[Slade]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6200953/ There are circles accusing these people or being heretical radicals. Since when tolerance considered a radical idea?

[Heccubus]

I think they're heading in the right direction. The only friend that I have that's Muslim would be inclined to agree, methinks.

[Slade]

I do to. I'm all for progressive movements. Tear down those fear of differences barriers and general blatant stupidity hard coded into the Human race. And then some people go around condemning that...

[civilian_number_two]

This Muslim reform movement is only about a century behind Christianity in America, so it's not so surprising it's seeing resistance. Anyone care to get in on the Christianity-backed gay marriage debate? How's that playing out? The Republicans still trying to ammend the Constitution to make gay marriage impossible?

Etc.

[reiner]

Resistance to reform being seen as radical? Think of it this way.

You're a devout Muslim and follow the Koran to the letter in order to live a good life and go to heaven. Then you hear about a group of Muslims who want to change laws in the book translated to man letter by letter BY GOD to be followed DIRECTLY. How can you change the word of something absolute without in fact defying the will of Allah?

It's pretty much the same things that have been happening in the Christian religion for the longest time. Remember the Protestent schism from the Catholic church? Hell, even Islam suffered a schism and seperated into a few sects right now.

[looktothesky]

(Very rude remark ahead)

Just as long as they don't blow anything up, or wage Jihad on anything that moves, its fine by me.

[barend]

the real problem is that that no one so far has followed their book of belief to the letter at all.

the koran doesn't preach opression and mutilation of women, or extreme violence against those who worship differently...

nor does the bible has a comandment "3. do not use the lords name in vane."
this does not mean 'don't say "jesus" when you step on a nail'
it means don't go a big crucades in the name of god when it's just to burn so books or black people or ban heavy metal!!!

all the most prominent figures, groups, and generally loud members of any relegion are going to their hell, because they are all completeley fucked!!! so far the only religion i see sticking any where close to their doctrine is the satanic church, quite frankly, and they've all been peggede as a baby eating, virgin sacrificing, blood sucking freaks when in reality they are pretty much just buddists who have orgies!!!

fuck religion.
fuck religious peoples opinions of other peoples religions.
and fuck anyone offended by my telling them to get fucked!!!

i so very bloody tired of people using a religion (which ever one, i don't care, they are all fundimentally the same written down) that they know nothing about as an excuse to be scummy to people...
weather it be the christian based apartite in south africa, the catholic persecution of my ancestors in france for not being catholic (not to mention the uterly blasphemous nature of changing the bible, the pope, confessional practices, and the overabundance of child molestation affiliated with their faith), tipper gore and her anti music bullshit that led to the disbanding of the dead kennedys and i'm going to say for the hell of it the death of frank zappa (she at least prayed for it), the islamic faith and it's constant violent crimes against humanity and women, the jewish faiths general paranoia (which in all fairness is mostly the fault of everyother religion), american based christianity and it's mass suicides conducted by leaders who didn't join in and gun lovin', and everyother goup operating for the greater good of "GOD"....

I DON'T CARE!!! ALL RELIGIOUS GROUPS ARE NOTHING BUT FILTHY CULTS... who live to squeeze every last penny out of the faithfull, persecute the alternativley faithed, and suck the quality of life from the very air we breath....

FUCK THEM ALL!!!! i say we start a counter religious group and persecute all faiths until they just PISS OFF!!!

[Madam Corvax]

Now, perhaps I am going to rub up the wrong way some people in this forum, but I totally, truly and wholly agree with Barend.

Hell, it was a relief to say that.

I live in such a churchified-catholicised society, that even mildest criticism of the whole doctrine of religion gets such rabid responses, that I stopped discussing religion in the real life. Maybe I am a coward.

Once, a long time ago, in a different forum (it was a Polish discussion group), I wrote a rather mild statement that Christianity has always oppressed women. I got such an avalanche of insults that I never dared to post there again.

It is quite ok here to criticize the Church, but you can’t say anything against Pope, or religion in general. They pay lip service to the freedom of religion, but in practice you are ostracized if you do not put up an appearance of going to church. Government consults bishops in every social aspect of the law. Their official excuse is that they have the right to express their opinion, because everyone has such right. This is their idea of freedom – they have the right to influence the government, and consequently other people’s lives.

Great, but what I would like to see is THE FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. I would like not to be forced to obey laws which are clearly introduced for the benefit of the church – like paying my tax money to the church-owned universities, or paying money to have religious education at school, not to mention anti-abortion law and general attitude towards contraception and women’s right.

And if someone is offended by what I say – yes, everybody is entitled to their opinions. So am I.

So, Barned, if you ever start counter religion group – PM me. I am certainly in. The worst you can do to me is ban me.

[barend]

no, your in!!!

preach it sister!!!

[Just your average movie goer]

I agree with Barend... and FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. I cannot stand the fact that so many societies do not seperate religion from the state.

If any group should get to infuence the law making process it should be the aetheists because of our neutral unbiased approach. We would not suppress one religious group in favour of another one because we're not part of any of them.

I'd also just like to add that three specific religions have been the cause of most of the world's major problems for the past thousand - two thousand years....

Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

I mean no offence to anyone who just follows these faiths but the fundamentalists in all those religions have caused so many problems in the world - the crusades, the witch hunts, persecutions, jihads, the creation of unjust barbaric societies such as Taliban controlled Afghanistan. The list goes on and on. Infighting between different demoninations of the church has also got a lot to answer for. Get over it, people, you're all in the same religion - except Catholics, who according to the Bible are not techinically Christians but more like heretics.

One of the saddest things about these three trouble makers is that they all follow the same God. They've just got different ideas about the details.

Some stuff in those religions is good however... although I don't know how anyone can tell other people that they must believe in something that is a leap of faith. But I digress...

I like teachings such as being good to other people and living a good life... why don't all the members of the big religions do a little bit more of this and a little less of telling people how to run their lives and oppressing people who are different from them.




As for the article...

I wish this reform movement the best of luck. Islam societies certainly need to have a good hard look at themselves. Because they have A LOT of problems to address...

- Jihads.

- Using hostages and beheading them whenever you want anything. I don't care what your cause is. If this is the only way you think you can advance it, then you deserve no sympathy.

- Honour killings. Where a woman who is raped is considered to have disgraced the family so one of ther family members kills her. (This is widely practiced in Jordan)

- Stoning people to death. This is barbaric. I'm against the death penalty already but even if I wasn't, this is still an ancient and cruel practice. We live in the 21st century. This type of practice should have died out with the Assyrian Empire.

- And while we're at it, flogging people has got to go. Unless someone heards livestock or is a lion tamer, they should not be allowed to have a whip. Which brings me to one of the worst laws I've ever come across...

- This law comes from Malaysia of all places (not a Federal law though). If a woman is raped, she cannot legally prove it unless she has FOUR witnesses. In addition to this, the witnesses must be MALE. If a woman takes a man to court for raping her and cannot prove it, she will be considered to have born false witness and will be sentenced to 400 lashes!

I do not think I have to discuss the problems with that law. They speak for themselves. The first time I read about this law, I think my blood boiled literally. This was one of the most enraging things I had ever encountered... the term injustice doesn't come close to describing this.

However, I am able to report that thankfully, the Federal government would not allow such laws to be enforced. This law was in one area of the country and the government sent Federal police there to prevent it from being enforced.

So women in Malaysia are safe for the time being. But what if the monsters who support such laws one day run the whole country?


THIS MUST BE STOPPED!


- Movie Goer (throwing in his 5 won's worth)

[Slade]

Mmm... hostility...

I didn't mean to throw everybody into a big anti-religion rage here, I was more pissed off at human nature in general, and our desperate need to apply a meaning to every aspect of every little thing that happens and find targets to hate those that don't think exactly like we do.

On religious texts, I don't put much faith into them, as they were all written by humans, and in case you haven't noticed, we're not the nicest or most honest creatures on the planet. Couple that with the people at the top of the social heirarchy always tending to change history to fit them, and religious texts conviently become a tool to mold a sheep of people into whatever will help the rulers stay in control.

I pity the zealots for throwing everything up to a higher power, they pity me for not doing so, it works well. I tend not to bring it up because neither of the parties involved in the debate are willing to give much up, and if any leeway is made, it's always on my part, since I don't like concrete belief systems, and I'm always open to change.

Fundamentalists always seem to be violent crazed nutballs, and take all the attention away from the nice Fundamentalists who don't drown babies and blow up abortion clinics or cut off people's heads.

JYAMG - I don't know. Most people who refer to themselves as Atheists tend to vehemently denounce the belief in anything remotely intangible in modern science. Make sure there are a bunch of Angnostics, maybe some Unitarians (is that redundant? :-D) on your panel.

If there's a god (or gods/godesses) up there, he's got to either be royally pissed, or shaking his head in pity at the mess he's been the catalyst for.

Or he's chilling with Colonel Sanders and eating popcorn chicken.

Why is it the bloody religions are always finding excuses to condemn people? The phrase "Judge not lest ye be judged" tends to pop up frequently supposedly from the Bible. Too much doublespeak and hypocracy in the world for my taste.

This post has been edited by Slade: 11 October 2004 - 06:14 AM

[Just your average movie goer]

Very fine points there, Slade.

Actually, it's funny you brought up the word "aetheist". I just wanted to defend it on a conceptual level because so many people automatically attach a negative connotation on it.

I'm an aetheist. I have my own spiritual beliefs and think there's a beautiful bigger picture out there... I just don't believe there's a God involved in it.

Aetheism just means that you don't believe in a God. But many people think it means you believe in nothing... so I just wanted to clear that up a bit.

However, people do seem warmer towards the term "agnostic".


I'm like you... I see religious texts as the work of men. And quite often it seems to serve their own purposes more than anything else.

As for what it's be like if there really was a God... well, I think if there was a God then he would have to be either of the following -

1. All powerful but a prick for setting up such a stupid plan that went so horribly wrong and doing nothing about it.

2. An all-loving God who somehow lacks any power to intervene to prevent the problems in this world.


Also, I'd like to add that while many people think having a God create everything as part of some great plan makes life more beautiful, I personally think it trivialises the whole thing.

That we're all here by random chance... now that's something to marvel at.

[Madam Corvax]

The difference between agnostics and atheists is such :
agnostic is sometimes called a weak atheist and claims that there is not enough evidenvce that there is an entitiy called god
atheist on the other hand, claims, that there is no god.

I do not know anything about their attitude towards science

What is "anything remotely intangible in modern science"? Please elaborate. I am genuinely curious.

[Just your average movie goer]

I still think I am an aetheist... although some people you know me believe that 'agnostic' suits me better. I always thought "agnostic" means you're not sure if there's a good or not. And "aetheist" means you firmly believe there is no God.

[Amber-Nicole]

I consider myself to be agnostic, because I have not seen any proof so far that convinces me that there is a god, but I am still open to the idea that one could exist. I actually hope one doesn't exist, because with the state of the world today, he/she must be a real asshole.

Anyway, I come from a hardcore christian family, and a hardcore christian town. I was raised a christian, always went to church when I was little. Then in middle school I hit my rebellious age, I guess. I hated going to church, but my parents would force me anyway. And we ended up in this horrible place. The pastor was an ass. The guy had 6 kids, and he and his wife were both unemployed. He lived off of the money from church offerings, and held services in his own home. The guy supposedly did home improvement stuff, tiling houses. My dad offered him a job retiling some rooms, and the guy said yes, but he would never fucking show up to do the job. I was always criticized by him for my reading material. Harry Potter, cheap horror novels, all the stuff that I liked as a kid, well apparently I was going to burn in hell for it. My brother was going to hell for playing with Pokemon cards when he was 7. And my grandma was going to hell for using a cigarette on my little brother one time when he got stung by a wasp! (If you hold the cigarette to the sting, the nicotine kills the pain.) It was really just a bad experience. Eventually we stopped going. I loosely remained a christian until freshman year, when I decided that I was bisexual. I told my closest friend at the time because I trusted them, and it was all over the whole school by the end of the day. Something that's not a big deal to most is a huge deal in a small town like this, where everyone's a christian, even the goths. Ever since then I've had random people coming up to me to tell me that I'm going to burn if I don't change my ways.

Well, that got a bit ranty. So anyway, now you'll understand my "fuck religion" mentality.