[civilian_number_two]

This business of whether MOrmonism is a sect of Christianity is irrelevant, and I suppose I'm late in pointing that out since others have already and have moved on to whether Barend is being a prick. I would like to add however that since Islam uses several of the same sources as the Hebrew scriptures, that essentially it is a sect of Judaism. At least it is from this disinterested atheist's point of view. One goofy set of superstitions is the same as any other.

As to who was the lesser prophet, I say Joseph Smith. His stuff's just harder to read. However he did suffer persecution in his own life, and was killed in a gunfight begun begun when a lynch mob came to him while he waited to stand trial for inhibiting the freedom of the press in a town where he was mayor (the local paper had published commentary critical of his beliefs). Thus he may have been the only self-styled libertarian ever to be killed for attempting censorship of the press. That's unique enough to make him more interesting than your run-of-the-mill "Death to unbelivers" savage.

[Spoon Poetic]

Holy crap, has anyone ever tried reading the Book of Mormon? EVERY FREAKING VERSE (I'm only barely exagerrating here) begins with, "And it came to pass that..." And all the other verses start with, "And behold..." Argh, such horrible writing! At least the Bible can be poetic...

[barend]

...others (...) have moved on to whether Barend is being a prick.

there's an easy solution to this...

number of female body parts removed by barend: 0.1*
number of female body parts removed by islam: billions!

i accidentally bit a girls finger once but it didn't come off.

This post has been edited by barend: 26 July 2006 - 01:54 AM

[StarWarsIsUs]

Holy crap, has anyone ever tried reading the Book of Mormon? EVERY FREAKING VERSE (I'm only barely exagerrating here) begins with, "And it came to pass that..." And all the other verses start with, "And behold..." Argh, such horrible writing! At least the Bible can be poetic...

And it came to pass that indeed, StarWarsIsUs had read the Book of Mormon.

And it came to pass that he thought it sucked.

And it came to pass that he knew he would never read it again.

[Spoon Poetic]

And behold, it came to pass that The Almighty Spoon was in agreement with StarWarsIsUs.

And it came to pass that she couldn't even make it all the way through some books.




(Seriously, that's how it's written.)

[barend]

I think the other basic rule of thumb, for which religions are beyond generalization is that most religions, in spite of thier reputation erroding exreemist factions, have a bit of a PR department.

christians: charities, quit smoking programs, outreach programs, st.vincents for the poor, the salvation army and the like, public holidays where people give you toys and chocolate, etc.

budists: refuse to eat animals because they don't want to harm them, refuse to engage in violence, monkey, etc.

jews: er... uh... hmmm.... some good comedians over the years.

i mean even when the mormans came for me they had the decency to send a cute canadian girl baring gifts of 'big red' chewing gum.

so far the islamic faith has yet to wow me... (well at least in a good way)
but having said that... America definatley is the great satan, so the idea that jesus appeared to man there in a hat full of crytsals is pretty absurd and sadly makes muhamed the more legit prophet of the two...

at least he coined the term 'if the mountain wont come to mohamed...' etc. ...i have no recolection of any popular mormon sayings....
a hat full of crystals a say keeps the jehovas witness away.

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

The Muslim extremists are far in the majority and, well, extremity, but pretty much every major ethnic and religious group has another religion or ethnic group or, as barend has pointed out gender (or sexual preference) that they condemn, badmouth or actually harm far too much. People are pretty much intolerant of each, and as such, I find them intolerable. Arguing about who is the bigger asshole in a big ol' bowl of assholes is really not worth anyone's time.

In short...fuck 'em.

[Spoon Poetic]

Raelism is clearly the only right religion, anyway.

[barend]

DHALSIM is the only true religion




YOGA FIRE!!!

[Slade]

The Muslim extremists are far in the majority...

What a ridiculous, bullshit, blanket statement to make. The religion does need to grow up, but people aren't running around blowing up infidels in modern countries, just the pockets of strife and fundamentalism.

However you're right that we shouldn't isolate fucked up people based on particular traits.

And Discordianism in the only true cabbagefnord.

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

What a ridiculous, bullshit, blanket statement to make.

How so? Statistically speaking, there are far more Muslim extremists out there right now attacking other people than other religions' extremists...how is this a bad thing to say? I didn't condemn ALL Muslims...just the asshats who take everything the wrong way and then take it out on everyone else. I think I see where I wasn't clear...I was saying that there are far more Muslim extremists out there causing headaches than extremists in other religions, not that the Muslim extremists are the majority of Islam, period. I typed the previous post pretty crappily.

This post has been edited by MyPantsAreOnFire: 27 July 2006 - 10:08 AM

[Slade]

Oooooooooh. Yeah, at first it sounded like you were saying the majority of Muslims were extremists. It's true that of the extremists, there are more Muslims than other religions, at least according to the news of the world. Though in many cases, I think just claiming to be Muslim is a more accurate discription.

[barend]

according to the news of the world? according to their PR department.

like i said, for every other religion out their with genocidal nutcases killing people, they also have charities and social programs for assisting the needy to balance out their overall reputation.

for all the bullshit we take from christians, they also gave us homeless shelters, soup kitchens, doctors operating in third world countries.

what has islam done for the world?

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

according to the news of the world? according to their PR department.

like i said, for every other religion out their with genocidal nutcases killing people, they also have charities and social programs for assisting the needy to balance out their overall reputation.

for all the bullshit we take from christians, they also gave us homeless shelters, soup kitchens, doctors operating in third world countries.

what has islam done for the world?

Depends on how you look at it...I mean, they didn't call the Iraq/Iran part of the Middle East "the cradle of civilization" for nothing back in the day. But it terms of charities, not much "for the world," though they do tend to take care of their own. The PLO is a good example...pretty shitty group, but they do try and help Palestinian civilians with money, food, helping build or repair homes, raising money for and building schools and hospitals. But then again, Islam pretty much says flat out you're only going to really help your fellow Muslim this way and personally, that doesn't bug me. If a religion wants to help people, go nuts. If they don't, I equally don't care. It doesn't magically erase all the bad and evil crap they do at the same time, so that tends to skew my priorities.

[Jordan]

Muslims are unfriendly and suclusive.

Arabs and Persians, who are not muslim and are Canadianized, are friendly and open.

This has been proven to me time and time again during my lifetime in Vancouver.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 29 July 2006 - 05:31 PM