tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post9071716041871018567..comments2024-03-25T02:16:16.247-07:00Comments on Christ the Tao: Mohammed enslaves Women III, then John of Damascus weighs inUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-38312518889121409802020-06-17T15:40:15.863-07:002020-06-17T15:40:15.863-07:00Brian says : "Well, I’ve already pointed out ...Brian says : "Well, I’ve already pointed out that the Christian and Jewish Bible says much worse things about women than the Koran, so I look forward to your “fair and balanced” study confirming this."<br /><br /> Here are some nice verses concerning the intelligence of women in Islam. I bet you don't find these in the bible. But I can be wrong.<br /> <br />Qur'an 2:282<br /><br />"And get two witnesses out of your own men. And if there are not two men (available), then a man and two women, such as you agree for witnesses, so that if one of them (one of the two women) errs, the other can remind her.<br /><br />Sahih al-Bukhari 2658: The Prophet said: “Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?” The women said: “Yes.” He said: “This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.”<br /><br />You were saying Brian. De Tinkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04097193202840512489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-62437250686069241102013-11-24T08:55:07.487-08:002013-11-24T08:55:07.487-08:00Good points, all. I suppose I should do an analys...Good points, all. I suppose I should do an analysis of the Old Testament, too, but it's would be a lot of work, and I'm not sure it's necessary for this project. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-34649456610133794582013-11-24T05:49:13.538-08:002013-11-24T05:49:13.538-08:00I should add that in Deut 22:28-29 the man is bett...I should add that in Deut 22:28-29 the man is better considered a seducer rather than a rapist.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15589068803309555248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-64340819696852737062013-11-23T12:45:38.683-08:002013-11-23T12:45:38.683-08:00I feel like I must make an answer to some of the v...I feel like I must make an answer to some of the verses that Barrington brings up.<br /><br />Deut 22:23-24--This is not about rape. The woman is willing, as in indicated by fact that she did not cry out in the city.<br /><br />Lev 21:9. This penalty, admittedly harsh, is not because the girl didn't "behave well", but because she became a prostitute, an ultimate attack on purity and <br />sanctity, which to the ancients was a very serious offense, as it was things like these that held their society together.<br /><br />Deut 22:28-29. The point here is it would be more difficult for a non-virgin to find a husband. The penalty is on the man. He is forced to marry the girl if she and here father decide he must, and he must pay money and cannot divorce her. She is not required to marry him. <br /><br />Deut 25:11-12. Copan (Is God a Moral Monster? 121-122.) argues in detail that there is a mistranslation here. What was to be done was a public humiliation, not chopping off a hand. I don't know Hebrew and can't say, but the issue may be more complex than Barrington thinks.<br /><br />One last point: Christians, apart from Theonomists, who are few, think that the Old Testament civil law is no longer in effect. Muslims think that everything in the Qu'ran, and the examples of Muhamnmed, are the final word of God to mankind, and therefore permanently binding. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15589068803309555248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-73818536698583213192013-11-21T09:47:00.819-08:002013-11-21T09:47:00.819-08:00Brian: I'm a scholar of world religions. Isla...Brian: I'm a scholar of world religions. Islam is not my field, and I wanted to know more about it. So I read the Quran, marking every passage that relates to women, and analyzing the results. <br /><br />This is called "research." It's a little crude, because I wanted to focus on primary literature. <br /><br />I'm not a preacher, and I'm not mainly an evangelist. I'm someone who cares passionately about truth. That's why I looked at every single passage, good and bad, and neglected none of them. You have NOT done that with Deuteronomy, so let's not make that comparison. <br /><br />And let's not compare ideologies to races, that's illegitimate. One believes or rejects ideologies based on their truth, morality, and life value. One is born with skin color. Therefore, it is rational to criticize false or harmful beliefs. It is irrational and unfair to criticize people for physical characteristics they were born with. <br /><br />And I am not generalizing about "Muslims," I am analyzing the writings of Mohammed. Do please keep such distinctions clear. <br /><br />If I ever write a book trying to convert Muslims, I will of course try to be tactful. When I put on a seminar on Islam and Christianity, I invited a Muslim speaker, an evangelical convert from Islam who was very negative about Islam, and two Christian scholars who are very conciliatory. All of them had good things to say. We can learn from one another, but we have to begin with honesty. <br /><br />I think many Muslims will understand that better than some Western liberals, frankly. I saw this, even during the Cold War: liberals were afraid to criticize the nastiest communist tyrants, while Russians themselves seemed to appreciate frankness. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-14737982463512795742013-11-21T09:06:27.141-08:002013-11-21T09:06:27.141-08:00Well, I’ve already pointed out that the Christian ...Well, I’ve already pointed out that the Christian and Jewish Bible says much worse things about women than the Koran, so I look forward to your “fair and balanced” study confirming this.<br /><br />The primary moral obligation of everyone is, as Jesus says, to take the logs out of their own eyes. But even when criticizing an outgroup there is a world of difference between (a) someone outside your group who is biased against you criticizing you so that he can do you down and attacking your tradition so that he can do it down while feeling good about himself, and (b) someone who respects your tradition and who wishes you well giving you constructive advice. People can smell the difference between these two things a mile away. They will pay no attention whatsoever to the first person, they just might listen to the second person – although even that is doubtful. If and when real change comes it generally comes from within, by people criticizing their own group from the inside – taking the logs out of their own eyes, as Jesus says – that is how progress occurs. Self-righteous moral denunciations of out-groups can even be counter-productive to progress.<br /><br />You’re also missing the point about facts. There ARE an infinite amount of facts and the handful that a person focuses on reveals much about them. Think again of the person who says, “It is factually the case that if I see a black man walking towards me on the street he is much more likely to murder and rob me than if I see a white man walking towards me”. He then goes on to say, “Also, a Chinese person and an Indian person is less likely to murder me than a black person. See, I am not racist. I am being fair to all the races”. And then he says “I challenge you to point out anything factually incorrect that I have said. I am only interested in telling the truth”. Well, probably not – what he’s actually interested in doing is attacking black people rather than trying to genuinely solve a problem, or suggest ways of solving a problem, assuming there is one.<br />Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-80274905577485249842013-11-21T08:25:30.448-08:002013-11-21T08:25:30.448-08:00Brian: I'm not trying to distract attention fr...Brian: I'm not trying to distract attention from my many flaws. I'm an open book. You find 'em, tell me to my face. You find cruelty in the Bible, go ahead, describe it in detail -- but fairly, looking at the whole text, as I have just done with the Quran, and pointing to facts on BOTH sides.<br /><br />Nor am I "ranting pointlessly." As I've explained several times now, what I am doing is systematically reading through primary texts of great religious traditions, and analyzing how they treat women. The next text will be the Rig Veda. Then after that, more recent Hindu texts, and then probably some Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian texts, if I have time. I've already done the gospels and Acts; Paul is coming up, too. <br /><br />There are not an "infinite number" of such passages in the Quran. In fact, while I may have overlooked one or two, I'm pretty sure I got all the major ones, anyway, and almost all the minor ones. <br /><br />I begin to get the feeling that in your pique, you haven't yet read the posts that we're talking about. Neither of you seems to have so much as mentioned anything I said in any of these three posts, yet. If I am wrong about something, it would be a courtesy for you to point that out. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-45046124138018733752013-11-21T08:08:16.866-08:002013-11-21T08:08:16.866-08:00What you are doing is not like Nathan boldly confr...What you are doing is not like Nathan boldly confronting David, one of his own people and a contemporary. It would be more like David trying to distract attention from his own flaws by ranting pointlessly about a long-dead leader in a faraway land, and even if anyone in the faraway land could hear David, none of them would listen to him, because his bias against them would be all too evident to them. <br /><br />Or it would be a bit like, say, an anti-Jewish Chinese person quoting every passage in the Bible he can find about Moses referring to genocide and rape. The Chinaman would claim that he is just "bravely quoting the facts" about the leading Jewish prophet but basically he would be just indulging in moral posturing so that he can try to feel better about himself and put down Jews. <br /><br />There are an infinite number of facts, so the handful that a person chooses to focus on reveals much about them. Like someone who says, “It is factually the case that if I see a black man walking towards me on the street he is much more likely to murder and rob me than if I see a white man walking towards me. I’m just stating a fact here. Do you want me to ignore the facts? Are you denying the facts?”. Well, even supposing this is factually true, who says it and the context in which they say it really matters a lot - in the absence of any serious effort to explain why this state of affairs is the case, it’s likely that the person who chooses to say it like this is a racist.<br />Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-70962127487981218112013-11-21T06:32:19.954-08:002013-11-21T06:32:19.954-08:00Brian: I am troubled by your eagerness, and the ea...Brian: I am troubled by your eagerness, and the eagerness of Lothar, to make excuses for a tyrant who abused people as Mohammed did. King David is not the issue. Nor, if I were to analyze David's writings -- some of the Psalms, presumably -- do I think I would find anything like the same pattern. <br /><br />David sinned by committing adultery, and having the husband killed. The Prophet Nathan confronted him for his sin. He repented, cried his eyes out, but their son died. Later, another son raped a half-sister. David failed to deal with the crisis adequately, which led to a civil war, ultimately. <br /><br />I respect Nathan for boldly calling David on his sin. (Which is what Mohammed's wives apparently tried to do with him, but he quoted God on them, and threatened them with hell if they complained.) That's what real prophets do, and sometimes they lose their lives for doing so, when the king doesn't want to repent, or even wants to use God to justify his crimes. <br /><br />You seem to think we should avert our eyes from the facts because the sect Mohammed began was and is successful. How is it successful, in relation to women? Oh, yeah, almost all the countries with the lowest status of women in the world are either Muslim or Hindu. And the problems in some of those countries -- keeping women indoors, polygamy, child marriage -- were modeled by The Prophet himself. <br /><br />But you think it is moral to avert our eyes and not blame the tyrant who modeled that behavior, because after all, Solomon had lots of wives. Pardon my heat, but this is not the "Golden Rule." This sounds like "Kiss up to tyrants, because they are successful, and ignore their victims." That is not what Jesus taught, and it is not just. <br /><br />If Peoples' Temple were just bigger, would we then have to give Jim Jones a free pass? <br /><br />Nor are problems solved by ignoring their source. Strangely, I seem to find myself agreeing with the New Atheists on this one: just because an organization prospers, doesn't mean we should give its founder a free pass. <br /><br />Maybe it would help to remember, is that in evaluating Mohammed and the Quran in relation to women, I am not denying value to Islamic civilization as a whole. I often say that conservatives and liberals argue past one another, because they define religion differently: (a) by the character, teaching and example of the founder; (b) by sacred Scriptures; (c) by developed tradition. That seems to be happening here, too. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-31386003808006160082013-11-21T03:29:38.177-08:002013-11-21T03:29:38.177-08:00One objection commonly levelled at Muhammad is tha...One objection commonly levelled at Muhammad is that, in addition to being a spiritual leader, he was a political leader who engaged in some of the same behaviours that many Christian and Jewish prophets of God did who were also political leaders – such as Moses, Joshua, Saul, David, Solomon etc. Their behaviour was no different and in many cases worse. And yet there is far less focus or outrage from many Christians about their own prophets than there is about Muhammad – these pseudo-critics are simply biased. It makes no sense to compare Muhammad to Jesus on this front because Jesus (whom Muslims regard as the Messiah) was not a political leader. It would make at least some sense to compare Moses (the chief prophet of Judaism) with Muhammad. But what would actually make a lot more sense would be to observe Jesus’s wise and great instruction to “take out the log in your own eye”, as Lother tries to do, thus demonstrating that he is a true follower of Jesus, unlike those Christians-in-Name-Only who pretend to follow Jesus while ignoring what he actually taught.<br /><br />Now, when Jim Jones or Pol Pot found a religion and a great civilisation that lasts for over a thousand years and which provides meaning and the basis for a way of life for one in every four or five human beings on the planet then it might be legitimate to speak about them in the same breath as Muhammad. But cults and tyrannies either only appeal to small numbers of people or else they do not endure through the generations and the centuries. They burn out or destroy themselves due to their barbarity and inhumanity. In contrast, Islamic civilisation is one of the few truly great civilisations of human history and Muhammad is both its spiritual founder and its political founder. <br /><br />Anti-Muslim prejudice and bigotry just reflects poorly on those who indulge in it, just as anti-Semitism reflected poorly on those Westerners who used to indulge in it when it was fashionable about 100 years ago. In fact, in the West anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Arab racism are the new anti-Semitism, and the last acceptable forms of bigotry and racism. These are so pervasive that Westerners do not even realise they are doing it – they casually make statements about Muslims that, if they were made about any other group of people, such as Jews, blacks or homosexuals, would cause total outrage. The kind of people in the West who would have been anti-Semites in the last century are the same kind of people who are now anti-Muslim in our own century – I would say this reflects poorly on them both as Christians and as human beings.Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-22151024514137231112013-11-20T16:44:29.659-08:002013-11-20T16:44:29.659-08:00Lothar: I think your article gives a pretty fair a...Lothar: I think your article gives a pretty fair analysis. <br /><br />What is the "Golden Rule" of apologetics? "Do to others as you would have them do unto you?"<br /><br />Well, what I would like "others" do to the Bible is indeed just what I've done to the Quran -- analyze it honestly. <br /><br />And that fits with Jesus' other great relevant advice: <br /><br />"By its fruit you will know it." <br /><br />And that seems like good advice, which you are following in that post. Otherwise, should we pretend as if Jim Jones was a good man? Or Pol Pot? I'd rather not. <br /><br />Yes, I think Mohammed was far nastier than the average Arab of his time. And reading the Quran through has made me more confident of that. Some of the evidence lies in plain sight, in these past three posts. Again, I included every single passage having to do with treating women, good, bad, and ugly. I am being fair with Mohammed. <br /><br />I have no objection whatsoever to Andy, or any other atheist, evaluating the work of Joshua in the same manner. I only ask that he take the WHOLE text, good and bad, into account, before judging. <br /><br />As for excusing Mohammed because he lived in the 6th Century, no thanks. St. Paul gets accused of all sorts of evil for perhaps telling women to keep quiet in church. That was 500+ years before Mohammed. There is something very out of balance, here. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-70538157728154916432013-11-20T14:32:18.001-08:002013-11-20T14:32:18.001-08:00Hey Dave.
I think we ought to abide by the Golde...Hey Dave. <br /><br />I think we ought to abide by the Golden rule of apologetics. <br /><br />We ought to evaluate the morality of a historical figure against the background of the culture BACK THEN.<br />For example, was Mohamed a more evil man than the average arab at that time and place? <br /><br />We certainly don't like it when militant atheists judge Biblical people as utterly evil because they fail to measure up to our more advanced moral knowledge. <br /><br />I give an example of such an approach <a href="http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/moral-indignation-and-divine-genocides-moralische-entrustung-und-gottliche-genozide" rel="nofollow">here</a>.<br /><br />If you have time, I would really love to learn your perspective on what I've written. <br />You could perhaps comment there or perhaps privately: <br />lotharlorraine@gmail.com<br /><br />P.S: I'm looking forward to reading your own posts on Biblical atrocities!<br /><br />P.S2: I agree there is ugly stuff in the Koran!<br />Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08328792937888689350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-70079807213382570232013-11-19T16:31:01.965-08:002013-11-19T16:31:01.965-08:00Lothar: I always appreciate your perspective. I w...Lothar: I always appreciate your perspective. I would grant that some Muslims probably do have such an experience, and that their awareness of God is often valid. But I am very leery of talking about "being fair" to a man who did, after all, mass murder, torture, enslave, and keep so many women under lock and key, and the fear of a garishly described hell (do you really think he believed even when he received revelations specifically designed to pascify righteously angry, two-dozen-timed women?), for his personal pleasure. <br /><br />What about being fair to his many victims? Why should the tyrant's good name always count so much more than that of his harshly-slandered victims? <br /><br />No, I'm afraid I can't find my way to agreeing with you on this one. Chalk it up to my visceral dislike of bullies, that goes back to Middle School, and was intensified by reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-56559918039495530252013-11-19T16:06:50.037-08:002013-11-19T16:06:50.037-08:00I certainly agree that Jesus had a revolutionary e...<br />I certainly agree that Jesus had a revolutionary ethic in His treatment of women. <br /><br />Yet I believe that your are being unfair to the Muslim prophet. <br /><br />Like Martin Luther (as I explained at length here <a href="http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/on-luther-hitler-and-religious-confusion/" rel="nofollow">Visit W3Schools</a> I believe that a man can have genuine experiences with God which are then DISTORTED by sin.<br />I think that Mahomed was not that different from Luther. <br /><br /><br />Shalom and salam.<br />Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08328792937888689350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-69107634476129308042013-11-19T09:37:28.896-08:002013-11-19T09:37:28.896-08:00Did either of you read my three-part series of whi...Did either of you read my three-part series of which this is the concluding episode? Is anything I said there in error? Come on, gentlemen, let's not let the politically-correct tale wag the exegetical and historical dog. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-6858837354631511872013-11-19T09:34:06.121-08:002013-11-19T09:34:06.121-08:00Lothar: Please read my response to Brian's con...Lothar: Please read my response to Brian's concerns. I'm looking in both "eyes," and I'm being equally "clinical" in both cases. These are serious issues, and we are called first of all to be HONEST about what we find. Honesty does not mean we must skew results to find an artificial equality. If there are vile texts in the Bible, let us be honest about that, too. If you find my analysis of the gospels and Acts wrong in some detail, please point to those errors. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-15003917847954377402013-11-19T09:09:07.793-08:002013-11-19T09:09:07.793-08:00Dear David,
as Christians we ought to constantly ...Dear David,<br /><br />as Christians we ought to constantly keep this in mind:<br /><br />3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."<br /><br /><br />As Randal Rauser made it clear, we can find lots of heinous stuff in the Bible too, like God ordering soldiers to kill babies and pregnant women alike. <br />Mohamed did not. <br /><br /><br />Lovely greetings in Christ.<br />Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08328792937888689350noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-91068591896326748462013-11-19T07:48:06.283-08:002013-11-19T07:48:06.283-08:00Brian: I'm trying to suggest the possibility o...Brian: I'm trying to suggest the possibility of studying a text systematically and as a whole, and coming to empirical conclusions that make use of all the evidence. You seem to be resisting that method, and just want to cherry-pick on a feminist basis. <br /><br />But I'm not interested in forcing texts to a given conclusion. I'm interested in what they actually say, and what effect they have on people who read them to find out what they say and put it into action. If it turns out Deuteronomy is bad for women, OK, let's face that fact. Truth is the goal here, not spin. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-36642516181579768322013-11-19T07:36:12.447-08:002013-11-19T07:36:12.447-08:00Well, you just have to read the few passages from ...Well, you just have to read the few passages from the Christian Bible and Christian Scripture that I have quoted above (and there are plenty more where they came from) in order to see that when it comes to saying horrific things about women there are simply no parrallels anywhere in the Islamic scripture of the Koran. The same applies to some other important issues – for example, there is no advocacy of genocide in Islamic scripture, but Christian scripture advocates outright genocide. So in terms of inhumane and barbaric statements, Islamic scripture is a clear improvement over Christian and Jewish scripture.<br /><br />But I agree that Jews, Christians and Muslims can interpret their scripture in various ways - focusing on this bit, downplaying that bit, putting this bit in context, elaborating what that bit really means and so on and so forth. So I would definitely applaud efforts to emphasize the humane and decent bits and to downplay and humanely interpret the awful bits. <br />Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-17962582305977457932013-11-19T06:52:07.225-08:002013-11-19T06:52:07.225-08:00Balderdash. You have done no such thing, don'...Balderdash. You have done no such thing, don't pretend you have. <br /><br />I've just gone through every single passage in the Quran related to women. <br /><br />Earlier, I went through every single passage in the gospels and Acts on the same subject. There is not one single passage in the Quran that contains any such liberating dialogues and actions as we find there. Nor is there one single passage in the NT in which any Christian manipulates and exploits women in the manner of the "Prophet" Mohammed, as demonstrated above. <br /><br />A Christian need not be as attached to the book of Deuteronomy as you assume, above, or as Muslims are to the Quran. The focus of our faith is on Jesus Christ. But even Deuteronomy, you are cherry-picking. Your conclusion is just nonsense. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-75426454477199661392013-11-19T04:02:30.173-08:002013-11-19T04:02:30.173-08:00All the texts I quoted are part of the Christian B...All the texts I quoted are part of the Christian Bible, so these texts are holy Christian scripture - they are sacred Christian scripture. Many of the texts are also, of course, sacred Jewish scripture. So if we objectively compare what the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have to say about women, Islamic scripture is by far the least horrific of the three. Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-53442292680511914992013-11-18T16:08:03.299-08:002013-11-18T16:08:03.299-08:00Its not clear why Brian refers continually to the ...Its not clear why Brian refers continually to the ``Christian Bible`` when he cites Deuteronomy and Leviticus which should be correctly called the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps Brian thinks it wouldn`t be as politically correct to disparage the ``Jewish Bible``.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00926071911396827610noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-63876013748183780552013-11-18T09:31:16.465-08:002013-11-18T09:31:16.465-08:00Brian: I figured you'd eventually snap, with t...Brian: I figured you'd eventually snap, with this series. Can't blame you: it is a bit much for someone of your sensibilities to take. <br /><br />As you know, I'm not an inerracist. I'm perfectly willing to evaluate the Old Testament as a whole, or any particular book of it, as fairly as I have the Quran, here. <br /><br />And I have already analyzed the gospels and Acts that way -- reading every passage, in context. <br /><br />What I've done so far is compare two people (Jesus and Mohammed) and two sets of texts (the gospels and Acts, and the Quran). In future, I'll also cover the writings of Paul, whom you mention, and also some of the main Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist texts. Maybe I'll get to some secularist texts, eventually. <br /><br />And again, my purpose will be not to "build a case," but to honestly analyze as much of the record as I can, in the time available. (I may be leaving the country soon.) That's why I've tried not to leave a single relevant text out. <br /><br />Let me know when you recover your equanimity, and want to talk about this seriously. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-60491110116573347192013-11-18T09:22:07.266-08:002013-11-18T09:22:07.266-08:00I can’t help noticing how superior the Muslim Kora...I can’t help noticing how superior the Muslim Koran is in its attitude to women when compared to the Christian Bible. In fact, the Bible makes Muhammad look like a veritable feminist and a model of progressive, liberal attitudes.<br /><br />For example, the Christian God says that rape victims should be stoned to death: <br /><br />"If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbours wife. Deuteronomy 22:23-24<br /><br />Charming guy this Christian God! Christians and Jews must be very proud to have that in their sacred scripture. <br /><br />According to the Christian God priests should burn their daughters alive if they don’t behave well: "And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9) <br /><br />Elsewhere the Christian God commands that women who are raped should be forced to marry the men who rape them: "If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)<br /><br />According to the Christian God husbands should chop of their wive’s hands if the wife tries to protect her husband and in the process of doing so accidentally touches that attacker’s genitalia “When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)<br /><br />Any wife who tries to protect her husband could be forgiven afterwards for wondering why she bothered, as she wanders around the place with no hand. <br /><br />According to the Christian Bible women shouldn’t speak but should shut up and obey men: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)<br /><br />Another part of the Christian Bible instructs women to keep quiet because men come first and women are the root of all evil: "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)<br /><br />No wonder organised Christianity so frequently treats women as second class citizens.<br /><br />However, I did find one passage in the Christian Bible which shows the Christian God arguably treating women better than men."When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you." (Deuteronomy 20:10-14). <br /><br />So the men get killed but the women are kept alive so that the men can rape them. Nice one Christian God! Finally we find him doing something humane and decent for women.Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.com