Sorry for taking 11 days to respond... I probably shouldn't post such long comments on this board, because I never find the time to properly respond to the inevitable long responses. But Sunday morning is a good day for me to respond since I don't waste any time at a church or any other religious center :thumbup:
I hope to reply to all of your points, but I will also attempt to summarize them in one response that is not too long. It sounds like you may be thinking you were wasting your time by responding to me, so I offer to make the end of this debate easier for both us. I doubt that will pan out though...
The first thing I want to say is I that have been agonizing over my use of the language "you Muslims" ever since I posted it... in fact I wrestled with it a good deal before finally deciding to post it. I regret that not, because I know how "you people" has an implication of devaluing your individuality. That's not for me to do... that's what religion does. Because please believe me, I understand that not every Muslim is the same person... any more than every Christian would be the same person. My understanding of human nature tells me that. But of course there are many things that make all Muslims alike. So to criticize Muslims as a whole group can be instructive, and not dismissive of the wide range of attitudes and ideas within the Muslim community, when the criticism is an attack at the very heart of the religion - the belief in the core tenets of Islam, which all Muslims must claim ownership of if there are to rightly be called Muslims. A Muslim cannot disregard anything in the Koran if it believed to be the word of Allah. I admit I have not read the Koran, and I ought to... I want to understand it better. But I know that there is no Allah and that Islam is fundamentally like other religions. It was used to unify a fledgling empire, and to justify the expansion of the empire, just as Christianity has been used, and to do it by the sword whenever it was felt to be expedient. And like Christianity, it drew many concepts from the prevailing myths of the day, including of course the Jewish and Christian myths.
Within Islamic culture, there may exist heinous groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but the Crusades were among the most disgusting events in human history. Muslims were attacked and killed without warrant, as were the many Jews who were slaughtered in Europe along the path to Palestine. The Church purposefully recruited the barbarians who had been warring with each other across northern Europe as its warriors for Christ. The Crusaders were so savage that they also destroyed Christian cities in Eastern Europe and Turkey on their way to Jerusalem... and when they got there, they killed every man woman and child they could find - Muslim, Jew and Christian. Whereas Saladin was a noble and wise leader, and a heroic defender of civilization. It sickens me that the Crusades haven't ended yet. The West still thinks the Levant belongs to them. There would be no cause for any Muslim to turn to terrorism if our leaders and their flocks in the West had just the place alone and moved on.
"Suicide is prohibited" in Islam, you said. Yes, I have heard that, and I am sure it is the prevailing belief among Muslims. But obviously there are many people, mostly men, who have considered themselves devout Mulsims that have found an exception to this rule. It's also obvious that suicide bombers and their supporters are a small minority of people who claim to be Muslims... However, they were all brought up to be Muslims... which means they were all taught as children to abandon their natural reason in favor of adhering to ancient texts written by people at war and who unified as soldiers building an Islamic nation. This is not to characterize the earliest Muslims as nothing more than bloodthirsty barbarians, because every great culture has its barbarians and knows how to use them. They were no better than the Romans, Persians, Mongols, Crusaders, Soviets, Maoists or than the British and American imperialists are today. All of these great cultures have had positive aspects, or else they wouldn't have held together when there was no bloodshed. But the cycle of war and peace will continue until we stop teaching our children to blindly believe in Jesus, Allah, Stalin, Mao, whatever...
North Korea is often thought of an being an atheist country, but it is really one of the most religious. Kim Il-sung, the deceased father of Kim Jong-il, is officially the Eternal President of the Republic. No one can ever be the official President again. No one can ever question his authority. He is essentially the God of North Korea. The state he established is thought to be eternal, just as Christians believe their religion - their adherence to Christ's example - to be eternal, just as Muslims believe Allah is eternal and they shall eternally submit to him in this life as well as the next. The belief in an eternal Figurehead who cannot be questioned is the common thread here, and it's a huge problem for all of human society. It is shameful and wicked. It prays upon the naivety of youth, and the desire of children to understand what is right and what is wrong.... but despite getting some of the questions right, it is all taught with a spoonful of sugary lies, and undermine the validity of its good morality. Therefore, the propagation of religion to children must be considered criminal behavior. Teach the children the truth - and nothing more. I have not brainwashed my daughter, like you claim. I simply don't teach her anything unless I have a reason to believe it is true, and her mother is on the same page.
In 1057, the Syrian philosopher and poet Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri wrote: "The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: Those with brains, but no religion, And those with religion, but no brains." This was a response to the Crusades, but certainly wasn't directed at the Crusaders only. I don't know if he meant that some people are just too dumb to not be religious, and I don't think he did. I think he meant that some people are not taught to use their brains. I know that there are many people who are very intelligent but still hold religious beliefs, and I'm still struggling to fully understand that. I suppose it's because we are all concerned about what happens to us after death, and we don't want eliminate the comforting answer we were given as children, or maybe they can't eliminate the fear of hell-fire and eternal damnation that was instilled in them... or maybe it's just the fear of being socially ostracized, and it's just a desire to go with flow. Most Christians I know are the go-with-the-flow kind, and don't become "Jesus freaks". In Massachusetts, we are generally relaxed about religion. I would say at least a third of us are actually irreligious. And I think it's easily provable that we are better off as a society because of all this. It's the most religious states that lag behind in many ways, and who hold the entire country back.
I think there are other points I wanted to make, but I've gone on long enough. I invite you to research people who are against religion, particularly former Muslims, to listen to what they have to say - there are a lot of speeches against religion on YouTube.
Even though most Islamophobes are probably racist, please don't equate my rational fear of Islam with racism... that's all I really wanted to say when I posted that day. I marched with thousands of people in the streets of Boston twice before the Iraq War started, to protest that war, which couldn't have been fought without the prevalence of bigotry toward Muslims in America, and American ignorance of Arab culture and of the complex nature of the Middle East in general. I completely recognize the humanity in Muslims, and that is the biggest reason why I want them to come out from under the spell Mohammad and his men cast on them so many years ago.
Comments
Sorry for taking 11 days to respond... I probably shouldn't post such long comments on this board, because I never find the time to properly respond to the inevitable long responses. But Sunday morning is a good day for me to respond since I don't waste any time at a church or any other religious center :thumbup:
I hope to reply to all of your points, but I will also attempt to summarize them in one response that is not too long. It sounds like you may be thinking you were wasting your time by responding to me, so I offer to make the end of this debate easier for both us. I doubt that will pan out though...
The first thing I want to say is I that have been agonizing over my use of the language "you Muslims" ever since I posted it... in fact I wrestled with it a good deal before finally deciding to post it. I regret that not, because I know how "you people" has an implication of devaluing your individuality. That's not for me to do... that's what religion does. Because please believe me, I understand that not every Muslim is the same person... any more than every Christian would be the same person. My understanding of human nature tells me that. But of course there are many things that make all Muslims alike. So to criticize Muslims as a whole group can be instructive, and not dismissive of the wide range of attitudes and ideas within the Muslim community, when the criticism is an attack at the very heart of the religion - the belief in the core tenets of Islam, which all Muslims must claim ownership of if there are to rightly be called Muslims. A Muslim cannot disregard anything in the Koran if it believed to be the word of Allah. I admit I have not read the Koran, and I ought to... I want to understand it better. But I know that there is no Allah and that Islam is fundamentally like other religions. It was used to unify a fledgling empire, and to justify the expansion of the empire, just as Christianity has been used, and to do it by the sword whenever it was felt to be expedient. And like Christianity, it drew many concepts from the prevailing myths of the day, including of course the Jewish and Christian myths.
Within Islamic culture, there may exist heinous groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but the Crusades were among the most disgusting events in human history. Muslims were attacked and killed without warrant, as were the many Jews who were slaughtered in Europe along the path to Palestine. The Church purposefully recruited the barbarians who had been warring with each other across northern Europe as its warriors for Christ. The Crusaders were so savage that they also destroyed Christian cities in Eastern Europe and Turkey on their way to Jerusalem... and when they got there, they killed every man woman and child they could find - Muslim, Jew and Christian. Whereas Saladin was a noble and wise leader, and a heroic defender of civilization. It sickens me that the Crusades haven't ended yet. The West still thinks the Levant belongs to them. There would be no cause for any Muslim to turn to terrorism if our leaders and their flocks in the West had just the place alone and moved on.
"Suicide is prohibited" in Islam, you said. Yes, I have heard that, and I am sure it is the prevailing belief among Muslims. But obviously there are many people, mostly men, who have considered themselves devout Mulsims that have found an exception to this rule. It's also obvious that suicide bombers and their supporters are a small minority of people who claim to be Muslims... However, they were all brought up to be Muslims... which means they were all taught as children to abandon their natural reason in favor of adhering to ancient texts written by people at war and who unified as soldiers building an Islamic nation. This is not to characterize the earliest Muslims as nothing more than bloodthirsty barbarians, because every great culture has its barbarians and knows how to use them. They were no better than the Romans, Persians, Mongols, Crusaders, Soviets, Maoists or than the British and American imperialists are today. All of these great cultures have had positive aspects, or else they wouldn't have held together when there was no bloodshed. But the cycle of war and peace will continue until we stop teaching our children to blindly believe in Jesus, Allah, Stalin, Mao, whatever...
North Korea is often thought of an being an atheist country, but it is really one of the most religious. Kim Il-sung, the deceased father of Kim Jong-il, is officially the Eternal President of the Republic. No one can ever be the official President again. No one can ever question his authority. He is essentially the God of North Korea. The state he established is thought to be eternal, just as Christians believe their religion - their adherence to Christ's example - to be eternal, just as Muslims believe Allah is eternal and they shall eternally submit to him in this life as well as the next. The belief in an eternal Figurehead who cannot be questioned is the common thread here, and it's a huge problem for all of human society. It is shameful and wicked. It prays upon the naivety of youth, and the desire of children to understand what is right and what is wrong.... but despite getting some of the questions right, it is all taught with a spoonful of sugary lies, and undermine the validity of its good morality. Therefore, the propagation of religion to children must be considered criminal behavior. Teach the children the truth - and nothing more. I have not brainwashed my daughter, like you claim. I simply don't teach her anything unless I have a reason to believe it is true, and her mother is on the same page.
In 1057, the Syrian philosopher and poet Abul ʿAla Al-Maʿarri wrote: "The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: Those with brains, but no religion, And those with religion, but no brains." This was a response to the Crusades, but certainly wasn't directed at the Crusaders only. I don't know if he meant that some people are just too dumb to not be religious, and I don't think he did. I think he meant that some people are not taught to use their brains. I know that there are many people who are very intelligent but still hold religious beliefs, and I'm still struggling to fully understand that. I suppose it's because we are all concerned about what happens to us after death, and we don't want eliminate the comforting answer we were given as children, or maybe they can't eliminate the fear of hell-fire and eternal damnation that was instilled in them... or maybe it's just the fear of being socially ostracized, and it's just a desire to go with flow. Most Christians I know are the go-with-the-flow kind, and don't become "Jesus freaks". In Massachusetts, we are generally relaxed about religion. I would say at least a third of us are actually irreligious. And I think it's easily provable that we are better off as a society because of all this. It's the most religious states that lag behind in many ways, and who hold the entire country back.
I think there are other points I wanted to make, but I've gone on long enough. I invite you to research people who are against religion, particularly former Muslims, to listen to what they have to say - there are a lot of speeches against religion on YouTube.
Even though most Islamophobes are probably racist, please don't equate my rational fear of Islam with racism... that's all I really wanted to say when I posted that day.