Reacting to the recent poll which revealed some "disturbing" things about the UK's Muslim youth, and instead of having the guts to simply lay the blame where it belongs, Ms. Marrin thinks the only remedy is to ban all religous groups, including Christian schools. "To beat extremism we must dissolve religious groups," by Minette Marrin for Times Online, July 27:
First, I think, we should abandon all discussions of what Islam truly is. No one will ever agree how many infidels can dance on a pin’s head; questions of true doctrine are insoluble, as Anglicans are proving all too comically at this very moment. For example, one in six of the nonSunni Muslim students polled thinks Sunnis are not true believers in Islam, while three in 10 non-Shi’ite respondents think the same about Shi’ites.
[...]What follows inescapably from this is that religious people and their views should not be officially recognised in groups. Religion should not be allowed a public space or public representation.
[...]There must be no more religious schools – personally I would leave those that exist alone. There must be no public recognition of religious associations as representatives of anything or anybody: not on campuses, not in student unions, not in government consultations or in parliament.
Islamania is NOT a religion-it is a totalitarian system bent on world domination given a religious veneer. It's not much different than communism or fascism. If Western leaders would have the guts to brand Koranism as such it could then be combatted more effectively.
All value systems are not equal, Ms. Marrin. To be tolerant means to treat people, not ideas equally. And Islam wants to be the only value system: if you don't stop it, it will become the thing that you despise. It does not believe that all people are equal - some are definitely more equal than others. Have you ever asked yourself why the imams don't do the dying, if martyrdom is the best way to achieve paradise with Allah?
Something about throwing babies out with the bath water, or with the blood bath, or something something?
They don't need to ban all religion. Setting some reasonable, minimum standard for what can be considered a 'religion' in the first place should do the trick.
Incitement to violence, institutional discrimination against women and Jew-hatred should each be a sufficient reason to declare any particular ideology "Not a religion".
Then the rest follows.
The problem as we head into the 21st century, is that religions, Christian, muslim et al, believe in the veracity of books written hundreds and thousands of years ago which they accept as either divinely inspired or actually are the word of god. As long as we cling to these ancient words written by primitive men who thought, without a shred of proof, that there could be a virgin birth, miracles, angels, paradise with 72 virgins for martyrs, we will be like lemmings rushing toward the chasm of nuclear destruction...
-Tom Landry
"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail."
But is Islam really a religion?
From article: First, I think, we should abandon all discussions of what Islam truly is. No one will ever agree how many infidels can dance on a pin’s head;
It's how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, not infidels. Unless of course she is referring to infidels as angelic, which I doubt. Her reasoning may go over well with atheists. Banning all religion would be fine. But it is unrealistic to think Islam will go away by ignoring it.
In fact you can't ignore Islam because it won't let you. Like a toothache, the pain never lets you forget about it...
Wasn't it Yassir Arafat who said - all religious wars are the history of people fighting about who has the biggest invisible friend? (or something like that?)
And what with the simple fact that islam is merely a symptom of the utter inadequacy of the current western ideology that is pseudo-communism ? Terminating islam will not fix the world's problems, and yes islam is merely one of the problems that are manifesting themselves.
We are unable to deal with ALL violent ideologies, we're even faltering against individual criminals, as anyone can trivially see every night on tv, not just one idiotic ideology that has developed this pesky "now with extra fascism" flavor or wahhabism. Islam is merely one example, but what about Che Guevara's ideology ? How about Russia and China ? What about ...
Even if tomorrow every last muslim is killed by the angel of death, it would give us maybe 2-3 years before the problems restart, and they will simply have another name. I doubt it would actually take 3 years.
This seems to be something that many people here seem to forget. Communism was the first "challenge" to democracies, but met too much (and sorry to say this - mainly catholic) resistance to impose itself on the world. After a brief interlude fight with the real islam (ie. with the caliph), which was crushed before anyone could blink or yawn, Nazism came to the spotlight, a third contender, that, once again failed because of too much (this time American, perhaps not catholic, but certainly christian) opposition. Islam's merely the fourth fascist ideology to try - and it will be foiled, even if only by economic factors. But does anyone truly think that'll be the end of it ?
In reality, islam's not posing anywhere near the "challenge" nazism posed in 1938, or even 1932. In fact it's positively pitiful in comparison. Nazism didn't die when it got isolated. If we isolate islam it will survive only for months, at best. Nazism survived, strengthened, and started a war that would soon conquer the entirety of Europe, and pose serious challanges to both Russia and America, when it started getting isolated. And Nazism had the "progressives" on it's side much, much more than islam has them today. In America's universities the fuhrer was the "champion of the poor", and his character was laden with more transparently false honor than the child-massacring paedophile prophet gets in the "kingdom of lunacy" (saudi arabia).
And when you compare the threat of islam with the threat of Stalin in 1945, islam's a mere fly on the wall with a shoe flying in it's direction.
So what will we do about fixing the hole in the West ? Let's first ask the obvious question : are YOU personally prepared to do something ? If you're looking for something to do, have 6 kids and raise them. If 4 have a family of themselves you'll have done more than anyone could ask, and made more difference than even general Petraus. THAT would make a difference. And unlike islam, you can actually have true faith in Christianity. If these kids have that, you'll have done a LOT of good.
As anyone knows, if we fail against islam, it will be because of our weakness, not their strength, and islam will likely fall once again, to, oh say china. Or perhaps even Japan or Russia. These look a lot smaller than they actually are at the moment. They've done it before, they're at it right now (esp. China), and they might very well scale up their efforts. No muslim nation could hope to any of these three.
Of course, they're even worse. All three of them.
Typical hocus-pocus and pantheistic equivocation from a starry-eyed, multiculturalist, like Ms. Marrin, who appears totally devoid of the elemental ability to judge good from evil – right from wrong – acceptable from unacceptable – and thus: all theistic beliefs must each be necessarily intolerable. This is nothing more than simple poppy-cot from an air-head lost on a mental merry-go-round of indecision.
Some plants are poisonous. Should we not eat ANY plants, including the nutritious ones?
How is this woman in a position of responsibility and a spokesperson?
This sort of thinking is why I firmly believe in developing a curriculum in our education systems based on the logic and philosophy of Ancient Greece and Rome.
"Ban all religions"-
Typical far left moonbat slogan.
Another one is "they're just like we were in the dark ages, give it time and they'll be just like us.."
or "the internet will fix it, once they all have free internet the free flow of information will....blahblah"
"its all a matter of poverty and education.."
The lefties are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
"Her reasoning may go over well with atheists" by duh_swami
Far from it, banning religion is not a viable position for myself; an atheist. Banning religions will not solve the problem and will probably make the matters worse. The ideal answer is proper education and debate relating to these religious issues, not banning it.
TOMCCP: "...islam will likely fall once again, to, oh say china. Or perhaps even Japan or Russia."
Russia will have a Muslim majority in 50 years.
Japan's population will - if not augmented by immigration - be one third of its present number within 75 years.
That leaves the 'Peoples Republic' as the last hope for mankind?
Nope. This war for the soul and the future of planet earth will be won or lost depending on the actions of the USofA.
They say that great leaders emerge in times of national peril....and here struts Barry. I wonder if platitudes have ever determined the course of history?
Good grief. Someone help me out here. I'm, like, you know, just totally lost by this woman's arguments.
If I understood correctly, she's using polls revealing certain unacceptable beliefs of Muslims at non-Muslim universities--and the successful recruiting of Muslims at non-Muslim universities into participating into violent and non-Democratic groups--as a reason to end religious schools. And yet, so far as I can tell, these Muslims (who are at non-Muslim universities) seemed to have picked up these beliefs despite their attendence at non-Muslim universities. Not even exposure to other beliefs and attitudes (did I mention the Muslims she seems to find so frightening in their attitudes and beliefs attend non-Muslim universities?) has been able to counteract these ideas.
Um, what did I miss???
Typical knee-jerk reaction and absolutely pathetic from the religious brigade on this message board.
Ms. Marrin said
So-called religious community leaders, or umbrella groups of religious bodies, must of course be free to associate as they like in private, in a free country, but publicly they must be ignored. Publicly they must not teach or promote illegal prejudices. Forced into the private sphere, denied the oxygen of publicity, power and influence, highly politicised religious groups will wither on the vine.
You may be confusing her opinion with mine, I'd like nothing more than the eradication of all superstitious nonesense. That's not what she's advocating.
Banning only islam will just fuel their current imaginary victimhood, which they use to manipulate the MSM.
This is a shame,
I did receive a reply from Minette Marrin a few years ago, it was sympathetic.
However with these journalists they do not have the courage to confront and dissect the ideology of islam so they think they are being brave by confronting all religions.
It is just cowardice at best and collaboration at worst.
Forget about whether Islam is a religion or not. Just apply the existing laws -- the ones about aiding and abetting, and subornation, and the tax laws, and the organized-crime laws. Every time a mob marches in the street with signs saying "death to so-and-so" lock them all up for suborning murder (the sign carriers), and aiding and abetting (the other marchers). And not just for 3 or 6 months, but maybe 6 years. Likewise, every time an imam issues a fatwa calling for someone's death.
Use the tax laws. Tax-exempt charitable foundations are required to keep records and provide them annually to tax authorities. In both the U.K. and the U.S. many Islamic charities (I realize they're not the only ones) are failing to do so. Sic the revenuers on 'em. The IRS did a number on the scientologists, let's put them onto bigger game.
Use the laws against organized crime. The RICO laws have already been used for purposes well beyond their original intent. Use them against the mosques, "charities", and Moslem-owned enterprises engaged in drug-dealing, arms-dealing, monehy-laundering, etc.
Nothing, it's just that some, like yourself, never seem to recall or appreciate the divine, transcendant importance of the Doctrine of Universal Self-Deprecating Fairness required by other minds to justify the means by which they defend themselves (oh, and not to forget the ever-present opportunism in ridding society of those pesky Christians and despicable Jews).
(/sarc off)
But is Islam really a religion?
No. It's a mockery of one. Which, in turn, is a reason for the fear Muslims have of people mocking their fake religion.
Don't believe me? Check out the origins of Islam. Spencer's books will do fine - add Al-Tabari volumes 6 through 9 for completeness, and check it out yourselves. It's a hodge-podge of mainly pre-Islamic paganism, obscure Jewish and Christian lore, a bit of Hanif and finally the call for Jihad, Zakat and never-ending obedience.
It *is* a mockery of what real religion is.
I have to say I'm with Minette Marrin on this one. In any case, she doesn't want to ban all religions, merely withhold official recognition: allowing them to run their own schools, giving them privileged access to government, recognising religious leaders and the rights of religious minorities. It's called secularism, and it has stood us in good stead for a long time. Christian theocracy could be almost as bad as the Islamic variety. Ireland forty years ago was pretty bleak.
In any case, a secular society had almost been achieved - religion had had its teeth pulled, if you like - until Islam started demanding its "rights" and to get special consideration, and got it; as a result of which other religions started jumping on the bandwagon and demanding "respect" for their beliefs, too. Hence history started going backwards. Now if your religion is entirely positive and benign, and respects women and gay people and all the rest of it (perhaps it's a new sort of religion you've just invented) then doubtless you'll think it unfair if your religion is lumped in with Islam as something not to be officially recognised. But what's the alternative? It's simply not possible in a liberal society to discriminate in a blanket way and say, Islam bad, other religions, good, even if that's the truth.
SO it's a choice. Either we allow Islam to run roughshod over human rights and secularism along with all the other religions, or we stop recognising religious privilege. I choose the latter.
Banning all religions the only solution to combatting radical Islam?
From the same group continually telling us the fantasy that banning guns will eliminate crime.
I feel a bumper sticker coming on...
When religion is outlawed only outlaws will have religion... and guns too.
I've got a better idea; let's keep the first and second amendments, and lose the people that don't want to play nice.
And while we're at it, enact a ban on people who keep wanting to ban everything.
Not surprised.
Its the price we pay for having university professors stuff toxic and suicidal ideologies like post-modernism and existentialism and its mutant offspring down the throats of college students for the last 40 years.
As a result we have so-called educated people who don't even know right from wrong and good from evil. And who've also drank the heady of mead of multiculturalism, which itself is a product of post-modernism and now can't tell the difference between a murderous, power hungry cult and religions that don't believe in violence.
Its produced many so called intellectuals who can longer tell the difference between a college prank and the truth(go google Alan Sokal and his pranks on the elite of the post-modern movement).
IMO if we want to fix things, shutting down the philosophy and social studies departments might be a good start, since thats where the poison originates.
"The problem as we head into the 21st century, is that religions, Christian, muslim et al, believe in the veracity of books written hundreds and thousands of years ago ..."
Right. Along with the Qur'an, we should throw out all other religious/philosophical books because they were written "hundreds and thousands of years ago."
That means we should throw out the Jewish Torah, Christian New Testament, the Buddhist Sutras, Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching, the I Ching, the Bhagavad Gita...
So we should ignore the fact that, whether we agree with their "divine" origins or not, they have all inspired men and women to goodness, if not "greatness."
All because the one religion of Islam (which is actually the newest) explicitly encourages violence.
Not particularly intelligent.
The fundamental of goverment and laws are religous. That is why we have two societies, Western (Christian) and M.E. (Muslim), that are at conflict with each other.
If you remove the religion each society will still want to be goverend by standard rights that have been taken for granted. Ms. Marrin may think that 'remove the religions fixes the problem' but then which society will survive?
The Christian society grants human rights, and prosecutes for breaking the laws.
The Muslims society does not have human rights, and rewards those that break laws if while doing it say it was for 'allah'.
Which society will Ms. Marrin want to live in? I am going to assume that Ms. Marrin has taken for granted the goverment and laws that protect her and have given her a voice to even have an opinion. She can thank her 'Christian society' for that.
Teach them critical reason and logic, and Islam will fall away like a rotten apple.
However, if in French schools Muslim children refuse to learn arithmetic because the pluses look like Christian crosses, you’ve got a problem. The parents and their imams are already too far gone, so it’s the kids that are our only hope. But since they stopped teaching reason, even at the university level, the rotten apples have gained false courage, thinking the tree of knowledge no longer exists. Prove them wrong, logically wrong, and Islam will go the way of the old Soviets, kaput.
Leave religion out of it. Whether a personal spiritual faith or ancient superstitions, it has no truck with today's Islamic problem, which is an aggressive mind stiffling ideology. Hit them in the head, where it hurts them most, with critical reason.
This is the usual gutless liberal “answer” to aggressive islam, lets purge all religions equally so we can pretend we are not picking on muslims.
Everyone knows that the “Christian” states of Europe have horse traded with the various Christian churches for centuries to achieve the ends they wanted regardless of the churches teaching. The Church of England has done a pretty good job of cutting God down to size for the middle class and the C of E vicar is usually portrayed as a bumbling figure of fun. On Easter Saturday last year BBC Radio 4’s Arts programme had a joke about Geppetto meeting Christ in heaven and mistaking him for Pinocchio because he had holes in his hands and feet. I would like to see them do a Mohammed joke at Ramadan.
We could treat islam in the same way, perhaps starting with a film “The Life of Abdul” an Arab who lives in Mecca at the same time as Mohammed and keeps being mistaken for him. I am sure a writer of Minette Marrin's experience could supply a very funny script.
Well then, is she prepared to ban humanism and socialism as well? I have found many who believe in the two to have similar religious fervor.
Do humanism and socialism base themselves on the supernatural?
I guess the 'humanism/socialism' question would not be the 'belief in the supernatural' but instead 'belief based on faith of the unverifiable'. There are many forms of worship that do not include the supernatural'.
Even to explain 'evolution' it would take supernatural abilites and odds to even work without ever getting to the question'where did the matter come from that created a cell that divided'. Otherwise, 'belief based on faith of the unverifiable'.
With humanism/socialism were worship man as the supreme beeing, and that takes more faith than I have.
Re her attitude to schools.
Whatever the problems caused by what is taught or perhaps more importantly not taught in muslim schools, people outside the UK should be aware that the secular left in Britain has a particular hatred of church, yes, CHURCH schools.
Starting about 30 years ago they reorganised the entire education system in England and Wales on modern progressive lines. This was to be egalitarian and without any kind of selection based on differing ability, defiantly not on social class and produce “well rounded” citizens for the “white hot technological age”. As a result we spend more on education than almost anyone else and produce English – white indigenous English – “University” students who have trouble with basic maths and cannot write literate English let alone grammatically correct English!
Church Schools although mainly funded by the state were excluded from this and retained the basic traditional curriculum as a result they have thrived. In fact the demand for places far exceeds supply and Protestant and Catholic Church’s attached to a good high school enjoy a great deal of support as parents attend to earn the necessary points to get their children in. Needless to say their academic results are usually far above the average state school and this is not confined to the mainstream churches. The left constantly bitch about “The education system failing our black citizens” - it does – but I have heard of a minority church school in London with 100% black students that is one of the best in the country.
Over and above their normal dislike of religion that is why the left hate Church schools, they throw the failure of their great comprehensive education system in their face. Which is why the BBC in particular has been running a campaign for several years to open up church schools to all in the interests of “fairness”. They have particularly targeted our local C of E High School - one of the top 20 in the country – for “discriminating” against the towns large muslim population. They do not bother to mention that about 20 years ago when the towns muslims wanted to save their daughters from the obvious western influences of the state schools they just ignored the local government and set one up.
No, the church schools maintain our Judeo-Christian traditions and values and that is why they must be destroyed. In our rich diverse multi-cultural society such things cannot be allowed.
BTW they leave Jewish schools alone for obvious reasons and because they serve only a small part of the population they can by ignored.
alaskan1000 -
Are you suggesting evolution didn't happen?
Why not ban Sharia Law as unconstitutional?
Xeno...whether I am or whether I am not...can you prove it? Or do you have 'faith in the unverifiable'? Just say'en, everyone has faith in something. I will respect your decision to have faith in what you want and we should all recipricate.
The problem is not the 'faith'. The problem is does others' faith call for the condemnation of a person or society if it is differant then their own.
When a theory or belief evolves into a 'fact' by goverments, religions, or administrations simply because it is 'their official position' it is an abuse of society and it encroaches upon others beliefs. i.e. evolution, global warming, religion of peace, Pamela Andersons never had breast enlargement surgery....examples like that.
"So-called religious community leaders, or umbrella groups of religious bodies, must of course be free to associate as they like in private, in a free country, but publicly they must be ignored."
At least now Secularists are saying this publicly. The rub is that Christians to be Christians can not do so privately. We are commanded by Jesus to be public about our faith lest he deny us. If we deny he is Lord in public, on the Last Day he will deny us.
What troubles me in this is that in denying a public faith for Christians this Secularist is demanding that we not exist. I do not say this flippantly, but to deny Christianity public expression is a form of religious genocide which will be answered with civil disobedience by some and civil war by others. The latter will no doubt be tempted to gain forces with Muslims who also must express their faith in a public manner. In the end, the Muslims will turn on the Christians and establish a UK Islamic state.
What is needed is honest discernment between religions. Islam is violent and supremicist whereas Christianity has show it can tolerably co-exist with Secularism. If the Secularists go for the whole show and attempt to destroy Christianity because one religion (Islam) is a problem, they will certainly find themselves facing a civil war. I hate war, but unless Christian leaders in the UK and others realize the implications of what this editor is espousing, I predict that within a couple decades that is what the UK will be facing.
That would be all well and nice, to ban ALL religious groups in the UK, because of the threat posed by the mujahideen. Too bad Islam does not qualify as a religion. Why not? A religion, any religion, must put a value on ALL human life. The posters on this board already know that Islam certainly DOES NOT put a value on EVERY human life, only on the lives of the "true believers". Defeat the Cult of Islam! I wonder what 'cult of death' is in Arabic? Anybody know? It's time for a re-christening(!) of the "faith".
The other day some dunce on another topic also put forth the banning all religions idea.
You can ban religions all you want, but the state was not responsible for the rise of Christianity and they also cannot bring about their end.
But for the historically ignorant they can check out Enver Hoxhas Albania for an example of banning all religions to see how that plays out.
If everyone believed in themselves and in their own goodness, then there would be no religion at all.
Wlatc and descendantofacrusader: Ms. Marrin is so open-minded that her brains have fallen right out of her head.
Fred--Are you British? Sounds like you folks in Old Blightie have the same problems we Yanks have--only on a smaller scale.
Stickman--In Albania, Muslims, Orthodox, and ROman Catholics attended each others' re-openings and sent each other congratulatory messages after Hoxha died and Communism went by the wayside.
"If everyone believed in themselves and in their own goodness"
Whopper.
Do you think that the Jihadis are sufferring from low self esteem?
Thanks Kepha, last I heard atheism is a minority belief system in albania now, and that Islam has collected most of the former atheists. Why atheists seem to gravitate more to Islam once the ban is lifted is a topic I have mused upon and have never really gotten a good answer to, except possibly the habit of lying and materialism and the dualism that is so natural to humanity.
banning religion is not a viable position for myself; an atheist.
Posted by: Xeno
Maybe for you, this is not viable, but I know numerous atheists who would be tickled pink with such a ban...I don't think such a ban would work anyway, we can't seem to ban Islam...It should go first...
alaskan1000 -
You seem to have missed all the evidence in favour of evolution; evidence from lots of fields of enquiry. No matter where you look there is evidence of evolution and every new discovery strengthens the foundations of ToE even more.
If you choose to believe that evolution did not happen then that, although sad, is your right. The theory of evolution is the only testable, working, theory we have at the moment but that does not mean there could be no other explanation, however it is telling that for all the effort put in to trying to falsify ToE (by both 'sides') it just keeps on going.
Suffice to say; that evolution happened is a fact (there is no controversy within the research community, despite what certain organisations attempt to show), it is just the overall mechanism controlling the change that is still not fully understood.
Regards
duh_swami -
I am sure some have mentioned banning religion, as have some religious people from time to time but anyone seriously considering the implications of any such ban will see the impracticality of it all. Laws do not and cannot force someone to think a certain way, although long term propaganda does seem to have a marked effect on populations.
I would like to see religion naturally disappear over time but I would not like to try to force anybody into any position. I don't even think religion should be removed from schools as it is as important to understand religion as it is to understand any other aspect of our history. Just keep religion out of the science arena.
Regards
It is a documented fact that the higher educated or 'intelligent' a person is, the less likely they are to believe in religion/magic/superstition...
-John Adams
"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."
Stickman: The other day some dunce on another topic also put forth the banning all religions idea.
Yes, Stickman, that 'dunce' was me. Your bigotry is evident in the fact that you'd claim me a dunce without the slightest knowledge of me.
You can ban religions all you want, but the state was not responsible for the rise of Christianity and they also cannot bring about their end.
I'd rather people decide for themselves, but most people lack the intelligence and therefore need help.
But for the historically ignorant they can check out Enver Hoxhas Albania for an example of banning all religions to see how that plays out.
Where would we be if our first attempt at powered flight was handled in the same fashion? No one said it would be easy, it won't be. But we should keep trying.
"....we are unwilling, as a society, to tolerate unjustified beliefs in, for example, architecture. We should be similarly unwilling to tolerate unjustified beliefs about morality, spirituality, politics, and the origin of humanity." Sam Harris.
Unjustified belief – a belief liberals disagree with?
Fred, your comment about "Mo jokes" got me to thinking that such would be perfect to have printed up as stickers to place over the planned MTA WhyIslam ads that will appear during Ramadan.
So, instead of shamelessly putting upon the folks here, I began to Google. And find there's no dearth of humor at the expense of Islam online.
My immediate favorite is a bit about female suicide bombers. The response to the oft-repeated inquiries here as to what female suicide-bombers expect to find in "heaven", the answer is.....drum roll, please....towel boys.
Funny to think they see themselves as "ji-hotties", too, no?
http://www.bobfromaccounting.com/4_08_02/suicidegirls.html
Thought you'd all like to know.
(Oh, and know any good Mo jokes, anyone?)
I really miss those ol'tyme religions, you know, like Horus and Osiris, Isis and Toth, all worshipped in their grand days of Pharaoh, a god. Where have those days gone, when we so fervently believed, feared and fought? Usurped by those 'one god' people, you know, the Sun Ra, saying all the other gods are nothing without Him. It was the end of days... This 'one god' nonsense, all superstition I tell ya!
Xeno...I love to learn and I love the energy you have in your faith of evolution and your undeniable trust in science. I am willing to look at these 'facts' if you could direct me to the sources.
I would still like to hear your opinion on this question 'even if evolution is fact and it all originated from matter (a cell) where did the matter come from'? Physics 101 says 'the non-existance of matter cannot make matter, matter must come from somewhere....where did it come from?'.
The belief in science is great, but undeniable faith in science makes it no differant then religion, it is humanism to worship mans science unchecked. Has science been proven wrong? For as many scientist that say they can prove evolution, I can find an equal number of scientists that say it cannot be proven and have very good supporting arguments.
Abu_Lahab posted:
I'd rather people decide for themselves, but most people lack the intelligence and therefore need help.
Unfortunately the people who seem to think they know what we should think have even less of a clue, so I guess we'll have to stick with freedom of thought.
Where would we be if our first attempt at powered flight was handled in the same fashion? No one said it would be easy, it won't be. But we should keep trying.
Interesting analogy… and where would we be if we had been forcing crowds of people to "get on board" those early flights? The Soviets and Chinese found out in what turned out to be one of the ugliest chapters in human history.
"....we are unwilling, as a society, to tolerate unjustified beliefs in, for example, architecture. We should be similarly unwilling to tolerate unjustified beliefs about morality, spirituality, politics, and the origin of humanity." Sam Harris.
I believe this was taken from The End of Faith. I've forgotten the exact context it was presented in. It doesn't hold water as a general statement, so I'm guessing he was talking about unjustified beliefs that are threatening to other people's safety or personal freedom. As much as I like Sam Harris, short of trying to convince someone by reasoned argument or protecting himself from aggression or oppression, it's none of his or anyone else's damn business what people believe. Short of those special circumstances, that view becomes tyrannical and should be met with maximum resistance.
Just because someone doesn't label their beliefs "religious" doesn't mean they aren't clinging to dangerous, dogmatic, and irrational beliefs. But it does often mean they, just like Islam, have no qualms about forcing them on others. Marxism and the Left's movement toward "feel good" government and "feelings" based legislation are prime examples. I hope if Obama is elected he proves to be more like Kennedy and less like that other "Progressive", Mussolini.
Banning all religiuon in the US may work for the US but for the UK it is too late.
UK is the new Eurabia or the land of allahu akbar and sharia law is already beng implemented there. At this point, no miracle will save the UK from the gradual islamization.
In due time, all pets will be banned in the UK as islam do not understand the value of pets and they are not tolerant to allow the infidels to have pets (an evil in the islamic world).
More logic.
Most crime is committed by a few hardened criminals. But of course we must not incarcerate criminals, as that would be profiling. So let us lock up everybody.
Islam is violent at the core, but we cannot say so, so let us ban all religions, including the one responsible for Western civilisation.
Instead of banning the very foundation of our civilisation, wouldnt it be easier and saner to stop Muslim immigration as a first step, followed by reverse immigration.
Why do we have to destroy our civilisation just to appease a violent bunch of immigrants, who should not have been allowed into the West in the first place.
alaskan1000 -
To answer your question is a tricky one as you seem to be confusing various things. Once life started on earth all the elements were already in the Universe. The ToE does not answer or even attempt to explain where the universe and its components came from. That would be the Big Bang and there are various interesting theories and hypothesis being investigated in an attempt to answer that particular question. It is also interesting to consider we do not know what happens to our universal constants under extreme environments (like the first moments of this universe) so to presume the universal constants have always been constant is an error in thinking that is also being investigated.
To learn more about that facts surrounding evolution (as opposed to these so called controversies that are no more than dishonest quote mining and distortion by certain parties) you can visit www.talkorigins.org which is a repository of scientific papers and written work relating to evolution. I suggest the feedback section and the FAQ section are good for people new to the site. It is worth noting that this isn't an 'atheist' or 'secular' site as the scientists and contributors have varying beliefs from atheism through to theism and beyond. The only motivation of the site is to explain the science behind the modern evolutionary theory.
Another good site is www.pandasthumb.org but unlike the above site this deals directly with refuting the pseudoscience of such entities as the Discovery Institute and other such bodies that forward the idea of 'Intelligent design'. There are far more places to find scientific papers but you can find those yourself as you browse these 2 sites.
As for your parting shot about being able to find an equal amount of scientists who say it can't be proven; please show me any scientist who "say[s] it cannot be proven and have very good supporting arguments". Evolution does not require faith to accept it as it has a lot of empirical evidence to support it. As I said, it is accepted in the scientific community (fringe loons aside – and do note that if these people provided testable evidence of their theories they would no longer be loons...) that evolution happened. The mechanisms which cause evolution are still being investigated though and that is where you will find disagreement on certain issues.
“it is humanism to worship mans science unchecked” The whole point of science is that everything is testable so I don’t really understand your motivation for stating such a thing...
Regards
alaskan1000 -
I just re-read your post and it shows you didn't confuse anything; I just misread your question. So just ignore my first sentence!
However I will add that not knowing one thing does not invalidate or prove another thing. So even though we do not fully understand abiogenesis does not make it correct to presume divine intervention at any point along the time line or indeed to presume something entirely separate is false.
Regards
Posted by DP111:
Instead of banning the very foundation of our civilisation, wouldnt it be easier and saner to stop Muslim immigration as a first step, followed by reverse immigration.
Seems reasonable to me.
Why do we have to destroy our civilisation just to appease a violent bunch of immigrants, who should not have been allowed into the West in the first place.
That's "Batman's Delima"; how much freedom will be allowed to slip away before those whose only wish is to live in a free and civil society reject law and civility, and in its place execute temporary but extreme violence in order to restore those freedoms lost through slow erosion and misguided tolerance?
Further, how many of our own, who promote some future utopia at the expense of immediate freedom, will be sent on their way down that road paved with their own "good intentions"?
Such is the fate of a society whose rules are based on feelings instead of objective actions.
Yes, Stickman. The jihadi's are suffering from low self-esteem.
In fact, by being slaves of allah, which is what all muslims are, means that they have completely and totally negated any sense of self and individuality, that they've ever had.
"We should ban all untrue statements about human nature" ?
So everybody should be forced to believe the following :
There isn't a single example of a society surviving 50 years with a serious percentage of either atheists or muslims or communists (or socialists). The limit seems to be between 20 and 30% of the total population. (although the number remains to be proven, it is proven economically that a pure capitalist "nash-balance" society cannot survive, only a "pareto-efficient" one can. Which faiths are pareto-efficient ? (which boils down to "love thy neighbor as thyself")
Once that limit was crossed, whereever and whenever in history it was crossed, complete and total disaster was the result. Since the amount of death usually associated with the crossing of said threshold ...
Well, pareto-efficient faiths include most post-maimonides Jewish groups, all of Christianity and confucianism. Islam is over 99% not pareto-efficient (and sunnis generally don't even manage a nash-balance), honesty dictates that there are a few (tiny) sects that are, in shi'a islam, including the very important twelver shi'as (and believe me, despite ahmadinejad drawing everyone's attention, most twelvers see no need whatsoever to cause the end of the world, certainly not with massacres, in fact they'd love to stop him).
However there is a tiny problem ... humanism isn't. Socialism (to say the least) isn't (you might be able to defend that this wasn't true in the 19th century, or even up to 1915 or so, but no later).
This means one simple thing : once more than 30% of the people in a society think the purpose of life is personal gratification (which is obviously the case for, let's admit this 90% of atheists), that society will fall, irrespective of it's accomplishments or other factors.
In case you don't know what "fall" means, let me provide one example. On Roman graveyards you will regularly find skeletons of people growing to over 60, with exceptions actually getting to age 80. After the fall of rome, it became a VERY rare event for one to grow to see the age of 30. Water stopped flowing (the romans actually had functioning, if public, cold flowing water in nearly all cities, and in some cities they actually had both cold and hot flowing water).
After the "fall" of rome water stopped flowing through the sanitation systems of Europe ... for about 500 years, in most locations, up to 1000 years in some. Arguably sanitation only started surpassing the roman infrastructure again in 1920-1930.
So there's a tragedy of the commons :
-> faith in an individual means nothing
-> being surrounded by faithful Christians or Jews (abiding by the principles of those religions) *IS* civilization, this is the defining factor of your lives.
This also provides the answer to my critic here on this blog obviously :
Russia will have a Muslim majority in 50 years.
No it won't. Even if muslims somehow manage to evade the state, and grow, they will cause russia's collapse, which will inevitably be followed by a massive famine, which the muslims will bear the brunt of (why ? because they're a thieving culture. They can only survive in utter abundance)
Also there remains the possibility that Russia will redefine itself as "the collection of russian orthodox believers", as it once did, and "reconquer it's lawful domain", as it has done before (and in case you don't know history, they did indeed drive the muslims away from their domain)
Japan's population will - if not augmented by immigration - be one third of its present number within 75 years.
Is that a bad thing ? Who knows ?
Will they have robot armies in 20 years, technology enabling even 100 people to rule the earth unquestioned ? Most likely.
That leaves the 'Peoples Republic' as the last hope for mankind?
Actually no, it doesn't. And the people's republic is a much more formidable foe (and it's a foe) than islam is. Time will make that clear.
Nope. This war for the soul and the future of planet earth will be won or lost depending on the actions of the USofA.
Christianity cannot be defeated. And certainly not by attempting to blow it up. You assume economic conditions are utterly independant of the people living under them. They are not. Visit africa if you doubt this. The world, economics is on the side of Christians, an effect that oil temporarily masks. Nobody really doubts that that is a very temporary arrangement.
What america is defending is the current level of progress. Growing to live 90, even 100 years old. Watching your children grow up. Living in a violence-limited environment, with a justice system to protect you. America is defending humanity's accomplishments of the last 100 years, but ...
But that's all. America may be defending Christians, and the lives of a lot of Christians, their comforts and so on, but it's not defending "their soul", nor is it defending Christianity.
The church survived one civilization's collapse, and came out not just stronger, but the strongest force that has ever walked this earth (Arguably America is but an offshoot of that force. Though currently the strongest, by no means the only one). The catholic church can do that again. And if necessary again after that.
The soul of America cannot be lost to islam. For the very simple reason that that soul is faith, at the very least faith in America, but that basically boils down to faith in the principles of Christianity. All islam has to offer is mindless obedience. Mindless obedience, as nazism and communism showed, can grow by eating up parts of the faithful, but for the same reason no amount of lions will cause the extinction of gnoes, it will never be a significant force, growth in islam removes the feeding ground it has, and therefore has to be counterbalanced. You can "loan" a bit of time, for example with oil, but you cannot cheat)
Tomcpp -
The main problem with considering the effect of atheists on a society is that you have very little history to base any assumption on. It has only been recently that atheism has become a viable worldview as the evidence collected through scientific endeavour showed quite clearly that a natural process was responsible for the Universe as we see it. This includes the world we live on and mechanisms for life to appear and evolve into more complex life forms. More to the point no evidence has been found to support the position of a theistic worldview.
Russian communism is a good example of how to not go about bringing change to the world. We can see what happened when they forcibly tried to control people’s worldviews. We can learn from this and (like the Nazis) hopefully we can prevent this from happening again.
To say (which I believe you are) that humanism isn't parento-efficient shows a poor grasp of what humanism is. Without going into lengthy explanation on here (interested people can look at these sites for an introduction; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism and http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/) it will suffice to say that once you leave behind the delusion that you are answerable to a higher power (which leads to a cessation of moral values when it suits) you are left with the knowledge that this is all there is and you had better make the most of it. Perhaps you would like to discuss the percentage of offenders in prisons who are believers in one god or another (http://freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Percentage_of_atheists) compared to having no belief. To suggest that a belief in a supernatural overlord positively correlates to good morals is plain wrong. In fact evidence shows the opposite; that the stronger someone's belief in a supernatural entity (and all that this entity demands) the easier it is for that person to commit horrendous acts.
"...once more than 30% of the people in a society think the purpose of life is personal gratification (which is obviously the case for, let's admit this 90% of atheists)..."
I would love to see the source of these figures but for now let’s just address your overall point of this paragraph.
Firstly; Atheism, at a basic level, is simply a rejection of a theistic worldview (quite right too as theism has been shown to be false on multiple levels - note that I don't assert there is no god, only that the theistic version is false) and once that has been achieved that still leaves the question of how to live your life. Humanism seems to be the logical stepping stone forward for people who make the decision to leave religion (of any sort).
Secondly; your statement about 'personal gratification' can be applied to anybody of any belief (or non belief). We all (the overwhelming majority) do things that 'sit well' with us. I believe you are simply trying to suggest to viewers that atheists and hedonists are one and the same or (more likely) that conducting your life based on how your morals dictate (morals which revolve around not causing harm to anyone - in any way) is somehow worse than living your life using predefined morals which are as unbending as your belief in god, regardless of what evidence shows.
Finally, the reason America (like the west) is great, productive and progressive is that we have invested greatly in science. This has given western people the edge in medicine, finance, engineering, and entertainment (to name but a few) but most importantly, knowledge. It is this quest for knowledge that keeps pushing society forward; ironically it is also the undoing of this western society of ours, as the more knowledge we gain the more evidence (or lack of) there is that the basis of many people’s lives (religion - belief in a supernatural overlord) is based in fallacy. This is why people are getting so disillusioned with western society. On one hand we have amazing progress and the vast knowledge that comes with it. On the other hand we have a belief in something which is obviously false with alternatives demonized by well wishing (buy ultimately wrong) leaders. Let's start telling the truth to people before it is too late.
Regards
Well said, Xeno