[quote]pookie wrote:
Sifu wrote:
it is supposed to be “the devil” they are throwing stones at, but this is ritualized mob violence. Haj is the great religious experience of a lifetime for a muslim, that ends in a mob throwing stones and slitting the throats of sheep.
Mob violence? Throwing stones? Killing sheeps?
Damn. Why didn’t my religion have any of these fun activities?
No wonder Islam is booming.
[/quote]
Well pookie you are in the wrong country then. You should move to Nigeria where the sharia courts hand down death by stoning sentences all the time.
Are you really comparing drinking in a bar and watching TV with being conditioned by a religion to the point where folks are strapping bombs to their backs so they can die as martyrs because their imaginary friend says he’s giving them lots of virgins on their arrival?
To quote my man Eddie Murphy… “Really man? Really?”
[/quote]
I’m sorry that I have to bring up Hitler, but didn’t he start his political career in beer halls?
[quote]lixy wrote:
Sifu wrote:
In Islam there is a lot of time spent in group activities. When I lived in a Muslim community one thing I noticed was my neighbors spent a significant part of their day gathering at the mosque for their group prayer meeting.
Don’t the Brits spend a significant part of their day gathering at the pub for their group thirst-quenching-dart-throwing meeting?
All that time spent gathering into a group for prayers doesn’t leave much time for independent thought. Instead it breeds a mentality of go along with the herd.
Well, how many hours does the average American spend in front of the telly per day - sometimes in group? Do you think that cuts out considerably on their time to do their independent thinking?
The time you spend sitting under a thinking tree is a personal choice. It’s got nothing to do with your religion, race or gender. Ask Vroom.
Haj is another group activity where everyone has to do it at the same time. At the end of the Haj you have the stoning ritual. Noone really gives any thought to it, because it is supposed to be “the devil” they are throwing stones at, but this is ritualized mob violence. Haj is the great religious experience of a lifetime for a muslim, that ends in a mob throwing stones and slitting the throats of sheep.
I’m gonna vote Pookie’s reply “post of the year”. All in favor, say aye.[/quote]
Good points, back on the other side the going to the local for a pint of bitter and darts is a way of life. And most of the crap on tv is responsible for the dumbing down of America. However there usually isn’t a religious connotation to them. Unless you are spending all day watching evangelicals or Farakhan.
I have a friend who is a Pentacostal Christian. She goes to church every day. I have another friend who grew up in the Jehovahs witnesses. Growing up he never had any friends outside the witnesses. What I see in these ultra religious groups is they tend to cut themselves off from the rest of humanity. This something I also see some of the Muslims doing. All that clinging to the group insulates you from other cultures, other ideas.
When you have to rendezvous back at the mosque every two or three hours, there isn’t too much opportunity to have an independent life or thoughts. Indepedent thought is very threatening to Islam, that is why Islam proscribes the death penalty for anyone who leaves the religion (apostasy).
This is also why you don’t see art in the Islamic world. Artists tend to think in different ways from everyone else. Artists think outside the box, which is not conducive to keeping everyone in a herd. So freedom of expression is another thing that is very threatening to Islam. Freedom of expression is very important to democracy.
Despite Pookies idiotic remark I had a valid point to make. There is a story from the bible where Jesus confronted a crowd that was about to stone a woman to death for adultry. Jesus told the crowd let ye who is without sin cast the first stone. Noone in the crowd met that criteria so they let the woman go.
This was not popular with a lot of people so five hundred years later Mohammad came along and said there’s nothing like a good old fashioned stoning to make you feel as one with god, Jesus says you have to be free from sin well here is how you do it. In the month of December you go on Haj to my hometown and walk seven laps around Mount Arafat this will purify you from sin so you can now go throw stones.
Sure it is only a stone piller they are throwing stones at and it is supposed to be the devil they are stoning. But it represents a mentality of violently lashing out in hatred at what they perceive to be the devil or the embodiment of the devil. There have been a lot of times when what was on the receiving end of those stones wasn’t a stone piller but an innocent human being.
Also you have to wonder what is up with a man who in the Koran would praise Jesus very eloquently but then he turns around and gives ways to get around Jesus’s teachings of compassion and forgiveness. Mohammad pays lip service to Jesus and his teachings but in reality he doesn’t believe in them, it’s just a way to suck people in.
Are you really comparing drinking in a bar and watching TV with being conditioned by a religion to the point where folks are strapping bombs to their backs so they can die as martyrs because their imaginary friend says he’s giving them lots of virgins on their arrival?
To quote my man Eddie Murphy… “Really man? Really?”
I’m sorry that I have to bring up Hitler, but didn’t he start his political career in beer halls?
[/quote]
No he started his carreer as a paid police informant whose job it was to infiltrate the national socialist party. The beer hall putsch came after he had risen through the ranks to the leadership position.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Are you really comparing drinking in a bar and watching TV with being conditioned by a religion to the point where folks are strapping bombs to their backs so they can die as martyrs because their imaginary friend says he’s giving them lots of virgins on their arrival?
To quote my man Eddie Murphy… “Really man? Really?” [/quote]
I don’t think you read Sifu’s post closely.
He argued that it’s the time - allegedly - wasted in the Mosque that keeps people from thinking for themselves. I pointed out that group activities and time-spent-not-thinking are not exclusive to Islam.
Now, Sifu never brought up anything that would suggest gathering in a mosque conditions people to “strapping bombs to their backs”. I’m guessing that he knows his history and realizes that for 15 centuries, people have been gathering in mosques and still leading normal lives. If gathering in mosques was the cause of suicide bombers, you’d hear people blowing up everyday in NY, Paris, London, Jakarta, and Milan. Indeed, millions of people congregate everyday for their prayers when they can, take the time to sit under their thinking tree, abhor violence, and have lives.
The exceptional group or person that gets “conditioned” to want to seek destruction or violence, is no different than the group of pub-goers who one night, decide to rape the first woman they meet on the street, or the gang that gets jacked up and go cruising for victims. All are criminal behaviors and should be considered what they are: Excesses.
Be it with drugs or religions, abuse will lead to catastrophes. Some even argue the same happen with video games, but I’m not sure about how much evidence they have to support that.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Well pookie you are in the wrong country then. You should move to Nigeria where the sharia courts hand down death by stoning sentences all the time.[/quote]
Your sarcasm detector appears to be broken, you should get that fixed.
It’s sad when people are unable to appreciate the beautiful double-entendre of a phrase like “No wonder Islam is booming.”
[quote]Sifu wrote:
I have a friend who is a Pentacostal Christian. She goes to church every day. I have another friend who grew up in the Jehovahs witnesses. Growing up he never had any friends outside the witnesses. What I see in these ultra religious groups is they tend to cut themselves off from the rest of humanity. This something I also see some of the Muslims doing. All that clinging to the group insulates you from other cultures, other ideas. [/quote]
Agreed.
Consider that those Muslims you witness are outside their milieu, and like the Chinese, Natives, or any other minority, they tend to spend most of their time in their own communities. That doesn’t leave much room for a cultural symbiosis, especially when the US (you’re American, right?) way of life of opulence, arrogance, or wastefulness, happens to be polar to the other cultures. The Chinese are jealous of their humility, the Natives their respect for nature, and the Muslims their frugality. It’s a simplistic view, but it reflects the general idea.
Are you suggesting that the billions of Muslims throughout the ages had neither lives nor independent thoughts? Have you ever read any of the volumes of what Muslim poets, scientists, and scholars produced?
Seriously, did you?
I’ll have you know that a day has 24 hours, and that many Americans work two or three jobs. There isn’t too much opportunity to have independent thoughts in that case either.
It most certainly isn’t. Independent thought is crucial to understand the divine message. The Quran appeals to reason and asks people to use the brains they’ve been blessed with. Muslim philosophers have been doing just that for centuries.
Try peeking at the works of Ibn Rushd, a compatriot of mine from the 12th century.
You speak of this “Islam” as if it were an acquaintance of yours.
Do you also believe Christianity proscribes burning witches and persecuting Jews?
Next holiday, visit Andalucia or Turkey and get back to me.
Let me know when the US, Israel or France achieves that “freedom of expression” you talk about. Last I checked, the 1st amendment superceeded copyright laws, yet a kindergarten with a Mickey Mouse drawing on its wall gets sued into oblivion. Martial law applies to foreign journalists in Israel, and France puts people in jail for writing scholarly work on genocides.
Freedom of speech is essential to develop that independent thinking discussed earlier. One cannot exist without the other.
In the words of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab (the 2nd Calif): “May God bless on one who sends me gifts of my own shortcomings.”
It was a fantastic remark. Hilarious, sad, and maybe even insightful.
I congratulate you for this analysis. Some great intellectual effort went into it (is it original?).
It is nonetheless an uninformed one. You get ONE shot at purifying yourself in the Haj. You can’t just go around committing sin and then going to the Haj to purify yourself. It doesn’t work that way.
Sadly, that is true.
But then again, we can also establish that every system which advocates the death penalty is bound to run into similar problems. Hence, my opposition to it.
I don’t know know any Muslim who’s in favor of that in person. And boy do I know many Muslims!
In my humble opinion, the Quran isn’t the word of Muhammad. It’s the word of God.
Jesus was The Messiah. Muhammad was merely a prophet. That is, Jesus was sinless. The prophet on the other hand, was a man and never hid that. He admitted to making mistakes and always tried to better himself. All his companions depict him as a compassionate person who encourages forgiveness, so I don’t see what you’re talking about.
On a side note, I don’t know what “Jesus’ teachings” were. I know whatever the Church decided to leak of it over the years, and the little that was revealed in the Quran about him.
A bunch of Paki’s. Yousef Sanei is the only one I care about a little, because he interprets the Koran very literally. Well done Lixy, once again you have defended all-things-halal
Archie, care to elaborate on your above statement for those too lazy to look all those names up?[/quote]
I’m guilty of name-calling! saying “Paki” is a hate-crime nowadays. Is that what you wanted me to elaborate on? If not,google Sanei, I suppose. Sorry if I’m not helpful.
[quote]archiewhittaker wrote:
I’m guilty of name-calling! saying “Paki” is a hate-crime nowadays. Is that what you wanted me to elaborate on? If not,google Sanei, I suppose. Sorry if I’m not helpful.[/quote]
A bunch of Paki’s. Yousef Sanei is the only one I care about a little, because he interprets the Koran very literally. Well done Lixy, once again you have defended all-things-halal
Archie, care to elaborate on your above statement for those too lazy to look all those names up?
I’m guilty of name-calling! saying “Paki” is a hate-crime nowadays. Is that what you wanted me to elaborate on? If not,google Sanei, I suppose. Sorry if I’m not helpful.[/quote]
GKhan,
T-Bolt brought up the courage of Martin Luther. That’s the context in which I provided the list.
Now, if you wanna go into the details of the liberal Muslims I listed, I’ll have to remind you that Luther wrote extensively about the Jews and how their home should be destroyed, their synagogues burned, money confiscated, and liberty curtailed. Read up the following paper Mr. Luther wrote.
[quote]lixy wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
Are you really comparing drinking in a bar and watching TV with being conditioned by a religion to the point where folks are strapping bombs to their backs so they can die as martyrs because their imaginary friend says he’s giving them lots of virgins on their arrival?
To quote my man Eddie Murphy… “Really man? Really?”
I don’t think you read Sifu’s post closely.
He argued that it’s the time - allegedly - wasted in the Mosque that keeps people from thinking for themselves. I pointed out that group activities and time-spent-not-thinking are not exclusive to Islam.
[/quote]
Yes, I misunderstood that. He is right.
No, sorry boss, that one doesn’t work. I don’t walk out of a bar and say to myself, “Hm, I think I’ll rape someone tonight.” If you do something like that, it has nothing to do with the booze and everything to do with serious mental issues. That example is absolutely terrible and is not an an analogy to what I’m talking about.
The gang that goes “cruising for victims” is the same thing- again you seem to be blaming it on drugs or alcohol, not severe mental issues.
What’s the excuse for Muslim suicide bombers? You can’t blame that on Old Grandad.
None of your examples prove anything, and they don’t relate to the conversation.
Weak examples. Grand Theft Auto vs. conditioning from a sect of religion that believes you must kill infidels?
Again, sorry boss. That don’t work either.
[quote]
And quoting Eddie Murphy in 2007? C’mon…[/quote]
Doesn’t change the fact that at one time, he was the man before he started doing all these little kid movies.
[quote]archiewhittaker wrote:
A bunch of Paki’s. Yousef Sanei is the only one I care about a little, because he interprets the Koran very literally. Well done Lixy, once again you have defended all-things-halal
I’m guilty of name-calling! saying “Paki” is a hate-crime nowadays. Is that what you wanted me to elaborate on? .[/quote]
Actually, everything except that.
Who are all of those people? Why do you only care about Yousef Sanei and none of the others and what is “all-things-halal”?
I’m sure you know that Luther was German and that his work was used as basis for Nazism’s position on the Jews.
In theory Luther was used by the Nazi for his position on the Jews. . .
In practice it was the Turkish extermination of Christian Armenians and the Communist slaughter of Ukranians which were models for the Holocaust.[/quote]
I thought we were still blaming Nietzsche for the Nazis. Were done with that now?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
No, sorry boss, that one doesn’t work. I don’t walk out of a bar and say to myself, “Hm, I think I’ll rape someone tonight.” If you do something like that, it has nothing to do with the booze and everything to do with serious mental issues. That example is absolutely terrible and is not an an analogy to what I’m talking about. [/quote]
Ok boss, you don’t feel like raping someone when walking out of a bar, but it still happens with for some. I don’t feel like blowing up anyone when walking out of a mosque, and neither do the hundreds of millions that do so everyday. But exceptions happen, and they should be treated as such.
You talk about “serious mental issues”, yet fail to apply it to the bastards that blew up the WTC. Why is that? Do you think they had all their mental health?
You tell me.
I agree that the analogy is weak here. But it’s still conditioning. My point, in case you missed it, was that you can’t blame the abuse on Grand Theft Auto anymore than you can blame it on pubs or Mosques.
I do think that religions where people have a lot of their free time tied up with religious activities are going to be less inclined to think differently from the rest of the herd. This is why these techniques are used.
I am reminded of an interview with a woman who had left Islam. One of the things she said was “there are a lot of things we had to do to keep us busy”.
Apostasy (leaving the religion) is an act of indepedent thought. If Islam isn’t threatened by independent thought why do the five main schools of Islamic jurisprudence say that apostates should be put to death? Ayaan Hirsi has a fatwa against her for apostasy. Just last year in Afghanistan the government sentenced a man to death for converting from Islam to Christianity.
If you go to Turkey you will have a hard time seeing much of the artwork in the Church of Sophia since it was covered up or left to rot. Let’s also not forget about the fate of the Bimayan Buddha’s. When the Buddha’s were blown up people were cheering in the streets in Pakistan. To me it doesn’t sound like people who have a good attitude towards artwork.