Supreme Court of the United States

[KmDubya]

??? We seem perfectly capable of making it work within Jewish and Christian communities, who likewise hold the existence and prominence of their God as absolute. I don't see why Islam would be any different.

The differences are primarily:

1. Christians and Jews pretty much all agree that the Bible and Torah were written by men and thus could have mistakes and can be re-interpreted as time goes on. The Quran is the "literal word of Allah" and can't be re-interpreted so there can't be a reformation.
2. For the most part Christians and Jews don't really believe anymore, hence why they push for tolerance of other faiths. Muslims are pretty fervent believers, theirs is a faith on the offensive, they don't need to be tolerant because they are winning.
3. Islam is and always has been spread by the sword. The name itself means 'submit'. They don't have 'turn the other cheek' they have 'kill all the infidels' until there is no god but Allah.
4. Western Civilization has been intertwined with Christian and Jewish tenets for a long time and the differences were sorted out hundreds of years ago. Both allow for a separation of church and state. Islam, on the other hand, is both a religious and a political philosophy which is what makes it incompatible with the liberal western world.

Osama Bin Laden and ISIS weren't pulling their beliefs out of their butts, they're following the literal written word, which also is the literal word of Allah. This is the fundamental problem of coexistence.

 

[metalhead]

Do you actually know any Muslim people?

 

[Lexicus]

Osama Bin Laden and ISIS weren't pulling their beliefs out of their butts, they're following the literal written word, which also is the literal word of Allah. This is the fundamental problem of coexistence.

Al Qaeda and ISIS each regard the other as kafiri. Leaving that aside, it's nice to know you agree with them and think Muslims who don't follow their twisted sects are not real Muslims.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The differences are primarily:

1. Christians and Jews pretty much all agree that the Bible and Torah were written by men and thus could have mistakes and can be re-interpreted as time goes on. The Quran is the "literal word of Allah" and can't be re-interpreted so there can't be a reformation.
2. For the most part Christians and Jews don't really believe anymore, hence why they push for tolerance of other faiths. Muslims are pretty fervent believers, theirs is a faith on the offensive, they don't need to be tolerant because they are winning.
3. Islam is and always has been spread by the sword. The name itself means 'submit'. They don't have 'turn the other cheek' they have 'kill all the infidels' until there is no god but Allah.
4. Western Civilization has been intertwined with Christian and Jewish tenets for a long time and the differences were sorted out hundreds of years ago. Both allow for a separation of church and state. Islam, on the other hand, is both a religious and a political philosophy which is what makes it incompatible with the liberal western world.

Osama Bin Laden and ISIS weren't pulling their beliefs out of their butts, they're following the literal written word, which also is the literal word of Allah. This is the fundamental problem of coexistence.

As it relates to Christians, your #1 and #2 are blatantly incorrect. I know and have known whole denominations that hold 2 Timothy 3:16 as absolute doctrine even notwithstanding the glaring irony of it.

However, I have observed that religions can sometimes seem to become less fanatical with age... almost like the maturation process of a child into a teenager, into an adult into a senior.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Do you actually know any Muslim people?

Near as I can make out he doesn't even know any Christian people. His point by point assessment, as Sommerswerd already pointed out, is incorrect to such a high degree that one has to wonder if it wasn't intentionally false.

 

[Farm Boy]

I do sort of wonder how much of the tension is actually the vague realization that men and women of faith are not entirely unlikely to wind up sharing more common values with each other than they do with the followers of the aetheist/agnostic gospels of wealth.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I do sort of wonder how much of the tension is actually the vague realization that men and women of faith are not entirely unlikely to wind up sharing more common values with each other than they do with the followers of the aetheist/agnostic gospels of wealth.

A valid point. The devoted followers of the non-god do seem even more worked up against Muslims than the Christians are, in general. Maybe they fear some sort of alliance forming against them.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, what in you opinion has actually been driving the base level wedges and the fights? - Missionaries? Evangelicalism? Jihad? Lucre?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Human nature. Fighting is what we do.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

As it relates to Christians, your #1 and #2 are blatantly incorrect. I know and have known whole denominations that hold 2 Timothy 3:16 as absolute doctrine even notwithstanding the glaring irony of it.

However, I have observed that religions can sometimes seem to become less fanatical with age... almost like the maturation process of a child into a teenager, into an adult into a senior.

Since when to adults become less fanatical when they become seniors?

 

[Farm Boy]

Human nature. Fighting is what we do.

Stark. The Y chromosome then, Tim. You're right about the teams then, if that's the framing that makes sense to you.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We didn't become the top predators on the planet by reasoning with the canids and felines, or by setting a "good example."

 

[Lexicus]

No, we got that way by cooperating with each other...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

No, we got that way by cooperating with each other...

Really? Maybe if by "cooperating" you mean "subjugating." We subjugated the prey and put them in pens. Then we subjugated the rival predators to protect "our" prey. And if the rival predators had two legs and were in fact just like us we made up or exaggerated differences so they could be treated as "other" and subjugated, rather than as people to be cooperated with. And here we are, with a few centuries of veneer over millennia of evolution, pretending to be "better than that."

 

[Lexicus]

Really? Maybe if by "cooperating" you mean "subjugating."

No, by cooperating I mean cooperating.

Then we subjugated the rival predators to protect "our" prey. And if the rival predators had two legs and were in fact just like us we made up or exaggerated differences so they could be treated as "other" and subjugated, rather than as people to be cooperated with. And here we are, with a few centuries of veneer over millennia of evolution, pretending to be "better than that."

There is not really any evidence of humans engaging in warfare prior to about 13,000 years ago: far from long enough for warfare to have influenced human evolution.

 

[Farm Boy]

Dimorphism doesn't usually seem to be a quality generally attributable to cooperation when competition is an available explaination, is it? Intelligence and its resultant technologies improved the capacity for and duration available to non-cooperation, yesh?

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not really sure what you mean. As far as I can tell technology has only increased our mutual dependence as a species.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

There is not really any evidence of humans engaging in warfare prior to about 13,000 years ago: far from long enough for warfare to have influenced human evolution.

Taking from the neighbors doesn't qualify as warfare until technology produces weapons of war...but it is still taking from the neighbors.

 

[Farm Boy]

To do what?

As to, "what do I mean?" I mean lots of stuff, but a simple disgusting way of putting it is that a stick is an improvement over my hands and manacles are a further improvement upon the stick. That alone can increase duration of noncooperation from 30 impactful seconds to generations.

 

[Flying Pig]

There is not really any evidence of humans engaging in warfare prior to about 13,000 years ago: far from long enough for warfare to have influenced human evolution.

Chimpanzees wage war on each other. I'd be very surprised if our distant ancestors didn't do the same, long before 'history' begins. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.