Hmmm… gum seemed to evade the question… The master analysis of Islam as a political tool rather than a religion ARE you seriously saying you could not come to just such analysis on the history of Christianlty ?
No one is denying that there is a violent minority of Islamic extremists who have been particularly active since the end of the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan, that is NOT the same thing as saying Islam is a violent religion.
Also ironic you should have include Albanian attacks on Serbs in Kosovo in your list as of course Christians are ONLY the victims in that area of the world, you there haven’t been ANY christian attacks on Muslims in the former Yugoslavia and the christian population has been a model of Christian peace and tolerance.
And I don’t quite see how violence between political factions in the palestinian territories is the counts as religious violence, and can be blamed on Islam. If it does then surely the violence in the mainly Christian Congo, which has killed more people in recent years than any other conflict, is the fault of Christianity.
But they ARE part of the religion, just as much as NT (Jesus himself is said he did not want replace the Old Testament teachings, only forfil them).
Of course, as I pointed out earlier, any sensible christain woud treat those passages as metaphor for fighting and destroying conceptual evil rather than killing actual real people. But the same thing could be said about muslims when it comes to Jihad, and similar passages in the Koran.
But the “king” IS Jesus, is he not? If not, who is he?
As I said above, though, my point isn’t to try to prove that Christianity is violent but to show that verses can be cherry picked to make it SEEM that way just as easily as verses can be mined from the Quran. I’m trying to show that it’s a fallacious tactic. which proves nothing about the adherents of either religion.
Since it’s a parable, it’s not clear what is meant by that phrase. If you know what is meant, please elucidate.
As far as I know, Jesus never directly says to kill anybody, while Mohammed pretty clearly says many times who should be killed and under what circumstances.
But this is irrelevant.
The fact is:
You can mine the Bible and find a couple of dubious things that might indicate that Jesus was condoning violence, versus mining the Koran and finding many things that Mohammed said (speaking for God) that directly advocate violence and killing of other human beings.
Jesus pushed some money changers out of the temple, while Mohammed took part in wars.
I don’t think there is any comparison.
I agree with this to some extent. History has shown that no matter how peaceful a message is, people distort it for their own means and end up doing horrific things.
When an adult still believes in magic kingdoms(Heaven and Hell), wishes(prayer), wish fulfillment(miracles), super genies that can do anything(pick a god, any god), and living Happily Ever After Forever(insert afterlife-of-choice here), that adult has a problem. I am NOT making light of religion-in fact, I believe we haven’t taken religion seriously enough. When we are children, we are told fairy tales about incredible beings in magical places, and sometimes we have imaginary friends that listen to us and do things that we cannot do ourselves, but as we grow up we are taught the difference between fantasy and reality. This gives us a firm foundation to build our lives with. Yet in the middle of this firm foundation we allow a large bubble of nothingness called “religion” weaken this foundation. We tell the children to let go of their invisible friends that have no substance yet gave them comfort and joy, but hold onto angels and demons and invisible gods. We tell the children that wishes and spells are the stuff of fantasy, yet our culture(and others) are filled with stories of ritual prayer and miracles. How can this conflict between reality and fantasy not do harm to the psyche of our children?
It is the religion that is, at best neutral. The science is what progresses them in their individual fields. Prayer and application of good scientific study habits will get you just as far as the application of good study habits. If A+B=B, what is the value of A?
What about the doctors that did the same without the religious motivation? What about doctors that were motivated by a religion that might be diametrically opposed to whatever your belief system currently is? What about doctors that are motivated by voices they believe come from the Mothership? In each of these cases, the cause of the motivation is (again at best) unimportant. It is the science that makes what they do possible.
They may debate the nature and meaning of the religious works they follow, but still they follow. They may debate as to the true meaning of obscure holy writings, but do they dare refute that which is presented as the Word Of Their Diety? They may study the supposed history of their God-Of-Choice, but do they dare say,“I think God may have gone a little overboard in this situation, and He’s dead wrong when it comes to that situation.” Again, when the Diety creates the Morality, questioning the Morality of the Diety is the greatest sin of them all.
I imagine a world of science without religion, and I cannot see how it can be any worse then the current situation. Now, see if you can imagine a world of religion without science. I’ll even let you pick your favorite religion.
Care to rethink your position?
Of course, Czarcasm! That’s why everyone I know who goes to church is a neurotic nutbag. Even the doctors and scientists who send their kids to church school have behavioral problems. And the kids!! You should see the kids!! They’re . . . Well, they’re actually pretty nice. And come to think of it, so are the adults, for the most part. Oh, we might have our differences, especially when they find out about my belief (or lack thereof), but in the end, we usually come down to the fact that there is more to bind us than divide us as reasonably good human beings.
Did you actually read what I wrote? About them claiming that religion inspired them to overcome difficulties? About how their faith got them through? Does that sound neutral to you?
And if it were the case that either every single human on earth was motivated by the exact same thing or that no such thing as motivation exists, you might have a point here. (Note: You don’t have a point here).
Huh. Motivation is unimportant. All I have to do is study science, and being a doctor curing disease in some faraway land is immediately a certainty. Learn something new every day, I guess.
Hang on, now, that’s not what you were saying before You said that religion brought–let me check–that it brought debate to a “dead stop”. Now you’re backpedalling. And as for
You better believe they do! Ever hear of Karen Armstrong? Or the Episcopal church? I don’t see posters like Polycarp going around preaching that the bible is the inerrant literal work of God. Why don’t you try reading some books on religion by respected theologians before you sound off on the topic.
Of course you can’t see how it can be worse. Your world of science doesn’t exist, and it’s never existed in the history of mankind, and it never will exist. Moreover, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! I don’t have a favorite religion. As I’ve mentioned in two previous posts, I’m an atheist. What makes you think that an atheist wants a world with all religion and no science?
You’ve got it easy with your little fantasy world here. Because it’s never existed, you can go off all day about how great it would be if every human on the earth was a free-thinking scientist and spent all day trying to better the world instead of doing stupid things like surfing Internet porn or going to church. You don’t even have to listen to me point out what’s happened in such enlightened beds of atheism such as the USSR and North Korea, because, well, that’s not the world you envision. The world you envision really would be enlightened and religion-free. You can just blow off my counter-arguments and imagine what color the trees would be like in your own little slice of Utopia.
Come on, Czarcasm. Who’s being neurotic here? Who really has the problem?
What kind of a problem, and even if this “problem” does exist, of what harm is it to anyone?
What kind of harm are you talking about? Do you actually know anything about psychology?
See, what you don’t understand is what prayer does for people. Yes, some people become very accomplished without any belief in God and without prayer. For others, the prayer gives them the strength to do something that is very difficult, and the desire to do it. You have no experience with it, so you have no concept of how it may help others.
That actually shows that you don’t know anything about religion. Take Christianity alone…the Catholic Church has been debating these kinds of issues for 2000 years, and during that time the Protestants split off & THEY started debating the issues, and now you have a rather UN-unified Catholic Church, and probably hundreds if not thousands of Protestant denominations, all Christian, who all disagree as to what the “Word of their Deity” is even supposed to be. They don’t come out and say “God is wrong here,” but they do make the scripture mean what they want it to mean or think it is supposed to mean.
I don’t think you REALLY can imagine a world of science without religion. You might be able to imagine a world as you THINK it would be (or, more to the point, think it OUGHT to be), but you really don’t know what it would actually be like. Take away religion, and you don’t remove the good & evil that is part of humankind. It will just be expressed in some different way.
No vacccinations, no hospitals, no computers, no architecture, no biology, no science of any kind-I kind of think this would more than “suck”. You can have magnificent works of art and music without religion. Inspiration is all around you if you open your eyes. But how far would we get without science and reason?
And if it were impossible to have vaccinations, hospitals, computers, and architecture, science and reason in the same universe as religion, you might have a point here. (Note: You don’t have a point here.)
No shit, Sherlock. I wasn’t arguing against the idea that the world would be worse off with science. I was arguing against the idea that the world would be no worse off without religion.
But you would not have had those specific works of art. And I think the world would be poorer for it.
What is the problem in letting children grow up to believe in things for which there is no evidence? Choose a major religion. Can you find one that doesn’t have leaders that abuse this nature to believe without proof? The children may be nnocent, but they are also tools to be used, and religious leaders know this fact and use this fact to their advantage.
See above, for one example.
Again I ask, if one group can accomplish great works while praying, and another group can accomplish great works without praying, where is the only common ground? That which truly lets them accomplish those great works. BTW, aren’t you being rather arrogant when you assume what experiences I may or may not have had with prayer, or what I know about what prayer has been shown to do?
In what way does this contradict what I said before? Again, they debate the meanings of the words, but not the truth.
And I don’t believe you understand what the word “imagine” means. I certainly can imagine such a world. Like I said before, it wouldn’t be any worse than the world we have now-same amount of good and evil, and just as many accomplishments. How would your world of religion without science fare?
Religion makes it harder, given that it is made of ignorance and irrationality. The more religious a culture is, the more crippled it becomes in anything practical or real, like science, public health, morality, and so forth.
No, we would have works of art and inspiration by others, and on another message board in this land without religion there is a debate going on about an imaginary scenario where religion is a large influence, and a poster is asking,“But what about the great scientific works of Millonovic, Chi Wu and Sissiman? How much poorer would this world be without their inspiration?”
Oh, you again. Anything approaching a cite for this, or are you just making stuff up and telling scary stories about the evil religion under our beds again?
All kinds of people who have power over others use this power to their advantage…religion is completely unnecessary to this end.
The POINT is that the people who use the prayer to get there may not be able to do it without the prayer. It has nothing to do with the fact that some other people can do the same thing without prayer. And, I am sorry for making a snap judgment about you. Allow me to amend it to say that perhaps you cannot understand where these people are coming from, because you either have never prayed, or you never got anything from prayer. (In my defense, why on earth would I think you would participate in something you have such disdain for…that would not be the rational behavior you obviously take a lot of pride in.)
Oh, they debate the Truth all right. I have had Christian people tell me, a fellow Christian person, that I am going to hell because I don’t know the Truth.
I never said I wanted a world of religion without science. I am quite sure you will never find a post of mine where I said this. I completely understand what “imagine” means, but you seem to believe that if we could eradicate religion, the world would be a wonderful place where there was no evil, and all humans were rational at all times. That isn’t imagination…that is just as much fantasy as you think religion is.