Maybe a few TEDs help: http://www.ted.com/talks/alaa_murabit_what_my_religion_really_says_about_women http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran http://www.ted.com/talks/karima_bennoune_the_side_of_terrorism_that_doesn_t_make_headlines For short: supporting moderate Muslisms might be more helpful than any other strategy. But obviously, militant atheism then stands in the way. There is no better soil for Muslim terrorism as the anti-Islam reflexes of the West.There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Start with that. The only rational position to take is atheism. There is nothing else that will save humanity: cut out the cancer, start chemotherapy. Stop pretending it isn’t there.
Where are all the peaceful Muslims rising up collectively to end this madness.http://www.mpvusa.org/boardofdirectors/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL097C8EAE47C9187D http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-james-clark/why-dont-moderate-muslims_b_8722518.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indonesian-muslims-counter-isis_565c737ae4b072e9d1c26bda Indeed, excellent question. Where are they? You have read the links o Yes • No
There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Start with that.o You have been in muslim countries o You have lived in suburbs with a lot of muslims • Neither You have looked at the provided TED-links: o Yes • No
The only rational position to take is atheism.The only rational position to take is the secular state: a state in which everybody is allowed to practice the religion of his or her choice, as long as this does not collide with the principles of the secular state. People will always be different, and they have to live together somehow. It is irrational to think that one day all people will be rational. We will have to live with that.
There is nothing else that will save humanity: cut out the cancer, start chemotherapy. Stop pretending it isn’t there.Reminds me of how Nazis pictured Jews, gays, communists, Roma, etc etc. (Sorry for this new example of Godwin's law.)
Godwin’s law should not be automatic. Well played GdB.
Plus the whole OP is incorrect from the start.
christianity propagates itself as a religion of peace. Big time.
Same with judaism and all the rest.
The point is all religions propagate themselves as religions of peace.
Lois, ever heard the saying “If 3 people call you a horse, you better saddle up.” ?
Where are all the peaceful Muslims rising up collectively to end this madness.Another thing--at least half of them can't rise up or do much of anything. http://www.mpvusa.org/boardofdirectors/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL097C8EAE47C9187D http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-james-clark/why-dont-moderate-muslims_b_8722518.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/indonesian-muslims-counter-isis_565c737ae4b072e9d1c26bda
Plus the whole OP is incorrect from the start. christianity propagates itself as a religion of peace. Big time. Same with judaism and all the rest. The point is all religions propagate themselves as religions of peace.Which sums it up well I think. The issue here isn't whether Islam is peaceful or not, it's whether belief systems that are completely based on imagination not fact can really be defined in any coherent sense. People can use Islam, Christianity, Judaism or any religion that attempts to evoke a literal supreme being to justify anything. Because the inputs that have gone into creating these religions have included anything. What the ancients called "touched by the Gods" we now often refer to as mentally illness and attempt to treat. But some still get through the cracks and create new religions, you just have to look at the truly bizarre psychology of L. Ron Hubbard and how he used it to create a modern "religion" to understand that rationality is not at work when it comes to religious belief systems. Which is why the way people act within them can seem totally insane to observers who aren't part of the system. Like strapping on a vest made of C-4 and nails to blow up other people or burning people because they didn't seem to fit in quite right.
In a different thread on Love, I posted a video about the “The Straw Vulcan”. It applies here to. Spock constantly failed at assessing a situation because he ignored the emotional factors. He assumed creatures would act rationally and logically, because he thought that was the best way. People don’t act that way, and you can’t make them. You can’t simply point out the flaws in their logic and expect them to change their behavior overnight. That’s why we have laws and leaders and police and jails. It’s also why people are given rights, because we can’t rely on those leaders to always be rational either.
Maybe a few TEDs help: http://www.ted.com/talks/alaa_murabit_what_my_religion_really_says_about_women http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran http://www.ted.com/talks/karima_bennoune_the_side_of_terrorism_that_doesn_t_make_headlines For short: supporting moderate Muslisms might be more helpful than any other strategy. But obviously, militant atheism then stands in the way. There is no better soil for Muslim terrorism as the anti-Islam reflexes of the West.I'd say that the soil of Islam itself is more than capable of producing fanatics willing to kill in the name of their god. The same goes for Christianity and Judaism. Any time you start with a belief system that isn't based on fact it's going to require some mechanism to perpetuate and expand itself. So those "moderates" you're talking about are only able to exist inside the belief system they find so wonderful at the price of all those who have lost their beliefs, freedoms and lives so that these religions could come to dominance in the first place and remain there. It's an ongoing cost we all pay. Any system set up to convert as many people as possible whatever their wishes is in the end going to have to resort to violence. The greater the resistance to conversion the greater the force used to impose it. As for militant atheists, I'll start believing they exist when they set up exploding vest factories, start converting teenagers into remote weapons delivery systems then target them at civilians. Or they begin to take over the military of the most heavily armed nation on the planet. Or engage in ethnic cleansing to pave the way for the promised appearance of their Messiah...who would then convert us all. The problem isn't that the right sort of religious belief isn't being supported, the problem is that far too many people are in complete denial of what their religions actually are and what they're based on. Think of mountains of skulls and you start to get a good idea. Does it really make someone a militant to not want to support that in any sense? Think of your "militant" atheist riding a bike down a street in Holland getting his throat slashed because he dared even question the divinity of a man. That's the kind of behavior necessary to make something like Islam, Christianity or Judaism persist. Killing off people pointing out their fundamental hypocrisy. It seems to me your way of dealing with this is just pretend it isn't happening and they will just go away. In a world where about $100 billion has been spent to export fundamental Islam worldwide, the Christian Evangelical movement is taking over the Pentagon and Orthodox Jews are clearing the "holy" land so their Messiah can come and show us all what it means to be perfect.
In a different on Love, I posted a video about the "The Straw Vulcan". It applies here to. Spock constantly failed at assessing a situation because he ignored the emotional factors. He assumed creatures would act rationally and logically, because he thought that was the best way. People don't act that way, and you can't make them. You can't simply point out the flaws in their logic and expect them to change their behavior overnight. That's why we have laws and leaders and police and jails. It's also why people are given rights, because we can't rely on those leaders to always be rational either.Or looked at another way, so many people behave irrationally because they turn over their free will to systems that at their core are irrational. It's a choice people make at some level...
Or looked at another way, so many people behave irrationally because they turn over their free will to systems that at their core are irrational. It's a choice people make at some level...No need to repeat our earlier speeches Doug. A problem I see in understanding other cultures is that people assume that the other people are making choices based on an equal amount of knowledge. I can look no further than my own life and see that I made completely different choices at different times. It makes it easier to appreciate what others must be going through. It can be hard to remember because we are wired to forget such major worldview shifts, but I joined a church at age 33 and quit at 50. I started blogging at 49 because I had so many things I was working through I wanted to be able to revisit those thoughts. I've also been an ex-smoker a number of times and remembered how militant I could be about it. People always believe they are right, unless they are are psychopaths. You believe you are right up until the second you find out you are wrong. That lasts for a second, then you are right again and WERE wrong. If you are doing something wrong and know it's wrong, you need help. So, what I hear from a lot of atheists is that they think they can diagnose the mental state of half of the world's population. Somehow that seems a bit implausible.
No need to repeat our earlier speeches Doug.I wasn't trying to, I just wanted to present my viewpoint.
A problem I see in understanding other cultures is that people assume that the other people are making choices based on an equal amount of knowledge. I can look no further than my own life and see that I made completely different choices at different times. It makes it easier to appreciate what others must be going through. It can be hard to remember because we are wired to forget such major worldview shifts, but I joined a church at age 33 and quit at 50. I started blogging at 49 because I had so many things I was working through I wanted to be able to revisit those thoughts. I've also been an ex-smoker a number of times and remembered how militant I could be about it. People always believe they are right, unless they are are psychopaths. You believe you are right up until the second you find out you are wrong. That lasts for a second, then you are right again and WERE wrong. If you are doing something wrong and know it's wrong, you need help. So, what I hear from a lot of atheists is that they think they can diagnose the mental state of half of the world's population. Somehow that seems a bit implausible.Which is where healthy skepticism comes in and the acceptance that no one is ever completely right about anything. Isaac Asimov referred to it as Relativity of the Wrong, where some theories are closer to the actual evidence than others. And the only way to really find out is objective inquiry, but that can be challenging to say the least when you have deeply entrenched belief systems with some pretty aggressive self checking mechanisms. I don't know what the solution is, I'm just more than a little concerned that if we keep going down the same roads that have been traveled so many times in the past and are paved with the bones of millions that we really are going to have self-fulfilling prophecies around the End Times. In the end if you do want to get closer to the truth you have to be willing to let go of what you think you already know, but that kind of thing is anathema to people who are committed to certain belief systems. The truth can then be a very threatening thing to them. An example is the Catholic Churches reaction to people like Galileo and Copernicus, refusing to change when the facts indicate it's necessary to do so is basing your life on denial.