Religion/Spirituality Theism Discussion (Abrahamic Religions, Religious Philosophy, etc.)

[Blackking]

By strategic neglect of factual information and artistic licence the reader is left to assume Jews have only been the victims of Slavery but never the perpetuators of Slavery. Now it must be reiterated that being Jewish, Muslim or anything is not directly related to Slavery, it is an act humans do, it is not because of their religion; it is because of their human weaknesses. If it was due to religion then why does slavery, war, etc predate all known major world religions? More often than not religion is why vastly different communities are able to coexist with tolerance. So to assume Muslims or Arabs, and not Jews, by virtue of religion are more inclined to slavery is vulgar. It is the same racism that sells the fact that African-Americans by virtue of their race are more inclined to rape, steal and kill. Statements like ‘Slavery predates Islam, but continues under Islam and the Muslim Arab rulers’ are statements loaded with a false focus on the Islamic religion and sets up a casual relationship between slavery and Islam.

Some of the most ill-read Afrocentrics are guilty of the same hypocrisy and double standards. The biggest slavers in Africa where neither Muslim nor Christain, yet they constantly neglect Dahomy and focus on Arabs and Muslims as agents of enslavement. Afrocentric history on one page vilifies these religions but then on the next page tries to score racial points by claiming the glories of the Islamic and Christain contributions such as Mali, Aksum and Songhai. They try to claim the history of Sunni Ali Ber and discount his Islamic heritage. They pose the libraries of Timbuktu to the world as testimony of African accomplishment yet deny the Islamic backbone. The blood lust of Dahomey is washed over yet the Jihads of the Islamic states are sold as some extra-historical event that was totally unprecedented in African history. African states have always fought wars, Kemet crushed Nubia and then Ethiopia finally destroyed an annexed Nubia in A.D 350, why then do Afrocentrics bring a peculiar lens when Muslims conquer others in West Africa?

Terms like "Islamic Invasion" and "foreign religions" are painted all over African history exclusively as if this was the process by which Christianity and Islam came into Africa. Islam has been a native part of the African landscape for 1418 years, Christianity for 2000 and Judaism for far longer. Yet history paints Christianity in Europe as if it was fundamentally a European institution, they pain Buddhism in China as if its origins where Chinese. Anthropologist seeks to extract religion from reality and make Africa the perpetual victim. This unique thesis where Africans are concern reasserts the lack of agency and racist perception of a "child like” and weak Africa.

 

[Blackking]

Anti Islam
these were two of the more interesting speakers, each side had 3 speakers

IT's neither peaceful or not peaceful... It is submission to the will.............. so if you go by that and follow the practices and consider harm on your fellow man as harm on yourself - then you should be peaceful.

The saying and greeting in Islam is peace..... but when shyt hits the fan - or when a person needs to defend themselves or when a person is just calling themselves Muslim out of force or culture 'peace' rarely happens.

 

[bzb]

Islam in and of itself does not permit peace as a response to injustice and oppression...

this is the part that causes muslims problems. injustice and oppression can be perceived differently and open to interpretation. who sets the bar for when violence is justified?

there are also some gender role edicts open to interpretation which are problematic for the perception of Islam.

other religions have some of these challenges as well so it's not unique to islam, but modern day extremists have created serious perception issues. opportunists have also done a good job of making extremists views seem mainstream.

 

[Shogun]

Nothing that is associated with humanity is peaceful.

 

[the cac mamba]

islam

 

[HoloGraphic]

Why not Taoism? We don't use the Tao to justify violence. We take full responsibility for our actions.

 

[The Real]

Oxford Union needs to stop having these ridiculous debates. First of all, the topic is generic as hell. There's no easy answer to a question like that. You have to be more contextual, even if you're asking bigger questions like "is there unethical violence in the Quran" or "are modern Muslims more violent than followers of other religions." Second, they bring in one idiotic, hypocritical Islamophobe and one ultra-liberal Muslim who romanticizes and reinterprets the Quran to suit modern liberal values while denying history and to some extent the present. Neither of these two are going to have a balanced or really accurate perspective on the issue of violence in religion.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Oxford Union needs to stop having these ridiculous debates. First of all, the topic is generic as hell. There's no easy answer to a question like that. You have to be more contextual, even if you're asking bigger questions like "is there unethical violence in the Quran" or "are modern Muslims more violent than followers of other religions." Second, they bring in one idiotic, hypocritical Islamophobe and one ultra-liberal Muslim who romanticizes and reinterprets the Quran to suit modern liberal values while denying history and to some extent the present. Neither of these two are going to have a balanced or really accurate perspective on the issue of violence in religion.

Isnt that the point, friend?

 

[Depreciating Asset]

Great topic. I need to watch the videos, read posts and check back in.

 

[The Real]

Isnt that the point, friend?

Maybe sometimes, but a lot of the time it just seems like stupidity and ignorance. If this was a network news debate, I'd say yes, you're right, because they only want to drum up sensationalism for ratings/profit, and you can't do that with a reasonable debate with no extremists involved, but this is supposed to be purely educational and not for profit.

 

[Mr. Somebody]

Maybe sometimes, but a lot of the time it just seems like stupidity and ignorance. If this was a network news debate, I'd say yes, you're right, because they only want to drum up sensationalism for ratings/profit, and you can't do that with a reasonable debate with no extremists involved, but this is supposed to be purely educational and not for profit.

The profit is in the the people they influence with their rhetoric.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Mehdi Hasan is an idiot.

 

[Broke Wave]

this is the part that causes muslims problems. injustice and oppression can be perceived differently and open to interpretation. who sets the bar for when violence is justified?

there are also some gender role edicts open to interpretation which are problematic for the perception of Islam.

other religions have some of these challenges as well so it's not unique to islam, but modern day extremists have created serious perception issues. opportunists have also done a good job of making extremists views seem mainstream.

Nah it's pretty specific in my view but lets remember the history of the Middle East where most of the violence comes from, and which parties have initiated violence. You don't think that it's a little hypocritical to talk about whether one group is inherently violent, when the supposedly peaceful group has been perpetrating injustice and unwarranted violence in the region for the last 200 years?

Oxford Union needs to stop having these ridiculous debates. First of all, the topic is generic as hell. There's no easy answer to a question like that. You have to be more contextual, even if you're asking bigger questions like "is there unethical violence in the Quran" or "are modern Muslims more violent than followers of other religions." Second, they bring in one idiotic, hypocritical Islamophobe and one ultra-liberal Muslim who romanticizes and reinterprets the Quran to suit modern liberal values while denying history and to some extent the present. Neither of these two are going to have a balanced or really accurate perspective on the issue of violence in religion.

There is also the issue that a lot of Muslims won't touch that Mehdi Hassan is a Shia, which in my view means he's no Muslim at all... Shia's have a radically different view of what Islam is and to have him defend Islam at one of these debates in and of itself makes it void to me... then again I don't think anyone gets their opinions from formal debates so ;ehh:

 

[acri1]

I don't think any religion is really peaceful, certainly not any Abrahamic religion.

Most individual members of said religions are peaceful, but it's very, very easy to justify religious violence if you want to. You can find things in any of these holy books, and you can make arguments that fundamenalists are just following their religion more closely than moderates.

 

[Blackking]

I don't think any religion is really peaceful, certainly not any Abrahamic religion.

Most individual members of said religions are peaceful, but it's very, very easy to justify religious violence if you want to. You can find things in any of these holy books, and you can make arguments that fundamenalists are just following their religion more closely than moderates.

it's not easy to justify shyt threw religion.

No one buys that shyt then or now.

revisionist history is the only thing that allows us to ignore land conflict, cultural conflict, grabs for power, and greed - and put everything on religion. Then turn around and pretend that it was the religion that made those things easy to justify. When we have seen entire empires and nations use other things to justify greed power cultural conflict and land grabs.