Suttree Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I've been asked why I personally feel threatened, so I gave the answer. Nah, don't try to change how the conversation went. Before anyone posed that question you tossed out gems like. This is absolutely terrible, but, sadly, I can't really claim I am surprised. A look in the comment section will tell you everybody knows the main problem lies with muslims and muslim immigrants, but nearly everybody is too scared to say it publicly, lest he be called a racist or a xenophobe. I am tired of it. People aren't saying these things one because they are false and two because they are bigoted and xenophobic. Full stop. Yea, I don't care that Christianity was similarly violent hundreds of years ago, what interests me is what is the danger now, in the time I live in. In the time you live in Christian extremists are similarly violent(along with Hindus, Buddhists etc.) it's shocking that this needs to be said, but it's not unique to Islam and as a religion Islam not somehow inherently violent. The vast majority of Muslims the world over condemn these acts. As for the danger to you personally now? As numerous posters have pointed it's practically nil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebla Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 KStM,So does Christianity. If a Christian attempts to impose "church law" on a given Nation-State (dispite the fact that I am Christian) I'm going to have a problem with that.Well, there are certainly still a lot of Blue Laws on the books across the United States. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Trebla,Hell, the heavy regulation of alcohol production in the US has something of a religious basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raja Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 So if you don't do a lot of stuff in Islam are you really a muslim?I've lived in two countries with a significant muslim population, one in which they are the majority and islam is practiced in fairly different ways in both. I suppose it's expected, given the sheer number of people who follow islam, but as an outsider, it was surprising to me how different it was ( though I really shouldn't have been surprised by it). I'm not sure it makes citizens of either of those countries any less of a muslim. On a different note, It might also be a good idea not to lump all of the middle-east together. It seems strange to me Edit: Agree with everything Mormont has said so far, I'm honestly surprised at the Bill Maher style reactions in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suttree Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 So if you don't do a lot of stuff in Islam are you really a muslim? What? So if you don't do a lot of the stuff in the bible are you really a Christian? I've lived in two countries with a significant muslim population, one in which they are the majority and islam is practiced in fairly different ways in both. I suppose it's expected, given the sheer number of people who follow islam, but as an outsider, it was surprising to me how different it was ( though I really shouldn't have been surprised by it). I'm not sure it makes citizens of either of those countries any less of a muslim. On a different note, It might also be a good idea not to lump all of the middle-east together. It seems strange to me What seems strange to me is that people view Islam as some monolith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NestorMakhnosLovechild Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 A round up of how the world's cartoonists are responding to the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Some of them are quite touching, and two from American media outlets portray the Prophet Muhammad (as a bonus - in ways that are facially inoffensive but for the prohibition against his depiction). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raja Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 What seems strange to me is that people view Islam as some monolith. Yeah, I was ignorant. One of the good things that has come out with traveling around at a younger age is that it's helped in that regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 What? So if you don't do a lot of the stuff in the bible are you really a Christian? Wouldn't it be great if we could devise some kind of objective grading system by which we can disqualify people from the religion they claim to espouse, because a whole fucking lot of Christians would be cast the fuck out. Oh man, how I'd love to be able to revoke the Christian card from some of the bigoted, warmongering, poor-hating fuckers I interact with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lojzelote Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Nah, don't try to change how the conversation went. Before anyone posed that question you tossed out gems like. People aren't saying these things one because they are false and two because they are bigoted and xenophobic. Full stop. In the time you live in Christian extremists are similarly violent(along with Hindus, Buddhists etc.) it's shocking that this needs to be said, but it's not unique to Islam and as a religion Islam not somehow inherently violent. The vast majority of Muslims the world over condemn these acts. As for the danger to you personally now? As numerous posters have pointed it's practically nil. Bigoted and xenophobic? I'll rather be "bigoted and xenophobic" than blindly optimistic. I'd wait out how the Middle East situation is solved and how the Western Europe will cope in the following years before welcoming ten thousands of muslims and building them mosques. Radical Christians, Hindus and Buddhists don't bother me to the same extent. I think they are nutjobs, but their numbers are not rising all that much, at least as far as I know. And when it comes to it, if I was - purely in theory - forced to lived under some faith, I would rather pretend I am a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or a Jew than a Muslim. Right now, the danger is not big, you're right. The question is, if it will be the same in twenty years? I'd rather not get knifed in liver because I say over the newspapers to a friend that I hope that the 72 virgins the instigators of the latest terrorist attack should get are really fugly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lessthanluke Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 What? So if you don't do a lot of the stuff in the bible are you really a Christian? I was asking a question. I am not in any way shape or form religious so I don't know the answer :)There has to be a tipping point where if you reject enough parts of a certain religion then you stop being a part of it. Or maybe that just makes sense in my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castel Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I was asking a question. I am not in any way shape or form religious so I don't know the answer :) There has to be a tipping point where if you reject enough parts of a certain religion then you stop being a part of it. Or maybe that just makes sense in my head. In theory, maybe. In practice no one can take you to task. The actual tipping point is when enough people do this that the new, limited form counts as the religion and not heresy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fjordgazer Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I will first state that i would advocate for a world without religions, i am pretty much a "Hitchenist" in that regard. I also would agree with him that the most toxic form religion takes today is Islam. Far too many events of faith-inspired violence (against muslims and infidels indistinctly) and repression (against peace-loving fellow muslims and minorities) to be a coincidence. Anyone who justifies these murders and blames the victims should go to Saudi Arabia or Syria and lose the freedoms they don't deserve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog-days Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I was asking a question. I am not in any way shape or form religious so I don't know the answer :) There has to be a tipping point where if you reject enough parts of a certain religion then you stop being a part of it. Or maybe that just makes sense in my head. Difficult to define what a religion is though, and what is part of it, and what isn't. I once went to a talk given by a Pakistani author when I was an expat in Germany. She said that she was always surprised by the differences in religious/cultural practice when she went to book signings around the Muslim world. For example, she said that women in Pakistan tended to be lax about the veil, but kept their bodies very well covered. But Indonesian Muslim women would take great care to hide their hair, and then expose lots of cleavage. A Bosnian Muslim I knew, to whom her religion meant a lot, wore jeans and shirts and no veil at all. I still remember very clearly how touchingly she spoke about how much she liked to observe Ramadan, because all the family gathered together in the evening to break the fast together with a splendid candlelit evening meal. My first German teacher was originally from Iraq, and didn't drink alcohol. One of his students was a Muslim from Ghana, and did. And of course, every religious person seems to have their own mental version of 'the True religion', from which they banish people at will when they do something they don't like. The 'no true Scotsman' fallacy in action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 There has to be a tipping point where if you reject enough parts of a certain religion then you stop being a part of it. Or maybe that just makes sense in my head. Sure that makes sense. And as I said before, I'd love there to be some criteria by which you can call bullshit on someone claiming a certain religion when they've run afoul of its tenets in serious enough ways. But religion doesn't make sense, and it is very... sticky. Take my Catholicism (please!). I was confirmed as a teenager. So, despite the fact that I believe in contraception and reproductive choice for women, and that there's nothing wrong with gay people, and that good people of every faith (or none) should be able to go to Heaven, and that molesting priests should be turned over to civil authorities, and I married a Protestant woman in a hotel ceremony presided over by an Episcopalian minister who's also a professor of Buddhism with a blessing read by a devout Hindu and a reading by a secular bacon-eating Jew, I'm officially a Catholic unless I get excommunicated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fjordgazer Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 According to TNYT, a French journalist was told by one of the assassins: "I won't kill you. You are a woman. But think about what youre doing" My detector of hypocrisy just went through the roof. -_- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theprincethatwasntpromised Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Nah, don't try to change how the conversation went. Before anyone posed that question you tossed out gems like. People aren't saying these things one because they are false and two because they are bigoted and xenophobic. Full stop. In the time you live in Christian extremists are similarly violent(along with Hindus, Buddhists etc.) it's shocking that this needs to be said, but it's not unique to Islam and as a religion Islam not somehow inherently violent. The vast majority of Muslims the world over condemn these acts. As for the danger to you personally now? As numerous posters have pointed it's practically nil.So you believe someone today is more likely to be killed by a radical Christian than a radical Muslim? Suttree, as usual, you are either clueless or share similar beliefs with these radicals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crixus Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Fjordgazer: Well, considering the terrorists in the Peshawar attack set a female teacher on fire, I really don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fjordgazer Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Fjordgazer: Well, considering the terrorists in the Peshawar attack set a female teacher on fire, I really don't know. That's why i talked hipocrisy: that "absolution" rings contradictory in about 5 levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Iceman of the North Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Wouldn't it be great if we could devise some kind of objective grading system by which we can disqualify people from the religion they claim to espouse, because a whole fucking lot of Christians would be cast the fuck out. Oh man, how I'd love to be able to revoke the Christian card from some of the bigoted, warmongering, poor-hating fuckers I interact with. You should totally start doing that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crixus Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 That's why i talked hipocrisy: that "absolution" rings contradictory in about 5 levels. Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.