Good things about Islam?

[iheartdomo]

Why o why would slip be so scared to state his view on God....ummmm. Peoples position on religion can and does influence their views on religion in general. People who are willing to believe something without evidence tend to be OK with other who do the same.

 

[LyleG]

The position he tends to take is that these books are not regarded as mere books, and his right, there not. Because of how people dignify these books; they really become a slave to its content. I know he does refer to historical events, but I’ve not read his book to know if and who he refers to.


If a lot of people’s lives could be saved by such practice, should it not be done? Sometimes you just need to pick the lesser of two evils. Kinda like the ‘would you kill 1 person to save 50’. Surely not doing that is worse than doing it.


Again like above, the ‘better’ more ethical thing may be to do such a thing. Would you disagree to killing someone like Osama bin Laden because of the danger of his outlook of the world? Or would you show dismay if he was assassinated by US forces? Pretty much everyone has thought what the world would be like if Clinton had taken him out before 9/11. And most people would have welcomed this.




Well Harris doesn't claim his book was written by God.

 

[discovet11]

Here you go: (This is Jesus telling the story)

The Parable of the Ten Minas

11While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. 12He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. 13So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'

14"But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.'

15"He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.

16"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'

17" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'

18"The second came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned five more.'

19"His master answered, 'You take charge of five cities.'

20"Then another servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.'

22"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'

24"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'

25" 'Sir,' they said, 'he already has ten!'

26"He replied, 'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. 27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me."

The jist of this is that the king had some backstabbing people in his court who were trying to overthrow him. This is a paralell of what was happening to Jesus; he was sent to be the King of the Jews (and the whole world for that matter), but the religous leaders of that day hated him and eventually crucified him. The part about the kill them in front of me is the king in the story, because that is obviously how a dictator of that time would have reacted to an attempted revolt. Jesus did not kill his enemies then and there even though he could have; instead their "death" will be judgement for their wicked actions here on earth.

When you read the ENTIRE story and keep it CONTEXT, it is easy to see that in fact, it is OK for Christians to not go around killing our enemies, isn't it Homer? Any other questions on this verse you isolated? How about some other verses that I can explain for you?

 

[Benetaft]

Once again a little reading comprehension would do you some good. The report was about "anti-islamic hate groups", as in people who might commit crimes against Muslims.

 

[commotion]

Keep laughing Slip; like I'd post the sensitive parts here.

 

[dontnotice]

Hillbilly, had you read what my quite above was refering to you would have know it was in reference to the Koran. Anyway…..


I’m very aware of the parable. As you said, this was a parallel of the situation of Jesus was in, hence the reason he told it. Given the parallel of the parable you could easily used verse 27 as ‘justification’ for killing those who do not want Jesus to rule them.

Given this parable was to represent the situation of Jesus I see no reason to assume that v27 was excluded from the parallel. The parable is essentially saying: ‘those backstabbers obviously don’t want me to rule over them, so bring them to me and kill them in front of me’ and when we parallel this to Jesus someone can easily say he accepted this as justification for not wanting to be ruled over.

Additionally, Jesus always spoke in parallel, so do we regard his parables as literal (as many Christian do), or as parables? Or do we cherry pick depending on the parable?

Nevertheless the fact it came out of Jesus' mouth wouldn't surprise me if the Jesus army fundamentals used it as justification (maybe some already have), even if they completely get it wrong idea.

And just look to the Crusades. Both Thomas Aquinas and St Augustine felt heretics should be tortured and killed, or simply killed outright. Where did they get this idea from... Jesus? The Bible?

 

[moxiegirl]

That post got me dangerously close to derailing the thread, but I'll resist the urge.

---

I've read through most of this thread by now and I've got to say there is (at least) one very large and very obvious fallacy in the "religion causes suicide bombings therefore it's bad" argument.

If the suicide bombers didn't believe enough in the afterlife to blow themselves up along with "infidels", they'd simply be using remote-controlled bombs, timed bombs, artillery, aircraft-dropped bombs, ICBMs... Which are more efficient at killing people, and wouldn't even do us the service of getting rid of the perpetrator along with his victims.

Yes, suicide bombings are mostly relying on religion, but they're not any worse a crime than any bombing of civilians. Like, for instance, in corporate sponsored wars, which didn't exist before our wonderful pal rational thought made us discover the gains that are to be made through other people's suffering. There's good and bad in everything, whether it's religion, a specific religion or even secularity.

Religion is just a pretext for terrorists. If they weren't using religious fanatism to excuse their crimes, they'd be using nationalism, or "progress", or political ideology: "spreading democracy, one bomb at a time".

 

[ohokaye]

Oh please.
Now I'm scared because I see no reason to post something that isn't directly relevant to the main question of the post.

Riiiiiight.

Keep trying.

 

[ALiG]

I'm not sure if it's more hilarious or pathetic... that the original article would have come out of a super duper secret law enforcement file. Now it's supposedly from some file on people who would harm Muslims? Yet somehow it got coupled with your questions about what Muslims or Islam have contributed to society?

Riiiiiiight.

Given that they're spending time reading tripe from Yashiko Sagamori (who as it turns out is a psuedonym for a Jewish woman from NYC who works in IT) and not doing much if anything to understand how Muslim culture/society functions... well... then it's not very surprising something like 9/11 was pulled off is it.

Personally I find it ammusing that anything from this nutbar was being read by law enforcement. He's got really zero credibility on the subject. The guy is a hardly well known or well respected on the subject - there is a very good chance he doesn't even speak Arabic.

Don't take it personally.

 

[WillieW]

Are you saying that Christians SHOULD interperate this literally and become vigilanties who go around killing the enemies of Jesus? Am I in the wrong to have cherry picked the part of the Bible that tells me not to kill? The answer is very obvious.

If you are familiar with this parable, why did you isolate the very last verse in it so that it would appear the Bible contradicts itself? If you had actually read it and thought about, it would be obvious that you were taking it out of context. Oh wait, I know why you isolated it--another attempt to tear the Bible down, isn't it?

 

[jolu41]

Ahh, and you and Tekken aren't slaves to his content. Your entire response was acrobatics to avoid the fact that he's calling for Genocide. Even his secular critics call BS on him. His logic is fundimentally flawed for all the reasons I've already noted (or sourced).

And based again on secular critics he tends to interpret history in a pretty biased way -- ie addressing and reducing attrocities to a purely religious component and never addressing any positive change that has come out of religions. Essentally not as a historian -- instead he writes in dogmatic format.

So - basically your arguement is:

religious dogma = bad
anti-religious dogma = good

religious advocation of violence = bad
anti-religions advocation of violence = good

relgious text = interpret in the most literal light
anti-religious text = well, there's a lot of wiggle room and we can take those on a case by case, passage by passage basis.

Observe:
The problem is that he (and most people advocating for torture) fail to address the fact that most modern intellegence agencies don't think torture is particularly effective. The problem (and hopefully DC can weigh in on this) is that by and large the information is unreliable. People under torture tend to tell what they think their interogators want to hear -- often this isn't the truth. Hence why most western nations (and even the CIA) had suspended torture practices decades ago (if not centuries).

So his stance is not only morally repugnant, but it's also intellectually flawed.

Ah but he isn't advocating the killing of individuals. Rather, if you carry his arguement everyone who believes in religion is a danger. And moderates, he mentions, are the most dangerous. So nope, he doesn't get off easy. He's passively advocating genocide. And if you don't read it that way you're being a hipocrit. Because I could apply your exact rational to interpret any of the religious verses that you've been pulling.

And I say that's crap as well. Hitler didn't claim that Mien Kamf was written by God and look where that got Europe. You're attempts to let him off are egredious. Basically you suggest he gets special treatment because he isn't a religion. It's interesting to note that to make his arguement he suggests that certain social movements like communism are religions. Marx sure wasn't claiming that he was writing the word of god.


You have just become a militant atheist (oh, wait, not aithest because he's adovcating replacing relgion with authortarian spirituality) apologist. Welcome to being what you hate.

- Matt

 

[ford4lifee]

Did Marco Polo have a problem with Islam? Only I'm reading a translation of his travels and he says something along the lines of.



Are they his words or somebody elses? I'll find the page, destination and full quote if needed. Just wondering about it, while we're on this subject.

 

[Brokeninside]

He was Venetian so I'm assuming that he was Roman Catholic.

As for his travels there is no doubt that'd he'd have met muslims on his travels on the Silk Road... and surely he'd have his own opinions of people with customs different than his own. No doubt much of what is written by Western European explorers is Eurocentric and many times their explorations were funded by the church - so they're not exactly going to be singing the praises of muslims.



That may all depend on what version your reading. If you can post some information on the text it comes from.

If you're truly interrested in explorers there is actually a muslim who travelled much farther and wider than did Marco Polo...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta

http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/ibn-battuta/

and a link to a fantastic book on Ibn Battuta:

http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/ibn-battuta/

 

[arunt]

pls we are not muhaofftopicdans. we are muslims.

thank you

 

[PicoMeThis]

A modern translatoin by Teresa Waugh
from the Italian by Maria Bellonci.

Cover has some Mongol looking people [Tartars? Seljuk Turks? Maybe? I have no idea.]

Looking but can't find that page...



I'm interested in anything. I like learning. I'll have a look at those links. Thanks!

 

[EdwardL]

oops... my bad... I was typing as I was reading an older (1969) text on the social structure of Islam at the same time and I typed in mohaofftopicden instead of muslim. I've edited the pejorative out.

 

[tobiadewoye]

Yes. I agree. Good post.

 

[Krunk]

No, I’m saying it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.


No I think it’s very smart of you. But it denies the idea they moral values are Biblically derived. One would not been to cherry pick in the first palace if they were.


I presented that verse because as I said, it would not surprise me if literalists would isolate it themselves as justification for the death's of non-believers.

 

[justcheckingmm]

Gee Homer J Simpson and Hillbilly 79... maybe you guys could take this convo on over to the religion forum and not derail this thread.

This convo you're having doesn't really pertain to this thread.

 

[lwk362393]

No, I’m not. I arguing saying there is no reason to view the Bible as anything different to the Iliad or Shakespeare.


Well I’ve not read his book so I cannot argue for or against this. But on whether religious beliefs bring good or bad is to me arbitrary and irrelevant. It’s the process which I’m against.


No. This is NOT what I’m saying.

It is all about the reasons and evidence behind what you believe.

I will change my mind if someone brings evidence contrary to what I’m saying. For instance, when you brought examples of non-religious suicide bombers with the intent on killing innocent people. I even brought evidence AGAINST my own argument! This is not what the dogmatic religionist does…. they will cling to their faith whatever the challenge.


As I said, Harris does not say he’s book was authorised/inspired by God. But this is exactly what is said about the Bible. How can such a book, authored/inspired by the supreme omnipotent creator be open to human interpretation? Doing so implies mans view is above that of their creator.

Harris book is open to mistakes and improvement. He acknowledges that there may be faults with the book: ”If anyone has written a book more critical of religious faith than I have, I’m not aware of it. This is not to say that The End of Faith does not have many shortcomings—but appeasing religious irrationality is not among them.” From: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=harris_25_6


This is true, and I don’t disagree. I guess what constitutes torture is subjective. What some classes as tough/tense interrogation is to others torture. Some may regard sensory deprivation techniques such as being blind folded or white noise or creating the illusion of extended time periods as torture while others don't. (I don’t know how affective these are either). Before one would criticize his comments we would first need to understand what he believes is torture.


Not quite. He fully acknowledges that moderates are better people, and the world would be a better place if extremism was replace with moderation. Why he regards then as a danger is because they give cover to fundamentalism with the notion that faith can be criticized.


Yes, he argues that dignifying faith as a valid method of belief is potentially dangerous as it allow you to believe anything without justification or evidence. Coupled with the notion that faith cannot be socially criticized, one can believe what they like, and not be called to provide evidence. It must be respected simply because it is religion.

What he is untimely arguing for is beliefs which cannot be supported with valid reasons and evidence to not be accepted or respected. And I agree with this. In all areas of our discourse, we request reasons and evidence, and if someone doesn’t present any, or valid ones, we simply reject what they say without any qualms. We are not expected to respect their belief/claim. You yourself have done exactly this throughout this thread, and rightly so. Unfortunately this standard is not applied with religious beliefs and claims.

He is not saying everyone with religious beliefs should be exterminated. He is saying we apply the same standards to religion and marginalise any beliefs if they cannot be reasoned or evidenced (as we do elsewhere). He also encourages meditation and spiritualism so he is not against spirituality.


LOL.

As I said, I’m open to changing my mind. I constantly review what I think based on the arguments given. The fundamentalist does not do this.

Your comparison is laughable at best.