questions for Muslims concerning drawings of Mohammed

[alex11230]

So what happens when -- out of the hundreds of mainstream religions -- two present contradictory rules on an issue? What happens when, say, the Skubbists step up and announce that their religion forbids divorce, and the anti-Skubbists step up and announce that divorce is permitted by their religion, and both groups expect everyone to adhere to their religious diktats?

In this example, there actually is a way out, as remaining married or not getting married at all is not a sin in either religion. However, it would be interesting if someone could think of an example where two religions present two entirely contradictory rules.

Nope. Not quite. What I meant in my example was that the Skubbists forbid divorce actively. "Thou shalt not divorce. Period." And, because the Skubbist belief system must be "respected" no one may get divorced. And yes, up to that point, it's fine.

Then we get to the anti-Skubbists who actively permit divorce as something that is put down in their holy scrolls. "And the First Apostle did say, verily, unto the multitudes, 'Whoa. Dude. My wife and I are driving each other UP the freaking wall. Let's be clear about this: If you get married, and it turns into a complete disaster, absolutely, you can divorce. God Forbid anyone go through this hell. Not my worst enemy."

That is, the right to divorce is enshrined in the rules. So EVEN if you're happily married, that someone else's rules forbid divorce is sufficient BECAUSE it is infringing on the anti-Skubbist dogma.

Or, if you prefer: the Jewish and Muslim prohibitions on pork, versus, say, a Polynesian luau ritual involving a roast pig.

Where does the rule get decided? The Vatican? A stone circle?

That's the problem I've got with the whole "no Mohammed drawings." I could understand a prohibition that was binding on the faithful of a particular group. But trying to impose one set of beliefs on people who don't belong? There's dozens of major religions, hundreds if you go down to the sect-level. There's no way to make it work.

The whole argument should fall apart right there. ... But it doesn't.

[Viking Redbeard]

I'm not sure what you mean by "control", since the Catholic church crowned kings, legitimizing their rule, and could topple monarchs who didn't step in line.

Well it could be argued that the Catholic church had even less control over the kings and law codes of the dark ages than it did their successors.

For example, the Anglo-Saxon king most credited with spreading Christianity to Britain was AEthelberht (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelberht_of_Kent). There was never any danger of him being toppled by the church or the Pope, regardless of the disagreements between them. Furthermore, and more importantly, his laws, as proscribed in the Textus Roffensis, was relatively detached from Christian doctrines, and was based mainly on earlier Anglo-Saxon laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Æthelberht

Compare this to, say, the current Iranian Constitution, which spells out right from the beginning that the "central axis" of the theocracy is Qu'ran and Hadith. That's what I mean by theocratic control.

The Medieval king most responsible for the formation of the Holy Roman Empire was Charlemagne the Great, and it's true that the Pope did get one over him one time by whipping a crown onto his head when he wasn't expecting it (thus proclaiming that the church is the source of monarchy, which caused a lot of confusion and problems later on) but there was no doubt that it was Charles himself who wore the daddy trousers in that empire, not the Pope. The Pope couldn't have toppled him even if he'd wanted to, and the king was free to do more or less what he pleased with regard to the administration of his kingdom.

As for his Merovingian law - it was based mainly on Clovis's Salic Law, and was extremely conservative, though not based on religious decrees. It was all about preserving Germanic tradition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_law Clovis, by the way was an interesting character in his own right, and adopted Christianity as a kind of Pepsi challenge to see if Christ would give him better luck in battle than his pagan gods had. He certainly wasn't under the sway of any Pope or set of divine commandments to any significant extent, although his Christian wife had quite a lot of influence over him.

Again, let's compare this state of affairs to Saudi Arabia, which is an absolute monarchy and has no official constitution, but whose basic law decrees unambiguously that "Government in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia derives its authority from the Book of God and the Sunna of the Prophet". And again, I can't see how the administration of Charles the Great can be compared to this. The theocratic influence in Saudi Arabia is way more powerful than it was in the medieval Merovingian empire.

Muslims pretty much all agree that Sharia law is great, but have no idea what that means, and even the scholars can't agree with each other because it's a disjointed mess of different ideas with varying credibility.

We can pretty easily see how much disagreement there is concerning the interpretation of Sharia - by looking at the fundamental differences in interpretation between the four main Sunni schools of jurisprudence, and the big Shia schools of jurisprudence. The fact that there is so little fundamental difference ought to demonstrate just how clearly spelled out the laws of the Qu'ran actually are in the Muslim world. This is why reformation is going to be such a colossal uphill battle, and why the likes of Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are, in my opinion, heroes of the modern age.

[Viking Redbeard]

The Inquisition was a witch hunt

Check out this awesome doc about the Spanish Inquisition. I learned a lot from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFdHNoWwr_0

Then watch this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt0Y39eMvpI

[brimstoneSalad]

Well it could be argued that the Catholic church had even less control over the kings and law codes of the dark ages than it did their successors.

Maybe in a general sense, as the church had not amassed as much total wealth and power. Or perhaps because of greater difficulty in travel and communication. Or even the rate of spread of Christianity, as you mentioned; if it's being spread to pagans in a region, one can hardly expect the citizens to be sticklers for canon.

I don't think it would be hard to find particular instances of comparable control over society and severity.
I'm not entirely sure what we're even discussing, though.

For my part, I'm mainly worried about how blasphemy is treated. I would have been killed just as quickly in many medieval Christian regions as today in Islamic ones; probably much faster. I'd still probably get arrested in Greece.

Clovis, by the way was an interesting character in his own right, and adopted Christianity as a kind of Pepsi challenge to see if Christ would give him better luck in battle than his pagan gods had.

I seem to remember that; it's a very pragmatic way to go about it.
Too bad people aren't more inclined to use scientific methodology to test the validity of religions today (although, of course his lack of controls or a statistically significant number of battles hardly made his scientific).

We can pretty easily see how much disagreement there is concerning the interpretation of Sharia - by looking at the fundamental differences in interpretation between the four main Sunni schools of jurisprudence, and the big Shia schools of jurisprudence.

I just know what the surveys say (common people), and what some of the leading theologians (of varying degrees of progressive and conservative) disagree on. Most of it comes down to the details of guilt and punishment, from what I recall. Just saying something is wrong is one thing, if it's not enforced, the punishments vary from a fine to death, or judgment is so liberal as to declare everybody innocent (or insane).