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All-Purpose Religion Thread


mjmooney

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Islam can be a particularly grim religion. Wahhabism is a truly hideous sect of it, for example, one that openly advocates 'smiting the infidel' and so on, and there are others. There is something about it that can be taken to encourage a fundamentalism that few other religions match. It's not necessarily that the Koran (and the other holy books of the Islamic faith) are particularly intolerant compared to others - the Bible has numerous bits and bobs that would happily sit in some of the Koran's worst passages. As does it's predecessor, the Torah.

The latter bears even more similarity as it also shares the strict life code that the Koran does (the Bible is less so in this respect, despite the Old Testament basically being the Torah, the New Testament defines Christianity rather more and it is fairly lax in it's life 'code'), but only seems to serve, at it's fundamental end, to encourage a fairly happily isolated and imbued with a sense of superiority/near arrogance population that seems to live by the tenant 'We're right... but do what you want, so long as you leave us alone'. Fundamental Christianity serves as more of a ignorant nusiance, intellectually harmful but otherwise fairly toothless.

And most of the Eastern religions largely don't give a **** and just get on with it.

The Abrahamic religions lend themselves to politics more openly, I think, and in the case of fundamental Islam, it becomes dangerous.

I don't like any religion, as the forum will be well aware, and while Christianity gets most of my ire, I have an immense disdain for Islam too. Of course most Muslims aren't really all that different to your average Christian.

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Islam can be a particularly grim religion. Wahhabism is a truly hideous sect of it, for example, one that openly advocates 'smiting the infidel' and so on, and there are others. There is something about it that can be taken to encourage a fundamentalism that few other religions match. It's not necessarily that the Koran (and the other holy books of the Islamic faith) are particularly intolerant compared to others - the Bible has numerous bits and bobs that would happily sit in some of the Koran's worst passages. As does it's predecessor, the Torah.

The latter bears even more similarity as it also shares the strict life code that the Koran does (the Bible is less so in this respect, despite the Old Testament basically being the Torah, the New Testament defines Christianity rather more and it is fairly lax in it's life 'code'), but only seems to serve, at it's fundamental end, to encourage a fairly happily isolated and imbued with a sense of superiority/near arrogance population that seems to live by the tenant 'We're right... but do what you want, so long as you leave us alone'. Fundamental Christianity serves as more of a ignorant nusiance, intellectually harmful but otherwise fairly toothless.

And most of the Eastern religions largely don't give a **** and just get on with it.

The Abrahamic religions lend themselves to politics more openly, I think, and in the case of fundamental Islam, it becomes dangerous.

I don't like any religion, as the forum will be well aware, and while Christianity gets most of my ire, I have an immense disdain for Islam too. Of course most Muslims aren't really all that different to your average Christian.

Good post :thumb:

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Nothing to be scared of, nothing to fight wars over, their revolution will come from within. Most people are good and want to live peaceful happy lives.

Yes, it's less than 100 years ago that women were not allowed to vote in this country and women were fined for wearing bikini's to the beach etc.

There are still people alive today who remember a time when our own society was repressive of "half the population".

The more extreme countries will go through the same developments this country did, it doesn't really have much to do with religion, religion is just a useful excuse to impose those values.

But when?

I don't see it happening for several generations.

Does this generation of Muslims seem any less oppressive than previous? I don't see it. If anything you can argue that some of the latest generation are more oppressive than previous. It's going to take a massive, massive change in culture for things to change, and sadly I don't see it coming, even more so because traditional muslim beliefs are being galvanised by what they see as an attack on them by the west.

I honestly don't see much changing within my lifetime.

You can point at the areas in the US for examples of oppressive Christianity, but you can actually see the tides of change in the US, there's growing levels of atheism and plenty of vocal opposition to the likes of Romney and Akin. The same can't be said in the majority of Islamic countries.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Catholic Cardinal speaks from beyond the grave to declare catholicism "200 years out of date".

(In other news, dead horse experts have announced changes to their recommended flogging method.)

To be fair, Origin of Species was only published around 150 years ago, so the Cardinal was perhaps being a tad harsh.

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And most of the Eastern religions largely don't give a **** and just get on with it.

I'm not sure if the India-Pakistan/Bangladesh partition, as well as the tension and violence associated with it, can be at least partly attributed to fundamentalist Hinduism or not.

I remember Dawkins making a very short reference to it at the beginning of TGD.

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I have deliberately avoided this thread. But I want to throw this question out there. For those who are atheists, which appears to be most of you, do you still believe in karma, and 'what comes around goes around'. Please elaborate on your answer what ever your answer is.

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I have deliberately avoided this thread. But I want to throw this question out there. For those who are atheists, which appears to be most of you, do you still believe in karma, and 'what comes around goes around'. Please elaborate on your answer what ever your answer is.

No.

Karma implies some outside force providing "balance", such outside force would have to have intelligence to make decisions over what to reward and what to punish. It's pure rubbish.

Plus there's more than enough words removed out there who don't get their comeuppance (despite people always saying they will) to show that it's bollocks.

Determinism is king.

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Well people questionning the sanity of people who are religious. Religion and its teaching being referred to as fairy tales. People who are religious having their intelligence questioned. Some of the religious teachings from different religions being ridiculed.

I am not going to disclose whether I am religious or not, but I think if you are an atheist, you can at least show a bit more respect to those who are religious and the religions themselves. Rather then view God as some made up fallacy.

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Well people questionning the sanity of people who are religious. Religion and its teaching being referred to as fairy tales. People who are religious having their intelligence questioned. Some of the religious teachings from different religions being ridiculed.

I am not going to disclose whether I am religious or not, but I think if you are an atheist, you can at least show a bit more respect to those who are religious and the religions themselves. Rather then view God as some made up fallacy.

erm slight problem with that. If there's one thing that atheists collectively believe it's that god is one hell of a made up fallacy.

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Well people questionning the sanity of people who are religious. Religion and its teaching being referred to as fairy tales. People who are religious having their intelligence questioned. Some of the religious teachings from different religions being ridiculed.

I am not going to disclose whether I am religious or not, but I think if you are an atheist, you can at least show a bit more respect to those who are religious and the religions themselves. Rather then view God as some made up fallacy.

Sorry, I thought you said there were some shocking views in this thread?

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