@Varrok, because it took a while to post this:

Are you going to acknowledge that Islam is not one solid block of an ideology, and that different Muslims follow different interpretations of the Qu'ran based on nuance? No religion is inherently good or bad, people who want to control a population to maintain their power structure have taken the teachings of Islam in a certain way to force people into subservience.

Islam does not have to be about killing gays, Atheists, etc. it can be construed that way.

Are you going to acknowledge that a lawbook that allows multiple interpretations is a shitty lawbook?

Religion is inherently bad, because it's bias. It's "truth" without scientific evidence.

You do know that this is already on. You would be much more productive if you actually find a way to do it and not simply hate on Islam.

Also it is important to remember, that the Christian beliefs stand strong, even though people have knowledge. Do not expect what you do to shut down Islam. It might create a lot of new spiritual scientists.

By the way. http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...tures-alinejad . This is what actually happens and shall reform the Islamic world step by step. I have Iranian acquaintances and they say, that this is very real.

Never expect the religions to vanish completely. The majority of the people shall remain spiritual in some way (and I am too, even though I am an Atheist).

No they won't. Who still worships Zeus nowadays?

Also lol speak of the devil http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...juring-60.html

The way I see it, it gets progressively weaker and weaker, especially where I live. And I live in a catholic country.

The Atheism is on the rise, as well.

Spiritual scientists is an oxymoron if I've ever seen one

It's not a rulebook, it's a book explaining the history of an ideology, and a supposed guidance for how one can live their life closer to Allah. It is not the be all and end all for a Muslim to follow, Muhammad stipulates that within the Qu'ran.

Religion is not inherently bad, it's manipulated into being bad. A theory can only be bad via application.

Then I am, actually, feeling better to hear that.

It might take for Islam quicker to soften than it took for Christianity, I guess. We simply have to become much nicer with our ways and not let negative emotions overwhelm us.

I'm not saying that the growth speed of Athesim is very big, it isn't. But it get's larger and larger.

Supposed guidance. If you don't follow that, you stray away from your god and go to hell. Sure, no pressure.

Even that isn't true, a lot of ex-Soviet (Atheist) countries, are reverting to Orthodox Christianity, which balances out a growth in Atheism in America and W. Europe.

Did you even read my post? Muhammad SPECIFICALLY stipulates that you do not need to live your life to the letter of the Qu'ran to be a good Muslim.

It is simply natural that the world shall come to Atheism when it brightens.

We simply have to make sure, that we do not self-destruct until then. Radical Athheism can be pretty well madness inducing (the idea of death being the end of existence is very scary for most people).

If we come with arms, we shall be answered with arms. Let us give them drugged candies instead of bombs.



Edit. STM, Post-Soviet countries are reverting to Atheism and Pagan Atheism again. Pagan Atheism is like being an Atheist, but liking Pagan things.

It's not Atheists who carry bombs in defence of their fragile beliefs.

http://www.muslimworldjournal.com/20...slim-students/
http://dailycurrant.com/2014/07/29/r...icide-bombing/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...s-9228389.html

That last one is just to prove that there are Muslims who see people like yourself, Varrok, as equally dangerous. They sound stupid too.

e: @ Gishy, not true pal.

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/02/russia-1.png

I don't think anybody here is afraid of Muslims or terrorists. Way to miss the point.

Yes and it also says that apostates should be executed. The Qu'ran isn't exactly a consistent book.

But it is us who spread hatred and fear of Islam instead of showing Muslim people, that we care.
We do carry mental bombs, consequences of which are very dire.

STM, update your statistics. I lived in Ukraine, by the way.

That literally means nothing. Muslims are scared of criticism? That's a problem with them, not us.

Havoc is.

That's my point though, it's not something you base you entire fucking life on. It's something you read in conjunction with other texts, as well as just being a normal person and basing your morality on your humanity as everyone on Earth does who isn't mentally ill.

@Gishy, yes, and I work with Ukranians, Ugrians, Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Bosniaks. One of them is Atheist. Statistical evidence shows a fall in Atheism in ex-Soviet countries, as people aren't forced into it any more. A reversion to religion directly correlates to the increase in choice without repercussion.

The majority of religious people completely base their morality on their holy text. Make of that what you will.

STM, the weak minded ones become Christian because they follow the mass trend. These weak minded were Atheist because it was a mass trend.
Now there are less and less weak minded people due to the increasing availability of knowledge.

Also, the Church abuses the current conflict to convert people.

The first piece is propaganda that's so obvious to see, that I'm surprised that you've even posted it without a second thought.

The second piece... well, google "Charles Darwin Martyr Brigades" and look at the (most probably) first entry. And feel ashamed.

Are you just plain stupid?

Do you seriously not understand the process of religious upbringing? Do you think a kid who's been visiting churches/temples/whatever each week to be lectured over and over how this is how it is: the god created you, and you should worship the god, pray to the deity that never answers, listen to the deity, be close to the deity, love the deity. Everyone should love the deity. If somebody doesn't love the deity, there must be something wrong with him. Everybody should worship the deity! And you think that everybody that goes through the decades-long process from early childhood to adulthood can truly think for himself?

But, hell, I bet you've never been a highly religious, irrational person, so you don't get it.

Right?

well, at least you're not *religious* now

I'd like to respond to this because I didn't before.

This makes me laugh. Most Islamic countries support a death sentence for apostasy, and in some countries the majority of the citizens agree with that, not all countries, but some of them. How can you tell me that all these people are misconstruing Islam?
I consider myself liberal, but I find it hilarious that most leftists will defend and make excuses for Islam. Most Muslims, (based on a good series of polls) don't approve of sexual promiscuity, or alcohol, or gay rights, or pretty much anything that the liberal left believes in.
They reject the values that anyone in the western world who calls themselves a liberal believes in.
That makes them more akin to a conservative, yet most conservatives in the west hate Muslims, they are the ones saying that all Muslims are terrorists and that we should ban them, yet the liberal leftists are the ones who can't stop sucking Islam's cock.

So there you go, STM. That's why I disagree with Islam. I in fact, revile, despise and loathe Islam.

You're an idiot if you believe that an increased availability of knowledge and science will make people more religious.

Varrok, a person can. Most of them do. All of the Muslims whom I know have different views on Allah. It really comes down to the personality.

Of all modern religions, Islam followers seem like the least willing to debate, and the first calling to arms.

Most of them DON'T. The ones you know were lucky and escaped their countries. You can't imagine becoming an atheist in e.g. Saudi Arabia. I had a hard time in Poland. And we don't execute apostates.

Also, a new one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...r-message.html

Varrok, their calling to arms is a perfectly natural human reaction to their lands blundered. And if you take the Muslims, whom I know, they are much nicer than most Atheists whom I know.

Saudi Arabia cherishes its traditions. You can not just change their laws on spot. There is always religious pressure against Atheists, as we may see. Some people under that pressure just can not forgive others for their follies and live their lives happily, but I am sure, that you are not like that.

The last link is a perfectly expected event to happen.

I get this, now.

The United Arab Emirates, which is right next to Saudi Arabia, is the most civilized and developed Islamic based country on the planet. So if they can do it, other countries can do it too. The problem is, the people running those other countries are the same religious fucksticks calling for gays to die and forcing women to wear scarfs. This is exactly why modern countries have a strict seperation of church and state. Because we realized a long damn time ago that mixing religion with politics is a very bad fucking idea.

Then the problem lies in governments. Like everywhere else. Let the old fiddle play anew.

Governments who themselves are governed by their religion. How do you not get this? Why do you continue to make excuses for the reprehensible shit Islam perpetuates?

In my experience - and I've met a wide variety of people from a bunch of religions, and a range of levels of religiosity within those religions - the majority of religious people base their interpretation of their holy text based on their morality. As has been mentioned several times in this thread, all the major religion's holy texts are completely inconsistent, and have both good parts and bad parts. People generally seem to choose the bits that agree with their morality and explain away/ignore the rest. I have only very rarely seen people learn something new in a text that disagreed with a previously held ethical viewpoint, then actually change their behaviour as a result.

The same goes for your most recent post: The governments are picking and choosing what they want to take from the religion as well, based on whatever their leaders see in their own best interest.

Did you know that the majority of America's Muslim population voted for George W. Bush in his first election? For precisely the reasons you mention - religious Muslims tend to relate much more with the conservative side of politics. It's just that since then the right wing has managed to alienate them, which is why most Muslims vote liberal these days.

A point Havoc mentioned, who says that anyone defending Islam here is defending the idea that religion should be mixed with politics?

If ANYTHING, other than very few simple guidelines about being a just and fair ruler in Hadith, Islam shouldn't be mixed with politics, nor should any religion, for the exact specific reason that governments will use it as an excuse to do ALOT of bad shit.

You stupid fuck, I was born and raised a Catholic for sixteen odd years, I know exactly what it's like. My mother told me that when I was young, I used to ask questions about Christianity that she or my father couldn't answer. They taught me that evolution was real, that a lot of the Gospel was stories to try and live a better life. They encouraged me to think for myself. Not all religious people are just this massive blob of group_think chicken shit zombies. Fuck you for trying to boil down countless billions of people into some stupid base argument.

You sound as ignorant as any indoctrinated Saudi sheikh.

Of course not all of them are. Fuck sake, STM, can you not just argue actual points and not get all offended all the time? He's completely right in what he is saying I think that was the joke.

I'm not surprised STM didn't get it.

I am obviously vary of STM's past. At least the past connected to OWF.

But it's exasperating to see these generalisations, I'm not offended I'm just surprised. I don't even think religion is an inherently good or bad thing. I think it is the means through which people maintain a power structure that oppresses the masses, I also think it's a beautiful series of mythologies and histories with goodness at it's true core. Wars have been waged in the name of it, but at the same time it was what my Granddad (and unless he was a statistical anomaly, yours too) used to support him as he fought through France, seeing some serious messed up shit. It's a crutch for those who need it. Some people need that safety net there that tells them there is something else and that is okay.

If people thought of religions as of mythologies, it wouldn't be religions, but mythologies. You seem to not understand the concept of religion. It's about believing it's the truth. If people treated this as a work of fiction, none of us would have a problem with that.

I'm talking from my perspective. I see them as mythologies, obviously religious people don't.

See, that's the issue.

Isn't that exactly what terrorists do? not distinguish cause it's too "Bothersome"? "Why go around sifting through groups of people under a certain name when we could just label the one thing binding them the source of terrorism, cause fuck actually having to read through and seeing how it can be interpreted in so many ways.".

So you say there are religious people that don't believe in their religion?

Because my point was there aren't.

No, I'm saying that the term "Religious" people alone describes a shitload of diverse mindsets based on how certain groups interpret certain things.

And just so you don't bring up that point about things shouldn't allow multiple interpretations, it doesn't, each one of the interpretations, including the one I follow, doesn't believe in the others, it's just how people have divided over it, probably also born over politics, the Sunni sect, the most common one, the one I follow, nowhere in my life have I ever heard something that said it's okay to rape white people like someone claimed earlier in the thread, nor that it is ever okay to kill.

I know for a fact that the Shia sect, the second most common one, the one more common in Iran, is a bit more violent than the one I follow, but I don't think it really pressures them to kill anyone either.