This isn’t specific to Islam. This is what theocracy looks like. Very few religions are fit doctrines on which to run a country. There are plenty of American Christians who would have me killed for who I am.
The US was ~90% Christian until recently. Same with our elected officials, bad things happen from time to time and stupid laws, but the rate of attrocious incidents like this are far less. You could argue it’s cultural, not based in religious text, but tell that to apostates that fear for their lives.
I think Christianity can be used as the banner for an archaic regime just as easily as Islam. It hasn’t mostly because Christian majority countries happen to have moved on to science, industry and commerce. Middle East countries have been so actively fucked with by the west that they really can’t climb that ladder, except the ones that have some stability thanks to having a monarch defended by the west. Iran’s holy revolution was a response to a US puppet ruler. Afghanistan has been kept in the dark ages by constant war fueled by western states. Yemen has been brutalized by the Saudis without repercussion because the West protect the Saudis.
So who are really the barbarians in this picture? The west enjoy all the trappings of a modern society but the games they play with other regions in the world are beyond barbaric: the barbarism is just more obscured and geographically removed.
Throw some bombs at Mississippi, kill the bulk of their leadership, and they’ll be hanging queers in a week. I have been attacked in public by an American Christian extremist; I sometimes get to fear for my life right here in the Midwest. Put these people in a state of desperation, and it’ll be a swampy theocracy in no time. America is ~250 years into running a country that was founded on not having a state religion. That’s a far cry from a theocracy founded under violent foreign interference less than a century ago, and we still have dangerous religious extremists. It’s not a matter of culture. It’s a matter of circumstance.
This isn’t specific to Islam. This is what theocracy looks like. Very few religions are fit doctrines on which to run a country. There are plenty of American Christians who would have me killed for who I am.
The US was ~90% Christian until recently. Same with our elected officials, bad things happen from time to time and stupid laws, but the rate of attrocious incidents like this are far less. You could argue it’s cultural, not based in religious text, but tell that to apostates that fear for their lives.
I think Christianity can be used as the banner for an archaic regime just as easily as Islam. It hasn’t mostly because Christian majority countries happen to have moved on to science, industry and commerce. Middle East countries have been so actively fucked with by the west that they really can’t climb that ladder, except the ones that have some stability thanks to having a monarch defended by the west. Iran’s holy revolution was a response to a US puppet ruler. Afghanistan has been kept in the dark ages by constant war fueled by western states. Yemen has been brutalized by the Saudis without repercussion because the West protect the Saudis.
So who are really the barbarians in this picture? The west enjoy all the trappings of a modern society but the games they play with other regions in the world are beyond barbaric: the barbarism is just more obscured and geographically removed.
Throw some bombs at Mississippi, kill the bulk of their leadership, and they’ll be hanging queers in a week. I have been attacked in public by an American Christian extremist; I sometimes get to fear for my life right here in the Midwest. Put these people in a state of desperation, and it’ll be a swampy theocracy in no time. America is ~250 years into running a country that was founded on not having a state religion. That’s a far cry from a theocracy founded under violent foreign interference less than a century ago, and we still have dangerous religious extremists. It’s not a matter of culture. It’s a matter of circumstance.