From: faris@sarcasm.trl.OZ.AU (Aziz Faris)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Re: Reason vs. Morals
Date: 15 Oct 92 22:38:06 GMT
Reply-To: a.Faris@trl.oz.au
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne,Australia

In article <1992Oct13.043824.24063@cs.umb.edu>, ahmad@ra.cs.umb.edu (Ahmad Hashem) writes:

|> 
|> If a law prohibits killing and some people do it while hiding it, this is 
|> hardly an argument that the law is against the human nature.
|> 
|> As to consuming alcoholic beverages, it is difficult to show how alcohol is 
|> a need of the human nature that Islam should have accommodated.  On 
|> the contrary, just consider the medical and social problems it causes 
|> to Western societies.

Alcohol is not part of human nature, But human nature would like the freedom
to chose whether alcohol is good or bad. Alcohol is not a social or medical
problem to western society, those people that are dependant on it are the
problem. If alcohol was not invented, they would use something else. Those
people use alcohol because they may not be able to cope with their own problems.

My original statement is primarily that Humans would like to choose. religions
and in my opinion both Islam and Judaism tend to exert excessive pressures
to box human nature and follow strict codes.

A jewish rabbi was asked about how the Jews are the chosen people. His response
was " We are only chosen in the sense that we must follow very strict laws
that only few people can adhere to". There is a very famous arabic proverb,
al methal al arabi that states " They put the dogs tail in a cast for 40
years, when the cast was removed the tail recoiled". Have you ever heard of
this. Judaism has failed to curtail human nature and Islam also attempts to do
so, and many people cannot adhere to it.
|> 
|> Again, it is difficult to show how this disagrees with our human nature.
|> Even in America, acceptable/lawful dress codes differ between men and women.
|> 
In america and other parts of the world (including the orient) women do not
cover themselves from head to toe. Men don't do that either. Women in the
M.E. before Islam wore the finest cloths, perfumes, and the arabic culture
adores them as evident by our music and poetry.
|> 
|> Well, you are mistaken in both points.  Quran makes it clear that
|> "Let there be no compulsion in matters of religion : truth stands out
|> clear from error." (2:256)

In Islam it is a stated fact "those that revert on their religion shall die
by the sword". I don't beleive in the existance of a god based on Judaism,
Christianity (my former faith), and Islam. Don't you think other people have
that feeling but they can't choose. I beleive religions are teachings and
they are needed as Voltaire once said "even if there is no god we should
invent one". But those religion should not dictate every aspect of ones life,
they should be teaching morality and social behaviour.
|> 

|> 
|> One wonders why you changed Othman's sentence completely and stated it this
|> way.  What Othman said was (as quoted in your msg, BTW):
|> "We just cannot pretend that a man will not be sexually aroused when he sees
|> SOME PARTS of a woman's body" [my emphasis].  I think this is VERY
|> different from saying that "every time a man sees a woman he gets sexually
|> aroused."  I see no need to comment any further on your reply to something
|> that was never stated.

I agree, I should not have said every time he sees a women. I apologise for
getting carried away. However, my point is still valid, if a person is not used
to seeing women covered gets those sexual erges, this is primarily because he
is not used to it and easily catches his vision. Not every one in western
soceity gets sexual erges when they see women around them, those who do are
few, I cannot beleive that if a women is covered that those erges are
eliminated. We in the M.E. have rape, but women cannot report them, they
would be labled immediatly as whores and be an outcast in soceity.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic