Muslims and Pederasty

Stop avoiding people. Retract your rediculous babble and lets get on with some real discussions.

Like I said. It is my belief and I stick to it. I believe that adults
having sex with children is wrong and I would work to keep that a taboo
in the society that I live in. Nothing more than my own belief which I
also believe I share with most people in the community I live in.I will not concern myself with other fringe or ancient cultures that "got along fine" practicing pedophilic acts.Overall I believe you are starting to stand up on your saddle mister and starting to make generalizations about what I said that are not true. I don't agree that majority opinion makes something right. I don't believe that parents who strap bombs on their kids are doing the right thing and I in particular resent that statement.There is a big difference between killing and molesting someone. My point earlier was just that I didn't feel that one or the other were more or less justified than the other. A crime is a crime.Granted that child on child sexual exploration has been shown to be a normal and healthy thing. I never disagreed with this and yet you somehow distilled out of my post that I think homosexuality, masturbation, and other safe acts of sex are somehow "vile". While some might be outside the realm of my personal preference for sexual activity I do not judge those who do them and in particular I would not chastise my child for exploring their own sexuality. How you you get this out of my post so I can clear up any misgivings? Either that or please, in kindness, back down from this condemning sexually enlightened stance that you have taken.If you want to start a thread about if adult on pre-pubescent sexual activity so we can discuss if it is harmful then I would join in. I am sure there is some material out there somewhere.I openly admit I made assertions. The assertions were my own opinion. If I am wrong then you may call it a personal problem if you like.You seem to not have forgiven me for my prior misrepresentation of myself. My "knee jerk" reaction was due to my own personal anger and had nothing to do with my own personal beliefs on the matter of killing versus pedophilia. I admitted that I was wrong yet you stuck it to me. Please forgive my original remarks said in anguish and cease harping on them.

Great reply. Thank you. Now lets try to drive this thing back on topic. I am going to try to put all this in perspective.We here the posters at EvC I assume are generally from parts of the world considered "western civilization". I might be wrong in some cases but I make this assumption based on the fact that everyone I have seen post speaks english which is a common attribute of someone who has at least been exposed thouroughly to western civ.Now to my understanding, all countries that can be considered part of western civ culturally believe that pedophilia is wrong to the point of creating laws about it and locking up those who practice it with severe penalties. I do not know this for sure bit if challanged we could probably look it up and I am pretty confident that I would me mostly correct.So now we have defined our target audience. Us here at EvC and the culture therof. Within the limits of this culture we will probably find very few who agree with pederasty. Most probably think it is a crime or a sin while a few will agree yet have the more liberal view that it might be more acceptable outside of our culture.In this light of the culture in which this issue was brought up, pederasty is wrong. It is a crime here in the US and I am sure it is a crime in many other countries that share many of the same cultural influences. Basically, we have scoped our issue down to the cultures where pederasty is a significant moral issue.So I hope that we here at EvC can mostly all agree that as it relates to our discussion in the scope of our culture that pederasty is wrong. Any objections?Add to this culture that of the Middle East. The culture there was
influenced by a religion similar to one very prominent in western
culture. They share much of the same moral systems on a basic level.
Middle Eastern culture I would argue shares the moral belief that
pederasty is wrong.Now PG with his post is trying to show that this is not the case. He belives that Islam is an immoral religion and is such because it breaks one our shared taboos. Unfortunatly said taboo is not being broken in general or at least no evidence with any substance has been presented to show such a claim. We really haven't progressed any farther than this.No further discussion of if pederasty is right or wrong need occur because we have put it in the arena where it only applies to people who mostly believe it is wrong. If we were discussing some religion other than Islam of a tribe of people distinct from any political controversy then any practice of pederasty in that culture would be a seperate issue with regards to some sort of global morals.I hope some of that makes sense to someone besides me.

Okay I think we are getting somewhere.I can see where you are coming from with the age of consent. I agree there will be a grey area. There does exist in the same spirit as my previous post though a line to cross and it is just a matter of details where that line is drawn in the specific parts of "our culture" This is where its starts to get a little confusing I guess and I don't necessarily think this really applies. The right to view porn or be a homosexual is very different from the right to have sex with children. The first two involve a personal taste while the second involves the necessary element of a child whom which will be directly affected by the right so to speak. It is different.About distinguishing between pederasty and pedophilia, we would have to ask PG about that but based on the quotes he gaves about sex with young girls and animals it seems like it is more just plain old "perversions" which cover pedophilia and even beastiality.If we switch the argument to homosexuality like you suggest then we introduce a new set of variables that I don't think exist in this particular case. We believe that pedophilia is wrong because we don't feel children are mature enough to make sexual decisions. Homosexuality where it is two consenting individuals might still be considered wrong by most but it dosen't have the association with violent crime like pedophilia. (btw I don't think homosexuality is a crime)Given that though you seem to agree that by some definition most people agree that it is wrong. You go on to give the example of pork eating. This I think actually lines up pretty well with what is going on but to a much lesser degree. I have heard of some who think us westerners who eat pork are disgusting. In the same way PG is trying to elicit that feeling of disgust by associating Islam with pederasty IN GENERAL due to the fact that we think pederasty is wrong. It is different though in its degree due to the fact that a staunch Jew of Moslem would probably tolerate watching someone eat pork while few of "us" would tolerate adult fornication with a child. I guess I still don't. It is all about context and I am glad that we are progressed to this point about context because it seems like a more mature argument. "We" think pedophilia is bad in various degrees. Much worse than "pork eating" or some other more minor cultural difference. PG's arguments have no power without the light of this taboo as it relates to "us". He might not have even thought of making the argument if he didn't expect it to arouse our moral firmware. Since this taboo is shared with the group of people in question (Muslims), we have a case where sandpaper meets skin all because of the specific context in which pederasty is being viewed.What I think you are trying to get at is that if we step back and remove ourselves from this context then PG illicits no responses and this thread gets closed 50 posts ago. He has no power because there is no sense of moral injustice to either jump on the PG bandwagon or defend the falsely accused. Am I understanding you properly?If so then I do agree with you. Should we all be so enlightened as to allow other culture's seemingly criminal acts to be taken as the consequence of diversity then we would not be having this discussion. I guess I am just not sure that is a reasonable expectation especially given that the argument put forth is so seemingly riddled with error AND malcontent.

I don't want to belabor this point but were there any people who were sent to jail for 25 to life for watching porn or engaging in homosexual activities? It was my understanding that these practices were considered mental illnesses rather than true violent crimes. I will admit to only having a passing knowledge of this though.Your analogy with the hypothetical native americans was good in regards to the same structure minus the fact that we believe that the claim of acceptance of said taboo act by that culture is false. It does clarify your point though that given that the culture does consider "our" taboo acceptable there is no point of acknowledging the bigoted argument brought forth by PG.My only concern with that was my own motive for jumping in on this argument was for defense of a culture for which I partially consider my own. If everyone just said "who cares" then the fallacy remains standing going against honest perception even if the argument is belittled to the bottom of forum.It is the same reasoning that many others jump on your average "spirited" creationist even when the arguments are old and silly. It is the sense that you can't leave an unjustified, demeaning, or just plain untruthful statement to be a matter of record without a corresponding refutation. In this case it was even more enticing for me in particular due to the personal nature of the association.I am not quite sure how effective enacting the "so what" argument would have on the fanatical right. It certainly sounds good but seems like it might be impossible to get everyone to agree to it. You can always find someone to feed the trolls. You also might just get a bunch of proclamations of victory which would only encourge the behaviour. Overall I feel it might be better to make sure that they always know that us mostly reasonable people will always be there to let them know that they have not won.As for how I feel about Iranian acceptance of these taboos, I fell that if their is evidence that they actually do and it is accepted in the culture then I would simply know more about Iranians then I do now. I would still consider it immoral personally. I have a feeling though that it probably is not practiced in general even there. One leader who mostly says "good" things and sometimes says "weird" things is not indicative of the general attitude and beliefs of the populace. I would need more evidence to even believe it in the first place though.As it relates to Islam I feel that it would just be another sect that has strayed from the mainstream teachings. The type of Islam that our infamous friend Bin Laden practices is FAR different from that of most of the Muslims that I know personally. Compare this to the different sects of Christianity or just about any other religion in the world and you will always find people willing to read something into their religion to help support their own worldview. Heck, you don't even have to look any further than the YECs themselves here in this forum for that.In regards to how we deal with Iran I think it means that we need to be careful who we send to deal with them considering the fact that under the current administration the representative may be more inclined to be unable to look past the cultural indignation. It is very hard to negotiate with people whom you consider morally inferior. If recent times as telling in hindsight as they are today then you need not look very far for examples of this as well.

No. Clearly this is not a place where free thinking individuals are going to just soak up your rank as if it were ambrosia. Do you really think we are all so stupid as to not see through to your purpose of propagating hatred. And in that same history we can find just as many examples of bastardization of Christianity that promote violence. People are going to find ways to kill in the name of God all the time but that does not make them representative of the true beliefs of a given religion.In fact you yourself are playing in that grey area that leads to the justification others have used for killing for the Lord. The only reason you would ever need to "kill for God" is if you feel like your religion is being attacked and you can demonize a particular group of people as the source. It all starts with hatred and Jesus never taught us to hate our fellow man.Ask yourself this. What is attacking Islam going to accomplish? Do you think that there might be followers of Islam on this board who might believe you and turn to Christ? Aren't we called to be a better example rather than a judge and hater?I honestly didn't believe you claimed to be Christian till I saw this last post of yours. How do you justify your condemnation of an entire people as something a Christian would do? Are you trying to be a good Christian or are you trying to protect your religion?Please don't confuse my passion on this subject to mean that I don't like you by the way. I just don't agree with the way you are acting especially since I feel that you are both wrong and missrepresenting the love of Christ.

By the way. Do you plan on providing evidence other than your biased hersay that Arafat was a pedophile? If not then will you please retract your allegation?

Let me just put it this way. Who are you to judge that Islam is "not conducive to peace, not conducive to the well-being of the people who suffer under its yoke" ? What about judge not lest ye be judged?If you have allegations that Islam is a as you say it is start a new thread. See though in this thread you brought up the allegation that Arafat is a pedophile and that knowing it somehow Palestinians supported him anyway. Let’s see some of the evidence for that before we get on with some different kind of baseless accusations.So far all you have done is show that a particular sect of Islam may condone some things that other do not. You have not show that Palestinians accept this, that they knew about Arafat's alleged pederasty even IF it was true, and ever before you can get that far we need some better evidence for that!You have made an allegation. You are required to back up your claim with proof. Continuing to dodge the requests and move forward with your other righteous proclamations against Islam is dishonest and not becoming of the God whom you represent.

How about one who lived in a family where it was pervasive all his life? The Islam you have in your head is wildly different the Islam practiced by just about ever single Muslim I know.And you are basing this mostly off what? News reports about extremists? Yes there are some in that region who twist the Koran (ignore it rather), focus on the Hadith, and basically have invented their own religion derived from mainstream Islam.Ignoring your misinformed view that of the behavior of a few represent the belief of the whole, you will see that the vast majority of practicing Moslems are some of the most peaceful and reasonable people you might ever encounter. They certainly are much more tolerating then most people have been brainwashed by CNN or Fox News think. In fact, before I became a Christian I was very attracted to Islam due to the fact that its followers conducted themselves so much more appropriately then your average fundamentalist Christian.Maybe you should actually go talk to some of these people and find out what they believe. Maybe then you might also be able to understand them and become a better witness to Moslems instead of just condemning them outright. Turn off your news and your 700 club and go out and actually discover what Islam is before you relegate it to a modified form of Satanism. I never said anything about being politically correct but rather it is better to educate yourself about the truth before you so "rightly" condemn an entire populace.ABE:Oh yea! How about responding to everyone else's posts about that evidence you got for Arafat and the Palestinians?This message has been edited by Jazzns, 12-05-2004 10:47 AM