Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_%28convert%29
This man in Afghanistan has recently converted from Islam to Christianity. And now, because of this, he is on trial and may be executed for it. I find this to be ridiculous, and puts not only Afghanistan, but the Middle East, and possibly all of Islam in an incredibly negative light.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

The unfortunate thing is that this is nothing new. Many nations in the Middle East (and the world entire, throughout history) have had religious governments (specifically Islamic in the Middle East), where the nation and government prescribes to a specific religion, requiring either directly or indirectly (through intense discrimination) all citizens to be members of that religion as well. And when someone isn't of that religion, they are chastized, ridiculed, denied civil liberties and civil rights, and even exiled or put to death.

Do I agree with it? Of course not. But it's just a fact that the world we live in today is still, for the most part, very immature and undeveloped. I have hope, however, that the world will grow and learn from its mistakes, and more people will learn to be more tolerant of differing opinions in time.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Gah!! Sometimes I don't know why I bother defending Islam to people who are all "Them Ay-Rabs is all murderers and they should all be killed before they kill more christians!" people.

I hate when stereotyped people live up to those stereotypes.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

That's how a lot stereotypes begin, when a few, probably well known people do something bad, it is thought their whole nation, race, or whatever does the same thing. Steretypes would barely exist if every single person didn't live up to the stereotype.

It's still a stereotype, a false stereoype. Those few people are just making it harder to believe that it's not true.

Stereotypes don't exist because every person in a group lives up to them. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a stereotype.

But, yeah, they'd be gone if some people didn't seem to be trying their best to live up to them. Pooo.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Update: The charges against Rahman are dropped, for now, and it's likely that he'll be sent abroad for "medical treatment".

Hmm - I've got a theory.... Do you think that the Afghan authorities have invented the various excuses used to drop Rahman's charges (e.g. that he's mentally unfit, etc) to keep both the West and the fundementalists happy? In that, they really don't want to execute Rahman, for the sake of their Western ties, but they want to placate the fundementalists by giving them the excuse that Rahman's mad....?

I really hope so - there probably wouldn't be an execution if my little theory's right. It's still a bad day for upholding human rights, but still.

it's a perfect solution, because i'm pretty sure that, even if the court chose not to execute him, if his name is known around Afghanistan his life would still be in danger from the populace. he should probably apply for refugee status somewhere friendlier.

2-1 says he heads here to the US. He knowns he can have religious freedom here.

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Serious point, or tongue-in-cheek? TELL WHAT..... anyway.....

The Afghan authorities are saying that Rahman may have dual citizenship with another country. I say may have, because they're certainly being precious about releasing any details of this case.

Whether he really does have dual citizenship - or whether it'll be arranged for him - it may very well be that political asylum will be in the cards for Rahman, yeah.

Y'know, there was a time when Islamic nations were actually pretty accepting of other religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. What happened? Why all the hatin'?

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I don't think there's any more hate than there used to be. We're paying more attention to the middle east now, so that's probably why we see more, because we're looking for it (I think).

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Some people blame the rise of Wahhabism for effectively ending Islam's golden era. Islam, say people like Tariq Ali, was never as isolationist or fundementally practiced until Wahhabism took over.

Mind you, Wahhabism was largely centered in the Middle East - I don't know if this has an exact baring on Afghanistan. Though the Taliban definately adopted Wahhab-ish ways .

But did you say once that you were studying Middle Eastern history? Maybe you could explain it better.

This is tough, because Islam is the youngest of the three major abrahamic religions (judaism, Christianity, islam). now i'm not so hot on judaic history but i think we all know about european christianity in the past. Islam is a young religion going through a lot of growth right now and is having a tough time hashing out some of its internal problems. it's hard to say whether it was once totally tolerant of other religions, because the Qur'an says that "people of the book" that aren't necessarily muslim can still be saved and live in Paradise.

That being said, the middle east is a historically violent place, something that is hard for us to come to terms with. Western and european history features a lot of wars, yes, but Islam makes not attempts at claiming to be pacifistic, and neither did pre-islamic arab and persian society. War and raids are rooted deeply in their history, probably largely because it can be tough to get by in a harsh climate. I hope that violence can be worked through in many countries there, but this is not soely the fault of Islam, nor is it solely the fault of warring governmments, western interference, etc., etc.

Define "young". 1500 years old isn't that young to me.

Well out of the five Major world religions(Chrisitainity, Judism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are the other four), Islam is the youngest by 500 years.

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Yeah, but just because it's the youngest doesn't mean it's necessarily still young. There can be five people who are ages 90, 92, 85, 76, and 103. The 76-year-old is the youngest of the five, but we wouldn't say that (s)he is young.

Anyways...toastpaint, someone?

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

damn you guys are literalists. it's considered to be young, yes because it is the youngest of the three. and if THAT's what you want to discuss out of my post then i think you may be missing the point.

judaism (in its oldest form) is roughly 4000 years old, christianity roughly 2000 and islam clocks in at about 1400 years old. as far as the Abrahamic religions go, yes, this is young.

if you want to be literal, scientology is "young" ('round the 50s-60s) but that would be off-topic and beside the point.

I was going to move on to this:



after you defined "young" for me.

So are you saying that if I created a religion today, in 1500 years, we'd have internal problems including kidnapping, suicide bombers, beheadings, etc.?

Are you saying it's inevitable?

Believe it or not when Christianity hit 1500, it was still sorting out some big league issues. Christianity had just finished with the Crudsades. The Inquisition was going on, that didn't help thing. The Inquisition tortured and executed thousands of people for being heretics. 500 years ago, if you were to denounce your faith in the Chrisitan world, you were putting your life a risk. You have to look at this in a historical perspective. All religions go through growth periods and there will be things that a religion will do that will leave tarnishes in their history. Christianity went through its growing pains and has evolved into something rather pleasant.

Yes, it is. Almost every major religion will have problems similar to these. Judism did, Christianity did and Islam is.

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I'm aware of Christianity's history, BTG.

I'm just not sold on the idea that "it's happened 4 times already, so it must be true."

While I agree that Islam's age probably doesn't have much to do with it, I'd say that internal problems in any religion are inevitable.

If you think about it, any religion is a social revolution. As in, if you create your new religion and you want to share it with the world, you'd probably have these main aims: to convert non-believers, to get society as a whole to accept it, to spread it to foreign territories and peoples, and to defend it against those who’d want to destroy it.

So really, as long as there are people who'd want to curb the spread or practice of your religion, and as long as you don't accept any alternatives to your religion's dictates, religion and conflict would go hand-in-hand.

Thanks Beyond the Grave for making the point i intended in my absence.

Strife is inevitable during the entire lifespan of any religion and i am not saying that specifically suicide bombings and kidnapping are the result of only age. I clearly said that it's something that is beyond the control of anybody, realistically because it is such a combination of factors.

Even today, christianity has a lot of internal problems. Just because it isn't happpening in America does not mean it is not happening. Ireland is terribly damaged all by people who believe in not only the same God but the same son of god, Jesus (and i digress to state that muslims believe in jesus as well and acknowledge his existence and the validity of his ideas. they just don't accept him as the son of god for a lot of reasons i don't feel like getting into right now.) so religious trouble is not limited to Islam by any stretch of the imagination, and Judaism had (and still have) their fair share of troubles too, mostly long ago.

Probably my essential point about violence in the middle east is that it is not an Islamic thing nearly as much as it is a historical and cultural thing. Violence is deeply rooted in the ancient, pre-islamic culture of asia minor and the Arabian peninsula and war was a way of life long ago, so that probably contributes a lot to the way that people live their lives now.

Rahman is safely in Italy now, to bring this around full circle and all.