Muslins WTF.

[Chuck Jones]

Some generalizations are stupid. Like generalizing about muslims being terrorists. It's an excuse used by some atheists to attack religion. It's a cheap shot. The vast majority of muslims aren't that way inclined, just as the vast majority of atheists have a little more common sense than to tar all or most muslims with the same brush, and then rambling on about how generalizations are useful. Of course they're useful, but some are plain stupid and cause unnecessary division.

The thing is, the Muslims who don't practise and preach hatred of the infidel are by definition not very good Muslims according to the Qur'an. They have cherry-picked bits of the book to suit themselves, much as the moderate Christian picks bits from the Bible to suite they way they want to live, and avoids the requisite unpleasantness demanded by their equally vile tome.

So it seems that they're muslims when you want to criticise the bits of their religion which you find disagreeable, and suddenly they're not muslims when you want to accuse them of being hypocrites for not going along with those aspects of the religion or don't agree with those who do certain things in its name. If you can't make up your mind then you have no entitlement to an opinion

[Thinking Aloud]

I don't think that's what was said at all. "Muslims" and "not very good Muslims". I don't see "not Muslims" in there at all.

[Robert_S]

Some generalizations are stupid. Like generalizing about muslims being terrorists. It's an excuse used by some atheists to attack religion. It's a cheap shot. The vast majority of muslims aren't that way inclined, just as the vast majority of atheists have a little more common sense than to tar all or most muslims with the same brush, and then rambling on about how generalizations are useful. Of course they're useful, but some are plain stupid and cause unnecessary division.

The thing is, the Muslims who don't practise and preach hatred of the infidel are by definition not very good Muslims according to the Qur'an. They have cherry-picked bits of the book to suit themselves, much as the moderate Christian picks bits from the Bible to suite they way they want to live, and avoids the requisite unpleasantness demanded by their equally vile tome.

So it seems that they're muslims when you want to criticise the bits of their religion which you find disagreeable, and suddenly they're not muslims when you want to accuse them of being hypocrites for not going along with those aspects of the religion or don't agree with those who do certain things in its name. If you can't make up your mind then you have no entitlement to an opinion

Subscribing to a religion whose sacred text has instructions to do horrible things is bad.
Not following those instructions is a good thing, but they're still distributing and glorifying that book, which is hypocritical at best.
Of course some will do things even more horrible than what their book instructs, which is worse.

[Chuck Jones]

No no, doing bad things is bad. Reading a book which happens to have instructions (or, what could be construed by bad people as instructions) to do bad things, as well as contining good things which you agree with, is not bad. Being a part or a member of something in which some people have malevolent views isn't a bad thing. Tarring everyone with the same brush and using the baddies as an excuse to do so is bad. The baddies within islam not only give the good people a bad name, but they also have very easily managed to manipulate other people (ie some atheists, and christians, and others) to form a negative view of all muslims. You've simply fallen for the propaganda. In fact anybody at all who already has it in for religious people will quite happily allow themselves to be manipulated that way.

[Tigger]

Some generalizations are stupid. Like generalizing about muslims being terrorists. It's an excuse used by some atheists to attack religion. It's a cheap shot. The vast majority of muslims aren't that way inclined, just as the vast majority of atheists have a little more common sense than to tar all or most muslims with the same brush, and then rambling on about how generalizations are useful. Of course they're useful, but some are plain stupid and cause unnecessary division.

The thing is, the Muslims who don't practise and preach hatred of the infidel are by definition not very good Muslims according to the Qur'an. They have cherry-picked bits of the book to suit themselves, much as the moderate Christian picks bits from the Bible to suite they way they want to live, and avoids the requisite unpleasantness demanded by their equally vile tome.

So it seems that they're muslims when you want to criticise the bits of their religion which you find disagreeable, and suddenly they're not muslims when you want to accuse them of being hypocrites for not going along with those aspects of the religion or don't agree with those who do certain things in its name. If you can't make up your mind then you have no entitlement to an opinion

No, no, no. Not here, don't do that in here. In here, unlike your bible study class/church/wherever, you aren't allowed to misread and cherry pick what people write. Read it again, properly this time.

[Chuck Jones]

No. I've already read it.

[Tigger]

No. I've already read it.

I said read it properly. Not just bark at the text.

[JOZeldenrust]

Why should we judge a religion by its holy book? They aren't the same thing, even if the prevalent view among Muslims is that the Koran is the literal word of God.

[Chuck Jones]

They aren't the same thing. A religion is effectively a culture, and nobody would say that a culture is the contents of a book. The book is part of the religion, it isn't the whole of it. What a religion is effectively is determined by what occurs within it, and as everyobody knows, the vast majority of people in religions are decent enough people. So to judge a religion by cherry picking when it's convenient rather than looking at the whole is ignorance. Sometimes, some atheists do this. In order to attack religion, they create a strawman and attack that, and then equate the strawman with the entirity of the religion and the entirity of the behaviour of all the hundreds of millions of people in that religion, when that is not the case.

It's about as ignorant as me judging atheists and atheism by the works of Dawkins.

[FBM]

They aren't the same thing. A religion is effectively a culture, and nobody would say that a culture is the contents of a book. The book is part of the religion, it isn't the whole of it. What a religion is effectively is determined by what occurs within it, and as everyobody knows, the vast majority of people in religions are decent enough people. So to judge a religion by cherry picking when it's convenient rather than looking at the whole is ignorance. Sometimes, some atheists do this. In order to attack religion, they create a strawman and attack that, and then equate the strawman with the entirity of the religion and the entirity of the behaviour of all the hundreds of millions of people in that religion, when that is not the case.

There's a lot of truth in that, whether you're talking about religions, nationalities, football teams, politics, etc.

It's about as ignorant as me judging atheists and atheism by the works of Dawkins.

I agree that hasty generalizations are often distortions for convenience (and bias), and thus tend to exacerbate error and the original problem. Seems to me the more you specify particular individuals and particular behaviors, the more weight your argument carries. (Generic 'you' there.)

[Tigger]

They aren't the same thing. A religion is effectively a culture, and nobody would say that a culture is the contents of a book. The book is part of the religion, it isn't the whole of it. What a religion is effectively is determined by what occurs within it, and as everyobody knows, the vast majority of people in religions are decent enough people. So to judge a religion by cherry picking when it's convenient rather than looking at the whole is ignorance. Sometimes, some atheists do this. In order to attack religion, they create a strawman and attack that, and then equate the strawman with the entirity of the religion and the entirity of the behaviour of all the hundreds of millions of people in that religion, when that is not the case.

It's about as ignorant as me judging atheists and atheism by the works of Dawkins.

Atheists don't need to invent anything, let alone straw men or any other graven image for that matter. I leave that sky fairy lark and woo to others less able to get a handle on reality than me.

The one thing I regret about being an anti-theist, the one thing, is that I will never see the look of abject disappointment on the faces of the devout when they realise they have wasted a good part of their single existence here, if not all of it. And there I will end my contribution to this little bit, because I won't change your mind, you won't change mine, and I have better things to do like eat cheese/bacon. Good luck though, and may you get to wherever it is you want to get to.

You won't of course.

[Chuck Jones]

Not really, FBM. You have to look at the whole. I think I can confidently say that most religious people are decent folks, who are not extremists in any way. Also, the bible and koran, even if they have bits which can be (easily or otherwise) interpreted or construed as advocating anything malevolent or sinister, are mainly fairly common sense stuff, albeit with the assumption of a god built in. Most religious people who read their holy books are attracted to the parts which can be easily considered as good. If most religious people took seriously the "bad" bits, it would be very noticeable, given just how many hundreds of millions of them there are in the world.

[Chuck Jones]

They aren't the same thing. A religion is effectively a culture, and nobody would say that a culture is the contents of a book. The book is part of the religion, it isn't the whole of it. What a religion is effectively is determined by what occurs within it, and as everyobody knows, the vast majority of people in religions are decent enough people. So to judge a religion by cherry picking when it's convenient rather than looking at the whole is ignorance. Sometimes, some atheists do this. In order to attack religion, they create a strawman and attack that, and then equate the strawman with the entirity of the religion and the entirity of the behaviour of all the hundreds of millions of people in that religion, when that is not the case.

It's about as ignorant as me judging atheists and atheism by the works of Dawkins.

Atheists don't need to invent anything, let alone straw men or any other graven image for that matter. I leave that sky fairy lark and woo to others less able to get a handle on reality than me.

The one thing I regret about being an anti-theist, the one thing, is that I will never see the look of abject disappointment on the faces of the devout when they realise they have wasted a good part of their single existence here, if not all of it. And there I will end my contribution to this little bit, because I won't change your mind, you won't change mine, and I have better things to do like eat cheese/bacon. Good luck though, and may you get to wherever it is you want to get to.

You won't of course.

On the contrary, atheists (some of them) often invent strawmen revolving around the behaviour of a few individuals in order to attack the majority. The opening post of this thread is a classic example.

[Robert_S]

No no, doing bad things is bad. Reading a book which happens to have instructions (or, what could be construed by bad people as instructions) to do bad things, as well as contining good things which you agree with, is not bad. Being a part or a member of something in which some people have malevolent views isn't a bad thing. Tarring everyone with the same brush and using the baddies as an excuse to do so is bad. The baddies within islam not only give the good people a bad name, but they also have very easily managed to manipulate other people (ie some atheists, and christians, and others) to form a negative view of all muslims. You've simply fallen for the propaganda. In fact anybody at all who already has it in for religious people will quite happily allow themselves to be manipulated that way.

It is not just reading a book, it is praising as the word of God and distributing it. I know there are parts of the Koran that forbid the killing of non-combatants and I know the majority of Muslims do not condone terrorism, which is why I posted "Of course some will do things even more horrible than what their book instructs, which is worse."

But for what is in the Koran or whatever scripture any religion has, the followers bear some moral responsibility for the contents of it.

What I really hate about Islam in particular is that what I gather was a progressive book in 500 CE is frozen for all time as the final and perfect message from God. Women's rights, LGBT rights, apostate's rights, are all shit when it comes to the Koran.

They aren't the same thing. A religion is effectively a culture, and nobody would say that a culture is the contents of a book. The book is part of the religion, it isn't the whole of it. What a religion is effectively is determined by what occurs within it, and as everyobody knows, the vast majority of people in religions are decent enough people. So to judge a religion by cherry picking when it's convenient rather than looking at the whole is ignorance. Sometimes, some atheists do this. In order to attack religion, they create a strawman and attack that, and then equate the strawman with the entirity of the religion and the entirity of the behaviour of all the hundreds of millions of people in that religion, when that is not the case.

There's a lot of truth in that, whether you're talking about religions, nationalities, football teams, politics, etc.

It's about as ignorant as me judging atheists and atheism by the works of Dawkins.

I agree that hasty generalizations are often distortions for convenience (and bias), and thus tend to exacerbate error and the original problem. Seems to me the more you specify particular individuals and particular behaviors, the more weight your argument carries. (Generic 'you' there.)

The Koran is only part of Islam and Islam is part of what a person who is also a Muslim is. I would judge a person's religion, but I wouldn't judge a whole person based on their religion alone.

[Chuck Jones]

No no, doing bad things is bad. Reading a book which happens to have instructions (or, what could be construed by bad people as instructions) to do bad things, as well as contining good things which you agree with, is not bad. Being a part or a member of something in which some people have malevolent views isn't a bad thing. Tarring everyone with the same brush and using the baddies as an excuse to do so is bad. The baddies within islam not only give the good people a bad name, but they also have very easily managed to manipulate other people (ie some atheists, and christians, and others) to form a negative view of all muslims. You've simply fallen for the propaganda. In fact anybody at all who already has it in for religious people will quite happily allow themselves to be manipulated that way.

It is not just reading a book, it is praising as the word of God and distributing it. I know there are parts of the Koran that forbid the killing of non-combatants and I know the majority of Muslims do not condone terrorism, which is why I posted "Of course some will do things even more horrible than what their book instructs, which is worse."

But for what is in the Koran or whatever scripture any religion has, the followers bear some moral responsibility for the contents of it.

What I really hate about Islam in particular is that what I gather was a progressive book in 500 CE is frozen for all time as the final and perfect message from God. Women's rights, LGBT rights, apostate's rights, are all shit when it comes to the Koran.

They aren't the same thing. A religion is effectively a culture, and nobody would say that a culture is the contents of a book. The book is part of the religion, it isn't the whole of it. What a religion is effectively is determined by what occurs within it, and as everyobody knows, the vast majority of people in religions are decent enough people. So to judge a religion by cherry picking when it's convenient rather than looking at the whole is ignorance. Sometimes, some atheists do this. In order to attack religion, they create a strawman and attack that, and then equate the strawman with the entirity of the religion and the entirity of the behaviour of all the hundreds of millions of people in that religion, when that is not the case.

There's a lot of truth in that, whether you're talking about religions, nationalities, football teams, politics, etc.

It's about as ignorant as me judging atheists and atheism by the works of Dawkins.

I agree that hasty generalizations are often distortions for convenience (and bias), and thus tend to exacerbate error and the original problem. Seems to me the more you specify particular individuals and particular behaviors, the more weight your argument carries. (Generic 'you' there.)

The Koran is only part of Islam and Islam is part of what a person who is also a Muslim is. I would judge a person's religion, but I wouldn't judge a whole person based on their religion alone.

Strawman :

But for what is in the Koran or whatever scripture any religion has, the followers bear some moral responsibility for the contents of it.



No no. That's your opinion, and you're using it as an excuse to attack the majority. The responsibility lies with the author, not its readers. Otherwise, if you read a book by some atheist, and in it the author recommends violence or whatever, you'd be morally responsible for its contents, even if you don't buy the book, or read it all, or even agree with every word. Which is clearly absurd. And that's why you're being hypocritical.