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Neighbors of these people have told the media that parking disputes are common and that this guy Hicks was basically an asshole who was always getting into angry arguments with neighbors over dumb stuff.
I don't think hating Muslims was the main factor - guy seems like he was a bomb waiting to go off eventually and inevitably. Angry and hostile internet atheism is probably something he was drawn to because he was already a rage-filled asshole, it probably didn't turn him into one. These 3 had also apparently been arguing with him over parking for some time. Wrap it all up together and their being Muslim almost certainly had something to do with his decision to go ahead and kill them, but I think if they were evangelical Christians he probably would have gone off the same way and shot them. He seems like a very equal-opportunity hater when it comes to religions.
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i discovered i have a crazy neighbour like this, he didn't like me putting the bins on the other side of the road so he chucked them over our garden , raged at me when i came out and said hes gonna beat me up, so i said fucking come on and grabbed the knife i had nearby (i was at my house front door), then he said hes gonna get a weapon and come back..... fucking animals
he shouldnt have caught me between dota games , would have gotten stabbed (well i probably would have gotten stabbed)
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On February 13 2015 03:54 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 03:47 Dangermousecatdog wrote: There are millions who call themselves Muslim. They all think they are the real Muslims. That's actually kinda the problem with what's happening today. Actually there are 1.6 billion Muslims on earth. It's the second largest religion after Christianity. There are 162 million muslims living in India alone (double Germany's population). India, the world's largest democracy. If every Muslim or if "all real" Muslims were like this guy described, the world would be a terrible terrible place. Well, the world isn't that beautiful, actually.
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I honestly believe most people who say they are Christian or Muslim are Theists and more of them are Atheist just don't say it publicly. It's weird how Even though they say in this country of America most people are Christian, I don't meet many of them?
I honestly think most of these stats are off when people say they are or aren't of a certain type. Same goes for Muslim and not. I believe Atheism is probably the most common thing that people are in the world.
I've met plenty of people who are "Muslim" because they have to be rather than really are.
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I believe Atheism is probably the most common thing that people are in the world.
It isn't. It's the least actually.
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i think humans are naturally "believers", they'll believe whatever they're brought up with study of belief must be a fantastic topic
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So, SixStrings just single-handedly transformed a thread about three muslims getting killed into another thread of attacking/defending Islam. But don't worry, that's not trolling or anything, it's a logical stream of thought. For example, last time I saw a skater get hit by a car, the first thing that came to my mind was how skaters are often tagging the walls of the city and being a general annoyance, so that's what I said to everyone at the scene.
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The discussion more idiotic than a discussion heavily influenced by the likes of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens is a discussion of what makes a "true" Muslim. Double idiotic if it is non-Muslims trying to do it.
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On February 13 2015 04:34 SixStrings wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 04:22 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 04:04 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:02 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 03:47 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 03:37 koreasilver wrote:On February 13 2015 03:07 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 02:54 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 02:27 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 02:00 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Kind of ironic considering that Muslims in USA tend to be well off, middle class, well integrated, moderate people, whilst the ones in Europe tend to be poor, insular and extreme. That's not always the case. In Germany, a lot of the Turks are rather well off and well integrated. It's the real Muslims, i. e. those who refuse to integrate with kafirs and insist on Sharia law, who are having trouble. I'm a real Muslim. I'm an American citizen, I pay my taxes, I obey the laws of my governments, all my friends are "Kafirs" and I don't insist on any kind of law other than the law of the land. I have a high paying banking job and am doing just fine in life. You have a very unfortunate understanding of Islam, my friend. I'm sure your case is very common for many millions of Muslims around the world and if every religious person behaved in such a fashion, we'd all be better for it. Too bad it's exactly the opposite of what your scripture teaches. I meant 'real Muslim' as in 'living according to scripture'. I never knew you were a scholar of Islam. Under which school of theology did you study, and what are your principles of exegesis? Please, won't you enlighten me? Do teach me the mental gymnastics I have to do to interpret the misadventures of the warmongering, pillaging child-rapist, whose highest ambition it is to convert, and kill those he can't convert, as the 'religion of piece'. When you're done, I'll tell you how you can interpret the story of Lot and his daughters as a tale of two pro-active feminists. Your problem is that you take the most radical, fanatical, extreme people and assume that 1.6 billion of us all think the same way. It would be like saying all 2 billion Christians are backwards hicks who demonstrate at soldiers' funerals and hate gays. It's so easy to say "real Muslims who practice sharia law etc. etc." and refer to scripture. But the vast majority of Muslims do not follow scripture to the letter,the same exact way that most Christians and Jews do not follow their scripture to the letter. Do you mean to tell me that all real Christians abstain from sex until marriage? That they never have impure thoughts? Do you want to tell me that no real Jews eat bacon? Please... No, that's my point exactly. What's the common denominator of all Muslims? Or of all Christians? Or Jews? Scripture. Holy books. Except that a large majority of religious people cherrypick the things that are nice about scripture. Well, great, but then it's not a holy book. They're just having intellectual input, like reading Kant or Nietzsche. And then reading scripture doesn't make them any more religious than reading any other piece of literature does. I can read the bible, and I can say: 'Well, do unto others, that's a good idea, I'll subscribe to that.' Because I decide it's a good idea. That doesn't make me Christian, I cherrypicked one nice aspect about the New Testament. So your point about all "real" Muslims being terrible people is moot because one could argue that all "real" Christians are terrible people as well. That doesn't make my point moot, that IS my point. If people were true to their faith, and I do mean Christians just as much as Muslims, the world would be a terrible place. That's because the bible is a horrid guideline, as much as the Qu'ran. But if you don't live by either, why would you call yourself a Muslim / Christian? Because you cherrypick the nice things about it? That makes you enlightened, not religious. I'll stop replying here now, because I really don't want to make anyone think I condone this terrible incident and I know I'm getting perilously close to that.
What does being true to your faith look like? It's kind of ironic that a lot of anti-theists don't shut up about how much they value rational thought and logic, but when religions apply that to their texts they are condemned as "cherry picking" for not taking it at face value. What a farce. Please tell me, what does a "real christian" look like then? You'll probably tell me that we should stone adulterers, you know, because you haven't read the whole book, and can't apply simple reasoning to john 8: 7.
It's just a convenient way to not challenge their own deep settled beliefs. Its far more comfortable that any moderate, and probably intelligent, religious person is not a "real" follower, therefore they can dismiss what they say as cherry picking. It makes life much more comfortable to rationalize excusing themselves from engaging what so ever with what the large majority of what followers believe, extremists provide the ultimate straw man for anti-theists to cling on to, only arguing in their mind with such extremes.
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On February 13 2015 17:01 UdderChaos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 04:34 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:22 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 04:04 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:02 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 03:47 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 03:37 koreasilver wrote:On February 13 2015 03:07 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 02:54 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 02:27 SixStrings wrote: [quote]
That's not always the case. In Germany, a lot of the Turks are rather well off and well integrated.
It's the real Muslims, i. e. those who refuse to integrate with kafirs and insist on Sharia law, who are having trouble. I'm a real Muslim. I'm an American citizen, I pay my taxes, I obey the laws of my governments, all my friends are "Kafirs" and I don't insist on any kind of law other than the law of the land. I have a high paying banking job and am doing just fine in life. You have a very unfortunate understanding of Islam, my friend. I'm sure your case is very common for many millions of Muslims around the world and if every religious person behaved in such a fashion, we'd all be better for it. Too bad it's exactly the opposite of what your scripture teaches. I meant 'real Muslim' as in 'living according to scripture'. I never knew you were a scholar of Islam. Under which school of theology did you study, and what are your principles of exegesis? Please, won't you enlighten me? Do teach me the mental gymnastics I have to do to interpret the misadventures of the warmongering, pillaging child-rapist, whose highest ambition it is to convert, and kill those he can't convert, as the 'religion of piece'. When you're done, I'll tell you how you can interpret the story of Lot and his daughters as a tale of two pro-active feminists. Your problem is that you take the most radical, fanatical, extreme people and assume that 1.6 billion of us all think the same way. It would be like saying all 2 billion Christians are backwards hicks who demonstrate at soldiers' funerals and hate gays. It's so easy to say "real Muslims who practice sharia law etc. etc." and refer to scripture. But the vast majority of Muslims do not follow scripture to the letter,the same exact way that most Christians and Jews do not follow their scripture to the letter. Do you mean to tell me that all real Christians abstain from sex until marriage? That they never have impure thoughts? Do you want to tell me that no real Jews eat bacon? Please... No, that's my point exactly. What's the common denominator of all Muslims? Or of all Christians? Or Jews? Scripture. Holy books. Except that a large majority of religious people cherrypick the things that are nice about scripture. Well, great, but then it's not a holy book. They're just having intellectual input, like reading Kant or Nietzsche. And then reading scripture doesn't make them any more religious than reading any other piece of literature does. I can read the bible, and I can say: 'Well, do unto others, that's a good idea, I'll subscribe to that.' Because I decide it's a good idea. That doesn't make me Christian, I cherrypicked one nice aspect about the New Testament. So your point about all "real" Muslims being terrible people is moot because one could argue that all "real" Christians are terrible people as well. That doesn't make my point moot, that IS my point. If people were true to their faith, and I do mean Christians just as much as Muslims, the world would be a terrible place. That's because the bible is a horrid guideline, as much as the Qu'ran. But if you don't live by either, why would you call yourself a Muslim / Christian? Because you cherrypick the nice things about it? That makes you enlightened, not religious. I'll stop replying here now, because I really don't want to make anyone think I condone this terrible incident and I know I'm getting perilously close to that. What does being true to your faith look like? It's kind of ironic that a lot of anti-theists don't shut up about how much they value rational thought and logic, but when religions apply that to their texts they are condemned as "cherry picking" for not taking it at face value. What a farce. Please tell me, what does a "real christian" look like then? You'll probably tell me that we should stone adulterers, you know, because you haven't read the whole book, and can't apply simple reasoning to john 8: 7. It's just a convenient way to not challenge their own deep settled beliefs. Its far more comfortable that any moderate, and probably intelligent, religious person is not a "real" follower, therefore they can dismiss what they say as cherry picking. It makes life much more comfortable to rationalize excusing themselves from engaging what so ever with what the large majority of what followers believe, extremists provide the ultimate straw man for anti-theists to cling on to, only arguing in their mind with such extremes. He clearly has no idea how religious people actually operate or how the interpretation of religious texts as literal is a modern phenomena. Best to leave him to his stilted characterizations.
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tragic, but all evidence from the investigation points towards him being the quintessential shithead crazy neighbor who snapped. Engaging in violence against a person of another race or religion does not automatically make it into a hate crime. All of his neighbors described him as a psycho who regularly fought with them over neighbor things.
Of course, the media is desperately trying to tie it race since controversy sells a lot better.
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On February 13 2015 23:29 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 17:01 UdderChaos wrote:On February 13 2015 04:34 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:22 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 04:04 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:02 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 03:47 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 03:37 koreasilver wrote:On February 13 2015 03:07 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 02:54 DinoMight wrote: [quote]
I'm a real Muslim. I'm an American citizen, I pay my taxes, I obey the laws of my governments, all my friends are "Kafirs" and I don't insist on any kind of law other than the law of the land. I have a high paying banking job and am doing just fine in life.
You have a very unfortunate understanding of Islam, my friend.
I'm sure your case is very common for many millions of Muslims around the world and if every religious person behaved in such a fashion, we'd all be better for it. Too bad it's exactly the opposite of what your scripture teaches. I meant 'real Muslim' as in 'living according to scripture'. I never knew you were a scholar of Islam. Under which school of theology did you study, and what are your principles of exegesis? Please, won't you enlighten me? Do teach me the mental gymnastics I have to do to interpret the misadventures of the warmongering, pillaging child-rapist, whose highest ambition it is to convert, and kill those he can't convert, as the 'religion of piece'. When you're done, I'll tell you how you can interpret the story of Lot and his daughters as a tale of two pro-active feminists. Your problem is that you take the most radical, fanatical, extreme people and assume that 1.6 billion of us all think the same way. It would be like saying all 2 billion Christians are backwards hicks who demonstrate at soldiers' funerals and hate gays. It's so easy to say "real Muslims who practice sharia law etc. etc." and refer to scripture. But the vast majority of Muslims do not follow scripture to the letter,the same exact way that most Christians and Jews do not follow their scripture to the letter. Do you mean to tell me that all real Christians abstain from sex until marriage? That they never have impure thoughts? Do you want to tell me that no real Jews eat bacon? Please... No, that's my point exactly. What's the common denominator of all Muslims? Or of all Christians? Or Jews? Scripture. Holy books. Except that a large majority of religious people cherrypick the things that are nice about scripture. Well, great, but then it's not a holy book. They're just having intellectual input, like reading Kant or Nietzsche. And then reading scripture doesn't make them any more religious than reading any other piece of literature does. I can read the bible, and I can say: 'Well, do unto others, that's a good idea, I'll subscribe to that.' Because I decide it's a good idea. That doesn't make me Christian, I cherrypicked one nice aspect about the New Testament. So your point about all "real" Muslims being terrible people is moot because one could argue that all "real" Christians are terrible people as well. That doesn't make my point moot, that IS my point. If people were true to their faith, and I do mean Christians just as much as Muslims, the world would be a terrible place. That's because the bible is a horrid guideline, as much as the Qu'ran. But if you don't live by either, why would you call yourself a Muslim / Christian? Because you cherrypick the nice things about it? That makes you enlightened, not religious. I'll stop replying here now, because I really don't want to make anyone think I condone this terrible incident and I know I'm getting perilously close to that. What does being true to your faith look like? It's kind of ironic that a lot of anti-theists don't shut up about how much they value rational thought and logic, but when religions apply that to their texts they are condemned as "cherry picking" for not taking it at face value. What a farce. Please tell me, what does a "real christian" look like then? You'll probably tell me that we should stone adulterers, you know, because you haven't read the whole book, and can't apply simple reasoning to john 8: 7. It's just a convenient way to not challenge their own deep settled beliefs. Its far more comfortable that any moderate, and probably intelligent, religious person is not a "real" follower, therefore they can dismiss what they say as cherry picking. It makes life much more comfortable to rationalize excusing themselves from engaging what so ever with what the large majority of what followers believe, extremists provide the ultimate straw man for anti-theists to cling on to, only arguing in their mind with such extremes. He clearly has no idea how religious people actually operate or how the interpretation of religious texts as literal is a modern phenomena. Best to leave him to his stilted characterizations.
In fact the 'literal' argument doesn't really hold weight. For example Mathew 5:39 can only be interpreted one way, if you take the bible literally how can you read that verse and then go and cause harm? They aren't real Christians or interpreting it literally, they are just bad people.
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France9034 Posts
On February 13 2015 04:34 SixStrings wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 04:22 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 04:04 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:02 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 03:47 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 03:37 koreasilver wrote:On February 13 2015 03:07 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 02:54 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 02:27 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 02:00 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Kind of ironic considering that Muslims in USA tend to be well off, middle class, well integrated, moderate people, whilst the ones in Europe tend to be poor, insular and extreme. That's not always the case. In Germany, a lot of the Turks are rather well off and well integrated. It's the real Muslims, i. e. those who refuse to integrate with kafirs and insist on Sharia law, who are having trouble. I'm a real Muslim. I'm an American citizen, I pay my taxes, I obey the laws of my governments, all my friends are "Kafirs" and I don't insist on any kind of law other than the law of the land. I have a high paying banking job and am doing just fine in life. You have a very unfortunate understanding of Islam, my friend. I'm sure your case is very common for many millions of Muslims around the world and if every religious person behaved in such a fashion, we'd all be better for it. Too bad it's exactly the opposite of what your scripture teaches. I meant 'real Muslim' as in 'living according to scripture'. I never knew you were a scholar of Islam. Under which school of theology did you study, and what are your principles of exegesis? Please, won't you enlighten me? Do teach me the mental gymnastics I have to do to interpret the misadventures of the warmongering, pillaging child-rapist, whose highest ambition it is to convert, and kill those he can't convert, as the 'religion of piece'. When you're done, I'll tell you how you can interpret the story of Lot and his daughters as a tale of two pro-active feminists. Your problem is that you take the most radical, fanatical, extreme people and assume that 1.6 billion of us all think the same way. It would be like saying all 2 billion Christians are backwards hicks who demonstrate at soldiers' funerals and hate gays. It's so easy to say "real Muslims who practice sharia law etc. etc." and refer to scripture. But the vast majority of Muslims do not follow scripture to the letter,the same exact way that most Christians and Jews do not follow their scripture to the letter. Do you mean to tell me that all real Christians abstain from sex until marriage? That they never have impure thoughts? Do you want to tell me that no real Jews eat bacon? Please... No, that's my point exactly. What's the common denominator of all Muslims? Or of all Christians? Or Jews? Scripture. Holy books. Except that a large majority of religious people cherrypick the things that are nice about scripture. Well, great, but then it's not a holy book. They're just having intellectual input, like reading Kant or Nietzsche. And then reading scripture doesn't make them any more religious than reading any other piece of literature does. I can read the bible, and I can say: 'Well, do unto others, that's a good idea, I'll subscribe to that.' Because I decide it's a good idea. That doesn't make me Christian, I cherrypicked one nice aspect about the New Testament. So your point about all "real" Muslims being terrible people is moot because one could argue that all "real" Christians are terrible people as well. That doesn't make my point moot, that IS my point. If people were true to their faith, and I do mean Christians just as much as Muslims, the world would be a terrible place. That's because the bible is a horrid guideline, as much as the Qu'ran. But if you don't live by either, why would you call yourself a Muslim / Christian? Because you cherrypick the nice things about it? That makes you enlightened, not religious. I'll stop replying here now, because I really don't want to make anyone think I condone this terrible incident and I know I'm getting perilously close to that.
I think you misunderstood what religion is about. The key word is "interpretation". As religion is (mostly) based on faith, i.e. believe in something/someone, which you can't "prove" exist, there is necessarily some kind of interpretation somewhere. E.g.: Some christians don't believe that the genesis happened exactly the way it's written in the bible, some do. Sometimes inside the same community. They still are christians, they both believe in the same god and in the same book. The former aren't just "enlightened" nor the latter are just "religious".
The world would be a terrible place not if they were all "true to their faith", but rather "if their faith was based on the most extreme interpretation of those books". Which isn't the case, thank god (There aren't 1.6 billion jihadist in the world, nor there is 2.3 billion Anders Behring Breivik or KKK members in the world either...)
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On February 13 2015 23:48 UdderChaos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 23:29 farvacola wrote:On February 13 2015 17:01 UdderChaos wrote:On February 13 2015 04:34 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:22 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 04:04 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:02 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 03:47 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 03:37 koreasilver wrote:On February 13 2015 03:07 SixStrings wrote: [quote]
I'm sure your case is very common for many millions of Muslims around the world and if every religious person behaved in such a fashion, we'd all be better for it.
Too bad it's exactly the opposite of what your scripture teaches.
I meant 'real Muslim' as in 'living according to scripture'.
I never knew you were a scholar of Islam. Under which school of theology did you study, and what are your principles of exegesis? Please, won't you enlighten me? Do teach me the mental gymnastics I have to do to interpret the misadventures of the warmongering, pillaging child-rapist, whose highest ambition it is to convert, and kill those he can't convert, as the 'religion of piece'. When you're done, I'll tell you how you can interpret the story of Lot and his daughters as a tale of two pro-active feminists. Your problem is that you take the most radical, fanatical, extreme people and assume that 1.6 billion of us all think the same way. It would be like saying all 2 billion Christians are backwards hicks who demonstrate at soldiers' funerals and hate gays. It's so easy to say "real Muslims who practice sharia law etc. etc." and refer to scripture. But the vast majority of Muslims do not follow scripture to the letter,the same exact way that most Christians and Jews do not follow their scripture to the letter. Do you mean to tell me that all real Christians abstain from sex until marriage? That they never have impure thoughts? Do you want to tell me that no real Jews eat bacon? Please... No, that's my point exactly. What's the common denominator of all Muslims? Or of all Christians? Or Jews? Scripture. Holy books. Except that a large majority of religious people cherrypick the things that are nice about scripture. Well, great, but then it's not a holy book. They're just having intellectual input, like reading Kant or Nietzsche. And then reading scripture doesn't make them any more religious than reading any other piece of literature does. I can read the bible, and I can say: 'Well, do unto others, that's a good idea, I'll subscribe to that.' Because I decide it's a good idea. That doesn't make me Christian, I cherrypicked one nice aspect about the New Testament. So your point about all "real" Muslims being terrible people is moot because one could argue that all "real" Christians are terrible people as well. That doesn't make my point moot, that IS my point. If people were true to their faith, and I do mean Christians just as much as Muslims, the world would be a terrible place. That's because the bible is a horrid guideline, as much as the Qu'ran. But if you don't live by either, why would you call yourself a Muslim / Christian? Because you cherrypick the nice things about it? That makes you enlightened, not religious. I'll stop replying here now, because I really don't want to make anyone think I condone this terrible incident and I know I'm getting perilously close to that. What does being true to your faith look like? It's kind of ironic that a lot of anti-theists don't shut up about how much they value rational thought and logic, but when religions apply that to their texts they are condemned as "cherry picking" for not taking it at face value. What a farce. Please tell me, what does a "real christian" look like then? You'll probably tell me that we should stone adulterers, you know, because you haven't read the whole book, and can't apply simple reasoning to john 8: 7. It's just a convenient way to not challenge their own deep settled beliefs. Its far more comfortable that any moderate, and probably intelligent, religious person is not a "real" follower, therefore they can dismiss what they say as cherry picking. It makes life much more comfortable to rationalize excusing themselves from engaging what so ever with what the large majority of what followers believe, extremists provide the ultimate straw man for anti-theists to cling on to, only arguing in their mind with such extremes. He clearly has no idea how religious people actually operate or how the interpretation of religious texts as literal is a modern phenomena. Best to leave him to his stilted characterizations. In fact the 'literal' argument doesn't really hold weight. For example Mathew 5:39 can only be interpreted one way, if you take the bible literally how can you read that verse and then go and cause harm? They aren't real Christians or interpreting it literally, they are just bad people.
I will say, at least in my personal experience, it is really quite startling how many people call themselves religious but don't engage with their faith at all. I have never been religious, but I dated a girl in college who's family was, and she dragged me to church a couple of times. 10 minutes into the guy's sermon, which I thought was pretty good and tackled some interesting topics, and I look around and notice I am literally the only person paying attention. It seems like, for at least some people, religion can be part of their identity; "I am a Christian," without it actually being a meaningful part of their life, and I find that a little strange.
Especially when the people in that church would immediately turn around and call Obama a Muslim (this was in 2008)...it's like "Wow, you really aren't listening to this at all, are you?"
And there is a small part of the religious population, but it is big enough, that twists what are beautiful teaching documents to suit their hurtful and sometimes violent agenda. You see it with bigoted Christians in the U.S., and you see it with fundamentalist Muslims the world over. It's a shame, because these faulty interpretations have completely turned me off to religion, and I fear for the future if these factions are allowed to grow.
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On February 14 2015 00:03 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 23:48 UdderChaos wrote:On February 13 2015 23:29 farvacola wrote:On February 13 2015 17:01 UdderChaos wrote:On February 13 2015 04:34 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:22 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 04:04 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 04:02 DinoMight wrote:On February 13 2015 03:47 SixStrings wrote:On February 13 2015 03:37 koreasilver wrote: [quote] I never knew you were a scholar of Islam. Under which school of theology did you study, and what are your principles of exegesis? Please, won't you enlighten me? Do teach me the mental gymnastics I have to do to interpret the misadventures of the warmongering, pillaging child-rapist, whose highest ambition it is to convert, and kill those he can't convert, as the 'religion of piece'. When you're done, I'll tell you how you can interpret the story of Lot and his daughters as a tale of two pro-active feminists. Your problem is that you take the most radical, fanatical, extreme people and assume that 1.6 billion of us all think the same way. It would be like saying all 2 billion Christians are backwards hicks who demonstrate at soldiers' funerals and hate gays. It's so easy to say "real Muslims who practice sharia law etc. etc." and refer to scripture. But the vast majority of Muslims do not follow scripture to the letter,the same exact way that most Christians and Jews do not follow their scripture to the letter. Do you mean to tell me that all real Christians abstain from sex until marriage? That they never have impure thoughts? Do you want to tell me that no real Jews eat bacon? Please... No, that's my point exactly. What's the common denominator of all Muslims? Or of all Christians? Or Jews? Scripture. Holy books. Except that a large majority of religious people cherrypick the things that are nice about scripture. Well, great, but then it's not a holy book. They're just having intellectual input, like reading Kant or Nietzsche. And then reading scripture doesn't make them any more religious than reading any other piece of literature does. I can read the bible, and I can say: 'Well, do unto others, that's a good idea, I'll subscribe to that.' Because I decide it's a good idea. That doesn't make me Christian, I cherrypicked one nice aspect about the New Testament. So your point about all "real" Muslims being terrible people is moot because one could argue that all "real" Christians are terrible people as well. That doesn't make my point moot, that IS my point. If people were true to their faith, and I do mean Christians just as much as Muslims, the world would be a terrible place. That's because the bible is a horrid guideline, as much as the Qu'ran. But if you don't live by either, why would you call yourself a Muslim / Christian? Because you cherrypick the nice things about it? That makes you enlightened, not religious. I'll stop replying here now, because I really don't want to make anyone think I condone this terrible incident and I know I'm getting perilously close to that. What does being true to your faith look like? It's kind of ironic that a lot of anti-theists don't shut up about how much they value rational thought and logic, but when religions apply that to their texts they are condemned as "cherry picking" for not taking it at face value. What a farce. Please tell me, what does a "real christian" look like then? You'll probably tell me that we should stone adulterers, you know, because you haven't read the whole book, and can't apply simple reasoning to john 8: 7. It's just a convenient way to not challenge their own deep settled beliefs. Its far more comfortable that any moderate, and probably intelligent, religious person is not a "real" follower, therefore they can dismiss what they say as cherry picking. It makes life much more comfortable to rationalize excusing themselves from engaging what so ever with what the large majority of what followers believe, extremists provide the ultimate straw man for anti-theists to cling on to, only arguing in their mind with such extremes. He clearly has no idea how religious people actually operate or how the interpretation of religious texts as literal is a modern phenomena. Best to leave him to his stilted characterizations. In fact the 'literal' argument doesn't really hold weight. For example Mathew 5:39 can only be interpreted one way, if you take the bible literally how can you read that verse and then go and cause harm? They aren't real Christians or interpreting it literally, they are just bad people. I will say, at least in my personal experience, it is really quite startling how many people call themselves religious but don't engage with their faith at all. I have never been religious, but I dated a girl in college who's family was, and she dragged me to church a couple of times. 10 minutes into the guy's sermon, which I thought was pretty good and tackled some interesting topics, and I look around and notice I am literally the only person paying attention. It seems like, for at least some people, religion can be part of their identity; "I am a Christian," without it actually being a meaningful part of their life, and I find that a little strange. Especially when the people in that church would immediately turn around and call Obama a Muslim (this was in 2008)...it's like "Wow, you really aren't listening to this at all, are you?" And there is a small part of the religious population, but it is big enough, that twists what are beautiful teaching documents to suit their hurtful and sometimes violent agenda. You see it with bigoted Christians in the U.S., and you see it with fundamentalist Muslims the world over. It's a shame, because these faulty interpretations have completely turned me off to religion, and I fear for the future if these factions are allowed to grow. Personally I think that to be truly religious, you have to, at least, be well educated and as you said, many people who call themselves Muslims or Christians are just... believers in God that haven't put too much thought into their believes. Most believe in God but it's also a bit like a superstition that they don't really understand. Moreover, as they tend not to abide by the teachings, they feel guilty (which adds to the superstition) and become defensive when non-religious people call them out. And I agree, at its core most cults are cults of peace and love (even if they tend to discriminate people) but they are always twisted to the point that the love and peace aren't primordial anymore.
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On February 13 2015 23:45 QuanticHawk wrote: tragic, but all evidence from the investigation points towards him being the quintessential shithead crazy neighbor who snapped. Engaging in violence against a person of another race or religion does not automatically make it into a hate crime. All of his neighbors described him as a psycho who regularly fought with them over neighbor things.
Of course, the media is desperately trying to tie it race since controversy sells a lot better.
It's seems clear the guy was a jerk. I think the question is why after all of the other arguments and such did this particular incident turn into executing 3 young adults.
I'm also terribly curious why he turned himself in.
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On February 14 2015 05:19 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 23:45 QuanticHawk wrote: tragic, but all evidence from the investigation points towards him being the quintessential shithead crazy neighbor who snapped. Engaging in violence against a person of another race or religion does not automatically make it into a hate crime. All of his neighbors described him as a psycho who regularly fought with them over neighbor things.
Of course, the media is desperately trying to tie it race since controversy sells a lot better. It's seems clear the guy was a jerk. I think the question is why after all of the other arguments and such did this particular incident turn into executing 3 young adults. I'm also terribly curious why he turned himself in.
It sounds a lot like those lone radicals that have been coming up a lot. They're crazies who would do stuff anyways but just use religion (or hatred of religion) as an excuse.
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On February 13 2015 01:11 SixStrings wrote:Why would this even make (inter) national news? If every murder in the US was reported in international media, we would get spammed more than once per hour. Before I get banned, according to wikipedia, there have been 14,827 murders in the USA in 2012. That's like 40 a day. Slightly less than in North Korea, like 10% less, twice as many murders per capita than Syria. Almost five times as many Czech Republic. So just cool it with the conspiracy theories. This wasn't 'covered up' because of the Muslim targets, it's just too common an occurance to report it. €: WTF happens in D. C.? From 2001-2005 it had like ten times the national average homicide rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rateAre executions ... executed in the capitol? Or how else can you explain that? This just in, a country with a population of 319 million has nearly as many murders as a country with a population of 25 million. More on this shocking fact at 11. Now back to you, Tom.
More than 40 people per day are dying in the Syrian Civil War. The Czech Republic is a largely homogenous country with a population of 10 million. Also, D.C. is a rough city. I'm honestly surprised that you're shocked by any of this.
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On February 25 2015 00:58 iVLosK! wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2015 01:11 SixStrings wrote:Why would this even make (inter) national news? If every murder in the US was reported in international media, we would get spammed more than once per hour. Before I get banned, according to wikipedia, there have been 14,827 murders in the USA in 2012. That's like 40 a day. Slightly less than in North Korea, like 10% less, twice as many murders per capita than Syria. Almost five times as many Czech Republic. So just cool it with the conspiracy theories. This wasn't 'covered up' because of the Muslim targets, it's just too common an occurance to report it. €: WTF happens in D. C.? From 2001-2005 it had like ten times the national average homicide rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rateAre executions ... executed in the capitol? Or how else can you explain that? This just in, a country with a population of 319 million has nearly as many murders as a country with a population of 25 million. More on this shocking fact at 11. Now back to you, Tom. More than 40 people per day are dying in the Syrian Civil War. The Czech Republic is a largely homogenous country with a population of 10 million. Also, D.C. is a rough city. I'm honestly surprised that you're shocked by any of this. although sixstrings post was badly worded, he may have been talking about the rate per capita. Also, your description of DC as a rough city doesn't really address that the rate has been higher for some isolated period of time. (i couldn't find that information in the wiki at all though..)
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On February 25 2015 01:12 Yorbon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2015 00:58 iVLosK! wrote:On February 13 2015 01:11 SixStrings wrote:Why would this even make (inter) national news? If every murder in the US was reported in international media, we would get spammed more than once per hour. Before I get banned, according to wikipedia, there have been 14,827 murders in the USA in 2012. That's like 40 a day. Slightly less than in North Korea, like 10% less, twice as many murders per capita than Syria. Almost five times as many Czech Republic. So just cool it with the conspiracy theories. This wasn't 'covered up' because of the Muslim targets, it's just too common an occurance to report it. €: WTF happens in D. C.? From 2001-2005 it had like ten times the national average homicide rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rateAre executions ... executed in the capitol? Or how else can you explain that? This just in, a country with a population of 319 million has nearly as many murders as a country with a population of 25 million. More on this shocking fact at 11. Now back to you, Tom. More than 40 people per day are dying in the Syrian Civil War. The Czech Republic is a largely homogenous country with a population of 10 million. Also, D.C. is a rough city. I'm honestly surprised that you're shocked by any of this. although sixstrings post was badly worded, he may have been talking about the rate per capita. Also, your description of DC as a rough city doesn't really address that the rate has been higher for some isolated period of time. (i couldn't find that information in the wiki at all though..) Washington D.C. is a uniquely American place in terms of socio-political trends and its extreme class-based geographic stratification. There are parts of D.C. that look like a city under an artillery barrage; drive 5 miles and all of a sudden you're moving through the Brownstone apartments of diplomats and U.S. Attorneys.
To put it another way, the then mayor of D.C., Marion Barry, was caught smoking crack on video tape in 1990. He was re-elected as Mayor of D.C. in 1994
In my opinion, non-Americans who have a hard time understanding how things like violence are more of a problem here should look to places like the D.C. Metropolitan Area, as it stands as a good example of how U.S. cities look and feel rather different than their European or Asian counterparts when it comes to geography and interconnectedness (or lack thereof).
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