Rather like the abstruse quatrains of Nostradamus, pretty much all religious books are written in an ambiguous form. There is stuff to support one viewpoint, and then stuff to support its opposite. It would appear that the Koran is particularly rich in this. Those who want to find tolerance will find it. Those who wish to find intolerance will also find it. I have to admit, after years of Church, to still not have found the bits in the Bible about not liking black people. You'd have hoped that god would have been a little clearer in his precepts. He is, after all, omnipotent, so clarity shouldn't have been beyond him. I would suggest that the KKK are no more indicative of your average Christian than IS are indicative of your average Muslim. They are both to be regarded as abhorrent distortions of religions that are widely interpreted in more or less innocuous fashion.
So they say.. I'm not a practising Christian so I'm not beating a drum for Christianity. My point is merely that Christianity is not a white religion. Far from it. The earliest Christian church was probably the Coptic Church which predates the Church of Rome and began in Egypt six centuries before Islam was even thought of and spread across the entire middle East, or "near East", and north Africa where it still flourishes, notably in Ethiopia. That strand of Christianity and the people who practise it today probably bear the closest resemblance, in every sense, to the original Christians who followed the man who called himself the Son of God 2000 years ago. There's been a trend lately to cite the KKK as proof that Christianity "has" its racists fanatics. The KKK have nothing to do with Christianity. They may have misappropriated Christian symbols but the KKK are not interpreting Christian doctrine, they are just a handful of dumbass white supremacist rednecks from the southern states of the USA who have never got over the loss of the Confederate cause, the outlawing of slavery and the ending of segregation. These oafs are in no way analogous to Daesh who are interpreting specific Islamic doctrine, albeit a very early from which according to some interpretations of the Koran was supposed to have been superseded by later scripture.
I can't agree with you there. Unfortunately every strand of Islam and every part of the Koran from beginning to end are thoroughly soaked in hatred of everyone who does not submit to Islam. That is not an "abhorrent distortion" - it is abhorrent all right, but it's fundamental to what Islam is all about.
I totally understand your viewpoint. All I would say is that Islam has many billions of adherents and the vast majority of them don't interpret their religion as a bloodthirsty creed. As I was saying, the OT is stacked full of violence but most Christians choose to ignore it.
The majority of UK Muslims are of the Sunni religion as are ISIS I believe, hence the number of British born ISIS fighters. I can't say I have heard of a British Muslim killed fighting for the Peshmerga or Iraqi Army.
You get both the Testaments in church and they are always reading you stuff from the Old. Not to mention all the psalms which also come from the Old. If Christianity doesn't subscribe to the Old, how come it's still so prevalent in Christian worship? (At least Anglican worship - I can't talk about Catholicism.)
Catholicism is weird. It allegedly subscribes to all of the ten commandants and yet it idolises "Mary", amongst other non-god figures. Seems hypocritical to me.
I went to a Catholic funeral a couple of years ago..... .....Wierd. I can see why Dave Allen and Father Ted were such successes.
yip been to one or two my self. the priest will tell you how useless you are 20 times over during the funeral or christening. strange. v.strange.
Catholicism is a version of Christianity invented by the Roman Empire, a fascist organisation, to serve the purpose of its strategic conversion from paganism. Its not hard to spot those original genes in the Catholic church: repressive, authoritarian and idolatrous at the same time, big on fear, coercion and dark-age mythology and obsessed with the cult of leadership.
Getting back to the OP, slightly... The rise of IS, Daesh, ISIS, "so called Islamic State", or whatever the press are calling them this week was, without doubt, massively accelerated by the foreign policies of George W Bush and Tony Blair. This whole f**ked-up situation is largely their fault.
"Sin" is an interesting, if bizarre, concept. It seems that for an act to be a sin has little to do with whether it is immoral, unethical, or illegal, nor with whether anyone affected by it has consented. Instead, a sin is an act contrary to some arbitrarily defined rule, often about food, clothing, styles of silly hats, or most of all sexual behaviour. Typically the rules are numerous, absurd, and trivial yet burdensome so that everybody breaks the rules and commits sins often - thus creating a justification for the guilt-distributing principle that everybody is a sinner.
I like Original Sin. The second you're born, if not before, you are guilty of something someone did 6000 years ago. The only way to obviate your sin is to attend "lessons", for as long as you live, which are run by the "authority" that has pronounced your guilt in the first place. Genius.
I'm not religious but I respect peoples' beliefs where they offer similar levels of respect for other peoples' beliefs or non-belief. Knocking someone's beliefs is pointless because it is belief and doesn't need to be shored up by anything you might think necessary. Einstein was a religious man - certainly not a weak minded fool. There are benefits to being religious such as a sense of belonging or being known through spiritual communion; absolution through penance which offers the relief of unburdening yourself; providence offers the peace of mind of knowing that god is in charge and that there is a plan even though you may not know what it is; and there is an afterlife waiting for you. These are important things for the human psyche. Without these comforts you are exposed to the rawness of phenomenology and isolation, finitude and death, autonomy and responsibility, the chaotic nature of life and the bleakness of existential in general. Sounds like not a bad deal to me. Sometimes I am envious of the believer. A sin, I know.
