JellyBean said:

It is no point. It isn't even the truth. Wilders doesn't talk about all muslims, he talks about islam. He says there are many moderate muslims, there is no moderate islam. There are English speeches by Wilders on that subject, so you can check yourself.

http://media.www.claremon...92.shtml

http://atlasshrugs2000.ty...rates.html

Wilders doesn't talk about all muslims, he talks about islam. He says there are many moderate muslims, there is no moderate islam.

Dsoul said:

If you look at history, all nut jobs believe in their position. As with using the Holy Koran as a source, you can always twist things to fit your agenda, the Bible and the Torah can be twisted to fit Chrisitan and Jewish agendas; we have seen that through history. Again, we got back to claiming that one is evil and the other ones are not. Go after the Bible and Torah, then I would have no problem.

Just because a few muslims twist the Koran and make it fit their evil twisted minds, does not mean that Islam is evil. We have Christians and Jews who twist the Bible and Torah to fit their evil minds, do we paint all Jews and Christians with the same brush? Nope. So stop doing it with Islam.

Like I said before: If you are going to be against hate speech and want freedom for all people, cool. But stop pretending that one group is better than the other group. Or one religion is better than another.

If Greet Wilders is going to go after the Koran, go after the Bible as well as the Torah.

mordang said:

Well, he needs to make a better statement then. Because all I hear and read from this clown is how "Islam is evil" Or "Islam is out to control the world" To me, it is pure bull and he needs to be held accountable.

JellyBean said:

His party is under scrutiny and investigation and of course Wilders is mad as hell."onderzoek" means investigation "woest" means very angry. Other publications such as Elsevier, Volkskrant and more call Wilders "a danger to democracy. "een gevaar voor demoracie." http://www.rtl.nl/(/actue...ek-pvv.xml

Once again: on Saturday 31 October the Volkskrant reported that the scientists of appoited by Guusje ter Horst consider Wilders as subversive man. Afterwards minister van der Laan said on Monday 2 November that the growing followers of Wilders are a danger for the rule of law (1 in 5 Dutchmen). And of course Alexander (oppositionleader) hastely joined this statement.

Did it concern the perpetrator? Did it concern the radical Moslims? No, it concerned the victim of Islamic terrorism. And that is the threatened Wilders, and not van der Laan and not ter Horst and neither the scientists appointed by ter Horst. What a bizarre truth.

Teacher said:

You know what, they will gett into parliament, just because of this refusal to debate. Those who are often accused of causing these problems (current holders of power) refuse to debate, means either they do no see a problem, don't want to see a problem or see a problem but don't want to deal with it. Either way, you don't expect a solution within from these parties, if you are amidst the problems and turn to those who at least listen and adress it. And Sweden has problems....big ones.




http://en.wikipedia.org/w..._in_Sweden

You must have many ignorant people in Sweden. 56% according to your logic.

^
the 'prophet' mohammed was a murderer ; he killed jews that didn't want to convert to islam and that is a [b]fact[/b]

therefore islam is terror by definition

anyone who doesn't want to acknowledge that has to get their blindfolds off

Wilders is right
[Edited 10/24/09 18:11pm]

Dewrede said:

FACT

This is my first and my last comment on this thread, because no matter what someone says about religion, there is always someone who will get offended, I only posted to say that you are dishonest and making things up.

IM a Muslim, and I know my religion’s history completely, to say that prophet' Mohammed wanted to kill all Jews that didn't want to convert to Islam is complete LIE, you are being dishonest or you are ignorant about the Islam’s history…..its one of the two.

We are all human beings, regardless of the religion, what happened to you people?

Respect and love …..

let me say it again
i don't critisize people , merely their religion

oh really ?
it seems you know very little about your own religion
(i don't mean to offend)
read this

http://www.faithfreedom.o...rderer.htm

'
Muhammad killed and banished several Jewish tribes, among them are B. Qainuqa’, B. Nadir, B. Quraiza, B. Mustaliq, B. Jaun and the Jews of Khaibar. On his deathbed, he instructed his followers to cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of all non-believers,[6] an order that Omar, the second Caliph carried out later. He exterminated the Jews, the Christians and the pagans, forcing them to convert, leave or put them to death.'
[Edited 11/8/09 17:42pm]

^Again, how can you separate muslims from Islam?

dothejump said:

I seperate them, by critisizing there religion. That they only act in a way there religion has indoctrinated them, is not their fault. I don't see the difficulty. A believer only has to stop believing....and they do, all the time.

You can criticize me upon my opinions, but we can still go out, and have a few beers. I sure don't like being criticized, but I'm a big boy...that is also a seperation. Perhaps I'm a good man, with good intentions, but just with some bad ideas (who knows). If you can't make that seperation, than there is something wrong with the way you look at people. By your analogy all communists are bad if you regard communism bad, all fascists are bad if you regard fascism bad. A worldview becomes a person, a person become a worldview...they are one?
If I regard Islam bad, I should regard muslims bad? Is that what you say?

But surely that can't be true. If a muslim cannot seperate himself from his religion, that is not my fault, is it? So all critism on Islam should stop, because the thought or the religion can't be seperated from the people? That would stop atheism, dead in the water...any criticism would be no go area...who needs discussion anyway?


My ideas an are open for debate, they are not dogma, they are not imposed on me by an omnipotent deity, that has endorsed murder, rape, theft and war in the past(just read any religious scripture, and you'll find plenty of these). So critisizing me, is fairly easy and save. I won't go out and plea for a right to be exempt from critisism. I won't use force to silence it, etc. Whenever religion is envolveved, serving wishes of a GOD, there is the implicit danger that enforcement is used....if some followers have the thought it would be serving there god.

That critisism of religion is perhaps very personal, even offending to some, I don't argue, but why should my perception of the truth, bow, waver or dissappear to facilitate otherones perception of the truth (and that perception in my view.., well almost insane). Is there a secret hierarchy? Just for the sake of not offending people? Religious people on top, Islam on number 1?

I'm offended everyday. The very fact that people belief in a god, and want to lead me into a fairytale paradise is offending (allthough I don't think that many will understand that), or want to kill, outlaw or cure homosexuals is offending, or to submit women to the will of men is offending, but that is what you deal with. It's life. Grow a shield, become a grown up, etc.

Let me ask you in turn...how do you fuse humans to religion, and make that fusion the fundament of a prohibition to criticise the religion?

What about those, without religion? Can they be seperated from what they think?

mordang said:

Please count all the extreme islamic terrorists in the world. I'd like a rough figure. And then count the amount of NON VIOLENT peace loving Muslims in the world. Also a figure please.

How can you paint over millions of people with one brush.

If a madman in the USA shoots 20 people in a shoot-out in his city, does that mean the entire city population where the madman lives , are also madmen who would shoots 20 people because someone in their city did it?

Generalisations are easy and therefore dangerous, but they have nothing to do with fact.
[Edited 11/10/09 5:37am]
[Edited 11/10/09 5:39am]

mordang said:

How can you paint over millions of people with one brush?

If a madman in the USA shoots 20 people in a shoot-out in his city, does that mean the entire city population where the madman lives , are also madmen who would shoots 20 people because someone in their city did it?

Bohemian67 said:

I believe the appropriate response, from people who takes Mordangs view, is that religion in your analogy would be the gun. i.e. it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that guns are in and of themself intrincly a bad thing without believing, or being told you believe, that therefore all people who own guns are bad.

I should add that I'm talking generally here. I'm a brit so I don't know too much about Wilders etc. Neither do I care to differentiate too much between relgions; they are all as inherently dangerous as each other.

There are so many 'guns', though; so many ideologies that can function as lethal weapons, that whilst it's fair to say that religion can be used in that way, it's not fair to only target religion.

Plus, it would also be fair to say that religion can motivate people to do good things as well, no? So, for example, the religious zealotry of the 9/11 hijackers was a lethal weapon, but one could also imagine that an awful lot of the firefighters crossed themselves before putting their own lives at risk - running into a burning building to save strangers.

I should add that I'm talking generally here. I'm a brit so I don't know too much about Wilders etc. Neither do I care to differentiate too much between relgions; they are all as inherently dangerous as each other.

This rather smacks of the stance of the religious zealot who considers all unbelievers and their worldviews to be much of a muchness. Surely, if we're going to value reason -- and militant atheists never seem to stop professing to value reason -- we can assess different principles put forward by different religions (as well as different principles within those religions), and reason which are good for helping human beings to lead fulfilling lives and which are not. Otherwise, 'Love your neighbour' and 'homosexuality is an abomination' just become so many shades of the same thing - which seems like a desperately unreasoned and unreasonable position.

The only thing we can say for certain when it comes to religion and morality is that there is not a single act of "goodness" than can not and has not been equally performed by someone of faith or an atheist. ... On the other hand, there are most certainly some acts of "evil" that can only come from religious motivation.

Its statistically likely that some of those firemen were atheists. Good people to good things, irrespective of their supernatural beliefs or otherwise.

Morality is demonstrably intrinsic; religion borrows its morality from us rather than the other way around.

To be "truly" religious, a genuine believer, one must accept every and all tenet of their chosen religious book. They must believe in, and adhere to, all the words spoken by their god of choice. We tend to refer to such people as fundamentalists or extremists. And in almost all cases, we consider such people to be potentially dangerous (or at the very least mentally unsound). ... Indeed, most modern religious people (moderates) can only be religious by rejecting vast swaths of their chosen religion. (An irony that doesn't seem overtly bother them).

razor said:

I maintain there are certain acts that no modern educated people would do lest they thought their god demanded it. Genital mutilation of children is a good example of an horrific act that otherwise right-mided people would never perform unless in the name of religion.

However, I probably braodly agree with you. The point I wanted to make was to seperate religion from morality. They are, and always have been, seperate things. What religion remains, however, is the most powerful persuauder for evil man has ever created. And that tenet of it has alwasys outweighed its ability to persuade people to goodness. (Not that we can therefore assume that in a world without religion, peace would reign supreme; merely that people in power would need to work a lot harder to pursuade people into following them)



A fascinating area of debate I'm sure you'll agree. And not one that anyone, least of all me, can talk about definitively. However, it seems highly likely that morality is simply an evolved trait. To put it in layman's terms, we undertake behaviour that maximises our individual probability of survival. And it is a observed fact that individual chances of survivial are maximised when animals work together and support each other; when we curb our more brutal istincts towards each other in the interest of civilised peace. More and more studies are observing such behaviour amonsgt some of the "lowest" aminals and insects on the planet. It would seem that, as with so many other things, it isn't really human morality at all, more a learned behaviour found amongst species that have succesfully survived, quite possibly for that very reason.


Consider murder for a moment. Is murder illegal because none of us ever wish to commit it? Or because we never see a (moral) justification for it? No, many of us do, but generally we understand that were we to legitimise such behaviour, our individual chances of survival would decrease as our environments would become more dangerous places. It is better of us individually to forego the right to kill to maintain social stability.
Consider what happens when we do perceive that killing is in our interest, for whatever reason? We do it with relish. All of which suggests not an objective moral order, but rather a evolved trait based around self-survival.



Its not transcedent in any way. Its just observable biology and anthropology. No need for savior analogies. We do of course need to prioritise study that helps us to understand our nature and beaviour.

razor said:

My understanding of religious beleifs and practices is really pretty good I would say. It comes not only fom obervation and study, but from personal experience also. So I can't accept that criticism as entirely fair, although I certainly don't claim expertise.

And I understand well the point you are making. But such scholarly debate is irrelevant to most, certainly in the moderate christian west. And you must admit that some of these scholarly agreements are simply fairly transparent attempts to remove embarrasing, easily criticised, and suspiciouly human looking elements of their books and reduce literal interpertation of them. Its mostly designed to retain the credibility of the underlying faith. As as time goes on, and human knowledge goes up, more and more of those said books are having to be "reinterpreted" away from the literal or even allegorical (you'll also notice I'm sure that such amendments of interpretation only ever take place when the faith have been forced to accept the blatant falicy or moral failure of any given section).The god of the gaps is getting smaller.

I stand by the original statement that most moderates can only be religious becuase they reject entirely vast swaths of their religion i.e. they are not merely claiming allegory or interpretation, or context here and there. Huge parts are simply ignored. And for good reason.

(This post is getting very long, and we may well be getting slightly sidetracked, so I shall go back for a bit to the work I really should be doing!)

People seem to find it difficult to differentiate between the religion and the culture of the country that interprets that religion.

Interpretations of Islam vary from country to country (region to region); Similarly, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism.....

Countries with conservative cultures will view their chosen religion through that prism.
[Edited 11/12/09 3:23am]

TyphoonTip said:

I certainly agree that intpretation differs across regions. However it seems a but chicken and egg to me i.e. to what extent does the culture dictate the interpretation of religion and to what extent does the interpretation of religion dictate the culture.