Wrong word, but it's a pretty uneducated guess. I may be a miserable person but that doesn't mean I'm afraid of change or people who are different. On the contrary, actually.

Edit:
I just hate the smelly brown people too much.

I always think religion gives bad people an excuse to justify doing bad things. My girlfriend's old boss was a Jain. Jainism is one of the most peaceful, kind religions in the world but she was a cruel, manipulative vindictive bitch; religion played no part in that obviously.

Well obviously. There are good and bad atheists and theists, thing is, religion justifies ignorance and like you said, doing bad things.

If it's so peaceful why does it use a Nazi symbol, eh?

*obvious bait is obvious*

But then that's all down to individual's interpretations of said religion, I think that's part of Manco's point.

e: speedy cunt

And my point was that the book itself is full of disgusting ideas. People can interpret them how they want to, but it's pretty clear that they are bad ideas.

So Here's the report on the Christian identity movement , a generalized denomination of Christian who can't play ball and are willfully stirring up trouble.

Here's a report (with a simple to read pie graph) illustrating that violence from the Mexican cartels is almost eight times as severe as that of Islamic terrorism. This is a somewhat dated report, but it's consistent.

And finally, there's the fact that a Christian group was able to get organized to take over a wildlife reserve, when there is not a chance in hell that the same thing would have happened with a Muslim (or let's face it: Non-white) organization. They would have been stomped into the dust. Christian groups are aimless, angry and well armed.

I don't feel threatened by either. I live in rural Ontario, we haven't even seen a real shooting. Last week a guy fired off a few shots in a school to distract the cops while he robbed a bank, but he was just greedy and nefarious. Religious Radicalism isn't my problem.

@ Nep and yet the vast majority of proponents of these religions don't follow the bad ideas. You can invalidate the books all you like, people get by just fine with socially conscious interpretations of religion and your bad attitude isn't going to change that.

On a side note, Varrok: don't forget STM is your leader.

Mac, I'm purely talking about the books, that was the whole point.

So you acknowledge trying to paint one group as “true” Muslims is a bad argument? OK.


I’ll admit that I don’t know much about how Islam is practiced and enforced in the Middle East, but I can accept that this is a more rational argument than you’ve previously been making. I don’t know if I’d agree with it, but it’s less antagonistic toward Muslims as a whole.


I’d argue that the worst offenders are specifically cherry-picking the text in a way to justify their violent and intolerant behavior, but I think we’re closer to the same page now on this.


You want to argue semantics? You put quotation marks around it, implying it to be a direct quotation. And the quote I posted is an actual quotation from the New International Version, not a paraphrase.


Except most rational people will tell you that the Bible is highly unlikely to be composed entirely of the word of God, but was in fact written by a number of different authors over a long period of time, mostly long after the events described supposedly took place. And those authors lived at a time of poor record-keeping, in a society with a number of views modern moral teachings would consider outdated, and had specific views of their own which they likely would have inserted into the religious text they were writing. Which is the entire reason why there are people coming up with alternate interpretations of those texts.


That is an absurd comparison because people who are kidnapped have nothing to do with their kidnapper except that they were taken hostage by force.


Which is why alternate interpretation exists.

Why bother with the alternate interpretation then, if it means they have to ignore most of the book itself? Why not just ditch it and follow a book with a more solid set of morals?

I do want to. Maybe I shouldn't have used quotation marks but, nonetheless, you don't really want to say translation is not a paraphrase, do you?

If that was true, man. If that was true. Dedicated christians will never tell you that. Unless you don't mean them by "most rational people", which is not a very nice thing to say.

You don't really think there are no reprecussions for leaving a religion, do you? Especially the main religion of the country.

There’s a whole number of potential answers to that question. Perhaps they were brought up with that religion and they don’t wish to abandon it; maybe they believe in the broad strokes of the teachings and only have issues with a few specific problematic teachings; maybe they don’t believe another religion could be true.

Religion acts as a moral compass and a set of guidelines for people to live by; it provides meaning and direction for their existence. Turning around and dropping all of that because you disagree with certain passages of the holy text is a lot harder than it may appear to someone who’s never experienced that way of living.


It’s a direct quotation from a specific edition of the Bible. That is a direct quote from a published text, not a paraphrase.



Do you genuinely believe that? Have you asked them?


That actually has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I’m not going to tell you there aren’t repercussions, but that has nothing to do with me saying:

I really like how you behave as if you're reasonable, socially conscious and valid, Nepsotic. It's a solid gag.

I'll tell you why you're not: You know literally jack shit about Social Role Valorization. You have no comprehension, consideration, or understanding for the groups you talk about. I mean, you call yourself an egalitarian and then throw around the word 'Retard' without any self awareness whatsoever. You want to do something nice for people for once? Stop associating intellectual disability with generalized 'wrongness' and learn to articulate a statement without falling back on your adolescent comprehension of language.

You take a big ol' shit all over everything and then fall back on "Well I guess they're not all bad." It's exhausting. Can you please just hurry things along a little and grow up?

Now, before your dipshit ego emerges, it's not about me taking offense. It's contradictory to the idea that you're this informed, grounded person. An adult doesn't need to use the word 'retarded' to articulate themselves, and a socially conscious person would stay well away from it because they know using an medically invalid epithet against intellectually disabled people is an incredibly stupid thing to do.

I can just imagine how incredulously you view this post, which just solidifies how much of a fucking dumbass you are in the first place. You are a cunt for not being considerate of people with disabilities in your obnoxious crusade against the 'PC' crowd, and you're an idiot for thinking you're grounded in reality when you have no comprehension for your use of language in the first place.

Please, go off on me for telling you to be considerate of what mental-health terms you abuse to form your ceaseless, pointless argument. Educate me on how your lack of self awareness is actually a secret, special cleverness and not just a trait of your everlasting ignorance.

And yeah, I know you're not deliberately slagging off people with disabilities. I'm not saying that. I'm saying your inability to play ball and consider your use of language highlights you as just another halfway articulate, extended adolescence motherfucker who hasn't actually experienced enough to justify how you talk about things. You're full of shit, as always.


With that being said, what do the candidates have to say about Mental Health care? The liberals will highlight PTSD and avoid speaking of the shambling, non-functional infrastructure for just about every other facet of care for people with disabilities, but I can't imagine Trump has anything to contribute to the issue aside from a diagnosis, and I have no idea where Bernie stands specifically but I know he's prioritizing socialized medicine in the USA.

Maybe if retarded trannydyke faggots stopped acting like retarded trannydyke faggots then I wouldn't call them retards. It's kind of a retarded argument to make when you ignore any argument I may make and focus on the fact that I said retarded because you don't like me using the word retarded, as if it somehow negates the actual points I made, and frankly that's a bit of a retarded way of viewing things.

I await my infraction eagerly

Again, you're not offending me. You're just contradicting yourself and come across as a pointlessly angry, desperate to be relevant worm.

I'd take it easy if I were you just because of your inevitable diagnosis for a behavior disorder. :spin:

You "await your infraction eagerly?"

Nep, nobody gives a fuck what you think. You just ought to be able to speak your mind like one of the big boys after all this time and it's actually pretty perplexing that you can't. Like seriously, we'd just like you to think before you post. And then think before you think. And then think.

What's your point? "BLINDLY FOLLOWING RELIGIOUS DOGMA IS BAD"? Wow, what an insightful piece of thinking.

I like worms though. I was having a fag in the garden last night and there's this bit of grass, and there were about 13 worms where I was sitting. It was a sight to behold, but I have no idea why they were there, they were all massive too and most weren't even going anywhere.
Maybe they were just worshipping their Lord.

I do actually have an issue with the way you're trying to present your arguments, Nep. Whatever statements you're making would be treated more seriously, if you try to say them in a more neutral manner.

That said, you don't really offend me, nor you're responding to anything I said, so don't take it as an offense. I just think it's a good advice.

How often do you see insightful pieces of thinking on this forum? I was just adding that to what somebody else said and it turned into this massive thing, then you got all upset because you didn't like the fact that I used the word "retard". If you're not offended by it, then what is the point of bringing it up? I don't care if people take me less seriously if I use it, that's on their end. It doesn't negate any actual points I make.

Ugh, I have no patience for living spaghetti. Unless I'm fishing.

I know how patronizing this sounds, but my point is really that I think you're smart enough not to have to use the word 'retard' in any capacity.

I'm sensitive to it because of my education (you got me!) but I think I make a fair point; if your use of language can't be inclusive of those people who are truly devalued and can't speak for themselves, how seriously can your arguments be considered when it comes to groups who are valued enough to get a respectful reference?

It's an honest question of maturity. If you want to just say offensive stuff and upset people, more power to ya, but I think you'd like your statements to be more thoughtfully considered. Maybe.

I mean I'm guilty of this too. I'm a big hypocrite when it comes to telling people to 'post nicer' but I don't think that completely invalidates the idea.

Okay, I seriously derailed this thread so if you wanna keep chatting about it, PM me, but I'm gonna bow out because I don't really care about the election at this point.

So what? You're saying that as if being Muslim is immediately a bar to entry, but they're slipping through the cracks. The US has no such policy, so the fact that Muslim people are entering the country currently is neither here nor there.

What the hell are you talking about? I am yet to see any report from any security institution saying that there is any significant problem with immigration. I've mostly seen confirmations of how rigorous the current security controls are, and how absurd it is that conservative politicians want them beefed up further.

I didn't say anything about Christians. Nor did I comment on American gun control. I just pointed out that Muslim terrorism is far less a problem than the rhetoric would suggest.

That is simply ignorant. Ever heard of the KKK? Also, there is a very strong correlation between the anti-government militias in the USA and Christianity. And that's not just because the population of the USA tends to be Christian - they use their religion as part of their violent rhetoric. Also, Mac's post.

Here are some of the interpretations I've heard:

• It only refers to anal sex. Oral is fine.
• Male to male anal sex was used as a religious ritual in the pre-Judaic religions in Canaan. Much of the rules in that section of Leviticus are about drawing a contrast between their practices and what's right to be done in Judaism. Sex in a non-ritual context (which was unheard of at the time) would be fine.
• Anal sex isn't the problem. Rather, at the time male to male sex was only ever a form of rape and/or domination. For instance, priests and vestal virgins, old Greek men and their apprentices, conquering soldiers and their captives, etc. At the time there was no concept of a healthy, equal homosexual relationship, but that should be considered fine now.

Biblical scholars are creative in their interpretations. Those enough for you? :p

Except that few religions (rhetoric aside) treat their books as literal truth. I'll give you the example of Judaism: Mainstream Orthodox Judaism states that God gave Moses two sets of laws, the written law (the Torah/five books of Moses in the Old Testament) and the Oral law (which was handed down from teacher to studen orally until it was written as the Talmud in in the 3rd to 7th centuries A.D.). The Torah is the word of God, but the Talmud tells you how to understand the word of God. Interpretation. F'rexample, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' is a horrible rule. But the Talmud explains that you're not meant to literally remove the eye from someone who injured someone else's eye. That person has to provide appropriate compensation; the value of an eye for an eye.

Other religions have their own commentaries and interpretations.

I love Islam. More than Christianity, I am sorry.
I also love Buddhism.
I love Jainism.
I love Shinto.

I am Pagan.

I understand that, but it's still "People are put do death", and does it really matter how many people (if any) it's about? It's still putting people to death, it's like one the most hostile things you can do. That was my point. The sentence, not the criteria.

If a book about laws allows multiple interpretation, it's not a good at its job. And people did die (sometimes in pretty horrible ways) over an interpretation of their bible.

People still die over interpretations of muslim holy books.

People also still die due to interpretations of christian holy books, but not nearly as much.

Religion is a horrible decease and it saddens me that even in this modern age it still claims so many victims.

People are still put to death today. The bible is not unique in that regard.

Of course. That wasn't my point though, but it's totally true

I might sound biased because I am a middle-eastern AND a Muslim (Just as I was feeling glad stereotypes and shit like that were dying, some cunts had to blow themselves up and other cunts had to start blaming a shitload of people for those insignificant minority), but yeah I honestly don't think that any religious group or even any religion (Yes, the thing not just the followers) should be blamed for a vastly small minority reinterpreting stuff in a violent way.

Points I do agree with is while I still believe religions themselves are not to blame, the dedication and mindset of specific followers does matter and it does affect how far they'll take stuff, and while I honestly believe anyone who truly believes in what Islam is really about shouldn't harm a single soul, I do have also to state that since it's very easy to misinterpret stuff, it does relieve me that the vast majority we see here are actually non-religious, sure alot of girls might wear Hijab, but that doesn't prevent her from fucking, sure, a guy might pray every single day, but that doesn't prevent him from drinking, and no I'm not against anyone doing anything like that, I'm just saying while it is true that we shouldn't be doing that, we're not robots following orders, people make choices, so just because I'm a muslim for instance doesn't mean I'll do something non-islamic in a while, heck I know more people here who drink than the ones I know in other countries.

What about gays or apostates?

Not sure what you mean about apostates, but my statement still stands, the people I know who actually took actual time to study this instead of just reading a couple of words and pretending to know it enough to try to sway people with it (which actually can contribute to things like terrorism in minor groups), but sure it can be thought of as a sin to be gay but at the same time, in the religious opinion held by the said well learned group of people I trust and other people's views, it is no reason to hate or even belittle that person, let alone kill them, killing is always a crime.

Pretty much everyone I know has atleast a friend or two who are gay, sure it's not that highly accepted here but that's more of a cultural thing than a religious thing, personally I don't have a problem with it at all, if anything, diversity is important.

Apostates are people who for whatever reason decide to leave Islam and want no part of it ever again.