Not universally, it hasn't (i.e. the Arab Spring). Victory in one nation and failure in another only sets up the combatants for higher stakes games at a later date.
I don't think it is an outright ban on C-Sections, but more along the lines of trying to prevent doctors from pushing C-Sections on women who do not need it, so that they can make more money: Akdag said Tuesday that doctors have also been warned against performing unnecessary C-sections, which Erdogan has also said he is against. Health officials say they are worried that some doctors are pushing women into unnecessary surgeries with potentially serious consequences in order to make more money. Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Sahin said earlier this week that Turkey's C-section rate was more than double the average rate in European Union countries. On that score, I can't really blame them. Because some doctors do push it when it isn't needed at all. In the UK, for example, some hospitals are now restricting voluntary C-Sections as well. His ban on abortions, which are currently legal up to 10 weeks and available for emergency reasons after that 10 week period is a bigger concern then trying to prevent doctors from making money by pushing unnecessary major surgery. Recep Akdag said a study was under way for possible measures against abortions – presently legal in Turkey up to 10 weeks from conception. Emergency abortions for medical reasons can be performed after that. Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday during the opening ceremony of a hospital in Istanbul that his government is preparing "legislation about abortion, and we will pass that." "I see abortion as murder. No one should allow this," Erdogan said last week. "Either you kill a baby in a mother's womb or after birth. There is no difference." His position, however, is not new to those aware of very Conservative politics. We recently saw some of the US Presidential candidates wanting to ban all abortions, emergency and non-emergency ones at that.
A bit like circumcision then. It hasn't been demonstrated to be strongly beneficial, but they don't mind tacking it onto the bill..
The Arab Spring didn't necessarily have anything to do with secularism. In any case, we were talking about the west, where secularism has largely supplanted religious authority.
The West is not the whole world, and it has porous borders. As for the Arab Spring, it was explicitly a contrast of theocracy in several places.
As I said, I wasn't talking about the whole world. I was talking about the places where secularism actually exists.
Yes - what I believe, however, is that the war against aggressive theocracy isn't won until it's won everywhere. Hence the growing problem of conservative Islamic theocracy. That's not to take away progress here: progress here has been a hard-fought battle. But worse is coming.
We agree completely on this. The thread of my argument was simply that the way to combat theocracy is with secularism, as opposed to quad's contention that we have to invent a new religion.
Wasn't it one of the conditions of your being allowed to return to this forum was that you not participate in these discussions?
My point was some shmuck slaughtered hundreds of thousands and then wrote a book. Since he wrote a book billions have died over it. The people in Turkey are still paying for his 5th century comprehension of women's rights as more of its doctrines are embraced. More or less... 100's of millions of people today suffer because Muhammed wrote a ridiculous book. You're a part of the secular religion, I would think you would have appreciation for this acknowledgment.
That's about as murky and unintelligible an explanation of Islam's founding as I'd expect from you, yes. What is a "secular religion?"
I think you would find that in any country which embraces an Abrahamic religion or has politicians who overly embrace any Abrahamic religion, rights of women and others have been curtailed. Some countries have decided to go backwards from a very modern standpoint, because of their religious beliefs and because conservatives are being given the right to inflict their conservative religious beliefs upon the populace. We see it in Western countries where the ultra-Conservaties are trying to force their religious views and beliefs on women and mostly, where it involves women's reproductive health and we even see it in countries like Turkey (as per this thread) and Israel, which were always deemed to be more relaxed then some of their Middle Eastern neighbours. Israel, for example, appears to be going backwards in many regards when it comes to women's rights and their role in society. And it appears, so is Turkey. And I agree with JDawg. Could you please define 'secular religion'?
Participants of the secular religion believe the world is comprised of atomic facts which generate patterns. Those patterns exist as a result of more intrinsic laws. That all matter exists to exist innately and that human experience is flawed.
This is a definition of "Secular Religion" from Wikipedia: All in all; religion is religion, making it "secular" would not make it better or worse; I mean the taste of shit in your mouth doesn't change. So let's go back to the "Contribution to the topic" business: The major mistake in this comment is this: Here, "some shmuck"s are actually the people in Turkey, not a desert fortune teller who doesn't live anymore. If the existing, "alive" people want to entertain themselves with some mumbo jumbo, they can easily employ any sort of ancient ideas, that's what Turks are doing at the moment -ohh, let's say "just like some other societies" in terms of satisfying-I-don't-know-what's...
baftan, so the more guilty free the less guilty? If you don't understand the genuine repercussion's of the Q'ran, how can you assign guilt? What were the intentions of this particular book, and why have they survived? You can refer to it as "mumbo jumbo", but perhaps arrogance begets ignorance. You can with safe confidence say something to which you have no genuine exposure is wrong by association? Perhaps... it is YOU who is the "fortune teller". In my world, we call that a religion.
All right, so let's blame Quran instead of actual people who follow this or any other stories in order to satisfy their war against women (or against any other form of humanity). Or, if Quran magically disappears, all women would be perfectly equal and safe, is that so? I think you are dreaming. Religions are mumbo jumbo. Prove otherwise or this sentence of yours will be accepted as your ignorance. What? Did I tell anything about future or after death? Hmmm, let me think: No. So branding me as "fortune teller" is an unsubstantiated shit. "In your world" your confused mind has apparently focus on one subject and blame everything on it. In this case it's Quran. In your world, actual alive human beings can be excusable just because they say that they are following this or that religion, is that so? You have unnecessarily personalized this topic. Therefore, you don't deserve a shit from now on. Keep bringing on your ill-qualified mumbo jumbo and satisfy your libido then, good luck.
This is standard human science stuff, right out of Guns, Germs & Steel. Societies that adopt patriarchal, hierarchal religions and up more regimented, organized and violent, and this causes them to eventually displace/absorb societies that do not have similar features. The concrete evidence for this is that patriarchal religions have come to almost totally dominate all human societies the world over, at the expense of alternative conceptions. Again, we'd have to come up with some kind of "equality" meme that is able to out-compete the patriarchy meme. It's not obvious how to do that, of course, but I'd point out the impact of modern technology: it's not obvious that we particularly need men to be soldiers, rather than women, given the technology involved. And doubling our workforce by including women has made us pretty competitive; that example also points up how it's possible for circumstances to open up space for a new meme to lock in a higher equilibrium. Well, I have above in this post, although I do not consider that connection to be in any real doubt. If you aren't convinced of it at this point, well, you can go do some further reading or just remain unconvinced. Not sure where you live, but around me, secularism amounts only to preventing any one religion from attaining supremacy. It's just a truce between several different religions - all of which are rigidly patriarchal. American society is essentially a patchwork of people who adhere to slight variations on the same patriarchal meme. Progress that has been made in terms of gender equality isn't a product of secularism (although the secularism helps) and - more importantly - isn't actually durable. The patriarchy is constantly pushing back on it, and is more than willing to dedicate many generations to reversing any gains. Even if that's so, it's an extremely weak statement. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with patriarchay/religion in general, though. And, again, I'll note that the religious side seems to be winning the war on abortion lately. There are plenty of states where you can't really get an abortion, even if it is "legal." And plenty more where such will be the case soon, if the patriarchy has its way. Is that what you think? I'd sure like to live in whatever fantasy America you reside in. Sounds nice. Not sure what it has to do with the influence of patriarchal religion, though. I'm just not seeing that. I could list lots of examples, but since it's your assertion how about you do that, first. Things have gone reasonably well for the gays lately, although I'm unclear on whether that tells us anything about the influence of patriarchal religion in general (plenty of patriarchal religions in world history have been just fine with homosexuality). Notice that the hallmarks of gay acceptance here are instances of organized hierarchy and social solidarity: open service in the military, and participation in marriage. This looks more like the reprogramming of patriarchal religion to adopt a wider user base - with more military power and social stability, specifically - into its existing memes. And I pointed out that the tide seems to be running the other way, at the moment. Which is no way asigns to you any claim of "secularism has eliminated religion." As such, I'll thank you in advance for retracting your false charge of strawmanning, and for your apology for such.
