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"'Father killed family for being too western'"

A father killed his wife and four daughters in their sleep because he could not bear them adopting a more westernised lifestyle, an inquest heard yesterday.

Mohammed Riaz, 49, found it abhorrent that his eldest daughter wanted to be a fashion designer, and that she and her sisters were likely to reject the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages.

On Hallowe'en last year he sprayed petrol throughout their terraced home in Accrington, Lancs, and set it alight.

... continued

I love christians.

I dont think its ok to pick and choose. Obviously people make mistakes. Its human nature to get things wrong from time to time, but actively ignoring teachings from your faith undermines your own beliefe.

Picking and choosing is a poor phrase to use. Otherwise Geffdof you are saying everything should be followed....to the letter? Which is clearly not true. People 'pick and choose' in how they choose to interprate things. Like anything it's on a scale - it becoms crazy when there are obvious direct contradictions in 'picking and choosing' rather than saying 'I think God is alright with me having sex before marriage, because of this this and this' rather than taking the Bible literally, which I don't think people really advocate, except in extreme cases.

That's why I would never choose another religion, there are too many rules and not enough rewards.

Ah how religion becomes another shambles in Mankinds development :P

I wasnt really talking about people who have different interpretations. I was meaning people who just decide to ignore something that is a fundamental part of the religion. Im not even talking about Christianity here, I'm talking about any religion. People decide not to believe certain parts of their religions to suit their own needs (this can also include your comment on different interpretations). If they are going to do that then why not just ignore the whole thing? These people are lying to themselves really. At least someone who doesnt believe in God or follow any kind of religion is consistent in their unbelief.

But how do you ever know someone's motivation for 'ignoring' part of their faith? One person may believe no sex before marriage is a pillar of the Christian faith, someone else may have read the Bible and interpreted it to mean no sex before marriage was simply desirable, not a strict rule... Whether they simply interpreted it that way, or were looking for that interpretation because that would impede their life less is entirely unclear to anyone but the individual... Unless you question them at length about it...


But obviously setting light to your family is gonna be breaking more religious rules than becoming a fashion designer or not having an arranged marriage. Yer, some people are strange.

Again, Im talking about things that are clear and not open to different interpretations. I dont see the point believing half of the bible. How would you know which bits are right and which bits are wrong? You would essentially be making stuff up yourself.

A good example for you is this. Judy (from Richard & Judy) said a few months back on their show that she thought the resurrection of Jesus was just a metaphor. This to me is stupid because the bible explicitly states that he physically rose from the dead. There is no justification to say that that section is a metaphor. It isnt written in a different style or singled out in the bible in any way so claiming it to be a metaphor is strange to me.

For no real reason, she has decided not to believe that part of the bible. This makes no sense to me. Either the bible is Gods word and we should believe it or it isnt and has no great significance. If you are just going to actively ignore huge chunks of it then why bother taking note of any of it?

But doesn't this hark back to earlier discussions about translation of the Bible and suchlike?

Surely the tone and exact wording of the Bible has changed as it's been translated? Not even intentionally (necessarily), but simply because different languages have words which don't have an exact equivilent in another language... So you end up going with words that are the 'best fit'. Similarly with tone.

So stuff that may have sounded more metaphorical in the 'original' may sound more concrete in a translation (or vice versa).


I'm not trying to discredit your example (as I've said before, my knowledge of the Bible is incredibly limited), but I just find it odd that people can (or believe they can) extract definitive truths from something so old, that has so much debate about it, and has so many different interpretations even within a 'single' faith.

Even if I believed in God and that the Bible was the true word of God, I doubt I could read it and then just go "yep, I know how to be a good person now"... I'd probably be confused as hell about what was/wasn't allowed, what did/didn't really happen, etc.

I can see your point of "can the bible be trusted?" but someone who doubts the authority of the bible would doubt the whole thing.

If you are going to use the arguments of translation difficulties and cultural differences etc. to rule out the bibles validity, then surely it has to be applied to the whole bible, not just a few select passages that someone has difficulty with.

(I obviously think that the bible is true and is Gods word and I believe that the Bible has been translated well from the original source text, but thats besides the point)

I can understand someone who doesnt believe in God at all and doesnt trust the bible. I disagree with their view point, but I can at least see where they are coming from.

Someone who, on the other hand, claims to believe in God and got their knowledge of God from the bible yet then dismisses key points of the bible, makes no sense to me. They are effectively undermining their own religion. I just cant understand why someone would do that.

Let me put it to you in a question. Would you half follow a religion that you were not completely faithful in?