Why Kayla Mueller Died

[ralph]

Iranian jews --- http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html ---

[GFB]

That's gotta be tough duty.

[ralph]

article on Kayla Mueller --- http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthe ... eller-1-1/ --- I don't know but I understand the comparison to ' Racheal corrie ' .

[jellowrestling]

I find the idea that a country with a secular govt. is a "Muslim" country or anything else just because more than 50% of the population is of a certain religious persuasion to be a rather strange and meaningless concept.

Depends on what you mean by "country".

If you're talking about the territory itself, then yes, that doesn't make sense. If you are talking about the nation, i.e., the people, then the religious make-up of the people defines it, not the political stance of the government on religion.

[planosteve]

I find the idea that a country with a secular govt. is a "Muslim" country or anything else just because more than 50% of the population is of a certain religious persuasion to be a rather strange and meaningless concept.

Depends on what you mean by "country".

If you're talking about the territory itself, then yes, that doesn't make sense. If you are talking about the nation, i.e., the people, then the religious make-up of the people defines it, not the political stance of the government on religion.

Does it make sense to refer to a country with a 50% Muslim population as a "Muslim Country" as compared with one with say only 49% Muslims? I expect there are many countries where less than 50% of the population even belong to a religion. Should we call them all "atheist countries"?

[jellowrestling]

I find the idea that a country with a secular govt. is a "Muslim" country or anything else just because more than 50% of the population is of a certain religious persuasion to be a rather strange and meaningless concept.

Depends on what you mean by "country".

If you're talking about the territory itself, then yes, that doesn't make sense. If you are talking about the nation, i.e., the people, then the religious make-up of the people defines it, not the political stance of the government on religion.

Does it make sense to refer to a country with a 50% Muslim population as a "Muslim Country" as compared with one with say only 49% Muslims? I expect there are many countries where less than 50% of the population even belong to a religion. Should we call them all "atheist countries"?

I suspect that a country which has less than 50% of the population belonging to a religion would probably rightly be considered "secular". However, that is not the case in the US, and that's not the case in Middle Eastern countries.