I know I’ve been absent for quite some time and for that I apologize. But this news tip from Jeanine has delivered me from the depths of despair.
A cleric from the prestigious Egyptian university Al-Azhar has issued one of the most asinine fatwas that I have ever heard. First a little background on the matter. Islamic rule forbids Muslim men and women from being alone together. The assumption of course is that an illicit relationship must be occurring if a man and woman are alone whether at work or elsewhere.
To combat this injustice, Ezzat Attiya, head of the Al-Azhar’s Department of Hadith (teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) has decreed that if a man breastfeeds from a woman then a maternal bond is created, thus allowing the two to work together without raising suspicion of an illicit sexual relationship.
Now I’m not passing judgment on anyone, but having an adult male suckling from a woman sounds like an illicit sexual relationship to me or at least a kinky one :)
If you’re reading this one Mohamed I would love to hear you opinion on this one especially since you’re from Egypt. Hey, did you shoot some video on your vacation? I’d like to see it if that’s possible. Take care :)
No related posts.
OK Sidfaiwu my friend, I can’t find you on another post. Help! Give me clue!
You got it right Mike, and that’s where I want to be, to get me to my point.
You said that Bush and Tony don’t represnt you, the Brits not the Americans, and I know that becasue I live in USA and I see most of the people disgusted with George Bush, but there is people think that he is donig a heck of deal to the humuinity, at the same level Terrorists don’t represent Islam, and most of the Muslims don’t like them, but a few of the Muslims support them.
Terrorist use the religion to get the people do what they want, and you can’t blame the religion, you should blame the people that who went after the wrong ideas.
Do you think Bible say hate and kill and etc, I don’t think so, Islam also like peace and our greeting start with peace not with killing.
Mohamed,
Would you please share your point of view on adult breastfeeding, now that it is confirmed that the prophet and Aisha commanded people to do it?
Although very old, this issue resurfaced on the Islamic world recently, and many sheiks confirmed the evidence behind the fatwa. (take this one for example)
Al-Azhar, on the other hand, just pressured its sheik to apologize and withdraw his fatwa, without offering any explanation on why the fatwa is mistaken. If anything, this shows the Islamic mentality of silencing opposing views instead of utilizing logic.
There is also the division between Sunni and Shi’a, for a Sunni the hadith is legit and should be followed (I wonder how they explain it off) but Shi’a do not agree with the hadith and generally anything concerning Aisha is suspect for Shi’a.
That is just second hand info from a Shi’a so, it might not be that clear cut but it seems to be along the lines at least.
#mohammed
the bible is not a very peace-loving text. especially the old testament reflects the savage times it was written in.
Remember though, Boris, Jesus went in quite a different direction as regards God than those who came before him. I still don’t know myself whether I think that the Old Testament should really even count much for Christianity. His actions also speak in a general direction of peace.
For anyone interested in a clarification about the issue as a whole, do look at this.
From what I can see, it was simply a mistake that a Faqih made.
LOL…rather than spam our comments section…lets trade links with http://www.loljesus.com
http://www.aqoul.com/images/DifferenceofLove.jpg
Nice one Shaze. It actually makes me see both points of view
(lighten up / get a room)
Well, at least we know the two Muslims are not jealous. I mean, if they were then they would pretty much be going straight to hell it seems…
Nice one indeed.
Mohammed:
I like your point of view. I suppose that no matter what your religion, or where you are, it’s your own personality that matters. All power to Islam if it works! Certainly, Christianity is looking a litle bit weak right now…
There is a lot of wasted energy debating and fighting about religions, I hope people put their money and effort devloping Africa, where kids die every day.
It’s really frustrating for me when I hear news about Iraq and Muslims, but I can’t forget about kids in Africa too.
Hey Mohamed!
Even many of the problems in Africa have religious causes.
Biggest problem in Africa: AIDS
Leading cause of problem: Unprotected Sex
Largest religion in Africa: Catholicism
#1 agenda of the Church in Africa: Vilify Condoms
Easiest solution: Get the Catholic church to change its position on condoms and promote safe sex for the good of all Africans.
Will this ever happen? Not any time soon. In this situation, religion is in the best position to do an enormous amount of good and end the suffering of millions simply by modifying their dogma. But, as usual with religion, they make dogma more important than human suffering. This is my primary objection to religion; it puts belief before people.
So you see, Mohamed, promoting a secular world view by debating and arguing about religion is putting effort into helping Africa. Though I agree that fighting about religion is fruitless.
Last Saturday my youngest daughter was married, and some good friends of ours (my best man and his wife) came along. They are Christadelphians, who are English Christian fundamentalists. Non-trinitarians, they told me. We argued for hours as we always do, me promoting pacifist-militant Atheism and them banging on about God. We had a whale of a time and today I sent them a thank-you note. Not for coming to the wedding, but for the discussion. We remain good friends.
If only everyone else could work that way!
I think we may have set a precedent for a peaceful world.
As for Africa, I’m a big fan of Johnny Clegg and his band(s). (SA). Did you know he came from Rochdale UK? He’s known as the White Zulu and has immersed himself in the culture. Again, live and let live. Sorry if this sounds like rambling but I think the central point is the peaceful co-operation of different peoples, be they religious or ethnic.
I heard tonight that Bush and Putin are going head-to-head for another cold war. Please, guys, just get to the bar and have a few cold ones. Sorry to sound like a redundant 60′s hippie, but peace is probably the better option – in religion, politics, race or whatever. Can’t we just be mates?
So church prohibit sex with condom, and don’t prohibit sex with out marraige, don’t you think it’s little bit werid LOL.
You just mentioned Aids, but you forgot a lot of things, dieasease never has been the crisis of any nation, the lack of education and knowledge is the crisis for any nation, you have poverty too, you have a lack of water.
It’s really shallow to say Aids(I didn’t mean insult), there are a lot of things, not just one.
@mohamed
yes, there are many issues. AIDS is a huge one though. people are uneducated and don’t understand the consequences of unprotected sex. but they listen to the church. so the church is in a position to do a lot of good, and once again does exactly the opposite.
So they will listen to the church in one matter which is not wearing condoms, but they don’t listen to the church when they say don’t have sex without miarrage.
I have no business in defending the church, it doesn’t make sense.
http://secularskeptic.blogspot.com/2007/06/my-road-to-atheism-part-1-what-took-me.html
Hello Mohamed,
Infectious and communicable disease is the leading cause of death in the world, especially developing nations. Furthermore, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death due to disease in Africa (click the link “Deaths by WHO Region [xls 1.47Mb]” for the Excel spreadsheet with the actual numbers).
I was not forgetting Africa’s other challenges. I was limiting my focus on Africa’s largest problem. We can tackle poverty after the economic burden of caring for the sick is removed.
Yep. One message is inline with the desires and natural tendencies of men: not to wear condoms. The other message goes against human nature and is a message men and women don’t want to hear: no premarital sex. It only makes sense that more people will follow the church on one issue and not another.
Poverty is another problem that would be partially alleviated by making the use of contraceptive a moral dictate of the Catholic Church. Most women would cease to have children they cannot afford, less energy devoted to child rearing would mean higher productivity potential, and a lower birthrate would reduce any overpopulation problems.
So I stand by my statement that religion is making Africa’s biggest problems much worse.
sidfaiwu,
It’s not about who is standing by his own statment, and who is wining the argument.
You still trying to stick everthing to religion, and you avoid a lot of valid points for Africa problems. If they have aids, that’s because a lack of religion, and I didn’t want to mention that before, that’s the truth, if they follow what the religion said, they wouldn’t get Aids in first place. Although I didn’t want to mention it in the argument, because it’s too late now to mention it, the solution for their problems is past this point now.
@Mohamed,
Iran has a lot of religion, doesn’t it?
from: http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=27489&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
“The trend of transmission has changed from intravenous drug users to high risk sexual behaviour,” said Minoo Mohraz, a doctor and specialist in Iran’s official AIDS Association, according to AFP.
“People cannot afford to get married so young, and are getting married older. The gap is being filled by more prostitution,” she said.
Just 7,510 people in Iran carry HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS, according to official figures,
But experts point to a likely figure of at least 40,000, saying this is disguised by a lack of testing facilities and the unwillingness of sufferers to come forward.
“AIDS is still largely a taboo, and policy makers have for a long time been in denial, and people who are infected or fear to have been infected do not come forward because of the social stigma associated with AIDS. In our culture we have a problem with high risk behaviour and extra-marital sexual activity,” Mohraz told AFP in an interview.
Huh. Only 40,000. Perhaps religion does work to stop Aids. I guess time will tell. I hope for everyone’s sake that it does.
Hello Mohamed,
I need a little more than that. Do you have an authoritative reference or statistics?
For a more authoritative source, there is this publication from the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization that backs up what Recovered Catholic was getting at:
So religion does not help prevent HIV/AIDS infections, but in fact promotes it.
I know that religion is not the cause of all of Africa’s challenges, but religion is making Africa’s most devastating problem much worse when it could be making it better.
People can say they are Muslims, but they don’t apply it, so what would happen, they will get Aids or what ever dieases, does the religion help, it depends if the person apply what his religion told him.
What I mean if people applied what religion said, they wouldn’t have Aids.
I don’t care about Iranian and Egyptian, they prohibit what god allowed, and that’s why they ruin themself.
It’s the most diffculit thing to get marry in Egypt, and that’s against Islam teachings, because the girl parents need a lot of money and certain kind of apartment, and that’s against Islam, people should make marraige easier according to Islam teaching, so when people get dieases, that’s because lack of religion, it doesn’t matter if you are Muslim or Christian.
Religious bans on premarital and extramarital sex have always and will always fail. I know Christianity expects failure to follow God’s law perfectly, I’m sure Islam has a similar expectation. Thus religion is not sufficient to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in the first place. Once people have it, it promotes the spread of disease by stigmatizing those who have it. In a ‘perfect’ world where everybody follows one religion without fail (I would call this ‘Hell’), AIDS would not spread, but (fortunately) we live in the real world, were people are going to break the rules, especial with regards to sex.
Opinion time: When religion contradicts human nature, that aspect of religion should be thrown out.
My talks with teenagers who don’t use protection in US Catholic schools reveals a interesting viewpoint. The teenagers want to have sex, even though it is forbidden by the Church. They can do it in private, when their parents aren’t home, without any fear of being caught. So they do. However, they are afraid to buy condoms, because they are terrified that someone from school or church will catch them. So they have sex without protection.
Africa is in a even worse situation. Since many of the medical supplies are donated by religious-based organizations, condom availability is low in rural areas. Even in urban areas, condoms are only to be found at clinics and doctors. Shops will not carry them because they are not profitable and they fear being boycotted by the church.
One thing that you are forgetting, Mohamed, is that there are many people in the world who are only claim to be of a religion because they fear the social repercussions of doing otherwise. Teens in Catholic school would be shunned and excluded if they said that they were Muslim, Buddhist, or a secular humanist. What would happen in Egypt if a young man or woman decided to convert to Mormonism, or become agnostic? And what happens in the portions of Africa that are dominated by Catholicism when someone decides to be Jewish, or Taoist, or atheist?
The main point I’m getting at, is that the religions are suppressing condom use at the expense of the non-religious members of their society.
See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10907912&dopt=Abstract
And what would happen if somebody (allegedly) says something bad about the prophet? Well, he clearly gets the death penalty! (see http://www.dailyherald.com/search/searchstory.asp?id=319066 )
That’s what is happening when laws are for the god(s) and not for the men.
Agreed on all points, Andrew.
When I was attending High School, there were three girls in my class who became pregnant. Interestingly, all three of them had previously attended a local Catholic School for the entirety of their previous education. This school teaches the abstinence only approach to sex, and we can see how well that works out.
Abstinence only education in developed nations, or the absence of any sex education as is the case with many developing nations, is absolutely pointless. As pointed out before, people can and will have sex no matter what any silly organization tells them.
When religion contradicts human nature.
Religion always contradicts the bad human nature, when you want to steal, religion tells you don’t steal, when you want to get easy money with our wroking, religion tells you that’s forbiden, when you want to drink and do a lot stupid things because drinking, religion tells you not to do it.
By the way, I have a book now for Karen Armstrong, she is christian nun, and she wrote about Muhammed, I recommend you to read this book if you are interested( which I’m sure you don’t want to)
Prove that it is human nature to steal, be lazy, over-drink, etc. I doubt it is true for most individuals. If religion is the only thing keeping people honest, then why does one of the world’s most non-religious societies, Japan, have one of the lowest crime rates of the industrialized nations? Why, as a non-believer, am I not drunk and doing stupid things right now? Is that not my nature?
You have a very dim view of your fellow human, Mohamed, if you assume everyone is a lazy, drunken liar at heart. I, on the other hand, believe that most people are honest, hardworking, and sober.
Oh, and I am eager to learn more about Islam, I only have a couple of things preventing me from doing so. First, I already have a reading list 20+ books long. Second, Islam is such a big subject, it’s tough to know where to start. I’ll look into the book you suggest when I have the time.
Just out of curiosity, sid, what kind of stuff is on your list of books to read? I have a similar issue with books and the getting to them, but I’m always up for something new.
Hello Snurp,
Here’s my current reading list to the best of my recollection:
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (currently, but slowly)
Why I am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russel
Just and Unjust Wars by Michael Walzer
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
Thomas Paine: Collected Writings
The Burning Tower by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Flatland by Edwin Abbott
Idlewild by Nick Sagan
American Gods by Neil Gaimon
and a few others that I’m sure I’m forgetting since I don’t have my bookshelves in front of me.
Oh yeah! I forgot to include a book about the philosophy of Spinoza (I’ve been told I would like his theology), I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter, and the last Harry Potter book, of course.
“Thomas Paine: Collected Writings”
Hell yes!
Other than Paine the only thing off there I can remember reading was American Gods and, of course, Harry Potter. Gaimon is interesting, to say the least. I’ll have to take a look at some of those others, especially Russel, who I’ve been meaning to get to.
I’m trying to remember what I know of Spinoza’s system (his main work being The Ethics). I’ve read a bit, and if I remember right it started out with self-evident axioms and worked down as a deductive system. I was never much for that kind of writing, though, so I sort of started spacing from there. Someday…
I won’t bother putting a list of my own for now, since it mostly just consists of “whatever I can get” (living in a small town is not good in that way), but generally I’m following through the history of philosophy right now (currently reading Leviathan) and mixing in some Dostoevsky for good measure.
If you’re doing Dostoevsky, don’t miss Crime and Punishment. It’s one of my favorite classics. Also, Leviathan was heavily quoted in The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, which I read last year. Now that is nearly 3,000 pages worth reading!
Hah, I’m on Crime and Punishment right now! Dostoevsky keeps me company during those long pauses at my job when there’s little else to do. I’m also looking forward to Brothers Karamazov whenever I get around to it.
I suppose I can put here, while I’m at it, at least an idea of the books that I have collecting dust at the moment. I try to read at least a good 80 to 100 pages of philosophy/literature each day during the summer, and here’s the philosophy currently waiting on my desk:
Locke, Second Treatise on Government
Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonus
Kant, Foundations for a Metaphysics of Morals and The Metaphysics of Morals
Hegel, Reason in History
Mill, On Liberty
Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic
James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (this is bound to make the discussions here more interesting :) )
Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philisophical Investigations
So far this summer I’ve read Nietzsche (pretty much everything), The Tao Te Ching, Augustine’s Confessions, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, and Descartes’ Meditations. Add to this some epic poetry, Montaigne, the Abrahamic texts, and some works on early America and you get the jist of it. It all may take a while…
Berkeley’s Three Dialogues is one of my favorite philosophical works! Have fun with that one. Let me know if you want to discuss it when you get to it. I think that might be fun.
Descartes’ Meditations is another favorite of mine. It taught me what it means to be a complete skeptic.
To be honest, while it was certainly an excellent work, I started getting a bit irritated while reading the Meditations. “What? When the hell did perfection become reality? I don’t find this in my mind! What? Clear and distinct ideas are true because God is a nice guy? Damn you Descartes!!!” I guess reading too much Nietzsche can do that to you, though. Now there’s a guy I can deign a skeptic. Because, as we all know, and as Hume would like to tell us, ‘causation’ and ‘mind’ are for pansies ;)
Oh, don’t get mistake me, Descartes got it wrong by the end of the Meditations. I was referring to the skepticism in the first part, the assumption of an Evil Deceiver. The last couple Meditations are just novel ways of looking at the Ontological Argument. The real challenge Descartes has left us with is how to show that our senses are not systematically fooled; and to do so without reliance on a good God who would not permit such a grand scale of deception.
Agreed.
I suppose I should elaborate a little more. The way I look at it, Descartes had the right idea, but was just unable to push it as far as he could have. It seems that rationalism like Descartes’ has difficult going to the utter extreme of skepticism. I consider myself a skeptic, and I see the challenge not as finding solutions to all the doubts we can generate (since we can take those infinitely further than any answers we can come up with), but with understanding the assumptions we make when we think. What do we act on when we make a claim about truth, and what do we already think to be so? It’s only too bad in the case of Descartes that the first meditation was the shortest one by far.
That is so well put, I don’t know what to say. You summed up by skepticism in just one sentence! I guess the only thing I would add is that as a skeptic, I try to keep my assumptions as simple and as few as possible.
Ok, tell me one thing, does it mean that we should stop using law to organize our life?
Don’t take my words in general, you shouldn’t think that I meant you or anybody else, there are people who doesn’t need any correction to be good, but there are people needs know what they should do and what they shouldn’t.
Religion is not the only factor in behaving, you have to put in consideration the values and tradition too and the enviroment.
If you went to somewhere in ME, you would see that sometimes religon keep this people going, without religion they would starve and die, because their govener left them poor, the only thing keep them going that you can feel the Islam spirit driving them.
You can’t even imagine that how there is no law in Egypt, somehow these people makes it up by religion.
I don’t want to talk about Egypt, it gets me really mad:)
Mohamed, I think that it could be said that religion, law, and customs are all parts of a way of life that is shared within a culture. It is true that many people need these to keep going each day. It is also true that there are people that would do some scary stuff if they didn’t have a “cultural roof above their heads”. However, there are also people who do not need these things. The problem comes when those who do need such restrictions and explanations start to limit those who do not (and the other way around). I have no problem with people who are deeply religious. However, I expect that I will not be discriminated against just because I don’t agree.
There is a problem, of course, in that there is a tension between the two. Those who need a cultural boundary will feel very strongly about it being enforced, and those who don’t want it may look down upon those who need culture. I feel that the American ideal of generally keeping religion and culture (in theory – I know culture is a large part of the American system) out of the law works best. People can have their religion, just don’t hurt others who want their own as well.
Also, to sid:
“I guess the only thing I would add is that as a skeptic, I try to keep my assumptions as simple and as few as possible.”
Absolutely. When I mentioned Nietzsche as my skeptic of choice, I meant it. His effort regarding metaphysics, ethics, and the like was to destroy all the assumptions and dogmas that had piled up over the millenia. Nothing is sacred for him in theory. Likewise, as philosophers we must watch ourselves to see what angle we are looking at an argument from, and I often find myself asking, “Why do I think this is so?” I find that these days my first approach to any argument in philosophy or any topic is to immediately ask, “What is the background? What circumstances could this have come from?” When we can also ask this of ourselves and be unafraid of the answer, then we are doing our job right.
Hey Mohamed,
Your thoughtful comments are what makes you one of RF’s most interesting contributors. I don’t respond often to your comments because I know so little about Islam and don’t feel that I can contribute much to discussions about it.
I truly wonder what percentage of the populous needs religions and/or laws to keep them honest. My guess is that it is a small percentage, but I have been known to be overly optimistic.
Also, be aware that I do think religion does have some good qualities. It’s just that the bad qualities overwhelm the good in my opinion. My goal is to help people realize that there are ways of practicing religion that is good. The ideals of fairness and reciprocity that form the moral structure of religion is the very same one that secular humanism is founded on. Religions differ from humanism in it’s immoral emphasis on authority/obedience and the creation of in-groups (and, therefor, ‘evil’ out-groups).
I’m really sorry to hear about Egypt. I’m not sure, but I’ve assumed that you’ve immigrated to the US from there (please let me know if I am mistaken). I can’t imagine being away from my home country and returning to find it had changed for the worse. I would love to go to the ME someday. I’ve heard that the people (by and large) like Americans despite the rhetoric of the governments. I would love to get a feel for what it’s like for the average people actually living in those places.
I hope you can go to Egypt one day, and you will see that Egypt with out religion would be scary place to be in, it’s already turned to a wild place to be in, it really hurt me last time I visited Egypt, People changed to the worse, and I can’t blame them I only can see what the gov turned the peopel into. It was really horrible experince, I think people wants to resist, but they don’t want to face the government in Egypt, everybody scared about his family and afraid that if he dies resisting the gov, who would take care of his family(which is against our religon) to worry about your family if something happend to you, and I’m not going to put my self as an exception. I wished if I could do web site showing the bad things that our gov doing, but I scared they will do something to my family in Egypt, or accuse me as spy when I turn back there.
Gasmonso, are you fine? No news from you since a long ago. Please post _anything_ just to let me know you’re ok. ;)
bless you!
Sweet titty-fucking Christ Man,
What’s it been, 2 months without an update? What happened to letting sid post in yer absence? I know there has been no shortage of religious freakery, lately; and the people here need fresh public outrages to comment on.
Won’t somebody please think of the children? Also muhammed:
Your views of the Egyptian government are marred by your beliefs; try attaining a perspective from that of someone purely interested in the benefits of the whole population, rather than a religious majority. Only through government, will things like universal healthcare, water/air regulations and many other proven, socialist programs work. You people need Democracy. It takes the power away from the Rich people in countries, and give s it to everyone by means of vote.
Agreed, an update is greatly needed.
I’m sure Mohammed means if the woman breastfed the man when he was a child..