Peaceful Religion of Islam? Not.

[TX-Beau]

The baroque theological architecture of every religion is all built on a foundation of this one simple leap of faith, that the divine exists; without that all of it comes tumbling down.

There’s no path around that, and there’s no way to test the truth of divinity, in order to participate in religion, one must simply believe.

Sounds obtuse I know, but, there it is.

 

[TX-Beau]

...It's not that [Faith] is held to a different standard, it's that it's held to NO standard. Using this criteria, anything can be anything and of course that's absurd...

Succinctly put. This is where the divide exists.

 

[Kulindahr]

Logic:

1 a (1): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning (2): a branch or variety of logic <modal logic> <Boolean logic> (3): a branch of semiotic ; especially : syntactics (4): the formal principles of a branch of knowledge b (1): a particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty (2): relevance , propriety c: interrelation or sequence of facts or events when seen as inevitable or predictable d: the arrangement of circuit elements (as in a computer) needed for computation ; also : the circuits themselves
2: something that forces a decision apart from or in opposition to reason <the logic of war>

Right.

Thanks for illustrating my point.

 

[falconfan]

Here's another example. Not a definition mind you, just an analogy.

Say you have two identical boxes. The first one contains a heavy object, the second one is empty. Now, two people sitting there looking at the boxes can both believe they know which box contains the object, but they don't know it for a fact. Person A thinks it's the first box, person B thinks it is the second box. But they don't have any proof, they only have their belief. Let's take it even further and say that Person A has been told by many people -- his family, his friends, those who came before him -- that the first box contains the object. And let's say Person B has been told the same thing about the second box. These tales about the boxes have been passed down and each person believes with all his heart that their own conclusion is correct, that their box is the right box.

This is how faith functions. But faith, and faith alone, cannot lead them to the correct answer. Do you see that I mean? They can both have faith that they are right, but they don't both have truth. Because in this case there can only be one correct answer, one truth. And believing it so will not suddenly make an empty box contain an object.

Now, what happens if they both get up and perform a test? Let's say they lifted both boxes and could therefore tell that the first one was heavy and the second one was not. Or they shook the boxes and the first one made a rattle sound and the second one did not. That test could result in a conclusion ("The first box is heavier and therefore contains the object"/"The first box makes a rattling sound and therefore contains the object") that leads them to the correct answer, to the truth. And that is how science functions.

This is not a value assessment on faith, but merely an analogy to show you that Faith and Science function differently. This is not a blanket definition of each concept, but rather a distinction between the functions of the two concepts. Person A would have his faith restored once the first box turned out to have the object, but it was not his faith that proved it. It was the test, it was science that proved it. And it doesn't mean then that his belief was any less important to him. But it means that there is a standard that science can meet that faith cannot. With science, with logic, you can perform a test, review data, present evidence etc.

But faith cannot be proven in the same way. And it cannot therefore -- based only on its own terms -- lead to the truth.

Wow as good as an argument as you are in bed And you set the bar so high I didn't think you'd hit it.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yeah, but wasn't there a famous council of something-or-other at which it was decided which books would actually be included in the Bible as we know it today?

Also I seem to recall having been taught - somewhere along the line - that one of the problems was that the common people were not given access to the Bible, and only knew what their Priests told them. Is that not why the King James Version of the Bible was such a big deal?

It was decided in the same sense that it had been all along: people comparing what they were already trusting, and making a common list.
That it wasn't a decree, "Thou shalt read these and only these", is evidenced by two things: first, the distinction between legoumena and antilegomena was retained, and people continued to study and quote the "apocrypha". The fact of the matter is that the ancients had a different concept of the canon than we do; it wasn't in-or-out, black-or-white, but levels of confidence and trustworthiness, of value and edification. Just as an example, it was an ancient rule that no doctrine ever be based on the Book of Revelation, because of its low status -- and look what violating that rule has brought!

And yes, for a time the Roman church held a monopoly on copying the scriptures, but there were enough competing factions within it that no one could have gotten away with any significant changes, even without the check from the East.

 

[falconfan]

He gave a definition of faith, and so did you: that it refuses to consider evidence, that it is the opposite of wanting to know the truth.

Dude, no one said that faith is the opposite of "wanting to know the truth." It's the opposite of actively seeking facts and evidence that verify a believe because the faithful are already convinced that the DO know the truth. Faith is believing in a statement, person or belief because that person or statement claims to be true.

I'm trying to instruct about systems of thought, and how you can't hold the standards of one over another and get anywhere -- and all you do is reiterate that unless it's empiricism it can't have truth.

You're taking a position of faith, because that's the only way that empiricism can claim to be the only way to truth -- it can't be proven, in any fashion. To support your faith, you claim that "Faith" rejects evidence -- and when I point out that such a definition has nothing to do with the faith the Bible speaks of, you fall back on claiming that empiricism is the only route to truth.

Once more you're implying things that weren't said. No one said that faith is "rejecting evidence" it's a level of believe that is so confident in itself that it doesn't require it.

I understand empiricism and science; I got a science degree, magna cum laude.

Not to come off as a smartass... but where? and what science? I'm just curious because of previous encounters I've had with you in this forum.

I know that empiricism cannot deny other avenues to truth, because the claim is not "only what can be known empirically can be known", but "we seek to know what can be known empirically". The first is a statement of faith, the second a statement of procedure.

In other words, you're claiming things for science that science can't claim: it doesn't say that truth is limited to what can be empirically known, only that its reach extends only to what can be empirically known.

You're the one making claims about faith that faith itself does not substantiate. The concept is not it is true BECAUSE we have faith but that we have faith BECAUSE it is true. And you can not reconcile the latter part with the existence of multiple faiths unless you acknowledge that at least some of these people are having faith in what the think to be true, because of their faith, but is in reality false. Which means that faith can NOT be on a "higher standard" of truth if there's an innate ability for it to be applied to apposing ideals.

Horrible things happen all the time because people have faith on a small scale (like Andrea Yates) or on a large scale (Like the 9/11 attacks and the crusades)

You're putting words in my mouth again, Nik -- if you'd stop doing so, you'd see more clearly. I said nothing about a "higher critical standard", I made a comparison of the level of claims: that assertions of faith claim a higher standard than the assertions of science.

If you wish to use the phrase "higher standard" and you are not refering to a standard of criticism, analysis, and evidence then please tell me what you ARE referring to. Standard of what??? Truthiness?

But there's no point to going on. You've demonstrated a total inability to even recognize you're bound by a worldview, let alone to step outside it and consider that there are other ways of looking at things. To you, if it isn't empiricism, it isn't logical -- which is false, and you might even concede it's false, but you go right back to doing it. Logic makes no claims about how all systems are to be measured, it only applies once there are axia, and then it can tell you whether those are consistent. Attempts to impose the axia of science on everything just makes you foolish -- they don't work on poetry, or love... unless you're willing to reduce us all to meaninglessness, the product of nothing but random chance.

First of all Nik is not the one being limited by his world views. Second poetry and love do not claim to reveal the truth as you assert faith does. Of course science can't be used as a measure for poetry. Science shows us how the universe works not something that poetry claims but it IS something religion claims.

Every charge you've laid against faith arises from having your own worldview and insisting it's right, from insisting that your definitions are the only ones -- and never bothering to look at the system of thought you're criticizing. That's true of falcon and some others as well; you're all trying to make everything materialistic and empirical -- but that contradicts your own stance, because there's no empirical evidence that everything is material and empirical.

No one is laying charges "against faith." We're merely pointing out that your assertion that faith reveals truth to a higher standard than science is ridiculous when one notes that the standard of evidence need to discern "truth" for science tower above the that of of faith.

Try becoming aware of your own worldview. Try taking some courses -- philosophy, language, anthropology, anything -- that will show you different ways of looking at the world. Heck, even Spanish will show that there are different ways of looking at the world, ones English doesn't contain! Try ancient Greek (classical, Koine), and stretch some more -- try ancient Hebrew, and really strain your brain!
Once you get it into your head that their worldviews would regard your faith in empiricism as ludicrous, you might have a chance of understanding that just because it isn't part of the system you trust doesn't mean it's beyond logic.

Dude you have no idea what you're talking about. Do you have any idea how presumptious and arrogant it is to talk down to someone you know nothing about. Because you might wind up saying somethign that's fucking dumb.... like the language thing. Had you known that Nikki speaks multiple languages then you probably would've left off that little attempt to be glib. But you didn't know that because your own limiting world view makes you assume that Nik hasn't had encounters with people who harbor a variety of beliefs, which is an assertion that, as someone who knows Nik, made me laugh out loud.

 

[Kulindahr]

To each their own, we are all entitled to believe in whatever, but it's intellectually dishonest then to use two measuring rods to compare religions.

The people you named hold the "two measuring rods" -- I have one.

First "the cannon" was never settled in 70 AD. There was the Synod of Hippo in the 4th century AD 393 which produced some agreement of said books. However, a set list of the books of the bible did not come from an official church council until the Council of Trent starting in 1545, or 15 1/2 centuries after Jesus' death. Anyone who has studied the history of how the bible came into being, knows that it was quite contentious of which books were to be included, and which ones not to.

Settled in 70 A.D.??
It doesn't help discussion when you make things up to drag in.

There were a LOT of church councils before Trent that has "set lists" before Trent -- which invented an authority never before assumed, namely to decide on its own what was scripture and what wasn't.

By reading either the Qur'an or the Bible one is already giving into someone else's interpretation of the ancient words of dead languages.

Huh? That makes no sense.
What ancient words meant are subject to the same rigorous sort of study that evolution is. Are you going to dismiss evolution as well, as "giving into someone else's interpretation"?

Furthermore, one then seeks to have someone else tell you what you are reading? Hence, the issue. Did not Jesus himself in fact say that God's wishes are simple and anyone can understand them. In fact Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of the time for adding undue burdens onto followers. As Deuteronomy 4:2 said not to add or subtract from what God commands, therefore all one needs is the bible itself and nothing more to "explain" what it says. Just read the book whether Bible or Qu'ran cover to cover as it's "truth" is self-evident.

More Fred Phelps school of theology thinking!

Not to add or subtract meant not to go about changing the text. It has nothing to do with studying it, discussing it, learning the history around it... all the things people have been doing since about the time of Solomon.

 

[Kulindahr]

Succinctly put. This is where the divide exists.

Only to those who define the word "faith" for their own convenience.

 

[Kulindahr]

Just as in the Old Testament the Abrahamic God mentioned was jealous, angry, vengeful, blah blah. In the New Testament he's all love and righteousness. Who's to say that all or most all Christian churches won't have a holy text that supersedes the bible, or that once Jesus returns, that human's understanding of "God" would be updated, just like they were from the Old Testament to the New one.

That's a false description. it results from the same sort of thing that makes people think that police are all violent guys just waiting to beat someone up: negative things stick in the mind more than positive.

In Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, God is a God of love. In Samuel, He's a God of love. The constant theme is His love; the rest is subsidiary.

But He's never a God of no-judgment, come-as-you-are, hippy-type love.

As I told someone else earlier, it would help if you knew what you were talking about.

 

[Kulindahr]

Exactly. That and his claim that "many" scholars believe the Gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem (totally misleading with the word "many", since most scholars agree that they were written after and the ones claiming otherwise are usually conservatives) makes me suspicious about where he learned History and the History of the Bible. It doesn't count if it's a Bible College or an institution with a heavy Christian slant that forgoes History and Science in favor of a pre-determined set of beliefs. Because some of the "history" he has claimed in this thread (and others) is closer to propaganda.

In summary, because you don't agree with the scholars who hold to an early date, they don't count.

I learned how to do all the textual criticism stuff, and it's circular reasoning. It starts entirely with presuppositions, like, "Jesus couldn't have said things like this", and then works around to the conclusion that gee, He didn't -- as I said, using the rules of that "discipline", it can be shown that the book of Judges was a guidebook for ancient tourists of the Holy Land (and there are "scholars" who believe that).

So what counts is physical evidence, which means papyrology. What that shows is that Mark existed in its current form by about 54, with Matthew not much later. And that's not from any "conservatives", it's from people who don't really care about much except finding out what ancient pieces of papyrus are, where they're from, and when they date.

 

[Kulindahr]

Dude, no one said that faith is the opposite of "wanting to know the truth." It's the opposite of actively seeking facts and evidence that verify a believe because the faithful are already convinced that the DO know the truth. Faith is believing in a statement, person or belief because that person or statement claims to be true.

To defend yourself you introduce yet another false definition of faith!
Faith is believing beyond the evidence, not contrary to it, and not without it.

Not to come off as a smartass... but where? and what science? I'm just curious because of previous encounters I've had with you in this forum.

B.S. in general science, OSU, 1993, magna cum laude... just short of enough credits to have had separate degrees on geology, physics, and education.

You're the one making claims about faith that faith itself does not substantiate. The concept is not it is true BECAUSE we have faith but that we have faith BECAUSE it is true. And you can not reconcile the latter part with the existence of multiple faiths unless you acknowledge that at least some of these people are having faith in what the think to be true, because of their faith, but is in reality false. Which means that faith can NOT be on a "higher standard" of truth if there's an innate ability for it to be applied to apposing ideals.

If you wish to use the phrase "higher standard" and you are not refering to a standard of criticism, analysis, and evidence then please tell me what you ARE referring to. Standard of what??? Truthiness?

Now you're close -- we have faith because of evidence, not without it or contrary to it.
And yes, that means that not all the claimants can be true.

But the "higher standard" is that a Faith says it's all true, while science admits it's muddling around trying to figure things out. That means, as I've been saying about Islam, that you either take the package or you don't; if you have to start changing things to keep your package, you no longer have the package, you've negated it. NickCole was right: picking and choosing once you've chosen your package isn't allowed, because then you haven't chosen the package at all, only pretended to while you really do your own thing. It is no different, as I pointed out, than claiming to accept chemistry but refusing to concede that there are such things as electron orbitals -- i.e. it's inconsistent, and as Nik has refused to recognize, internal consistency has to be decided first; by imposing outside, alien standards, you'll never get at what a system of thought is saying, and never find out if there's anything true in it.

First of all Nik is not the one being limited by his world views. Second poetry and love do not claim to reveal the truth as you assert faith does. Of course science can't be used as a measure for poetry. Science shows us how the universe works not something that poetry claims but it IS something religion claims.

Yes, he is: he's insisting, along with Molten, that his worldview be imposed on others as a test of their truth. His remarks show that he's not interested in understanding anything except in his own predetermined way, insisting that his standards of empiricism have to apply to everything.

Dude you have no idea what you're talking about. Do you have any idea how presumptious and arrogant it is to talk down to someone you know nothing about. Because you might wind up saying somethign that's fucking dumb.... like the language thing. Had you known that Nikki speaks multiple languages then you probably would've left off that little attempt to be glib. But you didn't know that because your own limiting world view makes you assume that Nik hasn't had encounters with people who harbor a variety of beliefs, which is an assertion that, as someone who knows Nik, made me laugh out loud.

His encounters must not have educated him much, given the way he doesn't seem capable of even acknowledging anything as possibly true that can't be shown empirically. That's a faith as much as one in magic -- and I accept neither of those, because they're both false. Demanding that the Bible conform to his standards is just a way of saying "I'm not listening!" in fancier language.

Since he speaks more than one language, I would expect him to be aware that to approach another system of thought you have to abandon all existing axia and learn the new ones. He shows no evidence of that at all -- which gives good cause to make me think that he hadn't studied other languages.

 

[falconfan]

I neglect nothing.
Thousands of copies were turned out annually, of all the documents of the New Testament. It started back when Paul was still traveling; note his instruction to exchange letters with another church: that would have entailed getting a copy of their letter made, since they weren't going to give up theirs. While they were getting a copy made, they would most likely have employed a scriptorium, a hall where one person carefully read a text and a dozen or more took it down, making a dozen new copies in the time it took to read the text slowly.
That became common practice; churches swapping letters didn't just swap ones that had been sent to them, they swapped what they had and valued, back and forth; what didn't fit with what witnesses to Jesus knew didn't get traded, what wasn't of certain apostolic origin didn't get traded.
Soon enough churches started asking each other, "What have you got of Paul's? What Gospels do you have? Is there anything else you have that you read and from which you learn?" Instead of the people in a particular church agreeing what was worthy to be listened to, churches were seeking agreement. Already in the mid second century, the discussion of what was useful for reading and what was left alone and what was rejected was no longer just between churches, but between regional councils.
Hierarchy was late coming to the game, but when it did it merely continued the organic process which had started at the bottom. The hierarchy didn't decide what went in the Bible; they took what had already been decided on... except that there were a few books on which full agreement had never been reached, which is why even within the New Testament collection there are actually three different levels of scripture (one of 'legoumena', that which is read with full acceptance, and two of 'antilegomena', those which are read but which some or many speak against).

Come the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Middle Ages, there were tens if not hundreds of thousands of copies of the various Bible documents out and about, and some already in Latin. However much Rome would have liked to edit, redact, or whatever, there was no way they could get away with it. Furthermore, there was the great check on their activities: the East, where preservation of the texts as received had a cult-like devotion, and which was always ready to pounce on their western brethren's foibles and misdoings.

Do you not realize that this whole system you are describing relies on the evaluative decisions of nameless faceless individuals who could've had any motive or personal belief they wanted. You talk a lot about 'witnesses' but this talk seems to forget that Jesus was crucified by popular vote so how you can be so sure that the overwhelming voice would've been of those that 'witnessed' Jesus and believe him completely is just mind boggling.

Because the possibility of censorship of the documents in question was so remote as to be negligible.

Is this some sort of new sketch for The Colbert Report? Because I can think of no other reason why one would deny facts and logic in such a straight forward manner. I see no other way someone can say sure there are god knows how many documents HIDDEN from view by people who benefit largely from the current structure of the bible but that's no reason at all to believe that those documents could relate to the structure or reliability of that document.

There was no "church" in the sense you use it -- there were churches, plural, and a multitude of them. I suppose that if the conjecture of Thomas going to India, returning, and only then setting down his sayings has validity, then it might have been late enough in joining the fray that possibly it could have been squelched -- but more likely is that Christians everywhere who saw that collection noted the first line and rejected it -- because the notion of "secret saying", especially when the alleged list of such contains a good number that weren't ever secret at all, contradicts what Jesus said about His teachings: that they were done in the open, for all to hear and see.

You do realize that there's never going to be a point in history when everyone just agrees and everything and there never was before. You just seem to have this idea rattling around that Christians collectively decided things... no. Specific people in specific positions had to have made decisions like this. Like wise the apostles where 12 very different men. The idea that there could've been certain discrepinsies in the teaching of Christ is only logical especially as you've so gladly poitned out Christ could send mixed messages speaking non-violence at one time and at another telling them to arm themselves

There are few things that come down to contradictions. There are numerous differences in wording and such, but those would have been accepted as normal by a first-century audience, who knew that itinerant preachers had a number of "stump sermons" that got adjusted for local audiences, with different wording, emphases, settings, and so on. There are a couple of apparent contradictions that come down to differences between Roman and Hebrew concepts of time and counting (e.g to a Roman, "three days" meant roughly 72 hours, while to a Hebrew, the same words meant "beginning sometime on one day, lasting through another, and ending sometime on the third", so it could be anywhere from about thirty hours to seventy).

Dude, there are differences that go deeper than a word here or there. The moneychanging incident we're talking about continuously for instance occurs much later in John's narative than in the other gospels. If you were correct and the bible was circulated amongst people who 'witnessed' so regularlly and so heavily that the things that were false wound up being left out and not circulated you don't think someone would've said 'This is in teh wrong place?' Of course they wouldn't have because the way your describing is a gross over simplification that assumes far more than it has any right to.

As for the weapons matter: the disciples knew the Old Testament. They knew the admonitions about defense, including self-defense. So when Jesus told them to get swords, they would have understood it in those terms, and that they were expected to be ready to use them.

If you give anyone a weapon they'll be ready to use them. That's my damn point. He could've wanted them to feel secure in the fact that they had these weapons. But he CLEARLY didn't want them to use them as evidenced by his admonisment of Peter. How you can look at the story of the CRUCIFIXTION and tell me Jesus wasn't a pascifist simply because he told the apostles to get weapons at a time when they were later scodled for using them honsetly baffles me. It' blows my mind. It's beyond burrying the lead.

 

[TX-Beau]

...Standard of what??? Truthiness?

This made me laugh. According to my standard of truthiness, I AM GOD.

You may begin the worship now. I’ve always wanted a few minions.

As my first commandment – thou shalt immediately post pics of Nik’s abs, there shall be no abs before them.

 

[Kulindahr]

In fact the bible says that he who breaks one of God's commands breaks them all.

And do you grasp the principle behind that, and why it was said?

Both religions have carried out violence in their respective "god's" name.

More accurately, people have claimed those religions as their motivations for violence in God's name.
The question is whether those religions really espouse that. Christianity doesn't, and never has, so the conclusion is that those who did such violence either weren't Christians, or were very bad ones. When this thread began, I was certain that Islam did espouse that, and now I'm not so sure, because it plainly espouses other things contrary to the violence.
And right now I'm so mentally tired I'm not even sure that made sense.

So the real question is, what/where are these groups that pervert their religions that seek to use violence as divinely inspired and what can we do about them? Then you need to work to understand how these groups work, who funds them, and why so that you can develop a strategy that will work at limiting or combatting their influence. Something this last President was woefully unable to comprehend. Take the most extreme elements of Wahhabism. If you "follow the money" so to speak, you will learn quite quickly the reason behind their existence, and the reason for the funding. Until you do this, carrying on a "war" against it is like being blindfolded and throwing dull darts at a dartboard.

That's really for another thread.

I'll end my involvement in this one with a response to the title:

Peaceful religion of Islam? Not always, apparently.

 

[falconfan]

Right here is why I didn't address it before: you make things up about what I said -- like "faith is truth".

And you give false definitions in order to support your position -- for example:

[faith] is a level of confidence in ones beliefs that requires no evidence and even stands up to evidence in the contrary.

That has nothing to do with the faith the Bible speaks of, since the Bible encourages people to seek evidence, to study the matter,etc. That's inherent in the opening of John's gospel: "In the beginning was the Logic".

Ok well... the fact John's gospel used the word logic doesn't change the meaning of the word faith. What happened was very simple. You claimed that faith was a higher standard of truth than science. I pointed out that being as there is only one truth that would mean there could only be ONE application true faith if you felt faith in itself led to the truth. You have continually dodged this... and not once addressed it. It's OK if faith doesn't equate to truth man, you can still have it. You can have faith in the truth and you can have faith in what's false. Period. YOu can keep ignoring that all you want but that's the heart of the argument Nik and I have been making and that you have been routinely ignoring.

I'm frequently displeased or uncomfortable at having faith. It would be far more convenient not to. Holding in tension things that can be reconciled only through acknowledgment of a higher reality can be wearying.
But I come up against the mass of evidence, principally this: that if there is a Creator, and He attempted to communicate to His critters, what would it look like? And only the Bible begins to match that -- and really matches it at forgive the pun) the crux of the matter, that if a perfect, or even infinitely-superior, deity, creator of all, came down as one of us, to teach us the way things were meant to be, we'd kill him. He wouldn't be wanted, wouldn't be tolerated, because He'd have no time to waste kowtowing to the privileged, or the powerful, or the self-righteous. If He came today, it would be the religious conservatives who'd kill him, just as it was when He actually came.
On that, and numerous other points, what the Bible says about human nature is spot-on. Between that, and the consistency of its teaching, I can't toss it aside, because as J. B. Phillips said, it has the "ring of truth".

For fuck sake... who am I debating here Sarah Palin? You do know that by just randomly talking about something that isn't related to the actual issue we've been discussing you're basically acknowledging you lack a counter. It's very transparent.

 

[TX-Beau]

So the real question is, what/where are these groups that pervert their religions that seek to use violence as divinely inspired and what can we do about them? Then you need to work to understand how these groups work, who funds them, and why so that you can develop a strategy that will work at limiting or combatting their influence. Something this last President was woefully unable to comprehend. Take the most extreme elements of Wahhabism. If you "follow the money" so to speak, you will learn quite quickly the reason behind their existence, and the reason for the funding. Until you do this, carrying on a "war" against it is like being blindfolded and throwing dull darts at a dartboard.

I’ve always thought that the “war on terror” was a ridiculous concept. One might as well declare war on rearguard actions or surprise attacks. Of course the point is that the definition of terrorist is open-ended, and subjective, and if we’d declared war on Al Qaeda we’d have to stop having the war at some point.

 

[TX-Beau]

That's really for another thread.

Actually that's far closer to the subject than most of what we're discussing.

 

[falconfan]

Have you seen his abs? To die for.

Trust me they feel even better than they look.

 

[Lostlover]

Have you seen his abs? To die for.

But I digress....

I have read both the Bible and the Qu'ran (at the request of a good friend - business associate). Both books say ridiculous things, and both Muslims and Christians ignore those everyday without a second thought. Muslims are not supposed to break bread with infidels (unbelievers) but do as any normal person. Christians are not to get divorced as God "hates a divorcing" unless under very, very specific conditions (essentially adultery only) but yet they do every day. In fact the bible says that he who breaks one of God's commands breaks them all.

Now does Islam have a very small percentage of practicers that adhere to violence as an answer? Yes. As my Ayn Randian friend Hankiepoo pointed out Wahhabism has some very extreme elements that tout violence as an answer. (Not all of Wahhabism mind you, but some of the more radical teachers.) These believers in Wahhabism or "Islamic unitarians" as I believe they prefer to be called, also view many groups of other Muslims as apostates, and worse than the infidels (non-believers). Much like radical Christians like Eric Rudolph bombing abortion clinics and killing doctors. Or Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing. Timothy McVeigh is no more representative of Christianity than Osama bin Laden is of Islam.

Both religions have carried out violence in their respective "god's" name. As you may recall the Serbs (Christians) were carrying out genocide on their Bosniak (Muslims) neighbors until President Clinton stepped in using our military back in 1995 to stop the Serb's violence. To the Serbs it was a holy war and justified to kill their Muslim countrymen. Should we assume all Christians then are capable of committing violence? No, but certain groups can be identified within that religion to combat. Otherwise we have learned nothing from the Oklahoma City bombings, Bali bombing, 9/11, or Bosnia. Blind rage and rhetoric only cloud reality, and proactive solutions. Otherwise, thousands and thousands more will die unnecessarily.

So the real question is, what/where are these groups that pervert their religions that seek to use violence as divinely inspired and what can we do about them? Then you need to work to understand how these groups work, who funds them, and why so that you can develop a strategy that will work at limiting or combatting their influence. Something this last President was woefully unable to comprehend. Take the most extreme elements of Wahhabism. If you "follow the money" so to speak, you will learn quite quickly the reason behind their existence, and the reason for the funding. Until you do this, carrying on a "war" against it is like being blindfolded and throwing dull darts at a dartboard.

Well Christians pick and choose what they want. I will give Kuli some credit though for being consistent with other Christians in believing the new Testament supersedes the old Testament in terms of applications to their lives.

Otherwise, besides the Amish, I don't think Christian women abstain from wearing gold and cutting their hair.

Which brings up the question, why teach and read from the Old Testament if it's seen as archaic and non-applicable?

I have problems with all religious texts that take away peoples' power to think for themselves. Didn't anyone hear about that girl that died in the hospital because her parents were sure that God would cure her cancer and not modern medicine?

 

[TX-Beau]

And let me just say, all of your demands on Islam and attacks and so forth look especially ridiculous now that you have presented this view of your own faith. Where there are no standards, where proof is irrelevant, and Logic can't be applied and yet your faith is still Absolute Truth.

The chasm between faith and reason. I've said it before, to those of faith, their religion is reality, and it's the rest of the world who're just wrong.

That said, and I kept expecting him to point this out, faith is not incompatible with reason. I know a guy who's completely persnickety about his methodology in the lab, but who's also a devout Christian and skips off to church twice a week.

He thinks that spiritual truth is beyond science, because it serves a different purpose in living a fulfilled life. Spirituality is his "inward" journey, and science exists to inform his conscious mind. Compartmentalized crap? Maybe, but so be it. I have no vested interest in trying to change someone’s faith.