Has Religion Done More Good Than Bad?

[eclipse]

8 minutes ago, John Denver Fan said:

That is true, but there is also bad religions, not just evil cults. The evil cults are formed when people of a religion twists their sacred book's words. I'll note one but will not reveal its name for obvious reasons. That cult that branched from Islam and controlled a lot of Syria and Iraq at its peak. If I am correct on the second one. They want Islam to be a world religion. Of course people started complaining about Islam due to the group.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not trying to offend anybody, I am just highlighting a way that people think that religions are bad.

Islam is really complicated, to the point where I don't feel qualified about talking about it.

[Tetragrammaton]

7 hours ago, John Denver Fan said:

That is true, but there is also bad religions, not just evil cults. The evil cults are formed when people of a religion twists their sacred book's words. I'll note one but will not reveal its name for obvious reasons. That cult that branched from Islam and controlled a lot of Syria and Iraq at its peak. If I am correct on the second one. They want Islam to be a world religion. Of course people started complaining about Islam due to the group.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not trying to offend anybody, I am just highlighting a way that people think that religions are bad.

pretty much the people from Islam 1000 years ago could say the same about one religion that is dominated the whole Europe in the modern time

[Shoblongoo]

I'm always weirded out by how Islam gets singled out  as the black sheep of the Abrahamic Faiths. And "judeo-christian" gets thrown around as a singular term, as though to suggest there's some unique kinship between the two religions that Islam lacks.

Christians believe that The God of Abraham impregnated a Jewish virgin with his avatar and that said avatar's word is divine revelation superseding the law of the Five Books of Moses. But disbelieve that God sent an angel to give divine revelations to the Prophet Mohammed. 

Muslims believe that The God of Abraham sent an angel to give divine revelations to the Prophet Mohammed, and that the words and writings of Mohammed supersede the law of the Five Books of Moses. But disbelieve that God impregnated a Jewish virgin with his avatar.

Jews disbelieve both of these things, believe that the Five Books of Moses have never been superseded, and further believe that because the Five Books of Moses have never been superseded the Old Covenant set forth therein is still in effect. (i.e. The Hebrews are God's chosen people, and Eretz Yisrael is their Promised Land)

...and that's literally the only difference between them...

Edited February 20, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[eclipse]

8 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'm always weirded out by how Islam gets singled out  as the black sheep of the Abrahamic Faiths. And "judeo-christian" gets thrown around as a singular term, as though to suggest there's some unique kinship between the two religions that Islam lacks.

Christians believe that The God of Abraham impregnated a Jewish virgin with his avatar and that said avatar's word is divine revelation superseding the law of the Five Books of Moses. But disbelieve that God sent an angel to give divine revelations to the Prophet Mohammed. 

Muslims believe that The God of Abraham sent an angel to give divine revelations to the Prophet Mohammed, and that the words and writings of Mohammed supersede the law of the Five Books of Moses. But disbelieve that God impregnated a Jewish virgin with his avatar.

Jews disbelieve both of these things, believe that the Five Books of Moses have never been superseded, and further believe that because the Five Books of Moses have never been superseded the Old Covenant set forth therein is still in effect. (i.e. The Hebrews are God's chosen people, and Eretz Yisrael is their Promised Land)

...and that's literally the only difference between them...

It's a lot more complicated than that.  The problem is that my own knowledge of Islam is shaky, hence why I haven't done a comparison between the religions.

[Lord Raven]

2 minutes ago, eclipse said:

It's a lot more complicated than that.  The problem is that my own knowledge of Islam is shaky, hence why I haven't done a comparison between the religions.

It's not that much more complicated. Those are the key differences in the history of the three books, everything else is just put around the context of their times (given that the books were written centuries apart, it makes sense).

Edited February 21, 2018 by Lord Raven

[eclipse]

2 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

It's not that much more complicated. Those are the key differences in the history of the three books, everything else is just put around the context of their times (given that the books were written centuries apart, it makes sense).

The "what" and "why" is something that I barely grasp in the Bible - it's easy to take things out of context, and judge it.  Proverbs 31:10-31 talks about some wife who does everything and then some.  Apparently, it's an acrostic poem, which is why she's doing all the laundry and shopping, among other things.  Without context, she looks like she's supporting her lazy husband.  This is scratching the surface of what's in the Bible.

My knowledge of the Koran is near-nonexistent.  If I barely understand the Bible, and nothing of the Koran, then it would be silly of me to try to simplify things for a comparison.

[Flee Fleet!]

On 2/20/2018 at 10:35 PM, Shoblongoo said:

Muslims believe that The God of Abraham sent an angel to give divine revelations to the Prophet Mohammed, and that the words and writings of Mohammed supersede the law of the Five Books of Moses. But disbelieve that God impregnated a Jewish virgin with his avatar.

I mean, we do believe Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin. We just don't believe him to be the son of God.

 

On 2/20/2018 at 10:35 PM, Shoblongoo said:

..and that's literally the only difference between them...

...I would say that the only big similarity between the three religions is that they believe in the same God, and that there is only One God. I dunno much about other similarities, I always kind of thought they had mostly different teachings from each other.

 

On 2/21/2018 at 7:26 AM, eclipse said:

- it's easy to take things out of context, and judge it

You can not imagine the amount of people who take Quranic verses out of context and spread their judgement about it on Youtube.

I don't get why people just take a verse from any religious book without context and spread misinformation about it.

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Flee Fleet! said:

I mean, we do believe Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin. We just don't believe him to be the son of God.

 

...I would say that the only big similarity between the three religions is that they believe in the same God, and that there is only One God. I dunno much about other similarities, I always kind of thought they had mostly different teachings from each other.

 

You can not imagine the amount of people who take Quranic verses out of context and spread their judgement about it on Youtube.

I don't get why people just take a verse from any religious book without context and spread misinformation about it.

Most likely because they've seen other people use that quote before and haven't read the full book. Whoever started using the quote in the first place probably had ulterior motives or just didn't understand the context. Only takes one person to start a trend, though.

[Flee Fleet!]

54 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Most likely because they've seen other people use that quote before and haven't read t, e full book. Whoever started using the quote in the first place probably had ulterior motives or just didn't understand the context. Only takes one person to start a trend, though.

That seems to be the case then, unfortunately. I would say that most of the people I've met on Youtube using any quote without context had ulterior motives ( although my only reason for thinking this is because of their rude reactions if anyone corrected them...). And of course, there are plenty of sites which like to spread misinformation about a specific group of people or religion, so I guess they can be considered a root cause for starting the trend.

[Takumeme]

My favorite quote from the Bible is, “And it came unto pass that I cast a woman into bed and committed adultry [...] And killed her children dead.” If you out it into context, it talks about what you’ll be sent to hell for.

 

No religion is bad. I take that back, most religions aren’t bad, but the people who belong to them are bad. 

Edited February 26, 2018 by Takumeme
I left a part out

[Jotari]

That being said, a lot of these books were written quite a long time ago and societies perception of what is moral has changed. So I'm sure there are genuine quotes in there that the average person if the modern (western) world would disagree with. Spare the rod is the one that comes to mind first to me.

[Flee Fleet!]

39 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That being said, a lot of these books were written quite a long time ago and societies perception of what is moral has changed. So I'm sure there are genuine quotes in there that the average person if the modern (western) world would disagree with. Spare the rod is the one that comes to mind first to me.

You are right about that, I guess there would be some things that would not be agreeable with at least the modern people of the western world.

One such example comes to mind: Death penalties, and sometimes harsh punishments, are to be given to criminals, according to some holy books, although such punishments don't seem to be encouraged by the laws of the modern western world (do correct me if I'm wrong here though, I'm not that knowledgeable of Western law)

[Shoblongoo]

43 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That being said, a lot of these books were written quite a long time ago and societies perception of what is moral has changed.

 

 “When the LORD your God gives you victory in battle and you take prisoners, you may see among them a beautiful woman that you like and want to marry. Take her to your home, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails, and change her clothes. She is to stay in your home and mourn for her parents for a month; after that, you may marry her. Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her."

Deuteronomy 21:10-25
 

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Flee Fleet! said:

You are right about that, I guess there would be some things that would not be agreeable with at least the modern people of the western world.

One such example comes to mind: Death penalties, and sometimes harsh punishments, are to be given to criminals, according to some holy books, although such punishments don't seem to be encouraged by the laws of the modern western world (do correct me if I'm wrong here though, I'm not that knowledgeable of Western law)

Of course that doesn't necessarily mean the books message is bad either. As I theorised earlier, the reason homosexuality was out lawed was probably done as an attempt to stop the spread of STDs. Likewise, death penalties and Harare punishment for crimes would undoubtedly have been the norm as running full scale prisons just wasn't viable for the societies of the past.

[Flee Fleet!]

11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Of course that doesn't necessarily mean the books message is bad either. As I theorised earlier, the reason homosexuality was out lawed was probably done as an attempt to stop the spread of STDs. Likewise, death penalties and Harare punishment for crimes would undoubtedly have been the norm as running full scale prisons just wasn't viable for the societies of the past.

Ah, I wasn't trying to imply the books message to be bad, sorry if it seemed like that. I also think that messages and forbidden actions such as the ones you stated have a reason for being forbidden/outlawed. 

So basically, its just that these messages are perceived differently by the people of today, whereas it was common and considered good in the past.

[John Denver Fan]

12 hours ago, Takumeme said:

No religion is bad. I take that back, most religions aren’t bad, but the people who belong to them are bad. 

Well it wold be correct for Islams due to a certain terrorist group that cannot have its name revealed for obvious reasons, It controlled most of Syria and Iraq at its peak. There are many Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle east the some people following their religion, in this case Islam twist the words of their religious scripture. They attack Israel when their religious texts forbid them from doing so. All and all, the people who twist their religious scripture and do bad things like I mentioned above are to blame, not the religion.

[Shoblongoo]

13 hours ago, John Denver Fan said:

All and all, the people who twist their religious scripture and do bad things like I mentioned above are to blame, not the religion.

...except when the Scripture literally tells you: "Make war against the non-believers. Burn their cities. Kill their men. Rape their women. Enslave their children." 

And being a good person means having the mental wherewithal to say: "...ignore that part. Yes; I know--its in the Scripture. I don't care if we said the entire thing is the word of God. Treat it as Bronze Age rules for Bronze Age civilizations."

____________

"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.  If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.  If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. ¹³ When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies."

-Deuteronomy 20:10-14-

Edited February 27, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Jotari]

5 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

...except when the Scripture literally tells you: "Make war against the non-believers. Burn their cities. Kill their men. Rape their women. Enslave their children." 

And being a good person means having the mental wherewithal to say: "...ignore that part. Yes; I know--its in the Scripture. I don't care if we said the entire thing is the word of God. Treat it as Bronze Age rules for Bronze Age civilizations."

____________

"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.  If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.  If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. ¹³ When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies."

-Deuteronomy 20:10-14-

Thou shalt no kill...unless I say so.

[Shoblongoo]

Just now, Jotari said:

Thou shalt no kill...unless I say so.

Oh that last one was just "Juedo-Christian" God's commandment for "...how your are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby." 

...then there's this little gem...

"However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God."

-Deuteronomy 20:16-18-

________________

^^^
For those still under the mistake-of-fact that only the Islamic scriptures command believers to Kill in the Name of God. Or that you have to "twist religious scripture" to infer that the God of Abraham, as written, wants you to commit religious violence.

(and just in case it wasn't absolutely clear that this was a Book of Man, written to give pretense of divine authority and moral justification to human endeavors. i.e. "Externalizing the ego and calling it God.")  

[Flee Fleet!]

5 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

...except when the Scripture literally tells you: "Make war against the non-believers. Burn their cities. Kill their men. Rape their women. Enslave their children." 

To be fair the Quran states to only fight in self defense, and limits must not be transgressed:

Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loves not aggressors. [2:190] 

Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just. [60:8]

O believers! Stand out firmly for God, as witnesses for the sake of justice, and let not the hatred of a people cause you to turn away from justice. Do justice, for that is akin to piety... [5:8]

(It must be noted that the first verse was revealed as a permission by Allah for the Muslims to fight against the Quraish, who were planning to kill them in Madinah (Medina). Thus, this led to the battle of Badr. I'll need to look up the context for the other two verses, though.)

And there is no verse stating that non believing women are to be raped or the children must be enslaved.

 

 

[Shoblongoo]

10 minutes ago, Flee Fleet! said:

To be fair the Quran states to only fight in self defense, and limits must not be transgressed:

Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loves not aggressors. [2:190] 

Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just. [60:8]

O believers! Stand out firmly for God, as witnesses for the sake of justice, and let not the hatred of a people cause you to turn away from justice. Do justice, for that is akin to piety... [5:8]

(It must be noted that the first verse was revealed as a permission by Allah for the Muslims to fight against the Quraish, who were planning to kill them in Madinah (Medina). Thus, this led to the battle of Badr. I'll need to look up the context for the other two verses, though.)

And there is no verse stating that non believing women are to be raped or the children must be enslaved.

 

 

I'm actually unclear on this; maybe you could help me out.

How much of the Old Testament does the Quran endorse as divine truth revealed to pre-Islamic prophets, and how much is considered voided by the revelations to Mohammad? 

Like I know Muslim's believe in the creation story of Genesis. They believe in Eden and Adam and the Flood. They believe in the Abrahamic genealogies of the Hebrew people by-and-through Isaac; Son of Sarah + the Arab people by-and-through Ishmael; Son of Hagar. They believe Jesus existed and that he was a prophet.

To what extent, if any, does Islam endorse the supposed revelations of divine law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy?

Because most of the really horrifying shit in the Bible about rape and murder and slavery comes from the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. 

 

Edited February 27, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Flee Fleet!]

7 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'm actually unclear on this; maybe you could help me out.

How much of the Old Testament does the Quran endorse as divine truth revealed to pre-Islamic prophets, and how much is considered voided by the revelations to Mohammad? 

Like I know Muslim's believe in the creation story of Genesis. They believe in Eden and Adam and the Flood. They believe in the Abrahamic genealogies of the Hebrew people by-and-through Isaac; Son of Sarah + the Arab people by-and-through Ishmael; Son of Hagar. They believe Jesus existed and that he was a prophet.

To what extent, if any, does Islam endorse the supposed revelations of divine law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy?

Because most of the really horrifying shit in the Bible about rape and murder and slavery comes from the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. 

Uh, for starters, I barely know anything about what the Old Testament says besides for a few verses here and there, so don't take my word as final if I say anything about it

As far as concerning if Islam endorses any of the revelations of divine law in the Bible/ in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, I am unclear about this and I need to find out more about it (for which I may have to read the Bible). I do know however that  that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not considered to be revealed by God Himself.

Either way, considering that the Quran does exist, Muslims are commanded to seek guidance from it, rather than from the previous books (reason being that it was altered).

[eclipse]

I am going to start handing out warnings if I see any more Bible verses (or any other religious tenets) thrown out in an attempt to discredit said religion without proper context/research.  If you can't be arsed to research what you're posting, don't post it.

On 2/26/2018 at 12:58 AM, Flee Fleet! said:

You can not imagine the amount of people who take Quranic verses out of context and spread their judgement about it on Youtube.

I don't get why people just take a verse from any religious book without context and spread misinformation about it.

Partly to push an agenda.  Right now, Islam isn't seen in a positive light.  It's convenient, since America has economic interests in one of the areas that Islam is prevalent in.

The other reasons are conjecture on my part, ranging from good ol' prejudice (the root of crap like racism), to a misguided sense of self-importance, to actual ignorance, to outright malice, to things I haven't thought of.

If I wanted to shove my foot in my mouth, I could find many other ways to do so, all of which are a lot less charged.

[Flee Fleet!]

28 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Partly to push an agenda.  Right now, Islam isn't seen in a positive light.  It's convenient, since America has economic interests in one of the areas that Islam is prevalent in.

The other reasons are conjecture on my part, ranging from good ol' prejudice (the root of crap like racism), to a misguided sense of self-importance, to actual ignorance, to outright malice, to things I haven't thought of.

I guess pushing an agenda is the most likely reason for some "popular" (I hope this is the correct word) people  to show Islam in a negative light then.

Actual ignorance, prejudice, and malice seem to be the most common reason among the anti Islam Youtubers I've met on Youtube, now that I think about it. Especially the former two, as most of them kept spouting the same things about Islam.

[Jotari]

49 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I am going to start handing out warnings if I see any more Bible verses (or any other religious tenets) thrown out in an attempt to discredit said religion without proper context/research.  If you can't be arsed to research what you're posting, don't post it.

Partly to push an agenda.  Right now, Islam isn't seen in a positive light.  It's convenient, since America has economic interests in one of the areas that Islam is prevalent in.

The other reasons are conjecture on my part, ranging from good ol' prejudice (the root of crap like racism), to a misguided sense of self-importance, to actual ignorance, to outright malice, to things I haven't thought of.

If I wanted to shove my foot in my mouth, I could find many other ways to do so, all of which are a lot less charged.

Honestly, I do t think Deuteronomy has much context to it. It's just a law book with a bunch of various laws laid out, almost in bullet point form (of course the context of various translations is something that always needs to be considered).

Anyway, I don't think Shoblongoo is attempting to discredit the religion(s) as a whole, based on this comment,

18 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

...except when the Scripture literally tells you: "Make war against the non-believers. Burn their cities. Kill their men. Rape their women. Enslave their children." 

And being a good person means having the mental wherewithal to say: "...ignore that part. Yes; I know--its in the Scripture. I don't care if we said the entire thing is the word of God. Treat it as Bronze Age rules for Bronze Age civilizations."

He's just pointing out that these sort of things exist. At least that's the way I'm taking all these quotes.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Jotari