Is Islam evil or am I just ignorant?

Islam is a good religion. Jesus is a prophet in Islam too, so he is respected by muslims. Also jihad means struggle, not holy war (a Christian concept fwiw. Islam only has just and unjust wars.)

There are violent and reactionary clowns in any religion. Fuck em

bytor said:

So, because Christians struggle with the command to give up their worldly possessions and live a life with bare necessities

Do any mainstream Christian groups practise what Jesus actually said - to give away everything to the poor? Name one.

, you would ignore Islam’s command to kill you and everyone else - by any means necessary - who are non-Muslim?

Do any mainstream Muslim groups (MAINSTREAM, not Al Qaeda) actually practise that? Name one.

Would you call the Christian who keeps nothing for himself an extremist? That Muslim, who firmly believes that your life isn’t worth a speck of dirt, isn’t an “extremist”. He is following his religion spot-on. If the “Christian” in your example doesn’t believe that he is commanded by God to give up those possessions, then, no, he is not a Christianfollower of Jesus.

My point is that your reasoning is contradictory. Is a religion to be judged based on what its holy text says, or what its followers actually believe? If the former, then the majority of followers of both Christianity and Islam are not Christians or Muslims. What you advocate is a hypocritical double standard - Christians are to be judged based on your own selective cherry-picking from the Bible, ignoring the parts you aren't comfortable with, but Muslims are to be judged based on your selective quoting of the worst parts of the Qur'an.

Effectively your argument is a straw man - you use quotes from the Qur'an to judge Muslims, assuming that's what the majority of them believe. But the reality is that even the extremist Islamists in the documentary I linked to in my previous post don't meet your standard of how you think Muslims behave.

Bunch of Qur'an and Bible quotes

Nice selective quoting. Now try The Bible or Qur'an game.

You don't but there are many that do. The Catholic church is the worst example of "Christianity". Don't be fooled by the pick-n-choose pretenders.

And... another No True Scotsman fallacy. Why, exactly, do you think I'm going to just disregard the largest Christian denomination on the planet? Let me guess, those one billion Catholics are all doing it wrong, but you, in your infinite wisdom, have found the one, true, correct interpretation of Christianity. Please.

to me, greedy "Liberal" rich company leaders (who for example delibertly poision their consumers) and terrorists with any religous or ideological background, is just as much terrorist as the other.

its not anything wrong with the religion, but its the people who practise it who screw up over and over.
for example:

in the Koran, its written that you shall not commit suicide
its written that if you save one person, you also save the whole mankind, but if you kill a person, you kill the whole mankind.

another example , which is very typical for the USA. which also makes this a quite negative stereotype:

in the US, you have the liberty to do kinda what ever you want(?), this includes making money on the cost of peoples lives(which wasnt meant from the start of it all). if there's a law, you can just walk by the closests corrupt lobbying group and lobby away any law thats in your way as long as you have the cash *sigh*

what has to be done, is that the people stand up and says "please this is just stupid, stop!" and if thats not enough, do whats enough.

D_GARG said:

to me, greedy "Liberal" rich company leaders

You are aware that in American English, "liberal" means "bleeding-heart commie pussy", right? By definition, a liberal cannot be greedy, rich, or a company leader. All they can be is decadent effetes trying to brainwash kids with foolish notions such as "the world is older than the Bible says" or "hobos are people too" or even "there are countries outside of the United States".

If you're talking about neoliberalism as an economic policy of having the governments renounce all their regulation powers to leave way to economic anarchy, this is generally called libertarianism (though there are differences too).

ofc they can be greedy for power and money, dominating markets, power over people by monopolise various food markets and food sources etc etc. Its really ironicly that they thrive in heavy liberal areas (bah, anywere) and spread their litter were ever they can sell.

Gez said:

All they can be is decadent effetes trying to brainwash kids with foolish notions such as "the world is older than the Bible says" or "hobos are people too" or even "there are countries outside of the United States".).

HAH! thats funny because that is true,
you know, you can choose to brainwash a kid with a theory, a lie or a true fact and then, you figure the question of what is the deffinition of a brainwash? so beliveing that mercury is healthy for your babies is .. a) a true fact. or b)a false lie?

anyone, or atleast most of us would say that its a lie since that metal is toxic as fuck. and therefore being told that mercury is healthy could indeed be considered a atempt to brainwash you.

on top of that, this was said on TV
it goes on and on

I don't think anyone claims that mercury is healthy and should be given to babies. It sounds like you're trying to describe a very confused version of the thiomersal controversy, the unsubstantiated claim that mercury in vaccines causes autism and brain damage to babies. On a side note, Paracelsus worked out that the dose makes the poison over 500 years ago.

I hope you dont tell me that its ok to put anything you want in things we consume, its quite obvious that the dose makes the poision, if I swallow 1/3 of a kilogram sand, I am kinda fucked, and still sand is harmless, isnt it?

if you do ... I can only consider you fooled by the medias. since the american media stories that reporters make to tell people news are being forced to modify their stories to satisfy behemoth companies OR ELSE they sue the news companies to a level they cant stand to keep going.

and these giants just do what the hell they want
shouldnt we here in europe/US deal with our own bandits before we go hunting terrorists?

D_GARG said:

I hope you dont tell me that its ok to put anything you want in things we consume,

Not at all, and I never said anything of the sort. I have no idea why you would think I was implying that.

its quite obvious that the dose makes the poision

Yet you asserted in your previous post that "that metal is toxic as fuck" - my point is that nothing is inherently toxic by itself - it is the dose that determines whether it is toxic or not.

I'm assuming you have some kind of objection to vaccines. Considering you haven't actually made any coherent explanation of what it is you're claiming, it isn't really possible to properly respond, though.

if you do ... I can only consider you fooled by the medias.

That's certainly a very convenient way to deal with contradicting points of view while avoiding having to apply any critical thinking skills.

GoatLord said:
When I think about religious extremists, I think about the contrast between say, a Christian extremist, who at worst will mildly annoy you, or possibly firebomb an abortion clinic, and an Islamic extremist, who at worst might commit a horribly violent atrocity that kills many.

For the most part, Christians are richer than Muslims nowadays, and have the "dominant culture". Poor and unfortunate people tend to live amid more violence and instability because they live less secure lives and they are more easily caricatured or mocked by the more powerful media of their rivals or other groups. That powerful media justifies the brutality and injustices of the richer people that own it, and exacerbates harm or unacceptable behavior done by other cultures and peoples considered targets or rivals. What you read in some Sunday opinion column or Fox News about "extremists" and "Muslims" doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

But then you look at Islamic extremists and their behavior seems to be noticeably more harmful to society.

If you look at it in a xenophobic way, you will see it that way. They seem more harmful because they are strangers and any harm they may do may be directed at you, instead of the other way around. You feel that the harm they may do to you may be nasty while you ignore or turn a blind eye to harm your culture does to them.

Should we just we shrug it off and say,

I'd say we should really get to know other peoples, their troubles and daily toils instead of just reacting against fabricated and demonized stereotypes based on any harsh aspects of their culture, behavior or mental imagery that we find inconvenient from our unilateral perspective.

Quast said:
Both are anti-science, anti-humanity, anti-progress, fuck-you-convert-die-or-go-to-hell.

Ah, so the real religious people are the Taliban (or at least how they are generally depicted by the media) and the Inquisition. All the other billions of religious people and practitioners might as well be posers.

We're better than this, we don't need invisible daddies anymore.

I don't either, I think... or hope, but why project to others? Millions upon millions seem to need it in one way or another. Passing condescending judgment on the lives of so many people with experiences we will never know is pretentious, to say the least.

But something happened about 1000 years ago. The muslim world threw that all away and embraced superstition and fanaticism over what they once had. And they have not recovered and have progressed very little since then. Even when europe threw off, at least partially, the shackles of the catholic church and began to enjoy the fruits of the enlightenment.

The West found the Americas, raped its people, acquired vast lands, and with the surplus resources and wealth obtained thus, gained the power to live better, progress more and exploit the surrounding continents and their people. What makes us "better" is based on a foundation of corpses, slavery and violently acquired lands that we still assert by occasionally carpet bombing towelheads and the like. Once we have a great advantage, it's easy to compare ourselves as "civilized" with people we left crawling in gutters after using them or their lands for our benefit. Then it's easy to be atheistic, to enjoy technology we hoard and to deride the intelligence or erratic actions of those who are less fortunate.

st.alfonzo said:
I'm not sure you're giving enough credit where credit is due. I should think these attrocities are commited precisely because of religion as opposed to in the name of it, as it is because of this dedicated belief that such attrocities are even made possible. Such is the reward for divine providence. Almost nobody who is preparing to blow themselves to peices is going to do so unless they are whole heartedly convinced that there will be some kind of reward involved, and you'd never be able to get to that stage if Islam was only incurred as an excuse for want of oil and land - a confined and blood-soaked stretch of sand.

Just because they need zealotry or "extremist religion" to be suicide bombers or the like doesn't mean that is the cause of their actions. Suicide attackers kill themselves in action because their lives are so bleak that their sacrifice in the name of their family or people is better than eventually suffering a similar fate passively or slowly, day by day in frustration, for example. They don't need to "believe" anything, all they need is to suffer a lot and "crack" to the point that such measures seem viable. Sure, if you live a sheltered and pampered life, this behavior seems totally unnatural. But it isn't some kind of "anomalous programming," it's the reaction of an organism that forms part of a group or society against a hard and conflicting environment. If you're already more or less "dead" you can go out with a bang that may make some difference, at least. The imagery of going to heaven after the attack can also be seen as a self-imposed delusional analogy with any benefit that may be left to those one supposedly protects or avenges through the self-destructive action. It's like taking anesthesia when we need to amputate one of our limbs. In this case you amputate everything, and you have a natural form of mental anesthesia to do it. It can't be too different from combining the aspects of a really frustrated and annoyed protester and a "normal" suicidal person.

The determinants of our behavior are mainly material, contextual and organic conditioning and impulses, not ideal or discursive reason. Imagery, beliefs, and language only take meaning as part of relations and interaction, not in themselves.

fraggle said:
Probably the most dangerous thing about religious thinking is that it can be used to justify doing terrible things.

D_GARG said:

I hope you dont tell me that its ok to put anything you want in things we consume, its quite obvious that the dose makes the poision, if I swallow 1/3 of a kilogram sand, I am kinda fucked, and still sand is harmless, isnt it?

If it's beach sand - wash thoroughly before consuming to remove any fish fecal matter. :P

Fun fact - the standard first aid treatment for an angina attack is a pill or spray containing a small quantity of high explosive.

Thanks for that response myk! Very insightful.

I suppose I need to rephrase myself on one account, namely that when I say these atrocities are committed because of religion, I do not meant to say that there are no other contributing facets to an individual's or group's motives behind those atrocities, and particularly where suicide bombing is concerned. No doubt I am completely ignorant of the internal struggle suffered by many of these individuals and behind western interpretation. It is simply to speak of the scale and severity of these atrocities, and that to even reach that stage requires as I said before: "That little something extra."

Taking self-sacrifice out of the equation for a moment, and relieving ourselves of those additional facets that might contribute to an individual's decision, most religious conflicts are not at all about religion. They are indeed about land, wealth, power, whathaveyou (and in response to Wagi's comment, my mentioning that lesser credit was given is again to speak of the extent to which religion plays, and that to claim religion as an excuse is not entirely true. Or at least not the right word to use, I don't think). Rarely is it simply a matter of locking on to some other community with which the scripture does not agree and taking up arms against it. But with divine permission at the helm, the invading party has the conviction to commit whatever act they please in the drive for that land, wealth, and power, and attribute it to their beliefs, without sense of injustice or wrongdoing. Might this be in fact a part of the want to identify with like minded peoples, from a time when tribalism was rife and when greed and fear were thick on the ground? It's an interesting thought, but it wouldn't make the role of religion any less despicable.

That suicide bombing comment though. Man was I wrong. Blew me clean out of the water there! Too right.

Oh look! My opinion changed!

myk said:

The West found the Americas, raped its people, acquired vast lands, and with the surplus resources and wealth obtained thus, gained the power to live better, progress more and exploit the surrounding continents and their people. What makes us "better" is based on a foundation of corpses, slavery and violently acquired lands

And how is that different from other cultures, including Arabic? They too practiced violent expansionism. Why do you think Indonesia is, in population, the largest Muslim country in the world? It's not exactly next door to the Mecca. Arab troops conquered a large part of North and Eastern Africa, some parts of Europe before they were stopped and repelled (parts of the Balkans have notably remained Muslim since), vast spans of Asia, and more... As for slavery, more Black slaves have been taken out of Africa and into the Arab peninsula than to America and colonial islands... It is also a trade that started earlier and lasted longer than the one with Christian colonists. (In fact, slave trade between Africa and Arabia was the reason why there was a whole network of slave-taking and trading that was conveniently waiting on Africa's shores for the European colonists needing cheap workforce.)

This doesn't excuse anything. Neither the actions in the past nor the flimsy justifications in the present.

If I were to paint things with broad brush strokes, I wouldn't say that it's the resentment of the sore loser against the winner in a game of "let's pillage and enslave each other" (humanity's oldest and favorite game). I'd say it's denial.

The Muslim world had its own period of enlightenment and progress. It was prosperous and expanded steadily. Knowledge was progressing swiftly as they recovered and translated texts from the Eastern Roman Empire, India, and other lands. From that era, in Europe, many names of Arab or Persian sages were known as great physicians, mathematicians, natural philosophers or astronomers: Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Averroes (Ibn Rusd), Alhacen (Ibn al-Haytham), Serapion the Younger (Ibn Sarabi), Omar Khayyam... There is a reason why Arabic numerals are called so (even though they come from India), why algebra, algorithm, alchemy, etc. are of Arabic etymology, why many stars have Arabic names (e.g. Algol, Aldebaran, Achenar, Deneb, Betelgeuse, Fomalhaut, Rigel, Thuban, Vega, Zuben El-Akrab...).

And it was good, for them. But the problem of empires is that they can't live in autarky. They have to be fueled by ever further conquests. It's like a Ponzi scheme: once it stops growing, it crumbles. This has happened to all previous and all following empires. This inevitable decline led to a reject of changes: since things were better before, then anything new is bad but anything old is good. The older, the better.

And so, any form of modernity is seen as evil and corruptive. An unnatural invention of the decadent West, rather than something they could and would have come up with themselves eventually. And you can't enforce a reactionary society without violence against the people, because the younger generations generally won't care about your old stuff and will prefer what's cool to what's traditional.

You need a society that is rigidly controlled to achieve that: and, good thing, Islam is the perfect religion for social control. Public prayers five times a day? Perfect way to know when anybody is missing, so that you can find out potential troublemakers quickly. Islam is a religion that tells you how you must live. Not in the broad lines, but in an exhausting list of rigorous details. There's also the sexual angle. Many elements of traditional culture -- from arranged marriages to hyperprotectiveness of women's chastity to polygamy -- are designed to create sexual frustration, at least in the young men from the lower classes. Which makes them more violent and aggressive, as well as easier to lure with talks of arbitrary numbers of houris waiting for them in Heaven.

Suicide bombers are not necessarily the most miserable people in the world. If they were too poor, they would be more concerned with day-to-day survival than with ideology after all. The 9/11 hijackers were doing okay, actually. Some were imams, some were law students... They have to be comfortable and educated enough for ideology to interest them; but not so comfortable that they wouldn't care and not so educated that they'd see through it. So it's a delicate balancing act to keep a society in the correct level of backwardness. That's where oil enters the picture...

The immense wealth acquired through oil pumping allowed to fund the most backward version of Islam available: Wahhabism. I'm sure there wouldn't be as many problems with Islam nowadays if all that money had been sent to Sufism instead.

Gez said:

The immense wealth acquired through oil pumping allowed to fund the most backward version of Islam available: Wahhabism.

this is so true it needs to be repeated and highlighted. cool summarization post, too.

No more evil than any of your run of the mill religions. It's just most who practice it in western cultures are more grown up about it, for lack of a lengthier explanation.

All religion is evil.

To put it diplomatically, there are mostly harmless and happy-go-lucky religions out there, but Islam ain't one of them.

The specific doctrines of martyrdom and written there. Ignoring the fact that the doctrine really is there in the text and jumping on the "moderates are fine" bandwagon is a mistake. There are people that believe what's in their book, and they act on it.

It's taboo to look at some of the barbarism from cultures typically associated with Islam and criticize it point blank because it falls under the umbrella of religion, but let's be honest: some of their text, comparable to some texts of the other huge religions, is horribly misguided and to stand on the sidelines and just conversationally tolerate it because of political correctness is also a mistake.

This has turned into a thread about the merits or problems with several religions, but per the thread title, my answer is that Islam is presently the biggest offender in the "evil religions" department, and definitely sets itself apart from the others.

Mogul said:

This has turned into a thread about the merits or problems with several religions, but per the thread title, my answer is that Islam is presently the biggest offender in the "evil religions" department, and definitely sets itself apart from the others.

Yes, considering it's the second biggest religion and most countries who practice Islam enforce heresy and infidelity laws severely. While Christianity remains the biggest, we take heresy and infidelity crimes with a grain of salt. I definitely feel I can take the moral high ground over Islam as a whole.

Mogul said:

but let's be honest: some of their text, comparable to some texts of the other huge religions, is horribly misguided and to stand on the sidelines and just conversationally tolerate it because of political correctness is also a mistake.

have you read the book of revelation? that shit is crazier than scientology and billions of people either pretend that it's not really in their holy book of indomitable truth, or believe the world will end in a massive zombie battle with a bunch of evil stars and a prostitute riding a hydra. i'm not even twisting it that much, bible actually makes paul robertson's animations look tame.

if islam and judaism are evil (cause torah is full of killing in the name of god), christianity is clearly the most deranged, raving lunatic kid in the gang. only fundies truly believe every word written in their big book and only haters always rush in to quote the nastiest bits.

Technician said:

While Christianity remains the biggest, we take heresy and infidelity crimes with a grain of salt. I definitely feel I can take the moral high ground over Islam as a whole.

heh, that may be what you are doing now, but in the past mainstream christians wiped out splitters by the thousands. only us atheists just /facepalm when one of us goes crazy and finds an imaginary friend.

Mogul said:

The specific doctrines of martyrdom and written there. Ignoring the fact that the doctrine really is there in the text

I think you're making a fatal mistake in assuming that doctrine is the same thing as holy text. As I pointed out in one of my previous posts, pretty much all religions ignore huge swathes of the holy texts that they claim to be based upon. Conversely, most also have doctrines that don't really have any basis in holy texts. For example, the doctrine of the assumption of Mary in Catholicism, or the prevalence of Trinitarianism among Christian churches in general.

That's not to say that doctrines don't exist - it's obviously the case that religious sects indoctrinate their believers into following very specific beliefs. But those doctrines are not necessarily predicated on following holy texts. Holy texts are sometimes used to provide justification for a doctrine, but ultimately they stand on their own.

That was the essence of my argument to bytor, who sought to portray Islam as evil based on what their holy text said. When we think of "Islam" we don't think of a book of rules, but a common set of beliefs that is shared by a community (actually, more like multiple similar but divergent sets of beliefs shared by distinct communities). If those beliefs include promoting stealing and murdering, then we should quite rightly judge Islam as evil, but - with the possible exception of a few extremists - they don't.

If you want an analogy, if you're judging a religion based on what a holy text says, you're not really judging the religion as it is practised. Rather, you're judging a theoretical robot believer who reads a holy text, follows its instructions exactly as they are written (whatever that means) and never interacts with any other followers of the religion who might influence it. It's a baseless criticism that doesn't really have any foundation in how the religion is practised in the real world.

dew said:

have you read the book of revelation? that shit is crazier than scientology and billions of people either pretend that it's not really in their holy book of indomitable truth, or believe the world will end in a massive zombie battle with a bunch of evil stars and a prostitute riding a hydra. i'm not even twisting it that much, bible actually makes paul robertson's animations look tame.

if islam and judaism are evil (cause torah is full of killing in the name of god), christianity is clearly the most deranged, raving lunatic kid in the gang. only fundies truly believe every word written in their big book and only haters always rush in to quote the nastiest bits.

But that's the thing, though. Christians proclaim the Bible as the divine word, they don't really mean it because they are so uneducated in their doctrine. The difference between Islamic beliefs, is the majority of people practicing Islamic hatred today as a social pillar. Christians claim American morality as Christian morals when it's not really, it's morality set by their forefathers. Evangelicals have just piggybacked Christian morals on modern Western society. Islam is based on it's teachings, and like Christianity, there is a lot of sexual biased being practiced. Most of Islams disgusting practices were put in place by mere mortals who want to run with an iron fist, but it's supported by it's doctrine they've created, which makes it's people very likely to passing such laws from generation to generation.

dew said:

heh, that may be what you are doing now, but in the past mainstream christians wiped out splitters by the thousands. only us atheists just /facepalm when one of us goes crazy and finds an imaginary friend.

I don't believe in God, but Catholicism has been a huge part of my life up until adulthood.

But my stance remains the same. Christianity is full of blow-hards who can bash a fag proverbially as a community, but I don't remember Texas public ally executing a homosexual, and that state is kill-happy.

Also, what the fuck is a splitter?

Fraggle -- wouldn't a legitimite Mulslim tell you that following the Qur'an is what practicing Muslims ought to be doing? That is the "correct" way to practice a religion which organizes itself around such texts. Some people don't live by "every jot or tittle of the law" as Jesus said, but that doesn't mean they're right, by their religion's standard, by abstaining from some of the text.

e: btw, I certainly appreciate your distinction between ceremony or tradition with something spelled out in a religion's text. The go-to example in my memory has always been how many ceremonies the Catholic Church makes such a big to-do with, when they either have no basis in scripture or there might be a small mention of something and they blew it up into this huge event.

Technician said:

But my stance remains the same. Christianity is full of blow-hards who can bash a fag proverbially as a community, but I don't remember Texas public ally executing a homosexual...

Well, if you'd look further than five minutes into the past, you would see Christians have done their fair share of ole fashioned killing and murdering.

The most famous of which would be the crusades. Even the Spanish Inqusition wasn't that long ago.

The Crusades are more complex than just "Christians going out to kill heathens".

There were several reasons for them, and on the foremost front were those two:
- Defense of pilgrims. Lots of people went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in Palestine, to see Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, etc. For a while everything was fine. Then at some point, the Muslims who had seized these lands started blocking off (or even killing off) the pilgrims, so the Church decided something had to be done.
- Exporting bellicosity. A big problem in feudal Europe was that the petty nobles were constantly fighting against each others to seize more land and wealth. When their liege tried to keep them in check, it was with more fighting. Sending this bunch of aggressive meatheads abroad so that they would be someone else's problem seemed like a good idea at the time.

The violence of the Crusaders wasn't religiously motivated. They were just a bunch of violent thugs. See the sacking of Byzantium (a Christian city) by these guys as proof. They went on a long trip to kill some people, and shit they have to travel even further? Man, it's taking too long, let's start killing right here and now!


On the other hand, the bloody religious wars against schismatics and heretics were religiously motivated. Even then, the political dimension couldn't be dismissed: for example, the whole Church of England schism happened because Henry VIII wanted a son which he felt would make his dynasty seem more legitimate, and his first wife Catherine of Aragon only gave him a daughter and a bunch of stillborn babies, so he wanted to divorce, and only the Pope could allow that, but the Vatican was militarily controlled by the King of Spain who was the nephew of Catherine so the Pope always refused and Henry ended up deciding to be his own Pope.

Of particular significance are the Thirty Years War in/around Germany, the eight Wars of Religion in France, the English Civil War, and more of the same.

Mogul said:

Fraggle -- wouldn't a legitimite Mulslim tell you that following the Qur'an is what practicing Muslims ought to be doing? That is the "correct" way to practice a religion which organizes itself around such texts. Some people don't live by "every jot or tittle of the law" as Jesus said, but that doesn't mean they're right, by their religion's standard, by abstaining from some of the text.

Sure, I have no doubt that a follower of any religion will *claim* that they believer they are following their holy text precisely; however, that doesn't change the reality that there are passages that every Muslim ignores from the Qur'an, every Christian ignores from the Bible, etc.

The go-to example in my memory has always been how many ceremonies the Catholic Church makes such a big to-do with, when they either have no basis in scripture there might be a small mention of something and they blew it up into this huge event.

I actually find this a rather fascinating phenomenon. In whatever they do, humans try to logically reason about things. With science that starts from the assumption that "by observing the world we can make sense of it"; with religious dogmas and theology that starts with "what this text says is true". So religions like the Catholic church have elaborate belief systems that an internal consistency or logic to them, but because they're based on a flawed assumption, the conclusion can be absurd.

For example, I mentioned the doctrine of the assumption of Mary in my previous posts. Here's how a Catholic would defend against that charge: Matthew 16:18 says that the church founded by Peter shall survive "against the gates of hell"; the Catholic church was (supposedly) founded by Peter, so it can never fail (infallibility of the church). The pope is the head of the church, so he also can never fail by promoting a doctrine that is false (papal infallibility). The assumption of Mary was stated to be true by Pope Pius XII in 1950, and because of papal infallibility, he cannot be wrong.

So, a Catholic might say that there is a "scriptural basis" for that belief. But it remains the case that there's no mention of it in the text itself. To make that connection there's a chain of shaky assumptions rather like a theological Rude Goldberg machine. You finally get there but only because a man in Rome said it was true, and you've "proved" that he can't be wrong. Outside of religion you might think someone was crazy if they said they believed in reasoning like that, yet millions of Catholics around the world apparently do.

The other classic example of course is transubstantiation. Jesus said that a piece of bread was "his body"? Cue centuries of fervent scholarly discussion about what that actually meant!

fraggle said:

…your own selective cherry-picking from the Bible, ignoring the parts you aren't comfortable with, but Muslims are to be judged based on your selective quoting of the worst parts of the Qur'an.

I guess it wasn’t hard to miss the similarities between each of the two sets of scripture/surrahs that I posted, one being violent while the other is about peace and submission. There ain’t a damn bit of either book that I’m not comfortable with discussing. I could have posted much more, but I spare us all while trying to keep a short post. I’m very willing and comfortable with delving deeply into several related scriptures/surrahs that form the complete messages. Not here, though (cripes, I type with two fingers).

“…worst parts of the Quran”? There are several individual (and as a whole) surrahs and haddiths that are very militant, very ugly. This is a religion born of political power. It’s treatment of women and children are especially atrocious. You can point at the Old Testament but that would ignore the whole purpose of Jesus: The Rock of Christianity. Islam doesn’t give you salvation. It doesn’t give you an example to follow (God in the flesh). It doesn’t promise spiritual connection. It only promises sex (the “virgin” thing). I like to think - assuming there really IS something after this life - that heaven is above earthly lusts and desires, and more than what my human mind can actually comprehend.

If you can’t pick certain scriptures/surrahs to answer the questions of everyday life, then, what good is any of it to either? But you can’t just pick one while ignoring another. Each scripture in The Bible can be taken at face, but there are several scripture necessary to bring a whole ‘line of thought’ together. Muslims found that the Quran failed in this (see Hadith).

Both of these religion’s books address those that choose only parts to believe. Both make it very clear that this is not a released source code for you to tinker with. This is not The Big Book of Baby Names for you to pick out your favorite. Both condemn hypocrisy.

The Catholic Church…Mainstream…The world’s icon of “Christianity”? God says in The Bible that He is not mainstream and never will be (actually, there is the 1000 year reign of Christ). Islam pushes for it. I do not condemn Catholicism on my own. The Bible does. It’s quite direct and clear about it. This is also an entity born of politics which has volumes and volumes of “interpretations” which gives great power to itself . The more “doctrine” that they canonized of their own, the more they had to keep writing. Then the Pope had to claim that his word was perfect to legitimize it all (see Vatican II*). Mind you…I’m talking about this “group” here, NOT the individuals sitting in the pews. There have been many that left the Catholic Church to have a close, personal, spiritual connection with Jesus the Christ. I was very close to one.

Now, we can’t look directly into the hearts and minds of those following either religion, but, according to The Bible, we can discern what spirit they are of by looking at their words, actions, and…doctrine (Bible/Quran). Does this not seem true? How can you discern if you don’t look at what they claim to follow? How can you really know without looking at …stay with me… the defines of the religion? There are dangerous people in both that pick and choose, but there are only dangerous Muslims that follow their book 100%. Then there are the Jews…no.

Jesus shunned political power and condemned “religion”. If what The Bible says is true, imagine the power, wealth, and control He could have had over this planet and it‘s peoples. Instead, He accepted being crucified by the Jews. “Crucified by the Jews”…fitting.

What about me? I just made several claims without backing any of it with scripture. The Bible condemns that. I have fallen so far away. Hell, I even likened myself to the prince of darkness in another thread. Oh, what do I know. I am better than no man. Besides, going to church on Sunday was cutting into my watching NFL football. :o

Some might find this interesting. It’s an article by the American Psychological Association on a study out of Harvard, titled; “Intuitive Thinking May Influence Belief in God”.


* I’m not entirely sure it was at Vatican II but I’m not digging for it.

Edit as I paste this post: AAARGH! In the time that it took me to type this, two posts have been made which go deeper into Catholicism. I'm obsolete. :( "Submit"

bytor said:

“…worst parts of the Quran”? There are several individual (and as a whole) surrahs and haddiths that are very militant, very ugly. This is a religion born of political power. It’s treatment of women and children are especially atrocious. You can point at the Old Testament but that would ignore the whole purpose of Jesus: The Rock of Christianity.

So the purpose of Jesus is to "correct" the Old Testament? I mean, the Old Testament rules about treatment of women are just as bad as those in the Muslim holy texts and it sounds like (correct me if I'm wrong) you're not contesting that. But because Jesus came along that issue just magically goes away, does it? Your god used to be an asshole but then changed his mind? Seriously, I don't understand your reasoning here and I'd like to hear you explain this better.

As for political power: the only reason that any of the major religions exist today is their use for political means. Read about the documentary hypothesis and you'll see that the history of the Old Testament is one of holy texts rewritten and redacted over centuries to meet political ends. Judaism is of course the foundation that Christianity derives from. Christianity itself is only popular because the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian in the 4th Century. Hardly any copies of the Christian holy texts even survive from before then. Christianity has been used for centuries since then for political ends and continues to be - go read about the divine right of kings and its modern day cousin, dominionism.

Islam doesn’t give you salvation. It doesn’t give you an example to follow (God in the flesh). It doesn’t promise spiritual connection. It only promises sex (the “virgin” thing).

The doctrines are different between Christianity and Islam, and Islam doesn't promise "salvation" in the same way that Christianity does. Is this relevant? Islam still promises a reward in the afterlife for its followers.

To me this just sounds like splitting hairs. I'm sure your beliefs mean a lot to you, but from my perspective it's hard to see any major substantial difference between the two.

I like to think - assuming there really IS something after this life - that heaven is above earthly lusts and desires, and more than what my human mind can actually comprehend.

What you like to think is irrelevant and has no bearing on reality itself.

This is one thing that I've never quite understood about the religious point of view. So many people, when asked about their beliefs, respond "I like to think ...". Why is this considered a reasonable way to respond? I mean, I'd like to think that I had a freezer that contained an unending supply of ice-cream, but that doesn't make it true.

If you can’t pick certain scriptures/surrahs to answer the questions of everyday life, then, what good is any of it to either? But you can’t just pick one while ignoring another.

Incorrect. Churches, Mosques and temples around the world do exactly this, every week. Every time you go to a church and hear about the "good" parts of the Bible, your preacher is avoiding all of the "bad" parts about stoning teenagers to death and forcing rape victims to marry the rapist.

Jesus shunned political power and condemned “religion”.

I don't really have any beef with Jesus himself - in fact, there are things he said that I find admirable. My point is that what Jesus said himself is irrelevant to this discussion - what matters is how the Christian religion is practised in the real world by its actual adherents. If you want to argue that Islam is more evil than Christianity on a fundamental level, that's the ground you need to argue on.

fraggle said:

The doctrines are different between Christianity and Islam, and Islam doesn't promise "salvation" in the same way that Christianity does. Is this relevant? Islam still promises a reward in the afterlife for its followers.

The difference between reward and salvation... It's funny, really.

Islam: worship me, and you'll have a palace filled with beautiful servants and concubines in the afterlife.
Christianity: worship me, and I may yet be merciful. Then again, maybe not.

From that pitch alone, I'm not sure Christianity would be the winner.