DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Pew Poll: Majority of Muslims supports death for anyone leaving Islam

**lopaayd** · 07-12-2010, 09:02 PM

Oh, no doubt the OP presented an extremely biased view.

But I thought the data itself was interesting and, in some respects, distressing.

I'm not sure there's any inherent contradiction there. If a large enough majority of the population wants the death penalty for abdicating Islam, then that's exactly what a democratic government will enact. In fact, the more democratic the government the more assuredly and quickly it will enact such a law.

I don't think there's anything in democracy that's inherently tolerant of dissent or diversity. In a system in which power comes primarily from having a majority agree with you, it makes a certain amount of sense that the punishment for radically deviating from the cultural/social/religious norm would be particularly harsh.

Sorry, no. You're reasoning, in this case is flawed. Democracy does not preclude favoring the DP for someone who leaves Islam.

That depends on whether one uses the narrow or the broad definition of the word. The broad one integrates a number of concepts outside of the narrow meaning of voter participation such as basic human rights, gender equality and so on. If one looks at the map here you will notice that there are only a handful of countries in the world that are democratic in the broad sense but nevertheless support the death penalty. None of these are Arabic though.

If one's distressed by these results the place to look for an explanation is the vast difference between Jordan and Lebanon which is rather stunning as both countries have a similar history in lawmaking (a mixture of traditions, Islamic and European codes) and are both predominantly Sunni's of the Shafi'i school. There must be some local specific difference in play here. At first I suspected it had to do with the language in which the poll was taken but the link provided by Mandrake makes it clear that the question are put in the local language of the interviewees.

Figuring out the origin of this specific difference would go a long way in explaining why there are still such harsh notions present in parts of the Islamic world I think.

07-12-2010, 09:02 PM	#19
lopaayd Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 511 Senior Member	Oh, no doubt the OP presented an extremely biased view. But I thought the data itself was interesting and, in some respects, distressing. I'm not sure there's any inherent contradiction there. If a large enough majority of the population wants the death penalty for abdicating Islam, then that's exactly what a democratic government will enact. In fact, the more democratic the government the more assuredly and quickly it will enact such a law. I don't think there's anything in democracy that's inherently tolerant of dissent or diversity. In a system in which power comes primarily from having a majority agree with you, it makes a certain amount of sense that the punishment for radically deviating from the cultural/social/religious norm would be particularly harsh. Sorry, no. You're reasoning, in this case is flawed. Democracy does not preclude favoring the DP for someone who leaves Islam. That depends on whether one uses the narrow or the broad definition of the word. The broad one integrates a number of concepts outside of the narrow meaning of voter participation such as basic human rights, gender equality and so on. If one looks at the map here you will notice that there are only a handful of countries in the world that are democratic in the broad sense but nevertheless support the death penalty. None of these are Arabic though. If one's distressed by these results the place to look for an explanation is the vast difference between Jordan and Lebanon which is rather stunning as both countries have a similar history in lawmaking (a mixture of traditions, Islamic and European codes) and are both predominantly Sunni's of the Shafi'i school. There must be some local specific difference in play here. At first I suspected it had to do with the language in which the poll was taken but the link provided by Mandrake makes it clear that the question are put in the local language of the interviewees. Figuring out the origin of this specific difference would go a long way in explaining why there are still such harsh notions present in parts of the Islamic world I think.
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