A letter from I Stewart, convener of Atheist Scotland, appears in the Scotsman (second letter on the page).
“Like the Kirk [Church],” the letter writer says, referring to a previous letter from someone else, “we support the introduction of sharia courts in Scotland for members of the Muslim community.” Stewart continues:
In cases of domestic violence or abuse of women, we feel that sharia courts would give Muslim women the opportunity to resolve their disputes without recourse to the criminal law.
By using sharia courts, Muslim women and their partners would not have to appear in open court and risk the public humiliation of a criminal conviction for domestic violence.
A guilty finding in a sharia court for domestic violence would not result in a criminal conviction and therefore would not appear in a Disclosure Scotland police criminal records search, thus avoiding the potentially devastating effects on the job opportunities of the male partner, particularly in sensitive areas.
Why should a male partner be spared public humiliation if he’s a Muslim but not a non-Muslim male partner who would have to appear before magistrates or in the Crown or Sheriff Court? How does it make it a good thing for women if a sharia court is going to rule, as it most likely will, in favour of the man, because women are treated as second or third class by traditional Islam?
Here’s a good reason why sharia courts are a bad idea.
24 comments:
Good for women, too.
Back when I was in college, some idiots were going around tell everyone, "Islam respects the rights of women." These Islamophiles got nowhere in convincing anyone on campus.
But that was in 1968-1972. Now? I suspect that the lie is believed as truth by most students on the campuses.
Combine these sharia courts with various sharia compliant financial instruments touted as the answer to the current global financial crisis and watch the complete undermining of proprietary rights to Western assets.
PC tolerance and shortsighted solutions with suicidal results.
Recall this quote from Robert Spencer's recent interview with Geert Wilders (Part 4):
Robert Spencer:
Sharia finance is a very grave problem with the wholesale buying up of so much of Western properties, Western capital assets. . .so many things. What would you say to bankers, to financiers, to economists who think that it's a simple necessity to make various concessions and accomodations to deal with the Islamic world and Islamic finance?
Geert Wilders:
I say to them, to bankers as I say to other people that are accomodating . . .It sounds in the short term it might sound attractive to your business but in the long term you will pay the price and the price will be that you will have nothing to say anymore about your investment, about your bank . ..it will be gone entirely. It will be out of your hands. Don't think you are dealing with a Swiss bank or Bank from the Caribbean whatsoever. You are dealing with a bunch of people that at the end of the day want to submit you, to rule you, and want to enforce on you their ideology. You will have nothing to say and you will have helped them making your own grave. This is something that people should be aware of, they should not do.
HRW
«complete undermining»
HRW,
I can´t open that file. Can you provide another link?
Try this anon:
http://global.shariabanking.net/islamic-sukuk-bonds-/islamic-financial-industry-to-benefit-from-uk.html
HRW
Thank you, HRW.
Andy Armitage
Someone should introduce I Stewart to Pat_Condell, maybe he could talk some sense into a fellow British Atheist.
I don't see how any atheist can argue with the evolution of Britain's moral and value system. What was once wrong will in the near future become right. It's all relative - right?
As demographics change, Sharia law will just be the next step in the socio biological evolution of your moral / value system. And, irony of ironies, atheists have made it all possible :-)
Makarios,
You're assuming that all atheists are moral relativists. I can tell you for a fact that is not true, although it is much harder to believe in moral absolutes if you don't believe in God or a divine plan, it is still possible to do so. Most Atheists will never be able to give you a situation where they think rape is okay, just like any other civilized person.
«Sharia law will just be the next step in the socio biological evolution of your moral / value system.»
Wrong.
Makarios, I have 45 years of Ayn Rand's philosophy (if you want to know what that is, I invite you to read her books) behind the atheism I chose at age 17, and damien, it is not harder to believe in moral absolutes without a god having laid down the law, just take a look at what the god of Islam gave them: Sharia. I have no trouble whatever choosing a rational basis for moral absolutes over that stinking morass.
That being said, atheists can be just as mentally lazy, morally corrupt, fundamentally dishonest, approval-seeking, and downright stupid as anybody else. I offer that fool in Scotland as evidence. I share the anger of many women at Palin, but any woman with even the slightest accurate knowledge of Islam who claims it is good for women is a craven evader of a deadly reality who deserves to be stripped down to pasties and a thong and dropped off in the middle of Tehran during rush hour so she can explain her "rights" to the Iranian moral police.
Pasties with tassels on 'em.
And Pat Condell is who I'd like to run for VP with Bolton in the next election. I know he's British but looks like the idiots here are going to elect a non-quite-citizen president this time out so why not get a good one?
revereridesagain,
I think you may have misunderstood what I meant. If one does not believe in a God that tells him right from wrong, its much more difficult to think about morality. A lot of atheists are moral relativists, for that reason since it just comes easier. All systems of Ethics at some point run into problems, and non theists can't turn to a god for answers when they are having trouble with make decisions about morality.
I have heard of objectivism and I have read some things written by Rand and other objectivist. I most certainly don't agree with many of Rand's ideas. One of the things that the Philosophy gets wrong is the idea that it is not harder to accept moral absolutes without the belief in God. I can tell you for a fact that it is. Plus I see many problems with Rand's view of morality. That said, it is way better than Islamic ethics.
revereridesagain,
By the way, I think that Bosch Fawstin is an Objectivist and I appreciate what he is doing with his Infidel graphic novel. Just So you know, there no animosity between me and you. I just disagree with some of the things you believe.
Sorry, damien, I was just all riled up over that idiot in Scotland. It's not sounding like "Atlas Shrugged" any more, it's more like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". I swear the Marxist/Islamist/Racist coalition is replacing functionally rational human beings with Pod People. They even got my own brother.
What other explanation is there for favoring Sharia courts so that wife-beaters will be spared the "the public humiliation of a criminal conviction for domestic violence"? What sort of conviction is a Sharia court going to hand down against a husband who beats his wife black-and-blue? A slap on the wrist for not hitting her "lightly" enough?
They had better be Pod People because otherwise they got no excuse...
revereridesagain,
There are many reasons why the west is failing to stand up for its culture and values. One of them is cowardice. People are afraid of being seen as racists, (which might hurt them economically for one thing) or far worse, getting killed by religious fanatics. Another is that we don't appreciate our freedom, we are complacent, largely because so few people in the west today, know what its like to live under a genuine tyranny. That's something that can be hard to comprehend if you haven't experienced it first hand. Than there are politicians who want Muslim votes and think they need them to stay in power, and there are many other reasons as well.
A «Sharia society» is solely for the benefit of muslim males.
Do feminists know about it?
It's horrifying. People are letting this slide until it will get to the point where they have no choice but to submit or to physically fight to regain their freedoms. When they do experience a tyranny first hand, will they be willing to do what they must to regain our freedoms?
revereridesagain,
I don't know what will happen when they do experience tyranny first hand, by then it could be too late, Muslims on British Isles have a higher birth rate than the natives, Briton may have a large number of fanatical Muslims and the British people may have slowly gotten used to Sharia. Also keep in mind that it is already illegal for British civilians to own fire arms and that was accomplished before they started caving to cultural Jihadist demands. Its possible that if they don't stand up soon, resistance will become futile. This is scary.
WHY DON´T ATHEISTS WHO PANDER TO SHARIA EXPERIMENT THEIR ATHEISM IN AN ISLAMIC REGIME?!
«I´m assuming you meant to say,
«WHY DON´T ATHEISTS WHO PANDER TO SHARIA, TALK ABOUT THEIR ATHEISM IN AN ISLAMIC REGIME?!»»
Damien,
No, I didn´t mean that because atheism is not just talk. It´s about not going to the mosque regularly every week, it is about not praying five times a day towards Mecca, it is about not wiping one´s own butt exclusively with the left hand (right hand forbidden), it is about not scratching one´s balls exclusively with the left hand (right hand forbidden)...
A Christian man and his daughter arrested, almost lynched for blasphemy
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13466&size=A
The letter is satirical, you dolts.
The whole point is that it's absurd to defend sharia law, because that entails defending the indefensible, even if you put it in inoffensive liberal bullshit language - the point is sharia law means wifebeaters avoid court! and get employed in sensitive areas! (i.e. teachers and such) etc.
Richard,
If he intended it as a joke, he made it too convincing to be funny.
I didn't find it funny as such, but it is a decent satirical attack on islamic law. It works (well, for me) BECAUSE it seems half authentic when you first read it. It's just taking the usual liberal excuses for sharia courts and things to their logical conclusion, and thereby discrediting them.
Richard,
Well he did a good job.
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