4 hours ago, wil iam not said:

What about Rastafarianism, developed in 1930s in Jamaica because Haile Selassie became Emperor of Ethiopia......how bizarre. But they just follow Robert Marley, get stoned and enjoy life,

in Jamaica itself they're regarded as just a bunch of dirty tramps though: unfortunately dancehall has taken over the music scene.

Buddhism is not at all evil, but it's not really a religion either, more a philosophy of how to live.

6 minutes ago, Katatonica said:

No, Old Testament bible and Koran both have vicious martial doctrine.

What are you referring to, marital I'm guessing you mean? This is from AI, but can be easily found. Yes, things were different back in Old Testament times, and I'm thinking, like others who researched this more, that God didn't approve of some of it, and how much actually occurred.

The Old Testament contains marital practices and laws—such as polygamy, strict purity tests, and certain wartime practices—that modern readers often find harsh. Scholars and theologians debate whether God "approved" of these, viewing them either as divine concessions to ancient cultural norms or as necessary protections in a brutal society. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

1. Polygamy and Concubinage

• The Practice: Many prominent figures in the Old Testament, including Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon, had multiple wives or concubines. [1]

• The Debate: The text often portrays these arrangements as practical or cultural realities, rather than as God's ideal. The narrative shows that these unions almost always resulted in intense jealousy, family dysfunction, and tragedy (e.g., the conflict between Sarah and Hagar, or Leah and Rachel). [1, 2, 3, 4]

2. Laws Regarding Captive Women

• The Practice: In Deuteronomy 21:10-14, the Torah sets out rules for an Israelite man who wishes to marry a woman captured in war. She is given a month to mourn her family, and if the man later decides he does not want to remain married to her, he must let her go free and cannot sell her as a slave. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

• The Debate: While modern ethics find the concept of marrying war captives deeply troubling, historical theologians often point out that this law served as a protective mechanism. In the ancient Near East, captured women were routinely subjected to sexual violence or treated as disposable property with no legal rights. This law stripped away the "spoils of war" aspect and conferred upon the captive the full legal status and rights of an Israelite wife. [1, 2, 3]

3. Trial by Ordeal

• The Practice: In Numbers 5:11-31, there is a passage outlining a "test of unfaithfulness." A wife suspected of adultery by her husband is brought to a priest and forced to drink a mixture of holy water and dust.

• The Debate: The text states that if the woman is guilty, she will suffer physical harm, but if innocent, she will be cleared of all charges and able to bear children. Many historians and commentators suggest that this law actually served to protect women in an ancient society. In many surrounding cultures, an angry or jealous husband could inflict severe physical mutilation or summary execution on his wife on mere suspicion. This biblical passage removed vigilante justice from the husband's hands and placed the judgment in the hands of the religious authorities.

• None of this matches the topic here.

• And this regarding slavery......Rather than outright endorsing slavery, ancient religious laws instead regulated and contained a brutal, deeply entrenched global practice. The biblical approach aimed to protect the most vulnerable and inject radical concepts of human dignity that set the stage for eventual abolition.

  1. Economic Safety Net
  Without modern bankruptcy or welfare systems, ancient poverty often led to starvation. People could sell themselves into servitude to clear unpayable debts or survive. The law required that these workers be treated as hired employees and freed after six years.

  2. Regulating "Chattel" Slavery
  In ancient cultures, prisoners of war were often slaughtered. Laws limiting forced labor offered an alternative that saved lives. The Bible placed strict, unprecedented limits on masters, including:

  • Mandatory days off, like the Sabbath.

  • Laws allowing slaves to escape to freedom without the threat of being returned.

  • Harsh punishments for masters who permanently injured or killed their servants. .

Edited June 2Jun 2 by fredwiggy

23 minutes ago, Screaming said:

Thank you for the clarification but now I am even more depressed.

There are many more stories of Aisha. It is only our modern idea of morality that forbids her becoming a bride at nine. Common mortality was 30-35 years. That didn't leave much time for childbearing. It's our society that is horrified by not understanding the cultural norms. There are many child brides in places which are not Muslim:

1. India: ~222.4 million

2. Bangladesh: ~43.4 million

3. China: ~36.7 million

4. Indonesia: ~32.1 million

5. Nigeria: ~23.7 million

6. Brazil: ~21.9 million

8 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

There are many more stories of Aisha. It is only our modern idea of morality that forbids her becoming a bride at nine. Common mortality was 30-35 years. That didn't leave much time for childbearing. It's our society that is horrified by not understanding the cultural norms. There are many child brides in places which are not Muslim:

1. India: ~222.4 million

2. Bangladesh: ~43.4 million

3. China: ~36.7 million

4. Indonesia: ~32.1 million

5. Nigeria: ~23.7 million

6. Brazil: ~21.9 million

Yes, and it shows that some cultures look at women as secondary, subservient and to be used. We don't have to understand the norms as they are barbaric. Look at how those listed countries treat their women not only young but as they age. As far as child brides are concerned https://archive.crin.org/en/docs/Factfile_Child_Marriage.pdf, there are many links https://www.tahirih.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Child-Marriage-Impacts-One-Pager-updated-5.8.-2020-REGULAR-PRINT.pdf to look at, including this one,https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/child-marriage-guardian-editorial/ and another, which shows what happens to them................https://www.unicef.org/rosa/stories/four-ways-child-marriage-destroys-childrens-futures

I think it's a lot of men think of wives as secondary, subservient and to be used. If they leave, he'll still be shouting, "Where's me bloody dinner?!?"

4 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Really ?? ...... A google search of the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha reveals this:

“The most widely cited sources in traditional Islamic scholarship, including Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, contain narrations (hadiths) from Aisha herself stating that she was betrothed at the age of six and that the marriage was consummated when she was nine years old”

If you know differently, please offer the information instead of simply naysaying another poster in a disrespectful manner

Neither the member I was originally responding to, nor yourself, are lettered in any sort of theology. Neither am I, but I don't use the crutch of an AI-enhanced web search to portray myself as otherwise.

3 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

None of the sources I've seen mentioned "consummated". In many cultures, young children are 'betrothed to each other and sometimes do end up marrying. Muhammad was just reserving his place in line for little Aisha. And how old was Muhammad at the time? Do we know?

Do we care?

Not AI. Credit Global Citizen.

A girl under 18 is married somewhere in the world every two seconds. More than 750 million women and girls who are alive today were married when under 18, and some 250 million of these were married before the age of 15. 

While the proportion of young women getting married before 15 has dropped from 12% to 8% since the early 1980s, there’s still a long way to go. 

Almost a third of girl brides get married to a man older than 21. There is an increasing scrutiny of the issue, and more and more of some of the most shocking examples of child exploitation are coming to light. Last year, a 6-year-old girl was traded to a 55-year-old man in Afghanistan in exchange for a goat. In August, a 16-year-old girl from India was sold to a 65-year-old Omani sheikh. Cases like these draw global attention to the practice, but there are still many girls that slip through the net. 

In a 2017 survey of laws in 73 countries, it was found rapists in at least nine countries could avoid punishment if they married their victim — including in Bahrain, Iraq, the Philippines, Tajikistan, and Tunisia. 

Read more: Proposed Iraq Law Would Allow Girls as Young as 9 to Marry

Even in countries that are supporting global efforts to eliminate child marriage. In every US state, child marriage is legal in specific circumstances. In 25 US states, girls of any age are allowed to marry in certain circumstances, while others have minimum ages as low as 13. In the UK, 16-year-olds can get married with parental consent, and 16-year-olds in Scotland can get married without it.

11 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Neither the member I was originally responding to, nor yourself, are lettered in any sort of theology. Neither am I, but I don't use the crutch of an AI-enhanced web search to portray myself as otherwise.

So your sneering, dismissive comment to @Screaming claiming he has little knowledge of Islam, and could not make any meaningful contribution to the thread, was as unfounded as it was unwarranted.

You provide no evidence whatsoever to dismiss his statement that Aisha was 9 years old when she married the Prophet Muhammed; it is a widely held belief among muslims, and is to be found in the Hadith (recorded collections of the Prophet’s sayings and traditions) It is found in authentic collections like Sahih-al-Bukhari and Sahib Muslim; you dispute this, yet offer no alternative evidence, only sneering denial.

It would seem that @Screaming has far greater knowledge of Islam than yourself; and he certainly has greater knowledge than yourself of how to reply to comments in a civilised manner, something I thought you might have got the hang of after more than 40,000 comments.

It boggles the mind to think of things like this happening for the so-called sake of honor. There has to be a tremendous amount of confusion, staggering levels of ignorance, and lack of self-esteem related to committing acts like this, and it is precisely the opposite of honor on every imaginable level.

It betrays both a total lack of dignity and a complete state of Godlessness.

@unblocktheplanet Yeah, horrific and barbaric! This is just one of the reasons that I despise both the Muslim religion and culture. This regard culture more than religion , as the religion actually has nothing at all to do with it. Beside the crime of killing. What´s wrong with these people? Force a minor into a marriage with the obligation to have sex and produce children with her cousin???? After that they kill her for refusing something every single person with 1chromosome would have done. Lastly, the people around them and the murderers are dancing and celebrating their dirty deeds in the streets. There are no people with backbone in this culture that can stand up, go together and put a stop to the criminality and cruelty that goes on!

They can do what they want...in their own 3rd world crap holes...not our business

36 minutes ago, baansgr said:

They can do what they want...in their own 3rd world crap holes...not our business

Agreed, but the problem is that muslims have brought this barbaric twelfth century practise with them to western civilisation; in the UK alone there are estimates of an average of 12 to 15 honour killings annually. Difficult to produce precise numbers because a lot of cases are believed to be misclassified as suicides or accidents.

The UK police also record over 2,000 cases of “honour based” abuse annually …. the joy of Islam.

2 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

So your sneering, dismissive comment to @Screaming claiming he has little knowledge of Islam, and could not make any meaningful contribution to the thread, was as unfounded as it was unwarranted.

You provide no evidence whatsoever to dismiss his statement that Aisha was 9 years old when she married the Prophet Muhammed; it is a widely held belief among muslims, and is to be found in the Hadith (recorded collections of the Prophet’s sayings and traditions) It is found in authentic collections like Sahih-al-Bukhari and Sahib Muslim; you dispute this, yet offer no alternative evidence, only sneering denial.

It would seem that @Screaming has far greater knowledge of Islam than yourself; and he certainly has greater knowledge than yourself of how to reply to comments in a civilised manner, something I thought you might have got the hang of after more than 40,000 comments.

I'm not disputing her age, never have.

Yakking about Hadith as if it's your in daily reading regimen, while endorsing those that trot out the usual, straw-clutching tropes of the profoundly ignorant and narrow-minded such as Aisha's age, is evidence of being more knowledgeable of Islam? You lot were bad enough before the internet's AI-enhanced search/copy/paste made you all overnight experts and geniuses.

On your bike, please. The lot of you.

1 hour ago, NanLaew said:

I'm not disputing her age, never have.

Yakking about Hadith as if it's your in daily reading regimen, while endorsing those that trot out the usual, straw-clutching tropes of the profoundly ignorant and narrow-minded such as Aisha's age, is evidence of being more knowledgeable of Islam? You lot were bad enough before the internet's AI-enhanced search/copy/paste made you all overnight experts and geniuses.

On your bike, please. The lot of you.

Don’t be dishonest; you sneered at Screaming for saying that Aisha was 9 when she married Muhammed, and now you are backtracking; once again showing the lack of value that you bring to this thread.

Your modus operandi remains consistent; continually sneering at others comments or contradicting them without bringing any evidence to the table as disproof.

You spend a remarkable amount of time logged on to this forum, but bring only negativity; you criticise anyone for the source of their information, but never offer an alternative or contrary source.

On 6/1/2026 at 5:54 PM, unblocktheplanet said:

Kawthar Bashar al-Husayjawi, the 15-year-old girl who was killed by family members in Iraq after refusing to marry her cousin

How could anyone want to kill her ?

Especially family members .

Let alone killing her, how could anyone even want to harm her ?

How could a whole family think killing her is the best option and all conspire to (Cant think of a word) ?

A death cult ?

9 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

How could anyone want to kill her ?

Especially family members .

Let alone killing her, how could anyone even want to harm her ?

How could a whole family think killing her is the best option and all conspire to (Cant think of a word) ?

A death cult ?

People who came from a hate filled family, where women were looked at as objects to serve men, instead of a place where they are cherished and realizing their mother is why they're here in the first place. Sick people aren't only in Muslim society but all, and again, it all starts at home, especially how you perceive women and children.

8 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

@unblocktheplanet Yeah, horrific and barbaric! This is just one of the reasons that I despise both the Muslim religion and culture. This regard culture more than religion , as the religion actually has nothing at all to do with it. Beside the crime of killing. What´s wrong with these people? Force a minor into a marriage with the obligation to have sex and produce children with her cousin???? After that they kill her for refusing something every single person with 1chromosome would have done. Lastly, the people around them and the murderers are dancing and celebrating their dirty deeds in the streets. There are no people with backbone in this culture that can stand up, go together and put a stop to the criminality and cruelty that goes on!

Not a lot different than war where the victims can be younger but faceless and voiceless.

So beautiful and innocent...

6 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Don’t be dishonest; you sneered at Screaming for saying that Aisha was 9 when she married Muhammed, and now you are backtracking; once again showing the lack of value that you bring to this thread.

Your modus operandi remains consistent; continually sneering at others comments or contradicting them without bringing any evidence to the table as disproof.

You spend a remarkable amount of time logged on to this forum, but bring only negativity; you criticise anyone for the source of their information, but never offer an alternative or contrary source.

Christ on a bike! What part of I'm not arguing Aisha's age at betrothal are you finding so bloody hard to comprehend? If that's what someone's "good book" says happened, it happened. Someone else's "good book" mentions loaves and fishes and for those people, that must have happened too.

I'm sneering at the non-Muslims who regularly trot out tropes and quote the Koran like they know what they're talking about.

Edited June 3Jun 3 by NanLaew

6 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Not a lot different than war where the victims can be younger but faceless and voiceless.

Agree 100%

12 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Christ on a bike! What part of I'm not arguing Aisha's age at betrothal are you finding so bloody hard to comprehend? If that's what someone's "good book" says happened, it happened. Someone else's "good book" mentions loaves and fishes and for those people, that must have happened too.

I'm sneering at the non-Muslims who regularly trot out tropes and quote the Koran like they know what they're talking about.

Further confirmation of the pointlessness of your contributions; just trolling comments on this thread in order to sneer at people and contradict any posters comments without any alternative arguments, just juvenile naysaying; classless, graceless, but fortunately irrelevant.

3 hours ago, Eloquent pilgrim said:

Further confirmation of the pointlessness of your contributions; just trolling comments on this thread in order to sneer at people and contradict any posters comments without any alternative arguments, just juvenile naysaying; classless, graceless, but fortunately irrelevant.

Thanks for your enduring fascination with my "pointless...juvenile naysaying; classless, graceless, but fortunately irrelevant" forum contributions. Much appreciated.

Crack on.

I would've said "endearing", Nan.

12 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Thanks for your enduring fascination with my "pointless...juvenile naysaying; classless, graceless, but fortunately irrelevant" forum contributions. Much appreciated.

Crack on.

Thanks for confirming he was right on point!

22 minutes ago, Gottfrid said:

Thanks for confirming he was right on point!

Not that we needed it, but thanks for confirming that English isn't your first language.

On 6/2/2026 at 2:37 AM, MikeandDow said:

The feral barbarians as you call them exist through out the world not just Iraq honor killings result in an estimated 12 to 15 deaths annually in the UK. which is a world disgrace

Care to tell us how many of these "honor killings" were carried out by Buddhists, Catholics and Jehovas witnesses, and how many were carried out by muslims?

Might the penny finally drop for the left? I live in hope

8 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Not that we needed it, but thanks for confirming that English isn't your first language.

So, you are just one of those who go to language talking again as soon as the shoe don´t fit. Information to you too. This is an international forum, and all of us doesn´t have English as first language. Therefore, we have been told numerous times to not complain on such issues. I have been writing this several times now. It must be you who are slow catching up!

1 hour ago, Gottfrid said:

So, you are just one of those who go to language talking again as soon as the shoe don´t fit. Information to you too. This is an international forum, and all of us doesn´t have English as first language. Therefore, we have been told numerous times to not complain on such issues. I have been writing this several times now. It must be you who are slow catching up!

I wasn't denigrating you, so relax. I was just suggesting that being comfortably fluent in a second (or third) language doesn't mean that you are fully onboard with the nuance of that language. I'm Scottish and still rubbish at it.

Now that you've mentioned it, what shoe size are you?

Edited June 5Jun 5 by NanLaew

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