Quote from: Muhammed Zakir on June 07, 2015, 05:14:42 AM

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Quote from: Muhammed Zakir on June 06, 2015, 12:08:06 PM

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Quote from: Biomech on June 06, 2015, 09:14:57 AM

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Quote from: Biomech on June 05, 2015, 03:27:21 PM

Quote from: eeeeek on June 05, 2015, 03:10:31 PM

I don't hate Islam per se .... In my book it's exactly the same as any other religion. They annoy me all equally. Believing the world was created for you speaks volumes of the ignorance and arrogance of the people who buy into those doctrines. That's what I hate .... the stupidity of it all.

This.
I admire and envy people like you that can sum up so well Tongue

Except they are not all the same. Look at the following.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dKdBlKgquw

This is the singer, Sinead O'Conner, ripping up a picture of the Catholic Pope as a protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in 1992.

We could say it was roughly similar to cartooning Mohammed.

People were outraged at her doing this.

But you know what? Nobody came after her with AK47s or tried to cut her head off.

So, much as I would like to agree "it's exactly the same as any other religion," well, no it isn't.

It's just a "time in service" thing. Take it back a few hundred years, and you have Joan of Arc being burned at the stake for FAR less offense. Islam has a seven hundred year deficit in their body count and civility. Christianity lost it's teeth during the reformation. Go back 700 years and see what you see.

Joan of Arc wasn't exactly a little angel.

Moral equivalency can't be achieved by comparing yesterday's Christianity to today's Islam.

Also, I don't see Buddhists going around cutting heads off.

Therefore, an argument that "they are all the same" obscures the truth, rather than revealing it.

Better to say Christians and Muslims not Christianity and Islam.

... "and ye shall know a thing by it's fruits"....

I haven't seen you here but I liked that! +10. Grin

Well, they are fruits only if they are following rules which they aren't.

It was actually a quote from the Christian bible. Which when applied to the bible as a whole, shows rotten fruit. But Christians don't (want to ) see that. It seems to me the same with Islam. I have friends who are muslims, and they respect my lack of faith and don't try to convert me. It's futile anyway, as once you break an addiction, you don't EVER want to go back.

It has been my contention for a long while that most people are decent human beings in spite of their religion. But it takes religion to make good people do bad things. Because "if god be with us, who can stand against us" is a very powerful and destructive meme. As I stated before, the so-called extremist, regardless of what sky daddy they believe in, are usually the MOST adherent to a religion. Those with a vague or even fairly strong personal belief, but not "affiliated", or not taking the church too seriously, seem to usually be ok people. Though I observe the most hypocrisy in two major human groupings (which often overlap). The piously religious, and politicians. Unbelievers tend to think that THIS life is worth living, not caring about an unprovable and likely fantastical afterlife, and thus make more of an effort to be useful humans. Exceptions abound, these are not set-in-stone truths. But the tendencies, I think, are quite obvious.

I think I can illustrate this in a manner that most religious people have a problem with. Or at least a great many I've interacted with. I am an anarchist, and I am an atheist. I have been asked many times if I would kill for my beliefs. The answer is no, I would not. This seems to bother the religious mind a great deal. They then go on to accuse me of not being a strong believer in the things I hold close, which is untrue, or of being a pacifist, which is even more untrue. I do believe quite strongly that killing over a difference of opinion is foolish, and murder. OTOH, you come after me, my family, or my friends, yes, I would kill. Without remorse or hesitation. But it's not to defend my beliefs. They either stand on their own merits, or they need revision.