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This Seems Like A Very Bad Way To Convince Me..


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I might have picked ending slavery, maybe freeing Europe, even inventing Tang, but ending prohibition as one of our 'greatest moments'? :club:
America is terrible at admitting mistakes and changing course. Thats why I value prohibition.Freeing Europe was great but not an accomplishment intertwined with religion in my mind. Ending slavery....was that really a great moment? Lots of countries had abolished slavery way earlier. To end slavery, we had to start it in the first place. Then again, we did change course on something (though it took a Civil War....we dont do change easy). Getting to the moon before those commies was good.America's greatest accomplishment, of course, is being in the right place (access to both major oceans) at the right time of human history (when a large chunk of Europe desperately needed a fresh start) and taking advantage of it to meteorically rise to the top of world. (Seriously, what were the odds of any new country going from nothing to clear #1 in less than 200 years?)I hope we dont screw it all up now.Invention of Gatorade > Invetion of Tang.
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America is terrible at admitting mistakes and changing course. Thats why I value prohibition.Freeing Europe was great but not an accomplishment intertwined with religion in my mind. Ending slavery....was that really a great moment? Lots of countries had abolished slavery way earlier. To end slavery, we had to start it in the first place. Then again, we did change course on something (though it took a Civil War....we dont do change easy). Getting to the moon before those commies was good.America's greatest accomplishment, of course, is being in the right place (access to both major oceans) at the right time of human history (when a large chunk of Europe desperately needed a fresh start) and taking advantage of it to meteorically rise to the top of world. (Seriously, what were the odds of any new country going from nothing to clear #1 in less than 200 years?)I hope we dont screw it all up now.Invention of Gatorade > Invetion of Tang.
Good natured ribbing is one thing.But you have crossed a line buddy
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But I do agree with your position that religion is the single greatest influence on culture, that's why America is so great.
If you think about it, this issue shows just how secular we are here. Let's take India for comparison.... in India, if you look at what someone is eating, what language they are speaking, or what clothes they wear you can guess what their religion is and be right 99% of the time. In America, watching what the average person eats or how they dress tells you very little about which religion they follow. Unless they are Amish.
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I don't think it's a stretch to say that everyone here can admit that our human faults and failings sometimes lead us away from what we believe.I think the crux of lois' point is that when someone is actually following the teachings of Islam, this is actually how they act. It's pretty clear in their holy book that Islamic men are "it", and everyone else isn't worth much - whether its women or every other religion Mohammed classified as being in the "tribe of war". People have done some pretty terrible things in the name of Christ throughout the years, but that doesn't mean the Bible condones it. Essentially the opposite is true for Islam.

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I really don't understand why people are so intent on defending Islam. The fact is that the religion contains some pretty insidious ideologies. There is a pressure to have a politically correct "Islam is good, it's just been corrupted by a small minority" view, but that is rested on a faulty assumption - that all religions are good, equally healthy sets of ideas, and it is quite convincingly betrayed by evidence.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that everyone here can admit that our human faults and failings sometimes lead us away from what we believe.I think the crux of lois' point is that when someone is actually following the teachings of Islam, this is actually how they act. It's pretty clear in their holy book that Islamic men are "it", and everyone else isn't worth much - whether its women or every other religion Mohammed classified as being in the "tribe of war". People have done some pretty terrible things in the name of Christ throughout the years, but that doesn't mean the Bible condones it. Essentially the opposite is true for Islam.
As things stand in my conscience, I remain to be convinced that these statements are not true.
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As things stand in my conscience, I remain to be convinced that these statements are not true.[/quote Sorry, but your "conscience" is ignoring the actual factual parameters of the teachings themselves. Try reading, and then come on back and you can admit you are wrong and all that. It won't be fun for me, I promise.
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Sorry, but your "conscience" is ignoring the actual factual parameters of the teachings themselves. Try reading, and then come on back and you can admit you are wrong and all that. It won't be fun for me, I promise.
wait, I thought he was agreeing with us.
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wait, I thought he was agreeing with us.
it's hard to tell considering his expert use of a triple negative. You need a team of lawyers to decipher that swamp of a sentence.Lois's default programming is set to assume others are disagreeing with him. But he could be right here. I have read that sentence 4 times and I am still not quite sure what he is saying. I did the noble thing and put on Life instead.
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it's hard to tell considering his expert use of a triple negative. You need a team of lawyers to decipher that swamp of a sentence.Lois's default programming is set to assume others are disagreeing with him. But he could be right here. I have read that sentence 4 times and I am still not quite sure what he is saying. I did the noble thing and put on Life instead.
I think you are my team of lawyers, so if you can't figure it out, we're screwed.
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Yes, because I do feel any culture or society can take any religious written word and twist it to repress a group within their own group. I think we should be aware that injustices against people happen everywhere including our own backyard. A beheading is dramatic and the Islam culture is so different than ours that it is easy to focus on the injustices that happen there. It would be tough to find many people in our culture who would support such an act. However, we as a society can easily turn our heads and ignore certain injustices that happen in our own territory. I think Bob's post was spot on.
Well said. I agree. All religions and cultures do bad things because they are all similarly made up of human beings with the same weaknesses. We shouldn't condemn a whole religion or culture base on the bad apples.Here is the question I have. Am I to believe that the behavior of the man in the OP who murdered his wife by beheading her had nothing to do with his culture or religion? After all a lot of husbands murder there wives for a variety of reasons in this country. Of course, our society for the most part frowns on this and dishes out very stiff penalties for such crimes. Ok, I will wait and see how the muslim community reacts to this. Lets see how much of the Muslim community frowns on this and how much support the murderer receives from the muslim community. I just feel uneasy at how some of you see yourself as superior because you choose to see an event such as this in a different context than where it belongs. I think it is irresponsable.
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I'm a hot mess, too. No shame in it.
really?
No the BIBLE elevated women higher. Christianity has an extremely checkered past on women's rights (the puritans and their witch hunts being a colorful example). The two are really not the same thing. America is great because we (allegedly) welcome all religions and try to incorporate numerous cultures.....in fact, some of America's greatest moves consisted of ignoring or eventually abandoning Christianity's position on an issue. (Overcoming the temperance movement...ironically something driven by Christian women.....and repealing Prohibition was one of our greatest moments. We did something foolish/did not consider the consequences because of religious driven hysteria about the evils of booze but we realized our error and instead of sticking with it we made the change.)
I'm not going to read this whole thread, I just don't have the energy. But I will make this one comment.Jesus hates religion. Including, but not limited to, Christianity. People do all sorts of things 'in God's name'. But what the Bible says is all that matters.... and the God of the Bible makes it clear that males and females are totally equal.
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really?I'm not going to read this whole thread, I just don't have the energy. But I will make this one comment.Jesus hates religion. Including, but not limited to, Christianity. People do all sorts of things 'in God's name'. But what the Bible says is all that matters.... and the God of the Bible makes it clear that males and females are totally equal.
Alright, I am a little ashamed.
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Alright, I am a little ashamed.
LMD I believe that if all of us were to look deeply into our souls we'd have to admit that we are too. You're just a bit more honest than most about it.
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I dont see aproblem here. And ABC< NBC< MSNBC agree with me or else they would be covering this. However if pat robertson had set his wife aflame, it would be headlines for months.
I agree because ABC, NBC, MSNBC cover every single murder in the USAbesides if it was an issue no way the liberal bias CNN would've covered it as they have.
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I agree because ABC, NBC, MSNBC cover every single murder in the USAbesides if it was an issue no way the liberal bias CNN would've covered it as they have.
Evidently you are not aware of the background info.
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i'm getting into this a bit late, but using bob's posts as a starting point, i'd like to say that islam is a very YOUNG religion relative to christianity, judaism, hinduism, buddhism, and most of the other major world religions. all of those (save buddhism, perhaps, unless you count the 20th cen korean monk riots, i guess) have had a profoundly violent, proselytic phase that coincided with a very fundamentalist interpretation of scripture, and i don't think that it's a stretch to say that islam is merely going through its own right now. without condoning violence, you can put it into its proper comparative historical context--indeed, you should, if you're trying to understand it properly. i mean, thinking of islamic fundamentalism in the middle east today and equating it with islam is more like using the spanish inquisition as a synecdoche for christianity than it is using the contemporary US as christianity's grand historical exemplar.the christian and jewish bibles talk of slavery, of great wars, of violence, and social situations that we'd find absolutely abhorrent today, and the qu'ran is no different. if you judge a religion by a fundamentalist interpretation of its central scriptures, they all look pretty terrible (except for buddhism, maybe, unless you find riddles and paradoxes abhorrent). you have to allow religious thought to develop and mature within its own tradition, and within a functional society if you want to give it a fair shake, and islam hasn't really had that opportunity, or at least is basically never given one in the west. people that equate islam exclusively with the middle east are kidding themselves--a much more fair view lies half a world away in indonesia, which actually has the world's largest islamic populace, and in the context of other asian countries in the region, indonesia ain't so bad.all that said, i'll read this story as muslim murder the next time i read a family murder/suicide in appalachia as a christian slaying. as of now, i'm chalking both of them up to batshit crazy people who happen to believe in one god or another.

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i'm getting into this a bit late, but using bob's posts as a starting point, i'd like to say that islam is a very YOUNG religion relative to christianity, judaism, hinduism, buddhism, and most of the other major world religions. all of those (save buddhism, perhaps, unless you count the 20th cen korean monk riots, i guess) have had a profoundly violent, proselytic phase that coincided with a very fundamentalist interpretation of scripture, and i don't think that it's a stretch to say that islam is merely going through its own right now. without condoning violence, you can put it into its proper comparative historical context--indeed, you should, if you're trying to understand it properly. i mean, thinking of islamic fundamentalism in the middle east today and equating it with islam is more like using the spanish inquisition as a synecdoche for christianity than it is using the contemporary US as christianity's grand historical exemplar.the christian and jewish bibles talk of slavery, of great wars, of violence, and social situations that we'd find absolutely abhorrent today, and the qu'ran is no different. if you judge a religion by a fundamentalist interpretation of its central scriptures, they all look pretty terrible (except for buddhism, maybe, unless you find riddles and paradoxes abhorrent). you have to allow religious thought to develop and mature within its own tradition, and within a functional society if you want to give it a fair shake, and islam hasn't really had that opportunity, or at least is basically never given one in the west. people that equate islam exclusively with the middle east are kidding themselves--a much more fair view lies half a world away in indonesia, which actually has the world's largest islamic populace, and in the context of other asian countries in the region, indonesia ain't so bad.all that said, i'll read this story as muslim murder the next time i read a family murder/suicide in appalachia as a christian slaying. as of now, i'm chalking both of them up to batshit crazy people who happen to believe in one god or another.
Seems to me that Christianity's 'violent' phase would be better laid at the feet of politics than fundementalist interpretations of the Bible.If you are saying that Christianity as an extension of Judaism has to account for the Old Testament, then I would agree.And Islam was originally sub titled Religion of the Sword for a reasonBTW, how long are we to wait for Islam to 'mature', I would think 1500 years would have mellowed them out a little.
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i'm getting into this a bit late, but using bob's posts as a starting point, i'd like to say that islam is a very YOUNG religion relative to christianity, judaism, hinduism, buddhism, and most of the other major world religions. all of those (save buddhism, perhaps, unless you count the 20th cen korean monk riots, i guess) have had a profoundly violent, proselytic phase that coincided with a very fundamentalist interpretation of scripture, and i don't think that it's a stretch to say that islam is merely going through its own right now. without condoning violence, you can put it into its proper comparative historical context--indeed, you should, if you're trying to understand it properly. i mean, thinking of islamic fundamentalism in the middle east today and equating it with islam is more like using the spanish inquisition as a synecdoche for christianity than it is using the contemporary US as christianity's grand historical exemplar.the christian and jewish bibles talk of slavery, of great wars, of violence, and social situations that we'd find absolutely abhorrent today, and the qu'ran is no different. if you judge a religion by a fundamentalist interpretation of its central scriptures, they all look pretty terrible (except for buddhism, maybe, unless you find riddles and paradoxes abhorrent). you have to allow religious thought to develop and mature within its own tradition, and within a functional society if you want to give it a fair shake, and islam hasn't really had that opportunity, or at least is basically never given one in the west. people that equate islam exclusively with the middle east are kidding themselves--a much more fair view lies half a world away in indonesia, which actually has the world's largest islamic populace, and in the context of other asian countries in the region, indonesia ain't so bad.all that said, i'll read this story as muslim murder the next time i read a family murder/suicide in appalachia as a christian slaying. as of now, i'm chalking both of them up to batshit crazy people who happen to believe in one god or another.
I think you've studied World Relgions a little bit more than I have, but I'm pretty sure this is just wrong. IIRC, Islam was founded around the year 700 AD, Mohammed used it as a tool help him get followers who would aid him in conquering. As BG said, it was founded as a religion of the sword and has been for over 1300 years. Christianity has had it's phases where it has used violence, no doubt. But, think about it. If you actually read what Jesus preached, it was all about loving your neighbor and being peaceful and kind. Mohammed and the Koran preached Jihad against non-believers. Christianity's most violent times have come in response to Islamic expansionism (i.e. The Crusades and the Inquisition). I'm not saying that what Christianity did was right, or that either religion is true, but it's definitely some food for thought. I dunno, I haven't studied it enough, but I have a hard time finding redeeming qualities in the history of Islam or in it's overall practice today. On the other hand, I can find redeeming qualities with Christianity. At very least, Jesus preached about peace and loving your neighbor and while many Christians are hypocrites, most Christian relgions at least teach these same prinicples. No religion has a perfect record, but Islam is about the only one that I have a hard time finding redeeming qualities in.Quick edit to add...I really don't think that most fundamentalist interpretations of Christianity condone violence in the way that fundamentalist interpretations of Islam do. My understanding is that Christion fundamentalists tend to be very oppressive in the way they treat women and in their puritanical views and such, but I don't know of any that preach the killing of innocent people because they happen to belong to another religion or offer 73 virgins for blowing yourself up. Two examples...-Amish - Fundamentalist Christians. Don't believe in using technology. Have very puritanical views on sex, not a great record on giving women freedom. They teach total pacifism. -Fundamentalist Islamists. Oppress women, teach and preach the violent killing of non-believers. Don't discriminate in who they kill (i.e. children, women) so long as they kill non-believers. I just don't see how you can compare the two.
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Donkslayer, you've been hearing the same state news I have about the Virginia Tech Chinese engineering student who beheaded another Chinese grad student. Is that beheading indicative that Asian culture, or Asian engineers, are driven by their culture to behead women regularly?
Southern, there's a chance he was a total nutbag, and also that he chose to behead her (as the means to kill her) for some sort of cultural reason. The Chinese culture is probably just as favorable toward equality for women as ours is, so I think your connection is a logically weak one.
without condoning violence, you can put it into its proper comparative historical context--indeed, you should, if you're trying to understand it properly. i mean, thinking of islamic fundamentalism in the middle east today and equating it with islam is more like using the spanish inquisition as a synecdoche for christianity than it is using the contemporary US as christianity's grand historical exemplar.all that said, i'll read this story as muslim murder the next time i read a family murder/suicide in appalachia as a christian slaying. as of now, i'm chalking both of them up to batshit crazy people who happen to believe in one god or another.
Your blind devotion to relativism is sickening and you're all over the place in your reasoning. If Christianity and Islam aren't in the same place, why will you think a murder in "appalachia" is a christian slaying (with no other information given)? Feel free to do this next time someone is...wait Brv and Lois, what passage in the new testament tells how to kill someone in a religious or honorable way? Your connection to the inquisition is also silly, and I know you're so much smarter than that. The organized inquisition (btw we're talking about the middle ages) were by far a method to consolidate power for Catholic monarchies...and the inquisition never involved individual peasants beheading their wives.Western society (very secular euro nations are struggling mightily as well as "Christian" USA) needs to take a big cultural stand against this crap. Men and women kill their spouses over marital strife all the time....but there's no way to disconnect the fact that this women was killed by beheading from cultural, fundamental islam, at all. This guy's a buddhist or athiest, who knows if he even touches her after they divorce.
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Southern, there's a chance he was a total nutbag, and also that he chose to behead her (as the means to kill her) for some sort of cultural reason. The Chinese culture is probably just as favorable toward equality for women as ours is, so I don't think your connection is a logically weak one.Your blind devotion to relativism is sickening and you're all over the place in your reasoning. If Christianity and Islam aren't in the same place, why will you think a murder in "appalachia" is a christian slaying (with no other information given)? Feel free to do this next time someone is...wait Brv and Lois, what passage in the new testament tells how to kill someone in a religious or honorable way? Your connection to the inquisition is also silly, and I know you're so much smarter than that. The organized inquisition (btw we're talking about the middle ages) were by far a method to consolidate power for Catholic monarchies...and the inquisition never involved individual peasants beheading their wives.Western society (very secular euro nations are struggling mightily as well as "Christian" USA) needs to take a big cultural stand against this crap. Men and women kill their spouses over marital strife all the time....but there's no way to disconnect the fact that this women was killed by beheading from cultural, fundamental islam, at all. This guy's a buddhist or athiest, who knows if he even touches her after they divorce.
This will do nicely. And to answer your question, none, although there is a nice write up on how to correctly do in a fatted lamb or calf for the lord.
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