Quote:
Originally Posted by uke_master
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by uke_master
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.
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.