death after his conviction of apostasy and was executed at the age of 76 in 1985.
Ibrahim’s case first came to the attention of authorities in August, when members of her father’s family complained that she was born a Muslim but married a Christian man. They claimed her birth name was “Afdal” before she changed it to Meriam. The document produced by relatives to indicate she was given a Muslim name at birth was a fake, Mohammed said.
Ibrahim refused to answer the judge when he referred to her as “Afdal” during Thursday’s hearing.
Ibrahim was initially charged with having illegitimate sex last year, but she remained free pending trial. She was later charged with apostasy and jailed in February after she declared in court that Christianity was the only religion she knew.
The US-based Center for Inquiry is demanding that all charges against Ibrahim be dropped, saying the death sentence is a clear violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which forbids persecution or coercion of religious beliefs and the right to marry.
“Religious belief must never be coerced and free expression must never be punished, through threat of imprisonment, violence, or any other means,” the group wrote in a letter to Sudan’s UN ambassador, H.E. Hassan Hamid Hassan. “This cannot go unanswered, and the world will not stand for it.”
Fox News' Joshua Rhett Miller and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Nobody's trying to defend these actions, clearly they're wrong. But we've been over this before - this isn't what Islam is about, this is what the extremists that are in charge of Sudan are about. No more than it's what Christianity was about when people were being executed for heresy a few hundred years ago.
So:
-We have these extreme acts of violence in the name of Islam and occasionally Christianity, coming primarily from third world 'uncivilised' countries - no offence, Osiris - in Africa and the middle east, where Islam is the main religion.
-We have more tolerance from developed countries, where Christianity is the main religion.
To what degree is there a causal link between the main religion of an area and the level of extremist views? Or is there another factor at work, potentially the exploitation of uneducated people by using religion as a tool to invoke the mass hysteria needed to be ok with these kinds of education in the population at large. Such a power vacuum as exists in highly unregulated states such as these inevitably attract 'bad' people.
Whether Islam is worse than other religions in this way, for attracting 'bad' people is certainly a valid question. For example, it's a lot easier to oppress 50% of the populous right off the bat with Islam, forcing women to stay in doors, removing their right to education etc - although I haven't actually read the Quran (yet, going to get around to it someday, I suspect) so I don't know for certain what it says in this regard.
Nobody's trying to defend these actions, clearly they're wrong. But we've been over this before - this isn't what Islam is about, this is what the extremists that are in charge of Sudan are about. No more than it's what Christianity was about when people were being executed for heresy a few hundred years ago.
So:
-We have these extreme acts of violence in the name of Islam and occasionally Christianity, coming primarily from third world 'uncivilised' countries - no offence, Osiris - in Africa and the middle east, where Islam is the main religion.
-We have more tolerance from developed countries, where Christianity is the main religion.
To what degree is there a causal link between the main religion of an area and the level of extremist views? Or is there another factor at work, potentially the exploitation of uneducated people by using religion as a tool to invoke the mass hysteria needed to be ok with these kinds of education in the population at large. Such a power vacuum as exists in highly unregulated states such as these inevitably attract 'bad' people.
Whether Islam is worse than other religions in this way, for attracting 'bad' people is certainly a valid question. For example, it's a lot easier to oppress 50% of the populous right off the bat with Islam, forcing women to stay in doors, removing their right to education etc - although I haven't actually read the Quran (yet, going to get around to it someday, I suspect) so I don't know for certain what it says in this regard.
No more than it's what Christianity AND ISLAM was about when people were being executed for heresy a few hundred years ago.
You get the point and are missing it at the same time.
The point is is that Christianty has evolved from the dark ages, Islam has not.
Pathetic how dimwit liberals cant bring themselves to flat out condem the barbaric actions of Muslims with no strings attached.. Instead they become apologists...rationalizing, even justifying or excusing the barbaric behavior of Islam with references to how Christianity was...when in fact Islam was the same way, and still is.
That is the issue here.
Get it?
I know...I said "dimwit liberals"...pretty redundant.
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It's pretty rare I agree with Bunker but this is actually one of those oddities.
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Nobody's trying to defend these actions, clearly they're wrong. But we've been over this before - this isn't what Islam is about, this is what the extremists that are in charge of Sudan are about. No more than it's what Christianity was about when people were being executed for heresy a few hundred years ago.
So:
-We have these extreme acts of violence in the name of Islam and occasionally Christianity, coming primarily from third world 'uncivilised' countries - no offence, Osiris - in Africa and the middle east, where Islam is the main religion.
-We have more tolerance from developed countries, where Christianity is the main religion.
To what degree is there a causal link between the main religion of an area and the level of extremist views? Or is there another factor at work, potentially the exploitation of uneducated people by using religion as a tool to invoke the mass hysteria needed to be ok with these kinds of education in the population at large. Such a power vacuum as exists in highly unregulated states such as these inevitably attract 'bad' people.
Whether Islam is worse than other religions in this way, for attracting 'bad' people is certainly a valid question. For example, it's a lot easier to oppress 50% of the populous right off the bat with Islam, forcing women to stay in doors, removing their right to education etc - although I haven't actually read the Quran (yet, going to get around to it someday, I suspect) so I don't know for certain what it says in this regard.
No more than it's what Christianity AND ISLAM was about when people were being executed for heresy a few hundred years ago.
You get the point and are missing it at the same time.
The point is is that Christianty has evolved from the dark ages, Islam has not.
Pathetic how dimwit liberals cant bring themselves to flat out condem the barbaric actions of Muslims with no strings attached.. Instead they become apologists...rationalizing, even justifying or excusing the barbaric behavior of Islam with references to how Christianity was...when in fact Islam was the same way, and still is.
That is the issue here.
Get it?
I know...I said "dimwit liberals"...pretty redundant.
No more than it's what Christianity AND ISLAM was about when people were being executed for heresy a few hundred years ago.
You get the point and are missing it at the same time.
The point is is that Christianty has evolved from the dark ages, Islam has not.
Pathetic how dimwit liberals cant bring themselves to flat out condem the barbaric actions of Muslims with no strings attached.. Instead they become apologists...rationalizing, even justifying or excusing the barbaric behavior of Islam with references to how Christianity was...when in fact Islam was the same way, and still is.
That is the issue here.
Get it?
I know...I said "dimwit liberals"...pretty redundant.
ALL OF THE SHOUTING!!! AND THE MISSING THE POINT!!!
Haha, I'm a dimwit liberal, you got me. I just want the whole country to turn to Islam and then behead me for being an infidel.
Let's try this again, shall we? Opening part of the post that you're quoting, that you seem to have ignored:
"Nobody's trying to defend these actions, clearly they're wrong."
How's that for condemning it?
You miss the point that I've been discussing with Osiris regarding Islam. It's not that Islam hasn't emerged from the dark ages as a religion - after all, the bible and quran are the same text now as they were a thousand years ago - it's that the majority of countries where Islam is the predominant religion are still massively underdeveloped, with wide spread illiteracy and inability to question authority leading to imams 'interpreting' the religious text in their own way for their own means. Scroll back a bit and you'll see where I'm comparing two translations of the same line in the quran from two different websites. Something like "...and all those that have angered you and all those who have betrayed you..." - one text leaves it like that, another specifically mentions the christians and the jews.
Do you get my point? I'm trying to be as clear as I can here. Condemning someone to death for their religion is *never* acceptable. I'm not trying to defend it. It can, however, be understood and explained why these things are happening. The problem comes when we try to equate beheading of christians in Sudan with mainstream islam, which is just a logical fallacy.
How about the christians in other countries in africa, where they are the majority, persecuting muslims? I saw a video of a mob carrying a burning corpse of a muslim through the town, having macheted various parts of his body off, and an interview with the guy after who said he even ate some of the dead guy's leg. Clearly, atrocious acts of violence that cannot and should not be defended by any person of sound mind. Yet, I'm sure there are some people somewhere saying that this is the way of christianity, and that's just as wrong.
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Chris as you know I fully agree about the barbarism in the uncivilized parts of the world. Still it certainly sounds to me like you are in denial (or just trying to rationalize) if you need to go back to revolutionary crusade pre-roman cro magnon or whatever to draw parallels.
WSS
www.westsidesteve.com www.myspace.com/westsidestevemusic www.cdbaby.com/artist/westsidestevesimmons -
Of course they do. African nations are borderline savages who no matter what religion will slaughter and kill.
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Chris as you know I fully agree about the barbarism in the uncivilized parts of the world. Still it certainly sounds to me like you are in denial (or just trying to rationalize) if you need to go back to revolutionary crusade pre-roman cro magnon or whatever to draw parallels.
WSS
Chris as you know I fully agree about the barbarism in the uncivilized parts of the world. Still it certainly sounds to me like you are in denial (or just trying to rationalize) if you need to go back to revolutionary crusade pre-roman cro magnon or whatever to draw parallels.
WSS
But we don't need to, these things are happening today, you just don't hear about it. Things like this from earlier this year, for example.
In Uganda, people can be tortured and killed just for being gay, because it's anti-christian. "Both male and female homosexual activity is illegal. Under the Penal Code, "carnal knowledge against the order of nature" between two males carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment and executions/torture are allowed with no legal liabilities for the executioners"
But it's besides the point - we don't have to say that Christianity is just as bad in some places to come to the conclusion that the 'muslims' carrying out these acts are not acting on the values of whichever religion they claim to be affiliated with. You get extreme Christians in the US like the WBC, but because it's a civilised country the extremism is less, well, extreme. You can bet that if it were in Africa or some other deprived place, Fred whatsisname would be encouraging his followers to hunt down and kill all the gays and other non-believers.
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So you are making the comparison between the Westminster Baptist Church al Qaeda? Oh come on.
And yes it seems that a great deal of Africa is a hell hole, regardless of religion.
And yet the only time I can remember the world community rallying was in support of the old terrorist Nelson Mandela in a rear area that at least approached being civilized.
WSS
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So you are making the comparison between the Westminster Baptist Church al Qaeda? Oh come on.
And yes it seems that a great deal of Africa is a hell hole, regardless of religion.
And yet the only time I can remember the world community rallying was in support of the old terrorist Nelson Mandela in a rear area that at least approached being civilized.
WSS
So you are making the comparison between the Westminster Baptist Church al Qaeda? Oh come on.
And yes it seems that a great deal of Africa is a hell hole, regardless of religion.
And yet the only time I can remember the world community rallying was in support of the old terrorist Nelson Mandela in a rear area that at least approached being civilized.
WSS
You're think Fred thingy wouldn't have tried to organise lynch mobs if he'd been brought up in some third world country where it was quite easy to get away with doing it? I'm not convinced. But again, it's besides the point.
Mostly I'm responding to the OP about some fucktards in Sudan thinking it's OK to execute someone based on their religion. It's not ok, but it's also not a muslim thing to do.
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No I wouldn't think Fred what's his name would probably execute homosexuals here in civilized us. ( who the fuck knows what any of this would do if we were born in the wild) Like some of the posters on this board enjoy over the top rhetoric I'd be surprised if any of them would ever consider acting on it. I think the Westminster Baptist Church enjoys the air time. Almost everybody does.
WSS
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It's still beside the point, Steve. All it takes is someone twisting some religious doctrine to their own views, and a gullible person with power, and you've got trouble. Sadly, those two types of people are not in short supply.
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It's still beside the point, Steve. All it takes is someone twisting some religious doctrine to their own views, and a gullible person with power, and you've got trouble. Sadly, those two types of people are not in short supply.
It's still beside the point, Steve. All it takes is someone twisting some religious doctrine to their own views, and a gullible person with power, and you've got trouble. Sadly, those two types of people are not in short supply.
That's correct. Do you think the incidents in today's world are pretty much equally divided then?
WSS
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It's still beside the point, Steve. All it takes is someone twisting some religious doctrine to their own views, and a gullible person with power, and you've got trouble. Sadly, those two types of people are not in short supply.
That's correct. Do you think the incidents in today's world are pretty much equally divided then?
WSS
That's correct. Do you think the incidents in today's world are pretty much equally divided then?
WSS
Obviously not. What I would ask you is, if the demographies were reversed - if Europe/USA were mainly mulsim, and Africa/Middle East mainly christian, do you think the distribution would be also reversed by the same amount? I mean, if you look in the bible, you can find passages suggesting that women cover their heads, that pork not be eaten, that infidels should be vanquished etc. and it's only through our western enlightenment era (IMO) that we've grown out of taking the bible so literally. Perhaps middle east/africa is going to have its own elightenment at some point in the next few centuries? Who knows.
Perhaps in a few generations religious people will be in the minority. Perhaps there'll be some new messiah that makes the world more religious? Who knows.
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Well you can always fall back on who knows? But as long as we're speaking about the reality of the present day... Who knows the Klingon Empire might be real and if they took over the earth it would be even worse! Also if the cat had not stopped to shit it would have caught the mouse!
Like the barkeeper in Darby O'Gill said to Pony Sugru, if I were 10 years younger...
Ahh, said Pony, but you're not 10 years younger are you?
WSS
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Just when I thought we were going to have an actual sensible hyperbolic discussion...
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Let we just closed by saying that we will find reasons to kill each other with or without religion.
it's just an excuse. Power and territory that's the key. Just like animals in the wild.
WSS
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We'd be better off without the religion part though
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Chris is obviously studying the quran hard.
"You planning on having a long relationship with that glass or are you going to drink it? Drink up, man. Maybe we can get another.” - Janis Joplin, 1970.
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