Suicide in the name of Religion

GlorytoGod said:
oh come on mate, if you cant justify your opinions of scripture with some measure of understanding or at least an attempt to, then I can only conclude that your opinions are based on nothing but unbalanced prejudice.
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It seems odd to me that you would be in a position to lecture me on scripture while you are in the middle of a petty argument over hurling names at gods.
 
It’s important to understand that these mass murders are committed by
deeply religious people who have very narrow and specific motivations
which define their worldviews.
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Which mass murders are you talking about? Did Americans kill Vietnamese because either was deeply religious? Can you prove any of these mass murders are because of religion?
 
Resigned said:
It seems odd to me that you would be in a position to lecture me on scripture while you are in the middle of a petty argument over hurling names at gods.
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I'm not lecturing you :confused:

I just wanted you to justify your negative opinions of certain holy books or particular scripture that you were alluding to ;)
 
Resigned said:
Is this all about you needing attention?
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That might explain why you have apparently dedicated yourself to litering the Internet with the same material. Aren't you Ruggedtouch? Or are you merely copying their 2-year old material over here to this forum from the Islamcity forum:
IslamiCity Forum: Iraqi Women’s Rights Leader Murdered

The same line about the black helicopters appears verbatim at the end of your comments here:
http://www.interfaith.org/forum/touch-humanity-for-great-israel-10474-9.html#post180408

It seems you're recycling old material.

Perhaps you could author the draft of a form letter… something of a fill in the blank template that we could save in Microsoft Word.
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At least you're good for a chuckle. :p
 
Netti-Netti said:
That might explain why you have apparently dedicated yourself to litering the Internet with the same material. Aren't you Ruggedtouch? Or are you merely copying their 2-year old material over here to this forum from the Islamcity forum:
IslamiCity Forum: Iraqi Women’s Rights Leader Murdered

The same line about the black helicopters appears verbatim at the end of your comments here:
http://www.interfaith.org/forum/touch-humanity-for-great-israel-10474-9.html#post180408

It seems you're recycling old material.

At least you're good for a chuckle. :p
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Sure, I have posted on boards other than this one.

You begged off responding to my last post. Not surprising. That's a familiar pattern.
 
Resigned said:
Sure, I have posted on boards other than this one.

You begged off responding to my last post. Not surprising. That's a familiar pattern.
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Thats rich, your accusing someone else of not responding?
You do realize that you have not responded to 90% of the
objections against you on this thread (and others) rite?


One of the strangest dynamics one encounters in dealing with apologists
is their refusal to acknowledge that their beliefs can be a wellspring
of hate and derision. While you may prefer to float a conspiracy theory
about this mass murder and the countless others that preceded it, I’m
not inclined to lend an assist to your conspiratorial musings.
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What religious zeal motivated the fire bombing of the Japanese cities?
As the result of which, many more CIVILLIANS were killed then both
the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined!?

Your entire argument is based on religion being the cause of civillian
deaths such as the suicide bombings. But the causes of all the conflicts
which you have listed have nothing to do with religion. You are taking
superficial definitions and applying them to real world situations.


It’s important to understand that these mass murders are committed by
deeply religious people who have very narrow and specific motivations
which define their worldviews. Making excuses for this behavior only
increases the damage.
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No, what increases the damage is people who refuse to examine
the underlying causes of a situation and float useless theories which
may distract people from the real issues. The Middle East conflict, and
for that matter, all conflicts which are cited by people like you for being
caused by religion are actually the result of MATERIALISTIC causes.

And the only cure for materialism, is religion.
Your own examples stand against your own thesis.
 
farhan said:
The thing is that, for middle easterners, Eloh & Allah arnt much different. Its more like different pronunciation of same concept. What Muslims/Jews & Christians differ in is model of God, not God. Christian God begets a son, Judeo-Islamic God doesnt. Its like I say,"Tom is a singer". And you say."no he isnt". It will be hilarious to say that singer & non-singer Toms are different people. We have just got different models of "the same tom" in our heads.
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The present Christian concept of God, I believe, evolved into a habit that resulted from people not understanding what the early Christians really meant by "Son of God." This Jewish site, I think, explains it quite well.

My Jewish Learning: Christianity's Historical Context

A lot of people compare the Christian concept of God to Roman and Greek paganism. It comes from the idea of Jesus being God-incarnate, or what you said, Jesus being literally "begotten" of God, a product of procreation. The problem with that theory is that nowhere in the New Testament does it explicitly say that Jesus was God. Nor does it say that Jesus was a product of procreation.

Rather, the name "Son of God," I believe has much to do with what was happening in the Jewish religious culture of the time with hero-worshipping:

By the early first century C.E., more than just Greek language had fully impacted Jewish life and thought in Israel and the Western Diaspora. Retelling their traditional stories in Hellenistic and Roman terms, many Jews began to think of their ancient heroes such as Moses and Abraham, as well as less well known figures such as Enoch and Melchizedek, as di­vine men. Moses and Melchizedek were attributed miraculous births; Abra­ham became known, along with prophets Elisha and Elijah, as a miracle worker; Enoch, transported into heaven, took on the role of future judge of the world.
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Jesus, to many in the first century, was a so-called "wonder worker."

It is also not surprising--it is in fact quite "Jewish"--that those who followed Jesus saw him as a wonder worker, recognized that his birth sig­naled something special, and even believed that after his death he was raised from the dead. If he was the Messiah, surely he would be raised. Jewish messianic belief at the time, and even now, incorporated the idea that the Messianic Age is marked by the resurrection of the dead.
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The title of "Son of God" probably didn't mean that Jesus was God or that he was a product of procreation just like for human children. It meant that he was one of God's heroes.

The understanding I get from this is that Jesus wasn't worshipped as God. Instead, he was worshipped as a hero, just like the Greek heroism that was influencing Jewish religious culture at the time. He was called "Son of God" because God himself was a hero, but yet God chose to show some of his own heroic qualities through a human being. Jesus was God's earthly and human representative.

Jesus didn't call himself God. He called himself the "man from heaven." Even Paul called him the "man from heaven."

No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven -- the Son of Man. John 3:13
The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall also bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 1 Corinthians 15:47-49
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Jesus' name in Greek is Iesous and means "YHWH rescues." A person who rescues is a hero. Jesus came to "rescue" people from something, but he was doing it on God's behalf. The one who sends another to the rescue is himself one who rescues. The head of an operation, campaign or pursuit takes the credit.

Later Christians forgot that the "Son of God" title was hero worship, and instead mistook Jesus as the worship of God himself.

Naturally, the concept of the Trinity evolved. Father, Son and Holy Spirit stopped being names and labels of things that God did, just like the 99 names of God in Islam and names like Adonai, Shekhinah, HaShem, Shalom, etc. in Judaism and became the three persons of the Trinity.

For example, Adonai means "Lord," HaShem means "the Name" (ie. the Tetragrammaton), Shalom means "Peace," etc.

Consider this verse at the end of Matthew where Jesus announces the Great Commission:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19
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Notice how it says "the name of," as if it is more important for people to recognise the name and the meaning of the name than the entity or phenomenon to which the name refers.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit could have been used in the same way as the 99 names of God in Islam and the corresponding names of God in Judaism, especially considering that Jesus' name in Greek means "God rescues" and how Jesus' name might have been used by the early Christians.

Why do you think Christians pray in Jesus' name? I wouldn't be surprised if Christians themselves didn't understand this. It's likely because Jesus' name actually means "God rescues." This has obviously been forgotten over the centuries and Christians pray in Jesus' name out of habit without actually understanding what his name actually means.

The question of whether Christianity really associates "partners" with God is a question of what the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit really meant to the first-century Christians. The doctrine of the Trinity was instituted in the fourth century, and due to a separation of 300 years between the first Christians and the Christians at the time of the Council of Nicaea, there's no way of being sure if the institution of the Trinity doctrine is truly representative of the Christianity of the first century. Contemporary Christianity isn't representative of first-century Christianity. What we have now is more of a habit, not the spiritual experience itself.

If it weren't for the rift between Judaism and Christianity, as well as the clinging to the traditions of the Trinity, Jesus' name, which means "God rescues" could have been placed in the same category as Adonai, HaShem, Shalom, Shekhinah, etc. as well as Islam's 99 names of God. It could be the same with the so-called Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But anyhow, the purpose of this thread isn't to discuss the concepts, names and labels of God in the Abrahamic faiths but the antics of suicide bombers.
 
Resigned said:
The most recent suicide bombing / mass murder to make the MSM involved the splodin’ of Afghan policemen in the nascent state of Taliban’istan. This one was relatively low yield in comparison to other, more spectacular splodins' and I was curious to know what dynamic others may think cause these acts to be so closely tied to one particular politico-religious ideology.


Bomber in police uniform kills 21 Afghan policemen

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090202/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan


I think these martyr-murderers have squelched the issue of self-preservation (via their religion, which deceives them via a promise that cannot ever be proven to exist, i.e., paradise) and they are very much aware that being blown to bits pretty much snaps off the light switch with no time to register the fact that one is in pain or dead (academic argument, that last bit). Without getting into a theistic brawl, it is this aspect of much theism, to successfully implant a goal without proof or evidence of any kind, that gives rise to the endless chain of death we humans are amazingly willing to inflict upon one another.



I don't really understand the level of a mind that claims to worship a god of mercy and justice and then condemns anyone who disagrees with them to torture and death. On the one hand, this fits in exactly with much religious doctrine; life tends to be cheap in the theistic philosophy, mainly because the adherent's believe that life continues after death, or it is replaceable by the various gods. It is ultimately, even if only on a subconscious level, alright to kill people, because you are either,

a) "sending them to a better place", or so goes the thinking, or,

b) you are doing gods will by splodin’ the “____” ß-(add condescending description of choice aimed at competing religionist) which is, after all, the way god wants it.

This is why the alleged "holy books" tend to be filled with violence and calls to wars. I long for the day when the priest, pastor, mullah, or rabbi gets up in the pulpit and reads aloud the verses in their holy books that applaud rape, murder, and pillage. Of course, most theologians won't read out those passages of their holy books in their sermons -- but you can!
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I wouldn't say you can blame this on theism. Both the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures say that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 9:12-13, Matthew 12:7) God is there to call sinners to righteousness. (Why else do you think there's so much violence written about in scripture: it is those who commit such violence that God is trying to reach and heal, and call to stop this madness.)
 
Resigned said:
Sure, I have posted on boards other than this one.
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I notice you received very little response over there at the IslamCity forum, where you were probably trying to be inflammatory. I'm surprised you're getting much of a response here.
 
QUOTE=Netti-Netti;181185]I notice you received very little response over there at the IslamCity forum, where you were probably trying to be inflammatory. I'm surprised you're getting much of a response here.[/QUOTE]

Have you been stalking other men?
 
Its a common belief among bible believers that the Allah of the Q'uran is not the same as YHWH or Jehovah of the Bible for many reasons. Its considered an apostate religion because of what the Q'uran says or does not say about Jesus Christ. We do not believe that it was the inspired word of God and we do not hold it to truth. Just like we do not accept Mohammad as a prophet of God. This causes a lot of angst of course.

Everyone wants to attack this belief and subsequently, GlorytoGod for saying so because it seems intolerant, but its the truth to many many Christians. Bible based Christianity is a intolerant faith... its a narrow path that doesnt allow for anything other that Jesus being the only way to the Father. There is no grace apart from believing He came to earth as a man born of a virgin lived a sinless life and worked many miracles died violently on the cross for the sins of the world ... rose from the dead.. appeared to many including Paul and ascended to heaven where He is ALIVE and with a new body. To deny any of this is to deny what is crucial to us by denying Jesus Christ. To teach differently is apostate and false religion to us. That is why we do not believe that Allah is YHWH or Jehovah.

Just being honest
 
as the lyrics go
Well done My good and faithful servant, well done.
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but as we all know there are differing beliefs and understandings among Christians.

I still find it difficult how a monotheist can have an understanding that Allah is a different G!d. I can understand that other groups have other understandings and other beliefs but as I see it, all there is is G!d.

...now I've got that song stuck in my head...

as songs go, not a bad one to have stuck in my head...
 
Faithfulservant said:
Its a common belief among bible believers that the Allah of the Q'uran is not the same as YHWH or Jehovah of the Bible for many reasons. Its considered an apostate religion because of what the Q'uran says or does not say about Jesus Christ. We do not believe that it was the inspired word of God and we do not hold it to truth. Just like we do not accept Mohammad as a prophet of God. This causes a lot of angst of course.

Everyone wants to attack this belief and subsequently, GlorytoGod for saying so because it seems intolerant, but its the truth to many many Christians. Bible based Christianity is a intolerant faith... its a narrow path that doesnt allow for anything other that Jesus being the only way to the Father. There is no grace apart from believing He came to earth as a man born of a virgin lived a sinless life and worked many miracles died violently on the cross for the sins of the world ... rose from the dead.. appeared to many including Paul and ascended to heaven where He is ALIVE and with a new body. To deny any of this is to deny what is crucial to us by denying Jesus Christ. To teach differently is apostate and false religion to us. That is why we do not believe that Allah is YHWH or Jehovah.

Just being honest
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That is wierd because I don't know many Christians who would take
ownership of God like that... but then again, I don't discuss this stuff
with many Christians...

I can understand the part about Christians believing Islam is an apostate
sect, (some believe its actually a Christian sect) and the Jews probably
believe both the Christians and Muslims are nuts... And we Muslims believe
you all are just craaaaazzzzzy lol... yep... fun bunch we all are...
 
c0de said:
I can understand the part about Christians believing Islam is an apostate
sect, (some believe its actually a Christian sect) and the Jews probably
believe both the Christians and Muslims are nuts... And we Muslims believe
you all are just craaaaazzzzzy lol... yep... fun bunch we all are...
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We?

Then we all sure took our 'leaders'; gods; and profits for real and heeded them there words! High five team! *high fives* ALRIGHT!
 
I said:
This is the contradiction, though, isn't it?

It's fine for people from the West to sacrifice themselves for even a political cause, but if anyone else sacrifices themselves against the West, it's "evil".

That's not to say that suicide bombings are in any way defensible, but I would also argue the actions and policies of the US and UK in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are equally reprehensible.

When the West makes such a point of shafting other people, to expect no reaction would be ignorance beyond measure.
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The remarkable aspect of this boilerplate is how utterly apologetic for suicide bombings it actually is. The constructive suggestion is that “That's not to say that suicide bombings are in any way defensible…” but you then go on to legitimize it with “…to expect no reaction would be ignorance beyond measure.” This is not, apparently, self-parody. While hundreds lie dead, while limbs and severed heads lie scattered across the pavement, the most important thing is to claim that “I understand why they do it”.




In the meantime, observe while the next wave of suicide bombers prepares in Gaza after the slaughter there;
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Of course, it’s important not to address the 8 years of rocket attacks from Hamas and other jihad groups, funded by neighboring, virulently hostile Arab/Moslem nations which have been manipulating events to create retaliation from Israel.



see how long it takes for yet another Afghan wedding party to be hit with an airstrike;
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So your solution (of course, you have no solution), is to make judgments but not offer solutions. To offer solutions would mean that you would have to make difficult choices and to then live with the consequences of those choices. I’m thinking your solution is to wring your hands and apologize for the mere fact of your continued existence and allow the Taliban to drag Afghanistan back into the Dark Ages. Super. Good plan. Who cares if young girls are sold into slavery or if they’re subject to stoning and beatings? Early death, disease, poverty and being married and pregnant at 13 years old is every girls dream.



and observe how in Iraq the only priority for troops has been to secure the oil supplies.
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Do you just make up this nonsense as you go along? Obviously, there was a priority established to provide for a viable economic platform that Iraq could use to emerge from the war. Do you not understand that oil exports are virtually the only marketable commodity that Iraq possesses? Does planning for the use of that commodity make sense? Apparently not to everyone.

You would rather see Iraq hobbled and destitute to placate your need to vilify the West.


Oh, by the way, while it will ruin your day, China has signed the first major oil deal with Iraq.
Iraq and China Sign $3 Billion Oil Contract - washingtonpost.com


But cheer up. The sinister U.S. has been stealing Iraqi oil all along. The oil is being smuggled out in quart containers marked 10W-30.


The people who condemn the actions of these people when they react are are often very quiet at condemning civilian murder by their own side or interests.

In the meantime, there are plenty of political predators happy to coerce the naive into continuing conflict for their own ends.

2c.
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I just know there’s a conspiracy theory hiding in there somewhere.
 
GlorytoGod said:
I'm not lecturing you :confused:

I just wanted you to justify your negative opinions of certain holy books or particular scripture that you were alluding to ;)
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I’m not under any obligation to justify your religious perspectives. More to the point, I think religious people are much more adept at creating negative opinions than I am at justifying them.

I opened this thread fully anticipating the pith and vinegar to be spewed because I questioned the concept of faith and one of the results of that faith. Absolutist religious faith has many consequences and I try to understand them.



It’s remarkable how reactive some religious people can be as they assume that any questioning of their beliefs is tantamount to an attack on their beliefs. Direct, sometimes blunt observations and critique of a belief system is just not something most people in the west feel a need to kill or car bomb over, because most of us are reasonably secure in who we are and what our beliefs are, and we are secure in the knowledge that we are protected by law against violent reprisals for our beliefs. We will often even welcome honest criticism. It can result in the strengthening of our convictions, or enhance them with different perspectives. But when you begin declaring that those who believe differently than you are inferior (or worse, worthy only of revulsion), for no other reason than ideological arrogance, or worse, when the ideology promotes the subjugation of people for these differences, you have crossed the line from being a pretentious ideologue to a religious supremacist.

The only external examples of the religion which we can use to assess the ideology are the adherents of the religion. There must be some reason why we don’t see heavily armed groups of Baptists routinely car bombing Methodists. Conversely, There must be some reason why we do see sunnis/shiites car bombing both themselves and each other. Perhaps it’s just that in the West, the secular institutions have throttled the religious entities to a point where the fundies cannot garner strength of numbers or greater quantities of weapons and ammo.
 
Resigned said:
The remarkable aspect of this boilerplate is how utterly apologetic for suicide bombings it actually is. The constructive suggestion is that “That's not to say that suicide bombings are in any way defensible…” ...While hundreds lie dead, while limbs and severed heads lie scattered across the pavement, the most important thing is to claim that “I understand why they do it”.
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Did you have any questions about "why they did it" when you found out that the Israeli operation in Gaza killed over 1300 and wounded over 5000, with up to 30% being infants and children. Obviously this operation was to a large extent indiscriminate terroristic violence.

Please tell us a little more about what it means to be an "apologist."
 
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