I thought Demosthenes and Locke were meant as a farcical statement on American media, and the wilfulness of the mob?
Of course they were. They were only intended to influence, not to engage. Can you imagine how much it would have taken for them to actually engage with their listeners?
Further: It was only a story. For one opinion to be recognised amid the cacophony we consider here to be 'intellectual discussion", would take a supreme effort, and one which would need to be so convincingly superior as to rise above all others. The ability of modern media to subjugate dissenting opinion has destroyed any hope we might have had of the online world presented in "Ender's Game" to become reality. There will never be the Demosthenes and Locke of Card's story, simply because one voice cannot make itself heard above all others... it would take a conglomeration, the power of the media, to make it so. We are long past a world in which where one man could make a difference, unless the media determines we should believe he did.
Further still: Any religion is only mob rule, in the end. All religions are subject to philosophy. They are born of it. All religions rely on philosophy, and yet seek to circumvent it, at the same time. All any religion is, is an attempt to embrace one philosophy at the expense of all others. I suppose, in the end, all I am is a man who has decided, rather than that I should embrace this, that I should embrace the "not this". It serves as well as anything.
Oh. I thought you were offering them up as role models for successful interaction. Sorry. It's been a long week.
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge" -Isaac Asimov Like I've said more than once, for every thought you have there is, in all probability, some bastard who has said it somewhere before.... and in my case, often far more succinctly. The difficulty lies in reconciling that opinion with economic necessity, and in the subsequent lack of application of the more workable ideals.
Wow. Someone comes onto Sciforums on their first day here and makes a tiny post and never returns, and we have 8 pages of replies. Even Catholics have had their "Muslim side". We like to forget history but the Crusades and Inquisitions killed more people than Hitler and did not stop at men. Women and Children were killed as quickly. It was a dark age. If it was not for the Crusades the Muslims might not be as twisted and warlike as they have become. They were forced to defend against a massive Christian onslaught that would have seen them all destroyed. The Popes were tougher than any general alive today and certainly had more blood on their hands. THE PROBLEM WITH ISLAM is that it is not tolerant of other religions. I admit there is several mosques within 2 miles of my home, and at least 3 Hindu temples (less ornate and often in storefronts). Toronto Canada is a melting pot and I can go to the mall and be the only White guy in the store. My children are half asian and my friends are from everywhere. I can honestly say that every race in the world is in Toronto "en masse" and although racism must exist we do not see it. I have a great friend who is Islamic. She cheats on her Ramadan every year and pops by for lunch so nobody can see her eating. There is no racism. Toronto is a great city to prove the world can live United. Yet the Quran specifically criticize other religions, and this is the downfall of the religion. My Muslim friends have not waged war on me or "slayed me". We do have laws. Yet any religion has extremists who will take their edicts as permission to murder. Muslim countries also have oil money to rely on. When/as the oil industry fades, these countries will be forced to adapt and survive on trade like many countries, and will be forced to be "nicer". I think "Hollywood" is our best weapon against religious zealots. I think a strong propaganda campaign showing American Movies, Television, and Internet in countries like Afghanistan will show them a) That Americans are People and humanize us, b) That American culture is something worth striving for c) Women are a valued commodity in the workplace and can be doctors, lawyers, etc. @ The Marquis, I disagree that religion is mob rule. There are set laws and leaders. It is more like paramilitary organizations with ranks from general on down, although they do less killing nowadays.
Your assertion is probably not true. Wikipedia's high/low estimate for the Holocaust is 17M/4M, whereas for the Crusades it's 3M/1M. Besides, Hitler's killings were not limited to the death camps, he also shared responsibility for the bloodiest war in human history. The estimate for WWII is 72M/40M. I don't know how much of that we should credit to Hitler, but if we divide it evenly among Hitler, Tojo, Roosevelt and Stalin, that gives him a total of 18M/10M. That doesn't quite put him in a league with the Taipei Rebellion (100M/20M), Genghis Khan and his successors (60M/30M), Mao's famine (43M/15M), the An Lushan Rebellion (36M/13M), the Ming Dynasty civil war (30M/30M), or the Qing Dynasty civil war (25M/25M). But it puts him in the next lower league with many of history's most horrible wars, including the Conquest of Timor (20M/15M), the Dungan Revolt (12M/8M), the Thirty Years War (11M/3M), the Russian Revolution (9M/5M), the Napoleonic Wars (7M/3M), the Congo civil war (5M/4M), and rather a lot of Chinese wars going back 2,000 years. More on this sordid subject from Wikipedia. It also includes death camps and famines.
Okay. I Concede I may have been wrong with figures there, but any war waged by Catholics is comparable. I was bound to be wrong sooner or later. Where's that calendar?
There are set rules and leaders, kwhilborn, but it's still groupthink in the end. Insult a religion, and you'll always get a backlash. In the west, though, that tends to be a few nutjob posters promising eternal damnation, whereas in the Muslim world it's thousands in the streets calling for heads. Including their kids. Slightly different degree of reaction. In the west, we've largely taken away the power or religion to influence anything (with the possible exception of America). In the East, they rule. I can't feign tolerance for anything I wouldn't want to live under, and that's the key. Those here who claim we should be tolerant, often have very little direct experience of that which they defend. Nor do they seem to acknowledge that they can only defend or attack that which they please under the framework of a completely different point of view.
If you are arguing for Freedom of Choice then I agree. Religion is forced upon many in the middle east. Perhaps that is a better description of the problem. The opening post feels there is bias against Islam. perhaps it is bias against a religion running a country and the courts. In our countries (Canada and the USA), people could live their entire lives and partake in no religion should they choose and still have friends from many religions. I have Muslim friends. I have Hindu friends, and visited Hindu temples. It is common to see a long line-up at the grocery store in Toronto where we have people from at least 4-5 different religions and everyone is friendly toward the other. Toronto should be filmed and shown to the world. It shows cultures can live in close proximity and be happy. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Oh, and BTW. Islamic Women can learn to read and write here and become doctors, lawyers, and own their own land and businesses. A muslim woman can buy a McDonalds Franchise if she has the money. Imagine all those free burgers. http://www.salatomatic.com/c/Scarborough 61/?msg=78 That is a link to many Toronto Mosques. Religions should NOT control the courts. All Islamic law is thousands of years old and there was a time when religions needed to kill for defence. The Catholics attacked Islamic nations many times, but they are now docile in comparison. This is hundreds of years since that type of religion was called for. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! A Toronto Police Officer wearing a Hijab... http://www.globalmontreal.com/uploadedImages/Global_Montreal/News/Officer_hijab_web.jpg Adultery can be an extension of forced rape under Shari'a Law, and a woman who has been raped can be sentenced by the courts to die via stoning. A VICTIM should NEVER be punished in a civilized society. I doubt the Muslim Scholars who wrote the Sharia Law knew that rape victims would be stoned to death because of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2kFzGyKgpA&feature=related Recently a thirteen year old girl was raped and stoned to death. This type of action will force the UN and Human Rights countries to remove Shari'a Law from the planet. It is thoroughly disgusting. A womans clitoris is known to help a woman enjoy sex, and if god (yes we are discussing religion) put it there than leave it there. This practice is something else that would never happen legally in a civilized country. Really? This is LAW. This is how the courts view things in countries using Shari'a Law. This means that Shari'a Law is very old. It was from a time when Governments, Jails, Rehabilitation techniques, Mental Illness knowledge, and other justice needs were at an infancy. If you stole a loaf of bread in England a thousand years ago you may also have your hands cut off. They did not have the resources to monitor offenders the same way as they do now. But to do that today would be barbaric, yet Shari'a Law does not acknowledge mental disease, or other techniques to rehabilitate. Lashings? Stoning? Cutting off limbs? Cutting off clitoris of baby girls? Killing women who were raped? Islams main fault even in the Quran is it does not tolerate other religions. It must learn to tolerate other religions or it will be destroyed. It also must exist only as a religion of choice (not forcing people to join), and not rule the courts. Islam as a religion is fine, but when that religion Kills, maims, and ignores human rights then it must be reigned in. It needs to be by choice only, and it needs to exist as a religion and not a form of law or government.
Does that include the right to choose dislike? "Freedom of choice" usually implies that that freedom is only granted as long as one stays within certain limits. "Choice" has always been a finite concept. It still affects the way they go about things. Ever been to Malaysia? Yes, they have McDonalds, and Burger King. Only... it's a little different. Go there. you'll see. Might be different now, I was there a while back. You do? No one actually knows. Given that this was several millennium ago, you have to cast aside your own modern thinking and place yourself in that time period. Fact is, it is quite possible they knew exactly what they were saying, and how it would be interpreted. Doubt is usually caused in these situations when a different way of thinking is applied to something written long ago. Don't ever make the mistake of giving the benefit of the doubt simply because you prefer to believe it ain't so. No, it won't. Because we're all so tolerant. So tolerant, these days, that unless it's happening to us, personally, it's their right and we should not interfere. More pertinently, as soon as anyone tries, they'll create a victim syndrome (already happening), in which those at fault will see themselves as being suppressed and cling even more tightly to their values... including their religion. This is a natural human reaction. No one likes being told what to do. It is for exactly this reason that extremism survives in Western nations. Give a disenfranchised man a reason to feel oppressed because of what he is, rather than his actions or his beliefs, and he'll take it. A black thief doesn't see himself as being disliked because he's a thief... he'll tell himself it's because he's black. There was a little furor in Australia a while back, about Sharia Law being applied here. Lot of people pissed off about it, lot of people trying to defend it... whole pile of people saying it's their right. Two weeks later, all forgotten. the usual. One thing I remember distinctly... an "elder" interviewed on TV, saying that basically, it was already here, that no one was going to know and it only applied to Muslims, and there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do about it. Which was all true. However, the smug little smile had many (myself included) wanting to wipe it off his face. Should have seen this guy - pure smugness. Problem was, of course, that he was absolutely right. And as soon as a religion makes changes to accommodate more modern ways of thinking, it sees itself as becoming more distant from itself. Witness the struggle the Catholic church has had to survive, and the way it clings tightly to its tenets. One can almost hear them asking themselves if they are still truly the Catholic Church, if they surrender to demands of modern ways of thinking. It's like trying to convince America to give up its guns... only far more difficult. It will take a very, very long time to convince Islam that it is wrong about a great many things. And the more you try to force it, the more they'll turtle up.
Religions like Islam, Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism will die off naturally. I know quite a few ex-Muslims in both Western and Middle Eastern countries. I even knew a Muslim who was born in Iran and became a Scientologist while living in Tehran (as a teenager) and then an "agnostic". You can read and listen to Arabs from all over the middle east that stopped believing in "Islam". It's such a ridiculous religion with so little value outside of societal acceptance that I doubt it'll make it to the end of the century looking anywhere near what it looks like now. I personally maintain the main problem with the middle east is violence against children. Once that is abolished the religion will soon follow.
Oh the differences between religion, and the various established earthly churches offending the know of one great ancestor logically 'God' through their divvies. Come on guys lets get funky, they might not know how it feels to get religious. By science I am faith.
I personally maintain that Christianity is not a "religion" and therefore not "like" Islam, Mormonism, and Judaism. Christianity cannot die as it is synonymous with Jesus Christ Who is God Incarnate. He is very much alive at this moment. I also personally maintain that men will discover--to their horror--that they really did believe in God but hated Him and deliberately chose hell.
People will discover that what they've learned about Jesus is basically myth just like the other religions are largely man-made. The way Jesus and God are depicted aren't even good enough for the way God should be. Ideas about God, which have been developed over the years, have been how people have unconsciously supported the ethics of the day and given it an impression of authority.
Well, see, there's another problem. We still have a few of this type floating about. They have millions of them.
What do you mean with the bold, and the post? To concrete Photizo, I certainly will not be religious to things I know better than. What about woman with out sheets over their faces, or pastors who don't molest children. If Michael is Faith, which is the angel Moral?
What about Him Who, with arms outstretched, cried "Father, forgive them they know not what they do"? Do you know [any] better than Him? He surpasses all in all things Being Lord of Lords and King of Kings. "Be religious" to Him and Him alone.
