Dear Mufti
Ah well that is reassuring. The Grand Mufti of Egypt explains about apostasy and stuff.
[F]rom a religious perspective, the act of abandoning one’s religion is a sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgment. If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment. If, however, the crime of undermining the foundations of the society is added to the sin of apostasy, then the case must be referred to a judicial system whose role is to protect the integrity of the society.
Excellent. From a religious perspective, no earthly bastards will punish you for apostasy, it’s only God who will. Of course, God will presumably do a pretty thorough job of it, being a jealous and tyrannical kind of shit, but no matter, that’s a few years off probably, unless you get run over by a bus tomorrow. The important thing is that the mullahs and the cops aren’t going to push your door down and take you out for execution right this second. Unless, of course, they are – on account of you done added the crime of undermining the foundations of the society to the sin of apostasy, and that we don’t allow, so up against the wall mothafucka. Because the thing is the sin is God’s business and God will deal with it as and when necessary, but the crime is a whole nother story. The thing is, the integrity of the society has to be protected from the likes of thinking doubting questioning mind-changing you; understand? The integrity of the society is the important thing, not selfish little you and your selfish individualistic atomistic consumerist idea about wanting to think for yourself and make up your own mind and not be compelled to ‘believe’ what you don’t believe. Got that? You don’t matter, the integrity of the society does. No yous matter; all the yous added up don’t matter; what matters is the society and its integrity – in other words its uniformity of thought. Integrity of the individual, poison; integrity of the group, divine Utopia. See? It makes perfect sense if you look at it in the right way.
There’s also of course the familiar irritating boilerplate about women – equal but not the same blah blah blah so actually they have higher status than men which is why they’re not allowed to leave the house or the country without permission from a man.
Islam adopts the perspective of gender equality, but it does not endorse the idea of gender equivalency. Islam affirms the difference between the natural dispositions and constitutions of men and women. Women have the ability to bear and nurse children, whereas men do not, so there is a lack of equivalency in regards to the physical and psychological make-up of men and women…
Therefore…you know the rest.
“And men are a degree above them.”
Is that I wonder, in physical stature, or in brainpower?
Gosh, I will in future have to look up to them as I just might [up there] get a glimpse of their ‘degree’ brainboxes.
Gosh, if that is the case – women must definitely do some ‘brainbox-bashing’- to bring them down to size!
Ah they’re not stupid. Cynical. And wrong, but not stupid.
If mere apostasy were enough to undermine the foundations of a society, that would suggest that the foundations of said society are pretty weak, pretty flimsy If God, or Allah, were backing such a society because it was righteous, then you wouldn’t think that such protection would be necessary. If on the other hands, the intellectual foundations of that society really were like straws in the wind….
As an aside, I’ve trained in the past as a criminal paralegal. There’s an old legal rule of thumb – “no punishment without law” and I reckon the Mufti’s pronouncement errs dangerously on the wrong side of it. How am I to know whether my apostasy is likely to undermine my society? What’s meant by undermining? Not that he’s likely concerned by such legal niceties
No, they’re not stupid, just wrong and tyrannical and oppressive. Stupid would almost be a relief.
“How am I to know whether my apostasy is likely to undermine my society?”
You’re not; therefore the only safe bet is not to think at all.
When asked whom one should love and respect the most, the Prophet said, “Your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father”.
So the Qur’an thrice-fold tells its followers to respect their mothers. Yet the same followers use their religion to kill their very mothers.
Very conflictual!
And while I’m in evening rant mode…
The physical and psychological make-up of every living person on earth differs. Does this mean, taking the Mufti’s thoughts to their (il)logical conclusion, that every person on earth should be accorded different rights and duties (I assume we’re talking, ultimately, here, about legal rights and duties…)
Sure, I think it beyond dispute that there are differences in the physical make up of the ‘typical’ man and the ‘typical’ woman. The same is probably true of psychological make-up, though such things are harder to determine. But why on earth should this imply different rights and duties….which, after all, apply to individuals, and not to hypothetical ‘statistically average’ people.
Actually, I think there’s an interesting parallel here between the thinking of the loonier fringes of the feminist left and the misogynist (usually religious) right. This belief that because men and women are in some senses different, they should have different legal rights and duties. I’ve even seen the two working directly together to campaign on certain issues – seemingly willing to ignore how inimical their interests are to each other.
The British government, has recently proposed a law to protect the feelings of religious groups. Yet the feelings of religious group members have been abominably messed about with by the very same religious groups whom the British government want to protect.
Yeah, so called integrity for the common good of society is more important.
It is in my estimation so hypocritical and false.
> The British government, has recently proposed a law to protect the feelings of religious groups
Marie-Therese, speaking as a Brit I fully share your concern. This is a gob-smackingly retrograde step, one of the worst and most dangerous political ideas I’ve seen in my 42 years, and without wishing to resort to undue hysterical language, I regard anyone proposing such policy as a cultural coward and traitor of the enlightenment legacy.
Our government is obviously afraid of a growing fundamentalist minority within its borders and in response (incredibly enough, given both the dictates of common sense and the learnings from history) it is flirting with cultural appeasement. If this proposal ever passes into law it will further crank up the ideological policing and management of our intellectual, political and cultural public spaces. The material on this very web site could conceivably end up banned or even criminalized in the UK. Rationalist secularites will need to become careful about how they express their (once birthright) opinions in all public fora. Discussion of genuine social and cultural issues will become yet more fraught and will carry an increased risk of reputation-threatening accusations of racism. All this because of a small minority (according to often-repeated claims by government spokespeople, a *very* small minority!)
It’s all so predictable. Appeasement won’t work for many reasons, not least of which is the undoubted fact that the people who this policy will be designed to placate won’t be grateful, and they won’t respect the measures it will contain. It will only make them grow bolder because of the perceived weakness of the broad, secular culture and its political representatives, and because the grievances that this policy is designed to mollify will come to be provided with legal justification for their expression. That will be disastrous! This is a dangerous proposal and will be a betrayal of the rational, secular majority within this country.
Any such proposal will inevitably be presented to the public with a heavy coating of the perennially fashionable language of ‘inclusiveness’ in order to make it appear to be a package of eminently reasonable (oh the irony) measures. It hardly needs to be pointed out that such a dangerously vague idea as ‘protection of sensitivities’ will lead to all kinds of legal and cultural anomalies and contradictory situations.
Innumerable men and women have fought so hard, many paying the ultimate price to help free men’s minds from the grip of religion. HOW DARE weak-kneed politicians even discuss *in principle* repealing those precious victories and hard-won freedoms! It’s the 21st century for god’s sake. We’re supposed to be wearing one-piece silver suits, eating proton pills and worrying about how to teleport from one-side of the galaxy to the other, not wasting our valuable time talking about how to appease regressive, anti-rationalist, misogynistic and sometimes murderous religious fanatics. WTF?? Seriously, WTF?!?
Grrr. Apologies for the frustration-dump. I know I’m preaching to the converted here.
“Muslims living in Britain who, according to the government, need protection from physical and verbal assaults which have been more common since September 11th”
What about British ‘honour killings’ by Muslims/other fanatical fundies that of late – have been very prevalent? Are they also by the British government going to be protected and shielded? One wonders.
The Corrupt Irish Catholic Church and the even more corrupt religious trailing/drooping from its corrupt branches have been getting away with blue murder and has been protected with the help of the Irish Government.