Saudi court sentences poet to death for renouncing Islam - Polidicks

[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49204532]It's still true though, just because it's there for context doesn't mean it's relevant or not obsolete.[/QUOTE] It really is relevant, though. The entire idea of the Messiah is found in the OT. The prophecies are found in the OT. The idea of covenant is founded in the OT. The comparison of the church to Israel is meaningless without the OT. etc. etc. etc. Christianity wouldn't make any sense at all without actively understanding the OT. [editline]28th November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=JohhnyCarson;49204568]Well that gets into what The creator wants. Not what WE as humans think we want.[/QUOTE] So you think rapists and murderers are good? I'm actually asking, not trying to use a gotcha question. I'm just trying to understand your argument.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;49202451]People try to attribute the failings of people to Islam, but if we look at who created Islam (people), who keeps enforcing Islam (people), who keeps manipulating people with Islam (people), and who keeps enabling the awfulness of Islam (people), it's always people. People are the problem. If there are people who can peacefully practice Islam, there's no excuse for people not to follow suit save for their own personal failings.[/Quote] the funny thing is if you said this about any set of people you'd look like an asshole, but people don't seem to think it's even more assholish to generalize the whole species as opposed to a subset.

[QUOTE=sgman91;49204569]It really is relevant, though. The entire idea of the Messiah is found in the OT. The prophecies are found in the OT. The idea of covenant is founded in the OT. The comparison of the church to Israel is meaningless without the OT. etc. etc. etc. Christianity wouldn't make any sense at all without actively understanding the OT. [editline]28th November 2015[/editline] So you think rapists and murderers are good? I'm actually asking, not trying to use a gotcha question. I'm just trying to understand your argument.[/QUOTE] To make it clear, I am a pantheist. No. I would prefer a world where everything was daisies, sugar and sunshine. It aint nor will it ever. It however is not up to me. Im not an all powerful all knowing being, I'm just a putz in the food chain. So are you. To claim what the divine wants is to be arrogant. Would arrogance be listed under pride? You have to accept the world in all its abhorrent and vile glory. Even murders and rapists. If you reject any bit of it, things only get worse. This what submission to god means. Even if the idea of embracing it all makes you reel in horror and sick to your stomach. Which to me it does.

[QUOTE=sgman91;49204569]It really is relevant, though. The entire idea of the Messiah is found in the OT. The prophecies are found in the OT. The idea of covenant is founded in the OT. The comparison of the church to Israel is meaningless without the OT. etc. etc. etc. Christianity wouldn't make any sense at all without actively understanding the OT.[/QUOTE]But it's still not [I]relevant[/I] though, it's merely there for [I]context[/I] but it has no (or shouldn't have) actual bearing on the covenant between Christians and God besides providing that context.

[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49204682]But it's still not [I]relevant[/I] though, it's merely there for [I]context[/I] but it has no (or shouldn't have) actual bearing on the covenant between Christians and God besides providing that context.[/QUOTE] It seems like our disagreement is more semantic than meaningful. "Relevant" just seems like the wrong word since it's extremely relevant when understanding Christianity. Generally, I wouldn't refer to something so necessary as non-relevant. There are even Christian doctrines that partly come from the OT. [editline]28th November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=JohhnyCarson;49204671]To make it clear, I am a pantheist. No. I would prefer a world where everything was daisies, sugar and sunshine. It aint nor will it ever. It however is not up to me. Im not an all powerful all knowing being, I'm just a putz in the food chain. So are you. To claim what the divine wants is to be arrogant. Would arrogance be listed under pride? You have to accept the world in all its abhorrent and vile glory. Even murders and rapists. If you reject any bit of it, things only get worse. This what submission to god means. Even if the idea of embracing it all makes you reel in horror and sick to your stomach. Which to me it does.[/QUOTE] I'll just assume your answer to the question is yes. Murder, rape, and every other form of what we generally consider evil is actually good according to your system. I guess false religions are also good then. I'm not sure why you're speaking against them.

[QUOTE=sgman91;49204690]It seems like our disagreement is more semantic than meaningful. "Relevant" just seems like the wrong word since it's extremely relevant when understanding Christianity. Generally, I wouldn't refer to something so necessary as non-relevant. There are even Christian doctrines that partly come from the OT. [editline]28th November 2015[/editline] I'll just assume your answer to the question is yes. Murder, rape, and every other form of what we generally consider evil is actually good according to your system. I guess false religions are also good then. I'm not sure why you're speaking against them.[/QUOTE] It serves a purpose. Here what I think god wants. He wants balance, good emotional health from us submission to how things are, strength and complete submission to the present. A rapes give a person to fight off something. Thus making them stronger. Same with murder. Its a chance to gain more resilience. Do I like this? No. I do not. However whom am I to argue? As for false religions? Well no I am against ideas that create emotional balances within a person or persons. By weeding out the ideas that make people sick, the more likely things shall improve. I know I am rambling. I however am trying to create a fresh perspective, which is what I think this world needs. So when these things come up, I'll try and see if I can polish them through debate.

[QUOTE=HybridTheroy;49204670]the funny thing is if you said this about any set of people you'd look like an asshole, but people don't seem to think it's even more assholish to generalize the whole species as opposed to a subset.[/QUOTE] I don't get it, is this an attack on me? Because I'll totally generalize the failings of people as opposed to the followers of a ideology. People commonly attribute communism with whatever the hell Stalin did, but that's really unfair and probably the end result of our (US) strict fear of anything that isn't capitalist and our (US) crazy patriotism. The failure wasn't communism, it was the people. Same thing with religion - people fail themselves, and it's better to analyze way further than just their religion, because terrorists are: a.) Going to be awful regardless of religion's existence b.) Manipulated by the religious component c.) Definitely not always religiously-motivated I'll generalize the entire human race all day long and feel no remorse because people are awful. I won't generalize the Muslim faith though because it's not productive towards anything and it's not true. My criticism of Islam will only go as far as my criticism of religion as a whole, because the only evidence that I need to express that Islam isn't a bad religion is the fact that there are way more Muslims that practice peacefully than Muslims that don't, and the people that don't are generally power-tripping or terrorists. Religion is an enabling component of a bigger problem, which I believe is lack of education and lack of funding, but it's easy for people to cop out of humanity by making claims about their faith instead of their unfortunate reality.

What a wonderful and progressive country.

[QUOTE=AntonioR;49202071]I'm not sure why we Christians still keep the old Testament around, because it is completely different than the New one. I'm not very religious and don't know all the texts, but in the Old one(based on hebrew bible) God is only the God of Jewish people and you could say he is the God of destruction, killing anyone that stands in the way of the chosen Jewish people. While in the new Testament, God is now the God of all people, and is much more chill. Like when Jesus stopped the crowd from stoning a prostitute and said "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her".[/QUOTE] Mormons use it as a history and Isaiah has a lot of prophesies concerning the Second Coming of Christ

Remind me again why this country is one of our allies?

[QUOTE=Lord of Boxes;49201927]Books of religion are meant to be taken figurativly.[/QUOTE] say that to everyone who uses it litterally....

[QUOTE=Lord of Boxes;49201927]Books of religion are meant to be taken figurativly.[/QUOTE] There's clearly something significantly different going on in Middle-Eastern dominated religions.

[QUOTE=General J;49216981]There's clearly something significantly different going on in Middle-Eastern dominated religions.[/QUOTE] There are some people that I think are being a little more genuine in saying that the Muslim religion needs to undergo another reformist opinion, but it still falls short because the people that are being awful with their religion are the terrorists and the government. What do those groups have in common? A desire for power, and the ability to twist religion for elimination of roadblocks.

[QUOTE=valkery;49201767]See, this is the shit Islam needs to stop if it wants people to believe it when it says it's religion of peace. I fully believe in the integrity of the majority of practicing Muslims, and harbor no judgement against anyone for their religion or skin tone. However; you can't have a country murdering people for saying they don't believe in your religion any more. It's barbarism.[/QUOTE] I think theres 3 issues. 1 fundimentalism anyone who interprets their religion literally (cept perhaps buddhism which might benefit from people actually interpreting it literally, looking at you burma) is going to cause trouble. 2 SA is none secular there is very little separation between state and religion, so anyone posing a threat to the religion is posting a threat to the state. 3 SA is backwards as fuck At least the radical ideology practised by ISIS isn't protected, funded, armed and enabled by the USA.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;49203053]A religion undergoing major reform like you propose usually ends up causing civil wars and genocide, and the new version created doesn't really end up any better than the previous one. You've already got the Sunni-Shia split which has caused a fair share of both for the past 1350 years, there's no need to have more of that.[/QUOTE] I doubt islam could get much worse.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;49216438]Remind me again why this country is one of our allies?[/QUOTE] Having it as an ally is much better than having it as an enemy. Oh and oil.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;49203053]A religion undergoing major reform like you propose usually ends up causing civil wars and genocide, and the new version created doesn't really end up any better than the previous one. You've already got the Sunni-Shia split which has caused a fair share of both for the past 1350 years, there's no need to have more of that.[/QUOTE] People got super murdery when there was a big boom in Shi'a activity in my country,I don't want to fucking imagine what would start happening if major reforms started taking place among the Muslim community

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;49203150]I don't think this is something very possible for Islam as a whole. It's generally why the religion is in decline and is entering another severe crisis right now.[/QUOTE] Islam is growing faster and has a higher percentage of younger people than other religions. It's anything but in decline. As for you previous post about reform - you are right they often bring with them lots of shit. IMO islam might be undergoing such a reformation atm, currently the religion was very decentralised with each Imam/ayatollah/cleric/whatever interpreting the Quran and hadiths and preaching to those nearby, the emergence of new Islamic states/caliphates might herald the arrival of a centralised branch of Islam. Liken this to the shift orthodox went through when the Eastern Orthodox church (emperor being head of the church) and Catholic church (pope) emerged as a means of using christianity to rule a state, where previously it had been individual priests travelling and forming their own lil sects teaching a none centralised creed. Another possible (and preferable) reformation if islam would be the emergence of an even less centralised islam where every muslim is encouraged to draw their own interpretations and conclusions from the Quran, rather than relying on Imams/ayatollahs/clerics/whatevers. Liken this to the protestant reformation where the people were freed from reliance on catholic priests and were encouraged to interpret, practice and study their religion in their own way. Both reformations were bloody but both happened in bloody times, in the developed world I think a reformation would be possible without need for violence or genocide. IMO the instability/war/death was necessary for the centralising reformation of christianity and the inequality/exploitation was necessary for the decentralising protestant reformation. I might be drawing lines where there aren't any but the instability/war/death in the middle east might be helping drive the proposed centralising reformation of islam. The centralised none secular islamic state thing I see is a huge problem, we (as humans) should be pushing toward secular states with rule of law. The decentralised reformation I think would be cool and might help ease the divide between sunni and shia, as individual muslims interpret their own meaning they might be more tolerant toward the interpretations of others. (I know it was originally about a power struggle originally but now its more a thing of "those guys over there aren't true muslims we're the real ones" which results in both sides rejecting the other's claim to power for fear of persecution imo rightly placed after the sectarian violence in iraq from the likes of the league of the righteous and ISIS etc) All this is rambling theory so I guess its probably wrong and missing bits. I don't mean to be pretentious about it, it is literally just ideas. [sp]I know islam started as a caliph but it is currently practiced as a decentralised deal with each preacher generally drawing their own conclusions, perhaps based off of the conclusions taught to them by their preacher.[/sp]

[QUOTE=JohhnyCarson;49204745]It serves a purpose. Here what I think god wants. He wants balance, good emotional health from us submission to how things are, strength and complete submission to the present. A rapes give a person to fight off something. Thus making them stronger. Same with murder. Its a chance to gain more resilience. Do I like this? No. I do not. However whom am I to argue? [/QUOTE] I disagree with this. People commit crimes because they're given free reign of their lives. They serve no purpose, they're by-products of free will.

Is it even possible to reform a religion? Has that ever been done in history? Unless by reform you mean splitting it into even more shards.

[QUOTE=itisjuly;49220230]Is it even possible to reform a religion? Has that ever been done in history? Unless by reform you mean splitting it into even more shards.[/QUOTE] Religious reform means creating an updated doctrine. The Catholic Church sometimes revises some of it's dogmas, but I don't think that's quite a reform.

you guys are right [URL]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/08/us-centralafrica-inquiry-idUSKBN0KH2BM20150108[/URL] we should reform christianity, i mean look at africa they clearly have no sense of right or wrong i'm sure it has nothing to do with underlying social context, instead of religion, because it's really easy to blame those dirty christians! saudi arabia could be following the instructions set down by a fucking ready-meal box, but they'd still do what they do - because it's little to do with the religion and mostly to do with politics and power.

Didn't Saudi just crucify and behead a 17 year old recently? I remember reading something about it.

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;49220702]you guys are right [URL]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/08/us-centralafrica-inquiry-idUSKBN0KH2BM20150108[/URL] we should reform christianity, i mean look at africa they clearly have no sense of right or wrong i'm sure it has nothing to do with underlying social context, instead of religion, because it's really easy to blame those dirty christians! saudi arabia could be following the instructions set down by a fucking ready-meal box, but they'd still do what they do - because it's little to do with the religion and mostly to do with politics and power.[/QUOTE] I think it's very interesting that you chose that article, which explicitly says "The mostly Christian or animist "anti-balaka" militia took up arms in 2013 in response to months of looting and killing by mostly Muslim Seleka rebels." Either way, yes, of course Christianity needs to be "reformed" in parts of Africa (actually it needs to go). Who would argue otherwise? Who thinks that witchhunts and executing gay people is a good thing? And who would argue that this has nothing to do with Christianity? Nobody, or you would be an idiot. But why does everyone become an idiot all of a sudden when you aim the same lens on Islam? "Oh no," they say, "it doesn't have a thing to do with the religion even though people can quote you chapter and verse of their holy book as they commit atrocities." Of course it has something to do with the religion. Does this mean that Abu the kebab salesman in New York is a terrorist threat? Obviously not and nobody besides Christian fascist fundamentalists say so. Just like the Christian killers in Africa don't make your grandma a terrorist when she prays the rosary.

[QUOTE=agentfazexx;49220708]Didn't Saudi just crucify and behead a 17 year old recently? I remember reading something about it.[/QUOTE] Not yet, but they are still planning on it. They also sentenced a secular blogger to 1,000 lashes and have declared that Atheists are terrorists.

[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49221070]I think it's very interesting that you chose that article, which explicitly says "The mostly Christian or animist "anti-balaka" militia took up arms in 2013 in response to months of looting and killing by mostly Muslim Seleka rebels." Either way, yes, of course Christianity needs to be "reformed" in parts of Africa (actually it needs to go). Who would argue otherwise? Who thinks that witchhunts and executing gay people is a good thing? And who would argue that this has nothing to do with Christianity? Nobody, or you would be an idiot. But why does everyone become an idiot all of a sudden when you aim the same lens on Islam? "Oh no," they say, "it doesn't have a thing to do with the religion even though people can quote you chapter and verse of their holy book as they commit atrocities." Of course it has something to do with the religion. Does this mean that Abu the kebab salesman in New York is a terrorist threat? Obviously not and nobody besides Christian fascist fundamentalists say so. Just like the Christian killers in Africa don't make your grandma a terrorist when she prays the rosary.[/QUOTE] you've completely missed the point the point is that to say that christianity needs a reform when a militia calling themselves christian goes out and massacres a load of muslims is completely moronic when the vast majority of christians don't do this - in this same way to blame islam for the actions of backwards-ass governments is totally moronic when the vast majority of muslims living in the western world are fine. the problem is very clearly the highly traditional theocratic government, not the religion for the same reason that argument [B]doesn't [/B]apply to Christianity, that argument [B]doesn't [/B]apply to Islam also, wow, abu the kebab salesman

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;49221548]you've completely missed the point the point is that to say that christianity needs a reform when a militia calling themselves christian goes out and massacres a load of muslims is completely moronic when the vast majority of christians don't do this - in this same way to blame islam for the actions of backwards-ass governments is totally moronic when the vast majority of muslims living in the western world are fine. the problem is very clearly the highly traditional theocratic government, not the religion for the same reason that argument [B]doesn't [/B]apply to Christianity, that argument [B]doesn't [/B]apply to Islam also, wow, abu the kebab salesman[/QUOTE] No, you seem to have misunderstood what I said. Every "reform" needs to be specific because every religion is specific. You could say that ISIS has its own religion that is separate from all those Western Muslims. You could even say that every individual Muslim has his own religion. There are, in reality, as many different types of Christianity as there are Christians sitting in the church pew. This is the problem with suitcase terms like "religion" which encapsulate such diverse and unrelated ideas and ideologies as to be a nearly useless. Specific religious labels suffer the same fate. What does it mean to be a Muslim? Does it mean anything more that "that guys calls himself a Muslim so he is one"? Can you be a "Muslim atheist" like so many more people are beginning to call themselves? Do you have to believe in some general medieval shenanigans with Prophet Mo in a cave or can you still be a Muslim without believing any of that? ISIS says you have to do x, y, and z in order to be a Muslim and if you don't then you're not a Muslim and that needs to be violently corrected. Are they right? Why not? So when I say that Christian terrorist groups in Africa mean that Christianity needs reform there, I'm not talking about your grandma and her magical necklace beads. And when I say that ISIS means Islam needs reform I'm not talking about the kebab salesman. That kebab salesman might still believe in some fucked up things about the Jews or gay people, but he'll probably never do anything about it and it doesn't matter. Same with grandma. As for your last comment, what if a religion says you need a "highly traditional theocratic government"? Or would you simply define that away with a fallacy? Edit: Do you honestly think that Christian militias in Africa have nothing to do with Christianity? They would kill gay people even if they were atheists or some other religion? Why would they do such a thing? Would Ken Ham still be a creationist if he was no longer a Christian? He would continue beliving in absurd things for no reason, and Christianity is just a cover story or something?

[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49221600]No, you seem to have misunderstood what I said. Every "reform" needs to be specific because every religion is specific. You could say that ISIS has its own religion that is separate from all those Western Muslims. You could even say that every individual Muslim has his own religion. There are, in reality, as many different types of Christianity as there are Christians sitting in the church pew. This is the problem with suitcase terms like "religion" which encapsulate such diverse and unrelated ideas and ideologies as to be a nearly useless. Specific religious labels suffer the same fate. What does it mean to be a Muslim? Does it mean anything more that "that guys calls himself a Muslim so he is one"? Can you be a "Muslim atheist" like so many more people are beginning to call themselves? Do you have to believe in some general medieval shenanigans with Prophet Mo in a cave or can you still be a Muslim without believing any of that? ISIS says you have to do x, y, and z in order to be a Muslim and if you don't then you're not a Muslim and that needs to be violently corrected. Are they right? Why not? So when I say that Christian terrorist groups in Africa mean that Christianity needs reform there, I'm not talking about your grandma and her magical necklace beads. And when I say that ISIS means Islam needs reform I'm not talking about the kebab salesman. That kebab salesman might still believe in some fucked up things about the Jews or gay people, but he'll probably never do anything about it and it doesn't matter. Same with grandma. As for your last comment, what if a religion says you need a "highly traditional theocratic government"? Or would you simply define that away with a fallacy?[/QUOTE] yeah, you could say that each individual muslim has his own religion, but we don't because that would be meaningless - we categorize groups for ease, in the same way that you could say each individual table is its own group of tables, because they're all different - this applies to every object in the universe, but we group them regardless you're using the word reform in the loosest possible sense so that you can still use the word so, what you're saying is that the ultra-conservative wing of islam needs reform in the same way that ultra-right wing christianity needs reform? by that you mean, stop existing, presumably because ultra-conservativism and ultra-rightwing views are the problem with those religions

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;49221647]yeah, you could say that each individual muslim has his own religion, but we don't because that would be meaningless - we categorize groups for ease, in the same way that you could say each individual table is its own group of tables, because they're all different - this applies to every object in the universe, but we group them regardless you're using the word reform in the loosest possible sense so that you can still use the word so, what you're saying is that the ultra-conservative wing of islam needs reform in the same way that ultra-right wing christianity needs reform? by that you mean, stop existing, presumably because ultra-conservativism and ultra-rightwing views are the problem with those religions[/QUOTE] No, they need to stop existing because they are untrue. That fact that they're harmful is secondary. The fundamentalist wings of Christianity and Islam are massively different. Christian fundamentalism looks like Ken Ham or Kent Hovind. Muslim fundamentalism is ISIS and al-Qaeda. There's a reason why you need to search around Eastern Africa to find Christian terrorism on a scale that is trackable. This is the reason why I said that these grouping words are useless. A word like Islam groups together 1. A girl living in Nebraska who never prays or only does so with her family on special occaisions, doesn't even wear a headscarf, believes that the Quran is metaphor and has never read it. 2. A man in London who prays 5 times a day and attends a mosque regularly. He thinks that all Western governments are run by a massive Zionist conspiracy and that the West wants to destroy all Muslims because it is degenerate. He thinks gay people must be killed and that women must be shielded from the inpure influences of the West. However, he is unlikely to ever do anything about any of this and he just grumbles about it all with his friends at the mosque. And 3. A man in Syria who is holding a knife and sawing through the neck of a journalist. What is the use of such a word if it can describe such diverse and disparate people?

[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49221731]No, they need to stop existing because they are untrue. That fact that they're harmful is secondary. The fundamentalist wings of Christianity and Islam are massively different. Christian fundamentalism looks like Ken Ham or Kent Hovind. Muslim fundamentalism is ISIS and al-Qaeda. There's a reason why you need to search around Eastern Africa to find Christian terrorism on a scale that is trackable. This is the reason why I said that these grouping words are useless. A word like Islam groups together 1. A girl living in Nebraska who never prays or only does so with her family on special occaisions, doesn't even wear a headscarf, believes that the Quran is metaphor and has never read it. 2. A man in London who prays 5 times a day and attends a mosque regularly. He thinks that all Western governments are run by a massive Zionist conspiracy and that the West wants to destroy all Muslims because it is degenerate. He thinks gay people must be killed and that women must be shielded from the inpure influences of the West. However, he is unlikely to ever do anything about any of this and he just grumbles about it all with his friends at the mosque. And 3. A man in Syria who is holding a knife and sawing through the neck of a journalist. What is the use of such a word if it can describe such diverse and disparate people?[/QUOTE] 1. a table that is sitting underneath as my desk, 4 legged and wooden, holding a PC 2. a table that has three legs, rounded on one edge but flat on the others to it can be put in a corner 3. a table that has no legs but is instead a solid object so that it simply rests on the floor, an outrageous table 4. a table that rotates so pass food around, spinning and perhaps without legs at all what is the point of the word table if it somehow fails to capture all essences of this table?? yeah, and of course i looked at african christianity, because africa is an area of social turmoil akin to what you find in a destabilized middle east