Re: Non-Muslims and Shariah
There seems to be a plethora of opinion being presented as fact.
Casting the first stone, as it were?
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No one is suggesting that Islam would in NO way shape or influence how the state is run. Islam is so deeply embedded in the culture of its followers that it would and does have an influence. That is a far cry from saying the way shariah is being practiced in parts of Nigeria is following Islam or in any way anything but barabric.
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It's flawed in its various manifestations. But in no way shape or form any more barbaric than a system that gives preference to corporations or oligarchs, or allows partial birth abortions, or denies workers rights, and so on and so on. Anyone can pick up on a flaw with any system and run with it.
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Theocracy was probably the wrong word. Let's say religious states or states that incorporated and tried to implement and practice their interpretation of "divine law" or based their reason to exist on religion.
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Flawed argument, as in this case religion is just another ideology. To say that states that doggedly stick to any one ideology will eventually fall is a universal truth. No doubt it will apply to Iran...or Pakistan...as it did to the Soviets...and one day, too, America.
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How and why would a system that failed be re-instated?
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I dunno...why did democracy make a come-back?
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Especially with all the reasons I list that make it less likely due to modernization, secularization and human rights that have become expected today.
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They're all orthogonal to each other.
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The world has gone from a handful of democracies to over 100 in the past 100 years.
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Poltical pundits in the heartland of democracy are far from impressed; to the extent that the term "illiberal" democracy is being used as a pejorative term (perhaps setting up furture pretexts to invade nations that are in fact democractic...something democracies apparently never do to each other).
What's happening is a move away from Soveit-style oligarchies to a more inclusive (at least at the municipal level) model of governance. But the democracies that do exist typically fail to meet Western criteria of what a "real" democracy is.
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And there is no consensus among them either. Should women be allowed out w/o a man? Does she have to cover up in a potato sack before she leaves the house lest she be arrested? Are non-Muslims allowed to have places of worship or serve in the government? These are huge issues, brushing them under the rug as insignificant is intellectualy dishonest.
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Oh rubbish. They ARE insignificant at an academic level; and one needs to look at the URBANIZED centers in these countries and they will see a remarkable similarity. Constantly invoking Saudi and Nigeria is what is intellectually dishonest.
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It's not Islam haters, it's haters of religious governments that try to impose their interpretation of religion on all.
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All ideology is imposed; people can either play in the system or can subvert it. If a class of ideologies is suggested by a religion, if not mandated, and if one takes issue with that (in fact, hates it), then they do in fact take issue (or hate) the religion itself. There's no comfy, wishy washy neutral area here.
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And only an idiotic non-Muslim would think that a world-wide Islamic state with draconian shariah law is not a threat to the whole world.
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If such a state existed, then it could only be a threat to the whole world if the world threatened it directlly. And quite frankly, this is what your position is.
Not to mention, this doesn't even begin to address the point to which it was meant to rebuke.