You are right when you say western goverments havn't been governed by Christianity. Jesus was a communist and would be shunned by our capitalist goverments as a left wing lunatic.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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You are right when you say western goverments havn't been governed by Christianity. Jesus was a communist and would be shunned by our capitalist goverments as a left wing lunatic.
The para appears to establish a basis that one must be Christian (or religious) to be the better human being. Being religious does not make one "more developed, loving" than the next person.
From my personal experiences, American Christians are definitely not more developed on the whole, especially in rural and Southern parts of the country where they hide behind religion to cover their bigotry, hatred, and racism. Most atheist/secular persons I've encountered in life and had discussions irt life, religion, etc. are much more developed, much more critical thinkers, although I have met a handful that were uber cnuts no different than some religious cnuts I have met. But, I have met plenty of Christians that were class people though many clearly scoffed at not believing in their form of beliefs, almost as if above others in this moral superiority. Not all, some were very welcome to other views, such as the Catholic priest I had multiple chats with in Georgia in 2013, and a separate believer, Ian, a colleague turned close friend to this day.
Humans are inherently good but also inherently selfish, and one does not require organized religion to be moral. That is my view, and one who was raised in the American Christian - Baptist to be exact - environment into my mid-20s. Then I explored the world (as in traveled abroad for work and leisure), educated myself (academia and beyond), did the self-improvement and self-actualization stuff, etc. I was far more close-minded as a Christian because I held a superior belief I was "right" and nonbelievers were wrong, a belief instilled by clergy, family, and peers in the same circles. I also held less accepting and less loving views towards other cultures, religions, and sexual orientations, whereas today I am far more welcoming and understanding. One must remember that a large percentage, likely majority, of American Christians have not ventured outside their comfort zones, let alone outside the US, and hold insular views without the knowledge of the true world.
A more personal example would be my grandmother, who paraded herself as some bastion of faith, love, and caring but was an uber cnut of a human being who held grudges towards persons that did not follow her beliefs, connived and cheated family and friends, claimed democrats, atheists, and Muslims should be executed, and lived a racially motivated hateful life under the guise of attending church on Sundays and carrying her bible around. This is the woman who partly raised me from birth, connect the dots from there if you want. I could also point to a former friend, we shall call her Sarah, who also lived this morally superior judgmental life on the basis of her Christian beliefs.
The above is based on my personal experiences. I personally do not have issues with people believing in ancient tribal lore and if it makes one do better things in life, awesome. I do have issues when said people push laws and policies on the public through their hardcore religious beliefs (and pandering in some cases).
Wonder how many ‘more developed, loving people’ one could find at the churches these people went to?
He was a Marxist! You'll have trouble from the People's Front of Judea if you are not careful.
@Abraxus - the whole forum is based on extremes, oddities, different opinions and experiences, why else would these things be interesting enough to be a discussion? I agree it is fairly repetitive but just occasionally a point or two crops up but in a way it's like the draft threads and WW, they're all inhabited by the same people, some might say Extremists themselves for the lengths they go to to criticise one faith or another. So it bores you? Pick some other threads you are interested in.
- I asked for specific examples because your initial post implied there should/could be a thread listing them. I was simply curious what it might be.
- Christianity has a strangle hold on America and it's leaders and anyone who has followed what's been going on there in recent years would know it's just getting more and more prevalent and used as a corner stone in MAGA's 'us vs them' rhetoric. Trump may not give a shit about Chrstianity but he sure didn't do that photo shoot with the bible in his hand during the BLM protests or arrange that creepy prayer moment in the oval office just because he was bored.
- The reason we aren't ascribing the wars the "globalist atheist governments" take part in to atheism is because it has feck all to do with why they go to war. I'm no expert on history or war but I'm yet to hear of anyone referring to their lack of belief in a god as the reason for invading another country.
- There are several studies out there showing how people in secular societies live longer, healthier and happier lives compared to those in theistic ones, with less crime as well. Religion makes people hate other people just because they love someone, in some places to the point they want to take their rights away, in others they will be sentenced to death for it, so when it comes to any question about who is the more developed, loving person in general any answer except the atheist is demonstrably wrong.
The Catholic Church concentrating on the important issues, I see.
No doubt they are more developed & loving sinners though.
Imagine having your life marshaled so severely by a fairy tale. Surreal.
Happy Darwin Day!!!
Not feeling too embarrassed posting this utter horseshit in here...
Hey, Alabama church-goers have decided that embryos are 'children' due to apparent religious doctrine defining them as such. It is in the Babble after all. These lawmakers would be classified as 'more developed & loving' in your estimation? Discuss the 'good' this decision brings if you would.
Pretty sure other states will follow suit soon.
They should just declare infertility God's will and make it illegal for the couple to try for a kid in other ways.
Which Alabama church goers have decided this? Do they speak for all Christian groups and in your opinion or expertise where if at all does it stand, or currently is going through a legal or political case? Perhaps you can tell me - was there a vote? Did the christians of Alabama vote, did non-churchgoers participate in a poll?
I'm just speaking for myself obviously but on the odd occasion where you just maybe post a bit of - I'll call it blurb, but not in a terrible way, just that it doesn't really give that much understanding to maybe someone like myself that doesn't particularly get their news from X (formerly Twitter) or any American media outlets at all for that matter.
The Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice happened to be the more developed & loving christian in this case who decided this.
Remember, any ol' churchgoer will no doubt be more developed & loving than us non-beieving heathen so, basically, any one of them does speak for the believers as they all have these qualities.
I'm an ol' churchgoer myself and I do not concede that your point of discussion is the case, but I'm not an American - something very bad and sad has happened within that country. Sadly you've not answered any of my questions.
He is a churchgoer that is representative of a broad swath of other churchgoers in the state of Alabama, he's not an outlier in any way, shape, or form. He just happens to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The reason I posted the link to him was to undercut the absolute fallacy that religion is & the absolute fallacy that only religious people subscribe to a higher, more pure standard of morality than us non-churchgoers. This was presented as fact in a previous post which I can't be arsed to find, but it's within the last three pages.
I appreciate the information on 'the Churchgoer', I still feel your opinion is very generalised as well as over simplified but I doubt I'll change your opinions. This probably only goes to show why Politics and Religion are such difficult topics and very often impossible to change peoples ideas or feelings.
I suppose it would be too much to ask what type of church is being discussed ie Protestant, Presbyterian, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Catholic etc?
I do thank you for your answers so far. Also just to say that since this didn't sound as if it had been taken beyond Alabama's legal system, but not being well versed in such I'm pleased to have been set straight.
Good question about the varietal of church, I do not know. SB is a good shout, but SBs were also pro-abortion not so long ago. I would hazard a guess to say that the CJ is most likely evangelical / born again.
Thankfully he is out of step with the national view on IVF.
I always got the feeling that Catholics vote Democrat predominantly. Probably wrong but there you go, perceptions are often mistakes.
All religions are lies. But some lies are more dangerous.
The following page contains an Excel file with a list of islamist terror attacks between 1979-2019. Forty years, over thirty thousands terror attacks!
Is this list a lie? Is it a fact? I cannot understand why we don't talk more about this, the numbers are just astounding.
https://data.fondapol.org/en/non-classe-en/islamist-terrorist-attacks-in-the-world-1979-2019-2/
The following page contains an Excel file with a list of islamist terror attacks between 1979-2019. Forty years, over thirty thousands terror attacks!
Is this list a lie? Is it a fact? I cannot understand why we don't talk more about this, the numbers are just astounding.
https://data.fondapol.org/en/non-classe-en/islamist-terrorist-attacks-in-the-world-1979-2019-2/
Is it your opinion that the phenomenon of Islamist violence has been under-discussed or gone under the radar since 1979?
When I read this thread it mostly discusses what some weird American protestants might do. Religion, what is the point? Bullshit is the point, but it is not Christian terrorists that are killing people for religious reasons, at least not recently. And no, it hasn't been discussed here, it is not just my opinion, it is a fact.
Perhaps not extensively in this thread recently, although the topic has certainly come up in the past in here. Right now discussion in here is mainly driven by @calodo2003 ’s posts on America, but a quick word search in this thread will reveal plenty of discussion on Islam and Islamist violence in previous years.
I’d say in the Cafe CE forum as whole it’s quite possible no other topic has been discussed more since I signed up in 2008, across dozens of threads. I see you’re only here since 2021 and it’s probably true to say that other CE topics have received more attention since then, due to a combination of the decline in high profile attacks in the West since 2018 and war-weariness in regards to places like Syria.
In regards to the link you’ve posted, it’ll be difficult to discuss over 30,000 attacks without getting a clear definition of “Islamist” and “terrorism”. A quick glance shows the Abu Nidal Organization listed, which leads me to believe they’re working with an extremely loose, and in my opinion misleading, definition of the former.
But of course nobody doubts the rise in Islamist violence since 1979 - the main debate in terms of this and the other threads it has been discussed in over the years on here has centered on the role of Islam itself in driving the violence. My own opinion is that Islamic doctrine has indeed played a role, but only in combination with a multitude of other factors.
I'm sure this has been discussed earlier in this thread and in others over the years. This thread is more of a discussion about whether religion is still relevant in the present.
The discussion tends pop more in the ce when there has been an attack on western soil. If someone tweeted non stop about the latest islamic terror attack like Caledo posts about stupid American christians it would look a lot like Robert Spencers blog. Also many love play the islamophobia card when they can't distinguish between completely rational critism and aversion to the doctrines of a religion as opposed to unwarranted biggoted hatred of muslims.
What would be a nice opening line when starting a chat with Jesus?
That could be a stand alone thread.
It is not just violence and terrorism.
Above your post, there is a post by Withnail about Catholics in Ireland who need the bishop's permission if they want to marry non-catholics in a catholic marriage ceremony.
What about a Muslim woman who wants to marry a non-muslim in a mosque in Ireland? Does she need the permission of the imam? Is it possible at all? No? Why not? And why nobody discusses this?
And my question is about Ireland, it is not about what is happening in the 50+ muslim countries ... we somehow have accepted that these belong to a different universe and there is no point in criticizing their practices.
Very interesting interview. An ex-islam believer, born in Germany to Turkish parents, moved to Turkey when he was 16, tried to be faithful Muslim, later became atheist. He says he likes Muslims but he thinks Islam is a terrible religion that has destroyed the life of many people, and he wants muslims to leave Islam.
The interview is in Jerusalem, he says that Oct 7th had a huge impact on him, he says he is more pro-Israel now than he was before.
The interview is in Jerusalem, he says that Oct 7th had a huge impact on him, he says he is more pro-Israel now than he was before.
I was about to ask you what did you found interesting. Glad I see the white text
That moron is a useful idiot
@frostbite what is interesting of that guy?
That he says that leaving islam is death penalty and he is happily alive?
That he literally says that He loves what israel is doing?
That he is measuring his opinion about islam for 1 single event caused for a conflict that is +75 years?
That he is Saying that islam is not possible to be fixed and after 10 seconds saying that is possible to be change and he had an example?
That he shares his revelation that 99% of muslims (statistics pulled from his ass) on the west bank dislike jews but if you ask the muslims in Israel is 50% (pulled from his ass again). I fecking wonder why? And he says. "I don't know how it would work in a greater scheme" . Maybe don't fecking steal their land?
He is a big big big moron, and you can post whatever you want, but calling interesting is baffling
And just a few things about Visegrad 24 in wikipedia
Visegrád 24 posted a CNN clip that claimed babies had been decapitated by Hamas during their initial attack on Israel. CNN later issued two corrections; the Center for an Informed Public noted they could not find any corrections by Visegrád 24 about the rumour.[6]
In November 2023, Bloomberg News found that Visegrád 24 was one of the influencers that went viral by posting misinformation since the start of the war, citing an instance where Visegrád 24 claimed without evidence that the Taliban had asked the Iranian, Iraqi and Jordanian governments for passage to join with Hamas.[8]
In December 2023, Visegrád 24 posted a video clip on X from 2015 of a man who shouted at Israeli soldiers before falling. In the post, Visegrád 24 posed the question, "What is going on here? Is Pallyywood [sic] in action?", in reference to Pallywood, a conspiracy theory that claims Palestinians are faking civilian casualties.[17]
The post is not only not interesting but simply pathetic
Here is another interesting interview, which talks about "useful idiots".
This woman, Yasmine Mohammed, is an ex-muslim, her dad is from Gaza, her mom from Egypt. Her parents married back when muslim women in Egypt wore mini-skirts and were "modern", like the women in the West. They moved to California, then to Canada, then they divorced. Her mom felt lonely in Canada, got involved in the mosque, and to repent for wearing mini-skirts in her youth, she became a fanatic muslim and forced her daughter to marry an Al-Qaeda operative!!! Yasmine says that her husband really wanted to die for Allah because he would get the 72 virgins in Paradise, he believed all that bullshit! Really!
Yasmine Mohammed was able to escape and she left Islam. Of course, the fanatic Islamists want to kill her because she abandoned her husband. She is a very brave woman!
This woman, Yasmine Mohammed, is an ex-muslim, her dad is from Gaza, her mom from Egypt. Her parents married back when muslim women in Egypt wore mini-skirts and were "modern", like the women in the West. They moved to California, then to Canada, then they divorced. Her mom felt lonely in Canada, got involved in the mosque, and to repent for wearing mini-skirts in her youth, she became a fanatic muslim and forced her daughter to marry an Al-Qaeda operative!!! Yasmine says that her husband really wanted to die for Allah because he would get the 72 virgins in Paradise, he believed all that bullshit! Really!
Yasmine Mohammed was able to escape and she left Islam. Of course, the fanatic Islamists want to kill her because she abandoned her husband. She is a very brave woman!
A few years back, when young people from the West went to join ISIS, I was shocked and couldn't understand it. Some were women, too! How is this possible? To leave London and go to Syria to join some stupid terrorists! Why? I couldn't understand it. And I thought it was just a small minority that had these ideas.
After Oct 17th, it was even more shocking to me that so many people in the West screamed "from the river to the sea". For the first time, I started to realize that perhaps this is not about a small minority.
After watching some interviews of ex-muslims who grew up in the West, it now seems to me that it is quite possible that the majority of muslims in the West grow up in a bubble and they are being taught from very young that they should hate Jews, that they should hate the West, hate gays and atheists, that at the end of days there will be a war and the Jews will all be killed and everyone will become muslim, and that their job is to help islam conquer earth. Sure, not everyone believes that, and even most of those who believe it will not do anything, but in these interviews the ex-muslims say that this is the prevalent worldview in Islam, even in the West.
Is this true? Or are all these ex-muslims lying?
(But why would they lie? I am sure they all know what happened to Salman Rushdie.)
If it is true, it's such a pity... so many young people have their lives destroyed by these ideas. They grow up in the West, but they basically hate the West, I can't even imagine how confusing and conflicting this is. That's a terrible life, even for successful (rich) people. After all, what does "success" mean if you hate the place where you live?
After Oct 17th, it was even more shocking to me that so many people in the West screamed "from the river to the sea". For the first time, I started to realize that perhaps this is not about a small minority.
After watching some interviews of ex-muslims who grew up in the West, it now seems to me that it is quite possible that the majority of muslims in the West grow up in a bubble and they are being taught from very young that they should hate Jews, that they should hate the West, hate gays and atheists, that at the end of days there will be a war and the Jews will all be killed and everyone will become muslim, and that their job is to help islam conquer earth. Sure, not everyone believes that, and even most of those who believe it will not do anything, but in these interviews the ex-muslims say that this is the prevalent worldview in Islam, even in the West.
Is this true? Or are all these ex-muslims lying?
(But why would they lie? I am sure they all know what happened to Salman Rushdie.)
If it is true, it's such a pity... so many young people have their lives destroyed by these ideas. They grow up in the West, but they basically hate the West, I can't even imagine how confusing and conflicting this is. That's a terrible life, even for successful (rich) people. After all, what does "success" mean if you hate the place where you live?
Visegrad24 is, among other things, an islamophobic, pro-Israel propaganda channel that intentionally uses half-truths, lies and misinformation. It's not a serious source of information of by any account.
Here's another example posted on 1st January of this year.
I'd also suggest you to refrain from personal insults, it can (rightly) get you banned. His obvious agenda and interesting views on particular topics are simply not worth it. Just put him on ignore.
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@frostbite
What is the purpose behind your posts? I would also consider myself to be an ex-muslim and I have no love for Islam but I don't see how that excuses anything Israel are doing in Gaza and the West Bank.
Are you trying to maybe switch the conversation away from Israel's latest atrocities? Pretty pathetic if that's your intention.
What is the purpose behind your posts? I would also consider myself to be an ex-muslim and I have no love for Islam but I don't see how that excuses anything Israel are doing in Gaza and the West Bank.
Are you trying to maybe switch the conversation away from Israel's latest atrocities? Pretty pathetic if that's your intention.
I would guess that @Withnail is Irish and has a specific interest in the issue, given the long history of Irish society being shaped by the church. In contrast, Islam is a minority religion in Ireland with a relatively small number of adherents and its influence on Irish society has been negligible. Add to that the huge number of Cafe posters from Ireland and I’m sure you can understand the occasional emphasis on the role of the Catholic Church in Ireland on this forum.
However, there have been plenty of discussions on the Cafe over the years addressing any number of questions relating to Islam, and the Cafe’s Muslim posters have regularly displayed a willingness to engage in these discussions and have often demonstrated remarkably thick skin and patience while doing so. Often I find that the forum’s willingness to discuss such matters depends on the general perception of the OP’s good faith or lack thereof, and in this regard I’d say there might be an impression out there that you just want to rant about Islam and Muslims rather than engage in productive discussion. But that is just speculation on my part.
You have full posting rights in here. Knock yourself out.
Edit: And not be accused of trying to derail the Israel-Palestine thread.
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