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[BigV]

Originally Posted by wolf

The Koran also says ...

--snip--

Little hard to reconcile that --snip

I don't wish to play the "Find the contradiction" in various religious texts. I find it especially disingenuous when one piece of the contradiction is used to illustrate the lack of credibility of the religious text and the other piece of the contradiction is used to support a conclusion about that religion.

It isn't logical to have it both ways. The text/religion is full of contradictions and therefore can't be trusted OR the text/religion is saying what they really are. How can I be expected to believe just *part* of a text?

Furthermore, context matters a great deal in all these surgical extractions, and context is nearly always missing when they're presented like you've presented them.

Also, no one I know is under threat by the Koran. No one. Under threat by people who believe things in the Koran. Or believe what someone has told them (which may or may not have been in the Koran). Unless you're hit in the head with the book, it is not a threat. People, that's where the focus should be, needs to be.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by BigV

Also, no one I know is under threat by the Koran. No one. Under threat by people who believe things in the Koran. Or believe what someone has told them (which may or may not have been in the Koran). Unless you're hit in the head with the book, it is not a threat. People, that's where the focus should be, needs to be.

Kim Il Jong is a Koran who I feel threatened by.

[Undertoad]

Or Matthew:

8:10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
8:11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
8:12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Or Titus:

1:10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
1:11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

Or what the Founder of Protestantism thought about Jews:

Originally Posted by Martin Luther

It serves them [the Jews] right that, rejecting the truth of God, they have to believe instead such abominable, stupid, inane lies, and that instead of the beautiful face of the divine word, they have to look into the devil's black, dark, lying behind, and worship his stench.
...
Now let me commend these Jews sincerely to whoever feels the desire to shelter and feed them, to honor them, to be fleeced, robbed, plundered, defamed, vilified, and cursed by them, and to suffer every evil at their hands -- these venomous serpents and devil's children, who are the most vehement enemies of Christ our Lord and of us all. And if that is not enough, let him stuff them into his mouth, or crawl into their behind and worship this holy object. ... Then he will be a perfect Christian, filled with works of mercy for which Christ will reward him on the day of judgment, together with the Jews in the eternal fire of hell!
...
There is no other explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses, namely, that God has struck them with "madness and blindness and confusion of mind." So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them.

It's all in the interpretation. It's all about which words you choose to emphasize. Religion is more culturally-bound than it prefers to think. And when it isn't, it diminishes. So during Jew-hating time, you pick out the biblical quotes you like and go to town. And so it is during gay-hating time, and shellfish-hating time, etc.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It's all in the interpretation. It's all about which words you choose to emphasize. Religion is more culturally-bound than it prefers to think. And when it isn't, it diminishes. So during Jew-hating time, you pick out the biblical quotes you like and go to town. And so it is during gay-hating time, and shellfish-hating time, etc.

Heretic!

[BigV]

Ok, thank you for clarifying your remarks. I didn't understand, now I see better. Thanks.

[DanaC]

Yeah. I'd misunderstood that as well :p

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

shellfish-hating time

That's my favorite time of all! I hate them way more than Jews or gays.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

That's my favorite time of all! I hate them way more than Jews or gays.

Hopefully that was just an out of context statement.

[gvidas]

I have a hard time imagining we'll ever learn how to live together in peace by playing the "whose fundamentalists are most whacko" game.

The moderate Islam take on the Suras and Hadiths which are most unsavory to the west (such as the anti-Jew ones and the ones about the size of the rod to strike your wife with) is to note the historical and cultural context (deeply sexist, tribal, honor-and-revenge based society.) And then to point out the ways in which Mohammad was radical at his time: treating his wives with respect, advocating for good hygiene, etc.

Which is basically the classic fundamentalist vs. modern-moderate split: do you take these passed down traditions literally, or contextually? If Muhammad based his dental care around a particular kind of locally-sourced twig (which happens to be particularly stellar for oral hygiene), should observant Muslims only clean their teeth with twigs from the same tree? Or, given that he was using the best technology available, should they, ~1400 years later, explore the best of modern toothpaste and floss?

The shellfish and pork stuff in the Old Testament always truck me as an interesting example of the way in which religion and the culture of the time are inextricable. In a society of subsistence farmers, you want your meat to come from animal stocks whose feed competes as little with yours as possible -- i.e., don't raise anything with a cloven hoof for food. If you want to avoid explaining how to safely prepare crustaceans for human consumption, limit your seafood intake to things with scales.



I think it's kind of mindblowing and awesome that one of the best ways to lower birthrates is to educate the women in question: it's win-win. Similarly, I think one of the best counters to radical Islam is to raise literacy rates and supply Qur'ans. We here on the Cellar, none of us scholars of Islam or even fluent in Arabic, as far as I know, have significantly more access to the Qur'an, and with a much wider range of interpretive biases to choose from, than your average Afghani villager whose take on Islam and the world is filtered through a select few individuals.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by gvidas

I have a hard time imagining we'll ever learn how to live together in peace by playing the "whose fundamentalists are most whacko" game.

The moderate Islam take on the Suras and Hadiths which are most unsavory to the west (such as the anti-Jew ones and the ones about the size of the rod to strike your wife with) is to note the historical and cultural context (deeply sexist, tribal, honor-and-revenge based society.) And then to point out the ways in which Mohammad was radical at his time: treating his wives with respect, advocating for good hygiene, etc.

Which is basically the classic fundamentalist vs. modern-moderate split: do you take these passed down traditions literally, or contextually? If Muhammad based his dental care around a particular kind of locally-sourced twig (which happens to be particularly stellar for oral hygiene), should observant Muslims only clean their teeth with twigs from the same tree? Or, given that he was using the best technology available, should they, ~1400 years later, explore the best of modern toothpaste and floss?

The shellfish and pork stuff in the Old Testament always truck me as an interesting example of the way in which religion and the culture of the time are inextricable. In a society of subsistence farmers, you want your meat to come from animal stocks whose feed competes as little with yours as possible -- i.e., don't raise anything with a cloven hoof for food. If you want to avoid explaining how to safely prepare crustaceans for human consumption, limit your seafood intake to things with scales.



I think it's kind of mindblowing and awesome that one of the best ways to lower birthrates is to educate the women in question: it's win-win. Similarly, I think one of the best counters to radical Islam is to raise literacy rates and supply Qur'ans. We here on the Cellar, none of us scholars of Islam or even fluent in Arabic, as far as I know, have significantly more access to the Qur'an, and with a much wider range of interpretive biases to choose from, than your average Afghani villager whose take on Islam and the world is filtered through a select few individuals.

A very excellent post, gvidas. Thank you for sharing that.

I *especially* like and agree with your concluding paragraph there. It is a win-win indeed. More literacy is always better. More communication is better, more understanding is better. Our dialog here in the cellar even is a contributing force for good in this way. Win-win-win.