interesting post devil.

BlueGalaxy wrote:
|> Christians belive to 'Treat your neighbour like you would like to be treated' (close to that).

There's a difference between theory and practice. Also, due to human nature it's extremely tempting to invent an ".. except when your neighbour does (something you don't like)", *even* if it's nowhere in the Bible.

|> Jews have been hated against and discriminated against repeatedly still e.g the Diaspora and World Wars

To make this slightly less complex, let me divide my answer into two parts:


After the First World War, a peace treaty was signed which forced Germany to pay for all the damage that had been done due to the war. Of course this was a ridiculous amount of money which they could never realistically pay off. Their attempts to do so got the German economy in a situation not unlike the one many Third World countries are in today: every little bit of money generated by their economy is immediately drained out and given to a foreign power. This makes it virtually impossible to ever get anywhere. Needless to say, the German population was less than happy.

The important thing to remember is that, as a politician, you don't have to solve the actual problem; you can get (short term) popularity by *appearing* to solve a (real or imagined) problem. So what the nazis did was find a scapegoat; someone to blame (whether they were even actually related to the problem wasn't even relevant).
A combination of several factors (Jews being above-average rich (making them a plausible target to blame for the rest of the country being poor), Jews being easy to recognize (if you want to blame someone you have to be able to identify them) and the Jewish population being small enough to safely turn them against you (you wouldn't want to blame the Christians; there's way to many of them, plenty enough to fight back)) made Jews the perfect scapegoat.

To the best of my knowledge, there were no actual religious reasons for the nazi-incited hatred of Jews.


Before the 1930s, all the way back to (at least) medieval times, Jews have often been targeted, hated and expelled. The reasons for using *them* (instead of another group of people) were probably not all that different from the nazi's reasons.
When (for instance) the Black Death hits your city, you can't fight the actually problem (at the time, nobody even knew what caused it), but to keep your population somewhat under control, you use a scapegoat. And behold, after you've thrown all the Jews out, the Black Death goes away (obviously, that also would've happened if you *hadn't* thrown all the Jews out...).
Of course, if there don't happen to be any Jews around to use as a scapegoat, you can always blame witches! No, *not* a joke, an illustration! It doesn't matter one damn bit who you blame, just so long as you find *someone* to blame, as long as you can give the population someone to focus their anger on, you can mask the fact you have no idea how to actually improve the situation. In the 1930s nobody believed in witches any more, so the Jews where targeted. Btw, in the 1950s, just after the war, you couldn't exactly go after the Jews any more either, so McCarthyism went after the communists instead.

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@devilnis:

Thank you for the corrections. I am aware that my knowledge of Islam is not perfect and/or complete. I try to do my best though!

|> Qur'an > Sunnat al Muhhamad > Fatwas

Those >'s are not arrows, they're greater-thans, showing how different bodies of rules "trump" (outrank?) each other, right? (If memory serves, fatwas are teachings from high-rankings imams?)

|> which is basically where the schism between Shi'a and Sunni began

The last time I heard anything about that was over ten years ago. From what I remember it had something to do with a bowl of soup traded for someone's "first-born rights"? Is that even vaguely related, or was I taught by someone who didn't know much about it himself?

Yes, those are greater-thans. Basically, if the answer to a moral quandry isn't found in The Qur'an, or in the Sunnah al Muhammad, then clerics (Mullahs, Imams) will issue a fatwa that constitutes a learned ruling on righteous behavior. The fatwas aren't nearly as universal as the Qur'an or the Sunnah - Some clerics have very localized followings and will issue Fatwa that are only accepted by perhaps the inhabitants of the local village, whereas the Grand Ayatollah of Iran can issue a fatwa that would be accepted by the vast majority of Shi'a muslims. The Sunni tend to be much more fragmented and provincial in their theological viewpoints, similar to the multitude of denominiations within the Protestant wing of Christianity - Shi'a have a more hierarchial system with generally the Grand Ayatollah on top, much like the pope of the Catholic church or the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch.

I haven't heard anything about a bowl of soup - Arabian tradition (and the Persian tradition that was quite intermingled with it by the time of Muhammad's death) was succession by acclaim, not necessarily by blood. In accordance with this, the companions of Muhammad (his generals, counselors, etc) began a power struggle after Muhammad died to see who would be the new spiritual leader of Islam. In the midst of this, a strong minority decided that only Allah could choose such a leader, and that lacking any other information the power should thus succeed by blood via patrilinear succession, and thus to Ali who I believe was Muhammad's grandson. By and large, the Shi'a lost this struggle but managed to maintain themselves as a sect of Islam. Later, the founder of the Umayyid dynasty of the Sunni (who would forge an empire that stretched from modern-day Pakistan to Spain) defeated and killed the leaders of the Shi'a sect in the battle of Karbala as part of the "second fitna" (a fitna being a religious civil war). This added strength to the Shi'ite cause because the people rallied together behind their dead martyrs.

The battle of Karbala is generally considered to be the definitive schism between Shi'a and Sunni - The enmity between the two major branches of Islam continues to this day in much fiercer form than the enmity between Catholic and Protestant. If you've ever heard of Ashura, that is one of the most holy holidays for the Shi'a where they mourn the death of the 3rd Caliph and the line of Muhammad. That's why it was such a big deal when Sunni radicals blew up one of the most holy mosques in the Shi'a tradition during Ashura when it was packed to the gills with Shi'a muslims mourning the slaying of their Caliph at Sunni hands. The group responsible for the attack (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) is loosely associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, all of which are Deobandi (essentially fundamentalist) Sunni organizations. And here you thought they just hated Americans :)

@RvW I believe that the story you have heard about over birthrights being traded for a bowl of soup is the story of Jacob and Esau, sons of Isaac. Esau was Isaac's favorite, and was to inherit his father's right to Israel. However, their mother Rebekah preferred Jacob over Esau. Esau first sold his birthright to Jacob over a bowl of soup, but later, as Isaac grew blind, their father decided to bestow Esau's birthright to him. Rebekah helped Jacob deceive the blind Isaac by wrapping his arms with goatskins so that they felt like Esau's arms and then clothed Jacob in his twin brother's clothes, and it worked.

I have no clue how the schism between Sunni and Shi'a Islam is related to this story, nor the Schism between the branches of Christianity or the three Abrahamic religions. How did you link the two topics together?

Scientology, bitches. End of debate. Holla!

Norris is a god fearing Christian, he is a baptist.

Go change your name to cruise.

@devilnis:
Thank you very much, that's a lot of information I hadn't heard before! Even if this thread is not going to convert anyone, it can still teach. :)

@i-like-swords:
|> How did you link the two topics together?

Probably by it having been (well over) ten years and my recollection not being perfect. Thank you for clearing that up (especially after devilnis's post I really started to wonder where "my version" of the story came from, since it seemed to have absolutely no relation to the correct version).

Chuck Norris might be a Biblethumper, but his beard is all kinds of crazy!

Lots to talk about :D
@gayprince
A-translation: Again as I said before, and which you seem not to have seen, there are various interpretations of what the Qura’an says. I don’t know an English translation that I think is good (this is because im Persian and I favor Persian translations if necessary) the biggest example for the difference in interpretations is when Muslims do woudhou before prayer (a sequence of washing some parts of the body e.g. put water on your face 3 times etc.). There is an aya’a in the Quran which describes this. Sunni’s interpret it as bringing water from the bottom of the hand to the top of the arm. Shia’s do it opposite. Both say the other is wrong.
B- Hell: Hell isn’t eternal. I mean for some people they will be in Hell until God says it is enough, yes there are some people who will be in Hell forever, but that’s for God to decide. Second of all Heaven isn’t only for Muslims. Jews, Christians, anyone with the right moral basis and right attitude God will allow in, I believe. As we muslims say: there are 2 angels on your shoulders at all times. One on the right which records all your good deeds and one on the left which records all your bad deeds. On the day of judgment God weighs to see which one is heavier.
C- Education: Sorry but I need clarification on what your point is here :\
D-misogyny: Men have to cover up too. Islam says women can study, work, and be the heads of families as much as men can. For example: any Islamic country (except Saudi Arabia, they are stupid , hope I don’t offend anyone there). The reason for the covering up of Women is to save their dignity and give them respect. Also it’s the women’s right to wear a hijab (what the clothing up is called) right? So why are hijabs not ALLOWED to wear in schools in European states such as France and Italy? Also studies have proved because of women covering up in muslim societies, the number of rape instances is reduced greatly.
E- If I found out my brother is gay… hmmm. Well I would probably try to bring him back to the right path. Because one of the pillars of islam in shiism is to advice people not to do bad things. That consists of anything from lieing to killing (I know that’s a bit extreme but yeah).
F- Of course you are entitled to your own opinion! Everybody is! And if you seriously do want to go to a muslim nation please choose an appropriate state such as Iran. Not Saudi Arabia (in my opinion they have the wrong views on everything e.g. they don’t allow women to drive all the day etc.) or Dubai. Dubai has nearly nil Islamic principle.
@Blue Galaxy
You say Jews are hated all across the world right? Not true. Muslims hate Zionists. Zionists are different from Jews.
Example? Here: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews#Conditions
As you can read from the first article:
“But Khomeini met with the Jewish community upon his return from exile in Paris and issued a ''fatwa'' decreeing that the Jews were to be protected. Similar edicts also protect Iran's tiny Christian minority.”
So no, your point is a bit off.
Information given by devilnis was also wrong on many decrees. But I don’t have time to say what was wrong and will do it as soon as possible
Good day.
Reza

|> im Persian

Ehm, don't you mean Iranian?

|> On the day of judgment God weighs to see which one is heavier.

Let's take the "good Angel" to McDonalds a couple times then. ;)

|> So why are hijabs not ALLOWED to wear in schools in European states such as France and Italy?

Are hijabs (sorry, that word doesn't sound familiar) just a headscarf, or a full burkha? The reason the Netherlands doesn't like burkhas is because it conflicts with our norms and expectation (being able to see someone's face is considered a good thing).

|> Also studies have proved because of women covering up in muslim societies, the number of rape instances is reduced greatly.

Even if the statistics show there's less rape in muslim societies, that still does not mean hijabs are the cause. (Note: correlation is not the same as causality!) Other possible reasons (which also correlate with muslim society) are making it punishable by the death penalty (if memory serves) and an unwillingness for women to report when it does happen (no idea how it really works, but the Western view is that women will generally not be believed / punished themselves because they probably "brought it upon themselves").

(Sorry, got to go *now*, will reply to point E and further later on!)

to be honest i would rather go to dubai (a city in u.a.e) or saudi arabia than iran not just for religious reasons.
You see religion is like a hammer that hammer could be used to construct beautiful things or break things or kill people it depends how the person uses the hammer good or evil.

@RvW
-Hijab is just the headscarf.
-Women do get believed if they come forward, not whatever the western view is has to be correct you know.

@Ironheart
why would you rather go to Saudi arabia than Iran? Im curious.

"
You say Jews are hated all across the world right? Not true. Muslims hate Zionists. Zionists are different from Jews.
"

Yeah, right. That's why this one guy shot little kids and their teacher in France recently. Because they truly were evil zionistic French Jewish children and their teacher.

Pointing out fringe cases doesn't mean anything - Zionism and the outsized per capita wealth and influence in the Jewish population are the two main factors that keep anti-semitism alive. For most history since the advent of Islam, it's actually been Christians that are on the forefront of suppressing the Jewish religion and culture - Islamic law accomodates the 3 other major monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism) in specific terms, allowing them to pay a tax in lieu of participating in Islam-specific community services. There's always persecution of religion minorities in every time and every nation, but until Israel was carved out of tribally held lands the Muslims were not especially rabid anti-semites.

Oh, and I'd far rather go to relatively cosmopolitan and easy-going Iran than fundamentalist Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, any day. Maybe someday my government and Iran's will get along and I really will get to go - if I had to pick one travel destination out of all available, Iran would be right up there at the top of my list just because I find it personally fascinating more for the thousands of years of Persian history than the modern-day political spat between Iran and the US.

@x

About Leviticus and the Old Testament. There is a spiritual meaning behind all that is written there which comes to light through the New Testament. One should not dismiss this so easily and people give up to the defense of these words unnecessarily. All of these are actually like boni easy to be defended when you just know the right move. ;)

Lets take that word that people are not allowed to wear clothes made from different fabric. In the New Testament there is Jesus who clothes you in the fabric of justifiedness or in the fabric of God's own justness, so that you lose the shame of being naked, which means of being sinful. Thats an act of love and this fabric of God's own justice is the real fabric which covers your real shame which is your unjustness. You shall not mix that fabric with any other thread, for example with a justice deriving out of good deeds, it would spoil the garment. Or you should not mix your justice you get from Jesus with a justice you get from professing leftist views like feminism, ecologism and political correct stuff which tends to be used nowadays as a near-religious justness of sorts.

By the way it is a character trait of God to give cloth to human shame. He gave the first cloth to Adam and Eve and in Jesus he gives you this clothing of God's own justness to cover any shame whatsoever for eternity. It's nice and they are good cloth and I will not try to put any other thread of human justness in there. It would desparately be spoiling the febric. The Lord's own justness given to me by grace fits me well enough and this word from Leviticus is valid in its spiritual meaning.

Such would apply to any word in the Old Testament: Dig for the spiritual meaning of it. There is one. And if you dont see it, you just dont see it. The limit is yours.

|> Women do get believed if they come forward, not whatever the western view is has to be correct you know.

That's why I put it as a *possible* reason and asked you to confirm (or deny) it.

|> any Islamic country (except Saudi Arabia, they are stupid , hope I don’t offend anyone there).

I've seen better attempts at not offending people... Just out of curiosity, what's wrong with Saudi Arabia?

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|> If I found out my brother is gay… hmmm. Well I would probably try to bring him back to the right path. Because one of the pillars of islam in shiism is to advice people not to do bad things.

To me, that's exactly the problem; tolerance is a great first step, but not considering it a bad thing would be far better.

You might disagree with me here, but I don't think people can choose their sexual preference. Do you think you could ever choose to be gay? Then why expect gay people to choose to be straight?

Did you read my post about the first gay imam? I wonder how you feel about that...?

|> Information given by devilnis was also wrong on many decrees. But I don’t have time to say what was wrong and will do it as soon as possible

No rush, but yes, please do come back when you have time; I'm curious what you have to say about his post.

That's one of my problems with religion - the imposition of guilt on people who are guilty of nothing. All women have breasts just like all women have elbows. Why is it a shameful sin to show one and a non-issue to show the other? Sure men have elbows too, but then all men and women have bottoms - why is it shameful to have them uncovered? Men have adam's apples where women don't, just like women have breasts where men don't - why can a man show his adam's apple but a woman must keep her breasts covered? What does this do for society at all, considering the fact that many cultures in isolation have pretty much no opinion at all about breasts, and the men wouldn't bat an eye at a woman with a bared breast, nor would incite uncontrollable desires to rape that woman.

I've been to burningman 7 times and many people walk around naked there. People who have never gone are so curious like "wow you mean you can just look and there are breasts just out there?! But what about the fat ones? THEY SHOW THEIRS TOO OMG OMG?!? AND MEN OMG MEN WITH SCHLONGS DANGLING IN THE BREEZE OMG EWW OMG!" ... Take it from me, a few days into burningman and you just don't notice it anymore, people are just people whether thay're wearing clothes or not. If religion would focus more on actually relevant moral issues like thou shalt not kill, and less on this supercilious fluff, it'd be easier for me to take it seriously.

This thread kind of depressed me.

Realizing that people have strong convictions are opposing one another. It make me feel like we have no shot of making it. Christians opposing Christians, Muslims opposing Muslims, Jews opposing Jews.
Billions of people believe in reincarnation, billions of people don't. There is Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Budah. Every follower believe only his is the rightfull heir of Gods truth. We even have atheists believing for certain that they are all wrong. Can't we all se how sad this is?

Whatever is the truth our personal opinions shouldn't matter, we should be able to understand this world purpose and be ok with it together, learning the real facts.

This is my religion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbanda

The main spiritual leader that ever lived in Brazil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Xavier
He is probably the most notorius Medium in human history, and there were no scheme, all his life's effort was charity and helping human kind.


As you may see I am demonized by Christians and probably other fundamentalists by my spiritual choice.

I believe that everyone that believes in a God in any form truly believes that God is perfect, being said that, we believe that God is what our point of view can understand as perfection.

I believe that God/Allah/Jave or any other supreme entity is the same being, with different.

I believe in reincarnation, because its seem more rational according to natures laws, and as i try to see Gods perfection, reincarnation seems perfection. Data on reincarnation is also a lot more explanatory, is not just "because my book said it doesn't happen". It is my way of seen perfection that God make us immortals, with the lengh of our life being almost infinite.

I believe we can communicate with spirits. These spirits being Angels (Mohammed, Jesus and John all talked to Angels right?), entities or people that passed away. I don't believe in communication with the DEAD, that is absurd. If there is life after death the communications are with the Alive.

My Religion don't believe to have all the answers, we believe we are humans, and we are learning. And all will be revealed as long as we are capable of understanding. Being Humble is one of the things that I admire the most in my religion. I don't have compromises of being right because of my vanity, God can actually show the truth to me. Because there is many things left for me to learn, and if I think I know it all, there is nothing left for God to teach me.

I believe that religion is a cultural choice, otherwise we would not see countries with 90% of the population in the same religion, whatever that religion is.
So, I believe that God understand our ignorance and make us believe all in different things so we can all make the necessary steps in our individual evolution.
So I believe that Christianitym, Judhaism, Budhism, Hindhuism, Taoism, Judaism are all expressions of Gods communication with his people, making the necessary adjustment, because only He is able to see what lies in peoples heart, and what is necessary for their salvation.

I don't believe in hell, because i believe this world is one of the worst that can exist. Torture, assassination, rape, thefts, abuse, war, genocide. Hell cannot be that much worse. I don't believe that God would condemn anyone to Hell, because we are all ignorant and we CANNOT do better. If God condemn people to an eternity of suffering I shall give him my Soul so He can destroy it, I am not his follower and i have no interest in living. But if he loves me till the end, I shall fight for Him until my Death and thorugh all eternity.

I believe that God makes people have convictions in opposing things because its absolute necessity. Believing in reincarnation makes you less angry and more passive, not believing it makes you more of a Warrior and more active. Gods uses our beliefs so He can make the proper corrections in this world, even if he make us believe in the wrong teachings.

And lastly, if two persons had giving their lives to serving God and they can't agree in whatever is Gods truth, is because Vanity is winning the war against Faith.

|> I've been to burningman 7 times and many people walk around naked there. (..) Take it from me, a few days into burningman and you just don't notice it anymore, people are just people whether thay're wearing clothes or not.

Never been to Burning Man (first time I heard of it was on Malcolm in the Middle... then it took a few years to learn it's a real thing), but did visit some friends in Finland. Their saunas are the same thing: everyone's naked and you get completely used to it surprisingly quickly.

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|> This thread kind of depressed me.

Why...? It's a thread about religion; the "best" reason to go around killing strangers you've never met before and know nothing about (except for them having "wrong" beliefs) in human history... and we're keeping it mostly civilised, on a place called *War*Light no less.

|> I believe we can communicate with spirits. These spirits being Angels (..), entities or people that passed away. I don't believe in communication with the DEAD, that is absurd.

It strikes me as odd you would believe in communication with spirits, yet dismiss the idea of communication with the dead as absurd!? Especially since you consider spirits "entities or people that passed away" (that sounds like the dead to me).

|> I don't believe in hell, because i believe this world is one of the worst that can exist. Torture, assassination, rape, thefts, abuse, war, genocide. Hell cannot be that much worse.

Isn't that an overly depressing way of looking at the world? Sure, there's still a lot of ugly things going on, but don let that blind you from seeing all the beauty! The world is rapidly becoming a much better place. Many countries have abolished the death penalty. Medical science is progressing with leaps so big Armstrong would be proud. Two continents (North America and Australia) have not really had a war in half a century, two other continents (Europe and South America) are not quite free of wars yet, but are rapidly getting there. Even if we're not yet making much progress in cleaning up all the horrible pollution we've caused since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, at least we're now aware of how badly we messed up; that's the first step to repairing the damage (well, as much as possible at least).