Terror Has No Religion

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harun-yahya/terror-has-no-religion_b_3991592.html

Harun YahyaAuthor

Posted: 10/02/2013 12:23 pm

We are at a time when offensiveness, violence and hate have become ordinary in almost every corner of the world. There is news of more bloodshed from a different region almost every day, and the violence targets mostly innocent people.

The terrorist attacks which have taken place in Kenya and Pakistan over the last weeks have once again brought Islam and the subject of violence to the world agenda. Even though Islam is a religion of love and peace -- and quite clearly states that everyone must be treated as first-class citizens regardless of faith, race, language and thought -- how come there is so much violence and pain in the Muslim world?

No religion commands violence. No religion encourages ruthlessness, selfishness, lovelessness and massacre. Violence and the conditions that pave the way for violence develops when ideologies that promote conflict replace the moral values of religion that sees people as equal servants created by God and praises modesty, patience, compassion and unrequited love.

Simply because various terrorists call themselves Muslims, who execute people by shooting them when they cannot get an answer after asking them about the "pillars of faith", who resort to their guns when they hear the answer "Yes" to the question of "Are you a Christian?" and who ruthlessly murder innocents, does not make these persecutors Muslim.

more at link

[trotsky]

1. Wow.

That author makes some pretty broad, sweeping statements about religion that are quite plainly false.

There are some religions that command violence. There are some religions that encourage ruthlessness, selfishness, lovelessness, and even massacre. For evidence I need only point to the Old Testament which identifies the Judaism of several millenia ago as one of them.

The article essentially then turns into the old No True Scotsman logical fallacy. I agree that murdering people doesn't make the Kenyan terrorists Muslim. What makes them Muslim is their answer to the question: "Are you a Muslim?"

As you yourself stated, cbayer:

"Anyone that defines themselves as a christian is one as far as I am concerned."

Unless you feel differently when it comes to Christians vs. Muslims?

[rug]

3. Name three religions today that "encourage . . . . massacre."

[edhopper]

10. "religiions" don't do anything

But the leaders of religion, whom many look to to tell them what their religion requires, do promote violence.

Since this is based on interpreting the religion, it's all a matter of how you read the texts.

[rug]

11. I agree. You may want to remind trotsky since that's his statement.

There are some religions that encourage ruthlessness, selfishness, lovelessness, and even massacre.

[edhopper]

13. You probably don't agree with what I think of religion.

It's all semantics on how we want to say a system of rules an thought "acts" or the people who hold to those tenets. I think the religious views and beliefs of people do bring about violence and suffering.
Do i blame the Bible for the way people act or the way they interpret it?
There is a religious cause.
You often want to minimize the religious component and instead put more weight on cultural and societal effects.
I do think there is a lot more to the religious part of it.

[rug]

14. "a system of rules an thought "acts" or the people who hold to those tenets"

That definition would cover a wide range of human organizations, including de Botton's.

[edhopper]

15. Yes

We could say "the Republican Party" but we probably mean those following what they think the Party stands for. It is still the Republican philosophy that is at fault. Like I said "semantics". If people say "those Christians" or "that brand of Christianity" is responsible for this or that. i understand their meaning.


BTW. I am not saying religion is the basis of all evil. Plenty of institutions have people who do bad things as a part of those institutions.

[rug]

16. Thanks for saying that, I appreciate the distinction.

[el_bryanto]

12. The key word is today I suppose - and also what you consider to be a religion `

Some Racist groups for example would describe themselves as acting out of Christian values while also preparing for race war. We could probably find three of them. We could also talk about militant Islamist groups, that again, believe themselves acting out of religious values.

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

2. No True Muslim.

"Islam is a religion of love and peace, dammit! Those that conduct volience in the name of Islam are not really Muslim!"


Hmmmmm, I think I've heard this argument before...

[rug]

4. Kind of like the faitheist label.

[dimbear]

5. Boko Haram is by way of being a nickname. Its official name is

Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”

You can easily see that that has nothing to do with religion.

[rug]

6. Isn't there anthem A Whiter Shade of Pale?

Don't they skip the light fandango?

[dimbear]

8. Strange odd fact: the band Procol Harum is named after a cat.

Sounds a little like Latin, isn't.

[trotsky]

7. LOL

For sure.

[edhopper]

9. hmmm?

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. Yeah, I was all 'this guy completely skipped the old testament' when I read it.

[dimbear]

17. No religion commands violence. :sarcasm:

I'll put the smiley here again since they don't work in the header:

I'm sorry that Huffpo lets that sort of nonsense slip into print.
Take this old news as witness:
**********
A 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl who was reportedly raped by a 40-year-old married cousin has died after being publicly lashed for allegedly having an affair with him, according to news reports out of the South Asian nation.

A Muslim cleric and three others have been arrested, and today the country's High Court ordered officials in Shariatpur to explain why they did not protect Hena Begum, who died Monday following the fatwa punishment, The Daily Star writes from the capital, Dhaka.
***********
14 year old girl whipped to death for being raped, ordered by an imam, punishment carried out by clerics, finally objected to by civil authorities.

What ingredient in the recipe was left out? Was it violence? Was it ruthlessness? Was it massacre? I guess you can't massacre just one teenage girl.

For massacres, check any night's world news.