No, it would mean that content creators/owners would have to actually consider whether there's any evidence that their takedown notice is legitimate, and wouldn't be allowed to shotgun out thousands of takedowns at a time.
A) Fair enough, on Google, but there are other systems (like Amazon's) that do allow you to run your own apps on their hardware. I'm not sure if they're restricted to PHP, but even if they are, PHP is a full-fledged programming language. Not an elegant or fast one, but.:P
B) That really gets into the definition of what "the cloud" means. I don't take it to mean distributed supercomputing, a la the LHC grid or Folding@Home. That's a very specialized kind of cloud computing, but the "cloud" only really means that your apps and data are resident on the network rather than on your own hardware and can be ubiquitously accessed as long as you have access to the network where they're stored. It's turning your device from a multipurpose unit (store data, run apps, interact with data) into a single-purpose unit (provide an interface to your apps on the cloud), closer to a thin client.
A) What exactly is a platform if not "a set of services in the form of Apps and APIs"?
B) Amazon EC2. Unless you mean specifically.NET and C#, in which case that's a pretty silly requirement--Microsoft's own proprietary platform and language? Why should you expect to be able to run that on anything other than Microsoft products? Doesn't mean the other products aren't a cloud computing platform.
Quite so. People are looking at Wikipedia the wrong way. It's not meant to replace people actually seeking truth the old-fashioned way. It's meant as an aggregation of mostly-correct information about a broad variety of topics that people can use as a starting point to inform themselves.
It's not meant to replace Encyclopedia Britannica, scientific journals, textbooks, or investigative reporting. It's meant to replace, "Well I heard from my Uncle Joe who got it from his neighbor that her daughter said she heard somewhere that this Obama fellow's actually an Arab." To which one might counter, "Well I heard from Wikipedia who heard from the Washington Post that that's patently ludicrous, and I can give you the link."
It is certainly true that some papers turn out to be wrong but this is rare and usually ends up as a 'big thing' in the field.
Cold fusion being debunked and Schon's fabricated data were both "big things" in the field. "Memory of water" has never been scientific in the first place, it's nothing but homeopathic quackery.
Definitely not most. All. The process of science is using theory to predict a result, carrying out an experiment to test whether that result occurs or not, and revising the theory if necessary.
We cannot ever prove that the current theory is, in fact, "correct." For all we know, there is some rule encoded into the stuff of reality that gravitation will reverse itself next Tuesday, and we can neither disprove this nor predict it. All science can offer is the minimally-complex theory that fits all currently known data.
Not really. The Old Testament stuff does not apply to Christians. That's why Christians call it the Old Testament. It's not called "The Current Testament". You might know that in the bible, testament means the same thing as covenant. And it says in Hebrews 8:13: "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." You can clearly see what covenant is being referred to by reading the first part of Hebrews 9.
Let's look at the very next two verses from Matthew, then.
Matthew 5:17-19 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus says that the law is to be held "till heaven and earth pass" and says that anyone who breaks the commandments of the law "shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven."
I never claimed there weren't inconsistencies in the Bible.:P
That being said, your brand of Christianity is definitely one I can get behind, if I actually believed it. It seems like the most important distilled message Jesus carried was "no one can be free of sin on their own power, therefore it is hypocrisy to judge others' sinfulness. Stop being so damned self-righteous. Also, be good to one another." I only wish more self-avowed Christians followed that conception rather than the conception that says to be as self-righteous and judgmental as possible.
If more Christians followed your philosophy, I'd consider Christianity to be as harmless and admirable a religion as, say, Buddhism.
You will forgive me to doubt the truth of that statement.
Which statement, that I'm neither Christian nor Muslim? I'm an atheist, but think what you like.
All your statements basically parse as "it's the same" even though it's not actually saying the same thing. You "have to think this and add to it". Also there are factual errors (the Roman empire had yet to conquer it's first egg cell in 3500 BC when Moses gave those orders). You're just spouting data you think is correct but really isn't.
Then please, feel free to correct me. BTW, the quote was "the Roman empire where Jesus lived." By around 30 A.D. when the Gospels take place, the Roman Empire had conquered many egg cells, and was in control of the land of Israel, called Judea by its contemporaries.
Furthermore you add that you agree that in the quran there isn't any thinking required. You agree that it calls directly for genocide, and rape, something which has to be "interpreted" out of the bible (which Christians managed not to do for, oh, 2000 years and counting).
I do agree that the Qur'an has a lot of bad stuff in it, yes. I don't agree that you need to "interpret" the Bible to find stuff that's just as bad in it. The genocide, rape, and slavery in the Bible is absolutely and perfectly clear.
Yet you agree that not only is there no imagination necessary *at all* to read massive divinely and morally "sanctioned" genocide and rape in the quran, the history of the muslims is more than filled to the brim with incidents where they actually DO it.
And the history of Christianity isn't? Are we forgetting the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the Troubles in Ireland and England?
And since when is it "hypocrisy" to suggest that different religions are... (tadaaa) different.
How can you remove a splinter from your brother's eye when there is a beam in your own eye? Thou hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.
It is a well established fact that religious genocides and rape of other-thinkers, massacring dissidents and gays is perfectly allowed, and not just allowed but forced in sharia law (and forbidden in canon law, you *do* know what canon law is, right ?).
Canon law was an invention of the Catholic Church, and most Protestant churches don't even follow it. If you're going to be comparing Christianity to Islam by pulling verses from the Qur'an, then you'd better pull the verses from the Bible which say gays, disobedient children, and rape victims (among many others) should be stoned to death.
For the record, the rules of warfare under Islamic law include the injunction by Abu Bakr:
Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone.
Of course the lesson to pull from this is that there are some verses in the Qur'an that say genocide is okay, some that say it isn't; some verses in the Bible say genocide is okay, some say that it isn't; later laws established by the religious leaderships of both religions have added and taken away moral restrictions; and some people of both religions are absolute nutcases who will twist their religion to justify their sociopathic behavior, while the vast majority of practitioners are perfectly peaceful.
Therefore, there isn't really any discussion as much as soundbites from your side that count
No, what is against the founding principles is to force the public into a specific religion especially one that the government itself is a member. But having the government itself have a religion does not automatically force the individual citizens to comply unless laws are enacted which say that if you don't join the same religion then you will be punished. That is what the first immigrants ran away from and what they wanted to prevent happening again here in this land.
The Establishment Clause was inserted in the First Amendment specifically to prevent the establishment of any religion as the official state religion. The United States has no official state religion, never has, and never should.
Well you said you wanted to remove religion from the public sector. That obviously doesn't stop someone from practicing or supporting their religion in the private sector but by definition it does prevent them from doing so in public.
I didn't say anyone should be prevented from practicing their religion in public. That's not the goal of secularism. The goal is to prevent the government from favoring any one religion over any others--that's it, pure and simple. As long as you aren't breaking any laws, you can feel free to preach in the middle of the town square if you want.
That wasn't the question. The question was whether you would say it if you didn't feel you should actually pledge allegiance to this country thereby disagreeing with the pledge itself. If you disagree with the majority religion and want religion banned from public visibility then I would think you would be at least consistent and want the pledge banned for those who don't feel they should have to publically state they pledge allegiance to the flag. We wouldn't want someone to feel offended if they weren't happy with the U.S> gov't on any given day and were forced to pledge allegiance to the country or even listen to others who do. The other students would be offending the ears of the others. How dare they!
Again, nobody's saying prayer should be banned. We're saying it should a) not be mandatory, and b) not be led by anyone acting as a representative of national, state, or local government in their position as that representative. So long as they're engaging in their religion as a private citizen and not a public servant, there's no problem. So your question above is awful silly.
You conveniently list those situations in which the ACLU has actually supported religion but neglect to list anything (articles, court decisions, etc.) for situations in which the ACLU has yet to get involved but in which students' right to state/display/uphold anything about their religion is prohibited or, at best, questioned forcefully with threats of punishment. By sheer fact the ACLU got into a court battle also means your stories are easy to find but for those battles which don't get any media coverage (especially if it is about Christians) then you would be hard pressed to even know those problems even exist. One example being the murdering of Christian civilians in Iraq by Islamic extremists which I have yet to see in any media coverage on TV.
I'm sorry--you're saying that because the ACLU hasn't represented every oppressed Christian in the country, that somehow invalidates the many that they have represented? Maybe those other oppressed faithful didn't sue, or didn't ask the ACLU for help?
Not quite. I'm already having my religion silenced in various forms due to your self-given right to not be offended by someone whose views differ from yours.
You're still the only person anywhere in these threads to suggest anyone has a "right" not to be offended. I certainly never suggested that.
Are you a representative of national, state, or local government? Are you speaking as a public official with the power of your office behind you? No? Then you can say
The orders Moses gave concerned looting (not allowed). Any children left alone would have to be adopted (not raped, and sold as slaves, like the muslims do, adopted, since then the taking of slaves in war was outlawed, and considered a moral abomination in Christianity/Judaism (neither were in their current forms obviously)). Muslims are still doing it (and *all* muslims did it until at least 1960)
You may, again, want to reread Numbers 31. I hate to keep coming back to that specific chapter, but...
Numbers 31:9-12 "And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.... And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts. And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho."
Numbers 31:32-35 "And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep, And threescore and twelve thousand beeves, And threescore and one thousand asses, And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him."
Looting and slavery. Note, when 'persons' are taken as 'booty'? That's slavery no matter how you cut it. Many of these soldiers would have been unmarried, it wasn't adoption.
Read Deuteronomy 20:10-14 if you're interested to know what God thinks of enslaving your prisoners of war and conquered peoples.
Deuteronomy 20:10-14 "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee."
It was also considered perfectly normal in the Roman empire where Jesus lived.
And anyway, I didn't say the Israelites went to war "just because." I said they went to war for one of the reasons you named as being a "horrid crime." Specifically, revenge:
Numbers 31:1-3 "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian."
I'm glad, though, that you're willing to use mitigating circumstances to excuse genocide in the Bible, but not to excuse statutory rape in the Qur'an. I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, double standards and hypocrisy just annoy me.
Why? You believe it is okay to violate others' 1st amendment right in order to uphold your.....right not to be offended? I can't seem to find "the right not to be offended" in the country's founding documents though.
Because the United States has no state religion. That separation between church and state doesn't exist solely, or even primarily, to protect the state from the church. It exists also to protect the church from the state.
It's perfectly reasonable for politicians to talk about their own religious beliefs. Hell, I'm a fervent supporter of Barack Obama, and he peppers many of his speeches with more religious references than any President since Carter.
But attempts to insert any specific religion into law or government are against the very founding principles of this nation.
And if you don't want to then that's fine too but don't stop someone else from doing so just because you don't want to participate. Do you try to stop any activity that you don't plan on taking part in just so others can't do it? If not, why draw an arbitrary line at trying to stop other people from practicing their religion? Mind your own business. No one is forcing you to do something.
Who's advocating stopping someone else from practicing their religion?
That's a wonder it was not shutdown merely because it would have been soooo easy for someone to accuse one of the teachers (or all of them) of actually leading it. Then again, at other schools, student speeches which have any hint of religion in them (well, Christianity) are not allowed at graduation ceremonies despite being student speeches, which is why I said before that those student prayer circles are lucky they weren't shutdown. In another school they would have been, unjustly so.
And yet amazingly after four years in a high school of around 2000 students in a relatively rich, liberal, Jewish neighborhood in Florida, it never did. Maybe the spectre of Christian persecution just isn't as prevalent as you think it is.
So what do you do when they make you recite the Pledge of Allegiance (with or without the "under God" phrase? Depending on how much you like Congress and the rest of the government that day you may not feel very patriotic. Are you going to eventually want it banned?
I say the Pledge of Allegiance proudly, in its form prior to being changed in the 1950s to include "under God." As for whether it should be mandatory in school, well no it shouldn't be, but it already isn't. Children aren't required to say it, though they are sometimes required to stand. Listening silently to the teacher-led Pledge of Allegiance, however, is a far cry from listening silently to a teacher-led Christian prayer.
On the one hand, you have "I pledge allegiance to the Flag..." While on the other you have "Our Father who art in Heaven... Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven... Forgive us our trespasses... For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, now and forever..." -- Which most certainly puts a teacher, as an employee of the state in a position of power over the students, into a position of advocating a particular religion.
I've never heard of any school system requiring students to recite the Lord's Prayer let alone hear of anyone banning it.
You haven't heard of it because the Supreme Court ruled it illegal in 1963 in Abington Township School District v. Schempp.
But actively forcing students to do something and supporting them when they want to do something (whether it is initiated by students or not) are 2 different things for which many secularists don't care to make the distinction.
As a matter of fact we do. That's why I asked the question about the ACLU. These are some cases argued by that mos
Despite my incredulity, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and explain that the Qur'an is the holy book of Islam. The words themselves are considered by Muslims to be holy, and reading those words aloud considered to be an act of prayer. So some Muslims would get pissed off about verses from the Qur'an being recited during a song for a commercial video game that has nothing to do with prayer. Sony did this not for copyright issues but to avoid a backlash in countries with large Muslim populations.
And the secular progressives are also trying to get rid of public displays of the Christian religion, trying to get Christian teachings and quotes from the Bible banned everywhere (especially in schools), and so on.
Not quite. We're trying to get religion out of the public sector. If you want to worship on your own terms, that's fine. Did you know my high school had a student prayer circle every day at lunch, and some teachers even participated? Yeah, nobody bitched about it, because it was voluntary and student-led.
Compare that to mandatory homeroom "okay everyone stand up and recite the Lord's Prayer now" which was, rightly, banned.
Comitting violence like the paedophile prophet did, for booty, for sex, for slaves, for revenge... those are horrid crimes.
You mean exactly like Moses did against the Midians?
I put up the first quote for a reason--Jesus didn't disown the Old Testament. In fact, he said he was there to renew it and strengthen it. The God of Moses is the same as the God of Jesus.
Jesus himself didn't preach violence on the same scale as Moses and Muhammad, but the Old Testament is just as much part of Christianity as it is part of Judaism.
I don't in fact have much anything against Jesus. He said some good stuff, and most of the bad stuff he said was meant in a figurative manner. I'm not quite so happy with Paul, who was pretty fire-and-brimstone. It's less talking about violence that should be committed now, and more about violence that will be committed later by Jesus himself.
By the way, you might want to reread the Sermon on the Mount if you think Jesus wants you to fight anyone--for any reason.
Matthew 5:39-41: "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."
Matthew 5:44-45 "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
Besides, in the new testament you won't even find this type of things. So unless you're criticizing the Jews, might I remind you that (at least in catholicism and protestantism) the old testament is a historical tale, describing God's interactions with the Jews. Not the center of Christian dogma, that would be the new testament. Jesus, who refuses to shed blood even to save himself. The best known story ever told on this little planet.
Oh?
So I guess Jesus was kidding in Matthew 5:17 when he says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil"?
And he'd never say something like "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city." (Matthew 10:14-15)
Or there's Matthew 10:34-37: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
It's not quite Old Testament level, but it ain't hippie either. And that's only the first few chapters of the first book of the NT.
Whoah, hit the brakes there bucky. Just because the child still liked him, and later forgave him, does that make it right? That's a big no.
As I said, I agree with the modern definition--a child that young isn't emotionally prepared for that sort of interaction with an adult, especially one with that much power over her.
On the other hand, crime involves both bad intent and bad act. And under the operating definition of rape for the culture where Muhammad and Aisha existed, what Muhammad did fell outside of it--specifically, because he was married to her. The definition of rape in Biblical times wasn't much different, as a matter of fact!
Speculate much? Direct evidence vs. speculation. Isn't it entirely possible that those were God's orders? Female children wouldn't be likely to grow up, rise up and exact revenge. Just as plausible as your "explanation."
Have you read Numbers 31? It's rather clear.
The women of Midian "caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD." -- i.e. when raping their prisoners of war, some of them got VD.
So Moses told them: "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." -- i.e. keep alive the virgins because they won't have VD for you to catch when you're raping them.
Note that the spoils of war included "thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him" and that, under Moses' orders, 32 of these "women children" were sacrificed as an offering to God.
First off, while Aisha may have been raped by Muhammad (if you go by the relatively modern definition that says any sex with a young child is rape) (which is one that I agree with BTW), she didn't appear to resent him for it. She was, in fact, his favorite wife, and she loved and was very affectionate toward him.
Second, while Jesus never had sex with a child (or with anyone, so far as the canonical Bible is concerned), Numbers 31 does have Moses (under God's command) ordering his soldiers to slaughter every man, woman, and male child among the Midianites, while keeping the female children to themselves. For what, manual labor, do you think?
Slashdot Mirror
No, it would mean that content creators/owners would have to actually consider whether there's any evidence that their takedown notice is legitimate, and wouldn't be allowed to shotgun out thousands of takedowns at a time.
A) Fair enough, on Google, but there are other systems (like Amazon's) that do allow you to run your own apps on their hardware. I'm not sure if they're restricted to PHP, but even if they are, PHP is a full-fledged programming language. Not an elegant or fast one, but. :P
B) That really gets into the definition of what "the cloud" means. I don't take it to mean distributed supercomputing, a la the LHC grid or Folding@Home. That's a very specialized kind of cloud computing, but the "cloud" only really means that your apps and data are resident on the network rather than on your own hardware and can be ubiquitously accessed as long as you have access to the network where they're stored. It's turning your device from a multipurpose unit (store data, run apps, interact with data) into a single-purpose unit (provide an interface to your apps on the cloud), closer to a thin client.
A) What exactly is a platform if not "a set of services in the form of Apps and APIs"?
B) Amazon EC2. Unless you mean specifically .NET and C#, in which case that's a pretty silly requirement--Microsoft's own proprietary platform and language? Why should you expect to be able to run that on anything other than Microsoft products? Doesn't mean the other products aren't a cloud computing platform.
Or, possibly, hackers on steroids. It depends how much you want people to be frightened.
You could play WoW with us Earthlings over your high-speed Internet connection. The latency would be killer though. I'm not raiding with you.
Quite so. People are looking at Wikipedia the wrong way. It's not meant to replace people actually seeking truth the old-fashioned way. It's meant as an aggregation of mostly-correct information about a broad variety of topics that people can use as a starting point to inform themselves.
It's not meant to replace Encyclopedia Britannica, scientific journals, textbooks, or investigative reporting. It's meant to replace, "Well I heard from my Uncle Joe who got it from his neighbor that her daughter said she heard somewhere that this Obama fellow's actually an Arab." To which one might counter, "Well I heard from Wikipedia who heard from the Washington Post that that's patently ludicrous, and I can give you the link."
And we should all listen to Michael Crichton, because he's been right about so many things.
From GP:
It is certainly true that some papers turn out to be wrong but this is rare and usually ends up as a 'big thing' in the field.
Cold fusion being debunked and Schon's fabricated data were both "big things" in the field. "Memory of water" has never been scientific in the first place, it's nothing but homeopathic quackery.
Definitely not most. All. The process of science is using theory to predict a result, carrying out an experiment to test whether that result occurs or not, and revising the theory if necessary.
We cannot ever prove that the current theory is, in fact, "correct." For all we know, there is some rule encoded into the stuff of reality that gravitation will reverse itself next Tuesday, and we can neither disprove this nor predict it. All science can offer is the minimally-complex theory that fits all currently known data.
Not really. The Old Testament stuff does not apply to Christians. That's why Christians call it the Old Testament. It's not called "The Current Testament". You might know that in the bible, testament means the same thing as covenant. And it says in Hebrews 8:13: "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." You can clearly see what covenant is being referred to by reading the first part of Hebrews 9.
Let's look at the very next two verses from Matthew, then.
Matthew 5:17-19 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus says that the law is to be held "till heaven and earth pass" and says that anyone who breaks the commandments of the law "shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven."
I never claimed there weren't inconsistencies in the Bible. :P
That being said, your brand of Christianity is definitely one I can get behind, if I actually believed it. It seems like the most important distilled message Jesus carried was "no one can be free of sin on their own power, therefore it is hypocrisy to judge others' sinfulness. Stop being so damned self-righteous. Also, be good to one another." I only wish more self-avowed Christians followed that conception rather than the conception that says to be as self-righteous and judgmental as possible.
If more Christians followed your philosophy, I'd consider Christianity to be as harmless and admirable a religion as, say, Buddhism.
You will forgive me to doubt the truth of that statement.
Which statement, that I'm neither Christian nor Muslim? I'm an atheist, but think what you like.
All your statements basically parse as "it's the same" even though it's not actually saying the same thing. You "have to think this and add to it". Also there are factual errors (the Roman empire had yet to conquer it's first egg cell in 3500 BC when Moses gave those orders). You're just spouting data you think is correct but really isn't.
Then please, feel free to correct me. BTW, the quote was "the Roman empire where Jesus lived." By around 30 A.D. when the Gospels take place, the Roman Empire had conquered many egg cells, and was in control of the land of Israel, called Judea by its contemporaries.
Furthermore you add that you agree that in the quran there isn't any thinking required. You agree that it calls directly for genocide, and rape, something which has to be "interpreted" out of the bible (which Christians managed not to do for, oh, 2000 years and counting).
I do agree that the Qur'an has a lot of bad stuff in it, yes. I don't agree that you need to "interpret" the Bible to find stuff that's just as bad in it. The genocide, rape, and slavery in the Bible is absolutely and perfectly clear.
Yet you agree that not only is there no imagination necessary *at all* to read massive divinely and morally "sanctioned" genocide and rape in the quran, the history of the muslims is more than filled to the brim with incidents where they actually DO it.
And the history of Christianity isn't? Are we forgetting the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the Troubles in Ireland and England?
And since when is it "hypocrisy" to suggest that different religions are ... (tadaaa) different.
How can you remove a splinter from your brother's eye when there is a beam in your own eye? Thou hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.
It is a well established fact that religious genocides and rape of other-thinkers, massacring dissidents and gays is perfectly allowed, and not just allowed but forced in sharia law (and forbidden in canon law, you *do* know what canon law is, right ?).
Canon law was an invention of the Catholic Church, and most Protestant churches don't even follow it. If you're going to be comparing Christianity to Islam by pulling verses from the Qur'an, then you'd better pull the verses from the Bible which say gays, disobedient children, and rape victims (among many others) should be stoned to death.
For the record, the rules of warfare under Islamic law include the injunction by Abu Bakr:
Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone.
Of course the lesson to pull from this is that there are some verses in the Qur'an that say genocide is okay, some that say it isn't; some verses in the Bible say genocide is okay, some say that it isn't; later laws established by the religious leaderships of both religions have added and taken away moral restrictions; and some people of both religions are absolute nutcases who will twist their religion to justify their sociopathic behavior, while the vast majority of practitioners are perfectly peaceful.
Therefore, there isn't really any discussion as much as soundbites from your side that count
No, what is against the founding principles is to force the public into a specific religion especially one that the government itself is a member. But having the government itself have a religion does not automatically force the individual citizens to comply unless laws are enacted which say that if you don't join the same religion then you will be punished. That is what the first immigrants ran away from and what they wanted to prevent happening again here in this land.
The Establishment Clause was inserted in the First Amendment specifically to prevent the establishment of any religion as the official state religion. The United States has no official state religion, never has, and never should.
Well you said you wanted to remove religion from the public sector. That obviously doesn't stop someone from practicing or supporting their religion in the private sector but by definition it does prevent them from doing so in public.
I didn't say anyone should be prevented from practicing their religion in public. That's not the goal of secularism. The goal is to prevent the government from favoring any one religion over any others--that's it, pure and simple. As long as you aren't breaking any laws, you can feel free to preach in the middle of the town square if you want.
That wasn't the question. The question was whether you would say it if you didn't feel you should actually pledge allegiance to this country thereby disagreeing with the pledge itself. If you disagree with the majority religion and want religion banned from public visibility then I would think you would be at least consistent and want the pledge banned for those who don't feel they should have to publically state they pledge allegiance to the flag. We wouldn't want someone to feel offended if they weren't happy with the U.S> gov't on any given day and were forced to pledge allegiance to the country or even listen to others who do. The other students would be offending the ears of the others. How dare they!
Again, nobody's saying prayer should be banned. We're saying it should a) not be mandatory, and b) not be led by anyone acting as a representative of national, state, or local government in their position as that representative. So long as they're engaging in their religion as a private citizen and not a public servant, there's no problem. So your question above is awful silly.
You conveniently list those situations in which the ACLU has actually supported religion but neglect to list anything (articles, court decisions, etc.) for situations in which the ACLU has yet to get involved but in which students' right to state/display/uphold anything about their religion is prohibited or, at best, questioned forcefully with threats of punishment. By sheer fact the ACLU got into a court battle also means your stories are easy to find but for those battles which don't get any media coverage (especially if it is about Christians) then you would be hard pressed to even know those problems even exist. One example being the murdering of Christian civilians in Iraq by Islamic extremists which I have yet to see in any media coverage on TV.
I'm sorry--you're saying that because the ACLU hasn't represented every oppressed Christian in the country, that somehow invalidates the many that they have represented? Maybe those other oppressed faithful didn't sue, or didn't ask the ACLU for help?
Not quite. I'm already having my religion silenced in various forms due to your self-given right to not be offended by someone whose views differ from yours.
You're still the only person anywhere in these threads to suggest anyone has a "right" not to be offended. I certainly never suggested that.
Are you a representative of national, state, or local government? Are you speaking as a public official with the power of your office behind you? No? Then you can say
The orders Moses gave concerned looting (not allowed). Any children left alone would have to be adopted (not raped, and sold as slaves, like the muslims do, adopted, since then the taking of slaves in war was outlawed, and considered a moral abomination in Christianity/Judaism (neither were in their current forms obviously)). Muslims are still doing it (and *all* muslims did it until at least 1960)
You may, again, want to reread Numbers 31. I hate to keep coming back to that specific chapter, but...
Numbers 31:9-12 "And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. ... And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts. And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho."
Numbers 31:32-35 "And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep, And threescore and twelve thousand beeves, And threescore and one thousand asses, And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him."
Looting and slavery. Note, when 'persons' are taken as 'booty'? That's slavery no matter how you cut it. Many of these soldiers would have been unmarried, it wasn't adoption.
Read Deuteronomy 20:10-14 if you're interested to know what God thinks of enslaving your prisoners of war and conquered peoples.
Deuteronomy 20:10-14 "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee."
It was also considered perfectly normal in the Roman empire where Jesus lived.
And anyway, I didn't say the Israelites went to war "just because." I said they went to war for one of the reasons you named as being a "horrid crime." Specifically, revenge:
Numbers 31:1-3 "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian."
I'm glad, though, that you're willing to use mitigating circumstances to excuse genocide in the Bible, but not to excuse statutory rape in the Qur'an. I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, double standards and hypocrisy just annoy me.
Why? You believe it is okay to violate others' 1st amendment right in order to uphold your.....right not to be offended? I can't seem to find "the right not to be offended" in the country's founding documents though.
Because the United States has no state religion. That separation between church and state doesn't exist solely, or even primarily, to protect the state from the church. It exists also to protect the church from the state.
It's perfectly reasonable for politicians to talk about their own religious beliefs. Hell, I'm a fervent supporter of Barack Obama, and he peppers many of his speeches with more religious references than any President since Carter.
But attempts to insert any specific religion into law or government are against the very founding principles of this nation.
And if you don't want to then that's fine too but don't stop someone else from doing so just because you don't want to participate. Do you try to stop any activity that you don't plan on taking part in just so others can't do it? If not, why draw an arbitrary line at trying to stop other people from practicing their religion? Mind your own business. No one is forcing you to do something.
Who's advocating stopping someone else from practicing their religion?
That's a wonder it was not shutdown merely because it would have been soooo easy for someone to accuse one of the teachers (or all of them) of actually leading it. Then again, at other schools, student speeches which have any hint of religion in them (well, Christianity) are not allowed at graduation ceremonies despite being student speeches, which is why I said before that those student prayer circles are lucky they weren't shutdown. In another school they would have been, unjustly so.
And yet amazingly after four years in a high school of around 2000 students in a relatively rich, liberal, Jewish neighborhood in Florida, it never did. Maybe the spectre of Christian persecution just isn't as prevalent as you think it is.
So what do you do when they make you recite the Pledge of Allegiance (with or without the "under God" phrase? Depending on how much you like Congress and the rest of the government that day you may not feel very patriotic. Are you going to eventually want it banned?
I say the Pledge of Allegiance proudly, in its form prior to being changed in the 1950s to include "under God." As for whether it should be mandatory in school, well no it shouldn't be, but it already isn't. Children aren't required to say it, though they are sometimes required to stand. Listening silently to the teacher-led Pledge of Allegiance, however, is a far cry from listening silently to a teacher-led Christian prayer.
On the one hand, you have "I pledge allegiance to the Flag..." While on the other you have "Our Father who art in Heaven ... Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven ... Forgive us our trespasses ... For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, now and forever ..." -- Which most certainly puts a teacher, as an employee of the state in a position of power over the students, into a position of advocating a particular religion.
I've never heard of any school system requiring students to recite the Lord's Prayer let alone hear of anyone banning it.
You haven't heard of it because the Supreme Court ruled it illegal in 1963 in Abington Township School District v. Schempp.
But actively forcing students to do something and supporting them when they want to do something (whether it is initiated by students or not) are 2 different things for which many secularists don't care to make the distinction.
As a matter of fact we do. That's why I asked the question about the ACLU. These are some cases argued by that mos
Modern Jews think he was a pretty decent guy. :P Just ask Rabbi Shmuley.
Despite my incredulity, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and explain that the Qur'an is the holy book of Islam. The words themselves are considered by Muslims to be holy, and reading those words aloud considered to be an act of prayer. So some Muslims would get pissed off about verses from the Qur'an being recited during a song for a commercial video game that has nothing to do with prayer. Sony did this not for copyright issues but to avoid a backlash in countries with large Muslim populations.
And the secular progressives are also trying to get rid of public displays of the Christian religion, trying to get Christian teachings and quotes from the Bible banned everywhere (especially in schools), and so on.
Not quite. We're trying to get religion out of the public sector. If you want to worship on your own terms, that's fine. Did you know my high school had a student prayer circle every day at lunch, and some teachers even participated? Yeah, nobody bitched about it, because it was voluntary and student-led.
Compare that to mandatory homeroom "okay everyone stand up and recite the Lord's Prayer now" which was, rightly, banned.
I bet you hate the ACLU too, huh?
You know that Muslims revere Jesus too right, and Jews think he was a pretty decent guy even though he wasn't the Messiah?
Comitting violence like the paedophile prophet did, for booty, for sex, for slaves, for revenge ... those are horrid crimes.
You mean exactly like Moses did against the Midians?
I put up the first quote for a reason--Jesus didn't disown the Old Testament. In fact, he said he was there to renew it and strengthen it. The God of Moses is the same as the God of Jesus.
Jesus himself didn't preach violence on the same scale as Moses and Muhammad, but the Old Testament is just as much part of Christianity as it is part of Judaism.
I don't in fact have much anything against Jesus. He said some good stuff, and most of the bad stuff he said was meant in a figurative manner. I'm not quite so happy with Paul, who was pretty fire-and-brimstone. It's less talking about violence that should be committed now, and more about violence that will be committed later by Jesus himself.
By the way, you might want to reread the Sermon on the Mount if you think Jesus wants you to fight anyone--for any reason.
Matthew 5:39-41: "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."
Matthew 5:44-45 "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
Besides, in the new testament you won't even find this type of things. So unless you're criticizing the Jews, might I remind you that (at least in catholicism and protestantism) the old testament is a historical tale, describing God's interactions with the Jews. Not the center of Christian dogma, that would be the new testament. Jesus, who refuses to shed blood even to save himself. The best known story ever told on this little planet.
Oh?
So I guess Jesus was kidding in Matthew 5:17 when he says, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil"?
And he'd never say something like "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city." (Matthew 10:14-15)
Or there's Matthew 10:34-37: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
It's not quite Old Testament level, but it ain't hippie either. And that's only the first few chapters of the first book of the NT.
Whoah, hit the brakes there bucky. Just because the child still liked him, and later forgave him, does that make it right? That's a big no.
As I said, I agree with the modern definition--a child that young isn't emotionally prepared for that sort of interaction with an adult, especially one with that much power over her.
On the other hand, crime involves both bad intent and bad act. And under the operating definition of rape for the culture where Muhammad and Aisha existed, what Muhammad did fell outside of it--specifically, because he was married to her. The definition of rape in Biblical times wasn't much different, as a matter of fact!
Speculate much? Direct evidence vs. speculation. Isn't it entirely possible that those were God's orders? Female children wouldn't be likely to grow up, rise up and exact revenge. Just as plausible as your "explanation."
Have you read Numbers 31? It's rather clear.
The women of Midian "caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD." -- i.e. when raping their prisoners of war, some of them got VD.
So Moses told them: "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." -- i.e. keep alive the virgins because they won't have VD for you to catch when you're raping them.
Note that the spoils of war included "thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him" and that, under Moses' orders, 32 of these "women children" were sacrificed as an offering to God.
Oh and Islam does not mean "repression"--it means "submission," i.e. submission to God. Which, BTW, is also advocated stridently in Christianity.
First off, while Aisha may have been raped by Muhammad (if you go by the relatively modern definition that says any sex with a young child is rape) (which is one that I agree with BTW), she didn't appear to resent him for it. She was, in fact, his favorite wife, and she loved and was very affectionate toward him.
Second, while Jesus never had sex with a child (or with anyone, so far as the canonical Bible is concerned), Numbers 31 does have Moses (under God's command) ordering his soldiers to slaughter every man, woman, and male child among the Midianites, while keeping the female children to themselves. For what, manual labor, do you think?
Or 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334? You can shorthand out those all-0 octets.
Couldn't they just write their own code not to smash its stack? It's really not that difficult, really.