It is like any other religion, open to saying what it is expedient to you to say at any given time, especially if you can make money out of it.

However united Islam? Below is a chart of the major schisms and this does not include the Baha'i or the wahhabis

@LenHazell53 And they all hate each other

@Moravian the only thing every sect has in common is the belief that all Baha'i should be killed on sight for saying they should all stop hating one another.

@LenHazell53 And the Ahmadi as poor Asad Shah the Glasgow shopkeeper found to his cost. He had the temerity to wish his customers a happy Easter.

I think I see where you are coming from. I would have a lot more respect for Islam if respected members of that faith were not locking up and executing people in the middle east for blasphemy.

@Bobby9 I said "should", and I still feel that way. I prefer to react to uncomfortable or insulting things intellectually, not emotionally. And I think the world would be a better place if we all did.

I am not only insulted, but frightened, in effect this is a ruling and precedent that says religion is above the law, above social convention and above criticism. this is a ruling that applied universally means everyone is in danger from everyone else, anyone can be arrested and disgraced on trumped up charges and imprisoned upon an expedient whim, for saying or even thinking the wrong thing.

@LenHazell53 Yes, I agree. Where does it all end? For example, some Jews consider calling Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah an insult to their concept and belief in a Jewish Messiah. So, should all Christians be punished for insulting the Jewish Messiah?

@Heraclitus
If insulting a prophet is a criminal offence you and I as Ex-mos are likely to find ourselves in Utah being burned at the stake in temple sqare for pointing out Holy Jo Smith was a paedo, conman man pervert witch.

@LenHazell53 Not to mention all those who insult the memory of David Koresh.

We need Chris now more than ever, an island of sanity in an ocean of madness

@LenHazell53 I would give almost anything to have him here to dissect what's happening in the world now.

@LenHazell53 Not just sanity, but courage too.

Your right, the intrinsic problem is that other peoples feelings are (ironically) becoming sacred. However since everybody IS somebody else, everyone even by the fact of their own existence is a cause of offence and hurt feelings to at least one other person.
This leads to a fear ridden society, ripe for the plucking by the first dangerous lunatic to garner enough followers, who will do literally anything to feel safe again.
The west has sown it's own seeds of destruction with of course the best of intentions and no reasoned foresight what so ever.

thanks for that.

Exactly, thank you.
I have for years decried Joseph smith, the prophet of the Mormon church as a Paedophile for marrying a 14 year old, and I have heard the same excuses made for him as for the prophet of Islam. Am I to be taken to Utah and tried for Blasphemy for telling the truth too?

This effectively nullifies the "Je suis Charlie" movement and all it stood for.

"I don't believe Muhammad was a pedophile."
So what do you call consummating a marriage to a nine year old by a fifty odd year old man?
In almost all European countries you cannot slander the dead, of how ever long deceased, this was challenged and defeated in the proposed amendment to the Defamation Act 2013 .
Yes the over turning of the blasphemy laws was a waste of time IF you are simply going to replace blasphemy ywith public order offences that in effect do exactly the same thing.

I believe Mohammad was continuing an unfortunate tradition. This tradition was only finally put to rest in America around the 1930s.

@brentan Warren Jeffs, the leader of the splinter Mormon church, was marrying very young girls. The picture of him holding and kissing his new child bride is unbelievable, and yet they proclaim a religious reason for doing so. I read an article where those guys said that they were channeling God's power into an untainted girl who was pure and not worldly. Heck, if you try, you can come up with anything to justify anything if you include the words "God's Will" in the sentence.

@yamaha45701 Yes, but I'm trying to make the point that child marriage has been much more than a feature of dodgy religions. It was global culture. That culture was still somewhat active in America, and outside the religious domain, up to about the 1930s.

@brentan You are right that it was prevalent. I was just adding that, given the opportunity, creepy old guys will use any excuse to bring the practice back using religion as a shield to hide behind.

@yamaha45701 Yes indeed!

@brentan A tradition that even then was not applied universally, most of his other wives (Note he was a polygamist too) were adult women, so it was not usual even for him to marry children, but he did and openly announced the consummation of the same, without regret of shame, even by the Islamic laws what he did was forbidden to everyone else, a girl must be 15 under exceptional circumstance but 16 as the norm to marry and consummate a relationship, Aisha was 6 at the marriage and 9 at the consummation, he was over 50.

@LenHazell53 You're just fudging the matter. Nobody cares about the details of a 7th century marriage culture. The point is that the tradition of marrying youngsters was very widespread, very long-lasting and continued into recent times in America into the early 20th century.

@brentan And that makes it right does it?

@LenHazell53 You're still fudging. Nobody, absolutely nobody, said that.

@brentan
Then what are you arguing about?
We agree it is not right, was not right, was the practice of twisted religious perverts, and that pointing out that one of them from however long ago did it make he or she a pervert who should not be venerated or emulated and certainly should not be used as an excuse to sneak in blasphemy laws by the back door under another name, allowing religious fucktards rights and privileges over and above everyone else in the name of so called "religious freedoms".

I am fudging nothing.

@brentan I'll add this that marriage to sexually mature young women was a world wide practice during a time when the average life expectancy was 35 and many women died in child birth.
HOWEVER marrying SIX year old was NEVER a wide spread practice in any culture, as it is pointless does not propagate the species and is only the province of the perverse.

@LenHazell53 First off, I’m defending my opinion that Muhammad was not a paedophile. Next, we did not agree that child marriage was confined to religious institutions. It was also a social construct. Nobody asserted anyone should be venerated for any reason or indeed that blasphemy law should be brought in the back door. So your every statement is a fudge. Perhaps you just love to argue?

@brentan
Ah, I see, I'm so sorry, for a while there I actually thought you knew what you were talking about.
I see no reason to further continue aiding you in your prolonged period of noetic Onanism
Good night

@LenHazell53 I'll take that you have nothing worthwhile to offer. Bye!