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This sits alongside (in fact, comes later in the Bible than) the Ten Commandments. Jesus rescues a woman caught in adultery from being stoned but doesn't say anything about all the other myriad crimes punished in the Jewish holiness code by death. Most Christians interpret capital punishment of any form as being incompatible with their faith but it is not incompatible with scripture.
The Holocaust was based on centuries of Christian interpretation of the Gospels' view of Judaism and the suggestion that 'the Jews killed Christ'; other than the Wesboro Baptist Church (I won't link to their poisonous website) no Christian I've ever heard of still believes that but it's based on interpretation of scripture.
There appears to be a level of special dispensation afforded to religion when it comes to criticising its bad ideas - a level of dispensation people simply will not afford, or will not be seen to afford, to other ideologies and belief systems. And, in my opinion, it's a dangerous precedence to have set. It's patently not true that 'both religions are peaceful'. Anyone who's had their eyes open at some point during their lifetime cannot have failed to see how egregiously wrong that notion is. And anyone who's had more than a cursory glance at any of the major three monotheistic religions' texts can point to myriad examples of why this simply isn't the case. Yet, against glaring evidence to the contrary, this idea of entirely peaceful religion is dragged out and paraded around whenever the topic is raised.
Bad ideas are bad ideas and should be subject to the same level of scrutiny regardless of the ideology or philosophy they belong to. The Abrahamic religions certainly have their fair share of shitty notions, and a disservice is done to all the people who suffer due to the imposition of their theologically-based doctrines, edicts or 'interpretations'.
I know my Bible and studied the Koran.
I'll be glad to help.
And what about Christian terrorism?
Are you going to list actions of some of the so-called Christians to generalize and label your issue? Please, don't forget the HUGE difference between the islamic terrorism and the so called Christian terrorism by going to the sources the Gospel (NT) and the Koran to get in to intellecctual discussion.
1- You should read the OT with open mind. Why God somethimes allowed killing. He wanted to preserve the faith of the israelites. They kept disobeying God's Commandments. They kept ignoring the many prophets God sent to them. He was patient with them for few thousands of years at no avail.
2- Then He sent His Son (Word) Jesus the Christ to bring His people to a higher level. Love was His only persue.
3- You confuse and mengle Christianity with Jewdism. Christians follow Christ. Christ's teachings are in the Gospel (the New Testament), which contains the loud message of love and peace to the extent of "Love your enemies". No interpretaion is needed.
Jesus clearly condemned killing. Actually, just being angry at your brother without a reason is a sin.
4- The holocaust has nothing what so ever to do with Christianity or Christians. Hitler was a mad man, regardless of his faith.
So is the Crusaders have nothing to do with Christians.
Sorry, but you are wasting my time.
I tried to make it easy for you and I gave you 4 points, 1,2,3 and 4. Simple. Isn't it? Still you come up with this repeated question!!!!!
Fella, you need to rein it in. Put down the apologist shotgun; you're spraying fallacious shit all over the shop. Pick a thought and stick with it. Every time someone addresses something you've said you splurge out a whole host of new rehearsed lines and the apologetics grows exponentially.
What do you think people in this thread have got the most wrong? Let's try to address that.
I've also met plenty of militant christians, who have said that they would kill to defend their religion - in particular they said that they would kill me, because I, being Pagan, was an abomination to their god. Timothy Mcveigh has been cited as committing the Oklahoma bombings as an act of terrorism against non-believers and non-patriots. There are still plenty of KKK members who commit murder in the name of their faith.
Its vile, regardless of the religion, to use faith as an excuse to defend their xenophobic hate-driven acts.
Racist comment? Settle down, son. I think you've gotten a bit overexcited.
You making a category error doesn't make me a racist.
However, you should defrentiate religion (the teachings of the holy book) from the behavior of some or even most.
Having said athat, I ask you does Sufism follow a holy book different from the Koran? And, do you know the principle of the islamic "takkiya" (deception)?
I assume this is addressed at me but your points don't address what I was trying to say. I don't confuse Christianity with Judaism but I do acknowledge their common scriptures. I quite clearly say that the later Christian scriptures can be used to suppress Judaism (and thus did contribute to a culture that allowed Hitler's ideas to take control; he was a mad man but he did not act alone).
What you're missing is that all interpretations of scripture (and all reading, even the most fundametalist, involves interpretation) are just that. If a hundred people read the same verse there are a hundred nuanced understandings possible. This applies equally to all faiths based on scripture.
CptCoathanger; religion is absolutely not beyond criticism. My concern is when someone criticises another's religion for flaws that exist in their own and don't acknowledge that.
I am addressing one topic and that is Islam. When I do this the issue of Christianity pups up and I have to address it then. I ask if a reader needs prove from the holy books. Instead they attack with unfounded support or good reasoning.
To answer your questtion, many do not WANT to understand what I am writing, which is VERY clear. Islam is the most dangerrous enemy this country EVER faced. I know. I lived the horrible Islam for over 25 years. I was forced to study the Koran and hadiths in their original language, Arabic. So, I have the knowledge and personal experience to address the subject.
After 9/11, I took it on me to inform. I am doing this in over 10 forums from 9/12/2001.
You people are trying to shutt me up, sorry won't do. You might ban me from this forum. But, that is all what you can do. This country is so dear to me to stop the fight back against this evil sytem.
I hope that I made it clear. I don't have any grudge against any, even if they call me names. I am used to that. As I said I lived the hateful islamic life.
Regards
I thought that slurs are not allowed in this forum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the problem - you are talking about your personal experience and assuming that this is the same for muslims across the world, which is not true at all.
You may have taken it on yourself to 'inform' others, but TheSite.org isn't a place that people come to be preached at - it's a place for expression of diverse views and open discussion.
Don't confuse what you read about the most in the newspaper with what is actually the biggest threat. In 2009, out of 587 suspects arrested for terrorism offences, just 110 were Islamist (source - pdf). Meanwhile 413 were from various separatist organisations. In India, when Islamic terrorists attacked Mumbai, it was all over the Western media. Yet in reality, the vast majority of terrorist-related violence in India comes from Maoist groups. But this doesn't fit in with the Western media's current narrative, so it never gets mentioned. And I don't think other religions are currently given the same scrutiny. The whole anti-gay thing in Uganda is explicitly the work of evangelical Christians, and yet the media would be very careful about using the term "Christian bigotry" in the same way that they affix "Islamic" to all sorts of unsavoury actions carried out by Muslims, for fear of insulting the many Christians in their audience who don't subscribe to these homophobic views.
I'm not a big fan of any religion. I think at worst, they incite all sorts of ignorant, bigoted and oppressive behaviour. At best, they're simply unnecessary. But I've also seen many "cultures" that do the same thing irrespective of religion, and many political systems do likewise. I still think that there are many issues specific to religion (particularly related to its status in society), but it doesn't surprise me that such an obviously man-made thing can reflect both the best and worst of humanity at the same time (at least for the time it was written).
We're not in total disagreement here. There does seem to be trend where the criticism on one ideology automatically generates a rebuff involving the pointing out of how shit another ideology is. It feels like some wayward appeal to fair-mindedness. Depending on the nature of the criticism at best it's a red herring and at worse it's being deliberately disingenuous. It's tantamount to the statement "I saw Ian twist one of Barry's nuts off" having the retort "yeah, but Charlie chilli-bowled Dean". It's a non sequitur. Where I suspect we disagree is that you think Charlie was in fact being courteous and offering Dean a reach-around.
Egregious hyperbole like this only hurts your argument. Islam does have some very dangerous and unsavoury ideas. It isn't, however, the Luftwaffe.
And this emotion seems to be clouding your judgement.
I'm not trying to shut you up nor do I want you to be shut up. I hope you're not banned because, if nothing else, it'll bolster your feelings of righteous indignation.
Oh christ! Not you being racist! The guy i had ago at was being racist... Then you had ago at me for not knowing what muslim/islam is.
And, I am not here to preach. I am 'expressing my views' about Islam. If the subject of Islam is prohibited here, just let me know directly and honestly. Thanks.
The subject of Islam is not prohibited, far from it - what is prohibited is the insistance that Islam is the most dangeous enemy this country has faced, this is opinion, not fact, and in the company of people who are muslim (which some people are who use this forum are) it's an offensive and a pretty hateful thing to say.
This is obviously a topic close to your heart and it seems you have really strong feelings about it, but rather than seeing this as just another 'forum' in your long list, it's good to acknowledge that this is a community of people with sound opinions of their own which are to be respected. If you're able to calm down and get involved in other topics beyond this one, you may well actually get to like it round here
Anyway, as I have mentioned before, that I am ready to support this opinion with fact, which would be surahs right from the koran. Can I do ths?!
Regards
Take a breath, fella. This is a interesting topic, but it's not going to helped by throwing straw men about. I think it highly unlikely that you'll find evidence of any one suggesting Muslim sensibilities trump those of any other ideology. And if you take the time to look through the other threads on the topic of religion you'll find that robust criticism has been levelled at all religions in the past on these boards.
Capitalising the word 'fact' isn't persuasive and doesn't elevate any preceding sentiment to that level.
I know there are plenty of verses from Islamic holy texts that are barbaric and inhumane. I doubt you'll meet much resistance if you couch that sentiment with a modicum of tact. I happen to also agree with you that all religions weren't created equal and that, certainly at present, Islam stands ahead of the religious field as far as ideologies that have the potential to be used dangerously go. What I'm not going to do is to exaggerate that threat in order to try galvanise my point; all that happens with employing such extreme hyperbole is that you allow people to dismiss you as merely ill informed or, even worse, borderline racist.