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Old 04-20-2010, 12:46 PM   #27
DMcCunney
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan View Post
See, that's where they lose me: The explicit facts that discount this theory are the continued existence of places like Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas and Washington, DC, whilst simultaneously not explaining how you can have an earthquake in the middle of the uninhabited ocean.
The chap making the statement probably knows better. But the middle east as a whole is in turmoil, as cultural structures that have existed for millenia are coming into question, and wider exposure to cultures who do things differently are demonstrating that different approaches are possible.

There's an interesting process taking place in Turkey at the moment, as Islamic scholars re-examine the Hadith. The Hadith is a collection of things said by Mohammed, as reported by relatives and close associates. It is second only to the Koran as the source for Islamic law, and forms the basis for things like the prohibition on a woman traveling alone. The scholars are attempting to understand the context in which the pronouncements were made. When Mohammed said that women should not be permitted to travel alone, for example, the motive probably wasn't a matter of keeping them properly subservient to men. It was intended to protect them, because when the statement was made, it simply wasn't safe for an unaccompanied woman to travel by herself. Given that, did holding the prohibition still make sense in a time and place where it was safe for a woman to travel by herself? Did the Prophet really intend it to be permanent, or was it a response to a specific set of conditions that could be discarded when those conditions no longer applied? I applaud the effort, but I don't expect the process to be easy or peaceful.

Most of this stuff resides on a gut level, and responses are reflex. Questions of the gut level belief can provoke violent responses. (We see that over here among fundamentalist religious types who aren't Muslim.)

It opens the question that there may just be cultures that are fundamentally incompatible. Every culture faces basic problems involved in people living together in groups, where agreement must be had on what behavior is acceptable, and every culture comes up with a different set of solutions that work for it. What happens when cultures with incompatible solutions meet?

Chances are, one or the other either changes dramatically or is destroyed.
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Dennis
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