I don't think he even knows what secularism is. He seems to be living in a fantasy world comprised of religious dogma, mythology and awful propaganda. One of us two is hopelessly deluded. Maybe it's me, I don't know.

I really have tried to have a sensible conversation but I feel like the answers are so random and not even internally consistent that it's going in pointless circles. I can only assume he has never been to a secular country, or if he has, his institutionalised outlook finds it unsatisfactory.

(February 29, 2016 at 4:53 pm)robvalue Wrote: I don't think he even knows what secularism is. He seems to be living in a fantasy world comprised of religious dogma, mythology and awful propaganda. One of us two is hopelessly deluded. Maybe it's me, I don't know.

I really have tried to have a sensible conversation but I feel like the answers are so random and not even internally consistent that it's going in pointless circles. I can only assume he has never been to a secular country, or if he has, his institutionalised outlook finds it unsatisfactory.

The bigger problem with Atlas is his idea 'that only if the Quran was followed'. This of course ignores why the Hadiths exist to begin with; namely, that the Quran is so ambiguous that early followers went to great lengths to give it specificity through recorded sayings of Mohammed. The frustrating part is that if Atlas' thoughts were codified we would ultimately have the Atlas Hadiths, his interpretation.

And the Hadiths are pretty messy so you then need people to understand the Hadiths, like commentators. And there are thousands of Hadith. And on top of that you have the Isnad Chains, the Tafsir, the Sunnah and Sirah (because the Hadith are just sayings and not necessarily those of Muhammad). And on top of all that you have the Fiqh, Sharia and Madhhab. And people wanna say that this religion is simple? No way. In fact, it's very insulting to me.

So complicated. I hate people who say that it's easy. Most people don't have time to really study even just the Quran, let alone the Hadiths. Not only that, buying Hadith and Tafsir collections in English is incredibly expensive; I've looked. It's a niche market. You have to dedicate your life if you want to study them and I have better things to do than to wade through mud. Quran is complicated enough, thank you very much.

They layman will never be able to fully check the "scholars", who may or may not be exploiting them for personal gain or other motives. And in order to understand where some Hadith came from you need to understand the Quran. And the Hadith are a mish-mash of things and Burkari* threw most of them out apparently. So the thousands of Hadith that we do have are only a tiny fraction of the original number even though there are still many thousands. It's crazy.

*This is just Sunni Hadith. Ibadis and Shia use different sets of Hadith. So you have at least three different sets of Hadith which different people consider the real deal. It's very silly. Each group has their own Quran interpretations which may be linked to the Hadith and Tafisr which they use.

And did I mention Isnad Chains? That's another layer of complexity. Isnad Chains help to deem Hadith authentic. I am not surprised when Atlas says many Arabs are turning Atheist. They know it's layer upon layer of confusion and even doublespeak. And the ruling elite in those countries simply cannot afford to keep the Arabs stupid and illiterate, literally, as their economies will suffer once the oil runs out. With good education comes critical thinking skills.

It gives me a headache just thinking about it. Most Muhammadans, especially in Africa, are illiterate. This is a fact. So of course they are easily exploited. It's very sad that people call Muhammad's religion easy to understand. They are either being intentionally misleading or are delusional.

(February 19, 2016 at 3:53 pm)robvalue Wrote: All religion is stupid. All of it. Judaism and Islam and all the rest.

All violence carried out in the name of religion is horrific and I wish it would stop.

Pretty much this. Anybody maiming and killing in the name of belief is absurd. Sam Harris was right when he said that religion can make people do such dangerous things for no reason and simultaneously be taken seriously for doing them. 

Islam, however, is what's really threatening the rest of the world right now. ISIS is possibly the largest terrorist group around right now, and whilst they may not be the only terrorist group they are most certainly the most threatening. Only by exposing the outright ridiculous tenets of belief they hold to the rest of the world is the situation going to become even minutely improved.

Stop murdering each other?  Don't be such a radical..baby steps.  

Maybe they can confine it to a single month...ramadan style?

Just look at how ridiculous this is...

It went from blaming all western atheists, to blaming all western secularists.

And it continued to be all western secularists, for many pages.

When the penny finally dropped, after explicitly saying "ever single secularist", he back-pedalled to "every secularist who supports [stuff I don't like]".

Now... what is the relevance of them being secular? Surely you'd just have a problem with anyone who supports [stuff you don't like]? Why are the secularists in that group being singled out? At this point the secularism is utterly irrelevant, showing that the whole premise of the thread is bogus and Atlas has no idea what he's talking about. It might as well be, "Bisexual men with one leg who support..."

It's this kind of utter nonsense, and trying to slur everyone by vague association that makes sensible conversation nearly impossible.

I said very early on in this thread to just talk about "People who support [stuff you don't like]" and leave secularism out of it. He refused, for many many pages, to make this concession. Now we suddenly have it, but still with the well-poisoning secular attachment. This is either someone who is ruthlessly dishonest, or is so addled by propaganda that they can't talk about an issue with trying to blame a whole arbitrary group of people for it.

Not just secularists, -western- secularists.  Even more myopic.  You could probably negotiate the secularists part out if you allowed him to freely bitch and whine about "westerners".  

All of this, from the man who has a habit of accusing others of race/nation-baiting him.......zero shits are given, by me, to his fragile "eastern theocratic" sensibilities. Boo hoo, "the west" has been winning wars against the poor, downtrodden losers. Maybe it would have been more difficult for us if they'd have gotten their shit together? We pulled a dry run for a few thousand years using each other as target practice, and you don't see me sobbing into my glass on account of that or holding some thinly veiled racial and nationalistic grudge. Fucker seems to think that his little group of losers are the only people "the west" ground under heel, ignoring that "the west" is a conglomerate of powers that have been all to happy to annihilate each other for the vast majority of our history, and that the reason any of this was done was because of some "evil". He can cry me a river,then drown his dreams in it...for all the good it will do either of us.

You don't have to be a historian or political analyst to see, how the conflict has changed over the last four decades.

I'm old enough to remember the last four decades and it went from almost entirely secular to religiously motivated. The Palestinian movement was dogmatically left all through the 70ies and early 80ies. They found their allies in South Jemen, Lybia, Lebanon, the European communist block and Iraq, before Saddam came to power. A Baathist regime nonetheless. They also worked in close connection with European leftwing terrorists. Such as the RAF in West Germany or the Brigate Rosse in Italy.

Their acts of terror were brutal, such as the attack on the Olympic games of '72, but they were no suicide missions and weren't aimed at killing indiscriminately. Taking hostages to exchange them for prisoners or to enforce some political goal, was the main motivation. Religion was very much on the backburner in these days.

Things started to turn religious and more radical with the Lebanese Civil war, when radical muslim groups started to evolve the same as christian militias, often supported by Israel. Arafat's Fatah was marginalised and under siege. The war in Afghanistan opened up a training ground for radical muslims. It was the first time that a kind of war tourism cropped up. Potential fighters from the whole muslim world travelled there to be trained and equipped. Often with Western gear, since we always tended to support everyone fighting the Soviets. Without looking too closely at what they were up to.

(March 1, 2016 at 6:49 am)abaris Wrote: You don't have to be a historian or political analyst to see, how the conflict has changed over the last four decades.

I'm old enough to remember the last four decades and it went from almost entirely secular to religiously motivated. The Palestinian movement was dogmatically left all through the 70ies and early 80ies. They found their allies in South Jemen, Lybia, Lebanon, the European communist block and Iraq, before Saddam came to power. A Baathist regime nonetheless. They also worked in close connection with European leftwing terrorists. Such as the RAF in West Germany or the Brigate Rosse in Italy.

Their acts of terror were brutal, such as the attack on the Olympic games of '72, but they were no suicide missions and weren't aimed at killing indiscriminately. Taking hostages to exchange them for prisoners or to enforce some political goal, was the main motivation. Religion was very much on the backburner in these days.

Things started to turn religious and more radical with the Lebanese Civil war, when radical muslim groups started to evolve the same as christian militias, often supported by Israel. Arafat's Fatah was marginalised and under siege. The war in Afghanistan opened up a training ground for radical muslims. It was the first time that a kind of war tourism cropped up. Potential fighters from the whole muslim world travelled there to be trained and equipped. Often with Western gear, since we always tended to support everyone fighting the Soviets. Without looking too closely at what they were up to.

You can point to any period of our species history, especially after the first written traditions and major cities started popping up, and when you take a long view of the entirety of our species, it is clear what is going on. We create clubs with labels based on religion and politics and economic views, but the reality most humans don't want to face is that it still boils down to excuse making to gain control over resources.

Do not get me wrong, I think more open societies that are democratic lean towards the evolutionary empathy in our species and I think more dogmatic one party states and theocracies lean more towards the insecure narcissistic bullying force side of our species. 

Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech should be spread every day more and more. I think the more people that have a long view of history and a more global view the more civil we can become. 

There is no such thing as altruism. There is such a thing as empathy for your fellow human sure. But altruism is another platitude in an imperfect world along with other loaded cliches like "honor" and "courage". When we say we "fight" for something, we are not thinking pragmatically, we are thinking locally and tribal.

We are as a species far too utopia in thought and far too tribal. It isn't that some set ups are more oppressive than others, certainly there are. But regardless, our planet is way too small and with pollution and climate change hurting the entire planet, the world needs to know the days of conquest are over. It is time our species put our species first and the labels on the back burner.