My relatives - Muslims - tend to be very wary of Christians; they feel that Christians are out to convert them and that they will use every trick and deception known to them to accomplish it. (They’re not too far off, concerning certain groups.) For this reason it is not uncommon for someone to go on an anti-Christian diatribe or read anti-Christian literature - evoked eventually by a fear that Christians might get them or one of their own. For them, evangelical Christians are more than annoying or obnoxious - they are a threat to the community.
I am sure some of the above is present in every religious community in the US. For what it’s worth, there is some of the above sentiment even among Christian communities (what with Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Latter-day Saints at least trying to convert other Christians to their version of Christianity).
I’m not sure that I would characterize them as “lying scams” but I don’t see any reason or need for anyone to invent a god or gods and then attempt to convert other people to their beliefs. So to me, organized religions (that worship a god or gods) are a scam in some sense, but I wonder: are the founders/adherents of these religions “lying” or are they just delusional? Or something else??
Left Hand relplied to Clothahump: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
I think the default position should be that there are no gods (because we have no evidence of them–or if you have any I would like to see it). Perhaps “existence of god” is the extraordinary claim that we should seek “extraordinary evidence” for.
In the Christian world, however, there are places to go to “escape” Christian ideology (most big cities, thank God). Not so in the Moslem world. The Moslme world is a virtual intellectual and social prison for anyone who disagrees with the tenents of Islam. Indeed, the Moslem world is in desperate need of some sort of religious awakening via secularism or a Luther type figure. As much power as certain posters may feel that the Christian right may have in the US it pales in comparisson to the power wielded by Moslem facists is most (if not all) of the Moslem world.
If, however, reasoned and logical critiques of Chrisitanity can help to open the doors to reasoned critiques of Islam then the more the merrier I say.
The claim, “This being, which in theory I could not detect if it exists, does not exist,” is a rather extraordinary claim. The default position for anything where we don’t have enough knowledge should be, “I dunno.” You can modify that to, “I doubt it,” but the positive claim that the God phenomenon doesn’t exist is extraordinary, given the fact that God, as usually defined, is unfalsifiable.
But that wasn’t Cloth’s claim to which I was responding. His claim was:
So he’s claiming that they’re not just incorrect about they notion of God: he’s claiming that they realize that they’re incorrect, and intentionally perpetuate a lie in order to scam people. And he claims that all organized religions fit that profile.
If that’s not an extraordinary claim, I don’t know what is.
Really? Maybe I am sleeping all my life and need the USA to invade my country to wake me up. However, I think I am awake while doing my research and writing my comments. I’m not dead yet, as far as I know.
Sorry, but we do not need more sects then we have now.
For a starter, instead of taking the uninformed posiiton you take here, spread the news that the West (and hre mostly the US) should first of all stop propping up under the Islam raping Wahhabis. Of course this is a daydream, isn’t it? Maybe when the oil stops flowing… Just a few decades of patience, no?
Next, tell the criminal in the White House that he really did such a good job with calling “axis of Evil” a nation where a genuine trend of liberalism was present and on the rise among especially the academics (but also among a lot of other groups of people). They are now genuinely pushed into defense mode, isn’t it? Thank you so much, criminal Bush.
I would not know what you mean by “Muslim fascists”. Can you post a picture?
There was never anything “logical” in Muslim eyes about the approaches of the Christians who proposed themselves as “Orientalists” with as first goal to villify Islam and Muslims.
We are - lucky for the academic world - far beyond this dishonest hypocritical approach (in most cases).
We have no need for Christians to teach us about our own religion. Nevertheless I studied at the department Arabic and Islamic studies at Catholic European university(s) to gain insight in my studyfield coming from an other point of view and an other approach. After which I finished my studies and specialized at Arab universities.
My critiques and remarks are as reasoned as can be.
I am still alive, nobody has ever threatened me because of what I do. Most propably because what I do is reasoned, don’t you think? If you don’t know what you talk about or only are out on attacking, you are not reasoning, you are provoking without having substance.
Salaam. A
So the reason there are Wahhabis in Saudi is because of the US? How about the Taliban in Afghanistan? Was that the fault of the US, too? Do those people who run places like Iran, formerly in Iraq, and Saudi bear any responsibility for their actions in regards to their people and what they do/did to them? Or is it all the US’s fault for everything?
Really? When was the last time you posited that Islam was a false religion and people should not believe in it? This thread is about debunking religion after all. Can you do that in Saudi or Iran? Maybe among your closest friends you might make out okay. But, lets see you stand on the street corner and see what happens even if you do it in a reasoned and rational way.
Hmmm, maybe that’s why that Saudi registered himself in Belgium…
I also think it’s a power thing. I remember seeing a documentary about Japan once where it said even the most hierarchy-conscious society needed an outlet–the old kabuki plays, at least the comic ones, often had an earthy peasant character who outwitted the higher-ups. It was an outlet for the audience to dig against those in power. And while we in America are fortunately getting increasing diversity in positions of power, it is mostly mainstream Protestants who are in control (Dubya is not a fundamentalist, he’s a Methodist, remember).
It’s just unsporting to make fun of the weak, I guess.
For someone who claims to live in Yemen, you are amazingly un-informed about all matters concerning the region. I suggest you buy a few good books on the region’s history.
I do not take positions I can’t defend by lack of any academic proof. Only idiots take such a position. Can you give proof of what you come to suggest? If so, be my guest.
No, the U.S. is not responsible for everything.
Pretty much we get to take credit for the Taliban. When we were supplying the guerrillas in Afghanistan against the Soviets, we made a conscious decision to favor a specific set of groups that were known to be hostile to the U.S. on the grounds that we thought we could win thier favor by giving them arms. Once they were the most heavily armed group in the country, they morphed into the Taliban and jeered at our stupidity for arming them. When they began their final assault on the country in the early 90s, we declared that it was an internal affair, declined to support the actual government and pressured Russia to keep their hands out of it as well.
We supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq for years–and he was not Muslim but secular, ruthlessly suppressing Muslims in his country and only appealing to “Islam” in the last ten years to try to get the other Arab countries to support him over us.
We can probably take a fair amount of credit (not all) for Iran, as well. Had we allowed them to develop under democratic principles in the 1950s through the 1970s, they might have developed a pluralistic society on their own. Instead we imposed a tyrant on them who ruthlessly suppressed certain conservative Muslim groups, making them into resistance heroes who were able to take over the country (and suppress their moderate fellow citizens) when the Shah fell.
An interesting aspect of the Rushdie situation is that his book The Satanic Verses, actually received favorable reviews throughout the Muslim world (including in Iran) prior to the Ayatollah Khomeini deciding to get a bug up his ass and condemning it. Most of the condemnation since that time has been the result of a perception by some members of the Muslim community that Rushdie has become a spokesman for Westerners/Christians trying to suppress Islam (which follows, since it was that which prompted the Ayatollah to condemn it). So basically he would have been OK if we had not creatd the environment that unleashed one loon on the world. Rushdie has continued to carry on a dialogue with Muslim leaders and, despite flirting with becoming a more observant Muslim, has continued in his secularist ways without incurring any further condemnation. The fatwa has been disavowed by the (cleric dominated) Iranian government and only one group of loons is still calling for his death.
It is not aimed at the existence of Islam as a religion. There is an established religion named Islam. You can not contest this, it is a fact.
My whole studyfield is both linguistic and historical and has a range as wide as what is placed under the Silk Road Studies. A great part of my interest however is reserved for what has to do with the history of Islam and its development.
I am not occupied with more recent developments of -mostly political- Islam. Of course I read on it whatever that seems interesting, but I leave the dissection of all this to others.
(remembering where Aldeb usually posts from) Uh, I’d worry more about the Germans invading since they already did it twice in the past 90 years.
Bear in mind that the VAST majority of these people were raised as Christians and the rule of thumb in the West, and I assume everywhere else, is that I can make fun of that which is mine without offending those who share my background. It’s like how only Polish people can tell Polack jokes or a person of German background can joke about Germany’s erstwhile habit of invading its neighbors.
They did? Strange. Nobody told me about that.
So where on earth do you seem to know I * usually post from*? I would like to be informed about this myself. Question of keeping trace of myself because it seems you say that I lost my myself to an unkown location. I do hope I’m still on earth, otherwise I would think I’m dead.
I really don’t think much is to be gained by turning this into an Islam-bashing thread. Apparently there’s a view that Muslims are robotons who blindly follow the Islam, and, if they don’t, are squashed by theocratic governments and/or other roboton Muslims. Yeah, there is that in some places (and as tomndebb pointed out, the US’s hands are pretty dirty in that regard). But the Muslims I know, and there are quite a few, are well-informed people who are no strangers to critical thinking.
If we’d like to improve the world, and I think most of us would, I don’t think that the way to do it is by falling into the culture war mentality. I little cultural sensitivity would seem to be a better approach.
My friend, you know perfectly well that, due to an indiscretion by an administrator, quite a few of us know the country in which you live and if you expect that, because you raised a stink about it, you can stuff that genie back in the bottle you are sadly mistaken. Hell’s bells, you have even mentioned that your violin has a Flemish name (given by your late mother, who was from Antwerp) and the last I heard Flemish wasn’t a dialect of Arabic.
It is no longer a secret that you post from Belgium. Why you would try to maintain the fiction that you don’t is your own business but the fact of it is public knowledge.
Let’s clarify here – my intent was the Founding Fathers wanted a godless government. A “godless version of this nation,” vis-a-vis the laws of the land, was exactly what they wanted. Religion was something that should be left to individuals, in the same way individual preferences for ice cream flavors are.
Now, if you want, I can dig up various quotes from various Founding Fathers supporting the idea of SOCAS, but I’d like to believe we’re on the same page here.
Sorry to disappoint you, but you are not my friend.
Really? I am not aware of it that it is of such a great interest for the members to constantly think about what an administrator - instigated by Mehitabel to forget completely the responsibility she had as Administrator - published on the forum about what she thought to have read as IP location of one of my proxies. And then needed to come back a few hours later to post that she was wrong about its location. (Which was, apart from my worries about her Privacy Rule violating, in fact very amusing to watch.)
My dear not-friend, you must be completely unaware that if you use proxies, your IP shall never be shown (if you use good, reliable proxychains set up by professionals, that is. Which mine always are).
Now you know. Proxy is my friend.
I posted a thread to question said administrator’s actions after trying to receive reply on my questioning by mail, send to several other mods/admins.
As for a “genie” out or in a bottle, so far only Mehitabel believes firmly her own fairy tales and you seem to be her devoted follower.
It it ever becomes a new US Made sect, let me know.
Actualy, my violin has a name on its label, identifying its builder. My mother translated his first name into Flemish to nickname the violin she also played on since she was a child. Since she used the Flemish version, I use the Flemish version. If she would have used the French version, I would use the French version, or the German one or whatever (and what a miracle: My mother was also fluent in Arabic. I can imagine that is maybe also a bit upsetting you and your Fairy Tale Version of Aldebaran’s Life).
Maybe you live somewhere where people never go further then the end of their little village and all children are born since generations where their mothers were born, live, marry, get children, die, are burried.
This lack of mobility in your environment does not change the fact that my mother went a bit further then outside her city. She left her country and her continent to marry my father. It also can’t change the fact that they are both burried where my father was born and live and where I was born and live. In other words, and prepare for an other shock: She did not express the will to be burried where she was born. She wanted to rest next to the man she loved.
All very strange things to you, I can understand that completely.
Now I know it sounds very difficult to accept for someone like you that a Western women leaves her country and family for the sake of marrying a Towel Head in his own nation and going to live there.
You just need to overcome this Hollywood and US Media endorsed idea that all Towel Heads are sandeating camel drivers inhabiting a humble black tent in the desert, living a life that no Western Women would dream of leaving her country and family for.
That is really all it takes.
Really.
Seriously? The fantasies of Mehitabel and her True Believer -which is you- are "public knowledge?
It escapes you that fantasies can not become true just because they are "public knowledge. “Santa Claus” is a wide spread fantasy that is also public knowledge, isn’t it.
But if you want to believe in fairy tales, who am I to stop you? Everyone is entitled to a hobby.
If you however use your belief in Mehitabel’s fairy tailes to harrass me with it, adopting Mehitabel’s strategy to spread willfully and knowingly the most idiotic stories about me on this message board, you shall receive a link to a thread I made with the purpose to make Mehitabel stop her harassing. The OP of that thread can count from this day on also for you.
