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”?
Well, it’s certainly evidence that islam is incompatible with western ideas about freedom.
I wonder how the religious Right will react to this. On one hand, seeing a fellow Christian killed for his beliefs won’t be pleasant. On the other hand, if they had their way, they’d be rounding up and killing non-Christians in this country. So, I’m guessing they’ll be a little jealous.
I imagine it is more likely the plan to continue the “War on Terror”.
“if they (the religious Right) had their way, they’d be rounding up and killing non-Christians in this country.”
Oh, puh-leeze.
“Oh, puh-leeze.”
Yeah right!
Steve – You have to go all the way back to a psycho in 1988 to “prove” Christians are violent? Sheesh.
“You have to go all the way back to a psycho in 1988 to “prove” Christians are violent? Sheesh.”
Being a flamebait isn’t as easy as it used to be. Give me a break!
This is why the West will never be able to live at total peace with Islam. Intolerance is built into their world view. The whole cartoon debacle was instigated by a few radicals with a violent agenda. When people hold to crazy, unreasonable notions like these, its relatively easy to whip them up into a frenzy.
The Islamic world used to be the most forward thinking and open society in the world, when Christians were still burning heretics. They preserved the majority of Greek and Roman knowledge that Christianity tried to eradicate. Islam is not static. The way thing appear now is not an inevitable end of human history. The way the Christian right is going – we could be in the same situation in a few hundred years. I sure hope not though.
I am sick of hearing Islam vs the West. Islam is a religion of Western civilization. Islam was originally adopted by Arabian tribes and spread out from there, just as Judaism did many centuries earlier. Christians, Jews, and Muslims all read the same Old Testament. The Hebrews were an Arabian tribe too. Christianity and Western civilization are not synonomous terms.
People used to say that Catholics and Protestants could never live together in peace. We have proven them wrong in most places.
My study of history indicates no evidence regarding this ‘most forward thinking and open society” claim. Where is the evidence? What was the model? or standard? Feudalism? Slavery? This lament is recent propaganda. Why were the Muslims run out of Europe in the first place if they were such great rulers? That said they may have been forward thinking to a 12th century mindset, but where’s the progress? Shar’ia laws are not progress. Most sensible Muslims have tried to escape this tyranny. Indonesian and Turkish Muslims are modern, drink alcohol, and have dancing girls! So there is plenty of hope. But not by apologism.
Don’t especially have any beef with your politics, Nik; but, your religious history sucks. Islam, yes, did spread as an evangelistic religion. The specific precursor you note, Judaism, however, was always tribal and limited to evangelism within a nation.
Sort of like the “born again” types inside US Protestantism raiding each other and claiming growth throughout the whole body politic.
Grow up!
Everyone knows that Christians treat ppl who don’t thump by the same rules as them like crap.
Every time I see on the news Christians scandalised at how their folk is treated in foreign countries I smirk.
By forward thinking, I was referring to science and the preservation of human knowledge. When the European Christians were burning books and trying to halt the spread of knowledge, the Islamic world saw the exact opposite. I am not trying to say their society was as open as we have today in our current democratic countries. I was just saying that in its context of the Middle Ages they were very forward looking and inviting of scholars from other cultures (open)
Yes, I realize that the spread of Judaism and Islam were VERY different. I was just trying to point out the historic links between these groups. I always find it interesting when the terminology “Anti-semetic” is used to describe some Arab states, when Arabians, by definition are a Semetic people, just like the Hebrews.
Really, Islam has to go a LONG way to get up to the death-toll that Christianity has brought mankind. Compared to Christianity, Muslims are amateurs at this sort of thing.
But hey, good times right?
Angel – I disagree. In the Western world we tend to keep the radical religious fundamentalists behind the woodwork where they belong. Sure, there are religious nuts in the US who’d love to burn people like me at the stake, but, happily, they’re suppressed, ostracized and humiliated back into their holes every time they surface. Unlike Islam, you don’t see fundamentalist Christians rioting in our streets or terrorizing our institutions. Not yet anyway.
Maybe the Arabs that invaded the Spanish penninsula in the 8th century were more advanced than the Europeans. If you do the math, that was 13 centuries ago. That is a long time to sleep on your laurels. We are talking about the 21st century. Seems Islam has some centuries of progress to catch up on. Call me when they get to the 19th century.
You cannot reason with people who will kill someone for rejecting Islam. This is not how civilized people think or act. You may not like hearing it, but that is barbaric behavior.
Nik:
“Christians, Jews, and Muslims all read the same Old Testament. ”
I’m afraid this is not correct. Muslims like to say this but if you ask them about any specifics you’ll find they’ve never actually read it and in any case they believe that the Koran supersedes it. This is not the case with Christians and obviously not with Jews.
Muslims also say they believe in Jesus and Moses etc. as prophets but you’ll find that none of their teachings are known to Muslims. “Yeah yeah they’re prophets too, whatever.”
Nik there is less evidence that Islam happened in the way the Koran says than there is for the Christian Bible. The first biography written about Mohammed was 150 years after he died. The Koran was written over 200 years after he died. Both in a language that Mohammed couldn’t have known. There is no archeology to support the existence of Mohammed’s vast empire. Archaeologists have found partial manuscripts of the New and Old Testament dated less than 60 years after Christs death and in a language Christ would have known as well as archeology verifying many sites mentioned in the New and Old Testament. This of course does not “prove the Bible is right” but it does show a grounding in reality that the Koran lacks completely. People like you who no doubt are only too happy to question the historicity of Christ invariably swallow Muslim propaganda whole even when it defies common sense.
I can only hope Angel Wong learns as he matures.
“Really, Islam has to go a LONG way to get up to the death-toll that Christianity has brought mankind.”
Unprovable at best.
““Christians, Jews, and Muslims all read the same Old Testament. ”
I’m afraid this is not correct. Muslims like to say this but if you ask them about any specifics you’ll find they’ve never actually read it and in any case they believe that the Koran supersedes it. This is not the case with Christians and obviously not with Jews.”
I know plenty of people that call themselves Christians who have never read any of the Bible. Just because they follow the Koran with more fervor does not change the fact that the God they pray to is the same Jewish monotheistic “Yahweh” as the rest of Judeo-Christian (ie Western) civilization.
“Nik there is less evidence that Islam happened in the way the Koran says than there is for the Christian Bible.”
Funny how I don’t recall saying anything of the sort. I never said any religious texts were factual of correct. I have said nothing to defend the faith of Islam. I was only speaking to the Islamic society that sprung up during the Middle Ages. I did not say their society was perfect or better than the world today. I was only illustratng the point that things change throughout history.
To assume that we are in a culture war with Islam, and always will be forever more, amen, is short sighted. Who knows 200 years from know we could be allied with the Islamic world against the Indians, Chinese, (insert other Eastern civilization here)….. History changes, but humanity’s belief that the present is the end of history, never does.
I am hardly an Islamic apologist as some here seem to claim. I just see it as no different than most other dogmatic religious faiths in the grand scheme of things. Some of its practitioners are brutal, single-minded fools that will do anything to make a point, just like most other religions in the world.
I love a debate between liberals and liberal kooks.
“Everyone knows that Christians treat ppl who don’t thump by the same rules as them like crap.”
-? – Which makes it alright? So… because Rev. Falwell says Jews don’t go to his heaven or because the Spanish Inquisition tortured and killed heretics hundreds of years ago any christian harmed, killed, put on trial for being christian today is fair game. Ok, I get it, anyone associated with any group is totally responsible for all the sins of everyone in that group for all time. And since you are named ‘Wong’ that would make you responsible for all the people Mao killed in China during the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward. Depending on where your people came from in Asia you are responsible for the rapes and pillaging by the Mongol hoards. Doesn’t matter, we can surely find something that somebody you’re related to either culturally or ethnically is responsible for and blame you for that. Great thinking! It’s thinking like that which makes the world so interesting what with all the ethnic hatred and cultural/religious wars we have going on. Good thinking Wong.
Of course, the logic behind Gant’s thinking is exceptional as well.
“Really, Islam has to go a LONG way to get up to the death-toll that Christianity has brought mankind. ”
SO, for Gant, it’s okay to kill christians until we reach an ‘equal’ number for both sides. ? Really? What exactly would that number be? How good is your historical knowledge so that you can make that statement with any accuracy anyways? After all, both killed and converted their way across the world. Again, with the sins of the culture/race/religion rationale as an excuse for present behavior.
How’s about killing in the name of religion is wrong? No excuses.
“Unprovable at best.”
True Milo, I suppose it’s hard to prove the Crusades happened. Or the Inquisition happened, or the witch burnings or the _____(insert horror here). But good times right? Also, some would argue the Holocaust was one of these, but I’m not one of them as it was more racial/political than anything else. But know that some do think this way as I’ve interviewed groups of them before.
And gadlaw, lighten up. Was just comparing the two. Wasn’t trying to make a logical argument. Was more goofing off than anything else. Yet you were taking it seriously, I apologize. I brought my (limited) wit to a logic fight. I forget that some people look at things differently than I do and sometimes I’m insensitive to that. It’s gotten me into trouble with editors on more that one occasion.
But for me, murder in the name of ANYTHING is wrong. No excuses can cover it, yet that never stops people/groups/nations from justifying deaths.
So you want the US to dictate policies in Afghanistan?
looks like this guy should have left some cash in the collections plate – lol.
The only reason we have this mess in Afghanistan is that the States left Canada and the rest to deal with Afghanistan while you went trooping off to Iraq – good luck when you get to Iran guys …
Scott Gant:
“Wasn’t trying to make a logical argument. ”
Well you are being consistent!
“Turkey is a Muslim country and it’s very open.”
Ask a Kurd or an Armenian.
“Angel – I disagree. In the Western world we tend to keep the radical religious fundamentalists behind the woodwork where they belong.”
Haahahahahahaha so being president is considered behind the woodwork , Id expect someone from holland or canada to say that. but it definatly dont apply to the USA anymore, Your ruled by the religous right, Or you are living in some fantasy world in your own mind if you think your not. maybe when your stripped of more your liberties and your all RF tagged youll get the picture.
I hope you at least feel safer now under there protection.
After we knocked the Taleban out and Karzi formed a goverment they set about making a new constitution. We insisted that womans rights and religious freedom be part of it. Afgani’s obliged. But, and this is the kicker, they also stated that Islam is the NATIONAL religion, thus making sharia law, the daily governing law….like we have civil law.
So, the guy would be fine if he had always been a christian, but he violated sharia law by CONVERTING. But, Karzi can pardon him, and from what I’ve read will if he gets anything like prison time or death.
My only comment about all 3 of the major western religions stemming from Arabs is this……thats not very encourageing considering how when arabs aren’t fighting us, they like to fight eachother instead.
Give me a nice peaceful Buddhist anyday.
I recently read a couple book reviews about 2 books written by Islamic scholastics about the history of Islam. In them they deal with what Nik was mentioning about the Islamic *golden Age*…I won’t go into it now…but will try to find the links……very, very good books.
Nik you might want to look up something called takkeyya.