Which side would you join?

[Tom Mazanec]

Ahh, Job Control Language...and assembler too. Brings back memories.
I once had a bug that I tried to solve by printing every step of the execution till I hit the limit of the printout. Turns out they had not set up a limit. Messed up the machine (a PDP-11) kinda nicely.

[Doink]

Nor did the Racconans have a foreign religion suddenly proclaim their capital city a "holy site" and demand control of it. (Ahh Jerusalem. Settled by the Jews, built by the Jews, lived in by the Jews for thousands of years before Mohammed ever crapped his first diaper.... claimed by the Muslims. Why? Because their head holy hoo-ha had a dream about it once.)

Kinda makes me forget if there's anything GOOD about Islam.

[Kerry Skydancer]

If there is, I sure haven't noticed it yet. Buncha Dark-Age goat molesters running that show.

[Xellas]

Me, I'm against condemning the Muslim faith. Hell, right now most of the problems are being caused by the extremists in their faith... and god knows we've got some extremist Christians who make the rest of us look like stuck up pricks. Nowhere near as bad as the nutjobs blowing themselves up, but the concept is the same... should we tar and feather their ENTIRE religion with the same brush as the extremists? Hell, at least their faith accepts Jesus was a holy man... from what I understand, the Jews pass him off as a charlitan. Not defending in the least the nutcases that are performing acts of terrorism, but I don't think we should characterize all Muslims based on the actions of a relative few.

Of course, now everyone can proceed to pick me apart (sucks being the only non-conservative on the forum -_-)

[RHJunior]

Tell me, how many more decades do the Muslims get to kill us Infidels before we're allowed to criticize their religion for it?

Xellas, the Muslim faith was STARTED by a man who led his followers on bloody war campaigns. It was SPREAD on the point of the sword for four centuries prior to the first Christian "crusade" (see my Livejournal post of the relevant dates and information.) It STILL ESPOUSES slaying the Jew and the infidel, and demands conquest of the world. Those rare few Muslim leaders who don't preach Jihad whenever they can spend most of their time <I>writing apologisms for the actions of the terrorists</i> and threatening anyone who looks like they might "defame Islam" with lawsuits.

The "peaceful Muslims" are consistently proving the exception, not the rule.

Let's address this from a different perspective.

"Most Klansmen, neonazis, and Aryan Supremacists are actually generally peaceful and law abiding. Is it fair to judge them by the actions of a vanishing few?"

No, because we're not judging them "by the actions of a few," we're judging them <I> by the immoral content of their beliefs.</i>

Freedom of speech, press and religion is the right to express your beliefs in a public forum <I>for other people to evaluate and judge.</i> It is not a guarantee of government protection from criticism.

Islam has been up for public consideration for over 1400 years. And after 1400 years of spittle-flecked calls to Jihad against the Infidel, 1400 years of reciting Muhammed's call to slay the infidel "wherever ye may find him," 1400 years of oppression, brutality, and totalitarian war, <I>it has been found wanting.</i>

[Tom Mazanec]

A friend of mine (a librarian) is a Muslim. He is a fine fellow. Most religions hold unbelievers to be "infidels". The problem is that Islam is still in the pre-Enlightenment era, with its leaders and fundamentalists still acting like other religions did in the Dark Age. Their holy writings are also more "intensly" "anti-infidel" than other religions. That makes the religion as a whole different than other religions in the 21st Century.

[Madmoonie]

Of course, now everyone can proceed to pick me apart (sucks being the only non-conservative on the forum -_-)

For one thing, you are not the only non-conservative on this forum.

[Kerry Skydancer]

It doesn't affect what I said, either. My statement was carefully chosen, for all the apparent flippancy - 'running that show'. It's the leaders of a religion that set the tone, after all - Islam, like Christianity, has so much stuff in their scriptures that someone who wants to pick and choose can make it say almost anything. (Remember the Confederate preachers who claimed that the fact that there are rules for treatment of slaves in the Bible meant that it actually approved of slavery?) The folks in charge of Islam mostly seem to pick the stuff that makes it worthy of scorn; a few of them go so far as to emphasize stuff that makes it almost necessary to exterminate them since they refuse to live in peaceful coexistence.

The moderates are badly outnumbered, and the extremists dominate Islam at the moment. This has to change, or the old Star Trek joke will come true.

Mr. Roddenberry - why are there no Muslims in Star Trek?

Because it takes place in the future.

[Wayfarer]

May I for a moment explore some ideals...

Extremism is often cited as a problem when it comes to faith, but I think this clouds the issue. Some beliefs, if they are true, can be responded to with nothing but an "extreme" committment. The "extreme" in response to them is not extreme, but merely right.

The best way I can illustrate this would be to use the specific claims that Christianity, as I see it, makes upon me:
If God exists, has created me to live in a certain way, and has rightful authority to tell me to do so;
if, in addition, I have rebelled and alienated myself from Him, and He, instead of letting me go, has come and sacrificed His Son, Himself to allow me to return;
if, in light of the above facts, I am both His property and His beloved;
if I really believe these things to be true, there is no question of extremism, no alternative of moderation - the implications of it are complete and total, all-encompassing, all-consuming, and they must by nature be so.

Now, can wrong things be done in the name of such a belief - either this example or the translation of this example, as far as possible, to the case of other beliefs? Yes, insofar as the faith errs and/or is abused. Is this a defence for something wrong done out of sincere (though maybe sincerely wrong) belief? No. This is where one's responsibility to examine their beliefs carefully and soberly comes in. If the beliefs call for total committment, one hasm in the determination to commit, the responsibility to have determined the beliefs deserve it.

After this we come to other people, whose beliefs may differ. Again, if I really believe the foregoing to be true, again there are consequences: I must reject the beliefs I believe conflict with truth. I am not, however, to reject the individual because they hold those beliefs. Might the individual reject me and even seek to harm me? Yes. Might I need to be prepared for that possibility, and be prepared to deal with that possibility? Yes. Would even that give me the right to reject them, to hate them, to truly wish them ill? No.

Of course, now follows the questions, "Can I really say I live this?" and "How many people actually do?" And my answers would have to be, "No," and "At very least, many do not." As I said, I see this as the ideal, and the actual may differ... markedly. But that doesn't mean the actual should differ, and and it doesn't mean the ideal cannot be the goal one strives to make the actual like.

Anyway, my $.02 or so, aimed at least as much at myself as at anyone else.

[Kerry Skydancer]

The trouble with that, Wayfarer, is the If, If, If, and If. Unfortunately, most people don't explore their faith nor the implications of it - they just do what the priest/imam/rabbi/shaman/etc tells them that God wants them to do. Extremists - perhaps zealots is a better word for the condition - refuse to entertain the idea that they might be wrong about something. The worst cases are not only sure that they're right but that theirs is the only possible right answer, and they want to make sure that everyone else agrees with them.

S'why I gave up on organized religion long ago - I don't much like being told what to do by a preacher when it conflicts with my own interpretation of whatever Scriptures he's using that day. I'll stick with what can be tested. Science and engineering may not have everything right (heck, I'll guarantee that they don't) but they don't stop looking for better answers, and the only thing they're dogmatic about is demanding evidence.

It is a far better thing for someone to have a mind full of unanswered questions than to have a mind full of unquestioned answers.

[The JAM]

[...unWARP!!!]

Good evening.


Islam has about as many denominations, perhaps even more, as Christendom, not just the Shi'ite and Sunni branches.

When our church sent a team to North Africa, they were quite surprised to find a Muslim denomination that actually accepted Yeshua as the Messiah (Isa al-Masih) and actively sought brotherhood with Christians AND Jews! I think the basis of that denomination is that since Abraham was both the father of Ytzchak AND Ishmael, Jews and Arabs are thusly, by definition, cousins, i.e., FAMILY. (and it's true, I remember a science magazine explaining how Ytzchak Rabin and Yassir Arafat had VERY closely matching DNA).

Sadly, they're a very small minority, as are the Palestinians who actually reject the PLO.


Zacatepongolas!

Until next time, remember:

I

AM

THE

J.A.M. (a.k.a. Numbuh i: "Just because I'm imaginary doesn't mean I don't exist")

Good evening.

[WARP!!!]

[Wayfarer]

The trouble with that, Wayfarer, is the If, If, If, and If. Unfortunately, most people don't explore their faith nor the implications of it...

That's why I said it was an ideal. I know it's not how people actually do things. But perhaps it should be how they do things (perhaps). It's true that wholesale devotion - which would so often be called extremism and, depending on the case, fundamentalism - should not be given blindly. But that's not what people say. People say it shouldn't be given at all. I say that some things, if true (yes, it's that "if" again...), demand it.

Well and good. How could that be applied without disaster?
Very carefully?
Yes, there are gaps in our knowledge, so how could one settle on what deserves devotion? I would say it requires thought, examination, sober consideration, integrity, circumspection... and even then, I don't claim it would be knowledge. But my point is that the problem really lies at this point - at what one commits to and why - rather than with the fact of an utter commitment in itself.

There's a quote I love:
"The ideal must be our guide how to treat the actual, but the actual must be there to treat." (George MacDonald, The Flight of the Shadow)
This, of course, emphasizes knowing the actual. But it does still point out - and this is why I love it - that both are needed. I believe this is very true, and I also feel that some ideals, even if very difficult to accomplish, should not on that count be dismissed.

S'why I gave up on organized religion long ago - I don't much like being told what to do by a preacher when it conflicts with my own interpretation of whatever Scriptures he's using that day.

Hmmm... when what someone else says concerning Scripture conflicts with what I think it's saying... well, at my worst I ignore them, honestly. At my best, though I ask if everything relevent is being considered, and if so, according to what reasoning I should prefer their interpretation to my own. And I imagine this latter response being somewhat similar to what I two scientists interpreting data differently on a given question might do.

[Kerry Skydancer]

In that case, Wayfarer, your reaction to zealots would be the correct one. Ask why. Zealots can be identified by their irrational reaction to that question.

And you're right - anything can be treated scientifically, even religion. Science is, ultimately, simply a way to ask questions to get at as much truth as you can figure out. The problem with religion is how to set up a test to get the answer to a new question. Cross-referencing scripture generally has limited utility, while the natural sciences can design a new experiment without too much hassle. This is probably why physics and biology have made so much more progress than religion in the last few centuries....

[UncleMonty]

Yep... First there was Judaism, which taught of a coming Messiah, and which at no time taught that nonbelievers should be harmed simply because they were nonbelievers. Then there was Christianity, which taught of a Messiah arrived, and ALSO taught that nonbelievers should not be harmed simply because they were nonbelievers. Finally, there was Islam. A purposeful distortion of Judaism which taught blind obedience to earthly, mortal religious leaders, and the necessity to enslave and kill nonbelievers.
If you meet an Islamic believer who does not support killing nonbelievers, you have found a person who does not fully understand his religion. Islam was invented to be used as a weapon for world domination. That it has not succeeded, and that it has fragmented, is evidence only that mankind loves to change things and mess things up. The world owes its freedom to the corruption and venality of Islamic leadership.

[RedSquirrel456]

I just wanted to note, not to defend or attack anything, just a comment. Isaac Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, and several other scientists that we esteem as fathers of natural science and enlightenment, were in fact all staunchly religious... most (Newton for sure) actually stated that their findings about the natural world only further proved the existence of God and His creation. Now, I'm pretty sure Newton was a Deist, but still. It's interesting to note that our entirely secular scientists work with principles made by men who believed in God (and I mean God, not just "a god"), and consistently say that science and religion are entirely incompatible. Which of course is untrue... I am a Christian and quite sure that the laws of thermodynamics do exist.

[The JAM]

"I want to know God's thoughts....the rest are details."

[Sun tzu]

"I want to know God's thoughts....the rest are details."

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

[Tom Mazanec]

I think that the Creationism movement is what is causing the "irreparable divide between religion and science" meme to florish after the geocentrism debate was pretty much laid to rest.

[Doink]

It is a far better thing for someone to have a mind full of unanswered questions than to have a mind full of unquestioned answers.

One of the most flawed aspects a man could possibly have is the inability to change his mind.

[Maxgoof]

It is a far better thing for someone to have a mind full of unanswered questions than to have a mind full of unquestioned answers.

One of the most flawed aspects a man could possibly have is the inability to change his mind.

It is good to have an open mind, but beware having one so open that your brains fall out.