Exactly....

My parents were both from different forums of Christianity, my father from an Evangelist Family my mother from a Mennonite Community. They give reasons to have tolerance for others why in some instances such as my grandfather on the Mennonite side didn't seem to in the past (The poor guy is going into a nursing home soon anyways). I try to look at different aspects of either different denomination or religion itself. The ones that seem to fit are either from both The Bible, the Quran, and even the I Ching.

Sometimes each fundamental system has its flaw, yet we learn to adapt from it. Its like how I didn't realize my aunt was gay. I looked at her as a person instead of a wreck like some people do. I just don't like how some things are placed in the "misunderstood category" For an example, Christians view Muslims as only "Thinking in a group", but when you put one outside of the group that is willing to listen then it works out okay.

This guy that my parent's knew in Pakistan was what the Muslims and Western Societies call an Imam... he is an example of someone from outside of that group. These people for instance that I listed give examples of tolerance each day, Unlike the Westboro Baptist Church or other forums of "supposed Christianity" do not.

My mistake, then.  I'm sorry for offending you, Genesis.

Its okay Fnord no offense taken

Then we're cool?  That's a relief!  I hate being wrong, but I hate even more to be wrong AND to offend someone in the process.

ANYway, back to the topic ...

I think Shariah law (along with jihads and martydom by murder-suicide) is a hostile, repressive belief system that makes Islam look worse than it should.  Sorta the same way that the Inquisition and the Crusades gave Christianity a bad reputation.  But that's just my opinion.

However, British Law and by extension American Law draws quite a bit of inspiration from it.

We have Shariah courts in the UK, as well as what I believe is called a "Beth Din" - a Jewish court (though I am no expert) - however, they are secondary to the Crown Prosecution Service, and they must abide by our laws and are limited by them; In addition, if needs be, they can be overridden by the CPS.

This post was last modified: 06-02-2010 04:35 AM by ῦ.

The nasty things like murder-suicide and terrorism that people think of as Shariah are as much a perversion of what Islam is actually about as the Crusades were a perversion of what Christianity is actually about.

Shariah is actually a kind of legal system. A rather nasty one with some nasty punishments (stonings, amputations), but almost certainly a lot fairer than what was practised in Europe at the time. Remember that the prophet was a product of his time and his culture, and by the standards of his time and his culture he was humane and progressive. But by modern standards..... not so much.

At the time of the prophet women had no rights at all. A man could marry a woman and treat her as a possession, and he could simply discard her along with any children she had borne as and when it suited him. The prophet laid down a set of rights and protections for women that was light years ahead of anything that existed in that part of the world at that time. Of course, by today's standards those rights are not considered to be all that progressive. Unfortunately Islam is not a religion that is really designed to "move with the times".

Too few are.

The only one that I can think of is "Unitarian Universalism".  It seems to be whatever individual followers might make of it.

I know some of the people I know from High School through facebook follows that. Just what exactly is Unitarian Unviersalism?

Click on Fnord's link and you'll find out.

I've only encountered two Unitarians, both online and both very different.  One is a Unitarian minister, a lovely woman, who has a blog called "Beauty Tips for Ministers" and the other was MaxtheBear, who was less than lovely.

I think MaxtheBear was way before my time on here....

Yes, you're right.  Consider yourself blessed to have missed him.

Yep.... *laughs silently*

I'm guessing that those Shariah courts that you refer to are only for civil disputes and minor criminal disputes.  For small crimes the police will allow the victim to drop charges and the matter can then be resolved in a legal manner in some other forum (an arbitration of financial compensation would be one option, vigilante action wouldn't).

For civil actions a state operated court is not required.  All that's required is that all parties agree to abide by the decision.  Like Judge Judy.

It's not as if Christian groups don't have their own pseudo legal system either.  Periodically someone acts in a way that appears to go against the running of a church and they have a procedure for determining whether that person will be invited to the church in future.  Some churches appear not to have such things, the Anglican church in Australia (at least in the liberal parts such as Melbourne) offers communion to anyone who believes that they deserve it (explicitely including members of other churches).  So there obviously isn't any potential for excommunication.  Anglican vicars could (and probably do) mediate disputes between members of the congregation, but this would be a private matter and would lack the formality of a court proceeding.

One thing you can be very sure of is that the nasty things which people think of when Shariah is mentioned (such as stoning for adultery) is not happening in the UK.