SlavicWolf

BTW How can quoting from canonical Muslim sources ever be considered as "spreading hate"? Sites ran by Muslims aren't a reliable source of info because they are aimed at converting westerners, and therefore, they try to create an illusion of common ground. BTW: Statistics aren't reliable source of info because most people are just nominal Muslims. Some even hold views contrary to those described in Muslim texts - such as the view that Muhammad was horribly persecuted in Mecca. Consider that many Muslims would not even think of amputating a thief's hand. Does this mean that it is against Islam to do so? Of course not! In fact, it is clearly mandated in both the Qur'an (5:38) and the example set by Muhammad according to the Hadith (Bukhari 81:792). As individuals, Muslims make their own choices about which parts of their religion they practice. However, even though believers may think whatever they want about what Islam says or doesn't say, it doesn't change what Islam says about itself. As a documented ideology, Islam exists independently of anyone's opinion. As such, it may be studied objectively and apart from how anyone else practices or chooses to interprets it.

So how many Christian theologians advocate stoning people for adultery? Or killing them for working on sunday? I know only one church that does that and it's a minor fundamentalist church in America. Muslims still advocate these laws. The greatest scholars of Islam are in favor of them. Yusuf Al Qardawi said a few years ago that if Islam had gotten rid of death penalty for apostasy, it (Islam) would not exist today. And he did not say it do apologize for it but to defend it.

They don't have to because Christians and Jews can explain such judgements as simply historical anachronism* while Muslims can't. The law of death penalty for apostasy is still in place. Some people may say "but there is a lot of Muslims who don't support such a thing!". Yes, there are. The problem is that if a person does not support this law, then he/she is not a Muslim. Most of so called good Muslims are people who simply don't know their religion well enough. If they read reliable texts, they would either become radicals or leave the religion altogether. *Interpreting the Bible literally is a sin called "bibliolatry".

Forgive me if this topic was discussed before. Assuming that the current physical models are valid and the universe expands with the rate of expansion accelerating - would an advanced civilization be able to sustain itself for an infinite ammount of time, given a finite amount of energy?

1. I explained that before. why should I ever need to repeat myself? How many attacks on abortion clinics have there been? How many people have died? How does it compare to dozens of bombings, beheadings and mutilations that take place each and every month, explictly in the name of Allah? 2. I laugh hard when people and confronted with violence in Islamic texts and as a response they bring violence in the Bible. The stories in the Bible are just fables, a half-historical chronicle - written by fallible humans. Christians are not bound by Old Testament law and Jews simply reject that violence as error of the scribes or simply a historical anachronism. Muslims don't have such a luxury. The Quran is a literal word of God and Muhammad is a perfect man. Every single law prescribed Muhammad must be followed by all Muslims for all times, no matter how bizarre or evil they seem to be. Muslims simplu can't question Muhammad. It is Muhammad who defines what is good and what isn't, not Muslims. Consider the following hadith: Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 260: Sahih Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 58: An except from a manual of Islamic law published by Al Azhar University in 1991: Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) Muslims can't discard this law. They can't because it was ordered by the perfect man and are therefore, the best possible. No Muslim can say that they aren't perfect unless they question Muhammad. But then they won't be Muslims anymore. Do you ever imagine the consequences of such a barbaric law? Sunnis and Shiites constantly accuse each other of apostasy. Alawites from Syria are accused of apostasy by Sunni rebels - and therefore are deserving of death. Roughly 90% of all Islamic violence occurs becasue the perpetrarors accuse victims of some horrible things - such as apostasy or blasphemy (which is also a capital crime in Islam.)

There are two ways to evaluate whether a religion is peaceful - either evaluate it's teachings or evaluate violence done by it's members in the name of that religion. These two are closely related. The teachings of Muhammad were evaluated dozens of times and there are people far more learned than me - Robert Spencer, Ali Sina, Ayaan Hirsi Ali - these are all people who wrote more than enough about the nature of Islam. The last two are actually former Muslims - they rejected Islam knowing that they may even die for doing it. Both are Islam's outspoken critics. watch this: This is a discussion about a high school textbook published in Egypt which said that a person who leaves Islam may be killed and eaten(sic!!!). It wasn;t some patient of some mental health institutuion that invented it - it were scholars of Al Azhar university - one of the oldest and most respected institutions of Islamic educations in the world. When I first read about this sickening ruling, I thought it was a joke. But later it got to Egyptian TV. Killing apostates was a law in Islam since Muhammad but eating them? It is beyond even my imagination.

Someone in this thread asked about a reliable list of Islamic terror attacks. I got one - http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ has a list of more than 22000 Islamic terrorist attacks that took place since 2001. The list is updated and corrected every day, every case in meticulously researched, so the list does not include violence committed by nominal Muslims for non-religious reasons (such as criminal acts) or casualties due to combat. One pro-Islamic site (LoonWatch) has revieved a list of attacks listed on TROP and they only had doubts about the reliability of ca. 7% of them. TROP founder replied to their doubts and in the end only one case was deemed dubious - which gave a margin of error of roughly 0.5% So there we go. I set up a challenge for every willing person - if you want to prove that Muslims are no more likely to become terrorists than members of other religious denominations - find or create a list of 1000 (a thousand) terrorist attacks pulled off by members of any religion other than Islam since 2001. Every attack listed must fulfill the following criteria: - It must result in at least one fatality - The target were civilians - It must have been committed explictly for religious reasons (no ordinary crimes) TROP has 22,000 attacks listed - I demand only 1,000 - a mere 1/22th of that. Many Muslims have been trying to create a list of such terrorist attacks and so far all of them fell into two categories. 1. Lists listing crimes such as "a bigoted racist drew a swastika on a mosque in a city X!" or "a prejudiced loon didn't hire X because she was Muslim!". LoonWatch and American Council for Islamic Relations have such lists. God, if you do exist, have mercy... Such crimes DO constitute a breech of law - but they are all trivial compared to the crimes against non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim countries. 2. Lists that widen the definition of religious terrorism to the point of laughability. One Islamic site has made a list of several dozen of what they called "Christian terrorist attacks", perpetuated since 1950s up to the present day - but that list indluded attacks by Columbian drug cartels and leftist organisations such as FARC. Classifying acts of communist terror as "Christian terrorism" means widening the definition of religious terrorism to such an extent that it becomes meaningless. I'm waiting.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster seems to fill that role just fine. Other religions won't die out as most of their claims are unfalsifable.

swansont... I gotta remind you that argumentum ad numerum is a major logical fallacy. Acts of brutality are evil no matter how many people worship the criminal - what would happen if the followers of Anders Breivik founded their own cult and grew so big that in the end they would be considered one of the world's major religions? Would it make Breivik any less evil? Would you then condemn any act of criticizing Breivik "prejudice"? Tehre is no need to engage in fallacious reasoning... The only thing you need to do is prove that Muhammad was NOT a rapist, a mass murderer, a liar and, assassin and a pedophile - and I will renounce all my claims and admit that Islam is a peaceful, tolerant religion. I can bring you examples from canonical Islamic literature (hadith and biographies of Muhammad). Except Nazism and Communism no ideology got even remotely close to the level of violence by Muslims... Not even Christianity. Just mention 90 mln people killed in India over the course 1000 years (including 300,000 killed on a single day), between 50 and 80mln black slaves from Africa (two thirds of whom died en route to Muslim lands) and about 3mln Hungarians and 2mln Russians uprooted from their country within just 150 years (taken as sex slaves or forcibly enlisted to Ottoman army)

It depends on what the mods think about it - I reject it not because it it superstitious (all religions are to some degree) but because it is an ugly, morally aberrant ideology - people should be allowed to express what they believe but freedom has it's limits - if someone practices a religion claiming that people who don't accept it are "filthy" "deaf, dumb and blind", a religions whose founder encouraged his followers to fight unbelievers until they either die, convert ot pay the jizya and "feel themselves subdued" -then it's good to at least keep an eye on them. I feel deeply disillusioned by the policy of European politicians west of Oder river... They let Islamic clerics preach their hate filled religion in Europe (of course Christians in Muslim countries don't have such a right) and instead of being grateful these scholars demand the imposition of sharia law in EUROPE - where they are nothing more than guests, they issue rulings claiming that it's permissable to rape European women because they don't cover themselves properly. and they open bigoted Islamic schools that teach religious apartheid... Enough.

1. ;/ Yeah, people who attacked these clinics were Christians... But compare the scale - since 1970s there have been several such attacks. Less than 20 people have died. Since 9/11 alone Muslims have perpetrated more than 20000 terrorist attacks. More innocent lives were lost in just a single day on September 11th than during more than 30 years of war in Northern Ireland. 2. The Crusades were just a counter attack - Eastern Roman Empire pleaded European royals for help after having their asses whipped at Manzikert - note that by 1095 when the first crusade began Muslims had conquered roughly two thirds of the Christian world and began raiding European coastlines for slaves and raping nuns coming to Palestine. The Crusaders committed a series of atrocities but they weren't ordered by any higher authorities... And today no one praises them.... Muhammad raided unprepared and unarmed villages and then executed entire male populations and enslaved women. He assassinated people using lies and wicked deception to make them lower their guard just because they wrote poems critical of him - and there isn't a single word of apology from any Islamic cleric. As he is supposedly the "perfect man", his actions are viewed as absolutely legitimate by all scholars of Islam. The very fact that the most perfect man on Earth felt threatened by mere poets proves how insecure he was.

The biggest mistake people make is assuming that Islam is an otherwise peaceful ideology that is misrepresented by radical. In fact it is totally the opposite - it's peaceful and tolerant Muslims who misrepresent Islam, not the violent ones. The violent ones have Quran, hadith and sira on their side, peaceful ones have nothing. Trying to make Islam a peaceful ideology is like trying to make National Socialism an ideology tolerant to Jews - the only way to make Islam peaceful is by rejecting a large part of it's scriptures* and that's of course impossible because it would mean that you put yourself above God, that you know better than him what is good and what is bad. Regarding levels of violence - just compare accusations made against Muslims by Christians to those made by Muslims against Christians. Christians accuse Muslims of bombings, beheadings, mutilations and they have the evidence to back their claims. On the other hand the harshest accusations that Muslims can bring against Christians are accusations of things such as "hate speech", "racism", "mosque vandalism", "prejudice" etc. One Muslim has managed to concoct a laughable list of what he's called "Christian terrorist attacks" - a list consisting mostly of attacks by drug cartels or nationalist organizations. The vast majority of the perpetrators of these attacks weren't even remotely religious (he's been long since trying to purge it off the web, fortunately web archives are all-knowing). *There ais a group of people called "Quranists" or "Ahl Al Quran" who reject hadith (mostly due to being disgusted by it's violence) but they are treated by mainstream Muslims in roughly the same way as Jehovah's Witnesses by mainstream Christians.

What exactly are we trying to measure? Whether Muslims as people are peaceful or whether Islam as an ideology is peaceful? The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people - but the same could be said about the vast majority of Germans during the period between 1933-45 - they were peaceful but the ideology that their country was based at wasn't.

Christianity is a more peaceful religion because Jesus was a good man. He wasn't a rapist, a misogynist and a mass murderer like that Muhammad fella. Of course the Old testament is filled with violence even more than Muslim texts but Jews and Christians can reject that violence as simply historical anachronism while Muslims can't.

It is everything but a religion of peace... Just look at it's founder - he raided merchant caravans, raped women captured in war (encouraging his men to do the same) and even forced his son to divorce his wife so he could have her for himself... Not to mention executing people for blasphemy or apostasy. These are all characteristics of a street gang boss, not a spiritual teacher such as Buddha or Jesus. Of course Muslims like to say that their religion is that of peace - but that's because they use the word "peace" in a different context than we do. Islamic "peace" can only achieved when there is nothing left but Islam - all it's enemies are either killed, converted or forced to pay tribute and "feel themselves subdued".

I wish that advanced genetic engineering was already available. I one-two generations all people would be smart, healthy and good looking. I would not hesitate even for a while before genetically engineering my kid.

Epic act of forum necromancy. Resurrecting a month-old thread...

Hadith aren't word of God but they are examples set by the "prophet" -supposendly the most perfect man in the world and are no less important than Quran... Some people claim that hadith are more reliable source than the quran because one can be a Muslim by knowing hadith alone but not by knowing quran alone - as it's basically a collection of rumblings and rantings without any order and with no historical context provided. If you think that death penalty is not a part of Islam, you can register on one of English language Islamic discussion boards and try to convince them that they're mistaken. Of course you can't - they have studied Islam for longer and know it better than you do. They have hadith and sira on their side while you have nothing. It is so incredibly sad that many people who reject this totalitarian BS - most of whom are educated, smart people - have to live in hiding because some 7th century bandit warlord decided that his ideology cannot survive without force. And he was right, Islam cannot compete freely with other religions, it must rely on force to retain believers.

In Islam punishment for leaving the faith is death. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a perfect law, given by God himself and this law cannot be changed. All people who abandon this wicked religion face either death or total rejection by the community.

Oh man... Physics in Poland is almost all about problem solving... The teacher introduces some theory and the students start doing real problems from a workbook... And there is almost always homework. That's the case from the very beginning in 7th grade. There are also a few specialized magnet schools that follow a different curriculum... even more of them in Russia.

How exactly is physics taught in your country? Where I live physics as a separate subject begins in 7th grade (junior high school), then after 3 years one may choose a math-physics profile in senior high school with five hours (five 45min lessons) of physics every week. So I think by the time of 12th grade one has a pretty solid grasp of classical physics and a good preparation for uni physics. If someone is really passionate about it, he/she won't find the material boring.

So what about Lord of the Rings? Or Hamlet? Or Romeo and Juliet? These stories are so complex that it's utterly impossible that they're made up! Probably... If you think the Bible is too complex - just tell me what's the physical unit that literary complexity is measured in and how it is calculated.

I have doubts about global warming because whether it occurs or not is different from the issue of it being anthropogenic... The temperature of earth is not a simple linear function of CO2. There are several factors shaping the temperature on earth - it's albedo, composition of it's atmosphere, solar activity and distance from the sun. Each of these variables is composed of smaller variables and it is not completely understood how they affect the atmosphere.

I don't know how many creationist "scientists" deceive themselves... Note that even Michael Behe, the mastermind behind the Intelligent Design "theory" has (after a humiliating defeat in the court) renounced most of his claims and now he advocates theistic evolution instead of literal creationism.

Does anyone know why biblical literalism is pretty much a US-only phenomenon? it originated in the US and in my country the only organisations peddling it are offshoots of American groups. The Catholics don't have it, nor Eastern Orthodox, not even Luterans... And the earliest interpretation fo the Old Testament, written before Jesus was born did NOT adhere to a literal interpretation. Among Catholic Church Fathers only one had an interpretation that was somewhat literal.