From: I3150101@dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (Benedikt Rosenau)
Subject: Re: religion in general
Organization: Technical University Braunschweig, Germany
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:44:42 GMT

In article <1993Jan25.083431.9606@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
darice@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Fred Rice) writes:
 
>
>>The suppression of women, a common trait of religions?
>
>Islam helped to give women rights when it was originally preached by
>Muhammad in 7th century Arabia, compared to the pre-Islamic Arabian
>culture.  Today, although there are several secular-style feminists in
>the Islamic world, several are trying to give women back their rights
>which they perceive Islam gave them originally, but which then male-dominated
>culture took away.  For example, one prominent feminist who seems to
>have this viewpoint is Azizah Al-Hibri.  See, for example, Azizah
>Al-Hibri's article in "Women and Islam" (1982), edited by her.  Azizah
>Al-Hibri is also the founder of the journal "Hypatia: a journal of
>feminist philosophy."
 
Am I mistaken or does that Quran say that women have no soul?
 
What I mean is that the societies religions are based upon
determine the set of morals of the religion. For instance, there
is hardly a society known that has not suppressed women, so
religions or better the overwhelming majority of those who believe
in it, carry on to suppress them. In other words, if there are deep
insights in religion, it does not help one half of mankind.
 
Further, religions (though probably not the Right (tm) ones),
help to justify the common view of society, thus effectively
helping to supress women.
 
Yes, there are those who by religion come to see it otherwise,
but even then religion would be too dangerous for the broad
masses, and almost anything conceivable has been claimed by
religions anyway.
 
>
>>The lack of a declaration of human rights?
>
>There are several human rights declared in Islam.  The fact that Islam
>says so much on this issue has sometimes caused Westerners to remark on
>how legalistic the Qur'an seems to be, for example.  I can go into
>further details on this if you wish, but this being alt.atheism, this is
>probably better done via email or via soc.religion.islam.
>
 
Well, yes, but I have seen important rights lacking, and the
very nature of religion makes it a great tool for arguing
that white is black. Like the inquisition, torture is love.
 
And religion usually refuses to adapt to circumstances, even when
something that used to be impossible can be implemented easily now.
 
 
>>The knowledge that one can fool people into believing that
>>belief is not to be justified?
>
>Well, religions do teach that some beliefs are incorrect, but
>this is a trait of practically all coherent systems of thought.
>
 
I can't parse this.
 
 
>>That people who believe in another religion do not know the full truth?
>
>Now this just shows that you weren't reading what I wrote before
>regarding the "Perennial Philosophy", or "Primordial Tradition", which
>was the original posting the above poster was responding to.
>
>As I pointed out previously, the viewpoint that all traditional religions
>are legitimate is expressed in several Sufi writings, and probably in
>the writings of many other mysticisms.
>
 
What I mean is quite simple, even assuming that religions have a common
spiritual core, they differ a lot in many statements. I doubt that a
Sufi would regard a religion that teaches that I should torture and
kill all Sufis as legitimate even when it has originated in the Perennial
Philosophy. As a matter of fact, many religions have taught similar, and
even when the PP model should be true, it does not say anything about a
religion as is. Nor does it say anything what become out of a religion
in a short term of time.
 
 
My point was that religions have a common source, namely human society,
and one hasn't got to go  at great lengths to explain what religions do
almost all of the time almost everywhere. Mysticism or Perennial Philosophy
might have been the cause for many particular religions, but their
influence vanishes quickly. Thus, it is not adequate to explain the
workings of religion through them.
   Benedikt