US Gen. Petraeus Decries "Burn A Koran Day"

[Thanas]

First, this is just theorised, not proven. I know enough about Biblical criticism to know that the last word has not, and likely never will be, said on the pentateuchal authorship and the exact circumstances thereof, especially as regards individual passages. Without being an expert, I cannot really see for myself whether it is more likely that, for example, source J is pre- or post-Exilic, but both views are put forth as serious contenders by the scholars, for one example.

How do you assume they are going to be able to prove that? Ask the author? The relationship is there and well established so far that they are even teaching this viewpoint as unopposed in German theological universities, which is usually code for "only people who have not done the work oppose this". So either the German academia somehow completely missed the stuff, my priest friends are lying or you are wrong.

Second, while it is true that the Bible is less violent and intolerant than some other laws and religions of its times (Or later times; I believe I became embroiled in a larger argument on this a while ago, when the specific issue was women's rights. Hell, this is my argument right here and now: it is less violent and intolerant than the Koran, written at least a thousand years later!), that does not change the actual fact that it is, as written, an intolerant document that advocates genocide. Its redactional history or lack thereof does not change that.

Ah yes, the patented Darth-Hoth method of ignoring authors intent. See, this is why we have a learned clergy nowadays, so that people do not go around using the bible in the literal way. Of course, you always get retards, but the sources were not written as anything but fantasy, nobody who wrote them thought they would get the opportunity to actually carry them out.

[[R_H]]

Doubtful, considering the tales they tell of the Janissaries and the Ottoman's habit of flaying people alive / enslaving them. The Spanish allowed the moors of Granada to leave in peace, the Ottoman Janissaries OTOH oftentimes massacred even surrendering garrisons.

For example, when Europe was inventing things like the concept of honorable surrender, the Ottoman's "distinguished" themselves when they slaughtered/sold into slavery 7820 out of 8000 surrendering Venetian soldiers in 1715, when they retook the Morea. (There is the claim that the janissaries just got out of hand, but if the commander of an Army could not restrain them in such a public and important event of honor, then just think what they were up to when not supervised).

How did that behaviour affect the likelihood of future surrenders? Were adversaries less likely to surrender and more likely to continue fighting until their deaths?

[Bakustra]

Yes, just like how we should base our opinion of Christianity on abortion clinic bombers. Or perhaps on Arnaud Amalric and his eloquent Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. And we should base our opinion of Buddhism and Christianity on Aum Shinrikyo. We should also base our opinion of Jews on the Irgun too. After all, we should always define a religion by its most extreme members. Hell, putting it that way, I must admit that Muslims are really pretty even, as by your bizarre methodology all Christians and Buddhists are WMD-manufacturing terrorists too! I must admit that I find it difficult to continue conversation with someone as prejudicial as you are, so I will address this to people that might actually listen.

When I say "the actual opinions and beliefs of the adherents", that would mean statistical analysis, not bizarre statements that lead people to assume that you're horribly bigoted.

You are a moron. I used the Danish cartoons as an example because opposition to them was broad-based across the Islamic world. Several countries recalled their ambassadors to Denmark or closed their Danish embassies. Thousands of police had to be mobilized in Pakistan to deal with the number of protesters. All 17 Arab Interior Ministers denounced the cartoons and asked Denmark to punish the cartoonists, as did the entire Organization of the Islamic Conference (which, you know, speaks for all Islamic countries in the UN). Further, the boycott on Danish goods dropped Denmark's total exports by 15.5% at one point, with trade to the Middle East off by half! These aren't the views of extremist fringe groups like all the others you falsely analogize them with. Rather, the mainstream position in Islam was that the cartoonists should have been punished for their actions, and this was adopted as the official government position of all 41 Islamic countries.

Moreover, the riots around the Islamic world were extremely pervasive and broad-based, with serious incidents happening in Indonesia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Egypt, among many others. People died in many of these demonstrations. Over cartoons.

Edit: out of curiosity, what percentage of people would be required to believe something for it to be a mainstream view within that religion? Does it have to be 50%? 75%? Less? More?

So you're shifting your position from the people that threatened the lives of Lars Vilks et al to the people who protested over the cartoons. Consider that there have been representations of Mohammed before and since without major protests and violence, including equally offensive ones. Perhaps there is something more going on here than your beliefs that Muslims are "ticking time bombs". In fact, there were additional false images added to the packet the Danish imams brought to the world conference. These were far more offensive than the original cartoons, including a depiction of Mohammed as a pedophile (please don't make a smarmy comment about how "that's in the Qu'ran", because the point is the offensiveness). The three would have been illegal under hate speech laws. Gee, it seems as though the Danish imams were so personally offended that they sought to engender the massive backlash. It seems to be more like the American news media showing clips out of context to lead people into assuming Muslims hate America. Once again, the actions of a few people to exaggerate this out of proportion become applied to the whole of a religion to justify bigotry, intolerance, and hatred. Amazing.

When it comes to percentages, it doesn't matter, since you believe that 0.1% is enough already. But if you must have a percentage, how about 23%? That seems like a nice round number to me.

That's not a strawman, that's just you realizing that your blind hatred has led you down a path that cannot be defended. Every post before this was about Islam as a whole, and you using the Qu'ran to attack Islam as a whole.

What is the Koran, if it is not Islam as a whole? The Koran is the founding document on which all of Islam is built. Criticizing the Koran, though, does not mean that every Muslim believes in its violent message--I have repeatedly pointed out that many Muslims cherry-pick their verses so as to avoid the violence and intolerance in the Koran. Did you forget, or did you simply not read this in the first place?

What is Christianity, if not the Bible as a whole- oops, forgot about the Apocrypha! But defining a religion solely by its holy texts is idiotic. Let's use Buddhism as an example. The Tripitaka indicates that if the gods exist, they do not interfere directly and so are irrelevant to our life on Earth. The majority of Buddhists believe in interventionist gods and elevate the Buddha to the status of a god. That's not even "cherry-picking", that's ignoring a major tenet, or rather modifying it to fit what else people believe.

"Cherry-pick" is a negative term, so I assumed that you were criticizing Muslims for refusing to live by the whole of the Qu'ran. Apparently you simply don't understand what a connotation is, which is worrying for a former high-school English teacher. And if many, indeed the majority Muslims do so, is Islam still

Please assume that your opponents are at least literate and have a working memory, at the least.

I do generally assume this, but obviously you are undeserving of this assumption. In the future, I will endeavor to do a better job of using small words and avoiding hard concepts with you.

I, meanwhile, now understand that you are undeserving of the assumption that you abide by the same reality as myself. In the future, I will attempt to phrase things so that your twisted mind can understand them.

[Bakustra]

No, I claim high ground because I am a significantly better person than you, for I recognize the existence of morality beyond naked self-interest. It helps that I am not a pinhead. My invitation still stands.

Oh, man, you are comedy gold. Do you not read your own threads? You said (or at the very least, implied) that you would band together with Islam, itself a horribly intolerant religion, just to oppose the "intolerant" Christian majority together with them:

But let me say that most people here live in Christian-dominated societies, wherein intolerance of Muslims is common. So I don't see why atheistic, agnostic, or liberal Christian individuals must therefore contribute to said intolerance rather than acting to counteract it, especially since they face intolerance as well. I mean, it's kinda like how there's overlap between feminists, anti-racists, and gay rights people. It's almost as if they dislike oppression and inequality for philosophical reasons, rather than pure self-interest.

What is this if not . . . naked self-interest?

It's called principle, you Objectivist moron. Thank you for being unable to understand what the term "philosophical reasons" means. My offer no longer stands, I now invite you to jump off a bridge (it can be a footbridge, if you like).

Meanwhile, I, as a neutral observer, have no problem lambasting the intolerance of both Christianity and Islam, all the while still pointing out that one is worse than the other (which I by now consider proved, since no one has provided any credible refutation of the evidence cited for this argument). Seems I am the one dealing with morality rather than purely tactical considerations.

Are you done with your pompously hypocritical self-righteousness yet? Not that I mind, mind you; you are an excellent amusement to light up the dreary Swedish autumn weather.

You mean, you object to both because they offer moral principles that aren't based on selfishness, right? Because I'm pretty sure you'd be lying otherwise. Here's another reason why you could be called a bigot: you are saying that you support intolerance of people because their religious beliefs are so awful, and yet you claim that the intolerant individuals you support are just as bad in their religion. That sounds far more like "tactical considerations" than "fight intolerance, regardless if the oppressed agree with you completely or not". Now I suppose that you'll assume me to be as violent as the Muslims because I used the word "fight".

It doesn't command genocide, it says that God ordered genocide, thereby indicating that genocidal actions are in line with Judeo-Christian morality, or, rather, Biblical morality, much like murdering one's children for talking back.

Oh, please, what a bullshit argument. How is it functionally any different if "God tells you in this book to genocide people" or "the book commands you to genocide people"? How is this, for example, not an incitement to genocide?

When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them

But most forms of Christianity reject that, and offer their own system of morality that rejects killing, and especially mass murder and genocide. This is because most religions do not consist of a holy book alone. Islam is the same way- one cannot define Islamic morality by the Qu'ran alone, without considering how it is interpreted by its adherents. After all, I could interpret the Bible to indicate that Satan is a good entity, by combining aspects of Job and the New Testament. I would not, however, be able to claim that said interpretation is the Christian interpretation of Satan without being laughed out of any theological conference. The same goes for simply defining Islamic morality by the Qu'ran. One must consider how it is interpreted by the majority of followers and how they act. But that is why I call you a bigot, because you make assumptions based solely upon the Qu'ran, rather than on what Muslims interpret from it. That is prejudicial.

Oh, and Darth Wong is also a bigot for pointing out (rightly) that the Bible is also a horribly intolerant document, and that people who agree with it are thus, by logic, intolerant?

Or, let us look at it from another angle: Would you say that Christianity is not intolerant, because "one must consider the majority and blah, blah, blah"? This is what you must do, by reason of your argument, since you are apparently proposing that Islam is not intolerant. I eagerly await you doing so.

I challenge your claim that a religion cannot be judged by its own holy writings. If you believe that a book is the Inspired Word of God and totally admirable in every way, then you do endorse its teaching, even if you personally prefer to cherry-pick the nicely warm and fuzzy passages to quote.

Okay. Criticism on the grounds of the holy book only applies to people who feel it must be taken literally. There is only majority support for that amongst white evangelical Protestants- not even the majority of Muslims does so (only a slim plurality does). So most criticism of that type is focused on such fundamentalist evangelicals. By contrast, the majority of American Catholics, and mainline Protestants reject Biblical literalism, so condemning them on that is idiotic. So you cannot judge a religion totally on its holy writings (or rather, your interpretation of them), because not everybody interprets the writings in the same way or adheres to literalism. When it comes to tolerance, I would say that it depends on the sect of Christianity. American and European Catholics and mainline Protestants are generally tolerant in their beliefs and actions, while evangelical Protestants and many South American and African Catholics and mainline Protestants are more intolerant in their beliefs and actions. Amazingly, it turns out that you can't judge Christianity as a whole easily!

No, you are bigoted for several reasons. The first I pointed out above, but I am sure that you will continue to be pinheaded about defining what religions believe. The second is that you imply that Muslims seek to oppress other groups. That is a bigoted assumption, and you will of course deny that you implied it with your cute, fuzzy little suggestion that any attempts by non-Muslims to counter intolerance of Islam are a "misunderstood case of 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'". Unfortunately for you, you may well be definitely are the dumbest person in this thread, and the only person you can fool is yourself.

Seems that you are the one being dishonest, to me. Although not stupid; this amount of sophistry goes beyond unintentional stupidity. Your very assertion that stating objective facts about Islam (but not Christianity?) is "intolerant" amply demonstrates your hypocrisy and agenda-driven ideology for all to see.

As for oppressing: The koran, of course, supports that, too. But you will no doubt continue with your ludicrous claim that a religion's own holy books and their teachings are utterly irrelevant to the religion itself.

No, you're suggesting that attempts to be more tolerant to Muslims are stupid. I assumed that you meant that Muslims would implement Shari'a law and get to oppressing, or rather sought to imply that in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge fashion. When called upon this, you retreat behind "the Qu'ran supports this! That is why we must disenfranchise the Muslims!" You also, apparently, cannot read what I write, so I feel that this is becoming pointless very quickly. But thank you for giving me a memory to look back upon when Europeans get all smug about America.

I find it interesting that you don't take offense to "grotesquely self-absorbed", though. Is it a... point of pride to you?

No, I just plain did not find it worthy of address. Of course, more unthinking invective is perfectly representative of your debating style in general.

No, I thought it through quite enough.

If it's invective you want for your confirmation bias, then let me say that you are a poisonous individual, and I sincerely hope that you never raise children, for they would no doubt end up with at least a fragment of your segregating, hateful attitudes, and the world would become a worse place than it would have been. Indeed, your attitudes only contribute to the anger of many Muslims against the West; which only confirms your belief that "those people" are just too violent to be let into your country, or to let them have equality if they are let in.

I can't provide a rational argument to counter someone who hides his paranoid theories behind a veil of snide references and smugness. Maybe you should bring them out into the light if you want rational argument. I can't well treat with someone who refuses to acknowledge that a religion is defined by more than holy texts. So you could try and become a little smarter. Or alternatively you could just never talk about religion again, I'm happy either way.

"Paranoid theories"? Just stop it, please, you are killing me! I am some paranoid conspiracy theorist, now, because I dare to criticise Islam? And then you attack my perceived "smugness"? You are giving a whole new definition to the words "irony" and "Newspeak".

You have no argument. You never had one. Now go back hiding under your bed and reading Noam Chomsky.

For paranoia, see above. Your use of "hiding under the bed" is interesting, because it seems to me that you're the one with the unreasoning fear and hatred in this exchange. Meanwhile, you did have an argument. It is the argument that Islam is too violent to be condoned in the West, and therefore intolerance is A-OK. Go back to rioting about immigration, okay?

[Thanas]

Doubtful, considering the tales they tell of the Janissaries and the Ottoman's habit of flaying people alive / enslaving them. The Spanish allowed the moors of Granada to leave in peace, the Ottoman Janissaries OTOH oftentimes massacred even surrendering garrisons.

For example, when Europe was inventing things like the concept of honorable surrender, the Ottoman's "distinguished" themselves when they slaughtered/sold into slavery 7820 out of 8000 surrendering Venetian soldiers in 1715, when they retook the Morea. (There is the claim that the janissaries just got out of hand, but if the commander of an Army could not restrain them in such a public and important event of honor, then just think what they were up to when not supervised).

How did that behaviour affect the likelihood of future surrenders? Were adversaries less likely to surrender and more likely to continue fighting until their deaths?

It depends.

For example, after the Battle of Mohacs in 1526 Suleiman enjoyed watching a display of having the prisoners of the war brought to him and then massacred, also giving the order to keep no prisoners. This behaviour in Hungary was pretty much the reason why Vienna chose to defend itself to the death. Needless to say when the Ottomans retreated, they killed tens of thousands of civilians while doing so when scorching the land.

However, it really bit them in the behind in the end, because places like Malta, Corfu etc. chose to defend themselves to the death. This of course caused immense casualties to the Ottomans when the west, especially the Spanish/Habsburg forces, started applying their superior technology and better soldiers to the conflict. Then, it were the Ottoman armies who suffered disproportionate casualties as the western armies had no incentive to give them quarter anymore.

Or when Spanish forces decided not to surrender anymore, such as during the siege of Castelnuovo.


Keep in mind though that while the image of Mohacs etc. stuck, the Ottomans were willing to grant pardon if they were forced to do so to smaller garrisons. Like all things in warfare, it highly depended on local circumstances.

[Channel72]

Dude. In terms of instances of good stuff in the Koran, it doesn't make it to triple-digits. It has over 500 examples of violence and intolerance. Each. As bad as the Bible is, it doesn't approach that level of constant, pervasive hatred. Indeed, as you read through the Koran, you almost can't avoid it.

I seriously have to question this "quantitative" approach you've taken to establish that the Koran is overall worse than the Bible. I've read the Koran, and I've read the Bible, and my impression is that the Old Testament is more horrifically violent than the Koran. Now, I skimmed over these "500 examples of violence and intolerance" from the Skeptics annotated Bible. The majority of these verses simply reflect the Islamic exclusivist teaching that unbelievers go to Hell - you know, the same thing taught by Jesus Christ. (John 3:18, Luke 3:9, 3:17, (also see Jude 1:7) ) The only difference is that Jesus didn't repeat this point over and over again like Mohammed. So what difference does it make that the Koran says unbelievers go to Hell 500 times, whereas the New Testament only says it a few times? The doctrine is the same.

Furthermore, Mohammed is a lot clearer when it comes to his teachings than Jesus; most of Jesus' teachings are parables that require interpretation, making them less amenable to a simple list of "bad verses". But the meaning of many of his parables is pretty easy to figure out: all unbelievers are going to Hell. What do you think the Parable of the Sower is about? Or the Parable of the sheep and the goats, or the vine and the branches, or the tenants? All of these (and others) have the same basic message: people who reject Christ are going to Hell. The only reason this appears less "seething with hatred" to you is because Jesus talks in parables, whereas Mohammed flat out says unbelievers are going to Hell.

But more importantly, your argument is quantitative and not qualitative. Nothing in the Koran approaches the level of brutality found in the Old Testament, where the Israelites routinely slaughter enemy tribes, including women and children, in the name of their God. Moses even orders the wholesale slaughter of the Midianites, which I find particularly horrific since earlier he lived among them and even married one of them. Not to mention the fact that throughout Exodus and Numbers, God Himself is routinely smiting people for the most minor of offenses. And if you think the Koran is "seething with hatred", try reading some of the vindictive nationalistic rants from the Old Testament Major Prophets - like Ezekiel or Jeremiah who gleefully prophesy at length about the violent destruction and death of Israel's enemies (Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 48, Ezekiel 25).

Finally, some of the examples given by the Skeptics Annotated Bible are really stretched or outright misleading. For example, their summary of 2:96: "Jews are the greediest of all humankind. They'd like to live 1000 years. But they are going to hell." This is horrifically misleading, reflecting a very poor understanding on the part of the SAB.

In context, this verse is talking about how the Jews have a history of denying God which goes back to the time of Moses, when the Jews chose to worship the golden calf. The use of the word "greedy" anachronistically calls to mind the (Medieval) ethnic stereotype of greedy Jews, when in fact "covetous" is just as likely a translation. The gist of this verse is basically that the Jews have always been stubborn and covetous, but even if they should live 1,000 years they won't be spared from God's judgment. More importantly, the Old Testament prophets make the same point that Mohammed makes here: namely, the Jews have continued to reject God and worship idols throughout their history. Ezekiel goes as far as saying that Israel is basically a depraved, covetous whore (Ezekiel 23), who lusts after other gods.

[Darth Hoth]

How do you assume they are going to be able to prove that? Ask the author? The relationship is there and well established so far that they are even teaching this viewpoint as unopposed in German theological universities, which is usually code for "only people who have not done the work oppose this". So either the German academia somehow completely missed the stuff, my priest friends are lying or you are wrong.

Have you heard of such logical fallacies as Appeals to Authority?

My point was exactly that: you cannot of a certainty prove the "author's intent" of a book that is thousands of years old, much less who wrote it, or when. You can show evidence that some theory or another is better supported than others, thus dismissing some and saying that some others are probably closer to the truth. But it is frankly moronical to say that "this is how it was, full stop."

Ah yes, the patented Darth-Hoth method of ignoring authors intent. See, this is why we have a learned clergy nowadays, so that people do not go around using the bible in the literal way. Of course, you always get retards, but the sources were not written as anything but fantasy, nobody who wrote them thought they would get the opportunity to actually carry them out.

And I reiterate, one cannot know an author's intent when one cannot even know who that author was, or in which century he lived.

Besides, what does it matter if the people who wrote the book thought that they could actually implement the hateful views in it or not? They are still hateful and genocidal, even if they are just revenge fantasy. And the author(s) did write the book in the form a normative statement by Moses and God. Even if this is just a literary device, as you claim, that is nevertheless how Jews and Christians have understood it throughout history.

[Serafina]

And I reiterate, one cannot know an author's intent when one cannot even know who that author was, or in which century he lived.

But we DO know that (well, roughly). More importantly, we know under what kind of circumstances he lived, in what culture, how the people back then tended to write.
The fact remains that you are trying to ignore authors intent (and the way he therefore wrote) when talking about a book that was never supposed to be read literary.
That doesn't make the bible any better, but you are still wrong.

[Eleas]

That argument only works if you ignore the context. Vilks' cartoon was exported precisely at the right time and in the right place to speak to an already disenfranchised minority. The attention you speak of was aided and abetted by the media. We've had more than a few US fundamentalist nutbars blowing a gasket over similar things and at similar levels of volume, but guess what? When that happened, those words weren't capitalized upon by an enthusiastic media apparatus who quite naturally need to show them dirty Muslims conforming to the stereotype.

Witness, for instance, the enormous media furore over the blatant lies spoken by CBS among others. You know, that expose where they talked mainly to SD members and intercut the video with clips from the Gothenburg riots. That was...

...ah yes, completely ignored by Swedish media. Reason? Because this wasn't Muslims producing blatant lies about us, but evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christians with incalculably greater influence, of course, not to mention holding views closer to that of Swedish voters.

I must have missed where they threatened anyone's life and, moreover, actually attacked anyone with physical force.

The purpose was to incite intolerance against Muslims, you know. Which kinda has been going on and escalating.

As for spreading lies about us, Middle Eastern news do that pretty much every day, and it is rarely that one of our media outlets notices.

Oh, of course. You will, of course, provide proof of that.

You are misrepresenting Swedish politics if you portray the Sverigedemokraterna as part of the Alliance for Sweden. They would not touch them with a pitchfork.

I didn't consider them part of the Allegiance. I was referring to their usage of the colour blue as a political signifier. Given that it seems SD derive their colouring scheme from the flag rather than a political playbook, however, I'll concede that I shouldn't have listed them as I did.

Otherwise, the Social Democrats are just flailing around for any issue to distract the public from the fact they have no constructive ideas whatever if they should win the elections, the Communist Party wants more of everything for everyone and damn budgets or domestic debts,

Quite possibly. I am not a fan of the Social Democratic Party, membership of which is as practically meaningful as being of a particular blood type. Nor am I enamoured of the Leftist party (who do not identify as communists, your scaremongering to the contrary). I would see them above the blues mainly because the Social Democrats and the Lefts are small-minded, complacent and venal rather than (as in the case of the blue phalanx) conservative ideologues priding themselves on their contempt for the poor and disenfranchised.

and the Greens are pretty much Reds by this stage.

A null statement. What is signified by being "Reds", and why is that sufficient to brand them as traitors commies mutants undesirables?

This is the red phalanx of the country. Fortunately, it looks like they will lose, if nothing else then because the people realise that their politics are fundamentally unrealistic.

( )

We'll see. I'd be the first to cheer if the blue phalanx actually manages to create a better society. To me, however, it seems they'd much prefer to increase segregation and widen class divides, while shifting power and economic benefits ever upward.

[Master of Ossus]

So you're shifting your position from the people that threatened the lives of Lars Vilks et al to the people who protested over the cartoons. Consider that there have been representations of Mohammed before and since without major protests and violence, including equally offensive ones. Perhaps there is something more going on here than your beliefs that Muslims are "ticking time bombs". In fact, there were additional false images added to the packet the Danish imams brought to the world conference. These were far more offensive than the original cartoons, including a depiction of Mohammed as a pedophile (please don't make a smarmy comment about how "that's in the Qu'ran", because the point is the offensiveness). The three would have been illegal under hate speech laws. Gee, it seems as though the Danish imams were so personally offended that they sought to engender the massive backlash. It seems to be more like the American news media showing clips out of context to lead people into assuming Muslims hate America. Once again, the actions of a few people to exaggerate this out of proportion become applied to the whole of a religion to justify bigotry, intolerance, and hatred. Amazing.

And your point is.... what? That a huge fraction of Muslims believed that rioting was an appropriate response to cartoons in a foreign newspaper? Again, this isn't the actions of "a few people." Thousands of people rioted in multiple countries as a result. Dozens of people were killed. Regardless of what the underlying cartoons were believed to be, that is an absurd position that cannot be based on anything other than religion. Further, the boycotts of Denmark were so widespread that their exports to the Middle East dropped by 50%. This isn't the action of "a few people."

And the vast US media conspiracy showed clips of riots directed against Denmark out of context to lead people into assuming Muslims hate America?

When it comes to percentages, it doesn't matter, since you believe that 0.1% is enough already. But if you must have a percentage, how about 23%? That seems like a nice round number to me.

Fair enough. That would indicate that it is a mainstream position among Muslim youth in the United States that suicide bombings are justifiable, and that among the general populace of Muslims suicide bombing is considered unacceptable only in Pakistan, the US, and the UK. In all other countries (including Indonesia, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, France, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Lebanon), suicide bombing is considered acceptable by a mainstream swath of the population. Most American Muslims do not believe that Arabs carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks. It is also a mainstream position in UK Muslims that Shariah law should be imposed in England.

So that the illiterate among us are not confused, I am giving you these statistics not because I think all Muslims share them, but because of your idiotic claim that the backlash against the Danish cartoons was perpetrated by anything but a mainstream portion of Muslims around the world.

What is Christianity, if not the Bible as a whole- oops, forgot about the Apocrypha! But defining a religion solely by its holy texts is idiotic. Let's use Buddhism as an example. The Tripitaka indicates that if the gods exist, they do not interfere directly and so are irrelevant to our life on Earth. The majority of Buddhists believe in interventionist gods and elevate the Buddha to the status of a god. That's not even "cherry-picking", that's ignoring a major tenet, or rather modifying it to fit what else people believe.

"Cherry-pick" is a negative term, so I assumed that you were criticizing Muslims for refusing to live by the whole of the Qu'ran. Apparently you simply don't understand what a connotation is, which is worrying for a former high-school English teacher. And if many, indeed the majority Muslims do so, is Islam still

Cherry-picking is a negative term, and it was meant in a negative way. Far better for them to simply abandon their superstitions wholesale rather than subject the world to absurdities like what happened over Denmark.

[Darth Yan]

Ossus's claim is that the quran is all bad. There are MANY ways that muslims can interpret the texts; hell they've been arguing about it for almost 1500 years. The four main schools of sunni islamic thought have certainly been argueing about it for a while. Why is your analysis enough to define a book that the people who follow it have been arguing about for more then a millenia? What's more, there are many different translations, and they sometimes have completely different readings (some verses come out differently, or say different words.) Some of the interpretations of the verses are enlightened, some are barbaric. What's more, when the death penalty for apostasy was abolished, it was abolished because it was shown that the quran didn't specifically advocate death to apostates (the only ones that did were talking about death in the next world.) While certainly bad, it does take away from your arguement. Given that Islamic law does forbid the kind of stunts the 9/11 assholes did, It is reasonable to assume that most muslims aren't out to kill you. That is why I don't fear them. You want to say that the Quran is a monolithic block, when it can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. What is more, a lot of the war verses where most certainly influenced by the circumstances (muhammed and his followers were both forced to flee from persecution, so war was pretty much inevitable.) Do research, and actually do more research on the quran as a whole and not just your interpretation.

And why did the muslims not protest about the denmark cartoons until 6 months later? Given that the crowds were tricked into believing that the cartoons were worse then they were, and given that europe isn't very well liked, it added to their perception that europeans were intolerant assholes.

I cited the warfare verses to show that the "Violence", while bad, was nowhere near as horrible as you claimed.

[Darth Hoth]

It's called principle, you Objectivist moron. Thank you for being unable to understand what the term "philosophical reasons" means. My offer no longer stands, I now invite you to jump off a bridge (it can be a footbridge, if you like).

I quote you verbatim, amnesiac. You yourself said that it is in these people's "pure self-interest" to oppose Christianity, and to be stronger while doing so in banding together with each other, including other intolerant religions that happen to be in the minority.

You mean, you object to both because they offer moral principles that aren't based on selfishness, right? Because I'm pretty sure you'd be lying otherwise. Here's another reason why you could be called a bigot: you are saying that you support intolerance of people because their religious beliefs are so awful, and yet you claim that the intolerant individuals you support are just as bad in their religion. That sounds far more like "tactical considerations" than "fight intolerance, regardless if the oppressed agree with you completely or not". Now I suppose that you'll assume me to be as violent as the Muslims because I used the word "fight".

I cannot for the life of me make any sense of this passage, though reading through it thrice in a row. It is entirely disconnected from my earlier posts. I can only assume that you are now hallucinating up things that I have not said.

Either that, or you are employing wildly dishonest argumentation and strawman attacks.

First, we have your ridiculous assertion that any criticism of Islam even nearly on par with that routinely levelled on Christianity is "intolerant". If this axiom were to be true, as you appear to believe in your own little world, then I would indeed be intolerant, and proud of it.

Secondly, you bring up an entirely unrelated red herring on the topic of morality. I do not dislike Islam because it has a morality based on other things than self-interest. I dislike it because its morality is horribly violent and intolerant of anyone who disagrees with it.

Okay. Criticism on the grounds of the holy book only applies to people who feel it must be taken literally. There is only majority support for that amongst white evangelical Protestants- not even the majority of Muslims does so (only a slim plurality does). So most criticism of that type is focused on such fundamentalist evangelicals. By contrast, the majority of American Catholics, and mainline Protestants reject Biblical literalism, so condemning them on that is idiotic. So you cannot judge a religion totally on its holy writings (or rather, your interpretation of them), because not everybody interprets the writings in the same way or adheres to literalism. When it comes to tolerance, I would say that it depends on the sect of Christianity. American and European Catholics and mainline Protestants are generally tolerant in their beliefs and actions, while evangelical Protestants and many South American and African Catholics and mainline Protestants are more intolerant in their beliefs and actions. Amazingly, it turns out that you can't judge Christianity as a whole easily!

Because not everyone interprets the holy books the same way, the books themselves and their message are totally irrelevant to the religion as a whole? Have you heard of the Black And White fallacy?

Yes, individual believers (or even churches/sects) can be inconsistent with their holy book's teachings, and ignore some of them. And I am certain that there are Muslims that are perfectly decent people, just as there are Christians who are. (Although I personally know none of the former, and quite few of the latter.) However, the fact remains that they base their teachings, more or less closely, on those of said books. I am not aware of any Muslim denomination of any stature whatever that does not accept the entirety of the Koran as Allah's own word, spoken to the Prophet (PBUH).

No, you're suggesting that attempts to be more tolerant to Muslims are stupid.

Point out where I said so? All I have ever demanded is that they be equally subjected to criticism as Christians, a most reasonable request.

I assumed that you meant that Muslims would implement Shari'a law and get to oppressing, or rather sought to imply that in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge fashion. When called upon this, you retreat behind "the Qu'ran supports this! That is why we must disenfranchise the Muslims!" You also, apparently, cannot read what I write, so I feel that this is becoming pointless very quickly. But thank you for giving me a memory to look back upon when Europeans get all smug about America.

Now you are just raving delusional, addressing points that I never brought up. Do you have an imaginary Darth Hoth that talks to you in your dreams?

Criticising Islam's violent and intolerant ideology somehow equals "disenfranchise all Muslims" and persecuting them?

And implementing Shariah law also? Boy, you are cooking up strawmen faster than the TradeFed built battle 'droids.

You are not funny any more. In fact, you are starting to make me concerned for your health.

If it's invective you want for your confirmation bias, then let me say that you are a poisonous individual, and I sincerely hope that you never raise children, for they would no doubt end up with at least a fragment of your segregating, hateful attitudes, and the world would become a worse place than it would have been. Indeed, your attitudes only contribute to the anger of many Muslims against the West; which only confirms your belief that "those people" are just too violent to be let into your country, or to let them have equality if they are let in.

Ah, yes. In addition to "You're an ignorant bigot lololol!" We also now have "Well, when you criticise them you only make things worse by provoking them!" This must be the clearance sale for politically correect clichés. And additional vitriol, which, together with furious strawman attacks and red herrings, is all you have left to resort to when you cannot formulate even one rational argument.

For paranoia, see above. Your use of "hiding under the bed" is interesting, because it seems to me that you're the one with the unreasoning fear and hatred in this exchange. Meanwhile, you did have an argument. It is the argument that Islam is too violent to be condoned in the West, and therefore intolerance is A-OK. Go back to rioting about immigration, okay?

And a repetition of the same old, tired strawman attack: Darth Hoth thinks Islam should be criticised for its violence and intolerance, therefore he is a bigot, intolerant, and want to oppress Muslims!

Go stick your bullshit where the sun does not shine.

[Thanas]

Have you heard of such logical fallacies as Appeals to Authority?

Oh yeah, referring to experts is an appeal to Authority. Hey, once you have learned Hebrew, Aramaic, Assyrian and ancient Greek (ang German and French to understand the literature) I am more than happy to give you the original sources.

Really, did you just dismiss expert opinion as appeal to authority?

My point was exactly that: you cannot of a certainty prove the "author's intent" of a book that is thousands of years old, much less who wrote it, or when. You can show evidence that some theory or another is better supported than others, thus dismissing some and saying that some others are probably closer to the truth. But it is frankly moronical to say that "this is how it was, full stop."

Guess what - we know the circumstances he wrote and the context he wrote in. Your method is to divorce the interpretation of those facts because we cannot, cannot prove 100% that a person might be influenced by his education, surroundings, spiritual and political tradition.

In short, hilarious.

Besides, what does it matter if the people who wrote the book thought that they could actually implement the hateful views in it or not? They are still hateful and genocidal, even if they are just revenge fantasy. And the author(s) did write the book in the form a normative statement by Moses and God.

Yeah, and you once more try to totally put them out of context. Of course it is normative, that was the style fo the day and to show the jews that they can hope for the eventual vanquishing of their enemies. They were (in their mind) enslaved and faced with a state that wanted to assimilate them. They had lost the battles, which means in the ancient mindset their god was weaker than the others. In that context, Judaism needed a powerful ideology like that that went "Oh no, in the end, our god is still much stronger" or it would have ceased to exist. Simple as that.

Even if this is just a literary device, as you claim, that is nevertheless how Jews and Christians have understood it throughout history.

Source? You'll find that most religion is just used as a pretext for politics.

[Darth Hoth]

And I reiterate, one cannot know an author's intent when one cannot even know who that author was, or in which century he lived.

But we DO know that (well, roughly). More importantly, we know under what kind of circumstances he lived, in what culture, how the people back then tended to write.
The fact remains that you are trying to ignore authors intent (and the way he therefore wrote) when talking about a book that was never supposed to be read literary.
That doesn't make the bible any better, but you are still wrong.

So I assume that you can prove that we can know that "the Bible was never intended to be read literally"?

Although, no unnecessary hostility intended, we seem to agree on the important particulars, anyway.

The purpose was to incite intolerance against Muslims, you know. Which kinda has been going on and escalating.

And this addresses my point how? There is nothing remotely like the Muslim violence against, say, Lars Vilks among Christians, as MKSheppard rightly pointed out.

Oh, of course. You will, of course, provide proof of that.

I might have exaggerated slightly. But check such a site as, say, Palestine Media Watch; there is still nothing in the West that comes close.

Quite possibly. I am not a fan of the Social Democratic Party, membership of which is as practically meaningful as being of a particular blood type. Nor am I enamoured of the Leftist party (who do not identify as communists, your scaremongering to the contrary). I would see them above the blues mainly because the Social Democrats and the Lefts are small-minded, complacent and venal rather than (as in the case of the blue phalanx) conservative ideologues priding themselves on their contempt for the poor and disenfranchised.

Well, they dropped the Communist label not too long ago, and their leader kept calling himself a Communist publicly until the media pressure became too great, so . . .

Anyway, to me it feels like they are the ideologues, while the Alliance is basically Social Democrats Lite. Can you imagine the Democratic Party in the US running on Reinfeld's platform? By contemporary Swedish standards, Obama is a far right-winger.

A null statement. What is signified by being "Reds", and why is that sufficient to brand them as traitors commies mutants undesirables?

My point ws to summarise that while they market themselves as "neither left nor right," politically they are in fact very left-wing in their social and economic policies.

We'll see. I'd be the first to cheer if the blue phalanx actually manages to create a better society. To me, however, it seems they'd much prefer to increase segregation and widen class divides, while shifting power and economic benefits ever upward.

As you said, we shall see what we shall see.

[Darth Hoth]

Oh yeah, referring to experts is an appeal to Authority. Hey, once you have learned Hebrew, Aramaic, Assyrian and ancient Greek (ang German and French to understand the literature) I am more than happy to give you the original sources.

Really, did you just dismiss expert opinion as appeal to authority?

Saying, "Well 'expert opinion' [sic] thinks this, so it's teh truth!" without further qualification or actual argument is an appeal to authority. I note that I have also referred to "experts," yet you do not automatically drop flat and abandon your position.

If you would refer me to the actual people and their arguments, I would be more inclined to listen. Although I still do not think that they can "prove" with utter certainty where and when, say, the Jehovistic portion of the Pentateuch was written.

Guess what - we know the circumstances he wrote and the context he wrote in. Your method is to divorce the interpretation of those facts because we cannot, cannot prove 100% that a person might be influenced by his education, surroundings, spiritual and political tradition.

So you can no doubt provide proof of this? Restating your claim again is not the same thing as proving it.

Yeah, and you once more try to totally put them out of context. Of course it is normative, that was the style fo the day and to show the jews that they can hope for the eventual vanquishing of their enemies. They were (in their mind) enslaved and faced with a state that wanted to assimilate them. They had lost the battles, which means in the ancient mindset their god was weaker than the others. In that context, Judaism needed a powerful ideology like that that went "Oh no, in the end, our god is still much stronger" or it would have ceased to exist. Simple as that.

I am aware of all this, thank you; any Old Testament introduction or commentary will mention as much. Or, Hell, just a Study Bible. Although the good ones will restrain themselves to saying, "this is probably the way it was," or, "According to Doctor X and Professor Y this is how it was," rather than an unqualified "It was like this".

And who gives a flying fuck whether it was the "style of the day" or whatever? By our modern, humanistic standards, it is still violent and intolerant bile. Since the books are still printed and read in the present day and held forth as absolutely correct and admirable by many millions of people, those are standards by which they should be judged.

Source?

Learned expert opinion, obviously.

[Bakustra]

So you're shifting your position from the people that threatened the lives of Lars Vilks et al to the people who protested over the cartoons. Consider that there have been representations of Mohammed before and since without major protests and violence, including equally offensive ones. Perhaps there is something more going on here than your beliefs that Muslims are "ticking time bombs". In fact, there were additional false images added to the packet the Danish imams brought to the world conference. These were far more offensive than the original cartoons, including a depiction of Mohammed as a pedophile (please don't make a smarmy comment about how "that's in the Qu'ran", because the point is the offensiveness). The three would have been illegal under hate speech laws. Gee, it seems as though the Danish imams were so personally offended that they sought to engender the massive backlash. It seems to be more like the American news media showing clips out of context to lead people into assuming Muslims hate America. Once again, the actions of a few people to exaggerate this out of proportion become applied to the whole of a religion to justify bigotry, intolerance, and hatred. Amazing.

And your point is.... what? That a huge fraction of Muslims believed that rioting was an appropriate response to cartoons in a foreign newspaper? Again, this isn't the actions of "a few people." Thousands of people rioted in multiple countries as a result. Dozens of people were killed. Regardless of what the underlying cartoons were believed to be, that is an absurd position that cannot be based on anything other than religion. Further, the boycotts of Denmark were so widespread that their exports to the Middle East dropped by 50%. This isn't the action of "a few people."

And the vast US media conspiracy showed clips of riots directed against Denmark out of context to lead people into assuming Muslims hate America?

So I want you to prove that Christians would not react negatively if a prominent non-Christian newspaper was said to have depicted Jesus as a pedophile and implied that Christians were all genocidal and this was spread around the world. Do you really think that Christians would just ignore it if say, a Tehran newspaper did so (or, rather, missionaries lied about it doing so) and it was reported worldwide? I bet that there would be thousands of people rioting, given the sheer number of Christians around the world.

Thousands of people rioting in comparison to nearly one billion Muslims worldwide is less than .001% of all Muslims. I think that that does count as the action of a few people, but perhaps you believe global Muslim populations to be in the hundreds of thousands. That would explain a lot. The few people that I was talking about were the Danish imams who added fake cartoons to incite rage, but you don't seem to read anything particularly closely.

When it comes to percentages, it doesn't matter, since you believe that 0.1% is enough already. But if you must have a percentage, how about 23%? That seems like a nice round number to me.

Fair enough. That would indicate that it is a mainstream position among Muslim youth in the United States that suicide bombings are justifiable, and that among the general populace of Muslims suicide bombing is considered unacceptable only in Pakistan, the US, and the UK. In all other countries (including Indonesia, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, France, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Lebanon), suicide bombing is considered acceptable by a mainstream swath of the population. Most American Muslims do not believe that Arabs carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks. It is also a mainstream position in UK Muslims that Shariah law should be imposed in England.

So that the illiterate among us are not confused, I am giving you these statistics not because I think all Muslims share them, but because of your idiotic claim that the backlash against the Danish cartoons was perpetrated by anything but a mainstream portion of Muslims around the world.

Thousands of people is not a mainstream by either my sarcastic definitions or reasonable ones, seeing as that is a vanishing small fraction of a percent, on the verge of being considered a de minimis proportion. The mainstream of Islamic society having a negative reaction to cartoons that depict their religion negatively is not exactly in line with the ideal of turning the other cheek, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the Qu'ran does not endorse that particularly strongly. Of course, I'm pretty sure that Islam is unique in its followers reacting negatively to negative portrayals of their religion, since Christians, being by definition better (the Bible says so!) would never do such a thing.

What is Christianity, if not the Bible as a whole- oops, forgot about the Apocrypha! But defining a religion solely by its holy texts is idiotic. Let's use Buddhism as an example. The Tripitaka indicates that if the gods exist, they do not interfere directly and so are irrelevant to our life on Earth. The majority of Buddhists believe in interventionist gods and elevate the Buddha to the status of a god. That's not even "cherry-picking", that's ignoring a major tenet, or rather modifying it to fit what else people believe.

"Cherry-pick" is a negative term, so I assumed that you were criticizing Muslims for refusing to live by the whole of the Qu'ran. Apparently you simply don't understand what a connotation is, which is worrying for a former high-school English teacher. And if many, indeed the majority Muslims do so, is Islam still

Cherry-picking is a negative term, and it was meant in a negative way. Far better for them to simply abandon their superstitions wholesale rather than subject the world to absurdities like what happened over Denmark.

Yes, insist that people abandon religion. That is a wonderful attitude to take towards people, and it is sure to win the Islamic world over. "Hey guys, Americans want us to abandon our religion!" That's sure to make the world a better place.

[Thanas]

Oh yeah, referring to experts is an appeal to Authority. Hey, once you have learned Hebrew, Aramaic, Assyrian and ancient Greek (ang German and French to understand the literature) I am more than happy to give you the original sources.

Really, did you just dismiss expert opinion as appeal to authority?

Saying, "Well 'expert opinion' [sic] thinks this, so it's teh truth!" without further qualification or actual argument is an appeal to authority. I note that I have also referred to "experts," yet you do not automatically drop flat and abandon your position.

If you would refer me to the actual people and their arguments, I would be more inclined to listen. Although I still do not think that they can "prove" with utter certainty where and when, say, the Jehovistic portion of the Pentateuch was written.

I assume you are familiar with Erich Zenger and his works, or Eckhard Otto? The theories mentioned, even though they disagree on the exact date of the Pentateuch written, all include mention of the context, the difference being they disagree on the part of the significance of the various texts. However, not a single one of them doubts the contextual influences. Heck, Otto even goes so far as to call the entire Deuteronium a copy of the Assyrian loyal oaths, or at least directly influenced by them.

So you can no doubt provide proof of this? Restating your claim again is not the same thing as proving it.

See above. The theories are best summarized and reflected in his Introduction to the old testament, but I do not know if it has been translated into English.

I am aware of all this, thank you; any Old Testament introduction or commentary will mention as much. Or, Hell, just a Study Bible. Although the good ones will restrain themselves to saying, "this is probably the way it was," or, "According to Doctor X and Professor Y this is how it was," rather than an unqualified "It was like this".

I am unaware of any respected interpretation that seeks to divorce the old Testament from the roots of the day, which is what your approach would require to work.

And who gives a flying fuck whether it was the "style of the day" or whatever? By our modern, humanistic standards, it is still violent and intolerant bile. Since the books are still printed and read in the present day and held forth as absolutely correct and admirable by many millions of people, those are standards by which they should be judged.

Obviously they are not, because what Christian of today does not eat shellfish or pigs?

Learned expert opinion, obviously.

Give me a cite then.

[Darth Hoth]

So I want you to prove that Christians would not react negatively if a prominent non-Christian newspaper was said to have depicted Jesus as a pedophile and implied that Christians were all genocidal and this was spread around the world. Do you really think that Christians would just ignore it if say, a Tehran newspaper did so (or, rather, missionaries lied about it doing so) and it was reported worldwide? I bet that there would be thousands of people rioting, given the sheer number of Christians around the world.

Have you heard of the Ecce Homo exhibition? Which portrayed Jesus and the Disciples as homo- and transsexuals. Which I would consider rather more offensive than a dozen humorous cartoons (although, I suppose a non-religious man might not be in a position to judge, there). Yet . . . There were not global mass protests, riots, murders and a 15 per cent drop in Sweden's exports over that. According to your logic, we should have seen all of these. Especially since these photos, offensive to religious sensibilities (and if I may say so myself, of poor taste), were displayed in an actual church (the Uppsala Cathedral), not a newspaper.

[Bakustra]

Hey, Hoth, rather than wade into your efforts to splinter all of my posts into minuscule fragmentation, I'll answer you here.

You go on about how you're criticizing Islam, but your criticisms are stupid and prejudicial, relying entirely upon the Qu'ran rather than on what Muslims actually believe. You convert this into "Bakustra says that holy books are irrelevant!", which is not what I said, but it seems that you cannot believe that any follower of a religion would do anything but take a holy book entirely at face value. Thusly, you are not only intolerant towards Muslims, then, but anybody that follows a religion anywhere. Ossus does something similar, but at least he admits that he wants to destroy Islam. So, while you do have the right to criticize Islam in your idiotic way, that does not preclude Muslims from being offended by your criticism. Free speech does not preclude the right of others to be offended by it, nor does it eliminate any charges of bigotry in said speech.

The paragraph that your feeble mind could not comprehend was based on the long chain where you insisted that fighting intolerance against Muslims was a bad thing, and demonstrated that you do not comprehend the concept of principle. You also declared that you dislike Christians too. Since you then said that you feel that intolerance against Muslims is A-OK, and said intolerance is generally carried out by a Christian majority, then that says that you feel A-OK about working with a group that you detest for religious reasons as long as they'll oppress a group that you hate even more, which seems far less principled than what I said. No doubt you'll declare that you don't feel intolerance is OK, but that then makes little of what you said earlier make sense.

I am attributing the opinions of anti-immigrant parties to you for two reasons. The first is that you decided to declare that I was a left-libertarian (not that you know what that means), and so I decided to jump to conclusions about your political beliefs. It's still a smaller, if more insulting leap, than the one you made. Granted, probably the only thing you know about Chomsky is that your French buddies in the National Front dislike him, but whatever.

The second is that you made insinuations about how trying to fight religious intolerance against Muslims was foolish because they would do something to betray secularism or something. I decided that this meant that Muslims would then turn around and be all intolerant, which really doesn't matter to the rightness of the decision (but right and wrong are foreign concepts to you, I'm sure) but which also suggests that you subscribe to the panic about the possibility of Muslims taking over Western countries, which was supported by your noxious babbling about how it was in the Qu'ran that you had to be oppressive if you were a Muslim.

I decided to bring this out in the open, and then you denied it and declared that you had no idea what I was talking about. I suppose that you could go through life with eyes closed and hands over your ears, but I feel it is equally likely that like all too many people in the West, you have an unreasoning fear and hatred of Muslims.

The ecce homo exhibition is not a case of what I was talking about, and it was not spread around the world by news media. But I suppose that you hit on the word pedophile and assumed that homosexual was similar enough, since you haven't put your foot in your mouth enough yet. (A hint: did it suggest that Christians were all evil and that Jesus was evil? That is the defining criterion.)

[Darth Hoth]

I assume you are familiar with Erich Zenger and his works, or Eckhard Otto? The theories mentioned, even though they disagree on the exact date of the Pentateuch written, all include mention of the context, the difference being they disagree on the part of the significance of the various texts. However, not a single one of them doubts the contextual influences. Heck, Otto even goes so far as to call the entire Deuteronium a copy of the Assyrian loyal oaths, or at least directly influenced by them.

I have not read their works, myself, although I have seen Zenger cited. But now that I know your sources, I will try to check those. Thank you.

I am unaware of any respected interpretation that seeks to divorce the old Testament from the roots of the day, which is what your approach would require to work.

I did not intend to say that; if you read that, either you misunderstood me or I expressed myself very poorly. Obviously, the historical context matters for what the authors thought. What I argued was that we cannot be certain of that context merely on grounds of literary or reedactional criticism. I cited the controversy over the origins of source J as an example. (Indeed, the JEDP pentateuchal organisation itself is not set in stone, although it is the "mainstream" scholarly opinion.)

Obviously they are not, because what Christian of today does not eat shellfish or pigs?

The internal inconsistency of the Bible, obviously. My fundie friend, which I have lamented earlier on this board, explains it with dispensationalism. We are currently in the Dispensation of Grace, which followed after that of Law. Others do the usual contradiction-mongering between OT and NT. A lot just plain do not read Leviticus, and thus have no idea. Although, they all implicitly acknowledge that although God supposedly no longer wants it to be that way, back while he wanted it it was perfectly true and honourable and the highest of moral standards.

Give me a cite then.

It was in an encyclopaedia of religion that I do not presently have available. I will see if I can be back with it, and who wrote the article on the history of Biblical exegesis. In the meantime, you may consider the point conceded for now.

[Thanas]

I assume you are familiar with Erich Zenger and his works, or Eckhard Otto? The theories mentioned, even though they disagree on the exact date of the Pentateuch written, all include mention of the context, the difference being they disagree on the part of the significance of the various texts. However, not a single one of them doubts the contextual influences. Heck, Otto even goes so far as to call the entire Deuteronium a copy of the Assyrian loyal oaths, or at least directly influenced by them.

I have not read their works, myself, although I have seen Zenger cited. But now that I know your sources, I will try to check those. Thank you.

The specific source would be (in German) chapter C II of his "Einführung in das Alte Testament".

I did not intend to say that; if you read that, either you misunderstood me or I expressed myself very poorly. Obviously, the historical context matters for what the authors thought. What I argued was that we cannot be certain of that context merely on grounds of literary or reedactional criticism. I cited the controversy over the origins of source J as an example. (Indeed, the JEDP pentateuchal organisation itself is not set in stone, although it is the "mainstream" scholarly opinion.)

However, not a single person denies that the Deuteronomium is not supposed to be taken literally, for at the time of its existence there was no chance of the Jews acting like that.

The internal inconsistency of the Bible, obviously. My fundie friend, which I have lamented earlier on this board, explains it with dispensationalism. We are currently in the Dispensation of Grace, which followed after that of Law. Others do the usual contradiction-mongering between OT and NT. A lot just plain do not read Leviticus, and thus have no idea. Although, they all implicitly acknowledge that although God supposedly no longer wants it to be that way, back while he wanted it it was perfectly true and honourable and the highest of moral standards.

That kinda proves my point though - people cherrypick according to their own personal preferences, which means they do not take the book as the literal truth. Even the explanation that God changed his mind does exactly the same.

[Darth Yan]

Do you honestly believe that all muslims are terrorists who should be stripped of equal rights?
Because that is honestly the impression that you are giving, whether or not that is your intention.

[Cecelia5578]

Umm, correct me if Im wrong, but I'm pretty sure Jews haven't been taking their scriptures literally for quite a long time. Except for the Kataites, Jews look to the body of learned tradition (the Talmud and Midrash) to explain their scriptures.

All this talk about taking the Bible literally is a bit...odd for someone whose religious background is not Protestantism, but I enjoy the scholarly cites.

[Shroom Man 777]

He (whoever he is) didn't say that. He just said that the Koran is full of shit and that whatever it says promotes violent shit, which he paints as stereotypically Islamic.

Arguably, the same can be said about the Bibel. It is full of shit and whatever it says promotes violently shit, which I also paint as stereotypically Christian.

However, despite both these factors being equal, a lot of Christians are in the First World or at least in relatively comfortable environs - which predisposes them to NOT be violent shits. Whereas, in ancient times, where their environs were not comfortable, they were pretty violent shits, which is stereotypically Christian.

On the other hand, a lot of Muslims in the Middle East are in UN-comfortable environs - which does predispose them to BE violent shits. Maybe because they're so poor that they have to eat their own shit. So, their conditions today are the same as the Christians in ancient times (where their environs were not comfortable, they were pretty violent shits, which is stereotypically Christian), so for the Arabs in modern times, where their environs were are not comfortable, they were are pretty violent shits, which is stereotypically Islamic?

In short, all Abrahamic religions are terroristic and should be stripped of equal rights.

However, some of the Abrahamic religions' followers are richer than others, and other religions' followers are poorer than others. The richness or poorness of people also predisposes them to be more or less violent shit-prone.

They can all get fucked.

[Darth Hoth]

Bakustra:

Could not address my points, eh?

Well, here we go again . . .

You go on about how you're criticizing Islam, but your criticisms are stupid and prejudicial, relying entirely upon the Qu'ran rather than on what Muslims actually believe. You convert this into "Bakustra says that holy books are irrelevant!", which is not what I said, but it seems that you cannot believe that any follower of a religion would do anything but take a holy book entirely at face value. Thusly, you are not only intolerant towards Muslims, then, but anybody that follows a religion anywhere. Ossus does something similar, but at least he admits that he wants to destroy Islam. So, while you do have the right to criticize Islam in your idiotic way, that does not preclude Muslims from being offended by your criticism. Free speech does not preclude the right of others to be offended by it, nor does it eliminate any charges of bigotry in said speech.

Taking a holy book as representative for the religions derived from it is bigoted and intolerant; you said this before, it made no more sense then than now.

And you are positing a false dilemma and outright lying about my clearly stated position. No, not all believers will interpret a holy book the same way, or all literally. I specifically disavowed any such opinion. However, that does not mean that the book is irrelevant. You say that you do not claim this, but then you immediately contradict yourself by supposing that comparison between Koran and Bible are null and void and useless.

Yet again, you are reduced to misrepresenting my position and hoping that it will not be noticed.

The paragraph that your feeble mind could not comprehend was based on the long chain where you insisted that fighting intolerance against Muslims was a bad thing, and demonstrated that you do not comprehend the concept of principle. You also declared that you dislike Christians too. Since you then said that you feel that intolerance against Muslims is A-OK, and said intolerance is generally carried out by a Christian majority, then that says that you feel A-OK about working with a group that you detest for religious reasons as long as they'll oppress a group that you hate even more, which seems far less principled than what I said. No doubt you'll declare that you don't feel intolerance is OK, but that then makes little of what you said earlier make sense.

Um, quote me where I supported intolerance (apart from your retarded definition of the word to mean "any criticism of Islam")? I oppose Islam specifically because it is intolerant (which is true of Christianity, too, although relatively speaking less so). Criticism is not the same as intolerance in my book.

I do feel A-OK with Christians criticising Muslims, just as with atheists criticising Christians, or liberals, fundies, or, Hell, even "moderate Islam" criticising the Christian fundies. Freedom of speech, opinion, what have you, and actually constructive to society. None of the above constitutes "intolerance".

I am attributing the opinions of anti-immigrant parties to you for two reasons. The first is that you decided to declare that I was a left-libertarian (not that you know what that means), and so I decided to jump to conclusions about your political beliefs. It's still a smaller, if more insulting leap, than the one you made. Granted, probably the only thing you know about Chomsky is that your French buddies in the National Front dislike him, but whatever.

Yet more hilarity. Yet again, you try to shame me, when I have only been imitating your bad behaviour. Forgot to read your own posts again? Your very first reply to me accused me of xenophobia, in addition to calling me a "pinhead". Far in advance of any insult I have levelled against you. If you are going to lie, at least check it so that your lies do not contradict easily discerned facts.

And, more Appeals to Motive. You are almost as bad a debater as Darth Yan, with all your fallacies and verbosely deprecating commentary; however you wish it were otherwise, neither of these can substitute for actual substance.

The second is that you made insinuations about how trying to fight religious intolerance against Muslims was foolish because they would do something to betray secularism or something. I decided that this meant that Muslims would then turn around and be all intolerant, which really doesn't matter to the rightness of the decision (but right and wrong are foreign concepts to you, I'm sure) but which also suggests that you subscribe to the panic about the possibility of Muslims taking over Western countries, which was supported by your noxious babbling about how it was in the Qu'ran that you had to be oppressive if you were a Muslim.

To take the last for the first, are you saying that the Koran does not expressly call for the oppression of nonbelievers? Because, then I want to see some evidence for that position.

Second, the rest of your paranoid bullshit and Appeal to Motive fallacies just rebounds back at yourself. It only reflects further on your inability to construct an argument.

The ecce homo exhibition is not a case of what I was talking about, and it was not spread around the world by news media. But I suppose that you hit on the word pedophile and assumed that homosexual was similar enough, since you haven't put your foot in your mouth enough yet.

Translation: "And now, in addition to painting him as intolerant, xenophobic, a Nazi and whatnots, I will also baselessly accuse Darth Hoth of homophobia as a red herring while I evade his actual point and hope he will not notice!"

(A hint: did it suggest that Christians were all evil and that Jesus was evil? That is the defining criterion.)

I was not aware that the Danish cartoons "suggested that all Christians Muslims were evil".