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Apostasy is "the formal disaffiliation from, or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person".
The map shows that there are few Muslim-majority countries were Muslims can renounce their faith, or change their faith, without facing legal problems.
Tunisia and Bangladesh are among those few countries.
In countries like Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, a Muslim who renounces Islam, or converts to another religion, can face the death penalty. I reallly can't understand why countries like these are considered any different of North Korea...
Tunisia and Turkey really stand out as the most progressive and Westernised countries of the whole lot. By the way I want to point out that not all of Nigeria should be coloured but only the Northern states who have approved Sharia law (it is a federal country).
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
Every country has complete freedom of religion. You are free to believe whatever you like, and embrace in your heart your faith. But you are not free to openly and publicly profess certain religious dogma, nor to actively undertake to influence the religious beliefs of another person.
I don't have any problem with that.
In Islamic countries, you are perfectly free to be any religion, unless your are born a Muslim, in which case you are considered to be a Muslim. If you are born a Muslim and cease to believe, just keep your mouth shut, which will keep you out of trouble in any country.
The problem is that one religion is prioritised over another. Why should Islam be professed in public while the public practice of other religion should be basically forbidden. I don't agree with the practice of proselytising and I think religion must be a personal matter but this is just a lack of coherence
If we can't ban Islam i propose Muslim intellectuals rewrite the Koran which later has to be approved by the majority of the world's governments. Real democracy that is.
Impossible and it would cause a tsunami of anger by every single Muslim in the world.
Qu'ran is unchangeable and unmodifiable: it's "uncreated", that means it existed, for Muslims, before the Creation of the world by Allah, hence the Qu'ran is part of God himself (or is itself?).
To rewrite the Qu'ran means to infringe one of the most important foundations of Islam, i.e. that Qu'ran is the word of God himself (or itself?) and that as such it can't be argued or changed.
You could try to convince a few Muslim intellectuals to do that and even admitting they would, they would be considered apostates, heretics and traitors of Islam for doing that.
Impossible and it would cause a tsunami of anger by every single Muslim in the world.
Qu'ran is unchangeable and unmodifiable: it's "uncreated", that means it existed, for Muslims, before the Creation of the world by Allah, hence the Qu'ran is part of God himself (or is itself?).
To rewrite the Qu'ran means to infringe one of the most important foundations of Islam, i.e. that Qu'ran is the word of God himself (or itself?) and that as such it can't be argued or changed.
You could try to convince a few Muslim intellectuals to do that and even admitting they would, they would be considered apostates, heretics and traitors of Islam for doing that.
The best way will be to keep going on. The future generations in Islamic countries will be more progressive and open minded. Diminishing the influence a country like Saudi Arabia has in the Middle East wouldn't hurt either
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I don't like a lot of what Muslim countries do but it's their country. I want to focus on making my country (USA) better. Only us and a few Muslim countries allow people to be executed for crimes committed while under age 18.
One of the tenets of Islam is that a person born a Muslim is deemed a Muslim forever. One of the tenets of Christianity is that the faithful are commanded to mess with everybody else and try to convert them. So you have Christians obliged to convert Muslims, and Muslims obliged to resist conversion. I have a hard time deciding which (if either) is less objectionable.
At least, the Muslims leave everybody else alone, and concern themselves only within their own faith.
Seriously??
What about a Muslim young man who realizes that SCIENCE is the better explanation for the Universe, and that all religions are bullsh*t, and he decides to publicly declare that he is now an ATHEIST?
That young man who used REASON, and decided to abandon Islam and ANY OTHER RELIGION, and publicly become an ATHEIST, can go to jail, or even be executed for that!
Do you think that's acceptable?
It's totally unacceptable, it's a very serious violation of human rights, and the United Nations should impose economic sanctions on all countries that have laws like that.
The world would be a better place without Islam, lets just start with completely banning it in the Western World.
You can't "ban" Islam from the Western World, since Islam is part of the Western World. Albania and Bosnia are Muslim majority countries, and they are part of the Western World.
What is necessary is to FORCE all Muslim-majority countries in the world to be like Albania and Bosnia (and to a certain extent, like post-revolutionary Tunisia, that is slowly becoming a true democracy).
And the correct way to FORCE all Muslim-majority countries to be like Albania and Bosnia is to take those issues very seriously, not as "secondary" issues, and make the United Nations impose economic sanctions on all countries that have absurd laws limiting freedom of religion in such horrendous way.
South Africa suffered economic sanctions because of the apartheid, and that was the correct thing to do. So, why countries that punish "apostasy" from Islam with prison or death are not suffering similiar economic sanctions?
No one wants to "destroy" Islam, but all Muslim countries should be like Albania and Bosnia, were people are free to change religion, and women are treated with equal rights.
If we can't ban Islam i propose Muslim intellectuals rewrite the Koran which later has to be approved by the majority of the world's governments. Real democracy that is.
OK, and then have a global election in which everybody in the world gets to vote for President of the United States, too. Real democracy.
You can't "ban" Islam from the Western World, since Islam is part of the Western World. Albania and Bosnia are Muslim majority countries, and they are part of the Western World.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
It seems to me that the most conservative Americans seem hell-bent on "liberalizing" Islamic countries. In othistorwords, converting them (with bombs and torture if necessary) into fundamentalist Christian theocracies.
Would you like to see a map of the countries where criminal sanctions are imposed on use of alcohol by persons age 20, or countries whee the legal age of consent is higher than 17? Or restrict access to abortions? And those are all crimes punishable by imprisonment (in other words, trivialized atrocities)? Or with the highest incarceration rates for "trivial" crimes? Or where there is still capital punishment? Or countires that use the threat of nuclear weapons to exert their will? Or countries that have publicly admited that torture is a useful and acceptable way of gathering security information?
It wasn't the fault of the liberals that Americans fought two wars to retain and conserve slavery, after every other republic in the hemisphere had abolished slavery.
The great irony is that Westerners trying to force Muslims to modernize has backfired and actually saved Islamic Fundamentalism from history's dumpster. Hijabs were rare 100 years ago, now they're common and growing in popularity.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot. What if a liberal Scandinavian nation occupied a conservative Southern state like West Virginia and overthrew their govt and was forcing people to accept gay marriage and forcing every country to allow alcohol sales. Would that modernize the state or would people feel under attack and dig in to fight? You'd actually make them more backwards.
The great irony is that Westerners trying to force Muslims to modernize has backfired and actually saved Islamic Fundamentalism from history's dumpster. Hijabs were rare 100 years ago, now they're common and growing in popularity.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot. What if a liberal Scandinavian nation occupied a conservative Southern state like West Virginia and overthrew their govt and was forcing people to accept gay marriage and forcing every country to allow alcohol sales. Would that modernize the state or would people feel under attack and dig in to fight? You'd actually make them more backwards.
That's true and I'm all for leaving Muslims live in their countries all on their own.
The problem is that there are millions of Muslims in Europe and many more are to come.
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