Posted on 12/31/2009 1:17:20 PM PST by Perdogg
Any references for atheist-based cults?
She needs to be hurled out of DHS..
Voluntary sharing is not communism.
Also, the Bible is replete with laws regarding private property. Private property, including the possession of land, was extremely well protected by God’s law. No one was to move a boundary mark; thieves were punished by double, triple, quadruple restitution; employees were to be paid in full before sundown, and on and one.
The Bible is NOT a commie handbook. Quite the contrary!
none of them can make u feeling safer,religion and political cause this consequence except the usa can change their irrational behaviors in the world
YOu are an idiot,
go jump off a high bridge.
Excellent point to consider, I’m thinking not very many.
The difference is that today’s thugs simply act on the relgious inspiration of the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, who promote the clash of cultures that liberals refuse to accept as fact. They find it hard to accept that modernism has not had the same impact in Islam that it has in the West, and less now than fifty years ago.
The functionaries see our fearless leader’s unconcern and act accordingly. On the 23rd when he had his security briefing his mind was on the medical reform thing and nothing else.
I agree. We need to profile. It's either profile or die as our weakness encourages more people to join the other side...
This clown, of course. GWB kept going on about those terrorists and the threat they posed, but this clown doesn’t second-guess their motives. Why, they might have just had a bad hair day. Panty bomber might have just wanted to make his dong longer, and watched the wrong infomercial, one put on by...gasp...AlQaeda.
Folks, did you ever want to elongate your thingy? Tried everything and nothing helps? Well, send away for our new dong elongator. Just strap it on before you board a plane, and then pull this string. It’ll work. Honest. Only 19.99 if you call right now.
first thing i thought too. call directly to obama! loololol
Your examples - church of Scientology, Jim Jones and nuts etc were basically personality driven. Once they get past the charismatic leader, the “cult” either dies out or evolves into a somewhat benign group. Scientologists are more and more being run by bureaucrats - moving toward benign - it's better. When they first came to Clearwater (near where I live) they were "out there"... keeping files on local citizen etc. But practical people don't start cults - but they do run them - if they last long enough... Which tones down the problems.
Your “thuggies” seem different - but only because the “religion” supported their business of theft. Intertwined - much more dangerous...
I don't agree Muslims radicals are cult members. Their beliefs are not qualitatively different than everyday Muslims, just more extreme.
With Christians cults - the groups really are different... and again, more cult like personality driven.
What Mohammad did was intertwine religion with governance. He was a Mayor - and with the two intertwined, it's not possible for the religion to move toward benign. It's would be like thuggies trying to give up "the theft part" - not possible. One dies, the other dies.
The places in the world where Islam is most toxic is where the religion and governance are closest... Best where they're furthest apart. But the benign breaks down - it's too easy for a Islamic goon to say he speaks for Allah - and not have to answer the concerns of the people he rules. It's easy - the boot to the neck that can't be questioned. A variation on absolute power - corrupts absolutely... so the benign gives way... And the extremes of Islam are reinforced.
Why do you attribute "cult" status to Islam - based on what?
A “cult” is by its definition religious in nature. A group like the Baader-Meinhof Gang doesn’t qualify as a cult because it is not affiliated with a church or espouse a set of religious beliefs (though there are probably some that would argue that Marxist-Leninism is itself a form of secular religion, since it is a close-loop system of belief that, like Freudian psychology, cannot be tested and is thus unable to be validated scientifically.)
But the traditional definition of a “cult” is a closed group of believers with a system of esoteric religious beliefs that make an appeal to a non-Earthly power.
I don’t attribute “cult status” in Islam. I do believe that some Islamis terrorist group, such as the one that attracted the “Underwaer Bomber,” are often personality-driven, with young men infatuated with an Imam or mosque leader.
As far as your argument that Islam and governance are intertwined, that “..the places in the world where Islam is most toxic is where the religion and governance are closest..”, all I can do is draw an analogy to European History, which is what I took my degree in. Christianity and governance have also been intertwined in Europe since the Edict of Milan in 313, when Constantine removed the penalties against Christianity and subsumed the title of Head of the Christian Church under the title “pontifex maximus.” The places in the history of Western Civilization where the Christian Church has also been “most toxic” have been where “religion and governance are closest.”
That's one of the problems - each Imam has almost total power - and there a millions ( maybe an exaggeration ) of Imams. I'll give you the Christians Church being intertwined politically (middle ages) being one of the more toxic times... might be the same reason - too easy to say "I speak for God"... absolute power and all... Anyhow, so how would you make Islam less toxic. And yeah, almost every war in the world involves Muslims. They ARE toxic...
How do you feel about Janet?
“They ARE toxic...” There was a time when many other civilizations around the world would say the same thing about Christians. The Spanish empire spread the True Faith by fire and the sword, and was certain it had God’s will to do so. The fact that it is so easy to say, “I speak for God, and He wants me to kill/imprison/subjugate you in His name” is the reason that our Constitution specifically does not mention God. Our Founding Fathers had the Enlightenment belief that all men, no matter what their private religious beliefs. could agree on the value of Reason as a path to Man’s self-governance.
I do not know enough about Islam to know whether I agree with your assessment of its toxicity. I cannot read Arabic, and thus can only read the Koran in translation. I haven’t studied the religion outside of a Comparative Religions seminar. How would I make Islam less toxic? The same way that I would make any all-encompassing belief system less toxic - by introducing Reason and skepticism into the foundations of its culture, by encouraging the asking of questions and the examination of arguments and presuppositions.
But whenever we engage on questions of Faith, skepticism is attacked as heresy. That’s certainly true in our own Western history.
There’s really NOT an equivalence between Christianity and Islam. It’s hard to explain - your position is easily recognizable - I was a Unitarian most of my life. A part of me wants to do what you’ve done - and “believe the best”... but it’s not real. There’s something almost evil at the core of this religion.
I really would like to know what makes you say that there is “something almost evil at the core of this religion.” What do you base this upon? I really haven’t studied Islam enough to be able to recognize its core values beyond what I learned were the Five Pillars and Six tenets of faith. The world’s history, and the sheer number of billions of people existing in it now, seems so vast and unknowable in all its multiplicity that I am skeptical about my own ability to state anything so sweeping.
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