I'm not questioning the idea that people are (almost universally) against incest, but that they should be against incest given a particular context.

We are against incest because we have evolved to be less attracted to those we grow up around (you don't have to related genetically for this to occur, but being related genetically certainly has an additional cultural component today). Now, whether this is valid (and actually wrong) is debatable, and why I'm questioning your reasoning.

(1) Yes, lions can rape one another (2) Rape at one time or another could have been a long term benefit (3) "Modern rape" vs. "warrior culture" rape should not affect the morality of the act despite the fact that the latter may have increased the viability of a particular group.

Unfortunately you'd already responded to the post I deleted (as I'd decided that it wasn't relevant to the point you making about my 'naturalistic' understanding of morality). but thanks anyway.

OK, going to stop responding at this point because I clearly have some reading to do.

When you say this, do you think you are asking a question or making a statement? Also, given how you have no problem considering islam to be the worst religion, would it be safe to say you are suggesting that islam is the worst religion?Or that you believe islam is the worst religion? Or that you are claiming, not with complete certainty, but nonetheless claiming, that islam is the worst religion? Because remember you scoffed at the idea of the last of these? But I don't see how it is different from the first of these. It seems you think it has something to do with certainty, which I submit is an abuse of the english language if that is your saving grace.

I think you missed my point, which is that choosing select "objective" criteria is not necessarily a good way to define worse, given how broadly the concept of religions are. For instance "percentage of followers who wear turbans" is a criteria that is objective - it gives you the context you want - but it is a really bad and not at all meaningful use of the word "worse" here. So when I listed examples of races or gender or whatever, the point was that the objective criteria I gave - giving an explicit context - were really BAD objective criteria and I ought not to judge these groups based on them despite the objectivity and precision of the context.

However, despite only mentioning three ways to consider this question, your ways are FAR from objective. How do you measure the most violent religion? Per capita crimes? Historical death in battles? Canonical statement? Do you consider violence in first world countries or just third world? If you take global averages, are you adjusting for biases in the polity or wealth of countries that might influence violence? etc etc etc. I doubt you can make it objective. But even if you COULD make it objective, it is not remotely clear that answering "which religion is more violent" is sufficient to say "which religion is worse".



If you only define the greatest and least elements of a set, it means you can compare any element to the greatest or least element, but you can't compare two non greatest/least elements. So it is better - and this is what mathematicians do if they can - is define a complete ordering that says "given two religions, i can say which is worse". For instance islam might be worse than christianity, but might now be THE worst religion ever. So simply telling me the worst religion ever doesn't tell me which of these two is worse.

I'm glad you changed your avatar btw, the other one I had to keep scrolling out of view if my kids came into the office..... otherwise, endless questions...

Not sure if 'abuse' is the right word. It's more that if pushed I would definitely swing one way on this issue but that doesn't mean that I'm certain or that I wouldn't like to explore it further.

I'm not ignoring your other points, I'll have to come back to them.

You should answer the first question listed there. Namely is you saying you have no problem considering Islam worse thank Christianity a question or a statement?

Ok. I think I'd have to say that it's a statement but it's an opinion which I've since explained is not particularly well informed and could be changed, and that's not the same as making the statement 'Islam IS the worst religion' which would imply a conclusion that I feel that I can support and defend.

I have a general impression of this situation, I'd like to expand and improve on it. My way of starting a debate intended to achieve goal that was to ask 'IS Islam the worst religion?'.

Ah, the deconstructionist appears. Before I discuss this with you, I want to check if you are plugged into reality sufficiently to even have a discussion. So let me ask you this:

There are two religions. One is called Oldchristianity, encapsulated in the Old and New Testaments and the various ways they're interpreted in theory and practice. The other is Newchristianity, which is exactly the same as Oldchristianity, with the addition of the writings a later prophet who says:

- That the Jews are pigs who should be treated as dirt
- That polygamy is fine
- That you should not have friends from any religion outside Newchristianity.

That is all the writings of the later prophet say, and the only thing that separates Oldchristianity from Newchristianity. Can a person form a moral opinion as to which of these two religions is worse from the above information? If not, why not?

@Truthsayer

You are just trying to incite hatred and prejudice against Muslims by spouting sh*t. Jews are regarded as people of the book who are to be respected.

So when you later characterized your position as a question - and not the statement you agree it is - would you agree that this characterization was objectively wrong?

Now that is great that you are uncertain in your claim. It is great that you are open to changing your mind. However, I maintain that I was entirely correct to say you WERE indeed making this claim and indeed being uncertain or willing to change your mind doesn't mean you were not making a claim and trying to defend it. And of course, there is nothing in your original post - literally nothing - that indicates any form of "questioning", any form of "uncertainty", any form of "expand and improve on my impression". I submit your original post could hardly be said to being ASKING the question "is islam the worst religion", and entirely one of ANSWERING this question.

I think that religions are far far far more than simply their canonical writings. The practice of christianity today, for instance, looks nothing at all like the old testament, and despite their being some pretty horrific stuff in there, most of it isn't actually realized today. Indeed, I think only looking at canonical writings is a very poor and narrow metric to judge religions on. Indeed, it could well be the case that for whatever historical reasons newchristianity went on to become entirely monogomous while oldchristianity became polygamous or whatever else in which case whatever textual difference you found would mean very little.

And of course I entirely reject your thinly veiled caricature of christianity vs islam.

Truthsayer is doing the opposite of his name presumably because he is prejudiced against Muslims and wants to spread this prejudice around eg "
"the Jews are pigs who should be treated as dirt" relates to a story where Sabbath breakers were turned into swine. Nobody sensible takes this literally and the moral of the story is don't break the Sabbath NOT hate Jews forever. Islam teaches that Jews are people of the book and should be respected as such as the two religions share the same roots.

And throughout this exchange I haven't disagreed with you and I've been pointing out that I moved on to rephrasing it and approaching it as a question when I decided I wanted to debate it. I've never denied that if pushed to choose, I would currently choose Islam as the 'worst' religion.

None of which has progressed the actual debate which died a lonely death during your quest to prove me wrong on a matter of what... moving to accepting that I might be wrong in what I 'have no problem considering'? I'm not even sure what you think happened but I'm really quite over it now.

You most certainly DID disagree with me. When I talking about how the claim "islam is worse than christianity" is a sweeping generalization you agreed that it was but said that nobody was saying that, that you had just been asking questions. In truth, many people were saying that. In particular, the post I quoted of you was explicitly defending that claim. And you defended it without any shred of uncertainty or questioning in your tone or any qualification whatsoever. You said you had NO PROBLEMS with the claim. It was just a fundamentally different representation of what your post was, and you should acknowledge that.

As for moving on, I will note that we are still waiting for YOU to respond - as you said you would - to my last comment on the "substance" of the issue.

I wonder what people would say if the topic was 'Does thinking the Aztec religion with human sacrifice is worse than other religions make me a racist?'.Probably not a lot because there aren't any Aztec adherents around anymore.

Fair enough. Honestly, it is difficult to read your statements about the offensiveness of believing that Islam is worse than Christianity as being primarily about raising the evidentiary standard rather than trying to shame people into not making that claim, but I don't want to get too deep into your motivations here.

This is sort of what I mean. You are coming to this issue with the presumption that people who suggest that they are genuinely seeking to figure out whether Islam is worse than Buddhism or Christianity, etc. are either lying or just wrong about their motivations.

Two comments. First, I don't think we need to start such a discussion by agreeing on general guidelines about how to define these concepts. Rather, such guidelines should be part of the debate--what is the best way of defining or understanding a religion?

Second, I think we have conversations of this sort all the time: e.g. is market capitalism overall good or bad? Are certain kinds of patriarchal systems good or bad? Should we support liberalism or socialism or some other alternative? These terms are also very difficult to define and refer to a broad range of different ideas and groups. Yet, I think these conversations can nonetheless be useful.

Yeah, I didn't think your interpretation of tame_deuces here was very fair, so I don't have much to say about that.

Really? The idea that people should be treated equally maybe. Something like that.

I'm definitely bigoted, in so much as I hate religion. Despite learning more about islam, I'm staying fairly close to my "worst smelling turd" hypothesis. All jud chris and islam have really horrific **** in them as well as some sprinklings of good stuff; but I think islam (possibly through no fault of its own) lends itself to misinterpretation on behalf of its own adherants which results in more ****ty actions. So there might be perfectly good explanations for the **** in the quran like:

So there its not saying muslims should kill all non believers, just specific non believers of the time: well that's well and good but I think it lends itself to more radical behavior more easily than something in j/c. I can see x muslim is in the pits of despair turning the page that says "kill all non believers" and using it to justify horrific actions (again, perhaps wrongly), which might be more difficult for a christian that opens up the bible and it says something like "god ordered moses to kill all x women and children" or whatever. The quran seems more personal and specific, even if it's not intentional.

So, still most ****ed up/worst smelling turd.

edit:

And on a side note, I like to consider myself liberal and open minded; but a lot of political correctness just seems like cowardice to me, and really kind of like racism.

Like I was talking to someone about the head coverings the other day, and he was saying something like "covering your head is common in j and c as well," and it's like, that's well and good, but we never kept our women in black bags in the middle of the ****ing desert. People need to grow some balls and say that ****s ****ed up. Some people are like "well they're just a different people" or whatever--which just seems like racism to me. Like they aren't good enough for freedom.

edit:

and like the apologist explanation for the above quotes really makes it that much better; "no! we only wanted all muslims to kill all unbelievers only this one time, we swear!" yeah whatever.

So your argument is that Islam is a worse religion than Christianity or Judaism because in some Muslim countries women are forced to wear black dresses, but that doesn't happen to Christian or Jewish women.

I'm guessing you are very drunk right now.

Edit: Remember, if your claim is that Islam is worse than Judaism or Christianity, you have to do more than just point to something bad in Islam, you have to at minimum show that Judaism or Christianity doesn't also have that bad thing, or at least not to the same extent.

Do a little better job at reading and I'll respond.

"Women are your fields: go, then, into your fields whence you please." Quran 2:223, "The Cow," Dawood, p. 34

"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and forsake them in beds apart, and beat them." Quran 4:34, "Women," Dawood, p. 83

"A male shall inherit twice as much as a female." Quran 4:11, "Women," Dawood, p. 77

"Call in two male witnesses from among you, but if two men cannot be found, then one man and two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses..." Quran 2:282, "The Cow," Dawood, p. 47

"Women shall with justice have rights similar to those exercised against them, although men have a status above women." Quran 2:228, Dawood, p. 35

"If you fear that you cannot treat [orphan girls] with fairness, then you may marry other women who seem good to you: two, three, or four of them. But if you fear that you cannot maintain equality among them, marry one only or any slave-girl you may own." Quran 4:3, "Women," Dawood, p. 76

"If you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those [of your wives] who have not yet menstruated." Quran 65:4, "Divorce," Dawood, p. 557 [Dawood notes: "On account of their young age. Child marriages were common."]

"[Forbidden to you are] married women, except those whom you own as slaves." Quran 4:24, "Women," Dawood, p. 81

Some ****ed up ****.

Also your euphemism is dishonest. A burka is definitely not a "dress." It is a black ****ing bag with a slit so you can see through it. Essentially a ****ing torture device since it's worn in the ****ing desert.

"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)

"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2)

"But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days." (Leviticus 12:5)

I think the women quotes is a tossup.

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)

"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)

Religion is so ****ed.

And again, this doesn't demonstrate that Islam is worse than either Christianity or Judaism. If you are only arguing that Islam is immoral and using as your standard that its holy book says some immoral thing, then fine, you have an argument here. But that is not the conclusion for which you are arguing. For your stated conclusion--that Islam is worse than Christianity or Judaism--to follow from your argument, you have to at least compare these religions on your chosen metric of badness, i.e. you would have to show that the holy books of Judaism or Christianity do not have equivalently bad statements about women in them. You don't even attempt to do that here.

Edit: so you did compare in later posts. Good. However, you now seem to just think that it's a toss-up on this issue, so I guess you are backing off from thinking that Islam is worse for this particular reason.

No, I think islam is worse for the burka reason. Women might have had to wear head coverings in j and c, but not full body tarps.

I'll try and summarize my initial contention more succinctly:

Firstly, I don't think j or c ever said all js or cs should kill all x group. They might have said moses should kill all x group, or david should kill all x group, but not all js or cs. (I might be wrong, would be happy to learn).

But Islam says all Muslims should kill all non believers. Now according to the apologist, that was an isolated incident. Meaning, all muslims should only kill specific non believers at a specific moment in time. Fine:

But what I am judging religion on is not only its content, but its results. And if desperate Muslims are opening up their qurans and seeing "all muslims should kill all non believers," it seems logical that that would be used to justify some horrific actions, even if they are misinterpreting the passage.

The fact that islam made this one exception to its policy of "treating non believers with respect" doesn't make it much better to me. Because even if a muslim was really educated, and knew that the passage in the koran only applied to a specific time and group, then why wouldn't he think that would also apply to other times and groups? If it was ok once, why wouldn't it be ok other times. Psychologically speaking.

So if I make a religion and say all blue eyed people should kill all brown eyed people, but mean it metaphorically or whatever; then that doesn't make my religion any better if people are using it to justify their actions. The specific people are factually wrong, but that doesn't make the effects of my religion any better. And thus my religion would be "worse" than a religion that didn't tell (or have the effect of) its adherents to kill anybody.