Caring Islam

[liberty]

BTW, I can't stand "borscht"...

I hate beets...

A primitive vegetable I'd just as soon have nothing to do with...

Beets are ok, just don’t put them in soup especially with cabbage.

[Scooter]

Well they were going to go to Africa and get several countries to pass laws requiring the killing of homosexuals but American Christians beat them to the punch

Because them jungle bunnies ain't capable of making their own decisions without The White Man telling them what to do...

I wouldn't say they can't decide for themselves, but that doesn't make them immune to influence from someone who comes with an appealing narrative AND the money to make it happen.

Something like 96% of Ugandans disapprove of homosexuality, so it's clearly ingrained in Ugandan culture. But the criminal penalties had never been altered since they were first introduced during colonial rule. U.S. Evangelicals were invited to Uganda because some highly placed Ugandan officials had already realized that homosexuals could make a near perfect scapegoat as a way of demonstrating that Uganda . The Americans obligingly came with all of the discredited crap that their faction passes off as science (homosexuals are 12 times as likely to be child molesters, blah blah blah. They came with stories about gay organizations in the U.S. that had millions of dollars committed to promoting homosexuality in Uganda. They painted their crusade against homosexuality as opposition to neo-colonial forces who wanted to impose acceptance of homosexuality in Uganda. Oh yeah, they also left a few millions dollars as a parting gift.

As much as someone might hate homosexuality, I cannot believe that someone just wakes up one morning thinking, hey, 14 years in prison is a slap on the wrist, homosexuals should be executed, unless it would serve some vital interest. Museveni has had a strained relationship with foreign donors for over a decade, since concerns about human rights abuses and corruption led some countries to scale back aid. I have to wonder, since they portray homosexuality as a foreign influence that must be resisted, if the entire exercise was supposed to be a way of showing that Uganda will stand firm in the face of further aid cuts that were alredy pretty much inevitable.

Where they might have miscalculated was in believing that, even if they made a bit of a fuss, no donors cared enough about the fate of the few Ugandan homosexuals to take any real action. But thus far, Uganda has lost $140 million in aid because of the passage of this act.

Something I can't believe I hadn't heard (or just forgot) - the Constitutional Court of Uganda struck down the act in August 2014, as it passed without the required quorum. It was announced shortly thereafter that the government would not appeal to the Supreme Court, and Museveni has said that any new bill should not criminalize same-sex relationships between consenting adults.

So apparently the "tools of colonialism" have brought Uganda to heel after all.

[MajGenl.Meade]

A group of 51 Muslim countries has blocked LGBT rights organisations from attending a United Nations conference on Aids next month.... "

Well they were going to go to Africa and get several countries to pass laws requiring the killing of homosexuals but American Christians beat them to the punch, so to speak.

yrs,
rubato

I'm quite sure that LGBT NGOs were not "going to go to Africa to get several countries to pass laws requiring the killing of homosexuals". Perhaps rubato didn't mean that?

I'm also reasonably certain that American Christians did not "go to Africa to get several countries to pass laws requiring the killing of homosexuals". There may have been some Christian group in the USA that encouraged a country to pass laws criminalizing homosexuality.

Is there a country in Africa with laws requiring the killing of homosexuals? How does that work - is one enjoined by law to machete one's neighbor to death if he or she is homosexual? What is the penalty for failing to kill a homosexual?

I think rubato has been at the shoe polish again - I hear it's very potent, melted.

[Lord Jim]

From what I've been able to find out, five countries have the death penalty for homosexuality, and none of them look like countries that would be particularly swayable by pseudo-Christian fringe cranks :

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and Sudan...

http://www.care2.com/causes/5-countries ... death.html

Looks to me like gay folks have a lot more to fear from Islamic extremists then they do from Christians...

Funny rube doesn't mention this fact...(Oh that's right, he's only bigoted against Christians and Jews; Muslims get a pass)

In those countries where homosexuality is criminalized and punished, though not by death (Uganda, Russia, several others) it is happening for the same reason that autocrats have always singled out minority groups for persecution...

To create a scapegoat and diversion, and deflect attention from their own corruption and/or incompetence...

Dictatorial thugs don't need American pseudo-Christians to adopt a strategy of minority persecution...It's what they always do when they feel pressed...

And regarding those countries where the DP was being considered for homosexuality, (Uganda, Kenya) far more Western Christian leaders spoke out against it then ever advocated it.

(Another fact conveniently omitted by our resident bigot...cherry picking data points is something that bigots always have to do because an honest airing of all the facts would undermine their ignorant hate.)

[Lord Jim]

You just made yourself look a great deal worse.

Anybody with half a brain, or even a quarter of a brain, rube, (which of course would not be you) can easily tell that my use of the phrase I used in the context I used it was to characterize and satirize your apparent patronizing racist view that African despots lack the intellectual ability to come up with the idea of perpetrating evil policies against minority groups under their rule on their own. That they require the guidance and counsel of white people in order to be able to do so.

I'd say that your follow-up post in response was a "nice try" in terms of trying to deflect attention from your bigotry, but that would be overly charitable...

It was actually quite a feeble and transparent try...It made you look either too stupid to grasp my obvious intent, or so dishonest that you were deliberately trying to mischaracterize what I was saying in order to deflect attention from yourself.

[Scooter]

From what I've been able to find out, five countries have the death penalty for homosexuality, and none of them look like countries that would be particularly swayable by pseudo-Christian fringe cranks :

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and Sudan...

http://www.care2.com/causes/5-countries ... death.html

Looks to me like gay folks have a lot more to fear from Islamic extremists then they do from Christians...

Actually there are 10, all of them using Islamic law. In Nigeria it applies only in those areas governed by sharia law. In Qatar only Muslims are punished for it, emphasizing that it is a religious law being broken.

But Christians should not be smug. It was Christian influence that Roman Law was changed to punish all male homosexual acts (with death by burning) rather than in the limited circumstances that previously made it criminal. Homosexuality was made a capital crime in much of Europe from the Dark Ages through to the Renaissance, all clearly inspired by Christian thought. Laws in the American colonies mimicked either English law (in the Souh) or the book of Leviticus (in the Puritan north). England did not remove the death penalty from the its law until 1861, the Carolinas not until 1869 and 1873.

So yes, Christian societies have evolved, finally, by moving away from Christian doctrine as a blueprint for secular law. Now it would seem that some of them are regressing.

Funny rube doesn't mention this fact...(Oh that's right, he's only bigoted against Christians and Jews; Muslims get a pass)

The implication was pretty clear. Who does his "they" represent, if not Islamic countries? He as much as said that Islamic countries would have been preaching the death penalty in Africa, but Christians beat them to it. Sounds very much "a plague on both your houses" to me.

In those countries where homosexuality is criminalized and punished, though not by death (Uganda, Russia, several others) it is happening for the same reason that autocrats have always singled out minority groups for persecution...

To create a scapegoat and diversion, and deflect attention from their own corruption and/or incompetence...

Dictatorial thugs don't need American pseudo-Christians to adopt a strategy of minority persecution...It's what they always do when they feel pressed...

Why wouldn't, they take the help if it would give them cover? Among Ugandans, given the connection between the then king's homosexual practices and his persecution of the Church in the person of the Ugandan Martyrs, this could take on the nature of a Crusade. If I were a dictatorial thug planning to scapegoat homosexuals by labelling them as predators who are a danger to children and who want to destroy the family, I would most certainly seek the counsel of those who had made that a successful strategy until fairly recently.

And regarding those countries where the DP was being considered for homosexuality, (Uganda, Kenya) far more Western Christian leaders spoke out against it then ever advocated it.

Well yes, the reason why these folks are exporting this particular gospel to those area of the globe is that it doesn't play very well at home anymore.

[rubato]

It is amusing that countries who only in the last few moments have begun to treat homosexuals somewhat fairly and less cruelly actually have the gall to criticize people behaving exactly as they did only a few moments ago.


Islamic countries will have to go though the same process that has made Christian countries less racist, homophobic and with more effective protections of civil rights. First, the religion will have to be stripped of secular power. This was facilitated in Europe where the population came to appreciate how corrupt the church was and why it could not be allowed to control society through the processes of reformation and counter-reformation. We saw first that the RC church was corrupt and then we saw that it was not a matter of doctrinal purity; Martin Luther himself and his followers were just as brutal and just as corrupt in turn when they took over.

The secular world taught the church that humans have rights and forced the church to respect them,

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other’s throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.
Voltaire (1694–1778), French philosopher, author. Letters on England, Letter 6, “On the Presbyterians”

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

The secular world taught the church that humans have rights and forced the church to respect them

God's word taught that humans have rights.

Malachi 2:10 Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers?

Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

The church taught the secular world that humans have rights and eventually even atheists borrowed the idea.

[Big RR]

Of course many churches/denominations (in most, if not all, religions, not just Christianity) were not that good in respecting or defending the rights of others, especially when they dared to disagree with the leadership.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Of course. The best of men are men at best. David Livingstone, known famously as a missionary, was an awful family man - obsessed with the source of the Nile and so on... but why? He sought fame in order to be able to speak about the evils of slavery:

And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together

And yet again. . . his work presaged the Scramble for Africa. . . something that would likely have appalled him. And he was appalled when in his final journey he found that several of his bearers were in fact slaves themselves. Unlike Stanley, Livingstone never mistreated his porters.

There's no doubt that "the church" through hundreds of years was foremost in acquiescing to the slave trade and in some places encouraged it. But it is of course by misapplication of Christianity that they did it - not by following its tenets but by perverting them. And it was of course Christians (and not secular atheists) who transformed it. Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharpe, William Wilberforce and others (many Quakers be it noted) in fact persuaded non-religious folk like Alexander Falconbridge to join the anti-slavery fight. It was those same forces who eventually persuaded the very secular houses of Commons and Lords to ban slavery. Noted that such drunken secular womanizers as Charles James Fox also opposed slavery.

[rubato]

The secular world taught the church that humans have rights and forced the church to respect them

God's word taught that humans have rights.

Malachi 2:10 Do we not all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers?

Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

The church taught the secular world that humans have rights and eventually even atheists borrowed the idea.

"gods alleged word" had no effect on the church itself until the secular world forced them. You can find scattered texts commanding this and that but you cannot show that anyone followed them until the secular world forced them to.


Empiricism.

yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Lies

[rubato]

Livingstone was a very good man. Saintly. The Arab slave traders who knew that he was was their sworn enemy said of him that the world was a better place around him. An amazing statement. Nothing like him. But we cannot judge Christianity by 00.000000001% of it's adherents. We have to look to the other 99.99999999% to see what they are really about.

Stanley was Welsh. Self-promoting, brutal, egotistical, willing to switch allegiances at the drop of a convenience, and not scrupulous about the truth. Not much else to say.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Lies

Facts, and proven.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Lies

I disagree...

To be lying, he'd have to have some idea of what the actual facts are...

If somebody who knows absolutely nothing about the composition of the moon says it's made out of green cheese, he isn't "lying"; he just doesn't know WTF he's talking about...

That was just another expression of rube's stunningly ignorant bigotry...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Livingstone was a very good man. Saintly. The Arab slave traders who knew that he was was their sworn enemy said of him that the world was a better place around him. An amazing statement. Nothing like him. But we cannot judge Christianity by 00.000000001% of it's adherents. We have to look to the other 99.99999999% to see what they are really about.

Stanley was Welsh. Self-promoting, brutal, egotistical, willing to switch allegiances at the drop of a convenience, and not scrupulous about the truth. Not much else to say.

yrs,
rubato

No, actually you judge Christianity by the word of God and the precepts of Jesus - not by the failures of its adherents. As any good scientist knows, ignorant assumptions by men (and women) are refined over time as understanding develops and proves itself. Only a fool fails to learn and to change in accord with reality.

Livingstone was not saintly - other than by virtue of being one of the saints. His wife and children suffered terribly for his life. His eldest son Robert was packed off to school in the UK; upon Robert's mother dying of malaria in 1862 in Africa, Robert went off to Cape Town and tried to find his father but failed; ending up in Boston, broke and unfriended, he was dragooned into the Union army and died in Salisbury POW camp in December 1865. About the kindest word he had from David was that he was lazy.

My understanding of (and empathy for) human frailty is evidently far more nuanced than your own.