Metallix87
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... What the heck am I reading?
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Bill Maher vrs Charlie Rose: Islam different from other religions
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... What the heck am I reading?
Maninthemirror
Banned
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people eat up what is created as a threat to them imminently.
however. Islam is such as free will religion that you can either follow its path to heaven by doing nothing (being good) or you can use it politically and socially to support what is already going on in your mind.
I would think not many good people turned to terrorism but most bad or hopeless people turned to terrorism and the flavor of modern terrorism is an ideology of hate.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a person who fucking deals with absolutes and blanket generalizations.
Heavy's Sandvich
Member
That poster, from the testimony of one, tarred a quarter of humanity.
Maninthemirror
Banned
Speaking of dealing with Absolutes, here is a book that you should read as well. written by a friend of mine:
So I'll agree with him on a couple of items.
Both of these used to be true for Christianity and Judaism too. And not necessarily a thousand years ago. And not everywhere.
Islam is a newer religion, with about the same distance between its original teachings and the moderation of them, as Judaism and Christianity have the luxury of already enjoying.
In this country, there are plenty of Christians who believe in the death penalty for murderers, and that abortion is murder.
In MAN-FUCKING-HATTAN there are thousands of Hassidic Jews with toxic beliefs about the role of women.
We're more alike than we like to pretend. And there are plenty of atheists with utterly disgusting beliefs.
I'm not trying to make a false equivalence, and partially I'm inclined to agree with aspects of what Maher's saying, and I know he also knows the above, but we don't have high ground here. At all.
- Chronologically, he has a point. Right now, some of what he says is demonstrable.
- And the way the religion is IMPLEMENTED.
Both of these used to be true for Christianity and Judaism too. And not necessarily a thousand years ago. And not everywhere.
Islam is a newer religion, with about the same distance between its original teachings and the moderation of them, as Judaism and Christianity have the luxury of already enjoying.
In this country, there are plenty of Christians who believe in the death penalty for murderers, and that abortion is murder.
In MAN-FUCKING-HATTAN there are thousands of Hassidic Jews with toxic beliefs about the role of women.
We're more alike than we like to pretend. And there are plenty of atheists with utterly disgusting beliefs.
I'm not trying to make a false equivalence, and partially I'm inclined to agree with aspects of what Maher's saying, and I know he also knows the above, but we don't have high ground here. At all.
How long does it take to get the idea that you shouldn't behead people?
It's 2014 and times are different. This isn't much of an excuse.
Metallix87
Member
The difference is this: Atheists aren't coming together to form large groups to start raping women, torturing men, and forcing children into becoming gun-toting warriors. Is there any evidence of atheist extremists, whatever that would be, doing anything that could be considered even relatively "terroristic"?
It's not that we're not alike or we're infallible it's that at their worst, it's a hell of a lot worse than ours.
Like what? And do these beliefs have anything to do with atheism?
Gentleman Jack
Member
I feel like we can't really ignore the comparison, as the commonality underscoring a lot of radicalized Islam is a very low standard of living, wrought more often than not by the influence of foreign exploitation. If the youth in a war-torn country where only the elites enjoy things like uninterrupted electricity and clean drinking water had more options in life than to pick up a weapon and die at the orders of extremists, do you think he wouldn't pick any other option because Islam? Put another way, would the extremism in Saudi Arabia be any better if the royal family were devout Pastafarians, but every other part of the oil culture, rivalry with Iran and buddy buddy relationship with the United States remained intact?
My point, as an atheist with arguably disgusting beliefs, is that I wouldn't want to be grouped or generalized with say, a bunch of teenage libertarians. Outside of that broad label, we have nothing in common.
Here's a question I've asked to several muslims;
If the Quran is the word of God and he says that you shall not interpret the Quran in any other way than it is written - why do you defy your God that you love so much when you say that "I don't interpret it that way" regarding certain texts, laws etc.
Feel free to answer it, muslim-GAF.
If the Quran is the word of God and he says that you shall not interpret the Quran in any other way than it is written - why do you defy your God that you love so much when you say that "I don't interpret it that way" regarding certain texts, laws etc.
Feel free to answer it, muslim-GAF.
Chaplain
Member
Did you know that Jesus said there would be true and false followers? Why would He say this? He said this because there are people that are self-deceived or pretend to be something that they are not.
Lucky_Se7enty
Member
one of mahers points, the one where non muslims cant go into mecca, why is that always a big deal to some people. its islams holiest site and for pligrims only, the whole city is devoted to hajj. why do they want to go there so bad.
Metallix87
Member
I still fail to see your point.
Why wouldn't people want to visit Mecca? It's a site of historic significance, and many people would find visiting it to be enlightening and informative.
If the Vatican suddenly said "Catholics only" I'm sure there would be an outrage.
Dongs Macabre
aka Daedalos42
So do you think that you're a "true Christian"?
Maninthemirror
Banned
well. do you want to accept the moderate interpretation or the maudoodi interpretation. the maudoodi interpretation came into foray in the 1930s. the moderate interpretation was there since 630 AD. All terrorists subscribe to the maudoodi interpretation.
So again.....do you want the world to accept the maudoodi interpretation or the moderate interpretation
read up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abul_A'la_Maududi
he has more influence among extreme thinking than even Wahabism
It begins...
I think that is the biggest problem with Islam and why it is extremely difficult for reformation to happen. I don't really see a way for Islam to modernize unless Muslims start compartmentalizing all the terrible shit in the Quran. However, It seems that you will always have a large part of the Muslim community taking the Quran literally. I think Islam is one of the worst religions in the world partly because of how resistant it is to change.
Isn't that the same way for Christian-GAF too? The Bible is supposedly the "Word of God" with no amendment process.
Metallix87
Member
The New Testament IS the amendment process.
Pretty much. And it's hypocritical of them. Yet at the same time, the world is better off when not taking these scriptures too literally.
If you want to be technical about it, but many people still consider the OT law; it's not ignored. At least not with everything.
I'm sorry, the "They're not true believers/christians etc" isn't a good argument in afraid.
I've heard it from almost denomination within Christianity. I guess it's time for a group meeting and settle who's the True Believer?
Gentleman Jack
Member
Every Abrahamic religion cherry picks from the scripture available to them. The Bible in its current form is a very edited form of texts, some of which were excluded just because. If we're to discuss how Islam is different from other religions, how literally its practitioners take the holy texts is not a solid point to hammer on.
Maher is generalizing about the religion, rather than its implementation. He's paraphrasing the Koran (and Hadiths), rather than its interpretation. 99.9999% of ALL religions or objectively false, almost every single one claims to be the one true religion, or aspect thereof, so even if, like Pascal, you pick one, you're probably fucked, but many of them, including Islam, CAN live in perfect harmony with their neighbors, if rationally or reasonably applied.
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
... yeah...
In every thread there's always that one person nonsensically playing devil's advocate. Congrats on not being you!
Also, I'm curious, are there different versions of the Quran like there are of the bible? I feel like that was part of the reason people started realizing it didn't make sense to take everything in it literally, when, depending on your version, the wording could be different meaning there was little that could be stated as the "absolute word of God"
I'm not asking who's the "true Muslim" in this case, I'm asking; why do you defy your God when you know that it says in the Quran that it is forbidden to interpret the text in any other way.
Maninthemirror
Banned
Also its interesting:
When someone says this is the moderate interpretation, the response from Maher is usually well terrorists do not do that so there has to be validity to their beliefs. To which people say well why are you giving terrorist views validity, to which the response is, well they seem more Muslim and act on it to which the moderate response is, well so do the Moderate Muslims by being more Muslim and acting on it (by doing no terrorism). Its basically some muslims apply no true scotsman to terrorists and islamic critics both who believe islam has a certain interpretation and then terrorists and islamic critics apply no true scotsman on the moderate muslims who believe islam has a certain interpretation.
When someone says this is the moderate interpretation, the response from Maher is usually well terrorists do not do that so there has to be validity to their beliefs. To which people say well why are you giving terrorist views validity, to which the response is, well they seem more Muslim and act on it to which the moderate response is, well so do the Moderate Muslims by being more Muslim and acting on it (by doing no terrorism). Its basically some muslims apply no true scotsman to terrorists and islamic critics both who believe islam has a certain interpretation and then terrorists and islamic critics apply no true scotsman on the moderate muslims who believe islam has a certain interpretation.
Yes it is, because it shows that religions are man made. It shows that the texts are old, static, weak and in the end false.
Some say it is "inspired" by the word of God, but in the case of the Quran it's the literal word of God.
Its a shame that religion is so clearly and obviously made up and completely imaginary, and yet you have so many people get so violent over such nonsense.
Gentleman Jack
Member
Why do you speed when the limit is clearly posted and the penalties are spelled out when you get a driver's license? Humans are fallible, and when presented with a set of absolute guidelines the human brain is exceptionally good at justifying any wiggle room around them. I'm not muslim, but I suspect I can take an educated stab at the root of all 'X says Y, why don't the people who agreed to X obey Y 100% of the time?' queries.
The fact is though, islam is given this huge free pass among people. People are called bigots because they are speaking out against practices of muslims. Do christians do bad things? Sure, but there sure as hell isnt much resistance when you call them out on it.
I mean, just look at the Rotherham situation. Even now the media is trying to keep it hush hush, and that is just one of the many incidents in Britain where this has occurred.
The fact is, if we dont criticize islam then it will never get better. The reason that christianity got better over the centuries was because people wised up and started scrutinizing what adherents were doing.
Maninthemirror
Banned
yes quite true.
Hint: Terrorists and Islamophobes will treat the spoiler parts as spoilers and ignore it for convenience or malicious intent, Moderate Muslims will treat those as CONTEXT,
amazing huh?
One interpretation is reading with context and one interpretation is reading without context. and its amazing people believe reading without context has validity to it. simply amazing and tragic. No common sense,
Bending the rules, ok, but I'm talking about completely breaking them and reciting them in a totally different way - or even front out lying that "it doesn't say that".
kame-sennin
Member
I'm sick of Bill Maher's racism. The violence in Western Asia is a result of Anglo intervention, colonialism, absurd wealth, and a cast of brutal dictators. Muslims in the U.S. don't behead people because they did not grow up in a chaotic society. When it comes to violence, religion is almost always an after the fact justification. Islam is not the prior cause of West Asian strife.
Do you have data to back that up? 60 million people died in WWII alone. I have a hard time believing that any century had more human-caused death than the twentieth. Even the mongol conquests didn't match that figure.
This is first world privilege. if you live in the imperial or post imperial nations of the west, the world is comparatively peaceful. But if you live in their present or former colonies, usually referred to as the third world, things are radically different. The first world is safer because we export our violence.
Do you have data to back that up? 60 million people died in WWII alone. I have a hard time believing that any century had more human-caused death than the twentieth. Even the mongol conquests didn't match that figure.
This is first world privilege. if you live in the imperial or post imperial nations of the west, the world is comparatively peaceful. But if you live in their present or former colonies, usually referred to as the third world, things are radically different. The first world is safer because we export our violence.
Ah, no true Christian.
Chaplain
Member
The Bible is a lot more clear than this. It says that there will be evidence if a person knows God or not.
Evidence that they do not know God.
Evidence that they do know God.
That is why Jesus said that there would be evidence if a person knows God or not. He says it because there are liars in His church pretending to be something they are not. The good thing is He tells his followers what to look for to warn people.
FunkyMunkey
Banned
This would be a valid point if the modern world existed when Christianity was 1300 years old, but it didn't. There's no excuse for this shit when our species is in the Information Age and you can fact-check and in/validate your behavior in seconds via the Internet or other bastions of knowledge. The excuse for ignorance and hate dwindles with each year of increased worldwide information sharing.
Yeah, except it's not.
Matthew 5:17, straight from the horse's mouth.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
Here's a clue.
When people talk about the bad things the Christians in Uganda do, they don't say it's because of Christianity, they say it's a bastardization of it. When some people talk about what a Muslim group does, they say it's because of Islam, not a bastardization.
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