Peterson Pace - "Those who can, do ....."

[_marg]

WHY is there this intense need to equate 19th century LDS life with any culture that has ANY superficial similarity to it? The Taliban? FLDS? The situations just don't match.

I did very little equating of the Islam polygamy to Mormon polygamy as promoted by J. Smith and B. Young other than to suggest Mormon polygamy was worse..for 2 reasons. It was a religious requirement to get into Celestial heaven whereas Islam does not make it a religious requirement and second in Mormonism it was encouraged to have as many wives as possible whereas in Islam only up to 4 was allowed. Now although community practiced polygamy today is not exactly like it was in J. Smith day because at that time women were not born into it but in essence chose as adults, none the less it was oppressive and abusive for the vast majority and certainly the woman DCP gave as an example was not representative of how a typical woman in polygamy lived. Of course J. Smith was not living openly polygamy not even with his wife, and he didn't care for, nor spend time with his sexual partners, because apparently for him it only about sex.

Quite frankly I'm not particularly interested in listening to either you or DCP defend J. Smith's particular polygamous relationships, nor B. Young's. The fact of the matter is that polygamy does not enable a loving relationship of equals when a man has to share his resources, time and energy with many women. So to make polygamy a religious requirement to be worthy of the highest heaven, which is what the Mormon religion per B. Young and J. Smith promoted, was to inevitably end up with an abusive demeaning marriage system for women.

And by the way, I've not argued as Harmony has that Islam is responsible for women's illiteracy. But I do think that polygamy in a society is oppressive and will lead to women being poorly treated, not treated as equals with men, and not encouraged to develop skills or get an education because in all likelihood that would lead them to leave such an unfulfilling demeaning oppressive system.

[_Daniel Peterson]

The Quran does indeed uphold and provide "religious authority" for the oppression of women

That's a distinct issue from the question of whether Islam, as such -- that as such, incidentally, which I used probably fifteen or twenty times in my attempted conversation with Harmony, was yet one more way in which I tried to get her to see a distinction between Islam as specifically taught by the Taliban and generic Islam as generally understood by Muslims around the world -- punishes the education of women.

I readily admit that Islam subordinates women to men, and that many elements of traditional Islamic teaching regarding women strike me as problematic.

It makes sense to observe Mormons defend Muslims in their treatment and subordination of women, because deep down they both have the same goals in mind: Keeping women in their place.

Dang. You're not supposed to say that out loud. My secret goal is supposed to stay secret.

That's one of the reasons I don't let my wife look at this message board. If she found out what I'm really up to, she'd be much more difficult to manage than she already is. (Unfortunately, she had already learned to read by the time I met her.)

[_truth dancer]

Wow... I've briefly skimmed this thread so have most likely missed a whole lot.

A couple of observations...

I know professional Muslim women in the US who are strong, educated, and amazing women. I also know Muslim women right here in the US who are abused and degraded by their religious husbands (not part of the Taliban) and who believe their abuse is appropriate because of their religious teachings. These women believe their husbands are following the laws as outlined in their religious texts.

I've participated in conferences, ,seminars and meetings were Muslim women are attempting to help other women in their religion understand abuse is wrong, and to help those working with survivors of abuse understand their religious teachings and why it is often difficult for Muslim women to get help. And, I've worked with Muslim women who have been severely abused as they move to safety and healing.

I have known Mulsim men who have severely abused their wives believing it is their right under Godly law, and I have known Muslim men who treat their wives beautifully.

My observation is that there is no question many Muslims believe women are subordinate, second class citizens, who can be beaten by their husbands. There are other more progressive Muslims who while still embrace male privilege, believe in some sense of equality, perhaps similar to Mormonism. In other words, for example, women are not equal and do not deserve the same rights, authority, and privileges as men, and must "follow" their husbands, but they can vote, attend school and should not be abused.

There is no question in my mind that the religious teachings of Islam, as interpreted by much of the Islamic world allows for abuse of women. The fact that there are those who are more enlightened and no longer hold to some of these teachings does not negate the fact.

~td~

[_antishock8]

Ummm... AS8? You're not supposed to put up posts that make sense. Did you not get that memo? Daniel is trying desperately to clothe Islam in women-friendly clothing, and you have just shown Islam in an entirely different light.

It's a pleasant surprise to see. Thank you.

I'm a 140 bowler, but I've been known to throw a strike once in a while. ;)

[_Daniel Peterson]

There is no question in my mind that the religious teachings of Islam, as interpreted by much of the Islamic world allows for abuse of women. The fact that there are those who are more enlightened and no longer hold to some of these teachings does not negate the fact.

That is, as I've said, a distinct issue. And I agree with you.

Catholics and Protestants in Ireland are generally locked in conflict too, and have been for generations, but they are both Christian. No one denies that they are both Christian. No one tries to make out like one is less Christian than the other. And they are both to blame for the war that has torn that country asunder for generations. They both feel they have equal claim to the country, and they probably don't remember the roots of the issue because it was so long ago, but initially (If I recall correctly) it was the Irish Catholics wanting to push the upstart English Protestants off the island. Holy war, with political shadings. A lot of similiarities with Afghanistan. Yet no one denies that religion (in this case, Christianity) is at the base of the problem.

I suspect that you imagine that you've just scored a point against me.

You haven't, though. Quite the contrary.

As I've said from the beginning, both the Taliban and the government in Kabul are Muslims, but they have radically different visions of Islam and of how Islam ought to be implemented in Afghanistan. Hence the conflict. This illustrates, once again, my contention that there are different kinds of Islam, and that it isn't Islam as such that fights the education of women in Afghanistan.

And yet, the bottom line is 87% of Afghan women are illiterate. Girls' schools are burned, teachers and girl students are murdered. And no matter what brand of Islam is to blame... the Taliban, for actively suppressing education for women... or the more mainstream government, for being systematically unable to complete their appointed mission in regards to educating women... it's all still Islam.

Dogs keep leaving gifts on my lawn. You can't deny that dogs are mammals. So, at bottom, the problem is mammals. My neighbor, Henry, and my other neighbor's dog, Ming, are both mammals. And mammals are to blame.

That's a really useful way of analyzing problems.

A car hit a tree in our neighborhood. My friend's Volkswagen is a car, and it was a car -- every bit as much a car as his car -- that hit the tree. I think I'll call the police about my friend.

So you cannot disregard religion... in this case Islam... as not a major factor in the problem, just as it would be foolish to disregard religion as a major factor in the Irish problem.

I've always said that religion is a factor in the problems regarding women's education in Afghanistan, and, now that you mention it, I readily agree that religion is a factor in the conflict in Afghanistan, along with other factors such as intense poverty, isolation, and the like. And I might add tribalism or ethnicity, too: The Taliban are overwhelmingly of the Pashtun tribe, who represent 42% of the Afghan population, which is extraordinarily fragmented along ethnic and linguistic lines.

Incidentally, although religion obviously plays a role in the Irish situation, I'm not sure that it's as central as one might naïvely imagine. It seems to me more of a boundary marker than anything else. Theology plays very little role, if any. If the Irish Republican Army are devout, mass-attending, conscientious Catholics, I've never seen any sign of it. The conflict seems to me, rather, quasi-ethnic, related to the rise of the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic and the failure of the more-Protestant northern counties around Belfast to join it because of their greater feeling of kinship with the monarch and Parliament in London.

You have yet to disprove my point: the Taliban is Islam.

Why on earth would I seek to do that?

That would be as silly as, to borrow your syntax, to try to disprove that the squirrels is mammal, or that the Fords is car.

Until you can disassociate the Taliban from Islam, my point remains.

Good grief.

Shades, whose posts on this thread have been rational, suggested that Islam punishes the education of women. I said No, it doesn't. I was obviously speaking about Islam, as such. And I've always distinguished between Islam, as such, and the specific teachings and practices of the Taliban.

If someone were to say "Christianity is led by Thomas S. Monson," and someone else were to say "No it's not," it would scarcely be a refutation of the second speaker to point out, triumphantly, that the Mormons are too led by Thomas S. Monson.

Poverty exists in every other country on your list. Rural areas exist that are far from major cities. Islam exists to an equally high degree in all those countries on your list. Yet they don't have the abysmal illiteracy rates in women. They have schools for girls in remote, poverty stricken areas. Their women are educated.

I think I must have entered a house of carnival mirrors. I tried to make precisely that point to you at least a half dozen times. And now you think this is some sort of new discovery that refutes me?

Good grief.

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she’s ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When the men on the chess board
get up and tell you where to go
And you just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "Off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said

Feed your head
Feed your head

[_antishock8]

There is no question in my mind that the religious teachings of Islam, as interpreted by much of the Islamic world allows for abuse of women. The fact that there are those who are more enlightened and no longer hold to some of these teachings does not negate the fact.

~td~

But the thing is... The Muslims who aren't in compliance with the "Four Ulemahs" as it were, are apostates. They're the exception. They're not the norm. Those women are NOT "moderate" Muslims. They're apostate Muslims in the strictest sense of the word (as defined by the ulemah), and in the majority of Islamic countries in the world I'd have to question whether or not they're safe to do what they do with impunity.

The bottom line is the Taliban murders women who bake bread in order to just make ends meet. They literally stuff the women in the very ovens they use to bake bread, and burn them alive. What do people think the Taliban thinks of a woman's education? They SUBORDINATE that mandate to other mandates. It's not that they say an uneducated woman is un-Islamic, it's just that THAT priority takes a back seat to being married to a Muslim man and... Well, we know how that goes.

That being said, I'd be interested in understanding the Quranic passages and Hadiths the majority of Muslims use to deny their girls and women an education. If there aren't any, then I'd be interested in understanding why they don't allow it, in an Islamic context. Anyone willing to step up and educate me on this matter?

[_harmony]

The Quran does indeed uphold and provide "religious authority" for the oppression of women

That's a distinct issue from the question of whether Islam, as such -- that as such, incidentally, which I used probably fifteen or twenty times in my attempted conversation with Harmony, was yet one more way in which I tried to get her to see a distinction between Islam as specifically taught by the Taliban and generic Islam as generally understood by Muslims around the world -- punishes the education of women.

Perhaps we need a definition of "punishes", in connection with women's education.

Does burning girls' school count as punishment?

Does murdering students who are girls count as punishment?

Does an 87% illiteracy rate count as punishment... or education?

Until the Taliban is declared NOT ISLAM, then, unfortunately for the rest of the Islamic world that practices a more moderate (albeit still arachic) brand of Islam... Islam, in one form at least, punishes the education of Afghan women.

So... when can we expect the rest of the Islamic world to disavow the Taliban, and declare them NOT MUSLIM? Exclude them? Withdraw all support for them and their cause? Declare them all heretics? Defrock (do they do that?) their leaders and send them out into the world naked? (You know... kinda like how most of Christianity treats the Mormons...)

Because the Taliban are really making all those progressive, modern, equality for women supporting Muslims (which of course constitute 99.5% of the Muslims on the planet... surely the Taliban cannot amount to more than .5% of the current Muslim population) look really really bad.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Harmony, I think most people here were able to follow the argument.

[_harmony]

Harmony, I think most people here were able to follow the argument.

I agree. We all saw your side of it, too. I'm used to being the minority voice, and here, at least, my friends understand what I'm trying to say, and if they can't join me in a passionate response, know the intent of my heart. And those who aren't, don't.

[_asbestosman]

I was addressing Harmony when you butt in

You told a falsehood about his religion (that women would be illiterate under a Mormon-ruled counry). He refuted that falsehood. Shame on him for butting in to defend himself.

Or are you by chance conceding that your statement was false? That would get Daniel Peterson and The Nehor off your back (and me too). Actually, we'll probably all ignore you at this point anyhow, so you can win by forfeit.