GQ. As for my answer – why not discuss both? True, Islam is the biggest “bad boy” currently, but like you point out there are many other religions / sects with similar destructive potential, and I agree we should watch out for all forming / lurking extremisms. In my opinion any organized system that stresses group think over self-examination is potentially a breeding ground for holier-than-thou violence…

I’ll give you a GQ too. But I think the threads the last few days have been that Islam seems to be the lone religion that has violent intolerance at its core, which is different from other religions that don’t have the violence added until a subsequent interpretation by adherents.

But then again I am not a comparative religions expert, so I will watch the debate. I do know that Sikhs are obligated to carry a dagger at all times. But I do not know the significance of that tenet.

Yes, I agree. I don’t know anything about why extremists do what they do, but religion is slowing becoming less relevant over time, so that’s good. Hopefully it will have an impact on the extremists. One less child that is brainwashed is worth it.

This is just some speculation, but in America for example, even the crazy christians know they live in a place where we can all freely practice what we want. But some countries in southwest Asia don’t even have that. They have constitutions built around their religion and culture.

Not at this particular moment in [our] history.

Mystical faith is a problem to be sure, but only one of them wants to kill you, your family, your neighbors, and then when they kill enough of you, replace your secular government with one based not on principles of human liberty, but on the words of The Prophet.

Once you deal with them, then you will have breathing space to deal with the rest.

I’m certainly no theologian. As an engineer and reader it is my understanding that Christianity and Islam share many tenets – and most of them are common sense.
There is plenty of violence in the Bible but it is mostly historic in nature and is part of a story. The Quran violence tends to be more graphic and instructional.

The other difference I have seen is that little “quirk” of never befriending a non-Muslim and offering non believers three choices: “convert, pay tax, or die”:
Quran (9:29) – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”.

~Other than that there is a lot of similarity. ~

@zenvelo If you want to be convinced, one way or the other, borrow a Quran from the library or do a quick search online to get one.
Within a few minutes of reading, the core belief system and view of non-believers will be obvious.
I’ll let you decide.
If we want data let’s do this thought experiment. Who is safer a Muslim carrying a Quran while walking in the US, or a Christian carryinga Bible while walking in walking Iran.
How many churches are there in Iran and are they under constant police presence to avoid damage? There are quite a few mosques in the US and they rarely have trouble with neighbors.

Saying that religiousity is the problem makes it sound like the more religious one is, the more one is inclined to harmful actions. That’s way too simplistic. I know many very religious people whose lives are devoted to serving others.

Isn’t hatred the problem, rather than religiousity? When you roll hatred into any institution—religious or secular—you get the kind of problems we’re lamenting here. To many people, religion is about uprooting hatred in all of its manifestations. The more religious they get, the more peaceful they become.

For a forum that doesn’t have a single Muslim on it we seem to devote a lot of time to Islam. I suppose Muslims are on other forums discussing the evils of Christianity.

@thorninmud – It seems to me that extreme religiosity only becomes a problem when the religion has really bad ideas. If a Jain becomes an “extremist” or “fundamentalist”, it’s difficult to see a sound path to violence. But it’s not difficult at all with Islam. From what I have read of the Koran, simply being more of a “fundamentalist” means that there is a clear path to violence.

There are lots of fanatical fundamentalist religious groups but they don’t blow things up. Islam stands out for its ability to foment jihad terrorism & recruit suicide bombers by promising martyrs rich rewards in the afterlife. Die nobly waging war against the Great Satan, enjoy paradise forever. Sounds like a good deal. That’s one meme that needs to go extinct – presumably via basic education of the masses. But then look at all the bombings associated with trouble in Northern Ireland – Protestant vs. Catholic – blowing up innocent people.

“My invisible guy is better than your invisible guy.”

The Boston bombers, not being suicides, are more troubling because others like them might strike repeatedly before capture. The outcome last week will be a significant deterrent, one hopes. There will always be lone nut-jobs, but groups that foster mass murder cannot be tolerated by even the most liberal-minded and just society.

@JLeslie -1 sp. [also GQ]
religiosity
noun
1. the quality of being religious; piety; devoutness
etc.

@tom_g It’s kind of like DNA. Some religions have hatred in their genome, so to speak, but whether or not that “gene” gets expressed depends on many factors. I’ve known many Muslims, some of them imams, who manage to live a deeply religious life with no evidence of hatred. I trust them completely. But the genome of Islam is such that the hatred gene is easily activated.

@tom_g : Where there’s a will there’s a way. Buddhists like Jains also practice Ahimsa (nonviolence), but still even then they are leading the charge of violent ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Burma, which are led by Buddhists monks.

They think they are being righteous protectors of the Dharma and purifying the land that the Buddha finally wound up in, and wrapping it in nationalism. The fact that by Monks inciting people to murder others (One of the four defeats for monastics) means they have absolutely failed this life and are excommunicated from the Sangha for the rest of their lives until they are reincarnated doesn’t seem to phase them one bit in stirring the pot.

@zenvelo ” I do know that Sikhs are obligated to carry a dagger at all times. But I do not know the significance of that tenet.”

Poorly summarized Sikh history in a couple of sentences: Original guru creates religion and objects to outward signs of religion. Several Guru’s down the line, the Sikhs are hunted down and massacred by invading Islamic rulers in a systematic genocide. The rules change and Sikhs start carrying daggers at all times (in modern day they typically substitute a pin) and observe other outward signs of their faith to keep their culture alive in the face of religious persecution. This is known as the Khalsa Sikhs and has carried on to modern day.

@sinscriven – Are you saying that it’s just as easy to get to violence from a straight reading of the suttas as it is from a straight reading of the Koran? The content of these two seem quite different.

@thorninmud – I like the DNA metaphor.

@tom_g : Yes, but the problem isn’t the sutras, or the qu’ran, or the bible. It’s the people reading them and interpreting them. When someone is as steeped in delusion and suffering as an extremist is, it’s not hard to find the demons everywhere, and to twist everything around them to reinforce their personal perspective and to justfiy their actions.

Muslims bomb sources of things they see as corruption, Christians who value life above all else murder life to preserve life, Jews ethnically purge to create a pure homeland not seeing the irony… all of it point to the reality that humanity is pretty troubled regardless of what they believe.

@sinscriven: “Yes, but the problem isn’t the sutras, or the qu’ran, or the bible. It’s the people reading them and interpreting them.”

But when you read them, how much “interpretation” do you need to read the sutras and think, “I need to go blow up some people now.”? If you go sit down and read the Koran, it’s difficult to get through all of the violence and condemning of non-Muslims. Sure, you can call it “interpretation”, but it seems that the fundamentals of these writings are in great contrast.

It seems to take considerable effort to interpret the Koran in a way that paints the religion as peaceful. I am happy when Muslims do this, just as I am when I meet Christians who support marriage equality or reproductive freedom. But it’s clear that these moderate Christians are not getting their moderation from the bible. A closer reading of the bible will not get you a reason for supporting marriage equality.

What you said is very true, @tom_g. I agree.

I agree religiousity is not the perfect word, because there are certainly very religious people who would never harm other people.

The Muslim Jihadists at this time in history have. Very visible way of trying to rid the earth of the people who I guess to them threaten their religion and what God wants by their interpretation. But, also we can look at sect of the Mormons who control women and marry off young teenage girls. Their lives can be in a prison basically. Some Orthodox Jewish communities will ostracize a family member who does not conform, basically it can be abuse through the withholding of love in my opinion. I think the Muslim threat right now worries people because they feel like they can be the target. The other religious extremism it is someone else at risk and we can ignore it easier. I’m generalizing, I don’t mean we don’t care about other people who are threatened.

On another Q a jelly said the older brother accused America of using the Christian bible to justify their violence against Muslims. I found that interesting, since even in America some people accused Bush of using his religious beliefs to help justify his decision to go to war and his fervent support of Israel. This is from 60 minutes ”...He was explaining how the Bible is a cheap copy of the Koran and how it’s used for the American government as an excuse to invade other countries. And I remember he said that America’s a colonial power, trying to colonize the Middle East and Africa. And he also said that the most casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq are innocent bystanders gunned down by American soldiers.”

@thorninmud I don’t think it is just hatred. I think there is a lot of fear in there too. Religions use of fear is a huge piece of the puzzle I think.

Even very religious people are subject to influences other than religion, including nationalism and ethnic or cultural chauvinism. During WWII, there were some examples of respected Japanese Zen teachers who threw their full support behind the Imperial war project. I’ve read their justifications for taking that stance and find them untenable, to say the least.

That’s what people do when their various allegiances come into conflict: the weaker of the allegiances give way to the stronger. But this will never involve an admission that “Here I’m setting aside my religious convictions because I’m putting my cultural affiliation first”. No, some effort will be made to intellectually reconcile the two.

This is far easier to do with some religions than others.

@JLeslie I think fear and hatred are intimately related. In the Buddhist scheme of things, hatred and fear are lumped together as “aversion”. They both refer to that which we want to eliminate or avoid.

The key that is missing from the discussion, in my eyes, is the fundamental thing that each of the beliefs have in common. The Maitreya of the Zen teachings that you talk about, @thorninmud. Christ, Mashiach, Khidr, Muntazar, Amida, the White Burkhan and on and on. It is important to understand the beliefs of these religions and especially the the twelfth Imam to understand what all this fighting’s for. Uh, good God. (I’m hearing a song in there somewhere.)

One thing that is bothering me about this discussion of Islam is this reductionist approach that says “all religions are exactly identical”. They’re not. They’re simply not. Yes, any religion could have extremism and violence—there is no denying that. Buddhists in Burma are attacking the Muslim minority. And it’s certainly false to claim that some religions are “all peace” or “all violence”. But to pretend that all religions breed extremism at the same rate or in the same manner is false. It ignores all the details and the history of individual religions and groups them all into an amorphous blob. I read somewhere that 70% of terrorist attacks in 2011 were committed by Muslims. Most of these attacks were against other Muslims (Sunni vs. Shiite) in Muslim countries, not in places like the US or Europe.

The point I think is to deal with the problem at hand. The problem at hand right now seems to largely be about Islamic extremism and violence. In that case, I think you do have to focus on the individual religion. That doesn’t mean that you can’t focus on violence and extremism as general concepts—of course you should. But in doing that, don’t ignore the nuances of particular religions and the violence that occurs within them.

@DominicX, as in the case of Wirathu, what do you think incited his attacks against Muslims?

@bkcunningham I think it’s interesting that while the Buddha didn’t dabble much in prophecy, he did foretell that the Dharma, the Buddhist teaching, would completely die out. I don’t have any opinion on whether or not this was an accurate reading of the future, but I am struck by the psychological genius of it.

By telling his followers that this religion would fade away in some distant “Dharma-ending age”, not to resurface again for an unimaginably long period of time, he effectively disarmed any latent messianic tendencies. The idea of fighting to sustain a religion that the founder himself said will naturally fade away is nonsensical. That decline is seen as the natural order of things. Maitreya, the foretold next Buddha, will have to start from scratch without any help from us.

No, I see Islamic radicalism as a legitimate geopolitical force, so it should be discussed separately.

Are you a Buddist, @thorninmud? It seems to me someone on this forum practices some form of Buddism.

There is only one religion I know of that advocates KILLING anyone not of their faith so they are the ones that worry me and warrant discussion about how to protect all nonbelievers from their madness.

@bkcunningham Yes. There are a couple of others, too, but they don’t yack about it as much as I do.

That prophecy of the five disappearances, @thorninmud, is very similar to prophecies given in nearly all religions of the time before the return of the Messiah.

Isn’t that really what is at the heart of the hatred and terrorism of the Muslims?

If worshipers don’t follow the abrahamic religions to its extreme, then by its very own principles, the worshipers are sinners and have hell to look forward to. A good worshiper is an extreme one. It’s only a problem if the religion teaches violence against others. For example, an extreme buddhist could not possibly cause harm to others because it teaches to be free from desires. That is inaction, stagnation. A vegetable to its extreme. With Islam/Quran, it can be interpreted several ways. Islam and Violence or Quran and Violence

Here scholars are divided.

Christians…the folks who brought you the Crusades and the Inquisition.

@bkcunningham Similar, perhaps, except in effect. No Buddhist I know (and I know a lot of them) gives a fig about Maitreya, or has any expectation that anyone is going to come along and make everything better. That expectation may be out there, but most practitioners I know take more seriously what the Buddha said on his deathbed, when his followers asked what they should do without him: “Be a lamp unto yourself”

@rooeytoo It wasn’t so very long ago that Christendom was intent on killing all who they invaded and could not convert. The word Christendom did not fall out of use till the religion finally outgrew that habit just a hundred years ago or so. And the Old Testament or Talmud is chock full of instances of the Jews fulfilling their bloodthirsty God’s command to kill, in some instances even the women, children, babies and livestock of a land the pillaged—or as they wrote it, liberated of the evil of worshiping false Gods. And as @sinscriven points out, some Jews in Israel today strongly support the systematic ethnic cleansing of Arab Muslims from their homeland. Let us not forget that El; Elohim; Yahweh; God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; and Allah are all the same deity. Taken together, a little over half of the Earth’s 7 billion people worship the God of the prehistoric Abrahamic desert nomads under one of those pseudonyms.

And Christianity isn’t in the clear today. We have the Catholic Church still tirelessly working to stop use of condoms in preventing the spread of AIDS in third world countries and spreading lies that condom use spreads AIDS. We have Catholics advocating for having as many children as possible in lands where millions die for want of food and clean potable water—why? Having ever more faithful born swells the coffers of the Vatican, forget that it’s among the most obscenely wealthy institutions on Earth already. We have far-right fundamentalist Christians feverishly trying to provoke nuclear Armageddon with ground zero the Temple Mount because they believe their Sky Daddy will snatch them up to heaven if they can just manage to get all of humanity exterminated.

Here’s a brief clip of Christopher Hitchens talking about part of the problem with the Abrahamic religions. And here’s a fascinating essay titled ’‘Killing the Buddha’’ with Sam Harris writing in the Shambala Sun. I must thank @josie for having pointed me previously to that article.

And if you don’t have time to read it in its entirety, I’ll leave you with two paragraphs that stand out for their salience to current religions wars and terrorism.

“Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in recent decades.”

“Why is religion such a potent source of violence? There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us–them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If you really believe that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism, or politics.”

Religion cannot long survive in an increasingly nuclear armed world unless it finds a way to completely shed its concept of intolerance, its dogged assistance that my invisible deity is the only right invisible deity.

Thank you, @thorninmud. It is very interesting to me. One of my brothers has some friends who are into the Seventh Angel, or something like that, I can’t remember exactly. It is related to Maitreya though. They put a lot of emphasis into the final coming. Again, thanks for your comments.

@ETpro you say that every time I say there is only one religion that advocates killing non believers. But really, “not too long ago” is a bit different than last week. Or today in Canada.

@rooeytoo It’s not enough for you that fundamentalist Christians today are working to bring on Armageddon? How many times over must Christians work to exterminate all humanity before it’s as heinous an act as the killings that Muslim extremists are guilty of? What about The Family, the secretive Christian Dominionist group behind the US National Prayer Breakfast, and their behind the scenes work in Ghana to ram a Kill the Gays law into effect in that nation as a model to the rest of the third world? Do Catholic/Protestant bombings in Ireland; Christian involvement in sectarian violence in Nigeria, the Sudan, Indonesia, and Caucasus all also not count?

If so, you need to explain better to me the criteria whereby killing others is a problem versus where it’s legitimate religious expression.

@ETpro – can you tell me what modern day religion, in USA has encouraged members to go out and kill en masse non believers?

I know you hate religions in general, I don’t care, that is your privilege, but why don’t you hate the muslims along with the rest of them? Why are they not included in your diatribes?

@rooeytoo Dead is dead. If you want to split hairs about WHY someone wants to kill innocents, and it is OK with you that your kind of Sky Daddy worshipers want to exterminate all mankind but not because they are infidels, then we have no basis for discussion.

And where did you arrive at the outrageous claim that I hate all religions except Islam, or that I condone the Muslim belief system. I have never written anything here that I meant to be understood in such a way. Or is that yet another straw man? This OP happened to be about the problems with faiths beyond Islam, but I have clearly denounced the teachings of the Koran on numerous other threads where that was the subject.

@ETpro – Well anyone who refers to theists belief system as a sky daddy, gives the impression they are not fond of religions. I don’t recall you ever saying anything that is not derogatory about religions or believers. But it seems as if anytime muslims pull one of their attacks, you bring up the crusades to point out how terrible the christians are. That is why I reached the conclusion you hate all religions except islam.

And I don’t understand what your first paragraph means so I won’t respond to that.

@rooeytoo The first paragraph means that Christian Fundamentalists are currently fomenting for all-out nuclear war starting in Jerusalem. Their reason for doing this is that they believe, based on their interpretation of the Bible, that this will bring Jesus back in the clouds to sweep them up into heaven. If you condone working to destroy all human life, but condemn Islamic Extremist attacks even when they kill only a few people (in relation to all 7 billion) because Islamists kill to wipe out what they consider infidels, then we have no basis to talk with one another. That sort of “my invisible deity is better than your invisible deity” thinking is precisely what I dislike about most of today’s organized religions.

As to letting Muslims off, I asked this question just yesterday letting Islam have it with both barrels. No, I am not blind to Mohammad’s many calls for violence and death to all apostates and eventually to all who refuse to convert and submit to Sharia Law. But I am also not blind to Christian, Jewish, and other religiously inspired violence. The later seemed to be the intent of the OP and that is why I addressed only that issue here.

My concern is that in a nuclear age, we can’t have religious extremists of ANY stripe running around the planet intent on triggering the death of millions or billions of innocent people either to gain heaven or to eliminate opposing beliefs. If we turn a blind eye to such behavior, sooner or later one of them will succeed.

The first paragraph sounds a little over the top to me, I will do some reading.

Second paragraph, yes I know of that question, but….......

Third paragraph, I completely agree.

@tom_g – Interpretations are fundamental. @sinscriven is right. Do passages of holy texts describe history or do they issue commands that need to be followed today? That’s the question. Religions need to evolve. Religions have to go through reforms. Religious believers need to develop and cultivate the capacity for growth.

There is more need for reform in Islam compared to Christianity and Judaism, simply because the two latter already went through reform, which isn’t to say that these religions shouldn’t continue to evolve. Sometimes there are setbacks, e.g. when looking at the weird phenomenon of young-earth creationism or homophobic hate speech (which by the way is standard for non-militant Islamists).

@mattbrowne – I agree completely with your assessment that religions “need to evolve”, and that Christianity has a 500-year head start on Islam. That’s why I have stated that I am happy when Muslims and Christians do this.

My point, however, is that there is no getting around the fact that the content of religious texts are not the same. And the origin and importance of texts are not the same. Some are supposed to be the word of god (revealed to Muhammad by Gabriel, for example).

Additionally, decent interpretation isn’t coming from closer reading of the bible/quran – it’s the inevitable external secular pressures. Decent people fortunately don’t read Leviticus 20:13 and decide they should kill homosexuals. This is progress – but to call it “interpretation” is a bit off. It’s downright ignoring or cherry picking.

Reading the Quran and reading Buddhist sutras are quite different experiences. We should be happy that there are plenty of peaceful, decent people who come from these traditions. But it should be no surprise when people “interpret” the Quran in a way that conflicts with our modern, secular, humanist ideals.

“Should”...

I mean, if wishes were horses, I’d have all of the Abrahamic religions wiped off the planet. Today. Then maybe fundamental Christian parents will take their kids to the doctor instead of trying to pray away deadly diseases, babies of orthodox Jewish parents would stop getting herpes from dirty old rabbis, and young virginal Muslim men would stop blowing themselves up in public places.

Maybe people would spend a little less time slut-shaming and a little more time trying to kick this school bullying thing. Maybe fewer teenagers would commit suicide rather than admit to their parents that they’re gay. Maybe poor families would be able to buy another meal for their kids rather than hand it off to some overdressed and undereducated priest in hopes that God will “multiply their blessings”.

I’ll discuss my hopes for the downfall of Islam, Judaism and Christianity all day long. Should nothing.

@mattbrowne In fact, the Torah, Bible and Koran all three describe history AND issue commands. most Christians and Jews have just managed the schizophrenic logic of insisting their faith is founded on the absolute truth of a book they mostly don’t believe. Otherwise, we’d still be taking slaves, marrying multiple wives including women we raped, throwing in some concubines if we were blessed by God; and stoning people to death for abominations that offend our easily ticked off god of love like wearing perma-press clothing, planting more than one kind of seeds in a flower garden, eating lobster or any seafood that lacks scales and fins, eating a long list of meat we love, oh and being gay.

@tom_g, @Seek_Kolinahr, @ETpro – I am not surprised that literalism is still around, despite all the reforms and despite the scientific revolution that has changed the mindset of billions of people. But I am surprised that literalism in Islam is now a worldwide phenomenon, and I am surprised that literalism in Christianity is a widespread phenomenon in the US, but not in Europe.

You seem to be confusing the words interpretation and meaning.

“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

The meaning of this is the death sentence for homosexual men. There little or no ambiguity in any of the words or phrases of this verse. Unlike the talking snake there are no metaphors or other elements of parables present. The meaning is clear.

The word interpretation comes from the Latin word ‘interpretatio’ which has different meaning depending on the context. In a religious context it means explanation or exegesis.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interpretatio

Because both the Bible and Quran also contain numerous verses which asks people to think and seek new knowledge, today’s interpretations can differ from those 500 years or 1000 years or 2500 years ago. Today we know that homosexuality is normal and part of our humanity.

So it is about issuing commands to who and when.

Reforms have led Christians to replace absolute truth with evolving truth. Only fundamentalists frequently use the word absolute. Interestingly, the Quran insists that humans can’t know the absolute truth, only Allah can. It’s something Irshad Manji frequently reminds her fellow Muslims of.

I won’t get into a general religious discussion here. On Fluther this usually leads to one dozen atheists attacking one believer. My interest is how we can find strategies to deal with non-militant political Islam, one of the most commonly overlooked totalitarian ideologies out there.

Non-militant political Islam disguises itself as religiosity and therefore I decided to get involved into this thread. I am a defender of Western civilization. This is what this thread should be about.

@mattbrowne You are the furthest thing from a literalist religious person I can conceive of.

The fact that you are sane and rational does not believe that everyone else who subscribes to something with the same name as your religion is also sane and rational.

And if you can find a non-militant Islamic political faction, I will shake your hand and buy you a beer.

Thanks @Seek_Kolinahr !

@mattbrowne I keep coming back to the fact you base your entire belief system on book you do not believe. You can arm wave and say our interpretations have grown, but those interpretations are supposedly of a book divinely inspired by an omnipotent, omniscient deity who knows all things, past, present and future. If it’s true that the scriptures are divinely inspired, then it’s ridiculous to interpret them in the ever changing light of human understanding. God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Didn’t he say, “Before the beginning, I Am!”?

And if the scripture is not actually divinely inspired, then it is silly to base religious faith on it. The two positions are logically inconsistent.

@ETpro
There are ways out of that dilemma.

For instance:
God spoke to and thru people. Therefore it had to be in the language they then could understand.God couldn’t speak to people about aircraft and/or modern day dilemma’s, because that would reveal the future and such an act would take away their free will. God’s words need to be reinterpreted as we evolve, since they have been revealed to us. It doesn’t take away they were 100% true and valid when revealed.

Not saying this reasoning is valid, but you seem to still underestimate the ability of people to rationalize any justification for their beliefs.

@ETpro – I’m a bit disappointed, because either you have problems understanding the meaning of the word ‘fact’ or you do understand it, but still use inappropriately to make me look stupid. I have no interest in these kinds of discussions.

@mattbrowne Nor do I.

@whitenoise May I remind you that God is supposedly omnipotent, capable of speaking into existence a Universe that is 125 billion light years across. And yet he’s limited by human understanding. This seems to me to be a logical contradiction.

@ETpro
Interesting debate.

He is not limited, actually He is unlimited. He chose to give us free will, though, and for that He doesn’t share all his plans with us.

Besides, we are here to serve Him, not to question Him and it is up to Him to choose the ways He manifests to us. It is up to us to see the signs, when He does.

Do you realize, that without God, all that is now would be a direct consequence of the way things were just before? And that everything that will be next, will be a direct consequence of how things are now? That would mean that all that will be, will be a direct consequence of what was. Then all is determined and we would not have free will.

Thanks to God and His choice to work in mysteries and to break the deterministic link of the future with the past, we have free will.

@whitenoise How can we have “free will” when God knows all, has seen all, knows the end from the beginning? How can there be an option as to your end when God already knows what it is? And since he has created everything, isn’t God directly responsible for determining what your end is? How much choice does anyone get in determining whether they get killed by a drunk driver? How much choice does the drunk driver get, if God already has determined that their place in life is to kill an innocent person in another car, because it’s that person’s time?

The free will/omniscient-omnipotent deity thing is hokum.

Oh, sorry, Whitenoise, but I didn’t realize you were talking about the Great Zeus. Of course you and I both believe that the Great Zeus is all that you say.

@Seek_Kolinahr

Isn’t it great that God created you in such a way that you can think and express yourself in that way? :-)

We shouldn’t judge the books too literal, nor try to guess God’s intentions as if He were a fellow human. If I put cookies out on a scale on the table and the kids steal one, they don’t get banned from our house and punished with eternal sin. I may frown on them and tell them they shouldn’t have. Looking at the story that way, from my human point of view. I would never understand why God put a forbidden tree in The Garden and then kicked out Adam and Eve, after eating from it. But then again… I’m not God

Don’t you feel that the whole story about the fruit in the Garden of Eden is in essence nevertheless what we do to our children? We tell our children to wait and to not “eat from the forbidden fruit”. We know that they should wait and enjoy their childhood and not be too eager to grow up. When, however, they inevitably do… and become pregnant, or independent, they will have to face a reality in which they have to fend for themselves and paradise is over.

Regardless of what you think about the scriptures, you can learn from them. If not a pure straight guiding light, it at least shows you alternative ways to look at things. A crooked sign can still point in the right direction.

A lot of the objections against the old books should in essence be an objection against their interpretation. The first commandment that came to Mohammed in the Quran is correctly translated into ‘Read!’, Many interpret this wrongly as ‘Recite!’. Would people just read these books and not recite them, allowing for understanding and interpretation with gained knowledge and experience a lot of today’s misery could be circumvented.

@ETpro
The bad thing about Pacal’s wager is that if you choose a god to believe in, as an insurance policy, you may choose the wrong one. So choosing, for instance, Zeus may get you into more trouble with Yahweh, then if you would remain agnostic. For as far as gods go, I wouldn’t bet on Zeus, the guy’s been too quiet as of lately.

One of the first things Yahweh mentions in the ten commandments is that he is very jealous.

(He also acknowledges the existence of other gods, though these shouldn’t be worshipped.)

@whitenoise Man has invented over 1,000 creator gods. Many of them were insanely jealous, full of vengeance, hate, etc. Some even demanded human sacrifices. Funny, that the one that fit all those definitions of evil yet claimed to Be love is the one so many people follow even today, 4,500 years after a bunch of illiterate, early bronze-age tribesmen dreamed him up to fight Baal or Asherah (El’s wife, BTW).

@whitenoise – your response did not address my topic. At all.

Actually, have you read Under the Dome by Stephen King? I think the entire world is under a dome and there is some superior race out there watching, giggling and pouring in a flood or shaking up an earthquake now and again just for fun.

@Seek_Kolinahr
I am sticking to the rules of defending a religious position, of course I cannot directly respond to your topics.

Have I been gone a whole week?

Longer than that, @zenzen. You’ve died and gone to heaven. Pull up a cloud.