(April 13, 2017 at 7:32 pm)Minimalist Wrote: All they want is for someone to tell them that their barbarism is good because allah approves.  That they get.  Catholics used to get it from the pope.  Protestants used to get it from Luther and Calvin.  These days they get it from Pat Robertson.

It's all the same shit.

Islamic churches -institutions that issue religious sentences/fatwas-, spread across the Middle East as a second hand man for governments.
The role of the fatwas just serve the government, or aim to keep the masses locked in a certain mindset.

Egypt has the "Azhar", Saudi Arabia has "Council of Senior Scholars", Iran has Special Clerical Court,on actual grounds these are the Allah of the locals; what they say is what gets carried out. In the essence of the sentences, stoning women and hanging homosexuals give them a religious paint that is enough mask their real service to the government; they do nothing but dual terrorism: unleashing religious hell over the locals, and support governmental corruption on the other hand.


It's a fatal system.

To simple Christians and simple Muslims these systems seem legit; but with a tiny thought it's easy to see that "Allah" means very different things in these theoretical systems.

Or maybe it's simple christians and muslims who think that their religion is anything other than a lever of control, that theres a difference between "Allah" and the service of men to authorities that men have created.  

Just food for thought.

On a related note, I have this strange mix of admiration and loathing for religious reformers (both real and armchair imaginers like yourself). On the one hand, I admire and appreciate what they do to lift their religious identities from orthodoxy...but on the other, there's a very real danger to the idea that someone has (or can) cut out the cancer, so to speak..exemplified in your post above by those terrible men and their councils subverting the simple mans real islam...lol. Ultimately, all fruit on the poisoned tree is still poison. You've decided not to eat one, thinking there's a difference, but you're gobbling down the others..........so?

See, I'm not so sure why this clown is shocked.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39610175

Quote:Pakistan PM says he is shocked by blasphemy killing

This sort of thing happens every other week in Pakistan and islam is to blame.   I don't care who says "allah is such a little wimp that he needs YOU to kill someone for him" there are plenty of benighted fuckhead who are more than willing to do whatever fucking allah wants.

(April 15, 2017 at 6:07 am)Khemikal Wrote: Or maybe it's simple christians and muslims who think that their religion is anything other than a lever of control, that theres a difference between "Allah" and the service of men to authorities that men have created.  

Just food for thought.

On a related note, I have this strange mix of admiration and loathing for religious reformers (both real and armchair imaginers like yourself).  On the one hand, I admire and appreciate what they do to lift their religious identities from orthodoxy...but on the other, there's a very real danger to the idea that someone has (or can) cut out the cancer, so to speak..exemplified in your post above by those terrible men and their councils subverting the simple mans real islam...lol.  Ultimately, all fruit on the poisoned tree is still poison.  You've decided not to eat one, thinking there's a difference, but you're gobbling down the others..........so?

I'm not a reformer. I'm more of a "source-specific person". 
Here's the thing:

Faith in something, is faith in something. Lying and taking huge runs around the reality of things can never change the truth.
To end the rumors about something, you head right through to the source. 
You open your eyes; you never close them. Or else; you're just fooling yourself.

I'm doing exactly that. 

Eventually, no compulsion in my belief, forgiveness is the preferred act in most cases, humility is essential so no need to be an arrogant tyrant, all of this and more is religion to me, I'm not a reformer day-dreamer; I just follow the source.

---

(April 15, 2017 at 3:42 pm)Minimalist Wrote: See, I'm not so sure why this clown is shocked.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39610175

Quote:Pakistan PM says he is shocked by blasphemy killing

This sort of thing happens every other week in Pakistan and islam is to blame.   I don't care who says "allah is such a little wimp that he needs YOU to kill someone for him" there are plenty of benighted fuckhead who are more than willing to do whatever fucking allah wants.

Insecurity is the reason behind that crime. 

A nation killing a single man for a word is insecurity beyond belief.

What are they insecure about?  Are they that afraid that their bullshit is bullshit?

(April 16, 2017 at 12:07 pm)AtlasS33 Wrote: I'm not a reformer. I'm more of a "source-specific person". 

I understand that it's important for you and every other dreamer/reformer to maintain as such......

Quote:Here's the thing:

Faith in something, is faith in something. Lying and taking huge runs around the reality of things can never change the truth.
To end the rumors about something, you head right through to the source. 
You open your eyes; you never close them. Or else; you're just fooling yourself.

I'm doing exactly that. 

Eventually, no compulsion in my belief, forgiveness is the preferred act in most cases, humility is essential so no need to be an arrogant tyrant, all of this and more is religion to me, I'm not a reformer day-dreamer; I just follow the source.

The schtick of schismatics since the dawn of time is that they are "going back to the roots".   Their claims, and your own... are dubious...to be generous.  I wonder, sometimes, why heterodox believers like yourself have a compulsion to saddle their schism with someone else's magic book.  Talk about opportunities missed.

(April 16, 2017 at 12:29 pm)Minimalist Wrote: What are they insecure about?  Are they that afraid that their bullshit is bullshit?

I am being dead serious to anyone reading this, and everyone by now knows I aim my skepticism at every single religion.

On top of some books I have mentioned many times, the COSMOS series in it's 13 episodes hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson goes through worldwide human history and points out countless times where if the masses got too close to the power's authority those powers would react to the questioning. 

It is an unfortunate downside to evolution. Humans form groups and those who control the social pecking order of that society don't like being challenged. It really isn't any different than the social orders other primates set up and other animals set up within the group. 

Religion is resistant to change because it sets up a social order and humans don't like having what they are used to upset. The good side is that our species can and does question, but it often slows down our ability to admit when we got it wrong because we set something up we think works, even when it is based on a falsehood.

Push any group hard enough and they react. Even if what you are challenging that group can lead to a better understanding.

(April 16, 2017 at 12:29 pm)Minimalist Wrote: What are they insecure about?  Are they that afraid that their bullshit is bullshit?

In the hierarchy of religious thoughts, we use building blocks. Criticizers attack the weak blocks using logic or throwing opposite blocks.
When a defense argument fails, violence is typically the way to silence criticism. 

Sunni and Shiite Muslims -and pretty much most theists; too- know that their religious hierarchy is weak; suffering from many invisible dots in between glued recklessly, and from that insecurity occurs. With criticism, violence takes in to silence any attempt to demolish weak spots. The whole tower might fall.

Also, it's a good way to kill political resistance

(April 16, 2017 at 3:06 pm)AtlasS33 Wrote:

(April 16, 2017 at 12:29 pm)Minimalist Wrote: What are they insecure about?  Are they that afraid that their bullshit is bullshit?

In the hierarchy of religious thoughts, we use building blocks. Criticizers attack the weak blocks using logic or throwing opposite blocks.
When a defense argument fails, violence is typically the way to silence criticism. 

Sunni and Shiite Muslims -and pretty much most theists; too- know that their religious hierarchy is weak; suffering from many invisible dots in between glued recklessly, and from that insecurity occurs. With criticism, violence takes in to silence any attempt to demolish weak spots. The whole tower might fall.

Also, it's a good way to kill political resistance

Humans are tribal, even when it comes to political and economic views, but the biggest overlap in glue is religion and every sub sect of every label of every religion clamors for political power.

No, it depends on point of view if "its a good way to kill political resistance". Lots of attempts to upset a power fail. I wish evolution leaned to more compassion and non violence, but we are still tribal regardless.

PhD student submitted a thesis declaring Earth to be flat, unmoving, young (only 13,500 years of age), and the center of the universe at the American University of Sharjah

Going even bolder and further, the student explicitly rejected the physics of Newton and Einstein, the astronomy of Copernicus and Kepler, the cosmology of the Big Bang, the main models of atmospheric and geological activity, and most of modern climatology - all because the Quran says God laid the earth out like a carpet - flat.
The student submitted her thesis after five years of work; it was then sent to two assessors, thus passing the first stage of approvals. The reports were expected soon, for the thesis defense to be scheduled.

http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/phd...-1.2009202