https://www.rt.com/politics/317045-war-on-terror-is-sacred/
So, the Holy fight endorsed by the church. The article didn’t say whether he gave a scriptural basis for this, but promises an upcoming statement involving Buddhists and Jews too.
Check out the picture here - A Russian orthodox priest blesses a SU-27 SM fighter jet on the airfield of Belbek military airport
yes
Will good people be better people for focusing attention on the passages that urge mercy and tolerance? Would bad people be less so if they focused on the same passages? Can the effect be measured? Suppose someone measures out at 850 millicheneys, a pretty bad person. And we expose him exclusively to the passages that have so frightfully twisted your knickers? Would he increase his rating to 900 millicheneys, or maybe just 855?
Outside of your fertile imagination and your, ah, expertise, can you offer us any reason why this would be so?
That’s reassuring. I await the links.
Bring.
No, rehashing old material. I am only here for a few minutes to check to see what/if Tom’s response to my query was. I answered a few other people but those were mainly new points/new people commenting.
Well, actually, your point is somewhat new so I’ll answer. But I’m not going around in circles like we spent the last week doing. Please accept my apology for not saying that in a way that wasn’t as rude as it was.
You can’t tell any difference between the Catholic Church and The Southern Baptist. But if I a can skip ahead to what I think your ultimate point will be, I don’t care if there are good and bad extrapolations from the same text. I am concerned with the the situation where it goes wrong, not where it goes right.
To repeat from my other comment:
The worst people take the worst parts of the text and focus on that which creates a fevered sense of radicalism that is dangerous and disruptive. They are free of course to only select the parts that support their violent or oppressive agenda.
I’m not really concerned with the people who use the Koran for good purposes. They would still be good people without it. It will make lots of good people, better,ie it will make good people much better people, but, it also makes bad people much worse.
Since good people will still be good without the Koran and bad people will be worse because of it, then overall it’s net effect is a negative one.
Oh please!!!
Are you’ll - really - going to make the claim that going to a church that is fueled with hatred for gays is not going to make the people who go there hate gays more?
I’m not going to waste my time trying to googlefu that just to appease you. I seriously doubt that you doubt that claim anyway.
Emphasis added. How do you reconcile those two statements? They seem at odds and pretty much invalidate your entire argument. It’s a logic fail - nothing to do with religion.
Of course they would.
I don’t think an exact measure can be determined. Not an exact one.
Wait… what are you asking. Are you asking can the bad people be moderated by the good passages, the ones about mercy and tolerance. actually I am quite sure they are. I think there is probably loads of data to support the value of social conformity and social control from religion. But, in a truly modern intellectual society, like Scandinavia, they have replaced that religious force with the force of Humanism.
Easy:
Terrorism, Misogyny, Killing of Journalists and cartoonists, Suppression of voices inside Islamic dictated countries that are anti Islamic etc, on the whole the negative outweighs the good…
Scandinavia has replaced religiosity with Humanism. Religion does make people better and is a force of stabilization, but, we can achieve the same goals without it.
Well, how about a rough one? Or any at all, for that matter?
You shifted the goalposts from one sentence to the next. In one, you are talking about the effect of the text itself, in the next, its all about “social conformity and social control from religion”.
Which would be “culture”, yes?
You need a better dictionary. An apologist writes an explanation and defense of a philosophy based on the ideas expressed in the philosophy. It is not a mere “defense” or we would call defense attorneys apologists. I have not used the beliefs of Islam to defend it, only pointing out the errors of your attacks, so you are still misusing the word.
(You have used it correctly–once.)
Since you clearly do not understand the subject, I find that I have to explain both your errors and the facts to any third parties reading this thread. It is not my fault that you find the responses patronizing (although I admit to a bit of patronizing in this paragraph–but you asked for it 
.)
And there was absolutely nothing patronizing in my post that you quoted.
You asked the question by falsely conflating two separate ideas. I did not change the subject, I pointed out that your question was wrong, then went on to actually respond, anyway.
Your statement was
Where, after nattering on, at length in this thread, that the Qur’an was bad, you then conflated religion and religious texts in your statement, assuming that they were equivalent without providing any reason to accept that they were equivalent.
I then actually took the time to answer your question:
No, a religious text cannot make people worse.
Yes, a religion, (or any philosophy), can make people worse.
That does not differ from what I said, so why are you whining that I failed to answer the question when I explicitly did? (And that is not “the third time” you have stated that point. It is the third statement you have made, changing the terms each time.)
It would be helpful if you would stop scattering straw man arguments around the thread, pretending that I hold beliefs that I do not hold and have never expressed. That sort of disingenuous behavior is not appropriate–particularly after whining about me being patronizing when I have not.
I have never claimed that religion could not make people behave badly, even pointing out in this very thread that has done so.
I deny that a religious (or philosophical) text can make people behave badly, although adherents to a theology or philosophy can employ those texts to support their bad behavior.
That you cannot see the difference, (and have offered no factual rebuttal to those statements), merely demonstrates your own misdirected prejudices.
Oh, gee, let’s think for half a second. What is a religion based on: a text.
Your claim that I do not understand logic is a bit bizarre.
However…
I really really can’t see that there is anything left to say on this thread. I know I keep bumping it but I am going to try and stay away after this. It is really only a sign of my own poor mental health and lack of purpose in life that I enjoy so much having a two week long argument/debate with people over the internet.
Tom, I don’t know if you hate me or strongly dislike me or whatever. Apart form our religious tangles I actually quite like you. I think you do a very good job of being a moderator and you seem like a decent person. I hope you have a nice day and that the rest of your week goes well.
This is gibberish.
You have provided no evidence that people would behave in a good manner if they were not exposed to the ideas in the text.
Despite your Islamophobe-sourced beliefs regarding the founding of Islam, Mohammed actually did establish rules regarding war, slavery, women’s rights, etc., that were more humane than the peoples among whom he lived. They do not look more humane than post-Enlightenment ideas under which we live, but they were far better than the rules of the societies in which he lived. In addition, Muslim scholars, today, continue to extrapolate principles of behavior that move society forward, just as Jewish scholars created the Talmud taking the lessons of the Jewish scriptures forward and the Scholastics expounded on the combined Jewish/Christian scriptures, and humanists have expounded on the Talmud and Scholastic philosophy to create much of today’s secular philosophy.
If you are unaware that Muslim scholars continue to comment on the Qur’an and Hadiths to deal with conditions in the current age producing works that address the problems of warfare, poverty, human rights, etc., then you are spending far too much time reading Islamophobic web sites–and if you find that patronizing, the solution is to actually study the topic rather than repeating the words of ignorant haters.
No. It is not.
’
That is the fundy view that you cherish, but that has no application to real life.
Which is, of course, why pre-literate societies don’t have religions.
I don’t have any emotional view of you, at all.
I do get frustrated to see the same poor arguments presented in the face of facts throughout a thread.
When you are right I will support you. When you are not I will oppose you.
You’re talking about a religion of one. He’s a prophet who has 80 wives and believes in the 10 commandments. Sounds like a Muslim to me.
Now if you can get back to the actual thread you’re posting in and explain the 80+ terrorist groups based on Islam and the ever present worldwide violence against cartoonists.
That’s rediculous. The evidence that people DO behave violently based on the religion is the test.
That’s right. One guy’s Christian cult is more violent than all of Islam. Now how do you think the scales will weigh out once we add in all the other violent Christians out there?
Then you apparently don’t know a thing about Islam.
I already told you - they are among the least-educated-in-Islam Muslims that are out there. And you can’t explain all the non-Muslim terrorist groups out there (including more than a few Buddhist ones).