Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

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Vince
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Vince »

GORDON wrote:
Vince wrote:
TPRJones wrote: Well, I do see one difference. When one of the insane Christians goes to kill a lot of people for god they tend to go on a shooting spree in a school full of children. When one of the insane Muslims goes to kill a lot of people for god they tend to use a suicide bomb to blow up a school full of children. Otherwise no difference.
Please point out the time the Christian did that and said "Praise Jesus" when he did it. Otherwise your making mock worthy comparisons.
He always points at some crazy dictator in africa or something.
Okay, show this happening someplace other than a third world shit hole.
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TPRJones
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by TPRJones »

Here are a few for you. There are others.

The fact is in the U.S. you are significantly more likely to be killed in a mass shooting by someone from any religion except Islam. Of course that's in large part due to population ratios by religion; being surrounded by far more Christians than Muslims means it's far more likely that the mass shooter that kills you will be Christian than Muslim. That's just statistics. But it still does go to show that anyone that claims Christianity is a religion of peace while Muslims are just a bunch of terrorists should be, as you say, openly mocked and ridiculed.
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Vince
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Vince »

TPRJones wrote:Here are a few for you. There are others.

The fact is in the U.S. you are significantly more likely to be killed in a mass shooting by someone from any religion except Islam. Of course that's in large part due to population ratios by religion; being surrounded by far more Christians than Muslims means it's far more likely that the mass shooter that kills you will be Christian than Muslim. That's just statistics. But it still does go to show that anyone that claims Christianity is a religion of peace while Muslims are just a bunch of terrorists should be, as you say, openly mocked and ridiculed.
Neo-nazi, anti-liberal killing (not religious), might give you this one, schizophrenic... other lists are meaningless without context.
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Malcolm
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

schizophrenic
Describes most serious religious folk I've met.
Neo-nazi
A system of belief and faith no matter how you describe it. Hitler was also a big Martin Luther fan.
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TPRJones
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by TPRJones »

Neo-nazi, anti-liberal killing (not religious), might give you this one, schizophrenic... other lists are meaningless without context.
So you are taking the "no real Christian" stance? Or are you insinuating that when a Muslim does a mass killing based on their beliefs it is automatically religious but when a Christian does a mass killing based on their beliefs it must be because of something other than religion?

As to the other lists, not all of them are Christians doing the mass killings based on their beliefs, but I went through and the vast majority were. There is your context.
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by GORDON »

True or not true: The teaching of Christ are based on 100% nonviolence, the teachings of Muhammad are not.

I'm about to pull a "No True Scotsman."
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Malcolm
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

GORDON wrote:True or not true: The teaching of Christ are based on 100% nonviolence, the teachings of Muhammad are not.

I'm about to pull a "No True Scotsman."
This really depends on which version of the "teachings" you subscribe to in both cases.
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by GORDON »

True or not true.
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

GORDON wrote:True or not true.
As I stated before, one cannot make a truly definitive answer unless you exactly lay down your list of what the "real" teachings of that particular saviour are.

However, if you insist on forcing a reasonable response, I'd say the statement is false. Neither was consistent in their take on nonviolence, so both clock in under 100%.
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by TPRJones »

As written it is not true. There's this myth that while the old testament was all kinds of violent (true) Jesus in the new testament erased all of that (false).
“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:18-19
“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17)
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17)
“Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John7:19)
Do I need to start going into detail about how violent and awful the old testament was, or does that satisfy you? Because at that point the Quran and Bible are just about equal in this competition.

The only point on violence where Jesus and Muhammad disagree (besides which awful ancient text they point at) is on the point of self defense. Jesus teaches that when you are attached you must turn the other cheek, that when someone takes your coat to also give him your cloak, to never fight your enemy but rather to love him. Muhammad teaches that we have an absolute right to self-defense, that when you are attacked you may defend yourself from harm, that when someone takes something from you you may choose to fight to get it back. So just out of curiosity, which of those sounds more like the actions of modern right-wing Christians to you?
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by GORDON »

What does my satisfaction have to do with anything? And the teachings of jesus have nothing to do with the old testament of the bible, which the Christians supposedly follow.

I just think it's dishonest as hell to say "christians are bad too," I don't care what shitty experience you had with it. And I don't give two fucks for the validity of either religion, either.

Nobody ever thinks the explosion was caused by the lutherans.

From what I remember from when I used to get dragged to church, jesus said be nice to people all the time.

The interesting thing is, from what I have learned through osmosis in the last 15 years, Muhammad said pretty much the same thing, but with an asterisk. he said always be nice to people*



*Mon-muslims aren't really people.
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TPRJones
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by TPRJones »

GORDON wrote:And the teachings of jesus have nothing to do with the old testament of the bible
And here's where your argument falls apart for being wrong.
Nobody ever thinks the explosion was caused by the lutherans.
No, but if it's a mass shooting in the U.S. then the first thought is to wonder which sort of Christian they were and which particular Christian belief led them to kill lots of people. But I guess killing people with bullets is somehow less evil than killing people with shrapnel.
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Malcolm
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

And the teachings of jesus have nothing to do with the old testament of the bible
Completely 100% untrue by virtue of the same quote TPR posted.
jesus said be nice to people all the time.
Yep. He also went batshit insane, lost his temper, and started flipping tables one day when things weren't to his liking. He also implicitly and explicitly approved of all the reprehensible shit Yahweh did in the Old Testament. Read all of the Bible, not just the polished bits they read in public.
he said always be nice to people*
Yeah, just like Jesus did above. Just like how damn near every Christian denomination except the Quakers thinks self-defense is a valid reason for killing a person.
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Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by GORDON »

Yeah, ok. You're way more knowledgeable about philosophy, religion, and world events than I am, so I will bow to your superior and perfect knowledge and understanding.
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Malcolm
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

The damning proof is in the book. It's there for all to read. It's hard to argue that on one hand Christ was an all-loving, nonviolent hippie while he himself is recorded as saying he came to "fulfill" all the WTF rules set down in the past and motherfuckers just need to follow them and STFU.
Nobody ever thinks the explosion was caused by the lutherans.
Yeah, never been modern Catholic-Protestant violence that's resulted in bombings.
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by GORDON »

I don't recommend you keep fighting the problem children of the 1980's. There might be new ones, now. But really that's a personal choice, you do you.
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Malcolm
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

GORDON wrote:I don't recommend you keep fighting the problem children of the 1980's. There might be new ones, now. But really that's a personal choice, you do you.
They've toned down. But there are numerous Christian fundies that TPR linked.

1) Christianized western first-world countries are relatively stable and wealthy.
2) Those countries are not theocracies.

This means you'll have way, way fewer wackos coming from those places, hence fewer acts of terrorism. Even in the semi-shitty heavily Christian places (like South America), the revolutionary forces aren't embracing a literal interpretation of scripture nor are they imposing Mosaic Law on the state. Why? Because Europe kicked them in the ass for centuries and colonized the fuck out of them to scrape all the resources and wealth they could find. No single empire stood a reasonable chance against them. Slaughter of native peoples aside, it at least gave the cultures a chance to mingle in deep ways.

Now let's move onto the predominantly Muslim countries of today. Hell, places like Indonesia and Malaysia are topping the charts in terms of livability. Let's move onto the bastion of Islam, the Middle East. During the prime time of European colonialism, the Ottoman Empire was sitting there generally being a pain in the ass to anyone that wandered over their way. When it expired after WWI, we only gave a shit after massive oil deposits got discovered. Britain would still have colonies all over the world if WWII hadn't occurred and the resolution thereof forced their return ... which is about the time everyone started pulling the fuck out of Africa quicker than a dude who's balls deep only to find his condom wrapper says "for display purposes only, do not use." Only the Dutch were stubborn enough to stick around, but then Danny Glover handled that shit. Or Mandela ... whoever wasn't in Lethal Weapon 2 ... I forget which. The point being is that when one asks, "Which religion is responsible for more violence and deaths," one cannot consider the faith in a vaccum without factoring in all the other geography, history, politics, etc. around it. Those most likely to resort to terrorism are either unreasonable zealots (read as "religious fundie psychos") or those with virtually nothing left to lose (read as "losers that want to go out in a blaze of glory and feel important for once in their shitty, meaningless, unfulfilling lives"). There are plenty of both in predominantly Muslim countries. This is not due to the religion itself but the fuckos practicing their insane, extreme (yet popular) version of it. At present, no secular force has arisen in the Muslim world to pimp slap the religious establishment into place (and THAT is my major problem with them) like a ho that's been mouthing off after too many 40s ... mainly because the establishment has all the guns. Even worse, in many places like Syria and Egypt, your only choices for governmental rule are "insane fundie party A or insane fundie party B."
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by TPRJones »

GORDON wrote:Yeah, ok. You're way more knowledgeable about philosophy, religion, and world events than I am, so I will bow to your superior and perfect knowledge and understanding.
Look, if you want to talk about personal interpretations and feelings then go right ahead. Believe whatever you want. Then there's nothing really to talk about, though, and you won't be able to use your feelings about things to actually discuss reality in a useful way.

If you actually want to base the conversation on what is in the Bible and the Quran and what Jesus and Mohammed are reported as having said then there are books you can read dealing with that. I recommend starting with the Bible and the Quran.
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Malcolm
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Malcolm »

TPRJones wrote:I recommend starting with the Bible and the Quran.
Just to be a pain in the ass, as is my wont...

I wouldn't start with either. I did and I think I went in the wrong order. If I could do it again, I'd read this dude first, then any scripture second. You only need his greatest hits:

Hero with a Thousand Faces
Power of Myth
Historical Atlas of World Mythology
Masks of a God

Why? You don't have the teaching of J & M. You got the teachings filtered through centuries of bullshit. It's helpful to know what shaped the bullshit. Some Jung doesn't hurt either. I could go on about this things like this forever, especially if we stick to the "western" world. I've had some exceptional history teachers in my day, as well as a couple standout religious- and psych-related masters to boot.
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Re: Islam - the thread of peace and tolerance

Post by Leisher »

Just to nit pick certain points for giggles...
No, but if it's a mass shooting in the U.S. then the first thought is to wonder which sort of Christian they were and which particular Christian belief led them to kill lots of people. But I guess killing people with bullets is somehow less evil than killing people with shrapnel.
To be completely fair, that's your opinion as you see things through your prism and not necessarily correct or incorrect. I, personally, do not hear about mass shootings and immediately think "what Christian belief caused this", and I'd wager with you that most people in the U.S. and Europe (and most of the civilized world) don't either. In fact, Christianity is pretty far down my list of motives, UNLESS the location was a mosque or abortion clinic.

Typically, the first things that go through my mind are: Terrorism, insanity, passion, desperation. political belief, and ignorance of youth. Pretty much in that order, although subject to change based on location. From there I can break it down farther based on each reason.

If it is terrorism, Islam is the very first thing that comes to my mind. That's just my prism. I know Christians have committed mass murder (that's indisputable), but at this point in time if I'm walking through a mall and I hear gunshots I'm not thinking "Oh shit! Protestants!".
Read all of the Bible, not just the polished bits they read in public.
The caveat that one must always consider when discussing the bible is that it's not the actual words of God. It's a man made text attributed to 40 some human writers that's been translated a lot. That's 40 or so people with different beliefs, perspectives, opinions, and motivations. Then you have the folks translating it, which is a whole different can of worms. Even beyond that you have countless people interpreting the meaning of the words.

That's a lot of opportunity for error. It's really a deus ex machina for arguments regarding specific items in the Bible.

To the best of my knowledge only the 10 commandments are the actual word of God. There is apparently some discussion over if God wrote them or Moses, but for the sake of this debate, let's say God wrote them. If you consider that those two stone tablets are the only true word of God, then those are the only real teachings from God that can be cited. So taking all that into account, Gordon's 100% right about which teachings are violent and which aren't. Once you throw in all the "man made" stuff, it absolutely gets murkier. I mean the Crusades and Inquisition were done in the name of God, and I don't see anything in the ten commandments about murdering or torturing people if they don't believe.
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