Why has God allowed religion to be so tribal?

[Jason118]

There is so much solid teachings in religious dogma and so many warm and kind people who practice. Why has it all come to this, or was it ever thus?

Sure torn, I am impressed actually that the questions have waited this long to be asked. What does the Quran say about Homosexuality, Abortion, women and war?

To only say what the Quran says about those issues isn’t a complete picture as islam’s Laws are also derived from the Hadith which are a separate body of religious scripture based on the sayings and conventions of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. The Quran is regarded as God’s word, the Hadith are Muhammad’s. Muslim religious law is derived from both sources but the Quran is the higher authority as it was standardised and has since been unchanged since 6 years after the death of Muhammad pbuh. The Hadith were compiled some 200 years after the death of Muhammad and whilst a lot of effort went into verifying sources and narrators/narrations most religious disagreements and disputes are based on interpretations of them!

Part of the easier think about being Muslim is that we are expected to be backward and regressive so we have a lower threshold to be seen as reasonable than Christianity does!

But you didn't answer the question.

You implied that Islam was a simple and easy to understand faith, but I'm asking what it tells us about homosexuality, abortion and women etc...

I believe it probably has the same issues Christianity does - that's it's far from simple and various interpretations exist (plus both Islam and Christianity) still have to contend with popular opinion.

Yes, Islam is perceived as 'backward' (by some) or certainly not very progressive, but equally Christianity could be perceived as lacking in conviction and far too willing to compromise its beliefs in order to win votes.

Abortion is allowed in Islam in certain cases based on the Hadith of Muhammad pbuh that the foetus has a soul from 120 days. The timing of ensoulment affects religious law in lots of ways. Some Scholars allow abortion before 120 days gestation for any reason, others for conservative sake will say 30 days. If the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother then unanimously abortion is allowed right up until full term. If the foetus has a disability found from scans of abnormality found from testing some scholars allow abortion for that reason but it.
But the idea of ensoulment means birth control methods that allow fertilisation but prevent implantation are also allowed because it’s only a day or two after fertilisation and well before 120days.

The Quran says not to kill ones children for fear of poverty, and it also prohibits female infanticide specifically, so abortion due to sex selection or economic reasons is definitely out. But the Quran also says that no mother should suffer on account of her child or no father, so for health reasons for mother or foetus, or for children too closely spaced together to allow attention for good upbringing, it can be permitted.

Birth control was allowed in Islam by the prophet Muhammad pbuh because of his distaste on hearing that men were having anal sex with their wives to prevent pregnancy. He pbuh forbade That because he regarded it as harmful but allowed the pulling out method and scholars deduced from that other birth control methods were permissible. For this reason conservative Muslim women do not have the conflicts around birth control as catholic women do. But then it’s also this that sets Islam’s position on homosexuality too that it is not allowed. Muslims generally mind much more of the Qurans proscriptions than Christians do of the Bible, some much more obscure or invasive, so it would take a lot longer to set those teachings aside.

As a westerner I understand the legalisation of homosexuality and marriage as a cultural response to the issue of imbalance. The imbalance issue, the problem of over consumption of the worlds resources and the issue of their running out is seen in the west as due to overpopulation. Lgbt can almost be seen as a virtue and legitimising the way for people to self selectively take themselves out of the human gene pool is easier than placing restrictions on people having children as happens in China.

But the imbalance and mans overstepping the bounds of sustainability is seen in Islam as caused by another problem. Not overpopulation but the effect of a usury based economic system. Usury is forbidden in the Quran because it encourages profit making from lending money that leads to hyper materialism and hyper consumption beyond what people can themselves earn to consume. Ignoring God’s law on this issue we believe has led to an ailing creaking ecosystem and planet.

Capitalist political economic systems say it is from overpopulation and have a liberal secular solution to that (not the tyranny of enforced abortions or sterilisations as in China).

Religiously conservative societies have their own solutions to population control: no sex or children outside of marriage, no marriage unless economically able. Birth control is allowed and also abortion in certain cases but always within marriage. Not as a way to legitimise sexual relationships outside of marriage.

Sorry to add, my point made in my post last night ‘easily referenced and easily understood’ was about the purpose of life in Islam compared to the approach to it in Christianity. Not on other religious issues where we have many different opinions on law based on multiple scripture interpretations even with the same Quran followed by everyone!

I think Christianity is just as simple on essence... Be a nice person, do what God wants and you will be rewarded, but also have a more enjoyable existence. I think most religions operate on this.

Lgbt can almost be seen as a virtue and legitimising the way for people to self selectively take themselves out of the human gene pool is easier than placing restrictions on people having children as happens in China.

So Allah is okay with you being gay so long as you don't have children with your spouse?

With regards to using the Quran as a source of sex education I'm really not comfortable consulting a book the says a blokes sperm comes from his spine. ^^ 😂

"Now let man but think from what he is created! He is created from a drop emitted - Proceeding from between the backbone and the ribs:" S. 86:5-7

no I was talking about in western society headinhands where most countries legitimise lgbt relationships and marriage because those people are doing a virtuous thing of going childless. almost taking one for the team because in heavily indebted heavily consumerist societies it’s a workable solution rather than reining in consumption or lowering people’s material expectations. no guilt about kicking debt and environmental problems down to the next generation either if birth rates are in managed decline and having children portrayed as an active - and increasingly selfish- lifestyle choice.

Except in pretty much every country where same sex marriage is legal, it is also legal for ss couples to have children. Not just through adoption either, but also using methods like artificial insemination which add to the population. And countries with low birth rates still have gay people.

My understanding was that the Quaran implies that death is the penalty for homosexuality.

The Quran doesn’t imply any punishment for homosexuality at all, (nor does it prescribe death penalty for adultery or apostasy). The Hadith are where such pronouncements are found but even then, not in the Hadith collections of the strongest narrations. However the active laws against homosexuality in the Muslim world are not even derived from scripture but the historical punishments made by latter Muslim rulers and kings after the death of Muhammad pbuh.

Muhammad pbuh vehemence against anything connected to homosexuality was known such that he allowed birth control for couples on hearing they engaged in anal sex to prevent conception. Thus his pbuh issue was not childlessness. Nevertheless a gay Muslim is considered the same as a Muslim who is adulterous, or who drinks alcohol, or eats pork, it’s not a sin heavier than the others but considered on the spectrum of actions that carry sin. And also, of the sins that are against oneself, not sins that are against others. (The latter regarding a more elaborate process of repentance than the former.)

segmentation artificial insemination from donated sperm is not allowed even for married couples in Islam so it is not due to discrimination against gay/lesbian people. As for adoption or fostering, taking care of orphans is highly praised in Islam and can be done by single people and is an honourable route to parenthood.

Certainly the issue of countries with low birth rates is not just to do with legalising homosexuality. The last 40 years have seen plummeting levels of fertility amongst western men with sperm counts halved, and no explanation in sight. rather than be accountable for that it’s much better to portray those low birth rates as due to deliberate lifestyle choices rather than the public health crisis that it is.

www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/29/infertility-crisis-sperm-counts-halved

Legalising homosexuality is a viable even logical solution to the looming demise of the natural world to those who think it is overpopulation that is the problem. But Islam rationalises that the voracious consumption of the worlds resources is due to other man made forces- constructed usury based economic systems that encourage hypermaterialism and hyperconsumption. And the only way to act on that is to learn to live within the bounds and balance that God has set. religion helps to teach self soothing mechanisms and behaviours that make people more emotionally self reliant and able to withstand (or at least inhibit) consumer pressures.

Both stances are logical deductions to the problem of man’s imbalance with nature but it’s different starting points and worldviews that set which solutions are viable.

Nevertheless a gay Muslim is considered the same as a Muslim who is adulterous, or who drinks alcohol, or eats pork, it’s not a sin heavier than the others but considered on the spectrum of actions that carry sin.

So, from what you are saying, homosexuality, alcohol consumption, pork consumption and adultary are all equal sins in the eyes of Islam? So what is the penalty for such sins?

The last 40 years have seen plummeting levels of fertility amongst western men with sperm counts halved, and no explanation in sight. rather than be accountable for that it’s much better to portray those low birth rates as due to deliberate lifestyle choices rather than the public health crisis that it is.

That would be an argument from ignorance. The reason for declining fertility rates is, as yet, unknown. To assert that, in the absence of a better explanation, it must be western lifestyle choices would be a fallacious argument.

Legalising homosexuality is a viable even logical solution to the looming demise of the natural world to those who think it is overpopulation that is the problem.

How is legalising homosexuality a logical solution to this perceived problem?

But Islam rationalises that the voracious consumption of the worlds resources is due to other man made forces- constructed usury based economic systems that encourage hypermaterialism and hyperconsumption. And the only way to act on that is to learn to live within the bounds and balance that God has set.

Again, an argument from ignorance. How would one conclude that living within God's bounds is the only solution, especially before the existence of such a God has been demonstrated, let alone demonstrated that any text we have actually outlines the bounds of any god?

religion helps to teach self soothing mechanisms and behaviours that make people more emotionally self reliant and able to withstand (or at least inhibit) consumer pressures.

I would disagree. In some cases, this is perhaps true, but religion also teaches servitude and encourages people to accept that they have no ultimate control over their own fate which in turn can lead to them flouncing responsibility for their actions and allowing a god to take their blame for them.

Both stances are logical deductions to the problem of man’s imbalance with nature but it’s different starting points and worldviews that set which solutions are viable.

I don't accept that these are logical conclusions because they have premises which cannot be demonstrated to be true.

Which argument is from ignorance wiseold? that the economic system drives overconsumption? or that the solution to that is God centred? I think you meant the second part of my statement but I’d like you to be clear.

As to legalising homosexuality as a logical solution in the western mindset:

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/784449

Lots of things clicked after I read this article written by a gay activist about how he found a higher noble purpose for the lgbt lifestyle. I didn’t agree with it, but I realised and understood a lot more of the current preoccupation for the legalisation of homosexuality throughout the world after I read it.

As to why western Male fertility rates have fallen so sharply these last 40ish years, it has only been a phenomenon in the West not in the rest of the world as the article said. That would point to something environmental or lifestyle based. But there is hardly any outcry or concern over investigating it because we have slowly become accustomed to the notion that having children is a lifestyle choice not a human right and moreover, it is a selfish choice, overburdening an already overloaded planet. Thus the childless, not just lgbt, who in days gone by were perceived as too selfish to have children (very unfairly), are now instead seen as the selfless.

But it is also unseemly that the part of the world that consumes 80per cent of the worlds resources - though only containing 20 per cent of the worlds population - argues that overpopulation is the cause of dwindling resources.

some religions or even strands of religion can teach fatalism, Islam itself means ‘peace through submission to the will of God’ and there is a tendency to fatalism in that. But it certainly doesn’t mean doing whatever we want and letting God take the blame in any scenario. It means recognising the constraints of God’s revealed laws as well as natural laws and working within them to optimise as best we can our living conditions and also performing our stated purpose.

As to why I believe in the Quran as a book from God, lots of reasons. But the smallest and easiest to verify objectively is this: the Quran made a statement 1400+ years ago that God himself would protect it from being altered as had happened to the earlier holy books. And that is a statement not meaning much to the early Muslims but as centuries go by and it stays unaltered that Quranic claim grows in its significance to latter Muslims. And that is without a central religious authority in Islam nor a religious hierarchy to oversee it. But pick up a Quran published in 2018- whether you think it’s gobbledegook or not- and you find exactly the same content and order as a Quran from the 8th century.

I presume you are referring to the second argument from ignorance which I highlighted. In which case, yes, your assertion that the only way to act on that is to learn to live within the bounds and balance that God has set you cannot logically conclude that this is the only way just on the basis that you can’t think of any other way.

I don’t understand how legalising homosexuality is a solution to population control. It’s not like by making it legal that suddenly more people will be become homosexual and therefore not procreate. It’s a ludicrous suggestion.

As to why western Male fertility rates have fallen so sharply these last 40ish years, it has only been a phenomenon in the West not in the rest of the world as the article said. That would point to something environmental or lifestyle based.

Even if it’s true that it’s only in the West, it doesn’t necessarily point to something environmental or lifestyle based, it could well be, but it’s not been demonstrated yet. This is the other argument from ignorance. We don’t know why this is the case, so to presume something in the absence of being able to come up with anything else is simply not a defendable position and to then apply the second argument from ignorance that following God is the only solution to a premise which is fallacious in the first place just leads you further and further from a logical and reasonable solution. Apart from that fact that an environmental cause may not have anything to do with people following God, are you suggesting that fertility rates should be higher in believers than non-believers? Islam is not a strictly non-western phenomenon.

But it is also unseemly that the part of the world that consumes 80per cent of the worlds resources - though only containing 20 per cent of the worlds population - argues that overpopulation is the cause of dwindling resources.

Perhaps, but this has nothing to do with religion.

Islam itself means ‘peace through submission to the will of God’

I remain unconvinced of why I should submit anything to an entity which has not been demonstrated.

The fact that the Quaran remains unchanged is hardly a strong argument for God. Its far more likely that because it was written in the book, Muslims have identified this as an important tenant of the religion and ensured that it remains unchanged. There are literally hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of books which have not changed since they were first published.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy. It doesn't count as an accurate prediction of the future.

‘Apart from that fact that an environmental cause may not have anything to do with people following God’

If you read upthread I never brought up the low fertility rate point as anything to do with God. Rather it’s that the western countries that have advocated legalisation of homosexuality are also countries facing this problem. That’s nothing at all to do with god you won’t find that point anywhere at all. And certainly it’s something that affects men in my family as much as anywhere else it’s not to do with faith or some wrath of god conjecture!

Nevertheless a gay Muslim is considered the same as a Muslim who is adulterous, or who drinks alcohol, or eats pork,😁

What about a gay Muslim cheating on his wife while swigging a can of Stella and eating a hot dog? Are they 4x sinning or because they're the same strength is it still 1x😬?

I'd like to know the hierarchy of sins. Like worst to most minor. What about a woman showing her hair?

Depends where it is

more emotionally self reliant and able to withstand (or at least inhibit) consumer pressures.

Can you give an example of a time you were more able to withstand consumer pressures because of your religion?

Muhammad pbuh vehemence against anything connected to homosexuality was known such that he allowed birth control for couples on hearing they engaged in anal sex to prevent conception.

So Muhammad had a problem with anal but Allah didn't? So before Muhammad turned up married couples were okay and allah was all 'you're cool bro'. But then as soon as Mohammad got an inlking about it, it became wrong and if you do it after Mohammed put pen to paper allah doesn't like it too. So Mohammed gets to tell allah what's what.

Dear head, Muhammad’s people were pagans and polytheists, not monotheists like Jesus’ people. So they hadn’t had a Prophet come to them and he pbuh was their first introduction to the abrahamic laws. Lots of the minuscule laws of the Old Testament were new to them, some came by the Quran some came from the words of Muhammad. He himself gave the Quran more weight and warned not to let his words and opinions get mixed up with the Quranic revelation. Some of the things conveyed from him are eighty per cent verifiable, some 60, some 40. The variations in laws and practise amongst Muslims is partly due to differing opinions on the verifiability of those statements. But again, from Muhammad pbuh statements is why’ve birth control is allowed and also abortion in some cases.

As to bring a gay Muslim, it’s like breaking any of the rules of the religion. Adultery is considered a major sin and there are those who commit it, harsher statements against other sins in the Quran have been found but some Muslims still engage in them. As long as they’re not harming anyone else then whatever of their imbibing, their revelling, their indulging etc is between them and God and God is merciful to forgive. But their purpose for us is for our benefit we believe, not God’s.

As for withstanding consumer pressures, not for ideological reasons but the result ends up to consuming less. One big no no is getting into interest based debt for acquiring anything, if you don’t have the money at the time to by it you go without.

The self soothing mechanisms are those to do with prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, that help build up emotional self sufficiency. Structured Secular meditation and mindfulness would do the same thing.

There is the answer right there

Abrahamic laws

God seems to keep making amendments, and man keeps constructing new interpretations of these ammendments. That's why it's tribal.

Although it's rather difficult to convert to Judaism. Membership is not open to all.

So if homosexuality is a sin, but not impacting anyone else, it's just God who cares, but God is merciful..... why is it a sin. If there's no comeback on it, why even bring it up?