Alcohol and freedom under secular liberalism

[Hell hound]

One has to remember that it was the secular NATO which armed these Khawarij groups.

first of all we have no proof
second lets assume nato is arming them. NATO countries is also arming India and Pakistan does this make them responsible for every wrong doing of these countries

 

[me_itsme]

And just for the record I don't drink although I did in the past "experiment" with various mind bending substances one of them alcohol.

Psychedelics?

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://www.facebook.com/haqiqatjou/posts/1766437213574993

Daniel Haqiqatjou

Alcohol and Freedom

One of the common lines you hear is that Islam does not respect freedom of choice. This is highlighted by Islam's prohibition of alcohol, its consumption and sale. In the freedom-loving West, alcohol flows freely. If you wish to partake, you have that freedom of choice. If not, you can choose to abstain. Ultimately, alcohol just affects your own body and doesn't cause anyone else any harm. So as an adult, you can make that decision for yourself and it would be oppressive for a person or a religion to prevent you from exercising that choice.

Let's investigate this.

All legal systems constrain choice in one shape or another and there are justifications that are given for the laws of that system. For example, US law requires a person to have a drivers license in order to operate an automobile. That law severely constrains people's freedom of mobility, but it is seen as necessary for practical reasons. If people are allowed to drive without a license, the number of car accidents will skyrocket. Car accident fatalities will balloon. Damage to people's property will increase exponentially. So, these are all practical reasons why we would want to have such a law in place. It prevents harm.

Now, one theoretical point that can always be pursued is: What is considered "harm" and what is considered "practical" depend on the assumptions you make about the world and your broader beliefs and commitments. But let's bracket that for now.

Let's just assume common Western standards of practicality and harm and take a closer look at alcohol consumption. In this eye-opening article, we see Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) affects at least 5% of the population and in some communities affects 40%. FASD causes all kinds of psychological and learning disabilities and can result in severe anti-social behavior. A lot of the kids affected by this have to go through special education, many end up in prison, many are unemployable and end up falling into drugs and crime. All of this is the result of a disorder caused by pregnant women who drink. Even a small amount of alcohol consumption can be enough to cause an infant to be on this spectrum. The thing is, sometimes women don't realize they are pregnant and continue their drinking habits not knowing that they are potentially giving their unborn child FASD.

In any case, the harm that is caused to a child is astronomical. There are fewer harms greater than causing a person to have mental retardation. And beyond the harm caused to the child, there is also the harm caused to society overall. These children become wards of the state. It is state institutions that have to take care of these kids or clean up after them, police them, etc. This is a gigantic public cost that is paid for with our tax dollars coming from our income. All of these things restrict and attenuate the freedom that Western culture so ardently claims to covet.

Given all these facts and from this perspective, US law is not clearly more "freedom-loving" and "choice-preserving" than Islamic law as far as alcohol is concerned. It is reasoning like this that shows us how vacuous and ultimately meaningless these appeals to freedom and choice really are. Yet, it is precisely these appeals that are supposed to get us to realize how restrictive, backwards, and contrary to human progress Islamic law is and how empowering, forward-thinking, and conducive to human progress secular law is. Don't be a sucker.

And I highly encourage you to read this article and I challenge you not to be heartbroken after reading about these kids. Anyone with the slightest amount of sense and compassion would know that something needs to be done to further restrict people's access to alcohol and condition people not to drink. Islam and Islamic culture have successfully maintained virtually alcohol-free societies for centuries and this was done without a kind of stiff-armed, crackdown prohibition as was attempted in US history, which itself arguably caused more harm than good. In any case, it wasn't until relatively recently after colonization that this poison has been not only reintroduced into Muslim societies but has been glamorized by Western media and entertainment, such that Muslims from Tehran to Karachi to Rabat see drinking as a form of liberation and a mark of sophistication.

How liberating and sophisticated is a society actively inducing mental retardation in its precious children? Is that what you want? If you are not human enough to submit to your Maker, at least be human enough to spare innocent children.

===================================================================

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown...d-on-a-hidden-epidemic-of-fetal-brain-damage/

This Chicago doctor stumbled on a hidden epidemic of fetal brain damage

Dr. Carl Bell, a psychiatrist in Chicago, began sounding the alarm about fetal alcohol spectrum disorder four years ago. Photo by James Bernal for STAT


CHICAGO — The agitated mom had three kids in foster care and she wanted them back. But she didn’t understand how to parent. She’d never worked. She had a short fuse. She was slow and didn’t seem to learn from experience.

Dr. Carl Bell studied the young woman. Flat cheeks. Thin upper lip. Folds at the corner of her eyes. It hit him like a thunderbolt: She had subtle features of fetal alcohol syndrome.

Bell had seen thousands of patients like this over the past 40 years and been baffled by their explosive tempers, poor social skills, spotty memories, trouble communicating, and learning disabilities.

Now, this psychiatrist realized their behavior might be explained by exposure to alcohol in the womb.

Bell had stumbled on a hidden epidemic of brain damage, concealed by shame and stigma, which affects up to 5 percent of Americans — and in poor communities, possibly far more.

The victims are often misdiagnosed with psychiatric disorders or antisocial tendencies. As kids, they’re stuck in special education classes. As adults, they often end up homeless or in jail. They’re deemed unruly, uncompliant, out of control.

Instead, they may have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD.

“No one realizes how common it actually is,” said Bell, 68, who is nationally known for his work exploring the impact of trauma on children in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

His jolt of recognition in 2012 came as other researchers around the country were beginning to look much more closely at fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published in 2013, includes it for the first time as a condition that needs further exploration.

Today, FASD is widely recognized as the largest preventable cause of birth defects and developmental disabilities in the US.

‘I’ve never been so stunned in my life’

In 2014, a team of researchers led by Philip May of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published a seminal paper showing that 2 to 5 percent of first-graders in a largely white, largely middle-class Midwestern city had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

At the far end of that spectrum lies fetal alcohol syndrome, identified in 1973. Children affected have intellectual disabilities, small heads, stunted growth, and unusual, characteristic facial features: small eyes, a thin upper lip, and a smooth area between the nose and that lip known as the philtrum.

Other people on the spectrum lack these distinctive physical features but are troubled by poor judgment, difficulty planning, impulsivity, and distractibility. They’re often behind in speech and language skills, and have trouble performing tasks in a sequence.

May’s report hit a nerve: Previous estimates of the prevalence of FASD had been much lower. But his calculations may still underestimate the problem. Two new reports, yet to be published, will show that fetal alcohol disorders are more common than May calculated, according to Julie Kable, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Emory University who studies FASD.

Bell suspected the numbers would be higher still in poor, tough, neighborhoods where liquor stores can be found on every other block.

So he conducted a formal study of 611 of his psychiatric patients on Chicago’s South Side. Nearly 40 percent had FASD.

It wasn’t a representative sample of the population, and Bell wasn’t administering sophisticated diagnostic tests, but the results were eye-opening.

“No one had looked at the prevalence of FASD in low-income African American communities before,” Bell said. “I’ve never been so stunned in my life.”

At another Chicago clinic, Dr. Ira Chasnoff, a pediatrician, was testing kids and teens who’d been adopted or were in foster care and having serious behavioral problems. His examinations were more comprehensive, involving a thorough assessment of intelligence, executive functioning, speech and language, sensory processing, and social skills, among other factors. They involved a team of professionals and took a full day or more to complete.

Chasnoff’s findings, published last year: Nearly 30 percent of these youngsters had fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Eighty percent had not received a diagnosis of this kind previously.

Such studies, along with others across the country, are bringing fresh attention to the impact of exposure to alcohol in utero.

Bell “excels at changing the way people think,” said Gene Griffin, a retired professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University’s medical school.

There’s no question that the young African-Americans that Bell is trying to call attention to are engaging in high-risk behaviors, Griffin continued. The question is, how do we explain that — and how do we respond? Are the kids bad? Traumatized? Mentally ill? Marked by adverse environments? Or do we trace their behavior to their exposure, in utero, to alcohol?

“All of these are possible ways of looking at the same data,” Griffin said. By highlighting the brain damage caused by alcohol, Griffin said, Bell is “trying to get us to see these behaviors through a different lens.”

Educational material in Bell’s office explains the characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome. Photo by James Bernal for STAT


‘I want him to be able to fend for himself’

Susan Earl is still coming to terms with the partying she did in her mid-20s, before she became a mother.

Back then, she used to spend most weekends at clubs with friends. She usually had a few drinks. Her boyfriend at the time encouraged her because it loosened her up.

She was about six weeks into a pregnancy when she learned she was expecting. “I stopped drinking as soon as I found out,” Earl said.

It wasn’t soon enough.

Quinton Mills, her son, born four weeks early, had the characteristic facial features of fetal alcohol syndrome. His speech was delayed, and in kindergarten he started biting, kicking, and screaming. He was bullied by classmates. He wet his bed until he was 12.

Now 14 years old, an eighth-grader, and a patient of Bell’s, Quinton is in special education, doing work at the second- or third-grade level.

“His thinking skills, they’re not that good,” Earl said on a recent morning at her home in Calumet City, south of Chicago. “If you tell him to take out the trash, he won’t remember a minute later. I don’t know if his mind goes off or what.”

Arriving home from school, the boy mumbled brief answers to his parents’ questions.

“How was class today?”

“Good.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah.”

As Quinton went back to his room, his stepfather, Nathaniel Earl, became pensive. “I want him to be able to fend for himself,” he said. “But if you ask him who is the president or what is going on [in the world], he can’t tell you. I worry about that.”

A warning to young women backfires

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised all sexually active women of childbearing age to abstain from all alcohol unless they’re using contraception.

The warning was aimed at the more than 3 million women in the US at risk of bearing children with FASD. But it was widely ridiculed. Women called it condescending.

That backlash points to the difficulty of preventing FASD.

Doctors and therapists, including those who deal with children’s learning disabilities and behavioral problems, are extremely reluctant to inquire whether a mom drank while pregnant.

“I can’t tell you how many providers don’t want to ask: There’s so much stigma attached to identifying women who are drinking,” said Kable, the Emory University psychiatrist. “Alcohol is so pervasive in our culture. But no one wants to talk about it.”

Even when physicians do ask, it can be hard to get accurate information. Some women think having a beer or a few glasses of wine a couple of times a week — social drinking, not heavy drinking — doesn’t count. Others think that if they stop drinking when they find out they’re pregnant, they’re in the clear. Others simply deny having had any alcohol.

Officially, the CDC estimates that about 10 percent of women in the US drink during pregnancy. Other research, cited by Chasnoff, suggests that figure may be as high as 20 to 35 percent.

Conveying the risk of fetal alcohol exposure is difficult, because not every woman who drinks during pregnancy will have a child who is affected. It depends on how much alcohol she consumes at various times during her pregnancy as well as her stress level, her nutrition, how she metabolizes alcohol, and her baby’s genetic susceptibility, among other factors.

But the research is clear: No amount of alcohol can be guaranteed to be safe, even in a pregnancy’s very early stages.

As soon as three weeks after conception, before most women realize they’re pregnant, binge drinking (defined as four to five drinks on a single occasion) can cause the kind of brain damage that underlies the symptoms of FASD.

The more women continue to drink, the greater the risks to a fetus. Studies indicate that alcohol exposure alters the brain’s wiring, disrupts brain connections, and leads to brain cell death, causing permanent injury that interferes with normal development.

Even one drink a week during pregnancy can lead to a child with deficits in thinking, judgment, and self-control, reflected in a tendency toward to lash out, throw tantrums, and ignore rules, according to a 2001 study published in Pediatrics.

READ MORE: Uncertainty haunts parents of Flint, as every rash, every tantrum raises alarms

It’s not that these children won’t listen to their parents or teachers. It’s that they can’t process what they’re hearing and translate it into action. Their brains are impaired.

“For the most part, the root cause of these children’s problems goes unrecognized, and children end up being blamed for behaviors that are really biologically based, over which they have no control,” Chasnoff said.

Aggressive interventions at an early age can help kids with FASD learn how to regulate their emotions, break activities down into steps, and think through problems. “You have to raise these kids differently than other children,” Bell said.

But that’s especially hard to do in disadvantaged communities where professional help is scarce and getting along day-to-day is so difficult.

Without intervention, kids with FASD often get diagnosed with mental illness and put on psychiatric drugs at a very young age. Or they’re offered interventions at school that don’t address the full range of their deficits. Or they never learn how to control themselves, and when they grow up find themselves in a world of trouble.

Saving Treshawn

Treshawn Jones plays in his backyard while his aunt, Ora Jackson, supervises. Treshawn was born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and has had difficulty controlling his temper and following directions. Photo by James Bernal for STAT


Ora Jackson won’t forget the day she took custody of Treshawn Jones. He was two months old and bawling nonstop. Frantic, a teenager who had been taking care of him walked into Jackson’s house and handed him over.

“She gave him to me and ran out the door,” Jackson remembered recently, in her home in a tough South Side neighborhood. “I put him on the bed, and I saw that he wasn’t a bad baby. She just didn’t know what to do with him.”

Jackson, 56, who never had children of her own, loved Treshawn and raised him as her son. But it hasn’t been easy. His mother, Jackson’s great niece, had been living on the streets, drinking and doing drugs throughout her pregnancy.

“I started noticing when he was 3 that something wasn’t right,” Jackson said. “He’d have tantrums like I’d never seen before. I took him to a doctor and they told me he was an overactive child. But I was like, no, I know something is wrong, not just that.”

In kindergarten, Treshawn would get into fights and ignore his teacher. Jackson marched him over to Jackson Park Hospital, where a pediatrician recommended that he start seeing a counselor — treatments that continue, weekly, to this day.

Treshawn was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and started taking Ritalin, which helped a bit. But still, he couldn’t tie his shoes. He mumbled when people asked him to speak clearly. And he kept on having problems in school.

Jackson pulled out her phone and showed a text Treshawn’s teacher had sent the week before: “He’s in rare form today fighting and cussing and everything else will not be quiet in class.” And another: “Acting up again won’t shut up stop talking and focus.”

Two years ago, Jackson took Treshawn back to Jackson Park Hospital, where he was evaluated by Bell. “He cannot sit still, he has a bad temper … [but] this is a nice kid,” the psychiatrist wrote in his initial case report. Treshawn, he wrote, had “a clear history of fetal alcohol exposure.”

Bell’s advice: give the boy vitamin A, folate, omega-3, and choline, a nutrient that plays a role in brain development. Animal studies, and studies of young children with FASD, suggest it might ameliorate some of the brain damage from fetal alcohol exposure.

But there’s no solid evidence that choline can help older children or adults.

“In general, we think that choline helps early on in development, but we’re a lot less clear about later,” said Jeffrey Wozniak, an associate professor of psychiatry and codirector of the FASD program at the University of Minnesota. “It’s too early to even say this is a treatment.”

That doesn’t faze Bell, who likes to be ahead of the curve. “I don’t care, because I’m a clinician and as a clinician I get to do what makes sense to me,” he said. “Academics, they can afford to be purists trying to count the hairs on a gnat’s ***.”

Treshawn Jones plays in his backyard on the South Side of Chicago. Photo by James Bernal for STAT


An ‘extraordinarily sneaky’ foe

On a recent morning, Bell strode through the psychiatric ward at Jackson Park Hospital, wearing a green lab coat, black sneakers, and a black baseball cap — part of an extensive collection of hats.

“FASD is extraordinarily sneaky and covert,” he said, before entering a patient’s room.

His diagnostic approach relies on “triangulating” a person’s birth history (prematurity? heart murmur? low birthweight?); their educational history (special education? speech and language problems? explosive temper?); their cognitive skills (can they spell “world” backward and count down from 100 by 7s?); and whatever he can learn about the family background and propensity to drink.

“I sometimes learn the father is an alcoholic, and that’s important because if he’s a drinker, chances are he’s going to influence her to drink,” Bell said.

READ MORE: Why are kids of older dads at higher risk for mental illness?

Outside of his clinic duties, Bell is trying to spread the message about FASD wherever he can. Recently, he gave a talk about it at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, his alma mater. A few weeks later, he traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss it at a committee of the National Academy of Sciences.

Bell is also trying to convince the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago to screen youngsters who’ve gotten into trouble with the law for FASD.

In the end, Bell hopes to show that African-American kids who are dropping out of school and ending up on the streets are there because of “social determinants of health” such as alcohol use. Perhaps, then, communities would see alcohol for what it is — a bigger problem than cocaine or heroin — and kids whose brains were damaged in utero would get treatment, instead of being labelled as deadbeats and failures.

But he’s not sure if people really want to hear his message.

“I’ve been told all my life that African-Americans are intellectually inferior,” Bell said. “I’m terrified of what I’ve found, because it might feed into this stigma” by suggesting that brain damage is more common in poor black communities than elsewhere, reinforcing painful stereotypes.

“But what it really says is that if we want social justice, we have to address the fetal alcohol problem.”

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@Zibago @waleed3601 @Kaptaan @pak-marine @haviZsultan @Hell hound @Yeezy @Sliver @xenon54 @RoadRunner401 @PersonasNonGrata @A.P. Richelieu @flamer84 @madokafc @Salik @Vauban @Imran Khan @third eye @Kaniska

I didn't realize the West had a worldwide monopoly on alcohol drinking. I guess the billions of people who don't live in the west simply don't count.

 

[T-72M1]

9:52 to 11:00 - it's not three months yet

 

[TMA]

first of all we have no proof
second lets assume nato is arming them. NATO countries is also arming India and Pakistan does this make them responsible for every wrong doing of these countries

India and Pakistan are not terrorist groups. NATO is on the one hand at war with terrorists but yet covertly using them for their strategic interests.

http://journal-neo.org/2015/07/12/time-admits-isis-bringing-arms-fighters-in-from-nato-territory/

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/02/19/turkey-us-arming-isis-alongside-syrian-kurds/

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2015/12/08/united-states-arming-isis-years/

 

[Hell hound]

India and Pakistan are not terrorist groups. NATO is on the one hand at war with terrorists but yet covertly using them for their strategic interests.

http://journal-neo.org/2015/07/12/time-admits-isis-bringing-arms-fighters-in-from-nato-territory/

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/02/19/turkey-us-arming-isis-alongside-syrian-kurds/

http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2015/12/08/united-states-arming-isis-years/

they never supplied it to the isis directly it is mostly stolen equipment from the freedom fighters which were supported by them.not their problem that freedom fighters can't hold onto the equipment.
this is the thread about alcohol so lets no make it a middle eastern one.

 

[Gibbs]

Hahahaha.. One of the best backfire threads if i have ever seen here on PDF.. Thanks to all the posters irrespective of nationalities for the entertainment, I bet the OP would have never thought his fecked up mullah opinions would ever get this much of a backlash.. Kudos people, Have a drink on me.. Be merry

 

[livingdead]

The world is definitely moving towards more personal freedom and secularism as a way of life, and that is the way forward, as I believe. Drinking is not a big deal, if done in moderation, some people lives revolve around drinking and can affect academic performance and cause health issues, but that is their problem, we are not responsible for everybody.

With all that being said, I see some people claim Islam is not against choice of drinking alcohol. Which is simply false, Islam doesn't permit sale or consumption of alcohol, if you're following the Islam the prophet of Islam lived. With all due respect to members here, you can't make Islam something that reflects your personal worldview's. It's pretty clear on this regard. So speak in name of secular values, and promote secularism which does better for us than to attribute such thoughts/approach to Islam.



Freedom has limitations in Abrahamic faiths, so understand the context he is coming from. From secular human perspective, of course we don't agree it should be that way.

agree with everything you said. About islam not allowing alcohol, lets agree that is the case. (as am not an expert on subject).
If that is true, what are you going to do with people that are otherwise muslim but consume alcohol(either secretly or openly). Excommunicate from islam? Is it possible?

 

[pak-marine]

Not that I know of.

Dont u find it strange that of 6billion people there is no model ideal for you nor country or an oragnisation.

 

[TMA]

they never supplied it to the isis directly it is mostly stolen equipment from the freedom fighters which were supported by them.not their problem that freedom fighters can't hold onto the equipment.
this is the thread about alcohol so lets no make it a middle eastern one.

have you ever heard of plausible deniability?

 

[Kaniska]

alcohol must be free .

Thanks for tagging me buddy...Again i would say, Islam is a beutiful religion like all other religion of this world..But the issue is that some sick people hijacked your religion, and your good people never stand up...Take the example of Alchohol...I agree with you alcohol must be banned in every corner of this planet..I

 

[@RV]

Thanks for tagging me buddy...Again i would say, Islam is a beutiful religion like all other religion of this world..But the issue is that some sick people hijacked your religion, and your good people never stand up...Take the example of Alchohol...I agree with you alcohol must be banned in every corner of this planet..I

Will you tell me what is the problem with alcohol? I consume alcohol and my parents don't have an issue, my wife (Just got married this April) don't have an issue, my friends and colleagues don't have an issue. Even my doctor don't have an issue then what is your problem.
Alcohol consumption in excess in injuries to health but so does various types of fats consumption. They all are not banned then why only alcohol.

 

[barbarosa]

It increase the sexual power of the user people, They can't pay their sexual duty without alcohol.

 

[Luffy 500]

The logical fallacy towards which you are drawing us is that the opposite is true. It is your kind of bigotry that we are fighting against in India. You will find many friends in the RSS; come right over.

At the end of the day, all religious fanatics are identical; only their covers are different.

Do not compare muslims with your hindutvadi fanatics. Muslims don't slaughter pregnant women under the noses of chief ministers in broad day light and neither do they kill people for eating beef.

You are a typical liberal with a narrow world view based on flawed presumptions and a condescending attitude towards religion. You are making the mistake of conflating Islam with other religions. If you think that your neighbor salman who loiters in the bar and shares beer with you, is representative of 1.6 bn muslims , then you are in for a big surprise. RSS is your problem. DON'T project your country's extremism problem on the muslim world.

Come on! What is wrong with freedom. Freedom to choose how a person lives his life. Imposing religion is always a disaster. Instead the state has a responsibility to focus on equality freedom and merit. What has our countries imposition of Islamic law given us. Allah has made it clear "to you be your faith, to me be mine"... we have the freedom to choose right or wrong and that is how the world works. If Allah wanted each and every person would be a muslim but he made us so that we love each other and respect each others, so that there was diversity in the world. Let them drink, its like taking ones right to pray or banning minarets in Switzerland.

Only in our countries do we impose what a person should and should not do. I do not consume alcohol but I still support freedom for those that want to. Nothing should be imposed by a sword hanging on their heads. The beauty of Islam is that people automatically are attracted to it because of its righteous ways. Islamic conversion has slowed down compared to in the past only because of this type of thinking, radical thinking and imposition of so-called Islamic principles by ghairatmands. I believe luffy you interpret Islamic texts too radically, too narrowly.

First learn about the religion you claim to profess. Ignorance is not an excuse for your diatribe in this day and age.

https://islamqa.info/en/20037

https://islamqa.info/en/11403

https://islamqa.info/en/96662

Yes Islam restricts freedom. Islam and liberalism are 2 different religion and way of life. DO you get that?

And no, none of our countries imposed Islam on others. Its preposterous that you keep on repeating such absurd lies. I think you keep Joseph Goebbels in high esteem.

You don't have to worry about islamic conversion. First gain basic knowledge about the religion you claim to profess without stressing yourself too much. Btw People are converting to Islam in mass throughout the globe. SO relax.

I interpret islamic text the way it was interpreted by the companions of the prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) , and the first generations and the scholars who followed them. I allow the Quran and Sunnah to speak for itself without trying to read in my biases and preconceived notions into them. I am a muslim NOT a liberal.

well as per my religion, I am allowed to drink alcohol, infact thats how I can be closer to God..

if muslims dont want its upto them, nobody is forcing alcohol on anybody.

I am not saying that you should be forced NOT to drink . You are a non-muslim in a non-muslim land. This thread is about the secular liberal concept of freedom and what it promotes. Yes as a muslim I strongly desire for you to give up drinking because we are obliged to want good for others. There is also a very important islamic concept of promoting good and forbidding evil. Believe it or not , the west through the secular liberal world order , directly promotes their vices in the muslim world. Open dhaka tribune or express tribune and see for yourself what they promote here. Look at the statements of world leaders and their policies regarding the muslim world. Secularist in the muslim world force their beliefs on muslims. Pre-AKP turkey , central asian republics , pre-2011 tunisia are classic example of secular totalitarianism. Remember the hue and cry about brunei sharia law? One Australian reporter was dead worried about whether Bruneians would be allowed to drink alcohol , while the human rights groups were talking about "subjugation" of Bruneians under "medieval laws". US is linking human rights to TPP trade agreements. Its NOT muslims who force their beliefs on others but its non-muslims specially liberals who are the bigots.

agree with everything you said. About islam not allowing alcohol, lets agree that is the case. (as am not an expert on subject).
If that is true, what are you going to do with people that are otherwise muslim but consume alcohol(either secretly or openly). Excommunicate from islam? Is it possible?

Consuming alcohol is a major sin. A serious crime in Islam. But it doesn't make the consumer a non-muslim. Excommunication is NOT a play thing in Islam. Only scholars are allowed to excommunicate after a through interrogation and investigation. Its NOT the job of individual muslims. One of the major reasons why scholars around the globe unanimously condemn ISIS is because of their tendency to excommunicate muslims left and right. If you are interested: https://islamqa.info/en/85102

But yes if someone starts justifying alcohol consumption saying that islam allows it or openly starts rebuking Quran and sunnah because of his desires , then that person is out of the fold of islam. Note : I am talking in generality and not directing it at any x,y,z individual. I am talking about the principle.

 

[livingdead]

Do not compare muslims with your hindutvadi fanatics. Muslims don't slaughter pregnant women under the noses of chief ministers in broad day light and neither do they kill people for eating beef.

You are a typical liberal with a narrow world view based on flawed presumptions and a condescending attitude towards religion. You are making the mistake of conflating Islam with other religions. If you think that your neighbor salman who loiters in the bar and shares beer with you, is representative of 1.6 bn muslims , then you are in for a big surprise. RSS is your problem. DON'T project your country's extremism problem on the muslim world.



First learn about the religion you claim to profess. Ignorance is not an excuse for your diatribe in this day and age.

https://islamqa.info/en/20037

https://islamqa.info/en/11403

https://islamqa.info/en/96662

Yes Islam restricts freedom. Islam and liberalism are 2 different religion and way of life. DO you get that?

And no, none of our countries imposed Islam on others. Its preposterous that you keep on repeating such absurd lies. I think you keep Joseph Goebbels in high esteem.

You don't have to worry about islamic conversion when you don't even know the first thing about Islam. Btw People are converting to Islam in mass throughout the globe. SO relax.

I interpret islamic text the way it was interpreted by the companions of the prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) , and the first generations and the scholars who followed them. I allow the Quran and Sunnah to speak for itself without trying to read in my biases and preconceived notions into them. I am a muslim NOT a liberal.



I am not saying that you should be forced NOT to drink . You are a non-muslim in a non-muslim land. This thread is about the secular liberal concept of freedom and what it promotes. Yes as a muslim I strongly desire for you to give up drinking because we are obliged to want good for others. There is also a very important islamic concept of promoting good and forbidding evil. Believe it or not , the west through the secular liberal world order , directly promotes their vices in the muslim world. Open dhaka tribune or express tribune and see for yourself what they promote here. Look at the statements of world leaders and their policies regarding the muslim world. Secularist in the muslim world force their beliefs on muslims. Pre-AKP turkey , central asian republics , pre-2011 tunisia are classic example of secular totalitarianism. Remember the hue and cry about brunei sharia law? One Australian reporter was dead worried about whether Bruneians would be allowed to drink alcohol , while the human rights groups were talking about "subjugation" of Bruneians under "medieval laws". US is linking human rights to TPP trade agreements. Its NOT muslims who force their beliefs on others but its non-muslims specially liberals who are the bigots.



Consuming alcohol is a major sin. A serious crime in Islam. But it doesn't make the consumer a non-muslim. Excommunication is NOT a play thing in Islam. Only scholars are allowed to excommunicate after a through interrogation and investigation. Its NOT the job of individual muslims. One of the major reasons why scholars around the globe unanimously condemn ISIS is because of their tendency to excommunicate muslims left and right. If you are interested: https://islamqa.info/en/85102

But yes if someone starts justifying alcohol consumption saying that islam allows it or openly starts rebuking Quran and sunnah because of his desires , then that person is out of the fold of islam. Note : I am talking in generality and not directing it at any x,y,z individual. I am talking about the principle.

well I am against imposing any value system from outside because it backfires in long term. Alcohol is small issue, I am talking about democracy, pluralism or women rights. One can only go to certain extent to influence a fellow human being to do what we think is right(just like you would want me to stop drinking). I think recent events suggest imposing these values do not work.
However in every society there are people who are from within and believe in those values. For example lot of tunisians(compared to bangladeshis) do like western way of life. What do you do then, if they are under attack. The least you can do is to protest and tell those people that you are with them, because you have same belief. Dont muslims do the same?