A Little Perspective On Religion

I don't typically chime in on this "issue" but this one hits at what I think is a coming State oppression. What religion I am or am not shouldn't be for anyone to know or care about. Government's should not protect nor sanction religious behavior or belief in the least. They should not regulate it, sanction it's rites nor advocate on it's behalf. At the same time they should not unduly force beliefs contrary on it's believers.

Arguments made today by the so called Intellectuals point to an enlightened state of understanding that no longer needs or is based on religion and that any religious belief should be marginalized or eradicated through "education" and/or Political Correctness. It's infiltrated the fabric of who we are and it's really a disgrace to who we purport to be as a society. A government using it's power to marginalize or otherwise dissuade an ideological belief in place of another is not the principal we were founded on. Seems like there has been multiple "cleansings" that have started this way.

I don't hold a particular recognized ideological stance on anything. I believe in something just short of anarchy is the most free and equatible form of government as well. As a statistician I've done studies on the regulations and laws in some of the most despotic regimes of the last 200 years and the parallel to what is going on today in the name of "freedom", "equality" and "justice" is striking. In fact most of the massive killings of the last 200 years have been done specifically in the name of those 3 things. The one overwhelming constant is the vast majority's belief that it can't happen here.

Keep in mind that collectivist government powers that have intellectually or officially oppressed religion as a tenant of their existence have killed more people in 150 years than religious wars have ever killed in the name of their religion in over 4,000 years.

I don't see a separation in Muslim and Christianity here. The ones in charge believe everything that has been in the majority should now cede to the minority.

 

2 things:

1. I think what Obama is doing for the Muslim community is what needs to be done. Islamophobia still runs very deep in our country (understandably so). Instead of Obama giving in to what is easy and freaking out and saying that terrorism has officially become domestic and ISIS has infiltrated us and we need to kill these people and spend more on the military, he's trying to culminate cohesiveness between Americans and Muslims. I support that, yes I do.

2. Can somebody explain to me the whole "God-fearing" ideology? I'm not part of that philosophical background, so I really don't know. I will say this though: Right now, it doesn't make sense to me. If you believe that God is pure love, why would you fear it?

 

In short God is love, but love is not purely emotional butterflies in the tummy, it fully incorporates justice. Those who do wrong should fear the God who cares about justice.

Edit: I would also add that in love there exists a component of hate. If I love kids, I hate child abuse. If I love my wife I hate adultery. If you love people you hate slavery, sex trafficking etc etc.

 

First I don't think our government is doing anything for cohesiveness. They do it for money and votes. Always have and always will. if you search you will find the connections. Everything we have ever done in that part of the world is for money or power over resources which is essentially the same.

The term "Islamophobia" is a fabricated term IMHO. "Phobia" implies irrational fear. Based on events happening in many locations I would say fear of Islam is well based depending on your location.

As for your thoughts on Muslims and ISIS. The group think on this currently is that one is a very small subset of the other. In fact to freely associate the two is more of the "kill them all" point of view. It seems that the government is desperately trying to separate ISIS into a "non-true-Muslim" group.

My non-religious, don't have a dog in the fight thoughts are that governments or institutions favoring one group over another is wrong. Doing it to influence public opinion is even more wrong.

The debate on Christianity and Islam is interesting to me that no one seems to understand that the learned leaders of Islam in large numbers advocate for the domination or conversion of "infidels". Christian learned leaders advocate for educated personal choice. Trying in interpret their individual philosophies from a governmental perspective is pointless as a non learned leader IMHO. When trying to understand anything in life you seek the subject matter experts. I don't see a plausible argument that can separate ISIS from Islam at this point in time. It is definitely a movement within Islam. Islamist followers in many locations around the globe have been doing similar things for 80 years. The last Caliphate was a holy war of conquest.

The excuses for the actions of ISIS and other Islamic groups looking to do others significant harm are based in emotion rather than rational thought. Poverty and disparate incomes on the Arabic Peninsula as been a way of life for 4,000 years. There are both Christians and non-believers who live in that area in minority groups (yet not insignificant numbers) who do not kill people, threaten to exterminate races and generally threaten anyone different from themselves.

While I do not advocate action against all of Islam I do not believe a public re-education program is the answer for people being be-headed for nothing more than their refusal to join Islam either.

As for Sharia as a basis for lending or other enterprise between non-government entities and individuals. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I believe in all private businesses serving and not serving whomever they want in what ever manner they choose.

EDIT: I was looking for this earlier when I posted this. The link below is to a well researched and vetted article on ISIS and Islam from both the contemporary and historic views. There was a round of rebuttals and the author's response. Reading it all and researching the references is a good primer on ISIS, their leadership, members and the connection to Islamic fundamentalism.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

 

that's a very cynical way of looking at things.

whatever, i wasn't implying irrational fear. i only implied fear.

they're definitely muslim. as long as they follow the qur'an and hadith, they're muslim. the only issue with that is that the qur'an and hadith are largely up for interpretation, so there is hardly a "true" muslim way of life.

i think i agree with that. the difference is that some americans hate/are afraid of muslims, and that's unfortunate. we have american muslims, and i think obama doing something like this is more of him trying to equalize them, not make them better than others.

1. you're generalizing all muslim leaders. some don't evangelize. 2. you're generalizing all christian leaders. some do evangelize.
yes, i think isis is muslim. who in the government is trying to interpret the philosophies? i think it's more of an action of giving support to a group of people who are hated/feared by a decent amount of americans.

there are people from all around the world with all different identities that kill. no excuses for isis or other killers, but everyone faces hardships, and trying to fix those hardships for future generations is justice. that's kind of what governments strive to do, i think.

i agree. so what do you think is the answer? another war?

i agree. sharia is actually just interpretation of the qur'an and hadith (just felt the need to educate for those that don't know).

i will take a look at this, thank you.

 

Looking at government as a arbiter of social standards is really silly IMHO. If that is cynical then so be it. I've been through 6 administrations in my adult life. I used to think that there was a good reason to advocate for a strong central power to make everything right. Let's just say I'm older now and know a little more about how a powerful central government actually works. Note where I live.

As for generalizing Islamic leaders: I don't think I have one bit. There are very large groups of well learned Islamic leaders that advocate domination or conscription of "infidels". I think it's actually more uncommon to see Islamic leaders who don't. The difference is that just like newer forms of Christianity in this country Islam in this country is much less connected to the ancient texts. It's actually an arrogant American attitude IMHO to think that a relatively small Islamic community here speaks for the larger one in traditional regions for the religion.

My comments about Christianity vs Islam were not about "evangelizing"; both groups want to spread the word so to speak. What I was noting is that no mainstream Christian leader that I know of preaches forced conscription into the faith. A majority of Muslim leaders teach this and it's the basis for radicalization.

Read the article, the rebuttals and the authors responses. There is a lot of good historic stuff in there that rises above the political ideology of our current approach.

As for what I would do. War is something they have declared on us. You defend your country and people outside the country. If they kill our people we should strike at them in a manner that removes their ability to kill our people. The parallels in thinking are striking between now and the 1930's. Not saying the dangers are the same but just how our leaders are viewing the situation.

 

what do you mean here?

 

If you look at how FDR, Chamberlin and other world leaders treated Japan and Germany during their build up period before WWII you will find striking similarities. I'll look for it but there is a site where speeches given back then parallel the ones given by our President and Secretaries of State that show an uncanny singular line of thinking.

I believe our leadership is a group of blind ideologues that view the world from a disassociated elitist standpoint. Not much different than the view of the Progressives of FDR's time. The socialist movement in Germany was viewed as a reaction to the poverty associated with WWI and Sanctions put on Germany. They blamed and excused abhorrent acts on angry and a frustrated people. The socialist party took on a sinister face as their true fanaticism surfaced. It was too late by then and their fixed and rigid ideological view point didn't allow them to view pure hate and desire to dominate as anything they could not rationalize through the lens of not having money/food or freedoms.

The same philosophy is at play here. Not saying ISIS is the 3rd Rich but they have the ingredients and are finding "friendly" regimes in our other enemies around the globe. It's obvious that the previous administration didn't understand them and this one is clueless as too.

 

Breaking a promise to myself by posting this.

 

Lol I dont think you will find it all that easy to offend me.

 

I appreciated the link posted. In all fairness, I don't watch network tv, so if it's not on front page news online I could easily miss it.

Just like I think it's appropriate for Christians to denounce the behavior of organizations like Westboro Baptist Church, it was good to see that happen here.

I'm sure as more details come out the real motivation behind the violence will be exposed. Religious or otherwise. Glad to see our Muslim brothers speak out against the violence. I've always felt there was too much silence from US Muslims, but I might need to do some research before opening my yap again.

My own purposeful filtering of news may have prevented me from seeing it being there all along.

 

I thought this was poignant:

http://www.russellmoore.com/2016/06/12/orlando-can-still-weep-together/