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Anti-gay stands coming from a different quarter


vwl

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As an aside, as I understand it the majority of Muslims don't live in the middle east. Indonesia is the largest (by population) Islamic country, and they're not (as a general rule) radicals.

Also, to reinforce something Nigel said above, it's the second generation of immigrants that are forming gangs in western Sydney and making the news with the problems they're causing. The first and third generations are typically not involved to any significant degree.

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Great essay, Steven, and I really appreciate it that it's written from the viewpoint of somebody who's literally been there and done that.

Another note: I picked on Christianity in this thread. I'm not playing a game of 'they did it, so Islam can do it.' I object to BOTH belief systems equally as being untrue and detrimental to human worth. I simply use the comparisons to show that Islam is on a similar route towards irrelevance as Christianity in the West.

I have screamed for years that all extremist fundamentalist religions are wrong. They scared me in the 1960s, in the 1970s, and they still frighten me today. Anybody who immediately says, "my religion is right, therefore if you believe differently, you're wrong" is an F'in' asshole. I can't for the life of me understand why people don't have a "live and let live" philosophy, provided nobody's being hurt, nobody's being victimized, and people have basic human freedoms.

I do agree that it's amazing to see how much American pop culture has spread to other parts of the world. It's amazing to me to be in a taxi cab halfway across the world and hear Justin Bieber on a foreign-language radio station. Maybe you're right: maybe young people will eventually embrace a more enlightened way of life and reject the repressive history of their parents. I just wish they'd hurry the F up.

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Great essay, Steven, and I really appreciate it that it's written from the viewpoint of somebody who's literally been there and done that.

I have screamed for years that all extremist fundamentalist religions are wrong. They scared me in the 1960s, in the 1970s, and they still frighten me today. Anybody who immediately says, "my religion is right, therefore if you believe differently, you're wrong" is an F'in' asshole. I can't for the life of me understand why people don't have a "live and let live" philosophy, provided nobody's being hurt, nobody's being victimized, and people have basic human freedoms.

I do agree that it's amazing to see how much American pop culture has spread to other parts of the world. It's amazing to me to be in a taxi cab halfway across the world and hear Justin Bieber on a foreign-language radio station. Maybe you're right: maybe young people will eventually embrace a more enlightened way of life and reject the repressive history of their parents. I just wish they'd hurry the F up.

I agree with what I highlighted in Pecman's reply. Why don't people has a "live and let live" philosophy? I see two reasons: 1) They need someone to pick on. 2) They want to be in control.

Colin :icon_geek:

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And here in my own backyard we face another brainwashed group of crazy people.

If Islam has codified hatred against anyone who is not like them in their Quran we see just as much ignorance in the Bible believers. Having read both books over the years I can tell you it is not the book but the reader who is ignorant of the contents. Fundamental religionists on both sides do pick and choose which parts of these books they defend. In using a large brush dipped in so little text they try to paint the whole gay world as one to abhor.

Based upon historical fact, Islam is much like the Christian religion of the Dark Ages. Back then the text of the Bible was printed only in Latin which the priests were trained to read and the common man could not. Imagine trying to understand something you cannot read and hearing only: take my word for it, what I tell you is true. Islam suffers the same fate.

Imams preach hatred of gay people and the faithful must be confused, especially in the Middle East. I would imagine the average Muslim doesn't know any gay people. If you were gay would you come out in a country where they can stone you to death? Islam=ignorance, and before that starts an uproar I can say the same thing about our fundamental Christians. Need an example:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/04/25/us-virginia-christian-group-planning-40-day-hunger-strike-over-same-sex-marriage/

Although a little dieting is good for the waistline, a lot of hetero-supremacy is not good for the head. Brings to mind the KKK and all that jazz, but then this is Virginia, what did I expect.

The most disturbing part of those two words combined is that we have an organized religious base that seems to define their humanity in terms of sexual preference. I would expect that in lower life forms, animals think that way. But when human beings feel they have a right to be supreme based upon sex it appalls me. For this same group of Christians not too many years ago that supremacy was based upon skin color.

How sick we are as a society, or any society for that matter, if the only means we have of feeling supreme is to hate another group based upon differences. From religious based media empires of thought like Glen Beck who feels the Bible should be the only textbook we need in schools to the self righteous preachers in their pulpits, we are faced with those who would create another Dark Age.

These mindless factions would have us believe that gay marriage is a threat to family and children. The mere fact that a few erroneously religious Muslim cab drivers can stir up such a cloud of hatred is just a symptom of the sickness religions bring to this world. Glad I'm an atheist and live in America. If need be I can exercise my second Amendment rights and grab a gun if the God-botherers get too close. Brings a whole new meaning to stand your ground, doesn't it?

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Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamental Christianity are really two sides of the same coin, they are both Abrahamic traditions that take an absolutist position. Your average jihadist has far more in common with a fundamentalist Southern Baptist than either would like to admit.

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I think the majority of Muslims are as harmless as the majority Christians.

The radical/extremists scare me, but they are in minority.

I like cultural variety, and they improve a country, IMO. I feel just the same about calls to prayers and church bells: don't wake me up in the morning. And don't try to convert me.

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I agree that "the majority of Muslims are as harmless as the majority Christians," but I also suspect that the majority of Germans in the 1930s were similarly harmless. It is when the people are governed by Nazi law or Sharia law that the harmlessness carries no weight. Until there is a Muslim equivalent of the Christian reformation and Enlightenment, there is a problem.

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Yes vwl, and we won't know the outcome until we solve problem which might be somewhat stated as,

"How do you solve a problem like Sharia?"

(with apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein)

But I don't mean to trivialise the problem. The nature of extremist fundamentalism in religion has many sources.

I am always surprised at the bypassing of the mental source by objective investigators into the origin of consciousness.

Psychologically speaking, the evolution of our self-awareness giving rise to mistaking our inner voice being that of a god speaking to us, can only be wondered at. The self deception should have fallen away almost as quickly as the concept of a god should have been dismissed, once we adopted the scientific method of questioning our existence.

Such concepts however are difficult to overcome when they are ingrained in the culture. This is especially so when we consider that the parents blend the necessary teaching of survival skills to their offspring, with the emotional beliefs of a religion. Home schooling has a long history, and when it instils an authoritarian creed which must be obeyed, we lose the ability to question rationally, logically, analytically, our thoughts and experiences. Evidence is misconstrued as the word and works of the deity, leaving our consciousness floundering in ignorant suffering.

Thus has humanity staggered from one dark age to another, denying our natural talents, our evolving natures guided only by what I like to call, the priests of burden, and when they are absent, our good fortune to still escape into an enlightened wonder of reality.

All our attempts to understand, to minimise the damage caused by the fundamentalists and extremists, is a work in progress.

Every day that we question the old answers, find new questions, or simply admit that we just don't know everything, we have illuminated the pathway of our evolving consciousness for the better. Unfortunately, some people will not understand.

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You know, Des, if you started a religion I would follow it. But that will not happen because I see you as a secular humanist and thus your persona as a large orange creature is most fitting.

I've always been amazed that humans had to reach out to some invisible deity for answers when the bounty of nature surrounds us with every detail we could possibly need for life. But I think those who see homo sapiens as the ultimate life form are wrong because we have failed to adapt to our surroundings like even the smallest creatures on the planet. Instead we seem to be intent on burning down our house, and some do that in the name of their deity.

Our minds may be in an advanced state but we don't use them to understand that which confronts us on a daily basis. Instead far too many people seek their answers from a single book so far out of date my local library would have removed it from the shelves by now. Looking to the heavens and that invisible deity to solve our problems is illogical.

That deity has never communicated with us, no matter what religious texts say, and I think we have as much chance of hearing from it as we do of meeting aliens. But there are still those who will stand in their yards looking at the sky and waiting for contact. Aliens or deities, which will come first? Deities already have a bad reputation so I hope it's the aliens who arrive first....won't happen in my lifetime, what a shame.

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BTW, I want to recommend Altimexis's stories about a young Pakistani immigrant coming to America. He seems to have done some research and manages to convey how the extremists in Islam are mucking things up for regular folks who are more tolerant. One thing I noticed is that he keeps drawing the line between what the books of the various religions say and how people use their education and experiences to figure out right and wrong.

http://www.awesomedude.com/altimexis/naptown_tales/Naptown06-MyFirstThanksgiving.html

http://www.awesomedude.com/altimexis/naptown_tales/Naptown07-TheUn-Christmas.html

I suspect that solving the problem of Sharia comes down to simply making information available. Numerous governments have seen the power of Twitter and email to make information and communication available to regular folks when the governments try to restrict knowledge. Even North Korea, the most deliberately isolated and brainwashed society still learns about outside life through smuggled South Korean TV shows and radio broadcasts that they enjoy on their smuggled DVD players and radios (possession is punishable by death, but people still risk it in huge numbers, just for KNOWLEDGE of the outside world.)

Muslims are no different. They use the internet, and travel, to have new education and experiences and that changes how they interpret the Quran and the other muslim laws, just as Altimexis showed in his story. Economic development feeds technological advancement which feeds the flow of information. The richer the muslims of the world get (and its happening for sure), the more they want to know and experience choosing for themselves and acting for themselves. Sharia's days are numbered, barring worldwide economic collapse.

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Brunei introduces tough Islamic penal code. BBC report

From LGBTQNATION: Brunei to move forward with harsh law calling for death by stoning for gays

From London Evening Standard Stephen Fry, US comedian Ellen DeGeneres and leading designers have all vowed not to stay in any of the hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei in protest over the legislation.

Still think they're not going to take every opportunity to enforce Sharia theocracy on everyone?

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As if we need any more proof that Islam is a blight on the human landscape:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kidnapped-nigeria-school-girls-reportedly-sold-as-brides-to-islamic-boko-haram-militants/

To the male members of the Islamic cult women will always be little more than property. This comes from the cultural context of the Arab tribes that first formed the believers of Muhammad and followed his racist religious teachings. The Prophet himself was guilty of sexual perversions with underage girls, of course he married them first so that was okay, even when they were under ten years of age.

In the Arab world women are not even second class citizens and hold a status somewhere beneath the animals in the barn. But the middle eastern societies have always been male-centric for whatever reason as if it is some kind of mass psychosis. So Islam in Africa seems to have great appeal to the uneducated masses who so often act like the animals from which they were evolved...but not evolved far enough it seems.

Islam is just the excuse, as religions often are, for inhuman behavior. Is it any wonder that those who colonized the Dark Continent several centuries ago saw the native population as sub-human? But skin color is no impediment to civilized behavior and intelligence. Some of the most brilliant minds around the globe have been black. But any African nation that sees Islam as a proper form of God worship is delusional. Allah is a sham, an excuse for treating other people as less than worthy. But what are we going to do about it?

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Islam is 1.4 billion people. Kind of hard to encompass that group with one sentence. So yes, we do need more proof that Islam is a blight.

Granted, I don't find Islam particularly useful, but it's no more a blight than any other religion.

In some places, Hinduism for instance practiced burning widows on their husbands funeral pyre until the British stopped them.

Those very same Christian British, at that very same time, did not allow women to own property, vote, or have any say in who they married.

Right now, in modern times, there are American Jewish conservatives that don't allow women to ride the same bus with them.

So, if you consider the rest of the world, Islam is no more abusive to women than any other religion has a history of being.

----------------------

the other aspect of this is that the majority of muslims are not acting in this 'blightful' extremist way.

Brunei is less than 500 000 people who have no say in what their senile dictator does, so it's pretty irrelevant to a discussion of global Islam.

The Nigerian militants are a vast minority within their own country. Consider this: Where did those girls they kidnapped come from? Who paid for armed guards at girls schools throughout the region to protect those girls from Boku Haram?

It was MUSLIM parents who wanted their daughters to be educated, that's who.

Why are MUSLIMS protesting in the Nigerian capital demanding that their government do more to bring back the girls?

Boku Haram is estimated by the US govt to be between a few hundred to a few thousand people. That's in a country of 170 million. In the muslim areas of Nigeria, MILLIONS of muslim parents are sending their girls to get a western education. (And the rate would be even higher if the area wasn't so poor and lacking in schools)

...so what's the real muslim view on education for girls, I ask you, when the balance of opinion is considered?

Again, this is not to defend Islam. I just want to push back against the generalizations in this thread. You won't defeat the muslim extremists unless you actually know who/what you're fighting and panic about a many-tentacled giant muslim threat coming for you isn't going to help. A surgeon doesn't remove the entire liver to get rid of liver cancer.

You want to know what can be done about Islam? Supporting education and economic development is the core of it. The reason Boku Haram's main cause is stopping Western Education is because THEY know it's their kryptonite.

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Dangerous muslims call for prayer and fasting in support of missing girls' return...

http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2014/05/africa/nigeria-muslim-students-call-for-national-fasting-over-chibok-girls


Now, as an atheist, I suspect Allah's not going to listen to their prayers and intervene as they're asking him, so I'm not exactly supporting this action, but they're also calling for the government to step up its efforts. Since muslims behaving in kind and compassionate ways doesn't sell ads on CNN, it's worth taking time out to note the stories that don't air.

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