You continue the insults, as I figured you would and you show why discussion with people like you is so difficult. You’re absolutely right that I am critical of the Quran and I think it is absurd for societies to base their laws and societies off of this book. I think it is just as absurd for western societies to try and do similar things with the Bible, etc. That’s beside the point. Believing that a book written in the 600s and is the divine word and to be taken literally throughout is extremely foolish and pretty much anyone who has not been indoctrinated into the particular religion would agree. Thankfully, that remains a majority of the world. What’s worrisome is that it is spreading, and that even those who realize that it is absurd to base societies and legal structures largely upon the holy book of a particular religion also have their own holy books which they would be quite content to make the same mistake with. I’m not trying to play any sort of game as you seem to insist on believing. You appear to believe that the Quran IS sacred, perfect, etc. And if so, that would make you exactly the type of person I take issue with and that I believe are potentially dangerous as a group moving into the future.
You begin your post complaining that I'm too insulting, but you don't waste any time before calling a billion people including myself "extremely foolish" and try to assert your superiority in grasping rationality and seeing what is real. Let me be clear: I never once declare my superiority in intelligence. I merely make the argument that it is evident in the way you talk about a certain subject that you have not done sufficient research in it and that the majority of your claims are based on empty arguments made my anti-Islamic bigots. I don't waste my time demoting your intelligence, merely your knowledge on a particular subject. there is a difference. knowledge can always be attained. your insults are pathetic attempts at trying to claim a false sense of superiority based on a some misunderstood notion that you can see what others cannot. atleast I am respect of those who do not follow my chosen set of beliefs. your entire post is shocking. not only does it represent some of the weakest knowledge on Islam, and basically every discredited argument out there, but it's extremely disrespectful and intolerant. you claim you want to bring the world together and eliminate what is causing the troubles, but your blame on religion is incorrect. we have already seen that secularists and atheists can be just as bad as those with religion. it has nothing to do with religion, it has everything to do with respect, tolerance, and morality in general. your disregard for morality in dealing with people who hold certain beliefs is one of the causes of the problems that you supposedly wish to rid us of. you claim you do not mean to insult all Muslims since the majority are "good" Muslims, but just the fundamentalists. how do you hope to do that when you write nonsense like this?
To correct you with fact, I have done quite a bit of reading and studying of the Quran at this point. In fact, much more than should be expected of somebody who finds its basic premise laughable. That’s not to say that there isn’t some wisdom in it. There’s plenty of wisdom in other works of fiction too. There’s important lessons to be learned and there’s some actual history in it which can be cross-referenced with other sources. However, there is also comical content in it if one reads it with modern information and understandings of science. It is ripe with text that can be cherry-picked for essentially any purpose, just as horoscope can be cherry-picked for seemingly mystical truths. To say that I don’t believe that Muhammad is the prophet and that the Quran is really what we need to build legal systems, societal structures, etc… well, that would be an understatement. So far, nobody has been able to prove that it is despite all the burnings, stonings, rhetoric, religious states, enlightened teachings, academia, research, etc. Believers have faith, but not proof. If I’m wrong, I invite Allah to appear to me tonight and change my mind personally. Don’t even remotely take that as an invitation for some jihadi zealot to show up to my house with a knife to “convince” me or some other such nonsense. But I’m quite certain I’ll wake in the morning and happily report that once again, another night has passed and Allah has not convinced me of his existence. The words of the Quran have not inspired me to convert. But let me guess, it’s because I have not learned Arabic to read it in and feel its power or something, right? Ok, so I think even you will yield to the point that people may have faith that this book is sacred and such, but they do not have proof for those who are not indoctrinated.
Quit using the word indoctrinated. it's foolish and it's undermined by example by those who chose to convert. how were they indoctrinated if they simply chose to believe in it? I really don't care about whether or not you believe in the Qur'an, or God, or anything. And calling for God to smite you really is stupid though, and shows another example of how you tend to mesh Christianity with Islam. Islam, unlike Christianity, takes a much more hands off approach on God's interaction with the world. It's a lot more complicated than that, but I don't wish to get into as big of a discussion as this right now.
On the opposite side, I can and have been providing proof of people who individually and also in organized masses have used Islamic faith to commit atrocities. What am I calling barbaric? Things like stonings for adultery, stripes (such a polite word for the violence actually inflicted), beheadings, language directly lifted from the Quran which almost any person not indoctrinated into the faith would easily identify as dangerous, scary and threatening to understood norms of modern civility. It’s there, it exists, it can be factually proven. You can’t deny the stoning, the beheadings, the potentially dangerous language contained in the Quran and other things which take place in the name of the Islamic faith which I can factually prove are real. Relying on the Quran as the truth, the framework, etc. is a great way to develop systemic problems in a society and culture. We are seeing that currently. We see it in other religious fundamentalism too which has nothing to do with Islam, but rather showcases the problem in general of taking an ancient text (fact… it’s old… 600s, please meet the 2000s) so literally on subjects which clearly cannot be factually and scientifically proven.
You keep saying "it can be factually proven." Why don't you fucking prove it already? Give us an example of the dangerous language in the Qur'an. This has gone through over and over again. The overwhelming majority of the Qur'an actually talks about includes larger notions of belief, and the world, and the end of times, and being judged for your actions, etc. The few verses that do give supposed rulings are often completely misunderstood by those reading. For example how do you explain the verses that say there is no compulsion in religion? or those that say that every person has the right to his/her religion. Oh, to those verses, the "good ones", what you do is you say:
Oh no no no, look at history. you see when you look at the context of these verses, you see that they do not hold true to the way muslims forced others to convert!!!
ignoring the obvious historical inaccuracies in this stupid argument, when you look at a verse like "Kill the disbelievers"; if I were to come and give the historical context in which it was revealed - and indeed how it was revealed in reference to a specific group of people who had broken a peace treaty that they had signed with the Prophet - you would say:
Oh no no no, you can't just explain these verses by historical context! if the words are there, then they are there!!
obviously these are assumptions in argument. regardless, I think the inconsistency is apparent.
I’ve spent a fair chunk of time learning about the life and times of the supposed prophet (and I’m quite sure it tears at you to see me write about him as such) and I did this of my own volition.
No, I've dealt with people who don't know how to talk with any respect. Granted, most of them are usually children, but I've met my fair share of children in grown mens bodies. They're often more annoying that children. Atleast children have the grace to sometimes admit that they do not know what they're talking about.
My impression is that you sort of have the expectation that a person must become a muslim or do the equivalent of spend a childhood growing up in the indoctrination before one can speak about problems of the Islamic faith.
That's one of the most ridiculous assumptions I've ever heard, but it's no surprise you'd make it. You need it to fit nicely in your image of me so that you can continue on and on with your pathetic argument. Some of the scholars on Islam I admire most are non-Muslim. They just actually studied Islam, and know what the hell theyre talking about. Due to their study they also developed a respect for it. They know, unlike you, that it's not limited to stupid online videos of stonings.
I’ve watched lectures (something like 14 hours worth in one series I watched), read directly from the Quran, looked for problems, looked for awe-inspiring wisdom, looked for how it was compiled, studied into the life and times of Muhummad and more. If that’s not enough to form an opinion or to see problems, I’m not sure what more can be expected. Am I the resident expert? Nope, not in the least. I’m curious to learn more, but am pretty certain I’m not going to have an epiphany any time soon that makes me a convert. This probably makes me lost, kafir, and worse in your eyes and that in itself is scary. Look at how you’re treating me in your words and contempt, yet I’m to be inspired by the holy book you seem to cling to that has supposedly offered enlightenment to so many such as yourself? You appear to me to be pretty rude, aggressive and mocking.
what the FUCK are you talking about? the shit you're saying right now is ridiculous! I don't care how much supposed research you have done, it is clearly not legitimate based on the arguments you are making and the discussion you are trying to carry. If anything, you clearly entered your supposed Islamic research with an "indoctrination" of being completely anti-religion, and likely anti-Islam as well. I don't give a shit if you like the Qur'an or not, if you believe in it or not, etc. Just stop preaching your ridiculous intolerance. My god, and you have the fucking audacity to say I'M rude and aggressive and mocking? Look in a fucking mirror.
I’m glad there are muslims working to counter much of the zealotry, but it still will not address the basic problem of believing an old book is the word of a god (sorry, THE god according to its adherents) which you cannot prove, yet expect others to submit to.
I don't expect people to submit to anything except myself. If others choose to admit to it, then so be it. Who the fuck are you to say otherwise, you patronizing shit head?
If I grant to you that the Quran is to always be taken literally, then you are exactly proving my point that there is an imminent danger and lack of rationality and skeptical inquiry even possible. If you base legal systems on a holy text which is believed to be literal revelations and such from a prophet, well, they aren’t really subject to challenge or evolution to changing times and situations and populations. In other words, you have a stagnating situation which people can choose selective passages from (as they factually do) to support abhorrent actions and abuses.
1. You obviously have done no legitimate research, again. You claim to have watched lectures, it was probably listening to pseudo-scholars like Robert Spencer and bigots like Pamela Geller talk nonsense. There has always been a huge study based on rationality and skeptical inquiry on everything in Islam. And the Qur'an has never conflicted with anything.
2. You obviously have done no reading on the evolution and the progress (and even in some cases regression) made in Islamic society. Just like all societies, it has gone through several phases, and the Qur'an has never been a limiting factor. Your argument again is based on stupid notions suggested by western anti-Islamic bigots and is not based on any sufficient scholarship. You also have CLEARLY no knowledge of what Shari`ah even is, and how it has changed since the Prophet's time.
I argue that fundamentalism (of any religion) which sees ancient books or any book for that matter as unquestionable truth and revelations from divinity to be dangerous and ripe for abuse. If any group latched onto any book with such fervor and spun off things like legal systems and much more from it, most sane people can easily see the abundant problems to this. It can’t realistically be challenged, authority figures easily develop to exploit, etc, etc, etc. The defense is always the same, “but no really… THIS book is the one and is the truth, I promise!” Religious fundamentalism just doesn’t stay compatible with rational thought and inquiry and obviously isn’t very good at adaptation. Stoning may not be in the Quran, but lashings certainly are. Most people think lashings in this day and age are barbaric for punishment, but people who start from within the indoctrination of the faith find it much easier to excuse and accept lashings as punishment than those who are not similarly indoctrinated. I’m quite convinced that if there were a section on stoning in the Quran, you would find it pretty easy to justify stoning because you start with the assumption that whatever is in the Quran is right, instead of using your own rationality and experiences first.
Another stupid assumption of yours, based on absolute nonsense. Many people I know these days think throwing someone in jail for 5 years because he smokes/sells weed is barbaric. Not to mention the huge injustice that is the prison industrial system. who the fuck are you to claim moral superiority? You have no understanding, not even the most basic form, of islamic culture and religion and law and economics and social standards. and yet you think you can sit here and apply western morality, open to question as it is and compromised in many cases, as interpreted by YOU, no less, to an entire different belief system. Quit subjecting people to how you see the world. It is exactly the same problem religious fundamentalists have. you're so much like them, it's shocking to see you have such hatred toward them. like you, they don't believe in pluralism, and like you they believe in this self-proclaimed sense of superiority.
Think about that for awhile with an open mind and some self reflection. Stonings are mentioned as punishments in the Bible. Wouldn’t you find it barbaric if Christians were running around advocating stonings for various things because their holy book was being taken literally? I think you would easily do so. There are equally silly, threatening, outdated and absurd things in the Bible and the Quran to a reader not indoctrinated into either faith reading them objectively. Granting your premise that no muslim can disregard any part of the Quran, it is very reasonable to look for problems that arise from this. And I can assure you, limited study reveals they are abundant. Actions and atrocities taking place in the modern world by people chanting the name of Allah are further evidence of potential horrendous consequences of such literalism and faith in a supposed prophet and a supposedly holy book.
Again, it is easy to jump to other atrocities in the world such as civilians being killed by bombings. It is horrific, barbaric, whatever else you may want to call it. But nonetheless it IS beside the point of whether or not fundamentalist belief in the Quran poses significant threats to civilization, society, western ideals of liberty, freedom of religion, and maintaining standards which have long done away with things like lashings.
except these other atrocities are actually real. theyre actually a problem, and they kill I would probably guess atleast 500,000 people for every person who's fucking stoned these days. but you can stick to your imaginary war on the injustice that is Islam. meanwhile you, and those bombs you dare not speak out against are only creating more of these people. you'd do better to just shut the fuck up. but then again, this is a whole industry of people like you, they like the attention of waging this fake war against a belief system, as is the same with the religious fundamentalists.
I’ve proven with evidence that groups are working hard to export sharia laws, fundamentalist ideologies and militant Islam throughout the world. I have proven that there are horrific crimes being perpetrated with disturbing frequency under the banner of Islam. I can prove that authors and cartoonists are being attacked, threatened and killed by people based on belief in an ancient text. These things are provable.
Provable? All you do is claim you want to speak about the religion of Islam itself, but then you link to some obscure article about some nut or some group who do something stupid, most often than not based on actual political/cultural ideals that they brought into Islam incorrectly, and then you claim you still wanna talk about the fundamentals. Give me a fucking break, you pseudo-intellect.
The benevolence, truth, validity, perfection and such of Allah are not.
Oh, beautiful. So instead of comparing the actions of bad Muslims to the actions of good Muslims, you compare bad Muslims to the actions of God. Again, you clearly don't understand the way Islam looks at man's relationship with God, and the way God does not interfere with the world. Your invoking your stupid criticisms of Christianity into a discussion of Islam. But this is what pseudo-intellects do, not surprisingly.
At least not while we’re alive and I’m quite happy to take my chances on the afterlife being free of Allah’s wrath just as I’m sure you’re quite content to believe Zeus will not be waiting to kick your ass after your death. I’m not afraid of your Allah in the exact same way you’re not afraid of Zeus. I am afraid of many of the zealots who would be happy to threaten me or attack me for daring to make such a statement in any mass of them. You cannot deny that there are quite a few places I would have to fear for my life to make such a statement and I will fight with my dying breath to protect my right to hold and express such opinions. Again, remind me who the hatemongers really are. Oh, it’s me, right? Not the people so obsessed with the Quran and their beliefs that they believe I should be attacked, threatened or killed for daring to speak against their beloved god? I’m the one talking nonsense, instead of the zealots who would kill me for speaking against their holy book, right? I’m the one who is filled with hate, and not them, right? I’m the one who is woefully uneducated, and not them, right?
When have I ever not condemned religious fundamentalists? It's not that I think they're good, and you're bad. It's that I think you both just really, really suck.
I can assure you that my critique goes far beyond having a problem with the latest incarnation of Islam or its current “image problem.” The basic idea of a book from the 600s being so revered that people spend their entire lives dedicated to it, that so much blood is spilled for it, that so many people want to force belief in it upon others, and that so much of a schism between human beings is caused because of it (and other holy books)… well, it’s all a damn shame and something I try to do my small part to combat.
as opposed to America wanting to invoke its false sense of morality, freedom, and democracy by murdering hundreds of thousands? you can keep dismissing any other discussion you feel not suitable to talk about since it takes away from your demonization of Islam, but it makes perfect sense to discuss it for a few reasons:
1. It's a more legitimate threat than Islamic fundamentalism... much more.
2. It CREATES Islamic fundamentalism.
But now I'm just going back to you creating this fake industry for yourself. I have nothing else to talk to you about honestly. I'm rude to you because despite me believing in approaching everyone, and every subject, with respect, people tend to say things that lose respect, and the intolerance and bigotry you display is enough for that. And you can complain about being called a bigot, but you're the exact definition of one. Like I said before, good luck with your hatemonger-fueled activism, I know it will be a huge failure, maybe not right away--after all, it's only gaining more base now like all hate groups eventually do, but it won't last.
That's a pretty weak example. Joan of Arc's execution was politically motivated as she helped The Dauphin rise to power. The religious aspect and crime of heresy was simply a facade.
Joan of Arc is a Catholic Saint, after all.
yes, yes, nearly 500 years after the church convicted her of being a relapsed heretc then burning her body down to ashes and dumping them they made her a saint.....how nice of them.
but yer right, it wasn't the churches fault they found her guilty, sentenced her to and burned her to death, it was all politics..... :roll:
Yeah, I only wrote my senior dissertation on Joan of Arc. . . what the shit do I know about it?
I could really give half a monkey's ass about the rest of this thread, just get your shit straight before you want to quote something historical that you have no fucking idea about.
Yes, I did begin by claiming that you are insulting when you in fact created this post initially as a mockery and then you go on to call me petty and offensive names in your postings. Any person reading this thread will easily see that. You are correct that I think a billion people have foolish and dangerous beliefs if they adhere to the muslim faith. Perfectly good, decent and moral people can hold foolish beliefs and we should work to expose them. I’m absolutely positive I have some foolish beliefs and I hope I and others work to expose them with a degree of civility which you are lacking in this discussion. I expected conversation with you to degrade to name calling and swearing on your end, and it has. And that is pretty much where the discussion will end between us.
I am not trying to make any claim to superiority over any particular group of people. What I am making the claim of is that religious beliefs and especially ones based on literalism of holy texts are innately flawed. I do believe that rationality, humanism and science are much more productive methods to obtain truths and realities of our existence and the universe because they have a critical self-correcting component within them that religious belief does not. That component is scepticism. The Islamic faith (and others) start from a point of certainty and believe that their holy texts are perfect and amazing sources of knowledge. While individuals may not be perfect, their holy text still is. Independent testings, observations, doubt and other useful things are not necessary when you have the ultimate truth neatly contained in one book from a prophet. When you start with the supposed unchallengeable truth and move outward from there, you build some rather huge innate flaws into any system and you lack good error-correction and sensibility. It’s akin to a scientist stating that they know the ultimate truth and don’t need to do any further observation, testings or inquiry because their master theory is the truth, after all, it is divine. When challenges arise the scientist points to one statement or another he’s made that can explain something away to his satisfaction and he pats himself on the back for a job well done. People can present all sorts of good challenges or evidence of problems with his theory to him, but he doesn’t care because he knows his theory is perfect so they are all clearly wrong. It’s a deeply flawed way to go about life and it does a great deal to thwart progress and it is easy to abuse in a myriad of ways.
You went on to state that you never once declare your superiority in intelligence while calling me a pseudo-intellectual, belittle any research and evidence I present even when directly quoted directly from the Quran, that my arguments are empty and based on anti-islamist bigots, etc. Seriously? You make the claim that you are respectful of people who do not follow your chosen set of beliefs (of which I am one) and then proceed to call me all sorts of petty names and hurl tons of little insults? I’d be happy to put all my words up for review compared to yours amongst a group of our peers on this board to let them judge which one of us is the more petty and insulting to the other. I’m trying to challenge ideas and using ideas to challenge them. I’m not name calling and trying to personally insult you.
I do not sit here believing that religion is the root of all evil the world. But it is demonstrably a root of SOME of it. You are quite right that atheists and secularists have done some nasty things to people. But they don’t have any holy text or divine authority from which they can excuse it. Religious zealots do, and frequently do just that. An argument can be made that atheists and secularists don’t have a god to keep them in line so they could be more prone to nasty behaviour, but statistics and demonstrable evidence don’t indicate that from all that I’ve studied. So at best, it’s a weak argument. We’re in agreement on at least something. Western bombings and civilian casualties are barbaric and they do produce fundamentalists adhering to the Quran and inciting further violence. But it is a separate topic from what I originally started a post to discuss and one which I was trying to keep a discussion focused to an analysis of Islamic fundamentalism, its results and its dangers. I invited people to start their own topics on whatever they wanted.
I do feel that we can achieve a common morality pretty readily without the assistance of religion. In fact, I think that if we study societies throughout the world and include societies that existed perfectly well before there was a Quran, we can see that people do a pretty good job of developing common moral standards. Often the atrocities (such as human sacrifices) come because of religions instead of them being the sole thing preventing them. Other religions seem to develop pretty good sets of morals devoid of any influence of Muhummad too. We can figure out that stealing, murder and things like that don’t work out too well for society without the Quran. We can figure out that being nice to each other is a good idea too. Honest. What you have is faith that you have a text of immutable truth. But it is a faith without error-correction and scepticism innate within it to evolve. Just as you and I can find silly outdated things in something like the ten commandments, we can also do the same with the Quran but people like yourself will bend over backwards to find ways to make them meaningful, powerful and unerring truth instead of ever being able to say, “Well yeah, that part of this particular book is indeed pretty silly.” Your rationality has to turn off because you start with an assumption of truth and divinity. That’s part of the package deal people of literal faith embrace. And that does pose legitimate problems. I’ll agree that respect and tolerance and the like are great virtues, but I can also point to several examples (and I did so in the other thread) directly from the Quran where anything but tolerance and respect are promoted for people outside the Islamic faith. Sure, you can probably readily point to another portion which refutes that too, but then somehow will say that nothing within the Quran is contradictory too. And that just isn’t the case. I’m not picking on just Islam. I’d say the same thing of most religious texts I’ve ever learned anything about.
I can easily believe that most muslim people are good people, kind, caring, compassionate and the like while still thinking there is an underlying problem to their belief system. I can also think that it is much easier to turn people “primed” by faith in Quran into dangerous people than it is to turn somebody like a secular humanist into a dangerous person. I can also easily see how muslim believers will inevitably fall into conflict with believers of other religions because all the ingredients are there to bake that particular cake. I think you might be apt to agree that it would likely be harder to get a bunch of secular humanists to hate each other and go to war with each other than it probably would be to get Christians and Muslims to go to war with each other or Muslims and Jews. Fanatical beliefs about God and the righteousness this tends to convey to the faithful has shown throughout history to be a great source for violence and bloodshed. When we look around the world today, I don’t find it hard to see religious fanatics across all the aisles getting more and more primed for violence and conflict. It’s certainly not limited to muslims and I make no such claim. However, I am hard pressed to find examples of the nonreligious gearing up and getting primed for armed conflict or anything. I do think it is time to say enough is enough with the brewing conflicts brought about via religion and the atrocities being committed due to any particular faith.
I’m also curious as to why you think you can tell me to quit using words like indoctrinated and telling me that it’s foolish yet you take such huge offense to me using the word “foolish” when talking about muslim faith? Also, you asked me to provide evidence of dangerous language in the Quran and I already did that, with verses from the Quran in my original post. Go have a read, after all it’s the thread you tried to mimic when you created this one. You yourself are making it sound like there are good and bad verses within the Quran and that people like myself cherry pick the negative. We couldn’t cherry pick the negative if they weren’t there, could we? I would argue that while there may be plenty of good morals contained within the Quran, there are also some scary things. And none of the moral guiding of the Quran are things which I could only glean from the Quran. That book could never have been written and I’m quite certain that every ounce of morality would nonetheless be represented upon this planet. I am not the one who started cherry picking the Quran initially to support any of my actions. People like bin Laden have done plenty of cherry picking from the Quran to support their aims and others latch onto it because they start from the assumption that it is divine truth. So it’s after the fact that people like me come along and say, “Hey wait a minute. If they are finding language like that to support these atrocities, what else is in there that could be abused?” And unfortunately, there is plenty. There always will be plenty because literalism is dangerous and prone to subjectivity to fit anyone’s goals if they want it to. I didn’t start opposed to Islam. I became that way after learning more and more about it and seeing the results in the world that I live in. I’m not saying kill any muslims, but you have to admit that there are muslims out there who would like to see me dead for my comments made here and there are plenty of places in the muslim world where if I said all that I said in this thread... well, I would have been dead awhile ago.
You seem fond of discrediting my sources of information when you have no idea what or who they are. You falsely assume it from bigots or nonsense speakers. Instead the lectures (which were just one part of my studies) were from neither a bigot nor a talker of nonsense. You state that there has always been a huge study based on rationality and sceptical inquiry and that the Quran never conflicts with anything and I’d argue that this is laughably circular. Outsiders and practitioners of actual science would beg to differ and I can offer up Richard Dawkins as one credible scientist who finds a great deal of the Quran to be offensive and in conflict with rationality. So to say that the Quran never finds itself at odds with sceptical inquiry is simply false. Here’s just one avenue for you to review the critiques of people who quite adamantly believe that much of what the Quran says is in conflict with science and rationality:
Yes, it’s youtube video because we both know people on here, including yourself, wouldn’t go read a book or something else just because I posted something about it. If you bother, you can see plenty of things from the Quran refuted through calculations, science, inquiry, simple facts, etc. Anyway, I really do think we’ve reached a point where we’d be better off to agree to disagree. I can assure you that I woke up this morning unmoved by Allah and still quite content in Allah’s absence in my life. I’m also quite sure that no matter what I say, show, or share with you that you will not be moving an ounce either. So let’s end this thread and let it die it’s death, eh? If you want the final words, feel free to post whatever you want. Just do so without an expectation of another reply. I've had enough of the insults at this point.
Yeah, I only wrote my senior dissertation on Joan of Arc. . . what the shit do I know about it?
I could really give half a monkey's ass about the rest of this thread, just get your shit straight before you want to quote something historical that you have no fucking idea about.
i could give a fuck what you wrote your senior dissertation on, pal.
i'm sure her role in the war played a big part, that doesn't take away from the fact that it was the church that tried her, a bishop that found her guilty and the church that ordered her executed. politics or not it was the fucking church that tried and executed her, was it not??
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
You are correct that I think a billion people have foolish and dangerous beliefs if they adhere to the muslim faith.
Welcome to bigotry.
I am not trying to make any claim to superiority over any particular group of people.
But you just claimed them foolish. If you are not superior to foolishness, then what are you?
I do believe that rationality, humanism and science are much more productive methods to obtain truths and realities of our existence and the universe because they have a critical self-correcting component within them that religious belief does not.
You are making this claim as if Islam conflicts with rationality, humanism, and science. it doesn't.
That component is scepticism. The Islamic faith (and others) start from a point of certainty and believe that their holy texts are perfect and amazing sources of knowledge. While individuals may not be perfect, their holy text still is. Independent testings, observations, doubt and other useful things are not necessary when you have the ultimate truth neatly contained in one book from a prophet. When you start with the supposed unchallengeable truth and move outward from there, you build some rather huge innate flaws into any system and you lack good error-correction and sensibility. It’s akin to a scientist stating that they know the ultimate truth and don’t need to do any further observation, testings or inquiry because their master theory is the truth, after all, it is divine.
Here again your poor knowledge of Islam is apparent. First, you are confusing the holy text being perfect with a scientist claiming he is perfect and has the ultimate truth. Just because Muslims believe the Qur'an is perfect, does not mean they claim:
1. That it is the only necessary source of information. It absolutely is not, and no Muslim with any sense of rationality has ever claimed thus, especially the Prophet himself.
2. The Qur'an may be perfect, but humans certainly are not. Thus we do not have the capability to understand the Qur'an in any perfect manner. Thus, even if it WAS all we needed, and it certainly never was reported as such, then humans would still lack the ability to comprehend it perfectly. This is why there are so many Qur'anic commentaries written from Islamic scholars dating back well over a thousand years, until now. If the Qur'an was so easy to understand, why would so many commentaries be necessary? You keep making light of the argument people make when they say "you can't understand the Qur'an unless you read it in Arabic." There actually is truth to this argument. I'm sure you roll your eyes at this, quite expectedly considering you have no knowledge about Arabic I would assume. Arabic is not as simple a language as, say, English. In Arabic, often the subject of the sentence can be more than one thing. Often words can mean different things. Often the object of the verb can be more than one thing. Often someone can say a sentence, and it's hard to tell whether it is a metaphor or not. The Arabic grammatical rules are very complicated, anyone who has studied any Arabic whatsoever knows this. On top of all that, the Qur'an is considered the most complicated and comprehensive Arabic text. If you have ever studied Arabic, you would know what that means, cause some Arabic texts out there are fucking impossible to understand. one word, literally ONE, in the Qur'an can have 10 different meanings. To write commentaries on the Qur'an, people many times write 10 volumes, full of hundreds of pages each. It really is no simple task. Now, try to compare this to when you read an English translation of the Qur'an. They are always what the translator believes is meant. But if the subject/object of the sentence or the verb are not clear in Arabic, when it comes to English it is hard to decide whether to translate the subject as "me" or "him" or "you" or "they", etc. This is difficult to explain, especially if you do not know Arabic, or any other semitic language. This is what people mean when they say read it in Arabic. In addition to that, the Qur'an as a literary piece of work is probably the most brilliant literary work in the Arabic language, which as a language prides itself in literature, especially poetry. In other languages, this is obviously not apparent. Qur'anic study is so complicated, to see you simplify it like this is so nonsensical. This is why I keep saying you have not studied it because I can see so many large flaws. I am fluent in Arabic and it is still difficult for me to understand the Qur'an. Now people make claim, "oh but most Muslims don't speak Arabic. why do they like it?" To which I would respond, why don't you fucking ask them? There are also millions of Arab non-Muslims, many of whom would still attest to the Qur'an's beauty and would even admit that as a literary piece has a certain magic to it, as well as complications in understanding it. If however you do not like it, whether in Arabic or in another language, I really don't care. You can have your beliefs, just don't attack others for theirs.
3. This is just a minor point, but why do you say "holy texts," as in plural? This isn't Christianity. Islam has one book, one holy text, that's it. Don't confuse religions, I know you have a hard time doing that.
4. It's funny that you attack the Qur'an so much. You do realize that the overwhelming majority of Shari`ah rulings are NOT from the Qur'an, right?
When challenges arise the scientist points to one statement or another he’s made that can explain something away to his satisfaction and he pats himself on the back for a job well done. People can present all sorts of good challenges or evidence of problems with his theory to him, but he doesn’t care because he knows his theory is perfect so they are all clearly wrong. It’s a deeply flawed way to go about life and it does a great deal to thwart progress and it is easy to abuse in a myriad of ways.
what the hell are you talking about? Muslims disagree with eachother's theories and interpretations all the time, and Shari`ah study is so much more complicated than this.
You went on to state that you never once declare your superiority in intelligence while calling me a pseudo-intellectual, belittle any research and evidence I present even when directly quoted directly from the Quran, that my arguments are empty and based on anti-islamist bigots, etc. Seriously?
Intellect is not about intelligence. I said I was criticizing your knowledge. Intellect means the ability to basically discuss an issue, especially academic, using facts. You have so far not presented any research or evidence. You claim it's in the other topic, I don't really care to look for it. You do not have the ability yet to even discuss verses from the Qur'an. Your approach to Islam just as a religion is so wrong to begin with. To think you can just jump in and quote a verse about lashing an adulterer is ludicrous. You have a problem where you confuse Islam with Christianity far too often. You clearly don't know anything about Shari`ah, Qur'anic, or Hadith studies ranging back near a century and a half, considering you keep trying to suggest that every Muslim is born with the idea that he cannot question anything in his religion. You clearly have a poor understanding of how Muslims view their relationship with God. I mean, there are so many inherent flaws in the way you view Islam, even thinking to have a conversation with you rationally about it is ridiculous. It'd be like me having a conversation with some little elementary school kid about using differentiation in Economics. I'm not asserting more intelligence than you, I'm saying you have not sufficiently researched and gained enough knowledge on this topic. And yet you try to talk about it like you know. That is the exact definition of a pseudo-intellect, I've no regrets in calling you that.
I do not sit here believing that religion is the root of all evil the world. But it is demonstrably a root of SOME of it. You are quite right that atheists and secularists have done some nasty things to people. But they don’t have any holy text or divine authority from which they can excuse it.
So instead of attacking the actual people who do bad, you find it more useful to attack their justification for it, despite their justification actually not justifying anything they do whatsoever, and despite the fact that the majority of the people who follow this holy text are peaceful people? Don't you find that a tad... fucking stupid as shit?
An argument can be made that atheists and secularists don’t have a god to keep them in line so they could be more prone to nasty behaviour, but statistics and demonstrable evidence don’t indicate that from all that I’ve studied.
you studied statistics for that? It's a stupid argument that I would never make, even if I do believe in God.
So at best, it’s a weak argument. We’re in agreement on at least something. Western bombings and civilian casualties are barbaric and they do produce fundamentalists adhering to the Quran and inciting further violence. But it is a separate topic from what I originally started a post to discuss and one which I was trying to keep a discussion focused to an analysis of Islamic fundamentalism, its results and its dangers. I invited people to start their own topics on whatever they wanted.
You cannot have a discussion on Islamic fundamentalism while ignoring the causes of it. The point I am making is you keep trying to ignore that Western imperialism is the actual cause of the Islamic fundamentalism because you find it much more convenient to do so, so that you can blame it on the Qur'an and the actual religion. It's what islamophobes have been doing for decades now.
I do feel that we can achieve a common morality pretty readily without the assistance of religion. In fact, I think that if we study societies throughout the world and include societies that existed perfectly well before there was a Quran, we can see that people do a pretty good job of developing common moral standards. Often the atrocities (such as human sacrifices) come because of religions instead of them being the sole thing preventing them. Other religions seem to develop pretty good sets of morals devoid of any influence of Muhummad too. We can figure out that stealing, murder and things like that don’t work out too well for society without the Quran. We can figure out that being nice to each other is a good idea too. Honest.
Haha, if you think you can achieve morality without religion, then good for you. If others want religion, and you're attacking them for it, then you obviously are missing a very big ethical standard of respecting others' belief choices. Islam teaches that. I guess you are incapable of reaching a moral standard that the Qur'an has.
Also your historical analysis in that quote is just stupid. Human sacrifices come because of religion? How about the fact that the Arabs used to bury the baby if it was born a girl instead of a son? After Islam was introduced it prohibited it. Also you have some weird way of looking at how pre-religious societies used to live. They were fucking ruthless. I'm not trying to suggest that non-religious societies cannot live morally and ethically because unlike you I do not like to make the suggest that people are better just because they are religious or just because they are non-religious. You claim to preach humanism, but you do not do that whatsoever. In fact I have been the one in this argument doing that because unlike you I believe in individualism whereas you have been grouping all religious people, and more specifically all Muslims into this one group of foolish adherents to some backward philosophy.
What you have is faith that you have a text of immutable truth. But it is a faith without error-correction and scepticism innate within it to evolve.
Again, this is just incorrect because you do not know about Qur'anic studies. There may not be skepticism in the Qur'an, but you're missing the point. There is always skepticism with how one INTERPRETS the Qur'an, and that's the fucking point.
That’s part of the package deal people of literal faith embrace. And that does pose legitimate problems. I’ll agree that respect and tolerance and the like are great virtues, but I can also point to several examples (and I did so in the other thread) directly from the Quran where anything but tolerance and respect are promoted for people outside the Islamic faith. Sure, you can probably readily point to another portion which refutes that too, but then somehow will say that nothing within the Quran is contradictory too. And that just isn’t the case. I’m not picking on just Islam. I’d say the same thing of most religious texts I’ve ever learned anything about.
The Qur'an is not contradictory, there is a study in Qur'anic and Hadith studies called Abrogation which you obviously know nothing about. There are also verses that were delivered specifically for the Prophet and his people and supposed to be understood only for his time. There was never an interpretation in Qur'anic studies or Shari`ah studies in general that promoted treating non-Muslims without tolerance and respect.
I can easily believe that most muslim people are good people, kind, caring, compassionate and the like while still thinking there is an underlying problem to their belief system.
eh, maybe if you actually studied Islam, the history of Islam, etc, a lot more. you are entitled to your beliefs, but for now considering how intolerant and bigoted they are I'd suggest keeping em to yourself.
I can also think that it is much easier to turn people “primed” by faith in Quran into dangerous people than it is to turn somebody like a secular humanist into a dangerous person.
This is nonsense and bigoted. If you don't see how it's bigoted it's cause you don't know what the word means. You are claiming superiority simply based on your beliefs.
I can also easily see how muslim believers will inevitably fall into conflict with believers of other religions because all the ingredients are there to bake that particular cake. I think you might be apt to agree that it would likely be harder to get a bunch of secular humanists to hate each other and go to war with each other than it probably would be to get Christians and Muslims to go to war with each other or Muslims and Jews.
Actually I would never agree with that, it's nonsense. America, as well as Britain and France, have been involved in so many wars and they're secular nations. Oh, but it was never America's fault that she got into those wars, right? it's always the religious extremists, it's been them for the past 100-200 years. Imperialism, colonialism, exploitation of economic systems, etc, these are all products of religious texts, right?
However, I am hard pressed to find examples of the nonreligious gearing up and getting primed for armed conflict or anything.
WHAT? Do we live on the same planet?
I’m also curious as to why you think you can tell me to quit using words like indoctrinated and telling me that it’s foolish yet you take such huge offense to me using the word “foolish” when talking about muslim faith?
that word was used tongue in cheek. Also if you insult me that's one thing, if you insult a billion and a half people based on their choice to be Muslim, it's something else entirely.
You yourself are making it sound like there are good and bad verses within the Quran and that people like myself cherry pick the negative. We couldn’t cherry pick the negative if they weren’t there, could we?
I never said there were "bad verses." That's open to interpretation. I was speaking of verses you would pick to put in negative context, without actually studying its history, etc. You obviously have learned nothing from what I've written.
I would argue that while there may be plenty of good morals contained within the Quran, there are also some scary things. And none of the moral guiding of the Quran are things which I could only glean from the Quran. That book could never have been written and I’m quite certain that every ounce of morality would nonetheless be represented upon this planet.
Congratulations, I don't really give a shit. Believe what you want.
I am not the one who started cherry picking the Quran initially to support any of my actions. People like bin Laden have done plenty of cherry picking from the Quran to support their aims and others latch onto it because they start from the assumption that it is divine truth.
And yet even more people who believe it is the divine truth don't follow Bin Laden... THIS IS SO STRANGE. THERE IS ONLY ONE EXPLANATION... WE MUST IGNORE ALL THOSE PEOPLE AND ATTACK THE QUR'AN BECAUSE BIN LADEN USES IT, EVEN IF INCORRECTLY. So I guess if someone where to go bomb some building in the name of defending the constitution and our declaration of independence because he or she believes Obama is fucking our country up, then it means that the constitution and the declaration can make people radical.. oh shit! I mean this is just a further example actually: if you look at our country, you see many people will hold the constitution up on a pedestal and adhere to it. They will take no threat whatsoever to the constitution which is essentially considered a 'perfect' document. Yes, people make 'amendments' but they aren't even 'amendments' they are actually additions if anything, things that were omitted or not mentioned in the constitution. and they only do it on the basis that the people agree. yet, still, the fact that everyone claims to hold the constitution as the superior law of the land, you see many different types of groups and how they interpret it. should guns be legal, should they be illegal, power of the legislative branch, executive, state vs federal, etc etc. I mean this is just an analogy, and no analogy is perfect.
There always will be plenty because literalism is dangerous and prone to subjectivity to fit anyone’s goals if they want it to.
Ha! Something I actually agree with you on. It is prone to fit anyone's goals. Regardless of whether there is a holy book or not, people will find anything to support them. Just because they chose a religious text does not mean that the religion is to blame, it is these fools who try to justify their ridiculous actions based on their poor knowledge and understanding. Just as you are trying to justify your seething hatred of religion, as well as your intolerance and bigotry based on your poor understanding of it.
I didn’t start opposed to Islam. I became that way after learning more and more about it and seeing the results in the world that I live in.
ha that's funny, if I had to guess I'd say you haven't learned shit.
You seem fond of discrediting my sources of information when you have no idea what or who they are.
I can do that based on you being wrong. If some dude came up to me and said the sky is green you think I should ask him for his sources?
You falsely assume it from bigots or nonsense speakers. Instead the lectures (which were just one part of my studies) were from neither a bigot nor a talker of nonsense. You state that there has always been a huge study based on rationality and sceptical inquiry and that the Quran never conflicts with anything and I’d argue that this is laughably circular. Outsiders and practitioners of actual science would beg to differ and I can offer up Richard Dawkins as one credible scientist who finds a great deal of the Quran to be offensive and in conflict with rationality. So to say that the Quran never finds itself at odds with sceptical inquiry is simply false.
How do you explain the fact that muslims, most of whom were religious scholars as well, led the world in scientific, mathematical, astronomical, economical, social, historical, philosophical, etc, discoveries in the middle ages? Oh... you don't.
Here’s just one avenue for you to review the critiques of people who quite adamantly believe that much of what the Quran says is in conflict with science and rationality:
Yes, it’s youtube video because we both know people on here, including yourself, wouldn’t go read a book or something else just because I posted something about it. If you bother, you can see plenty of things from the Quran refuted through calculations, science, inquiry, simple facts, etc. Anyway, I really do think we’ve reached a point where we’d be better off to agree to disagree. I can assure you that I woke up this morning unmoved by Allah and still quite content in Allah’s absence in my life. I’m also quite sure that no matter what I say, show, or share with you that you will not be moving an ounce either. So let’s end this thread and let it die it’s death, eh? If you want the final words, feel free to post whatever you want. Just do so without an expectation of another reply. I've had enough of the insults at this point.
I wouldn't go read a book? Do you fucking know me at all? Your youtube videos are hilariously stupid. I watched a couple of them. they quote idiotic Muslim leaders who talk about stupid shit like Ramses II being mentioned in the Qur'an, as if that's what all Muslims believe. what kind of dumb shit is this?
And for the last fucking time, I don't care if you believe in God or not.
You certainly like hurling the term bigot around. I am not utterly intolerant of religion. I don’t seek to exterminate muslims, Christians or any other worshiper. You seem to take disagreement with a group of people or thinking they hold flawed and potentially dangerous beliefs as a sure sign of bigotry. However, I have no doubt you think Christians hold flawed and foolish beliefs about the afterlife or that the US has flawed beliefs which are foolish which must mean you hate some three hundred million Americans. See how stupid that is? Let me get this through your thick skull, I do not hate muslims. I strongly disagree with the wisdom of following a supposedly holy text as the word of god and think it can easily cause problems and frequently does. Disagreement does not equate to unbridled hatred or anything of the sort from my end. I know you too disagree with billions of people around the world and think that billions of people have foolish beliefs. That does not make you a bigot, just as it does not make me one. People who disagree with you or your religion are not automatically bigots. You can honestly think people have foolish or even dangerous beliefs without hating them personally or with irrational prejudice. You can easily think people have some foolish beliefs without having to have a superiority complex. That should be pretty obvious, because there’s pretty much not a human being alive who doesn’t think somebody out there has some foolish ideas without having to feel like those other people are totally inferior.
I feel that you are quite blinded to the obvious fact that god and the divinity of the Quran are quite outside the realms of rationality, meaningful scientific inquiry and can’t be proven. Similarly, you can’t prove that there isn’t an evil demon on my left shoulder which is invisible and undetectable, but which I promise you is there. You could discredit my belief in such a demon as delusional, and in the same manner I claim your divine text and Allah are equally delusional and unable to be proven otherwise. Despite your unwillingness to believe it and your personal faith, science and reason have no tools to confirm Allah or the perfection of the Quran. Even when laughable “scientific” knowledge is said to be disproven, people such as yourself will still excuse it away or ignore it (or more usually, make some personal attacks).
How can you honestly think that a person like you who starts with the belief that the Quran is perfect can ever use reason, evidence or proof from the world to admit that something in the Quran is actually wrong? You can’t. If the Quran can never be wrong or imperfect, then it is by definition outside the realm of the scientific method. When you start with the belief that the Quran is perfect, you immediately have to start with all the sort of stuff to excuse any possible contradiction. The Quran must remain perfect no matter what or everything starts to fall apart in your world view. Of course we should expect that people who insist the Quran is perfect will do everything in their power to continue to bend, twist, contort, obstruct, construct and do whatever else it might take to assure that others do not find fault in the Quran. Again, this is absolutely against the scientific method and is extremely worrisome. I’m not saying that the Quran is the only source necessary for information, but rather that no information will be allowed to counter its perfection by its adherents. That should concern any rational person. You’re already in the process of spinning all sorts of defenses to protect the perfection of the Quran. Let me just pose a simple question though… if the Quran was really so perfect, why would it only convey its awesomeness easily in Arabic? I know, I know, you’ll explain that one away too. And that’s my point, there will ALWAYS be excuses to protect the perfection and therefore, you absolutely have a problem with the scientific method.
You also keep assuming that I’m hateful of muslims or something and I’m simply not. I do want to challenge ideas contained within the faith and the practitioners. I don’t think that it’s just bad people who are doing bad things within the muslim faith, but rather that there are ideas and concepts inherent in the religion which make it much easier for bad people to do bad, and even for good people to do negative things. I do challenge the notion of the perfection of the Quran and I do question the benefits to individuals lives who place their faith so fully in faith. By definition, faith isn’t about proof and that lack of proof yet the level of certainty people still have deserves to be challenged. I’m not saying hated. I’m saying challenged in the realm of ideas. And fundamentalist nutjobs carrying out barbaric things and also seeking to spread their reach and influence should be confronted head on. I’ll once again argue that way too often people try to isolate them as just a handful of crazies, but that isn’t the case in the modern era. There are state-sanctioned, organized politics, militarily equipped, financially backed and more groups of people working quite hard to spread fundamentalist beliefs in the Quran. That isn’t saying that there aren’t other religions doing similar things, and I’d be right there to challenge those groups too. In fact, I find extreme nationalism to be quite similar to religious fundamentalism in how it can breed beliefs in people which are dangerous and inhuman.
What you don’t seem to realize in my argument too is that I think peaceful people can hold flawed ideas, ideas which less peaceful people can easily use to justify barbarism. Just because a majority are peaceful, the underlying idea which I believe to be flawed should still be open to challenge and debate. It’s rather unfair and stupid to just scream “Bigot!” when somebody challenges religious ideas, concepts and frameworks. Never once have I remotely come close to saying, “Kill all muslims!” Ideas can and should be engaged without having to hate, discriminate or be intolerant of people who hold the ideas. Now obviously, some have taken things way too far and have earned scorn via actions.
One point it seems that you and I disagree is on whether or not people should be allowed to challenge other peoples beliefs. I believe we can and should do so and that it doesn’t make you a bigot. I fully believe in the competition of ideas and think that ideas deserve to be challenged constantly by other ideas. I don’t feel like religion should be taboo to challenge and critique. I also don’t feel like any holy book should be taboo for the same.
I don’t think any of the western nations you’ve mentioned as being involved in wars are secular in reality. IN speech, sure. But in reality the U.S. President is still compelled to say, “God Bless…” at the conclusion of every speech, etc. In reality, we just need to look at a George Bush waging a war in Iraq and the “Axis of Evil” speeches to see that we’re not really talking secular rule and policies. I think American foreign policy is deeply flawed, and I have no delusion that America is always right. But none of that takes away from my critique of the Islamic faith and other faiths. Literalism, fundamentalism and belief in perfect texts are dangerous on numerous fronts, and that’s an opinion I’ve not been swayed in the least from. As for things like imperialism, colonialism and exploitative economic systems not influenced by religious texts… well, I’d happily point to concepts like “Manifest Destiny” and Biblical notions of superiority over nature as some roots to many of the damaging things we see in our world today. Is that all there is to it? Nope.
Look, part of what makes the Quran a foolish thing to base societies, laws and the like on is that it is so easy to abuse. Bin Ladens and the like will ALWAYS be able to do what he’s been doing with it as justification. The fact that people who claim it is the divine truth and yet can act in completely opposite ways (Laden vs. normal peaceful muslim) is not something that will be stopped. Interpretation of the Quran is ridiculously subjective and fallible. I don’t attack the Quran because a few nutjobs supposedly use it “incorrectly” (there will always be one group or another saying the other group is incorrect with something like this). The issues I have are much deeper with it. Your comparison with the Constitution isn’t too bad. People who consider it a perfect document for all ages are just as foolish (there’s that word again) in my opinion as followers of the Quran. The Constitution has shown error and need for update, and in the same way I think the Quran has. In fact, I would argue that it’s time to move beyond reliance upon faith and move more into the realms of the actually knowable. We shouldn’t be ashamed to admit that faith is just faith and hope, instead of known truth. We should be able to see with study that literalism and belief in a perfect Quran actually do conflict with the scientific method of inquiry and rationality. And again, it isn’t just the Islamic faith which runs into this. Once upon a time Greeks believed in a totally different pantheon and it was useful for awhile. But eventually we learned more and moved on. I argue that we’re in similar need of moving on to prevent things like looming mass attacks, fundamentalist oppressions, threats to various freedoms such as freedom of speech and expression, to advance tolerance of homosexuality, to further women’s rights, to more fully embrace scientific inquiry and the understanding of evolution, etc, etc, etc. I don’t hate the ancient Greeks for having believed in what I consider foolish things (like Zeus) any more than I hate muslims for believing in what I consider foolish things, like Allah. You need to quit confusing disagreement and concern with bigotry and hatred. I personally believe the muslim world would experience a rather profound boon to various freedoms, scientific advances, peaceful interactions with other societies and the like if religiosity and dependence upon the Quran were lessened and one day eradicated. I would speak similarly of other faiths and their roles in various nations. I’d speak similarly about nationalism. I have no expectation of this any time soon, but I do think that in the end we’ll see every religion we know today eventually go by the wayside. Why? Because they just don’t hold up to scrutiny, they aren’t provable, they have a lot of inherent problems, they are recurring sources of societal and civilization clashes, etc. Either that or one religion will finally subjugate all the others. I think that if we see increasing fundamentalism (no matter the faith) and increasing literalism, we will see increasing conflicts and atrocities. Similarly, if we see increased expansionistic tendencies or imperialism from whatever the source, I’d expect increased conflicts. Anyway, more than enough for now. I am just sick of the bigot angle you insist on taking as a discredit to anything which might be said to confront your faith.
I think more than anything I responded again because the bigot crap was irritating me, but I don't think that irritation will be enough to get me to type any more here. Haha, so I'm sgning off this thread for good. Enjoy, and don't start another bullshit thread mimicking another thread that it is clear you didn't bother to even read all of.
You certainly like hurling the term bigot around. I am not utterly intolerant of religion. I don’t seek to exterminate muslims, Christians or any other worshiper.
LOL. What the fuck? Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds? You actually have to go out of your way to say you don't seek to exterminate Muslims as if the definition of being intolerant means you want to kill them all.
You seem to take disagreement with a group of people or thinking they hold flawed and potentially dangerous beliefs as a sure sign of bigotry.
Classifying people into a group, thereby taking away their individuality, and saying that they are foolish, and thus 'beneath you', for believing in something that you disagree with or identifying with something makes you a bigot. that's the exact definition of one.
However, I have no doubt you think Christians hold flawed and foolish beliefs about the afterlife or that the US has flawed beliefs which are foolish which must mean you hate some three hundred million Americans. See how stupid that is?
what the hell are you even talking about anymore? you have no doubt about what I think? where do you come up with these assumptions.
1. I don't believe christians hold foolish beliefs, I respect their choice to believe in what they want and love the common ground I share with them.
2. what does it even mean that the US has flawed beliefs? How can a country have any belief whatsoever for me to disagree with in the first place? And by the way I AM AMERICAN.
Let me get this through your thick skull, I do not hate muslims.
Bigotry doesn't necessarily involve hate, and I never used the word hate as far as I remember. I said you were intolerant and a bigot. That's perfectly what you are. I suggest you look up the definition of these terms, you clearly don't know what they are. You're also an islamophobe.
I strongly disagree with the wisdom of following a supposedly holy text as the word of god and think it can easily cause problems and frequently does. Disagreement does not equate to unbridled hatred or anything of the sort from my end.
It's not disagreement, and you know it. It's belittlement and arrogance, drawn from ignorance. You have no knowledge of Islam to have a proper and rational discussion on it. It is evident from the way you speak about it. you draw on your poor knowledge of it and try to pretend to hold scholarly discourse when all you are doing is spreading intolerance.
I know you too disagree with billions of people around the world and think that billions of people have foolish beliefs.
You know what I think? where do you get your information from? I'm curious. Where have I ever said any of this? For someone who is so concerned with using rational thought and not drawing from things that don't exist, you sure have no problem coming up with what I believe through irrational and make believe means.
That does not make you a bigot, just as it does not make me one. People who disagree with you or your religion are not automatically bigots. You can honestly think people have foolish or even dangerous beliefs without hating them personally or with irrational prejudice.
That's exactly the point. You don't hate them personally, because you take away each and every Muslim's individuality. You automatically come into the discussion thinking a Muslim is a foolish person for believing in God and the book and the prophet, etc. and hold your beliefs superior to that person's based on that, and you are prejudiced toward him/her.
You can easily think people have some foolish beliefs without having to have a superiority complex. That should be pretty obvious, because there’s pretty much not a human being alive who doesn’t think somebody out there has some foolish ideas without having to feel like those other people are totally inferior.
you're grouping all 1.6 billion Muslims into one group and ascribing to them 'foolish beliefs'. You also have no real knowledge of Islam, so you're doing this based on ignorance. So you're not just bigoted, you're an ignorant bigot. And you didn't answer my question before, if you think Muslims are foolish but also do not see yourself as superior, then what are you?
I feel that you are quite blinded to the obvious fact that god and the divinity of the Quran are quite outside the realms of rationality, meaningful scientific inquiry and can’t be proven.
what can't be proven? God? The divinity of the Qur'an? Perhaps. If so, who cares? If it takes people a certain amount of faith to believe in something like that, what's it to you? They are not forcing you to believe in it, and are not hurting anyone, so why don't you mind your fucking business? I never said the Qur'an's divinity can be proven through scientific inquiry because I don't care to prove that to you. What I am saying though is that the Qur'an does not limit anyone's ability to be rational or to use scientific inquiry. You keep making the argument that because the Qur'an is the word of God, it can not be rationalized because we must accept it to what it is. But you're so stubborn that you ignored my entire response to this. This is also partly due to the fact that you don't respond to the majority of my points. you read may be a quarter of my post, as to my assumption based on how you respond, most of the time you're probably fuming with how I call you a bigot, and barely pay any attention.
The Qur'an is the word of God yes, so in essence it is perfect. Now what is NOT perfect, and what will never be perfect, and what IS rationalized as much as possible is our interpretation of the Qur'an. This is all that matters. If something is obvious in the Qur'an, and this is not quite often, then it is obviously taken at its word, and nothing of this sort is ever contradictory to rationale or logic. On the other hand, many other rulings and verses are interpreted in many different ways. Many are known to be understood only in the context of the time it was revealed, etc. Your simplification of Qur'anic study is evidence of the fact thaty ou know little of the religion in general.
Similarly, you can’t prove that there isn’t an evil demon on my left shoulder which is invisible and undetectable, but which I promise you is there. You could discredit my belief in such a demon as delusional, and in the same manner I claim your divine text and Allah are equally delusional and unable to be proven otherwise.
I don't care to call you delusional. If you're not hurting any body then believe in what ever the fuck you want.
Despite your unwillingness to believe it and your personal faith, science and reason have no tools to confirm Allah or the perfection of the Quran. Even when laughable “scientific” knowledge is said to be disproven, people such as yourself will still excuse it away or ignore it (or more usually, make some personal attacks).
Science and reason don't have to prove God or the Qur'an's perfection to those who have faith. And to those who don't have faith, just mind your business and move on.
How can you honestly think that a person like you who starts with the belief that the Quran is perfect can ever use reason, evidence or proof from the world to admit that something in the Quran is actually wrong? You can’t. If the Quran can never be wrong or imperfect, then it is by definition outside the realm of the scientific method. When you start with the belief that the Quran is perfect, you immediately have to start with all the sort of stuff to excuse any possible contradiction. The Quran must remain perfect no matter what or everything starts to fall apart in your world view. Of course we should expect that people who insist the Quran is perfect will do everything in their power to continue to bend, twist, contort, obstruct, construct and do whatever else it might take to assure that others do not find fault in the Quran. Again, this is absolutely against the scientific method and is extremely worrisome.
Not really. Like I said before, since Qur'anic study began near a century and a half ago, interpretations have always been different. You never have to change the Qur'an; it essentially is perfect. Our understanding of it is what is not perfect. Thus, the Qur'an itself never contradicts anything.
I’m not saying that the Quran is the only source necessary for information, but rather that no information will be allowed to counter its perfection by its adherents. That should concern any rational person.
why?
You’re already in the process of spinning all sorts of defenses to protect the perfection of the Quran. Let me just pose a simple question though… if the Quran was really so perfect, why would it only convey its awesomeness easily in Arabic? I know, I know, you’ll explain that one away too. And that’s my point, there will ALWAYS be excuses to protect the perfection and therefore, you absolutely have a problem with the scientific method.
what have I done to spin defenses? And I spent fucking paragraphs in the previous post explaining why the Arabic language is necessary to read the Qur'an in. What the fuck is the matter with you that you ignore everything? You just browse through my post, ignore my points and just write your ridiculous rants. And just because there are "excuses" does not automatically invalidate them. If you knew anything, for example, about the Arabic language you would know that.
You also keep assuming that I’m hateful of muslims or something and I’m simply not.
I never said you were hateful; just bigoted, insulting, intolerant.... should I keep going?
I do want to challenge ideas contained within the faith and the practitioners.
You want to hold a discussion based on certain talking points you learned in anti-Islam videos. You cannot do that. This is really not that difficult to understand. To properly hold a discussion on a subject like this, you have to have studied the general subject. Its history, its culture, its belief system, etc. You have a tenuous grasp simply on how Muslims view their relationship with God. You confuse it with Christianity. How can you hope to hold a legitimate discussion on Islam when you make such elementary mistakes? You cannot come and start talking about stoning before understanding anything else. Just as any other subject. I mean I've made this point so often in my previous posts, but you obviously ignored them or didn't even read them to begin with. It's because it's inconvenient for you. To keep talking shit about Islam and Muslims you have to actually STUDY IT. must be an annoying thought right? Like a child who wants to eat dessert before dinner.
I do question the benefits to individuals lives who place their faith so fully in faith.
placing faith in faith? Do you even know what you're talking about anymore?
By definition, faith isn’t about proof and that lack of proof yet the level of certainty people still have deserves to be challenged. I’m not saying hated. I’m saying challenged in the realm of ideas. And fundamentalist nutjobs carrying out barbaric things and also seeking to spread their reach and influence should be confronted head on. I’ll once again argue that way too often people try to isolate them as just a handful of crazies, but that isn’t the case in the modern era. There are state-sanctioned, organized politics, militarily equipped, financially backed and more groups of people working quite hard to spread fundamentalist beliefs in the Quran. That isn’t saying that there aren’t other religions doing similar things, and I’d be right there to challenge those groups too. In fact, I find extreme nationalism to be quite similar to religious fundamentalism in how it can breed beliefs in people which are dangerous and inhuman.
and yet nationalism can be secular? But I thought secular people are so peaceful!!!
the only fundamentalism that is state-sanctioned is that supported by Western secular governments, like that of Saudi Arabia's. If you read about what Muslims actually believe in in the world, they hold regular moral values. You'd be surprised, but then again most bigots end up surprised when they learn that what they believe is actually bullshit.
What you don’t seem to realize in my argument too is that I think peaceful people can hold flawed ideas, ideas which less peaceful people can easily use to justify barbarism. Just because a majority are peaceful, the underlying idea which I believe to be flawed should still be open to challenge and debate. It’s rather unfair and stupid to just scream “Bigot!” when somebody challenges religious ideas, concepts and frameworks. Never once have I remotely come close to saying, “Kill all muslims!” Ideas can and should be engaged without having to hate, discriminate or be intolerant of people who hold the ideas. Now obviously, some have taken things way too far and have earned scorn via actions.
LIke I said bigotry does not necessarily involve you yelling to kill all muslims. Also, you take your poor knowledge of Islam too far and you insult all Muslims, while remaining ignorant of what they even believe in. I mean if the majority of the people who hold Islamic beliefs are peaceful, then how can you say that Islamic beliefs cause people to turn violent? Shouldn't the proof of that be most Muslims are violent? And yet only such a small fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims are violent/fanatical so what do you have to say about that? Nothing. The fact that most Muslims who hold the Qur'an to be perfect are not fanatical should be evidence. Also why do you only sit here and talk about the Qur'an when the overwhelming majority of Shari`ah is not derived from it? Did you ever come across this little fact in your "studies" ??
One point it seems that you and I disagree is on whether or not people should be allowed to challenge other peoples beliefs. I believe we can and should do so and that it doesn’t make you a bigot. I fully believe in the competition of ideas and think that ideas deserve to be challenged constantly by other ideas. I don’t feel like religion should be taboo to challenge and critique. I also don’t feel like any holy book should be taboo for the same.
I believe that if people hold a belief that doesn't hurt anyone, then it's free for them to hold it without being disrespected and reduced to intolerance. You on the other hand believe that being disrespectful, intolerant, etc, is perfectly ok. Must be part of that good old "Western Moral Value System" you preach so much, huh.
I don’t think any of the western nations you’ve mentioned as being involved in wars are secular in reality. IN speech, sure. But in reality the U.S. President is still compelled to say, “God Bless…” at the conclusion of every speech, etc. In reality, we just need to look at a George Bush waging a war in Iraq and the “Axis of Evil” speeches to see that we’re not really talking secular rule and policies.
are you fucking kidding? God now you're just ridiculous.
I think American foreign policy is deeply flawed, and I have no delusion that America is always right. But none of that takes away from my critique of the Islamic faith and other faiths. Literalism, fundamentalism and belief in perfect texts are dangerous on numerous fronts, and that’s an opinion I’ve not been swayed in the least from.
This is the problem with your rants. you don't even know hwy I said that. I was responding to when you were trying to talk of why atheism triumphs religion, and I was saying proof that atheists/secular nations are not always peaceful is...
Look, part of what makes the Quran a foolish thing to base societies, laws and the like on is that it is so easy to abuse.
except societies and laws are hardly ever based on the Qur'an, just further proof that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Also people like Bin Laden are such a recent phenomenon, in the last couple decades or so. You obviously have no knowledge of the historical implementation of Shari`ah in societies.
The fact that people who claim it is the divine truth and yet can act in completely opposite ways (Laden vs. normal peaceful muslim) is not something that will be stopped.
It's not something that will be stopped whether there is a divine book for not.
Interpretation of the Quran is ridiculously subjective and fallible. I don’t attack the Quran because a few nutjobs supposedly use it “incorrectly” (there will always be one group or another saying the other group is incorrect with something like this). The issues I have are much deeper with it. Your comparison with the Constitution isn’t too bad. People who consider it a perfect document for all ages are just as foolish (there’s that word again) in my opinion as followers of the Quran. The Constitution has shown error and need for update, and in the same way I think the Quran has.
Um. The constitution has never shown "error." it's shown need for update, sure. And people have added to it. Similarly, people don't only rely on the Qur'an, they rely on many other sources, and Islamic scholars always release new rulings to "update" previous rulings that need such attention paid to it in the modern era. But at the end of the day the constitution is still the framework to draw ideas from, and you certainly would never find something allowed to pass that would contradict the constitution, hence the word "unconstitutional."
In fact, I would argue that it’s time to move beyond reliance upon faith and move more into the realms of the actually knowable. We shouldn’t be ashamed to admit that faith is just faith and hope, instead of known truth. We should be able to see with study that literalism and belief in a perfect Quran actually do conflict with the scientific method of inquiry and rationality.
Faith does not conflict with rationality and scientific inquiry. That is just an incorrect notion of what it means to be rational and hold scientific values. As long as nothing conflicts, then there should be no problem. Additionally, you are holding everyone to YOUR idea of what rationality is. Subjecting people to your compromised ideals is stupid.
And again, it isn’t just the Islamic faith which runs into this. Once upon a time Greeks believed in a totally different pantheon and it was useful for awhile. But eventually we learned more and moved on. I argue that we’re in similar need of moving on to prevent things like looming mass attacks, fundamentalist oppressions, threats to various freedoms such as freedom of speech and expression, to advance tolerance of homosexuality, to further women’s rights, to more fully embrace scientific inquiry and the understanding of evolution, etc, etc, etc.
Except Islam does not promote mass attacks, oppressions, threats to freedom, etc etc etc. It is actually against all of that. And just speaking from a practical point of view, do you think it makes ANY sense to speak against the entire religion of Islam? Do you actually see yourself making headway and convincing people to give up their religion? For every person you may see who renounces Islam, I bet 50 more will pick it up. It's the fastest growing religion for a reason. Drop your pathetic argument of intolerance and ignorance and begin arguing from a practical point of view if you care so much. Study Islam as it truly is, as it truly preaches peace, etc, and try to convince the fundamental Muslims through that way if you care so much.
I don’t hate the ancient Greeks for having believed in what I consider foolish things (like Zeus) any more than I hate muslims for believing in what I consider foolish things, like Allah. You need to quit confusing disagreement and concern with bigotry and hatred.
"I disagree with you" and "You are foolish" are two different things. It's hilarious that you have to be taught that.
I personally believe the muslim world would experience a rather profound boon to various freedoms, scientific advances, peaceful interactions with other societies and the like if religiosity and dependence upon the Quran were lessened and one day eradicated.
That belief is based on a poor knowledge of Islamic history, that is if you have any knowledge to speak of in the first place. It's just stupid, inconsistent with reality and based on modern stereotypes of the Islamic world.
I would speak similarly of other faiths and their roles in various nations. I’d speak similarly about nationalism. I have no expectation of this any time soon, but I do think that in the end we’ll see every religion we know today eventually go by the wayside. Why? Because they just don’t hold up to scrutiny, they aren’t provable, they have a lot of inherent problems, they are recurring sources of societal and civilization clashes, etc. Either that or one religion will finally subjugate all the others. I think that if we see increasing fundamentalism (no matter the faith) and increasing literalism, we will see increasing conflicts and atrocities. Similarly, if we see increased expansionistic tendencies or imperialism from whatever the source, I’d expect increased conflicts. Anyway, more than enough for now. I am just sick of the bigot angle you insist on taking as a discredit to anything which might be said to confront your faith.
You sound like you've been reading Samuel Huntington, who was by the way discredited by many excellent scholars.
I think more than anything I responded again because the bigot crap was irritating me, but I don't think that irritation will be enough to get me to type any more here. Haha, so I'm sgning off this thread for good. Enjoy, and don't start another bullshit thread mimicking another thread that it is clear you didn't bother to even read all of.
Congratulations, I don't really give a shit if you choose to keep posting, but you write some dumb shit that crosses the threshold into bigotry and intolerance and it is unfortunately necessary for people to call you out on it. And of course I'll mimic your stupid thread, but I did it mostly to show Christians that singling out Islam is as stupid as singling out Christianity for the actions of a few idiots. And compared to the 1.6 billion Muslims, even several thousand people does constitute as a few.
My point has always been to respect other people's beliefs, so long as they are peaceful and do not hurt anyone. Additionally, if you wish to engage in actual discourse, it is incumbent upon you to study the issue seriously. Otherwise you are simply spreading prejudice based on ignorance.
I made it to the point where you kept tossing around bigot and islamaphobe and your usual routine and quit reading there. Sorry you wasted your time typing the rest, maybe somebody else will read it.
Basically from what I've read both sides are saying the other side is more extreme. Howabout we cut extremism on both sides?
Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
I made it to the point where you kept tossing around bigot and islamaphobe and your usual routine and quit reading there. Sorry you wasted your time typing the rest, maybe somebody else will read it.
haha, atleast be honest, you've not once read a post of mine completely. in fact, i don't think you've ever read something on Islam that disagreed with your bigoted view and actually used facts.
The ability to fling insults at others and take offense while not seeing the insults one is flinging is an interesting phenomenon. It's getting a healthy time-out for a few people.
Why have some of you let your debate and discussion degenerate into crap? HOW you speak to each other while debating is important here. A read-only account will end your debate here permanently. Represent yourself with posts you can be proud of instead of sliding at lightning speed into the mud down on the low road.
Personal arguments do not belong here. This thread is done.
Comments
Quit using the word indoctrinated. it's foolish and it's undermined by example by those who chose to convert. how were they indoctrinated if they simply chose to believe in it? I really don't care about whether or not you believe in the Qur'an, or God, or anything. And calling for God to smite you really is stupid though, and shows another example of how you tend to mesh Christianity with Islam. Islam, unlike Christianity, takes a much more hands off approach on God's interaction with the world. It's a lot more complicated than that, but I don't wish to get into as big of a discussion as this right now.
You keep saying "it can be factually proven." Why don't you fucking prove it already? Give us an example of the dangerous language in the Qur'an. This has gone through over and over again. The overwhelming majority of the Qur'an actually talks about includes larger notions of belief, and the world, and the end of times, and being judged for your actions, etc. The few verses that do give supposed rulings are often completely misunderstood by those reading. For example how do you explain the verses that say there is no compulsion in religion? or those that say that every person has the right to his/her religion. Oh, to those verses, the "good ones", what you do is you say:
Oh no no no, look at history. you see when you look at the context of these verses, you see that they do not hold true to the way muslims forced others to convert!!!
ignoring the obvious historical inaccuracies in this stupid argument, when you look at a verse like "Kill the disbelievers"; if I were to come and give the historical context in which it was revealed - and indeed how it was revealed in reference to a specific group of people who had broken a peace treaty that they had signed with the Prophet - you would say:
Oh no no no, you can't just explain these verses by historical context! if the words are there, then they are there!!
obviously these are assumptions in argument. regardless, I think the inconsistency is apparent.
No, I've dealt with people who don't know how to talk with any respect. Granted, most of them are usually children, but I've met my fair share of children in grown mens bodies. They're often more annoying that children. Atleast children have the grace to sometimes admit that they do not know what they're talking about.
That's one of the most ridiculous assumptions I've ever heard, but it's no surprise you'd make it. You need it to fit nicely in your image of me so that you can continue on and on with your pathetic argument. Some of the scholars on Islam I admire most are non-Muslim. They just actually studied Islam, and know what the hell theyre talking about. Due to their study they also developed a respect for it. They know, unlike you, that it's not limited to stupid online videos of stonings.
what the FUCK are you talking about? the shit you're saying right now is ridiculous! I don't care how much supposed research you have done, it is clearly not legitimate based on the arguments you are making and the discussion you are trying to carry. If anything, you clearly entered your supposed Islamic research with an "indoctrination" of being completely anti-religion, and likely anti-Islam as well. I don't give a shit if you like the Qur'an or not, if you believe in it or not, etc. Just stop preaching your ridiculous intolerance. My god, and you have the fucking audacity to say I'M rude and aggressive and mocking? Look in a fucking mirror.
I don't expect people to submit to anything except myself. If others choose to admit to it, then so be it. Who the fuck are you to say otherwise, you patronizing shit head?
1. You obviously have done no legitimate research, again. You claim to have watched lectures, it was probably listening to pseudo-scholars like Robert Spencer and bigots like Pamela Geller talk nonsense. There has always been a huge study based on rationality and skeptical inquiry on everything in Islam. And the Qur'an has never conflicted with anything.
2. You obviously have done no reading on the evolution and the progress (and even in some cases regression) made in Islamic society. Just like all societies, it has gone through several phases, and the Qur'an has never been a limiting factor. Your argument again is based on stupid notions suggested by western anti-Islamic bigots and is not based on any sufficient scholarship. You also have CLEARLY no knowledge of what Shari`ah even is, and how it has changed since the Prophet's time.
Another stupid assumption of yours, based on absolute nonsense. Many people I know these days think throwing someone in jail for 5 years because he smokes/sells weed is barbaric. Not to mention the huge injustice that is the prison industrial system. who the fuck are you to claim moral superiority? You have no understanding, not even the most basic form, of islamic culture and religion and law and economics and social standards. and yet you think you can sit here and apply western morality, open to question as it is and compromised in many cases, as interpreted by YOU, no less, to an entire different belief system. Quit subjecting people to how you see the world. It is exactly the same problem religious fundamentalists have. you're so much like them, it's shocking to see you have such hatred toward them. like you, they don't believe in pluralism, and like you they believe in this self-proclaimed sense of superiority.
except these other atrocities are actually real. theyre actually a problem, and they kill I would probably guess atleast 500,000 people for every person who's fucking stoned these days. but you can stick to your imaginary war on the injustice that is Islam. meanwhile you, and those bombs you dare not speak out against are only creating more of these people. you'd do better to just shut the fuck up. but then again, this is a whole industry of people like you, they like the attention of waging this fake war against a belief system, as is the same with the religious fundamentalists.
Provable? All you do is claim you want to speak about the religion of Islam itself, but then you link to some obscure article about some nut or some group who do something stupid, most often than not based on actual political/cultural ideals that they brought into Islam incorrectly, and then you claim you still wanna talk about the fundamentals. Give me a fucking break, you pseudo-intellect.
Oh, beautiful. So instead of comparing the actions of bad Muslims to the actions of good Muslims, you compare bad Muslims to the actions of God. Again, you clearly don't understand the way Islam looks at man's relationship with God, and the way God does not interfere with the world. Your invoking your stupid criticisms of Christianity into a discussion of Islam. But this is what pseudo-intellects do, not surprisingly.
When have I ever not condemned religious fundamentalists? It's not that I think they're good, and you're bad. It's that I think you both just really, really suck.
as opposed to America wanting to invoke its false sense of morality, freedom, and democracy by murdering hundreds of thousands? you can keep dismissing any other discussion you feel not suitable to talk about since it takes away from your demonization of Islam, but it makes perfect sense to discuss it for a few reasons:
1. It's a more legitimate threat than Islamic fundamentalism... much more.
2. It CREATES Islamic fundamentalism.
But now I'm just going back to you creating this fake industry for yourself. I have nothing else to talk to you about honestly. I'm rude to you because despite me believing in approaching everyone, and every subject, with respect, people tend to say things that lose respect, and the intolerance and bigotry you display is enough for that. And you can complain about being called a bigot, but you're the exact definition of one. Like I said before, good luck with your hatemonger-fueled activism, I know it will be a huge failure, maybe not right away--after all, it's only gaining more base now like all hate groups eventually do, but it won't last.
Yeah, I only wrote my senior dissertation on Joan of Arc. . . what the shit do I know about it?
I could really give half a monkey's ass about the rest of this thread, just get your shit straight before you want to quote something historical that you have no fucking idea about.
I am not trying to make any claim to superiority over any particular group of people. What I am making the claim of is that religious beliefs and especially ones based on literalism of holy texts are innately flawed. I do believe that rationality, humanism and science are much more productive methods to obtain truths and realities of our existence and the universe because they have a critical self-correcting component within them that religious belief does not. That component is scepticism. The Islamic faith (and others) start from a point of certainty and believe that their holy texts are perfect and amazing sources of knowledge. While individuals may not be perfect, their holy text still is. Independent testings, observations, doubt and other useful things are not necessary when you have the ultimate truth neatly contained in one book from a prophet. When you start with the supposed unchallengeable truth and move outward from there, you build some rather huge innate flaws into any system and you lack good error-correction and sensibility. It’s akin to a scientist stating that they know the ultimate truth and don’t need to do any further observation, testings or inquiry because their master theory is the truth, after all, it is divine. When challenges arise the scientist points to one statement or another he’s made that can explain something away to his satisfaction and he pats himself on the back for a job well done. People can present all sorts of good challenges or evidence of problems with his theory to him, but he doesn’t care because he knows his theory is perfect so they are all clearly wrong. It’s a deeply flawed way to go about life and it does a great deal to thwart progress and it is easy to abuse in a myriad of ways.
You went on to state that you never once declare your superiority in intelligence while calling me a pseudo-intellectual, belittle any research and evidence I present even when directly quoted directly from the Quran, that my arguments are empty and based on anti-islamist bigots, etc. Seriously? You make the claim that you are respectful of people who do not follow your chosen set of beliefs (of which I am one) and then proceed to call me all sorts of petty names and hurl tons of little insults? I’d be happy to put all my words up for review compared to yours amongst a group of our peers on this board to let them judge which one of us is the more petty and insulting to the other. I’m trying to challenge ideas and using ideas to challenge them. I’m not name calling and trying to personally insult you.
I do not sit here believing that religion is the root of all evil the world. But it is demonstrably a root of SOME of it. You are quite right that atheists and secularists have done some nasty things to people. But they don’t have any holy text or divine authority from which they can excuse it. Religious zealots do, and frequently do just that. An argument can be made that atheists and secularists don’t have a god to keep them in line so they could be more prone to nasty behaviour, but statistics and demonstrable evidence don’t indicate that from all that I’ve studied. So at best, it’s a weak argument. We’re in agreement on at least something. Western bombings and civilian casualties are barbaric and they do produce fundamentalists adhering to the Quran and inciting further violence. But it is a separate topic from what I originally started a post to discuss and one which I was trying to keep a discussion focused to an analysis of Islamic fundamentalism, its results and its dangers. I invited people to start their own topics on whatever they wanted.
I do feel that we can achieve a common morality pretty readily without the assistance of religion. In fact, I think that if we study societies throughout the world and include societies that existed perfectly well before there was a Quran, we can see that people do a pretty good job of developing common moral standards. Often the atrocities (such as human sacrifices) come because of religions instead of them being the sole thing preventing them. Other religions seem to develop pretty good sets of morals devoid of any influence of Muhummad too. We can figure out that stealing, murder and things like that don’t work out too well for society without the Quran. We can figure out that being nice to each other is a good idea too. Honest. What you have is faith that you have a text of immutable truth. But it is a faith without error-correction and scepticism innate within it to evolve. Just as you and I can find silly outdated things in something like the ten commandments, we can also do the same with the Quran but people like yourself will bend over backwards to find ways to make them meaningful, powerful and unerring truth instead of ever being able to say, “Well yeah, that part of this particular book is indeed pretty silly.” Your rationality has to turn off because you start with an assumption of truth and divinity. That’s part of the package deal people of literal faith embrace. And that does pose legitimate problems. I’ll agree that respect and tolerance and the like are great virtues, but I can also point to several examples (and I did so in the other thread) directly from the Quran where anything but tolerance and respect are promoted for people outside the Islamic faith. Sure, you can probably readily point to another portion which refutes that too, but then somehow will say that nothing within the Quran is contradictory too. And that just isn’t the case. I’m not picking on just Islam. I’d say the same thing of most religious texts I’ve ever learned anything about.
I can easily believe that most muslim people are good people, kind, caring, compassionate and the like while still thinking there is an underlying problem to their belief system. I can also think that it is much easier to turn people “primed” by faith in Quran into dangerous people than it is to turn somebody like a secular humanist into a dangerous person. I can also easily see how muslim believers will inevitably fall into conflict with believers of other religions because all the ingredients are there to bake that particular cake. I think you might be apt to agree that it would likely be harder to get a bunch of secular humanists to hate each other and go to war with each other than it probably would be to get Christians and Muslims to go to war with each other or Muslims and Jews. Fanatical beliefs about God and the righteousness this tends to convey to the faithful has shown throughout history to be a great source for violence and bloodshed. When we look around the world today, I don’t find it hard to see religious fanatics across all the aisles getting more and more primed for violence and conflict. It’s certainly not limited to muslims and I make no such claim. However, I am hard pressed to find examples of the nonreligious gearing up and getting primed for armed conflict or anything. I do think it is time to say enough is enough with the brewing conflicts brought about via religion and the atrocities being committed due to any particular faith.
I’m also curious as to why you think you can tell me to quit using words like indoctrinated and telling me that it’s foolish yet you take such huge offense to me using the word “foolish” when talking about muslim faith? Also, you asked me to provide evidence of dangerous language in the Quran and I already did that, with verses from the Quran in my original post. Go have a read, after all it’s the thread you tried to mimic when you created this one. You yourself are making it sound like there are good and bad verses within the Quran and that people like myself cherry pick the negative. We couldn’t cherry pick the negative if they weren’t there, could we? I would argue that while there may be plenty of good morals contained within the Quran, there are also some scary things. And none of the moral guiding of the Quran are things which I could only glean from the Quran. That book could never have been written and I’m quite certain that every ounce of morality would nonetheless be represented upon this planet. I am not the one who started cherry picking the Quran initially to support any of my actions. People like bin Laden have done plenty of cherry picking from the Quran to support their aims and others latch onto it because they start from the assumption that it is divine truth. So it’s after the fact that people like me come along and say, “Hey wait a minute. If they are finding language like that to support these atrocities, what else is in there that could be abused?” And unfortunately, there is plenty. There always will be plenty because literalism is dangerous and prone to subjectivity to fit anyone’s goals if they want it to. I didn’t start opposed to Islam. I became that way after learning more and more about it and seeing the results in the world that I live in. I’m not saying kill any muslims, but you have to admit that there are muslims out there who would like to see me dead for my comments made here and there are plenty of places in the muslim world where if I said all that I said in this thread... well, I would have been dead awhile ago.
You seem fond of discrediting my sources of information when you have no idea what or who they are. You falsely assume it from bigots or nonsense speakers. Instead the lectures (which were just one part of my studies) were from neither a bigot nor a talker of nonsense. You state that there has always been a huge study based on rationality and sceptical inquiry and that the Quran never conflicts with anything and I’d argue that this is laughably circular. Outsiders and practitioners of actual science would beg to differ and I can offer up Richard Dawkins as one credible scientist who finds a great deal of the Quran to be offensive and in conflict with rationality. So to say that the Quran never finds itself at odds with sceptical inquiry is simply false. Here’s just one avenue for you to review the critiques of people who quite adamantly believe that much of what the Quran says is in conflict with science and rationality:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheIslammiracle
Yes, it’s youtube video because we both know people on here, including yourself, wouldn’t go read a book or something else just because I posted something about it. If you bother, you can see plenty of things from the Quran refuted through calculations, science, inquiry, simple facts, etc. Anyway, I really do think we’ve reached a point where we’d be better off to agree to disagree. I can assure you that I woke up this morning unmoved by Allah and still quite content in Allah’s absence in my life. I’m also quite sure that no matter what I say, show, or share with you that you will not be moving an ounce either. So let’s end this thread and let it die it’s death, eh? If you want the final words, feel free to post whatever you want. Just do so without an expectation of another reply. I've had enough of the insults at this point.
i could give a fuck what you wrote your senior dissertation on, pal.
i'm sure her role in the war played a big part, that doesn't take away from the fact that it was the church that tried her, a bishop that found her guilty and the church that ordered her executed. politics or not it was the fucking church that tried and executed her, was it not??
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
But you just claimed them foolish. If you are not superior to foolishness, then what are you?
You are making this claim as if Islam conflicts with rationality, humanism, and science. it doesn't.
Here again your poor knowledge of Islam is apparent. First, you are confusing the holy text being perfect with a scientist claiming he is perfect and has the ultimate truth. Just because Muslims believe the Qur'an is perfect, does not mean they claim:
1. That it is the only necessary source of information. It absolutely is not, and no Muslim with any sense of rationality has ever claimed thus, especially the Prophet himself.
2. The Qur'an may be perfect, but humans certainly are not. Thus we do not have the capability to understand the Qur'an in any perfect manner. Thus, even if it WAS all we needed, and it certainly never was reported as such, then humans would still lack the ability to comprehend it perfectly. This is why there are so many Qur'anic commentaries written from Islamic scholars dating back well over a thousand years, until now. If the Qur'an was so easy to understand, why would so many commentaries be necessary? You keep making light of the argument people make when they say "you can't understand the Qur'an unless you read it in Arabic." There actually is truth to this argument. I'm sure you roll your eyes at this, quite expectedly considering you have no knowledge about Arabic I would assume. Arabic is not as simple a language as, say, English. In Arabic, often the subject of the sentence can be more than one thing. Often words can mean different things. Often the object of the verb can be more than one thing. Often someone can say a sentence, and it's hard to tell whether it is a metaphor or not. The Arabic grammatical rules are very complicated, anyone who has studied any Arabic whatsoever knows this. On top of all that, the Qur'an is considered the most complicated and comprehensive Arabic text. If you have ever studied Arabic, you would know what that means, cause some Arabic texts out there are fucking impossible to understand. one word, literally ONE, in the Qur'an can have 10 different meanings. To write commentaries on the Qur'an, people many times write 10 volumes, full of hundreds of pages each. It really is no simple task. Now, try to compare this to when you read an English translation of the Qur'an. They are always what the translator believes is meant. But if the subject/object of the sentence or the verb are not clear in Arabic, when it comes to English it is hard to decide whether to translate the subject as "me" or "him" or "you" or "they", etc. This is difficult to explain, especially if you do not know Arabic, or any other semitic language. This is what people mean when they say read it in Arabic. In addition to that, the Qur'an as a literary piece of work is probably the most brilliant literary work in the Arabic language, which as a language prides itself in literature, especially poetry. In other languages, this is obviously not apparent. Qur'anic study is so complicated, to see you simplify it like this is so nonsensical. This is why I keep saying you have not studied it because I can see so many large flaws. I am fluent in Arabic and it is still difficult for me to understand the Qur'an. Now people make claim, "oh but most Muslims don't speak Arabic. why do they like it?" To which I would respond, why don't you fucking ask them? There are also millions of Arab non-Muslims, many of whom would still attest to the Qur'an's beauty and would even admit that as a literary piece has a certain magic to it, as well as complications in understanding it. If however you do not like it, whether in Arabic or in another language, I really don't care. You can have your beliefs, just don't attack others for theirs.
3. This is just a minor point, but why do you say "holy texts," as in plural? This isn't Christianity. Islam has one book, one holy text, that's it. Don't confuse religions, I know you have a hard time doing that.
4. It's funny that you attack the Qur'an so much. You do realize that the overwhelming majority of Shari`ah rulings are NOT from the Qur'an, right?
what the hell are you talking about? Muslims disagree with eachother's theories and interpretations all the time, and Shari`ah study is so much more complicated than this.
Intellect is not about intelligence. I said I was criticizing your knowledge. Intellect means the ability to basically discuss an issue, especially academic, using facts. You have so far not presented any research or evidence. You claim it's in the other topic, I don't really care to look for it. You do not have the ability yet to even discuss verses from the Qur'an. Your approach to Islam just as a religion is so wrong to begin with. To think you can just jump in and quote a verse about lashing an adulterer is ludicrous. You have a problem where you confuse Islam with Christianity far too often. You clearly don't know anything about Shari`ah, Qur'anic, or Hadith studies ranging back near a century and a half, considering you keep trying to suggest that every Muslim is born with the idea that he cannot question anything in his religion. You clearly have a poor understanding of how Muslims view their relationship with God. I mean, there are so many inherent flaws in the way you view Islam, even thinking to have a conversation with you rationally about it is ridiculous. It'd be like me having a conversation with some little elementary school kid about using differentiation in Economics. I'm not asserting more intelligence than you, I'm saying you have not sufficiently researched and gained enough knowledge on this topic. And yet you try to talk about it like you know. That is the exact definition of a pseudo-intellect, I've no regrets in calling you that.
So instead of attacking the actual people who do bad, you find it more useful to attack their justification for it, despite their justification actually not justifying anything they do whatsoever, and despite the fact that the majority of the people who follow this holy text are peaceful people? Don't you find that a tad... fucking stupid as shit?
you studied statistics for that? It's a stupid argument that I would never make, even if I do believe in God.
You cannot have a discussion on Islamic fundamentalism while ignoring the causes of it. The point I am making is you keep trying to ignore that Western imperialism is the actual cause of the Islamic fundamentalism because you find it much more convenient to do so, so that you can blame it on the Qur'an and the actual religion. It's what islamophobes have been doing for decades now.
Haha, if you think you can achieve morality without religion, then good for you. If others want religion, and you're attacking them for it, then you obviously are missing a very big ethical standard of respecting others' belief choices. Islam teaches that. I guess you are incapable of reaching a moral standard that the Qur'an has.
Also your historical analysis in that quote is just stupid. Human sacrifices come because of religion? How about the fact that the Arabs used to bury the baby if it was born a girl instead of a son? After Islam was introduced it prohibited it. Also you have some weird way of looking at how pre-religious societies used to live. They were fucking ruthless. I'm not trying to suggest that non-religious societies cannot live morally and ethically because unlike you I do not like to make the suggest that people are better just because they are religious or just because they are non-religious. You claim to preach humanism, but you do not do that whatsoever. In fact I have been the one in this argument doing that because unlike you I believe in individualism whereas you have been grouping all religious people, and more specifically all Muslims into this one group of foolish adherents to some backward philosophy.
Again, this is just incorrect because you do not know about Qur'anic studies. There may not be skepticism in the Qur'an, but you're missing the point. There is always skepticism with how one INTERPRETS the Qur'an, and that's the fucking point.
The Qur'an is not contradictory, there is a study in Qur'anic and Hadith studies called Abrogation which you obviously know nothing about. There are also verses that were delivered specifically for the Prophet and his people and supposed to be understood only for his time. There was never an interpretation in Qur'anic studies or Shari`ah studies in general that promoted treating non-Muslims without tolerance and respect.
eh, maybe if you actually studied Islam, the history of Islam, etc, a lot more. you are entitled to your beliefs, but for now considering how intolerant and bigoted they are I'd suggest keeping em to yourself. This is nonsense and bigoted. If you don't see how it's bigoted it's cause you don't know what the word means. You are claiming superiority simply based on your beliefs. Actually I would never agree with that, it's nonsense. America, as well as Britain and France, have been involved in so many wars and they're secular nations. Oh, but it was never America's fault that she got into those wars, right? it's always the religious extremists, it's been them for the past 100-200 years. Imperialism, colonialism, exploitation of economic systems, etc, these are all products of religious texts, right?
WHAT? Do we live on the same planet?
that word was used tongue in cheek. Also if you insult me that's one thing, if you insult a billion and a half people based on their choice to be Muslim, it's something else entirely.
I never said there were "bad verses." That's open to interpretation. I was speaking of verses you would pick to put in negative context, without actually studying its history, etc. You obviously have learned nothing from what I've written.
Congratulations, I don't really give a shit. Believe what you want.
And yet even more people who believe it is the divine truth don't follow Bin Laden... THIS IS SO STRANGE. THERE IS ONLY ONE EXPLANATION... WE MUST IGNORE ALL THOSE PEOPLE AND ATTACK THE QUR'AN BECAUSE BIN LADEN USES IT, EVEN IF INCORRECTLY. So I guess if someone where to go bomb some building in the name of defending the constitution and our declaration of independence because he or she believes Obama is fucking our country up, then it means that the constitution and the declaration can make people radical.. oh shit! I mean this is just a further example actually: if you look at our country, you see many people will hold the constitution up on a pedestal and adhere to it. They will take no threat whatsoever to the constitution which is essentially considered a 'perfect' document. Yes, people make 'amendments' but they aren't even 'amendments' they are actually additions if anything, things that were omitted or not mentioned in the constitution. and they only do it on the basis that the people agree. yet, still, the fact that everyone claims to hold the constitution as the superior law of the land, you see many different types of groups and how they interpret it. should guns be legal, should they be illegal, power of the legislative branch, executive, state vs federal, etc etc. I mean this is just an analogy, and no analogy is perfect.
Ha! Something I actually agree with you on. It is prone to fit anyone's goals. Regardless of whether there is a holy book or not, people will find anything to support them. Just because they chose a religious text does not mean that the religion is to blame, it is these fools who try to justify their ridiculous actions based on their poor knowledge and understanding. Just as you are trying to justify your seething hatred of religion, as well as your intolerance and bigotry based on your poor understanding of it.
ha that's funny, if I had to guess I'd say you haven't learned shit.
I can do that based on you being wrong. If some dude came up to me and said the sky is green you think I should ask him for his sources?
How do you explain the fact that muslims, most of whom were religious scholars as well, led the world in scientific, mathematical, astronomical, economical, social, historical, philosophical, etc, discoveries in the middle ages? Oh... you don't.
I wouldn't go read a book? Do you fucking know me at all? Your youtube videos are hilariously stupid. I watched a couple of them. they quote idiotic Muslim leaders who talk about stupid shit like Ramses II being mentioned in the Qur'an, as if that's what all Muslims believe. what kind of dumb shit is this?
And for the last fucking time, I don't care if you believe in God or not.
I feel that you are quite blinded to the obvious fact that god and the divinity of the Quran are quite outside the realms of rationality, meaningful scientific inquiry and can’t be proven. Similarly, you can’t prove that there isn’t an evil demon on my left shoulder which is invisible and undetectable, but which I promise you is there. You could discredit my belief in such a demon as delusional, and in the same manner I claim your divine text and Allah are equally delusional and unable to be proven otherwise. Despite your unwillingness to believe it and your personal faith, science and reason have no tools to confirm Allah or the perfection of the Quran. Even when laughable “scientific” knowledge is said to be disproven, people such as yourself will still excuse it away or ignore it (or more usually, make some personal attacks).
How can you honestly think that a person like you who starts with the belief that the Quran is perfect can ever use reason, evidence or proof from the world to admit that something in the Quran is actually wrong? You can’t. If the Quran can never be wrong or imperfect, then it is by definition outside the realm of the scientific method. When you start with the belief that the Quran is perfect, you immediately have to start with all the sort of stuff to excuse any possible contradiction. The Quran must remain perfect no matter what or everything starts to fall apart in your world view. Of course we should expect that people who insist the Quran is perfect will do everything in their power to continue to bend, twist, contort, obstruct, construct and do whatever else it might take to assure that others do not find fault in the Quran. Again, this is absolutely against the scientific method and is extremely worrisome. I’m not saying that the Quran is the only source necessary for information, but rather that no information will be allowed to counter its perfection by its adherents. That should concern any rational person. You’re already in the process of spinning all sorts of defenses to protect the perfection of the Quran. Let me just pose a simple question though… if the Quran was really so perfect, why would it only convey its awesomeness easily in Arabic? I know, I know, you’ll explain that one away too. And that’s my point, there will ALWAYS be excuses to protect the perfection and therefore, you absolutely have a problem with the scientific method.
You also keep assuming that I’m hateful of muslims or something and I’m simply not. I do want to challenge ideas contained within the faith and the practitioners. I don’t think that it’s just bad people who are doing bad things within the muslim faith, but rather that there are ideas and concepts inherent in the religion which make it much easier for bad people to do bad, and even for good people to do negative things. I do challenge the notion of the perfection of the Quran and I do question the benefits to individuals lives who place their faith so fully in faith. By definition, faith isn’t about proof and that lack of proof yet the level of certainty people still have deserves to be challenged. I’m not saying hated. I’m saying challenged in the realm of ideas. And fundamentalist nutjobs carrying out barbaric things and also seeking to spread their reach and influence should be confronted head on. I’ll once again argue that way too often people try to isolate them as just a handful of crazies, but that isn’t the case in the modern era. There are state-sanctioned, organized politics, militarily equipped, financially backed and more groups of people working quite hard to spread fundamentalist beliefs in the Quran. That isn’t saying that there aren’t other religions doing similar things, and I’d be right there to challenge those groups too. In fact, I find extreme nationalism to be quite similar to religious fundamentalism in how it can breed beliefs in people which are dangerous and inhuman.
What you don’t seem to realize in my argument too is that I think peaceful people can hold flawed ideas, ideas which less peaceful people can easily use to justify barbarism. Just because a majority are peaceful, the underlying idea which I believe to be flawed should still be open to challenge and debate. It’s rather unfair and stupid to just scream “Bigot!” when somebody challenges religious ideas, concepts and frameworks. Never once have I remotely come close to saying, “Kill all muslims!” Ideas can and should be engaged without having to hate, discriminate or be intolerant of people who hold the ideas. Now obviously, some have taken things way too far and have earned scorn via actions.
One point it seems that you and I disagree is on whether or not people should be allowed to challenge other peoples beliefs. I believe we can and should do so and that it doesn’t make you a bigot. I fully believe in the competition of ideas and think that ideas deserve to be challenged constantly by other ideas. I don’t feel like religion should be taboo to challenge and critique. I also don’t feel like any holy book should be taboo for the same.
I don’t think any of the western nations you’ve mentioned as being involved in wars are secular in reality. IN speech, sure. But in reality the U.S. President is still compelled to say, “God Bless…” at the conclusion of every speech, etc. In reality, we just need to look at a George Bush waging a war in Iraq and the “Axis of Evil” speeches to see that we’re not really talking secular rule and policies. I think American foreign policy is deeply flawed, and I have no delusion that America is always right. But none of that takes away from my critique of the Islamic faith and other faiths. Literalism, fundamentalism and belief in perfect texts are dangerous on numerous fronts, and that’s an opinion I’ve not been swayed in the least from. As for things like imperialism, colonialism and exploitative economic systems not influenced by religious texts… well, I’d happily point to concepts like “Manifest Destiny” and Biblical notions of superiority over nature as some roots to many of the damaging things we see in our world today. Is that all there is to it? Nope.
Look, part of what makes the Quran a foolish thing to base societies, laws and the like on is that it is so easy to abuse. Bin Ladens and the like will ALWAYS be able to do what he’s been doing with it as justification. The fact that people who claim it is the divine truth and yet can act in completely opposite ways (Laden vs. normal peaceful muslim) is not something that will be stopped. Interpretation of the Quran is ridiculously subjective and fallible. I don’t attack the Quran because a few nutjobs supposedly use it “incorrectly” (there will always be one group or another saying the other group is incorrect with something like this). The issues I have are much deeper with it. Your comparison with the Constitution isn’t too bad. People who consider it a perfect document for all ages are just as foolish (there’s that word again) in my opinion as followers of the Quran. The Constitution has shown error and need for update, and in the same way I think the Quran has. In fact, I would argue that it’s time to move beyond reliance upon faith and move more into the realms of the actually knowable. We shouldn’t be ashamed to admit that faith is just faith and hope, instead of known truth. We should be able to see with study that literalism and belief in a perfect Quran actually do conflict with the scientific method of inquiry and rationality. And again, it isn’t just the Islamic faith which runs into this. Once upon a time Greeks believed in a totally different pantheon and it was useful for awhile. But eventually we learned more and moved on. I argue that we’re in similar need of moving on to prevent things like looming mass attacks, fundamentalist oppressions, threats to various freedoms such as freedom of speech and expression, to advance tolerance of homosexuality, to further women’s rights, to more fully embrace scientific inquiry and the understanding of evolution, etc, etc, etc. I don’t hate the ancient Greeks for having believed in what I consider foolish things (like Zeus) any more than I hate muslims for believing in what I consider foolish things, like Allah. You need to quit confusing disagreement and concern with bigotry and hatred. I personally believe the muslim world would experience a rather profound boon to various freedoms, scientific advances, peaceful interactions with other societies and the like if religiosity and dependence upon the Quran were lessened and one day eradicated. I would speak similarly of other faiths and their roles in various nations. I’d speak similarly about nationalism. I have no expectation of this any time soon, but I do think that in the end we’ll see every religion we know today eventually go by the wayside. Why? Because they just don’t hold up to scrutiny, they aren’t provable, they have a lot of inherent problems, they are recurring sources of societal and civilization clashes, etc. Either that or one religion will finally subjugate all the others. I think that if we see increasing fundamentalism (no matter the faith) and increasing literalism, we will see increasing conflicts and atrocities. Similarly, if we see increased expansionistic tendencies or imperialism from whatever the source, I’d expect increased conflicts. Anyway, more than enough for now. I am just sick of the bigot angle you insist on taking as a discredit to anything which might be said to confront your faith.
I think more than anything I responded again because the bigot crap was irritating me, but I don't think that irritation will be enough to get me to type any more here. Haha, so I'm sgning off this thread for good. Enjoy, and don't start another bullshit thread mimicking another thread that it is clear you didn't bother to even read all of.
Classifying people into a group, thereby taking away their individuality, and saying that they are foolish, and thus 'beneath you', for believing in something that you disagree with or identifying with something makes you a bigot. that's the exact definition of one. what the hell are you even talking about anymore? you have no doubt about what I think? where do you come up with these assumptions.
1. I don't believe christians hold foolish beliefs, I respect their choice to believe in what they want and love the common ground I share with them.
2. what does it even mean that the US has flawed beliefs? How can a country have any belief whatsoever for me to disagree with in the first place? And by the way I AM AMERICAN.
Bigotry doesn't necessarily involve hate, and I never used the word hate as far as I remember. I said you were intolerant and a bigot. That's perfectly what you are. I suggest you look up the definition of these terms, you clearly don't know what they are. You're also an islamophobe.
It's not disagreement, and you know it. It's belittlement and arrogance, drawn from ignorance. You have no knowledge of Islam to have a proper and rational discussion on it. It is evident from the way you speak about it. you draw on your poor knowledge of it and try to pretend to hold scholarly discourse when all you are doing is spreading intolerance.
You know what I think? where do you get your information from? I'm curious. Where have I ever said any of this? For someone who is so concerned with using rational thought and not drawing from things that don't exist, you sure have no problem coming up with what I believe through irrational and make believe means.
That's exactly the point. You don't hate them personally, because you take away each and every Muslim's individuality. You automatically come into the discussion thinking a Muslim is a foolish person for believing in God and the book and the prophet, etc. and hold your beliefs superior to that person's based on that, and you are prejudiced toward him/her.
you're grouping all 1.6 billion Muslims into one group and ascribing to them 'foolish beliefs'. You also have no real knowledge of Islam, so you're doing this based on ignorance. So you're not just bigoted, you're an ignorant bigot. And you didn't answer my question before, if you think Muslims are foolish but also do not see yourself as superior, then what are you?
what can't be proven? God? The divinity of the Qur'an? Perhaps. If so, who cares? If it takes people a certain amount of faith to believe in something like that, what's it to you? They are not forcing you to believe in it, and are not hurting anyone, so why don't you mind your fucking business? I never said the Qur'an's divinity can be proven through scientific inquiry because I don't care to prove that to you. What I am saying though is that the Qur'an does not limit anyone's ability to be rational or to use scientific inquiry. You keep making the argument that because the Qur'an is the word of God, it can not be rationalized because we must accept it to what it is. But you're so stubborn that you ignored my entire response to this. This is also partly due to the fact that you don't respond to the majority of my points. you read may be a quarter of my post, as to my assumption based on how you respond, most of the time you're probably fuming with how I call you a bigot, and barely pay any attention.
The Qur'an is the word of God yes, so in essence it is perfect. Now what is NOT perfect, and what will never be perfect, and what IS rationalized as much as possible is our interpretation of the Qur'an. This is all that matters. If something is obvious in the Qur'an, and this is not quite often, then it is obviously taken at its word, and nothing of this sort is ever contradictory to rationale or logic. On the other hand, many other rulings and verses are interpreted in many different ways. Many are known to be understood only in the context of the time it was revealed, etc. Your simplification of Qur'anic study is evidence of the fact thaty ou know little of the religion in general.
I don't care to call you delusional. If you're not hurting any body then believe in what ever the fuck you want.
Science and reason don't have to prove God or the Qur'an's perfection to those who have faith. And to those who don't have faith, just mind your business and move on.
Not really. Like I said before, since Qur'anic study began near a century and a half ago, interpretations have always been different. You never have to change the Qur'an; it essentially is perfect. Our understanding of it is what is not perfect. Thus, the Qur'an itself never contradicts anything.
why?
what have I done to spin defenses? And I spent fucking paragraphs in the previous post explaining why the Arabic language is necessary to read the Qur'an in. What the fuck is the matter with you that you ignore everything? You just browse through my post, ignore my points and just write your ridiculous rants. And just because there are "excuses" does not automatically invalidate them. If you knew anything, for example, about the Arabic language you would know that.
I never said you were hateful; just bigoted, insulting, intolerant.... should I keep going?
You want to hold a discussion based on certain talking points you learned in anti-Islam videos. You cannot do that. This is really not that difficult to understand. To properly hold a discussion on a subject like this, you have to have studied the general subject. Its history, its culture, its belief system, etc. You have a tenuous grasp simply on how Muslims view their relationship with God. You confuse it with Christianity. How can you hope to hold a legitimate discussion on Islam when you make such elementary mistakes? You cannot come and start talking about stoning before understanding anything else. Just as any other subject. I mean I've made this point so often in my previous posts, but you obviously ignored them or didn't even read them to begin with. It's because it's inconvenient for you. To keep talking shit about Islam and Muslims you have to actually STUDY IT. must be an annoying thought right? Like a child who wants to eat dessert before dinner.
placing faith in faith? Do you even know what you're talking about anymore?
and yet nationalism can be secular? But I thought secular people are so peaceful!!!
the only fundamentalism that is state-sanctioned is that supported by Western secular governments, like that of Saudi Arabia's. If you read about what Muslims actually believe in in the world, they hold regular moral values. You'd be surprised, but then again most bigots end up surprised when they learn that what they believe is actually bullshit.
LIke I said bigotry does not necessarily involve you yelling to kill all muslims. Also, you take your poor knowledge of Islam too far and you insult all Muslims, while remaining ignorant of what they even believe in. I mean if the majority of the people who hold Islamic beliefs are peaceful, then how can you say that Islamic beliefs cause people to turn violent? Shouldn't the proof of that be most Muslims are violent? And yet only such a small fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims are violent/fanatical so what do you have to say about that? Nothing. The fact that most Muslims who hold the Qur'an to be perfect are not fanatical should be evidence. Also why do you only sit here and talk about the Qur'an when the overwhelming majority of Shari`ah is not derived from it? Did you ever come across this little fact in your "studies" ??
I believe that if people hold a belief that doesn't hurt anyone, then it's free for them to hold it without being disrespected and reduced to intolerance. You on the other hand believe that being disrespectful, intolerant, etc, is perfectly ok. Must be part of that good old "Western Moral Value System" you preach so much, huh.
are you fucking kidding? God now you're just ridiculous.
This is the problem with your rants. you don't even know hwy I said that. I was responding to when you were trying to talk of why atheism triumphs religion, and I was saying proof that atheists/secular nations are not always peaceful is...
except societies and laws are hardly ever based on the Qur'an, just further proof that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Also people like Bin Laden are such a recent phenomenon, in the last couple decades or so. You obviously have no knowledge of the historical implementation of Shari`ah in societies.
It's not something that will be stopped whether there is a divine book for not.
Um. The constitution has never shown "error." it's shown need for update, sure. And people have added to it. Similarly, people don't only rely on the Qur'an, they rely on many other sources, and Islamic scholars always release new rulings to "update" previous rulings that need such attention paid to it in the modern era. But at the end of the day the constitution is still the framework to draw ideas from, and you certainly would never find something allowed to pass that would contradict the constitution, hence the word "unconstitutional."
Faith does not conflict with rationality and scientific inquiry. That is just an incorrect notion of what it means to be rational and hold scientific values. As long as nothing conflicts, then there should be no problem. Additionally, you are holding everyone to YOUR idea of what rationality is. Subjecting people to your compromised ideals is stupid.
Except Islam does not promote mass attacks, oppressions, threats to freedom, etc etc etc. It is actually against all of that. And just speaking from a practical point of view, do you think it makes ANY sense to speak against the entire religion of Islam? Do you actually see yourself making headway and convincing people to give up their religion? For every person you may see who renounces Islam, I bet 50 more will pick it up. It's the fastest growing religion for a reason. Drop your pathetic argument of intolerance and ignorance and begin arguing from a practical point of view if you care so much. Study Islam as it truly is, as it truly preaches peace, etc, and try to convince the fundamental Muslims through that way if you care so much.
"I disagree with you" and "You are foolish" are two different things. It's hilarious that you have to be taught that.
That belief is based on a poor knowledge of Islamic history, that is if you have any knowledge to speak of in the first place. It's just stupid, inconsistent with reality and based on modern stereotypes of the Islamic world.
You sound like you've been reading Samuel Huntington, who was by the way discredited by many excellent scholars.
Congratulations, I don't really give a shit if you choose to keep posting, but you write some dumb shit that crosses the threshold into bigotry and intolerance and it is unfortunately necessary for people to call you out on it. And of course I'll mimic your stupid thread, but I did it mostly to show Christians that singling out Islam is as stupid as singling out Christianity for the actions of a few idiots. And compared to the 1.6 billion Muslims, even several thousand people does constitute as a few.
My point has always been to respect other people's beliefs, so long as they are peaceful and do not hurt anyone. Additionally, if you wish to engage in actual discourse, it is incumbent upon you to study the issue seriously. Otherwise you are simply spreading prejudice based on ignorance.
Why have some of you let your debate and discussion degenerate into crap? HOW you speak to each other while debating is important here. A read-only account will end your debate here permanently. Represent yourself with posts you can be proud of instead of sliding at lightning speed into the mud down on the low road.
Personal arguments do not belong here. This thread is done.