How can you say that? A religion’s adherents will to admire, look up to, and emulate the man on whom the religion is founded. How can you possibly say that if Founder A did X and Founder B did not do X, that the followers of Religion A would not be more inclined to do X? That makes no sense.
Oh, please. Your talking about a formal declaration of war, what would appear on a document. That’s not what I meant.
But you knew that.
But if it makes you feel better, yes, formal declarations of war are drafted against countries, not ideologies.
And I agree with this. It is also human behavior to emulate the people they respect eg. Mohammad hence all those Hadiths. And while most don’t follow all their texts ‘religiously’ they don’t all ignore and disregard all the same passages. Some actually do follow the more odious passages. Whether they be from less advantaged parts of the world, or have less education, or any other reason. The point is that the passages are there and they can be readily interpreted to justify acts of violence against others.
Again, that most don’t follow these rules is to their benefit. That some do follow them, because they are there, shouldn’t surprise anyone. Maybe they would do the same actions regardless, but they wouldn’t have the excuse of religion to do so.
Since you don’t understand that the Koran says what to do when Muslims are in the minority, eg: peace and love and all that, how do you know that these Muslims are not just biding their time until they become the majority when they can follow Muhammad’s more odious commandments?
Now, I don’t believe that myself, but the Koran does talk about it as a strategy.
Why don’t you just say that you’ve made up your mind (based upon what I don’t know as you haven’t linked to anything or made comments other than what is apparently out of your own head) and there is nothing I could say, or link to, that would change it?
Even with obvious examples like the division of Pakistan and India based upon religious divides and how they play out, you still hold your opinion as correct nor are willing to look any deeper than what you hope to be true. It is amazing to me that people have ideologies they profess to follow and you think they won’t do so.
People don’t make sense, making sense is way down the list of activities for people. You get used to it after a while.
Martin Luther, as I referenced above, was fiercely anti-Semitic in some of his writings. So far as I know, Lutherans are not particularly anti-Semitic in their opinions, certainly no more so than any other Christian community.
And, as you may or may not know, the Koran specifically enjoins Muslims to respect and revere Jewish and Christian traditions, as they regard Allah as being precisely the same deity worshipped by those traditions.
So you seem to have yourself on a bit of a fork. If you are to suggest that Muslims are slavishly committed to violence against infidels, because the Koran insists that they must, then how do you explain away their apparent willingness to overlook the Koranic texts that urge them to reverence of Jewish and Christian traditions?
If I had a dollar for every time someone on these boards rolled about on the floor pissing and moaning about “liberal hypocrisy”, it would be hookers and blow for the ol’ 'lucster.
I’m copying this from the Wiki Page on Lutherans:
It kind of seems that the only thing they read is the bible and not what the founder wrote, well, other than to read the bible.
If we grant that what you say is true, it sucks to be the other half of the human population on the planet, doesn’t it? And atheists like myself? Where do we fit in?
What it boils down to for me is that in a country where religious freedom is supposed to be a constitutional absolute, no one should be burning or destroying anyone’s holy books.
But who cares about that constitution when irrational paranoia is so much more fun?
I don’t know what you mean by this other than to say if you liberals allowed people to keep more of their taxes you’d be able to have more hookers and blow (which I’m all for making legal, btw)!
So freedom of religion trumps freedom of speech? No, you have to have a way to argue against the ignorance that is religion.
Burning books isn’t “arguing”. Burning books is being a total dick.
***We have. It’s called “not joining the church”. ***
***I think I should also mention that I am as close to being an Atheist as you can get without actually being one. I think the Bible is 90% mythological nonsense. ***
Having just got here and not having read the SIX pages of posts before mine…
I just gotta say this:
There are book burnings held damn near every week down in my part of the good old US of A. Usually sponsored by one of the “Fundamentalist” Christian churches… i.e. any of the Baptist churches and many of the Pentecostal ones.
Not only do they burn books, they burn magazines such as Glamour, Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, Tiger Beat, and Seventeen. They burn music cds. They burn dvds… I’ll bet you didn’t know that Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” was a satanic and evil movie!!
All these burnings usually take place during one of their “Teen Fellowship” meetings. And they gleefully advertise the event in the local paper so that everybody can be sure to come!!
Lemme give ya an example of the types of folks I’m talking about here…
My son talked me into taking him to the big First Baptist church one Sunday near Easter a few years back when he was around 7 or 8 years old… They had a rock band on the stage and a giant movie theater screen behind the… altar (?)… nah… I just can’t call it an “altar”… it was a stage.
So while the “audience” (can’t rightly call them a congregation) which ranged in age from newborns to elders and everything in between were starring with rapt attention at the screen…
They show the scourging scene from Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”!!!
Now if you haven’t seen this… they are tearing his back up with a cat-o-nine embedded with metal tips!! His back is literally torn up… meat and blood flying every where.
And THIS is what they consider to be “family viewing” at its best!
I was outraged and stated quite loudly that a rated “R” movie is inappropriate for children and I hid my son’s face while it played!
As soon as it was over, we left.
So to answer your question, “Do book burnings really happen in the United States?”
Oh, you betcha they do!
I am reminded of the Beatles in 1966, when John Lennon (truthfully) said "The Beatles are more POPULAR with young people than Jesus is. he didn’t say “better” he said “more popular”.
Beatle records were burned in great bonfires in the south, about which Ringo later said…
“We didn’t care because it made our fans defend us and the kids went out and rebought the records anyway”.
Like terrorists, people who burn books, holy or orherwise, get exactly the opposite reaction they are looking for. It strengthens the resolve of the “enemy”
Having and believing in a book that says I am going to burn forever in some afterlife or should be killed and punished because I don’t believe in its message isn’t being a dick? And me burning that same book as a form of mild protest makes me one? Maybe I’m starting to understand this ‘liberal hypocrisy’ you referred to above.
Ridiculous. When the church says that gays shouldn’t be married because of some stone age text, I should just shut up? No, my right to protest that should be higher than their ability to hide behind a right to be ignorant.
***Just because we CAN do a thing, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to do. ***
Oh, Bra-Vo!!! Excellent post!!! applauding
You mean like “The War on Poverty!” or “The War on Drugs!” or “The War on Terror!”
All these “wars” are a total pet peeve of mine. Thank-you for pointing out how ridiculous they are.
Because they are “They” and not “Us”. They are “Them” and not “We”. They are “Theirs” and not “Ours”.
I truly believe that is the biggest difference.
Gyrate… let’s get married and have babies! I like the way you think!
If Gyrate turns down my marriage proposal, will YOU marry me?
100% agreement here. And an offer of concubinage if Gyrate or Der Trihs accepts my marriage proposal. I do love me a pithy response!
Wow, I never said that any particular religion follows their text more than any others. I said that some texts are worse than others and if followed as written can be more damaging to other people subject to that interpretation.
Of course. I’m not a muslim. This is obvious, duh. If I was a ‘We’ I wouldn’t have to worry now would I? The same if I was a Christian or a Jew. I’d probably agree that my religious text was all light and fluffy bunnies and no harm to anyone else. Or, I’d be some form of quisling and afraid to criticize obvious said passages, or just a ‘religious’ relativist that thinks that all religions result in similar outcomes. The latter forgetting that people are just lazy in general and don’t want to kill each other if they can avoid it, for the most part.
I both agree and disagree with this statement. Before I go on, let me state that I haven’t bothered reading all 6 pages of this “Great Debate”… I read the OP and the last page, so I’m not at all familiar with what it is you have been espousing.
I agree that people are generally lazy.
I disagree with what that means.
You say that their inherent laziness leads them to NOT kill each other.
I say their inherent laziness is pretty much the REASON for killing one another.
It’s much easier to kill someone and take what they have worked for than to work for it yourself.
Why try to create a home in the desert when these indigenous people already have? Let’s just kill 'em and take their stuff.
Never underestimate the civilizing power of sloth. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, this is false. Lazy is the mother of invention, we invent stuff to do things we cannot be bothered with.
Therein becoming highly sought after “Efficiency Experts” LOL