Judge holds bible belonging to defendant
An Afghan man is being tried in a court in the capital, Kabul, for converting from Islam to Christianity. Abdul Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and could face the death sentence under Sharia law unless he recants.
He converted 16 years ago as an aid worker helping refugees in Pakistan. His estranged family denounced him in a custody dispute over his two children.
Afghanistan’s post-Taleban constitution is based on Sharia law, and prosecutors in the case says this means Abdul Rahman, whose trial began last Thursday, should be put to death.
When he was arrested last month he was found to be carrying a bible and charged with rejecting Islam which is punishable by death in Afghanistan.
So, we leave Sharia in place in Afghanistan and oppose it in Iraq? Is this supposed to be part of some plan to win the “War on Terror”?
I don’t plan on re-researching what the Arabs were doing while Europe was wallowing in the Middle Ages. What I recall from my History studies though, this was a very enlightened period for the Arabs. Their sciences moved into mathematics, astrology, human physiology and anatomy, and philosophy. At the same time, Chinese scientists were moving in the same direction. The Europeans intellects were trying to turn lead into gold and debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Please notice I said Arab and not Muslims. The fact that they were Muslim is secondary. At the same time, it didn’t matter that the Chinese were Buddhists, Taoists, or Confucius’. The fact remains that these people, or races if you prefer, were much further advanced then the Western “civilized Christian” peoples. The fact that these backwards people were Christian is also secondary, but could have influenced their scientific investigations.
“The Europeans intellects were trying to turn lead into gold and debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.”
While medieval scholars debated many asinine topics, the whole “angels dancing on a head of a pin” debate was just a joke.
The point about Christian vs Muslim killing is silly. Most of these “mass murders” were done centuries ago.
In recent memory though, one only needs go back eight years ago to see Slovadan Miloshavic (sp) and his Serbian butchers slaughtering the Muslims in Kosovo. Or did that count? Or how about Israel, under General Sharon, encouraging the Lebanese Christians to slaughter the unarmed Muslim Arabs in the refugee camps 25 years ago?
I agree that there is probably no proof that this specific argument ever occurred. From the same source you cite above though, the article ends with this final paragraph which is exactly the point I was making. I must thank you though Steve, I haven’t seen this site before and it looks like it is worthwhile checking out.
Fact is, Aquinas did debate whether an angel moving from A to B passes through the points in between, and whether one could distinguish “morning” and “evening” knowledge in angels. (He was referring to an abstruse concept having to do with the dawn and twilight of creation.) Finally, he inquired whether several angels could be in the same place at once, which of course is the dancing-on-a-pin question less comically stated…So the answer to your question is yes, medieval theologians did get into some pretty weird arguments, if not quite as weird as later wise guys painted them.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_132.html
I used the point of the Angels dancing on the head of a pin to make a point about the absurdities European scholars went to while other nation’s scholars were dabbling in science. The bigger question is always, what enabled Europe to advance so rapidly in science and mathematics while Arab and Chinese cultures regressed.
Fusion, I totally agree with your point. That’s why I said, “while medieval scholars debated many asinine topics.” I was just interjecting some trivia in a not so trivial topic. My apologies!
Are you saying you want Sharia law brought to Iraq?