Vexen

This is what Sam Harris said about the link between the Muslim community and radical ideology:

 

"It is time we recognized—and obliged the Muslim world to recognize—that “Muslim extremism” is not extreme among Muslims. Mainstream Islam itself represents an extremist rejection of intellectual honesty, gender equality, secular politics and genuine pluralism. The truth about Islam is as politically incorrect as it is terrifying: Islam is all fringe and no center. In Islam, we confront a civilization with an arrested history. It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world."

There are many causes, and those causes and motivations are different for each individual person.

That statement implies that there is no central ideology that motivates radical Muslims. All individuals are motivated by different circumstances . Islam, as a religion, cannot be blamed for terrorism in its name.

 

Is this what you are implying?

 

My interest in this topic occurred when I read Sam Harris.

 

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-reality-of-islam

I'm curious why MORE people who base so much of their lives on these texts aren't radical. After all, reading the texts it's pretty clear what should be done, and in reality it's the extremist elements that seem to be reading and following the texts most accurately (bible, Qu'ran, or otherwise).

I want to deal with your premise.Many people completely disagree with your premise. What is your basis for claiming that the text are causing any sort of radical behaviour?

 

I know there are many causes but what mainly motivates radical Muslims?

2014 was a bad year for Islam. It saw radical Islamic groups including ISIS, Hamas, Boko Haram, taliban, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab commit unthinkable crimes. What is the connection between the Islamic faith and these groups? Have these groups hijacked a peaceful religion?

 

"Bin Laden's ideology and interpretation of Islam led to the creation of al-Qaeda in response to perceived threats against the Muslim community by the Soviet Union, the U.S. in particular due to its troop presence in Saudi Arabia, and American support for Israel."

 

"Recently, there have been incidents on a global scale, where certain hardline Islamic groups have started advocating beheading and enslaving in the name of religion and caliphate against other sects of Muslims and non Muslims (non believers)."

 

What is the fundamental motivation of radical Islamic groups?

 

Could it be:

Western foreign policy

Interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith

Culture

Economics

Ideology

I recently had a conversation with a person who expressed that wealthy people are "immune" to many life threatening diseases. My antagonist used Steve Jobs as an example. He said that Steve Jobs could have survived if he used his wealth to gain proper treatment.

 

Personally, I think money cannot guarantee your "immunity" against life threatening diseases as medicine has not advanced to that stage.

 

What do you think?

100% votes for the legalization of marijuana.

 

Why is does everyone think this?

"So, in

a way, Christianity is just as correct as Athiestism."

 

That is a bad logical deduction. The conscious disbelief in a doctrine is not the same as a belief in one.

 

All religions can't be all true at the same time. Many of them have mutually exclusive concepts.

 

There are many other explanations for NDE and the experience is not well defined.

I'm quite sure that the Koran plagiarized many teachings and

concepts straight from the New Testament.

 

Additionally, Christianity and Islam are both cults created by man and not inspired by an omnipotent being. Thus, we should expect similarities about the myths proposed by each cult.

Anybody who does biology, the science that has saved billions of lives, knows that it is impossible to do certain biological experiments without animal models. Hopefully, we will be able to master the growth of human organs and avoid the use of some animal models.

 

The types of animals that we use depends on the experiment and the consciousness of the animal. For example, few people oppose engineering glowing mice but many would for glowing apes.

 

Also, we decide what is moral and our decisions change with time.

Yeah, we're just horrible, but with you here to spotlight our corruption, we'll get no benefits from it. We're all very grateful for your dedication, Dekan.

In Dekan's early days, Dekan was probably a friendly and tame user. Then Dekan's reputation become negative. Thereafter, all inhibition was lost and Dekan was no longer compelled to behaviour friendly to fellow users. Dekan's reputation was negative.

 

And so we observe, in the present day, a Dekan ready to espouse his true opinion even though, at times, they may be ill informed.

Recently I asked for support from the mod/admin team over systematic application of negative rep by a specific member. Rather than provide that support I was issued a warning by the team. My offense: calling the member an opinionated twat in my final pm to that member before putting them on Ignore.

 

I joined the forum in 2004 while recuperating from a stroke. Thirteen years later I leave. It has brought me an immense amount of satisfaction, until now, to participate in it. My thanks to all of you whom I have interacted with. I shall no doubt miss you.

My advice : personally apologise to the member you insulted. Don't let your ego cause to leave this forum you have enjoyed for so many years.

Vixen,

 

But is the "strange" world of quantum physics anything different from what quantum physicists expect out of reality?

 

Is an ever expanding universe anything different from what a cosmologist expects out of reality?

 

We did not know about germs, as we know about them after Pastuer, but we still knew not to eat dead things that we did not see killed.

 

Consciousness has to be the way we do it. We are not conscious of any consciounesses that do not exhibit an awareness of their surroundings. We, to be conscious, must be aware of our surroundings. The external world must be internalized and modeled and remembered and thought about and acted upon, to make a conscious being. Therefore the external world has to already exist, prior an entity conscious of it.

 

Where I think you are wrong, in calling our consciousness strange, and the nature of the universe strange, is the simple fact that we have no other way of knowing the universe, than the way we do, and we have no other universe but this one, to know.

 

I respectfully disagree with your disagreement.

 

Regards, TAR

I do understand what you mean. This reality is the only one we know. We probably disagree with the grammar of my answer. Maybe I should have said fascinating instead of strange.

 

But, I'm talking about the point when you just take it all in. Don't you ever say to yourself, "what the hell is going on"? Why wasn't I a unicorn or something? Reality seems more like fiction the more I understand it.

 

 

 

I don't find it strange that an apple falls to the ground and that an object is in one place at a time because I've known these principles all my life. When I found out that fundamental particles disobeyed the principles I knew, I found it strange.

Depends on how much time you spend writing the text and the skill you have. I think Shakespeare, Jane Austen, JD Sallinger, Toni Morrison et al are pretty much proof that emotion can be conveyed in writing. The question is just how close to their mastery that the membership, you, and I can approach.

Honestly, I feel like you wrote your reply in know-it-all manner. As if your opinion is dominant over most people. I feel like you conveyed a smug emotion.

 

What does my text convey about my disposition?

Vixen,

 

 

Consciousness and the nature of the world one is conscious of are neither strange.

 

Conscious is the only thing we are, and nature is the only thing we are conscious of.

 

I would say both are quite regular, possible and required. Sort of the opposite of strange. Quite familiar and lovable, actually.

 

Regards, TAR

I respectfully disagree. Have you ever read modern physics? When I first started reading about quantum mechanics and special relativity I was "blown-away" by the fact that the quantum and high speeds do not reflect reality I thought I knew.

 

We all woke up 13.8 billion years after the big bang. The universe will continue to expand indefinitely. All of us exist for a brief interlude between the start of nothing and the infinite.This seems strange when I consider my daily life.

You should start a blog somewhere.

Yes it does. Exercise will cause an increase/decease in the expression of certain genes of specific cells.

 

When you exercise various hormones are released within your body such as epinephrine. These hormones bind to receptors on a cell's surface causing signal transduction. This results in the expression of a gene(s).

 

However, it far more complex than I explained.

hedonist (which means that pleasure and suffering are the only true good and bad things in life and are the only things that determine the amount of good and bad value we as human beings have and in our lives while everything else in life besides our pleasure and suffering is neither good or bad and are only good and bad in a neutral sense which means they are not truly good or bad things at all

 

Sounds like an intriguing philosophical view.

 

 

Anyway, I don't understand your premise that atheists are as mentally disordered as psychopaths. You should further explain this idea.

Yeah, consciousness and the nature of reality are strange things.

 

My thoughts on consciousness are limited. But consciousness does fall into the realm of science. Altered brain function does influence the way we experience consciousness. So, it does seem that consciousness can be described scientifically.

Okay, I probably didn't articulate my question correctly (apologies to everyone). I'm new to forum life.

 

I'm not saying anything about the positive or negative impacts of anonymity. I want to know what the opinion of an anonymous person reflects.

 

I was hoping people would discuss whether your online opinion is a true representation of who you are. If I'm blatantly rude, racist and bigotry on the Internet but I don't remotely mimic this in my "real" life, which of the two represents me most accurately? Is this some sort of personality dissonance?

 

Side Question:

What do we think about the ability of text to correctly convey emotions?

"Why you cry and who sees you do it appear to

make a difference in whether crying helps or

hurts your emotional state ( Journal of Research in

Personality, 2011). In the study, she and

colleagues found that crying was more likely to

make people feel better when they had emotional

support (such as a close friend nearby), if they

were crying due to a positive event, or if their

crying led to a resolution or new understanding of

the situation that led them to cry in the first

place. Criers felt worse if they felt embarrassed or

ashamed of crying, if they were with

unsupportive people or if they cried because they

saw suffering. Overall, participants were more

likely to feel better if they cried alone or around

one other person, but felt worse or didn't

experience a mood change if they were with two

or more people."

I don't understand anything here. Can someone explain in a less technical way?

I'm studying biochemistry. The study includes mainly the metabolism of the four main biomolecules, nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. In addition we study, in detail, enzymes, immunology and metabolic regulation.

I'll definitely do something similar as soon as I encounter a homeless person.

 

We should put ourselves in their position. This would increase our altruism. Most are too caught up in their own lives to have the time to buy bread or anything else for the homeless.

I would like us to outline the effects of psychoactive substances (legal and illegal) have on society and individuals, postulating whether the benefits outweigh the cost.

 

Day to day one seeks happiness or some derivative of it in the form of love, music, socializing, sport, entertainment, food and all other things that may stimulate the mind. However, these activities do have some risk to your health and at times to others. For example, over consumption of certain enjoyable foods such as burgers and French fries may increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. Falling in love may also be seen as incurring a risk. A person may go through emotional turmoil during and once a relationship has ended. My points is that the risk that one incurs and extends to other (society) should be balanced with the euphoria acquired by an activity.

 

In many countries it is legal to consume alcohol. This has incurred many risks to these societies including alcohol induced violence and accidental deaths. Do these damages to society outweigh the benefits they provide to individuals? The same question may be asked to other psychoactive substances.

 

What about the depressed, poor and dying? Should they allowed to induce euphoria through psychoactive substances such as cannabis?

 

The meaning to life, as I understand it, is to do what makes you happy without inhibiting another person's happiness. Psychoactive substances, in certain circumstances, may provide this.

 

(My poll pertains to whether we should have another psychoactive substance in society.)

 

Sam Harris :

(http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life)

Everybody gets negative rep points. There is no point in complaining, some people will give you additional negatives, because they like to hurt people. In general negatives are hard to avoid and positives are hard to acquire. My advice is always post on topic, always be kind to others, always use clear accurate language, and don't take either positive or negative points too seriously. Easiest way to get positive points is to make people laugh.

Yeah, I'm just going to simmer down for a while. Stay out of the "heat" and keep out of their way. I'll just make an appearance now and then.