Observations

Well, Duh!

I came across this item from Asia News, via Spero News, which publishes my columns: “In a unanimous decision, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) of Pakistan on March 31 ruled that a woman forced to have intercourse (zina-bil-jabr) should not be considered guilty of adultery, but should instead be viewed under the law as a victim of rape. The ruling de facto modifies the Hudood Ordinances and represents a great step forward in Pakistani Law.”

I hardly know what to say; it seems so obvious to those of us who live in the civilized world. Things like this in the Islamic belief system baffle non-Muslims, compounding the confusion created when adherents of the so-called “religion of peace” hijacked airplanes and crashed them and their innocent civilian passengers into buildings occupied by other innocent civilians.

A belief system that does not tolerate any other belief system, even if it was always peaceful in its intolerance, is foreign to the Western way of thinking. A belief system that holds itself superior, and considers non-believers inferior as a matter of philosophy, is inconsistent with Western ideals.

There are a lot of Muslims in the world; approximately 1.2 billion. But all totaled there are 6.5 billion people on Earth, and that means only one-in-six Earthlings is a Muslim. Significantly, there are nearly twice as many Christians as Muslims. Such facts lead me to believe that if Muslims are going to survive and live in harmony with the rest of us, they must learn to accept that most of us do not believe as they do, and they must adapt to that reality. Fortunately, many of them, and perhaps most of them, are able to do that.

It is a positive sign that Pakistan has counteracted one of Islam’s ancient and barbaric customs, but not every Muslim group has renounced this ridiculous practice, and there are other customs that are equally uncivilized and irrational.

So Islam has a lot of work to do to evolve into the 21^st century and become the great belief system its adherents imagine it to be. The quicker that happens, the better for all of us.

Technorati Tags: Religion, Islam, Radical Muslims