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.

I don't know, not sure, there are alot of opinions on that.

But anyway, that's the point, things aren't clear cut,well some are, but most aren't, people themselves aren't, and you're not allowed to call anyone a sinner or judge them that they'll go to hell (I know you probably don't believe in it, but bare with me here), one of the more well learned people I know who knows enough to advise people in stuff like this was once approached by a guy who's gay but religious, he asked him if there was a way he'd be forgiven, and he replied with something along the lines of "Who knows? maybe god will forgive you for that and punish me instead for something else." no one knows what'll happen for sure, but no one thing condemns you like that, get what I'm saying?

You can't just divide people into "Sinner" and "Religious" like that, people are just people, people make mistakes, EVERYONE makes mistakes and that's absolutely fine, and before anyone says it, no I'm not saying being gay is a mistake, I'm just saying things at are "Wrong" in a religion don't negate any good qualities anyone has.

All it is supposed to be is manual of lifestyle basically, telling you you should be nice to people, animals, the earth itself and what not, and SPECIFICALLY telling you that it never was and never will be your place or anyone else's to judge, I mean think about it, not sure if you're atheist or what, but if you are, if there is a god and he's gonna judge you one day, what use is there anyone judging you?

Be peaceful and shove a pie in the face of whoever non-constructively judges you, that's what I personally believe. (Well a vastly simplified version of it)

The thing is: You don't need a book to be a good person, really. Especially if you don't agree on things that it says (Like "Death to people who perform homosexual deeds" or others).

The real question is: Do you want to be a part of a religion which shed a lot of blood for not a good reason? I certainly wouldn't want it.

First of all, yes, you do NOT need a book to be a good person.

And do not take parts of a book, religion is a whole thing.

And again, you missed the point the "Religion" didn't do anything, a bunch of people did, and people have been shedding blood alot before and after that, those with religion, those without religion, didn't matter.

War, terrorism and hate do NOT distinguish, they have no rules, they have no values, they have no specific groups of people, they're a flaw that plagues some members of humanity.

If you removed the muslim, would you solve the problem of terrorism? what about if you remove the whites? what if you unified races, would that ban terrorism? would that stop war?

Really, all those problems are political in nature, people can associate them with race, religion and heck, people almost associated it with insecurities and compensating for the lack of "Stuff" (I'm looking at you Hitler), but really, the problem is ignorance, the problem is political corruption in governments based on greed.

So really the root of the problem in my opinion is a combination of greed, ignorance and (*Insert whatever the heck the noun of inhumane is here*).

To be honest the problem is rooted deep in human nature, religion just gives them an excuse to execute it.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Oh so when I say it I'm a stupid mongolid retard spastic bla bla bla, but when YOU say it it's right. I SWEAR TO GOD NEPSOTIC, WHY I OUGHTA.

Abe619, haven't you heard of "Taqiya"?

I never said you were wrong about that, you probably misunderstood me. Also STM please don't say retard it's very triggering ;_;

Good videos to look up on the subject are videos by Maajid Nawaz, Sam Harris, Sargon of Akkad and to some extent Gavin McInnes (though mainly for the troll factor with him).

My view is I'm extremely concerned by ANY religion that begins growing in number whilst also maintaining it's conservative edge.

I'm also kinda tired of the "YEAH, BUT...CHRISTIANS, DUDE! CHRISTIANS!!" 'cos I believe that war has been won. It's been fought. It's been destroyed. We (as the UK, but as the USA too, I guess) are slowly shaking off the shackles of Christianity. And this is a good, positive step.

To then proceed to ignore that there is an issue with one of the most violent religions on the planet at this moment...is pretty fucking stupid.

But, Mohammed was a lad. And I do love me some Mo stories, tbh.

The US still has a fairly significant problem with radical self proclaimed Christian terrorists, so I'd say it's still pretty important to bring them into discussions about terrorism since there's still a problem at all, albeit it an internal problem. Given this thread was split off from the US elections thread, meaning the initial problem was based on terrorism from muslims in the states, it's still a relevant point to make.

Same goes for any other pointing and saying "well they're doing it too"

Are Christians getting support from the Pope for these terrorist attacks? Like, are heads of Churches coming out supporting their bull? Are other Christians finding sympathies with these terrorists?

And what kind of terrorist attacks are they?

(These are all genuine questions btw)

I went to look for three specific incidents I can remember happening in the last decade, and in the process stumbled across this article that includes two of them and a bunch of others, some of which I didn't know about.

I don't think they've been getting support from any Pope, but I haven't heard any approval from Islamic leaders either, and if relgious heads have been supporting the terrorism of radical muslims I'm very interested in reading about it actually

Yes, other Christians absolutely are finding sympathies. I've had neighbors talk to me about how some of these occurances just happened as a reason to turn people on their religion and that they believe the people that committed these acts were good, solid youths at heart and some other bullshit you tend to just eye roll out of your head because of the level of "uggh no" you experience upon hearing them.

And, if I'm remembering right, there are various churches across the states that also support the acts of these people. They're usually just dismissed as being radical or associated with Westboro and the like.

Slog Bait, don't forget the Buddhists who are known to be extremely dangerous.

He was a lad, yeah. A rapist, murdering paedophile.
Also yes, Sargon of Akkad is excellent.

The problem isn't Christianity or the pope, it's because there is a political interest for someone in that, again, this problem transcends race AND religion.

The greatest proof of this is that it isn't bound to either of those, or any form of distinction for that matter, criminals are always gonna have backgrounds of sorts, and sometimes it's even used as an excuse but it's not the root of the problem.

Buddhists are the scariest of the lot, to be fair. All that pent up aggression.

Abe619 is doing the taqiya (like Crashpunk).

Politics is the leading factor most religions take off in the first place. Christianity got its grounds because a king saw the potential in using it to control his people through the small, devout group that was practicing it at the time. And then some time later the crusades happened.

I'm not 100% sure when Islam suddenly decided it wanted control of the (western) world or what kickstarted it, but outside of the spat between Syria and Isreal I'm not educated on the history of Abrahamic religions and violence

Slog Bait, read the book The world of islamic civilization.

I'll give it a look some time. It's definitely a topic I need a better understanding of. Thanks, Vlam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

A lot of history to go through. I find the Crusades period the most interesting because I like the battles. :p

Believe it or not, Catholicism is one of the more modern streams of Christianity. It largely believes in treating people of other religions with kindness, accepts that the universe is 13.5 billion years old, and that life on Earth came to be the way it is through evolution. So asking about the Pope specifically is a poorly chosen example. Christian terrorists are getting significant moral support from their religious leaders. If there's a significant distinction between Christian and Muslim terrorists, it's that the former tends to be a large number of small, disjointed groups, while the latter have been more successful in banding together into larger organisations.

Furthermore, if you look at who is coming out in support of groups like ISIS and Al-Nusra, it's all low level hate preachers and conservative clerics with minute followings; it's not like the Ayatollah is telling all Muslims to destroy the infidel and begin a world conquest.

I can't really speak for America, then. As it seems America is as batshit over Christianity as it is over Islam.

From personal experience I have no surprise that there are issue with Muslims when it comes to certain things - depiction of the Prophet, discussion of the Qur'an, jokes about the religion in general. I've seen examples of the "touchyness" of such topics first hand.

Recently my stance has been 'what will be will be'. If people in the West can't assert why secularism is better than Islam, or why the West is superior over the rest of the World...then fuck us. We deserve to die out. We deserve to be taken over.

Terrorist attacks in Brussels: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869254

I read some tweets of a girl who goes to school in Amsterdam. Apparently a whole bunch of Islamic students are laughing and cheering about it and hoping "a lot of motherfuckers died".

Makes me sick, wish we could just deport scum like that and drop them in the middle of the warzone in Syria.

here we go again

It's funny because Havoc is saying those motherfuckers should die for saying that they hope a lot of motherfuckers died.

Also cheers for another bombing, Islam, we hadn't had one in a while.