Consider this; it is possible to create a religion that cannot be interpreted by any sane person to justify violence, abuse, or hatred of any kind. In fact, a few of them exist currently. Now, until that religion replaces the severely flawed faiths we've got dominating this earth today, expect guys like me and ATW to keep on working at trying to discourage the spread of them.
That's fair enough. I do know there is a lot of good and charity that goes on in the name of those religions as well, and people are saved through medicine, feeding, etc. in the name of those religions. So I don't know if the spreading of those religions is such a bad thing, but it may be that the good doesn't outweigh the violence. I don't know one way or the other.
Why? To make the assessment that one is currently more inherently prone to intolerance and violence than the other, why do I care about the evolution? It is still true, regardless of the evolution. The evolution is only relevant if I want to find an explanation and/or excuse for why it is the way it is.
Well at different points in a religion's evolution they have been more violent than at other points. Christians still kill and slaughter innocents in the name of Christianity, but at this point in the religion's evolution it is nothing like the days of the crusades and inquisition.
True, but not all religion's have the same text, or propensity for violence. When the text says to follow the words verbatim and those words say it is ok to kill in the name of Islam...well..... DD
I don't disagree, but I care about the current time we are in. I don't think you are doing anyone a favor by your efforts to downplay and relativize the fact that right now, in the world we live in, as it is practiced today, there is a higher percentage of intolerance and violence in Islam than in the other major world religions.
It is also the poorest areas of the world. You are too quick to link violence to religion and not the root underlying issues entailing poverty and a lack of education.
I don't link them. The perpetrators link them. I am not talking about generic violence. I am talking about violence committed in the name of Islam, where those who commit it explicitly cite their piousness and/or some imaginary or actual rule of Islam as the reason for why they do what they do. If you go back to all those threads started by me which you searched, practically all of them have that in common. Also, violence against cartoonists in France and Denmark and murders against politicians in the Netherlands do not happen in "the poorest areas of the world". And all of these are not instances where I would link violence to religion. The perpetrators explicitly and specifically cite their religion as the motivation for their acts.
The myth of the "poor and uneducated" religious extremist needs to die. How many more engineers and PhD's have to die in their name of their faith to get past this? The middle class is the pipeline that feeds modern religious violence outside of the 3rd world.
You really have little understanding of world history, poverty, and how or why there is so much tension going on here. It's people like you that are part of the problem. Extremist Muslims that you find are not based on some sort of religious ideology. It's based on hate. Like the KKK. It's just a different version of it. And you play into it and fan the flames. You're just blind and ignorant. Islam has not undergone its enlightment era as Christianity has. It's been trapped in the middle ages of thought because of European colonialism which essentially created the set-up for what we see today.
Right, the Bible is actually far more violent than the Koran. Do you believe that? There are many places in the Bible advocating violence against sinners and in fact even as far as genocide. So I guess you are saying Christianity is worse than Islam by your logic.
That's wonderful except studies done in Palestine show that suicide bombing rates strongly correlate with the unemployment rate. As for the engineers who go on to become suicide bombers, they may not be poor themselves but they are angered by the poverty and desperatiion around them. Many are 2nd generation and are still well in touch with their homeland. You just simply don't know much about what you are talking about...I'm really surprised to be honest, I guess I never noticed you as a poster before but I didn't realize you were so blatantly drinking the ATW koolaid.
This post is so full of stupidity that it is not worth responding to. As Donny said, get some kind of help. It's pretty evident that you are just posting out of desperation for attention.
It is not far more violent, but the old testament does have some very violent text. And if the Bible was being used as a way to motivate people for killing (as has happened in the past) then yes, it would be appropriate. But right now, today, Islam is far and away the religion most used for motivating terrorism. DD
You don't know that Islam motivates terrorism. That's a correlation, not causation. If you are going to condemn and entire religion, make sure you are using sound analysis at least. Fair enough? But stranger still....if the Bible was used to motivate killing before...then what is different about it today? Why is the Bible no longer used for killing? After all it's the religion telling people to kill right? So why does that happen in one time period but not the other when the book is exactly the same in both????? Could it be that maybe, just maybe, people kill for different reasons and religion is the excuse, not the cause?
Lou, Go ahead and start a bible causes terrorism thread..... I am not one to argue the merits of the bible, I find both the Koran and the Bible to be mythological in nature. DD
No, the point was that you are trying to say "other religions send mixed messages too" And while that is true, it doesn't change the fact that Islam is a common thread in most terrorism in the world today. DD
There is so much hypocrisy surrounding religion, its funny. Everyone wants to be right, at all costs.
ATW and DD have always been quick to pointing out the faults of Islam and how dangerous the religion is. However I have never heard a solution from them. Do we just kill off the 1 billion Muslims on this planet or force convert them? What is the solution if Islam is so dangerous?
