06-12-2005, 09:40 AM
Occhidiangela,Jun 11 2005, 01:16 PM Wrote:I disagree with you. If you grow up as a secularist, as non religious, you will miss out on how important religious rules and laws are to people in cultures where Islam is imbedded in both the secular and spiritual life of the community. Many Muslims do not advocate, nor even comprehend the utility of, separation of church and state. Among other things, it is contrary to the teachings in the Koran, and it is a Western idea to start with. (At least, in current form.)
It has everything to do with religion in a country. It is as much a part of everyday life as traffic lights are a part of the city where you live.
Occhi
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I don't think things like one should not steal, one should not kill etc.etc. are things we like to obey because of some religion. It are thinsg we decided to obey in a civilized society because we think they are good.
1000 years ago, when everybody was religious people "had" to do also a large amount of things we don't allow today. Torture, slavery, crusades are things religion now does not allow.....but at that time it did.
Therefor I think the influence of a certain religion on our modern day life is smaller than most people say/think. And if we in the west would have been muslims instead (from 1500 years ago) we would now probably have a comparable society. The characteristic of modern society is that it will find out "itsself" which things are good and which are not, we don't need a holy book as a guidline for that. That is also why in general the western countries have a more liberal attitude towards religion.
I don't think these things say anything about the kind of religion.