Do you have decent rig and live in peaceful city? do you think all religion basically good?
if I recall correctly, bombings/terrorism in indonesia are not uncommon. The nation is held out as a large and peaceful islamic country, but on many of the islands, it's not that friendly/peaceful.
if I'm wrong, please correct me and I apologize
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It's all relative. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the homicide rate in USA is about 10 times that of Indonesia, so Indonesia is extremely peaceful compared to USA.
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Where are you getting that from? It's more like 40 attacks in 40 years. Regardless, it's not a patch on USA, where each day brings a 90% likelihood of a mass shooting.
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Yeah, like I said, that shows 40 attacks in 40 years (and a total of 41 in 56 years). There have been more (45) terrorist attacks in USA since 2010.
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They forced their 8-year-old kid to blow herself. Fuck them
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I love how they use religion as their excuse to do what they do.
While we don't really know their motivation, I suspect it to be political rather than religious. There may be religions in which murder is permitted, but as far as I am aware, none of the various "organized" religions allow it, and very, very few allow suicide. It is not surprising, then, that terrorists always seem to be appallingly ignorant in matters of religion.
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My point is that Religion itself is not a "force." It is a tool. What people do with it can be good or evil, but the responsibility for their actions is on them, not on Religion. It is the individual person who chooses whether or not to follow a creed, and if so, to what extent. It is the individual who chooses to adhere to it, or not. It is the individual who chooses to what degree that creed influences his or her actions. These days, many people blame environmental factors such as Religion for the behavior of individuals, but that is because they do not understand. Environment influences behavior, but it is Choice that decides it.
There are clear examples of this in every religion. Baptist Christians, for example, understand that the practices of the Westboro Baptist Church do not represent their faith.
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I'd say religion definitely has some responsibility, because it teaches itself as the one absolute truth. So if someone was taught by their parents or society that religion is real, they might read the holy book of that religion and take everything they read at literal value. And when they do things we consider bad they think they are actually doing god's work, hence something good. Without religion to brainwash that individual's mind, there probably wouldn't be a problem. So yes, the individual is responsible, but I don't think you can fully remove religion from the equation as well.
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It is possible you are using a different definition of "Religion" than I am, but if you equate Religion to Creed, than I disagree. Religion doesn't "teach itself," but rather is learned by the individual (a personal choice). There may or may not be a teacher involved (again, personal choice). Taking everything in that religion as literal would be another personal choice. And regardless of all of the previously mentioned choices, any actions taken by the individual are still done by choice.
A person's creed is a tool, and you may argue as to whether or not a particular creed is a "good" tool, but an individual is still ultimately responsible for his or her actions.
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I'm using the definition of religion as an organized system of faith and worship.
Maybe "teach" wasn't the best word, but "hold". Religion holds itself as the one absolute truth. I don't know how to put it...
Still, you can't fully remove religion from the equation, it has to be held accountable as well. A good person would probably never kill a homossexual unless the bible told them to do so. In their eyes, they are not doing something bad, because they are doing what god told them to do. And this is also the problem with religion, a lot of people say it's "interpretation", but we're talking about the book that supposedly contains the absolute truth, so how can you expect a believer to read it and not take things into literal value? Maybe the books should have been written better then, using disclaimers like "do not take this literally".
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To be fair, the first known law against homosexuals, with the penalty of death, is the Middle Assyrian Law Codes (1075 BCE), before Christianity
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The difference is that law is not still in place today, is it?
Christianity still preaches against homossexuality to this day, and the bible still has that verse about homossexuals being put to death. Some people can decide to ignore certain parts of the bible by saying that we live in a different time now, but as long as those parts remain in the bible, some people will always read them literally and take action about it.
But then there are those people who say that the word of god is forever unchanged, which would mean those parts of the bible are just as relevant today as they were back then...
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You said "A good person would probably never kill a homossexual unless the bible told them to do so". I am just pointing out that homosexuality has been a crime/discriminated way before christianity.
And if religions disappeared tomorrow, there would still be discrimination against homosexuality. For example, the last country censoring homosexuality, is China, that is not exactly the most religious country on earth.
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Ok, but I did say "probably".
Discrimination against homossexuality is indeed not a religion-exclusive thing (even atheists can raise the argument that it's unnatural because on the grounds of science two people of the same sex cannot reproduce), but religion gives it a huge platform, especially for murder.
China may censor homossexuality, but does it order the killings of homossexuals?
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Not counting the nazi mass killings, where they killed a lot of people they didn't like, when was the last time a person was killed in a "Bible" country for being homosexual? More than 150 years ago
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Is that a serious question? What about the middle east? There are plenty of countries out there today that have death penalty for homossexuals.
And how can you say for sure that no person was killed in the last 150 years in other countries for being homossexual? Do you know every single murder that has happened?
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I meant state sanctioned murder. Your original sentence was "A good person would probably never kill a homossexual unless the bible told them to do so". I know perfectly well that homosexuality is punishable by death in múltiple countries. It's just that none of them have a christian majority.
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Well, I never mentioned state sanctions.
And there's no denying that Christianity isn't as problematic as it used to be (it went through a reform), but that doesn't deny the fact that a good person would probably never kill a homossexual unless the bible told them to do so.
And I know I said bible, but I was only using a specific example, this is the case with all religions.
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We will have to agree to disagree. There are multiple cultures where good rulers, pillars of their community, loved by their people, decreed murder to homosexuals, totally unrelated with religion. The germanic people of Roman times didn't have any religion, and they only had death penalty for cowards and for homosexuals
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There are plenty of countries out there today that have death penalty for homossexuals.
There is a prevalent myth that Islamic Law requires the death of anyone who is homosexual. Actually, Islamic Law condemns sex between two people of the same gender. As conviction of such an offense has a bunch of prerequisites, one of which is four eye-witnesses to the event, this is not a common occurrence. Seeing as how there are currently no countries practicing Islamic Law, however, I could not tell you to what degree predominantly Muslim countries are influenced by it. I only know that there seem to be homosexuals living in the countries I have visited.
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Maybe the books should have been written better...
And there you have hit upon the crux of the matter. Other religions must struggle and do the best they can in dealing with the flaws in their "books," and they must come to grips with the varying "interpretations" of their faith by their respective "church." We Muslims do not have that excuse. We have one book, and we have the explanation of that book as given by the person to whom it was revealed. Islam is all "application" rather than "interpretation." When God forbids us from committing suicide in the Qur'an, and Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) explains that the punishment for breaking that commandment is the Hellfire, that does not leave any room for a Muslim to say it is permissible.
[Note: The Shi`ah have their own way of looking at things, and I do not speak for them.]
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I do not say that ISIS represents mainstream islam, any more than Westboro represents mainstream baptists. The same text can be interpreted in different ways, but in the end, many people use religion to guide their behavior.
People can be good and evil with and without religion, but religion (including atheism) is an excuse, a reason to behave a certain way. It can be used to justify behavior.
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It pretty much depends on how "fanatic" they believe in their religion. Sometimes they can be brainwashed up till the extent of when you commit something as terrible as this incident, they would be, and i quote, "closer to god".
I just find this really sick
I sincerely apologize if I offend anyone
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Bump for awareness. Religion can and should be better than that.
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I wish everyone could live in peace, but it seems like it's not gonna happen
I wish I could flee from Iran but that also seems unlikely
Religion has always meant to make a better society, but is mostly misused by overpowers, I'm a Muslim myself and I find it crazy that people like ISIS do these things, all I have ever seen in Quran or other sources of Islam invites to peace, it says you should defend yourself in case of an attack, I mean that's just rational right? f*ck ISIS and terror man, all they did was waste lives and make a wrong picture out of something grand, I'm so hopeless of middle-east's situation, stupid politicians, mostly blinded and misguided people, fanatics and extremists, economical crisis, these all just make this land a living hell.
who hates peace? who likes war? I wish everything was better...
In the end, I envy the rich and curse the fouls while rotting in this hellish land
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that's because they're NOT Muslim at all.
they're terrorist, they have no religion
even when they think they have them self aka delusion to get more suicide bomber
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that's because they're not in the right path. just like math, 1+1 is 2, not 3 or 4. there is only 1 truth. there's no "All Roads Lead to Rome", since there is only 1 true path, other is wrong. that's for religion though, it is strict! if any other religion isn't strict with their teaching, then i really doubt them (usually they just want money or any material stuff, in the name of religion)
at least that's what i believe.
you might think i sounds like a lunatic , radical or something like that (terrorist lol)
but it's not, i have my religion, other have their own. there's no need to interfere
only after 7/11 Islam got in the spotlight and then many idiots calling themself Muslim but actually terrorist
but before that? who know Islam? nobody knows and absolutely NO terrorist
tldr, it's easy to call yourself or other Muslim, but are they really Muslim? that's the question
you can see it in their action
also suicide will get the heaviest punishment in hell, but those terrorist still doing it? that in itself is very contradictive, so i can tell that they are NOT Muslim (they might still think they are though)
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that's the tricky part, but also rather easy
in Islam, there's 2 thing to follow, Holy Qur'an and Hadits. follow it and it's 100% guaranteed the right path, no matter what he called himself
of course it's not like reading a book or novel, you still need a teacher (Ulama or Ustad) study it, just like in school
that's it
just for a quick glance, any suicide (bomber), killing (without proper cause) or any terrorist activity is condemned in Islam
Islam is more to help each other (even other religion) rather than hurt anyone else, so dont believe any of those crap calling those terrorist a Muslim
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that's a problem indeed
i cant help you with that because anyone can say he's the real deal
you can try to open Holy Qur'an on internet (from saudi not just random ones), i supposed it's the most accepted one in the world and then compare them. there's english version i think
i can only say, you need the will to get the correct one
because the correct one will never led you astray (no rejection in heart)
that's my experience in these xx years
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But what if another Muslim sais something different? Who will be "correct?"
That is a topic beyond the scope of this forum. Suffice it to say that, unlike some other religions, Islam is based on authoritative texts. Any opinion which contradicts them is wrong.
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I am a Shia myself, the difference between shia and sunnat is small, we believe in Imams and they don't, we have numerous strong evidence that proves Muhammedpbuh has selected Ali ibn abu taleb as the leader of muslims after his death, Sunnis ignore those last words, we don't, however we both have the same beliefs, same prophet and same book.
and also the thing ph34r said about religion being strict, I find that false, it's true that there is only 1 truth, but religion is actually quite flexible, the whole idea of Islam is to "Love God, and Hate Evil" and so we define God as the most perfect thing, we are to love kindness, love it self, equality, justice and so on, and hate murder, suicide, Lie, deceive, gossip, fraud, cheating and anything like that, but saying that a religion is flexible means that if someone did make those sins we have to treat them like no human, which is not what Islam taught me, our god is the most forgiving, it forgives most of faults as long as you realize and regret and try to make up for it, but one thing it won't forgive is injustice against another human being, it cannot be forgiven unless that individual forgives you.
the fact that people may slip and do something wrong doesn't make the cause something wrong, we have a famous saying " judge people with Islam, not Islam by people" we are never innocent, we make mistakes and we are supposed to make up for it, but mistakes such as murder are almost unforgiving.
if you ever have any questions about Islam, I'll be glad to ask them, at least the answers comes from a muslim and not some media.
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Let me explain, shia and sunni also have some inner branches, there are Shia extremists known as Bahaei and also Sunni extremists known as Wahabbi, I am from Jafari branch, its the most popular in shia, we don't even count Bahaei as shia and in fact we exiled them out of our lands, they now live in Israel mostly.
so here is the thing, some of shia extremists insulted The Prophets wife Aisha to an extreme degree, and also insulted Omar and Osman, all of these people are well respected for sunnis the reason they did insult is that all of them has been against our first Imam, Imam Ali,
but immediately after these acts, our leaders act against them and banned any form of insult to these individuals and declared that a Haram act; the sunnis realized what happened and didn't do much, but Wahabbis as sunni extremists ISIS was also founded mostly by wahabis, wahabi encourage violence started to kill every shia in sight, and their sheikh also added " kill Shias, go to heaven "
so that's all there is to it, shia and sunni are not enemies in fact allies, but there are always extremists who F*ck things up
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No real Muslim consider ISIS or terrorists and extremists as Muslims, debating is encouraged in Islam, we have many great philosophers who are willing to break down their philosophies and debate, but they are not willing to do so, in fact they are banned by their brain washers to sit down and debate, or read other books than what they provide for them
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Funny that you say that, but how would you know, when the Islam allready has different sub-religions which all claim that they are the only correct one? Maybe they are still Muslim, but follow a "new" sub-religion.
I would know, and no, it isn't like that. If you were actually familiar with the different sects of Islam, you would know that both suicide and murder are forbidden.
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Islam is not only quran, it is Quran and hadith also if shia amazing teachings of Imams, one without enough knowledge is not allowed to comment freely on quran, people study up to 20-30 years in hadith until they can comment on how things are in quran, but what happened is that some with power made misguiding comments on some ayats, which could lead to something like ISIS, they totally ignored hadith, or sometimes added new hadith themselves, they ignore some parts of quran, and emphasize on some other, quran is constant you shouldn't divide it, and quran without hadith or enough knowledge might make confusions, so as to anytime an Ayyat was written, the prophet added commentary on it.
the reason of this in belief of shia is that there was a complete quran with full translation/comments, but due to historical hardships it didn't get through public, i'm not gonna explain more because it might be boring unless you are intrested
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Except that Muslims do agree that there is a "right way." The Qur'aan is there, and the interpretation of its meaning is there. All that is left is application of that meaning. When terrorist practices are so clearly forbidden in Islam, you have to be pitifully ignorant of the religion to participate in them.
The quintessential quality of a terrorist is ignorance, regardless of whatever creed he or she supposedly practices. The more ignorant you are of the truth, the more susceptible you are to believing a liar.
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If the Quran only teaches peace, is this all false then: https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx
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That's sad :/ So.. parents were brainwashed and they brainwashed their children.. WTF?
For me all religions are stupid but this is beyond any standards.
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That's both scary and sad. Not that I understand a generic adult terrorist's psychology, but what happens in a brain of a person who decides to murder their own children and make them murderers at the same time? That's an incredible level of brainwashing.
As for your questions, I'm not sure what to answer to either of them. We've had our fair share of acts of terrorism here in Moscow, but there are many places where they've got it much worse. And no, I don't believe there's such a thing as "good" religion - I mean, people are totally in their right to be delusional in any way they want as long as it doesn't violate rights of others, but I don't really have to approve counter-scientific approach to percieving the world and artificial and irrational limitations coming from some religions. At the same time, I fully agree that it's not the religion that kills people, it's people who use religion to justify their crimes and create an army of fanatics.
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yeah, those bombers are most likely "brainwashed"
isis is terrorist and definitely has nothing to do with religion at all!! (they are terrorist, anyone who believes them are idiot)
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Could have been forced to bomb with her kid.
I've heard a story where a little girl was forced by Isis to bomb a temple. She had managed to escape.
This was on the news in Singapore btw. I was sad to hear of it.
I wish people would just learn to live in peace...
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Not a fan of organized religion but let's be honest here, this isn't about religion, it's about power (ISIS), despair, lack of education and bitterness, and psychopaths. Not talking about this specific tragedy but everything related that has happened in the past years.
I don't know if they were coerced (although I don't know what they could have been threatened with that would have been worse than what happened) or if the dad was a psycho but while having no child of my own, I cannot imagine what could go through anyone's mind killing their own child under 'religious' false pretenses, so I'll stick with severe mental disease, regardless of how "well adjusted and friendly" his neighbors are describing him.
Whether they were coerced by someone or mentally ill, it doesn't diminish this unprecedented tragedy. Living, dying or killing for your kids, whatever you believe, is the natural order of things. But when you sacrifice your children, for whatever noble purpose you believe in, you are losing touch with your purpose as a human being to an extent it's even hard to conceive...
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From my point of view, the problems with religion are that it inherently divides people into 'us' (believers) and 'them' (nonbelievers) and that it indoctrinates people into behaving in a certain way because someone said so (God and religious authority) without caring to get a deeper understanding of the reasons. Put into the hands of zealots or the unscrupulous, these can lead to serious trouble.
There are good things in Abrahamic religions, but there are also bad things, and they are inherent in the belief. Because although the bible might say 'thou shalt not kill', it also makes it clear that killing those who aren't believers or who break God's laws is perfectly fine. So while each variation on the theme stresses some aspects over others (the interpretation I like most is the Baha'i one), and good people can certainly be inspired by religious teachings, it's also easy to inspire people using religion to do atrocities. It's certainly not the only way to get people to do bad things, but religion is certainly a good way to do that.
It's always sad to hear when things like this happen. Thanks for highlighting it, zzvelzingzz.
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Intelligent analysis of the pitfalls of religion. In my opinion, religion overall is a farce, a way to manipulate, use and abuse people (not to say "lesser" ones) and their spiritual self; it's an incredibly evil thing most of the time, as it takes something that is meant to be pure and turns it into a tool and weapon for selfish gain.
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it's an incredibly evil thing most of the time
I disagree. Inside a community, religion can be a good thing. It can get people together, get them to help one another, ... It provides an anchor that many people need, who would otherwise live lonely, meaningless, or selfish lives.
So I'd say that there's a level at which religion does good, and that it's mostly neutral (i.e., religious people aren't usually any better or worse than non-religious people), and unfortunately the drawbacks do cause serious problems.
a tool and weapon for selfish gain
I also don't think it's really a tool for selfish gain, a lot of the time. A lot of the people who do bad things in the name of religion do so because they believe it would benefit others, not because they seek to help themselves. I guess that the more powerful leaders do care about power, and that some are only using religion as a tool, but many religious leaders do belief that what they're doing is needed to make the world a better place, according to the edicts of their religion, even if what they're doing is hurting others, even if there are some casualties along the way.
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Good people don't need religion to do good things though.
In many cases, good people do need religion to do bad things.
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Good people don't need religion to do good things though.
That depends. Few people have the strength of personality coupled with an innate understanding of morality and the intelligence that they would really do good things. Most people are affected by the society around them (for example, on SG they might learn to believe that ratio and level are indication of how much one is worthy of winning), and modern society in general isn't that hot that I'd say that a secular society is inherently better than a religious one. Religion does offer a decent basis for a moral system, and often preaches helping others and not being selfish. Belief can also reduce stress and allow people to better cope with the world.
I find it funny that I defend religion, but really, things aren't black and white. People by and large aren't rational, they want others to tell them what's right and wrong, and they want to form groups of 'us' and 'them'. If it won't be religion it'd be something else. I do have a dream that we'd be able to teach future generations to be both rational and moral, and indeed religion will present an obstacle, but so will so many other things.
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Religion does offer a decent basis for a moral system.
That basis can be found anywhere else, it doesn't need to be tied to religion.
Secularism/humanism is a much better source for morality, I think, with a morality that actually uses critical thinking.
For example, "thou shall not kill". We don't need religion to reach an agreement that killing each other should be wrong. I'm much more comfortable with society debating about what is right and wrong than having a single source of morality that is always right by definition.
Another example: slavery was morally acceptable in the bible and a perfectly common practice back in the day, but as time went by society saw that it was wrong and fought against it, changing the morality of it. It was us, humans, who decided that slavery was wrong, not religion, not god.
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That basis can be found anywhere else, it doesn't need to be tied to religion.
That may be true, but we are not really living in a world based that's strongly humanistic. We can aspire to it, but as I said before, there are a lot of people who need some guidance, and religion supplies that. It's a good question whether we can reach a point where society is humanist in general, which implies that people in general think rationally.
(But thanks, it's an interesting discussion and is helping me with clarifying some thoughts on another subject. I'd say I'm a humanist, but haven't really read any humanist philosophers, and perhaps it'd be good to research it, just to see what I agree and disagree with and continue to form my direction.)
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That's all I'm saying, that I wish we were living in that world and that I think it would be a much better world.
I haven't read much about humanism either, but if I remember correctly one of the golden rules is "don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself", which I think is one of the most simplest ways of deciding if something is right or wrong, and works with almost everything.
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That's all I'm saying, that I wish we were living in that world and that I think it would be a much better world.
Yeah, but all I was saying was that in our current world, religion isn't always evil.
"don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself"
But that's something that also exists in religions. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" and all that.
(And frankly, I prefer the version of 'do to others what they like and don't do what they don't like'. A lot of times people do things to others that they'd like to be done to themselves but the other person doesn't.)
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But that's something that also exists in religions.
That's what I'm saying, we don't need religion to reach that kind of thinking, we can just think for ourselves and conclude that, without being brainwashed into believing silly stories and obeying a thousands-year old book. Take the 10 commandments for instance, they are not anything extraordinary, society can come up with them on its own, and most of the commandments aren't related to right/wrong, they're related to god.
Yeah, there are many versions, I was just mentioning the most basic one that works for almost all cases.
Anyways, doesn't look like we're going anywhere with this conversation... :P
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Anyways, doesn't look like we're going anywhere with this conversation... :P
That's true. I try to keep arguing that religion is not mostly evil, you keep arguing that religion isn't necessary. Since these aren't two sides of the same coin, the conversation can't get anywhere.
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Everyone cares about power, though; those that pursue it - regardless of the level they do it at - cause issues for others.
As such, Religion (just like Nationalism, for example) is often a tool.
In it's most "neutral" and "inert" form, yes, Religion is O.K... Although I still don't see it as necessary.
Overall, especially if you take a look into general human history, it is quite clear that Religion has caused more harm than good.
It's just not needed.
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Rest in peace for all the victims. May the injured ones recover and may the affected ones never forget but nonetheless overcome the loss of their loved ones.
Indonesia must sort out things like this if they wish to claim that they are a diverse Nation with the most peaceful form of Islam.
Fuck religion altogether.
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Read for yourself : Story
Maybe it's not that viral cause we're not 1st world country
I live at Surabaya, sometimes i go to 1 of the church
It is so sad and confusing, how they can be brainwashed by ISIS to do that, to suicide with their (which i believe innocent and unaware of anything) little kid. Their live standard are above average, good relationship with neighbors, father have his own business (didn't he want to know who's gonna win this year world cup?)
The only good thing come from this is that many people understand not to blame specific religion, the one to be blamed are the terrorist
Anyway, below the reason i make this thread :
Gib : https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/L71Zr/volume
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