Noetician: In spite of Sheikh Adler’s answer, I’m going to have to answer in the negative. No one is inherently evil according to Islam. And non-believers are not evil. Only evil people are evil, and it is not inherent evilness. They turned evil because they chose that path. Non-believers are simply non-believers & Muslims are commanded to treat them with respect & kindness.
Me to Noetician:
You are such an incredible bullshit machine.
Firstly, it is 100% accurate that the Koran reports that all people on Earth were offered the holy word, but only muslims were good enough to accept it. The Torah says the same thing. This implies that everyone else is an infidels and a heretic, thus an inherently bad person. That’s simple logic.
Also, muslims believe that a person’s path is written in the cosmic book or whatever. So, if you do something bad then that is the way that you have been designed. It’s a belief in providence like some Pilgrims and Jansenists had.
You are quite ridiculous. Either you don’t know what you are talking about or you are lying for propaganda purposes. Either way, it’s shameful.
I didn’t just get off the boat from East Europe you know! I have been reading comparative religion for about thirty-five years and have explored much about Islam. Part of this has to do with business and wanting to know customs, while another aspect is to understand the nature of conflict. Adlerian and other people quoted easy to understand passages and ideas directly from text. They are clear.
Also, Adlerian mentioned that religion creates hero worship. That is hardly a new concept. Movies, TV, video games, books, and many other things cause changes of behavior. Certainly, a religious figure would have a great affect on people. The Muslim religious figure was a warrior that robbed and killed people that were not of his kind. The math is simple.
You know you really do come off as a fake or an apologist. Why not simply face up to what the religion is and what it’s founded on? If you don’t then you will be made a fool of over and over. Any half-wit can go get a book and read all about what Islam is based on, and that’s both for the good and the bad.
Perhaps, the idea that two women are needed to make a witness applies to you. Why not invite a friend and then we can get the full story.
Sarcastic?
Yes, but something is off about your posts. They aren’t critical and smell of deception.
The term “like-minded” is too soft. I’m sure that the aryan nation or the KKK would love to have you defend them though.
A person that says, " I don’t want any Jews or Niggers in the family," is not just rejects those that don’t share a like mind. The rejection of those of a different religion or race has much deeper implication than what you imply.
Maybe it took being away for a while, but when I quickly looked at this thread (when I saw Da Ali G was back, I couldn’t resist…), I saw some very strong resemblances between Adlerian’s and MZ’s writings. Even typos are the same (though I’ve seen others periodically make similar typos).
Not trying to kick up a sand or shit storm, but read MZ’s posts again. If he/she is NOT adlerian, he/she is likely in very close communication with him.
Now you are comparing Islam with KKK, and implying that they would say a thing such as “I don’t want any Jews or Niggers in the family”.
I’m sure some muslims are this way, but so are some Christians and philosophes. Such a blanket statement is unfair and says more about you than about Islam.
We decide on typos across the ether! You are quite the detective psyche. We communicate via smoke signal so it’s reduced to one important message per fortnight.
The idea of not wanting certain types of people in your family based on their birth and so forth is not much different than how a member of the KKK might decide about the issue. One main aspect of this is not that people are being rejected for lack of a like-mind, but for not being good enough.
I have known many people from East Europe and Italy that instruct their kids to only marry a person from their ethnic group. This is not to save other people from them, but to keep the supposed quality intact. What is that if not prejudice and bigotry?
It is a general statement but logic dictates that a religious group is going to be prejudiced against
It is a general statement, but logic dictates that a religious group is going to be prejudiced against nonmembers of the religious group. If they weren’t, then they would not be able to maintain their coherence as a group. This aspect of religious life is just another reason to view it as anti-humanitarian and anti-egalitarian in nature.
It is also a reason why much animosity has been directed toward religions throughout the ages. I have never heard of a religious group claiming to be a bunch of moronic imbeciles that wanted to save others from the mating process and that’s the reason why they shun others.
At least in regard to the general physical features the racist can claim aesthetics or emotional attachment to the characteristics of the genotype. Perhaps the love of extremely black skin or blue eyes could provide one with an excuse to campaign against racial mixing. However, the believer in religion discriminates against others based on fantastical belief systems and airy philosophies. These individuals seem much more ridiculous than the racist in my opinion.
Last message for a day or so, so consider yourself lucky, MZ. If you want to deny that you and adlerian are either the same person or are in close contact with each other, then you two are really amazingly similar stereotypes.
Either way, you both appear very rigid in your thinking and miss the bigger issues when you focus on the more concrete points of a message. For instance, my inference about you and Adlerian did not result fom the point to which you referred in your response to me. Think bigger and more flexibly. Actually, if you do that, maybe your posts will no longer look EXACTLY like Adlerian’s (even down to confusing irrelevance for irreverance…).
I live (not really) for the day when you are able to think beyond your teenage mentality.
Why don’t you go and read Chistopher Hitchens, then you can write him a letter reporting that you know that he is me, or I am him. He reads much like I do.
Anyone that is educated about religion, logic, and human nature knows how belief systems work. Meanwhile, your own agenda blinds you from seeing worldly issues in a clear way. However, that’s me assuming that that you are capable of any original thought or insight at all.
Again, you display your ability to not add anything meaningful to a thread.
Sorry for sidetracking from “your” thread, noetician. Just wanted to point out what I noticed re. MZ and adlerian. If you bother wasting your time with them, might as well address only one of them, for obvious reasons…
Let me point out the obvious: this scenario is not unique to Muslims or religious groups. Think of the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” the father wanted a Greek because only Greeks are worthy… the religion thing was second. Chinese people want Chinese people. Italians want to marry Italians and consciously or subconsciously discriminate in that regard. Very few countries/cultures have embraced inter-cultural and/or inter-racial marriage. Many American citizens still have a hard time swallowing a marriage between a black man and a white woman. Until 40 - 50 years ago, in the South a marriage like that could suffer various discrimination.
In the past, I personally enjoyed the looks of parents when they saw me come through their door. Panick is hilarious. The best one was a Mexican family that was upset because I wasn’t Mexican. Ha! Ha! My friend (Jewish) couldn’t marry his girlfriend (Korean) because she wasn’t Jewish… on the flip side, she couldn’t marry him because he wasn’t Korean. Long story short: she converted to Judaism and her parents were basically forced to accept him. We cannot hold the rest of the world to standards we don’t truly embrace.
Monsieur Zenith: You seem to think, or minimally unconsciously imply in your posts, that most cultures don’t discriminate when it comes to marrying other cultures. It has nothing to do with “good enough to give me your money but not good enough to have in my family.” Various cultures want to keep their traditions alive while still fighting for their new country. Noetician is both American and a practicing Muslim. Avicenna is no better, no worse than any non-practicing believer of a Christian denomination: he just happens to be Muslim. Yes ladies and gentleman. It is possible to be a Muslim, a believer in Allah, and still be non-practicing.
By the way AdlARYAN:
(1) Avicenna fits the tall, dark, & handsome bit irregardless of his religion.
(2) The Torah divides the world into Jew or Gentile {funny how most religions follow a similar pattern? }
(3) Christian doctrine teaches that there is no one (no one) that has not received the “word” at some point in their life… thus, they are guilty for the sentence they will be given on the day of judgment.
(4) You seem to think that there is only one doctrine within Islam–that is highly inaccurate.
(5) Furthermore, based on #4, there are additional possibilities other than that Noetician (a) does not know what she is talking about (b) or is lying and spreading propaganda…
(6) The other possibilities are (c) she does know what she is talking about and YOU DO NOT (d) she is telling the truth (e) she does know what she is talking about regarding the doctrine that she has learned & accepted which is different from the the doctrine you “know” and are talking about
And then you wonder why Muslims get defensive? You are not out to discuss, to understand… You appear to be playing your “let’s expose Islam game.”
I totally agree with your post. I think that I even mentioned other ethnic groups that do this, much as you did. However, since I made the same remarks first you really aren’t telling me much more than what I have already said.
The difference is though that most of the prejudiced behavior that you mentioned has to do with first generation families. I would say that by the third generation this kind of ethnic prejudice should be gone, or going fast, generally speaking.
It is the case though that religion has the power to instill much greater negative feelings than simple ethnically oriented traditions. This is because the religion creates the frightening penalty of hell, or the equivalent, in the minds of the children. So, the children grow up and stick to the ideas out of fear and/or anxiety. Also, there is the idea that our religion is the good one and that we are more moral. The exact opposite is the feeling that some people get that we are all fools, so let me move to the other side of the world.
All of this means that when cohesive religious people are living in a country that is not dominated by the religious group they are living in their own micro country. In other words, they live their lives based on their own politics and personal prejudices. This does not exactly make them the best citizens in the largest sense of that word.
As we both mentioned this goes for any group that finds itself to be special. As an addition to the idea I suppose that we have to take into account the average time that the group might be expected to maintain its prejudiced behavior.
The big threat of a group such as the Muslims would be that they start to congregate around certain areas, gain political power, and then begin to shape the legal structure of the area to one more befitting their culture. We are actually seeing something similar to this in the United States as border towns run by Mexican Americans create extremely lenient laws regarding Mexicans that sneak across the border. Their personal interests and belief systems end up subverting the American legal system. This is why it’s important to make sure that immigrants are aware of the country that they are living in and its basic philosophies.
While I would certainly agree that it should be gone, it is still a lot to ask considering that cultural or religious prejudice still exists today by a wide variety of long time Americans. In fact, I dated a nice Irish woman that had a difficult time with her family because I wasn’t Irish… nevermind that I was technically Catholic. This family had been here for a lot longer than 3 generations. Also, I will add that prejudice against race seems more illogical to me than prejudice against religion.
This is not accurate. Jewish citizens fit this description very well and they can hardly be described as poor citizens. In Los Angeles, Jewish citizens have their own neighborhoods, stores, Temples, businesses… These Jews have a powerful lobby, they congregate is specific neighborhoods that are very prominent in Los Angeles, and yet you can bet that many of these Jewish citizens discriminate based on religion. This does not make Jewish citizens parasites; in fact, they are viewed as model citizens by the community. New York is my favorite place in the world and there are vast neighborhoods where a specific ethnic group congregates. The same applies to Muslims in that they too can be excellent contributors, involved politically, love the U.S., while still striving to maintain their culture/religion.
Kolibri & Thirst…thank you for your explanations. Like Thirst stated, it has nothing to do with “you are good enough to give me your money but not good enough to have in my family.†Heard of Dr. Laura Schlesinger? She is ALWAYS chastising people for marrying out of their faith, because they often call in with the problem of, “I want to raise my kids like this & my husband wants to raise them like that,†or “I want to go to church with my husband like everyone else, but he refuses.†There´s nothing wrong with wanting to marry someone you have things in common with. It´s not prejudicial at all, and does not in any way denote that others are “not good enough.†It´s a lifestyle choice. I don’t need to explain further. The others did a good job.
Give me a verse. You talk about how the Koran says this & that, and you never back up your words. Give me something concrete to work with. You want to argue the Koran, then put your money where your mouth is.
There are different philosophical schools of thought in Islam. The deterministic school of thought is known as al-Jabariyya, and the free-will school of thought is al-Ikhtiyariyya. The majority of Muslims believe in the latter, but do not completely outrule the former. Human beings have free-will, but there are certain circumstances that are beyond one´s control. However, when it comes to “doing something bad,†the belief would be that it´s one´s own choice, not that it is designed. The entire concept of heaven & hell would not make any sense if Muslims believed their deeds were determined.
Muslims don´t believe that their actions are according to the way they were designed. By “cosmic book or whatever,†I´m guessing you are referring to the concept of qadar, which I will translate as destiny (because I cant think of a better word). However, this does not denote that one´s actions are set, or according to design. It just means that God has ultimate knowledge of what will happen. One makes his own decisions, but God (being omniscient) has ultimate knowledge of one´s destiny.
Also, since we are discussing the topic of inherent qualities…According to Islam, everyone is born exactly the same. No one is “designed†to be more evil. According to Islam everyone is born with something called “fitrah,†which is a natural inclination towards good, as well as a natural predisposition to worship God.
Adler…as always, you are attacking me with no substance to back up what you say. Also, you are deriving illogical conclusions from concepts you do not even understand. You keep saying, “Muslims believe something like this, & it says something like this in the Koran, therefore Muslims believe this.†But you cannot derive a valid conclusion from invalid premises. I´ve said it a million times before & I will say it again. Give me something to work with, or else I will just stop addressing your posts. It’s a waste of my time (and right now it’s a waste of my vacation time).
Monsieur…it disturbs me that someone else out there is so similar to Adler in his thoughts & rhetoric. I really hope Psyque is right about you being one & the same. First of all, Adler does not give me Quranic passages. He talks & backs nothing up. When others gave verses I clearly explained them, and usually when I discuss concepts I back up my claims with Quranic verses.
Overall, I think you & Adler are just plain rude. Ive told this to Adler & I will repeat it for the both of you: You are so adamant about believing certain things about Islam that when these thoughts are disturbed you get totally angry & resort to name calling, insults, and sarcasm. You tell me we are prejudiced, but you exhibit the true mark of a bigot. I have in no way attacked you or insulted you, but you are incapable of conversing with me about the religion & discussing concepts in a civilized manner. Instead, you resort to name-calling & sarcasm. You made various untrue assumptions about me.
Also, you say you’ve read up on comparative religion, and good for you. But it´s one thing to read & another thing to experience, to understand, to thoroughly research. You act like you know why MY parents came to America, you know what I think about their homeland, etc. It´s really frustrating when people like you & Adler do that. You obviously know nothing about me or my family, and likewise you seem to make assumptions about Muslims in general. It´s really presumptuous of you to think that you know more about me than I do, or you know more about my religion than I do…to the extent that when I explain it, I´m somehow lying or being deceptive.
To the both of you: I´m sick of your rudeness & name-calling, and I have no reason to put up with it. If you´d like to converse in a civilized manner, youre more than welcome. But if you´re going to continue the way you are, I have no reason to go on with the two of you. You can be critical of Islam without being total jerks. I don’t know how you guys have gone on for so long while being so closed-minded towards other perspectives.
Hiya psyque!! Don’t be silly. The more, the merrier. Always good to hear your thoughts. Funny you thought of them as one & the same, because I entertained same thought but quickly dismissed it because I didn’t think Adler would want to waste post points on someone else.
Yes, this is one of the main reasons why I fled So. Cal. and I lived in a great area. An area that has more millionaires that any place in San Bernardino County. Numerous lawyers, dentist, doctors, business men, old time citrus growers etc. I am sick of seeing the Mexican flag in areas like Fontana and Colton with no sign of Old Glory, the race riots.
I am now in Nevada. If I like to position, my other half will follower after tenure.
Of course I would, and would not blink regarding this. If her family tried to preach Sharia Law to me, there would not be any further contact with her parents, but my son is free to marry who he wishes.
This sound more like some minorities not assimilating nor wanting their children to become assimilated. Chuckle, by the third generation they generally are assimilated.
Oh, please. I grew up near two Jewish families, some upper middle-class whites, two single-parent household, and many working class folks like my parents. I have often attended bat and bar mitzvahs, so has my son. I have worked for Jews, along with Whites, Blacks and Hispanics. My mother use to have large Christmas open house, geez, for 40 years or so, now she is 80 and too old, but it was a big bash with at least 75 people in the house at one time. Some Jews, some Christians, some pagans, some agonostics, a few of my brother’s weirdo pot smoking friends in for the free grub, yum, sliced roast, cheese, sausage rolls, jam tarts, much more, and an open bar.
My son had two Jewish friends who would spend the night in my poor single-parent working class abode. They lived on the hill, drove the high end beamers, etc. Mom was a PHd Psychologist and Dad ran Juvenile Corrections and probably had an MA. They often invited my son to many fancy gigs. Chuckle, the boys spent the night and I forgot they are Jewish and was cooking pancakes, eggs and sausage. They had to remind me “We are Jewish and don’t eat pork.” My reply “Oh, I forgot. I am sorry.” They gave me a big smile because I did not view them as any different from any other person.
Look, at least I admit my knowledge of Muslims is limited, try admitting your knowledge of Jews is as well.
And are fevently patriotic U.S. citizens who do not try to inflict Talmud Law onto the USA, this is a difference.
How many Muslim voices do we hear? Only recently has CAIR actually condemned terrorism, except against Israel. Most of what I read is very negative. AD did post a strong pro USA anti terror stance, Noetician has too.
But the voice is to little, to small and way too late.
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Yes, this is one of the main reasons why I fled So. Cal. and I lived in a great area. An area that has more millionaires that any place in San Bernardino County. Numerous lawyers, dentist, doctors, business men, old time citrus growers etc. I am sick of seeing the Mexican flag in areas like Fontana and Colton with no sign of Old Glory, the race riots.
What on earth is your claim? I do not understand.