It Must Have Been Allah's Will Or Something...

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What you or I worship or not doesn't really matter to each others' ends.

Can't agree. The who or what might not be so consequential, but the how and why are.

If you're a buddhist monk, chances are this won't have negative consequences for me. I probably won't have to worry about you too much.

However, if my religious belief is that Buddhists are wrong and must be converted by force and must adhere to my strict interpretation of my religion, you should probably watch out for me. Especially if I have a history of killing Buddhists in the name of my religion.

Or what if I believe that shooting a Buddhist is justified by a religious figure in my holy text, just because Buddhist may participate is some practice, that although being lawful, violates my religious beliefs?

Then I'm fiddling with your ends.(gay pun intended)

The Shaolin understood that not everyone believed in peace and harmony as they did and devised combat techniques so they could minimize the effect that the other guy would have on their "ends". They were realistic enough to know that not only were their peaceful philosophies not followed by everyone, but their very existence and ability to continue their own practices would be in jeopardy unless they were willing to fight for them, if necessary.

Striving for a utopia may be admirable, but believing it exists is foolhardy.
 
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.

Steven Weinberg
 
And since I'm a big believer of equal opportunity gayness:

shower%2Bblack%2Bman.jpg
 
You do realize the Bible and the Koran are two different books, right? That Islam and Christianity are two separate religions? I understand you think you're some type of religious expert or something, but there's a hell of a lot of difference between a Koran follower and Bible follower.

Christianity is compatible with Judaism in the sense that it is supposed to be its extension. Vice versa with Judaism. Islam, on the other hand, simply takes elements of both and twists them. Aside from that, there's no real similarity.

Christianity or Judaism do NOT advocate conversion by force. Nor do they advocate killing Jews. Nor do they advocate second-class status for infidels. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

The guy that murdered this soldier was a Muslim convert. Muslim converts read the Koran. It's basically a hatefilled book targeting anyone who doesn't adhere to it for death. Don't get your panties in a wad because the truth hurts.

I'm Muslim, and I follow the Quran.

And I'm telling you to shut the fuck up because you don't know shit about Islam you stupid ignorant fuck.

Thanks.
 
However, if my religious belief is that Buddhists are wrong and must be converted by force and must adhere to my strict interpretation of my religion, you should probably watch out for me. Especially if I have a history of killing Buddhists in the name of my religion.
But again, this is a pretty big strawman. The conversion by force bit is false. Muslims can marry Christians and Jews without forcing them to convert. It's just a myth propagated by people who have no clue what they are talking about, or like HB selectively quoting from different translations depending upon the meaning he wants to convey.

Can't agree. The who or what might not be so consequential, but the how and why are.
Right, but anyone can say they are Christian or Buddhist or Muslim when they, or after they do something immoral. It is a big step to take the actions of George Bush, and say they are the actions of Christians. Some may, some may not be. They are the actions of Bush, not Christ as a package deal.

I don't really care who you live with, what you eat, what you earn, what you smoke, whatever. I can't because (this gets a little eggheaded) it would be rationally inconsistent for me to oppose your liberty, if I insist upon having liberty myself.

Now when it comes to aggression, if you commit aggression against me, you have surrendered any claim to non-aggression you may have had. In other words, when you attack me, all bets are off. We can go after each other. But there is clearly an instigator and a defender. You have surrendered your rights by starting it.

Striving for a utopia may be admirable, but believing it exists is foolhardy.
I don't claim it exists. I am saying that until we strive for it without resorting to violence, we will never have it. You cannot kill your way to peace, no matter which side you are on.

The only way to peace is non-violence. Maybe that is accomplished with a big stick deterrrent like how the US and Russia checked each other with nukes. Maybe it is accomplished by integrating economies so both parties are reliant on the other for trade. Maybe it is accomplished by one side having a superior amount of force, and being a moral people which does not abuse it. History shows that last scenario is unlikely, because absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I am open minded that maybe rational people can make rational and moral choices when there is no one to offer resistance.

But I am damn sure that violence only breeds more violence and a dramatic loss of liberty along the way.
 
We all need to live in peace isn't that why theres religion to teach us wrong and right? Theres no religion that tells someone to kill someone that doesn't follow their religion. Christianity and Islam is the all most the same thing. We bought have many similarities. But no matter what religion you believe in theres no religion that states that you should kill people that have a different opinion. I don't consider that people who blow them self or kill others as a Muslim. If you follow Islam or Christianity you would know that suicide or killing an other human is a sin.
 
pictures are convenient. and expedient. and communicate more than words.
each one used has a fairly straightforward point. chiseled manboobs and bikini bullriding included.

for example, this:

unsolicited religious and political propaganda. feeding egos and exposing jackassery and satisfying the human need for conflict, here, without violence.
respectable enough.

until those damn muslins destroy amerguh with black devil magic from the kooran.
or a soldier of god firebombs a clinic that provides medical care to women unwilling to bring a child into the world.

or a <insert fanatical believer here> decides to <crime against humanity here> because said belief justifies their action. which inevitably leads to <political power> capitalizing on <crime> caused by <fanatical belief>, <political pawns> reinforcing their <beliefs> with <propaganda>, and hilariously irrelevant discussion topics encouraged by <political power>.

it's a joke. these threads are a joke. and as much as I'd like to spend time entertaining your desires here by responding proper -- it's certainly needed on some level -- time is precious, guerilla does a damn fine job, and I'd rather refocus your focus on actual problems such as these:
now I understand most aren't big fans of non-ideological reality, and enjoy the debate of 'real is what I say is real' problems -- like some misguided motherfucker killing in the name of. I enjoy it too, in moderation.

so please, pardon the alternate viewpoints you call spam.
this is easier, faster, and communicates just as much:

No, I think you're doing a great job distracting people with meaningless bullshit. Keep it up!
 
I'm Muslim, and I follow the Quran.

And I'm telling you to shut the fuck up because you don't know shit about Islam you stupid ignorant fuck.

Thanks.

Great..maybe you can tell me then since Guerilla apparently doesn't know. What's the correct translation for "kill the unbeliever"?
 
But again, this is a pretty big strawman. The conversion by force bit is false.

I probably worded that imprecisely. What I was talking about, in the case of the Taliban, was not a conversion to Islam, but a conversion to their form of Islam, through force. That's what they are doing in Pakistan. They are forcing other muslims through the threat of violence to their rigid views of Islam.
Maybe it could be dismissed as their problem if we lived 100s of years ago where the world was a bigger place, travel was more difficult, and the political/religious views of a few could not so easily effect hundreds, thousands or even millions around the world in a relatively short time.



Right, but anyone can say they are Christian or Buddhist or Muslim when they, or after they do something immoral. It is a big step to take the actions of George Bush, and say they are the actions of Christians. Some may, some may not be. They are the actions of Bush, not Christ as a package deal.

I agree. I think christians in America are hypocritical. I agree with them that we need to fight radical Islam, but not in the name of Jesus. But I guess it depends on which Jesus you base your view on; is it the live by the sword, die by the sword Jesus, or the turn the other cheek Jesus? If I only have a choice between the two of them I'm glad that the politically active christians in the US tend to take the former view of Jesus. It may be(or may not, I'm not an expert on the teachings of Jesus) hypocritical but it's a view better suited to the realities of the world.


Now when it comes to aggression, if you commit aggression against me, you have surrendered any claim to non-aggression you may have had. In other words, when you attack me, all bets are off. We can go after each other. But there is clearly an instigator and a defender. You have surrendered your rights by starting it.

The Taliban qualifies probably even by those standards as an aggressor.


I don't claim it exists. I am saying that until we strive for it without resorting to violence, we will never have it. You cannot kill your way to peace, no matter which side you are on.

The only way to peace is non-violence. Maybe that is accomplished with a big stick deterrrent like how the US and Russia checked each other with nukes. Maybe it is accomplished by integrating economies so both parties are reliant on the other for trade. Maybe it is accomplished by one side having a superior amount of force, and being a moral people which does not abuse it. History shows that last scenario is unlikely, because absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I am open minded that maybe rational people can make rational and moral choices when there is no one to offer resistance.

But I am damn sure that violence only breeds more violence and a dramatic loss of liberty along the way.


You could say we killed our way to peace in WWII. The Germans and the Japanese weren't going to sit down and decide they were dirty little boys, apologize and withdraw their troops back to their homeland.

The only thing that kept that tyranny from enveloping the world was other people fighting and killing them, until they gave up.

And not only did we kill(when I say we I mean the western front allies) enough of them and destroy enough of their equipment until they were forced to surrender, we liberated a large part of western Europe along the way. (On the eastern front the Russians did a good job killing and getting killed but not so good of a job liberating what they took control over)

Patton's army alone, I believe, liberated millions in France alone, and he did it primarily by killing Germans, because imminent death is often the main motivator for a retreating army.


This is just the way the world is sometimes, I wish it wasn't , but it is, and has always been. It would be better if we lived inside a John Lennon song, but we don't.
 
But I guess it depends on which Jesus you base your view on; is it the live by the sword, die by the sword Jesus, or the turn the other cheek Jesus?
Live by the sword, die by the sword is not a justification for violence. It is what I am saying, violence begets violence. Jesus' admonition was to turn the other cheek, to avoid violence because it only leads to destruction, and God does not approve of his children killing each other.

You could say we killed our way to peace in WWII. The Germans and the Japanese weren't going to sit down and decide they were dirty little boys, apologize and withdraw their troops back to their homeland.
IIRC, the Japs were offering an unconditional? surrender prior to being nuked. I don't want to get into that.

And not only did we kill(when I say we I mean the western front allies) enough of them and destroy enough of their equipment until they were forced to surrender, we liberated a large part of western Europe along the way. (On the eastern front the Russians did a good job killing and getting killed but not so good of a job liberating what they took control over)
All WWII did was establish a communist tyranny in Eastern Europe, which lead to millions of deaths at the hands of the Bolsheviks. That's not to say that Hitler was a good dude by any means, but Stalin and Mao, both Allies, went on to kill something like 85 million of their own citizens.

War helps no one. It destroys precious life and destroys property that has taken a lot of effort to accumulate. It impoverishes us. When we choose to build weapons instead of food or clothes or hospitals and universities, it impoverishes us. One day, I hope we learn to beat our swords into plowshares.

This is just the way the world is sometimes, I wish it wasn't , but it is, and has always been. It would be better if we lived inside a John Lennon song, but we don't.
I don't agree with that position. If peace is a fantasy, then what are any of us fighting for?

I'll read your response but I am going to try to dodge replying. I have spamming to do. A lot of the internet is not linking to me, and this is a really big problem for my bank account.
 
Live by the sword, die by the sword is not a justification for violence. It is what I am saying, violence begets violence. Jesus' admonition was to turn the other cheek, to avoid violence because it only leads to destruction, and God does not approve of his children killing each other.

Um. I've already said I think christianity is retarded so I'm not going to argue anything on religious grounds.

IIRC, the Japs were offering an unconditional? surrender prior to being nuked. I don't want to get into that.

Let's not get into it. But next time, don't bring it up unless you want to.


All WWII did was establish a communist tyranny in Eastern Europe, which lead to millions of deaths at the hands of the Bolsheviks. That's not to say that Hitler was a good dude by any means, but Stalin and Mao, both Allies, went on to kill something like 85 million of their own citizens.

So what was the alternative? To sit back and let Germany take and do what it wanted in Europe? And eventually let Germany and the USSR fight over which tyranny would rule all of Europe?
The allies didn't cause the war(well actually Chamberlain didn't act as much of a deterrent by essentially giving up czechloslovokia). And by going to war, we at least kept western Europe free.

But Patton may have been right, maybe we should have taken down the commies while we were over there. It may have saved a lot of those lives you talked about and saved us from getting into future wars to fight the spread of communism.


War helps no one. It destroys precious life and destroys property that has taken a lot of effort to accumulate. It impoverishes us. When we choose to build weapons instead of food or clothes or hospitals and universities, it impoverishes us. One day, I hope we learn to beat our swords into plowshares.

Of course war is bad. We don't disagree on that. What we disagree about is whether or not you could convince the bad guys, say Germany and Japan of it, or whether or not the consequences of not going to war would be worse than going to war.


I don't agree with that position. If peace is a fantasy, then what are any of us fighting for?

A better alternative? Was Europe and the world better off with the western allies taking control over the western territories that Germany occupied? I think so.


I'll read your response but I am going to try to dodge replying. I have spamming to do. A lot of the internet is not linking to me, and this is a really big problem for my bank account.

LOL.
 
Jerusalem is a holy city for christians, jews and muslims. All of them fought for the city and justified any means.

Crusades - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norwegian Crusade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (They sailed upwind to impress and shoed one horse with a golden shoe that fell off so that people would think all the horses had golden shoes!)
Saladin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Any of you know what muslims are called in the bible? Saracens. Do you know what the bible says to do to all saracens? Kill them.

Medieval Christian view of Muhammad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saracen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wouldn't be much fun to change modern translations in the bible of Saracens into Muslims, would it? My ex girlfriend from high school once told me that thankfully the Saracens where extinct because they were a vile race that did not deserve to live. She also told me that if they were still around she would actually try to kill if she saw one. I didn't want to burst her bubble and tell her that Saracens are actually Muslims because she had many Muslim friends. In this case it doesn't really matter exactly what the bible says to do to Saracens or what the Quran says to do to christians or whatever. It is always those few fundamentalists who gets all the attention when they go out and shoot the priest because they think they are going to heaven (where the streets are laid with gold - c'mon).

What many of you Texans don't understand is that the religions we know and see today where formed through the Dark Ages in Europe and the battles over Jerusalem. They didn't have the internet back then, you know... And the bible was written in Latin which only the priests understood. Have a look at the different popes during those times. Oh, and please realize and understand that after the Dark Ages and the power struggles in Europe, the Muslims actually preserved all the written knowledge for us. We would have lost all of it without them, because all the monasteries were burned to the ground.

Oh, and there are four ways that you can interpret the bible.
Methods of interpreting the Bible: Introduction

Do you think the Quran can be interpreted in a few different ways too?
 
To call Islam violent is pretty much like the pot calling the kettle black when you consider equally the number of violent acts committed in the name of both Christian God and Jewish God.

Despite whatever true origin exists for these paths, I feel as if religion is now simply an excuse to do something you would not otherwise do if you had to explain yourself. It's much easier to kill and hate for differences, dishonor, etc if you can blame a higher power for compelling you to do so, so in a way people who have fallen to that level are weak minded.
 
Obama's buddying up to Iran and Syria. I wasn't Bush's biggest fan, but I did respect him and he did keep us safe.



Fucking wow! The guys keeping you "safe" are the ones you aughta look out for.

Wow respect Bush? Mind blowing, you show these "leaders" respect and this is what they think of you, and your free country.

:usa::love-smiley-086:
 
Religions are like the spokes of a wheel, and the purpose is to get to the center, where there is peace and stability. Any spoke you want to choose will lead in two directions: inward, toward the center, or outward toward the periphery. Religions vie amongst each other for paying customers, each claiming to be the "one true spoke." Spokes are easy to distinguish out near the rim, where they are separate and seemingly independent, which is why most religions are concerned primarily with making sure everyone knows how they differ from other religions, and pointing their judgmental fingers at all the infidels who believe otherwise. It's the good-guy bad-guy game performed religiously.

Out on the circumference, activity is furious, so it looks like something meaningful is happening there . . . all the fancy robes and golden candlesticks and crowds of faithful followers swooning in each others arms. Sometimes one particular spoke is up, in its heyday, and its spiritual pride will not go unadvertised. Sometimes it is down in which case the crowds flock elsewhere.

Each spoke points in two directions: toward the center, and also directly away from that same center. You can move in either direction, but the religious authorities would prefer, if not insist, that you go outward. The more outward you go, the more frantically you will have to cling to that spoke to keep from being thrown off. In time, you become a fervent believer . . . your social standing may demand it, not to mention the fate of your soul (whatever that might be), and if you behave you will remain in the good graces of the church. You need them (or at least you learn to believe so) and they definitely need you.

But as they merge toward the hub, the spokes begin to lose their individuality, they all begin to look similar, which is considered bad for business. The closer you get to the center, the more similarity emerges between the same spokes which appeared so different out on the circumference. You begin to see how they have certain things in common, and their similarities really outweigh their differences.
- Rodger Stevens

From http://www.rutajit.com/onreligion.html
 
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