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from the oh-good-stronger-copyright-laws-/s dept.
French president challenges 'inward-looking nationalist selfishness' in Europe:
Emmanuel Macron has outlined his vision for the future of the European Union in Strasbourg. The 40-year-old, who secured the French Presidency in May on a pro-EU platform amid a populist surge in the bloc, delivered his highly anticipated speech to over 700 MEPs in the European Parliament on Tuesday.
Macron challenged "inward-looking nationalist selfishness" amid populist sentiment in the bloc and pushed for a more united and reinvigorated Europe. "Nationalism will lead Europe into the abyss. We see authoritarianism rising all around us," he said. "The response should not be authoritarian democracy but the authority of democracy."
Macron also sought to tackle the "poisoned debate" on migration, proposing the creation of a European programme that could subsidise local authorities which host and integrate refugees.
In a speech which touched on a range of issues, Macron recommended that copyright law be tightened to protect artists' "genius" and reiterated his support for tougher environmental legislation.
Meanwhile, Macron wants to "reform" Islam:
Speaking alongside the flag-draped coffin of a police officer killed in a terrorist attack in southern France, President Emmanuel Macron last month lay blame on "underground Islamism" and those who "indoctrinate on our soil and corrupt daily." The attack added further urgency to a project already in the works: Macron has embarked on a controversial quest to change Islam in France — with the goal of integration but also preventing radicalization.
He has said that in the coming months he will announce "a blueprint for the whole organization" of Islam. And those trying to anticipate what that will look like are turning their attention to Hakim El Karoui, a leading voice on how Islamic traditions fit within French culture.
It's hard to miss that the man who appears to have Macron's ear on this most sensitive of subjects cuts a similar figure. Like the president, El Karoui is an ex-Rothschild investment banker with an elite social pedigree who favors well-tailored suits, crisp white shirts and the lofty province of big ideas. The latest of those ideas is this: that the best way to integrate Islam within French society is to promote a version of the religion "practiced in peace by believers who will not have the need to loudly proclaim their faith."
Also at BBC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:15AM (1 child)
No, I'm saying the *exact opposite*. Church did some horrible things "in the name of God", and Bible is considered the literal and immutable "word of God", but in the end the Christianity reformed from the inside.
I've replaced a few words to show parallels between Islam and middle-ages Christianity, and show that the exact same "that probably will never happen" bullshit could've been said about the Christianity as well, a few hundred years ago. Yet here we are.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:44AM
Not by mainstream Christians. The Bible is believed to be inspired by God, but written by many (fallible) human beings, which explains why you can find many mistakes and contradictions in it. God's word is revealed through a distorting fog of human interpretations, which change over time (it isn't immutable). If we were to find an original text of one of the Gospels for example (archeologists find things unexpectedly every so often, and you can do things like carbon-dating, textual analysis etc to demonstrate good provenance), it would be sure to differ in the details with current Gospels, and would therefore inform current thinking. It makes Christianity flexible in its beliefs, which is a good thing.
Islam has the dogma of textual immutability, and the Koran being the actual, unchangeable word of God. Thus, if you find an old Koran which differs with the current one, it is a big deal. One of the key points in the history of Islam is the gathering together of texts of the Koran not long after the death of Mohammed and a process of defining which were the correct ones, to remain unchanged for eternity, which took place under the Caliph Uthman ibn Affan [wikipedia.org]. There is still room for interpretation of the text, and argument over associated hadiths (sayings and actions of Mohammed that are not the Official Word of God, but given heavy weight). Islam has no central authority defining meaning - effectively each imam has their own theology, but there are well-known differing schools of Islamic jurisprudence, as detailed in the Amman Message of 2004 [wikipedia.org]. Islam is not as monolithic in its details in the way many non-Muslims believe. While there are many Wahhabist Muslims, there are also others, and you can see a kind of rough equivalence to the state of things in Christianity: many Christians are Catholic, and regard the Pope in Rome as rather important, but there are other Christians who utterly reject that idea - like Protestants and Orthodox Christians.
Even if a text is immutable, there is much room for interpretation. The USA has the Supreme Court as the ultimate backstop to interpret the Constitution - which is well known text that is difficult to change. The Supreme Court Justices are called upon to interpret the text, and there are differing schools of thought - there are those that look at what they believe to be the original intent of the writers, those that see ambiguities and vagueness in the writing as a deliberate means of allowing differing interpretations in the future, those that think the text should be read literally, and many other nuanced approaches. Such are Muslim interpretations of the Koran and other teachings. There is unlikely to be full agreement on the details about what is right, even if the text itself is unchanged and unchangeable.
It is no doubt possible to disagree with and pick holes in what I have written above, but the broad tenor is, I believe, correct.