The best reasonable, rational, intelligent discussion on religion I've ever seen

by TerryWalstrom 303 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  TerryWalstrom

  One more point.

  Religion carries the basic meaning of 'binding'.

  Religion BINDS behavior with ritual performance.

  Cult religion binds minds.

  Christianity is not just ONE thing; it is fractured opinion spread out over 41,000 shards of variety and temperament.  Each is binding in its parochial way.

  Jehovah's Witnesses' leaders use a pretext of SCRIPTURE.

  The GB seeks to bind 8 million believers on a pretext of the Truth 'based on' scripture.

  We have suffered the brunt of the pretext applied in an insidious way.

  But--at one time--we AGREED to it.

  In my own case, I fully accept responsibility that I was, to a certain degree, CRAZY.

  Religion is not to blame so much as it is a pretext for things.

  It is a pretext for charity, love, fellowship as well as being a pretext for righteous wars, ritual execution, and sundry implanted fears and threats on behalf of invisible personages.

  What that interview did for me was give me a sudden perspective I did not have until I listened. All this time, I've exclusively blamed God, Religion and especially Jehovah's Witnesses for something which is way too scattershot.

  Fundamentalist mindset is crazy. 

  Fundamentalism is a subset of religion--not religion itself. It is the 1 and not the 99.

  By accusing the ENTIRE 100 for the harm of the 99, we become a fundamentalist ourselves. As I've always said, "what you hate, you become."

  
  

  Nobody believes EVERY SINGLE DETAIL of their religion--not even fundamentalists. We all pick and choose. Where we err most is in becoming convinced we are right and all others are wrong.  Even I, myself, now see I've been doing the same thing.
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  Jonathan Drake

  @ cofty

  i agree with both of your posts, and what you said is kind of the point I was getting at. There were elements at work which Hitler manipulated to rise to power and in his rise he made the proper connections and moves to draw out the crazies. But these crazy do not define Germans either now or then. 

  every culture or group has a small percentage of crazies, but these people are like a dormant volcano. They need a charismatic leader to spark them and drive them. Without this leader nothing would ever happen. So the issue at hand is that rather than Islam being the problem, it's craziness, and rather than the people, it's the leader they turn to. 

  As an example, look at JWs. We are all likely be able to think of nut job JWs. The ones who keep to themselves and never go to the theater or parties because it's got some satanic influence. These people are the crazy hardliners who think even their fellow religionists aren't really following the religion truthfully. Every religion has them. But the religion isn't the issue, these peoples mental attitude is the problem. All it would take is a charismatic person like Hitler or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to set them off and direct their crazy in a certain direction. But without these people to set it off, they are largely docile weirdos.

  ome amendment I'll make: they do not take the Quran as literally true. Unless they do it in the same sense JWs do the bible. Which is to say they reach a wrong conclusion based on twisting the verses. The Quran says multiple times it is meant to be taken ALONG WITH the bible (both old and New Testament). Thus everything in the Quran is meant to be taken in the context and restrictions of biblical verse. There is no support in the Quran for what Terrorists do except by malicious slander of the book.
  
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  cofty

  Fundamentalist mindset is crazy. 
  Fundamentalism is a subset of religion--not religion itself. It is the 1 and not the 99.
  By accusing the ENTIRE 100 for the harm of the 99, we become a fundamentalist ourselves. As I've always said, "what you hate, you become."

  I disagree that the fundamentalist mindset is crazy. It is 100% rational based on certain assumptions that the fundamentalist accepts to be absolutely true.

  In Germany it was about ethnic purity. Almost the entire nation bought into to it, not just a small group of radicals. They really did believe that the Aryan race was superior and that they were bound to the land that they laid claim to. It was a terrifying lesson in how an ideology can cause millions of people to abandon normal rules of behaviour. In Islam its about the literal truth of the quran as a book of instructions that are still binding.

  Almost all Muslims claim to believe that but only a minority demonstrate that belief in action. Most will go as far as circumcision and keeping festivals etc. Millions more will oppress their wives and daughters because they actually believe this is Allah's will. A smaller group will follow the instructions of Mo as far as using violence against non-Muslims. Most of these are not crazy people. They simply take the quran seriously and put it above the humanistic values they may have learned from other sources.

  I am not viewing all Muslims the same. Neither is Sam Harris as he has repeated constantly. Resa Aslan has made a career about telling blatant lies to the contrary.

  The only difference between a murderous Muslim and a reasonable one is how much benevolent hypocrisy they can muster when deciding between what the quran and hadith actually requires of them and how they choose to behave.

  Islam is a backward, oppressive, hateful religion. We must be grateful that most Muslims allow post-enlightenment values to guide their lives. 
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  cofty

  The Quran says multiple times it is meant to be taken ALONG WITH the bible (both old and New Testament). Thus everything in the Quran is meant to be taken in the context and restrictions of biblical verse. 

  That could not be more wrong. Muslims reject the most basic teaching of the NT that Jesus died and was raised.

  The quran supersedes all other revelations and even the later verses (the most hateful ones) are to be read as more authoritative than the earlier (more conciliatory) ones.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  Jonathan Drake - I agree with you that the majority of muslims don't agree with, or support, ISIS (or the other extremist groups - Al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram, Taliban, Pak Taliban, Al-Shabaab, Al Qaeda, etc.).

  Unfortunately enough muslims do, enough to provide a steady flow of jihadists to Syria/Iraq. I've read that the standing army of ISIS could between 35,000 - 50,000 people.  

  Of course, most muslims' interpretation of the Quran is very different from extremists'. This is a good a place as any for reformation of Islam to start.

  naziism had nothing to do with Germans - really?! Hitler annexed Austria (German-speaking), marched into Poland to reclaim areas lost in WWW1 and conquer other areas for Lebensraum, and marched into Czeckoslovakia. He united Sudetenland with Germany because ethnic Germans were the majority there; the rest was for Lebensraum.

  Nazi Germany was called Greater Germany (Grossdeutschland). All this had nothing to do with Germans/Germany?  

  The issue wasn't all of Germany, just the one German - complete b*ll*cks.
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  Simon

  There were elements at work which Hitler manipulated to rise to power and in his rise he made the proper connections and moves to draw out the crazies. But these crazy do not define Germans either now or then. 

  Yes, but enough gave support or turned a blind eye so that they enabled the nazis to do what they did. I am firmly in the camp of incredulity to imagine that people in villages short distances from concentration camps where millions of people were slaughtered knew absolutely nothing wrong was going on.

  Many germans then supported nazism just as many muslims now support a fascist form of islam. Yes, not "all" but enough, far too many.

  These people are the crazy hardliners who think even their fellow religionists aren't really following the religion truthfully. Every religion has them.

  So why is it OK to talk about them for any other religion ... except Islam?

  Why are the crusades and inquisition a black mark on the name of Chistianity and yet far too often we see any action done in the name of Islam being denied as having any link to Islam whatsoever.

  To do harm you need more than hardliners. Yes, they are the drivers and the instigators but you also need a sizeable number of "me too" people who kind of agree and go along with things, certainly don't object sufficiently or stand up to try and stop things.

  Some do. They are heroes.
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  cofty

  Don't forget that many Muslims will admit to never having read the quran in their own language. Children learn it by rote in Arabic. If the teacher and the parents say its all about piety and charity then you get good adults. If a radical preacher wants to radicalise a young man the first step is to read him the book in English.
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  Jonathan Drake

  @cofty

  i did not say it was an Islamic teaching that they are supposed to take the bible as scripture as well, I said the Quran says so. The Quran does say this, many many times it says it's a "confirmation of other scriptures not a replacement". Do Muslims believe this? No. Does the Quran say it? Yes. So it's just am example of a previous point I made, which is that like the majority of Christians the Muslims do not actually listen to their own book. My primary argument is that the Quran says what it says, and that it does not support terrorism or hate but love and forgiveness. The group ISIS takes verses out of context to support their cause just like JWs do or Catholics. As terry pointed out earlier, the religion does not represent God. Religion and God are not hand in hand. The Quran and what it says is a separate issue from Muslims and what they believe. I've also shown elsewhere that the Quran calls Jesus the messiah and since it's meant to be taken with the bible it would support Jesus ascension regardless of what Muslims believe. It cannot be avoided that, regardless of what they believe, the Quran says what it says and is a witness against them by the majority. 

  @loveunihateexams

  i agree that enough Muslims agree with ISIS to provide an army of at most 50,000. However, being that there are over a billion Muslims in the world - this is less than .5 percent. 

  I will concede that arguing the Nazi party would never have taken over and led to the haulocost if not for Hitler is a moot point since it happened and cannot be tested otherwise in any way. However, it took hitler to get the ball rolling and lead them down that path- so it's an argument I, personally, will hold to; without Hitler, it would not have happened. He was the reason it happened, not Germany, not being German, not even the events leading to the support from those who supported him- just him; without him it wouldn't happen. I believe this completely.

  @Simon

  the difference between the Crusades and isis is that it actually was sanctioned by the entire Christian empire including its emporer. The two scenarios don't have any real comparison because unlike ISIS which makes up less than 1% of all Islam, the Crusades were supported by the 99% and only opposed by less than 1. People were just crazy about joining the crusades and fighting for the church and God. This is absolutely not the case with ISIS. 
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  Finkelstein

  There is a fundamental difference to how Christianity and Muslim beliefs handle non-believers, based from the written scripture of both holy books.  Christ gave no indication to kill non-believers or ones who rejected his message, those who supposedly did would be rejected from entering his kingdom and by killed by his own hand as it were.

  The Quran says something different in direction to followers of the prophet Mohammad and Allah, in how to deal with non believers or infidels. .  

    Quran 8:12 which says, “When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”
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  never a jw

  Very articulate, very intelligent, very knowledgeable. But ended with a weasel's way out of controversy when he defines religion. I was interested in buying his book until Cofty confirmed he is into selling books, promoting himself, and defending B.S. under the guise of an objective scholar.

  Thanks Cofty