Sexual Discrimination

[Father-Ted]

Which religion has the worst record for sexual discrimination?

[sith123]

i am british after all :)

[emmie]

as naomi points out smoking is prevalent across the world, it may not be healthy but that is someone's choice.
As to drinking well that is not something i have come across either, having known many Muslims socially and who i worked with, who didn't think it was bad having a drink or two, in moderation i believe was the phrase.
As to eating Pork, so for millennia that people across the world have eaten pork counts for nothing, that is about as daft as anything i have heard. The only danger comes when you don't cook it properly, which has been well documented. Undercooked pork can make you ill, that's all i know.

[naomi24]

Sith, read your own quote. Does it say women must cover themselves from head to foot? No. And I know where the rules on circumcision come from – and it isn’t the Koran. In fact circumcision directly contravenes the instruction in the Koran. And as for saying ‘even jews’, that’s precisely where Mohammed got the idea in the first place. Islam doesn’t precede Judaism – it emulates it.

Em, // Undercooked pork can make you ill,//

The same applies to chicken, so I have to wonder why that isn’t banned too. Oops, no I don’t. Jews are allowed to eat chicken.

[jomifl]

I believe that the jewish and muslim rules about not eating pork derive from the potential to become infected with tapeworms by eating undercooked meat.
The tapeworm involved produces eggs in the human lower intestine which are excreted with faeces. If a pig eats the faeces (not uncommon bearing in mind the unhygenic practices prevailing circa.2000 years ago) they develop into larvae which produce infective cysts in the pigs flesh.Chickens do not give this problem.

[naomi24]

Jom, I know. It was just another example of Islam emulating Judaism. ;o)

[jomifl]

Hi Naomi, I had assumed that youknew about the life cycle of the human tapeworm. My point really was that since the pork we eat in the UK doesn't come from pigs raised under the unhygenic conditions that I mentioned then the koranic ban on eating pig meat is an anachronism. The invention of sunscreen has made some dress codes anachronistic too!

[keyplus90]

Father Ted – First of all I am not sure what you are trying to get at? Christianity may not talk about women in the sense grasscarp mentioned but as I am in hurry (have to go out) I will give you one thing to think about. In Catholic faction of Christianity nuns are supposed to be the best of the women. But they are not supposed to get married. Getting married and having a family is one of the basic human right. Is this Church, Christianity, Paul, or Bible? So lets start with this and then I will give you a good insight into what women’s role is according to the different religions (TEACHINGS) and not the followers in the world. Because I believe that if someone does believe in his religion to be the right one then it is the teachings of that religion need examining and not the followers. As very simply followers might not even be following their own teachings.

Sith – Brother, what you are saying would not make any difference to few people here. Quran does not categorically forbid smoking and there is a reason behind that. For example 1400 years ago there was no heroin and so many other addictions. Therefore Quran and Hadith covered all of the addiction till the end of the world by saying that people should not damage their health and a healthy believer is better than a weak believer. In other words anything that can damage an individual as well as society is not allowed in Islam. Even eating too much food is not allowed in Islam. And today West is worried about obesity.

[beso]

The philosophy of any of the Abrahamic religions are the epitomy dysfunctional attitudes to not only women but virtually everthing they profess to be authorities upon.

They represent the worst in human bigoty and prejudice, are build firmly on foundations of fascism and underpin the greatest challenges humanity faces as we try to bulid a future/

[emmie]

keyplus

The opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia as long ago as 3400 BCE.[53] The chemical analysis of opium in the 19th century revealed that most of its activity could be ascribed to two alkaloids, codeine, and morphine.
so in other words, it's been around a long time, and throughout the ages, different peoples, cultures have harvested drugs for recreational, social use, so to suggest that this is a relatively new thing seems a bit naive.

[keyplus90]

em10 - No I am not suggesting opium is new. But just answer my simple question. When was the first time people heard of heroin? don't worry about the ingredients.

[emmie]

Originally produced in 1874, ... according to any number of sources.
for pain relief, if that is what you were asking

[jomifl]

Keyplus, before 1874 it was known by other names

[keyplus90]

////Keyplus, before 1874 it was known by other names////

Thank you very much and that was exactly the point I was making when I said that Quran did not give name. Otherwise people would stick to that one name only and after few years something else with a different name would be damaging the society, but instead it forbids anything that is harmful whatever name it might be known by.

Let's get back to the original question, shall we?

[jomifl]

Keyplus, I expect FT is still awaiting your answer to the original question.

[birdie1971]

I know two religions very well indeed – Christianity and Islam. I honestly cannot comment on any other religion with regards to sexual discrimination.

If we compare the respective holy books – the Bible and the Koran - we find two highly misogynistic documents, both being obviously written my men and which denigrate women as being little more than chattels. Examples of gross misogyny are the Koran's assertion that a woman's evidence in a court of law is worth less than a man's and the Bible's assertion that wives should be subservient to their husbands. Both of these apparently holy books contain a plethora of discrimination based on sex.

The question really should be about how these holy books are interpreted. For instance, it is often said that the UK is a Christian country, built and run on Christian values. Is this true? I don't see much evidence for this. We have laws which have been made specifically to ensure that women are not discriminated against because of their sex. We don't stone homosexuals to death for their 'crime' of being homosexual, nor do our courts consider the evidence of a woman to be anything less than entirely equal to that of a man. A husband doesn't own his wife – the partnership is equal, both culturally and legally.

When we look at countries run on principles established in the Koran, we see a very different story. A great deal of Islamic countries still adhere to the teachings of the Koran; homosexuality is both illegal and punishable by death, a women's testimony is not equal to that of a man's and in some countries it is even forbidden for a women to walk the streets without a male escort (this is ostensibly for her own safety but is in reality a method of subjugation).

Christianity is not – when taken at face value – a very pleasant religion. Thankfully, the Bible is very rarely taken at face value and it's excesses in western countries have been curtailed by legislation that protects the rights of the individual (regardless of sex or sexual orientation or religious belief) and prevents the barbaric, dark-ages thinking that prevailed at the time of its writing.

The same cannot be said of Islam and the Koran. The countries whose government's practice Islamic law employ all the barbaric and misogynistic punishments that are prescribed in the Islamic literature – from hanging homosexuals to stoning female children for being raped.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7708169.stm


In short, the answer to the OP's question is - Islam.

[vetuste_ennemi]

I watched Roger Scruton on Youtube a little while ago, Birdie. He made a point (while comparing Christian and Islamic attitudes towards civil society) which now seems obvious, but has never occurred to me before. At the time of Christ there was a powerful secular power which the new religion had to deal with and certainly couldn’t ignore: the Roman Empire. The recognition of this power and its authority is acknowledged in the NT: render unto Caesar…, obey the higher powers…, etc. Grudging or otherwise the Christian church in its various forms has never usually denied the legitimacy of the secular authority, which is why it can accept secular laws allowing women’s rights, the toleration of homosexuality, religious freedom and other things it was opposed to until (at least in this country) the message of the Gospels was reconstituted on knitting needles by the Rowan Williamses (or is Atkinsons?) of this world. At the time of Mohammed there was no such situation, just tribal strife. So Islam (according to Scruton) has never viewed secular authorities as legitimate. Authorities are legitimate in as much as they are submissive to Koranic teaching, which is why all Arab states with a few exceptions like Turkey are theocracies, and why so many (even) moderate Muslims in this country apparently want Sharia here.
And that, Father Ted, is why the answer to your question is Islam.

[sith123]

thank you keyplus, i agree with you totally

here is one link for everyone, it is written by a MUSLIM WOMEN ok not a man: http://www.jannah.org/sisters/shatter.html

what i cannot understand and this is really driving me nuts is how ignorant you are when we keep telling you, islam is not sexist, some muslims are. I have seen so many muslims on this site and outside of here say this, however when they do it is ignored. It is just like everyone else, there are some sexist atheists, christians, hindus etc. i have said this myself twice but i doubt it would make any difference as you do not want to believe it.

[keyplus90]

Sith - Its not just here. I have learnt this by standing firm on this website for over 5 years that on these websites you can never convince anyone who is not willing to accept (or even think about) what you are saying. Only because they know that they are hiding behind a screen and are nothing more than few million pixels. So the best way to do is that you keep telling the truth and someone out of all these may think. I used to think exactly like you said that why people do not think but then I read a book called Muhammad (pbuh) by Karen Armstrong and she gave a very good history about people's attitude towards Islam. In a nutshell she says that people in the West still have 1000 years old mentality on the basis of cooked stories about Islam and Muhammad during crusades. And she gives ref of all of the books written against Islam then and what was written. And I hear all that to tis date. But having said that people here call themselves experts on Islam. And you do not have to go anywhere else as one of them is just here on this thread called "Birdie". You just read what he said above and this is not the first time ( and would nt be last either) and you just stay and watch his reaction to my next post.

////Birdie - I know two religions very well indeed – Christianity and Islam.////

Do you birdie? So why don’t you take my ever present offer of face to face at a place, time and among the people of your choice. Shall we meet somewhere then so that I might learn something from you about Islam? I am only trying to benefit from you knowledge.

[wildwood]

Islam has the best of both worlds. Some parts require the women to walk behind the men. This is not a discriminatory practice as so often thought. Because the Islam faith is most often held in the Middle East countries where landmines are common, it is advantageous for the woman to have the man to walk in front.

Seriously, the cultural that has driven 160million women to be often brutally circumcised, has to be a contender. Although I am not sure that this can be clearly defined as a religion because it is only practiced by parts of the Islam faith.

[birdie1971]

Keyplus - “... you [Sith] just stay and watch his reaction to my next post... So why don’t you take my ever present offer of face to face at a place, time and among the people of your choice...”

You do realise that I can also read your public posts to Sith don't you? What you are of course expecting is for me to yet again say that I think you are acting in a rather sinister manner by wanting to meet me face to face. And you would be correct – I am saying exactly that. Because it is sinister and completely abnormal to want to do this.

Maybe Sith would like to comment on the rationality or otherwise of wanting to meet me in person for a 'debate'?