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So apparently ISIS declared a war on the U.S.

OG buckshot jr

OG buckshot jr

TD Admin
Freak said:
I suppose you got me there. I was talking purely within the contexts of Chapters 8 and 9. That kind of rationale would explain motive behind the Crusades and of modern day Islamist fundamentalism.

Like you said, there are arguments on both sides of the coin for peaces vs militarization, and no religion is immune to this. Hell, regardless on what you believe, it's hard to not consider the idea that religion was born out of a necessity to control (and subsequently militarize) a civilization. We are a violent race, and religion is the perfect tool to rationalise our destructive nature.

BUT for the vast majority of religious people, it is a means to live your life, peacefully. I hope it continues to be so.


So what exactly are you trying to say? You acknowledge ISIS are extremists and they claim to represent Islam. Using the language of Islam to convey your fucked up ideas doesn't automatically mean you're Islamic.

That's like trying to advocate date-rape to women by dressing up like one and talking like one. They can all see that you're a fucked up dude first.
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Oh, I wholeheartedly agree with you, no doubt. However, when you see photos and videos of people who wear Muslim garb, look like Muslims (beards, etc), and are photographed, filmed and reported as practicing, praying Muslims, I tend to believe that they just may be Muslim.

I am not condemning Muslims, I'm just saying the facts.
 
Freak

Freak

DARKLY Regular
Tick Tock Man said:
It is quite telling that while the Qur'an speaks frequently and eloquently about "freedom of faith", it does not mean freedom as we interpret the word today - what it means is that you are permitted to remain a non-Muslim so long as you were born that way and do not pose any perceived threat to Islam; and you are free to convert from any other faith TO Islam - however you are not free to decide that you no longer wish to be a Muslim, and leaving the faith is and has been since the founding of Islam considered by a great many to be the worst crime you can commit and worthy of death. To me this speaks volumes about the tenets of this faith, regardless of how you choose to interpret some specific aspects.
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This is perhaps the single reason that helped me to quit the religion. That, and the systematic abuse and neglect that women are subjected to in Islamic and third world countries. I can't stand for the various paradoxes and hypocrisies embedded in the religious texts. If God is all-encompassing, all-loving and all-caring, why are women ordered to pray at the back of the mosque? Why did God create these ravaging beasts called men that cannot contain their lust if they were to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these women when bowing down to him?

That said, I don't like it when Islam is misrepresented in the media. The sheer amount of ignorance post-9/11 has been astounding, and I've learned to deal with it (especially at the airport), but when I can stand up for Islam I will. I try to do this with most things that matter to me.

Just out of curiosity, where did you read about religion? You write very well about this topic.
 
Tick Tock Man

Tick Tock Man

Senior TF2 Admin
Staff member
I spent a fair amount of time studying a variety of religions, starting with the three major Abrahamic traditions....

To that end I read the Qur'ran (and a fair portion of the Hadith), the Torah (and a fair portion of the Talmud), Several of the many available versions of the Christian Bible (and the Apocrypha). I also devoted a substantial portion of time to the political and social circumstances that produced these works to be better able to understand what motivated certain beliefs, and how and why the interpretations have changed (The Supplemental texts of the Talmud and Hadith were essential to to getting a grasp on this aspect)

To be honest though all three of these religions are little more than habitual superstition used primarily to separate the easily lead from both their money and freedom as far as I can tell. While there may have once been some utilitarian benefit to these belief systems, that time has long since past - however the thing that gives these religions their power has not waned - the credulity of the average person.
 
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Steve

Steve

TD Admin | Bacon
>>2014, having your ethics and morals based on scripture written a thousand years ago.


The world would be better off without Islam. The bad outweighs the good, significantly.
 
OG buckshot jr

OG buckshot jr

TD Admin
Hotshot.exe said:
That won't make you any better than them.
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Not true. I don't brainwash women and children to bomb schools and churches, and hold meetings with my terrorist friends inside children's schools in order to keep safe.

I go to work, pay taxes and don't kill people because a fucked up book tells me to.

Once in a while, the schoolyard bully needs to be knocked the fuck out, and this is one of those cases, in my opinion.
 
Pyro

Pyro

TD Admin
Tick Tock Man said:
.. I also devoted a substantial portion of time to the political and social circumstances that produced these works to be better able to understand what motivated certain beliefs...
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Steve said:
>>2014, having your ethics and morals based on scripture written a thousand years ago.


The world would be better off without Islam. The bad outweighs the good, significantly.
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I haven't read the Koran, but I did take a religions 101 course at university and we spent an inordinate amount of time on Islam (largely because the prof. somehow felt she had to defend it as a religion, even though nobody ever once attacked it in her lectures - it was bizarre and I believe she was fucking crazy, like most religion PHDs). Anyway, I seem to remember that Islam started in an area full of war which motivated certain things in Islam, like polygamy (because there were many widows from the warfare who needed to be married).

All religions I've looked at do the same thing: they take a written account from centuries ago - an account written under vastly different circumstances - and apply it to a present situation. A lot of it makes sense and works, but a lot of it is fucking irrelevant. A relatively small part of the irrelevant stuff is dangerous AND is taken extremely seriously by a small group or a large group. Then that group really fucks around with everyone who disagrees with them.

The point is that religious texts are faulty by nature. All instructional texts are faulty. They get outdated and need to be updated by somebody. Or else a new writer WILL come along and come up with something better.

For religious texts, the person who comes along would probably write something that controls religious people more easily. The progenitor would claim to be talking to god or have transcended mortality in some way or to have heard the words spoken by somebody who HAS done those things. But still... after X number of years, the content of the new text would need to be updated again.

The religion ITSELF updates on a regular basis, but is always anchored to the religious text(s). Therefore, it will constantly get hinged on what is written down until the religion collapses, the text is updated, or the conditions under which the religious texts were written are recreated so that the texts are relevant once more.

/post
 
$alvador

$alvador

TD Member
the concept of religious tolerance is a joke. love people but FUCK the bullshit some people believe in. i'm grateful for entities like ISIS that remind the leftist folks that even if you tolerate the shit out of every religion, they can and will still be used as tools for hate.
 
Noob.

Noob.

TD Member
$alvador said:
the concept of religious tolerance is a joke. love people but FUCK the bullshit some people believe in. i'm grateful for entities like ISIS that remind the leftist folks that even if you tolerate the shit out of every religion, they can and will still be used as tools for hate.
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But... but... if we just tolerate and love them more they will go back to loving us won't they?

I feel no matter how many groups like ISIS there are, the left will still preach peace and tolerance. There are roughly 10% on the left that will tolerate no matter what. By that token I'm sure there are also roughly 10% on the right that won't be pleased until that region gets nuked. The situation in Iraq and Syria will go on for a while until somebody decides to put boots on the ground to help the Kurds. But nobody has the stomach or political capital to do so.
 
Tick Tock Man

Tick Tock Man

Senior TF2 Admin
Staff member
Pyro said:
The point is that religious texts are faulty by nature. All instructional texts are faulty. They get outdated and need to be updated by somebody. Or else a new writer WILL come along and come up with something better.
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Actually, the point is - every single religious text ever written relies upon an argument from ignorance - the very fundamental nature of the worldview does not, can not rely upon observation or validation. In short, in order to take any religious text seriously you must suspend reason and deny revision of your perspective no matter how compelling the evidence or experience to the contrary.

Religion is, and always have been the most successful version of the long con. This is not an idle comparison, the psychological elements required for a successful con are identical to the psychological machinations of every major religion...

Faith is, quite literally, the deliberate acceptance of an idea(s) without examination that would be obvious bullshit if you stopped and considered it objectively....while this concept seems to belabor the obvious, it doesn't occur to most people that if there was the slightest legitimate reason to accept the validity of an idea, no faith would be required.

I have found that the truth will withstand any examination, it is only lies that require protection from critical inquiry.

Tim Minchin may have best phrased this idea with this brilliant observation:
Science adjusts its views based on what's observed, faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.
 
Sir Gentlemann

Sir Gentlemann

A Little Darkly
Sadly the only option to deal with these extremists is with force, you can't reason with them. They said they won't stop until they have their flag raised over the white house. They even already have sleeper agents in America(there have been recent beheading in America look it up).
 
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