Welcome to Thunderdome

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.

To the best of my knowledge only the 10 commandments are the actual word of God.

No, this isn't the case whatsoever. All the quotes attributed to the almighty in the book are his words. In fact, Jesus referred to himself as the "word" on more than a few occasions. Depending on your branch of Jesusism, you could be allowed some leeway with respect to what they mean to you, even going so far as to inject some of your own personal feelings into the equation.

So taking all that into account, Gordon's 100% right about which teachings are violent and which aren't.

Except you're chucking aside all the other dogma and doctrine that a religion brings with it, some of which includes interpretations of exactly what the Big Ten mean.

I don't see anything in the ten commandments about murdering or torturing people if they don't believe.

I don't see anything in the Five Pillars of Islam that advocates murder or torture, either. I bet I can find plenty of extra bullshit in most versions of both faiths that allow for it, though, including this completely insane branch of Islam. As stated previously, there aren't really any fundie psycho movements in any other western religion comparable in scope. As for the Christian position on torture, let's remember the Old Testament is replete with examples of Yahweh and his people torturing the shit out of those evil pagans, not the least of which was forcing an entire tribe of their enemies to circumcise themselves in exchange for peace. Then the Hebrews went and murdered the fuck out of them anyway.

GORDON wrote:Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.

If you're going to surrender in exasperation every time someone tries to get academic about religion, then none of this is going anywhere.

To be completely fair, that's your opinion as you see things through your prism and not necessarily correct or incorrect.

I absolutely agree. I fully admit this is the case. My point is exactly the same thing is also so with all the hoopla about Muslims all being terrorists. It's not based in actual facts, it's just people using their feelings to justify demonizing an entire group of others.

So taking all that into account, Gordon's 100% right about which teachings are violent and which aren't.

If I accept for the moment that all the other stuff about Jesus being just as much god as god is so all his words in the Bible also count as the words of god is just a bunch of hooey and that only the 10 commandments counts, then Gordon is (mostly, see below) correct about the Jewish god teaching non-violence. But then he's equally wrong about Islam, since NONE of it qualifies as the literal word of the Muslim god written down in stone by his own hand. It was all told to Muhammad by Gabriel (who got if from god) and the Muhammad repeated it and others wrote it down. That adds an additional layer of human error that if you are going to excuse for Christians you should also excuse for Muslims.

As to the mostly correct, I would argue that the 10 commandments do not teach non-violence. The only one that is related to violence is "thou shalt not kill" but in the original hebrew that god used to write it it was "לֹא תִּרְצָח" which doesn't mean don't kill anyone. It means don't kill anyone illegally. Legal killings are still just fine, and the other parts of the bible are full of them.

Look, I don't care for Christianity, that's obvious. I also don't care for Islam. None of that is the problem I have with these discussions. The problem I have is the absurd double-standards some of y'all have. You give every possible excuse to the Christians and you vilify the Muslims for the exact same things. All I ask is for some consistency.

Was waiting for this.

The Irving teen who was handcuffed and detained after bringing a homemade clock to school filed a discrimination lawsuit Monday against the City of Irving and the Irving school district, saying he was singled out because he was a Muslim.

The lawsuit claims that Ahmed Mohamed’s rights were violated by the Irving school district, Irving MacArthur High School Principal Daniel Cummings and Irving police when the youth was scrutinized for possibly having a fake bomb, not a homemade clock.

Autopsies were released from the Orlando nightclub shooting, and they're called "shocking" for some reason. I assume to sell papers.

What did surprise me is this:

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, a 29-year-old white male

Are all Arabs considered white or only those who become mass murderers?

According to this article they are "white by law" since 1944.

I didn't read more.

That's interesting. I wonder if someone's going to declare that's racist.

I've always wondered what that "non-Caucasian white" box was on the doctor's forms. I always thought it applied to Hispanics since so many might as well be crackers.

Iran changed its name from Persia for the Nazis to show they were Aryan. Iran is derived from the word for Aryan.

There's also this meaning which predates anything Adolf-related by millennia. Furthermore, let's also examine exactly why the name changed:

The dude in charge at the time was named Reza Shah, and he was tired of the British and Russians generally fucking around his hood with biz deals that left him with the shortest end of the shittiest stick. He did limited biz with zee Germans, mainly just to piss off the two aforementioned countries. Furthermore, the dude that wrote the article you're citing led a study the said the decision should be reversed. The same Shah 50% approved that idea and decided to let both be used.

It is said that some German friends of the ambassador persuaded him that, as with the advent of Reza Shah, Persia had turned a new leaf in its history and had freed itself from the pernicious influences of Britain and Russia, whose interventions in Persian affairs had practically crippled the country under the Qajars, it was only fitting that the country be called by its own name, "Iran." This would not only signal a new beginning and bring home to the world the new era in Iranian history, but would also signify the Aryan race of its population, as "Iran" is a cognate of "Aryan" and derived from it.

Well shit, it is said that aliens crash landed at Roswell in the 1940s. And there's way more physical evidence there. Attributing the name change to the Nazis a more than a bit much, even for respected scholar.

Well shit, it is said that aliens crash landed at Roswell in the 1940s. And there's way more physical evidence there.

*cough*

Leisher wrote:

Well shit, it is said that aliens crash landed at Roswell in the 1940s. And there's way more physical evidence there.

*cough*

Shh, don't upset the civilians...

This could be in the Olympic thread, but I think it belongs here more.

First American Olympian to wear a hijab expresses herself and folks lose their minds.

I don't really see her saying anything "shameful". She's simply expressing an opinion based on her prism of how she sees things. As the Washington Post link later in the article proves, she's not exactly correct, but she's also not wrong for having an opinion. An opinion that, imho, was not anti-American in the slightest.

I hate Internet comments + twitter responses.

What I hate almost as much is "news" made from Internet comments + twitter responses. Yes, there are some stupid people out there. Ignore them.

Honestly, there's a whole conversation that shouldn't take place in this thread about whether or not the improvement in communications via social media has been a net positive or negative for our society.

Muslim flight attendant is suing her airline after she's suspended for not serving alcohol. See, she's Muslim and she can't, so everyone else in the world needs to accommodate her.

Here's a thought: Go get a fucking job that your religion allows you to perform.

You mean people shouldn't go into a line of work that might require them to choose between cash and their faith? Weird concept.

Leisher wrote:Here's a thought: Go get a fucking job that your religion allows you to perform.

I completely agree, and I'm glad you finally understand why those bakers should be made to sell wedding cakes to homosexual couples.

TPRJones wrote:

Leisher wrote:Here's a thought: Go get a fucking job that your religion allows you to perform.

I completely agree, and I'm glad you finally understand why those bakers should be made to sell wedding cakes to homosexual couples.

If the bakers were working for Walmart, I'd agree. These bakers are self employed/ Jihad Jane is more than welcome to start her own airline where she doesn't serve alcohol.

Your employer is irrelevant. Damn near every biz of every stripe is expected to follow certain social contracts.