Society Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

[M3J]

Humans use religion as another way to say their ideas are superior or that someone else is inferior, like homosexuals or blacks. As much as the fault lies with people, you can't say religion is completely innocent as people fight in the name of it, usually, regardless of how much influence religion has.

Look at the Pope. He banned condoms because of religious reasons, although that'll hurt the people more than help them. Not only do condoms greatly reduce the chances of pregnancy, but it also reduces the chance of STD, which is especially good for promiscuous people.

 

[Zehahaha]

Well, this is related to Islam in general, thought I'd share with you
This is a serie about the life of Umar Ibn Al Khattab, one of the Righteous Califs

Here's the link of the first episode

 

[shaheer]

Humans use religion as another way to say their ideas are superior or that someone else is inferior, like homosexuals or blacks. As much as the fault lies with people, you can't say religion is completely innocent as people fight in the name of it, usually, regardless of how much influence religion has.

Look at the Pope. He banned condoms because of religious reasons, although that'll hurt the people more than help them. Not only do condoms greatly reduce the chances of pregnancy, but it also reduces the chance of STD, which is especially good for promiscuous people.

I agree humans use religion in one way or other to get their way around things but that makes the human disposition at fault. Its not like if religion would not exist this particular disposition will vanish

As for Pope, did he seriously ban condoms?
This is really strange

 

[Doraku]

As for Pope, did he seriously ban condoms?
This is really strange

He did. I attended a Anwar Al-Awlaki's lecture too when he was still in the U.S., he also proposed the same thing.

The problem is rooted in Science v. Religion all over again.

 

[Akainu]

the problem with banning condoms is, it won't have the effect they think it has. whether with condoms or not, people will always feel love and lust and whatever it's leading to. the diffrence is a reduction of children (also by other contraceptives) and sickness, the latter of which only condoms do reduce as far as I know.
suggesting a ban, especially in regions that have high HIV or other std rates (combined with people who do what they say), is imo irresponsible at best.

 

[Imperium]

The pope overturned the ban a couple of years ago guys. It was big news.

 

[M3J]

I agree humans use religion in one way or other to get their way around things but that makes the human disposition at fault. Its not like if religion would not exist this particular disposition will vanish

As for Pope, did he seriously ban condoms?
This is really strange

I agree, and I can see some good things about religion, but in the end... it's just another excuse for humans to fight, and especially to enforce their views on others for possible fear of being wrong. Problem is, humans just aren't open minded enough to accept anything but their point of view... most humans anyway.

That's what I read few months or years ago.

 

[Josef]

He did. I attended a Anwar Al-Awlaki's lecture too when he was still in the U.S., he also proposed the same thing.

The problem is rooted in Science v. Religion all over again.

Just read that in a paper here today, the head of the Orthodox church in my country says science and religion can coexist. Probably his best argument was that scientists like Tesla and Einstein were religious. I think I mentioned somewhere before that Tesla thanked God for everything he discovered. This is the best mindset of a human in my opinion. We, as we progress in history are slowly learning more about the secretes of the Earth and the Cosmos, thus learning more about God in the process. It might be a hard concept but it certainly is understandable where people are coming from with it.

 

[Imperium]

An interesting video I spotted on the front page of reddit today related to the current Muslim video riots happening around the world. He is quite eloquent.

 

[shaheer]

Noman ali is quite eloquent indeed, the problem is he still lacks formal learning about islam. He is a self taught when it comes to Quran, hbut he did learn arabic from sheikhs.
Thus problems starts when he starts to talk about sharia rulings regarding any issue. There are very few sharia scholars i know who are apt in answering the issue and most are arabic speaking so i need to get a translation or when i communicate with them via emails i need to wait till my letters are translated to them.

 

[silver_soul]

I love Nouman Ali Khan. Excellent speaker and that video is top. Thanks for posting.

 

[M3J]

Just read that in a paper here today, the head of the Orthodox church in my country says science and religion can coexist. Probably his best argument was that scientists like Tesla and Einstein were religious. I think I mentioned somewhere before that Tesla thanked God for everything he discovered. This is the best mindset of a human in my opinion. We, as we progress in history are slowly learning more about the secretes of the Earth and the Cosmos, thus learning more about God in the process. It might be a hard concept but it certainly is understandable where people are coming from with it.

Although I'm a full-fledged atheist, I never really understood why people strongly disagreed with science and religion coexisting. From an article I read, both did coexist pretty well until the rulers made up a rule requiring everyone to take the Bible literally.

 

[Gats]

So this stupid movie... what do you think about it and the reactions towards it?

As far as media reports go here, it seems to be a project later redubbed and now used to stir exactly this kind of violence by a known ... well lets call him offender, who already called for burning the Quran causing unrest in Afghanistan. Aside from his strategy being successful, the protests do seem staged to me .-.

I just read that this movie actually probably doesn't exist, no one found it yet, just the trailer subbed post-production by this guy. The actors and anyone who were in this movie never watched it and they said that the movie's topic had nothing to do with Mahomet. Its original title was Desert Warriors.

 

[shaheer]

Thats some thing i was expecting, but bro dont take it otherwise the spelling is Mohammed or Muhammed, Mahomet is a really bad disfiguration of his name. Every one has the right to have his name spelled or pronounced the way he wants. The english orientalist especially during the crusades started disfiguring the muslim names and hence you might still find it in dictionary. But this is gross infringement on ones name esp when its possible to pronounce it well in english.

 

[Akainu]

I understand that in english it is not the right way, but since we're an international community please bear with others, since in French for example it's the appropriate spelling. No need to get into fights about something like that is there?

 

[shaheer]

just came across something really good
you guys might find it interesting

A World without Islam ​

 

[Akainu]

It is indeed interesting, even though "what if" games in history are complex and he doesn't quite follow his own premise. I guess we would need another thread for that, but to start with, the scientific progress of today would not have been possible without Islam. But even before and after there would imo be such significant changes that bothering with imperialism is a little redundant with the world going a completly diffrent way.

 

[shaheer]

Bringing a thelogical point here, What if question regarding with past and its possible change in present is banned from Islam. So i am not a big fan of the angle of the article but it has good material to measure up different contributions of islamic growth

 

[M3J]

Dear Europeans,

I read months or years ago in an article how Europe rarely had fights or serious arguments over religion like America did. Like in America, you will hear people arguing about Christianity being better or atheism is smart and religion is retarded or Catholicism > Protestants. Or, fuck religion/science, science/religion is superior. Is the same true for Europe? I read that people got along and accepted both science and religion, and I think all religion. At the least, I know science and religion were discussed, if not religious tolerance. I hope the article is true and it's only America being petty about this.

Especially since we have idiots like Westboro Baptist doing dumb stuff.



Sincerely,

A Curious American

 

[Imperium]

The problem with the question M3J is that it is too wide and general. As you are doubtless aware Europe is made up of many countries with differing histories and cultures regarding religion. Its hard to generalise Europe in the way you are looking for, and any such generalisations will be seriously flawed. There is a few things that can be considered though, surveys and polls have been conducted across Europe (usually by the EU) to try and gauge the general religiosity of the population. This is a Gallup poll held in 2004 on religious service attendance. There are other polls on this wiki page about peoples views on the importance of religion in their lives .

From the surveys there are huge differences, some countries as a consequence of their history and culture are very irreligious (the nordic countries in particular) while others are not (Mediterranean and catholic states). However it can be safely said that socially in a lot of countries religion is not as big of an issue as it is the United States.

The other statements you made will differ depending on the country. I can only speak with authority on the UK. The UK is one of the few non-secular countries in Europe, the monarch is the head of the Church of England and church officials have seats in the upper house (going into more detail into this will just get confusing). The country is socially secular however. Abortion, creationism etc are non-issues, full and legal gay marriage is almost reality (there is currently a thing called civil partnerships which is marriage in all but name). Religion being used as an argument in itself does not happen on political issues.

Having said all that however religion is still a controversial issue itself. The only difference is that it is no longer used to justify policies. Religious intolerance still exists in parts of the UK. This is all anecdotal so bear with me, there are problems with extreme nationalistic right wing groups who still see Christianity as being a national heritage and are intolerant of other religions (the most vocal opposition to being Islam) and on the other spectrum intolerance from religious people towards people against their belief system or those who oppose it (mainly from radical islamist groups). Both are however extreme examples and are not popular positions within the non-religious or religious populace.

Personally I think you are beating up the US a tad too harshly. You do have some extreme groups, and for a secular nation, a huge hang-up on religion in your politics. There are some intolerant places in the US but the same can be said for Europe, the grass is not always greener on the other side.


...However, its probably better for your blood pressure to be atheist in Europe than the US.

---------- Post added at 04:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:29 AM ----------

Also bear in mind when I speak about intolerance in Europe our most extreme cases (Srebrenica which occurred in the heart of Europe) will almost certainly never occur in the United states. It really does differ depending on where on the continent you are.