Salam (peace) to everyone,
After looking at all the threads we have here I noticed there is 1 constant theme to ALL OF THEM and that theme can be summarized in 1 word as DIVISION. While I respect everyone's opinion (at least the ones that are laced with hate and profanity) I think it's time for at least 1 thread of unity. At the end of the day, we are all people here and I am almost 100% sure that putting our religious differences aside, we will probably agree on most things. So, my suggestion and intent of this thread is not division but, rather unity. Unity by putting our differences aside and let's try to talk/discuss things that we hope the majority would agree on. Let's not sit there and bombard anyone with questions about prove this or how do you or any of that nonsense that we can do in any other thread. The goal of this thread is for us to try and agree on as many things as we possibly can through debating with the intention of agreeing, not disagreeing. I honestly don't know exactly how this thread will go and don't have a step by step "rules or guidelines" other than let's all try and be as respectful as possible.
I will start with my first 2 general statement. And the reason I say it's a "general" statement because, if we really wanted we can dig deep in to any statement and find circumstances under which we will disagree with it. I hope this thread does NOT end up talking or discussing theism or atheism. While general statements about a religion are perfectly acceptable, let's not get in to a debate or disagreement about a religion.
So my first 2 general statement is
1) Muslims and Atheists believe in living life to the fullest. Based off some of the replies in other threads this statement might come as a shock to people but, yes Islam does teach and Muslims are told to live life to its fullest, within the Islamic context of course.
2) Almost everyone on both sides (theists and atheists) believe in being a good person is important. By good I mean helping the poor, standing up for the weak, defending the oppressed and being honest among other things as well.
So I hope my examples provide a little direction of what my goal is out of this thread.
Thank you
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@Searching for Truth:
1. I believe in living life to the fullest and allowing other people to do the same in the light of their own consciences and world views.
2. I believe in being a good person, and I believe that "good" is defined by personal conscience as the product of our instincts as social animals refined by our experiences in families and society.
I'm afraid that these positions would be unacceptable to both Islam and Christianity, which believe in punishment of apostasy, indoctrination of children, and (historically) in conversion by conquest.
@algebe
Wow it took all the way until the very first post to bring up religion and how people can’t help but disagree lol.
Anyway, in General I agree to both statements you said without going deep in to the details.
Thanks
You were the first to bring up religion when you said:
@sap
I brought it up in the context to justify my general statement and show how it agrees with what I think some atheists might believe. Not in a way to disagree. Please stop taking things out of context.
And there goes the Out-of-Context card...
rmfr
@Searching for truth
What Sapporo said, plus:
Anyone who thinks religion isn't going to be brought up on any thread of this forum is kind of out of touch with reality.
Someone who complains that religion was brought up in a thread, after making numerous references to religion themselves in the creation of the thread; should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery.
@Searching for truth: people can’t help but disagree
If we're talking about common threads uniting all of humanity, religion is really the elephant in the room. We're bound together by human fundamentals, such as living in families and communities, caring for our children, working to give our children a better life than we or our parents had.... Religion is all about division. Like some kind of dark and noxious fungus, it grows and expands beneath the bedrock of our humanity until we're cracked apart.
Humanity joins. Religion shackles. Humanity shares. Religion excludes. I'm not talking about any particular religion, but about religion as a force, a behavior. Like cannibalism, religion goes back a long way in the history of our species. Like cannibalism, it belongs in the bin of history.
Islamic dogma tells its followers to shun earthly pleasures lest they get in the way of their time after death. It is the opposite of life-affirming.
Islamic dogma says that those who do not think and act in accordance with Islamic dogma will be tortured for eternity. I can think of nothing less "good" than torturing someone for eternity for their honest beliefs.
Islamic dogma's goal of fighting and killing non-Muslims until the whole world is Islamic is contrary to defending the oppressed. Islam's dogma encourages Muslims to fight with all their lives in defense of Islam, which is completely contrary to living in prosperity, standing up for the weak, and maximizing pleasure while minimizing harm.
edit: typo
I choose to live life to the fullest, as best as I can. It is the only life that I have. Others can live theirs as they see fit to do. To each their own. I am an atheist. I do not believe in a god or gods. If you or anyone else does, then so be it. I am not a militant atheist. I really don't care.
I am a honest, good person. I don't lie, steal or cheat on my wife. I have morals and ethics. I am this way without the need for a bible or a belief system in a god or gods.
^^^^^^^^ What Kevinr said^^^^^^^^^
@ SfT
I am going to quote Algebe as it expresses my thoughts exactly
I don't want to live in a society where my daughter cannot wear her hair unbound and face open to the sun. I don't want to live in a society where she can be accused of being a 'witch' for treating a cold with herbs. I don't want to live in a society that would stone her to death for experimenting sexually or choosing a same sex partner. I don't want to live in a society where if she denies the religion of the masses she will be raped and killed. I don't want to live in a society where we have religious police, where I have to pay a tax for not being part of the local religion, where I can't enjoy a glass of wine in my own home ar at a restaurant. I don't want to live in a society where my son is forced to learn and recite an ancient horror book, a society where genital mutilation is practised routinely. I don't want to live in a society where a load of bearded clerics decide my divorce, my laws, my very life without an appeal.
I think you will find common ground there SfT .....
@oldman
Without nitpicking your reply I actually and honestly agree with everything you said. You and anyone else can and should live their life how they want and I’ll do do the same. No objections from me to what you said
Edit: typo
@ SfT
Well maybe you should be organising all the sects of Islam and all the sects of christianity and all the sects of Judaism to have a giant human fest where they all agree to stop promoting punishment for exactly what I wrote about.
All religious motherfuckkers want to do punish one or more of the things I wrote in my second paragraph. . Maybe you should be on the religious sites SfT...we, as atheists seem to agree that leaving each other alone to enjoy our lives is a thing to strive for. Religious seem to believe it is something to kill for.
Go persuade the Religious extremes of the Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, or the radical Hindus, or the Evangelical Southern Baptists, go on SfT, go forth with your book and your enlightenment. I will sponsor your funeral.
Religious have no empathy, no tolerance for that is unlike their strict understanding.
Perhaps those things you find desirable (living fully, helping others, etc.) are common ground because they are of humans, by humans. Nothing other than that, philosophically, is required for them to exist and be embraced.
@cyber
And that’s exactly what I’m trying to get at. Which was why I said we are all humans at the end and let’s see what common ground we can reach once we put our religious views aside. There’s soooooooo much more that unites instead of dividing us. While we have an almost endless amounts of threads that have been started and will he started let’s use this for unity instead of division. That’s the sole goal of this thread. Not for people to nitpick, complain and whine about how we can’t acutally agree.
Well, what I was intimating is that religion is not necessary for humans to behave decently. This is what seems to be disregarded by so many theists who assert that folks cannot behave well without thei gods’ direction. Have you ever, SfT, argued that morality is an ‘objective’ set of standards provided by your god?
Edited for spelling
According to Islamic dogma, if you don't follow Islamic dogma, you're going to burn in hell for eternity. It is difficult to see how "There’s soooooooo much more that unites instead of dividing us." when Islam is soooooooo totalitarian.
Any other aspect of a person's identity does not matter to Islamic dogma: if you don't follow Islamic dogma, you're going to burn in hell for eternity.
Modern educated people of today are more powerful and intelligent than any ancient deity of any kind. Belief in ancient imaginary deities does nothing except enrich the con men who run the religions.
As long as religion exists with all its dogmatic beliefs and theological disagreement with the true truth, there shall never be unity or peace.
rmfr
No, Islam does not teach Muslims to live their lives to the fullest.
Instead, it promises virgins and boys in heaven :
@ CHK-C
I think NOT Searching for truth has been staring at your avatar too long...
rmfr
I'll not unite with anyone who tacitly condones the rape of children by refusing to condemn it. So until you show some integrity, and tell us whether it is "ever moral for a 50+ year old man to rape a nine year old child, or if you think it's ever moral to claim a 9 year old child can consent to sex with an adult under any circumstances, your faux appeal for unity is as risible as your sententious claims that your beliefs alone provide morality, and objective morality at that.
And you can start as many of these threads as you like, the questions you've shamefully dodged will await you each and every time.
Is it ever moral for a man in his 50's to have sex with a nine year old child?
If the Koran is so perfectly innerrant, then why do so many Muslims throughout the world expend so much energy and violence trying to silence all criticism?
Can a horse ever fly of its own volition?
What is the penalty for apostasy in Islam?
Do you consider ISIS to be immoral to the extent they are evil? If so cite Koranic texts they break.
Is it ever moral for a Muslim to kill a non-believer "wherever they find them"?
Is it moral for a Muslim to lie to someone because they are a non-believer?
SFT "putting our religious differences aside, we will probably agree on most things"
Do you agree there are no circumstances under which it Is moral for a 50 year old man to have sex with a nine year old child?
Until you do then no, most people won't agree with you. Even setting aside your belief in archaic superstition.
I honestly and truly feel bad for the majority of the people that replied. I feel sad for you because, not for even 1 single post are you guys able to set aside the blind self-destructive hate you have and for 1 single post just be a person that can actually have a conversation not surrounded by blind hate and ignorance. And I do not say this those people as Atheists, I say it to them as people, people who are so blinded by hate, religion and God, it’s amazing and astounding to see how they can’t even post 1 single reply without talking about that which they hate the most. I honestly and truly mean it when I say I truly feel bad for you because people like this are just as bad as any extremist group in this world.
“I honestly and truly mean it when I say I truly feel bad for you because people like this are just as bad as any extremist group in this world.”
SfT, you actually think that someone who writes against an organization (religions) and won’t adhere to your request to not talk about it on a forum designed to do so is equally as bad as an extremist who flies into a building, straps a bomb to himself and sets it off in a cafe, pushes people off building because they suspect they are gay, burn people they think are witches, drives a vehicle into a crowd, does a ‘spray ‘n pray’ with an AR15, or forces children to have sex?
Oh spare us your faux outrage, lion. Do you think we'll forget all the sententious derogations you've made about atheism, and secularist morality, or the shameful way you're now trying to weasel your way back in after refusing to answer questions on your claims for your religion's moral ascendancy, or the way you compared yourself to the atheist here as a lion who doesn't need to answer sheep?
Try an apology, and then offer some candid answers, instead of this asinine attempt to bluff your way back in, just so you can start preaching to us again.
You want neither unity nor common ground, you're simply lying as your previous responses show. This act of yours won't wash sorry, and trying to paint those who won't fall for it as acting from hate or prejudice just proves my point. You're the one filled with hate, prejudice, and contempt, and we have all seen it in full flow. So just why you think you can pretend otherwise now is baffling.
The dogma of your religion tells you to fight and kill those who don't convert to your religion. The founder of your religion encouraged followers to cut off the heads of non-Muslims as a deliberate act of terrorism. The dogma of your religion says that those who do not submit to your god will be tortured for eternity. It is impossible to think of anything more hateful. And yet people such as yourself are unable to recognize such dogma as extremist and fundamentalist.
The blind self-destructive hate of Islam is such that the most authoritarian "Muslim countries" that rule according to Islamic dogma score terribly on measures of freedom, peace, and prosperity.
@Searching for truth
"I honestly and truly feel bad for the majority of the people that replied."
You came onto an atheist forum, and then in all caps stated that "ALL THREADS" here have a sense of, or a spreading of "division" as a common property/theme. This is tantamount to accusing atheists of being responsible for propagating division among people. You may as well have taken a stick and poked a hornet's nest.
I just keep picturing myself going to a specifically theist forum and starting a thread with something like "The UNDOGMATIC Thread - Hey all you theists - I looked at all the threads here and one thing that I can see as a theme running through ALL of them is dogma. So in this thread, I'd like all of us to be as undogmatic as possible and talk about only the things that we all understand not to be dogma. BTW - love you guys."
@Searching for truth:
I'm sure you're sincere, but look at this from a historical perspective. You're saying "Why can't we all just get along?" while representing a militant religion that spread its beliefs on the point of a sword. Christianity is all smiles and humility until it gains power, and then it's all crusades, racks and stakes.
You're in a debate room on a website frequented by people who are concerned about the harmful effects of religion in the world. This isn't the Polyanna appreciation society.
"people like this are just as bad as any extremist group in this world."
Then again all you're demonstrating is an inability to reason in any cogent rational way, and that you have no moral compass whatsoever.
You litter this place with sneering contempt for those who dare make critical observations of your religion and the beliefs you espouse here, then flounce out exclaiming you're a lion who owes no explanation to us as we're mere sheep, then expect us to believe you want unity and common ground.
You won't condemn ISIS but try to pretend they're not really Muslims, but will happily claim posters on here are comparable. A claim almost too incomprehensibly stupid to bother with.
As for this lie you're after unity, and common ground, its an obvious ploy to worm yourway back to preach your beliefs at us some more, and I think the late Christopher Hitchens nailed it quite accurately...
"Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse."
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