Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death • Hacker News Board

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#71

Post by waps » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #35

themartorana wrote: post #26

Religion, held at any level above personal, is destructive to the larger population, in the long run. There is very little true tolerance from anyone who wishes religion to guide governing. It may be horribly violent attacks like this in Islam, but just as quickly it pushes for mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds in the U.S. I may get downvoted, but I fail to see how religion will ever help guide the human race to a…

Your comment reminded me the scene from Kingdom of Heaven where religion is discussed: I put no stock in Religion. By the word of religion, I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the "Will of God". I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness - what God desires - [pointing…

I would recognize that this is effectively restating one of the basic precepts of Christianity (do unto others ...). Islam, and any other religion, are very different (as you would expect, it's a different religion after all).

The Islamic attitude to this can be found by googling "enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil". And it very much disagrees with that statement. Loosely translated, what "God desires" in islam is that you force others - without violence if possible, with violence if necessary - to follow islam's rules, both in positive sense, and the negative sense. There is an entire legal theory around this which you can read if you like. Also, in islam, there is only one state, one law, and the state encompasses all. There is no police force in sharia, everyone is police, there is no-one without personal responsibility for following sharia, and policing others' following of sharia.

Note that in some ways - in theological theory - it is almost the opposite. A Christian should believe in Christ in his/her heart and mind, and outward appearances do not influence his relation with God. From a Muslim, on the other hand, heart and mind don't matter, nor does belief (says so in the quran), but following the rules does.

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#72

Post by themartorana » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

lake99 wrote: post #61

themartorana wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. was not founded on Judeo-Christian values. The moral code of "do not kill" and "do not steal" etc. existed long before Judaism. "Judeo-Christian" - a term coined in the 1950s - is an attempt to claim human decency and respect as a recent religious invention, and is ridiculous. Speaking of, there's an effort to replace "Judeo-Christian" with "Abrahamic" so as to include Islam in that group - would you agree?…

> Reason.com is a libertarian/conservative-leaning publication that has a bias in this game. No, that was an article by one of their religious-leaning members. Other atheist-leaning members often write articles that are more friendly towards atheists/atheism, and they don't claim atheism is a religion. See the range here: https://reason.com/tags/atheism

I stand informed. Thanks for that.

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#73

Post by jqm » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:55 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #25

chroma wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but different religions inspire different propensities towards violence in their hosts. Remember the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon ? I doubt the Mormons liked the play's content, but they responded to it positively. In some venues, they even took out ads in the playbill. Do you think it would be possible for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make a similar production about the Qu'ran? Even in the US, it would…

Interesting you should pick the example of the Mormons, a religious organization whose founder was killed by an angry mob of seceders from his church... Anyone that would suggest that the propensity of Islamic fundamentalists towards violence is particularly unusual amongst religious adherents has a remarkably inadequate grasp of history.

He was killed by a mob, but not by a mob of seceders from his church.

(Incidentally, he had a pistol and killed a few of the mob members before going down.)

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#74

Post by waps » Tue, May 12, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #30

seesomesense wrote: post #3

Religion of peace and all that...

Why is it taboo to mock a religion? I'm genuinely curious about the downvotes.

Is it so difficult to see that attitudes toward mocking political/moral systems are simply part of those political/moral systems ?

For instance, communism takes a very dim view of mocking communism. This is extremely well known, and pretty accurately describes the various communist communities' attitudes, even today. Mocking communist ideals or characters will get you at least ostracised from most of those communities. Hell, linking to other's jokes about them is dangerous at best.

By contrast, free market capitalists, their "enemy", are pretty well known for being extremely tolerant of humorous take-downs of their ideology, and engage in it themselves on a regular basis inside their communities. Of course, most leftists then criticize this as indicating they don't believe in the free market after all, which isn't true.

Islam is a political and a moral system. It's attitude towards mocking is defined in writing. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Asma%27_bint_Marwan and you will get a basic idea of how it works.

Christianity is relatively tolerant of criticism. Given how this religion has had it's canonical texts written by Greek philosophers, it's quite easy to understand why this is so. You will find lots of books written by saints, priests, monks, ... that criticize the church and even the faith itself. This is done mostly in self-reflection with the intent to improve matters and not absolutely not meant for wider dissemination (on occasion the wide dissemination of such texts has been fought with violation), but it certainly exists. These books have, on occasion, resulted in large shifts in attitudes within Christianity.

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#75

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, May 12, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

themartorana wrote: post #26

Religion, held at any level above personal, is destructive to the larger population, in the long run. There is very little true tolerance from anyone who wishes religion to guide governing. It may be horribly violent attacks like this in Islam, but just as quickly it pushes for mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds in the U.S. I may get downvoted, but I fail to see how religion will ever help guide the human race to a…

American Mormons seem to use religion in fairly constructive ways - choose pretty much any social indicator, and they drastically outperform nearly any other group at a similar income level.

Realistically, most of the violence perpetrated by religion these days is done by a subset of Islam. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any attacks comparable to 9/11, 26/11, Baga or similar that were perpetrated by anyone besides Islamists. A quick google search finds an article on Daily Beast which purports to disagree, but can only come up with a small number of minor attacks.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/are-all-ter...

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#76

Post by DanBC » Tue, May 12, 2015, 2:17 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #68

DanBC wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion" Christianity is a bad religion. See the genocide of Bosnian muslims by Serb christians during the Bosnian genocide. (1995 approx) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian... Christianity is a bad religion. See the murder of muslims by Ch…

> Christianity is a bad religion. Yes, it is. But I don't think it actually calls for killing people practising other religions. (In the new testament, that is) Does it?

> But I don't think it actually calls for killing people practising other religions. (In the new testament, that is) Does it?

Luke 19:27: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

As well as Matthew 10:34: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

I'm not sure why you want to split the old testament off from the new testament. When we see condemnation of homosexuals by some Christians the Christians are usually making reference to old testament quotes. (Substitute "homosexuals" for children (because some christian sects promote beating children) or women (ditto) to see other appalling behaviour defended by Christians making reference to the old testament.

It's a bit odd that I got downvotes for countering someone saying that Christians don't kill members of other religions by giving two examples - one still happening today - of exactly that; exactly Christians murdering people from a different religion purely because they were members of another religion.

Christianity has, since the 5th century, had the concept of "Just war". So, even if it's not in the Bible (but it is, there's lots of it in the old testament) it's bene part of the faith for 1500 years.

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#77

Post by WorldWideWayne » Tue, May 12, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

themartorana wrote: post #26

Religion, held at any level above personal, is destructive to the larger population, in the long run. There is very little true tolerance from anyone who wishes religion to guide governing. It may be horribly violent attacks like this in Islam, but just as quickly it pushes for mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds in the U.S. I may get downvoted, but I fail to see how religion will ever help guide the human race to a…

How can an inanimate idea be held at fault? People use Religion to do bad things, not the other way around. Get rid of Religion and people will justify doing bad things for non-religious reasons.

You don't think people have used Science as an excuse to do evil?

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#78

Post by mercurial » Tue, May 12, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #64

mercurial wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion". Islam is a "bad religion". You don't seem to know much about Islam. Let me leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya You can argue that it is discrimination, but if you consider the status of Islam and Judaism during the Middle Ages and the Rena…

Well, he may not know much about Islam. I don't either. But even the page you linked quotes: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." "Jesus will come again, and…

The point is that this system, while penalizing non-muslims, allowed a mostly peaceful coexistence between different belief systems in the Islamic world, thus demonstrating by example that the notion of Islam not being compatible with other religions is wrong. On the other hand, the tolerance track record of, say, the Catholic Church was fairly dismal until its influence over politics became dramatically curtailed.

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#79

Post by brlewis » Tue, May 12, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

krig wrote: post #24

chroma wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but different religions inspire different propensities towards violence in their hosts. Remember the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon ? I doubt the Mormons liked the play's content, but they responded to it positively. In some venues, they even took out ads in the playbill. Do you think it would be possible for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make a similar production about the Qu'ran? Even in the US, it would…

Disgusting. Other religions are perfectly capable of inspiring similar acts. Look at all the atrocities committed throughout history in the name of christianity: The imperial conquests of Africa and America were conducted in the name of spreading christianity and with the blessing of the church. American fundamentalists regularly murder abortion doctors in the name of religion. Breivik is a "christian warrior" defend…

American fundamentalists regularly murder abortion doctors

Has that become a regular thing? Please update Wikipedia; it gives the impression that this sort of thing is still rare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Murders

Re: Bangladesh blogger Ananta Bijoy Das hacked to death

#80

Post by viraptor » Tue, May 12, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #76

viraptor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Christianity is a bad religion. Yes, it is. But I don't think it actually calls for killing people practising other religions. (In the new testament, that is) Does it?

> But I don't think it actually calls for killing people practising other religions. (In the new testament, that is) Does it? Luke 19:27: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. As well as Matthew 10:34: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. I'm not sure why you want to split the old testament off f…

I didn't say that they don't kill, or that bible doesn't advocate it. I asked if it does.

I'm regarding the old testament differently, because I see it as a collection of crazy old stories. I don't believe it's possible to follow the word of the old testament these days without being insane. Or without getting locked up as soon as you start trying to stone prostitutes.

Anyway, my point was - does the text itself (in nt) tell you to fight anyone of different faith. The fragments you quoted say Jesus was going to do that. He didn't tell others to follow the same.