There are plenty of great things about Indonesia. The rainforests and beaches are breath taking. The food is unique and among the best in the world IMO. I was born in Indonesia and lived there for a few years 0-3. Unfortunately, our family left because the government would often not renew visas of people who were thought to be Christians.

Why is anyone obligated to say something good about Islam? This seems irrelevant.

EDIT: Kid I don't know what you are talking about in post#125. What is your point?

If I thought Islam was superior to my personal belief system I'd be a Muslim

I'm not and it isn't.

I don't think lemon was asking you to draw comparisons. I think he was asking how you would defend a religion thats founder kept slaves, kept the wives of the men he had murdered as his personal concubines, had sex with young children, gathered his followers through violence, condoned the beating and raping of women, was a thief, and did I say SLEPT WITH CHILDREN. Someone ignoring all of this and even going as far as saying peace be upon a man who did this is astonishing to me.

+1. The sole purpose of thekid asking if you believe that your belief system is superior to Islam is so that he can call you judgmental and a bigot if you say you do (I'm sure that he will deny this and avoid responding to the legitimate criticisms of the religion by trying to shift the focus to this post or something else)

Of course people will believe that their religious views are superior to other religious views otherwise people would be completely indifferent choosing a religion. It's insulting to every single religion to say that they are all equal in validity.

I am not sure I agree with this. Any interfaith dialogue, and I would include atheists in that, has to start with some recognition of a commonality in our humanity - or some basis in trying to find a good life.

Without that recognition that all humanity is searching for the good life (or happiness) it's useless to even begin to have some discussion because there will be no respect.

You've still choosen to ignore my question about the Torah. All you've done with my question, is suggest I haven't done any research. You suggested you would give comments on the NT but couldn't on the Torah. Do I not understand the context of the Torah to the NT and Jesus?

At the end of the day though when you choose a religion it's because you think and believe that it makes more sense than others. I'm not saying that you should just dismiss all other religions as ridiculous until you've studied them some, but it would be strange to choose a religion if you thought it was no more valid than any other religion.

People don't choose religions

people are born into religions

Well I have been quite taken back by all the negativity toward Islam in a thread titled how to prevent Islamophobia. Although I did expect initial criticism I eventually anticipated that more folks would add on to the points of how we can prevent Islamophobia.

As for my last post where I said,

I also meant to include the total number of deaths and military campaigns of Africa, The Middle East, and Asia in the last 90 years.

Basically I was trying to compare Muslim countries to Non Muslim countries both past and present.

I sort of wondered how the issues of violence and crime keep getting brought up wrt Muslim majority countries so adamantly. When these same issues are also a part of the non-Muslim majority countries in a different fashion.


Also what year was your family forced to leave Indonesia if I may ask? What an unfortunate situation that must have been to say the least. And Is life for Christians in Indonesia better now, in your view?

I should say

People are born into religious families who bully their kids into religion from an early age

whichever religion it is, is just luck.

This might be true for a lot, if not most people. But it is not true for all people

That message was specifically directed at Doggg because he has continuously praised the Bible itt, which I appreciate. So otoh I was asking him to say one nice thing about Islam and the Quran.

As for Indonesia the poster nek brought up "Large populations of Christians are also found around Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Tana Toraja inland, and Maluku" and "Although Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, the missionaries remain free to spread the Christian religion in Indonesia[citation needed] And many Christian schools that teach the Christian religion"

I was also curious if you had some information or opinions on these places and statements. I'm thinking maybe in the past Indonesia practiced polices of discrimination against Christians but things have since changed?

I think your statement is too strong.

Just because I, personally, feel a connection with Vajrayana doesn't mean that I think other religions are wrong. There are too many people in the world - it's impossible to have one path that would fit everyone. Somethings that make sense to me don't to others.

But yes, at a foundational level, and not just the religious but also the a-religious, are all doing their best to find the good life - so we are all the same.

In all honesty, I think this can be more of a result of RGT, people can be bit bare knuckled in debate. And I would expect in debating RGT, some negatives would be tossed around.

What some have said of Islam, the same has been said of Christianity.

I wouldn't take it too personally or think that this microcosm reflects the macro.

In any event, islamaphobia is an idea which probably never be prevented - especially when dealing with beliefs that entail some exclusivity.

Did you feel the need to use caps there in your 100% negative viewpoints, thats kind of odd and telling I would say.

You earlier stated you were offended because I compared your style to that of Pam Geller And Robert Spencer of SIOA. Here is the issue coolerboy, when you continue to list nothing but negative views of Islam, and not 100% of your views have been verified by someone who is fluent in Arabic and educated on the Quran it becomes Islamophobic.

Your tactics are what many scholars/historians would refer to as shock treatment, you are trying to shock readers with tales of terror, rape and murder. You continue to take the words of the Quran out of context and use them to your advantage. IMO you have not been giving anything close to an objective viewpoint of the Quran and the history of Islam. You paint a picture of fear and terror when Islam is really a religion of peace. What about the over 1.5 Billion Muslims in the world who may actually disagree with your viewpoints coolerboy?

This is a 50 second message which got Robert Spencer banned from the United Kingdom that you must really should watch because it mimics your straw manning of events wrt to history of Islamic Majority nations and wrt how you view the Quran. I would ask of you to watch the 50 second message as I have been responding to you itt.





Coolerboy IMO your misconceptions on Islam are unacceptable but only you can change, still I wish you the best of times now and in the future but I implore you to take an objective view towards the Quran. More important take a look at the reasoning behind the UK ban of Robert Spencer and see if his views equate at all with yours. Even if they do in the slightest you should at least question what you have been doing itt.

I never do and its all good I enjoy the debate here.

Bully is clearly the wrong word unless you're just looking to make people mad.

This sort of misses the actual question, which was "Do you think Islam is inferior to your personal belief system?" I don't believe Islam to be inferior to my belief system, but I don't believe it to be superior either. I think my belief system is correct, but I'm certainly not certain and am open to Islam being correct.

Thekid. I point out negatives because aside from me thinking that these things are horrible and huge problems, I actually want to see if you could ever own that there are some flaws with this religion and especially Muhammad. It seems that you are incapable of accepting that a lot of what Muhammad did was pretty horrible. If I can get you to accept that at least one of these things Muhammad did was wrong I'll be satisfied. Murder, stealing, rape, hitting women, pedophilia, and torture are wrong regardless of if you've started a major religion or not. Would you agree with me on that?

On a side note I just watched the video and are you seriously advocating that someone not be allowed into a country for speaking freely??? PC trumps free speech once again!!

As a Catholic this is what I would say as well.

If you actually watched the video, and if you are in a position of "responsibility/power/education" based on your views itt and how you present your argument, according to the policies of the United Kingdom, you would be banned from from entering.

That's fine by me.

Some info on Muhammad's wife Aisha

Ā’ishah bint Abī Bakr (b. 613/614 C.E.[1][2] – d. 678 C.E.[3]) (Arabic: عائشة‎ transliteration: ‘Ā’ishah, [ʕaːʔiʃa], also transcribed as A'ishah, Aisyah, Ayesha, A'isha, Aishat, Aishah, or Aisha) was one of Muḥammad's wives.[4] In Islamic writings, her name is thus often prefixed by the title "Mother of the Believers" (Arabic: أمّ المؤمنين umm al-mu'minīn), per the description of Muhammad's wives in the Qur'an.[5][6][7]
Traditional sources state that Aisha was married to Muhammad at the age of six, but she stayed in her parents' home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated with Muhammad, then 53, in Medina;[8][9][10] with the exception of al-Tabari who records that she was ten years old.[11]

How about the Aztecs religious beliefs?

Seeing people try to defend this is really quite a sight. They simply say that girls matured faster then, and there was a variety of tests that would show that a girl was old enough to have sex. One of these tests? Going to the market by yourself!

However, any Christian who has a problem with this, who would then turn around and try and defend genocide in the old testament gets a big fat LOL from me. This is, of course, worse in practicality because it reinforces a belief that child marriage is ok, but lets not kid ourselves: If your holy book can make you believe genocide can be ok, it likely would make you believe anything. Just count yourself lucky this didn't make it into yours...

*This, of course, applies only those who would defend those genocides and not ALL Christians

there's a difference between defending and trying to understand

Sure.. but there are absolutely people who do the former. Our friend Craig is a fine example.