Religous Wars!

[Professor Smooth]

Well said, BF!

[Yaya]

I'm sorry, but you seem to confuse criticism with prejudice.

No, I know prejudice when I see it. I face it almost everyday. To categorically say that someone is bad because they are a Christian or a Muslim is completely prejudicial in nature. Whether its gender, sex, or race is irrelevent. You are still thinking in black and white. Whereas in reality every human being has shades of gray.

I don't have the right to criticise someone's for being of a gender, but is sure as hell have the right to criticise someone's religion.

No, you have right to be critical. Not the right to prejudge, the basis of prejudice. There's a distinct difference.

Because it may be all magic and special to you but from an objective perspective its just another mode of thought

And a person should be treated differently because they think differently? Because a person thinks differently, you can so easily fit them into boxes of good and bad? What an easy approach to life. No thanks. I will forgo the easy road, and take the right one when I deal with others.

Suggesting people of the same faith are more likley (that's more likley not will) to behave in a similar manner because of their faith is far more valid than saying someone is likley to behave in a similar manner because they have the same pigmentation in their skin .

Really? And yet genetist has proven time and time again that certain genes and hormones exist that make one more apt to have a temper, to be passive, to be aggressive, etc. Last time I checked, black skin also had its foundation in genetics. Alas, to date, they haven't uncovered a spiritual gene.

I ask again then. Which is more likely to lead to a certain behavior pattern? Something genetically determined, or something enviromental as its basis?

MVs point is simply that if a religion cannot sustain you through the times when you are tempted to do the wrong thing then it is not, in fact, much kop.

Not sure why, but religion opponents fail to separate the religion from its followers. This is like me waiting for you to [composite word including 'f*ck'] up somehow, and then after it inevitably occurs, claiming that all members of the First family are [composite word including 'f*ck'] even though they all get together and say that ******* up is not part of the First Family Code. Hardly what I would call a fair assessment of the First Family Code.

Still, we can always just undermine the debate with trite stuff like "evil will always find its way into our hearts", whilst of course at the same time insisting that there is a God who is responsible for everything but then denying anything bad is his fault.

Trite it may be, but its also quite true. And perhaps in other religions God performs evil, but in my faith evil comes soley from the creation into which God infused free will. God knows of all evil, knows when it will happen, allows it to happen, but is not the doer of it. The next question is always, "well, why does He allow it?" To which the answer is "I have no clue and there is nothing wrong with not having an answer to every question in the universe."

[Professor Smooth]

I'm sorry, but you seem to confuse criticism with prejudice.

To categorically say that someone is bad because they are a Christian or a Muslim is completely prejudicial in nature.

Yes. That's why nobody has said that.

Whether its gender, sex, or race is irrelevent. You are still thinking in black and white. Whereas in reality every human being has shades of gray.

No, it isn't. It is totally relevant. People are BORN white, black, and/or female. People CHOOSE their religion.

[Best First]

"hi, i'm Yaya, i am not like you, i strive to take the difficult path where i ignore what people are actually saying, decide on their behalf what i want them to be saying and strive to prove wrongteh things i have attributed to them that they are ever saying"

"Another aspect of the difficult path i herocially chose to take is that of the false analgoty, you see what you are saying is the same as saying that killing children and bumming the corpses is good. Do you see? Its entirely comparable, because i say so"

"As i say this is a difficult path, mainly because anyone with half a brain can see through my falacious approach to debate and its quite esy to render that unto which i have said in a manner that in fact makes me appear as a bit of a rassclatt"

Also, i love the 'ah, its ok to not know the answers to stuff' from someone who has had to subscribe to some mumbo jumob to deal with life.

as you can tell i may have lost patience.

[Metal Vendetta]

Okay, in Nazi Germany, or Rwanda, if the worst that Christianity is guilty of is passivity, then it has failed and is useless.

But that would be ignoring the fact that senior members of the religion supported, took part in, and encouraged others to indulge in these evil deeds. Not to mention that Christian prejudices like anti-Semitism (after all, the Jews did kill Jesus) were instrumental in creating those situations anyway.

To get back to Rwanda, I'm going to quote from a report by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), presented to the United Nations as a result of the inquiry into the genocide. First up, it notes that although tribal divisions predated the colonial era,

In the colonial era, under German and then Belgian rule, Roman Catholic missionaries, inspired by the overtly racist theories of 19th century Europe, concocted a destructive ideology of ethnic cleavage and racial ranking that attributed superior qualities to the country's Tutsi minority, since the missionaries ran the colonial-era schools, these pernicious values were systematically transmitted to several generations of Rwandans.

Once the genocide was underway,

Church leaders failed to use their unique moral position among the overwhelmingly Christian population to denounce ethnic hatred and human rights abuse.

And it noted that:

...within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies and the French government.

A Human Rights Watch report says that

Far from condemning the attempt to exterminate the Tutsi, Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo and Bishop Jonathan Ruhumuliza of the Anglican Church acted as spokemen for the genocidal government at a press conference in Nairobi.

It goes on to note that the Archbishop of Canterbury has apologised for the Anglican church's part in the genocide. I wonder why he did that, if the genocide was purely tribal and political. Perhaps you, Jetfire, or you, Bouncelot, or you, Yaya, could call the Archbishop and let him know he needn't have bothered, because at no point were the Christians to blame in all of this

In some towns the victims were forcibly crammed into churches and school buildings, where Hutu extremist gangs massacred them. In June about 3,000 Tutsis sought refuge in a Catholic church in Kivumu. Local Interahamwe then used bulldozers supplied by the local police to knock down the church building. People who tried to escape were hacked down with machetes.

Where exactly does it say that? It says some of the massacres happened in churches, but since most of the recruiting for this massacre also took place in churches, then presumably they believed God favoured their cause.

Sigh.

Perched above a cluster of houses high in the terraced Rwandan hills, the red-brick Nyange parish church and its community of priests for years had been where the faithful turned in times of need.

So when the Hutu-led militia began killing Rwanda's Tutsi minority in 1994, thousands fled here, expecting refuge.

Instead, they met their death. A local priest, Rev. Athanase Serumba, is accused by survivors of having urged on Hutu soldiers attacking the church, and of then ordering the church bulldozed to the ground with bodies and some wounded inside.

I think when the priest himself is cheering you on, you probably imagine God is on your side. Sigh.

Take a look at those links I posted. Some of them are even from Christian sites, dismissing the report to the UN as having an anti-Catholic bias because one of the seven people responsible for compiling it had spoken about Catholicism before

This one is better though, it actually names names:
http://www.afrol.com/Countries/Rwanda/b ... nocide.htm

As it became obvious that the radical government was on the defensive in the early 1990s, it embarked on a Hitlerist plan to find a "permanent solution" to the "Tutsi problem". A genocide, that was to kill between 750,000 and one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, was carefully planned and implemented. Hate propaganda was spread throughout the country and local representatives got their orders on whom to kill and whom to involve in the killings. Surprisingly many took part in the killings, and even more incomprehensible, also many members of the clergy were involved in the genocide in some degree.

The extreme cases include the Anglican bishop Samuel Musabyimana, who allegedly "was responsible for killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the Tutsi population with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a racial or ethnic group". Another extreme is the sentence against two Catholic nuns, Sisters Gertrude Mukangango and Julienne Kisito, for their involvement in the slaughter of at least 5,000 civilians that had sought refuge in their monastery at Sovu.

Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo and the coadjutor Bishop of Kigali, Jonathan Ruhumuliza, were seen describing the government responsible for orchestrating the genocide as "peace-loving" at a Nairobi press conference in early June 1994. The accusations against clergy of the Free Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Seventh-Day Adventist Churches are equally shocking. According to survivors, Bishop Aaron Ruhumuliza, head of the Free Methodist Church in Gikondo, Kigali, helped the militia carry out a massacre in his own church on 9 April 1994. Michel Twagirayesu, the President of the Presbyterian Church of Rwanda and a former vice-president of the World Council of Churches, is alleged to have worked closely with the killers in the Presbyterian stronghold of Kirinda, Kibuye, betraying parishioners and fellow-clergy alike, according to a report by African Rights.

So yeah, I bet you wish that you hadn't brought Rwanda up in the first place because as far as I can see, Rwanda is a Christian bloodbath and it's all down to the churches vying for power by favouring one tribe over another that caused it. I've taken the time to look this up and find out about it and it turns out that the Christian churches are completely cuplable for horrific acts of violence. I am backed in this opinion by the official report to the UN and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Next.

[Kaylee]

Some excellent research and point very well made. Very impressive. Very impressive indeed.

[Metal Vendetta]

Thanks Karl. I do try and take this kind of thing seriously, you know

[Yaya]

Perhaps you, Jetfire, or you, Bouncelot, or you, Yaya, could call the Archbishop and let him know he needn't have bothered, because at no point were the Christians to blame in all of this

I never said Christians weren't to blame. I never said Muslims weren't to blame for a lot of the **** going on in the world either.

I said Christianity is not to blame.

There's a difference, something you and many other religion opponents have yet to grasp.

Following a religion, including my own, does not make a human being infallible, because in the end we all remain human regardless of our affiliations.

Of course, Best First doesn't think I'm human but something akin to the scum that grows on the inside rim of a toilet bowl. I get the feeling he's about to throw his keyboard when he reads my responses. I just wish I was there to see it.

[Metal Vendetta]

Perhaps you, Jetfire, or you, Bouncelot, or you, Yaya, could call the Archbishop and let him know he needn't have bothered, because at no point were the Christians to blame in all of this

I never said Christians weren't to blame. I never said Muslims weren't to blame for a lot of the **** going on in the world either.

I said Christianity is not to blame.

And the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of one of the largest churches within Christianity. He apologised on behalf of the church. He represents millions of Christians. His apology recognises the church's culpability. Don't you get it? Christianity was to blame. That's what the report said. That's why the man said sorry. It was the direct involvement of Christianity, European and Rwandan, before and during the genocide that caused it.

Let's just read that report one more time, shall we?

...within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies...

Ah hell, the joys of cut 'n' paste...

...within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies...

...within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies...

...within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies...

...within Rwanda itself, those with the heaviest responsibility were the Catholic and Anglican hierarchies...

But Christianity is not to blame? Pull the other one, it chimes.

[Yaya]

But Christianity is not to blame? Pull the other one, it chimes.

Ding-dong.

If the Archbishop is Christianity, then Christianity is to blame.

But he isn't Christianity. He is a human follower of the belief, regardless of the position he holds, and he apologizes not on behalf of Christianity but on behalf of those Christians who were responsible.

You are the one who isn't getting it. An apology implies guilt, you are right, but you are professing that the guilty party is the religion of Christianity itself.

Hell, look how the Pope just sat idly by when the Christians of Serbia were practicing ethnic cleansing of the Muslims of Bosnia. Is that a reflection of the man or a reflection of the belief?

Now if you can cite me a verse from the Bible in context which supports what happened in Rwanda, then I too will blame the Christian faith.

As it is, I only blame those Christians who were responsible in Rwanda, and no more than this.

[Best First]

There's a difference, something you and many other religion opponents have yet to grasp.

its not that we fail to grasp its - its that its empty excuse.

there's a subtle difference between the two things. which is probably why you fail to spot it. Or you could just be making assumptions on people’s behalves with no basis at all, but you would never do that.

Firstly any ideology is, as has already been stated, only as strong as those who follow it:

The inability for followers to adhere to the teachings of their creator only serves to point to the failings of that creator. If the created cannot act as they are told they must then the creator is taking the piss, and therefore not to be trusted, therefore then religion falls under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Which I imagine must come as a great big shock to everyone. So you see by assessing the performance of the adherent you reveal whether the religion is of any value to those who follow it. If on discovering the ‘true path’ (ho ho) human beings still turn out to be a bunch of useless f*cktards (or in some of the cases illustrated in this topic become even bigger f*cktards) then the religion is bogus. Its not hard logic to follow. Unless you are so inured that… what? Oh.

Also your ‘we’re all human’ argument might work better if it was a few people occasionally straying from the path rather than, huh, everyone all the time everyday. Not to mention that this doctrine of human fallibility’s main impact on the world seems to be for people of a sect to largely wash their hands of anything bad done in their name, when they are arguably those who wield the most influence when it comes to standing up to, say extremism, given there is at least something in the way of shared ground. Way to go children of god, great hand wringing there.

Secondly, even if the followers cannot be used as a barameter of a faith (which they clearly can) there are plenty examples in both the main faiths we have been discussing here that are abominable in and of themselves.

“And I say unto you, judge not the creed by the follower, but by the creed itself”

OK – its still chunks of obvious co-opted morality combined with unnecessary judgements and justifications for abominable behaviour fuelled by the hilarious concept of humanity being at the centre of an all powerful space monkey’s plan for…something.

Hmm. I am a human. I like me. I must be important!

Course you are. There there.

Glad I took the extra five minutes there rather than just judging mumbo jumbo on the actions of those who subscribe to it - its led me to wildly different conclusions.

Of course, Best First doesn't think I'm human but something akin to the scum that grows on the inside rim of a toilet bowl.

Of course Yaya once again chooses to attribute opinions to others with no basis. I have never said any such thing – I find the manner in which you insist on assuming to speak on others behalves to lack integrity (only Alah can judge you, but, er, I am quite confident manufacturing opinins on your behalf) and I find your analogies mind boggling in their lack of value, but why would this mean I don’t think you are human?

Maybe just not the best example of a human, but we have Karl for that.

So you see once again you have falsly represented someone with no real basis.

Should i expect a topic entitled “Best First seems to hate me” from you soon?

Also - probably bestto clean your toilet more often.

I get the feeling he's about to throw his keyboard when he reads my responses.

i suppose i do have a marked intolerance of idiocy.

I just wish I was there to see it.

ah, here we see the devout religious man, who has lived and breathed his faith for 30 years, revelling in his ability to irritate someone. He is a good man, a holy man, an example to those who have strayed from the quest of truth he holds so dear. So dear. Oh dear.

But its ok, cos he’s only human, so he can act how the hell he wants.

It’s a good get out isn’t it?

His faith is still best though. Because he says so.

Maybe if you and others could extrapolate ‘its ok not to know all the answers’ to a more logical conclusion we might all get somewhere.

In the mean while I think my sky tv for everyone plan is the best we have.

[Metal Vendetta]

Thanks, BF.

Essentially what I was going to post but more eloquent.

[edit] Oh, and Yaya, I imagine any clergyman present at the Rwandan genocide could easily have been quoting Exodus 32:27 as he exhorted his followers on:

"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Put your sword on your hip, every one of you! Now go up and down the camp, from gate to gate, and slay your own kinsmen, your friends and neighbors!"

Hurrah. Now stop, please.

[Brendocon]

I very nearly bought this t-shirt earlier today:
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product ... ductid=697

I went for this one instead:
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product ... ductid=716

I have nothing more to add on the subject.

[Metal Vendetta]

Both fine shirts there.

I like the one you got.

[Kaylee]

ah, here we see the devout religious man, who has lived and breathed his faith for 30 years, revelling in his ability to irritate someone. He is a good man, a holy man, an example to those who have strayed from the quest of truth he holds so dear. So dear. Oh dear.

[Professor Smooth]

Judging Christianity only on the acts of it's followers is a little bit like judging comic books based only on their fans. Sure, there are the guys at ComicCon every year who dress up like a fox in leather pants, weigh in at 400 pounds of unwashed flesh, and stink to the ends of the earth, but that doesn't mean that Civil War isn't a great read.

[Best First]

Judging Christianity only on the acts of it's followers is a little bit like judging comic books based only on their fans.

i haope this is some kind of bad parody.

[Kaylee]

Judging Christianity only on the acts of it's followers is a little bit like judging comic books based only on their fans. Sure, there are the guys at ComicCon every year who dress up like a fox in leather pants, weigh in at 400 pounds of unwashed flesh, and stink to the ends of the earth, but that doesn't mean that Civil War isn't a great read.

Personally I'd say that a religion is made of its followers, whereas a comic book isn't (although it may reflect the desires of them, in terms of style etc. basically target audience). Since God's existence, for most people, is far from a bygone conclusion and since religious texts by themselves do nothing what other measure have we got for what a religion is like than the people who make it up? From the top (the archbishops, the Popes and cardinals, the Ayatollahs, the Imams etc.) right down to the guys who fill up the pews or do their daily prayers. Technically these people are the religion I think since without them the religion would have no manifestation.

So technically judging a religion by its followers would surely be more like judging a comic book on its style, authorship, lines, inking and colouring I think. Which sounds reasonable to me.

[Metal Vendetta]

Without followers, a religion is an empty building and a book no-one reads. A religion is entirely made up of people.

[Yaya]

The inability for followers to adhere to the teachings of their creator only serves to point to the failings of that creator.

Even when such religion teaches that over time mankind will cease to believe in God and no Muslim will exist on the Earth, heralding the approach of the Yawm-ul-Kiyyaamat i.e. the Day of Judgement?

I mean, it is part of the Islamic belief that Muslims will give up their religion entirely, and there will be none left. This is something believed to be decreed by God. So how can this be considered a failing of the Creator when its occurs as part of His plan?

Also your ‘we’re all human’ argument might work better if it was a few people occasionally straying from the path rather than, huh, everyone all the time everyday.

I don't get what you're saying here. What human being is faultless, even in a single day? That is why in Islam Gods overwhelming attribute is His Mercy over His Wrath. Because mankind is full of fault, He chooses to forgive those who seek it. The key words here are "seek it."

“And I say unto you, judge not the creed by the follower, but by the creed itself”

Well said, and fully true.

hilarious concept of humanity being at the centre

In Islam, God is at the center. Human beings will have no say once our time has come and gone, and we will answer for everything we ever did. My belief anway.

Of course, Best First doesn't think I'm human but something akin to the scum that grows on the inside rim of a toilet bowl.

ah, here we see the devout religious man, who has lived and breathed his faith for 30 years, revelling in his ability to irritate someone. He is a good man, a holy man, an example to those who have strayed from the quest of truth he holds so dear. So dear. Oh dear.

Never said I was a good, holy man, nor am I in any way an example for others. I choose to live my life the best I can, but surely whether I am good or bad is not for myself to decide. In fact, I am more inclined to say my shortcomings far exceed my better attributes. I bank on hope for God's forgiveness, and not on my scarcity of good acts.

By the way, I was playfully joking.

Maybe if you and others could extrapolate ‘its ok not to know all the answers’ to a more logical conclusion we might all get somewhere.

If I knew the answers to the happenings of the universe, I would share them with you. As it is, neither myself nor yourself can fathom a drop in the oceans worth of true knowledge of the universe.

A religion is entirely made up of people.

Again, I disagree. There will be a time when Muslims are found nowhere, yet truth still remains. Does the absence of Muslims mean that God does not exist, or that Muhammad (PBUH) never lived? It just depends on what you believe truth to be I suppose.

So technically judging a religion by its followers would surely be more like judging a comic book on its style, authorship, lines, inking and colouring I think.

Again, I....see above.

Judging Christianity only on the acts of it's followers is a little bit like judging comic books based only on their fans.

That's more how I'm thinking.

The Bible wrote:
"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Put your sword on your hip, every one of you! Now go up and down the camp, from gate to gate, and slay your own kinsmen, your friends and neighbors!"

Hurrah. Now stop, please.

Stop? Come on, MV, you should know me well enough by now.

As I'm in no way an authority on the Bible (or the Koran, for that matter), I will defer the meaning and context of this seemingly violent verse to Bouncelot, or more knowledgable Christians. I can't really speak for Christians.

[Professor Smooth]

Fair enough. I should have said "the bible" in place of "christianity."

People who call themselves Christians are subject to the same ridicule as those whoe apply the term trekkie to themselves. There is obviously something in the subject matter that really speaks to them. The difference is that the subject matter of Star Trek doesn't go about condoning genocide, while attempting to abort scientific thought.

If you believe in the mythology found in the Bible, even with all the data that is freely available showing in what ways the book was made, altered, retconned, adjusted, mistranslated, and mutilated in coming to its present form, then you are probably some manner of idiot.

The bible is basically a collection of several thousand really good ideas, and couple dozen INCREDIBLY bad ones. Often, the two are in direct opposition to one another. In the end, though, it's a book. No different than Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, The DaVinci Code, or Everybody Poops.

Christianity is a concept. It has no form. No direct authority. No method by which to act on its own. All the bad that we put on Christianity comes from people. The same types of people that wrote its doctrine in the first place.

I do not hate Christianity. I do not hate any religion. I just feel absolute contempt for the people who have, for centuries, used it as an excuse to gain power and influence at the cost of everybody else. Even worse are those ignorant masses who have allowed themselves to be used like this.

Blaming religion takes responsibility off the shoulders of those who truly deserve the blame. Allah isn't responsible for the current problems in the middle east. PEOPLE are! Christianity wasn't responsible for the crusades. PEOPLE were. The genocides in Rawanda are carried out by PEOPLE. Blame those who the fault lays with.

[Kaylee]

Again, I disagree. There will be a time when Muslims are found nowhere, yet truth still remains. Does the absence of Muslims mean that God does not exist, or that Muhammad (PBUH) never lived? It just depends on what you believe truth to be I suppose.

But the discussion is about whether a religion can be judged on its followers due to a religion being made up its followers.

Gods existence does not create religion, as surely you can have God without religion (belief in God), and neither does the existence of various historical figures who believed in teachings 'create' religion.

Definition:
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

1a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
1b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.


A religion cannot exist without followers by definition- religion is belief in God. If nobody believes in him then there is no religion. Hence a religion is entirely dependant upon the subscribers to that religion for existence.

[Metal Vendetta]

A religion cannot exist without followers by definition- religion is belief in God. If nobody believes in him then there is no religion. Hence a religion is entirely dependant upon the subscribers to that religion for existence.

Exactly. Hence, no Roman or Egyptian religions around today. When the last Christian dies, Christianity will die and when the last Muslim dies, Islam will die. People will still talk about it, but in a historical sense, and "God" will be consigned to wherever Zeus, Thor and the others got sent. "Deity heaven", if you will, or the old gods' home.

[Professor Smooth]

"God" will be consigned to wherever Zeus, Thor and the others got sent.

Marvel Comics?

[Metal Vendetta]

"God" will be consigned to wherever Zeus, Thor and the others got sent.

Marvel Comics?

Makes sense. When Christianity goes the way of the Zorostrians, Jesus will spend the rest of his time fighting the Hulk and Rhino. And God will get to face off against Galactus at last

[Professor Smooth]

"God" will be consigned to wherever Zeus, Thor and the others got sent.

Marvel Comics?

Makes sense. When Christianity goes the way of the Zorostrians, Jesus will spend the rest of his time fighting the Hulk and Rhino. And God will get to face off against Galactus at last

I don't know if they'd fight. Think about it. God can create worlds. Galactus devours worlds. I can see Galactus calling up God for take out. There in 7 days or it's on us! The only way they'd do battle is if Galactus chose Jesus to be his new herold...or if Galactus was a lousy tipper. Well, maybe they both want "The Big G" as their license plate and only ONE SHALL STAND!

[Yaya]

I do not hate Christianity. I do not hate any religion. I just feel absolute contempt for the people who have, for centuries, used it as an excuse to gain power and influence at the cost of everybody else. Even worse are those ignorant masses who have allowed themselves to be used like this.

Blaming religion takes responsibility off the shoulders of those who truly deserve the blame. Allah isn't responsible for the current problems in the middle east. PEOPLE are! Christianity wasn't responsible for the crusades. PEOPLE were. The genocides in Rawanda are carried out by PEOPLE. Blame those who the fault lays with.

That is exactly where I stand. Anything, even good things, can be used to further evil ends.

Evil can be found amongst any nation, amongst the members of any religion. It is these people that commit two wrongs in a single action. They a) commit the evil act to begin with, and b) smear the image of those like him who are innocent of such evil acts.

For example, a Muslim terrorist shall be punished not just for killing innocents, but he will also take responsibility for any acts of violence throughout the world that result from it, from the hate that he has unwittingly festered throughout the world.

[Yaya]

A religion cannot exist without followers by definition- religion is belief in God. If nobody believes in him then there is no religion. Hence a religion is entirely dependant upon the subscribers to that religion for existence.

If you define religion in those terms, yes.

But from a personal perspective, Islam is not just a religion to me, like some sort of philosophy by which to live. It is truth.

If God exists, but nobody believes in Him, still the truth of the matter is God exist. If Islam is not a philosophy, not just an institution, but the truth, then whether creation reconizes it or not becomes irrelevent.

To a nonMuslim, when the last Muslim dies, then Islam too will die. But if Islam is the truth, then that truth does not rely on the existence of a single Muslim, or single person in fact.

[Kaylee]

A religion cannot exist without followers by definition- religion is belief in God. If nobody believes in him then there is no religion. Hence a religion is entirely dependant upon the subscribers to that religion for existence.

If you define religion in those terms, yes.

But from a personal perspective, Islam is not just a religion to me, like some sort of philosophy by which to live. It is truth.

If God exists, but nobody believes in Him, still the truth of the matter is God exist. If Islam is not a philosophy, not just an institution, but the truth, then whether creation reconizes it or not becomes irrelevent.

To a nonMuslim, when the last Muslim dies, then Islam too will die. But if Islam is the truth, then that truth does not rely on the existence of a single Muslim, or single person in fact.

That's fine. However I believe the gist of the discussion is aimed at 'religion' as it stands, which is effectively the collective belief of those who adhere to a particular religion, and those who are its subjects- particularly their behaviour. Good as I'm sure they are, your interior notions of meaning and truth aren't really relevant to the constructs of large groups of individuals and their actions.

So, personal beliefs of truth and objective meaning aside, a religion (being a system or worship based on a particular deity) exists only through its followers. Therefore the followers are the only effective measure of the religion, since they compromise it.

As I have no information on the subject, let us say for the sake of argument that most Muslims have a slightly different set of beliefs to you. Regardless of your inner convinctions that you are right, you must see that from the standpoint of those not privy to your psychological motivations that in fact the majority must be considered as being representative of Islam since Islam as a belief exists only through its followers (as above) and those followers are of a particular creed which outnumbers your own (we shall say). Accepting the situation may be the opposite, I believe that illustrates to a degree what MV and BF are building on.

[sprunkner]

I'm not trying to deny that he was motivated by whacky ideas about race and purity. I'm just sick of this notion that religion played no part whatsoever in the Holocaust. Every time we have one of these discussions, someone from the Christian side will disregard Godwin's law (again) and wheel out Hitler and the Nazis as an example of secular evil, despite the fact that they operated under a religious symbol and had the full blessing of the Vatican and millions of Christians across Germany.

Just thought there was a gap in your knowledge, Rob. Should've known better.

I fully believe that religion has its place in every major conflict, but I think it's always incorporated into the notion of tribal importance. In Rwanda, the Belgians created the tribal divisions at the same time that they imparted their religious ideas. The two are intertwined, and blaming one or the other is like saying that one snake on the plane is worse than the others.

It sounds like both sides here are missing one point about the basic human motivation for religion: it sounds like it would help. I'm sure any institutionalized philosophy will throw out an equal amount of bullsh*t with the good stuff. But when a person actually reads the words of Jesus or Buddha? Sounds like good stuff to live your life by. The problem is, because it sounds like good stuff to live your life by, people think it can explain everything. Tribes form around the words and decide that they can make the words stretch over the sky and the universe.

Can a religion be judged by its followers? I don't know about this. If you say it can, then how can we throw out the actions of the Rwandans without throwing out the vast number of black American Christians inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr? He was Christian. Most of his followers were Christian. What about Gandhi? He was a student of Hindu philosophy, and he used it to justify religious harmony. Do we throw Gandhi out with the generations of Hindu leaders who have kept the caste system in place?

I think Yaya and Bouncelot are trying to bypass the tribal bullsh*t and be closer to the "sounds like good stuff" basics. I tried to do that for a long time. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, but it's a noble goal.

It doesn't work because a private in the army has no say in the army's decisions. If you're bottom man on your institution's ladder, then your opinion of what the Great Founder's words really mean is worth nothing. But don't disregard that it's a noble intention.