Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[mishkin]

D&D level:
"Muslims are pedophiles, Catholics are misogynists, Buddhists are cool".

[Iskar]

We even have different fora for each: If you want to bash Islam you go to the mudpit, if you want to bash Christianity you go the Ethos, Mores & Monastica and if you're a buddhist you're probably so avert to controversy that you stay in The Arts.

[Condottiere 40K]

Buddhism is cool, and it's founder didn't tell his followers to go around killing others.

[mishkin]

Personally I do not like any kind of indoctrination. (While I recognize that they look great and lovely).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Abdülmecid I]

Buddhism is cool, and it's founder didn't tell his followers to go around killing others.

Tell that to the Il-Khans, thousands of Nestorians and Muslims were persecuted, in order to be convinced that Buddhism is the one and true religion. Of course, when Ghazan (originally a Buddhist) was converted to Islam, it was the turn of Buddhists to suffer from religious persecution, so perhaps the Mongols were more interested in persecutions than in religious dogmas. After all, Buddhist Mongol Khans do sound like a logical paradox, don't they?

[Iskar]

... or to the muslim Rohingyas recently persecuted by the buddhist majority in the Rhakine State in Myanmar.

[Condottiere 40K]

Don't recall Gautama instructing his followers to discriminate against anyone.

[mishkin]

I think none of us know much about the teachings of Gautama. I just read Siddharta. And I didnt like it. (Hesse sucks!)
Out of curiosity, he spoke against the caste system?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Assuming Siddharta even existed much like I doubt Jesus existed and it's pretty much 100% certain that Moses did not exist.
Buddhism is essentially a fallacious term. Buddhism having begun in India was completely different and practically been wiped out when it first reached China during the Han dynasty. When Buddhism came back to China in the period of 300-600 AD it again had changed somewhat and was exposed to Chinese beliefs and practices thus creating a separate group which was based around Chinese syncretism with this foreign belief. Even still many in China opposed Buddhism due to its foreign nature and what sold people on the idea was the lenient nature of the religion so for example Buddhists pushed the idea that criminals should be forced to work in temples and serve society rather than getting beheaded. Another major religious point of Buddhism was the concept of eternal life even after death which was not necessarily a wide spread religious belief in China. By the time it reached Japan it had already absorbed concepts from China and again was exposed to Japanese values so Japanese Buddhism would have been very far removed from whatever Buddhism was still practiced in India. Tibetan schools of thought also developed in their own way and none of these states which adopted Buddhism ever came close to having a "pacifist foreign policy".

I'm not going to say that on the whole Islam and Middle Eastern people don't follow terrible practices that make us in our current societies turn away in disgust. That said generalizing wouldn't really help us determine who but on average it would be the poor peasantry living in the rural areas that tend to be uneducated and follow certain practices and beliefs fanatically. It really doesn't matter what the first guy preached as people will make excuses to deviate from the first prophet's divine plan and either kill people or become really pacifist. People tend to live as their culture and society dictates and religion usually bends around that in order to accommodate people and gain converts.

That said I don't understand why everyone is railing against Islam when Hinduism has produced equally violent fanatics and I'm talking about recent memory here. But anyone who doesn't believe that Islam has some very poor beliefs and practices should go on Youtube to see the extremely bad and extremely stupid things that some of the more popular Islamic clerics are preaching. Everything from beating your wife to genital mutilation to racism to world domination by force of arms.

[mishkin]

A Citizen there ^

[Prodromos]

The whole thing is rife with hyperbole hardly worth a discussion of any kind. As a former teacher of religion (and I taught Jewish and Christian scriptures), I can assure you there is plenty of rape, incest, child abuse, etc... in the Bible. I am currently living in a Muslim country and I lived in the Middle east for three years, and Muslims are just as adapt at ignoring the negatives in the Koran as Christians are.

Why are Pakistanis not ignoring pedophilia-promoting aspects of Islam?

Behold! I give you an example of Western moral superiority to the heathens of South Asia. Westerners from all stripes of life, genders and ethnicities stand united against pure evil.

[Derpy Hooves]

Buddhism is cool, and it's founder didn't tell his followers to go around killing others.

Neither did Jesus

[PikeStance]

Why are Pakistanis not ignoring pedophilia-promoting aspects of Islam?

Behold! I give you an example of Western moral superiority to the heathens of South Asia. Westerners from all stripes of life, genders and ethnicities stand united against pure evil.

<sigh>
I have taught and personally know many Muslims. I hardly think a "cherry- picked" video would convince anyone except the very naive and those with a predisposition not to question anything that doesn't confirm to their bias.

[Iskar]

Neither did Jesus

To quote Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes and No. Personally he did not do it, according to the bible, but essentially he is inseparable from the father, and the father did tell his chosen people to go around killing when conquering Judea quite a bit. It is a bit of a tricky question to Christians which we usually "solve" by stating that the "new covenant" brings about a different humano-divine relation that no longer involves killing people.

[mishkin]

Why are Pakistanis not ignoring pedophilia-promoting aspects of Islam?

You're using as a reference of Muslim society a very third world country.

[Prodromos]

<sigh>
I have taught and personally know many Muslims. I hardly think a "cherry- picked" video would convince anyone except the very naive and those with a predisposition not to question anything that doesn't confirm to their bias.

The facts speak for themselves. In Western countries pedophiles get beat up. Whereas in the Muslim countries pedophilia is a non-issue, not because it is wrong, but because it is OK.

[PikeStance]

This is definitely not true in UAE, Indonesia and Malaysia. I know in the Ivory Coast (in the Christian areas) it was a common practice for teachers to illicit sex for grades, but this would be cherry picking. Doy ou have any data to support what you are saying or do you always make these suppositions? Hint: if you don't there are NGOs that specialize in this area. I suggest you google them and come back with something more.

[Prodromos]

I can post a list of countries with hundreds of millions of people where pedophilia is, either accepted or ignored. Do you know just how common pederasty is in Pakistan and Afghanstan? Even in the UAE it is relatively common.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 — Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade.

Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.


There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.


Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubai’s luxury hotel towers.


Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai’s status as the Arab world’s paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.


The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.


“They tried to smother this story,” Alex said by phone from Switzerland, where he fled a month into his 10th-grade school year, fearing a jail term in Dubai if charged with homosexual activity. “Dubai, they say we build the highest towers, they have the best hotels. But all the news, they hide it. They don’t want the world to know that Dubai still lives in the Middle Ages.”

a French Youth Takes On Dubai

‘Pakistan’s Hidden Shame’ film exposes widespread pedophilia


“Pakistan’s Hidden Shame,” a new documentary produced almost entirely by a Pakistani team, exposes the pervasive problem of rape and prostitution of underage boys on the country’s streets. While it has already made waves in Japan and Australia, and this week premiered in the UK, it has yet to be broadcast in Pakistan itself.


The 47-minute documentary depicts an unending cycle of stolen childhood, drug addiction and poverty. The scale of the problem is brought to light through a series of shocking confessions and accounts by both victims and perpetrators of child abuse. Bus conductor Ejaz confesses to raping on buses “about 11 or 12 kids” aged between eight and 10.


See also: Rotherham: When the excuse is uglier than the sin


The film discloses some of the bus stations and truck stops where men prey on young boys in the north-western city of Peshawar, revealing that “95% of truck drivers admitted that having sex with boys was their favourite entertainment.” The documentary focuses on the story of 13-year-old Na’eem, to highlight the grim reality of how the victim can become the perpetrator if help and support are not provided in time.

They're all the same.

[PikeStance]

I can post a list of countries with hundreds of millions of people where pedophilia is, either accepted or ignored. Do you know just how common pederasty is in Pakistan and Afghanstan? Even in the UAE it is relatively common. [...]
a French Youth Takes On Dubai
‘Pakistan’s Hidden Shame’ film exposes widespread pedophilia
See also: Rotherham: When the excuse is uglier than the sin

They're all the same.

More cherry picked articles?
BTW, LEDCs are notorious for "dodgy" police work. While Dubai is develop, it has a developing mentality especially towards foreigners. Even China, the last refuge for resolution of a conflict is the police, especially if you are a foreigner. In most of these countries money is the key. If you want justice it comes with a price. I have been told this by both expats and locals about the Indonesian police. The same was told to me in China. Also, in the Ivory Coast. Give you an example; at a road block in Abidjan, I had an automatic weapon pointed at me because he didn't believe all I had was a photo copy of my passport. He was upset because he wanted to take it to "shake me down" for money. In Dubai, a British teacher was deported after having a confrontation with a local Emirati. What you perceive has indifference is pragmatic adherence to money. Justice only exist in developed countries, and even then, there cases where justice is undermined.

[Prodromos]

Not relevant. We are not necessarily talking about treatment by police. I am saying pederasty is very common in Islamic countries and either ignored, or outright accepted, by most people.