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Okay, at least this is sounding fairly civil. But you’re right we do have different senses of the value of these exchanges, which I’ve already made clear. I haven’t responded point by point to your last few posts because they don’t notably depart from territory already covered and so I’d only be...

Hi Netti. So again my purpose is simply an exchange of views on the ideas you're raising here. I guess I would first ask for some clarification. Can you tell me something of this "G-d" and how he/she/it ordains human rights? I certainly recognize in a pragmatic sense that a certain...

That’s the furthest thing from my mind. I hope you remain a member in good standing. As for me, my pattern here is intense involvement for a time, and then a long absence until some kind of sick addiction draws me back! So my hidden agenda is that I’ve been trying to bail out of these forums...

Alllllrighty then! The problem here, to quote an old movie, is the failure to communicate, and perhaps some personal animus. It’s not a question of this or that argument or fact. It’s a question of having sensible and civil grounds on which to carry on a discussion. The irony for me is that it...

Talking of Islam: apology or challenge? These are just some general remarks regarding the above discussions. How can we help the moderate forces in the Arab world and other Islamic nations under discussion in their struggle with violent radicalism and with their dream of making Islam a...

Addendum to Netti Netti on the spice trade. Okay, so perhaps your point is economic reductionism, and certainly from a particular point of view, one certainly can reduce everything to economics. Didn’t I point out that one of the prime motives for the building of civilizations and empires...

Hi Netti. When you wrote the above response you were still a little upset, at least that’s my perception. Perhaps you feel you were merely high-spirited! As I’ve already said in my previous post, our discussion needs a reboot to successively conclude. I will perhaps respond point by point...

Hi Netti. Thanks for your response. What you’re saying here is a laudable intellectual ideal, in its place. On the other hand, can we agree that it’s an ideal that we both have violated on occasion, and humbly leave it at that? As well, neither of us has offered in this discussion anything so...

Expletive deleted, no doubt. But then look how the various protestants re-established their own brands ofauthority. The names change, the methods alter, but the impulse remains. Exactly. That certainly has been an issue. But for me religion in some senses is a branch of literature. As you...

Well, Netti, I think you're right in one respect. I make myself a little silly by constantly returning to this fraying fray. But then you keep popping up again like a whack-a-mole! At this point, I don't know which of us is nuttier. I don't have time this evening to respond to your latest...

Hi Path. Well, this is totally not simplistic to me. It's the pragmatic test. I don't know how much you agree with me, but I essentially agree with you. In the best of all possible worlds, we shouldn't have throw away any of our history, just because they and we are (and ever will be) imperfect...

[/SIZE] You’re not that Netti Netti from some previous thread, are you? I’m sure that was only your doppelganger. Speaking of reading, what I read here is your unpacking of what I meant by “how we read scripture”. Certainly, “reading” for most believers is in the context of authority, and...

Hi Seattle. I’ve looked makara up in a couple of other places but really come up with no more than you’ve pointed to on Wiki. So I don’t see much to go on here except the obvious psychological parallels of mythical aquatic beasts of the unconscious, associated with the instincts, and even there...

Hi Tao. As I said, it was just a minor point. It's just that one could get the impression from your post that "Orientalism" was a form of a apology for Islam of the kind you rightly mention here, when as you know "Orientalism" is a term of oppribrium directed at the West. Just a matter of...

Well, I wouldn’t want to defend this as a P.H.D. thesis either! And I suspect you’re right that the mystery religions had more to do with this “body and blood” business than did the Jewish sacrificial tradition as such. But I reason (feebly no doubt) like this: even if we assume that Yeshua did...

(1) How can a religion be traumatized? I didn't know a religion had experiential capabilities of any kind. It’s characteristic of you to demand the kind of rigor that you rarely practice yourself. Of course this is pure diversion. The point is clear: as I’ve already brought forward several...

One line of division which I’ve noticed coming up again and again is between those who see a particular faith as an ideal essence that only needs to be properly applied, and those who see the same faith as a human activity that must be measured by all of its actual effects. It all turns on how...

Hi Tao. As you know, I’ve been in your court in calling Netti out on his many rhetorical sins and faulty representations. I just wish our friend would step back, take a breather, and with fresh eyes look at the criticisms. He may find they have some justification. And if he truly is merely...

Now that’s a totally different question. Now you’re asking: what kind of Islam would have won its competition with the West? Well, in my view, it would have been an Islam: - that did not cut off the spirit of inquiry and banish its best minds - that did not evolve a fetishistic cult of...

Well, hello the greatest Buddhist layperson of all time! It's compassionate of you to intervene. And I'm sure you're right. Let me try to amend this a little. While I’m within my rights to honestly express how I feel, I shouldn’t suggest, as I seem to be doing here that the Muslim version of...