God is a Metaphor

Re: # 86

dear zeemax...the reason i do not answer your questions is because i would like to have

mutually respectful dialogue. in the past you made comments about my writings that were

not respectful. i am aware that you are an intelligent man. if we have a difference of

opinion... you being a believer and i non-believer.. is not an issue. i have many believer

friends with whom i can have an intellectually stimulating dialogue and learn from them. it

is our mutual attitude. if you promise to have a serious dialogue with me about any

subject....God or Sex....I am willing but when you want to throw some trick questions and

get an answer from me that you can use for your next debate and highlight my weak points

then i get disappointed and stop the dialgue. i never claimed that all i say is right and is

absolute truth. i am learning from all of you and growing and getting inspired to write more.

for example your comments about human sexuality is inspiring me to write an article about

RELIGION AND SEX.

so choice is yours. if you want to end the dialogue i am fine but if you want to continue we

might learn something from each other. respectfully and sincerely and honestly...sohail

Re: #79

A common man usually trusts religion on questions he has less knowledge about. If I were an average religious guy, this is how I would think:

`If there is something really wrong with it, allah would have forbidded it already. Hence there is nothing wrong with it`.

I know the primary reason for cousin marriages is not religion per se but by all means, Islam fosters such an environment by limiting and discouraging intra-family interactions between males and females (the primary method for couples to know about each other) and creating a paranoia around this whole sex and honour thing. As a result, family marriages become the default and convinient choice.

Yes, I can`t find a hadis saying `marry thy cousins`, but you gotta take practical things into account..... makes any sense?

Re: #66,
``They see all this happenning but religious endorsement is so strong that they keep doing it. ``

religious what? There is no religious mandate or even encouragement for cousin marriages.
It is just not outlawed. The article I referred to makes the point that an outright ban on cousin marriages per se is not necessary. Moderation and rational behaviour is required.

Re #75 drsohail,
I thought I was being asked to be your advocate ;-)

Re: # 78
dear khurrum....
your humorous comment about advocating on zeemax bahalf or me reminded me of ghalib`s two couplets

poochtay hain wo kay ghalib koan hay
koi batlao key hum batlain kia

badal kar faqeeron ka ham bhais ghalib
tamash-e-ahl-e-karam daikhtay hain

have fun....sohail

#75 by drsohail,

Dear Dr. Sohail,

I`m not asking Khurram to be my advocate, but only to clarify your position on the issue, since you tend to be very evasive when confronted with direct questions :)

In fact, asking Khurram to be my advocate would be disrespectful to his far superior intellect to mine.

Re: # 77 Hello Zeemax, first of all don`t give any reference fro wikipedia, if it is correct or not it make things suspicious.
second what is wrong and what is right is decided by the society not by any supernatural force, one thing is taken as right in one society and wrong it in other society then it did not make things wrong or right,
if Egypt at one place in history don`t say marriage between brother and sister is wrong it is there society which decided this,
and now if society has decided that it is wrong you think it is wrong,
so there is no hard and fast rule, we can change this rule by saying ok from now brother and sister can marry, who can stop us from doing this.

At one place gay relationships were ok in ``USA``, but when British and French went there, they stopped this, and now again when gays have come into action, society is trying to accept that as right and now in few states of America they are legal.

this is there struggle to do this (ask the society to accept this brother and sister marriage), i think it will answer you, thanks.

check out my esnips stuff at
http://www.esnip.com/user/muhadil

Dr. Sahib,

Glad to know there are other secular humanists in this world and particularly in this chowk community. Would love to read more of your stuff and share some of my own.

Re: # 72
dear zarrar....welcome to the creative dialogue ...you can send me your creations
welcome@drsohail.com
and can see my other creations on
www.drsohail.com
sincerely sohail

#62 by khurram,

Since you have the proven ability to decipher Dr. Sohail`s complex thought process, which I don`t, could you kindly advise me if my following reading of #47 is correct?

1) ... for me sex is a private matter between two consenting adults.

It appears from the tone of this that Dr. Sohail is prepared to `condone` the practice but does not encourage it either as being fully natural.

2) ...what you are trying to prove is that secular humanists and atheists are immoral people and only religious people are moral people.

My question didn`t raise any issue of morality, but only of legality. However Dr. Sohail raises the morality question. Why? This is really confusing. To my mind the above statement asserts that secular humanists and atheists are as moral as religious people. But to meet that condition, wouldn`t it be necessary for both sets to regard brother/sister sexual relations as immoral? With the only difference being that the former group condones the practice while the latter group does not? Read together with (1) above, which reinforces this conclusion of the captioned statement, it would appear to be true.

But if the foregoing was true, then although it is clear that the religious people`s morality springs from scriptures, but it remains murky regarding from where the same morality of atheists/humanists comes from. But still, wouldn`t it be curious in that case that the both sets of moralities, irrespective of where these spring from, converge at this point?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Re: # 71
dear khurrum...congratulations for being asked to be the advocate for zeemax...smiles.....sohail

mailk, re. #66
Would it be fairer to say that you`ve presented a case against extened-family set-ups as opposed to cousin-marriages?

Or are the two tied up in some way? Please explain if so.
Thanks.

Re: # 70 PM

Speaking of my intentions, my case was indeed against cousin-marriages only. But since you reminded me of its ties with joint families living together, I have to admit that the later will have very hard time to sustain without the help of the former. This is my practical experience, again from my paternal family that an outsider girl is more likely to drag the husband out of the joint. Actually, my mother did this to my father. :-D

I don`t know how good or bad extended family system is, but it always sounds like a fun idea to me. Whenever you go there, you have so many people to socialize with.

Re: # 81


Joint family living does not necessitate consanguinous marriages. Various Hindu, Sikh, Chinese families live in such arragnements. When everyone is on the same page you are correct there is a lot of warmth and support. However there are plenty of disaster stories as well.

Btw not all Muslim communities have high rates of intermarriage. Ie Turkey esp western parts it is uncommon and among Persians it is fowned upon by educated classes. Defn orthodoxy and social constraints are highly correlated with is incidence, Saudi Arabia the most obvious. In Great Britian there have been honor killings punishing girls who have found their own partner (even if he is a Pakistani Muslim) as opposed to going along with a pre-ordained arranged match with a cousin back home. I recently was at the house of an acquaintance and there was this very sweet elderly Pakistani lady talking about her grandchildren, I couldn`t follow what she was saying because she was talking in Punjabi. Later my friend explained that she was sizing them up to see how to match up her grandchildren as potential partners.

I am not sure why this is not taken up by the sizable Pakistani medical community and public health initiative developped to address this. It is easily addressed by seeking alternatives to cousin marriages. What Khurram is really addressing is not having the need to ever forbid cousin marriages which is okay for societies where they are an anomly but most defn not for societies where they are common place.

Re: # 85 dr sahib,

You are probably right that interfamily marriages are more of a learned trait and in spite of Islam, things can be made better by creating awareness about the harmful consequences of the practice. The only reason I feel Islam is to blame somewhat is the reason I wrote in reply to khurram. Islam`s extreme conservatism in the matters of sex surely does have significant effect of encouraging the practice. The girls in a family, even the elderly women do not have any method of socializing with men outside the family because of conservative values that usually family members are the only ones well known and trusted and become the natural choice. I think for the change to come, these values must also give way.

eastmwest #61

The promise and prospect of 72 houris waiting in Paradise, though a tad unfair to straight women and gay men, is in no way a inconsistent with a more prudish sex ethic for us while we`re earthboud. Islam recognizes, and rightly so, that for social stability, man cannot have his every wish fulfilled. Islam opposition to certain sex does not, like in Christianity, have an erotophobic basis. It is purely utilitarian: Sex is good; but not if it`s gonna upset the social apple cart.

That said, your exposing of Z`s hypocrisy in #60 is both valid and complete! Well done!!