Haven’t seen it but maybe that will happen. I’ve noticed that a lot of films carry this message sometimes covertly and sometimes more openly. My analysis is that it’s becoming mainstream and this is how it reveals itself through our culture and media. Not that it’s usually very realistic but it does point the way and is probably a way to plant these ideas in the collective subconscious to prepare people for awakening.
nm
This example was the perfect balance between covert and direct. You’d really like it, I think.
Have you ever heard of this trick? The main character stands and meditates in front of a mirror. A very small mirror. The mirror is exactly the size of his eyeball, so, that is all he sees in the mirror. Have you heard of that ever?
The show is much much much better than that one example… no idea why it is the one thing I recalled just now
I’ll check it out, thanks for the tip. 
The problem is, when you staked your claim on the texts themselves, and were pushed on that, you changed your position to one based on the characters of the founders of the religions. And here in this latest post, you hedge further with the slash-construction texts/founding-figures. Right or wrong, it is clear in this thread that your purpose is to denigrate a particular religion, and when pushed on one argument, you’ll just happily switch to a different one til people get tired of that–then you’ll switch back. This isn’t reasoned discourse, this is special pleading and motivated reasoning.
Btw Sam Harris’s books are uniformly terrible. I say this as an atheist with a background in philosophy.
At the risk of derailing the thread, and as a fellow atheist with a philosophy background, may I ask why you think they’re so bad? Personally, I think they’re superb.
True
are either of the following false:
1- Mohammed advocated, with his words, the taking of slaves, killing infidels, and making war
2- Mohammed actually took slaves and engaged in war
Who did Muhammad think he was? Moses!
Beyond that you really should learn more about him before making such claims.
Yes, like the prophets of the Bible he believed in slavery, and had little sympathy for pagans.
As for the other parts of your statements, if by “make war” and “engage in war” if he attacked people who never attacked him the answer is “no” and both your claims are false.
He always insisted that to do so was a sin and insisted you could only fight back defensively after being attacked.
You really should learn get better resources. If you’re interested I can make some suggestions.
The hard way is the old school method of going to a cave and fasting for several months.
The easy way is to do mushrooms.
If you have an objective source, ie, not a Muslim Apologist site, that says that Mohammed never killed an “innocent” or took/owned any slaves I would be glad to look at it. After looking at it I would be - glad - to issue you an apology, a personal apology and an apology in general towards your faith, both.
You’ve already demonstrated in this topic that you’re pathetically ignorant about how Buddhists around the world practice Buddhism. Why, then, do you decide that religion is so admirable but Islam is detrimental?
Another point I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned here: Your assertion that the religion is the cause of violence is rather insulting, after all. It places those who practice the religion you’re condemning as incapable of independent thought.
1- what exactly did I get wrong about Buddhism?
2- there are lots of ways Islam is worse than Buddhism. I’d say the treatment of women alone is enough to declare Buddhism vastly superior.
Well, while not impossible, it does make it a tad bit more difficult, that’s for sure
Errrr… Did you respond to the right post?
I said nothing about Muhammad and slavery other to note that like the Prophets of the Bible, whom you hypocritically give a pass to or the killing of “innocents” whatever that means, but merely pointed out he repeatedly opposed aggressive war and said war should only be engaged in defensively.
So yes your claims that Muhammad “made War” and advocated “making war” are false by most people understanding of the phrase.
BTW, you earlier claimed you would give your educational history explaining why you were better qualified to discuss the Bible than Thomas Aquinas when I answered your question.
I’ve done so so please do. If it’s lacking, don’t worry I won’t criticize you for it, but politeness demands you fulfill your promise.
Thanks in advance.
Oh, I see, so Moses did it and that makes it ok!!!
That’s not exactly spiritual enlightenment, either now or then
This brings, of course, you claims that Mohammed “did not make war” into question
Absolutely. However, meditation and self-inquiry is legal in all countries and 100% accessible everywhere at all times. Mushrooms do not fit those two criteria. But yes, I am a big fan of psilocybin and wouldn’t mind to see it available in more places. I wouldn’t mind having some right now actually. But it would be even more interesting to see how some radical fundamentalists would react to 5g of magic mushrooms. Might turn them right around.
If by “did not make war” you mean only fought against those who attacked him first then yes, that’s the truth. If you mean never fought, not even in self-defense then no, that’s not what I meant.
However, most people when they use the phrase “make war” IMHO mean the former not the latter.
Which did you mean?
Hey Ibn Warraq, I find this interesting…
To me Mohammed was not a bad guy. In fact I’d have to put him somewhere between progressive and fair politician/warlord of his time and actually enlightened prophet. I simply don’t know. But he definitely had some real insights and made some very positive changes that has had a great influence on the planet. So there is that.
On the other hand you can read the Koran as a program for genocide. The people who claim that ISIS are not “real muslims” are dead wrong. ISIS is very much “real muslims” and incredibly committed obviously to the Koran and the teachings of Mohammed. Now how the heck does Mohammed manage to leave behind instructions like that if he is ACTUALLY enlightened? That just seems sloppy and incompetent.
Ok, I’m not sure how you could have thought that’s what I meant.
I don’t mean to come across as rude and apologize if I do, but do you understand the concept of “sarcasm”?
I remember you claiming in the past to suffer from bipolar disorder. Do you have anything else, such as Asperger’s which might affect your understanding of people’s communications? My sympathies if so.
My point was that you were basically accusing him of being a man of his time and pointed out that most of the Prophets of the Bible were equally guilty.
All, or virtually all endorsed such things. Moses of course owned slaves and slaughtered people for the crime of worshipping a golden calf.
My point was this didn’t make it “right” it just meant he was a man of his time. You seem to want, contrary to your own claims to engage in special pleading for the Christians.
You really shouldn’t.
Well, for starters he didn’t “leave behind” the Quran. It was put together years after he died.
Also, yes it certainly did call for things like genocide as did the Bible.
As to the rest, well I don’t think he was enlightened or talked to God or even believe in God so it’s being “incomplete and incompetent” doesn’t bother me anymore than similar things in the Bible bother me.
I’d merely saying blaming ISIS’ actions on the Quran ignores the fact that they themselves ignore the Quran. The Quran explicitly on multiple occasions make it clear that Christians and Jews aren’t infidels and repeatedly insists that POWs can’t be executed or tortured.
ISIS rather clearly ignores this statements just as suicide bombers ignore Muhammad’s rather extreme prohibitions on suicide.
Finally, what is said in the Quran is largely irrelevant since most Muslims don’t read it and few even can read it since only a tiny minority can read Quranic Arabic.
Your opinion, (to the point in this thread where you submitted this post), is pretty much worthless. Your question assumed that people had actually made the claim that you wanted to refute, yet you provided no citation to anyone actually making that claim.
I provided a brief note demonstrating the multiple factors that had a bearing on the issue that effectively destroyed your false dichotomy–and I did it without denying the role of religion in the situation. Ignoring my actual post, you replied with a pointless comment abjuring me to not do what I had not done.
We never “bump heads” on matters of religion. You periodically post fundy atheist attacks on religion (using the same sort of “logic” one finds on fundy religious sites to “disprove” atheism, humanism, or secularism), and I reply with facts. There are any number of reasons to consider that religion is a net negative in human society. However, you never actually post them. Instead, you resort to poor logic, generally (un)supported by simplistic factoids that do not create a coherent whole in the context of the real world.
That is not my problem. Pretending that I have made any claim that there is more than one Qur’an when I have not mentioned the book and have addressed real world situations that have a bearing on the question in your OP is just one more example of the poverty of your debate.
I have no problem with your beliefs. Believe what you wish.
If you are going to spend time debating in this forum, you would do well to gather a coherent set of facts and apply some logic to them.
Now, I have not yet waded through the thread between your post that I have quoted and the current end of the thread, but I predict that when I do, I am going to find a lot of hand waving over the fact that Mohammed engaged in battles and that the Qur’an has violent passages in it, from which you will draw the “obvious” conclusion that Islam is an inherently violent religion.
The problem with your attempt at an argument is that you are deliberately focusing on the passages that you wish to condemn, making sure you avoid discovering both the context in which they were written and the nearly 1400 years of actual history that have occurred since the religion began. That deliberate avoidance of facts, (which, I will admit, takes no great effort–you merely have to not bother to learn something), is what dooms your “argument” to be one more fundy rant, not unlike the political arguments of Mike Huckabee or the social comments of Pat Robertson.
In 1400 years, there have been any number of violent Muslims and Muslim initiated savagery–a point that is true of every group of humans, religious and non-religious, alike. On the other hand, Islam has also produced people and gone through periods in which mercy, compassion, tolerance, and the promotion of good have the hallmarks–just as every other group of humans. If the thesis that I presume you will promote was true, then Islam should have penetrated Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines at the point of a sword, rather than through the peaceful missionary efforts that actually spread it, there should never have been the period in which Cordoba became a great center of learning, welcoming Christians and Jews to come and study, Umar Ibn Al Khattab and Saladin should have murdered the inhabitants of Jerusalem after their respective conquests in the manner that Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon did during its capture in the First Crusade, and the terrorism that we have seen in recent years should have been the hallmark of all Muslim countries bordering non-Muslim lands throughout the entire 1400 years.
I have noted the militancy of the Wahhabists and made no claims that they are peaceful or misunderstood, however, your (presumed) claim that all of Islam must be violent because violence is depicted in the Qur’an is refuted by so many Muslim actions over so many years.
= = =
It is certainly possible to hijack one’s own thread. One does not own a thread and if one wanders into a separate argument that has nothing to do with the OP, (such as making silly claims about the number of Qur’ans there might be), that is still a hijack.