Hopefully a question in the spirit of genuine inquiry will not void your charge not to microquote this post.

You have mentioned the westphalia business several times before. Can you elaborate. Namely, my impression (albeit from time long ago and pretty skimpy even then) was that the dominant geopolitical consequences of the westphalia peace was the establishment of sovereign nation states, often with the sovereigns being monarchs. However, in fits and starts (and often imposed by European powers), the middle east, north africa and west asia all are entirely composed of precisely the sovereign nation state model, indeed often with monarchies.

So in what way does this particular thing contribute to your conclusion that islam is worse than christianity? It seems like a wash, even if we accept the comparing the cultural systems in europe to that of the middle east as a proxy for our comparison of islam and christianity.

Alright i guess. I still think most people who think Islam is worse then other regions based it on their view of Islam more then race. But its not like something i can prove.

And to just state it as a matter of fact like Cwocwoc is inevitably going to be wrong since there are non white people (even Semitic people) who view Islam as worse. Are they racist.

People who don't think racism can be a factor in islamaphobia are kidding themselves IMO

Who said that...

I think you are viewing the alleged connection a bit backwards. For instance, suppose you see someone who looks like an arab. maybe you find out that there name is hassan. You don't know anything about their religious views, but because there is a connection of people that look a certain way with Islam (this thing people think of negatively) the negativity gets pulled onto the person who looks a certain way. As in it is more "looks like a muslim, therefore bad" then it is "looks like a brown person, there islam bad". This is not to say it is not the latter of these at all. Indeed, I am sure it is the case that because many muslims look different we are less willing to give the kind of nuance and subtly and benefit of the doubt to islam that we might for, say, mormonism where the people still look like us.

Alright.

They do in the UK. The racist party I referred to earlier banned all non-Caucasians and were anti-Semitic and homophobic as well. Anyway racism is irrational and it's just as racist to target one group as to be racist in a scatter-gun manner.

A reminder for those who want to know Islam:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...-i-try-706309/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...-allah-438656/
Even if you should not be a racist, one can easily tell that you don't like rantionalism and you love slogans and phrases.

That doesn't mean anyone/everyone who thinks Islam is the worst religion is racist. Calling the op or anyone racist without digging deeper is wrong. Its a pretty important word and accusation and by using it so freely you only lessen it and the cause to end racism.

I don't think we should give racists a free pass. Most people who are blindly prejudiced against Islam are also racist against the people from Muslim majority countries. In the UK they are anti-Pakistani. That's who the Islamophobia is directed against and the words "Muslim" and "Pakistani" are used interchangeably by the racists.

I dont think we should either. Just think you should know someone is before you tell someone they are.

Oh, there is without doubt many people who criticise Islam at least in part because they are prejudiced against Islam and/or its practioners. The irony is when this is used as an argument against criticism of Islam.

I don't fully understand the question. Obviously institutions work differently in different countries and different parts of the world - I'm unclear as to why this should be very important.


The main effect of the peace of Westphalia is that it moved switched sovereignity from "status" to "state". Status was very briefly explained the "right to rule", and in effect little else than "might makes right". "State" on the other, institutionalizes the country as an entity responsible for its actions - independent of ruler.

In conjunction with Roman law (and a few notable french philosophers) this would give us the state as a judicial person. You (if you are an inhabitant of a typical western nation or a democratic state using a similar model) can face your state in court as a person (with the state as the defendant), and the contract between you and your state is essentially the same as a contract between two persons. Combine this with the reformation, and what you end up with are states that can be held accountable by its citizens and where religion carries very little legal power (or maybe more correctly; would later come to carry very little legal power).

It can be said in a simpler fashion: The Abrahamic God doesn't do wrong, and you can't sue him. His "human judges" are typically holy and beyond reproach. This is not a very healthy basis for a legal system.

Right. My point was that today - largely as product of western colonialism - the islamic world today is, much like Europe, itself organized as sovereign nation states as well. As in, from what I am aware, the dominant effect of the peace of westphalia was largely a geopolitical shift towards such sovereign nation states and one which is adopted by the muslim world today. On this point alone, I don't see what difference there is between muslim majority and non muslim majority countries today. As such, I don't see how this point contributes to the idea that "Islam is worse than Christianity" (although of course my criticisms of such a ludicrous claim are not restrained to the irrelevancy of this particular subpoint)

Yes, thanks for the repeat post. Obviously - if you are not willing to examine the combined effects of historical events, you are essentially arguing against history as a source of criticism against anything. In that case; we have nothing to discuss.

It is very difficult to know where to begin. I guess I can just say the most important bit; the removed wiki article you plagiarize talks about possible Islamic influence on early common law (aka "English law") - which is not the predominant legal system (or the source of it) in western democratic states, which would be civil law (the descendant of roman law).

Other than I have to admit that I am struggling to reply to you in any greater depth. If you lack knowledge this basic, there isn't really much I can say. The development of our modern legal systems is a complex affair, and I'm only semi-interested dabbler myself.

Uh, I tried rephrasing my point because you said you didn't understand it. I have no problem talking about combined effects, I just don't see how the dominant effect of Westphalia - namely the geopolitical organization into soveriegn nation states - is a difference between the two since precisely this organization is adopted (or imposed) throughout the islamic world. It seems like a similarity, not a difference. That isn't to say that there are not many other historical factors that potentially make differences.

I have absolutely zero horse in this race (outside of the assumption that almost everything cwoc says is nonsense on its face), but its irrelevance should be pointed out. As in, the relative amount to which Islam in history influenced the development of modern legal systems seems to have very little bearing on answering that "islam is worse than christianity". Even solely using the lens of "contrasting legal system in muslim majority countries with legal systems in non muslim majority countries" seems like a pretty terrible way of answering that question, and this historical point is a sort of even more minor proxy for that.

If you don't like ideas that are new to you then get abusive if you don't like the poster seems to be your solution. That will keep you permanently ignorant. Who do you think that the Europeans are going to copy ? What they see in front of them or a bunch of miniskirted Italians from a thousand years earlier ? Use your commonsense uke_master even if you prefer bigotry on the basis of poster name.

It's you that lacks any knowledge as you will not open your mind to things you don't know. Why didn't you read the link asdf included ? You might have been able to reply more sensibly then. As it stands your reply is nonsense.

I'll try and make this as simple as possible:
In western democratic countries we have our current legal systems due to a series of contributing historical events which made the legal system an institution of an state and not religion. For this to happen, there must be a concept OF state. Nobody in this thread has said that the Peace of Westphalia alone somehow proves that Islam is worse than Christianity.

Hopefully you understand this now.

In contrast, in muslim countries (with the exception of Turkey) the legal systems are largely the result of a series of contributing historical events which have made the legal systems an institution of religion and state, also known as the Fiqh system of law. The exact form varies; sometimes Sharia is incorporated into official law while at other times the countries have dual legal systems. Why is this worse? Fiqh law is very bad at recognizing equal rights, and the lack of civil law concepts often makes the courts beyond reproach. I also personally find religion as a valid legal code to be abysmally bad.

This is not the case in the UK. The head of state is also the head of the church. Why is it worse if religion has an input into law ? That's just a dubious assumption by you. I would contend that the justice systems are based on core religious values. Before they did we had stuff like "trial by ordeal", "possession is nine-tenths of the law" and other similar nonsense.

That article makes pretty much the same case as the post you just quoted - which you claim is nonsense. You really aren't making much sense.

There's no irony there. Would you say the same about criticism of Jews ie some criticise Jews because they are anti-Semitic but it's ironical when people argue against criticism of Jews ? It's a natural reaction to defend those groups who are constantly being villified by racists and bigots.

" the article talks about possible Islamic influence on early common law (aka "English law") - which is not the predominant legal system (or the source of it) in western democratic states, which would be civil law "

This is untrue. If you had bothered to read the article you would know that.