Sunday School

[Simon Paynton]

I think the reason why Islam is so strict is that it started life as a militaristic organisation, and has stayed that way.

Another reason has to be the lack of strong institutions in many Muslim countries: without strong institutions, people need religion more, and I think there’s something about this situation that leads to corruption, strengthening religion more and further weakening the institutions.  The wrong people are given too much power and they want to hang on to it.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Another reason has to be the lack of strong institutions in many Muslim countries: without strong institutions, people need religion more..

People need strong governments that have no religion involved. If they had that they would not need religion. Most nations with good governments have good economies and less need or interest in religion once they start to prosper and become more educated. It is religion that is holding them back because it is from the dark ages.

[Simon Paynton]

I still think it’s a puzzle why religious norms seem to be so much stricter than secular norms, where one replaces the other.

One explanation I can think of is that religions require proof of commitment, so they enforce more strict behaviour for that reason.

[Davis]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I still think it’s a puzzle why religious norms seem to be so much stricter than secular norms

Nope. This is sort of the case in Humanist countries like EU, Canada, Australia, NZ and the US but it is not the case in secular countries like China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, parts of the  USA etc.

I think its really important to not overgeneralise about Atheists because they are extreemely diverse sharing only one little thing (lack of belief in God).

As for why European Union countires (which are all secular) tend to have less severe control and punishment than theist-believing countries (almost the entire Muslim world, Ethiopia, East Timor, some parts of Israel etc. is because the source of morality, social laws comes from an extremely brutal and immoral book…which claims its content is truth including bizzarre prohibitions and severe punishments. It is also very difficult to question such laws.

In the european union everyone has to right to question all laws and all morality and all punishments and these laws change frequently, usually based humanist principles.

It’s not puzzling at all

[Davis]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I think the reason why Islam is so strict…

It is strict because in such countries they fulfill two essential conditions:

1 Its based on an Abrahamic bookswhich are all full of ridiculous laws as well as prohibitions and brutal punishment.

2. Religion pervades all levels of society and informs laws and behaviors as well as social interaction.

————————

In the southern usa the first condition applies because the overwealming majority are religious and their religion is based on an Abrahamic book in which the old testamanet is utterly savage, far more brutal than laws and punishments in the Koran. The second condition applies only to a limited extent  (there are notable exceptions but they are incomparable with say, Pakistan). These states have stricter jail sentences and more prohibitions than the Northernn states in which the first condition applies but the second barely applies.

In England and Canada the first condition applies to a very small extent (some are Christians and it is based on an Abrahamic book though a significant part of the population is not christian) while the second condition barely applies (religion mostly stays inside the church). Not coincidentally, restrictions and penalties are far less strict than in these countries than say, the Southern USA

In almost all muslim countries (except in a limited extent Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Albania) the first condition applies (the majority are practicing Muslims and many of their laws and punishments are based on a book with harsh laws and punishment) while the second condition heavily applies: laws in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Chad are directly, if not literally, made straight from their Holy book (filled with extreme laws with harsh penalties) and religion pervades almost every part of society.

It is a no brainer that if laws are based on harsh and strict books and those books concepts and social norms pervade society and the law…that they will be a strict country.

But in any case, Islam is not stricter than Christianity or Judaism (just read their books and look at history when Religion did pervade society). All three are based on equally brutal books. Its just, Islamic societies currently have stricter laws and punishment because it pervades every level of society.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Davis.

[Simon Paynton]

But why is religion strict in the first place?  Where one replaces the other, the religious norms seem to be a lot more prohibitive than the secular, a long list of don’ts.

I think that Ava Norenzayan’s idea (whether he originated it or not, I don’t know) in his book “Big Gods”, that religion requires people to prove their commitment by doing outlandish things, holds a lot of water.

There is also the adoption of the existing norms of patriarchy that the religions took over and sacralised.

[Davis]

Simon Paynton wrote:

But why is religion strict in the first place?

That’s an over-generalisation again. Not all religions are strict. The Abrahamic religions are strict, but they developed from the same original source. It came from a semi-nomadic group of tribal people surviving in a desolate part of the world with social ostracism, enslavement and war. It’s really not a stretch to say that in this hostile and toxic environment a hard and strict set of laws will emerge.

In Hinudism, the religion isn’t inherantly strict. In some parts of India they can hop all over one rule and go crazy with it but in other parts you are left to do as you like. In some regions life is totally segregated and higher caste people get away with almost anything. religious order and morality is heavily enforced more by custom than religious cannon. In other parts the religion doesn’t particularly oppress people except for Dalits. Few Hindu based laws are part of civic law except the most important ones like treatment of cows, respect of temples etc. As for Bhuddism, it is not inherantly strict. There is a strict way to practice the religion (prayers, order of monks and priests, rituals) but there really isn’t that much, in the old texts which are authoritative and stick out. You can always find some strict sounding laws, but they are often part of an obscure book in a cannon of thousands of Bhuddist scriptures. Currently in the Bhuddist world there are only two countries where Bhuddists are beligerant and it has little to do with strict law amongst Bhuddists but instead about civil conflict with those of other ethnic groups (Bhuddists against Muslims in Myanmar and Bhuddists against Tamil Hindus in Sri Lanka). Taoism is even less strict. Amongst animist societies, some are extremely strict and lead to utter lunacy (Albino hunters in West Africa, shamenn in Papua New Guinea) while it is relatively tame amongst others like the Inuit of Alaska or the Blackfoot of Canada.

That’s not to say that these religions still don’t create many problems. But the Abrahamic faiths are particularly insane, brutal, harsh and merciless.

[Simon Paynton]

So perhaps the difference is, in the Abrahamic religions the norms are at a high standard and are strictly enforced explicitly by the religion.

These religions remind me of armies, each in a different way.  Islam even started out as a military and political entity, as well as a religious one.

It’s the Abrahamic religions that seem to really hate gay people, while the Eastern religions don’t appear bothered.  This has to be a lot to do with St Paul, and perhaps the Old Testament.  Otherwise, I can’t think of a reason for them to be especially anti-gay, apart from the patriarchal angle.

I think St Paul wanted people to stick to the patriarchal archetype of the one man-one woman-marriage model of relationships exclusively, especially when Jesus was very anti-adultery.  This is because, Christianity was in opposition to the world around it, and St Paul wanted to mark out Christians as different (i.e.  “better”) through their sexual and family relationships.  When someone wants to be closer to the patriarchal archetype, they’re going to be down on gay people and other variations on the norm.  The exception is polygamy, in most of the world.

When Islam came into conflict with the Christian West in the 19th century, and Ataturk wanted to Westernise (I believe), Islam adopted the Christian practice of persecuting gay people.

This is just one norm.  Other norms have different stories.

This would be the case especially if the “purity / sanctity” (as opposed to “disgust / dirtiness”) moral foundation is activated.  I.e. it’s more “pure” to be closer to an archetype for producing the optimum number of more Christians, Jews or Muslims.

[Davis]

Simon Paynton wrote:

in the Abrahamic religions the norms are at a high standard and are strictly enforced explicitly by the religion.

Only to the extent that the religion pervades every level of society. In countries which have secularised, Christianity and Islam may preach strict control of individuals but that doesn’t transfer into laws or notable social pressure and the harsh penalties are unenforceable.

Even when religion partially wraps its tentacles around society, they do have some stricter laws and some harsher penalties.

That being said, Abrihamic religions aren’t the only strict religions and a handful of Christian and Jewish sects have given up the bible and the disruptive laws and harsh punishments living out a watered down narrative that isn’t that different to humanism.

[Author]

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