Another curious dimension to it is although the Charlie Hebdo murderers claim to represent Islam, they have been almost unanimously shunned by the wider community Islam. I believe they have effectively been disowned by the highest (human) authorities of Islam and yet they would still claim to be fighting for their God.
I'm sure that's correct.(RM2 penultimate post)It isn't religion per se that makes terrorists. It seems that the nutters come from relatively low status low income groups. This doesn't augur well for society because the distribution of wealth is rapidly becoming more sharply defined. It may not be long beforte the main purpose of the poilce will be to protect the haves from the have nots. The outrages are likely to be confined to capital cities with maybe the odd provincial capital involved. If you live in Cromer or the High Auvergne in France you are highly unlikely to be involved.
Whilst I don't see that much between us I can't agree on Atheism being a religion,apart from within a wider semantic meaning.
Yep that's where I got to Although I should apologise for not being clearer... It's not "atheism" that is a religion per se. It's certain people's atheism. I imagine we can both agree that a tribe in Brazil which doesn't believe there is a god but rather in rivers of substance, would be an "atheistic religion". But that's obviously very different. In my view a religion depends on how people treat it - I suspect the vast majority of people do not treat atheism religiously. My point was simply that carrabuh on this thread, and elsewhere, behaves dogmatically, which is not so very different from how extremist Christians (or any others) might behave Not a bad thing. Just a point to note when critically assessing others.
I think my defence of Carra was largely motivated by the fact that he more or less outlined my view on this exactly. I was particularly in agreement on the subject of indoctrination in education. I didnt reply to OCF and his example of being made to do cross country runs. If you are forced to do any subject you just leave it behind. I was told by a guy brought up as a Catholic that his religion is all pervading. He said that despite considering himself an Atheist he still found himself displaying Catholic traits. I do hope he didn't mean touching up young boys.I didn't ask.
Oof, yes. That was the bit I strongly agreed on - it is simply not fair to give children anything other than free choice or force them to practise any faith. I do believe there should be RE lessons, combined with Philosophy and Ethics, so children are not ignorant of different religions and viewpoints, but I don't have time for any of these faith schools. The Catholic hierarchy still has an awful lot to answer for...
I knew we'd swing round to Catholicism if the thread went on long enough! I went to a junior Catholic school, would have been senior too, but Notre Dame was 'girls only' at the time. (I would have coped!). You could look upon it as a form of brainwashing, I was carpet-bombed with it at home too. All it did was turn me away from it though, which I doubt was the intention. Do we really feel no-one is capable of making their own minds up as we grow?
Absolutely not! That's why dads put Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" above their sons' beds.... My mum had the same experience of Catholicism so I have some sympathy
Not sure it has been unanimously shunned. If you listen to what most of them say they deplore the killings but then add as a caveat that they don't like people mocking their imaginary sky friend.
It wasn't so long ago that I was at school myself and nearly every kid in my RS class thought of the subject as a waste of time and of no interest. It wasn't until I took a module in business ethics at university that I took any interest in philosophy and I do now actually find the subjects very thoughtful and interesting - but when I was in school I couldn't have cared less. If you force children of primary school age to learn about philosophy and ethics you can't teach them in any degree of complexity (although perhaps still worthwhile). I had the choice of carrying on with Religious Studies (although not ethics or philosophy specifically) at GCSE and A-Level but had no interest in doing so. Should students be forced to learn RS, philosophy and ethics - well it's not a subject that will help you get a job or get into university when you leave school so it's easy to see why it's unpopular. It would take away the option of studying a more practical subject. I had to take compulsory 'General Studies' at Sixth Form and made very little effort to succeed at it because, at the time, it was a subject I didn't want to take but had no choice but to take. The problem is that that sort of knowledge isn't of much practical use to the individual but if everybody learned it then I think society as a whole would be a lot better off. As for faith schools in the UK, I don't think there is a place for them. Children from different backgrounds should be integrated but that is a separate argument.
I said 'almost unanimously'. And saying that they don't like people offending their religion isn't quite the same as taking up arms and killing innocent people because they believe that they are the enemies of their religion...
I think there's a simple answer to that, to a Wahhabi Muslim, the rest of Islam aren't "true Muslims", so don't represent Islam in it's "purest form", which they believe to be Wahhabism. So being shunned by the wider Islam community is no different to a season ticket holder of 10 years not listening to the opinion of a plastic fan who couldn't even name a team's home stadium. As to KIO's teaser, I think the simple answer is that it limits the problem to (3+1) dimensions. Replace your 3d room with a square on a piece of paper, its quite easy to see how to get something in the square - you drop it from above. Seeing as superstring theory calls for at least 10 dimensions to exist, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to imagine the big bang being triggered by something in one of these unknown dimensions. Seeing as a multiverse is far from disproven, there's also the possibility that the stimulus came from beyond our universe.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the government and media are in cahoots to persuade us that these things are supported by far fewer Moslems than is in reality the case. The wheeling out of positive role models is rife and,I am guessing here of course,if the British Moslem population was polled there would be a majority in favour of such things as Sharia Law,FGM and arranged under age marriage. Obviously these things are part of their culture and it would be foolish to expect them to just drop centuries of their heritage and adopt ours. Sadly for me Multiculturism is dead. It was an interesting experiment that was,ultimately, a failure. I see no real alternative but for Islam to pursue it's ideals in countries that wish to go down that road. Above all we cannot tolerate intolerance and the disgraceful treatment of the female half of the population that we see daily in these parts of our society.
This isn't the debate you expect on a football forum but I've really enjoyed it! Proper questions being asked and lots of opinions!
Research from the University of Essex has found that Moslems are the most certain in their belief in their religion. You don't really need to add much given that piece of information. Yes,it's remained civilised, and I think for this reason. To a large extent we are all singing from the same hymn sheet. OCF,quite reasonably in my view as a Radical Atheist declared himself a Christian,I wouldn't want to prevent him following his religion. It's rather like smoking OCF is in effect saying "I know you are a non smoker but I'm going to nip out and have a crafty woodbine". Radical Islam is saying "I smoke Capstan Full Strength.We are going to sit here and you are going to smoke the whole packet or I'll lop your napper off and post it on Youtube"
One of the Japanese blokes in the latest Jihadi John reality show is a bit odd to say the least, his poor wife died of cancer and his business failed so grief stricken was he that he attempted suicide and even contemplated cutting his own nob off and living as a woman. In the end he decided to go to Syria as a self appointed military adviser. ISIS want $200m in 48 hours or they will both get their heads hacked off .
So, should we have taken notice of Enoch ? Was he the racist he was made out to be ? A whole new debate I know but you have to say with the way we live our lives in this country today there was a lot of truth in his 'rivers of blood' speech. Those that integrate into our society I welcome with open arms indeed my future son-in-law is of Angolan origin, but those that threaten our way of life because they choose to live in the dark ages I have no time for.
