Obama supports "Ground Zero Mosque" (of course he does)

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I talk about an idelogy, and I insist on pointing out that ideologies tend to have the nasty habit of educating people to take on certain attitudes, to accept certain beliefs, to run their thinking under certain pre-assumptions and preconditions tjhat are confrom with said ideology, and even to become intolerant towards others. If ideologies would fail in doing all this, they would not survive for long.

You might as well describe human nature, Sky. People are notoriously vulnerable to ideologies, both religious and secular. They're also notoriously vulnerable to stereotyping and prejudice. It's not the fault of any particular group (though some are more predisposed than others), it's simple human nature. Evidence for this claim comes from the behavior of other apes in the natural world; they follow leaders, they fight, they form groups, and they make war. Chimps are infamous for such behavior. The human mind evolved from such as these, and we display these tendencies today.....

Islam is a fundamentlist ideology by essence and nature. It is totalitarian by design - that is an inherent feature, and it is intentional in being so.

.....which is exactly what you are doing here. Islam is, in many cases, a bad religion. It is a bad ideology, but that doesn't mean it needs to be singled out for extermination. More importantly, it doesn't mean that the people who practice it need to be singled out or exterminated.

Islam is not like any other relgion, Islam is more policy and about social and cultural control than anything else. It is deeply "monoculturalistic" and supremacistic.

Actually, Islam is very much like other religions used to be. Hinduism Judaism, and Catholocism exhibited very similar tendencies when they were primitive religions. The problem with Islam is that it has not been forced to evolve in its home regions. Rather than being included in the global community it has been persecuted and excluded. We can debate that point forever, but what matters is the Islam sees it that way.

Islam is "tameable", as are all ideologies and religions. All it takes is a little mutually beneficial interaction and acceptance. Very soon, you would see an Islam, that is, a religion, that is so interdependent upon outsiders that it can't be fundamental or militaristic. It simply doesn't have the option anymore. Religions are made of people and they will behave like people.

Let me put it this way: I'm a follower of Christ. I believe in peace, tolerance, and forgiveness. I honsetly think that a man who existed 2000 years ago was the Son of the One True God and that he performed miracles and died for our sins. I believe that no man is closer to God than any other. My religion has survived and prospered because it is one of acceptance. But where it was persecuted, it fought back. If you came here today and told me that I couldn't practice my religion, I'd fight you, too. So is it any wonder that a primitive religion fights?

I daresay that you allow your general disdain for religion to be focused upon Islam as a whipping-boy. I'd even go so far as to say that you may allow your disdain for societal views that are not your own to be impressed upon religion, and from there to Islam. I could be wrong, and it is not my place to judge, but it is a question worth asking yourself.

there are fundamentlaistrs in other relgions, yes. Fundamentalist christoians tend to be in violation of Christ's teachings that did not support intolerant and aggressive fundamentalism at all. But muhammad has taught intolerant and aggressive, supressive and supremacist fundamentlism for sure. That is why fundamentalism in islam, different to Christianity, is not a violation or aberation, but is nature and essence of it.

Fundamentalist Christians, IMO, are just the evolved version of fundamentalist Muslims. Some still commit horrific acts, just not on such a broad scale and not so indiscriminately. Many are just blatantly stupid, and I have a hard time calling them fellows. As time passes, they, too, are being phased out.

So, i have a problem with religion where it steps forward and tries to seize the public space, because then it is no more a private thing of the individual's intimmate relation to what he/she thinks szhe must believe in, but it becomes profane powerpolitics. If kept private, I do not care for it, if you want you can believe in the flying spaghetti monster or the maculate conception : I honestely do not care. Keep thy relgion to thyself, do not dare to bother others with your precious thoughts, you have no right to demand other needing to take note of your beliefs. but when you want others to believe the same way like you do, when you want public education, löegal system and social rules being chnaged to match the content of your beolief - then you get problems with people like me: becasue we have no doubt that freedom is by far the more precious good to be defended, for the sake of the few and the sake of the many, and not just for the sake of some powerhungry self-declare elites and supremacist demagogues.

As long as you can say that and as long as there are politicians, I reserve my right to present Jesus' teachings to any willing to listen. If you don't want to listen, that's fine, we'll pray for you anyway, but you don't get to silence us.

If you have a new model for the world you want others to pay triubute to, then you have to convince people in the way it is done in scientific hypothesis-, theory- and model-building: the classic heritage of ancient greek philosophy. That is the best strategy to do things that human mind has developed so far. Everything else is just random chance, blind believing in the fairy queen, and unchecked hear-say. And that is not what has brought our culture to the ammount of knowledge and freedom that we have today.

That sounds disturbingly translateable into eugenics, for many reasons, and I don't say that to take a jab at you. I guess the same could be said of me, since I champion a form of social-Darwinism, but at least I give everyone a chance.

It is in this point that we have another fundamental difference, Sky. I believe that society is best advanced by the spontaneous experimentation that freedom generates, while you seem to think there is some system by which it is best accomplished. I would no more readily condemn Islam, or religion in general, or Newtonian Physics, or Quantum mechanics to the dustbin of history any more readily than I would condemn you or myself.
You don't know whether or not there is a God, and neither do I. Neither one of us could even define such an entity; and where you see short-sightedness on my part for assuming that there is a higher intelligence, I see short-sightedness on yours for assuming there isn't Nobody knows what is out there.

What I can see is what is right in front of us. I see an inevitable system of little biological machines generated by an unimaginably vast array of laboratories that inevitably create ever more complex biological machines that all have the goal of producing greater order from leser order or disorder. I see divinity in life itself, and I see the divinity in the message of life that Jesus preached. I do not violate your freedom by telling you that, as you have the choice whether or not to believe it, or anything else that I say. At most you could arrogantly dismiss me as being annoying.

However, I see something else, as well. I see a perfectly good and large segment of the human population being labeled as worthy of destruction (in belief, if not in person) for the sole reason that someone sees it as a shortcut. Why not afford Islam the chances that have been given to us? Trade with them freely, let them integrate, and the destructive nature of their ideology will disappear. I guarantee you that.