In article <0001HW.BDE07F49001026B2F02845B0@news.newshosting.com>,
::Duey:: <McScrooge@dduck.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 6:26:53 +0700, Y-Not:: wrote
> (in message <101220041750216656%$7+-Y-Not@here.com>):
>
> > In article <ejnjr0p4ppn9104k4nf0mopdfleprbs3iq@4ax.com>, <me@there.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> How I agree. Here in England in my town they have forbidden any
> >> christmas trees or decorations in the streets because the muslim shit
> >> have complained that it is an insult to islam. Considering these
> >> assholes are causing the worlds problems how bloody pathetic and
> >> hypocritical they are. I say that if these turds dont like it, then
> >> bugger off back to their own country and stop living on the tax payers
> >> of this and other lands. PM. NP.f35.
> >
> >
> > Oh how Christian of you! :-)
> >
> > See my reply to Rich. I wonder what you will think of it...
> >
> > Of all the major religions, Islam is the most opposed, in practice, to
> > the worship of idols. They consider the Nativity Scene to be an example
> > of idol worship, and find it VERY offensive. Objectively, I think there
> > is some reasonable justification for their view.
> > Actually, as an extension of this strong belief, they consider ANY
> > religious symbol to be offensive, which is why they have none of their
> > own.
> > I just thought I'd try to be a little helpful, with the knowledge thing.
> >
> > For your information, they do accept Jesus as a worthwhile profit.
> >
> > Being a native of a country that's had it's own state religion for
> > centuries, it's understandable that you could have different views
> > about the equality of faiths.
> >
> > Take care,
> >
> >
> > Y Not
> >
> >
> > "Love is everything.
> > That's really big."
>
> Couldn't manage to let this one go by...usually I have a little more
> self'control. It amazes me that those who claim to be 'God and Country"
> Americans, know so little about the constitution.
>
> Take, for example, Rich, He is just putting out bullshit. His statements,
> "Actitivists seek to take away our right to observe Christmas..." "Christmas
> decorations are offensive to them..." and "...the word God, the phrase
> 'Prince of Peace' is inflamatory (sic) to them..." are simply not true. I
> defy him to produce a single citation supporting his claim that activitis
> find the word God or Prince of Peace offensive.
>
> His is either the mindless acceptance of some pseudo-Christian cant or, worse
> yet, an intentional promotion of same. This view simply panders to the
> persecutory fantasies that some people have/need to have. The religious
> right in America has made good mileage out of feeding these ideas and
> regularly point out of that the 'liberal press (a myth)" or the "activitists"
> (usually one can substitute the word Jew here) are 'out to get us.' What's
> amazing is that people continue to be taken in by such transparently false
> bullshit as Rich is spewing forth. "If I hand't believed it, I wouldn't have
> seen it", indeed.
>
> There is a law in the United States that prohibits a state-imposed religion.
> Many of the founders of the country were fleeing religious persecution and
> they were mindful that the mixof government and religion can be a dangerous
> one. Thus, it the use of public property to display what are (essentially)
> Chrisitian symbols can be (and has been) questioned. Isn't America
> wonderful, you can acutally have a debate about such things. I wonder how
> Rich would feel about placing a big Cresecent over city hall and a Star of
> David in front of the library. My guess is that he'd be against it.
>
> If Rich's church (assuming he even belongs to one) wishes to festoon their
> lawn with Christmas decorations, there is no problem, nor has anyone (to my
> knowledge) ever claimed that there was. It is a private religion practicing
> it's First Amendment Rights on private property. End of story. People may
> trash the decorations but people spray swatstikas on jewish gravestones too.
> There apparently is no end nor bottom to such behavior.
>
> With regard to the 'new' PM's post (if it is indeed his post), I don't know
> the law in England. He doesn't explain it. So the display of religious
> symbols in public places may in fact, be legal in England. As Y-Not points
> out it is the "Church of England". I suspect there are laws that protect
> minority religions, however, and some of them may curtail the display of any
> religious content on public property.
>
> In any event, the statements with regard to what the poster calls "Muslim
> shit" and "these turds", speak for themselves. Is "Muslim shit" like 'queer
> shit' are boy lovers to be considered in the group "these turds"?
>
> Duey
>
>
> Seeing is believing. If I hadn't believed it, I wouldn't have seen it.
>
>
Feeling flushed?
I'm not much known for religious things here, even though I often
promote the true values that most religions stand for. This might
change a little now. :-)
WARNING TO ALL READERS:
What follows can be very upsetting to some. It isn't intended to be
anything more than a scholarly essay, of the kind that is often found
in Seminaries and other institutions of religious study. Yes, we
actually do this sort of thing. After all, how else can we defend our
faith, unless we know it's weaknesses? It's better to learn these
things among friends, then get smacked upside the head with it, by an
enemy. :-)
These are mostly general observations, and except for one obvious case
history, are not meant to be applied to any particular individual.
If any of this could offend you, please DON'T READ IT.
You've been warned. Procede at your own risk. Don't come running to me
if you get wounded, to attack me for it. It won't do any good.
Exposition:
Human nature opposes religion in every way. EVERY religion.
Religion tries to keep us from:
Hating who we dislike.
Screwing everybody we can grab, whether they want it or not.
Taking whatever we want.
Smashing everything we don't want, to keep others from having it.
Killing people, unless the state says so, of course. (Yeah, right!)
Actually, it tries to keep us from having any real fun at all.
So it's no wonder that most people don't usually follow the very
religion they profess to observe.
There is a big problem at the root of this. It's sort of in two parts,
but in explaining it, I'll have to start with the first part, in order
to lay the foundation for the second. It's controversial, and may upset
some people, but it's necessary to understand the second part. It may
not seem to be relevant, so bear with me. :-)
The Essay:
Monotheism is completely against human nature. So much so, it's a
wonder it ever got started, at least the pale imitation of it we
actually had. We don't have hardly any of it now. How it got started is
no real mystery. It evolved from the emptiness of the desert. I think
you can reason out the progression (I'm aware of the quality of your
mind), so I don't have to do it for you. It was a revolutionary
concept, and like pure Communism, it's unworkable in practice. I was
going to qualify that with, "in anything larger than a small
community", but it's actually worse in religion, because the group
leader then becomes the idol to worship. Yes, I actually mean that.
I'll explain.
Human beings are driven by a need to worship something. This very
strong need isn't much satisfied by an abstract God that no sane person
ever sees. So, in the secular world, where we don't use this term much,
but where it's very true nonetheless, we worship our leaders, be they
political figures, sports players, entertainment stars, or our parents.
Anybody we think is better than ourselves, that we can get past our
resentment for it, we worship, but never just one person.
in religion, it's naturally more intense. But we'll start with the
basic concepts. What's with this Holy Trinity? Even the Jews have a
similar concept. We just can't accept only one God, so we have to split
Him/Her up to satisfy our need for a pantheon of deities. Hey, we even
had to create a Devil, in order to provide a host for the unpleasant
qualities that we wish our ONE God didn't have. Of course the
practitioners of these systems will argue that it's not so, and go all
semantical on us, but the reality of the experience speaks for itself.
But no, we aren't just satisfied with splitting up God, we have to SEE
something to kneel down in front of, to pray to. Christians have an
image of torture and execution, with a human being in the center of it.
Yes it's but a symbol, but people pray to it, and I mean to the STATUE,
as if it's a real God in itself. They've been asked about it. They go
into raptures over the experience, and even sometimes see it DO things.
But it gets worse. They've made Jesus' Mother into a God, and pray to
HER statue as well, as a graven idol, which two of the Ten Commandments
expressly forbid them to do. They can try to explain it any way they
want to, but this is the reality of it. And they even worship Saints,
and their rotting body parts. If Moses and Jesus were alive today and
witnessed this, they would want their names removed from all that these
people do. I'm not going to leave the Jews out of this. They worship a
book, the Torah. That's a little better than disgusting body parts,
anyway. The founders of Islam saw all this happening, and sought to
prevent it by forbidding ALL images of any kind, of animals and humans,
reasoning that there would then be nothing to take away from their one
abstract God. But you can't bypass human nature. They came to worship
their religious leaders with a fervor that no other religion has
experienced. Example: How many Christian and Jewish leaders have
suicide bombers to do their will?
Worshiping graven idols is relatively innocuous, compared to worshiping
a living person who can do no wrong in your eyes. Then you become his
death soldier if he so chooses. And some have.
As an aside, this might give you some insight to the current Islamic
terrorist situation.
So how does this support the second part of my essay, that describes
the real cause of this problem we're discussing? We'll start with this.
Those with the power, will change their religion to suit their
convenience. Example: the reason for the establishment of the Church of
England. It was to enable divorce. Ironic that a reigning British
Why did Martin Luther start the Reformation? You know the reasons. When
religious leaders get too powerful, they will make their religion into
their own private party, and tool of vengeance, and those who worship
these leaders will blindly follow them to Hell. But how do they get
their worshippers to do this unquestioningly? They rewrite their
religious books, or if they can't do that, they add a whole bunch of
"interpretations" to it to confuse everyone. So what happens if they
can't do even that? They do so much direct preaching, that their
personal worshippers don't feel the need to study their own religious
books at all. And it wouldn't matter much if they did, when their own
personal preaching God stands in front of them and force feeds them
what he wants them to know. People feel ever so much more comfortable
being told what to believe in person, than having to actually think for
themselves, and do some reading and learning on their own. They prefer
to follow blindly, rather than to learn WHY.
The old "let George do it" principle has a lot to do with it, too.
"George", in this case, being religious professionals.
Case history:
I had a Muslim friend from another country, who was going to college in
North America. He considered himself to be very devout, and worshiped
the required five times a day, and observed the Sabbath and all other
holy days. He followed a well known Islamic Cleric. BUT HE'D NEVER READ
THE KORAN. He said he didn't need to. I read some parts of it to him.
"Interesting" was his only comment. He was horrified at the Towers'
fall. He wasn't against the US then. But I saw him change. He had
friends at the Mosque who were trying to win him over. In the course of
a few months, they succeeded. He now hates the US as much as anyone
can, and no longer considers me to be his friend.
This is what prompted me to do some extensive research into the cause
of this situation, even though I had already known most of it.
So now you know why so few people understand even the basic concepts of
their own religion, even while they are trying to force it onto others.
Yes, it's ridiculous, but there isn't much that can be done about it.
Reason and logic are ineffective against belief, even if it's patently
false.
You can also see how easy it is for people to use their religion to
justify all that they do, even when it's obviously AGAINST their own
religion. They reshape it to their own ends.
I've barely touched on the topic here. There is much more to be shared.
I could teach a whole course on this. Oops!
Here's on oddity:
Eastern Orthodoxy is now part of the Catholic system, with the Pope as
it's head. Eastern Orthodox Priests have always been allowed to marry.
Even though they are now under the authority of the Catholic Church,
that forbids it's Priests to marry, Eastern Orthodox Priests are STILL
allowed to get married. Go figure! Did I mention logic? :-)
Maybe for the next topic, we could discuss the "Me and Mine" principle
in social psychology, as it relates to these current topics. It's
another one of these powerful forces of human nature, that can cause us
so much strife.
They killed my discussion group, but it will never die!
Well, maybe. :-)
Take care,
Y Not
"Knowledge is good.
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