Ok Lets assume that the only things you take from Islam are the values and virtues that you agree with and none of the bullshit.  Moderate Christians do this too.  Can't you take these values which have existed before any religion without calling yourself Islamic or Christian.  Or is the mythology really so important for your identity?  What do you gain by attaching values to a religion?

The greatest lie that religion feeds people is that you need religion for morality.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  True morality canott be measured by any action alone.  This is how religions set things up.  They give you a list of actions that you can't do.  This is not morality.  Morality is approaching each situation as a unique event.  The moral action is the one that will provide the best results.   Morality has to do with predicting consequences.  This is why the same action can be bad while at other times it can be good.  Subjective morality.  Religion teaches objective morality and it's wrong.

The reason I say this is because like it or not.  Christianity and Islam are involved in things that are wrong and evil, and this isn't just modern extremists.  I'm talking about the fundamental ideas that always existed with these religions.  I don't see how you can seperate yourself from these atrocities and still call yourself a devote follower.  It doesn't work this way.  When you call yourself a person of Islam or Christian you promote and encourage everything about it wheather you want to or not.  This is a practical reality.  All you need to do is look at the news and see the results.  There are nations where the laws are taken directly from these religious texts.   I'm talking about courts of law here, not a minority of extremists.

This is why I don't call myself a liberal or Conservative.  Neither party does everything right.  Bother are fuckups.  I don't even ascribe to ideas on how I belive a country should be run.  Every situation is different and every country is different.  The ideal solution for one country can be polar opposite from another.  And these may change over time. 

This is how I view religion.  They're solutions to a set of problems.  The answer to an equation.  Maybe it was the right answer 2000 years ago but today it's entirely wrong.

I would like to add more as a response to the news of LBP being delayed for censorship.  Rational people do not get offended, ever. 

Just to be clear I am actually Muslim, heh.  UK born, Bangladeshi parents, brought up in the way of the Megadrive.

At the end of the day, I dont want to persuade anyone else to change their mind about Islam - people can believe in anything they want as long as it doesn't affect me, my family or friends.  I'm being honest, I'm selfish that way.  If people are interested in discussing my beliefs I'm always pleased to chat, even if they are hard questions that I might not know.

But one hadith that stays relevant here is one that goes along the lines of - no one person can say another person is right or wrong, good or bad.  At the end of the day everyone has a mix of both, some apparent and some hidden within.  So noone should judge another person.

In my experience, people in the UK embrace that quality the most, and its why I like living here.  My best friend is openly atheist. He's a good guy though, intelligent and we have some good banter.  He doesn't believe in a god as such, but he's deeply philosophical about the nature of life itself.  At the end of it all, how do I know that he didn't have it right all along, just by being who he is. 

Ok Lets assume that the only things you take from Islam are the values and virtues that you agree with and none of the bullshit.  Moderate Christians do this too.  Can't you take these values which have existed before any religion without calling yourself Islamic or Christian.  Or is the mythology really so important for your identity?  What do you gain by attaching values to a religion?

The greatest lie that religion feeds people is that you need religion for morality.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  True morality canott be measured by any action alone.  This is how religions set things up.  They give you a list of actions that you can't do.  This is not morality.  Morality is approaching each situation as a unique event.  The moral action is the one that will provide the best results.   Morality has to do with predicting consequences.  This is why the same action can be bad while at other times it can be good.  Subjective morality.  Religion teaches objective morality and it's wrong.

The reason I say this is because like it or not.  Christianity and Islam are involved in things that are wrong and evil, and this isn't just modern extremists.  I'm talking about the fundamental ideas that always existed with these religions.  I don't see how you can seperate yourself from these atrocities and still call yourself a devote follower.  It doesn't work this way.  When you call yourself a person of Islam or Christian you promote and encourage everything about it wheather you want to or not.  This is a practical reality.  All you need to do is look at the news and see the results.  There are nations where the laws are taken directly from these religious texts.   I'm talking about courts of law here, not a minority of extremists.

This is why I don't call myself a liberal or Conservative.  Neither party does everything right.  Bother are fuckups.  I don't even ascribe to ideas on how I belive a country should be run.  Every situation is different and every country is different.  The ideal solution for one country can be polar opposite from another.  And these may change over time. 

This is how I view religion.  They're solutions to a set of problems.  The answer to an equation.  Maybe it was the right answer 2000 years ago but today it's entirely wrong.

I would like to add more as a response to the news of LBP being delayed for censorship.  Rational people do not get offended, ever. 

Like I said stuff you see on the news is separate to Islam imo.  Those atrocities are in the name of Islam but in reality are based in politics or whatever and bend the truth to their aim.

I think you're right, you can have morality without religion.  I just think you can get to the same point from different angles.  For me religion merely makes me think about the nature of this reality.  Are we really going to die and turn into nothingness, or are we just a cat in a box with no concept of the outside world ie whats outside of our universe, or indeed whats smaller than quantum physics.   Many scientists agree that in the  end you have to at some point become an absolute entity to make logical sense.

Then again,who said it needs to be logical.

the problem we're facing today in modern islamic societies is that people are picking whatever they can do and leave the rest, in fact what happens is a mixture between islamic law and westerns laws (in out case morocco, it's the french law) , therefore what god set as rules get contradictions , it spread chaos , confusions between people. Islam is set as an entity, it's notonly a religion it's a law and a way of life and it needs to be accepted as a whole, if you neglect some areas from the chariaa,then the other aspects that are BASED on the one you neglect lose meaning.

if we have followed the coran exactly , and what mohamed said in his "hadiths" , i believe muslims won't be in this weak spot today. corruptions , illiteracy, pauverty , is what lead  to chaos in muslim countries. How ironic, we claim to have the greatest and final religion yet we are now in the rock bottom and islam as we practice it today has a lot to do with it.

Agent, i'm not speaking about which religion is better and why religion is great in my previous posts, that was at least not my main point. this is a whole different story. i'm talking about the obvious for many believers, god exists, and i hope you read what i wrote, may be you can understand.

no one person can say another person is right or wrong, good or bad. At the end of the day everyone has a mix of both, some apparent and some hidden within. So noone should judge another person.

Fair enough but this contradicts a lot of Islamic text.

i'm talking about the obvious for many believers, god exists, and i hope you read what i wrote, may be you can understand.

I'd understand if I see evidence.

Choupolo , your a muslim ??  now that's the best twist ever since prison break season 1 !!  :p  just kidding

Hehe, I though I'd mentioned this before.

Fair enough but this contradicts a lot of Islamic text.

Which parts exactly?

Agent , you have no idea about islam, islam is extremly complexe , as i said it's not a simple religion. you need a very knowledgable person in that subject so he can answer your questions. and did you see that you tube video i posted, it's amazing .

Hehe, I though I'd mentioned this before.

You did, I remember.  I hope you don't take what I'm saying personally by the way.  Even though I feel strongly about my position that doesn't mean I judge people by these standards.  In my mind we're just discussing philosophy, I don't have anything invested in any of this.  You and Aba are great guys as far as I can tell.

Fair enough but this contradicts a lot of Islamic text.

Which parts exactly?

Anything that's stated as fact.  Which is a lot of text, including that very sentence itself.  Islam is filled with guidelines on how to behave in the right fashion.  It's filled with things that are stated as fact even without evidence let along proof.  The easiest example is Allah or God.  There's nothing wrong with stating something as fact if you support it with evidence or at least have some logic behind it.  When you diagnose a patient, you don't do it using faith, you do it using years of experience/knowledge and tests.

Besides the fact that you want an afterlife to exist what kind of evidence supports the idea?  It's hardly surprising that a living organism invents a story that refutes mortality.  It's in our nature to survive, life wouldn't exist if it wasn't.  I find it a little convenient that this massive story of immortality is completely unprovable and immeasurable.  How did we make this discovery in the first place if we can't percieve it?  The only logical answer is that we made it up.  Just like the thousands of other deities that have existed throughout different societies.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ahWFiaGATnY

 None of us have heard about most of them, they disappear when the society disappears.  Who's going to worship Allah when the Human race dies?

Thank you AGent, yes we're discussing on a phylosophical level because i think it's a fascinating subject, specialy when i have this opportunity to talk with atheists and listen to how they reason.

Who's going to worship Allah when the Human race dies?

In the coran god says after every single living being is dead, even the angel of death, the last one, and you know just before the resurection :  " to whom belong everyting" and then he answers himself " to  god the all mighty"

Actualy agent that question is irrelevent , specialy to you, you don't need this answer, it's beyond anyone else, and i'll put it that way, its god's business. that's what i don't understand , we are speaking about a being who supposedly created the universe, who knows everything and he's everywhere, how can you still apply  "logic" when every religion is based on that??? i can't argue with you? because you're aiming "faith".  it's doesn't have to be logical, may be not on the human intelligence level, who are we anyway , you do understand that we are extremely weak.

why haven't you commented , you or vx, on that dialogue i wrote, yes it sounds stupid but it's made on purpose , it has some great points there that needs to be discussed, i want to hear your point of view. why are you focusing on some questions nobody can answer that is the basic of faith.   like,  who created god? what was before god? how can an afterlife be real? 

if we really apply logic , then i would say well everything has a begining , the universe has a begining , i mean you can't creat something from nothing right??  so who created the big bang , ok who created  whetever tiny thing that made the universe ? who pushed that explosion ? how ?  OF course you cannot answer, you will let your mind go to the past , billions of years ago and you will reach the point of " and who created this ?"  seriously if i keep thinking about that my head hurts , it's beyond my human capacity.

I hope you don't take what I'm saying personally by the way.  Even though I feel strongly about my position that doesn't mean I judge people by these standards.  In my mind we're just discussing philosophy, I don't have anything invested in any of this.

Not at all, it gets me thinking too.  Not too many people really even like to think about this kinda stuff, they're content to let time pass without giving it a single glance.  Not that we can do anything about it whatever happens.

Islam is filled with guidelines on how to behave in the right fashion.  It's filled with things that are stated as fact even without evidence let along proof.  The easiest example is Allah or God.  There's nothing wrong with stating something as fact if you support it with evidence or at least have some logic behind it.  When you diagnose a patient, you don't do it using faith, you do it using years of experience/knowledge and tests.

Actually, medicine is a good example.  Yes, you do diagnose a patient from what you know - symptoms, signs, tests results, family history, lifestyle etc.  It all comes together to create a picture that you can interpret.  But whatever you diagnose, its always your best guess since you can never actually see from outside, the disease process going on.  You study the theories and you kinda imagine it in terms of things you've experienced and pictures you've seen.  (Yes I really do imagine the insides of people when I talk to them!)

So there's never gonna be absolute proof whether there is a god or not.  And if you're gonna assert something as abstract as an infinite entitiy, that we can't really even imagine with our 5 senses, then why even bother trying to prove it.

We would be pretty arrogant to think that our brains will eventually work out even 10% of how this universe really works.

All I'm saying is who knows you know?  Maybe after we die theres just a giant banana waiting, or maybe nothing at all.

I know what you're saying, why assert something as fact and then say believe what you like.  I think its like someone saying, hey, I'm warning you about whats coming.  Here's what I think is the absolute truth, but y'know find your own way through life.  If you agree with me, great, if not, fine...we'll see what happens.

I think the Quran is an interesting take on the nature of our reality.  Certain things in my life have led me to be inclined to think its true.  Things that could not have happened by chance.  They're personal things, so they would probably be meaningless to you if I told you.

Then I also think that the assertion that we are just here by chance is very unlikely.  A lot of things needed to happen in a certain way for us to exist.  The way the universe is feels so abstract and beautifully made, I cannot believe its all just chance.

And then as I said earlier, if you want to think about things logically - you can keep breaking the atom into quantum parts, but where does it end?  And if we eventually discover what contains our universe, what contains that and where does that end.  Logically there needs to be a absolute entity which contains it all.

They're all things that are just floating about in my head, what personally makes me interested in religion.  Of course none of it is fool proof.  Its just out there for discussion.

you do understand that we are extremely weak.

Yep.  In the grand scheme of things the Human race is just a blip.  We don't deserve a god, certainly not in our image.

why haven't you commented , you or vx, on that dialogue i wrote,

I haven't read it yet.  I will.

i mean you can't create something from nothing right??

This is circular logic.  Why is it that the Universe has to have been created but god always existed?  Why can't we say the Universe always existed in relation to time.  You can't have anything outside of time.  In order for god to have started time he must have existed within time.  Existence always existed because nothing can come from nothing.  God is unnecessary.  

so who created the big bang , ok who created  whetever tiny thing that made the universe ? who pushed that explosion ? how ?

I don't know.  Science has no answer for this.  I wouldn't assume it was a person or being of any kind.  Which in my eyes is a stretch of the imagination.  I personally believe the Universe works in a closed loop.  The Big Bang is only one instance of the Universe.  There were countless Big Bangs and when this Instance of the Universe dies a new one will form again.  This isn't my idea, it's a scientific theory.  Of course this doesn't answer how the loop came into existence but I don't like to think of Existence in terms of beginning and end.

it's beyond my human capacity.

It's not beyond our capacity, we just don't have a means to collect the data we need. 

Then I also think that the assertion that we are just here by chance is very unlikely.  A lot of things needed to happen in a certain way for us to exist.  The way the universe is feels so abstract and beautifully made, I cannot believe its all just chance.

Cause and Effect.  Nothing happens by chance.  It only feels this way when we can't perceive all the variables.  When I think about how unlikely it is that we are here, I remind myself of all the space and time where we are not there.  There's nearly an infinite chance for us to exist.  The vast vast majority of the time we do not exist at all.  Out of an immeasurable amount of time and hundreds of billions of light years of space, most of the time the human race is no where to be found.  It's only due to these exact conditions which we're allowed to exist.  Limited time only.  From our perspective we feel significant but we're not. 

Bastard! Bastarding bastardly bastards!!!

I was getting this for my birthday and now it's not going to happen.  He may have been a minority but the whole damn world can get itself to Afhganistan right now and send Arnie in to mop you all up!

Bastards!!!!

VX - great, now the extremists will be smashing their monitors and trying to kill everyone who posted in this thread because you posted a pic of Mohammed.

Bastards!!!!!!!!!!!

Rational people do not get offended, ever. 

To never be offended is to place oneself under the false assumption that no act is ever objectively immoral.

To never be offended is to place oneself under the false assumption that no act is ever objectively immoral.

Just because something is offensive does not mean I need to be offended.  I find Christianity offensive, doesn't mean I'm offended because you call yourself a Christian.  I wouldn't even be offended if you call me a Christian.  I can be threatened, which is not the same thing as being offended.  Being offended implies that you somehow have the right to silence a person just because you don't agree.  It's a monumental sign of insecurity and arrogance. 

.....You christian.

Being offended, is (of many things) the first step in correcting human wrongdoing.

If people weren't offended by Apartheid, would it have changed? If people hadn't been offended by the Third Reich, would it have been stopped?

Eddie_the_Hated


Being offended, is (of many things) the first step in correcting human wrongdoing.

If people weren't offended by Apartheid, would it have changed? If people hadn't been offended by the Third Reich, would it have been stopped?

No one stopped the Third Reich out of doing whats right. Do you seriously believe that the governments of that time cared about the concentration camps? They cared about the very real possibility of Germany taking over all of Europe and then expanding even more.

And to Agent: lulz at the silly atheist

Being offended, is (of many things) the first step in correcting human wrongdoing.

If people weren't offended by Apartheid, would it have changed? If people hadn't been offended by the Third Reich, would it have been stopped?

Those were clearly threats, they have nothing to do with being offended in the sense that these muslims were offended by the song.  No one has the right to impose their morals on other people.  They certainly don't have the right to violate free speech just because they don't like the fucking song.

It wasn't even a spoof, it was direct text from the Quran.  You'd think they'd be proud.

I heard the audio file posted on the front page and i have to say that it is an arabic sentence taken directly from Quran that people never used anywhere else. I am offended by this but in no means i plan or feel like killing/breaking a nose/hurting anyone who is a part of this mess. I wouldnt be offended if it was translated text or put in other words since then it would be plain talk and not Quran. I thank Sony and applaud them for respecting muslims feeling and taking action.

Those were clearly threats, they have nothing to do with being offended in the sense that these muslims were offended by the song.  No one has the right to impose their morals on other people.  They certainly don't have the right to violate free speech just because they don't like the fucking song.

It wasn't even a spoof, it was direct text from the Quran.  You'd think they'd be proud.

Agent, lets remember here that no-one actually told Sony to do this, Muslims didn't get offended and riot the streets - this time.  This was Sony's own internal decision, albeit arising only because of past history eg the teddy bear or the danish cartoon.

I dont think any Muslims would have been overly offended by this.

Gray, I gather the song was just a licensed track.  If you applaude Sony for taking it out of their game, do you feel the song shouldn't exist in the first place?  After all there are many songs quoting Quranic verses.

I think its just a song, someone elses artistic expression.  If I didn't agree with it I would just not listen to it.  If I didn't agree with it and still wanted to play LBP, maybe I would turn the music off during the swinging safari level.  To be honest, it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Cause and Effect.  Nothing happens by chance.  It only feels this way when we can't perceive all the variables.  When I think about how unlikely it is that we are here, I remind myself of all the space and time where we are not there.  There's nearly an infinite chance for us to exist.  The vast vast majority of the time we do not exist at all.  Out of an immeasurable amount of time and hundreds of billions of light years of space, most of the time the human race is no where to be found.  It's only due to these exact conditions which we're allowed to exist.  Limited time only.  From our perspective we feel significant but we're not.

I think cause and effect if left to its own devices, probably would not have led to where we are now.  To me, its like imagining the chances a car with no driver (and no futuristic GPS autopilot!) will drive forward making all the necessary turns in order for it to drive from California to New York by itself.  Sure there is an outside chance if the same process was attemted for millions of years - but its just improbable.

When considering how incredibly intricate and complicated even a fly or an ant is, or when you've studied the human body with all the intricate systems that keep us alive - I just can't believe its purely down to random cause and effect over millions of years.  Sure theres an outside chance, but the number of single improbable events that needed to happen to get to where we are, I just wonder what the actual figure would be - 10 to the power x?