Should Freedom of Religion include Freedom from Religion?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Goldtop, Dec 13, 2017.

  1. Stephen H Banned Banned

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    Nope there are literally hundreds mocking, criticizing and ridiculing Christianity. I have read many of them. But threads started on Islam, they appears to be in short supply. .
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Don't be a total prick.

    You arrive here and fire off a whole series of posts, making false and highly inflammatory claims about islam. You are either appallingly ignorant of what real muslims are like or you are a troll, shit-stirring. Probably both, I suspect.

    London, where I live, has a substantial muslim population, many of them living in my neighbourhood. Generally speaking, they are some of the gentlest people in this city.
     
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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Then you haven't looked for them.

    "Radical Islam : What is the fundamental motivation?"
    "ISIS Killer 'Jihadi John' Identified"
    "
    ISIS Burns 45 Iraqi Captives to Death in Al Baghdadi"
    "Muslim brothers. You have created our new Caliphate. Who is your new Caliph?"
    "Let us be honest. Islam’s ideology is immoral to its core. Should we ask the Haigue and U.N. to rule?"

    That's after a 10 second search.
     
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  7. Stephen H Banned Banned

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    The claims are true. The Turkish president did say "there is no moderate Islam" no one was given a chance to discuss otherwise. And the Oxford Union came to the conclusion the our politicians are wrong when they claim Islam to be " a religion of peace". This is beside that there are over 100 verses in the Quran instructing its followers to fight and kill ALL non believers. It is your opinion that you deem them to be "inflammatory".



    I don't doubt it. But it is ISLAM I am talking about, not muslims. You should read my posts closely. And none of this will divert from the fact that the penalty for leaving ISLAM is DEATH!.

    Without punishment for apostasy Islam wouldn't exist today!

     
  8. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Mod Hat — Noted

    The priority was to prove your statement that, "It has been clearly shown to me that anything to do with Islam on this forum is taboo where Tiassa is concerned as he/she has locked my very first two Islamic topics." For whatever reason, you've chosen otherwise, and continue screeching about circumstances observably not in effect:

    Meanwhile, having misrepresented Qur'an and ahadith, you have also passed on the opportunity to discuss Islam in order to continue promoting an observably untrue pretense for the sake of petty and lazy disruption.
     
  9. Stephen H Banned Banned

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    55
    more opinion.
     
  10. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    I have read them closely and you are now lying. You said they (the muslims, not islam) want to kill us - post 403 here: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/greatest-i-ams-anti-religion-thread.159628/page-21#post-3535126

    Are you really so stupid as to think that the 1.5bn muslims in the world seek the death of unbelievers? Because that is what you have been claiming. Seeing there is that number of them, they are doing a pretty lousy job of it, don't you think? Especially as they have had over a thousand years to get the job done. I don't get the impression that the local muslim bus drivers round here are trying to kill us, at any rate. (Unless we're on bikes of course

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    ).

    As to what islam teaches, I suggest you consult some muslim scholars, rather than cherry-picked items out of muslim scripture from a notorious propaganda site like Gatestone. As others have pointed out, you can find many injunctions to violence in the bible too, if you look for them. The key to any serious religion is not just the bald scripture but the interpretation and actual teaching.

    I read an interesting book recently on the origins and growth of muslim terrorism, by a devout muslim called Ed Husein who flirted with the fringes of muslim terrorism himself as a teenager in the East End of London. It is clear that there has been a movement to politicise islam over the last few decades, largely started by a Pakistani called Mawdudi. This attempt to change islam from a religion into a revolutionary political movement is at the root of the terrorism we see at the moment. It is clear from this book that it is a perversion of islam and quite contrary to traditional teaching. It has some appeal to frustrated and angry young men, as revolutionary ideas always have, from Marx to fascism.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2018
  11. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Coming from a United Methodist Church's point of view - yes, Freedom of Religion, by definition, should include Freedom FROM Religion. We should be free to worship (or not) as we see fit, with the singular exception that doing so does not enact harm upon others.
     
  12. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    That's largely because the atheists who would otherwise mock Islam are, compared to the disgraceful displays about Christianity, even less educated about Islam and Muslims than they are Christianity and Christians. It's actually kind of easy to mock this community's atheists on this point, but it is also true most of them retain a modicum of dignity, and don't wish to dig themselves the sort of hole that comes with the appearance of rival-religion provocateurism. Uneducated provocateurism? Yes, some will occasionally try, but the potential for being seen as a rival theist instead of a self-superior atheist is often sufficient to ward away, well, your manner of clusterdiddle, at the very least.

    And just to cover the point before it arises, I note atheists because they're the ones driving most of the discussion about religion at this site; do I also need to explicitly explain this means the catalog will thus reflect the priorities of their antireligious prejudices?

    Something about the World Events and Politics subfora goes here, but the relevant market influences aren't drumming this manner of anti-Islamic politicking these days for the sake of other priorities.
     
  13. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    How many in the Old Testament? How many such exhortations in the papal bulls published between 700 and 16000 AD (which would be roughly contemporary with the Muslim empires)?
    It doesn't matter. What the aggressively militant branch of any religion considers crucial [sic] to their cause at any given moment of political upheaval in the world doesn't inform every aspect of that religion as practiced by the majority of its adherents. Every religionist, of every shade, has to pick and choose their workaday beliefs and their holy-day actions, because the ancient books are full of contradiction, mistranslation and traditional interpretation, and none are 100% applicable to modern life - not even if that modern life is theoretically based on the 18th century model of simplicity. No people can stop time and change. All they can do is adapt, and the adaptations vary according to time, place and circumstance.
    Islam began as an outgrowth of the Judeo-Christian religious continuum, and was originally meant to coexist peaceably with its precursors. But the next generation leaders would have none of that: they embarked on a campaign of territorial conquest and took major Christian centers in the mid-east very quickly (with some justification: the Romans occupied Arab lands) - nor would the militant Christians. Their mutual hostility became entrenched quite early on. (Nobody asked the Jews, they were long dispersed by then. But eventually came back - just as intolerant and unforgiving as the other two.) None of this was really about religion; it was the usual geopolitical dance: who controls more territory, more population, more cities and trade routes, more wealth. Religion is just a handy recruiting tool: spiritual zeal is a great motivator of young men to rush to their doom. Hence the crusades and all the other sordid messes.

    Why atheists don't attack Islam as much as they do Christianity: it's because of demographics. Most atheists on these forums grew up under the heel of one Christian denomination or another. When Muslims are disenchanted with their religion, they're just as vocal. Just, they're not as well represented here.
     
  14. Goldtop Registered Senior Member

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    The context was crystal clear, I have no right to have freedom from Religion, that is what I was told by several Christians. They said that being a Christian WAS who they were, how they thought and went about their lives, whether political, economical, social... whatever, it was all based through the goggles of Christianity. They would lobby to the government to have Creationism taught in school, to have Evolution stricken from the curriculum, for example.

    Now, I haven't checked out all the policies of every single one of the tens of thousands of Christian denominations and I doubt you have either, so you may have your version of Christianity, but others have theirs and likely isn't the same as yours.

    Sure, some Muslims would probably say that too, but that's doesn't preclude the fact Christians promote it as well.

    Essentially, they want all their freedoms, but they don't want to me to have my freedoms.
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, that's the problem. You admitted that you can only be a decent human being as far as you ignore the sacred founding document of your religion.
     
  16. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    I have "admitted" no such thing. I claim to be a decent human being with no religion at all.
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Fine, but my point still stands. Modern people are moral largely in spite of their religions, not so much because of them.
     
  18. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Ancient, modern, prehistoric, futuristic makes no difference.
    Good people behave well, whether they give credit to their religion, their parents, their teachers, their philosophical or political creed or their culture.
    Bad people behave badly, whether they use as an excuse their religion, status responsibility, economics, patriotism or situational contingency.
    I wasn't talking about morals at all - the history of religions and how they're deployed has no real effect on personal ethics.
     
  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I do not agree. Without religion, good people do good things and bad people do bad things, but religion makes good people do bad things.
     
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  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    And bad people do good things. For some people, the prepackaged morality that comes with religion, along with the "carrot" of heaven for obedience and the "stick" of hell if you don't obey, actually works.
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I really only care about the bad things, as they cancel out any good things.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    OK. Then atheists are just as bad as religious types.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Aye. They are, just like religious people, human.

    (I tend to pursue a better potential constructed with rational argument, but apparently that has nothing to do with atheism.)
     

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