I will remind you that it was you who objected to me (correctly) phrasing your original post as a statement, not as a question, and you who asked me to correct this view. So apparently you care, or at least cared. The reason I am putting such emphasis on this point (in addition to simply wanting to respond to your empty objections) is that I believe you made a very stark change in tone and substance from a presentation earlier that was entirely declarative blasting away at islam without any shred of uncertainty or questioning and then subsequently tried to present this as you just asking questions and not really making any claim. I have noticed such shifts from you before, and others have pointed them out to you. I believe that you have it within you to acknowledge that such a big shift occurred. And if, of course, you were to do so, the tangent would be over.
To be fair, we have barely touched on this question. You promised a response to 278 which just when we started to discuss it but then dwindled off in preference to this other topic you have now tired of.

.[/QUOTE]Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought I gave a fairly clear exposition to his question.

I don't know about cwocwoc (who I regularly find to among the worst posters on this forum), but the idea that I don't accept any criticism of Islam is clearly false. You will remember that I certainly agreed with your specific criticism, namely the religious court systems in many muslim majority countries. My disagreement with you was on whether it was appropriate to take that, and perhaps other things, and jump to the "sweeping generalization" of "islam is worse than christianity". Incidentally, you should add mightyboosh to the list of people who thinks this statement is a sweeping generalization as well.

You are the worst poster on the forum so suck on that because it means you're worse than you think I am. Now we've concluded the puerile insults started by you I will put my case. It is breathtakingly stupid to treat Islam as a monolithic religion. It is just as complex and diverse as Christianity in all its forms. That's why the whole business of comparing religions should not be an allowed topic. Still we have moderator who thinks this is acceptable

"I wouldn't be upset if all Muslims were knocked off"

so we are not going to get sensible moderation.

I agree that there does not appear to be any sensible way to distill a discussion of something as complex and diverse as these whole religions into anything as simplistic as "islam is worse than christianity". But that doesn't mean any discussion of the topic should be banned. For instance, I think your comments about bjs are breathtakingly stupid, but I don't want you to not be allowed to say them.

It's an invitation for Islamophobes to Islamophobe.

Sucking on human waste pipes IS perverse. You won't find it in the Good Book so atheists probably shouldn't do it either.

lol right and I - just - can muster enough respect for diversity of opinion to suggest you should not be banned for saying so. You however, seem to feel that heavy handed moderation which curbs basic speech is going to be somehow beneficial.

Whoa whoa what about BJs? If any religion is trying to abolish BJs they should all burn in hell.

This isn't basic speech it's nasty hate speech.

"I wouldn't be upset if all Muslims were knocked off"

Sustitute the words Jews for Muslims and see how long it stays up here. There is a serious double standard being applied.

Likewise Memri is a notorious hate site. I very much doubt if a link to an anti-Semitic Nazi hate site would be allowed.

Can you link please (because I can't find this expression utter by any other than you on searching, perhaps you paraphrased?). I do agree actually that such genocidal comments are crossing a line, and I have a pretty damned high bar for admission into the "deserves a moderator admonition". However, the general discussion IS entirely acceptable and you were not calling just for this most egregious quote not to be allowed, but for the entire discussion not to be allowed.

Cwocwoc, who claims to be an atheist, bases his moral values on what religious texts say, and he looks down on anyone who doesn't follow this view of morality strictly (of course, he makes exceptions for things he feels don't matter, such as keeping kosher, but he doesn't think others should be afforded this same right). So according to this 'atheist,' oral sex is sinful due to some Biblical verses.

I thought I remembered seeing it, and I felt it was by TheBrokenATM, which makes sense since he doesn't speak very tactfully in RGT. However, if the post is now missing, that indicates that the mods probably did get rid of it, which means that Cwocwoc is shockingly wrong about a double standard existing here.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't atm. It was still up here when I complained in my post and that was several hours after I complained to the mods so obviously I assumed that OP was not doing anything about it as he was posting on here afterwards.

You are a Christian (so you say). It's an odd juxtaposition when it is the atheist who adopts the stricter moral code. All sex needs looking at morally. Food is less important.

Actually, the offending post was made at 5:05pm, right before I logged off at 5:06pm. It was reported at 5:49pm, and then several hours later at 7:07pm cwocwoc complained that obviously the moderators approved of it because it was still up, and then it was deleted around 7:10pm or so.

Also, I'll remind people that this is the rule about off-topic discusssions:

If you want to venture off-topic, fine. But try to make it in a direction that will be interesting and not just personal mockery or insults.

You presume the two are mutually exclusive

Can I start by pointing out, before this turns into a uke_master situation, that whilst I don't necessarily agree that that The Q'uran instructs that "Muslims should kill all non-believers", it's difficult to see how the verses are instructing anything but violence toward unbelievers up to and including death. Taken in or out of context, there's little leeway for 'friendly' interpretation:

e.g.


I think it's clear what is being said. Unbelievers are to be killed or subjugated, or converted if possible. This is not the attitude of a peaceful religion tolerant of other belief systems.

Maybe he forgot about WWII, post WWII Russia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, The Congo, Sumalia......... etc etc.

What Hector is forgetting is that all the Abrahamic holy works contain similar passages.

Book-by-book there really isn't much that differs the Abrahamic religions in terms of "ethics"; They're all misogynistic and holds women to be of lesser value than men, they all reflect on a chosen people, their attitude towards competing beliefs it at the best of times forgiving - never understanding, they all describe religiously inspired genocide and murder. Aaand mosaic law and sharia is pretty much the same thing.

It is in the current institutionalization of these values the religions differ. Not their works. And again, as repeated ad nauseum - this is as a trend, not a general rule. I'm sure I'll get replied to for the 60th time as if I stated a general rule however.

Are you incapable of understanding anything ? In Mohammed's time the neighbouring people kept trying to wipe out him and his followers. These are "eve of battle" passages and the battles were in self-defence.

It is really hard to quantify the terribleness of various religions against one another. Yes, creating a spat of suicide bombers is one of the more horrible things a religion has to offer, but we have to remember Catholicism is right there with them with the thousands of child abuse scandals and cover ups. I'd say the holy books are all roughly equally horrid, the horridness of the actions of each religions followers is up to debate, sure, but won't ever be solved or agreed upon.

People are having problems complying with this, so I moved a bunch of posts from this thread to a different thread: "Some moved posts."

Neither of those things have anything to do with religion. The first is what people do when they are outgunned by their enemies and the second is strictly forbidden. Yes people are not perfect. Yes some of these people follow one religion or another. The holy books are full of top-notch moral advice if you know how to interpret them appropriately to your culture and situation.

I'm confused. What did I do? I'm sorry if I heard someone feelings lol.
Is this about the is Jesus a bastard thread? If so just to let u know a bastard is cool in my books.
I was born out of wedlock and so was my daughter. Is normal and not frowned upon in my books.

Saudi court said to order criminal to be surgically paralyzed

So the Saudi dictatorship (fully supported by the Americans) is a bit nutty. It's only a small country and these kinds of punishments are hardly ever carried out (about once every twenty years).

I think it's ridiculous to use Saudi Arabia as a representation of Muslims or Muslim countries as a whole (although I am for complete democratic and human rights reform in these countries).

However, it's more ridiculous to just excuse Saudi Arabia as insignificant and these punishments as rare, Saudi Arabia is a human rights cesspit, it literally is hell on earth if you are a woman, religious minority or a dissenter. Also, anyone who knows anything about religious politics will tell you that Saudi Arabia funds a massive amount of mosques, learning centres and development project across the world (and especially in the US and UK). I grew up going to a Saudi-funded mosque and Saudi funded school here in the UK and can tell you that what they teach will horrify you.

So, while Muslimphobia and simplifications or generalizations about Islam are ridiculous, so is ignoring the serious issues that occur in many Muslim countries.

If you want a good debate on Islam with relatively little apologetics or demonization then you might want to try forums like:

http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?www
http://secularcafe.org/index.php
http://www.richarddawkins.net/
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/
http://talkrational.org/
http://www.il7ad.com/smf/index.php (Arab atheists forum, unfortunately in Arabic mostly).