Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

[vt]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

[santafe2]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

I don't know of a religion that doesn't require cognitive dissonance. I'm confident that any "thou shalts" can be explained away or forgotten if the will exists to do so just like in Christianity and Judaism. I'm just don't know if the leaders of Islam changed the rules that its followers would suddenly become less violent towards those they hate.

Religion is nothing more than organized superstition with a serious vig. The title of this post says it clearly; radical Islamists no different than inquisition, (Christians). Probably not, superstitions arise from fear of the unknown and the fearful are capable of the worst sort of inhumanity.

[touchring]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Would changing Islam be effective in reducing violence? Is religion the cause of violence or simply a convenient pretense? I suppose it can be some of each.

Religion is just a tool for politicians and conquerors.

ISIS is spreading to Europe, if you think Turkey is part of Europe.

If Europe goes down, the US which is culturally and ethnically connected won't be very far behind.

My 2 cents view from the Far East.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Would changing Islam be effective in reducing violence? Is religion the cause of violence or simply a convenient pretense? I suppose it can be some of each.

I doubt it would single handedly achieve world peace.

But a Sunni led reformation/modernisation could be far more good than bad.

But do we possess long enough institutional/cultural/political time horizons to even see it?

And there's always the risk that the Saudi government running Mecca would view a Sunni reformation going the way of Soviet Communist Perestroika, but with more Saudi royal heads being chopped off. Good/necessary intentions leading to bloody consequences.

Maybe more like a Chinese communist to totalitarian/mercantilist hardline reform. Do it, but with bloody hands.

What is the alternative?

Syrian implosion erasing 50-100 years of development?

Middle Eastern Khmer Rouge?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Religion is nothing more than organized superstition with a serious vig. The title of this post says it clearly; radical Islamists no different than inquisition, (Christians). Probably not, superstitions arise from fear of the unknown and the fearful are capable of the worst sort of inhumanity.

Religious affinity groups can be incredibly resilient and persistent.

Humans are hard wired to herd.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Apologies for the cute tone. I don't see anything I said as being cockier or more arrogant than you telling me that I "simply have poor understanding of the subject matter". We disagree. I believe you are wrong and I am right and vice versa.

Back up arrogance with facts and then win my admiration instead.

Saying it's "from Judaism" is pretending that it's not part of nearly every Christian bible in existence.

Again, this is a poor understanding of the facts. The didactic sections of the New Testament simply do not just keep the old rules you cite. How many places would you like? Acts 11? The entire epistle to the Hebrews?

It's considered by most Christians to be the Word of God. You claim that some kind of special interpretation is needed to make it violent, when clearly that is not true. If you are part of some kind of New Testament Only sect of Christianity, then yes, your scripture is probably much less violent. That is not the majority of Christians.

It does take a very special interpretation to make it anything other than a pacifist religion. I grew up in and around fundamentalists, as all faiths eventual wind up doing, and they usually come up with separatism at worst in Christianity unless its being made to fit violent intent already . One would have to decide for violence and them make Christianity fit. This has been done of course....
.

Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

5:18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Luke 16:17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for one dot of the Law to become void.

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Hebrews 8

And hacking your way through it you skipped over what does fulfilled mean. The law demands justice be put into balance. You have to go through the trouble to skip most of the text and then pluck out the obsolete text to make it fit. Again this has to be done to deliberately sabotage the intent. More or less Christ is said to have fulfilled the law. If Christ could cancel it then he would not have needed to be the sacrificial lamb. It the only constancy .The sermon on the mount alone does this but again its all over the NT.

For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. ⁸ But God found fault with the people and said^[b]:“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
⁹ It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
¹⁰ This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
¹¹ No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
¹² For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”<sup>[c]


13</sup> By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

So yeah, if you don't actually read the New Testament, you can make up anything.
Acts 15

⁶ The apostles and elders met to consider this question. ⁷ After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. ⁸ God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. ⁹ He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? ¹¹ No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

...

¹⁹ “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. ²⁰ Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. ²¹ For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

I understand that Christians want to distance themselves from the outrageous parts of the Old Testament. It's tough to swallow that God told people to perform the impossible task of determining virginity through physical inspection and murder women if they don't like what they see. But Jesus claims that he is the same God. So they are stuck.

They don't want to, it just does unless you want to make it all up what it says. No one is stuck unless they want to explain why what happened before. As I said, what difference does that make in this context? OK Christianity used to think what Muslims and Jews think is still valid today? If that is all the same why even read anything?


Christianity is not a warlord's religion. It is at worst judgmental, separatist and proselytizing. These can be proven as facts because you can read them. At best you can try and find contradictions in some way in which case then I can only applaud you as a fine skeptic but not as one who proves that Christianity teaches violent behavior in anyway.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Have you ever read the Koran? There's a lot of violent "thou shalts" in it to be exacted on non-Muslims. When a significant percentage of Muslims believe in a literal interpretation of the Koran, non-Muslims will have problems. IMO that's true for all the Abrahamic religions, but to a lesser extent. Most Christians and Jews today practice selective adherance to their "Word of God," leaving out the bloodiest parts.

Again the problem is all these beliefs will end up being viewed by their fundamentals. When humans see things going wrong, back to the fundamentals is instinctual. We will see extremism crop up every time stress in the society appears. Christianity will spawn far fewer interpretations that are violent because its not fundamental to it. Systems of interpretation must be added to it. Islam must have systems of interpretation added to it to pacify it. That is why many Muslims are not violent because that is occurring today. It is however not stable. That is why we see and will see this over and over again. Christianity can be said to be a belif without regard to actual facts . It may be a bit unnerving to deal with people who hold unfalsifiable beliefs, but beyond that the fundemetals of a belif will have consequences.

[touchring]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Christianity is not a warlord's religion. It is at worst judgmental, separatist and proselytizing. These can be proven as facts because you can read them. At best you can try and find contradictions in some way in which case then I can only applaud you as a fine skeptic but not as one who proves that Christianity teaches violent behavior in anyway.

Any religion can be converted into a warlord's religion, if pressed hard enough, Christians can be nastier or more deadly (because they embrace technology) than any Muslim country or sect.

Buddhism is suppose to be a peaceful religion but Japanese warriors monks were the fiercest warriors in the entire world's history. Even the Samurais warriors feared them.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Any religion can be converted into a warlord's religion, if pressed hard enough, Christians can be nastier or more deadly (because they embrace technology) than any Muslim country or sect.

Buddhism is suppose to be a peaceful religion but Japanese warriors monks were the fiercest warriors in the entire world's history. Even the Samurais warriors feared them.

Didn't I say this?


"So again, by comparison ,one must specifically create a violent interpretation of Christianity , pretty much against the basic text. "

Why did you take what I said out of context and ignore what I said ? Not only did I say that, I addressed it in detail. Many basic faiths can be manipulated especially if people don't know how to read. Most people could not read their own languages , let alone Latin during militant Christianity. So it was easy to create basically self conflicted forms of Christianity or anything else . Now its extremely difficult because people can read it in their native language. Its without a doubt not inherently violent, just like something is with or without a doubt Euclidean geometry. For example one either believes something is Euclidean geometry by the fundamentals or they believe in a complex but false proof, not knowing the 5 fundamentals of it. However it will be attacked from the fundamentals by anyone educated in it. It is very difficult to have false Euclidean proofs because of this. Objects will have contradictions and lack of proofs unless you go with non Euclidean geometry . Islam has violent means as a fundamental resolution to impiety. Christianity simply does not unless you accept self conflicting and complex proofs which will fail at the fundamental level.


Islam easily defaults to violent fundamentals. That is another reason why Islam tends to form states that are not tolerant of liberalism. They need state level interpretations to pacify it and cannot have random outbreaks of reform, which will become violent. I mean if you want to read Mein Kampf and suggest Hitler really likes Jews and Judaism and create kosher Hitlerianism you can try , but most people who read it will consider it satirical at best. It states its fundamentals very clearly. At some point someone is just going to read what it says. The consequences will be very different.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

While we're going all high brow on the deeper religious stuff, has anyone noticed the date that is fast approaching?

I think it's December 8th 2015 that represents the 50th anniversary of the close of Vatican II.

The Catholic church went thru an overdue reformation, it would be nice to see an Islamic equivalent, starting with Sunni, by Sunni.

I just don't see it happening though.

----------

That just doesn't work. All it did was cause fundamentalist reformers to prop up. Protestants ignored it. People will read what the book says. There is no getting around it. You'd have to somehow convince people it was inspired. Islam in particular heads this off. It say Muhammad was the last word. So again Islam in particulars is particularly resistant to reform.

Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [he is] the Messenger of Allah and last of the prophets. And ever is Allah , of all things, Knowing.
Chapter (33) sūrat l-aḥzāb

In terms of the legitimate threat posed by militant Islam compared to expansionist communism one thing to consider is that communism was(and remains) a rather historically, culturally, economically, and politically shallow belief system.

Religions promise things in the afterlife . Communism has the misfortune to be forced to show results on earth. It is also not, as of now, intermixed with concepts of cultures and race.

Communism/Marxism is like a weed or vine system in comparison to an Islamic oak grove in terms of persistence.

And again, I don't believe all Muslims are out to get me, just like I didn't believe all communists were out to get me either.


They respectively spent considerable time out to get each other, both then and now.

But some of them are out to get us.

I would put an Islamic reformation in the category of improved lifestyle and nutrition choices on the continuum if you tried to use a biological system like a human body to represent a society or humanity.

The other end of the spectrum from invasive surgery(kinetic operations) for cutting out malignant tumours("bad people").

I don't think individuals with certain interpretations are the threat either. However they do so by being nominal Muslims who ignore the fundamental text.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

That just doesn't work. All it did was cause fundamentalist reformers to prop up. Protestants ignored it. People will read what the book says. There is no getting around it. You'd have to somehow convince people it was inspired. Islam in particular heads this off. It say Muhammad was the last word. So again Islam in particulars is particularly resistant to reform.

Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [he is] the Messenger of Allah and last of the prophets. And ever is Allah , of all things, Knowing.
Chapter (33) sūrat l-aḥzāb

Religions promise things in the afterlife . Communism has the misfortune to be forced to show results on earth. It is also not, as of now, intermixed with concepts of cultures and race.



I don't think individuals with certain interpretations are the threat either. However they do so by being nominal Muslims who ignore the fundamental text.

I fear that if reformation is not an option, and it does come with a number of significant perestroika like risks to regime continuity for Saudi Arabia, then I fear a future destined for some sort of horrid mashup of Nazi Germany and Khmer Rouge.

There weren't that many people working(as a proportion of population) in the mass genocide factories of Germany and Cambodia. But everyone knew about it and chose to do nothing.

The fringes fight for and win control over the quiet mass in the middle. That's how it pretty much always works.

Islam's mass in the middle does not appear to be taking ownership of the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism and the threat it will pose to the mass in the middle.

And I see no self sufficient counterparty minority fighting on the opposite end of the spectrum.

In the "battle of the fringes", fundamentalism is winning and will likely continue to win, until it loses very, very, very badly.

Successful arguments can be made all day long as to why Islamic fundamentalism exists and western culpability in it.

While I would agree, I would also agree that it's a bit coldly and clinically irrelevant.

The "inside voice" in me says that if the Islamic mass in the middle fails to control the growth, influence, and control of fringe fundamentalism(at great cost I'm sure), the alternative is fringe fundamentalism gaining more influence/control ultimately leading to far greater and violent confrontation at far greater cost to humanity.

But humans are good at delaying the inevitable and almost always choosing to pay a higher butchers bill tomorrow, than paying it off today.

Literalist adherence will inevitably end. Somewhere along the binary choice continuum between "nicely" and "genocide-y"

[DSpencer]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Back up arrogance with facts and then win my admiration instead.

I'm not out to win your admiration.

Most American Christians are literate and the Bible is available, for free, to anyone who wants it. When Muslim terrorists kill Christians, is the typical Christian response closer to "turn the other cheek" or "eye for an eye"? When the 10 commandments are posted in a courthouse, do Christians protest saying "these laws are obsolete!"? When gay marriage is debated, do Christians avoid looking to the O.T. for reasons to condemn it?

The majority of America is Christian. The majority of American politicians are Christian. The majority of Americans can read. The Bible is available to nearly everyone for free. We have the world's largest military budget by a huge margin. America has been involved in some kind of war the vast majority of its existence.

What set of facts could possibly convince you of something you don't want to believe?

[astonas]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

Well one important difference. Christianity is a horrible warlord's religion. The Catholic policy to keep scriptures away from the lay people was wise. Literate Christians are often apt to find it to be a pacifist religion without the special guidance of a violent interpretation . Basically you need a very specific school of interpretation. This is why Christian violence is most often at the state sponsored level. Ya just don't have random out breaks of violent interpretation coming from inspired readers. So in other word Christians couldn't read during the Crusades.

With Islam it is quite the opposite. Not only does it have a very weak ecclesiastical authority to enforce interpretation, violent ones are rather easy to come by.

A poem like

Mama's love cuts like a knife to the heart.
think warmly in the hearth

Can be tortured into some sort of violent interpretation.

the Quran however is very much like

stab mama in the heart
when she lose faith, the better part


Again, one may tame this with an interpretation. It is however much more difficult to do. And with the lack of central authority inherent in Islam, it is much more prone for outbreaks.

Its not a peaceful or nor violent region because it is subject still to interpretation(more so than the other faiths like Judaism which can be very didactic ). However Islam is not very didactic, and is thus a source of unstable and dangerous interpretations. Though again, it is possible to press anything into an ideology of violence or into peace. I just don't like my chances as much with Islam.

All this seems to me to be entirely beside the point.

The essential problem here is not the text. Any text. At all. It is instead the concept of divine authorship, connected to the explicitly stated authority of that divinity to "forgive sin".

If one has a book that one believes to be divinely authored, and one believes that this divinity permits one to commit crimes or sins, and still be forgiven, that combination is sufficient to allow people to find or create whichever interpretations they seek to justify themselves, and rationalize these as God's will. How hard that is really doesn't make much difference. People everywhere are creative enough that it simply isn't a big obstacle with ANY text. A book of nursery rhymes would suffice.

If one believes that the sin of murder is forgivable in a "righteous" cause (whether that be ISIS's killing of apostate muslims or the killing of health care providers in Colorado) that has the exact same root, whether the book is the muslim koran or the christian bible: "God forgives crimes committed in his name."

The ability to absolve oneself -- wipe clean a past, remove a committed sin -- is fundamentally evil, if anything ever was. It removes the core element of personal responsibility on which any rational moral system must depend.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

I'm not out to win your admiration.

Most American Christians are literate and the Bible is available, for free, to anyone who wants it. When Muslim terrorists kill Christians, is the typical Christian response closer to "turn the other cheek" or "eye for an eye"? When the 10 commandments are posted in a courthouse, do Christians protest saying "these laws are obsolete!"? When gay marriage is debated, do Christians avoid looking to the O.T. for reasons to condemn it?

Wrong again. Its as if you discuss a book you never read. Now I can also agree many "Christians" don't read the book either. However those that do will find absolutely nothing to support violent resolutions to anything. "Christians" who read the NT do not cite the 10 Commandments or Leviticus. For a dim view of homosexuality the New Testament may be sourced.

Romans
²⁶ For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. ²⁷ Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

Christianity has law , but to compare it to Euclidean geometry again , the fundamental axioms of it were supposedly obvious. Homosexuality would be viewed as a sensual pleasure that doesn't lead to anything. This is why the Gnostic branch appeared because it took the entire material earth to be evil.

Galatians 5

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,^[a] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, murders,^[b] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

One of Paul's letters obviously shows the Gnostic influence he was apparently combating.

Timothy 4

4 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, ² speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, ³ forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ⁴ For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; ⁵ for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

So obviously sensual things were swingingly widely in another absurd direction. However the Gnostic version is not what arrived. Paul's version did.

Hence it is a passive, nonviolent religion. That is not to say it is an entirely tolerant one. In more precise terms so called transgressions are almost entirely absent. Simple transgressions of holy things in Judaism were carefully managed in the Law. Christianity tends to view most sins a social crimes , or being highly related to it. However they are applied to the individual. They are not instructed to enforce it unless one want to make up their own religion.

The majority of America is Christian. The majority of American politicians are Christian. The majority of Americans can read. The Bible is available to nearly everyone for free. We have the world's largest military budget by a huge margin. America has been involved in some kind of war the vast majority of its existence.

What set of facts could possibly convince you of something you don't want to believe?

You have no facts. You cited quotations out of context that would lead to contradictions and you cite your sources wrong. I did say that Christian violence tends to form at the state level for many reasons. Here is another one and I present the facts.

Roman 13

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. ² Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. ³ For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. ⁴ For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. ⁵ Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. ⁶ For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. ⁷ Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

I wonder what the point of your argument even is? A lot of liberals don't like Christianity because they view it as intolerant and judgemental. I find this fascinating to see liberals trying to be tolerant of Islam in a way that they are not of Christianity. If they don't like Christianity, then they are really going to be in for a big surprise with Islam. They are not the same. By their point of view it is quite a bit worse.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Radical Islamists No Different Than Inquistion?

All this seems to me to be entirely beside the point.

The essential problem here is not the text.

There is no essential problem. There is simply a problem with the text that one does not find in other religions. I'd say that might ultimately lead more problems wouldn't you? I mean if the Communist Manifesto did not call for world revolution by force , I think it might stand a better chance to , ya know, not be interpreted as to be executed around the world by force.

Any text. At all. It is instead the concept of divine authorship, connected to the explicitly stated authority of that divinity to "forgive sin".

I'll share a Taxi with the one says spread butter with a butter knife by the dictates of God. You can share a Taxi with the one that says stab the Infidel. Lets call that even.

If one has a book that one believes to be divinely authored, and one believes that this divinity permits one to commit crimes or sins, and still be forgiven, that combination is sufficient to allow people to find or create whichever interpretations they seek to justify themselves, and rationalize these as God's will. How hard that is really doesn't make much difference. People everywhere are creative enough that it simply isn't a big obstacle with ANY text. A book of nursery rhymes would suffice.

And the actual thing God tells them to do, doesn't seem to matter to you? You have irrational beliefs just like they do.

If one believes that the sin of murder is forgivable in a "righteous" cause (whether that be ISIS's killing of apostate muslims or the killing of health care providers in Colorado) that has the exact same root, whether the book is the muslim koran or the christian bible: "God forgives crimes committed in his name."

The ability to absolve oneself -- wipe clean a past, remove a committed sin -- is fundamentally evil, if anything ever was. It removes the core element of personal responsibility on which any rational moral system must depend.

Ya see that's just the thing. Christianity does not have that concept. You again, just don't know the subject. In fact the Catholics developed their morality around it. It developed along with the West had the concept of Malum prohibitum and Malum in se in their ethics. Some things are evil itself and cannot done so in the name of any authority.