The trouble with Islam

[bujin]

littleclaire said:

I'm not condoning fundamentalists. But violence in the name of God is nothing new.

Violence in the name of God is nothing new.

But weapons of mass destruction are new.

When you have people who absolutely believe that they will go straight to heaven if they kill unbelievers, apostates and infidels, do you think that if they got their hands on such technology, they would hesitate to use it?

So should we get rid of religion altogether?If we could wave a magic wand and have a world without religion would that make the world a better place?

I think the world would be a little bit better and safer without religion. Sure, there would still be things to fight about - it is impossible to remove war from the human race. But without the belief in heaven and martyrdom, and without the natural divisiveness that different religions necessarily create, there would be no need to wage war over such ridiculous things.

[Little Claire]

But you are talking about a minority of people who have interpretated their religious scriptures to suit their purposes. Not about Islam in general. As Jon said Islam is a peaceful religion. It has been used by people who flourish on war and destruction. The problem is that people are now attacking Islam itself which results in more disillusioned Muslims who feel ready to die for their cause.

The truth is you couldn't have a world without religion, because religion was created by man to create some sort of order and make sense of the world around mankind. But because it is created by man it can also be manipulated by man.

[bobdezon]

The problem with peoples percetion of islam is based mainly on the logical fallacy of "Argumentum ad consequentiam".

If a bomber explodes on a bus full of people and he is a muslim, ergo all muslims are evil and treacherous. Thing to remember is it is just a fallacy you cannot label all members of a particular faith with the term "radical", only the ones who are proponents and agents of such actions.

[bujin]

I wouldn't dream of labelling all Muslims as evil, and I'm perfectly aware that it is a minority that are causing the problems.

However, as Richard Dawkins says, "religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end". If people weren't forced to believe this stuff, I suspect you wouldn't have quite so many people ready to strap a bomb to their chest.

I'm not singling out Islam here. Other religions are just as dangerous. And with religions like catholicism, it's NOT just a minority group. The catholics are practically genocidal with their doctrines. How many millions of people are dying of AIDS in Africa because the catholics think that contraception is a sin?

The truth is you couldn't have a world without religion, because religion was created by man to create some sort of order and make sense of the world around mankind. But because it is created by man it can also be manipulated by man.

You could very easily have a world without religion. Why do we have to have doctrines that lie to the general population in order to keep them in line? Why do we have to have so many different schisms of these religions which each tell their flock that theirs is the one true religion and all the others are false?

I don't think religion was created by man to create order. It predates large societies. I expect it was created, as you say, in order to make sense of the world. We have MUCH better ways of explaining the world these days. The "God of the Gaps" argument is no longer thought of as logical.

[geeandtee]

Bujin, I couldn't agree more.
I read the Koran years ago, and was surprised how peaceable the preachings were. However, a good friend and I have been engaged in a debate over the past few months about how peaceable the teachings of Mohammed are. He pointed out that there are parts of the Koran where Muslims are exhorted to get rid of Unbelievers. This is in the later parts of the Koran which were written after Muslims started to be persecuted for their beliefs. However, like a lot of people on here, I think it's just a handful of lunatic fundamentalists who are interpreting the Koran for their own nefarious purposes. Likewise, the likes of Pat Robinson and other crazy Christian Fundamentalists who seize and misrepresent passages from the bible for their own reasons. I do believe religion was created to help people make sense of the world and then, later, rulers came along and decided to use it for different reasons, e.g. control. This is where the abuse and misinterpretations started. You cite the Catholic Church as an example and I could not agree more. It is a religion that preys on the perceived guilt of its followers and has done great harm. I would not, however, wish to see religious practices banned because believers find comfort too.

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

bobdezon said:

The problem with peoples percetion of islam is based mainly on the logical fallacy of "Argumentum ad consequentiam".

I went to school with him, nice chap.

[PILLSBURY]

admin said:

bobdezon said:

The problem with peoples percetion of islam is based mainly on the logical fallacy of "Argumentum ad consequentiam".

I went to school with him, nice chap.

I thought they invaded the falklands in 82.

[bone]

Thankfully "radical" Islam could never prosper in lands that have tasted any form of personal freedom, free people like to stay that way. The whole hatred of the west by Islamic regimes all boil down to one thing in my opinion, humiliation.

Everything they touch, everything that they use in any technical aspect of their lives, the science of modern life is owned and created by the "decadant" west who dares to allow excessive personal and secular freedoms and worse of all our woman are equal to the men in our society!

We prosper, they do not, we progress they are stuck in the dark ages.

Id be humiliated too.

[hyppydylan]

and worse of all our woman are equal to the men in our society!

The religion of Islam has nothing whatsoever to do with the subjugation of women. Under the laws of Islam, women are equal to men in all things. The first Muslim convert was a woman.
The problem arises where a peasant minded groups of people overlay their cultural customs and bigotry onto their belief system until they become one and the accepted norm.
In Christian Britain women were considered chattels until fairly recently in our history

And, for the record, women are not equal to men in this country and won't be until we are all paid the same wage for the same work and aren't expected to do the dinner, washing, washing up and housework when we get in from our paid employment whilst hubbs watches the racing. (sorry, raw nerve there)

[Mr. Jon Donnis]

What rubbish, women are more than equal in this country, if anything the man is the second class citizen these days.

Just look at this forum, I am supposed to be the boss, yet I have Shazz telling me off all the time

[bobdezon]

yeah and when Im "post op", youll be getting crap from me too.