Is sacrilege fair game?

Hector Savage wrote: »

OK, are you saying it's easier to leave Islam than the RCC ???

I am saying exactly what I said.
Technically the RCC does not permit people to leave. It used to up intil a few years ago but then changed the rules.
It used to kill people who tried. It is no longer allowed to do so by the Civil Authorities.

People are quite free to consider themselves not members of the RCC but technically they will still be listed as such in official records.

Islam is, in many regards, where Christianity was a few hundred years ago (although never had the equivalent to a centralised authority such as Roman Catholicism had/has) and in it's more fervent regions takes a sometimes fatally dim view of people leaving (although I don't think they have quite gotten to the Auto de Fé/Inquisition stage anywhere - perhaps I am wrong) despite this people can and do 'leave'. I, personally, know many 'ex' Muslims - mainly Turks and Lebanese and no, they do not all live in the 'West'. The most 'anti' Islam as a religion person I know is Turkish and from a very conservative Muslim family. He, his wife, and adult daughter (I have know her since she was a baby) are all Atheists.

In fact - even in traditional Muslim countries/regions people are 'leaving Islam'

And it is not just an American or Western phenomenon. Even deeply conservative countries with strict anti-apostasy regimes like Pakistan, Iran and Sudan have been hit by desertions. The Saudis were taken aback when the American journal, The New Republic, revealed the scale of Muslim conversion to atheism in their country, and more widely in the Muslim world. The numbers were eye-popping, ranging from hundreds to thousands in some countries.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/why-are-young-muslims-leaving-islam/cid/1704203

It is not that long ago here in Ireland that people who denounced Christianity were shunned, lost their livelihood, families, forced to emigrate, and although Ireland did not witness the mass murder of those who 'left Catholicism', England did - Mary Tudor had 300 people executed, mainly by being burned alive.

There really is no outrage perpetuated in the name of Islam that hasn't equally been perpetuated in the name of Christianity at some point.

As far as I am concerned they are "same meat different gravy".

Bannasidhe wrote: »

People are quite free to consider themselves not members of the RCC but technically they will still be listed as such in official records.

Yet they acknowlege the decision of those who leave in countries which have a church tax - because the civil authorities would end church tax if they didn't, and it's a massive money-spinner for them.

Not exactly the first time the RCC has been caught being entirely hypocritical, however.

Islam is, in many regards, where Christianity was a few hundred years ago

Well, it is a few hundred years newer. Stil very much in the 'difficult adolescent' phase :pac:

robindch wrote: »

Not centralized in terms of a single fixed center, but the Sunni and Shiite threads of Islam do have fairly consistent views of what differentiates them and these haven't changed much since the days when Ali and Abu first failed to see eye to squinting eye.

I meant in the administrative sense - there is no Muslim "Vatican". The RCC piggybacked on to an already centralised, but collapsing, Empire and made sure that all the roads that led to Rome led out as well carrying their rules. They were poised to fill the vacuum left by the fall of civil powers.
Yes, a series of happy 'accidents' that took out rivals to Rome helped too.
The world might have been a very different place if Christianity had looked to Alexandria or Constantinople - arguably we may not have seen Christianity spread so easily through Europe via Roman administrative centres.

Conversely, Islam sought to build empires as it spread. The two went hand in hand so they were, in a sense, making it up as they went along and that schism was there, as you said, from the very beginning.

The RCC had Europe to itself for 1000 years before any schismatic movement really threatened it's monopoly. And it was also prior to that schism that European embarked on the first phase of Imperialism so Sword and Cross went hand in hand to 'new' worlds.
Ironically, the schism that happened soon after fueled European Imperialism as the two factions fought each other for global power.

While Constantinople was trying to survive Muslim onslaughts, Alexandra had already fallen - Islam itself was divided.

Rome was unrivalled in a Europe that ultimately began to look west - albeit with hope of finding East and had a system in place that allowed it to ruthlessly destroy any internal opposition for hundreds of years.