God and morality

[phyllo]

I don't demand anything.

You just like to imagine that you are the source of answers ... that people want and need your replies.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Hmmm. I think you are right there. Good discernment.

Eventually I may be able to answer all human problems. I just need time. Bear with me, please.

[MikeNovack]

People can be convinced to produce a particular civilization by any ideology, be it true or false ideology. However, my point is that they must genuinely BELIEVE in it.

For example, Islamism does produce Islamic behaviour...but that behavior is also a response to what you and I would recognize as a false ideology. The key factor is that they actually DO believe in their ideology.

Uh .... you are (seriously) mistaken on an important point. What YOU consider a false ideology.

You do not speak for me on this. It's not that I consider Islam true but rather that I consider it no less true or false than Christianity. I have no sound basis to prefer one of those religions over another.

What do you know of Islam? For example, the words of which Muslim theologians have you looked at?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I don't demand anything.

Very well. I resolve from this point forward not to charge a red cent! It’s all free!

[Alexis Jacobi]

I have no sound basis to prefer one of those religions over another.

[Immanuel Can]

People can be convinced to produce a particular civilization by any ideology, be it true or false ideology. However, my point is that they must genuinely BELIEVE in it.

For example, Islamism does produce Islamic behaviour...but that behavior is also a response to what you and I would recognize as a false ideology. The key factor is that they actually DO believe in their ideology.

Uh .... you are (seriously) mistaken on an important point. What YOU consider a false ideology.

That's easy. One that fails to correspond to reality. Is this supposed to be a trick question?

I have no sound basis to prefer one of those religions over another.

Oh, I think you do...you may refuse to acknowledge it, but you certainly do...

What do you know of Islam?

I have the Koran right here. Want to dance?

However, maybe that will just distract us from the point. For as wretched, awful and irrational as Islam is, Islam's not the salient point in what I said. It was merely the convenient example. I could have used Fascism, or paganism, or any other kind of -ism to illustrate the same point: it's just that Islam's in the public eye today, largely because of all the awful things it so continually does. Fascism and paganism are antiquated, so aren't as familiar as examples.

The point's really simple: people don't act consistently and with commitment to something they really believe is not true. You can get them to play act superficially, temporarily larping their version of what they think that ideology is, but you can't get them to stick to it when the going gets tough, or when it gets expensive or unpleasant to stay with the larp. When that happens, they just tend to give it up.

[Immanuel Can]

I have no sound basis to prefer one of those religions over another.

Yeah, that's a shocking claim, isn't it? He'd be saying he doesn't know anything about Islam, its history, its commands or its present activities. If he did, he'd have tons of reasons to prefer almost any religion to it.

[popeye1945]

Religious superstitions will be the downfall of humanity. It must be recognized that these archaic mythologies were the best our ancestors could do for us as far as orientation is concerned, considering the knowledge base of their time. Religion and its institutions are biological extensions of human nature and, as such, are meant to reflect upon us to reinforce coherence with reality, but the reality of their times, not ours. In our times, it is known that life itself is the source of all meaning in the world, that life has many forms, but has but one essence, and we are all in this together. When these mythologies were created, humanity was relatively immature, both in its humanity and its knowledge of reality. Belief in these mythologies today means to be anti- intellectual while denying the progress of humanities knowledge over the centuries, it is treading water in a stagnet pool meaning it's stillness is unhealthy. The universe is the creative field of all reality and is the only reality. We as manifestations of this field are the field, reasoning must follow this knowledge in order to come into greater cohernance with the nature of the field itself, as discoherance means greater suffering. This theme goes on, but free you mind and spirit from these mumified recipes for ancient civilizations, reality is to grand to accomadate the errors of the past as something sacred.

[phyllo]

Which false religion do you like best?

[Immanuel Can]

Religious superstitions will be the downfall of humanity.

Statistically, it's far more likely to be Socialism that kills us.

[MikeNovack]

Yeah, that's a shocking claim, isn't it? He'd be saying he doesn't know anything about Islam, its history, its commands or its present activities. If he did, he'd have tons of reasons to prefer almost any religion to it.

IC, are you saying you know nothing of the history of Christianity with regard to those of other religions? Or even those of different branches of Christianity.

I am a person who is neither a Christian nor a Muslim. I consider not just at today and yesterday but the last 14 centuries. I am not going by "at the moment Christianity is in one of its tolerant periods. Based on a long history, you should ask if I expected that to last.

[popeye1945]

Religious superstitions will be the downfall of humanity.

Statistically, it's far more likely to be Socialism that kills us.

May Allah bless you! You don't have to die if you believe. By the way, where do you get such statistics?

[Immanuel Can]

Religious superstitions will be the downfall of humanity.

Statistically, it's far more likely to be Socialism that kills us.

May Allah bless you! You don't have to die if you believe. By the way, where do you get such statistics?

The secular, academic, "Encyclopedia of War" (3 vols.) is one place. But you can find out practically anywhere an honest source exists. We know that Stalin killed no less than 22 million, and Mao not less than 42 million. Add in the other Socialist regimes in North Korea, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Cuba, etc., and you're bound to get a figure well over 100 million, and closer to 140 million...and those are only the ones we know of beyond reasonable doubt.

No religion, not even Islam, which is as bloody as all other religions combined into one, has come within orders of magnitude of that death count. And some religions have never caused a single war or death, so far as we can tell. But Socialism, we know about.

[Immanuel Can]

I am a person who is neither a Christian nor a Muslim.

Well, you should learn about Islam. Because for sure, they have plans for you.

[popeye1945]

Statistically, it's far more likely to be Socialism that kills us.

May Allah bless you! You don't have to die if you believe. By the way, where do you get such statistics?

The secular, academic, "Encyclopedia of War" (3 vols.) is one place. But you can find out practically anywhere an honest source exists. We know that Stalin killed no less than 22 million, and Mao not less than 42 million. Add in the other Socialist regimes in North Korea, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Cuba, etc., and you're bound to get a figure well over 100 million, and closer to 140 million...and those are only the ones we know of beyond reasonable doubt.

No religion, not even Islam, which is as bloody as all other religions combined into one, has come within orders of magnitude of that death count. And some religions have never caused a single war or death, so far as we can tell. But Socialism, we know about.

If you are an American, you do not know your own BLOODY history.