Is Islam A Death Cult?

[Leonardo17]

Dying for the cause of God is the highest honour a Muslim can get.
The question is: what ranks up as a death in "God's cause"?

Martyrdom = death in battle for God, death while sacrificing for God.


So if God despises your act (like causing the death of innocents -even innocent non-believers-, causing corruption on the land...etcetera)  you can't claim it is death for God. God might throw you in hell instead for the sin you caused.

BTW, all countries claim they have the true "meaning of martyrdom". I know lots of Americans who threw themselves in the crematoria of Iraq and Afghanistan to be "martyrs for the USA".

Well, obviously in the islamic faith, dying for Islam is a high honor. The leaders want strongly devoted followers.
It is the same in christianity.

It isn't just the united statians that didn't like what the taliban and Al-quada was doing.
One of the issues is that they don't allow women to get an education.
But that isn't the primary reason why they went to Afghanistan. The primary reason is that Al-quada payed a visit to the USA and decided to randomly kill people. They also conducted attacks in other countries.
Since they are taking away lives, it makes sense to take away their (Taliban) lives.

The only problem is that all wars come down to resources. The USA and allies do not have the resources to kill all of Taliban or Al-quada.
It costs too much.
Also, they wanted Afghanistan to self govern and to handle the taliban. Looks like that didn't happen.
Looks like the taliban has a large population and lots of weapons.
Probably another factor is the Russia-USA problem that has been going on for 100 y or so. The USA chose to help the taliban when Soviet Russia wanted to invade Afganistan. It makes sense for Russia to help the Taliban. It is a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation.

I think it would have been the best if no one entered Afghanistan in the very beginning. Did you know that there were even US companies investing if Afghanistan in the 50’s and that it was a more or less stable country until the soviet invasion in 1979? As Lao-Tzu puts it “Where there is war the land ceases to be fertile, only thorns will grow in the land and weapons will ultimately return toward those who first used them”. So the US armed the Taliban against the soviet, Than Russian armed the Taliban against the US. Both of them finally left the country. So what happens to all these people now?
 
On the interpretation of religion. There is one example that caught my attention today:
In one verse of the Quran it clearly says “Follow the advices of – those who are knowledgeable – “. To me this goes in line with an interpretation of Quran that states that true faith cannot coexist without a sense of deep respect and adherence to the facts that are stated by technology and positive sciences.
 
So while I was searching for the exact Quranic quote in the internet I came through some websites that used the same quote for a different purpose. Their interpretation / translation was “Follow the advices of – Those who are knowledgeable in Religious issues –“
 
And these misinterpretations have permeated every aspect of religion. I grew up reading the works of a famous theologian and legist in my country who appeared in television shows stating that “the religion they taught to you in school is not real Islam”.
 
Explanation: Like the religion oriented schools in the US Putschist Generals in the 1970’s have introduced mandatory Religious education classes to all schools as a tool of social cohesion. What they do is to explain all the superficial aspects of different religions in the world and conclude the curriculum with something like “the best way is our way”. I think this is more or less the main method of religious indoctrination of the world.
 
As I result: I need to read volumes, and have endless debates with many people to take things like “Women are not supposed to be educated in Islam” and get them / and myself to understand that the original message of the holy book itself had never had anything to do with this sort of distorted / irrational view that goes against all sorts of moral, scientific, sociological and/or rational way of doing things in this world.
 
For this reason: I think that atheism might simply be the best way of doing thing in our time. The problem with all religion and spiritual teaching is that we live in an age when people still like to use things, to do other things. So finding your way through all sorts of distortions and misunderstandings is not always an easy task. So the more simple approach is to not get into these things. And in spiritual terms (as far as I know): Being an atheist or an agnostically person is better (much better) than being fooled into a distorted version of any religion. In the Quran it says: “May those who fool you not fool you with God” (that’s the exact expression).
 
So it may take generations, before we get to a widely practiced and correct interpretation of religion across the world. But I think we will get there at some point. Until then, don’t join Al-Qaida and (try) not to harass women in front of abortion clinics

[The Grand Nudger]

As Lao-Tzu puts it “Where there is war the land ceases to be fertile, only thorns will grow in the land and weapons will ultimately return toward those who first used them”. 

More than just words.  Compacted earth is the perfect seedbed for invasive weeds (they prefer to think of themselves as pioneer species....).  You can't stomp all over a field and expect it to grow fruit.  Isn't it interesting that the fundamental deceit of abrahamism is that by stomping out all of the other cultivars, the field will be made most fertile for the growth of the good? Agrarian civilization requires peace, stability, and continuity of labor in order to be productive at scale. I see that you're still on about this magical Original Message™ of yours, that only you have access to, which is conveniently at odds with the actual progress of the actual religion of the actual magic books and actual cultures which held them to be so. Good luck with that.

You'll be the first thrown off the roof when they win. Internal dissent is more dangerous and more viciously handled in abrahamism than external agitation and malcontents. Ultimately, as a warlike and expansive faith, it needs the externals to struggle against, and has no use for the schismatics beyond a cautionary tale told after they're good and murdered, and told exclusively from the murderers POV.

Isn't it something that, when considering this, you feel like atheism is the best way forward today? The underlying proposition being that all religion must be like this religion. That, in order to prevent the historic evils of abrahamism, one must reject all religion. It's not, and there's no need. Abrahamism is a standout. It deserves credit for being as horrible as it's decided to be, and that took work, and there were always chances to go another way with it. Hell, dumb luck could have taken it another way, but the abrahamists genuinely rose to the occasion in this and every century and maintained the sickness of their faith. OFC..I think it may finally be showing it's age. As of today, abrahamism is being colonized from within by the remnants of the un-dead-ed dissenters. Turning into a new age faith, a synthesis of pre conquest belief and contemporary abrahamic shame.

[Anomalocaris]

what did in the imperial roman army in wasn’t mercenaries,  but a system of imperial succession that always overtly or tacitly required backing by military force.    consequently the soldiers found the upside in being instrumental in enthroning the winning contestant for the crown far outweigh the down side in losing the bid to enthrone their rival emperor.    So the army gradually degenerated into a cadre force for forming conscript mob forces to fight civil wars.

…and the cause of this was the very brutal nature of the empire since its beginning. A legionary would enlist in the Roman army for a period of 25 years. In modern language that’s a death sentence. The term “decimation” is a practice that existed in that Era. If a military unit lacked discipline, they would kill every 10th man in that unit. Crucifixion was a real practice. Those who dares to follow the rebel slave Spartacus (6000 of them) were crucified along the road from Rome to south Italy. So yes, they were the major civilizing force of the world at the time. But no they were as brutal (perhaps more brutal) than any other power-based empire that followed them in the middle ages. Their economy was 100% based on slave labor and their power was based on a military machine that was designed to conquer and conquer and conquer. Just think of the size of their dominion. Why would anyone want to have such a huge amount of territory without having sailing methods or motorized vehicles? (We’re talking of an era in which it took perhaps a week or two to move from one city to the other.
 
So whatever. Maybe they were doomed to crumble at some point anyway

almost nothing in that is really true.    During the period when Rome made her most critical conquests during the republic, the legions consisted of land owning farmers who were levied to served terms ranging from one year to several years depending on military need, and discharged when the military need passed.     Only after Marian reforms did the legions began to be manned by landless poor, even then they still served only for the duration.  Only during the empire did legions consisted largely of urban and landless poor who signed up to serve a contract period of 20 years.     
20 years was not a death sentence, because legionaries enlist at 18 and is discharged before they are 40.   Even in the age when overall life expectancy is around 35 years thanks to high infant mortality, those who live past infancy and childhood can still look forward to living into their 60s.   so a man who lived to 18 to enlist in the legions can expect to live 20-30 more years after he completed his 20 year term.  we have evidence that vast majority of legionaries lived to retirement during early to middle empire.    indeed service in the legions was considered a sure way for the young indigent poor in the roman world to achieve upward economic and social mobility because savings from their service pay, plus their discharge bonuses is enough to enable the discharged legionary to start a family on a plot of land that is usually part of their discharge bonus and maintain at least a lower middle class living from its fruits.   
decimation is a real punishment for units which had shown collective cowardess before the enemy.    but this punishment is recorded to have been carried out only a handful of times during the entire roman history.   each instance was considered an exception event worthy of note across the roman world.  In many of these instances when the punishment was  carried out, it was mitigated by selecting a total of 10 men from the offending unit to be executed instead of executing every tenth man from the unit.
Roman empire depended heavily on slave labor, but was never close to being “100%” dependent on slave labor.  in fact slaves made up only 10-20% of the total population of the roman empire.   In the pre-industrial age a rule of thumb is it takes at least 2 people’s labor to feed 3 people, including themselves.   so even if all slaves worked in agriculture they could still only have kept at most 1/3 of the roman empire fed.   The rest of the empire depended on freeman labor.

[Ferrocyanide]

Well, obviously in the islamic faith, dying for Islam is a high honor. The leaders want strongly devoted followers.
It is the same in christianity.

It isn't just the united statians that didn't like what the taliban and Al-quada was doing.
One of the issues is that they don't allow women to get an education.
But that isn't the primary reason why they went to Afghanistan. The primary reason is that Al-quada payed a visit to the USA and decided to randomly kill people. They also conducted attacks in other countries.
Since they are taking away lives, it makes sense to take away their (Taliban) lives.

The only problem is that all wars come down to resources. The USA and allies do not have the resources to kill all of Taliban or Al-quada.
It costs too much.
Also, they wanted Afghanistan to self govern and to handle the taliban. Looks like that didn't happen.
Looks like the taliban has a large population and lots of weapons.
Probably another factor is the Russia-USA problem that has been going on for 100 y or so. The USA chose to help the taliban when Soviet Russia wanted to invade Afganistan. It makes sense for Russia to help the Taliban. It is a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation.

Dying for any cause is the highest honor in its context.
Example is American soldiers dying in war.

So? your point; I mean?

BrianSoddingBoru4 explained it well.

I would only add that the word martyr is seldom used in the western world when describing fallen soldiers.
They just call them heroes but they also call soldiers that have returned heroes.

So, dying is not the highest honor.

[Ferrocyanide]

Well, obviously in the islamic faith, dying for Islam is a high honor. The leaders want strongly devoted followers.
It is the same in christianity.

It isn't just the united statians that didn't like what the taliban and Al-quada was doing.
One of the issues is that they don't allow women to get an education.
But that isn't the primary reason why they went to Afghanistan. The primary reason is that Al-quada payed a visit to the USA and decided to randomly kill people. They also conducted attacks in other countries.
Since they are taking away lives, it makes sense to take away their (Taliban) lives.

The only problem is that all wars come down to resources. The USA and allies do not have the resources to kill all of Taliban or Al-quada.
It costs too much.
Also, they wanted Afghanistan to self govern and to handle the taliban. Looks like that didn't happen.
Looks like the taliban has a large population and lots of weapons.
Probably another factor is the Russia-USA problem that has been going on for 100 y or so. The USA chose to help the taliban when Soviet Russia wanted to invade Afganistan. It makes sense for Russia to help the Taliban. It is a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation.

I think it would have been the best if no one entered Afghanistan in the very beginning. Did you know that there were even US companies investing if Afghanistan in the 50’s and that it was a more or less stable country until the soviet invasion in 1979? As Lao-Tzu puts it “Where there is war the land ceases to be fertile, only thorns will grow in the land and weapons will ultimately return toward those who first used them”. So the US armed the Taliban against the soviet, Than Russian armed the Taliban against the US. Both of them finally left the country. So what happens to all these people now?

I haven’t heard about US companies investing in Afghanistan but I am not surprised. The european type nations (more specifically businesses) have learned to invest in other countries probably before 1600. So, they have their foot in every country, every microscopic island that can’t even be seen on the world map.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I don’t know whether Afghanistan should be invaded or not. On one hand, eliminating the taliban would make a lot of people happy but you are also interfering with another culture. It might not be clear who is a taliban and who is not.
At this point in time, the Afghanistan people should self govern and fight the taliban rather than relying on the USA sending them soldiers.

On the interpretation of religion. There is one example that caught my attention today:

In one verse of the Quran it clearly says “Follow the advices of – those who are knowledgeable – “. To me this goes in line with an interpretation of Quran that states that true faith cannot coexist without a sense of deep respect and adherence to the facts that are stated by technology and positive sciences.

Well, it doesn’t exactly take a genius to write something like “follow the advice of those who are experienced, follow the advice of those who have knowledge on topic X.”
As for science and technology, they proved themselves useful to the masses for about 200 y, so they gained the general population’s respect.
There are anti-vaxers and anti-bigpharma boys. This seems to be a recent phenomenom (started in 199x?) I think these guys think that pharmaceutical companies want to make money and therefore, they design drugs to treat symptoms rather than permanently solve diseases.
Or, they produce drugs that are not well tested (thalodomide incident).
Or, the drugs (vaccine) contain dangerous substances to harm people (mercury compounds, aluminium hydroxide, iron particles, the 666 number, embryonic cells, mouse brain cells).

For this reason: I think that atheism might simply be the best way of doing things in our time. The problem with all religion and spiritual teaching is that we live in an age when people still like to use things, to do other things. So finding your way through all sorts of distortions and misunderstandings is not always an easy task. So the more simple approach is to not get into these things. And in spiritual terms (as far as I know): Being an atheist or an agnostically person is better (much better) than being fooled into a distorted version of any religion. In the Quran it says: “May those who fool you not fool you with God” (that’s the exact expression).

Atheism is an empty bag just like theism is an empty bag.
One means “A guy who does not believe in any gods” and the other means “A guy who believes in 1 or more gods”.

Atheism is not a philosophy or a set of moral rules.
For moral rules, there is something called secular humanism.
It starts with inviting everyone, women included, and you discuss which rules a society should have.

So it may take generations, before we get to a widely practiced and correct interpretation of religion across the world. But I think we will get there at some point. Until then, don’t join Al-Qaida and (try) not to harass women in front of abortion clinics Smile

That is unlikely.
Maybe you can get into a time machine and go back to 600 and bring Mohamed here and he can tell us his interpretation and maybe every muslim will be united.
You can also bring back Jesus and so, every christian will be united.
You can also bring back Moses and so, every jew will be united.

The reality is that when the master leader (the inventor of the religion dies), the followers eventually setup their own schools (which they call church, synagogue, mosque and other words) and start disagreeing and eventually, you get a fragmented religion.
The fragments never merge.

[Leonardo17]

As Lao-Tzu puts it “Where there is war the land ceases to be fertile, only thorns will grow in the land and weapons will ultimately return toward those who first used them”. 

More than just words.  Compacted earth is the perfect seedbed for invasive weeds (they prefer to think of themselves as pioneer species....).  You can't stomp all over a field and expect it to grow fruit.  Isn't it interesting that the fundamental deceit of abrahamism is that by stomping out all of the other cultivars, the field will be made most fertile for the growth of the good?  Agrarian civilization requires peace, stability, and continuity of labor in order to be productive at scale.  I see that you're still on about this magical Original Message™ of yours, that only you have access to, which is conveniently at odds with the actual progress of the actual religion of the actual magic books and actual cultures which held them to be so.  Good luck with that.  

You'll be the first thrown off the roof when they win.  Internal dissent is more dangerous and more viciously handled in abrahamism than external agitation and malcontents.  Ultimately, as a warlike and expansive faith, it needs the externals to struggle against, and has no use for the schismatics beyond a cautionary tale told after they're good and murdered, and told exclusively from the murderers POV.

Isn't it something that, when considering this, you feel like atheism is the best way forward today?  The underlying proposition being that all religion must be like this religion.  That, in order to prevent the historic evils of abrahamism, one must reject all religion.  It's not, and there's no need.  Abrahamism is a standout.  It deserves credit for being as horrible as it's decided to be, and that took work, and there were always chances to go another way with it.  Hell, dumb luck could have taken it another way, but the abrahamists genuinely rose to the occasion in this and every century and maintained the sickness of their faith.  OFC..I think it may finally be showing it's age.  As of today, abrahamism is being colonized from within by the remnants of the un-dead-ed dissenters.  Turning into a new age faith, a synthesis of pre conquest belief and contemporary abrahamic shame.

All I said was that if you have limited time or interest, Atheism is probably the best solution for you. Because in our time, you will have to do some research in order to be able to get to some form of result. And I did not say that only I have the key to this. I said that if this “religion” that I understand as a kind of “inner reality” of “seventh continent” if you like, only you (as individual) can pack your stuff, prepare the expedition and start exploring it. This is not some sort of “blue pill or red pill” issue and then you follow the rules and rituals and then you get to paradise. In fast (just like in the Matrix movie) the Blue pill is usually only the beginning but I will come to that later.
 
The Tao-te-Ching starts with the phrase “The way that can be told of is not the Way” or “The Dao that can be told of is not the Dao” and then it says “It was from the nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang”. And in Chapter 14 it says “The eye gazes but it cannot catch a glimpse of it, The Ear listens but it cannot hear it, the hand grasps but it cannot seize it”.
 
This is a good definition of this Dao. The word God in Christianity means (in old German) the Greatest Good. Brahma in Hinduism (The God who is the source of all other Gods) means “He who is not”. I think the word Allah has also the same etymological meaning. And “Religion” (from the Latin word) means you are re-establishing that ling with this Dao or God or whatever you want to call it.
 
And What I want to say is that we are not a uniform mass of people. There are differences. And I don’t make this difference according to superficial issue like the name of their faith or the rituals they are performing. That’s because I believe that this “Higher Reality” has to be universal. The first phrase you need to repeat when joining the Islamic faith is “There is just one God (And Muhammad is his emissary)”. So this reality (if you happen to believe in it) is singular. Just like the fact that there is but one Universe in which we all live in and that this Universe is being ruled by the rules of mathematics and physics no matter who you are and how many people believe the opposite
 
So then there is my classification of those believers:
 
1) There is the mass of people who are exactly what you say they are: That is a mass of people, with unreal beliefs, who are obsessed with a body of beliefs and rituals, who are cleverly manipulated by a more limited number of people. Who wage “holy” wars, live in ignorance, deny science, logic, or philosophy. If you watched the movie “Agora” with Rachel Weisz that’s exactly what they are. The Quran calls them “Animal flock” (Ar.: Raiyah) I call tham “ignorant masses” or first chakra people with very low energies. Deeper Yogic trations also talk about them and say that these are the typical masses of the dark Ages (or Kali Yuga in their terminology). These are the Typical Kali-Yuga people and their strength is that they come upon you in masses. Like the Zombie hears of the “Walking Dead” series. And as I said, the Quran also knows about these masses and advises us to “Let go and let God”.
 
To sum up: The religion that is hated by most atheists “is not the Dao” It has nothing to do with it. The only benefit of such people is social acceptance within their social-group, + some sort of psychological relief on the issues of life-death and existence in general. That’s not my way.
 
2) There are what I call “true believers”. These are my grandparents for instance. They don’t intellectually analyze things too much. But they are being led by some honest religious figures. So their intellectual convictions are not entirely incorrect. And they are not fanatical about their beliefs either. And they have this devotion and/or sincerity in their practice so they are able to go a very long way. Because of this I never feel superior to such people. This is one of these seemingly contradictory fact that is related to the “Dao” or the “Way”.
 
And I am talking in spiritual terms. There are people who have the best spiritual teacher who make trips to Bhutan to meet some Indian Guru’s etc. but are completely egocentric and childish toward their existence and there are those people with limited education and limited knowledge who are able to be wise, and are able to avoid conflicts, find solutions for the good of everyone etc. And that’s what I am talking about.
 
3) And then there is the modern way. That’s the way of people like us who have huge access to information and are therefore able to go deeper into religious and spiritual subject. And because we both value science and logic as well of spiritual issues most people think we are nuts. But my view on that is that we are simply a product of the evolution of society. I think our intelligence (as a planet) is increasing, and therefore we are able to go beyond those two categories I mentioned before. And if you don’t like it that’s perfectly fine for me. İt is only the first category mentioned here who want to be as many as possible and take over the whole world if they can. That’s a typical ego-based attitude and its useless in spiritual term because as I said before, this journey is an individual journey. İt’s like you can get yourself 10 people to work-out in the gym for you all day long but if you don’t go there yourself, you won’t make any muscle. That’s the “new” approach. But it’s not really new either. That’s the way this approach has always been.

[Leonardo17]

…and the cause of this was the very brutal nature of the empire since its beginning. A legionary would enlist in the Roman army for a period of 25 years. In modern language that’s a death sentence. The term “decimation” is a practice that existed in that Era. If a military unit lacked discipline, they would kill every 10th man in that unit. Crucifixion was a real practice. Those who dares to follow the rebel slave Spartacus (6000 of them) were crucified along the road from Rome to south Italy. So yes, they were the major civilizing force of the world at the time. But no they were as brutal (perhaps more brutal) than any other power-based empire that followed them in the middle ages. Their economy was 100% based on slave labor and their power was based on a military machine that was designed to conquer and conquer and conquer. Just think of the size of their dominion. Why would anyone want to have such a huge amount of territory without having sailing methods or motorized vehicles? (We’re talking of an era in which it took perhaps a week or two to move from one city to the other.
 
So whatever. Maybe they were doomed to crumble at some point anyway

almost nothing in that is really true.    During the period when Rome made her most critical conquests during the republic, the legions consisted of land owning farmers who were levied to served terms ranging from one year to several years depending on military need, and discharged when the military need passed.     Only after Marian reforms did the legions began to be manned by landless poor, even then they still served only for the duration.  Only during the empire did legions consisted largely of urban and landless poor who signed up to serve a contract period of 20 years.     
20 years was not a death sentence, because legionaries enlist at 18 and is discharged before they are 40.   Even in the age when overall life expectancy is around 35 years thanks to high infant mortality, those who live past infancy and childhood can still look forward to living into their 60s.   so a man who lived to 18 to enlist in the legions can expect to live 20-30 more years after he completed his 20 year term.  we have evidence that vast majority of legionaries lived to retirement during early to middle empire.    indeed service in the legions was considered a sure way for the young indigent poor in the roman world to achieve upward economic and social mobility because savings from their service pay, plus their discharge bonuses is enough to enable the discharged legionary to start a family on a plot of land that is usually part of their discharge bonus and maintain at least a lower middle class living from its fruits.   
decimation is a real punishment for units which had shown collective cowardess before the enemy.    but this punishment is recorded to have been carried out only a handful of times during the entire roman history.   each instance was considered an exception event worthy of note across the roman world.  In many of these instances when the punishment was  carried out, it was mitigated by selecting a total of 10 men from the offending unit to be executed instead of executing every tenth man from the unit.
Roman empire depended heavily on slave labor, but was never close to being “100%” dependent on slave labor.  in fact slaves made up only 10-20% of the total population of the roman empire.   In the pre-industrial age a rule of thumb is it takes at least 2 people’s labor to feed 3 people, including themselves.   so even if all slaves worked in agriculture they could still only have kept at most 1/3 of the roman empire fed.   The rest of the empire depended on freeman labor.

I will only object to the last part. In the First century Slaves constituted 20 to 30 % of Italy’s population. And a good Hollywood movie on that is the movies called “Spartacus”. And maybe this was the reality of the time. In the Middle Ages Europe switched to serfdom which again were basically slave who were tied to their land (and their landlord).
 
But again, in modern standards, or when compared to previous cultures of the Bronze Age (like Egypt for instance) or even like Classical Greek culture they were very brutal indeed. Spartans also relied on some sort of serfdom system. But even Hellenistic cultures did not rely on slave labor as excessively as the Romans.
 
+ Gladiators combats in the Early republic and Kingdom of Rome were only fought between two men (usually slaves) in order to honor the death of some exclusive individual. Then they became like the Mayas and started to make people kill one another just for the purpose of entertainment.
 
Of course I’m making this criticism from an age in which people want to ban bull-fights in southern Europe because people think it’s completely uncivilized to kill animals like that.
 
+ Many Roman Emperors where portrayed as “Philhellene” that is “Lovers of Hellenism”. Any way, they are dead and gone and no one is really missing them in our times. There is this serie on Netflix called “Barbarians”. I thing they were not treating themselves and/or anyone else in a completely civilized manner. But that’s my personal opinion

[Leonardo17]

Dying for any cause is the highest honor in its context.
Example is American soldiers dying in war.

So? your point; I mean?

BrianSoddingBoru4 explained it well.

I would only add that the word martyr is seldom used in the western world when describing fallen soldiers.
They just call them heroes but they also call soldiers that have returned heroes.

So, dying is not the highest honor.

I did some spiritual research on that. I think it’s as simple as this: If everyone in a marching military unit starts thinking “I would like to sea the sea before I die”, “I would like to unite with my lover and see if my children will be male or female”, “I could help my father work the land more efficiently” etc, that army will start moving backward instead of moving forward.
 
After the Battle of Thermopilae (Movie= 300 Spartans) the Spartans erected a monument there with this inscription:

Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
 
“O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians (Spartans) that
we lie here, obedient to their words.[144]

Thermopylae
 
 
Meaning: “O passenger, know that we died here as soldier (we died well) because we chose to obey to the order that were given to us”
 
- So this is a cultural phenomenon. People are said to have died well when they do it to defend other lives and the Quran is backing this approach. (that’s how I see it)

[Leonardo17]

I think it would have been the best if no one entered Afghanistan in the very beginning. Did you know that there were even US companies investing if Afghanistan in the 50’s and that it was a more or less stable country until the soviet invasion in 1979? As Lao-Tzu puts it “Where there is war the land ceases to be fertile, only thorns will grow in the land and weapons will ultimately return toward those who first used them”. So the US armed the Taliban against the soviet, Than Russian armed the Taliban against the US. Both of them finally left the country. So what happens to all these people now?

I haven’t heard about US companies investing in Afghanistan but I am not surprised. The european type nations (more specifically businesses) have learned to invest in other countries probably before 1600. So, they have their foot in every country, every microscopic island that can’t even be seen on the world map.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I don’t know whether Afghanistan should be invaded or not. On one hand, eliminating the taliban would make a lot of people happy but you are also interfering with another culture. It might not be clear who is a taliban and who is not.
At this point in time, the Afghanistan people should self govern and fight the taliban rather than relying on the USA sending them soldiers.

On the interpretation of religion. There is one example that caught my attention today:

In one verse of the Quran it clearly says “Follow the advices of – those who are knowledgeable – “. To me this goes in line with an interpretation of Quran that states that true faith cannot coexist without a sense of deep respect and adherence to the facts that are stated by technology and positive sciences.

Well, it doesn’t exactly take a genius to write something like “follow the advice of those who are experienced, follow the advice of those who have knowledge on topic X.”
As for science and technology, they proved themselves useful to the masses for about 200 y, so they gained the general population’s respect.
There are anti-vaxers and anti-bigpharma boys. This seems to be a recent phenomenom (started in 199x?) I think these guys think that pharmaceutical companies want to make money and therefore, they design drugs to treat symptoms rather than permanently solve diseases.
Or, they produce drugs that are not well tested (thalodomide incident).
Or, the drugs (vaccine) contain dangerous substances to harm people (mercury compounds, aluminium hydroxide, iron particles, the 666 number, embryonic cells, mouse brain cells).

For this reason: I think that atheism might simply be the best way of doing things in our time. The problem with all religion and spiritual teaching is that we live in an age when people still like to use things, to do other things. So finding your way through all sorts of distortions and misunderstandings is not always an easy task. So the more simple approach is to not get into these things. And in spiritual terms (as far as I know): Being an atheist or an agnostically person is better (much better) than being fooled into a distorted version of any religion. In the Quran it says: “May those who fool you not fool you with God” (that’s the exact expression).

Atheism is an empty bag just like theism is an empty bag.
One means “A guy who does not believe in any gods” and the other means “A guy who believes in 1 or more gods”.

Atheism is not a philosophy or a set of moral rules.
For moral rules, there is something called secular humanism.
It starts with inviting everyone, women included, and you discuss which rules a society should have.

So it may take generations, before we get to a widely practiced and correct interpretation of religion across the world. But I think we will get there at some point. Until then, don’t join Al-Qaida and (try) not to harass women in front of abortion clinics Smile

That is unlikely.
Maybe you can get into a time machine and go back to 600 and bring Mohamed here and he can tell us his interpretation and maybe every muslim will be united.
You can also bring back Jesus and so, every christian will be united.
You can also bring back Moses and so, every jew will be united.

The reality is that when the master leader (the inventor of the religion dies), the followers eventually setup their own schools (which they call church, synagogue, mosque and other words) and start disagreeing and eventually, you get a fragmented religion.
The fragments never merge.

Last part: I tried to explain that in my first message today. We live in an age of increased intelligence. We have greater access to all forms of knowledge (including spiritual knowledge). So my approach is a bit different

[The Grand Nudger]

Your approach is the colonized new age approach - which makes you a heretic to abrahamism even though you're perfectly representative of it's modern face in the west in mere reality. Perhaps you feel different, or that your approach is different, because wherever you are there hasn't been the same level of internal subversion playing out? In which case, the state of "spiritual knowledge" in us nutters is a letter from your future. Does it seem to be doing the thing you think it does? Do you look at the new age abrahamic heretics here in the us and think "yeah, those guys are onto something, doing the lords work over there!"....? They've put in plenty of time and effort building those spiritual muscles you think must exist. This is the product of that.

Ultimately, I think, that you and the rest of the colonized make the mistake of believing that incorporating other superstitions and by distancing yourselves from whatever is currently frowned upon..by the outside world™... in your respective faiths you will avoid the (to your mind) mistaken situation those earlier versions of the faith fell to - but, it's worth considering..in order to build that muscle of yours, that distancing yourself from social evils may not in the end put any distance between you and those mistakes. Particularly if the point of distancing yourself from social evil is to reassert the beliefs that created the social evil in the first place, without accepting and resolving those objections which lead to your "spiritual need" of distance.

Are you, in these replies, any less nuts, any less dismissive, any less bigoted....any less wrong....in your repeated assertion that atheism is the way to go if you're lazy and/or have little time? Do you think that this is a new idea? Would you be surprised to find that this same explanation fell from the lips of the earliest bishops of rome as they struggled to assert christian dominion over a pagan empire? That it is, in fact, the very reason that the institution of the catholic priesthood took as it's cause for existence, or that your own shamans and witchdoctors take as theirs? Somebody had to study this stuff, to get all the wisdom™..because what dirt clawing farmer had the time, inclination, or ability? In a deliciously perverted show, you appear to be pitching yourself as just such a studied observer and evangelist here, among the heathen. You have the time, the inclination, the ability. You've built your muscle.

The irony, is that there's an altogether more reasonable conclusion right at your fingertips when you insist as much. That if it truly would take an ideologically committed academic with nothing else going to sift through piles and piles of shit looking for a single kernel of corn - then maybe they should skip the piles of shit and go straight to the cornfield? Assuming, ofc, there actually is such a field in the first place - but then again, with your insistence on the fundamentally subjective nature of this enterprise...is there...really...? Are you here bullshitting yourself, us only by proxy, about that?

Take, for example, your core belief that a religious truth or spirituality must be universal. What's The Original Message™ line you have for this? That there is only one god? Laughably false, and exclusionary - categorically not a universal belief. That some 7th century warlord is it's emissary? Also laughably false, also not universal. Supposing for the absolute lols that either of these two things were true then the situation would be even more..and not less..repulsive to me. I'm not alone in this and this is not novel to our community here. This is not "the atheist" pov - it is in fact the point of view of every believer of every other antithetical faith to your own in addition to people like myself. So that's islam utterly ruled out as a candidate for religious truth, for spiritual reality. As being the cornfield. No? More fundamentally..because I do love these cornfields...do you believe that a universal religious truth or spirituality even -can- arise from cultural imposition? It seems to me that a religious truth or spirituality defined to be or believed to be a universal one could only emerge from the bottom and organically manifest it self up through all levels of all societies in all times. Kind of what it means to be universal, right? A thing that binds us all for having it in common. A true shared reality, even if it's, in some sense, a shared reality private to human beings. We all feel it, but don't expect a bluebird too, eh?

I think it's interesting that whatever collection of items that is (if it is)....is so commonly believed to have been relayed to us by some silly god. Why? To what end? If a thing is like that..we don't need to be told. We don't even need to study or exert any particular effort to arrive at the conclusion(s). Rightly or wrongly, we already know. Literally must already know. Is there anything that you can think of like that? Some truth you see as broadly shared by all of humanity and thus a candidate for some universal spiritual reality as we might easily apprehend from a bit of introspection in our own private or inner worlds? A thing that would or even could bind us all in a singular moral community?