Is it okay to disparage/debunk Christianity but not other religions?

Great Debates
81

And Wake Up Call, our dear moderator, with whom I get to sometimes deal IRL and who I already owe a beer plus interest, asked us real nice not to discuss that aspect of Aldebaran’s life so kindly can it.

BTW, I found that “joke” offensive, too, and my sense of humor is at least as sick as WeRSauron’s. There is a massive difference between light-hearted ribbing between members of different faiths and shit like that which exists only to be as offensive as possible. If you would like to discuss it further I suggest you take it to the appropriate forum.

82

Moderator’s Note:

What part of “OK, now, officially, let us completely drop the whole “Aldebaran lives in Belgium/No I Don’t” thing in this thread” did you not understand?

You need to either tone it down or take it to the Pit.

And do not publicly reveal who is on your ignore list.

83

And which sect would that be? I only know of one sect, but it’s because they believe only the Messiah can re-establish Israel. Their name escapes me.

I don’t think Israelis or Zionists are too thrilled about it either, do you?

84

Oops. Sorry. Hope I won’t get banned due to this faux pas.

85

You wanna know what I’m looking at right now? It’s so surreal and proves my siege. I am eating Christian chips (barbecue chips)…Swear to God!..Uncle Ray’s BEYOND GOOD brand. Basically there is a cute story on the back of the package about the chip makers family and bolded direct biblical quotes from Isiah 9:6, John 3:16, and John 3:17, respectively. Also, the new management company of the community that I live within has the Company mission statement of
“blah, blah, blah in the name of Jesus Christ.”. I’m quite literally ingesting and inundated with Jesus beyond my control. Debunking Christianity is a forgone point and not an effective defense at this point…they have taken over in more ways than I am comfortable with and are active controlling forces in my direct affairs and consumption… I am lost from the fold, apparently, and must be assimilated.

86

Actually the US isn’t responsible for any of the things that happened while the governments in question ruled their countries. I understand they may have been culpable for them assuming power, but once in they chose to do what they did all on their own.

Either we have free will, or we don’t. If we don’t then the US, Iran, Iraq, etc isn’t responsible for anything because we don’t have a choice in the first place. If there is free will then the guy doing the bad things is responsible for his actions regardless of who put him in the position of making that choice.

87

A complete sealing is an impossibility and eventually they would be reincarnated, as impermenance is the only constant.

Only especially, in your claim, and a fresh embodiement in mine.
Main Entry: re·in·car·na·tion
Pronunciation: “rE-(”)in-(")kär-'nA-sh&n
Function: noun
1 a : the action of reincarnating : the state of being reincarnated b : rebirth in new bodies or forms of life; especially : a rebirth of a soul in a new human body
2 : a fresh embodiment

88

I know of one atheist that works for me here in Yemen. Yet, he doesn’t stand in front of the Mosque criticizing Islam. No way, no how, he does that.
Why doesn’t he?: Good article - See the part about Yemen further down.

[QUOTE]
I wrote a doctoral thesis on the history of Al Qur’an as text for a starter. In Arabic and an other language both. Read and judged and discussed and defended by me both at my main European and my main Arab univ (which is not located in some backwards hellhole eather).
Nobody was “shocked” about my subject because this is not something that is not studied on before. Discussions were different depending where I was, yet nevertheless discussions it were and defending my views and conclusions I did./QUOTE]

And did the conclusions from that research question the validity of Islam? And did you present that in a public forum at a university in Saudi Arabia? It is one thing to do this in Europe and another in the Middle East.

For a guy who says he has a doctorate you seem pretty blind to the foilables of your own culture. Especially considering that you spend quite a bit of time defending it. Maybe you should take a serious look behind you and see exactly what you are defending.

89

Originally posted by Uzi

You can’t critize Islam in Europe anymore, you know. You’ll get murdered for that.

90

Forgive me if this comes across as less than coherent. It’s early and I’m pulling it mostly out of my arse.

As far as a scientific debunking of christianity goes, I think it is because christianity wants so badly to be “bunked.”

There’s the current scrum over creationism being taught in scholols, which is mainly a christian thing as far as I know. Near every christian holiday we get oodles of specials on Discovery and the like about the search for scientific proof of the bible/Jesus Christ. Moreso than other religions, christians want scientific proof of their God and don’t seem to be averse to publishing whatever crud they’ve got on hand as proof.

I’m not saying that other religions don’t do this, just not as much as the christians. It’s a variant of the “big dog christians” reason for societal debunking of christianity.

91

First of all, I’m not “your Siege”:wink: or, if I am, the gentleman whose arms I left less than an hour ago is going to be highly surprised! :eek:

Second, I’ve never heard of Christian chips. Fish’n’chips, yes, but I’ve never seen Christian chips up in my neck of the northeast. The mind boggles!

Siege

92

Well what if you put them in a sealed coffin and sent them off in a rocketship travelling away from the earth at least 10% of the speed of light… it is unlikely that molecules of the dead person’s body would be absorbed by lifeforms, at least for hundreds of years, so it isn’t compatible with normal beliefs about reincarnation.

Notice the word “rebirth”. The common usage of the word when talking about reincarnation is that one entity is reborn into one entity at the time… rather than some molecules being shared between thousands or millions of entities.
Definitions that offer less support for your version of reincarnation can be found here:

But even if you’re definition of reincarnation is valid, your definition of it isn’t the kind of reincarnation I have problems believing in.

93

p.s. I noticed I spelt “your” as “you’re” :smack:

94

As people have already said, a lot of it (in the USA, at least) has to do with Christianity being the dominant religion here.

But a big part of that package is the political impact of certain strains of Christianity. Unlike the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc., certain Christians are busily trying to make the rest of the citizenry dance to their tune, whether it’s in plastering “In God We Trust” all over the public schools, plastering the Ten Commandments all over public buildings, trying to have Creationism or its bastard child, ‘Intelligent’ Design, taught in public-school science classes, blocking gay couples not only from getting married, or from having civil unions, but blocking them as well from entering into legal contracts that would give them any of the rights relative to each other that married couples take for granted.

IOW, when a particular entity throws its weight around to an unseemly degree, it’s going to draw some fire. In the case of a religious group, that’s going to include attempts to debunk the religion itself. That doesn’t explain why it’s in bad form to debunk other religions, but it certainly explains why it’s a lot less common: few people view it as necessary or useful.

However, such debbunking does go on, at least within evangelical Christianity. Back in the days of my youth, when I more frequently associated with evangelistic types, I was exposed to debunkings of assorted non-Christian religions (such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) from a number of different groups. It seemed to be regarded as part of the basic education of Christians who were going to spread the Word.

For that matter, such debunking didn’t necessarily stop with explicitly non-Christian religions; it could include debunking of Christian variants from the fringes (Children of God, Moonies) to the mainstream (Roman Catholicism), depending on what a particular Christian group regarded as the bounds of ‘true’ Christianity.

95

For me, it’s the sheer arrogance of Christians (ok, some Christians) that sticks in my throat–and I consider myself a Christian!

“Do you truly know the Lord?”–the sheer effrontery of that question leaves me speechless. Who the hell do they think they are? They (evangelicals, fundies–whoever) have come to my dorm room, to my home, to my place of work (oh, they work there too), in the mall…the only place it hasn’t happened is in my own church! (thank God!). So, while I see the point about tolerance and good manners, I veer more towards LoopyDude–stop 'em in their tracks, cold.

I do not instigate anything with these folks, but I will not let them ramrod their “religion” down my throat–or my kid’s. My kids come home from our home schooled, right wing, fundamentalist Christian neighbor’s and tell me that Catholics aren’t Christian (we are not Catholic), that the Earth is 6,000 years old–I could go on and on. They are ruder and more intrusive than many peopel think. And they’re like cult people–if you challenge them, it’s you who are Godless and Evil…it’s bizarre as hell.

Let them keep themselves in deep ignorance and rank stupidity–I draw the line at their spreading it in the neighborhood, and in the schools etc. Unfortunately, they have the floor, so to speak for at least the next 4 years…

As to the whole if you can say this about Christianity, why not about Islam/Judaism etc. I do agree with the dominance position, but also–when was the last time you were accosted by a Hindu and berated for not believing in Vishnu?

IMO, “Christians” ask for all the abuse they get–by disrespecting other religions, by assuming that their way is The Way, by their actively pushing away of any other POV.

(I must say that not ALL Christians do this–and maybe it is unfair to paint all with the nastiness of some. But those “some” are so strident and so blockheaded that exasperation does take hold and vitriol results).

And yes, feminists found out early on that “nice” got them nowhere…

96

Do people realize that the generalizations they throw around about Christianity may also be applied to other religions (although not, perhaps, the small communities thereof in the US)? Does this change anything?

I never learned evolution or the Big Bang in school; I went to a Catholic school in Pakistan. “God made Adam - this is where humans come from” is what I learned. (For the record, the principal was Catholic, but the teachers and curriculum were Muslim.) We learned about Islam in school. We learned how to chant the Qur’an in school. But no one raises much opposition. (Quite different in the US where such would be considered illegal, yet people find something to complain about anyways.)

The reason Muslims I know don’t try to prove the reality of Islam is because, unlike Christians, Muslims (at least those I know) assume off-hand that Muslims “know” Islam is fact. Any Muslims who attempts to assert otherwise (as my father is sometimes wont to do) is met with stringent opppsition and many an interesting argument. And, sure, Muslims don’t go out to actively seek converts, but Muslims rejoice with much glee when someone who converts to Islam; and some Muslims I know of make it a point to try and stear conversations with non-Muslims in the direction of discussing the positive and divinely-sanctioned aspects of Islam in order to convert them.

Christians are not the only ones who are adamant about their way being the only, true one way. Most of my relatives, here as well as in South Asia (although moreso in SA), firmly believe (despite Qur’anic utterances otherwise) that only Muslims will go to Heaven; the rest are destined to Hell. Christians, Hindus, Jews, are actually seen as sinful, unclean, worthless people. (One relative of mine had a Christian cleaning lady; when the cleaning lady washed her dishes once my relative was aghast, and washed them again herself.) (Again, these are people I know, Y Muslim MV.)

I am not trying to disparage Islam - it is only where most of experience lays. I offer this in order to show that the comments made about Christianity are very much applicable to almost every religion - Christianity is not unique. The only way it is unique is in its missionary zeal; but then non-Christians should try to understand why this is so - there seems to be more accusations and less attempts to comprehend.

WRS/Thû

97

The director in question was, to put it mildy, a jerk. I by no means condone his killing, and I hope the guy who did it gets the maximum penalty that Dutch law allows. But the fact remains that the film he made, if the descriptions I’ve read of it are accurate, was by no means a calm, reasonable attempt to look at some of the less attractive customs of some Muslims. It was a huge s**t slinging tantrum. Among other things, he showed the back of a nude woman covered with verses from the Koran, something that was obviously calculated to shock, offend and insult.

In short, the guy was a hate monger. That doesn’t in any way excuse or justify his brutal killing, but if you spit in another man’s face you may reasonably expect that he’s likely to punch you in the mouth. Perhaps if he’d expressed his criticism in a more civil and respectful manner, he’d be alive today.

Well, we haven’t had any abortion clinics or gay bars bombed recently, but we have our loose cannons too.

98

Wrong.
The film was made by an ex-moslima, for moslimwomen. Van Gogh was merely the director.
Ayaan Hirshi Ali, the woman who wrote the film was threatened as well, in the letter knifed in van Gogh’s stomach.
She’s now in hiding.

Wrong. See above.

Why would he be civil? Was Monty Python civil?
Free speech anyone?

Van Gogh critized Christianity - he made fun of bishops and ministers. He critized Jewish people. He said some terrible things about the Holocaust.

He got sued for that.

He was murdered by a moslim. Simply because muslims don’t accept critisism. Especially when it’s about their abuse of women.

And they killed whom?