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As Muslims do not "Join" a group nor have any central human leader, nor have any standardized form of instruction. What criteria makes you believe Islam is a cult?
It's a religion, a form of brainwashing/mind control, full of superstition & ritual. Sounds like a cult minus a leader to me.
It's a religion, a form of brainwashing/mind control, full of superstition & ritual. Sounds like a cult minus a leader to me.
Hello el_marto.
To me it sounds like any other religion, which really leads us to the crux of the matter. If you want to say that Islam is as invalid as any other religion, or that Allah is as non-existent as YHWH, Vishnu, and Thor...I have no issue with that. If it is your belief that the world would be a better place if everyone just dumped their religious convictions and supernatural beliefs...I have no problem with that either. Those are your opinions - your beliefs - you are entitled to them and entitled to express them. But that doesn't mean you have to be disparaging to those who believe differently.
If we (by which I mean humanity) could kick down the rhetoric level and merely state our beliefs and opinions calmly and openly, then the world would be a better place. The problem of course is that such dissension is often not tolerated. There are places in the US where openly expressing a lack of belief in Jesus will get you ostricised...there are places in the Middle East where openly expressing a lack of belief in Allah can get you killed. If you want to be angry and disgusted, direct it toward the intolerance rather than the religions themselves.
As for me, I spend time with people of many beliefs on a daily basis...it's just the nature of my location. I share laboratory space with a Muslim, a born-again Christian, an atheist lesbian. I belong to the company's organization to promote equality for homosexuals, but when the young Muslim woman expressed her dismay that she could find nowhere in our building for call to prayer I personally went to the administration and found her a place. I am neither Muslim nor homosexual, but when they are in need of something I don't parse people out into their cultural subgroups...I just see people. Yes, we all have important religious and cultural differences that cannot (and should not) be dismissed, but at the end of the day we should all be on the same team...we are all human beings.
I say all this not because I think I'm some super-enlightened nice guy, but to illustrate my point. Hate the intolerance. The religions may be untenable - even silly - in your eyes, but meeting the intolerance in kind doesn't help anyone. Anger expressed against individuals that is really intended toward the institution doesn't help anyone.
Don't be shy about your beliefs...but live and let live. For what it's worth, that's how I see it.
To me it sounds like any other religion, which really leads us to the crux of the matter. If you want to say that Islam is as invalid as any other religion, or that Allah is as non-existent as YHWH, Vishnu, and Thor...I have no issue with that. If it is your belief that the world would be a better place if everyone just dumped their religious convictions and supernatural beliefs...I have no problem with that either. Those are your opinions - your beliefs - you are entitled to them and entitled to express them. But that doesn't mean you have to be disparaging to those who believe differently.
If we (by which I mean humanity) could kick down the rhetoric level and merely state our beliefs and opinions calmly and openly, then the world would be a better place. The problem of course is that such dissension is often not tolerated. There are places in the US where openly expressing a lack of belief in Jesus will get you ostricised...there are places in the Middle East where openly expressing a lack of belief in Allah can get you killed. If you want to be angry and disgusted, direct it toward the intolerance rather than the religions themselves.
As for me, I spend time with people of many beliefs on a daily basis...it's just the nature of my location. I share laboratory space with a Muslim, a born-again Christian, an atheist lesbian. I belong to the company's organization to promote equality for homosexuals, but when the young Muslim woman expressed her dismay that she could find nowhere in our building for call to prayer I personally went to the administration and found her a place. I am neither Muslim nor homosexual, but when they are in need of something I don't parse people out into their cultural subgroups...I just see people. Yes, we all have important religious and cultural differences that cannot (and should not) be dismissed, but at the end of the day we should all be on the same team...we are all human beings.
I say all this not because I think I'm some super-enlightened nice guy, but to illustrate my point. Hate the intolerance. The religions may be untenable - even silly - in your eyes, but meeting the intolerance in kind doesn't help anyone. Anger expressed against individuals that is really intended toward the institution doesn't help anyone.
Don't be shy about your beliefs...but live and let live. For what it's worth, that's how I see it.
Thanks.
Tolerance is fine and I agree that it is the intolerance in religion that should be addressed . . . but there is a higher cut-off for our tolerance and that is violence against others. Beheadings and other killings based on religion should be unanimously NOT tolerated and pursued with a vengeance. Religion is NO EXCUSE for such actions, PERIOD! ANYONE who proclaims it as a religious right based on their God should NOT be tolerated and routinely sanctioned by every civilized society.
Tolerance is fine and I agree that it is the intolerance in religion that should be addressed . . . but there is a higher cut-off for our tolerance and that is violence against others. Beheadings and other killings based on religion should be unanimously NOT tolerated and pursued with a vengeance. Religion is NO EXCUSE for such actions, PERIOD! ANYONE who proclaims it as a religious right based on their God should NOT be tolerated and routinely sanctioned by every civilized society.
Hello MysticPhD.
My first thought as I read your post was "obviously." I hope you do not believe that I was arguing otherwise. As I said, most (if not all) of the violence you are referring to is a product of intolerance on the part of fundamentalists. Respect for beliefs is not limited to the non-believer's attitude toward the believer, but applies to everyone.
I would go one step further. I am tolerant of diverse beliefs until:
1. They infringe on the civil rights or human rights of another person.
2. They posit scientifically falsifiable hypotheses.
Not coincidentally, these seem to be the C-D threads that I get involved with most of the time.
I personally think we give them too much respect. If they don't like Scottie dogs being shown in SCOTLAND, for Christ's sake, then they can catch the first plane back to Malaysia.
As a immigrant myself, I have NO sympathy, empathy, or respect for any moron who chooses to visit or live in someone ELSE'S country and then complain about the cultures and customs that offend them - and worse yet, to expect that nation to change their ways just for you.
Do you really think a Westerner would get any respect if he should complain about some Malaysian custom? No, that Westerner would probably end up in jail, flogged, deported, or executed.
If those Muslims don't like dogs, then they are free not to attend the games. Period. But I couldn't give a damn if those sanctimonious pinheads are offended or not.
In fact, for next year's games, I would make sure there were dogs all over the place. I might even make up some bogus security concerns just as an excuse to have sniffer dogs there - and let them climb all over those Muslims, sniffing away until their "uncleanliness" got all over their clothes. The more drool, eye pus, dog hair, nose slime, and transferred dingleberries, the better.
Yeah, I can be vindictive that way - but it is a peeve of mine when foreigners come to a new nation and then expect the locals to change what they do, what they say, what they eat, how they live just so that a bunch of foreign visitors are happy. That takes a gutsy stupidity that ought to earn some people a deportation.
LMFAO, Shirina! I love it!
You have a way of articulating exactly what I was thinking.
Vindictive myself too :-)
PS When I travel overseas I research the laws/customs/manners of every country I visit and follow them.
To me it sounds like any other religion, which really leads us to the crux of the matter. If you want to say that Islam is as invalid as any other religion, or that Allah is as non-existent as YHWH, Vishnu, and Thor...I have no issue with that. If it is your belief that the world would be a better place if everyone just dumped their religious convictions and supernatural beliefs...I have no problem with that either. Those are your opinions - your beliefs - you are entitled to them and entitled to express them. But that doesn't mean you have to be disparaging to those who believe differently.
If we (by which I mean humanity) could kick down the rhetoric level and merely state our beliefs and opinions calmly and openly, then the world would be a better place. The problem of course is that such dissension is often not tolerated. There are places in the US where openly expressing a lack of belief in Jesus will get you ostricised...there are places in the Middle East where openly expressing a lack of belief in Allah can get you killed. If you want to be angry and disgusted, direct it toward the intolerance rather than the religions themselves.
As for me, I spend time with people of many beliefs on a daily basis...it's just the nature of my location. I share laboratory space with a Muslim, a born-again Christian, an atheist lesbian. I belong to the company's organization to promote equality for homosexuals, but when the young Muslim woman expressed her dismay that she could find nowhere in our building for call to prayer I personally went to the administration and found her a place. I am neither Muslim nor homosexual, but when they are in need of something I don't parse people out into their cultural subgroups...I just see people. Yes, we all have important religious and cultural differences that cannot (and should not) be dismissed, but at the end of the day we should all be on the same team...we are all human beings.
I say all this not because I think I'm some super-enlightened nice guy, but to illustrate my point. Hate the intolerance. The religions may be untenable - even silly - in your eyes, but meeting the intolerance in kind doesn't help anyone. Anger expressed against individuals that is really intended toward the institution doesn't help anyone.
Don't be shy about your beliefs...but live and let live. For what it's worth, that's how I see it.
Thanks.
I think I can justify being disparaging. I say this because look at what religion does to people and to the world at large. The amount it has taken from people makes me angry. It bull****s them out of so much of what it means to be a human being. It preys on their uncertainty, controlling people by fear and guilt. It creates shame at natural behaviours (ie. sexual). It is forced on to children from early childhood, which is as real a form of child abuse as I can think of. It turns people irrational and impedes science. It belittles women, homosexuals, followers of other cults. It motivates WARS. It has instilled us with a the narcissistic notion that humanity matters any more than a speck of dust in this vast universe. It wastes everyone's time through pointless rituals. It is a form of mental enslavement that has deprived so many people of so much, for NOTHING.
It in some way condenses everything ****ty about our species into one neat package and I would say that if you recognise all of this and you still pander to it or its followers then you are, to put it crudely, a ****ing pansy. It's right there in front of everyone, plain to see, and we're supposed to tip-toe around it like it deserves any respect whatsoever? That's cowardly. Every mind lost to religion is a tragedy and it's high time that it stopped - which means not violence, but people speaking their mind with no fear of offending, just like they would in literally every other topic of conversation ever. I'm not saying go stand on a street corner and yell at people like they do, I don't do that either, I share a workplace with people of faiths too and I never mention it to them. The internet is a different story, this is exactly the right place for people to talk this way. Here and articles, books, blogs, vlogs, classrooms, lecture halls, radio shows, podcasts, TV appearances. Anyway, it screams of hypocrisy that religions get away with talking down to us in exactly the same way, we are bad people, some of them would force us to obey if they could, some of them would KILL us if they could.
But that doesn't mean you have to be disparaging to those who believe differently.
THAT conversation is muddied too often by the fact that the theistic cohort contrive to take offence on behalf of their ideas. Much of the time when atheists are admonished for being disparaging.... it is for disparaging IDEAS but the holders of those ideas vicariously take offence on behalf of those ideas.
I am all for respecting people. I am NOT for respecting ideas. Ideas are fair game for consideration, falsification, disparagement and even mockery. This is independent of the people who hold them. A stupid idea does NOT and never has meant a stupid person.
In fact possibly the greatest mind humanity has ever produced.... Newton.... subscribed to some egregiously and comically stupid ideas ranging from unsubstantiated deist nonsense to woo woo alchemy tosh.
And I do not see it as disparaging to newton at all to take those ideas in isolation and mock the stuffing out of them. My respect and admiration for Newton is unaffected.
But the fact is the religious CONTRIVE to take offence.... because the offence card.... and its more insidious incarnations such as Blasphemy Laws...... have historically worked well for them for so long.
The OP asks if we have sympathy left for such people any more and as I said in my first post in this thread..... "What do you mean ANY MORE?". I never did have sympathy for them and their propaganda stunt of contriving to use "Human offence" to silence disparate and opposing views. I have the opposite of sympathy for such people. I see such people as those that need to be overcome. They are part of the problem, not the solution.
For example I opened some of my favorite news papers today. Broad sheet high brow daily publications that I read in favor of tabloid tosh. And in all of them there were skillfully and well drawn caricatures on 1 maybe 2 pages summing up the political motif of the day. Caricatures of the politicians or public servants involved and a comical under lying quip under the picture. One can also read publications like "Private Eye" and find multitudes of them.
Is there any offence at this or people rising up and declaring these cartoons be removed or deleted or that the drawers or printers or editors of them be condemned? No. They are a genuinely funny and useful part of modern political discourse.
Yet look at websites like Jesus and Mo which essentially do the same thing. They take a motif that is current at the moment and using caricatures apply the art of human humor to them to highlight the issues at stake and the implications of the motif.
And people want the author behind Jesus and Mo dead. This very forum deletes entire posts if they contain a link to that site. Yet I have not had a single post ever deleted for containing a link to a caricature cartoon of George Bush or Ronald Reagan.
Sympathy for these people? Hell no. They are the enemy of open democracy and free speech and all the ideals I hold dear. This world has had enough of people taking personal affront vicariously on behalf of their ideas.... all the while pretending the problem lies with the people considering and discussing those ideas through open human discourse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyker
There are places in the US where openly expressing a lack of belief in Jesus will get you ostricised...there are places in the Middle East where openly expressing a lack of belief in Allah can get you killed.
I would not be so confident that the latter does not also occur in the former.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyker
If you want to be angry and disgusted, direct it toward the intolerance rather than the religions themselves.
They are not mutually exclusive. One can do both. After all religions give us one of the biggest enemies to human discourse. Unsubstantiated assertions about not just our reality here, but a supposed reality after the here.
And differences of opinion about unsubstantiated notions are inherently divisive. When 2 people, or two sects (after all Christianity has over 33000 of these now due to differing and irreconcilable opinion), form a differing opinion about some attribute, intention or opinion of their god..... there is no way to reconcile that opinion. Because there is no data at all that even suggests there IS a god in the first place.... reconciling differences of opinion RELATED to that god is simply not possible.
So you can harp on about, and blame, human intolerance but religion is NOT blameless in that equation because it feeds people irreconcilable and divisive unsubstantiated nonsense that is the brightest burning fuel on which the fires of human intolerance can be set to light.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyker
but when the young Muslim woman expressed her dismay that she could find nowhere in our building for call to prayer I personally went to the administration and found her a place.
Nor should she expect to find such a place. Just like I will not find a playstation where I work either. Or a tennis court out the back. This is the WORK PLACE. Ones hobbies are not part of ones work and should not be brought to the work place.
By all means pray. No one is stopping you. But do it on your own time, on your own property, in your own privacy. Expecting the "administration" to facilitate a location for this woman to engage in her hobby was out of line and was nothing to do with you. That they supplied you one is to their credit, because they were under no onus to do so, and not yours or hers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyker
but when they are in need of something I don't parse people out into their cultural subgroups...I just see people.
When I see people in "need" I too run to their side like you describe. However the scenario you describe was not a "Need" of any sort. Not even remotely. You merely indulged this woman's hobby on work time, on work premises, using work resources. "Dismay" is what she felt...... boo.... the hell..... hoo. I can merely hope she manages to live a life free of any ACTUAL unfulfilled "need" and arbitrary nonsense of no "need" to anyone is all she ever has to "dismay" over.
"Dismay". I could show this woman genuine human dismay. She knows nothing of it. And of course the theistic cohort will have their fingers falling over each other in their fetid need to call this opinion of mine "intolerance" too. Yet there is nothing intolerant about expecting people to keep their hobbies out of the work place. The problem with the buzz word "intolerance" is that people fall over themselves desperately trying to affix that label to anything they can which results in doing nothing but diluting the value and utility of the word into nothingness.
I am all for respecting people. I am NOT for respecting ideas. Ideas are fair game for consideration, falsification, disparagement and even mockery. This is independent of the people who hold them. A stupid idea does NOT and never has meant a stupid person.
I am all for discussing ideas. If you think that I indicated otherwise, I would like to know how you reached that conclusion.
Quote:
But the fact is the religious CONTRIVE to take offence.... because the offence card.... and its more insidious incarnations such as Blasphemy Laws...... have historically worked well for them for so long.
I'm not sure exactly what you are asserting here. Could you give me a few examples of contrived offense so that we can discuss?
Quote:
The OP asks if we have sympathy left for such people any more and as I said in my first post in this thread..... "What do you mean ANY MORE?". I never did have sympathy for them and their propaganda stunt of contriving to use "Human offence" to silence disparate and opposing views. I have the opposite of sympathy for such people. I see such people as those that need to be overcome. They are part of the problem, not the solution.
Where did you get the expression "Human offence" [sic]. What defines "human offense"?
When you say "such people," who are "such people"? Could you define some parameters?
Quote:
For example I opened some of my favorite news papers today. <snip> .
Yet look at websites like Jesus and Mo which essentially do the same thing. They take a motif that is current at the moment and using caricatures apply the art of human humor to them to highlight the issues at stake and the implications of the motif.
And people want the author behind Jesus and Mo dead.
And I clearly stated that practicing tolerance is not the sole responsibility of the non-believer, but the believer as well. I can only suppose that you raised this cartoon as an example to support my point.
Quote:
Yet I have not had a single post ever deleted for containing a link to a caricature cartoon of George Bush or Ronald Reagan.
Do you consider George Bush and Ronald Reagan to be deities and/or prophets? If so, that's pretty frightening. If not, this is a false equivocation.
Quote:
Sympathy for these people?
Again, I'll not know if I agree with you until I find out who "these people" are. If you mean the two offended Malaysian ultra-conservative politicians in the OP, I've already agreed with you on that (see post #20).
Quote:
Hell no. They are the enemy of open democracy and free speech and all the ideals I hold dear. This world has had enough of people taking personal affront vicariously on behalf of their ideas.... all the while pretending the problem lies with the people considering and discussing those ideas through open human discourse.
Discourse is good, but rancorous rhetoric is counterproductive, regardless of its source.
Quote:
And differences of opinion about unsubstantiated notions are inherently divisive. When 2 people, or two sects (after all Christianity has over 33000 of these now due to differing and irreconcilable opinion), form a differing opinion about some attribute, intention or opinion of their god..... there is no way to reconcile that opinion. Because there is no data at all that even suggests there IS a god in the first place.... reconciling differences of opinion RELATED to that god is simply not possible.
Indeed, which is exactly why tolerance for diverse ideas is important.
Quote:
So you can harp on about, and blame, human intolerance but religion is NOT blameless in that equation
Seriously? How fares the battle against that straw man? Because up in post #54 I wrote:
"Respect for beliefs is not limited to the non-believer's attitude toward the believer, but applies to everyone."
Did you overlook that? Maybe you were just searching for an excuse to be offended on the part of atheists...
Quote:
because it feeds people irreconcilable and divisive unsubstantiated nonsense that is the brightest burning fuel on which the fires of human intolerance can be set to light.
It can, but that is neither universal nor unavoidable. There are several theists on this board that I could point to as examples of tolerant believers, but I'm sure you've seen that for yourself.
Quote:
Nor should she expect to find such a place. Just like I will not find a playstation where I work either. Or a tennis court out the back. This is the WORK PLACE. Ones hobbies are not part of ones work and should not be brought to the work place.
I'm sure it would strengthen your argument if religions were equivalent to hobbies, and unfortunately I cannot stop you from drawing the parallel. That said, it is absurd to equate the two. Religion is part of someone's self-identity, more like nationality or sexual orientation than a hobby. I'll just snip out the rest of your statements comparing religion with a hobby since the false equivocation nullifies them at any rate. I'm sure you'll defend the parallels, but you and I both know that if we apply the standards of a "reasonable individual" (as one would do in court for example) the vast majority of people would disagree with the identification of religion as a hobby. Unfortunately, I suspect that we will be irreconcilable on this one.
Quote:
"Dismay". I could show this woman genuine human dismay. She knows nothing of it.
I have no idea how you could make this claim. You don't know anything about me, much less her. For someone who's always ranting about others making baseless claims you certainly threw this one out pretty casually.
As a side note, my statements above referencing "false equivocation" should read "false equivalence," not to be confused with the fallacy of "equivocation."
My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.
I have as much sympathy for Muslims as I do Christians, Jews or anyone else for that matter including non believers. I could fill this thread up with all the stupid requests I've seen in my life time from every religious group, or non religious group out there for the sake of their God, Gods, Evil Angels or Aliens. (I still can't believe I can type Gods, Evil Angels or Aliens and only a small portion of my country see's this as strange)
"An angel is a supernatural being or spirit, often depicted in humanoid form with feathered wings on their backs and halos around their heads"
Ok, the dog thing is weird, but this is not some how????
I would find a bunch of people gathering in huge groups giving a country a public blessing from a God they think should be worshipped that they've never laid eyes on, saying his son committed suicide for your evil doings, came back from the dead for you and addressing your "life saving" was because an angel was around you to be simply wacko....I would think, wow, you can't let that go on but yet I see this in America almost weekly.
So to say I think they are strange for the dog thing, well, that would be the truth, but not strange compared to every other freaky funky religious doctrine I've ran into. Pretty much just another day in the park if you get my drift. lol
I think people will just find a reason to bag on something, and to answer your questions, Muslims are simply not excused from this. They are treated as equals in the "baggin" hobby other humans participate in.
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