Luhe,
The mental illness of an entire community comes about through the enforcement of social practices. Of all people, ex-JWs should know this without having any other expert testimony.
Shunning that is required by that community has varied effects that this forum has documented for years. The "two witness rule" has been shown to protect the sexual predators and effectively "honor kills" the victims. The elevation of a small group of men as the ultimate arbiters of our spiritual life results in the destruction of our ability to reason and act with any authenticity. Fear =mental illness
Where female genital mutilation is practiced--this is an enforced social practice that reuires a kind of group complicity to support it. Is it healthy just because everyone does it? Fear forces everyone in the community to go along with it even if they think it is wrong. This creates a sick society.
It is only recently that some of the richest oil countries have come into the modern era. These lands and peoples are largely Muslim-right? If we listen to some of the voices of Muslim people (women especially) we hear them say that some of the practices are very much rooted in old tribal social practice--some of the very disturbing practices we read of in the OT. Bloody, mysogynistic, patriarchal, exclusive. Fear=mental illness
It has been pointed out by other posters in these thread on Islam that the problem with Islam is that you cannot leave it without being killed. Yet in the places where human rights have an established value, Muslims who are faithful and informed live with happily with non-muslims.
It looks to me that Islam has only recently come forward from the Old Testament grounds. I do not need to repeat the views we on this board have of this period of human history: these social practices that may have been common for that time and place produce negative values on human lives and human rights--mental illness-- in the communities we want today.
