611–620 of 737 posts
Great way of robbing the people who put their lives to save you of their contribution.
Thanking god for a series of events is nothing more than ignoring reality. A series of events happened, and that's that.
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> ISIS beheadings are a matter of form, a propaganda tool Wrong. The beheadings are the things Mohammad did, as written in their holy books, so they just do that, following their role model even without the cameras.
Exactly. Their prophet raided caravans, fought against anybody who did not want to convert to his new religion or even sanctioned slave owning and stoning of women (it's all in authentic hadith that belong to mainstream Islam). So how can muslim distance themselves from such things? They really can't but they try anyway by saying "has nothing to do with my religion" to avoid the argument. A better solution would be t…
It does have something to do with religion, but only because that is being used as _motivation_ to do bad things which isn't inherit to just Islam. I mean, Klu Klux Klan
> Klan members had an explicitly Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in > part on a "religious foundation" in Christianity. The goals of the KKK included, > from an early time onward, an intent to "reestablish Protestant Christian values in > America by any means possible", and they believed that "Jesus was the first Klansman."
What this is about is radical _people_ finding whatever motivation they can do to force _their own views_ onto the world.
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Why not? How about we fork the Qur'an like it were source code, delete the parts about killing people for their beliefs, add in some more commandments such as "don't rape, don't discriminate, be nice to everybody. It's ok if you don't literally believe that Allah exists." etc etc. Then we can rename it to Islam2 or Progressive Islam, or something like that. Everybody wins. I'm pretty sure that's already been done wit…
Feel free, the council of Nicosia was a similar attempt at making Christianity more internally consistent and in a way the Bible itself already was a re-write, think of it as Judaism 2.0 and it starts to make a lot more sense. But typically such a movement originates from within the religion and I highly doubt it can be imposed from outside. Note that most religious text are 'tamper proof' in that they contain little…
I'm not calling for aggressively imposing a structure change upon people, I'm calling for people who call themselves moderates or progressives to formally recognize their progressiveness by explicitly altering their holy text.
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Feel free, the council of Nicosia was a similar attempt at making Christianity more internally consistent and in a way the Bible itself already was a re-write, think of it as Judaism 2.0 and it starts to make a lot more sense. But typically such a movement originates from within the religion and I highly doubt it can be imposed from outside. Note that most religious text are 'tamper proof' in that they contain little…
> A bit further down that road and we'll be burning books. I'm not calling for aggressively imposing a structure change upon people, I'm calling for people who call themselves moderates or progressives to formally recognize their progressiveness by explicitly altering their holy text.
Yeah... um... don't hold your breath. Those who believe that it is literally the words of God are not going to alter it, to "formally recognize their progressiveness" or for any other reason.
Note well: There are those who are progressive and still believe that the Quran is literally the words of God.
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> that is not the same as saying that people should be sent back to war zones. "In the region", you can choose whether to send them to: 1) Turkey, an increasingly-authoritarian regime which is already overflowing with millions of refugees, making money with the fanatics and holding mainstream cultural values that tend to despise people from Syria/Kurdistan/Iraq; 2) Lebanon, a country where refugees from other conflic…
The rich Arab nations like Saudi and Qatar aren't accepting any refugees. (Wonder why not...) They prefer that such migrants should travel to Europe, who are naively taking those migrants in.
Meanwhile, people die.
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I am aware of the "white power" movement that exists online, some are just trolls but some are serious, and there is always this moment in which it feels the jokes are a little too sincere...I say this as a non-white male. Moreover, beyond stormfront and trolls, there do indeed exist political, nationalist parties and groups. Nonetheless, Breivik, unless I'm wrong about it, was not part of a movement trying to domina…
> Breivik, unless I'm wrong about it, was not part of a movement trying to dominate the world and install a Christian kingdom, so ISIS differs from the white "movement" in that regard. The biggest difference is - for want of a better word and I'm really sorry about using that term in the current context - because of their ability to execute. They would if they could, they just can't.
And in this simplistic scenario, why would you posit is the reason they "can't"?
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>All religions are silly ridiculous relics. Let's stop talking about them. You can't actually reliably say this without first going through every religion and telling us how ridiculous you find it. But I'm not really bothered about every religion. Out of interest, what's ridiculous about Buddhism, and how are you going to quantify the ridiculousness? Your argument doesn't work as well with Buddhism. It works to an ex…
Litmus test: does it make any supernatural claims? Yes? Silly, ridiculous relic. Buddhism? Yes. Silly, ridiculous relic. Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc. Are there helpful aspects to Buddhist beliefs? Maybe. But it's still Bronze Age philosophy with plenty of supernatural claptrap mixed in. I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddh…
Not everyone views the world from an empiricist or materialist atheistic viewpoint. I don't think it's nice to say something is ridiculous simply because you don't see it that way. Further, many followers of religion wouldn't say it's supernatural at all - it's part of nature that hasn't been uncovered, or it can't be uncovered.
>Please don't bore us with the usual equivocating about how Buddhism is different, and complex, highly personal, etc.
Buddhism is largely different from other religions, first and foremost that it doesn't mandate the worship of a god, and further can be interpreted in such a way that can dispense with most of what you see as supernatural. Secondly, for it's "find out yourself" nature that encourages questioning and going beyond the realm of logical thinking.
And it is highly personal - it's got the idea that you have to be the one to set yourself on the path. You can't be saved by someone simply by praying etc.
>I'm not aware of any useful aspects of Buddhism that don't have a purely secular equivalent.
Buddhists are aware of one - it's called Nibbana - and it can only be realized by following the Noble Eightfold Path, which I will say relies heavily on the idea of kamma and "supernatural" ideas.
Please do not be so dismissive.
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At the risk of Godwinning this thread, that's something I read in some old documents too. That time it didn't work.
In the context of human rights and xenophobic behavior, please don't censor yourself in order to not violate some stupid Internet meme. The nazis represent an anti-pattern for society we should always remember. After all in each of us there's always potential for evil, all it takes is a capable leader to channel that potential to some common purpose that blurs our ethics.
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I have an honest question here. As a believer in the Christian faith, do you believe Angels exist? And all or some of the other supernatural tales from the bible and the faith? I am ashamed to admit that I didn't realize until I was well after 25 that followers of the faith, some of them, really believed in such beings and that priests of the Christian faith have to at least pretend to do so as well. I was raised cat…
Yes. But why do you find it so hard to understand why people could believe in angels if they believe in God? Both are spritual beings. Angels are like God's build tools. They are there. They may have a critical role but you don't have to understand them deeply or know too much about the intricate details to be a Christian or believe in God.
Still, there is quite the leap from one being to the other. I believe gravity is real, and its also a faith. There are different degrees of faith required for different elements.
More things point to God than to an Angel, since you could attribute existence or nature to something bigger. Where do angels actually fit there, the only thing to point to it is the bible.
I am not sure how valid these translations are, but there seem to be a lot of incendiary passages in the Quran, how do we reconcile these view points with modern society.
I also understand that old testament (I am not christian) is just as bad but I was under assumption that the old testament was a carry over from Christianities Jewish roots, and the new testament supersedes it?