Church plans Qur'an burning

[Aramike]

So the new testament suddenly makes the old destament moot?

Yes, as far as Christianity is concerned.

It's called the "New Covenant", and if you actually understood the religion you're seeking to condemn, you'd be fully aware that Christianity specifically abandons concepts such as "eye for an eye" in favor of "turning the other cheek".

And I'd agree, religion is just a tool used to get people to act like complete arseheads. Sure there are others, but I would rather see a world without organized religion. Personal faith is fine, i think it is nonsensical, but fine.

I'm sure there are plenty of people just like yourself who'd rather see a world rid of (insert organization representing that which one doesn't believe in here). Thankfully people of your mindset aren't in charge, else we'd be at the whims and mercy of whatever ideas have the greatest traction at whatever time.

In fact, you should be equally thankful, because imagine a world where your wishes COULD feesibly come true. I suspect you wouldn't like that world at all, as its likely religious leaders would have eradicated organized science by now.

My rule regarding such things is simple: make sure your principles can't come back to bite you in the ass. As such, I choose freedom as a principle - freedom to agree, disagree, and join others in espousing both.

As for the soviet remark, i was born a citizen of the soviet union, trust me, i know the horrors of that regime better than you probably ever could.

You'd be suprised. But the question of who's perception of horrors is greater is another discussion for another time, and is not at all relevant to the topic at hand.

[Skybird]

At Jesus' life times, there was no new testament and no "christian church". There was only Judaism and the Thora. and the old testament indeed compares more to the old Judaic entity Jahwe, and presents the same image of a revengening, tyrannic psychotic God who tortures his followers for fun to test them, and who commands and set up demands and threatens most unforgiving penalties and extinction if he is not obeyed. Jesus introduces a very different concept of "God", which transcended the level of literalism and the conept of the old "volcano-god", and put man in responsibility for his fate while also showing that he is already embedded in a greater context. In principle Jesus was a reformer of Judaism, and Christinity if a reformed version of Judaism, expressed in the NT. The OT compares to the old Thora. but there is no new thopra that could be compared to the NT.

A comparable historic developement in Islam never took place, there is no reformed Islam and not reformed version of the Quran. Islam thus remained on the level of orthodox Judaism and fundamentalists who focus more on the OT than the NT. It is my strong conviction that people who try to take the NT as literal as the OT (fanatic Jesus-lovers taking the NT literally), simply have so far missed the most important part of the message of Jesus, and that is: don't do like this anymore, for God is not like this.

In the end, Muhammeddans, orthodox Jews and fundamental Christians all share the same basic mindset - and thus they all compare in their level of intolerance, anti-intellectualism and readiness to bring barbary and backwardedness upon mankind. Do not burn the Quran only but the Thora and the OT as well. It's all the same poison murdering thought and claiming superiority where there is just an intellectual hole, and a void where there should be reason. It's all three just offsprings of one and the same mind, and if given the opportunity, the one will behave as barbabric and hateful as the other.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Skybird

In the end, Muhammeddans, orthodox Jews and fundamental Christians all share the same basic mindset - and thus they all compare in their level of intolerance, anti-intellectualism and readiness to bring barbary and backwardedness upon mankind.

I know some people who accepted money as a payment to kill the enemy of the state but they were just used and have been convicted. They consider themselves very patriotic. Is this the fault of patriotism too?

It's the people not the teaching.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Do not burn the Quran only but the Thora and the OT as well. It's all the same poison murdering thought and claiming superiority where there is just an intellectual hole, and a void where there should be reason. It's all three just offsprings of one and the same mind, and if given the opportunity, the one will behave as barbabric and hateful as the other.

And replace them with intellectual, material arrogance and narcissism where there is just an intellectual and spiritual hole?

People will find whatever things or people to hate and when there's none they make them and create all kind of excuses to justify themselves. It's the people who are troubled and most likely don't even like themselves very much. I've come to believe that many people hate other people simply because they remind themselves of how bad they truly are and instead of being sorry and repentant they embrace hatred as a form of self defense and as a result of immaturity. From school bullies to despotic head of state . . . . . .and you would just blame religion or God even on all that? A bit unfair and even irrational isn't it?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Castout

And replace them with intellectual, material arrogance and narcissism where there is just an intellectual and spiritual hole?

It's not up to religion to claim something like this. That would mean to make the perpetrator the judge and the jury.

Religion and spirituality are mutually exclusive.
Belief and reason are mutually exclusive.
religion and belief, and knowing and learning are mutually exlcusive.

But reason is a basis for spirituality.
and science and spirituality go together most wonderfully.

People will find whatever things or people to hate and when there's none they make them and create all kind of excuses to justify themselves. It's the people who are troubled and most likely don't even like themselves very much. From school bullies to despotic head of state . . . . . .and you would just blame religion on all that? A bit unfair isn't it?

I knew muhammeddans who turned, under great perosnal risk and sacrifice, tino apopstates, and I contributed a bit to that decision of theirs. I was not unfair to them, but you are unfair to reasonable people when you ignore that ideas and ideologies influence and educate people. The Quran preaches intolerance, it's own superiority, the inferiority of all others, and its demand to be in total control. and if your read the Quran correctly: in understanding of the historic sequence of the Sura's roots (the Quran just sorts them by length, not by time) and in awareness of the abrogation principle, you are left with little or no space for wide-ranging interpretations.

And that is what the world is getting from it. Since centuries, since over a millenia, and whole cultures got destroyed by it and whole people got subjugated by it, loosing the future that otherwise may have been theirs. And that is especially true for the Arabs themselves. they had so much better starting coinditions comoared to Europe, at the timemuhammad came. tjhen came muhammad, and the great stagnation and apathy began. If I were Arab, I would curse Muhammad's name over this cultural crime he has committed to my people.

Yeah, sure, if a greedy, hate-ridden, intolerant, surpemacist ideology causes people to bully other cultures and tolerate violence in the name of Islam, this ideology has nothing to do with it.

Do you even realise what you have said when you said it is like this, that it is not the ideology, but the people? You by that implied that people get not edcuated to be in rage or apathy, but that they are in rage by probably some defective genes, must supect, that they are like this because they are what they are and already got born like this, for "it is the people, not the religion". And that, different to a critical argument and view of Islam that is intellectually founded, is pure racism indeed. I never, nowhere, ever said something liked that all Arabs or Persians are dumb or untypically aggressive by nature and race. I said that their damn Islamic ideology teaches them how to be dumb and aggressive, and that the long stagnation of their countries has somethign to do with that way of edcuation, or better: indoctrination as well.

And that are two very different ways to view things.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Do you even realise what you have said when you said it is like this, that it is not the ideology, but the people? You by that implied that people get not edcuated to be in rage or apathy, but that they are in rage by probably some defective genes, must supect, that they are like this because they are what they are and already got born like this, for "it is the people, not the religion". And that, different to a critical argument and view of Islam that is intellectually founded, is pure racism indeed. I never, nowhere, ever said something liked that all Arabs or Persians are dumb or untypically aggressive by nature and race. I said that their damn Islamic ideology teaches them how to be dumb and aggressive, and that the long stagnation of their countries has somethign to do with that way of edcuation, or better: indoctrination as well.

And that are two very different ways to view things.

I never said anything about bad genes. I'm disgusted with eugenics the practice and the belief.

I've known some nice smart well educated Muslims who are very tolerable towards non Muslims . . . . . .and I've known some Christians who are racist or like to utter racist remark among themselves.

People get misguided and mis-educated all the time. When you don't have much to look forward to, no money, and little prospect of getting a decent job, when your environment is full of crime, criminals and abuses then you would be likely to fall into the pattern and becoming one of those problem yourself. Radicalism or extremism is one of those

I've known Muslims who tolerated their children to seek more about other religions even allowing their children to convert to other religion or even becoming a priest of another religion altogether. I've known idealistic Muslim who are NOT afraid to open another religion holy text to seek the truth and they did this by themselves. Some converted to Christianity in the process while others gained respect of the other religion/belief in the process.

On the contrary I've known NOT even a single Christian who's unafraid to open the Quran to seek the truth.

I hope more people would let go of their psychological defenses that is fear that sometimes surfaces as hatred and see people as the people they are. Life is too short to be spent on hating people especially with little real reason. We're all pitiful and we're all mortal but at least we could make this life to be more beautiful and meaningful by helping each other however we could and however little we could afford.

Sons of Adam today I'm telling you as a fellow son of Adam that we're pitiful even for the most privileged of us. Our life is too short and our death is too long. Our awareness is like a feeble grass, green and fresh in the morning but brown and dried up in the evening and to die the next morning. Do you know not that we are all brethren in this life and time that we happen to share?! Since we are so pitiful and since we are so much alike than most of us could ever realize try to help one another so that we could lighten the burden and share the joy of this short life that we're now enjoying but not for much longer.

[tater]

Without going so far as to fall into a "no true Scotsman" fallacy, people who hold certain beliefs cannot really belong to certain groups, regardless of self-identification. I'd posit that Christians are not those who claim to be Christian, but those that meet some basic standard of at least trying to behave as a Christian. Ditto for Muslims, a good faith effort to follow the koran as written is required. Obviously, if the definition is "being born to Muslim parents" then we run into the logical fallacy. Since religions are nothing more than a voluntarily held set of beliefs, I think that membership should in fact be defined as holding those beliefs true.

I, for example, am technically a Catholic. I'm Confirmed in the church, etc. I'm an atheist(even anti-theist)/agnostic(have to be agnostic on deism, can't know one way or another).

If I lived someplace so intolerant that I had to hide my atheism, I'd claim to be a Catholic, but not follow all the rules (not follow any I could get away with not following). I in fact did this as a kid (I became an atheist in maybe 5th-6th grade or so).

So yeah, there are Muslims who don't follow it closely, and they're great. The less they follow their doctrine, in fact, the better they are.

It's interesting that the most tolerant muslims (meaning populations in general) are in places where they don't understand Arabic. The more people are taught Arabic (to be able to read the koran), the less tolerant they become (which is the point of teaching Arabic to Muslims outside the ME). Remember, only ~200 million understand Arabic worldwide, and there are 1.2 BILLION Muslims. That means the vast majority cannot even read their own holy book.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by tater

It's interesting that the most tolerant muslims (meaning populations in general) are in places where they don't understand Arabic. The more people are taught Arabic (to be able to read the koran), the less tolerant they become (which is the point of teaching Arabic to Muslims outside the ME). Remember, only ~200 million understand Arabic worldwide, and there are 1.2 BILLION Muslims. That means the vast majority cannot even read their own holy book.

Quran has been printed and published in local languages and in English as far as I know. So it's available to anyone who would read them. And those who have the boldness to read another religion holy text by themselves usually have read through their own.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Aramike

I'm sure there are plenty of people just like yourself who'd rather see a world rid of (insert organization representing that which one doesn't believe in here). Thankfully people of your mindset aren't in charge, else we'd be at the whims and mercy of whatever ideas have the greatest traction at whatever time.

In fact, you should be equally thankful, because imagine a world where your wishes COULD feesibly come true. I suspect you wouldn't like that world at all, as its likely religious leaders would have eradicated organized science by now.

My rule regarding such things is simple: make sure your principles can't come back to bite you in the ass. As such, I choose freedom as a principle - freedom to agree, disagree, and join others in espousing both.You'd be suprised.

I am not in favor of baning religion, but would rather prefer a world where people would be sensible ennough to abandon the concept and just accept that there are things in this universe we can not explain yet. There is no need to fill in the blanks with god did it. That does nothing to advance human understanding, and may even hinder it as a fallback for the mentally lazy. Why bother trying to figure something out when the answer s allready there?

Just so there are is no confusion, I detest organized religion of all kinds, don't see as any one being better or worse than the others. Same as my view on politicians.