Speak good of Muslims and those of any faith

Started by Kate, September 26, 2012, 05:02:02 AM

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Kate


Hey all,

Why not ?

Muslim as a faith was very tolerant of others in the past, from what I was told the religious wars in persia made it more extreme.

Most Christians and those of any faith are nicer people generally (exceptions exist).  This isnt a blanket truth but religion has gone a LONGER way for charity, and equality than pushes from the government or other politcal ideals (generally).  I believe the harder stances on them having any faith crystallizes fundamentalism "else = bad" ideology. I know claims of the "absolute truth/divine truth" is abrasive to many but I feel that if others were more matter of fact about those with religious believes focus on that aspect would be lessened.

Caitlin

No offense intended, but I will not censor myself and speak good of those who do bad. I have a friendly older neighbour who is muslim and muslim friends. Of them I would never speak bad, but that has more to do with the personality than the religion they practice.

Those who disrespect their fellow humanbeings by committing crimes that are against the laws of any civilised country, and use religion as an excuse to commit these crimes, should also expect their religion to be critisised. The same goes for those who wish to push their beliefs onto others, whether they be christian, muslim, hindu, jehova, etc. Freedom of speech and the liberty to believe what you want is a great right, but also one that should be respected equally. In recent years this is starting to conflict more and more.

To give another example, though the christian fate promotes love and understanding, it also promotes intolarance and unequal rights. If we speak good about such things then we're only fooling ourselves and not dealing with the problem that, in my mind, all people should be treated equal respect, which they currently aren't.

I'm not in favour of intentionally hurting the feelings of others, but I won't speak good either of any faith when its believers perform actions based on their religion that limit the freedom of others. For example, for muslims it's forbidden to drink alcohol, and I don't see anything wrong with that. What I do consider wrong is that those of another fate are also persecuted for violating muslim laws that aren't in violation with their own religious laws, or the laws of the country they live in.

I agree that in the end of the day the majority of the practitioners of any faith are friendly/ peaceful, but that doesn't mean that religion itself is good by default.

Hemingway

Talking about any religion, but in the current climate especially islam, is remarkably difficult. If you mention, for instance, that Theo van Gogh was murdered by a muslim for the crime of criticizing islam, you'll immediately have some people saying the murderer wasn't a muslim at all because no muslim could do such a thing, and others declaring that such is the punishment for blasphemy. Now, it's quite obvious that the latter group is the one that needs to be criticized. But if, in doing so, we have to take into account the feelings of the former group, it becomes very difficult.

There's much in the quran, and hadith, that's reprehensible and needs to be criticized. The same is true of the bible - both testaments of it.

I have nothing against any muslims simply because of their religion. I have something against a muslim I work with, because he does things like drink alcohol and eat pork but still becomes upset if someone mentions islam in a manner that's even slightly negative. I also have something against the people who, just a few days ago, gathered outside the US embassy here and declared their support for Bin Laden. Don't ask me how that makes sense anymore, though.

The bottom line - and this doesn't just apply to religion, but in all things - is that criticism is not a personal attack. If someone becomes offended because you point out some unpleasant fact about their religion, it's not because you've said something offensive or tried deliberately to offend them. If that offends them, then it's their religion that's offensive.

Caitlin

#3
I couldn't agree more with you Hemingway. Personally I often found myself disagreeing with Theo van Gogh's views, but after he was murdered I saw that he was more right than wrong. He used a very confronting matter to spread his views, and I didn't really like that, but his views itself were very insightful.

The newspaper he used to write a column for printed nothing but emptiness on the day that he used to write his weekly column for up to a year afterwards. It wasn't something you got used to and served as a good reminder of just how intollerant some people can be.

Another thing is, (some) muslims feel very offended when you talk about their religion in a negative fashion, but are all hail and praise when another religion is discussed in a negative way. They view themselves as superior as that all others should bow to them. I'm not saying that all muslims are like that, but that's the idea I'm getting when watching mainstream media. Naturally they only show the extremeties and not the average muslim since they're not interesting to report about, but judging by the frequent newsreports there are a lot of extremists out there. I find that very threatening, and even more so now that people in the West are saying that we should give up our freedom of speech just to appease them.

Teo Torriatte

There are bad actors in any religion, though. Sure, its not as common for Christians to murder in the name of their faith, but it has happened, and people do other bad things in the name of that religion.

Caitlin

#5
Quote from: Luna on September 26, 2012, 06:58:39 AM
There are bad actors in any religion, though. Sure, its not as common for Christians to murder in the name of their faith, but it has happened, and people do other bad things in the name of that religion.
I beg your pardon? :p

It might not be these days, but I believe the christians are far worse sinners than the muslims were in past history when it came to religious murders. Heresy got many people killed during the dark ages and Spanish weren't exactly all that friendly either for the native Americans when they invaded South America. Either you converted to catholicism or you got a bullet in the head.

I won't even mention the holy wars and crusades to Jurusalem. Those wars were financed all the way up to chain by even the pope himself. Then again, the muslims, jews, hindus and other religions have done their fair share of religious killing in the past as well. In most recent history it's the extremists of the muslim countries that are starting to spark a war between East and West though. If Iran keeps going the way they are right now with their politics it could very well herald WW III within several years, and when it comes right down to it, religion is the cause of that conflict. :(

Moraline

#6
My opinion has always been that anytime you bring a group of people together and preach that your faith is the one true faith you set up your followers to automatically think less of other people.

The definition of a religious faith is to preclude the belief in all others. The organization itself generates it's own sense of self-righteousness, no matter what the religious faith maybe.

It is good to believe in the tenets and philosophy of a religious faith that believes harming others is bad. It is, however, bad to believe that all others are bad because the religious faith that one follows tells you they are lost/inferior/or whatever.

Organized religion breeds organized hatred that stems from a dehumanizing belief that all others are lost by not following the religious path of the organization.

If one can look past the tenets of a faith, see the good in the philosophy and filter out the that part of the organization that believes all other are "doing it wrong," then you can find within the religious faith the core aspects of it's virtue.

The problems arise when you have leaders of an organization that looks down on all others.

No matter how noble, gentle or kind ones religious leaders maybe the very definition of their role as leader of the organization is that they must promote their religious faiths and tenets as being more virtuous then all others.

This act of leadership among the religious faiths and their struggle to promote it creates an atmosphere that fosters and inadvertently (in some cases) promotes zealotry, bigotry, and hatred.

I believe in the good of man-kind and I believe in the personal philosophy of harming none and helping others. I do however believe that religious faith does more harm then good when taken on a whole.

One on one individuals may find strength in the shared religious belief but the shared beliefs of people the world over has led to war, inquisitions, persecutions. All in the name of organized religion. It has even held back science for literally 100's if not 1000's of years. History is clear on these facts. If we need lists of them they can be provided but most are common knowledge.

So while I can speak well of any individual or even the basic philosophies of a religious faith. I can not speak well of organized religious faith in general.



Caitlin

I wholeheartedly agree with that view Moraline.

In my case I became atheist last year and the above are just one of the many reasons. Although my main reasons are different, the above did add to it. However, I don't want to take the discussion off topic either, so I'll leave it at this. :-)

Teo Torriatte

Quote from: Caitlin on September 26, 2012, 07:13:35 AM
I beg your pardon? :p

It might not be these days, but I believe the christians are far worse sinners than the muslims were in past history when it came to religious murders. Heresy got many people killed during the dark ages and Spanish weren't exactly all that friendly either for the native Americans when they invaded South America. Either you converted to catholicism or you got a bullet in the head.

I won't even mention the holy wars and crusades to Jurusalem. Those wars were financed all the way up to chain by even the pope himself. Then again, the muslims, jews, hindus and other religions have done their fair share of religious killing in the past as well. In most recent history it's the extremists of the muslim countries that are starting to spark a war between East and West though. If Iran keeps going the way they are right now with their politics it could very well herald WW III within several years, and when it comes right down to it, religion is the cause of that conflict. :(

I meant in modern times, but since I didn't state that, your point is valid.

ofDelusions

Quote from: Luna on September 26, 2012, 10:11:24 AM
I meant in modern times, but since I didn't state that, your point is valid.

Well I do not know the numbers when comparing amount of killing being done name of any religion, but people have been murdered in name of Christianity in the modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

Stattick

I think that there's some terrible stuff in the old testament of the bible. It can be incredibly misogynistic, anti-gay, among a lot of other problems (such as barring people from going to temple because they're disabled, considering bacon an abomination before The Lord, and The Lord commanding His People to commit total genocide including salting the earth and poisoning the wells of His enemies).

Sane faiths have tried to deal with the evil in the old testament. They've had some of the best minds in history working on these problems for centuries, and they've literally written thousands of pages of text in philosophy, logic, and theology to explain away those evil acts and create a logical and cohesive morality based on those texts. Some believe in that theology, and others think it's just a steaming pile of apologetics.

Now, these days, most Jews are pretty rational about this stuff. Most of them don't run around beating the drum of war and calling for the genocide of those that are dissimilar to them. There are a few, but as a group, I tend to give the Jews a pass. It also helps that they don't annoy me by knocking on my door and trying to get me to convert to their flavor of God. I cannot overstate how much their non-proselytizing attitude helps their cause in my book. It's quite a thing that they haven't killed thousands or millions of people trying to convert people by the sword like Christianity and Islam is wont to do. I digress...

The point is, that the majority of Christians, Muslims, and other faiths based off of the deeply flawed books of the God of Abraham are decent people. Most of them do not believe that it is okay to kill in the name of God. Most of them do not think it is okay to convert people by the point of the sword (or by the mussel of the assault rifle). But there are outliers. Fanatics. Fundamentalists that reject the centuries of theology that mitigates the evil in those books. People that take it literally when the book says that a woman who cheats on her husband (or gets raped) is to be stoned to death. People that take it literally when the book says that oral or anal sex is an abomination and that those that practice those acts are an abomination and should be stoned to death... actually, truth be told, very few people take that part literally, unless the acts are between a man and a man, or between a woman and a woman. You don't really see those people screaming to murder their neighbors who had sex during the wife's period, as it calls for in Leviticus.

It's the fundamentalism that's the problem. It's the zealotry, the xenophobia that's the problem. But Christians don't really speak out against the fringe crazies that rattle their swords and call for a war against gay people. Christians don't really try to quell the extreme fringe among them that say that a woman must always defer to her husband's better judgement, that she must always be obedient to him, and that he can hit her if she doesn't behave. Christians just put up with the radical fringe, not wanting to make themselves a target, letting the Westboro Baptist Churches of the world get away with murder, sometimes literally. Of course, Muslims have the same problems, the same tendencies, the same sorts of xenophobic douchebags in their midst. They don't really do or say anything about them either.

The problem here is hypocrisy. People won't confront the crazies in their own communities. Yet they expect the people that live half way across the world to be confronting the crazies in their religion. Now maybe if we focused on fixing ourselves, in excising the cancer of fundamentalism from the public arena, made it abundantly clear that decent people in our society WILL NOT tolerate the xenophobic bullshit, the misogynistic bullshit, or the anti-gay bullshit of the American Taliban, maybe then we'll have something positive to say to the Islamic world. Maybe then we can show them a better way. But until we've done that ourselves, well, you know what they say about people in glass houses throwing stones.
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Ironwolf85

This turned into "good people buuuuuutttttttt......" really fast.

and FYI Stattick, myself and other christans here in the states, do tell those douchebags to shut the fuck up, and get called heritics for it. But that's not what you see on the television, afterall westbrorough makes better ratings than the texas students that stood up to them by forming a silent, stoic, human wall to protect a soldier's funeral from their protests.
More often "soft power" is exercised, as there have been too many splits, and if you bash those loons they'll just split farther away and ignore you. These are things like other churches refusing to have anything to do with them, or when they call upon their christan brothers to "join the fight against teh gays" nobody shows up.
N.H. passed a law allowing gay marrage, there were a handfull of protestors outside the state captial who of course opposed it on religious grounds.
Dispite the deep christan roots in N.H. these homophobes only rallied maybe 10-20 people, that's not including onlookers (maybe 30 if you count them), and the guy who turned a profit selling them food from a truck. Almost all of them were 50+
Prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, love...
debate any other aspect of my faith these are the heavenly virtues. this flawed mortal is going to try to adhere to them.

Culture: the ability to carve an intricate and beautiful bowl from the skull of a fallen enemy.
Civilization: the ability to put that psycho in prision for killing people.

Kate

Any action or momentum in one direction typically is "against" an intention hoping for something else that could have happened instead,
for reasons just as good as deemed by others own set of views and values.

To me I guess "my leap of faith" is speaking / thinking good of everything loving everything, and with some luck its addictive,
a momentum shared enough which hopefully sees hard stances lessen or at least be less relevant in my life.

Callie Del Noire

I've spent something like a total of 3 months in the Gulf, mostly in Dubai and a bit in Bahrain. Of those 3 months I'd say nearly a month of it was during Ramadan, their high holy month, over 3 cruises with my first command.

Dubai is a fairly moderate state, with Islam rule not being the governmental rule (like Egypt, Turkey and Syria) and I was struck by the sense of charity I saw there. I am shamed to say that is not what I see during our holy month (like.. December). I try to point out to a LOT of people that the frothing at the mouth and brain fanatic isn't the real face of Islam.. it's folks like my classmate Ahmed (in A-school) and the folks I met in the Gulf, Philipino Muslims I worked with in the Navy and the folks I met in my time overseas.

I don't think we'll make any progress till we find ways to help the moderates. And that won't happen till we put aside the fear of the tribal or terrorist stereotype.

Callie Del Noire

So, Dark Clown, would it be okay for non-Christians to judge us by the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church or assume that we all move by the mandates of people like them?  Don't forget that the phrase 'kill them all and let god sort them out' came out of a Christian crusade.  Against a fringe segment of Christian faith.  And that it has been too long that we killed folks for being the wrong brand of Christian. Like in the last 30 years.

I know moderate Muslims of good conscience and your outlook on their faith, a brother faith of ours, sets the tone of no respect and no compromise. Do you expect to be accountable for the actions f the WBC, or Snake Handlers, or Fundntalist Latter Day Sainters?  Or to support Protestant vs Catholic violence in Northern Ireland?


Oniya

I think that the problems won't be solved until we stop assigning the labels to people we haven't even known for long enough to put in neat little boxes (and do we ever know someone for long enough to do that?).  So -


Speak good of PEOPLE and leave it at that.
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Caitlin

#16
Quote from: Dark Clown on September 27, 2012, 01:00:50 AM
Is there such a thing as a moderate Islamist?  I'm having a hard time belieiving it.  For a religion that demands the death of those who criticize their prophet, allows men to behead their wives, and demands women to have their entire bodies and faces covered (again, under pain of death), where does the moderation come in?
Actually, in defense of the islam, the quran nowhere states that the women have to cover their face. That's a custom that slipped in throughout the ages, but not a requirement of islam itself. It's the fundamentalists who demand it, but not an 'official' requirement. I also don't know how the general muslim feels about the sharia.

One of my muslim friends had a good laugh about a movie that rediculed the protests against showing the image of their prophet and shared it on FaceBook. I saw that he also has a lot of friends and family (all muslims) in his friendlist, so once again, I don't know how the average muslim feels about it, or even cares about it. I would think that if it was a huge issue for him then he wouldn't have put that on FB.

We also don't hear any protests coming from countries like Dubai, while countries that did protest heavily also have a whacked economy. In one case somebody who didn't want to join the protests, was accused of heresy and the public wanted his death. However, it turned out that he was a rich citizen that owned a lot of shops downtown and had threatened a week earlier to put out those who were months late with their payments of their shops. In that particular case the riots and public uproar was merely an excuse to get around having to pay him.

I also don't believe that many people even saw the movie that rediculed their faith. Any sane person could never take it serious. If they made a similar movie about Jesus then Christians would shrug at best and maybe feel slightly insulted, but the quality of that thing was so poor that it was more like a comedy.

In addition, in the country where they burned that ambassy the moderate public went out terrorist hunting and took out 2 of the radical organisations behind those attacks because they were fed up with then inciting public unrest. They demanded from their government that those organisations would get disarmed.

The problem I see is that fundamentalists give the religion as a whole a bad name. Before 9/11 I thought quite positive about islam and didn't have any issues with it, however, the last decade changed a lot.

Denivar

Quote from: Dark Clown on September 27, 2012, 01:00:50 AM
Is there such a thing as a moderate Islamist?  I'm having a hard time belieiving it.  For a religion that demands

What "moderate" usually means when it comes to a religion is someone who is not fundamentalist and literal about all the demands of that religion's holy book/historical teachings/core beliefs/etc.

Asking if it's possible to be moderate and then listing what the extremists do doesn't make much sense.

Do we really have to list out all the icky kinds of things the Christian Bible "demands"?
"If you go to see the woman, do not forget the whip." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Serephino

I believe the intended point of this topic was to point out good qualities in Muslims because for a long time now the entire group has gotten a bad rap from the actions of a few.  People of any religion can become terrorists in the name of their faith as history has proved too many times to count.  Not all Muslims are bad people, and I agree it isn't fair to have them all bashed and put under a microscope.

I won't say that things haven't been crazy lately, but please, let's not be ignorant.  They didn't just up and start hating us out of nowhere.  I've seen others talk about goings on in Afghanistan a while ago, but I can't comment too much as I was too young to really remember details.  All I can comment on is recent stuff, and one needs to have a little perspective. 

I know a big tension point is Israel.  The US backs Israel.  This is land that was just up and taken from the Palestinians because, well, the Jews needed somewhere to go after WWII, and this book called the Bible says that plot of land was given to the Jews by God, so the US and a bunch of European nations decided they should have it back.  I don't think the Palestinians were consulted, and you know, that would piss me off too.  The whole religious hatred between the two is beyond stupid in my opinion because both stem from Abraham, but look at it this way...  You and your cousin have never gotten along, and to make matters worse, the rest of your family is on your cousin's side.  Would you have warm and fuzzy feelings about the rest of your family?

Then there is Afghanistan and Iraq now.  We had a reason to invade Afghanistan.  Iraq was because... who the hell knows...  Long story short, we invaded their country, killed a few thousand people, toppled their government, and told them they had to have a Democracy like us.  That isn't their culture.  Iraq was the birthplace of civilization.  They've had their own way of doing things for centuries, and yet, because we're bigger we have the right to tell them they have to live the way we want because it's better for us?  If, say, China decided to take over the US and told us we had to become Communist, would you have good things to say about the Chinese?

Last but not least, let's not forget how Muslims are being treated in this country.  They are being questioned and detained for no other reason than their religion.  While they're in the streets screaming for our blood, there are Americans all over this country saying we should just nuke them all and be done with it.  Always remember that when you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you.  Pick a country, religious group, political party, etc... and think for a minute about how you'd feel about them if they did to you even half of what we've done to Muslims.  The better question becomes why shouldn't they hate us?

The only way to fight against these terrorist groups is to stop proving them right.  Everything we've done they use as a weapon against us, and we've given them decades of good ammo.  All the fighting and the venom spitting needs to stop.  For every one whackjob there are probably ten Muslims that just want to live their lives in peace.  You just don't see those ten in the media because there isn't much of a story there.         



Kate


Although I don't expect an agreement on this topic I AM impressed with its general maturity.

Very interesting posts so far people, hearing others views on this does help :)

Caitlin

Well yeah, there isn't much point in yelling and name calling, is there? :P

We have enough of that in the rest of the world already, might as well have a sensible discussion here instead. ;D

In general we have a great and mature community in E though. :-)

Sabby

#21
Speak good of religious people? How about I speak good of people until they prove they aren't worth good words :P Whatever religion it is they subscribe to I'll view as just that, a religion. I might be able to tell how likely it is this person is ugly inside based on what spiritual view they subscribe to, but even that is too flaky to rely on.

If someone says they're part of a religion where women are voiceless breeders who need to cover their face, I'm just going to take that into consideration until I actually hear them grumble about a woman expressing their opinion. Then again, they may be amazing folks.

If someone says they're a part of a religion where all are equal and knowledge and peace are above war and possessions, I'm just going to take that into consideration until I actually see them peacefully resolve a conflict and turn down flippant spending. Then again, they may be dickholes when you touch their things.

The point is, you really don't know. The religion is so unimportant to me on first impressions that I absolutely refuse to let it dictate my interactions with them. I'm of the opinion that most major religions are so fragmented and deeply settled into society that you don't even need to know what they're about to claim to be a part of it, and even if you do know the deal, it's just one of many mutually exclusive interpretations. Probably because they were written by many poorly educated people who never collaborated, and have been constantly misinterpreted, twisted, and badly translated ever since.

So when someone says they're a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Hindu/Buddhist/Pagan/Mormon/Satanist/Scientologist/Jedi/Druid/Pastafarian, you REALLY have no idea what that means. To let it dictate your next words is just stupid, and to make yourself 'nicer' on principle is even stupider. If they prove to not be bad people, what does it matter if the damning conversation was lifted from a book?

Callie Del Noire

And before we forget, all these protests are about a film made by a Coptic Christain posing as a Isreali Jew. Clearly HIS agenda wasn't all peace and love. Otherwise he wouldn't have edited the film, posed as someone else AND misrepresented its intent to the cast and crew.

OldSchoolGamer

Quote from: Serephino on September 27, 2012, 01:54:45 AM
Then there is Afghanistan and Iraq now.  We had a reason to invade Afghanistan.  Iraq was because... who the hell knows...

Oil.  Same reason we support the Saudis even though they're some of the worst religious nut-jobs on the planet.

As for "speaking good of Muslims," I speak good of people who do good and bad of people who do evil.  I don't believe anyone should be pigeon-holed because of their religion, but neither do I believe psychopathy and evil should be immune to criticism because they're part of a religion.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: OldSchoolGamer on September 27, 2012, 11:47:04 AM
Oil.  Same reason we support the Saudis even though they're some of the worst religious nut-jobs on the planet.

As for "speaking good of Muslims," I speak good of people who do good and bad of people who do evil.  I don't believe anyone should be pigeon-holed because of their religion, but neither do I believe psychopathy and evil should be immune to criticism because they're part of a religion.

don't forget that Saddam had put out a bounty on 'Dubya's' daddy during the first gulf war.