Today,as usual, I received my usual supply of emails about how primitve Sharia law is.
I personally don't think that quoting Muslim law really reflects the way Muslims generally behave.
The law, particularly religious law, is an ideal and there is an enormous gap between the way people live and the ideal set out in religion.
Normal people don't try to achieve the ideal. This is true for all religions.
We can spend hours trying to theorize why religions, in the name of god, make such laws. Most of them are exremely primitive, like the one my friend quoted, and no matter how much time we spend trying to figure out their purpose we'll never get to the end of it. It's therefore a pretty useless endeavour.
The important thing to understand about laws is that people must only obey laws which they can understand or at least have a reasonable appreciation of the purpose of carrying them out. For example I have a good idea why there's a law forbidding me to park my car in certain places so that even when I don't completely understand why a paricular place has no parking I still keep that law.
The law, particularly religious law, is an ideal and there is an enormous gap between the way people live and the ideal set out in religion.
Normal people don't try to achieve the ideal. This is true for all religions.
We can spend hours trying to theorize why religions, in the name of god, make such laws. Most of them are exremely primitive, like the one my friend quoted, and no matter how much time we spend trying to figure out their purpose we'll never get to the end of it. It's therefore a pretty useless endeavour.
The important thing to understand about laws is that people must only obey laws which they can understand or at least have a reasonable appreciation of the purpose of carrying them out. For example I have a good idea why there's a law forbidding me to park my car in certain places so that even when I don't completely understand why a paricular place has no parking I still keep that law.
But the law of marrying a child or the law of not eating pork etc. etc doesn't really make sense in any circumstances.
It's crazy, in my opinion to try to carry out those laws, to carry out laws that I don't understand the purpose, is madness (excuse me all you religious people).
People should not, under any circumstances try to carry out those laws, they should not try to live up to something that claims to be an ideal just because someone said it was given by god.
Those laws are inscrutable. Only god knows why they should be followed.
No human being should try to follow a law which is inscrutable.
We follow laws today, in modern society, not becaus they are god given but because we understand why they need to be followed. We understand purpose of laws that we keep.
Many religious laws aren't understandable and are therefore best simply neglected, as we say in Judaism, untill the Messsiah comes to explain those laws to us.
It's crazy, in my opinion to try to carry out those laws, to carry out laws that I don't understand the purpose, is madness (excuse me all you religious people).
People should not, under any circumstances try to carry out those laws, they should not try to live up to something that claims to be an ideal just because someone said it was given by god.
Those laws are inscrutable. Only god knows why they should be followed.
No human being should try to follow a law which is inscrutable.
We follow laws today, in modern society, not becaus they are god given but because we understand why they need to be followed. We understand purpose of laws that we keep.
Many religious laws aren't understandable and are therefore best simply neglected, as we say in Judaism, untill the Messsiah comes to explain those laws to us.
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