Spank, can you point out some of these true religious people to us so we can get an idea of what you're actually talking about?

That he has no clue about Islam. Much like thekid....two ignorant people that enjoy listening to themselves talk.

It's probably better if you form relationships with such people on your own, seek and ye shall find. Knowledge of their existence is such basic information that it requires no further begging of the question.

You are actually almost totally ignorant of my level of knowledge and only demonstrate the incredibly easy ability to generate insult, I guess to compensate for lack of a reasonable point.

LOL, great dodge spank.

Spank, when you're not complaining that you're arguments are being misconstrued, you're speaking in tongues. Your entire arguments are nonsensical, and now when asked for a real world example of these true Muslims you've been droning on about, you're answer is basically, ummm, nope. Lol?

I'm under no obligation to answer your inquisition and in fact the substanceless nature of your follow up confirms the disengenuity of the question. This combined with the answer to your question being very being basic and easy to find makes your posting very weak. You guys are not going to prove religion is violent and oppressive using bad arguments to dogpile on people while avoiding simple reality and basic points of logic.

Dude, you openly fail to understand basic, straightforward assertions, which is clearly not my problem. Get back to me when you can understand what " murder and oppression are not legitimate religious motives" simply means.

Spank, is being a condescending **** indicative of an adherent of true religion?

And FWIW I don't believe religion is oppressive and violent necessarily.

Than what do you call burning people at the stake because they were heretics?

Was it not a religious motive? Were those holy inquisitors assigned by the pope to find devils and demons not really "religious people"?

Your "truly religious" argument is getting raked over the coals and shat on.

Anytime you guys want to discuss the topic, rather than me- be my guest.

I'm still waiting to understand how that poll reveals the distinction between people who choose a private religious belief about their own marriage and patriarchal political authoritarians.

This would be correct, the other one not so much imo.

@Spank
I'm sad that you didn't answer my post.

None of your posting is basic or straightforward. It's all obfuscation, incoherence, and complaining.

How many posts was it that you went on and on about how polls can't be used to capture religious sentiment or some such nonsense? And now you're going on and on with your no true Scotsman argument because you apparently know what constitutes "true religion" and "legitimate religious motives." And when I ask what "legitimate religious motives" even means, you have the gall to tell me I'm confused? Jfc, no wonder people ignore you. I'm done. Carry on talking to yourself.

Muslim countries comprise a large number of ethnicities. In theory (although probably not in practice) Wilders would be fine with immigration from black African countries where Christianity predominates, but opposed to immigration from black African countries where Islam predominates. In practice he probably is opposed to all (non-white) immigration.

People, it's very simple. The only true expression of religion™ are those that spank approves. All negative elements of religion (negative from Spank's perspective) are not real religion at all. And atheists are just as bad as fundamentalists.

Yeah, pretty much this. Really Spank, when literally no one on this forum seems to understand your supposedly straightforward assertions, maybe it's time to take a step back and think about whether you're doing a good job explaining yourself.

I've read enough of your posts in this thread to conclude that you know nothing about the written/spoken history of Islam, and you try (poorly) to hide this via speech affectation.

Let's start with a basic point: violence in the defense of Islam is a religious obligation proscribed by Muhammad both in the Quran and via hadith.

So this...

...is factually wrong. This passage from the Quran is clear and concise and not taken out of context:

You can also read surah 9, the final surah written by Muhammad with the exception of 110, which can be summed up as "non-Muslims should submit/convert to Islam or die." Peace treaties are allowed, but only to buy time to eventually convert or kill everyone. There are numerous other quotes in the Quran itself.

If we want, we can also go through the hadith and discover all of the times that Muhammad proscribed violence as a religious act. He certainly killed a whole lot of people (including beheading an entire Jewish tribe), so it was kinda necessary to drape the religion in justifications for violence. That's why jihad is so central to the religion.

Like a wind-up doll you've also posted basically the same thing in all of your posts in this thread:

These are all wrong with respect to Islam, and your repetition of the same stupid line betrays that you know nothing about this topic but are solely posting to hear yourself talk. You are out of your depth, plain and simple.

Islam proscribes violence; worse, Islam requires it in certain circumstances. To repeat, this is why you have completely disparate groups in disparate geographical locations with disparate political goals all using the same methods: violence against innocent people. New York, Boston, London, Madrid, Moscow, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Bali, Jakarta, and the list goes on. Each of the groups has their own motivations for what they're doing, but the JUSTIFICATION for violence is the unifying factor: the religion.

So, you can push fundamentalist propaganda...guess what? So can they. We could cherry pick scripture til next week, but it is still not going to legitimize murder and oppression as religious acts.

That's some Rothbardian-level thought experiment there.

Maybe religion isn't ultimately responsible. But it sure seems to make recruiting, motivating and justifying atrocities a lot easier.

A lot of people like to hand-wave this off or ignore it. But it's pretty fundamental imo. Religion sucks. Having this guy as your messiah really really sucks.

Does scripture ever matter? Is it ever relevant in a discussion about religion?

Well duh. Discrediting literalist, cherry-picked scripture that attempts to legitimatize violence and oppression in the name of religion is a big mote in the fundamentalists' eye. Goes straight to a key element of why fundamentalism is mistaken.

Have you ever debated religion ( not anti-religion) with an actual fundamentalist? They can't win an open argument about God without killing the messenger, sometimes literally. But that has nothing to do with the political stereotype going around here trying to legitimatize oppression in the name of religion, unless we have some fundamentalists among us I am unaware of.

Nothing I've posted is propaganda. Muhammad was a warlord that killed people as he conquered territory, and wrote it in the text of the religious document that killing people was justified. This is not an exaggeration. This is a statement of fact. You can learn this in any 100 level world history class or comparative religion class.

Someone pointed this out to a few dozen posts ago, and you ignored it.

I point it out to you, and you claim I am "cherry picking scripture."

Real talk: you know VERY LITTLE about Islam.

You actually have this entire thing backwards. It is people that are by and large peaceful. In most religions, this peacefulness is enhanced by the teachings. In Islam, this is not the case. Some of the teachings preach justifications for violence. As I said, jihad is a requirement in some instances.

If you look at the rise in Islamic terrorism, it has gone hand-in-hand with the "revival" in the religion over the past few decades. As far more people have embraced the core tenets of the religion (look at the explosion in the Hajj numbers - this is a pillar of Islam), you have seen a dramatic increase in violence against innocent people from very religious Muslims.

The implication of your "cherry picking" argument is that it is a coincidence that these disparate groups that use violence against innocent people all happen to be Muslim. That the religion itself has nothing to do with it. This has no basis in reality. And not identifying the religion itself as the focal point of this violence is a dangerous level of ignorance.

Citation needed. With the exception of specifically pacifist religions (Jainism, 1st century Christianity) I don't think this is true.

You waste a lot of words here to have no better argument and be insulting. You have no rational basis to declare what I know or do not know about religion from what has been posted on this message board. You are not even writing entertaining fiction- and yes you cherry-picked a whole bushel and did nothing more here than add an appeal to history to go along with some insults.

Peaceful, unobtrusive religious people exist and have a say on the matter-murder and oppression is not legit.