Damn warmongering Quakers.
Dammit, you guys. Now I want some hummus.
I read this very different than you. To me those passages tell people to not be the aggressors and patience is the best way. However, if you do defend yourself, don’t punish them worse than they have punished you.
There are often contradictions in a religious tradition, a lot of them derive from the deep divide between spiritual religion and law religion. The Song of Solomon is spiritual, Leviticus is law. The Sermon on the Mount is spiritual, St. Paul’s misogynistic killjoy sermons are law. Evangelicals are spiritual, fundamentalists, law. Snake handling Pentecostals are spiritual, Scientologists are law.
OK, scratch that last one.
Cruel and aggressive people can twist any religion into justification for their thoughts and deeds. It is not new. Any religion will do. People of peace can justify their actions with religion, but they don’t need to. They are actually acting religious.
Thanks for the link, that lead me to Jeff Dunham’s video of Achmed the dead terrorist on YouTube. 10 of the funniest minutes I’ve had recently.
Why do these threads always bring up Google ads for Muslim dating sites?
Rationale? It a bunch of made up shit, people just say whatever they like about it because they can. It’s not as if everyone follows what it says in their holy books anyway, they just make it up as they go along or more commonly do what they want and then find justification for it later.
Whether you see a religion as peaceful or violent is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Do the Christians who attack abortion clinics make Christianity a violent religion? Do you think the Taliban (those that aren’t mercenaries) regard Islam as peaceful? Countelss examples exist of violence and peace on all sides.
There are violent people and there are peaceful people, and while religion has occassionally turned one into the other it is rarely the primary cause.
I find it amusing that Islam calls itself a “religion of peace”.
So you can get a peace.
Why must you do this? I essence you’re saying that no religion can be analyzed or criticized without simultaneously analyzing or criticizing one’s own religion, or all religions. How about an atheist, can he criticize a particular religion? Or must he always simultaneously analyze all religions? And how about atheism itself? All you’re really doing is attempting to stop the discussion. Which may be your goal.
It is fair to scrutinize any religion. You don’t see a lot of scorn heaped upon Quakers or Mennonites. And why do you think that might be? It’s because, people aren’t looking to pick a fight with any religion, they’re picking a fight with violence, in the form of terrorism. Quakers don’t fit into the picture much. and no other religion overlaps with terrorism as much as Islam. Why not call a spade a spade. I’m sure the religion has some good aspects to it. Then let the religion be judged in totality.
Also, religion or not, ANY GROUP that thinks that drawing a cartoon of their leader or burning their “holy” book somehow justifies the killing of innocent people is a violent, ignorant, barbaric murderous group that the sane world should point at with scorn and ridicule. If you don’t do that, you are complicit.