Is there any religion you believe is peaceful? Just curious.
I’m just wondering if the religion I’ve encountered where I had a priest personally tell me that it was OK for people to threaten me with death if they think I’m gay are peaceful or not.
Indeed–and that’s not a refutation of my point. My point is that the problem is with “theocracy” in a general sense–that is, with people who believe that their religious edicts ought to be applied to other people–and not with Muslims.
By analogy, the majority of murderers are men. That doesn’t mean the problem is with men, though: the problem is with murderers, who may be men or may be women. If we start a campaign to restrict the rights of men, or even to criticize men, we’re totally off-base, inasmuch as we target innocent people (non-murdering men) while letting some guilty people (murdering women) off the hook.
So, what you’re saying is that Islam needs a movement started by a Jew-hating, violently misogynistic hypocrite that leads to centuries of apallingly brutal internecine conflict that drags an entire continent into a state of perpetual warfare?
I’m not really seeing how that’s an improvement.
I think it is a little silly to ignore that in much of the Muslim world that religious leadership very much overlaps political leadership. So you can cry about the Priest who says you’re going to hell, but it doesn’t compare to the imam sentencing an adulterer to death by stoning. Just sayin’
Which is why religious laws never happen in the US, people don’t get their children taken away from not being christian enough, gay people have free right and don’t suffer from legal discrimination and increased violence and are never punished for trying to defend themselves, etc, etc. Because in the US, law and religion are obviously totally separate.
If you don’t see the changes that occurred after Martin Luther then there isn’t much point in discussing it or anything for that matter. It should be obvious what’s changed over the years in the Christian realm and how little has changed in Muslim countries. The difference in levels of tolerance between Islam and just about any other religion is substantial. You can burn Bibles all day long to keep you warm but if you even suggest you will do that to a Quran you risk a violent reaction. Surely you understand this. You can’t be that unaware of the world around you.
My coworkers have openly suggested that they should teach their children to vandalize the property of atheists because the kids won’t get in trouble being young, and the atheists deserve it.
I have had a priest openly tell me it’s ok for kids to threaten another kid if they think they’re “acting gay”, and really, doing so was a good deed.
Tolerance! Look at the tolerance!
Sorry, but I don’t accept “those guys are worse” if you’ve already got a knife in my back. Maybe fix the same sex marriage issues, the religious discrimination issues, burning down of mosques, child rape, etc, etc, and then I’ll listen to christians. Otherwise, it’s just two murderers squabbling over which one is worse.
Hate to break it to you Mr Touchy, but plenty of atheists are homophobes too.
No matter how many times you repeat “Those people do stuff wrong, so it’s ok for us to do wrong stuff too!”, especially when the first people are actively criticized, you will not get a free pass from bigotry, hate, and violence.
I am not repeating that at all. I suspect this isn’t a conversation - I just walked into your rant.
I’m going to try to state my point more clearly - the OP thinks that liberals somehow need a wakeup. We really don’t.
We’re aware that there are violent extremists. We just don’t think we should go around glassing other countries just to get rid of them.
I’m more worried about the Christians in my country, who can directly harm me, and have repeatedly directly harmed the people I care about than Muslims in my country. I am more concerned at the people who burn down mosques and cheer about it, proclaiming that torching places of worship is “freedom of speech” (that has literally happened on this board), then the people who want to go to those mosques to worship. Guess which group is more full of violent extremists there?
I am more concerned with the Christians who try to make some forms of medicine and medical research illegal, who restrict the basic rights of my friends, who not only fight against hate crime legislation but who actually support hate crimes, who get away with child molestation because they’re religious, who kidnap children from their parents both here and elsewhere, and do all sorts of other crimes - and get away with it, because apparently when Christians commit these sorts of blatant crimes en masse it’s a problem.
I am more concerned with the Christian groups who have pushed to make homosexuality punishable by death in some countries than I am Muslims who do the same in theirs, because I can fight against the people in my country more easily, and it’s far easier to simply try NOT to fuck up other people’s lives than it is to fuck with other people’s lives in an attempt to do some terrible colonization clusterfuck.
I really would prefer all religious extremism and violence just disappear. But the fact that it’s going on elsewhere doesn’t mean it’s not going on here. And sorry, but it’s simply fact that non-extremist Muslims are automatically treated like extremists in the US, and extremist violent Christians are treating like people “just trying to live according to their beliefs”, and that is super fucked up and has to stop.
I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about this. It seems to me it’s trying to use another group as a distraction from your own misdeeds.
Muslims may not be my allies, but Christians have openly stated they’re my enemies, too.
Why don’t you go to Saudi Arabia and twitter your opinions and let us know how that works out.
I am opposed to Saudi Arabia’s bullshit in a lot of ways. I just don’t think reacting with violence is the best answer, or in any way going to solve the problem one damn bit.
Why is it so hard to get?
Why is it assumed that liberals are friends with extremists?
Because we don’t burn down mosques in the US?
Because we don’t advocate genocide?
What, honestly, do you want to hear?
Well, hate Christians too then. No one’s stopping you. My point was that the non-separation of Church and State in the Muslim world is part of the problem and makes it easier to think that Islam is a part of the problem - facing the Western world. Of course you are more personally concerned about Christians giving you problems. I am more personally concerned about what my City Council does than what the Supreme Leader of Iran does.
But I think you are blindly incorrect if you thought your life wouldn’t be worse under an Islamic theocracy rather than a heavily Christian influenced democracy.
You know, I didn’t think that, because theocracy is worse than democracy. So who’s claiming I did, and why?
Where did all of this “liberals are friends with Muslim extremists” coming from? Where’s the truth in that statement?
Why don’t we spend some time going on about how republicans are friends with christian extremists who actively support genocide, murder, kidnapping, and rape? Why don’t that ever get covered, especially because it’s true?
I am sure most Muslims in the world are totally live and let live like everybody else. But are most against Sharia law and courts? Would most give up tribal/sect loyalty for democracy?
eta: And I am not American, so I have no desire for that discussion about evil Republicans. Start a thread and I’m sure you’ll find some people to spend some time on that with you.
Who knows - who cares?
You still have to prove liberals are considered all Muslims their allies before you start going on about how evil Muslims are. You guys are skipping straight to step 2, ignoring step 1 of your argument. It makes you look silly.
I’m not sure that that’s true. There are western countries that have an official, Christian religion, but seem less devout and more live-and-let-live than the U.S. My personal view is that separation of church and state allows religion to thrive away from the day-to-day concerns of government. With a state religion, there’s someone in charge who can temper how the religion interacts with the rest of the world. It’s easy to be an extremist when you can throw up your hands and say “don’t look at me” when the shit hits the fan.
I care, because I think that’s an important part of modernizing the Islamic world.
I consider myself a liberal, for the most part, and since I don’t think Muslims are our allies I don’t need to prove it. But I am not here to defend every word of the OP, so you are the one being silly expecting me to.
Robot Arm,I don’t know. It seems there is still a de facto separation of Church and State even in the western countries with official religions.
who is promoting violence? You said you had a Priest make abhorrent statements. Did you turn him in? Did you tell an adult? My dad would have punched him out in front of God and everybody for suggesting violence towards me.
A broad political brush was painted upthread and I’m not going to put up with it, particularly from a moderator who should know better. If you want to defend that go ahead.