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[Gunslinger]

What about Muslims who have pre marital sex/drink booze/eat non halal food?

Because there's a shitload of them.

I think most Muslims now at least my generation have pre marital sex, eat non halal food (except for pig), and drink regularly. Are they not Muslim? Of course we are but we are also rational human beings and don't buy into any insane ideas from the Holy book. We just take the good basic teachings like thou shall not steal or follow the law (country law not islamic law lol)and be a good outstanding citizen. We are much Muslim as most modern Christians. We respect God and try to live a good decent life. There are of course countries like Saudi Arabia where Islamic laws are too extreme and obviously I find that ridiculous and I always believe all government should be secular. Religion is a personal thing and it should not be used to govern a country imo.

Also happy for the guy here I hope more Muslim people who are gay have the chance to live the life like they want to. And not forced to live out his/her life inside the closet. I wouldn't be surprised if lot of Muslim guys or girls are low key gay but too scared to come out. I hope they get a chance too like this guy.

 

[Sami+]

What about Muslims who have pre marital sex/drink booze/eat non halal food?

Because there's a shitload of them.

No they're definitely still Muslim if they choose to identify as that.

But I mean they also believe and pray to a god that said they're going to suffer and literally burn for all eternity for doing the things they do, which is a little bit silly. Their prerogative of course. Just silly.

 

[Despera]

No they're definitely still Muslim if they choose to identify as that.

But I mean they also believe and pray to a good that said they're going to suffer and literally burn for all eternity for doing the things they do, which is a little bit silly. Their prerogative of course. Just silly.

I especially love the idea that you may suffer anywhere from a single day up to thousands of years in hell before transferring to heaven depending on the severity of your sins.

 

[usernamechange]

I really wish atheists/agnostic folk would stop being so concerned about the devoutness of other people's faith. This is like straight people always having something to say about gayness and gay people

I'm not denying that, but I leave that to intrafaith dialogue/debate.

But I would assume most people arguing in this thread aren't Muslim

It's pretty fucked up that, in a thread about a queer Muslim being rejected by his community to the point of suicidal ideation, the issue you have is with the atheists arguing in this thread, while just side step the intrafaith debate that caused the suicide attempt in the first place. I'm not saying the call outs in this thread are right, but you clearly care more about that then the gay person the thread is about, who faced such hate they wanted to kill themselves.

 

[Sami+]

I'm not denying that, but I leave that to intrafaith dialogue/debate.

But I would assume most people arguing in this thread aren't Muslim

Hi I was Muslim for the first 17 years of my life and it's still unfortunately a really major part of my life thanks to family

Do I count or do I have to shut up

 

[Deepwater]

It's pretty fucked up that, in a thread about a queer Muslim being rejected by his community to the point of suicidal ideation, the issue you have is with the atheists arguing in this thread, while just side step the intrafaith debate that caused the suicide attempt in the first place. I'm not saying the call outs in this thread are right, but you clearly care more about that then the gay person the thread is about, who faced such hate they wanted to kill themselves.

thanks for telling me what I care about.

Hi I was Muslim for the first 17 years of my life and it's still unfortunately a really major part of my life thanks to family

Do I count or do I have to shut up

You don't have to do anything so I'll leave that up to you since you wanna be snarky when I wasn't really passing any judgement on you.

 

[Lev]

Modern Muslims and Christians find themselves tied less and less to the words of our scripture. We do not need to choose between fundamentalism and atheism.

The issue with this, in a religious perspective is that it promotes more cherry picking, which ultimately only further weakens both religions, especially the power of their message. Remember: both religions have text which are claimed to be words from god. If you twist too much of the original message, then you lose its meaning.

Okay fine but explain to me how Christians came to change their minds about homosexuality being a horrible sin in a way that means Muslims can't/won't? It took time but it happened and their beliefs modernised. The same thing will happen to Western Muslims too.

They never changed their beliefs about homosexuality as they still think it's a terrible sin and find homosexuality to be disgusting. What changed is that a lot of Christians don't take the Bible so seriously as Christians in the past did, and also they view religion more now as a private matter than a public one, which helps them not view homosexual more as a problem within their community. That helps a lot of Christians in my opinion to have a less negatively pronounced reaction towards homosexuality.

 

[Boudica]

Came across this story yesterday, and had some pretty lively (I couldn't believe some of the shit I was reading) conversation with some people on the channel 4 comments section.

Apparently many Muslims seem to not know their own religious texts, in that only apostasy makes someone a non muslim. Yet almost every single commment by a muslim person, was someone declaring how this young man wasn't a muslim for being gay. Also, Islam states that an individual has not right to declare a muslim to be a non muslim if they hold to the shahada. We've got arm chair Mullahs in that comments section ignoring their own teachings, and throwing around nonsense.

 

[Murkas]

No they're definitely still Muslim if they choose to identify as that.

But I mean they also believe and pray to a god that said they're going to suffer and literally burn for all eternity for doing the things they do, which is a little bit silly. Their prerogative of course. Just silly.

I think most Muslims now at least my generation have pre marital sex, eat non halal food (except for pig), and drink regularly. Are they not Muslim? Of course we are but we are also rational human beings and don't buy into any insane ideas from the Holy book. We just take the good basic teachings like thou shall not steal or follow the law (country law not islamic law lol)and be a good outstanding citizen. We are much Muslim as most modern Christians. We respect God and try to live a good decent life. There are of course countries like Saudi Arabia where Islamic laws are too extreme and obviously I find that ridiculous and I always believe all government should be secular. Religion is a personal thing and it should not be used to govern a country imo.

Also happy for the guy here I hope more Muslim people who are gay have the chance to live the life like they want to. And not forced to live out his/her life inside the closet. I wouldn't be surprised if lot of Muslim guys or girls are low key gay but too scared to come out. I hope they get a chance too like this guy.

Oh I know.

Spoiler

I'm kinda one of them.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

The issue with this, in a religious perspective is that it promotes more cherry picking, which ultimately only further weakens both religions, especially the power of their message. Remember: both religions have text which are claimed to be words from god. If you twist too much of the original message, then you lose its meaning.

Religions are always evaluated according to prevailing social values and norms, and those change through time. In fact William James said that that is our only criteria for evaluating philosophies and religious belief systems. For example, since the French revolution happened, we're likely to evaluate the merit of social values on whether they enable "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Our social context is such that that is essentially our only bench mark for evaluating the merits of things.

The God we have in mind now isn't the bloodthirsty one of the old testament, in fact we wouldn't even recognize such a God anymore because now people aren't so much tribes of people locked in bloody warfare with each other. But no one thinks that we've experienced a loss of integrity because we can't recognize those values any more. Religion, like all human thought, is temporally oriented, which means it changes through time. Nothing 'true' is necessarily true for all time. Orthodoxy might try to insist on that, but it is wrong.

 

[Lev]

Religions are always evaluated according to prevailing social values and norms, and those change through time. In fact William James said that that is our only criteria for evaluating philosophies and religious belief systems. For example, since the French revolution happened, we're likely to evaluate the merit of social values on whether they enable "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Our social context is such that that is essentially our only bench mark for evaluating the merits of things.

The God we have in mind now isn't the bloodthirsty one of the old testament, in fact we wouldn't even recognize such a God anymore because now people aren't so much tribes of people locked in bloody warfare with each other. But no one thinks that we've experienced a loss of integrity because we can't recognize those values any more. Religion, like all human thought, is temporally oriented, which means it changes through time. Nothing 'true' is necessarily true for all time. Orthodoxy might try to insist on that, but it is wrong.

Nothing changed in the Bible. You can read all the nasty parts; the difference is that Christians just ignore those. They simply don't practice it. That's not the same as actively doing something that their text told them specifically not to do, like homosexuality.

With the Quran, things are different. There is a strong resistance to change, which is why the faith and book has hardly changed after 1400 years. That's because Allah in the Quran says that his message is the revelation, from his own mouth and that it's basically perfect. Also, if you try to actively change things, it's consider blasphemy at various degrees, depending on what you change.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

Nothing changed in the Bible. You can read all the nasty parts; the difference is that Christians just ignore those. They simply don't practice it. That's not the same as actively doing something that their text told them specifically not to do, like homosexuality.

With the Quran, things are different. There is a strong resistance to change, which is why the faith and book has hardly changed after 1400 years. That's because Allah in the Quran says that his message is the revelation, from his own mouth and that it's basically perfect. Also, if you try to actively change things, it's consider blasphemy at various degrees, depending on what you change.

I'm not talking about texts, obviously the point of texts is a kind of permanency, but human belief and interpretation do not work that way.

You would have to do a lot of work to prove this, in fact it's virtually impossible.

 

[Lev]

I'm not talking about texts, obviously the point of texts is a kind of permanency, but human belief and interpretation do not work that way.

You would have to do a lot of work to prove this, in fact it's virtually impossible.

You can check my previous posts. I never said that it wasn't out of possibility that people could interpret religion in ways that are different, illogical or even opposing. I simply mentioned that in the case of homosexuality, Islam clearly doesn't support it. So if people try to change Islam so that it does support homosexuality, then it's not really Islam anymore if you think about it. It's a sect that their prophet never practiced.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

You can check my previous posts. I never said that it wasn't out of possibility that people could interpret religion in ways that are different, illogical or even opposing. I simply mentioned that in the case of homosexuality, Islam clearly doesn't support it. So if people try to change Islam so that it does support homosexuality, then it's not really Islam anymore if you think about it. It's a sect that their prophet never practiced.

People might want to preserve the elements of religion that are worth preserving, and that arguably shows more respect to religion (by giving it the benefit of the doubt), than dismissing the whole thing as anachronistic, which is what is likely to happen if you emphasize only trying to preserve some snapshot of the past, (and in fact failing in it, because it just isn't possible).

The only reason the rejection of homosexuality has persisted thus far is because people have up until now still found use in it or found it reflected in their social values, but it's extremely unlikely that that will be true for all time.

 

[wutwutwut]

Nothing changed in the Bible. You can read all the nasty parts; the difference is that Christians just ignore those. They simply don't practice it. That's not the same as actively doing something that their text told them specifically not to do, like homosexuality.

With the Quran, things are different. There is a strong resistance to change, which is why the faith and book has hardly changed after 1400 years. That's because Allah in the Quran says that his message is the revelation, from his own mouth and that it's basically perfect. Also, if you try to actively change things, it's consider blasphemy at various degrees, depending on what you change.

There's so much wrong in this that I don't even know where to begin.

I'll start with your last sentence. "Blasphemy" in Islam, just like in any other religion or equivalent, is a construct used by those that benefit from the status quo.

Other speech considered blasphemy, or equivalent, at different times and places:
* "The earth revolves around the sun"
* "The Founding Fathers maybe got some things wrong"
* "A good Christian woman can enter the workforce"
* "This flag represents hate, not heritage"
* "Our troops shouldn't be supported"
* "America has done much evil"

 

[Lev]

There's so much wrong in this that I don't even know where to begin.

I'll start with your last sentence. "Blasphemy" in Islam, just like in any other religion, is a construct used by those that benefit from the status quo.

What's wrong.

Also, I think you are confused because I'm not Muslim nor defending the religion. I'm only describe what it's like. The religion is what it is regardless if it makes sense (hint: religion usually doesn't make sense).

 

[wutwutwut]

What's wrong.

Also, I think you are confused because I'm not Muslim nor defending the religion. I'm only describe what it's like. The religion is what it is regardless if it makes sense (hint: religion usually doesn't make sense).

What's wrong is that you're making them out to be problems intrinsic to Islam, rather than tools used by the powerful to stay in power.

 

[Jumeira]

Is it a good idea to realize you might have no context, proximity, or lived experience to the issue at hand to speak on it with any sense of authority?

Yes this is a discussion board but so many people on here speak with so much authority and objectivity on topics that have nothing to do with them.

Don't feel so entitled to having your opinion heard.

Spot on. Thank you.

 

[Bolivar687]

and leviticus 20:13 states "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

that sounds pretty clear cut to me, at least as much as anything in the qu'ran. yet apparently christianity is this bastion of modern gay rights?

all religious texts are open to interpretation. i was raised catholic and the above shocked me when i first read it. if it doesn't apply in modern times, you can't hold others to the same standards.

I've seen this argumentative technique many times on this forum, where someone raises a legitimate critique of mainstream Islam, as it is preached and practiced today, and someone responds with a quote from the Old Testament to demonstrate how Christianity is somehow just as bad today. I'm not sure what this argument is even trying to accomplish but it's logic is troublingly problematic.

Christianity, by definition, is based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The story of the Gospel is obviously a critique on a self-righteous society that became so obsessed with legalism that it forgot the overriding principles their rules were supposed to promote. It happens over and over again, culminating in Jerusalem, wherein Christ explains that God gave stricter rules like in Leviticus because their hearts were hard - these were people only a few generations removed from tribalism. Christianity expressly overturns these laws and instead makes each person individually responsible for their own moral decision-making. So when you quote Leviticus to indict Christianity, not only does it fail to rationalize Islam in any meaningful way, you also demonstrate that you missed the point of the New Testament entirely. I'm always amazed at how shockingly low Bible literacy is among those who quote from it on this forum.

Lastly, even if Leviticus was an indispensable tenet of Chriatianity, you cannot fault modern religions for an older understanding of sexuality. Orientation is a social construct. Anthropology is overflowing with examples of societies where homosexuality was a normal, mainstream, everyday form of cultural expression. We may not choose our orientation today but many of our ancestors, especially in antiquity, irrefutably did.

 

[GameAddict411]

He can identify as Muslim and gay, but the level of cognitive dissonance he going through is insane. Islam condemns homosexuality in both Quran and haidth. Punishment is death in Al-Sharia law. It is still carried out in many parts of the world especially in rural places. An analogy for westerners is like someone who belongs to the kkk, but marched with Martin Luther King and advocated for the civil right movement. Someone who supports equality and justice for all. Does that make sense to you now? How can someone belong to a racist hateful organization but still advocate for equality? How can someone be gay and a Muslim(I am NOT equating the kkk to Islam)? Somethings can't be mixed. It still doesn't(and shouldn't) stop people from believing whatever they want to believe, but it also shouldn't stop people from stating the obvious problem here.

 

[wutwutwut]

He can identify as Muslim and gay, but the level of cognitive dissonance he going through is insane. Islam condemns homosexuality in both Quran and haidth. Punishment is death in Al-Sharia law. It is still carried out in many parts of the world especially in rural places. An analogy for westerners is like someone who belongs to the kkk, but marched with Martin Luther King and advocated for the civil right movement. Someone who supports equality and justice for all. Does that make sense to you now? How can someone belong to a racist hateful organization but still advocate for equality? How can someone be gay and a Muslim(I am NOT equating the kkk to Islam)? Somethings can't be mixed. It still doesn't(and shouldn't) stop people from believing whatever they want to believe, but it also shouldn't stop people from stating the obvious problem here.

Which of the five main branches of Islamic jurisprudence are you referring to with "Al-Sharia law" (sic)?

 

[Permanently A]

who decides who is and is not a muslim though?

A Muslim is someone who believes the Koran is the word of God, that seems pretty clear to me.

 

[wutwutwut]

Before mouthing off I would recommend people read a bit more about homosexuality in the Islamic world, particularly in the pre-modern world. This article is a good start: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/305774/

A lot of the modern taboo against homosexuality you see in the non-Western world was a direct result of the British Empire.

 

[Spaced Harrier]

Why the scare-quotes? There's diversity in religious interpretations. How many branches of Protestantism are there in the US (or your country) that disagree with each other (and even within themselves) on a range of topics? Is only one of them worthy of having churches, while the rest only have "churches"?

Never heard that phrase before. And I explained in the above, when I describe the leadership structures in three different religions. Religion is dogmatic in nature.

Bizarre breakaway lone-offshoot churches/groups really don't matter in such conversations.

It would be like saying there are female Catholic priests because Sinead O Connor, got baptized as one.

 

[AuthenticM]

This needed more pics.

dat photobomb

 

[Lev]

There's so much wrong in this that I don't even know where to begin.

I'll start with your last sentence. "Blasphemy" in Islam, just like in any other religion or equivalent, is a construct used by those that benefit from the status quo.

Other speech considered blasphemy, or equivalent, at different times and places:
* "The earth revolves around the sun"
* "The Founding Fathers maybe got some things wrong"
* "A good Christian woman can enter the workforce"
* "This flag represents hate, not heritage"
* "Our troops shouldn't be supported"
* "America has done much evil"

That's easy; as long as Muhammad said it was wrong that can be considered blasphemy. Usually you can find those in Hadiths.

 

[Permanently A]

I think the question you are looking for is why do people follow religions if they can ignore parts of it. The answer is complex but it boils down to heritage and how when you are raised a certain way it becomes a part of you. In order to retain that complete sense of yourself sometjhing has to give and it is a lot easier to jettison outdated ideas from Islam than to stop being gay.

My personal experience of Islam is that you can take it or leave it as a whole. I guess you can still identify as Muslim if you eat pork, but under your own rules you're going to hell. I don't really understand why someone would subject themselves to that kind of inner disorder. Actually that's not true, I do understand that committing to leave Islam publicly can be an issue. When I was a naive teenager I was having a very philosophical conversation with my father about religion, and I mentioned I was wavering in belief. To which his demeanor became aggressive and he told me I better make the right decision or be kicked out. So here I am, a pretender, nearly a decade later, going through the motions. Ya Allah!

 

[Sioen]

Before mouthing off I would recommend people read a bit more about homosexuality in the Islamic world, particularly in the pre-modern world. This article is a good start: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/305774/

A lot of the modern taboo against homosexuality you see in the non-Western world was a direct result of the British Empire.

Ah yes time to blame the West again.

 

[wutwutwut]

That's easy; as long as Muhammad said it was wrong that can be considered blasphemy. Usually you can find those in Hadiths.

Quite frankly this is an idiotic definition of blasphemy.

Mahmud of Ghazni, who ruled over the Ghaznavid empire in the 10th century, had a male slave who he fell in love with. It was said that he was a "slave to his slave."

A huge amount of Arabic and Urdu medieval poetry is about men who fall in love with other men.

The actual text is relevant only in as much as it is enforced. The evidence says that people never took the proscription against homosexuality seriously unless it served political goals.

It always is about political goals.

 

[wutwutwut]

Ah yes time to blame the West again.

Specifically the British Empire, yes. It probably has had the most negative impact on LGBT rights in history.

 

[Waddle Dee]

This is fantastic news and that wedding pic is adorable! I can't imagine living through what he has had to endure throughout his life. Homophobes are animals.

 

[GameAddict411]

Before mouthing off I would recommend people read a bit more about homosexuality in the Islamic world, particularly in the pre-modern world. This article is a good start: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/305774/

A lot of the modern taboo against homosexuality you see in the non-Western world was a direct result of the British Empire.

Yeah because the Atlantic knows so much about Islam and how Muslim people live. Oh, and apparently is the west at fault here too. The British did spread the anti-sodomy laws in many countries, but there were plenty of Islamic laws against it as well before even the dark ages in Europe. You asked which part of the Al-Sharia that rules against homosexuality, but you have Google for that.

 

[wutwutwut]

Yeah because the Atlantic knows so much about Islam and how Muslim people live. Oh, and apparently is the west at fault here too. The British did spread the anti-sodomy laws in many countries, but there were plenty of Islamic laws against it as well before even the dark ages in Europe. You asked which part of the Al-Sharia that rules against homosexuality, but you have Google for that.

No, I asked which of the five main branches of Islamic jurisprudence you're referring to when you talk about "Al-Sharia law."

The great Persian poet Hafez once said:

"If that Turk of Shiraz should gain my heart / I bestow upon him Samarkand and Bukhara for his black beauty spot"

You tell me whether that represents a society in which homosexuality is taboo.

 

[GameAddict411]

Quite frankly this is an idiotic definition of blasphemy.

Mahmud of Ghazni, who ruled over the Ghaznavid empire in the 10th century, had a male slave who he fell in love with. It was said that he was a "slave to his slave."

A huge amount of Arabic and Urdu medieval poetry is about men who fall in love with other men.

The actual text is relevant only in as much as it is enforced. The evidence says that people never took the proscription against homosexuality seriously unless it served political goals.

It always is about political goals.

Just because there was poetry about boys doesn't mean it was ok in Islamic laws. There are plenty of people who claim to Christian but do non Christian things such as sex before marriage, and drinking. Does that mean it's ok do that in Christianity? See the flawed logic here?

 

[wutwutwut]

Just because there was poetry about boys doesn't mean it was ok in Islamic laws. There are plenty of people who claim to Christian but do non Christian things such as sex before marriage, and drinking. Does that mean it's ok do that in Christianity?

Whether things are ok in religious texts or not is irrelevant. What is relevant tis whether they're ok in societies. All the evidence suggests that homosexuality was ok in most of the Islamic world before the British came along.

 

[GameAddict411]

No, I asked which of the five main branches of Islamic jurisprudence you're referring to when you talk about "Al-Sharia law."

The great Persian poet Hafiz once said:

"If that Turk lad listens to my heart's cry, I can forsake the cities of Samarqand and Bukhara for the black mole on his face."

You tell me whether that represents a society in which homosexuality is taboo.

Again, a Persian poet is not a Muslim Cleric who interpret Islamic laws. He does not by any means represent Islamic teachings.

 

[wutwutwut]

Again, a Persian poet is not a Muslim Cleric who interpret Islamic laws. He does not by any means represent Islamic teachings.

Again, Islamic legal proclamations are only relevant if society cares about them.

There are still some laws on the books about stupid stuff like what clothes you can wear on Sundays. Do you really want anthropologists of the future to believe that we cared about this stuff? That's the argument you're making now.

 

[Sami+]

My personal experience of Islam is that you can take it or leave it as a whole. I guess you can still identify as Muslim if you eat pork, but under your own rules you're going to hell. I don't really understand why someone would subject themselves to that kind of inner disorder. Actually that's not true, I do understand that committing to leave Islam publicly can be an issue. When I was a naive teenager I was having a very philosophical conversation with my father about religion, and I mentioned I was wavering in belief. To which his demeanor became aggressive and he told me I better make the right decision or be kicked out. So here I am, a pretender, nearly a decade later, going through the motions. Ya Allah!

Ameen, bismallah mashallah.

My parents still think they're going to wed me to a nice Arab Muslim girl down the line too, not really looking forward to having the "yeah I've been dating this atheist Flipino for x years that I want to marry and also I've been atheist since that first time I told you when I was as a teenager" conversation.

Until then Salam brother

 

[Lev]

Quite frankly this is an idiotic definition of blaslphemy.

Mahmud of Ghazni, who ruled over the Ghaznavid empire in the 10th century, had a male slave who he fell in love with. It was said that he was a "slave to his slave."

A huge amount of Arabic and Urdu medieval poetry is about men who fall in love with other men.

The actual text is relevant only in as much as it is enforced. The evidence says that people never took the proscription against homosexuality seriously unless it served political goals.

It always is about political goals.

I can search up the hadiths that clearly show that bid3ah is a terrible thing to do, but you don't want to take my word for it, I'm fine with that. The last thing I really want to do is get absorbed into another long conversation about Islam. I'm just surprised people still have non-points to make on this topic to me about.

And I would have to say a resounding no with your example. So what if some guy back in the day got away with being gay in Islam. That doesn't really help your argument when in multiple countries right now, Muslim nations are using the Quran to justify the murder of LBGTQ people. That shows you that after 1400, nothing really ended up changing anyway.

So in reply, if Islam encourages disdain and violence towards homosexuals which it does with its religious text, then those passages will always remind relevant, no matter in what situation these behaviors are enacted, political or not.

 

[345triangle]

I've seen this argumentative technique many times on this forum, where someone raises a legitimate critique of mainstream Islam, as it is preached and practiced today, and someone responds with a quote from the Old Testament to demonstrate how Christianity is somehow just as bad today. I'm not sure what this argument is even trying to accomplish but it's logic is troublingly problematic.

Christianity, by definition, is based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The story of the Gospel is obviously a critique on a self-righteous society that became so obsessed with legalism that it forgot the overriding principles their rules were supposed to promote. It happens over and over again, culminating in Jerusalem, wherein Christ explains that God gave stricter rules like in Leviticus because their hearts were hard - these were people only a few generations removed from tribalism. Christianity expressly overturns these laws and instead makes each person individually responsible for their own moral decision-making. So when you quote Leviticus to indict Christianity, not only does it fail to rationalize Islam in any meaningful way, you also demonstrate that you missed the point of the New Testament entirely. I'm always amazed at how shockingly low Bible literacy is among those who quote from it on this forum.

Lastly, even if Leviticus was an indispensable tenet of Chriatianity, you cannot fault modern religions for an older understanding of sexuality. Orientation is a social construct. Anthropology is overflowing with examples of societies where homosexuality was a normal, mainstream, everyday form of cultural expression. We may not choose our orientation today but many of our ancestors, especially in antiquity, irrefutably did.

i completely agree with your final paragraph. and i think it's important that you wrote it, because the rest of what you wrote is absurd and unrealistic.

i went to church every week until i was old enough not to. the old testament was read from and presented as a fundamental part of the christian faith, because it is. if you buy a bible today, it comes with the old testament. vast swathes of the message of christianity is based upon those teachings. there aren't any cliffnotes saying "lol jk" around the shockingly homophobic parts. and more to the point, huge numbers of christians actually still do take those parts to heart, including people i know very closely.

you can say that the new negates the old — that's certainly the theological interpretation i would prefer myself — but in most cases it isn't explicitly expressed, and that simply isn't how many christians interpret the bible in practice. the ones that do? cool, there are also muslims who don't interpret the qu'ran based on millennia-old morals. they are no less muslim than non-homophobic christians are christian. it is simply a matter of interpretation.

i'm sure we both agree that both ancient texts contain wildly problematic directives, and that it would be unwise for anyone to follow either to the letter (not to get into which letters are used in various translations). i only brought up the topic in response to the suggestion that islam was somehow uniquely dogmatic in this regard.

 

[wutwutwut]

I can search up the hadiths that clearly show that bid3ah is a terrible thing to do, but you don't want to take my word for it, I'm fine with that. The last thing I really want to do is get absorbed into another long conversation about Islam. I'm just surprised people still have non-points to make on this topic to me about.

Never said that it didn't.

And I would have to say a resounding no with your example. So what if some guy back in the day got away with being gay in Islam.

The evidence says it's a lot more than "some guy". It was broadly tolerated even if not strictly legal. Definitely a lot more tolerated than in modern-day Russia, for example.

That doesn't really help your argument when in multiple countries right now, Muslim nations are using the Quran to justify the murder of LBGTQ people.

Because of British influence.

That shows you that after 1400, nothing really ended up changing anyway.

The Ottoman empire decriminalized homosexuality in the middle of the 19th century during the Tanzimat.

So in reply, if Islam encourages disdain and violence towards homosexuals which it does with its religious text, then those passages will always remind relevant, no matter in what situation these behaviors are enacted, political or not.

Those passages are only relevant in societies which consider them relevant. Every single person on the planet picks and chooses the bits of their culture that they like or which allows them to maintain their power. Muslims aren't an exception.

 

[Bolivar687]

i completely agree with your final paragraph. and i think it's important that you wrote it, because the rest of what you wrote is absurd and unrealistic.

i went to church every week until i was old enough not to. the old testament was read from and presented as a fundamental part of the christian faith, because it is. if you buy a bible today, it comes with the old testament. vast swathes of the message of christianity is based upon those teachings. there aren't any cliffnotes saying "lol jk" around the shockingly homophobic parts. and more to the point, huge numbers of christians actually still do take those parts to heart, including people i know very closely.

you can say that the new negates the old — that's certainly the theological interpretation i would prefer myself — but in most cases it isn't explicitly expressed, and that simply isn't how many christians interpret the bible in practice. the ones that do? cool, there are also muslims who don't interpret the qu'ran based on millennia-old morals. they are no less muslim than non-homophobic christians are christian. it is simply a matter of interpretation.

i'm sure we both agree that both ancient texts contain wildly problematic directives, and that it would be unwise for anyone to follow either to the letter (not to get into which letters are used in various translations). i only brought up the topic in response to the suggestion that islam was somehow uniquely dogmatic in this regard.

I don't know how you can call my post absurd and unrealistic when I cited evidence which you can read for yourself. Jesus Christ very much does expressly and overtly overturn and challenge the restrictive and violent laws that were taught and upheld in ancient Israel. It's not a handful of episodes - it happens over and over again in the discussions, parables and miracles. The crucifixion itself was a consequence of challenging the legalism of the ecclesiarchy. You simply cannot understand Christianity without acknowledging this as a central theme of the Gospel. I will not bury you in scripture quotes but you can read about some of the more prominent ones here: http://classroom.synonym.com/jesus-disagreements-jewish-laws-12710.html

I also disagree with your understanding of the mass. The Old Testament readings are intentionally selected every week for the ways they predict and relate to the ministry of Jesus Christ. They're often followed by letters of the apostles explaining why we no longer follow those laws, or Gospel readings demonstrating what I explained above. Its not enough for you to point out that the Old Testament is included with the Bible if you don't actually understand why. It seems like you're just kind of giving us your gut reaction to these things instead of caring about what they actually mean.

It's not all open to interpretation. You can't quote Leviticus and say you've proven all Christians are equally as hypocritical as Muslims. Christianity does not require anyone to get circumcised, stone women, or conquer infidels. It only requires that you answer to your conscience.

It's one thing if you fail the aspirational calling of your faith - it's another thing entirely to repudiate it. I don't think you can be a gay married muslim.

 

[Sai-kun]

I don't think you can be a gay married muslim.

but this man clearly is

 

[D i Z]

Hey! Good for him. Hope people don't fuck with them because they got hitched though. This world is all out of wack and fucking dangerous.

 

[GSG Flash]

This needed more pics.

This pic is awesome, it makes me feel really happy.

Fuck all those shitheads who made this guy's life a living hell, I hope he never has to deal with that shit ever again.

 

[Sunster]

but this man clearly is

not according to the neogaf guidelines on Islam. see the manual ITT.

 

[mlclmtckr]

It's not all open to interpretation. You can't quote Leviticus and say you've proven all Christians are equally as hypocritical as Muslims. Christianity does not require anyone to get circumcised, stone women, or conquer infidels. It only requires that you answer to your conscience.

It's one thing if you fail the aspirational calling of your faith - it's another thing entirely to repudiate it. I don't think you can be a gay married muslim.

I don't think that your extremely cursory and reductive interpretation of other people's religions really needs to apply to the people actively practising that religion.

I know it's a lot easier to attack a religious tradition when you straw man a monolithic entity whose tenets you know better than the actual people in that tradition.

Like, pro tip, every single religion is open to interpretation and is influenced in its practice by the culture it exists within. That's not some special superpower of Christianity, it's how religion had worked throughout human history.

 

[BLAUcopter]

Read the comment. These people are shitbags.

I don't think it's because they're shitbags, they say those hateful things because they believe them. It's a fundamental part of the religion.

 

[SuperBowser]

It's one thing if you fail the aspirational calling of your faith - it's another thing entirely to repudiate it. I don't think you can be a gay married muslim.

Yet here we are.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

If Islam does not allow this, are they really Muslim?


"You can tell a tree by it's fruit"


Just because I claim to be this does not make it so.