Oh please no, I'm not christian at all. Far from it..
I believe fear of going to hell is a silly reason to believe in God, just as wanting to go to heaven is a silly reason. A healthy religion would find a good balance between those. And besides that you should believe cause you believe the religion to be true. (ps, not a christian recruiter, a muslim one would be closer.)
Religions (I do need this info (Statistics))
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Imperator Severn
- Redshirt
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I believe fear of going to hell is a silly reason to believe in God, just as wanting to go to heaven is a silly reason. A healthy religion would find a good balance between those.
No, belief in God should not come from threats or promises, but from experience in the nature of things.
I add that God very likely would not give a shit whether you believed in him or not. It's rather arrogant to assume a cosmic force cares about you.
No, I'm mostly Celtic and Amerind.Imperator Severn, you're Jewish?
I think it's been rather firmly established throughout history that Monotheistic religions are organized around fundamentally egocentric principles.It's rather arrogant to assume a cosmic force cares about you.
And true belief through fear or desire is a symptom of insanity. If you can believe something because you want to believe it or because you're afraid to not believe it, then you're delusional, plain and simple. Mind you, that description applies to about 90% of humanity. Hmm...
/me refrains from making any comments about how Islam is the one religion he despises even more than Christianity...
/me coughs
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
*grins* I'm glad you asked. I'm feeling argumentative.
In their original states, Islam and Christianity are almost identical, and in that case I'd despise them more or less equally. But the institution that is Islam today is far worse than Christianity. There isn't a single Muslim nation in the world that I could go to and stand on a street corner and legally pronounce that I am an Atheist, that it is wrong to dominate women, and that no government should be primarily run by religious precepts and people. There's not one Muslim nation that isn't run based upon the antiquated 'laws' outlined in the Qu'ran. The Islam of today is responsible for more human suffering than any other religion or philosophy on the planet, than all other religions combined.
Christianity used to be just as bad, mind you, but that was five hundred years ago. Now, in "Christian" nations people are allowed to dissent. Women are legally (and almost socially) equal to men. I can openly proclaim atheism and speak out against Christianity without being assaulted and murdered with the approval, if not aid, of the government. Most "Christian" societies are free and democratic and almost entirely secular in reality.
I can go on if you'd like. I can also link to an article or two that would explain, and give stats... like this: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/ ... a_22_2.htm
In their original states, Islam and Christianity are almost identical, and in that case I'd despise them more or less equally. But the institution that is Islam today is far worse than Christianity. There isn't a single Muslim nation in the world that I could go to and stand on a street corner and legally pronounce that I am an Atheist, that it is wrong to dominate women, and that no government should be primarily run by religious precepts and people. There's not one Muslim nation that isn't run based upon the antiquated 'laws' outlined in the Qu'ran. The Islam of today is responsible for more human suffering than any other religion or philosophy on the planet, than all other religions combined.
Christianity used to be just as bad, mind you, but that was five hundred years ago. Now, in "Christian" nations people are allowed to dissent. Women are legally (and almost socially) equal to men. I can openly proclaim atheism and speak out against Christianity without being assaulted and murdered with the approval, if not aid, of the government. Most "Christian" societies are free and democratic and almost entirely secular in reality.
I can go on if you'd like. I can also link to an article or two that would explain, and give stats... like this: http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/ ... a_22_2.htm
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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Deacon
- Shining Adonis
- Posts: 44234
- Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2003 3:00 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Lakehills, TX
[quote="Azurain";p="400195"]*grins* I'm glad you asked. I'm feeling argumentative.[/quote]
You're just BEGGING for Bjarni to come in here. I think I'll PM him the URL
jkjk
You're just BEGGING for Bjarni to come in here. I think I'll PM him the URL
jkjkWell...that may be going a bit far. Consider the pain in India due to the Hindi guidelines that fly in the face of survival and prosperity, for instance. That's a lot of people affected.The Islam of today is responsible for more human suffering than any other religion or philosophy on the planet, than all other religions combined.
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men, 1922
[quote="Deacon";p="400208"]Well...that may be going a bit far. Consider the pain in India due to the Hindi guidelines that fly in the face of survival and prosperity, for instance. That's a lot of people affected.[/quote]
Agreed, but neither Christianity or Buddhism (the other two religions with significant populations) cause much suffering at all any more. Oh they do cause some, but not much. (Actually I think Buddhism, by its very nature, causes very little human suffering--though the concept of Karma does cause some). So add those to the suffering the Hindu religion causes, which is substantiative but not nearly as great as that of Islam, and... *shrugs*
And yes, I'm sort of hoping Bjarni will come in here... more sport for me. : )
Hmm, actually, I forgot about the suffering that Christianity causes in much of Africa and other third world places where AIDS is rampant due, in large part, to Catholic anti-birth control teaching... Still, I think Islam surpasses even that.
Agreed, but neither Christianity or Buddhism (the other two religions with significant populations) cause much suffering at all any more. Oh they do cause some, but not much. (Actually I think Buddhism, by its very nature, causes very little human suffering--though the concept of Karma does cause some). So add those to the suffering the Hindu religion causes, which is substantiative but not nearly as great as that of Islam, and... *shrugs*
And yes, I'm sort of hoping Bjarni will come in here... more sport for me. : )
Hmm, actually, I forgot about the suffering that Christianity causes in much of Africa and other third world places where AIDS is rampant due, in large part, to Catholic anti-birth control teaching... Still, I think Islam surpasses even that.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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Deacon
- Shining Adonis
- Posts: 44234
- Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2003 3:00 pm
- Gender: Male
- Location: Lakehills, TX
Be careful not to confuse Catholicism and "Christianity". Catholicism does contain some references to Jesus, but it's so far gone from Christ's teachings that it really deserves its own category. It's also frickin' huge.
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. - Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men, 1922
*laughs* I'm aware of the semantics of the situation. Catholicism is a major sect of Christianity, just as Mormonism is a controversial and radical one. Otherwise people could argue that Sunnism is not actually Islamic. Catholics might say that Baptists are not Christian. But that's not relevant here, in any case, to determining whether the sum total suffering caused by all other religions than Islam (in which Catholicism and Christianity would be grouped together even if I did agree that Catholicism is somehow not Christian, which I don't) is less than that caused by Islam.
There is suffering for many reasons across the world, but nowhere is it nearly as directly related to religion as in Islamic states.
There is suffering for many reasons across the world, but nowhere is it nearly as directly related to religion as in Islamic states.
Last edited by Azurain on Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
But there's the problem, you're judging the religion by it's followers instead of it's doctrine. In the Quran itself says you can't force people to believe and thus there should be freedom of religion, technically. For a long time that used to be the case, churches and synagoges and christians and jews had right to the same protection that muslims had. I don't know why or when things changed the way they have though.
Professional hitman
Elroy, if I judged it by it's doctrine it'd still be utterly despicable, do you deny it? The blatant passages in reference to heretics, women's "rights," and other such atrociously amoral and immoral and downright disgusting passages? As I said, the doctrine is utterly despicable, but you'd be being deliberately obtuse to judge a thing only by its origins and not by the state it is in, by what those origins lead to. The institution that is Islam right now causes tremendous suffering and stifles those things which are good about life: freedom, expression, progress, and such.
When analyzing a religion you can't just blaisely separate it from all the effects it's had on the world, or is having right now. A religion may start as a philosophy or a doctrine, but it becomes an institution and you're lying to yourself if you think otherwise. And again, regardless, the Qur'an is chalk full of absolute garbage in any case, so either way it's more than worthy of condemnation.
-- Chris
When analyzing a religion you can't just blaisely separate it from all the effects it's had on the world, or is having right now. A religion may start as a philosophy or a doctrine, but it becomes an institution and you're lying to yourself if you think otherwise. And again, regardless, the Qur'an is chalk full of absolute garbage in any case, so either way it's more than worthy of condemnation.
-- Chris
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
But then you're forgetting about the context of a lot of stuff that seem atrocious at first, and so are the people who use them as excuse to kill the 'infidels'. Originally islam wasn't against progress at all, the quran encourages it's followers in several verses to study nature, science, the world etcetera.
The passages referring to heretics actually referred to specific groups they were at war with at the time. Many places where it's said to kill the infidels it's referring to those people. It still says somewhere in the quran not to attack women or children and not even uproot a single dade tree or destroy the houses of the enemies.
All in all I think islam as it was intended is an ok religion, only the extremists give it a bad name these days.
The passages referring to heretics actually referred to specific groups they were at war with at the time. Many places where it's said to kill the infidels it's referring to those people. It still says somewhere in the quran not to attack women or children and not even uproot a single dade tree or destroy the houses of the enemies.
All in all I think islam as it was intended is an ok religion, only the extremists give it a bad name these days.
Professional hitman
Did you read the article I linked to elroy? Have you read the passages in the Qur'an to do with women or adultery, even rape? Being a 'decent religion as far as [Monotheistic] religions go' is anything but a good thing. All three of the major Monotheistic religions have, at their core, works that are full of horrible atrocities and utterly backward morality. Well, unless you agree that we should be enslaving our enemies (Christianity/Judaism) or killing female rape victims or promiscuous women (Islam)?
Incidentally, the rise of ignorance in Islam occured, iirc, when a gathering of clerics decided that no further interpretation of religious texts was to be tolerated at all in the slightest from that point onward (it was in the 1400's I believe, but I could be wrong). Which, actually, has its roots in a passage in the Qur'an itself, where it is said that no knowledge is needed but that which lies within ght Qur'an, which is easily (and possibly literally) interpreted to mean that it is heretical to attempt to learn of anything significant outside of the Qur'an, and certainly to express any amount of doubt, or even a desire for an unorthodox interpretation.
If it was just some extremists, it wouldn't be written in the law of most Islamic nations that a woman is to be stoned to death if she cheats on her husband, now would it?
Incidentally, the rise of ignorance in Islam occured, iirc, when a gathering of clerics decided that no further interpretation of religious texts was to be tolerated at all in the slightest from that point onward (it was in the 1400's I believe, but I could be wrong). Which, actually, has its roots in a passage in the Qur'an itself, where it is said that no knowledge is needed but that which lies within ght Qur'an, which is easily (and possibly literally) interpreted to mean that it is heretical to attempt to learn of anything significant outside of the Qur'an, and certainly to express any amount of doubt, or even a desire for an unorthodox interpretation.
If it was just some extremists, it wouldn't be written in the law of most Islamic nations that a woman is to be stoned to death if she cheats on her husband, now would it?
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
who thought I'd see the day I'm defending the Islam...
actually I did...
anyway:
let me fill you in on something I just figured.
it's not religions that start wars, it's not money nor oil
it's people.
every generation must have it's villain, that man's religion is besides the point
actually I did...
anyway:
how about Turkey ? check it out mate...There's not one Muslim nation that isn't run based upon the antiquated 'laws' outlined in the Qu'ran
hmmm... I'd say the natzi phylosophy brought more suffering to the world... how quickly do we forget the past if it's not our own, eh ?The Islam of today is responsible for more human suffering than any other religion or philosophy on the planet, than all other religions combined.
let me fill you in on something I just figured.
it's not religions that start wars, it's not money nor oil
it's people.
every generation must have it's villain, that man's religion is besides the point
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