Ever Notice

[Shadow Wolf]

Just as an point of interest or curiosity would you say the music, film and art you enjoy are violent in nature?

Sometimes extremely, gratuitously, and considered too much by many. I even wrote a story of a little girl who played jump rope with a victim's intestines. But none of those claim to be moral, they don't claim to be the word of god, but rather they are typically straight up what you see is what you get tongue in cheek irony. Slim Shady even straight up says "I'm not a role model." Happy Tree Friends never says it's ok to mutilate animals. My stories are often saturated with a theme of violence begetting further insanity and violence and creating more problems and further complicating things. And Mudvayne didn't say we should be like Edward Gein, but they wrote an awesome song about him, just like Slayer wrote a bad *** song about Josef Mengele.

Either made up or based upon Judaeo-Christian laws.

The freedom to freely worship is not based in Judaeo-Christian ethics. The right to freely assemble is not protected under Judaeo-Christian law. Freedom of speech and expression isn't met with hungry bears. The Bible doesn't say we have certain unalienable rights, it gives us a list things we're not supposed to do, with many of them Biblically under the penalty of death - whereas the Constitution only prescribes execution for treason.

I think they have been relegated to history, but our collective moral compass isn't that different than it was when they wrote those books.

Women are rising to equal status, slavery is banned, mass executions (such as putting a town to the sword) are banned under international law, domestic violence and rape are crimes, child abuse has been criminalized, we even have laws against discrimination. We're so much better off today that for most of the world the chances of dying from an act of violence or war has never been lower.

 

[siti]

I'm so glad you caught that. And yes I am, because you are not thinking about it. Think about it . . .

1. in ancient lands around the writers of the Bible pederasty and catamites were morally acceptable. Common. Accepted. As was homosexuality.

2. Both of them were considered illegal and immoral by the Bible writers.

3. Homosexuality was illegal and immoral 50 years ago in America.

So how would you argue that homosexuality should be acceptable and pederasty shouldn't? Keep in mind, 50 years ago you would have thought homosexuality was immoral and 4,000 years ago you wouldn't have thought so.

Its really simple - please do try to follow:

Sexual exploitation - of anyone but especially of children is immoral - and even more especially (IMO) if it is "justified" or "sanctioned" or "condoned" or "swept under the carpet" for religious reasons*.

Consensual sexual activity between adults is not.

There - that wasn't so difficult to fathom was it?

*EDIT - fleshing the thought out a bit to show religion's complicity in deliberately conflating moral sexual activities with exploitative and abusive sexual activity:

The fact that it (sexual exploitation like pederasty) was outlawed in some cultures as far back as the bronze age in the middle east proves that it was quite possible for humans to figure that out - even then. The boundaries between childhood and adulthood might be slightly blurred - and to some extent those definitions are matters of convention not morality (e.g. the legal age of consent might be 14 or 15 in one country and 16 or even older in another). But we know this for sure - a grown adult having sex with a 10 year old is wrong - and we have always known that even if we have used religion as an excuse to deny it. And two 15 or 16 years olds of either sex having consensual sex with each other is not immoral - even if their elders would prefer that they wait - and we have always really known that - even if we have used religious and cultural pressure to try and force them to stay "children" long enough to complete their training as economically productive members of society.

 

[sun rise]

Also, scriptures are a product of the time they were written. The Quran particularly is a product of a time and place. Banu Qurayza - Wikipedia discusses the relationship of the Jewish tribes of the time and the Muslims.

Also, to me it's no more violent than the OT battles and the part of the OT where a man's virgin daughter was offered to a mob to rape. Judges 19:24 Look, let me bring out my virgin daughter and the man's concubine, and you can use them and do with them as you wish. But do not do such a vile thing to this man."

 

[Earthling]

Its really simple - please do try to follow:

Sexual exploitation - of anyone but especially of children is immoral - and even more especially (IMO) if it is "justified" or "sanctioned" or "condoned" or "swept under the carpet" for religious reasons.

Consensual sexual activity between adults is not.

There - that wasn't so difficult to fathom was it?

Well, no, and I agree with you, but we are talking about morality and once again you are confusing it with law. Morality is subjective. It is a specific society's general consensus regarding what is right and what is wrong in a specific epoch. Here and now this is moral, but there and then that was moral.

You are really only saying that anything outside consensual sexual activity between adults is moral here and now. That doesn't really mean anything other than the obvious. The fact that you don't see pederasty as moral here and now also really doesn't mean anything, because 4,000 years ago and possibly 50 years in the future in might not have been or will be.

You are going to withhold sexual activity from persons who haven't reached a specific age rather than their ability to have sex? How do you justify homosexuality as acceptable, that they can't help it? It wasn't their choice? Can the same not be said for the pederast?

It's just a cultural adherence. To you and I pederasty is repugnant, but in the past it wasn't and homosexuality was. To you and I pedophilia is repugnant, but that's cultural. To Mary, who was 14 or 15 when she married Joseph who was about 32 years old, her marriage was normal.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Oh course they are peaceful in there own lands when every believer amongst themselves are Islamic. When mixed with other people it can get violent.

I've yet to see them get violent. And you have things backwards. It's when there are Muslims around who aren't of the same branch is when the extremists start blowing themselves up.

 

[SomeRandom]

Do you think that it could possibly be that religion has often been the tool of the political and at least a great deal of the violence attributed to religion has actually been political in nature?

I can agree to that.
I also think humans are just violent tribalistic creatures. Modern society has tamed many a religion, if not all. Religion, politics, money, are all mere excuses to exercise our more "savage" tendencies, imo.

 

[ChristineM]

If you read the Quran you can't help but come away from it with the opinion that it is a violent book. Kill the heretic, kill the infidel, kill the blasphemer. But generally speaking Muslims seem to me to be a peaceful group of people. Oh, sure, there are a relatively few that react poorly to having their countries, cities, towns, farms, and homes destroyed, and their innocent men, women, children and elderly savagely murdered for no apparent reason, but in general they are a peaceable people.

If you read the Bible on the other hand you probably come away from it with the opinion that, though there are wars among the believers and unbelievers its somewhat a contrast to the Quran in that it is more peaceful but the Christians and Jews are notoriously violent comparatively speaking.

Am I right?

You probably won't answer this but c'est la vie

Text analysis shows the bible to be more violent than the qur'an.
Someone analysed the Bible and Quran to see which is more violent

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Yet another example of people cherry picking text

 

[Earthling]

You probably won't answer this but c'est la vie

Text analysis shows the bible to be more violent than the qur'an.
Someone analysed the Bible and Quran to see which is more violent

That would surprise me, though not shock me. Got a link?

 

[Faithofchristian]

If you read the Quran you can't help but come away from it with the opinion that it is a violent book. Kill the heretic, kill the infidel, kill the blasphemer. But generally speaking Muslims seem to me to be a peaceful group of people. Oh, sure, there are a relatively few that react poorly to having their countries, cities, towns, farms, and homes destroyed, and their innocent men, women, children and elderly savagely murdered for no apparent reason, but in general they are a peaceable people.

If you read the Bible on the other hand you probably come away from it with the opinion that, though there are wars among the believers and unbelievers its somewhat a contrast to the Quran in that it is more peaceful but the Christians and Jews are notoriously violent comparatively speaking.

Am I right?

If I may say, Also in the Qu'ran, it is written, to deceive the unbelievers, and when you get the upper hand then destroy the unbelievers.allah is best of deceivers.

The Quran tells Muslims that Allah uses them to violently punish others:

Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace
(Qu'ran 9:14)

In the end, All beings on heaven and earth will be forced to bow down to Allah, either willingly or by force:

And unto Allah falleth prostrate whosoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly (Qu'ran 13:15)

The Quran describes Allah as the best deceiver there is, a liar who is not above using the same evil and wicked schemes of his opponents.

For example, the Quran calls Allah a makr, in fact the best makr there is:

But they (the Jews) were deceptive, and Allah was deceptive, for Allah is the best of deceivers (Wamakaroowamakara Allahu waAllahu khayru al-makireena)! S. 3:54; cf. 8:30.


(The Quran tells Muslims that Allah uses them to violently punish others:

Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace
(Qu'ran 9:14)

In the end, All beings on heaven and earth will be forced to bow down to Allah, either willingly or by force)

In the bible Revelation 13:6-15

13:6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

13:7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

13:9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.

13:10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

13:12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

13:13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed"

 

[Earthling]

Sometimes extremely, gratuitously, and considered too much by many. I even wrote a story of a little girl who played jump rope with a victim's intestines. But none of those claim to be moral, they don't claim to be the word of god, but rather they are typically straight up what you see is what you get tongue in cheek irony. Slim Shady even straight up says "I'm not a role model." Happy Tree Friends never says it's ok to mutilate animals. My stories are often saturated with a theme of violence begetting further insanity and violence and creating more problems and further complicating things. And Mudvayne didn't say we should be like Edward Gein, but they wrote an awesome song about him, just like Slayer wrote a bad *** song about Josef Mengele.

I'm an artist and musician so I understand where you are coming from and from the most part I agree, though I don't think that most people realize that the Bible wasn't written for us. Not for the people in these times, but to the people in the time and place that it was written. Each of the books, that is. It is often misrepresented by idiots as a guide to the moral police of the globe. I don't think they claim to be moral, in fact, they tend to be more about examples of immorality. Your story with the little girl playing jump rope with a victim's intestines is pretty bad, but the story in the Bible of prostitute who was married and then gang raped and murdered and then cut into pieces by her husband and sent to various wrongdoers.

The freedom to freely worship is not based in Judaeo-Christian ethics. The right to freely assemble is not protected under Judaeo-Christian law. Freedom of speech and expression isn't met with hungry bears. The Bible doesn't say we have certain unalienable rights, it gives us a list things we're not supposed to do, with many of them Biblically under the penalty of death - whereas the Constitution only prescribes execution for treason.

Women are rising to equal status, slavery is banned, mass executions (such as putting a town to the sword) are banned under international law, domestic violence and rape are crimes, child abuse has been criminalized, we even have laws against discrimination. We're so much better off today that for most of the world the chances of dying from an act of violence or war has never been lower.

Good points, though I don't really see much value in the constitution or international law these days. Those things are easily overlooked. The constitution hasn't been worth the paper it was printed on since 1871,

 

[ChristineM]

That would surprise me, though not shock me. Got a link?

Oh wow... It communicates.

There is a link in the post you quoted

 

[Windwalker]

If you read the Quran you can't help but come away from it with the opinion that it is a violent book. Kill the heretic, kill the infidel, kill the blasphemer.

It reads just like the Old Testament in your Bible. Slay all the infidels, don't make slaves of then, kill their women, children and cattle, except for virgins you want to marry and rape, God sends bears to rip children to shreds for making fun of the baldness of a prophet, and so forth. Sounds pretty similar.

But generally speaking Muslims seem to me to be a peaceful group of people.

For the most part, Christians do as well, despite what's in their Bible.

If you read the Bible on the other hand you probably come away from it with the opinion that, though there are wars among the believers and unbelievers its somewhat a contrast to the Quran

Just curious if you've actually read any of the books that come before Matthew in your Bible?

Am I right?

I'd say just ignorant of your own Bible.

 

[Earthling]

Oh wow... It communicates.

There is a link in the post you quoted

Sorry, I didn't see it there. That was an interesting link. I was surprised at how little all of them contained violence.

 

[Windwalker]

If religion is about the pursuit of God or spiritual enlightenment or what have you, why is it that it seemingly tears the world apart?

Because that is not what religion is about for most people. If it were, they would be about Love, not "anti-otherism". Religion is a powerful tool for the unenlightened to put themselves first ahead of others... "build that wall!", and so forth. If any are condemned by God, it's those who use God this way as a weapon against the "other".

 

[Earthling]

Because that is not what religion is about for most people. If it were, they would be about Love, not "anti-otherism". Religion is a powerful tool for the unenlightened to put themselves first ahead of others... "build that wall!", and so forth.

The unenlightened? Who are the enlightened?

 

[nPeace]

If you read the Quran you can't help but come away from it with the opinion that it is a violent book. Kill the heretic, kill the infidel, kill the blasphemer. But generally speaking Muslims seem to me to be a peaceful group of people. Oh, sure, there are a relatively few that react poorly to having their countries, cities, towns, farms, and homes destroyed, and their innocent men, women, children and elderly savagely murdered for no apparent reason, but in general they are a peaceable people.

If you read the Bible on the other hand you probably come away from it with the opinion that, though there are wars among the believers and unbelievers its somewhat a contrast to the Quran in that it is more peaceful but the Christians and Jews are notoriously violent comparatively speaking.

Am I right?

I say no. You are not right.

Would I be right if I contradicted this article, by saying, "Marine found guilty of murdering wife"?
Former Marine found guilty of wife's murder
Ex-Marine Bourne Paraday Huddleston was found guilty Wednesday of murdering his wife and on charges related to a contract-killing scheme he plotted against her and another man, a Jackson County Circuit Court jury decided.

No. I would be wrong.
How about this: "Soldier kills man at checkpoint".

A former British soldier is to be prosecuted over the death of a man he shot at an army checkpoint in Northern Ireland in 1988.

No. Again. I am wrong.
I am wrong because I am associating someone with something they are no longer associated with, or never belong to in the first place.

Defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause, or doctrine to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.
This term is also applied, often pejoratively, to anyone who switches loyalty to another religion, sports team, political party, or other rival faction. In that sense, the defector is often considered a traitor by their original side.

More than 1,000 North Koreans defect every year.

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification – which manages defectors who arrive in South Korea – about 31,000 North Korean defectors have fled to the South.
They’re mostly living in the capital city of Seoul and the surrounding region of Gyeonggi.
The vast majority of defectors, about 71 per cent, are women, and most are in their 20s and 30s. Most of them have a high school education.

The same applies to police officers who leave the force, or are dismissed.

Golden State Killer: Ex-cop arrested in serial murder-rape cold case
I would be wrong to say, a policeman was arrested in this case.

What do you call one who no longer wants to be part of the Islamic State (ISIS)?
More Islamic State defectors speaking out - report
A growing number of defectors from so-called Islamic State are speaking publicly about their decision to leave, according to a new report.
What the defectors said
"Anything that contradicts their beliefs is forbidden. Anyone who follows what they reject is an apostate and must be killed" - anonymous defector

To the world, he is a defector. To IS, he is an Apostate.

Is ISIS a defector from Islam? I don't know, but the fact is people leave organizations. They no longer belong, and should not be identified as such.
Defectors: ISIS is killing Muslims, not protecting them

Apostasy ("a defection or revolt") is the formal disaffiliation from, or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion contrary to one's previous beliefs.

Are they defectors of Christianity?
The apostle Paul answers...
(2 Thessalonians 2:3)  Let no one lead you astray in any way, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction.

How can one tell the difference between a defector / apostate, or one who belongs to the group / organization?
So would it be right to say Christians are violent? How can you identify a Christian from an apostate?

There are no violent Christians, apart from the very few individuals who may act violently because of a weakness, due to their sinful nature, but who may be fighting to become Christlike. That is very few individuals compared to the millions of Christians living by Christ's teachings.

Am I right?

 

[Windwalker]

The unenlightened? Who are the enlightened?

Those who are following the impulses of the flesh without awareness of the Truth of God, especially those who hide that fact behind their religious cloaks and do that in the name of their gods. Jesus called them hypocrites, whitewashed sepulchers.... "Build that wall!", for instance. They confuse religion with God.

 

[nPeace]

The unenlightened? Who are the enlightened?

The enlightened are those who stick to the teaching of Christ, and live by his example. Jesus said he will be with them to the end of the world. Matthew 28:19, 20

 

[stvdv]

Oh course they are peaceful in there own lands when every believer amongst themselves are Islamic. When mixed with other people it can get violent.

I doubt this. They seem peaceful, when not they are killed. They kind of "rest in peace in their graves". Probably not even true, some "pieces" maybe missing.