Thread: Pew Poll: Majority of Muslims supports death for anyone leaving Islam

Originally Posted by Alma

Democracy is a rule of majority.
So, aparently it does.

Unless the majority think you should get the death penalty for leaving Islam, hence the logic flaw.

Originally Posted by noahath

I prefer to know a bit about the poll before taking its findings as gospel, eg how many people were surveyed? Where were they surveyed etc? I'm sure if you polled 1 person in central Kabul and that person agreed with the premise, then you'd have a poll that shows that 100% of people support it ... it's hardly representative though, hence the desire to know more about the qualitative context.

Here is a link (.pdf) to the complete poll. Methodology can be found starting on page 22. The sample size per country was 1,000 adults--except in Pakistan where it was 2,000.
http://pewglobal.org/files/2010/12/P...ber-2-2010.pdf

And of course nothing in the poll supports the title of this thread.

Originally Posted by Dilettante

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.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

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.

I'm glad Disciples of Christ Don't do that.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

You appear to be equating murder (the only crime for which one can receive the death penalty in the US) with leaving Islam.

Does this prove Canadians are unable to differentiate criminal activities from non-criminal activities?

(or, perhaps, it proves nothing save that trying to make sweeping generalizations like those above is just idiocy?)

The OP was unclear. Is supporting the death penalty dangerous and sick or only for some crimes? The hatred of people who believe differently is rampant throughout people who believe of all religions.

Read the thread on Wikileaks, people who routinely post here are calling for capital punishment in this case. Are these posters dangerous and sick?

What I think is dangerous and sick is people promoting a state religion and enforcing religious edicts with the power of the state.

That is not something unique to Muslims, there are many fundamentalist Christians, some regular posters on this board, who want the US to be a Christian nation and only support the First Amendment when it applies to religions that they like.

There seem to be two lessons to learn here concerning the Muslims killing any Muslim who forsakes the religion: either don't become a Muslim, or if you are a Muslim, don't forsake the religion. Simple enough, now leave those zany Muslims alone.

Originally Posted by RDK

The OP was unclear. Is supporting the death penalty dangerous and sick or only for some crimes? The hatred of people who believe differently is rampant throughout people who believe of all religions.

Read the thread on Wikileaks, people who routinely post here are calling for capital punishment in this case. Are these posters dangerous and sick?

What I think is dangerous and sick is people promoting a state religion and enforcing religious edicts with the power of the state.

That is not something unique to Muslims, there are many fundamentalist Christians, some regular posters on this board, who want the US to be a Christian nation and only support the First Amendment when it applies to religions that they like.

So...even taking your long stretch of "there are many fundamentalist Christians" I'm not seeing a comparison to First Amendment issues and killing someone who leaves the religion.

Just another indictment of Islam , an indication ,like suicide bombers,
of how little many Muslims value human life.
And where is the condemnation by moderate Muslims of extremist brutality.

And yes, we have the leftists defending Islam in their robotic manner,,
even comparing the death penalty for murder with the" crime" of leaving Islam.
If any lefty wants a one way flight to Pakistan or Egypt or Saudi,
I will gladly pay for same.
That includes Hussain Obama.


BTW,,I am against the death penalty.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

Unless the majority think you should get the death penalty for leaving Islam, hence the logic flaw.

Not at all. If you know the consequences you eithere take your chances or leave.

Originally Posted by WoI

It's a yawn moment in the sense that the OP is involved in the archetypical right wing disinformation about Islam. Islam is as diverse as Christianity and what better to illustrate that than the actual poll upon which the OP is allegedly based.

Either the OP knowingly distorts the poll or the OP stupidly copies some Islamophobic shite from a blog without even consulting the poll. Either is typical of a certain mentality that is reminiscent of earlier such eras and it's that part that gets boring quickly.

As for the numbers themselves -which are actually outside of the scope of the OP- it's clear that secularization in Islam (see Turkey) has been as effective as it has been in Christianity in order to get rid of the antediluvian ideas that exist in all the revelationary religions.

I have to wonder though what the exact question is that was posed. When one compares the part of the poll you linked with this:



we have in Jordan 81% of the population supporting democracy while at the same time 86% that would favour the death penalty for abdicating Islam. That doesn't make much sense, does it ? Either of the questions must have been phrased in a way that the apparent contradiction wasn't such for the interviewee.

Another result that causes frowns about the methodology is the huge disparity between Jordan and Lebanon (86 vs. 6%). That is very strange given the many similarities and proximity between the countries.

Agreed with your assessment above.

But Jordan and Lebanon have nearly no similarities at all, bar being close to one another.

So, with nearly 6 mio inhabitants, Jordan is to nearly 94 % sunni muslim.

Lebanon is 35 % christian, the muslims are split 50/50 in sunni and shiite.
Also, by constitution, the head of state in Lebanon must be a maronite christian and the chief of the armed forces a christian of any denomination bar maronite.

Here´s a link to a Merian set of photos about Beiruts scene.
Picture that in Jordan (where I, revealing my german identity, am confronted with an enthusiast Nazi-salute on nearly every transit by soldiers in the airport).

Beirut: In Partylaune - Merian - - Reiseziele

Originally Posted by Dilettante

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.

Democracy does not take advice or even laws from religious institutions.
As the name implies, it is a rule of the people, not the Pope (or Ayatollah or whatever religious creep)
A state that does is a Theocracy or a dictatorship.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

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

DP ?
Dual penetration ?
For leaving Islam ?

Originally Posted by stillalive

Agreed with your assessment above.

But Jordan and Lebanon have nearly no similarities at all, bar being close to one another.

So, with nearly 6 mio inhabitants, Jordan is to nearly 94 % sunni muslim.

Lebanon is 35 % christian, the muslims are split 50/50 in sunni and shiite.
Also, by constitution, the head of state in Lebanon must be a maronite christian and the chief of the armed forces a christian of any denomination bar maronite.

Here´s a link to a Merian set of photos about Beiruts scene.
Picture that in Jordan (where I, revealing my german identity, am confronted with an enthusiast Nazi-salute on nearly every transit by soldiers in the airport).

Beirut: In Partylaune - Merian - - Reiseziele

Yes, I'm aware of the nature of Lebanese society and its diversity. Before the civil war Beirut was called the Paris of the Middle East. But the poll only questioned Muslims. I did apparently misread the Sunni/Shi'ite repartition in Lebanon though. Still, while almost all Sunni's in Jordan say yes to the death penalty for the abdication of Islam, at most 12% of the Sunni's in Lebanon do so. That's still a huge disparity.

Would you say it's precisely Lebanese diversity that precludes the extremism amongst Muslims there ?