There’s no way to know that. No religion is “inherently” anything at all. They all partake of pretty much all interpretations, from meekness and mildness to “Put them all to the sword.” There have been bellicose Buddhists. Meanwhile, the Sikhs, who carry knives and have produced some of the fiercest military units in world history, are often gentle and very peaceful.
You can’t generalize from the profession of the founder. That’s stupid. (How many Christians are carpenters?)
Why, that would be the whole:
How many qualifiers do you usually like to hide behind when stating your position? And while I would like to conclude from the above that what he actually means is “yes, I do believe Islam is more violent than other religions”, FP is particularly fond of claiming he’s being strawmanned, so it’s quite important to double check. And then triple check.
What’s wrong with adding qualifiers? How is that in any way dishonest or deceptive? And what’s wrong with having a position on a complex and contentious topic that is qualified and nuanced?
I don’t know quite how I ended up in the position of defending a poster who I strongly disagree with on any number of issues, but I really have no idea what your objection is here.
That’s a pretty strong claim. It’s one thing to say “no one has demonstrated that religion X is inherently Y”. It’s another to affirmatively claim “it’s impossible that any religion could ever be inherently anything”.
The Christian bible contains a bunch of words that followers of Christianity consider to be holy and important. The Koran contains a different bunch of words… similar, but certainly not identical. Hindu and Buddhist holy writings contain different bunches of words. Why would it NOT be the case that these different writings would influence their religions in different ways?
Well if you put a gun to my head and forced me to respond I would opine that it’s more likely than not true to some degree that adding qualifiers may be bad but not nearly to the extent as some might say.
The head of their religion is a known rapist! It condones the sexualization of young girls and forces them into polygamous marriage! It’s a fundamentalist wackadoo religion and obviously we should outlaw its practice!
I am speaking of course about Christianity.
Oh, did I neglect to mention that I meant the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?
Sure, these people are Christian. They believe in the divinity of Christ. So obviously all Christians are just like them. I paint them all with the same brush.
Then, I log on to forums dedicated to fighting ignorance and I complain that some people want to nitpick and point out that the vast, vast, vast majority of Christians don’t even resemble this small group that I am holding up as evidence of their wanton barbarity.
Goddamned atheists again! Always trying to point out when we are making total asses of ourselves in public! Why won’t they just stop using critical thinking and reasoning?
It’s so much easier to make profoundly hateful and rampantly ignorant statements and then scoff at the PC libruls who want to correct the gaping holes in airtight reasoning.
Those atheist humanists, they’re all so alike, I mean, not believing in a deity is a natural grouping mechanism. Sort of like not believing in Santa Claus. I mean, everyone who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus is exactly like every other person who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and they are definitely one coherent group which also needs to be painted with a broad brush.
Coloring inside the lines or paying attention to nuance is too hard for my infantile brain.
I don’t believe in the Santa Claus who lives at the North Pole; my neighbor doesn’t believe in the Santa Claus who lives in Lappland. So far, I’ve shot two of his kids, and he’s shot my sister and a visiting Amway salesman. So I’m winning!
(More seriously, good post, and I’m in agreement with it. Let’s have pizza!)
Nope. Sorry. Even if the only one your neighbor shot was the Amway-ite, the neighbor would be winning.
Ditto.
Think I shall!