Being concerned that radical, fundamentalist, Wahhabist Muslims are engaged in violence is rational.
Transferring that concern, (along with fear, hatred, discriminatory acts, etc.), to Islam is not only irrational, it is counterproductive. By setting up every Muslim as “the enemy,” you force them into alliance with those who are a genuine threat.
It is interesting that you are acting as though being a bully is a good thing.
It was that sort of thinking (at the highest levels of the U.S. government) that nearly guaranteed the creation of ISIS.
Of course, you really have nothing but fear and ignorance on which to rely for your odd opinions. Anyone who fails to realize that many Muslims are engaged in fighting the extremists or that the bully tactics you champion had so much to do with creating the conditions you fear is displaying massive amounts of ignorance.
(Of course, displaying ignorance appears to be what you do best, such as your nonsense claim that the U.S. has ever stomped Britain. We have only fought them twice. In the first instance, we enlisted the aid of France, Spain, and the Netherlands to help us fight them to a draw for our independence, (when a lot of them had been willing to let us have that independence, to begin with). In the second instance, we picked a fight with them while they were already engaged in a struggle with Napolean, and again fought them to a draw, (after they burned our capitol). This is what passes for knowledge in your odd world view and it pretty well explains the sort of mindset that engages in the ignorance based hatred that you have been waving around.)
Well, this guywas in the news this week and he certainly tried.
You’ve been given many, many examples of other groups also “killing and terrorizing people”. Please stop ignoring them.
Really? Lots of Russian Orthodox folk there. I gave you an example from Georgia (which I know is not Russia, to be fair) above where a mob of 20,000 Russian Orthodox homophobes led by priests attacked an anti-homophobia march. Doesn’t sound like an “overwhelmingly non-believer” place. You may be thinking of the Soviet Union.
It does come up disturbingly often amongst the more frothing of our right-wing colleagues.
I concur.
Would you accept a cite from last yearabout Christians killing and persecuting “witches”?
No, you’re not ‘discussing’ anything. You’re ranting about the bad, bad, muslims in as offensive a manner as you think you can get away with in this forum and pre-emptively sneering at anyone who dares not to embrace your bigotry, all the while with your fingers stuck in your ears (metaphorically speaking).
A group of Saudi muslims operating out of Afghanistan has the idea that the US is an evil super power that is meddling in the middle east and killing muslisms. So they fly two airplanes into US buildings killing less than 3.000 people.
As retaliation the US attacks Iraq, one of the most secular countries in the region, killing hundreds of thousands. This leads to a radicalization of thousands of previously moderate muslims who now join the radicals.
I’m afraid you do. Even if, like Robert163, you are an atheist, you were still brought up in a majority Christian country. Christianity is normal to you. You know thousands of Christians, the vast majority of whom have never seriously hurt anyone.
By contrast, Muslims are a tiny minority in the United States. Even if you’ve met and interacted with a few, it’s dwarfed by your Christian-normative experiences.
I say this as an American atheist. Like it or not, growing up in a Christian culture biases your perception of Christianity, even if you aren’t one.
Well the most important thing to me is not the author of a text, but the veracity of it. You may or may not be convinced that the Gospel of Thomas is an accurate depiction of what Jesus said, but that’s not the most important to me.
It’s not my truth really, I don’t have any truth. I believe there is a truth and that there are ways to get to it, but I don’t believe anyone can own it or ultimately express it in words.
If you want to start a thread I will most likely join in, but I’m not really interested in arguments about historical veracity or competing belief systems, I’m into the esoteric stuff as you may have figured.
The quote you provide is not about killing people, it is about the inner conflict that arises as you go through the process of liberating yourself from the ego. That’s the difference between the Gnostic texts and the Bible. The Bible is exoteric, providing codes of behaviors, worship etc, whereas the Gospel of Thomas is esoteric and contains parables mainly about the process of enlightenment.
There is of course some esoteric stuff in the Bible as well, but since most people don’t know what it is about, they are liable to misinterpret it.
That’s a Clydesdale parade full of horseshit. It’s stupid on a level that begs a measuring stick.
I live in a country where making fun of Christianity is a well groomed sport. You want to dance naked around a 50ft high bonfire of bibles, great. knock yourself out. Want to go to a gay bar dressed as a nun and fuck someone dressed as the Pope, knock yourself out. Make a painting out of a collage of vaginas and call it the Holy Virgin Mary and someone will give you a couple a million for it. If I could get a dollar for every time Christianity was made fun of I’d be typing this from my yacht.
20,000 people weren’t slaughtered this year because someone felt butt hurt about being a minority.
Again, you’re completely clueless about how christianity is treated in the US. It’s routinely made fun of in broadcast cartoons such as Southpark, the Simpsons and Family Guy. On Southpark Jesus has a talk show called “Jesus and pals”.
Gay men dressed as nuns.. Warning not for office viewing. It’s a regular costume during Halloween at any adult event.
Piss Christ - a picture of a crucifix in a jar of urine. Sold for $15,000. The artist got another $5,000 from the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts.
At best, tens of thousands of children have been kicked out of their homes at a young age; at worst they’re imprisoned and tortured at length, and sometimes die. And this is happening at the direction of Christian churches, in the name of God and the Bible.
Um, exactly: Christianity is mainstream and ubiquitous in our culture, and this affects Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s not alien or exotic like, say, Islam. Perhaps you simply missed my point, but the above is just you making my point for me.
