The Word "Infidel"

Let us suppose for a moment that there are no Gods. Is "Infidel" really appropriate? Isn't there a better means of discussing people of a different faith?

I wonder how Shinto refer to Hindu? How do Buddhist refer to Muslims? Is there a Buddhist equivalent to Infidel or do they approach the subject differently?
 
From WIKI:
kāfir (English "infidel") implies the meaning "a person who hides or covers". In Islamic parlance, a kāfir is a word used to describe a person who rejects Islamic faith, i.e. "hides or covers [viz., the truth]". The Qur'an uses the word kufr to denote a person who covers up or hides realities, one who refuses to accept the dominion and authority of Allāh.


I was thinking of how very different this is to more tolerant belief systems. I mean, to label Native Americans as Kafir people and to define them as people who refuse to accept the dominion and authority of Allah sets up a horrible dynamic. It's even worse given Allah is a 6th century fiction. It's a very racist-like paradigm.
 
Michael said:
Let us suppose for a moment that there are no Gods. Is "Infidel" really appropriate? Isn't there a better means of discussing people of a different faith?

I wonder how Shinto refer to Hindu? How do Buddhist refer to Muslims?
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The term "asshole" comes to mind..:p

Just a thought..
 
I'm having some difficulty finding a Buddhist equivalent for Infidel. You know, someone who covers the truth up in soil, refusing to accept Buddha's teaching as the only supreme teachings and therefor eligible to be taxed for their insolence.

I did find Dukkha. Apparently this can have the meaning of "disquietude" - as in the condition of being disturbed in the head. That said, I'm pretty sure a Buddhist can be Dukka.

I wonder, does the word "Infidel" produce Dukka?
 
In Saudi Arabia

Security forces in Saudi Arabia have arrested 149 people alleged to be members of al Qaeda, the Saudi Interior Ministry said Friday.

"Their general motives are spreading an ideology of hate by calling others disbelievers, collecting money to finance the deviant al Qaeda group inside and outside the kingdom, easing travel for some individuals for training in destabilized places and executing criminal plots to spread chaos and insecurity." al-Turki said.
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Spreading an ideology of Hate by labeling people Infidel.

I can understand why some Muslims living in KSA would want to get rid of their government (as I would too) but what they don't get is that until they do something about the fundamental intolerance in their religion which is now greatly mirrored in their culture, then changing their government isn't going to do a damn thing (see: Iran).
 
Michael said:
I can understand why some Muslims living in KSA would want to get rid of their government (as I would too) but what they don't get is that until they do something about the fundamental intolerance in their religion which is now greatly mirrored in their culture, then changing their government isn't going to do a damn thing (see: Iran).
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Christianity has this same "fundamental intolerance." Like Islam, it is an evangelical religion. It comes with the imperative that literally every human being must be converted to "the one true faith." Those who refuse are at least slightly inferior. Those who encourage refusal--priests of other religions, philosophers and other scholars who teach the supremacy of reason over unreasoning faith, atheists who advocate apostasy--are not merely inferior, they are the "enemies of God."

Christianity has a half-millennium head start on Islam, and half a millennium ago the Christian community behaved exactly the way the Muslim community behaves today. We look back on the Reformation as the end of the Dark Ages, but in fact the Reformation was a hundred years of non-stop warfare, as members of various Christian sects expressed their intolerance for each other's heretical beliefs. But that was nothing compared to their intolerance for people who were not Christian at all. In the New World they obliterated the two "heathen" civilizations they found, burning libraries and melting down art treasures for their blasphemous content and symbology. In Europe the Inquisitors terrorized Jews, Muslims and anyone who was suspected of not being Christian.

"Well sure, but that was then. Christendom for all its faults settled into a more civilized mode after the Reformation," you're saying right now. Perhaps you forgot about the pogroms that continued to terrorize the Jews, culminating in a Holocaust that took place during my lifetime, if perhaps not yours.

So don't be so smug about Islam being an intolerant religion. Christianity is precisely as intolerant as Islam, exactly as evil as Islam. If Christendom looks peaceful and benign today, they're just resting up for their next orgy of hatred and violence. Don't EVER turn your back on Christianity!
 
Michael said:
I'm having some difficulty finding a Buddhist equivalent for Infidel. You know, someone who covers the truth up in soil, refusing to accept Buddha's teaching as the only supreme teachings and therefor eligible to be taxed for their insolence.
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Buddhists come in many varieties, and over the course of their history there have been a couple of pretty nasty Buddhist empires. The lamas of Tibet, for example, got a little carried away with their own importance and began to look more like despots than holy men. Indians tell me with embarrassment that this is the real reason that there is not more outrage among the Tibetans over the Chinese occupation.

But still, in aggregate over the centuries, Buddhists in general have not set the teachings of the Buddha above all others as "the only supreme teachings." Buddhists respect the teachings of Zarathushtra, Lao Zi, Moses, Confucius, Jesus, Mohammed, Bahaullah and Ras Tafari, just as they do the teachings of Aristotle, Euclid, Maimonides, Laplace, Galileo, Newton, Lincoln, Darwin, Einstein, Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Buddhism is a search for the truth, wherever it may be found. Anyone who supports that search, with wisdom and good faith, is worthy of respect. And anyone who does not, regardless of the color of his robes, is not.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
So don't be so smug about Islam being an intolerant religion. Christianity is precisely as intolerant as Islam, exactly as evil as Islam. If Christendom looks peaceful and benign today, they're just resting up for their next orgy of hatred and violence. Don't EVER turn your back on Christianity!
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Yes and no. Islam is fairly unique in having laws for the practitioners of other religions.

I can say at least personally that I reject the intolerant aspects of Christianity, although I don't speak for the faith in toto.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Christianity has this same "fundamental intolerance." Like Islam, it is an evangelical religion. It comes with the imperative that literally every human being must be converted to "the one true faith." Those who refuse are at least slightly inferior. Those who encourage refusal--priests of other religions, philosophers and other scholars who teach the supremacy of reason over unreasoning faith, atheists who advocate apostasy--are not merely inferior, they are the "enemies of God."

Christianity has a half-millennium head start on Islam, and half a millennium ago the Christian community behaved exactly the way the Muslim community behaves today. We look back on the Reformation as the end of the Dark Ages, but in fact the Reformation was a hundred years of non-stop warfare, as members of various Christian sects expressed their intolerance for each other's heretical beliefs. But that was nothing compared to their intolerance for people who were not Christian at all. In the New World they obliterated the two "heathen" civilizations they found, burning libraries and melting down art treasures for their blasphemous content and symbology. In Europe the Inquisitors terrorized Jews, Muslims and anyone who was suspected of not being Christian.
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i think it has everything to do with their texts and it considered the unerring word of god. the bible is a mixture of the positive and the negative. unfortunately, the positive acts as a magnet or selling point for the sheep but in truth it's not all about that.

there are too many texts, especially in the old testament which are not even up to interpretation as much as blatant intolerance or condemnation such as against witches (that could be construed as anyone that is spiritual that is not of christianity) and that non-christians are evil or not of god if they reject christianity because it is the "only" way. since the religion purports, even through their text that their god is the only true god.

they need a new bible or quran.
 
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Fraggle Rocker,

Yes I agree that Christianity used to teach that the Bible was the inerrant word of God and many Christians despised Infidel - particularly Muslims and Jews. However, I do not think the Bible being inerrant was (or is) a core concept of Christian doctrine. Jesus being God is though. For fundamental Christians, like many Baptists, anyone who doesn't accept JC, but had a chance to do so, will burn in hell (people like me who outright reject JC - oh, oh, there's a special level of damnation for us).

Modern Christians do seem to think there is supposed to be a separation of church and State (some think that this is in the Bible). Also, because the Christians faith revolved around forgiveness I think many Christians are amenable to modernity in a way Muslims may not be. Lot's of Christians I know, even Baptists, agree that the Bible is not perfect.
 
US teenager held in Oregon over Christmas 'bomb plot'

A teenager has been arrested in the US state of Oregon after allegedly plotting to carry out a car bomb attack at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested after reportedly making a telephone call he thought would set off the bomb in the centre of Portland. The agent informed Mr Mohamud there would be "a lot of children" at the ceremony but Mr Mohamud allegedly said he was looking for a "huge mass that will be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays". Mr Mohamud allegedly told the FBI agent that he had been thinking of carrying out a jihad, or holy war, against infidels since the age of 15.

Prosecutors said Mr Mohamud had shouted "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great!) and tried to kick agents as they closed in.
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I wonder how many White virgins he hoped to garnish in his asinine version of an afterlife for murdering tens, even hundreds, of small children?

I'm surious, does Christianity, Buddhism, Jeudaism, Shinto Faith, Bahai' faith, Mormonism, Scientology.... offer White virgins in heaven for killing Muslim children?
 
Some Baptist's will do so. I have discussed this with Baptists and the rational goes something like this: because the Bible is written in modern English (or Old English), due to being translation as well as cultural differences, our understanding of the original meaning is always going to be different. Which for Americans is perfectly fine as there is no "Perfect" understanding - as "individual religious consumers" Americans like the idea that they can interpret the Bable..errr Bible, and find their own personal meaning in it.


I know Christians who think everyone regardless of what you believe or do, will go to heaven (aka Hell doesn't exist) and other's who think non-Christians will burn in Hell - - - and these people attend the same Church.


In the American religious marketplace Individualism wins out (as this is our culture).
 
Michael said:
US teenager held in Oregon over Christmas 'bomb plot'



I wonder how many White virgins he hoped to garnish in his asinine version of an afterlife for murdering tens, even hundreds, of small children?

I'm surious, does Christianity, Buddhism, Jeudaism, Shinto Faith, Bahai' faith, Mormonism, Scientology.... offer White virgins in heaven for killing Muslim children?
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Incredible. He wanted to kill kuffar families.

Well, no doubt he was a single lone extremist. Why, I'm sure Sam - or Scifes, perhaps, or 786, or Ghost007 - will be along to unreservedly denounce him at any moment.

Any moment at all.
 
Some Baptist's will do so. I have discussed this with Baptists and the rational goes something like this: because the Bible is written in modern English (or Old English), due to being translation as well as cultural differences, our understanding of the original meaning is always going to be different. Which for Americans is perfectly fine as there is no "Perfect" understanding - as "individual religious consumers" Americans like the idea that they can interpret the Bable..errr Bible, and find their own personal meaning in it.
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no, you don't get it. they still think it's unerring. that's different than translation mistakes and i've heard the same excuse. they don't mean the bible is unerring though as in it's not the perfect word of god. baptists are heavy fundamentalists . it's actually pretty dumb to point to baptists as some source for admitting errors or that the bible may not be perfect either in translation or that it should be taken symbolically.
 
birch said:
no, you don't get it. they still think it's unerring. that's different than translation mistakes and i've heard the same excuse. they don't mean the bible is unerring though as in it's not the perfect word of god. baptists are heavy fundamentalists . it's actually pretty dumb to point to baptists as some source for admitting errors or that the bible may not be perfect either in translation or that it should be taken symbolically.
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I know that Baptist's are the Taliban of the Christian world :)
 
Jakarta, Islamic leaders liken corrupt politicians to infidels

This suggests that the word "Infidel" for Indonesian Muslims carries a meaning which is much more than the benign meaning of a person who is not Muslim, but instead the more intolerant meaning which insinuates somehow, that not being Muslim equates to being a corrupted untrustworthy lesser human being (hell, maybe not even human?).

So, corrupted politician is the same as an Infidel atheist Medical Doctor working to help the poor or an Infidel Hindu uni student studying to become a doctor or an Infidel Thai Buddhist nun working to help poor Muslims living in Indonesia after the tsunami?!?!?
 
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