[quote=faterikcartman]
I find the “out of context” argument frustrates me whenever I hear it. Women in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other places, are abused and killed for minor transgressions that leave me appalled — and should outrage all Americans since here these capital crimes would not be crimes at all. And gays? Ask the president of Iran about how many gays are in his country. At the point entire nations, some soon to have nuclear weapons, are “taking it out of context” I could really give a crap about context. At that point I’m more concerned about reality rather than some theoretical “context”.
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The “out of context” thing isn’t an excuse, and it is true, although of course that doesn’t help solve the problem. In general, they are not as culturally advanced as western states, so more of them take religious works literally. If you removed Islam from the equation and put Christianity in its place, you would have entire mid-eastern countries treating women exactly the way they were treated in the Old Testament, and stoning people, and crucifying people. In other words, exactly what they’re doing now, which is what Christians did for centuries. It’s the primitive thinking of the people, not the religion, in my opinion. I do think that Islam is mostly responsible for reversing their progress. At one point, they were quite advanced and made Europe look pathetic by comparison, as the mid-east looks to us now.
Speaking of treating people horribly – you may be aware that for unmarried Afghan men (and probably married ones too), young boys are a sexual substitute for women, even by heterosexuals, as a result of their backwards attitude toward women. The Quran didn’t tell them to do that, wide-spread ignorance did. If acting like an animal is acceptable or tolerated in your society, more people will act like animals. They require a massive change in thinking that will probably take hundreds of years.
For the most part, that culture doesn’t exist in the U.S., and I’m not concerned about it making its way here.
