SlavicWolf

Communism is bad because it's extremely ineffective in allocating resources and economy is all about it. There are two main reasons behind it. First - that there is no market competiton in communism (and micromanaging the entire economyy is a horror). Second - that gifted and hard working individuals can't make it up the social ladder. In USSR or even my own country (Poland) even doctors who had to complete 8 years of elementary school, then 4 years of high school and then 6 years of university, earned not much more than a typical factory laborer who barely completed elementary school. The greatness of America is not (or was not...) about being the same... The greatness of America is all about individualism - everyone can earn as much as they please and do whatever they want to as long as they are able and willing. If you wanted to have species well fit for their environment, what would you do? Would you leave it to evolution or maybe you'd micromanage the whole process down to every single mutation? Capitslism is like evolution. Communism is like intelligent design.

The peddlers of that "law" did not explain what happens when two people want two contradictory things. One wants X and another also wants X. Do you think like me that calling that BS a law is an insult to real laws (such as those of physics)?

Reformation was neither absolutely good nor absolutely bad. It brought some benefits (more emphasis on business spirit) but it often reduced religious freedom - compare for example Geneva during Calvin's rule to Geneva before Calvin. In the end it is unclear whether the Reformation improved anyone's life or not. Historians are divided in this matter.

If you want to learn more about real Islam, read the history of the world by Al Tabari. It covers the entire history of Islam from it's beginnings up to 9th century and will give you a clue about what kind of man Muslims have as their supreme moral authority.

Nope. Islam does not follow the same scriptures as Christianity. Not even close. Muhammad frequently quoted some parts of the Bible but rejected others as corrupted. And besides the Quran (a badly written compilation of several religious books) there are also other sources such as ahadith and biographies of Muhammad (sira) which are equally or even more important than the Quran. What shocked me while reading them is the sharp contrast between Muhammad and other religious figures. Muhammad and his companions used to raid unprepared and unarmed civilians, killing their men and enslaving their women and then sit in prayer right after doing such heinous acts. Considering that at least in theory 1.5 bln people consider this psychopath as their highest authority and try to be like him, the fact that so many people want to detonate bombs and slit throats precisely in his name shouldn't be a surprise.

I suggest everyone should read "Understanding Muhammad" by a former Muslim Ali Sina. The job done by him is superb. You can find the book by googling it or writing an email to Ali (he sends copies for free). I bet that once you finish reading the book, you will never see Islam in the same light as before.

Dawkins is a showman. He is an extremely reliable scientist but the way he promotes evolution is just off. Such an important task should be left to someone else and Dawkins should stick to writing papers and teaching students. After all, it is very hard for a young earth creationist to become a supporter of evolution - the world view of such people is based entirely on one undeniable axiom - that the Torah/Bible/Quran is true and is true above everything else. To make a difference, you have to make them doubt the validity of this axiom which is an almost impossible task. While it's easy for a knowledgeable person to defeat a creationist, it is ultra hard to convince him. That's what many people say and what I've experienced myself.

When a population comes through a bottleneck which results in a drastically decreased variability within the gene pool, does the variability recover through mutations? How fast? Humans generally are highly inbred - I remember reading somewhere that two chimpanzees from the same forest may differ more from each other than the furthest removed human populations. There is also a lot of variation between various human groups - Africans are generally the most diverse and East Asians the least. Ashkenazi Jews are so inbred that they are basically all related to each other as fourth or fifth degree cousins. Cheetahs are so inbred that skin can be transplanted between individuals with no chances of rejection. This of course has drawbacks in form of poor adaptability, very low survival rates for kittens and being more prone to diseases. So how much time does it take for a population to recover from a bottleneck?

The Bible was written by fallible scribes. So when a Jew or a Christian disagrees with the Bible, he may ascribe it to an error of the authors. And the Bible generally progresses from violence to peace - the violent passages are superseded by later, more peaceful ones. So the violent fragments are no more binding than something described in a historical chronicle. My views regarding religion are similar to Machiavelli's - religion should exist but merely as a moral compass. But don't claim that all religions are pure and peaceful. They aren't. The teachings of Jim Jones and Charles Manson aren't the same as the teachings of Buddha or Jesus.

The Church never opposed science as you describe it. Burning people en masse is a protestant invention. The popular view that the Church was bad and then Reformation came and made Christianity humanitarian and good is wrong. Protestants were in many ways more backward and murderous than the Church. They still are - biblical literalism is a direct consequence of the view that people have the right to interpret a book of fables as they wish... And we have churches claiming that the earth is a 6000 years old flat disc or that people should burn at stakes for having extramaritial sex. Neither Catholics nor Eastern Orthodox have such insane beliefs and they never had.

You failed to mention that according to Muhammad the Bible is corrupted - so you can't use it to prove Muhammad if you want to stick to a religious debate.

Nuclear energy.

@iNow: I am not suggesting any affirmative actions or poverty reduction as they are all incredibly ineffective (socialism always creates problems that is later pretends to solve). There is no hunger in the US in the same sense as in Africa. Even the poorest US families live a better life than people from middle class in some developing countries. Affirmative actions aren't going to work either. Instead of wasting money on helping the poorest students you should spend it on the best ones because they are the most important for the economy and science. For people who are able and willing there is no shortage of knowledge. The best example is Endercreeper - he's 11 and has taught himself math and physics to a level that most people consider mind-blowing - all by himself. Possible? Possible. You got teenage girls in Pakistan becoming experts in physics, thanks to the internet and libraries. 2. In the US students who are poor but gifted don't have to worry about fees - the US has an incredibly advanced system of grants for good students, most often financed by private companies. Even in my country has some privately run Catholic schools in which several % (10-15) of best students study for free. In my Uni there are huge grants for the best students even though it's an ordinary university. Like it or not, poverty and education are correlated because most people are gifted because they had gifted parents and if they are gifted, they aren't poor.

I don't understand all that fascination with these rankings... Can anyone explain? Because IMHO what should matters is the performance of the system as a whole (by system I mean economy and science). These scores (like the ranking posted by iNow) have one serious flaw - they don't tell what's the distribution of abilities within the group. Results of such tests tend to follow the Gauss distribution -but with different standard deviations. So an average student from Finland may score higher than an average student from the US, but if we take for example top 1-2% of students, then the US outperforms all countries by a large margin. And in the US such students are given opportunities that people from other countries (maybe except Switzerland) can only dream of. And the US science beats all others. Second thing is that the US there are groups that constantly underperform and those that perform well. African Americans and Hispanics score below average (dragging the average down) while Jews, East Asians and Indians outperform all other groups. BTW Do tou really think that US K12 education sucks? As far as I know smart and ambitious students have no problem finding a good school well suited for their abilities... And later they go to elite universities.

I have seen countless discussions on the web (maybe even here) in which people stated that the US education system needs reform... ...and it puzzles me up to this day. AS the US education system has the highest number of the best universities in the world and the highest number of Nobel winners (all best scientists want to work in the US), then why should there be any need to change anything?

Last remark. When I said that my reasoning is not fallacious i meant that it does not contain "No True Scotsman fallacy" I meant this post of mine: The Islam I'm talking about isn't my own Islam. It is Islam of prophet Muhammad, Islam of his companions and of greatest Islamic jurists that ever walked on earth - of imam Abu Hanifa, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Anas Ibn Malik, Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i, Ibn Taymiyyah. It is also Islam of the greatest scholars of the 20th century and the present times - of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, Abu Ala Maududi, Yusuf Al Qardawi and countless other scholars. People who smuggle drugs are still guilty of breaking the law no matter how hard they deny the accusation. Therefore, they can't be called law obeying citizens. Muslims who defy sharia law aren't Muslims even if they say they are. A quote from that Maududi fella: If such a great scholar of Islam, well versed in Quran, hadith and sira as well as in all classical works about Islamic theology and jurisprudence (he was named the greatest Islamic cleric of the 20th century) misrepresented it, then I don't know who doesn't. Peace and goodbye.

BTW read this http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?389781-Should-human-rights-always-outweigh-religious-rights This is a discussion about human rights taking place on the biggest English language Islamic forum. Gives a clue of what Muslims registered there think... they are clearly NOT in favor of secularism. For example, look at one post written by one of more active members of the board, replying to an user claiming that religion should be a personal matter: It simply proves what I said before. Just read the thread. Muslims who post there aren't newbies but people who have been studying it for years. They know it better than y'all and I do. If you wanted to learn more about e.g. law, whom would you ask? A random person or a lawyer? This is going to be my last post in this thread. I leave the discussion for you to decide. If you don't know something about Islam and want to seek an opinion on people knowledgeable in Islam - just register on that board. They'll explain all things. I once posted there but I was kicked out for supporting Israel... so do not discuss such issues.

I explained in one of my posts why my reasoning is not fallacious. if you disagree - explain why. I am always open to dialogue. ...

@iNow: My reasoning is not fallacious. Maybe I'll explain this on a less provocative example. Every country has it's own legal system which determines what you can do and what you can't - in other words, what does it mean to be a law abiding citizen. In this case, is everyone who claims to be a law abiding person actually one? Is a person who claims to be law abiding but constantly drives under the influence, beats his wife and engages in illegal smuggling of drugs actually "law abiding"? You may claim that he is because not everyone adheres to a literal interpretation of penal code. They may, for example, interpret it metaphorically. If everyone could make his own interpretation of what does it mean to obey law, there would be no crimes and prisons would be empty. But they aren't. That's because people as citizens don't have the right to create their own law. it's the judiciary system that decides what laws people must follow. Every person who claims to be a law obeying citizen must adhere to these rules because that's the requirement made by those who created them. They also decide how they should be interpreted. You cannot smuggle drugs and be innocent at the same time unless you aren't a human which is impossible. That's exactly the flaw in your reasoning - all your assumptions are based on a faulty promise that people actually have the right to decide who is a Muslim and who is not while in fact they don't. All requirements were decided about 1400 years ago. if they weren't, there would be no such thing as takfir in Islamic law (google it if you want to learn more)

@Phi for All Oh man... Again you're confusing apples with oranges. You are confusing Muslims with people who are Muslims only in name. I know "Muslims" who wouldn't even think of stoning an adulterer to death. Does it mean that such a punishment is not a part of Islam? Not, it is perfectly justified in hadith literature and all mainstream interpretations of sharia. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali put it - most self-declared Muslims choose how much of their religion they want to follow. However, this is not a true Islam. A true Muslim must approve all laws set by Muhamad, as they were established by the perfect man to be practiced for all times. In Islamic law there is a procedure known as takfir. This is a process in which a self-declared Muslim is declared an unbeliever and the (if he does not repent), he is executed for hindering the implementation of sharia. One of the reasons of declaring a someone an unbeliever is "forbidding what is halal and permitting what is haram". it means that if, for example, some Muslim says that drinking alcohol is OK, then he must be executed if he doesn't change his stance. Why? Because he made permitted what Allah had declared as forbidden (haram). if someone says that it is not permitted to execute an adulterer, then he would be killed too. Why? Because he forbade a thing that Allah had made permitted (halal) or even mandatory. This is not all my own imagination. I'm just quoting rules of sharia law. once I got more time, I'll provide sources from some books about Islamic jurisprudence. You forgot to mention that Turkey owns it's secularism only to a brutal, ruthless military dictatorship, lasting for decades (one could be exxecuted even for wearing a fez) No country can be secular and islamic at the same time. When it is islamc, it cannot be secular. When it's secular, it cannot be Islamic. Even more. It must be fiercely anti-islamic if it wants to survive.

You cannot make Islam compatible with secularism. The religion is rigid like a fossil, the only way to change it would be to change or denounce a part of it's scriptures and that is an impossible task. Many have tried and failed miserably - there has never been any tradition of secularism in Islam, it's prophet preferred a theocracy to a secular state. IMHO the only true reformer of Islam was Bahá'u'lláh. He realized that reforming Islam was a pipe dream, so he declared himself a new prophet, the Promised One mentioned in the Quran.

It is hard to decide whether an ideology X is peaceful without comparing it to others. Every ideology/country/anyhing may be peaceful compared to something else. USA is a peaceful, pacifist country compared to Nazi Germany but a true warmonger when compared to Switzerland. So the "peacefulness" is not that obvious IMHO. When it comes to religions - it is ahrd to decide which ones are peaceful without engaging in the study of it's books and theological treaties - and it takes months ad many of them are truly monumental.

But the vast majority of Christians have never interpreted the Jewish laws as their own. For example, Torah bans pork, mixing meat and milk and hundreds of other things. But only a tiny minority of Christians follow these laws, the rest are far less strict.. All Christian theologians, including all Church fathers didn't follow them either. Meanwhile, I suggest you read some of the debates of Ali Sina: http://www.faithfreedom.org/debates.htm He is an Iranian former Muslim, residing in Canada. He has debated with many Islamic scholars, including world class ones such as Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. A sure fire way to find out what some clerics think and what are Ali's counterarguments.

What literal interpretations of other religious texts are you talking about? I can't speak of Hindu or Buddhist texts but regarding the Bible... there is such a difference that the Bible generally progresses from violence to peace - Old Testament is violent (although that violence is still bound by historical context), the New Testament is much more peaceful . The Quran progresses in exactly opposite direction - the so called peaceful verses all come from the earliest part of the book, written when Muhammad had no army, so he needed to be peaceful in order to survive (by the way, Hitler also taught about peace when he didn't have a strong army). However, he changed his stance right after attaining enough power to do so. In the end all these peaceful verses drown in the overwhelming barrage or violence and hatred, presented in the later, Medinan chapters. And there is no evidence in the Quran or Sunna that these violent verses must apply only to some specific place and time. If they were, would Muhammad's successors* (who knew him personally and who are considered the best Muslims in history right after him) have declared a war on Arab tribes who decided to leave Islam? Would they have conquered Persia and half of Byzantine Empire in just 20 years after Muhammad's death? *I'm talking about his immideate successors - Abu Bakr, Umar Ibn Al Khattab, Uthman Ibn Affan and Ali Ibn Abi Talib - so called "rightly guided caliphs"

So there is my question - how do you determine which verses must be interpreted literally, which ones can be but not necessarily and which cannot be interpreted literally? Because I see that many so called apologists say that violent verses must be interpreted metaphorically while the peaceful ones must be above such an interpretation. For me it looks like a double standard - if you believe some book to be a literal, perfect word of God, then how can you treat various verses in various ways? You either interpret all of them as literal or all of them as metaphorical. So called radical Muslims do not have to engage in any theological acrobatics. They know well that the violent quranic verses far outweigh the peaceful ones, they also know that the peaceful verses are abrogated (nullified) by later, violent ones. Read the chronologically latest chapters of the Quran (sura 5 and 9) and you will know why Islam has been anything but peaceful since it's inception.