I became a muslim last night

[DotCommunist]

As the orthodoxy has it, it's not so much 'saving the world from sin' as 'saving the world from THE CONSEQUENCES of sin' I.E eternal damnation in helllll-ah.

Jeebus is meant to be the medium by which flawed humans can approach the Big Beard. Without his taking on of the burden of our sins when we pray for forgiveness we would literally be unable to approach god at all and so would burn for eternity with Satan and his cronies.

So I was taught.

 

[butchersapron]

If I was in a position of having to convert, I would be able to do it based on the concept that all religions are basically the same. They can all be boiled down to "be nice". How the being nice is applied is up to that religion.

If I was to use any other definition of religion, I would not be able to go through with the conversion.


erm - my comments were based on the discussion about converting. I'm not about to get dragged into some rubbish debate over the evils/goods of religion.

So you'd happily convert to communism then?

 

[chainsaw cat]

Which ones?

First Crusade and Rangers -v- Celtic.

 

[xes]

As the orthodoxy has it, it's not so much 'saving the world from sin' as 'saving the world from THE CONSEQUENCES of sin' I.E eternal damnation in helllll-ah.

Jeebus is meant to be the medium by which flawed humans can approach the Big Beard. Without his taking on of the burden of our sins when we pray for forgiveness we would literally be unable to approach god at all and so would burn for eternity with Satan and his cronies.

So I was taught.

send your questions to David "Deloris" Shayler @ ......

 

[spring-peeper]

Why would I waste my time? I see the results of religion all around me.


You can fritter your intellect away on ultimately pointless Iron Age nonsense if you like.

Much better ways of engaging with people than through malignant fictions.

Dumbass question - if the people doing the exploiting didn't have religion as a tool, do you think they would find another medium or just stop manipulating others?

 

[spring-peeper]

So you'd happily convert to communism then?

Communism isn't a religion.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes it is, and it's central tenet is 'be nice'.

Why couldn't you convert to something that you agree with if it's not a religion anyway?

 

[maximilian ping]

Were you near Hammersmith Bridge late this morning?

no, i love that bridge! luckily the IRA were their usual incompetent fuckwits and failed to bomb it in the 90s.

talking of bombing - why doesn't someone bomb those yankee Republicans who are slagging off the NHS, the c*nts

 

[chainsaw cat]

Dumbass question - if the people doing the exploiting didn't have religion as a tool, do you think they would find another medium or just stop manipulating others?

What's that got to do with whether or not religion is useful for teaching morals?


eta and if the time spent in church by the religiously exploited had been spent learning politics/ethics/morality and how to debate and deconstruct, manipulation and exploitation would be a lot harder to get going innit.

 

[revol68]

Why not I say. All religions are a fucking load of nonsense but if you're living with a bunch of people who're into it you might as well join in. Reminds me of when I moved into a flat full of football fans years ago. I was converted by the time I left despite displaying no interest prior to that. Still love it

The basic tenets of Islam are sound anyway. My main problem with religion is that those core beliefs should be obvious to any human being with a brain so why do people need to be told by some dude in a robe?

Oh you mean that retarded contemporary liberal notion that religion is just different little stories telling us to be nice to each other, yes that is really what religion is about.

The fact you compare converting to a religion to taking up an interest in football only shows just how debased our intellectual culture has become, everything is just replaceable with another, Manchester United, the Vatican, Mecca sure it's all the same. Of course there is a truth in that, people do treat religion as just another lifestyle choice, something to be picked off the shelf for convenience. This isn't just damaging to religious world views but to secular notions of rationality, discussion, progress and reason, which is why we live in a pig sty of post modern pik n nix bullshit, where homeopathy is funded on the NHS, MMR vaccination is attacked by scaremongering idiots and a huge amount of biology teachers don't have a basic clue as to what evolution is let alone any understanding of the philosophy of science.

We really do live in an age of intellectual poverty.

 

[spring-peeper]

What's that got to do with whether or not religion is useful for teaching morals?

Absolutely nothing.

I was responding to your post that you see the effects of religion all around you. All I see are people being exploited by others under the guise of religion.

 

[gabi]

We really do live in an age of intellectual poverty.

Well, thank fuck we've got you then revol. Show us the light.

 

[maximilian ping]

The fact you compare converting to a religion to taking up an interest in football only shows just how debased our intellectual culture has become,

are you like one of those people out of Da Vinci Code?

 

[kyser_soze]

While thinking his language is a tad intemperate, and acknowledging the pragmatic approach max is taking is probably more akin to my general drift, I do kinda agree with revols point about taking a religion up on the basis of convenience, rather than an actual personal conversion into faith, as being...well, less than serious.

In the case of Pip's friend getting Islam so they might avoid being attacked by her parents...what does that tell you about the mentality on display by the parents, and the kind of religious faith they practice?

Yeah of course, I wouldn't exactly flaunt it, but life isn't as black and white as do the right thing or do the wrong thing. I wouldn't let it be known that I don't believe in God if I was in a church, but I'd go if it made my family happy.

Turning up to Church and being bored for 90 minutes every Sunday is, for my money, different from allowing yourself to be baptised or confirmed into faith, where you, and others on your behalf, make public declarations of your faith and your commitment to the church.

I mean at the end of the day, believing in Islam means accepting, at some point, that Mo ascended into heaven on a white horse. And this is a literal belief, insofar as there was a white horse, which flew into the sky. I had a chat about this with two of my muslim colleagues the other day, and they were both adamant that is actually what happened. Not a metaphorical white horse, but an actual horse. Flying.

I mean if you still believe in Pegasus then fine, you believe a horse can fly...

HA! Thinking about another thread, I'm experiencing a qualia I can't quantify...well actually I can, but I won't.

 

[quimcunx]

Anyway, congratulations, max.

 

[Random]

Of course there is a truth in that, people do treat religion as just another lifestyle choice, something to be picked off the shelf for convenience. This isn't just damaging to religious world views but to secular notions of rationality, discussion, progress and reason, which is why we live in a pig sty of post modern pik n nix bullshit, where homeopathy is funded on the NHS, MMR vaccination is attacked by scaremongering idiots and a huge amount of biology teachers don't have a basic clue as to what evolution is let alone any understanding of the philosophy of science.

We really do live in an age of intellectual poverty.

The track record of taking religion and rationalism seriously isn't that great, though, is it?

What are you doing, some kind of sub-Debord riff on lament for the enlightenment and the Jesuits?

 

[Santino]

While thinking his language is a tad intemperate, and acknowledging the pragmatic approach max is taking is probably more akin to my general drift, I do kinda agree with revols point about taking a religion up on the basis of convenience, rather than an actual personal conversion into faith, as being...well, less than serious.

In the case of Pip's friend getting Islam so they might avoid being attacked by her parents...what does that tell you about the mentality on display by the parents, and the kind of religious faith they practice?



Turning up to Church and being bored for 90 minutes every Sunday is, for my money, different from allowing yourself to be baptised or confirmed into faith, where you, and others on your behalf, make public declarations of your faith and your commitment to the church.

I mean at the end of the day, believing in Islam means accepting, at some point, that Mo ascended into heaven on a white horse. And this is a literal belief, insofar as there was a white horse, which flew into the sky. I had a chat about this with two of my muslim colleagues the other day, and they were both adamant that is actually what happened. Not a metaphorical white horse, but an actual horse. Flying.

I mean if you still believe in Pegasus then fine, you believe a horse can fly...

HA! Thinking about another thread, I'm experiencing a qualia I can't quantify...well actually I can, but I won't.

I have seen a horse fly.

 

[Random]

While thinking his language is a tad intemperate, and acknowledging the pragmatic approach max is taking is probably more akin to my general drift, I do kinda agree with revols point about taking a religion up on the basis of convenience, rather than an actual personal conversion into faith, as being...well, less than serious.

What's so great about being non-serious about religion? More of that kind of thing, I say.

 

[Random]

I have seen a horse fly.

I've seen a house fly

 

[revol68]

You seem to take religion far more seriously than most nominal believers do, really.

Yeah that was kind of one of my main points, in many ways I have more respect for fundamentalists than these airy fairy fuckwits who claim to be religious but know nothing about their 'faith' beyond it's nice to believe in something.

Considering the greatest enemy of any emancipatory politics is the intellectual inertia of 'post modernism' and it's retarded relativism I think it's fair enough.

 

[kyser_soze]

We really do live in an age of intellectual poverty.

No different from any other age; you're falling into the conservative trap of assuming that there is a glorious past and a lousy present.

 

[Santino]

I've seen a house fly

I've even seen a dragon fly

 

[xes]

They all err—Moslems, Jews,

Christians, and Zoroastrians:

Humanity follows two world-wide sects:

One, man intelligent without religion,

The second, religious without intellect.

 

[Random]

Considering the greatest enemy of any emancipatory politics is the intellectual inertia of 'post modernism' and it's retarded relativism I think it's fair enough.

I don't think that trade unionists and leftists in South America or the Middle East would agree with you, really.

 

[maximilian ping]

Yeah that was kind of one of my main points, in many ways I have more respect for fundamentalists than these airy fairy fuckwits who claim to be religious but know nothing about their 'faith' beyond it's nice to believe in something.

Considering the greatest enemy of any emancipatory politics is the intellectual inertia of 'post modernism' and it's retarded relativism I think it's fair enough.

hey man, but where does love fit into this?

 

[kyser_soze]

What's so great about being non-serious about religion? More of that kind of thing, I say.

Don't you mean what's not great? Would make more sense

Considering the greatest enemy of any emancipatory politics is the intellectual inertia of 'post modernism' and it's retarded relativism I think it's fair enough.

Misunderstood relativism rather; the relativism most people think about 'Every idea is equally useful and valid' is a gross misunderstanding of relativism in PoMo - which while it has about as much use in praxis, does contain a linguistic tool box with which to analyse power-assumptions in anyone's language - including those who talk about emancipatory politics.

 

[xes]

Where does "love" fit into religion at all? "blow this country up, they don't follow our belief" or "this guy's a faggot, lets kill the cunt cos the good book told us that he's immoral"

yep, full of love and understanding. You want love, follow your heart.

 

[DotCommunist]

Where does "love" fit into religion at all? "blow this country up, they don't follow our belief" or "this guy's a faggot, lets kill the cunt cos the good book told us that he's immoral"

yep, full of love and understanding. You want love, follow your heart.

36Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38This is the first and great commandment.

39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.




e2a

This is carte blanche to bone your nieghbours xes!

40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

 

[xes]

What is religion? A maid kept close that no eye may view her;
The price of her wedding gifts and dowry baffles the wooer.
Of all the goodly doctrine that I from the pulpit heard
My heart has never accepted so much as a single word.

It's 1000 years old, and still true to this day (written by a muslim btw)

 

[Santino]

Humanity follows two world-wide sects:

One, man intelligent without religion,

The second, religious without intellect.

Except for you.

A double whammy.