Irony

C A,

i somehow don't think burning old ladies was ever traditional outside of Hammer house of Horror Witch movies.

i was thinking more about the outcry by some that modern society is destroying traditional ways of life( culture) such as happened to the Aborigines and has been occurring with small tribes that have been pretty much cut off from the rest of the world (logging in the Amazon). from what i gather the elders want to maintain their traditional life but the younger generation once exposed tend to want to investigate it and either leave their village or incorporate new technology into their life. not so long ago society really had no concept of childhood beyond a few years and children were sent down the mine, up the chimney, into the factory and before the industrial revolution out into the field. my response was meant to be that change is part of our 'modern culture', that we move on in our values and expectations as society progresses. however there are still parts of the world and cultures within that hold onto their 'traditions' in spite of this. strong culture and religious belief can be behind this.

some parents do see marriage as the only protection for their daughter because if she gets raped she will almost certainly have to marry her rapist. if she doesn't marry young she might loose her opportunity to marry etc. i'm not sure, without checking up, how modern the concept of paedophilia is but it might be inappropriate to call Muhammed one if there was no such concept at the time. applying our values to a culture that existed 1500 years ago doesn't seem productive!

i suppose tradition can be seen as dangerous but in what way dangerous and to whom? one society trying to impose it's values onto another can also be dangerous. moral outrage at what another culture is doing makes for great middle class protest but unless real alternatives and long term support are being offered and the culture in question want change plus the controlling party in the area willing to allow a foreign power to come in and tell them what's right from wrong, what's the course of action, sanctions to make their economic situation worse or send in the troops?

I used to fix appliances at the home for retired catholic priests in Chelsea ( I think, on the Fulham or Kings Road), I would rather spend my time nailing my gonards to a plank than spend time there.

Bit like this, was it Clive?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYikEaOivtg

Richard - unfortunately you have fallen into the same trap theists always do. If Mohammed had the hot line to god he claimed then either god approves of sex between a mid fifties man and a 9 year old girl or Mohammed did not listen to god. If god approves of this then it is perfectly ok now to do the same. If god does not approve of it why did he not make it clear to odious prophet?

So if it was ok by Mohammed and Allah then, it is ok now if you are a theist.

If it wasn't then either Mohammed is a fraud or god is not very powerful.

The real explanation? Mohammed was a chancer and fraudster. There is no god. Society has evolved without need of religion to get to the stage where we now know in the cicilised world that raping children is wrong- apart from the catholic priests who believe it is a perk of the job.

C A,

i hope you do realise that i am an atheist! as such i really don't have the desire to argue a case for god and Mohammed. if god did give Mohammed his approval then it might have been a special case rather than giving his approval in general! but beyond this why should god not see our species developing and having various requirements at various times within that development. maybe within a particular culture at a particular time it made sense for men of means to marry young girls! my point was that i am unsure how long paedophilia has been a concept to our species and if it wasn't unusual to take a child bride in 500 CE then how can we label Mohammed a paedophile? we can say that in today's world he might be considered one but not label him as one in his own era. there was a great edition of national geographic (June 2011) that had a feature on Gobekli Tepe (the birth of religion) and also a feature on child brides (too young to wed, the secret world of child brides) where although illegal, girls as young as six are still getting married in secret as it's still very much a part of their culture. i don't think the men taking these brides can easily be called paedophiles either. i think our western concept of a sex predator praying on young girls as a perverted form of sexual gratification is very different to a culture where this practice involves marriage and responsibility. what i'm trying to say is that we can't just pick one thing out from within a culture and condemn it because we have other values. we have to try to understand the culture and it's needs and own values.

something more disturbing might be the tourists heading off to third would countries or areas in order to buy sex with children and where parents are prostituting their children for money in order to survive. this is very clearly paedophilia as we define it.

..................So if it was ok by Mohammed and Allah then, it is ok now if you are a theist................... unless accepted that Allah is the same god as all the other religions believe in then i'd haver to say it would only apply to Muslims and indeed this does seem to be the situation, at least in some places where child marriage still goes on. i wonder though if it doesn't go beyond justification on religious grounds and rest more on cultural needs where women are still seen as chattel and their worth resting with their virginity and youth to secure a husband. getting their girl married off young can be seen as securing her future whereas the alternative might be for her to loose her worth and have no secure future! if child brides are to become a thing of the past it's of little use making it illegal unless the cultural values and life chances for the women can be changed to make it unnecessary.

in the case of child brides i'm not sure what the position on rape would be? is it rape if they are married? i think that's problematical with the wife's duty etc. in the NG feature one of the reasons mentioned for young marriage was fear of the girl getting raped. if raped she lost her value and parents might have to accept the rapist marrying the girl and not getting the best husband possible for her. of course that probably encourages the rape of young girls by men that might not have the means or prospects to get a good marriage and puts the parents in even more fear and desperation to get their daughter married off. very messed up situation!

as for Catholic Priests, the one's that molest children are obviously sick and need professional help as well as being kept separate from children and paying for their crime.

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[Deleted by the author on 9 May 2012 02:18:42 BDT]

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Db- it is called hard work. I was an appliance engineer- and still am. I still keep my hand in when people are sick or on holiday. Not sure why you think a service engineer cannot build up 3 companies. Oh! I remember you are not very bright.

Richard- witch burning.

http://www.witchway.net/times/times.html

Huggie- maybe a bit overstated but not far off!

C.A.
Where did i say i didn't think a service engineer could build up 3 companies? And you say I misrepresent what people say. That's exactly what you just did to me.

I have no doubt that you have done extremely well for yourself. I was really fishing to find out what your line of work actually was.
I remembered you saying it was a 'service' business and i was intrigued ( and nosy) to find out more.

Out of interest though, do you talk to your customers the way you talk to people on here?
You seem to enjoy using personal insults in almost every post.

Db- no, only to people who misrepresent and lie. Read your post back. Seee if you can spot why the interpretation I put on it might have happened.

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That would be another- "I am not apologising despite the fact I was wrong" yet again would it Diane?

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D.b - "I'm better than this"- you keep telling yourself that. It does not make it true.

"i won't bother asking for your apology."

Why should C.A return a courtesy you refuse to extend to him?

TBH I took the exact same meaning from your post as C.A did, you may not have meant it but that's the way it read. Maybe in a perfect world C.A should appologise, but after you've repeatedly and willfully misrepresented him despite him making his position abundantly clear it's perfectly understandable why he wouldn't.

i didn't take take the same meaning but it is one possible interpretation. sad how our judgements can be influenced by prejudice (on both sides). it really does hinder communication even among generally reasonable people.