Re: A job for life and source of income

On 11/22/05, Douglas McAdam <douglasmcadam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Gilberto-

> I agree that the problems I mentioned, or that I heard or read about,
> are not Islam in the truest sense but they are practiced in an
> institutionalized manner.

And my point is that many of these problems aren't "Islam" in any
sense and have more to do with the cultural and economic situation.

In science, there is the idea of a well-designed experiment. If you
want to understand a complex situation, and you want to figure out
whether a certain factor is causing a particular result, one way to do
it is to set up two different situations, which *only* differ in terms
of the factor you are asking about.

So if I want to know if a certain medicine works, I set up two
different groups of sick people. I give one group the medicine. I give
the other group something which they might think is medicine but
really isn't. And I try to treat them in the exact same way.

Then I see how many people got better in each group. And if alot more
people got better in the group which received the medicine, I can be
fairly certain that the medicine works.

If instead I told the group which didn't get the medicine, that they
ought to improve their diet, get some exercise, go to traditional
healers, pray and meditate alot more, make sure to sleep well, and a
whole host of other health advice, then the results of the experiment
are less clear.

Even if there is a difference between the two groups, it is not clear
that the difference in the results (if there is one) is due to the
medicine or something else.

That's what is going on here. You want to say something is due to
"Islam". But it is not clear that "Islam" is the issue. It could also
be due to being a third-world, formerly colonized, developing and
impoverished nation.

For example, if you want to say that the status of women is strongly
due to whether a society is Muslim or not, then you shouldn't compare
Pakistan to the United States, you should compare Pakistan to India.
Because those two countries are more similar to one another in alot of
other ways besides religion. There are still differences between them,
but they are fewer.

> You acquaint these things to Baha'i practices and in my view there is
> no comparison at all for what I mentioned are reported
> institutionalized practices whereas in the Baha'i Faith we do not have
> institutionalized practices of inequality of any kind.

Except for women not being allowed on the UHJ. Women not being allowed
to fight. Women having a slightly different role in inheritance.
Except for rules about prayer and fasting being different for women.

> The law of
> punishment for Arson is not at this time applicable, it is for the
> future, so we cannot really compare this.

For me the imporant thing is the principle. There should be some kind
of underlying principle which would let you say that a certain
punishment is acceptable or not. It shouldn't just be a gut feeling.
Otherwise, all you are really saying is that you don't like something
and you can't say why.


Peace

Gilberto

.

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