There were some issues with it (culture bias of cognitive tests, for example). Turns out humans cannot be measured so easily. I'd argue it is sort of the same thing: it's a prejudice based on a superficial categorisation. Yes, because the former is specific, whereas the latter is a generalisation. A lot of Muslims do not consider women as property, and do not think of rape as an irrepressible male urge just because they are Muslim --just like a lot of Christians don't believe in these things just because they are Christians. You cannot round them all up under the same label. That's because you consider religion a choice, whereas race is not. Putting aside that it is debatable whether religion, as a (socio-)cultural phenomenon, is a choice as such, it is not possible to reduce people to a simple category (as indeed, you cannot with "race" or even "intelligence"). In the end, it still comes down to what people do and how they treat others.
have to point out.. having faith is a choice nexxo.. religion is more what you guys were talking about earlier- grouping of like minded people you can have doubts and still follow god.. actually people who don't have doubts kind of scare me.. let's say someone reaches into his pocket and pulls something out in his hand, he doesn't let you see it.. you may assume some change.. now he tells you he has a penny.. on faith you reasonably believe he has a penny in his hand.. now he shows you the penny.. it's no longer faith.. believing in god is a lot like that.. he is like the penny.. those who have to see the penny don't have faith.. it's a choice only you can make there's a lot of things way deeper if you dive into history.. basically the chances of someone coming along and nailing all the prophesy in the old testament is impossible.. think heard it was like 1 in a couple trillion odds (don't quote me on that ).. but that's for another day
Not in that way, at least. But that's the thing, religion is the exact opposite of superficial in people who are actually religious (as opposed to paying lip service). It forms the core of their beliefs. It's the reason that, fundamentally, Christianity, Islam, many monotheistic religions, are incompatible with liberal democracy. To those who truly believe in one of the former, they can not coherently believe in the latter. Now the colour of your skin? What beliefs does that entail? What incompatibilities does that result in? None. Nada. True of course. But they don't hold compatible views do they now? The Koran is the word of god, yet god just happened to mistakenly put in a few bits about women being subservient and having to do whatever their man tells them to? It's inconsistent. I don't, of course. There are a few different kinds of people who claim to be religious. Those who claim, but aren't. Those who think they are, because they haven't thought about it enough to realise they hold conflicting views. These two types are generally quite harmless. Then there's the type who actually, if push comes to shove, will take what's in the book above all other values, standards, beliefs, etc. These are a dangerous minority. That said, I don't have them all in the same category in my head, but for sure if I meet someone and I find out they're religious they go down a few notches, just as if I meet someone and find out they give up their saturday morning's to work in the local charity shop they go up.
What if you meet someone who is religious and works in a charity shop? Come on, you know people are not one-dimensional like that. People can believe in God and UFOs. They can be pro-life about foetuses and shoot doctors. They can be celibate priests and molest children. They can believe in Jesus and hate fags and believe that Elvis lives, all at the same time. My devout patients trust in God but still take the medication. People can quite happily hold contradictory beliefs side-by-side without feeling any sense of conflict whatsoever.
Criticizing Islam is not racist as Islam is an ideology such as communism, and Islam/Muslims are not a race of people. We all have things in life that we dislike and/or disapprove of and in a free society have the right to criticize, comment and express abject horror of an ideology that preaches hate and murder.
You completely missed his point. He's not claiming that criticizing Islam is racist, he's claiming that most people in the EDL are just simply racist. It wouldn't matter if it was called the Institute of Love and Harmony Throughout the World with aims to provide free rabbits for unloved schoolchildren, he'd still say the same thing. I was under the impression that the entire point of Spec's post was to address this. Anyway I sometimes feel like there's a growing dogma where it's become a social taboo to adress certain issues. 'Forbidding' generalisations seems to me to be counterproductive to society. Perscribing a certain way of thinking is stupid because we're all too clever, too complicated and too varied and things change far too quickly for our behaviour to be summed up in a universal format (and look at any religious text to see an attempt at doing just this). Clinging onto "We can't make this opinion because it's disciminatory" is the same as clinging onto any other ideology; eventually it's going to disrupt reasonable thought. Stightly off on a tangent, because I'm not great at arguing any one point: What I do agree is sensible is choosing to make an effort to provide equal opportunity to everyone irrespective of factors beyond their control, but I choose to think this because I think it makes sense rather than because of an ideology imposed on my by society (or at least, I hope). Ultimately I suppose I'm arguing myself into a corner on this point as we all have our own ideologies, all equally valid (in the eyes of the universe) but I suppose what I really want is for people to think for themselves more. Sorry if that's not very coherent, my train of thought has gone all over the place on this one.
You mean like the poppy burners did? Ah, freedom of speech is such a two-edged sword. Criticising Islam is fine. Denying Muslims equal societal rights based on their religious beliefs is religious persecution (not to mention self-contradictory).
Back on topic. Islam is a simply religion. Do right and not wrong. In ancient Arabia before and during the prophets time men use to accuse there wife's of adultery. The women would be imprisoned until a council would sentence them to death. Men did this simply to get rid of the women who were often innocent. After Islam was introduced the notorious sharia law was written. It stipulate that to be convicted for adultery men required 4 whitnesses. 1 who was the women's blood relative and one who witnessed the act of penetration. This was done to prevent women being slaughtered by there husbands. However sharia law has never been updated do the example of 4 whitnesses works against Islam today by showing how pro-rape we are. The importance of context.
You must have missed the bit where he is drunk, toward the end. I read that as the argument - all lemons are yellow, so all yellow objects are lemons. There isn't that much of a difference between disliking a religion for one reason, and disliking a race for another, when the validity of reasoning is piss poor. @hippo I don't have doubts - I have possibilities . To expand on my "snip" earlier, those involved weren't proactive in trying to appreciate where it is the other is coming from. It's a lack of language, style and engagement - I see as creating a rift. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/sharia_1.shtml Edit: I'm tired, wrong end of stick held , regardless it is an informative piece.
My point is this. Islam was fair in comparison to the other laws at the time. Instead of keeping the law incontext people draw it out and compare it with today's laws. Another one would be The prophet lived in medina after moving from Mecca. He live with 2/3 Jewish tribes in peace. Mecca sent an army to kill the prophet. The army was too large for the few Muslims in medina so the prophet built a dam between two mountains so the army couldn't kill him and his people. One Jewish tribe however betray the prophet by telling the army a secret route through the mountains. They did this as they traded with people in Mecca and so sold the prophet out for personal benefit. The war was bloody but god sent Angels to help the prophet. After the war the prophet gathers Jewish rabbis and told them of the tribes betrayal. Standard procedure in those days would have been a slaughter of the entire tribe. The jewish rabbis agreed and told the prophet to kill all the tribe. However the prophet said Islam only allowed him to kill the men and spare the women and children. This shows how fair the prophet dealt with situations.
But they are a group of people. And Muslims/Followers of Islam, do abide by a particular set of rules and mannerisms. And they are a culture, by saying that criticizing Islam is allowed (which it is) you are also allowing the criticizing of Jews, Christains, Buddhists, Mormons etc. Also I find it interesting that you would paint all Islamic people's as a society that preaches hate and murder. That would be akin to me assuming all Catholic priests are child rapists (the statistcs are unknown ;D). Just because the loud thumpers of "holier than thou" representatives exist, does not mean all of the constituents are the same. It would be like assuming that I was as smart as GWB was, and all of America looked like the president.
Sure, they're happy. That's fine. It's just not a good thing imo. Fat people can be happy, dying people can be happy, and kind of religious people can be happy. Doesn't mean it's to be desired. I'm not making some simplistic arguement that all Muslims are evil or anything absurd like that. But I think it's perfectly valid to hold a reduced initial impression of anyone you find to be religious simply on the basis that they subscribe to something like that. Whether they're paying lip service or actually believe all the insanity is just a quantitative issue which follows. Perhaps not, but the reasoning with a religion seems quite sound. Afterall, the religious are necessarily subscribed to a set of ideals, values, and beliefs (otherwise they wouldn't follow that religion) and I can judge those ideals, values and beliefs on a mass basis quite easily, because it's pretty much the same book that they're all following. You're right. It was pretty fair for the time. The problem being that that time 1400 years ago, and there are people today who still want to have those laws as modern laws (you should really, if you're a proper muslim chap, want them too). Religion doesn't change, that's part of the whole dealy - it's permanent and unchanging. If it was right then it's right now, if it's not right now, was it ever? Ok, firstly, stories with angels in them aren't good for convincing most people. Secondly, you're calling him fair because he slaughtered all the jewish men in the city, as if the reason given were true, it would only have been a handful of chaps profiting and the rest just being slaughtered on mass for happening to have the same religion. Your example is not good, it's barbaric and terrible. I suppose it doesn't add much to say that all the women and children you talk of were enslaved. Of course, it was fine to rape female prisoners, so no doubt most of them had their husband's executed and then were faced with the prospect of them and their daughters being raped repeatedly, for years to come. But yeah, sure, he was a lovely chap the man who ordered all this.
Lovely chap. Pity about his whole complex about believing in him on pain of eternal firey damnation, bit of a stain on his character. Are we really that selfish that we have to trick each other into altruism?
It's not altruism that people are being tricked into; it's obedience. To the tribe, and to the leaders of said tribe.
Usually keep clear of participating in these kind of threads/discussions but I have to quote this as it is true IMO. People shouldn't do good things because their religion compels them to; they should do good things because they are good people. Even the Queen said as such in a Christmas speech! Thinking of the opposite though; are people who do bad things because "their religion tells them to" merely using their religion as a cover for their own evils? To justify their bad actions? Just my 2 penneth worth
Why else do you think original sin was invented as well as the entire idea that you can be redeemed through faith regardless of your actions. The Papacy were a clever bunch.
Except that the Papacy didn't invent the idea of original sin. Nor did they write Genesis. That would be the Jewish elders, possibly a few hundred years before Christianity. Nor was it written to illustrate the idea of redemption through faith. The Jewish elders wrote Genesis as a creation story to help explain to children the basic foundation of their religion (God created everything, and it is good).
