Religion of Peace Update

Actually they are not all the same. I don't know a ton of muslims, but the ones I do know don't seem "much the same" as the ones people like you love pointing out.

Well, you can't help but quote Marx on this one (the only part he was right on).

Religion is like Opium for people. It makes them dumbed down and easy to control.

Otoh Ayn Rand said pretty much the same thing. marcus

Actually they are not all the same. I don't know a ton of muslims, but the ones I do know don't seem "much the same" as the ones people like you love pointing out.

Draginol doesn't like to point them out. It's they themselves who want the pointing.

That's why they march the streets with big signs for others to read, in case you ever wondered.

We are supposed to notice them. We have a deal.

I don't care who speaks for Islam. Somebody will. If those other Muslims you speak about disagree, they are free to voice their own opinions. I will listen to them too.

Actually they are not all the same. I don't know a ton of muslims, but the ones I do know don't seem "much the same" as the ones people like you love pointing out.

If I wrote a piece of software that had catastrophic failure on say 5% of machines it was installed, I think it would be considered buggy.  If I made a drug that killed or injured 1% of the people who used it, it would never make it to market.

So saying something to the effect of "Well most of the people are fine." is meaningless. 

Regardless of where you go, where Islam is, there is violence and hatred that stands out far above other cultures and religions.

Actually they are not all the same. I don't know a ton of muslims, but the ones I do know don't seem "much the same" as the ones people like you love pointing out.

Funny you say that cause he said Islam not muslims. So what I understood he ment was that the religion seems to be the same everywhere not the people(hope I'm right), specially since there is no one defending the opposite of it. Remember, not everyone who believes in islam is muslim and not everyone who is muslim believes in islam.

Why do you always jump the gun to defend something without actually making sense of it first?

We always hear these rumors of how the majority of Muslims don't feel this way (like those in the photo).

My question is simple:

Why aren't they speaking out against these ass hats? I truly believe that the 'majority' of Muslims are just as offended by this as I am, but it disturbs me that they are so silent on the matter.

We always hear these rumors of how the majority of Muslims don't feel this way (like those in the photo). My question is simple: Why aren't they speaking out against these ass hats? I truly believe that the 'majority' of Muslims are just as offended by this as I am, but it disturbs me that they are so silent on the matter.

Exactly, an insightful for you.

BTW, can someone explain why the quote feature does not work with firefox?

DJBandit -

The quote function works fine in FF for me when I'm in JU forums, but won't work when I'm in the WC forums - I just get the beginning & end quote brackets without the highlihted text. Don't know what the difference would be.

One has to wonder how many Muslim-run abu garaibs there are in nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, etc. Turkey is known for the horror of its prison system. Then there's China, who rubber hoses people to death for their religious beliefs. Saudi Arabia seems to have no problem slaughtering people who don't happen to have their veil on. We pose people in funny positions, and they mutilate and purposely handicap their prisoners.

And yet, when we do something, world outrage. How do they have the moral authority to be mad about cartoons, or abu garaib, if they sit idly by and watch these things happen in Muslim countries? If the police allow all their friends to murder people and then condemn you for it, is that the "justice" these people are crying out for?

Hell no, they don't want justice, they want the same favored status they've earned with their oil for 100 years. They beleive since we need their oil we'll overlook their sins and they can condemn ours. That time should just about be over.

It's like saying "Why doesn't anyone speak up against Catholic Church when they are activelly working against Contraception against AIDS": That strategy will end up causing millions of deaths (slight difference from maybe 10k from suicide bombs). Arch reactionary religions are bad news but it's nothing new.

What can anyone do when religious freaks get their way through? Not much, except stay on the path of REASON like Ayn Rand would have done. Unfortunatelly there aren't too many smart people like her around.
Too many people will keep on believing that a bunch of goat hearders 2000 years ago was more worth listening to than people like Einstein or Ayn Rand. Just because there are strong powers working towards those goals.
Teach people about the libertarian way(the power of individualism), that is the way out of intolerance and narrow mindness. Slowly people will learn .

bm

" It's like saying "Why doesn't anyone speak up against Catholic Church when they are activelly working against Contraception against AIDS": That strategy will end up causing millions of deaths (slight difference from maybe 10k from suicide bombs). Arch reactionary religions are bad news but it's nothing new.

A) people do speak up, a lot, and frankly the opponents of the Catholic church are far, far louder than the church and its supporters.

AIDS is a disease, and not a product of the church. If people followed the church's direction, there'd be no AIDS, so you can't blame the Church for the result of practices they condemn.

Terror, on the other hand, is the direct command of Muslim religious leaders. No, not all of them, not even a majority, probably, but the problem is the rest sit back and save their outrage for cartoons. When there are riots over the murders of schoolchildren by Muslims, I'll believe that Islam is a religion that values peace.

"Too many people will keep on believing that a bunch of goat hearders 2000 years ago was more worth listening to than people like Einstein or Ayn Rand. Just because there are strong powers working towards those goals. "

I listen to Einstien.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. "Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium", 1941"

I don't listen to Rand because I think she was a kook. If she lived now, most people who worship her like a prophet would be condemning her for her homophobia. She was yet another self-deluded thinker passing off subjective philosophy as objective "reason".

I don't listen to Rand because I think she was a kook. If she lived now, most people who worship her like a prophet would be condemning her for her homophobia. She was yet another self-deluded thinker passing off subjective philosophy as objective "reason".

I agree.

Yet I want to note the irony that you perhaps overlooked and that Marcus might not have intended, I don't know. In any case, it is possibly worth pointing out for the other readers.

The goat herders of 200 years ago whom he refers to, and Albert Einstein, and Alissa Rosenbaum ("Ayn Rand") were, of course, all Jewish.

What an influence!

[A) people do speak up, a lot, and frankly the opponents of the Catholic church are far, far louder than the church and its supporters.

Unfortunatelly billions still listen to the crap.

AIDS is a disease, and not a product of the church. If people followed the church's direction, there'd be no AIDS, so you can't blame the Church for the result of practices they condemn.

AIDS is a disease which is transfered through sexual contact. If people followed the (Catholic not Lutheran/Anglican) church direction they would get AIDS, which is what they do. If they listened to scientists however (like Einstein), they would of course NOT get AIDS because the Condom would stop it. Simple?

Again. Religious groups are (by definition) morons(yes Muslims too). We agree on that I guess?

Terror, on the other hand, is the direct command of Muslim religious leaders. No, not all of them, not even a majority, probably, but the problem is the rest sit back and save their outrage for cartoons. When there are riots over the murders of schoolchildren by Muslims, I'll believe that Islam is a religion that values peace.

Ok. I agree again, they are morons. Religion is for those who want to be controlled (lack of brain probably).
Your sentence illustrates exactly what Ayn Rand talked about(or wrote). You wrote "direct command". This is how religion works, it strips off people the very core of self sentinence, the ability to think for themrselves. My guess is that those goat hearders were afraid of some smarter buddy and decided that no, noone can be allowed to think for themselves. As a bonus they added the ban on eating Pigs (to protect their sheep farming industry).
bm

The goat herders of 200 years ago whom he refers to, and Albert Einstein, and Alissa Rosenbaum ("Ayn Rand") were, of course, all Jewish.

They were great examples on how individuals overcome superstition and acts on Reason.
Ayn Rand may have disliked homosexuality but neither did she deny anyone to do EXACTLY what they wanted with their own lives. The capital libertarian principle.
And if Ayn Rand was a "kook". Why has she been proven right on every point? Capitalism and Individualism is the way. Collectivism(religions, nazism, communism etc) is for morons(or goat hearders perhaps).

bm

If someone has problems following my message then I have a good example here.

Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!

Yes it's from Life of Brian. Should be required watching for every religious fanatic.

marcus

"Unfortunatelly billions still listen to the crap."

Might wanna go check your statistics. There aren't billions of Catholics. There are barely billionS of Christians. If you want to make us all out to be Catholics, fine, but don't complain when people make all Muslims out to be radicals...

"AIDS is a disease which is transfered through sexual contact. If people followed the (Catholic not Lutheran/Anglican) church direction they would get AIDS, which is what they do. If they listened to scientists however (like Einstein), they would of course NOT get AIDS because the Condom would stop it. Simple?"

Not so simple. They wouldn't get it, because they wouldn't be having sex with people that have the disease. Sexual contact isn't something the church promotes outside marraige. Unless a husband cheated on his wife, the disease would never get into the family, and if someone got it though medical malpractice it would neve spread beyond the couple.

As I said, if people followed the church's beliefs they wouldn't get AIDS, because it wouldn't spread, because people would only have one partner. You can't blame AIDS on the Catholic Church when they promote the exact behavior that would end the disease. You expect them to discard their beliefs and adopt your morality, much like Muslims expect us to discard our freedom of speech to bow to their concept of "respect".

"Ayn Rand may have disliked homosexuality but neither did she deny anyone to do EXACTLY what they wanted with their own lives."

Odd, considering she promoted discrimination against homosexuals, and even promoted them to be seen as mentally handicapped. It sounds like she'd just fine with shunning people who do EXACTLY what they want to do and yet differ with her perspective.

That doesn't strike me the kind of person you describe. The fact that she was constantly hurling condemnation on almost every human institution makes it a little facetious to say that she wanted people to do exactly what THEY wanted. She seemed to have nothing but disdain for what the average person wanted.

She just thought, like most deranged people of her ilk, that she knew what was better for us than we do. For that reason, her feelings about religion are hypocritical. She's just replacing one idol with another. No one who wanted people to do exactly what they wanted would hae spent so much time telling us what we should do...

If people followed the (Catholic not Lutheran/Anglican) church direction they would get AIDS, which is what they do.

The catholic faith now condones sleeping around?

Damn! Perhaps I am on the wrong track after all.

If they listened to scientists however (like Einstein), they would of course NOT get AIDS because the Condom would stop it. Simple?

Scientists -> Albert Einstein -> condoms -> no AIDS. Got it. Funny how the connection between Einstein and condoms escaped me in the past.

As a bonus they added the ban on eating Pigs (to protect their sheep farming industry).

You would probably try to breed pigs in the desert. You'd be the nomad with the pig herd.

You think religion causes stupidity or is stupidity, but it is obvious that you haven't even thought as far as it takes to understand religious laws. Just think economically, think about what pigs require and what livestock is for. You might just understand the Jewish and Muslim law regarding pigs.

But then again, you might not. It's not so easy as simply believing that all religion is crap.

Again. Religious groups are (by definition) morons(yes Muslims too). We agree on that I guess?

Why am I a moron just because I go to shul?

They were great examples on how individuals overcome superstition and acts on Reason.

Yes, Judaism does that to people. That's why you will find so many great scientists among Jews. The Jewish religion encourages education.

And if Ayn Rand was a "kook". Why has she been proven right on every point?

She has?

I don't eat pork. I have in the past. And when I have breakfast in the office canteen I see others ordering and eating fried slices and sausages.

I do not have the healthiest lifestyle, in fact there is a lot I could change to improve, but I do not feel stupid or "controlled" just because I avoid particularly greasy meats.

Now a fan of Ayn Rand tells me that I am a moron because of that.

And what she says appears to be gospel.

But organised religion, well, that is obviously stupid.

I tell you what, Marcus, you try being an egoist, I try not to eat pork. We will see who gets better results.

You expect them to discard their beliefs and adopt your morality

The problem is, of course, that if everybody stops listening to the Catholic Church and sleeps around using condoms instead of having one fixed partner, AIDS will spread a lot faster.

I dare say that this might, technically, not completely solve the AIDS problem in the strictest sense.

At the moment devout Catholics are reasonably safe. Condoms are not.

As I said, if people followed the church's beliefs they wouldn't get AIDS, because it wouldn't spread, because people would only have one partner. You can't blame AIDS on the Catholic Church when they promote the exact behavior that would end the disease. You expect them to discard their beliefs and adopt your morality, much like Muslims expect us to discard our freedom of speech to bow to their concept of "respect"

So if humans stopped behaving like humans (ie having sex which is a natural behaviour for all reproducing bilogical entitites) then they wouldn't get AIDS? Otoh if people did not reproduce there would be no humans.

Well Sex is normally natural. I didn't mean the type where Priests "play" with kids in their spare time. Something that happens when people deny their natural needs. I know the Mullahs in Iran fancy little kids too. They are also very keen on insisting on "marrial duties".

What is ridicilous is that they are against abortions but at the same time they are against contraception? See what happens when you rely on what sheep farmers wrote instead of scientists? Ironically Muslims are not against condom use. So in some ways Catholics are even more ancient.

bm

I don't eat pork. I have in the past. And when I have breakfast in the office canteen I see others ordering and eating fried slices and sausages.

You don't eat pork, why? Because it's unhealthy? Unhealthier than say, Lamb? It's your choice of course to eat whatever you want. I find foolish to decide what you eat upon scriptures made by people without ANY expert knowledge on dietism.

I often ask muslims this. "Hey, the Quaran doesnt say anything about eating worms, or Rats. Is that cleaner food than Pig". Noone ever has an answer. Only that "It says so in the books". Is that intelligent reasoning to you? No of course.

I do not have the healthiest lifestyle, in fact there is a lot I could change to improve, but I do not feel stupid or "controlled" just because I avoid particularly greasy meats.

Everyone lives the way they want. No argument there.

Now a fan of Ayn Rand tells me that I am a moron because of that. And what she says appears to be gospel. But organised religion, well, that is obviously stupid. I tell you what, Marcus, you try being an egoist, I try not to eat pork. We will see who gets better results.

What she said and let me quote
"I am an intransigent atheist, but not a militant one. This means that I am an uncompromising advocate of reason and that I am fighting for reason, not against religion. I must also mention that I do respect religion in its philosophical aspects, in the sense that it represents an early form of philosophy." - Ayn Rand.

Means that religion is NOT an enemy to someone libertarian. However, it does stop me from trying to
point out the (quite serious) flaws of it. In my book, everyone is free to bow down at whatever direction they want, chant whatever they want. As long as it's not forced down my throat. Unfortunatelly religious nutcases chooses to pollute my daily life with their eternal bitching and arguments and fights. If everyone thought more then there would be less problems.

No. You are not one of those nutcases. But there are plenty (like the picture above shows).

marcus

So if humans stopped behaving like humans (ie having sex which is a natural behaviour for all reproducing bilogical entitites) then they wouldn't get AIDS? Otoh if people did not reproduce there would be no humans. No, what is ridiculous is you trying to say that following the Catholic edicts about sex would cause there to be more AIDS, and that somehow Einstien has something to do with condoms.

No one intelligent says people need to deny their natural needs, or do they? People also have the natural need to kill other people in traffic. I'm not a baboon, so I don't need to bludgeon people who I get angry with, sleep with every red ass I pass by, and frankly I don't need to blow up people who insult my religious icons.

What's ironic is that in the last few weeks I have seen more than one person unable to string a decent argument together come in and claim to be the voice of "science", condemning religion in Einstien and anyone else's name. So, if you want to compare the Medieval Catholic church to modern fundamentalist Islam in terms of behavior, great. I'll conceded that they are on par with the people who burned witches and enacted the crusades.

I don't think that is really a compelling argument for them, though, nor it is kind of attack on most modern religious, including the practice of many Muslims.

The problem is, of course, that if everybody stops listening to the Catholic Church and sleeps around using condoms instead of having one fixed partner, AIDS will spread a lot faster. I dare say that this might, technically, not completely solve the AIDS problem in the strictest sense. At the moment devout Catholics are reasonably safe. Condoms are not.

Yeah. Or they could stick to small boys and keep safe that way? I don't know. They are the experts on the issue.

Or how about. They stay the f*ck out of deciding how other lives their lives for them? How about that?.¨

There's of course the solutions to do like the sheep farmers when they have the "itch" .

marcus

So if humans stopped behaving like humans (ie having sex which is a natural behaviour for all reproducing bilogical entitites) then they wouldn't get AIDS? Otoh if people did not reproduce there would be no humans.

Your summary of what he wrote is not a summary of what he wrote. You have to read it again.

He simply explained that if people would follow the Catholic Church, they could have sex and reproduce and not get AIDS.

No other method except the one the Catholics propose can offer you that much.

Well Sex is normally natural. I didn't mean the type where Priests "play" with kids in their spare time. Something that happens when people deny their natural needs. I know the Mullahs in Iran fancy little kids too. They are also very keen on insisting on "marrial duties".

You don't have to sleep with as many people as possible just to be "natural". It's perfectly acceptable to marry and have only one partner.

What is ridicilous is that they are against abortions but at the same time they are against contraception?

I guess you think too much to understand that that is perfectly consistent. The message appears to be "have as many children as possible without using more than one woman".

See what happens when you rely on what sheep farmers wrote instead of scientists?

Yes, you settle questions about morality according to traditions and not science. Why is that bad?

No. I do not want to compare them BakerStreet. Have you heard the word "Turning the clock back?" This is apparently a complete surprise to you BakerStreet but YES. There are plenty of people who actually seek to turn the clock backwards. Go Medieaval as they say.

Churches/Mosques/Synagoges are the anti-thesis of Invididualism. They are imho just a version of socialism/communism or anything else which denies the INDICIVIDUAL a part in it. It also denies the basic thing called Self Sentinence. Which means that we as humans have the chance to make up our own minds instead of constantly refering to texts written by(which appalls me) people WITH no scientific knowledge of ANYTHING. Yet they were experts on everything apparently. It is moronic and silly. Can't find any other explanations.

People should take a hint about most important discoveries coming from Greece, Babylonia etc. Islam and Christianity then spent a good part of a millenia trying to surpress the knowledge (jellous perhaps because they couldnt come up with anything useful themselves).

So. You may be one of those "modern individualistic" Christians. Then I applaud you for being pragmatic about it. Unfortunatelly a huge number does not work that way.

Funny that Draginol himself wrote an article about the inconsistencies in the Bible a few days ago. It didnt take long before all sorts of explanations were made up to make up for those. And this is what some people use as a reference? In 2005?

Jews, Muslims and Christians may keep on blaming eachother as much as they want but they will never be able to deny that they all share the same flawed concept. Namelly that humans are not strong enough to think for themselves.

BakerStreet. You say all other religions are modern now?
Just a few days ago a "Pride Festival" was banned in Moscow. Suddenly the ever bickering Muslims, Jews and Christians were alll buddies and agreed that Gays should all be beheaded, flogged or something else. Isn't it fine when they can at least agree that they are all bigoted?


Marcus