Islam

[Balerion]

Had the wrong person and I apologize.

Back to your claim: You've substantiated precisely *nothing*! I want proof, not just your own words - without the proof they are completely worthless.

You'll have to forgive my original claim, as it assumed that the people reading had some working knowledge of Islam and Christianity. I guess I should have accounted for overly emotional readers with no knowledge but a ton of assumptions. That's my fault.

However, in my reply to your outburst, I did provide a link to the WIki entry, which provides all the context and references you could ask for. That you have ignored this indicates that you're not really interested in discussing anything.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

. . . . your mistaking of the modern Western society we live in today as an example of Christianity.

It is the communities formed around a religion that define that religion, not the mythology in its holy book that was written almost two millennia ago. Christians are Christianity, just as Muslims are Islam.

Your premise is like telling people that if they read the Constitution, they will understand the United States.

Women have more rights in Islam than they do in Christianity or Judaism.

Oh now you've veered off into sheer poppycock. If you're talking about the modern Islamic cultures such as Azerbaijan, women there have essentially the same rights as in any modern Christian culture such as Sweden or France: no more, no less. If you're talking about the atavistic 19th-century Islamic cultures such as Iran, women there have essentially the same rights as in atavistic 19th-century Christian cultures such as Ireland: no more, no less. If you're talking about the Stone Age Islamic cultures such as Afghanistan and the remote regions of Pakistan... sorry I don't think there are any Christian cultures of that type left. In these places Islam has fostered a tendency to stall modernization, and observers almost unanimously attribute the ease with which they do this to keeping their women ignorant and powerless. Notice that one of the key goals of the Taliban is to shut down girls' schools.

Educating women is the key to peace and prosperity. Throughout Christendom, education has been made available to women since the founding of the modern institutional educational movement. Reform Judaism has created a new rite, the bat mitzvah, which parallels the bar mitzvah and requires a girl to know how to read and write, to discuss the Scriptures critically, and to have gone out into the community to perform an act of charity before she is accepted as an adult woman--putting women on exactly the same plane as men.

What has modern Islam given us? A champion of schooling for girls shot in the head and living in exile in a Christian country for her own safety.

It's easy to look at how women are abused through the mandating of the burqa, or how in some countries they are not allowed to move around without chaperone, but you must understand that while these abuses and means of oppression are still disgusting, the status of women as citizens and as equals in the eyes of God is greater in Islam than the other monotheisms.

This statement is utterly meaningless because God is imaginary. This is merely a typical way in which the leaders of communities whose members have been hoodwinked into believing in supernaturalist bullshit keep their people ignorant and docile.

What you're saying is exactly like the religious leaders who are in league with despotic government leaders, saying, "Don't worry about the abuse you're suffering at the hands of your leaders. You'll be rewarded in Heaven and they'll be punished in Hell."

To hell with religion! The most evil force on this planet.

 

[wynn]

This statement is utterly meaningless because God is imaginary.

And whatever you say is mandatory, for everyone, everywhere. You rule.

What you're saying is exactly like the religious leaders who are in league with despotic government leaders.


Redneck retard revival, the liberal/atheist version.

 

[Balerion]

It is the communities formed around a religion that define that religion, not the mythology in its holy book that was written almost two millennia ago. Christians are Christianity, just as Muslims are Islam.

Certainly that's a part of it, but Islam is also its texts. Without the texts, there is no Islam, so there is no way to remove them from the equation.

Your premise is like telling people that if they read the Constitution, they will understand the United States.

And tell me, how does one understand the United States without reading the Constitution?

What you're saying is that the United States, as it is today, exists independently of its foundational documents. This is absurd.

Oh now you've veered off into sheer poppycock. If you're talking about the modern Islamic cultures such as Azerbaijan, women there have essentially the same rights as in any modern Christian culture such as Sweden or France: no more, no less. If you're talking about the atavistic 19th-century Islamic cultures such as Iran, women there have essentially the same rights as in atavistic 19th-century Christian cultures such as Ireland: no more, no less. If you're talking about the Stone Age Islamic cultures such as Afghanistan and the remote regions of Pakistan... sorry I don't think there are any Christian cultures of that type left. In these places Islam has fostered a tendency to stall modernization, and observers almost unanimously attribute the ease with which they do this to keeping their women ignorant and powerless. Notice that one of the key goals of the Taliban is to shut down girls' schools.

France and Sweden are no more "Christian culture" than Tehran is. You're doing the same thing Read-Only is doing, which is mistaking secular, multicultural society for a Christian one. What exactly is Christian about women being equal in the household, or holding a job, or divorcing and remarrying? Nothing.

Educating women is the key to peace and prosperity. Throughout Christendom, education has been made available to women since the founding of the modern institutional educational movement.

Except when it wasn't. You act as if this idea of women having great roles in the church--and therefore an escape from the animal breeding cycle and access to an education--was world-wide. It wasn't. The same could be said for women in Islam. I grant that their treatment is barbaric in several places today, but it's not so much in others. And the actual scripture of Islam does imbue them with more rights than does the bible for Christian women. The difference seems to be secular influence on any given place; where it exists--like the west--you see women's roles approaching equal status with men. Where it doesn't--like some places in the middle east--it is nowhere near.

Reform Judaism has created a new rite, the bat mitzvah, which parallels the bar mitzvah and requires a girl to know how to read and write, to discuss the Scriptures critically, and to have gone out into the community to perform an act of charity before she is accepted as an adult woman--putting women on exactly the same plane as men.

Yes, Reform Judaism, which was founded in and inspired by the secular United States of America. Thank you for making my point for me.

What has modern Islam given us? A champion of schooling for girls shot in the head and living in exile in a Christian country for her own safety.

That's convenient. You point to the best examples of Christianity and Judaism--while ignoring the influence of multicultural secular society--and then point to the worst example of Islam. Why not point to Anders Breivik, who saw himself as a Christian reformist? Or to the Catholic priests molesting countless innocent children while the largest Christian denomination in the world aids and abets them? Or to The Troubles in Northern Ireland, where most of the casualites were women and children?

I see, we'll just leave those bits out.

This statement is utterly meaningless because God is imaginary. This is merely a typical way in which the leaders of communities whose members have been hoodwinked into believing in supernaturalist bullshit keep their people ignorant and docile.

I am aware that God is imaginary. Yet the scriptures attributed to him are very real, and that is what they say. I can't help it if you want to pretend that this doesn't mean anything.

What you're saying is exactly like the religious leaders who are in league with despotic government leaders, saying, "Don't worry about the abuse you're suffering at the hands of your leaders. You'll be rewarded in Heaven and they'll be punished in Hell."

Obviously not. That's patently absurd, and you should be ashamed of yourself for misrepresenting me so. I do not forgive the treatment of women in Islam, I simply point out that in the scriptures, they are given much more rights than they are in Judaism or Christianity. That is a fact.

 

[seagypsy]

You're right, of course. Having come from a somewhat Christian background, I can fondly say that Christianity is all about love, but there are plenty of online sources that can dispute that notion by simply quoting from the source. Regardless of what I was taught and would like to believe, I have to be honest and recognize, yeah, there's some evil stuff in the bible. Can I safely recognize the same when reading quotes from the Koran? Do I really need to read the book?

I appreciate that you found a peaceful and inspirational message from your interpretation, but apparently there's room for justifying more violent motivations. Yes, I want to believe that most Muslims are peace-loving people--and that's probably true for most--but there seems to be a disproportionate number of extremist associated with the religion than there are with any other religion, which you might have noted earlier in this thread.

I think you may have missed my point. What I was saying, is that it really doesn't matter what the Qur'an actually says. The people will interpret it as they see fit. In the past I insisted on judging the faith, on this forum, by the texts. But it has been made abundantly clear by the majority of posters here that the Qur'an is irrelevant to Islam. Muslims define Islam, not the Qur'an. Most Muslims like most Christians, never even read the Qur'an. They memorize verses in Arabic, not understanding the meaning, and rely on their elders to tell them what the Qur'an actually says. They don't use their own critical thinking skills to read the text for themselves and determine what it says. And even if they did, they would only see what they wish to see, justification for their behavior and beliefs, even if the author had no intention of it being interpreted that way.

The OP says for us to judge religion by it's texts. An honorable notion but a futile effort. Because the majority of Muslims do not practice or define Islam by its texts. A word is defined by its most common usage. Once "gay" generally meant happy. "It was such a gay party." Would have meant that the party was a happy occasion. But now if someone says "It was such a gay party" they would either mean it was full of rainbows and homosexuals or that the party was lame and boring. No one would assume first off that it was meant that the party was happy.

So now when we hear Islam, we get images of oppression, violence, and intolerance. We don't get images of rational, charitable, or honorable acts at all. What comes to mind when we hear the word "Islam" has nothing to do with the words of the Qur'an but everything to do with the actions of Muslims. They define it. We judge that definition.

 

[Neverfly]

And whatever you say is mandatory, for everyone, everywhere. You rule.

What you're saying is exactly like the religious leaders who are in league with despotic government leaders.


Redneck retard revival, the liberal/atheist version.

You're like a Militant Agnostic.

"I'll fight hard for being uncertain! Is there a God? I have no idea and I'll fight til death the right to not know!"

It's like a rabid Chihuahua.

 

[seagypsy]

WOAH!!! I take a HUGE exception to that statement when it's compared to Christianity. Please show some direct proof of that - if you can.

It's true. Islam gives women rights over their husband up to the point that she can demand payment for breastfeeding the children. I can't remember where it is stated in the Qur'an and it may be hadith, which I generally rejected as a Muslim, but hadith is accepted as part of Islam by the majority of Muslims today so, against my better judgement and preference, I will include it as part of the faith. I can send you the proof in pm if you like. it may take a while to find it and by then this thread will have moved on. Let me know.

 

[seagypsy]

I have to disagree with this. Islam is fundamentally a more reactionary religion than either Christianity or Judaism. You have to remember that it is younger than either of those faiths, and could be considered something of a plagiarism of Christianity. As such, Islam tends to be more extreme, even when it is being more progressive. Consider how, in spite of man's domineering role in the household, women have more rights in Islam than they do in the other Abrahamic faiths. Also consider how war is mandated by Islam under the right circumstance, while you can't find that kind of direct injunction in Christianity.

That isn't to say Christianity is "better," of course. I think that word should be reserved for choices that are already good. In this case, the better term for Christianity and Judaism would be "more benign." I mean, do you really consider Islam no worse than, say, Unitarianism?

I was stating my opinion, perhaps I should have been more obvious. I form my opinion based on my interpretations of the texts of Islam and Christianity. Not on the behaviors of the participants of the faith. I was tired when I wrote that and should have stated that clearly. My apologies. Reading it now I can see where I seemed to go back and forth a bit and could have confused anyone. Basically, I personally agree with the OP, but am trying to help the OP realize that judging a faith by its participants is completely fair and rational.

 

[Balerion]

I think you may have missed my point. What I was saying, is that it really doesn't matter what the Qur'an actually says. The people will interpret it as they see fit. In the past I insisted on judging the faith, on this forum, by the texts. But it has been made abundantly clear by the majority of posters here that the Qur'an is irrelevant to Islam. Muslims define Islam, not the Qur'an. Most Muslims like most Christians, never even read the Qur'an. They memorize verses in Arabic, not understanding the meaning, and rely on their elders to tell them what the Qur'an actually says. They don't use their own critical thinking skills to read the text for themselves and determine what it says. And even if they did, they would only see what they wish to see, justification for their behavior and beliefs, even if the author had no intention of it being interpreted that way.

While I appreciate the need to include the actual practice in the definition of any given faith, I think you've taken it a step too far in saying that it doesn't matter what the texts say. It very much matters what the texts say, because without textual warrant, there is no basis for an action. People throw around the term "radical" and call violence a "bastardization" of Islam, but the truth is the injunctions for such violence is in there. They're not just making it up. Yes, there are contradictory commands to love everyone and to not kill anyone, and it's up to the individual to decide which to accept and which to reject, but to pretend that behavior of a sect has no basis in the text just isn't realistic.

The OP says for us to judge religion by it's texts. An honorable notion but a futile effort. Because the majority of Muslims do not practice or define Islam by its texts.

Of course they do. The majority of Muslims live their lives by the texts. It tells them how to dress, what to eat, how often and in what direction to pray, etc..

So now when we hear Islam, we get images of oppression, violence, and intolerance. We don't get images of rational, charitable, or honorable acts at all. What comes to mind when we hear the word "Islam" has nothing to do with the words of the Qur'an but everything to do with the actions of Muslims. They define it. We judge that definition.

I don't think that's fair. It implies that Muslims are responsible for a common perception of them as violent lunatics, when in fact it's our 24-hour news cycle that's responsible for that unflattering picture of Islam. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do recognize what Islam is, but most Muslims are just regular, peaceful people like anyone else of any other faith or non-faith. The Christian violence is glossed over or reframed in such a way that it doesn't look like Christian violence by our media, otherwise nobody would call it the religion of peace.

 

[seagypsy]

While I appreciate the need to include the actual practice in the definition of any given faith, I think you've taken it a step too far in saying that it doesn't matter what the texts say. It very much matters what the texts say, because without textual warrant, there is no basis for an action. People throw around the term "radical" and call violence a "bastardization" of Islam, but the truth is the injunctions for such violence is in there. They're not just making it up. Yes, there are contradictory commands to love everyone and to not kill anyone, and it's up to the individual to decide which to accept and which to reject, but to pretend that behavior of a sect has no basis in the text just isn't realistic.



Of course they do. The majority of Muslims live their lives by the texts. It tells them how to dress, what to eat, how often and in what direction to pray, etc..



I don't think that's fair. It implies that Muslims are responsible for a common perception of them as violent lunatics, when in fact it's our 24-hour news cycle that's responsible for that unflattering picture of Islam. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do recognize what Islam is, but most Muslims are just regular, peaceful people like anyone else of any other faith or non-faith. The Christian violence is glossed over or reframed in such a way that it doesn't look like Christian violence by our media, otherwise nobody would call it the religion of peace.

I find it interesting that you are disagreeing with me now. it seems to me the tables have turned and you are now sayign the very things you have read me the riot act for saying in previous threads. Have your views changed? My views have come to what they are now because I have taken your remarks against me in other threads into consideration. And I have seen the logic in your past arguments. Now you seem to be saying that what I had said in those other threads is actually correct. Is this an admission of error or evolution of concept?

 

[Balerion]

I find it interesting that you are disagreeing with me now. it seems to me the tables have turned and you are now sayign the very things you have read me the riot act for saying in previous threads. Have your views changed? My views have come to what they are now because I have taken your remarks against me in other threads into consideration. And I have seen the logic in your past arguments. Now you seem to be saying that what I had said in those other threads is actually correct. Is this an admission of error or evolution of concept?

Hm. I don't recall ever holding the position that religions are not at least partly defined by their texts.

But I'm certainly not against changing my mind or evolving as my understanding of a concept grows.

 

[seagypsy]

Hm. I don't recall ever holding the position that religions are not at least partly defined by their texts.

But I'm certainly not against changing my mind or evolving as my understanding of a concept grows.

Very well, for all our fighting back and forth it seems that we have both evolved a bit as a result of our interactions. Even if neither of us seems to want to directly admit it until now.

 

[Balerion]

Very well, for all our fighting back and forth it seems that we have both evolved a bit as a result of our interactions. Even if neither of us seems to want to directly admit it until now.

It's not that I wouldn't want to admit it, it's that I've never really noticed it. I mean, even now I'm really just taking your word for it.

It's a good thing.

 

[seagypsy]

It's not that I wouldn't want to admit it, it's that I've never really noticed it. I mean, even now I'm really just taking your word for it.

It's a good thing.

Awww look at us gettin along n stuff....

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

And whatever you say is mandatory, for everyone, everywhere. You rule.

If something is imaginary, it's imaginary. For everybody.

And tell me, how does one understand the United States without reading the Constitution?

Millions of people do it by simply living here.

What you're saying is that the United States, as it is today, exists independently of its foundational documents.

No, forgive me if I gave that impression. I'm just saying that if Juan spends a year studying our constitution and Mikhail spends a year living here, Mikhail will have a much better and more practical understanding of what this place is and who we are.

France and Sweden are no more "Christian culture" than Tehran is.

Okay, that's my point. France and Sweden are Christian nations that have evolved beyond the point of even being identifiable as Christian nations. And BTW, there's no way you could say that about Iran and Islam. It was on its way to modernization under the Shah (not to defend anything else he did, he was a CIA stooge) but it's been going backward since the Ayatollahs took over. They're actually persecuting women for having too much hair peeking out from underneath their babushkas, and anyone who wants to hold a dance party inside his home has to post sentries so the musicians can hide their instruments if the police show up. This ain't nothin' like France or Sweden!

You're doing the same thing Read-Only is doing, which is mistaking secular, multicultural society for a Christian one.

My point is that the Christian community, at least in many places, has kept up with the progress of civilization. There is nowhere in 21st century Christendom that is analogous to the significant portion of the Muslim community in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, much of Oceania and Africa. I'm not even sure there are any Christian communities that are as bad as Iran, even though I lumped Ireland in that category in my previous post. Most Australian Christian women (to pick perhaps the most modernized post-Christian culture) would feel safe and welcome in Ireland, but I wonder whether most Azerbaijani Muslim women would feel that way in Iran.

What exactly is Christian about women being equal in the household, or holding a job, or divorcing and remarrying? Nothing.

What's Christian about it is that they go to church and (in almost all American Protestant churches) their elders bless them along with the rest of the congregation, without scolding them for doing these things.

I went to a chamber music concert in an Episcopal church last weekend and during the reception afterward I made a point of reading everything that was posted on their walls. Their congregation and its elders put a lot of their energy into working for women's rights. They seem to think that this is the "Christian" thing to do. They are also campaigning for justice for the Palestinians, which puts them at odds with our own government, who regard Israel as our faithful little nuclear-armed puppet state in the Middle East. If this were like the 19th century and I had to pretend to be religious in order to avoid being tarred and feathered, I would go to that church and I would feel reasonably at ease there. I have many Christian friends who agree with me on virtually every important issue except faith, and they realize that if that's the only thing we disagree about, it would not be "Christian" to dwell on it.

You act as if this idea of women having great roles in the church--and therefore an escape from the animal breeding cycle and access to an education--was world-wide.

It is certainly spreading rapidly. Latin America is undergoing an epiphany as regards its women. They're getting educations, jobs and contraceptives. Mrs. Fraggle has long predicted that Latin America will be the new center of world culture and commerce, but even she didn't realize how great a role its women will play.

Abortion is legal in most of Europe today, even in the countries with large Christian majorities.

The same could be said for women in Islam. I grant that their treatment is barbaric in several places today, but it's not so much in others.

The countries in which Christian women have come reasonably close to achieving equal rights probably comprise a majority of the world's Christian population. I suppose you can probably say that about the countries in which Muslim women have achieved that, considering that the world's four largest Muslim countries are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Pakistan has its problems, but in the cities where most of its population live, women are better off than in Iran. I don't know anything about Nigeria, but in Bangladesh and most of Indonesia women also have considerable freedom. Perhaps many or most women wear traditional garb, but that's okay if it's not legally mandated. As far as I'm concerned that's just "fashion," and who am I to argue over the roots of fashion, living in a country where entire internet sites are devoted to photos of women casually flashing their private parts in Walmart.

So perhaps you're right.

And the actual scripture of Islam does imbue them with more rights than does the bible for Christian women. The difference seems to be secular influence on any given place; where it exists--like the west--you see women's roles approaching equal status with men. Where it doesn't--like some places in the middle east--it is nowhere near.

Christianity seems to be more sensitive to secular influence than Islam.

Yes, Reform Judaism, which was founded in and inspired by the secular United States of America. Thank you for making my point for me.

It arose in England at very nearly the same time, the early 19th century. It's a common phenomenon that immigrants treasure their roots most in host countries where they don't feel welcome or safe. These are the two countries that treated the Jews better than any other place the Diaspora extended to, with the single exception of China. So they didn't feel so obligated to maintain a separate cultural identity there.

Jews bathe, pay their taxes, maintain law and order, teach their children to read and write, and practice shrewd business: all of which Chinese culture holds in high esteem. They were accepted so unremarkably there that within a few generations they assimilated, intermarried, and vanished as a separate population. Many American Jewish leaders fear that the same thing will happen here. It's already a fact that more disillusioned Israelis are emigrating to the USA than starstruck American Jews are moving to the Holy Land.

That's convenient. You point to the best examples of Christianity and Judaism--while ignoring the influence of multicultural secular society--and then point to the worst example of Islam.

Sorry about that. The Westborough Baptist Church in Kansas, the Creation Science Museum in Kentucky, the huge number of Christians with no uterus who think anybody should give a flying fuck what they think about abortion... we have plenty of Stone Age Christians in the USA.

Or to the Catholic priests molesting countless innocent children while the largest Christian denomination in the world aids and abets them?

I had already included that in my own list of examples when I saw that you beat me to it. Believe me, I am as disgusted by Christianity as by any other branch of Abrahamism.

It's easy to look around the world and notice that most of the Stone Age behavior can be credited to the Muslims, but I know that's temporary. Over the past millennium the Christians have matched them outrage for outrage. The Inquisition, the suppression of the Renaissance, the obliteration of the "heathen" civilizations in the New World, the witch burnings. But a man has to speak to his times, and in my times it's the followers of Mohammed who count the world's biggest assholes.

The only reason the Jews have never been in that category and probably never will be is that theirs is not an evangelical religion so its numbers grow only by reproduction rather than by conversion. I have no fantasy that a world with a couple of billion Jews would be any safer than one with a couple of billion Christians and/or Muslims.

Or to The Troubles in Northern Ireland, where most of the casualites were women and children?

A lot of people attribute that first to basic ethnic issues and only second to religion. The Anglo-Saxons overran the Celtic people in Britannia and marginalized them (the Welsh), killed them (the Brythonic people) or exiled them (the Bretons). By the time a new wave of Celtic people sailed over from Ireland to populate northern Britannia (marginalizing, killing or exiling the Picts) and become the Scots, the English were once again ready to completely Saxonize "their" island. So the Irish have good reason to be wary of everything English, including their heretical Protestant religion.

I am aware that God is imaginary. Yet the scriptures attributed to him are very real, and that is what they say. I can't help it if you want to pretend that this doesn't mean anything.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

Obviously not. That's patently absurd, and you should be ashamed of yourself for misrepresenting me so.

Again, please forgive my misunderstanding.

I do not forgive the treatment of women in Islam, I simply point out that in the scriptures, they are given much more rights than they are in Judaism or Christianity. That is a fact.

And it illustrates the fact that as time passes, historical documents like the Torah, Bible, Koran, or the U.S. Constitution, have increasingly milder influence on the cultures they spawned.

You're like a Militant Agnostic. "I'll fight hard for being uncertain! Is there a God? I have no idea and I'll fight til death the right to not know!" It's like a rabid Chihuahua.

Please dial back the insults. Discussions of religion typically become passionate arguments. I know I've insulted Wynn too, but let's try not to make it an Olympic sport.

I don't think that's fair. It implies that Muslims are responsible for a common perception of them as violent lunatics, when in fact it's our 24-hour news cycle that's responsible for that unflattering picture of Islam.

We Americans generally thought of the Muslim peoples as mysterious, debonair and charming--when we thought of them at all. It was the seizure by the Iranian revolutionaries of our embassy in Tehran--an act of war since international law defines the grounds of an embassy as that country's actual physical territory--that suddenly brought Islam onto our radar. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie made it worse. Then 9/11 changed our world.

Americans hate Islam and are highly suspicious of Muslims.

The state of Virginia reviews the textbooks used in private schools on a rotating basis. When it came time to look at the ones used in the Islamic schools in that state, a purely bureaucratic process, they were astounded to find passages in which Muslim children were taught that Christian and Jewish children are inferior and need not be granted the same rights and courtesies. The Pentagon (one of the 9/11 targets) is located in Virginia (not across the river in Washington, DC, as many people assume) so the citizens of that state were already a little uneasy about having Muslims living among them. Those textbooks didn't help.

Our 24-hour news cycle is fixated on the evil done by Muslims because Muslims happen to have done quite a bit of evil lately.

The little Pakistani girl with the bullet in her head for daring to suggest that women deserve to be educated? I mean good grief, are we supposed to just shrug our shoulders and say "boys will be boys"? According to you, that's in the Koran. So much for the influence of that book.

The Christian violence is glossed over or reframed in such a way that it doesn't look like Christian violence by our media, otherwise nobody would call it the religion of peace.

Who the hell calls it that???

• Both sides in the American Civil War, one of the bloodiest wars in history, claimed Jesus as being on their side.
• Hitler was a Christian.
• Karl Marx was a Christian and his slogan "To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities," is an elaboration of a line from the Book of Acts. Communism, which is responsible for much of the 20th century's death tool, is an offshoot of Christianity. (How many self-respecting Jews, Hindus or Confucians would suggest with a straight face that a civilization can survive if what a man takes from it need not correlate with what he gives back? A fairytale if ever there was one!)

 

[wynn]

If something is imaginary, it's imaginary. For everybody.

Simply claiming that someone or something is imaginary doesn't make it/them so.

Prove that God is imaginary.

Or you're just talking woo-woo crap.

 

[lightgigantic]

Simply claiming that someone or something is imaginary doesn't make it/them so.

Prove that God is imaginary.

Or you're just talking woo-woo crap.

The only way Fraggle can authoritatively say "god is an imagination" is if he was omnipotent/ omniscient/ etc .

So I guess that leaves us with two options.

Fraggle is talking crap or he is god.

Either way it certainly explains why intelligent people (even atheists) avoid making claims that are absolute negatives.

:shrug:

 

[Balerion]

Millions of people do it by simply living here.

I would disagree with that. If you don't understand the founding principals of something, then you don't really understand that thing. How could you, if you didn't know its purpose or its parameters? That's like saying you could understand Monopoly without reading the rules.

No, forgive me if I gave that impression. I'm just saying that if Juan spends a year studying our constitution and Mikhail spends a year living here, Mikhail will have a much better and more practical understanding of what this place is and who we are.

I disagree. I think that person would know Americans better than if he had read the Constitution, but not America.

Of course, that isn't to say practical experience isn't required. I don't mean that at all. I believe that both are required to understand a religion. You need to know both what its foundational texts say and how those texts are interpreted by its adherents. When I say the Quran affords greater freedoms to women than the Bible does, that can't be disputed. Nor can it be argued that "Christian" cultures provide more freedoms than Muslim ones, because the "Christian" cultures you're pointing at are simply secular western cultures where Christianity has minimal influence.

Okay, that's my point. France and Sweden are Christian nations that have evolved beyond the point of even being identifiable as Christian nations.

Then you can't point to them and call them "Christian nations." Or "Christian cultures," which is (I believe) how you actually put it. If they evolved beyond the point of being Christian, they did so not because Christianity is no empowering, but because their inhabitants valued secular ideals over Christian ones and moved the country in that direction.

And BTW, there's no way you could say that about Iran and Islam. It was on its way to modernization under the Shah (not to defend anything else he did, he was a CIA stooge) but it's been going backward since the Ayatollahs took over. They're actually persecuting women for having too much hair peeking out from underneath their babushkas, and anyone who wants to hold a dance party inside his home has to post sentries so the musicians can hide their instruments if the police show up. This ain't nothin' like France or Sweden!

This is because Islam is a much more conservative, reactionary religion. I never denied that. In fact, I disagreed with seagypsy's assertion (perhaps it was in a different thread; I can't recall just now) that Islam was "no different than any other religion." My point about women's rights was simply to illustrate that Islam, being itself something of a reaction to Christianity, is broader than its predecessors even while being more extreme. Some of the laws in the texts are very progressive for the time, particularly in women's rights. Those rights are still primitive compared to secular ideals, obviously, and I wouldn't suggest otherwise.

My point is that the Christian community, at least in many places, has kept up with the progress of civilization.

Again, what you're talking about is a Christian community living in a secular society. Yes, the west--whose inabitants primarily identify as Christian--is as advanced and progressive (at least in places) a society that has ever existed. However, the ideals represented in these free societies are not at all Christian, and the various churches have fought tooth and nail against most of the liberties we currently take for granted.

And we will leave aside the point in time when Islam was actually the cultural and scientific center of the world, and long before Christianity ever came around to supporting these endeavors. Ever notice how almost all of the star names are Arabic? Just sayin'.

There is nowhere in 21st century Christendom that is analogous to the significant portion of the Muslim community in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, much of Oceania and Africa. I'm not even sure there are any Christian communities that are as bad as Iran, even though I lumped Ireland in that category in my previous post. Most Australian Christian women (to pick perhaps the most modernized post-Christian culture) would feel safe and welcome in Ireland, but I wonder whether most Azerbaijani Muslim women would feel that way in Iran.

Of course there are. For one, there are Christian communities in all the places you just mentioned, living lives as bleak and dangerous as any Muslim. They just happen to be minorities in such places. And there is still violence between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The wars of former Yogoslavia are over, but how many died in that sectarian violence? And perhaps most Australian Christian women would feel welcome in Ireland, but it all depends on where, just as it would in Saudi Arabi, Pakistan, Afhanistan, or Africa. Oh, and you might have to throw all of that warm hospitality out in some of those places if you happen to be Muslim, or gay.

What you need to realize is that while Islam is a more naturally extreme and violent religion, it would more closely resemble Christianity if it could be watered down and stripped of its influence by secular ideals. I mean, look at Islam in the west. I'm sure you know a Muslim family or two; I certainly do. Do they make you fear for your life? Do you get the impression that they are barbaric cave people just itching to get off a few rounds? Hardly. They're just regular people. Or they're neo-con a-holes. Or they're bleeding-heart liberals. Point is, over here, you don't have to be defined by your faith, because society says there's another way.

What's Christian about it is that they go to church and (in almost all American Protestant churches) their elders bless them along with the rest of the congregation, without scolding them for doing these things.

Except where they don't, such as Catholic churches, or any big tent revival. So again, what's Christian about it? Unless you're suggesting that Protestantism is "more" Christian than Catholicism or Evangelism?

I went to a chamber music concert in an Episcopal church last weekend and during the reception afterward I made a point of reading everything that was posted on their walls. Their congregation and its elders put a lot of their energy into working for women's rights. They seem to think that this is the "Christian" thing to do.

Okay, but they're wrong. Equality for women is not a Christian value. It's a secular value, and would not exist without secular influence.

They are also campaigning for justice for the Palestinians, which puts them at odds with our own government,

It also puts them at odds with their holy texts and many other Christian denominations.

who regard Israel as our faithful little nuclear-armed puppet state in the Middle East. If this were like the 19th century and I had to pretend to be religious in order to avoid being tarred and feathered, I would go to that church and I would feel reasonably at ease there. I have many Christian friends who agree with me on virtually every important issue except faith, and they realize that if that's the only thing we disagree about, it would not be "Christian" to dwell on it.

Just because they have cleverly claimed things like charity and civil rights to be "Christian" does not make them so. You need to realize this.

It is certainly spreading rapidly. Latin America is undergoing an epiphany as regards its women. They're getting educations, jobs and contraceptives. Mrs. Fraggle has long predicted that Latin America will be the new center of world culture and commerce, but even she didn't realize how great a role its women will play.

I think you're getting ahead of yourself in terms of this dream being realized, but the pressure is being put on--thanks to the efforts of the gigantic secular society to the north. I mean, Latin America has been Christian for a long time; you think they decided women's rights are important on their own? No, it was the influence of American ideals--secular ideals--that are going to affect changed.

Abortion is legal in most of Europe today, even in the countries with large Christian majorities.

No thanks to the churches in the respective countries.

Christianity seems to be more sensitive to secular influence than Islam.

I don't think so. I believe it has more to do with the fact that Islam is the younger faith and has yet to really learn how to buck the people who would cling to its violent passages and use it as authority for totalitarianism. It could even be said that Islam got off to a better start than Christianity, in terms of its contributions to the world, but has since entered its own dark ages. It will eventually come out on the other side of that and be stripped down to a limp, ineffectual relic that relishes its say in one or two key issues just as Christianity does today.

It arose in England at very nearly the same time, the early 19th century.

An England whose rights of the freeman were one of the basis for the Revolutionary War, you mean.

Jews bathe, pay their taxes, maintain law and order, teach their children to read and write, and practice shrewd business: all of which Chinese culture holds in high esteem. They were accepted so unremarkably there that within a few generations they assimilated, intermarried, and vanished as a separate population. Many American Jewish leaders fear that the same thing will happen here. It's already a fact that more disillusioned Israelis are emigrating to the USA than starstruck American Jews are moving to the Holy Land.

This talk of "shrewd business" and similar makes me uncomfortable. I saw you do this in another thread, where you asked us to "raise our hands if we knew a Jew who would follow a faith that made interest a sin." I'm going to leave this alone, and simply say that you can save the broad, mildly (and not so mildly) bigoted remarks for when you're offline.

I had already included that in my own list of examples when I saw that you beat me to it. Believe me, I am as disgusted by Christianity as by any other branch of Abrahamism.

It's easy to look around the world and notice that most of the Stone Age behavior can be credited to the Muslims, but I know that's temporary. Over the past millennium the Christians have matched them outrage for outrage. The Inquisition, the suppression of the Renaissance, the obliteration of the "heathen" civilizations in the New World, the witch burnings. But a man has to speak to his times, and in my times it's the followers of Mohammed who count the world's biggest assholes.

The only reason the Jews have never been in that category and probably never will be is that theirs is not an evangelical religion so its numbers grow only by reproduction rather than by conversion. I have no fantasy that a world with a couple of billion Jews would be any safer than one with a couple of billion Christians and/or Muslims.

Then what the hell are you arguing with me for? Your initial position seemed to be that Christianity was fundamentally "better" than Islam, but now you seem to recognize what I stated earlier, which is that the barbarism you see in Islam today is not going to last.

A lot of people attribute that first to basic ethnic issues and only second to religion.

I don't know who those "lot of people" are, but they certainly aren't the Irish. They used to have (maybe they still do) roadblocks set up where they inquired about your religion. There's that old joke where the armed man at the roadblock asks "Protestant or Catholic," and the man in the car replies, "Atheist." The armed man then says, "Protestant or Catholic atheist?" Ethnic bias was no doubt a part of it, but religion was the very fabric of the conflict. It was in the language.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

Again, please forgive my misunderstanding.

Well, at least you apologized. As much as I didn't appreciate being told that I'm "exactly like" the kind of idiots I despise, I do appreciate you recognizing the error and apologizing.

And it illustrates the fact that as time passes, historical documents like the Torah, Bible, Koran, or the U.S. Constitution, have increasingly milder influence on the cultures they spawned.

The passage of time is not a force that would by itself diminish the influence of these documents. The reason the monotheistic texts have a lesser influence on western society today is because we have replaced them with superior ideals. Yes, the majority of the nation is still Christian, but consider that there simply aren't enough churches to house all of the people who identify as such. (Not to mention the fact that churches are shutting down left and right in this country) It's not that Christianity itself is changing, it's that less people who identify as Christians are actually Christian. Hell, up until my 20s, even though I knew myself to be at least an agnostic, I identified my religion as Catholic, because that's what I was baptized as. In other word, religious identification in America is becoming less of an active identity and more one of heritage. Like how most people in the US identify themselves by their ancestral roots--Irish, Italian, English, etc--even though most have never set foot on those lands, and their culture is representative of neighborhood rather than their ancestral country of origin.

Most people who call themselves Christian aren't really Christians. They're really just people who identify as such because their parents did, and we're reaching a point in time where even those parents did so because their parents did. Point is, it's not that Christianity is changing, it's that it's disappearing.

Please dial back the insults. Discussions of religion typically become passionate arguments. I know I've insulted Wynn too, but let's try not to make it an Olympic sport.

You also just insulted me:

What you're saying is exactly like the religious leaders who are in league with despotic government leaders, saying, "Don't worry about the abuse you're suffering at the hands of your leaders. You'll be rewarded in Heaven and they'll be punished in Hell."

Maybe since you're involved in this conversation, you should avoid playing moderator, hm? You're essentially chastising Neverfly for saying the same thing to wynn that you said to me.

We Americans generally thought of the Muslim peoples as mysterious, debonair and charming--when we thought of them at all. It was the seizure by the Iranian revolutionaries of our embassy in Tehran--an act of war since international law defines the grounds of an embassy as that country's actual physical territory--that suddenly brought Islam onto our radar. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie made it worse. Then 9/11 changed our world.

Americans hate Islam and are highly suspicious of Muslims.

Exactly my point. The news only focuses on the negatives. I'm not saying there aren't reasons to feel negatively about Islam, obviously, I'm just saying that the level of paranoia about Islam is out of proportion with the reality of Islam.

The state of Virginia reviews the textbooks used in private schools on a rotating basis. When it came time to look at the ones used in the Islamic schools in that state, a purely bureaucratic process, they were astounded to find passages in which Muslim children were taught that Christian and Jewish children are inferior and need not be granted the same rights and courtesies. The Pentagon (one of the 9/11 targets) is located in Virginia (not across the river in Washington, DC, as many people assume) so the citizens of that state were already a little uneasy about having Muslims living among them. Those textbooks didn't help.

It's this kind of misinformation that perpetuates the problem. First of all, we aren't talking about textbooks used in "Islamic schools." The textbooks were found in one Islamic school. Secondly, this was not some random bureaucratic process, it was a review of textbooks used in a school that had already been under scrutiny because of its teachings. In fact, a congressional panel ahd recommended the school for closure a year before they had even reviewed the textbooks. To contrast, the district in which the school resides did review the textbooks before any of this had occurred, and said they were comfortable with the teachings within.

And let's not forget that the news says nothing of the hell houses run by evangelists, or the culture bred in those parts of the country by fundamentalist Christians who teach their children that gays deserve death. That's actually the whole point. You don't hear anything about that.

Our 24-hour news cycle is fixated on the evil done by Muslims because Muslims happen to have done quite a bit of evil lately.

No, our 24-hour news cycle is fixated on Muslims because Muslims are scary and equate to ratings.

The little Pakistani girl with the bullet in her head for daring to suggest that women deserve to be educated? I mean good grief, are we supposed to just shrug our shoulders and say "boys will be boys"? According to you, that's in the Koran. So much for the influence of that book.

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but it's doubtful to reflect any of my actual opinions. I suggest you re-think that one before you clarify.

Who the hell calls it that???

Plenty of people do.

• Both sides in the American Civil War, one of the bloodiest wars in history, claimed Jesus as being on their side.

Is the Civil War framed as a sectarian war? I'm sorry, I must have missed that day in school.

• Hitler was a Christian.

Yes, but most people don't even know that, and his campaign is not viewed as a Christian's crusade against Judaism, but a madman's assault on Judaism. Oftentimes it is framed as a Godless madman's assault on Judaism. How many times have you heard it said that Hitler was an atheist? A million?

• Karl Marx was a Christian and his slogan "To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities," is an elaboration of a line from the Book of Acts. Communism, which is responsible for much of the 20th century's death tool, is an offshoot of Christianity.

Well, offshoot is a strong word. Communism is an offshoot of socialism, though it can be traced back to Christian roots.

Point is, none of these conflicts or ideologies are framed as Christian, just as the wars of Yugoslavia are not, just as the Troubles are not. Christian sectarian violence, both today and in the past, is reframed as conflicts centered around other antagonisms, whereas Muslim conflicts and Muslim "troubles" are often overblown.

 

[Yasin]

I used to practice Islam according to the Qur'an but "Muslims" told me I was doing it wrong and insisted that I follow hadith. As much as I have defended Islam in many threads on the same grounds that you had asserted, I have recently stopped because the reality of definitions has shown itself to me that it is not always what is written in the pages of an official book, ie dictionary or religious text, that determines the meanings of words. Islam as defined by common usage of the word BY MUSLIMS is not a faith that is respectable. The common interpretation of the faith is what defines it. It's a hard pill to swallow and I did fight it in the past. But many may see I avoid defending Islam anymore. Because those who oppose it are correct. The common interpretation is all that is relevant. What Mohammed intended no longer matters. No one practices Islam according to the Qur'an or according to Mohammed's teachings. They find whatever excuses they can by twisting the texts, creating false hadiths, following hadith in general, ignoring the Qur'an, to justify their arrogant need to assert their supremacy over others and violently so. It is true of many if not most religions.

I don't know how you converted to Islam, meaning I don't know the circumstances of it or who was responsible for your conversion, but there are basic concepts that should have been explained to you then that you seem to not know now, perhaps to the fault of whoever introduced you to Islam in the first place. Just as a quick reminder and not to confuse anyone later, if someone believes in Islam, then he believes Muhammad was his prophet and that he was infallible with regards to delivering his message. As such, Muslims are ordered in various places in the Qur'an to follow and obey Muhammad, that he was sent to explain, not just deliver, Islam to them, that your faith isn't complete unless you take the prophet as your judge in disputes. That's the Qur'an, not the Hadith, the one, as a Muslim, you believe is the word of Allah. Here are two verses but I can find you more if you wish:

O ye who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those charged with authority among you. If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger if ye do believe in Allah and the Last Day: that is best, and most suitable for final determination.

(We sent them) with Clear Signs and scriptures and We have sent down unto thee (also) the Message; that thou mayst explain clearly to men what is sent for them, and that they may give thought.​

Why, you may ask, do we have to obey the prophet and not just do what the Qur'an says ?! I'd like to quote your own words for it:

I don't deny that the Qur'an never says how many times a day one has to pray or how they are to pray but people who call themselves Muslims insist that prayer must happen 5 times a day and in a manner of ritualistic prostration and recitation of scripture while facing in the direction of the Kaaba.

That's one example of it. If the Qur'an has catered to every facet of the Muslims life, it would have been a very large book, with seemingly unimportant information clouding the important messages in it. In your particular case, the prophet instructed Muslims to: "Pray as you have seen me pray", which includes how he washed for prayer, how many times a day, towards what, although that one is in the Qur'an. In fact there is a whole category of books dedicated to how Prophet Muhammad lived and behaved, called Sunnah, that most westerners confuse with Hadith. Hadith concerns what he ordered or said to Muslims which are to be obeyed, Sunnah is every other aspect of his life, how he behaved, dressed, talked, and such, which are to be aspired to, but not a must.
Not to leave out anything related to this point, I should mention that there is a group of people that believe Muslims should go by the Qur'an only, ignoring the many scriptures that tell them to follow the prophet and obey him. That's besides the point and a very lengthy discussion of it's own, though, I only mentioned it so as not to leave something out.

What I was saying, is that it really doesn't matter what the Qur'an actually says. The people will interpret it as they see fit.

I agree that most people will interpret most things as they see fit. But what you may think is their interpretation might actually be something the prophet Muhammad said or did, in order to clarify them.

So now when we hear Islam, we get images of oppression, violence, and intolerance. We don't get images of rational, charitable, or honorable acts at all. What comes to mind when we hear the word "Islam" has nothing to do with the words of the Qur'an but everything to do with the actions of Muslims. They define it. We judge that definition.

Some actions you see Muslims do, not the actions they actually do. If I held a magnifying glass and looked for moles on women's faces, I would be repelled from most women, mole or no mole. That's what the western media does when it reports anything Islamic, or Middle Eastern in general, except for that little stolen piece where it's Utopia and everyone is happy; there are images of oppression, violence and intolerance, yes, but know that they are as much hated and despised among the Muslims as they are amongst westerners if not more, for they reflect how the world sees Muslims. If asked, the average western Joe wouldn't know anything bad about the Muslims other than terrorism, which I'm not belittling, which is a result of fanatics with skewed perception of who you should take arms against, that you can find in every religion. Now an intellectual-not-so-average Joe would know some scriptures that provoke or calls for terroristic behaviours and would base upon them his view of Islam; he is less wrong than the former but in the eyes of mainstream Muslims he is still wrong, if for nothing but for not studying what was meant by those verses or in what situation were they revealed. I'm not about to discuss Islam's instructions here, but the actions of Muslims aren't what repels people from it, it's what the media chose to consider as 'typical Muslim behaviour because their religion is all about wars and killing non Muslims'.

It's been like that from the beginning. No one knows what Mohammed really meant, it was all compiled from various sources including oral tradition many years after his death.

Regardless of whose words you believe the Qur'an was, you are mistaken on this. It's well established that every verse was written during it's revelation, as well as memorized during Muhammad's life. What you might have meant is that it wasn't compiled until years after his death; they collected all the bones, leather, and rocks the verses were written on, and compiled them into one book. It's also worth mentioning that Muhammad, shortly before his death, had several people recite the entire Qur'an by heart to him.

 

[James R]

Yes, I want to believe that most Muslims are peace-loving people--and that's probably true for most--but there seems to be a disproportionate number of extremist associated with the religion than there are with any other religion, which you might have noted earlier in this thread.

The world's current population is about 6.9 billion. Of those, 2.1 billion are Christian and another 1.6 billion are Muslim. (Interestingly, another billion or so are non-believers.)

How many of the 1.6 billion Muslims are extremists, I wonder? And what number would be "disproportionate"?

Consider also that there are many extremist Christian sects. Just tonight, I watched a documentary on TV about Fred Phelps and his "God hates fags" crowd. If they aren't "extremists" then I'm not sure what "extremist" means.

--
Source of figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations