This may come as a surprise, but I'm sort of a passionate guy. The beginning of all this brouhaha was my outrage at the Palestinian glorification of a man who killed a 3 month old child. I was pissed as hell at that evil. I'm pissed as hell at the endless litany of evil that I've alluded to over and over in these threads. In so many places. We have become inured to it. That's terrible! I am sick and tired of the refusal to name the evil. To see it for what it is. To blame "colonization" or "economic status" or "ethnic divisions." NO!! It is a militant religious movement that is widespread, that is toxic and strident and that wants to nullify all that is good and decent in this world. There is no mercy and no humanity in the Allah that these people worship.

I don't share anything with those monsters. Divisions are real. There is light and there is darkness. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

"militant religious movement", "these people", "those monsters", "darkness".

Are you sure we're still talking about Islam, but not about muslims?

This is my case exactly. I have a lot of problems with a great deal of human rights abuses. Many of those are perpetrated by muslims, and also quite a good deal by the US of A. I hate all of those abuses quite equally. And yeah, I have a problem with glorifying anybody who killed a kid. But when you are talking about "monsters", you are not being part of the solution.

Actions can often be evil. People are sometimes evil. Anything more abstract than people can never be evil in itself.

An idea cannot be evil?

An idea can inspire evil actions, that's for sure.

But just holding or thinking ideas in itself isnt evil. You can think about world domination all you like, but as long as you don't put it into practice then you're not evil. Besides, trying to eliminate evil ideas often inspires more evil action than the ideas itself. I'd go as far as to posit that that idea has inspired more evil actions than it has ever prevented.

And besides, Islam is to an idea, as book is to word. The world just isn't that simple.

BoSox writes, "When it comes to treatment of women, racial minorities, people with disabilities, non-heterosexuals, and basically any other classification of people that isn't a devout Christian man, yes. We can only take the lessons of treating people kindly, giving charitably, sharing the Earth, and living righteously seriously if the remainder of the religion's teachings and followers actually do so, and that goes for any religion or societal sect of any kind."

BoSox, that's a blanket condemnation that's quite popular in today's media and culture... but when you look into the specifics of biblical history, you'll find that the picture is not painted with as broad of strokes as you believe. Sure, anyone could cherry-pick examples of horrific practices that are recorded in the Bible--but I'm talking about understanding the whole scope and sequence of the religion revealed in part by Moses and the Prophets and later in full by Jesus himself. From Genesis "Male and female he created them...." to Ephesians Chapter 3 "27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise."

The fact is that Jesus declared an end to those divisions that you have pointed out, for his followers, because "1 Corinthians 12:13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body--whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink." http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/12-13.htm

And that was 2000 years ago.

Maybe it is a blanket statement, Mujus, but it's one you and other Christians around the world are going to have to get used to dealing with because religious authorities of many Christian sects continue to denigrate those texts that you point out in favor of bigotry and discrimination as dipplayer has so perfectly demonstrated to us all in this thread.

@dipplayer2004, I disagree with you that the religion itself is the evil around which these militant groups form. I would instead argue that people use religion (warped versions of it) as a justification and motivator to drive other people towards their own goals. The leaders of militant groups based on religion almost always have a craving for power, and are rarely driven purely by religious justification. And in the rare case they are driven purely by religious fanaticism you can typically find that their view of the religion they are fighting for has been warped when taught to them by someone else for various reasons.

Mujus, I just have to ask, is biblehub.com a Christian porn site?

biblechub.com

jesustube.com

http://theresurgence.com/books/porn_again_christian/ch5 is hilarious when we are already talking about Christianity and porn.

@ dipplayer: "I have given arguments and examples, most of which have received no response. I have attempted to respond to rebuttals and counters from those who have engaged."

Except when you argued that Christianity does not oppress women, and I responded with substantial evidence of the Bible sanctioning the oppression of women, you then outright refused to engage or respond.

"I'm pissed as hell at the endless litany of evil that I've alluded to over and over in these threads."

I'm pissed as hell at your defence of a deeply fascist ideology from the Middle Ages which promotes the oppression of women and the persecution of homosexuals. That's Christianity, by the way.

I don't know why dipplayer is so upset about ISIS, they're allies of the US government, Turkey, NATO, Israel, etc. They're doing the West's bidding. The West is jumping over themselves talking about ISIS is not really a threat. Israel has basically said ISIS is irrelevant to their security.

Hell the US military openly air dropped them weapons in Syria.

ROFL biblechub. Both of the suggested domain names are available. I think we can have a niche here. Now we all know that Christian girls are no less slutty than regular girls - they date nice christian boys but fuck the brains out of atheists like me. I think we can really get some porn up there with this theme.

haha phil that is a great read. Hilarious.

Omg that link phil...

"First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. "

Mary may have gotten pregnant from masturbation. Seems at least as likely an explanation as it having immaculately been from an invisible man in the sky.

my favorite is the part where he gives advice to the horny man / not horny wife and the horny wife / not horny man. Hilarious.

There are no words for how awkward sex must be for this guy. My favorite was masturbation is homosexual (later he claims it is fact autosexual without naming it), though I did like the discussion of the theological implications of masturbation quite a bit.

@dipplayer: if you'd like to do something useful here, may I suggest reading the Quran with an open mind first, so you can think of something sensible to say some day, rather than showing us all how misinformed you are of what the book says and 'promotes'?

Disgusting godless brainless decadent fools.

I'm done with this site.

Western Civilization deserves what is coming to it, if y'all are what it has become.

I don't think abusing or mocking dipplayer is productive. It is likely to make him even more stubborn in his mindset.

Dipplayer - you speak of the 'endless litany of evil.' And you cite the glorification of the killing of a 3 year old child by a Palestinian. Truly, that is horrific. Horrific is too soft a term actually. But have you read about Buddhist monks on the rampage currently against Rohingya Muslims in Burma? Or Christian mobs raping and murdering Muslims in CAR or blowing up abortion centers? Or Hindu mobs massacaring Muslims in Gujarat? (Here, a Hindu man raped a Muslim woman, slit her stomach, took a foetus out and impaled the foetus on a sword while the half-dead woman watched. Tell me that isn't worse than your example?) Or attacks by non-religious/atheist terror groups like Aum Shinrikyo, FARC, Naxals etc - I can go on an on. The link between terror and radicalisation and violence and Islam just doesn't hold up to any objective or empirical scrutiny. Horrible acts, disgusting acts are committed by people all over the world. Condemn the perpetrators of those acts, dipplayer. Don't stereotype a community or a larger group of people who actually condemn these acts as much as you and I do.

No doubt - a significant proportion of terror and unconscionable violence is at the hands of certain radicalised Islamists today, but that is a product of the contemporary global political situation. And it certainly isn't limited to Islam or religion for that matter as I pointed out above.
In fact, modern Islamist terror is a very very new phenomenon - born of the political situation in the Middle East. Terror has always existed and has manifested itself in various forms throughout human history. Radical Islamist terror is just the latest manifestation. Religion is just a vehicle. And the post-WW II situation in the Middle East has allowed *some* people to use Islam as a vehicle for their perverted aims.

I wasn't aware we were ever abusing or mocking dipplayer. If I abused or mocked you, I am truly sorry. I did not intend to overstep the bounds of reasoned debate, but I well may have. I really don't think we did, though. I would appreciate not being called a disgusting brainless godless decadent fool in the future, though. It is disrespectful to atheists world-wide to put godless together with brainless, decadent and disgusting.

I do agree with the rest of your post, Sh@dow.

"The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the U.S. (78%) say that the use of
suicide bombing against civilian targets to defend Islam from its enemies is never justified.

Overall, 8% of Muslim Americans say suicide bombings against civilian targets tactics are often (1%) or sometimes (7%) justified in the defense of Islam."

These numbers seem high but they are useless without context of what other demographic groups believe with respect to the question.

"Disgusting godless brainless decadent fools.
I'm done with this site.
Western Civilization deserves what is coming to it, if y'all are what it has become."
Isn't this the kind of rhetoric we have come to exopect from religious extremists, they have an over-simplified world view as well, maybe Diplodocus is closer to these 'extremists' than he realizes.

@ Jeff

Other demographics will not make those stats read better. Those figures, if true, show quite clearly that a shockingly high number of US Muslims are vile scum. Adding stats of other demographics will either make this appear a problem specific to Islam, which is bad, or shared amongst a broad spectrum of America, which is worse.

I'm not suggesting they could be read *better.* However, if a broad spectrum of America or *any other nation* holds similar beliefs that violence or suicide bombings are acceptable tactics, it is noteworthy, if only to set the control for comparison. If you want to vilify the other, look in the mirror first.