In case anyone hasn't seen Pew Reasearch poll

[Rhinodawg]

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/


What's most interesting is in a "moderate" country like Egypt,

74 percent of Egyptians support making Sharia the law of the land
70 percent favor corporal punishment for crimes such as theft(subset of those who favor making sharia the law)
81 percent favor stoning for adultery
86 percent support the death penalty for converts from Islam


I'm speechless.

[Fred Sanders]

1. With regard to punishment, those percentages are a subset of those who favor making sharia the law.

[Rhinodawg]

5. Thanks

[progree]

9. Why don't you make that clear in the OP? There's an "Edit Post" link below your post

74 percent of Egyptian *Muslims* support making Sharia the law of the land

Of those favoring making Sharia the law of the land --

70 percent favor corporal punishment for crimes such as theft
81 percent favor stoning for adultery
86 percent support the death penalty for converts from Islam

Of all Egyptian Muslims (*):

52 percent favor corporal punishment for crimes such as theft (70*74)
60 percent favor stoning for adultery (81*74)
64 percent support the death penalty for converts from Islam (86*74)

*My math. Assumes that of those who do Not favor making Sharia the law of the land, that NONE of them support the above measures. Given how whacky, inconsistent, and illogical some religious people are, that probably isn't a good assumption, so the above percentages may well be considerably higher.

But it is a peaceful religion, of course.

[Adrahil]

42. Still very horrific numbers.... I'm speechless! n/t

[progree]

64. "Still very horrific numbers" -- yes I certainly agree with that. nm

[hifiguy]

61. The last couple of hundred years of civilization have passed

these yahoos by. Sad to see this in the modern world.

[whatchamacallit]

2. What do you hope to accomplish with these daily posts?

Seriously.

[Rhinodawg]

3. Education.

a lot of people have seen these actual polls.

[whatchamacallit]

7. The pattern would suggest persuasion rather than "education"

[Silent3]

15. Is there something inherently wrong with trying to be persuasive?

I find many objections to attempts at persuasion to be a case where the right to hold an opinion is confused with a non-existent right to be shielded from arguments against that opinion.

[whatchamacallit]

18. Review the poster's history

'Propaganda' would be an understatement.

[Silent3]

22. I suppose I could do that, but in the case of this thread I think it would be beside the point.

The OP contains very useful information, information that should be persuasive to those who like to pretend that religion should always be held either blameless or of hugely less importance that other factors of culture and politics and economics -- as if those other factors somehow exist in isolation from religion in places and cultures where the influence of a particular religion is strong.

[Rhinodawg]

25. Thank You.

[closeupready]

19. Amen, whatchamacallit, to everything you've posted in this thread.

And isn't it funny how those on DU with biases against muslims are fine with the bullshit methodology in the cited poll, presumably because it affirms their biases, rather than shed light on their bigotry?

[Rhinodawg]

26. LOL

[closeupready]

27. Considering you know ZERO muslims, I do think this describes you well.

Perhaps you think someone somewhere appreciates your zealotry...? Jesus would have told you to take your zealousness and shove it.

Anyway, I'm done with you and your bullshit.

Bye!

[Rhinodawg]

35. I wont say anything snarky...thats not my style.

Maybe you should step back and look at facts.

I used to think like you but facts are facts.

But feel free to attack me.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. This is why the "arab spring" in cairo was such a fucking disaster.

A small group of urbanized secular egyptians deluded themselves into thinking that anything other than theocracy was replacing the vile mubarak dictatorship. It is a truly shitty situation, replicated elsewhere in the region. I honestly don't what, if anything, can be done, by anyone.

[NaturalHigh]

6. I'm betting that a good portion of those 81 percent...

who say they favor stoning for adultery have engaged in a little bit of it themselves. They want other adulterers stoned.

It's sort of like men who favor harsh penalties for prostitution. A lot of them have seen the inside of a brothel.

[Rhinodawg]

8. I'll bet with you.

[Rhinodawg]

10. kick

[Lex]

11. And what would Christians in this country support?

Making Christianity the law of the land?
Making corporal punishment for crimes such as theft?
Favoring stoning for adultery?
The death penalty for those who are practicing Shira law?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. I suspect it is very low

I don't know if there are polls but I suspect if you randomly polled Christians you would find very few who would use the force of law to compel people to become Christians, would use corporal punishment on thieves, would support stoning for adultery (Jesus specifically spoke against that practice), and favor executing Muslims.

[fasttense]

40. I don't know where you have been lately but

Numerous Christian fundamentalists have come out in favor of stoning and using force to finish taking down the wall of separation between church and state. They especially want to force gays back into the closet and have used murder to stop abortions.

In fact the frequent bombing and killing of people who are involved in providing abortions by Christians has been unrelenting and extremely vicious. So, your Christians are just as in favor of violence to force their views on the rest of us as are any other religious fanatics.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

45. I have little empathy for fundamentalists whether they be Christians, Jews, Muslims, et cetera....

That being said my interlocutor said Christians favor stoning. Even someone with the most rudimentary knowledge of Christianity knows that's inane.

"They kept demanding an answer, so he (Jesus Christ) stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!"

-John 8-17

Now that we got that out of the way can you direct me to the documented cases of Christians advocating or actually " stoning (people) and using force to finish taking down the wall of separation between church and state" ?

Also, one murder is too many but can you direct me to the documented cases of Christians using lethal force to close down abortion clinics? I suspect it's less than a handful.

Also, can you direct me to the documented cases of Christians advocating violence to "force gays backs into the closet"?

Thank you in advance.

[VanillaRhapsody]

53. I understand your point....but I think the statement that numerous support stoning for adultery

to be not true....thats just one of your points though. But I do think you are exaggerating how many many feel this way.

Just like on DU ...they are a vocal minority.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

55. Eighty three percent of Americans identify as Christians...

Eighty three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians yet same sex marriage is legal in thirty six states and hopefully by the end of the year will be legal in all fifty, abortion is legal in all fifty states, and the separation of church state still endures.

And Christians oppose stoning for adultery. It's expressly prohibited. It was settled two thousand years ago.

Making up shit about Christians isn't going to solve the problem that many Muslims hold antediluvian views

France, England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Mexico...are all nations with Christian majorities or pluralities and the rights of gays and women are largely protected.

There's polling data out there. The majority of lay Catholics in the U S favor some abortion rights and same sex marriage. I suspect the numbers are roughly the same for main stream Christian denominations.

[GummyBearz]

67. Uhoh

Level headed logic has no place in this argument... look out!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

69. I would make a small caveat

There's also a East versus West component involved. My remarks are mostly about Christians who live in the West.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. I will try to be diplomatic and truthful

Having an agenda and stating inconvenient truths are not mutually exclusive.

Good god, when are those folks going to have a reformation and consign those antediluvian views to the ash bin of history.

[oneview]

13. The problem is, Wahhabism and Salafism ARE the Islamic "reformation." --

Just as Luther and Calvin were "reformers" as they looked back to the orignial text of Christianity to form their religion, the Salafis and Wahhabis did exactly the same: for them, back to the Quran and the Hadiths.

[hifiguy]

62. Yep. And it is a fucking horrifying theology/ideology

straight out of the stone age.

[Rhinodawg]

63. Careful...

Some will alert on you.

[Rhinodawg]

16. My favorite..

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. I don't want to beat up on Islam ...

That being said I don't understand the prohibition on proselytizing and conversion. If you religion is indeed appealing let people voluntarily choose it.

[closeupready]

20. Look at the methodology. It's nonsense.

I suppose one could argue it's the best they could do in a country with a society like Egypt's. But nonetheless, it is what it is - not a very good way of conducting polling.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. The Politics Of The Middle East was my minor in grad school.

A professor told me about a survey they did on teen age sexuality during the Shah's era in Iran. When the results came back they were so shocked they decided not to publish the survey. But Iran is a special country during the Shah era where secularism competed with Islam.

It would be nice to know how those folks really feel about stoning, proselytizing, conversion et cetera.

[closeupready]

24. Agree. I know a number of Egyptians, all of whom are more liberal than

what we've all seen from the threadstarter.

Peace.

[Silent3]

23. Is the methodology so very broken that it would utterly transform...

...what appears to be a shocking level of support for barbarism into a vanishingly small level?

Errors could be as big as 40% in many of these cases and the results would still be appalling.

[closeupready]

29. The methodology is so bad, it makes this exercise pointless.

Finessing about precision of numbers and such. But by all means, have fun with it.

[Silent3]

32. So you deny that large numbers of Muslims support crazy things like...

...stoning adulterers and executing apostates? Or do you propose that the study is so, so very badly done that all we can do is throw our hands in the air and say no one really knows at all what kind of support is out there among Muslims for these Sharia excesses?

[closeupready]

36. I personally know probably three dozen muslims (maybe more, if I counted), from all over the world.

Trinidad, Guyana, Pakistan, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, India, Senegal, Turkey, the UK and France.

NONE of them condemns gay people, or women, and ALL of them support the laws as they exist in the countries where they reside. Some of them are gay, some are women.

Do they wish that things would be more regressive? Perhaps so, but they have not told me that. If they did tell me that or if I sensed a fundamentalism about them, I would steer clear.

What this implies (to me and my experience) is that muslims living in the West support democracy. Certainly they support it more than those Americans exhorting to ship out immigrants who object to certain political beliefs.

[Silent3]

47. You're complaining about methodology, but take personal experiences...

...as a more accurate reflection of reality? Do you realize the irony of that?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. Personal experience can be misleading

I know many Muslims but most of them are western oriented. I asked one if he was a practicing Muslim and he said "f--k Mohammed" I asked another if he drank alcohol. He cynically said "I gargle with it." I remember when I was about twenty four years old and I was in a indoor pool with my buddy and this young woman from Iran. He dared her to kiss me and she did. She was so pretty.

I wouldn't infer much more from that other that Muslims like some Christians and Jews turn completely away from religion when it shoved down their "proverbial" throats.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

65. This reads like bad satire.

You're simultaneously attacking the methodology of a poll, and advocating using anecdotal evidence instead.

[Rhinodawg]

68. Earlier in the thread you told me to "shove it"

Mirror time.

[Fred Sanders]

38. Kind of like the way Fox does polling...like they did in Vermont on radical liberals.

[Rhinodawg]

71. Any proof of that ?

I'm waiting.

[closeupready]

30. I was sad when I had only 4 posts to my screen name, Mr. "Islam is Religion of Peace"

Rush told me that...

[closeupready]

33. You seem like a malicious intruder, yes.

I do think that.

[Fred Sanders]

39. Yes, I second that. Why they think they are being clever......but the OP will attract them.

[e-cigdub]

41. Im worried as well

Hey Closeupready,

I have a low post count as well. but im worried about islamists in western countries as well. my family actually immigrated to the usa from the middle east. I guess for me it is a double edge sword. On one hand i do think its important to be vigilant against extremist ideology when it comes from religion (im agnostic) but i also worry that if a lot of attacks happen or if the feelings towards middle easterners change dramatically in the western world that people like me would suffer. Once racists or people who are angry get mob mentality.. me being a agnostic and someone who hates islamic extremism wouldn't do me much good as i would be lumped in the same group because of the way i look.

[Fred Sanders]

58. Thank you. First they came for the Muslims, then they came for Aethiests, and so on and so on.

The hate stops now.

If only the media wold stop forwarding terrorist propaganda so widely for free..it is a recruitment bonanza for murderers, it is giving them what they want - why are they doing this?

[meti57b]

66. Actually, first they came for the Jews, and they haven't really yet decided who to come for next.

[Rhinodawg]

74. Actually, I think they ONLY came for the Jews.

[alp227]

59. Sure is.

Last edited Sat Jan 24, 2015, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=320377&sub=trans

[treestar]

57. It's not a threat to the West

From this poll, all I gather is they are a threat to themselves.

It's not the religion per se. All religions liberalize over time, and Islam seems to be last. It had been getting better but Western interference made it a political point.

[hrmjustin]

34. I am having a difficult time believing this poll. n/t.

[Rhinodawg]

43. I understand where you are coming from.

it is tough.

[kelliekat44]

37. And this was AFTER the coup of the elected government. nt

[Nye Bevan]

48. Imagine a poll showing that 86% of Christians in the US want abortion doctors to be murdered.

I'm pretty sure that the reaction of DU would be....... different.

Those numbers are very sobering.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

50. In another post a poster argued

-Christians want to stone people who favor the separation of church and state
-want to kill abortion doctors
-want to force gays back into the closet.

Eighty three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians yet same sex marriage is legal in thirty six states and hopefully by the end of the year will be legal in all fifty, abortion is legal in all fifty states, and the separation of church state still endures.

Is there something wrong with that picture?

[LiberalAndProud]

51. If these numbers are accurate

I think we are seeing what happens when speech is curtailed.

[oldandhappy]

52. Brutal

[Arugula Latte]

54. Religion -- Warping and Damaging Minds for Thousands of Years

[Cicada]

56. these percentages are limited to those who think sharia should be law of the land

but still scary

[Nye Bevan]

60. which is 74% of Eygptians, a fact which is in itself scary (nt)

[Rhinodawg]

70. No reason to be scared...

In a Few hundred years it will all calm down.

[Rhinodawg]

72. And must women always obey their husbands ?

well, apparently yes..

[Rhinodawg]

73. And western entertainment ?

almost all greater than 50%