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On August 27 2010 05:00 thesighter wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 04:56 Signet wrote:
Yeah, which is a shame since he is such a smart person. But the whole "faith sufferer" thing is over the top, and on this subject he us prone to mix a lot of bad arguments in with the legitimate criticism, as well as the legitimate concerns about our society's negative bias against atheists. Intelligence and prejudice are not mutually exclusive. You do know a lot of atheists are against Islam, right? It actually a LOT of sense, given that atheism is classified as apostasy in Islam, and it is punishable by death in many Muslim countries.
Here in America, we prefer to punish atheists by making their lives suck instead.
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On August 27 2010 05:00 thesighter wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 04:56 Signet wrote:
Yeah, which is a shame since he is such a smart person. But the whole "faith sufferer" thing is over the top, and on this subject he us prone to mix a lot of bad arguments in with the legitimate criticism, as well as the legitimate concerns about our society's negative bias against atheists. Intelligence and prejudice are not mutually exclusive. You do know a lot of atheists are against Islam, right? It actually a LOT of sense, given that atheism is classified as apostasy in Islam, and it is punishable by death in many Muslim countries.
My comment was about Dawkins specifically. He says the same things about religion in general.
A lot of people of any worldview make the claim "if everyone believed what I believe, the world would be a better/less violent place." Even without addressing the absurdity of even speculating on how the world would have actually developed without religion, it's just not a compelling argument. Like saying there would be no racism if everyone was the same color.
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stories like these are interesting, because people will use this anecdote to judge right/wrong on an issue like the mosque.
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Do you have a source backing up that claim or just poor reading comprehension?
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On August 27 2010 05:12 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 05:00 thesighter wrote:On August 27 2010 04:56 Signet wrote:
Yeah, which is a shame since he is such a smart person. But the whole "faith sufferer" thing is over the top, and on this subject he us prone to mix a lot of bad arguments in with the legitimate criticism, as well as the legitimate concerns about our society's negative bias against atheists. Intelligence and prejudice are not mutually exclusive. You do know a lot of atheists are against Islam, right? It actually a LOT of sense, given that atheism is classified as apostasy in Islam, and it is punishable by death in many Muslim countries. My comment was about Dawkins specifically. He says the same things about religion in general. A lot of people of any worldview make the claim "if everyone believed what I believe, the world would be a better/less violent place." Even without addressing the absurdity of even speculating on how the world would have actually developed without religion, it's just not a compelling argument. Like saying there would be no racism if everyone was the same color.
Which part of religion was so essential to development of human race?
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Do you have a source backing up that claim or just poor reading comprehension?
taken from the story i just linked:
Enright -- whose alcoholism has lead to several minor brushes with the NYPD -- returned to the United States in May after five weeks in Helmand Province filming the Marines.
He shot film projects for Intersections International, a nonprofit group that supports the mosque and "promotes interfaith dialogue and cross-cultural cooperation, specifically with our Muslim brothers and sisters."
I think my reading comprehension is pretty decent. Here is another article that basically says the same thing as the nypost link: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0810/AntiMuslim_attacker_works_at_proPark51_group.html
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I wonder if the attacker is a paranoid schizophrenic. He may have been legally insane at the time of the attack. Hard to know. You have to feel bad for the cab driver.
Until more is made clear about the attacker, I think this is an extremely premature title for the thread.
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On August 27 2010 06:51 firegawd wrote:Show nested quote +Do you have a source backing up that claim or just poor reading comprehension? taken from the story i just linked: Enright -- whose alcoholism has lead to several minor brushes with the NYPD -- returned to the United States in May after five weeks in Helmand Province filming the Marines.
He shot film projects for Intersections International, a nonprofit group that supports the mosque and "promotes interfaith dialogue and cross-cultural cooperation, specifically with our Muslim brothers and sisters." I think my reading comprehension is pretty decent. Here is another article that basically says the same thing as the nypost link: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0810/AntiMuslim_attacker_works_at_proPark51_group.html
Neither article claims that he was a liberal that personally supported the construction of the mosque. You're making assumptions.
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America. Where you have the freedom of relgion... but you better pick the right one.
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On August 27 2010 07:12 supernova wrote:
America. Where you have the freedom of relgion... but you better pick the right one.
Yeah lol
You can pick ANY religion you want, as long as it's christianity.
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On August 26 2010 02:52 thesighter wrote:
Definitely related.
Mosque developers need to take a hint and stop the construction. If the mosque is constructed, I anticipate that there will be more anti-Islam violence, eg the mosque makes the situation of Muslims in NYC much worse.
Republicans are going to use this mosque issue as ammunition for the coming elections. Given that over 60% of Americans are against the mosque, this is going to bad news for the Obama administration.
What stupid logic. You're essentially saying the mosque developers should just give in to fear of domestic terrorism.
The mosque should be built for the exactly THAT reason: to show these ridiculous bigots that Muslims are no different than Christians or Buddhists or Atheists, and are given equal protection under the law, no matter the current political circumstances.
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When i read the thread title, i thought it said "NYC taxi driver stabbed for being DeMuslim."
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On August 27 2010 06:27 NIJ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 05:12 Signet wrote:On August 27 2010 05:00 thesighter wrote:On August 27 2010 04:56 Signet wrote:
Yeah, which is a shame since he is such a smart person. But the whole "faith sufferer" thing is over the top, and on this subject he us prone to mix a lot of bad arguments in with the legitimate criticism, as well as the legitimate concerns about our society's negative bias against atheists. Intelligence and prejudice are not mutually exclusive. You do know a lot of atheists are against Islam, right? It actually a LOT of sense, given that atheism is classified as apostasy in Islam, and it is punishable by death in many Muslim countries. My comment was about Dawkins specifically. He says the same things about religion in general. A lot of people of any worldview make the claim "if everyone believed what I believe, the world would be a better/less violent place." Even without addressing the absurdity of even speculating on how the world would have actually developed without religion, it's just not a compelling argument. Like saying there would be no racism if everyone was the same color. Which part of religion was so essential to development of human race?
My point was less that religion was essential, more that religion was ubiquitous. You can't just say that without religion, we get more or less the same world that we have today, minus some of the intolerance and opposition to scientific research. Virtually all of human history was influenced by various religions and cultures based upon them.
In fact, the more individual events changed (even for the better), the more unpredictable the outcome would be. Like, let's speculate that without religion, the Nazis never rise to power and the Holocaust never happens. Well, that's certainly good. But what happens instead? Maybe Europe becomes united in a peaceful way, resists Russian influence, and Japan is never urged to attack the US. Sure, the Pacific islands are under Japanese imperialism a little longer, but overall the goods outweigh the bads. Or maybe Europe doesn't redevelop fast enough to hold out against the Russians, Japan attacks the US - which is now not fighting a war on two fronts and defeats the Japanese by 1943, Hiroshima never happens and there is no doctrine of MAD, the US and USSR get into an actual war and 25 cities are nuked before it's over. That version kinda sucks. Which of these outcomes is more likely? Of course neither -- without the influence of religion, the world in 1900 looks completely different, because of changes even earlier in history.
It's like looking at global warming, and saying that the earth would be better off without the element carbon. Tough to really say what such a world would be like.
Although on the completely opposite note, you might be able to make an argument that, due to some convergent property of evo psych/memetics, any hypothetical social developments that happened with the aid of religion would have happened without it as well. Some society simply would have come up with a mechanism that served the same purpose, and that would have spread instead. Of course, if societies come up with these alternative mechanisms that replace the evolutionary functions of religion, then those mechanisms probably come with similar plusses and minusses, and then we end up not really better or worse off. So maybe the world would be completely, totally different and we can't really say if it's better or worse... or maybe it would be almost exactly the same, and instead of religion we'd have something else that's 99% the same thing.
Changing the course of human history on such an early and fundamental level is just pure speculation.
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On August 27 2010 02:41 muta_micro wrote:
I wonder how your opinion would be different if a terrorist attack on the same scale of 9/11, in the name of Islam, happened in Sweden and then a muslim group wanted a mosque to be constructed nearby? I think anyone who isn't American really must understand that their opinions are irrelevant in this matter, because as much as you want to appear to be a modern, unbiased person, you have to understand that nationalist sentiments will override the views of people in the US who would otherwise share your same moderate views.
Hi, I'm also an American, so maybe you'll let me talk about this.
The huge problem with your argument is that the people who want to build the mosque are not the same people who did 9/11. You can't just claim over a billion people are some sort of monolithic unit because 19 people committed an atrocity "in the name of Islam". This is America, you don't have a right to not be offended. If a [insert race here] person mugged you, you don't have the right to demand all [race] stay away from you because it makes you feel uncomfortable. While my heart goes out to anyone directly affected by 9/11, that doesn't give them a license to be bigoted towards over a billion people around the world and over 2 million of their fellow citizens.
Furthermore, identifying Americans who are Muslim as anything other than fellow citizens with full rights to build their houses of worship where they please damages national security and advances the goals of those 19 murderers: it creates a mental construct that separates "real" Americans and Americans who are Muslim. Alienating and pushing away American citizens plays right into the hands of the real bad guys.
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america revolves around hate and ignorance now days.
shame bout the muslim driver
he just trying to make a living.
how bad are the arguments going on with the mosque near ground zero?
i still think the attacks were a sham
had to stop reading the news for a while after the oil spills, just depressing.
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On August 27 2010 06:27 NIJ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2010 05:12 Signet wrote:On August 27 2010 05:00 thesighter wrote:On August 27 2010 04:56 Signet wrote:
Yeah, which is a shame since he is such a smart person. But the whole "faith sufferer" thing is over the top, and on this subject he us prone to mix a lot of bad arguments in with the legitimate criticism, as well as the legitimate concerns about our society's negative bias against atheists. Intelligence and prejudice are not mutually exclusive. You do know a lot of atheists are against Islam, right? It actually a LOT of sense, given that atheism is classified as apostasy in Islam, and it is punishable by death in many Muslim countries. My comment was about Dawkins specifically. He says the same things about religion in general. A lot of people of any worldview make the claim "if everyone believed what I believe, the world would be a better/less violent place." Even without addressing the absurdity of even speculating on how the world would have actually developed without religion, it's just not a compelling argument. Like saying there would be no racism if everyone was the same color. Which part of religion was so essential to development of human race?
religion was needed to take control and financially benefit off the stupid masses of people who couldn't think for themselves.
think of religion as the first type of government.
think of it as the only institutional power form that survived the ages.
great tool for making ppl give money, follow and support blindly without any facts.
god i wish i could start my own religion like joseph smith !
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On August 26 2010 03:10 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 03:03 thesighter wrote:
Americans are against the building of the mosque becuase it is offensive to the 9/11 families .
How is it offensive to 9/11 families? It's a mosque, there's others like it in and around New York.
Some people, including Muslims themselves, feel that the building of the mosque will only result in further violence against Muslim people. While I, personally, hold no grudge against that particular religion, I do agree that it is needless, and dangerous to build a mosque in that particular location. You can't count on people to be smarter, or better than to do stuff like the guy that stabbed the cab driver. And things like that should be taken into consideration when building things like a mosque near the former target of a religious attack.
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Like I mention in the Mosque thread though, tolerance and acceptance has never been easily accepted by Americans. The Civil Rights movement was pretty much forced upon most of the country, and the same thing is happening for gays now. Hispanic and Muslim peoples are still screwed.
It's very well understood that discriminating someone for race, religion, orientation, etc is a bad thing. That's why we needed laws that force "illegal looking people" in Arizona to carry papers with them. This is why we need to associate a religion of 1.5 billion with terrorism so we can pressure a NY congregation to stop their building plans.
That's where the mosque wins though. People are powerless to stop its construction in a legal sense. Religious tolerance gets forced down their throats whether they like it or not. No one is expecting Park 51 to go completely without a hitch after the media over-exaggerated the story. Those that do cause problems will be outed for their bigotry, that's the best anyone can do at this point. Overcoverage of this story turned it into a civil rights issue, it was just another building beforehand.
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Sanya12364 Posts
A bit of semantics, but this is in no way forcing tolerance and acceptance on anyone. The level of tolerance and acceptance before and after the approval will be just about the same. Bigots still might attack Middle Easterners with the idea that they are somehow responsible for the tragedy. They still might vandalize the property of Middle Eastern facing businesses
The path to real tolerance and real acceptance will be ugly and it will always be ugly. Human beings are usually fearful of things that are foreign and unfamiliar. People have to get over their own barriers and reach a mutual understand and it always takes time.
Instead it's a question of whether or not we want to institutionalize discrimination through politics and law. This is about whether or not we want to legitimize discrimination and make the bigots feel righteous about it above and beyond the merits of their argument for discrimination, and thus it is even uglier than the process of achieving tolerance.
There are some cases of racial discrimination occurring natural like cabbies not stopping for black people in the inner city. Maybe it's racial prejudice, maybe they've been burned too many times by blacks, or maybe a combination of both. Regardless, cabbies know exactly why they are discriminating against black and it will cross their mind every time they do. What the cabbies don't do is chuck it up to the fact that there is a law supporting their behavior.
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EPT
