I never said we shouldn’t. Any person, and any nation, has the right of self-defense.
How? It invalidates your point. If they had all been Christers like Patrick Henry, the result would have been much different. Instead, the Deist influence made a world of difference, separating church and state, to the chagrin of people like Patrick Henry ever since.
[quote=“Sr_Siete, post:118, topic:700589”]
It made wonders for the Communist countries, did it?
If you’re referring to repression carried out by such regimes, remember what I wrote earlier. At least secular violence is about something real. Also, that’s a canard in any case, as if all atheists share Mao’s politics. Also, a century before Mao, tens of millions of people died in China’s Taiping Rebellion, because one man thought he was Jesus’s younger brother, and millions believed him. See? It’s violence for nothing.
That’s false equivalency.
Publicly and repeatedly? How many such “genuinely Christian organizations” and how often.
That some Christian groups opposed the KKK is most likely true, (although Catholics, as targets of the KKK hardly count). The vast majority of Christian denominations, however, said nothing. The KKK of the 1920s was brought down when their own internal corruption, (embezzlement, bribes to politicians, sex crimes, etc.), became public knowledge, not because church groups opposed them in any number.
For that matter, one complaint against Muslims is that they are not speaking out against terrorism and other acts, yet it is not difficult to find their condemnation of such behavior. Unfortunately, such statements are rarely carried by news media. Even the recent world-wide joint condemnation of ISIS by Imams from every Muslim nation rarely got more than a couple of lines in newspapers and I only heard it broadcast on NPR.
Yep. The difference is that when you get an Extremist Christian, they may want to pray a lot, outlaw abortion or if really extreme, not use electricity, like the Amish. When you get an extremist Islamist, you get the murder of innocents and beheadings, in the name of Allah.
I think that the use of the word “nominal” heavily implies the opposite, the you can’t be a “true” Muslim and oppose extremists. therefore the more of a “real” (according to their definition) Muslim you are, the more you are a violent extremist.
I stand by my interpretation.
Or they invade Iraq and kill hundreds of thousands of people, and actually shatter the country’s Christian community in the process. Remember, Xians are apparently the staunchest backers of American imperialism.
You may want to reread my post. And I will state that even if they were all devout Christians, they still would have wound up wanting to NOT have the federal government be able to establish a religion. The founding of the country lis largely based on religious freedom, going back to the Pilgrims in 1620. Keep in mind that in the 1770s, some states had official religions. They weren’t afraid of religion, they were afraid that the new country would be entwined with one specific religion, like England.
And even most of the Deists followed Christian beliefs. Most notably, Jefferson, who ascribed to the teachings and philosophy of Christ but drew the line at things like miracles.
[quote=“Lemmytheseal2, post:122, topic:700589”]
How? It invalidates your point. If they had all been Christers like Patrick Henry, the result would have been much different. Instead, the Deist influence made a world of difference, separating church and state, to the chagrin of people like Patrick Henry ever since.
I don’t really feel that belief in an utopian political system is that much better than repression caused by religious beliefs. I don’t see how you can find one better than the other.
And it’s not a false equivalence at all, since I state that “being human” is the cause of the same violence we were discussing, not another kind of violence completely separated.
They only way to reasonably argue that is to take that part of Christianity, the part that believes that you help people who need it, and divorce it from the secular American belief that states the same. Trying to tie it exclusively to a Christian expression of faith exhibits an argument from desperation.
I will grant that Islam and Christianity aren’t identical. However, Islam today is as violent as Christianity was, say 500 years ago.
What does that tell you?
Christianity hasn’t changed. The countries that practice it have changed. Most of them, anyway.
Christianity isn’t immune from being shitty and violent. It’s just that nobody who is saving up for a boat blows themselves up on a school bus. Christian societies are by and large soft, and comfortable.
Islamic societies are, largely, poor and primitive. Just like Christians were five hundred years ago. Get the Islamic world worried about buying affording a boat, and a trip to EuroDisney, and they’ll be as fat and soft as Christians are today.
No. The assertions made in posts 39 and 46 are in error, as I have noted.
I have also posted no insults to any poster, so I do not know what you are on about, here.
meh Few Christian groups did any such thing and we, as a society, are ignoring similar efforts by Muslim leaders.
Since I have made no such assertion, I have no need to provide a citation to support what I have not said.
The form of ritual traditionally carried out in Southeast Asia is strictly a cultural artifact with no medical purpose. However, it is also no more injurious than tattoos or similar activities practiced around the world and its inclusion lists of places engaging in FGM is simply a way to stir up hatred or disgust by associating it with clitorectomies and infibulation when it is clearly no such thing.
Marx had no tolerance for utopians, and Marxists follow that lead. I do find it much worse to fight over a nonexistent deity than for a real and tangible ideology.
Also, are you trying to say that all societies are more or less equally violent? Is Finland not preferrable to Jamaica?
While I certainly grant that Christianity in the 17th century was guilty of a lot of violence and stupidity born of ignorance, I think it a stretch to say it is as violent as Islam is today. Even so, if this were 500 years ago I’d join in the condemnation of the barbarism of both religions. But here we are in the 21st century, and the the people acting like murderous savage assholes in numbers are Muslim, not Christians.
I do agree that the more prosperous people generally become the more apt they are to leave the nutty (seeming) dictates of religion. Then again, Saudi Arabis is pretty wealthy. And Osama bib Laden came from a very wealthy family.
Didn’t Rhode Island (for example) emerge as a distinct settlement because the Puritans only wanted freedom for themselves, and not for any heretics? Also, Deists like those you mention identified with Christian messages, but removed all the supernatural nonsense, which is really my point.
I don’t follow you here.
Perhaps you could make a poll, asking women who post on the SDMB whether they think having a bean-sized chunk of their clitoris removed would be aptly characterized as “no more injurious than tattoos.”
The results might be illuminating.
Marxism was an utopian concept. No matter how much he wanted to distance himself from it. It never was more tangible than any old man in the sky.
And no, of course societies from first world countries are less violent than those in third world countries. Nobody is arguing otherwise.
(Well, I’d go live in Jamaica before Finland, but that’s not the point you were trying to make)
What I’m saying is that extremism happens in poorer, less educated places because of human nature, not because of a religion or a race.
The extremists are certainly equally as guilty of this (if not more so). There are plenty of passages in the Koran that contradict suicide bombing, killing children, rape, etc.
Why? That has nothing to do with what I’m saying.
I think they’re pretty similar to Manson and other psychos, actually. The extremism is an excuse, for many, I believe. And whatever religion they share – their beliefs are much farther from your average Dearborn Muslim than the Dearborn guy is to an American Catholic or Jew.
I think they joined the KKK because they wanted to do racist stuff. The KKK doesn’t inspire people to do racist stuff, for the most part – it’s a bunch of idiot racists.
I don’t think this is the case. There are plenty of Muslim countries in which the polling is very different – and in most cases, the differences is the openness of their educational system and society in general. It’s not the Islam that drives these opinions – it’s other factors.
This doesn’t seem like a stretch at all. Various colonial wars of the time were just as bloody, if not more so, comparatively speaking, as middle-eastern conflicts today.
You have to admit, if one feels they and their people are being persecuted and oppressed by a seemingly all-powerful enemy like the ancient Roman Empire, Soviet Union in Afghanistan (and subsequently the U.S.), or Moahmar Khaddafy in Libya, or Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, etc. and you want to take up arms to fight such oppression - it sure helps A LOT if the prospect of death holds no particular fear for you. Devout religion (Islam or otherwise) is pretty much UNPARALLELED in it’s power to temper a person’s fear of death. So for a group like ISIL or the Taliban, or the Mullahs of Iran, etc., it’s their very fanaticism that enabled them to rise to power, or at least pose a challenge, against almost insurmountable enemies. I’m not defending these nuts by any means but clearly these are groups that were BORNE of some form of tyranny. Bill Maher, and a lot of his defenders in this thread, seems to ignore that fact.
I’m with Affleck, it’s not Islam that’s the problem.