hahaha! Iraq was secular!? oh man... Islam was the state religion from 1968 (Ba'th coup) onwards. They even had state sponsored Islamic radio stations. So by mostly left alone, you mean a few hundred thousand dead. right...absurd.
Ted Cruz direct quote
- Thread starter qazplm
- Start date
I think liberals miss the point, here, big time...all for political hay, of course: that there are those Islamists who are bad, and the there are those who are not.
The line between the two is black and white.
Only every time someone from the right says "bad Islamists or Islamic terrorists," the left lumps those distinctions in with All Muslims.
That's what it is bullshit.
There are bad cops. Not all cops are bad.
There are bad military operators. Not all are bad.
There are bad priests. Not all are bad.
There are racist white people. Not all white people are racists.
I know you know this, but people listen to you as an authority on here so that's Why I responded to your post to make mine.
"We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized."
Can you point me to where it says "bad Islamists or Islamic terrorists" in that statement from Cruz?
Cuz I just see "Muslim" but maybe the electrons are playing tricks with me.
Or the various quotes in this thread like "Western culture destroyed by Islam."
So I'm left wondering what you are talking about.
News to me!
In all seriousness, yes, I would consider myself a relative expert on here about Islam and Muslims as I've lived in a Muslim country and interacted with far more Muslims on their turf than all but maybe one or two folks on this message board I can think of. When I read broad-brush comments about Islam being all about violence and how they all just want to blow us up, I wonder how I survived for so long clearly walking the streets as an obviously white, non-Muslim, in their own lands if that were true. I've sat across the table from Muslims and talked to many about their religion and their practices.
What I came to realize in those conversations is that there are more than a billion of them in the world, and the majority of them practice Islam about the same way many of us practice Christianity: some of them pray every day five times and don't drink, etc. Others pray five times a day sometimes, and they drink... and they commit other sins... etc. etc. The vast majority of Muslims are just dudes and ladies that want to raise their kids and live normal lives where they can sin like the rest of us in peace. They don't want to blow anyone up and they don't give two shits about the US outside of not really wanting us to occupy their lands.
But much like we focus on the select few that blow themselves up and run around with weapons and black flags, they see Donald Trump closing the borders to Muslims and Ted Cruz wanting to monitor Muslims and hate crimes against Muslims... etc. Just like we have people here that look at terrorists and their various conflicts and think "ISLAM BAD!!!", they've got people who see all that and think America is evil and America hates us!
Certainly, there are more violent "Bad Islamists" than there are violent "Bad" Americans, but they're both cut from the same cloth.
All of that is why I am so passionate in my defense of Muslims on here, because the verbal attacks are fueled by ignorance and fear, nothing more. There are many Americans who possess an irrational fear of Muslims as a whole, and Islamic terrorism specifically. Islamic terrorism is certainly something to be prepared for, and to take action against... we should fight ISIS and I support drone attacks on AQ and ISIS even in spite of the negative impact they have over there. National security is important, but IMO there are far bigger threats to this country that have more to do with what's going on INSIDE our borders than who or what's coming across them.
One more story: My sister, a physical therapist, treated a young high school runner who became a family friend of hers. He's got a name that would be considered "Muslim" by most standards, he's got brown skin, dark hair, middle-eastern features, but is not a Muslim. My sister put him in touch with me a few years ago asking about Navy ROTC, triathlons, etc. He competed in several tris with some success.
He opted not to enter Navy ROTC against his dream of flying jets. The reason? His mother was afraid that her son would be subjected to verbal and possibly physical abuse in the military because of the type of people the military typically attracts, at least stereotypically.
I was sad to hear that, but then I thought about it. On CARL VINSON when they sought out someone to wash Bin Laden's body, we had one - one out of 5,000 - Sailor who was a Muslim male and could carry out the ritual.
I wonder how many other people have not entered the service because of the ignorance of so many Americans like the jackass on here who asked people if they'd get on a plane piloted by a Muslim.
My sister's friend graduated with an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida today. Our loss.
He opted not to enter Navy ROTC against his dream of flying jets. The reason? His mother was afraid that her son would be subjected to verbal and possibly physical abuse in the military because of the type of people the military typically attracts, at least stereotypically.
I was sad to hear that, but then I thought about it. On CARL VINSON when they sought out someone to wash Bin Laden's body, we had one - one out of 5,000 - Sailor who was a Muslim male and could carry out the ritual.
I wonder how many other people have not entered the service because of the ignorance of so many Americans like the jackass on here who asked people if they'd get on a plane piloted by a Muslim.
My sister's friend graduated with an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida today. Our loss.
Hey GR. I can't find anything that says there was only one Muslim on the ship. ABC reported that the burial was performed by a Muslim sailor. Nothing was reported about only one. Do you have any supporting info? I think it is sad that the kids Mom would not let her son join the service because of her fears. Christianaphobia??
I don't know if anything was reported on there only being one Muslim on the ship. I know there was only one Muslim MALE on the ship because I was stationed on CARL VINSON from 2011-2013.
So I guess my supporting info would be something akin to "I was there", except I wasn't actually on board at the time of the burial. I arrived on board about four days after Bin Laden did, so I'm pretty intimately familiar with the whole story and what the crew went through to make sure he got the proper burial.
So I guess my supporting info would be something akin to "I was there", except I wasn't actually on board at the time of the burial. I arrived on board about four days after Bin Laden did, so I'm pretty intimately familiar with the whole story and what the crew went through to make sure he got the proper burial.
Well that's good enough for me. I wonder how many other minorities: African American, Hispanic, Asian, etc there are on the ship. Any idea?
A lot... A LOT more. The general rule I use in discussions like this is that our military is merely a cross-section of America. I would guess (and it's just a guess) that the representation of various demographics are the same in large commands (like an aircraft carrier) as they are in the general public. Obviously age would be the outlier as the great majority of Sailors on a carrier are under 25.
for the army male,
68 white 15 black 11 hispanic 3 asian
army female
48 white 32 black 12 hispanic 3 asian
may not accurately reflect the navy though. I work less with them.
The scary thing about almost all religions is if their followers actually believed and followed parts of what the religion's text literally prescribes, it would lead to massive worldwide violence and chaos. The Muslims who run suicide bombing missions and the Christians who justified slavery 200 years ago and think adulterers should be killed are justified in doing so by their respective "holy books".
The ONLY reason the outcome of religion isn't even worse than it already is, is that thankfully most religious followers make decisions based on man-made morality and legislation while blatantly ignoring dictates from their religion's holy books.
Thankfully the percentage of people who actually believe these texts--religious fundamentalists--is relatively low. Because we're totally screwed if people actually start believing the primitive and often immoral books that form the basis of today's modern religions.
The rare exception to this would be a religion such as Jainism, which even if taken fully literally couldn't be construed as anything other than peaceful. Among the larger religions I think only Buddhism would get a pass, although a lot of people argue that Buddhism is more of a philosophy anyway and less of a religion.
Now that Trump is the nominee? Seems to me the Cruz stance just might end up being the "RNC stance" yet.
My bad I meant to state agreement with only his last 7 sentences or so, not the first two. I don't think I know enough about the RNC's stance to weigh in on its view.
My own view about Cruz's statement is that it was an idiotic, unrealistic, and unethical policy stance. I do suspect that Trump would agree with Cruz on rounding up Muslims in this way. I don't get the impression that the RNC is trying to align itself with either Trump or Cruz, and yet, comically, they're either going to have to do exactly that or else most likely suffer a defeat this fall. The RNC is in a pretty bad spot right now IMO and I think the reason why is simply because their nominees' views are increasingly less reflective of that of the overall population. The Democrats on the other hand have been more inclusive in an increasingly diverse country, which is obviously a much better strategy politically speaking. The Republicans need a party-unifying candidate in a bad way, but Trump is the precise opposite of that. Very interesting year for politics.
It is certainly true that extremists of the major religions today are selective about interpreting the tenants of their religions. Radical Christians focus on the Old Testament to justify their beliefs and biases. Fortunately, Christians, I am one, have the New Testament.
It will be very interesting to see how the 16' race evolves from this point. The media, in its drive for ratings, continues to play up terrorism, immigration, race, etc as the primary concerns of the voters. However, Pew and Gallup polls point out that the majority of Americans put the Economy as their number one concern. "It's the Economy, stupid!" may be the end game once again this year. That along with our overall distrust and disdain of our government gives Trump an opportunity to turn the tables IMO. Who knows how it is going to play out but it's going to be fun to watch. The first Trump Hillary debate will probably be the highest rated viewing the world has ever seen.
The people you call "extremists" are just the people who actually believe all the nonsense that primitive and superstitious people wrote in these ancient books.
When you apply secular morality in deciding which parts of the Bible are immoral and which therefore are to be ignored, you're proving that secular morality is superior to Biblical morality. So "religious moderates" just ignore the parts of their holy books that conflict with secular morality, for example by discarding the Old Testament. This is pretty common, although why does almost every Church have such a patently immoral book still sitting in all the aisles??
Either way, in the New Testament, Jesus himself repeatedly affirmed, referred to, and preached the Old Testament. Remember Jesus was a Jew and the Jews then and now read and follow these Old Testament books faithfully. Jesus did as well. Here are many examples from a Christian apologist.
Even if we cherry-pick out all of that, from the lens of basic secular morality, there is no shortage of disturbing New Testament text as well. For example Jesus said he would kill the children of an adulterer, which is of course appalling. He even said the only way to become his disciple is for you to hate your own father, mother, wife, children, and even your own life. Another simple example is why did Jesus and his followers tolerate slavery and mention it frequently, yet not condemn it? Of course the obvious reason is that these people were just humans too, they weren't divine, and back then slavery was acceptable in society. Thankfully secular morality has advanced WAY beyond where it was 2,000 years ago, so now we have a much more mature and ethical framework from which to help make decisions than was available back then.
Christians that throw out the OT are my favorite type. I want the beef, skip the green veggies, I'll have gravy and potatoes, no jello, no fruit cup, but I LOVE CAKE.
As mentioned above, I am glad you reject much of a god's word.
I support the cafeteria plan. It is the best for which we can hope.
If your religion has a problem with fundamentalists, your religion has a problem with its fundamentals.
Apologists fall back upon...well it is only 10%, a tiny minority. I would agree 300 years ago. We now have the internet, easily crossed borders, international plane travel within hours, work visas, student visas, and population increase. 10% is tens of millions of people. Oh, and the world doesn't have a handle on the international nuclear situation. 10 million people can bring the world to its knees in a day.
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I never said I throw out the Old Testament or any part of it. My point was that the New Testament, being the last set of books, set aside many tenants from the Old Testament. The Bible is the complete message of the word of God. Pls don't come back with all of the rhetoric about the other books that were left out by man, ya da ya da. The information is all there and has been analyzed ad nauseam for centuries. You buy it or you don't. That is what Faith is all about.
Um...terminal, I didn't say that the Old Testament was not important and I don't cherry pick anything. I admit that I don't understand all of it. I simply meant that the New Testament description of the teachings of Jesus introduced a new covenant with Us. By the way, I need some help where Jesus said the Children of adulterers should be killed. He said nothing about hating your mother, father, etc. I'm also sure that you are aware that the context of slavery was much different in Jesus time than in Colonial America. I'm sorry that you choose to cherry pick and redefine what was said in the New Testament in order to defend your beliefs. That said it is your choice.
My bad, I thought you were throwing out the Old Testament when you said, "Fortunately, Christians, I am one, have the New Testament." Of course by NOT discarding the Old Testament, now you've inherited a massive moral albatross, because it's a text that illustrates quite clearly that God is immoral, especially if as you say "The Bible is the complete message of the word of God". If you are open-minded and like movies, Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God" goes through a lot of this stuff in a light-hearted way...it's freely viewable here.
Revelations 2:20-2:21 Jesus begins with those who have committed adultery with Jezebel. In 2:22 then he says he will bring suffering to Jezebel as well as to those who have adultered with her. Then in 2:23 Jesus says he will also kill her children, which I hope you agree is blatantly immoral.
And yes, Jesus most certainly did say you have to hate your mother, father, your own life, etc. if you want to follow him. That's in Luke 14:26 and I believe was confirmed in another gospel but can't find it right now.
What does the context of slavery then versus now have to do with anything when it comes to Jesus? Did Jesus not know or care that slavery was immoral? It would seem not, I suppose. Of course his father, God, seemed to be a big fan of slavery himself, as we saw dozens of times in the Bible. These texts clearly aren't reliable sources of morality, as literally hundreds of other parts of the Bible attest. If a moral person actually believes this "god" exists, that moral person really has no choice but to reject this god based on simple morality.
Provide the context.
While you are at it, provide the context for Matthew 10:34-37. Same message.
I've heard it all. I simply wonder if you have something new.
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E. If you've heard it all you would also be able to take the message in total, not bit by bit. To me you are clearly picking those quotes that conveniently support your views.
Well arguing these numbers is really a pretty tough thing to figure out. Much more complicated than just plain numbers.
I think the right answer is closer to 3-5% of Muslims are radicals. And really, the largest group is Salafists. They make up most of ISIS. They are a denomination of Sunnis. Closely related to Wahhabists but they view that as an extremely derogatory term.
So you are probably talking about 60-100 million people that fall in line with ISIS beliefs. But not all of them would resort to ISIS tactics.
That said, there have been a number of of surveys that have shown up to 40% of Muslims are sympathetic with terrorism. Again depends on the country and demographic though. A poll from 2006 stated that 42% of French Muslims youth and a quarter of US Muslim youth always think suicide bombing is justified. Pew does a lot of the research. Google it and one will have plenty of reading.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...uth-in-france-always-support-suicide-bombing/
Anyway one looks at it, and one can argue the numbers in demographics and debate what actual support for terrorism means etc etc. It is a very significant problem.
One thing that was interesting (to me at least)in all of this was that recent polls for ISIS/Terrorism etc and support for it went down considerably in ME after ISIS killed the Jordanian pilot. It will be interesting to see if the trend keeps moving downward or if the news of the day dramatically impacts results of the polls the other direction..
The context is that Jesus was essentially saying, "Don't come to be a disciple of mine unless you're willing to sacrifice all else because it's not going to be easy."
This post of yours seems to deny any kind of context whatsoever. Anti-Christians often talk about fundamentalist believers being so literal in their interpretations of the Bible, yet you are as guilty of this as any of them.
Let's start with your first paragraph. the Pentateuch section of Old Testament was largely given as a set of commandments, laws, and rules for the Israelites to follow by God. God made a covenant with "His Chosen People" that if the Israelites followed his precepts that he would bless them and protect them from their enemies. The Israelites, like all humans, were sinful and rebelled against God at different times. The Israelite prophets foretold of a Messiah to come, and save and redeem their people.
Christians believe that the Messiah came in the form of Jesus and some of the early Christians were in fact Messianic Jews. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies according to their beliefs. In addition, Jesus also superseded some of the Old Testament law with His teachings. Therefore, Christians do not throw out the Old Testament and say that it no longer completely applies. For instance, the Ten Commandments is a basic part of Jesus' teachings, but He built upon them. To say that God is immoral because of the Old Testament text is a poorly-formed argument.
Do you understand that Jezebel in Revelations is metaphorical? The reference to Jezebel alludes to people who are false prophets who lead the people of God astray. Those led astray worship the god Baal (Christians and some Jews consider Baal to be Satan). Some Christian commentators believe that Jezebel refers to religious "authorities" who purposely deceive believers, including some within the Vatican in the "so-called" End Times.
When Revelations refers to committing adultery with Jezebel, it means those who lead believers astray and into all kinds of perversion - things a moral and just God abhors. It means these false prophets will be punished the most severely by God, because they knew the Truth and knew better than to do what they did. You completely misunderstand the context and meaning of what Revelations says. You are as guilty of being a literalist as the most fundamentalist Christian or an ISIS follower.
Again, your commentary on Luke 14:26 is taken completely out-of-context. If you study the Bible, you'd realize that Jesus, like most Jewish religious scholars of his day, often spoke in "large" metaphors in order to get His point across. Like gr8 says, Jesus does not literally mean followers of Jesus must "hate" their father and mother and their own life. Matthew 10:37 expresses the true meaning of this phrase, when he says, "He who loveth his father and mother more than Me [cannot be My disciple]". What Jesus is saying to early followers (those aspiring to be disciples and apostles), and those believers who were to come later, that it is not easy to be a follower of Jesus because it may cause problems with those who are close to you and do not believe as you do. Later, He says, "Take up your cross and follow Me." (Some believers will face hardship because of their beliefs.)
Your commentary on morality is a complete non-sequitur. By your way of looking at it, how can morality be defined at all? If there is no divine basis for morality, then who are you to judge what is moral and what is not? From your purview, all morality must be relative, or you cannot believe what you seem to claim to believe. Therefore, Mother Theresa is no better (or worse) a person than Adolf Hitler. The followers of ISIS are no better (or worse) than the Dalai Lama. When morality is relative, all beliefs are equally valid, no matter how seemingly perverse or evil. Great atheist, existential philosphers like Camus and Satre both contend that atheists cannot believe in definitive morality, because without God all morality is relative.
Morals don't come from religion. That is an absolute myth. Morals are an invention of man in an attempt to live together in some sort of harmony and mutual understanding. They existed long before ascetic priests convinced you that you were sick and needed their help.
I'm only going to comment on one part, because the rest of it is various folks trying to interpret the main document for a religion that currently has 100s if not 1000 minor denominations and at least five main branches (and that's no including Mormons for example). That's a lot of folks interpreting the Bible a lot of different ways.
The part I'm going to comment on is the idea that morality requires a "divine basis." Put simply, no, no it doesn't.
1) We all determine what we think morality is EVEN when we pick a religion that bests fits our idea of what right is. Unless you are saying you just blindly picked Christianity because that's what everyone else around you picked (which is the actual truth for most people--they pick the religion that their parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors and friends are).
2) There are a whole host of moral questions that religions simply do not answer. Folks can attempt to parse out what they think the religion says, but that's humans trying to fit what some book says into their idea of what right looks like. So when the Bible CLEARLY condones slavery, we spend most of the history of Christianity (and Judaism, and Islam...) saying slavery is more or less ok. Then we decided, thankfully, that it wasn't. Then we tried to turn those verses that supported slavery all those centuries into meaning something else. Did the "Divine" change Its mind on slavery? Or did mankind collectively decide that morality?
3) EVEN if you believe in the Divine, that does not mean that our morality is Divine morality.
4) All sorts of societies have teased out morality based solely on logic. That morality, not surprisingly, looks a lot like "normal" morality in many ways except stripped of the various "extras" that individual religions tack on (like eating meat, or eating "unclean" animals, or homosexuality).
"Morals are an invention of man." Most people can't even agree on what pizza is the best let alone what guidelines are best to live your life according to. Talk about having faith. Your faith in mankind is astounding. And I guess the Holocaust didn't happen, ISIS doesn't exist, the murder rate in Chicago isn't going up, the Nephilim never existed, no one worships Satan in this world, Joseph Stalin didn't have 25M people killed, the Turks didn't butcher the Armenians, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, long before ascetic priests (as you call them), early man was clubbing each other and carrying off their opponents wives.
I didn't say everyone has the same morals or that they never change over time. But they CLEARLY existed before the invention of religion and in societies where deity worship did not exist. So I hope you made yourself feel better with that nonsense rant. The christian claim to being the definitive moral genesis and compass is unsupportable. Really you need to research the evolution of human societies. They existed far before any mention of judaism was ever recorded, and no, they weren't all running around clubbing each other in the head.
I don't know how to unpack all of this.
1. you think religious morals are what prevented wars, holocausts, killings, etc? Really? More people have been killed/raped/deprived in the name of religion than any other reason, by far. That does not mean religion is responsible for all killing/wars, but it certainly means that religious/divine morals haven't done any better historically at stopping man's inhumanity to man than logic/secular morals have done.
2. We have a whole system of codified laws. Every nation has a whole system of codified laws to some degree. A purely secular country of atheists and agnostics would have a whole system of codified laws that would pretty similar to most Western nations and some Eastern nations. People agree on all sorts of things morally-speaking. There are also some things they don't agree on morally-speaking. Has nothing to do with "faith in mankind."
3. ISIS is a RELIGIOUS-BASED entity. The NAZIs were at least nominally Christian. Murder rates going up in Chicago are not due to non-religious people. The Turks were pretty religious last time I checked. I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
Yes, morals are an invention of man. Even most religions accept this. They actively differentiate between divine morals and human morals, which pretty explicitly is an admission that humans can and do have morals independent of divine morality. Now, most religions argue human morality is inferior to divine morality, but that's not your argument, your argument is you cannot have morality with the divine, and that's a pretty patently unsupportable argument.
Follow is not the same as being a disciple. In those passages, Jesus was speaking specifically about being his disciple - as in, one of the 12. Not one of the billions.
This is easy. God chose to limit His power and gave man free will to live life as he so pleases. It says clearly in the NT that God wishes no one to be lost and desires everyone to have a relationship with Him. But God is just, and as there are typically repercussions for breaking the rules in everyday society, there are repercussions for those who chose not to follow Him.
So Jesus chose the ones who hated (disobeyed?) their parents because they didn't believe he was a god? So the whole family had to be on board? Only 1-12 out of the great crowds that were following him when he said this met the criteria.
Did the disciples have a choice? I mean, creator and all knowing...
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