The Religion Thread

https://en.irna.ir/news/84851374/Salman-Rushdie-attacked-by-knife-at-New-York


I have not read his book " the satanic verses ,  " I have better things to do . But from the title alone , it is obvious to me that : this author did not aim at publishing a scholarly work on religious studies . But he aimed to court infamy , in order at least to attract attention and sell as many copies and make money . He was told before publishing the Book " not to publish it .  " Therefore be knew the danger he subjected himself and others by publishing .

But which is worse ? Throwing insult at a prophet of religion or the killing and assassination of the transgression ? In my view killing the offender is far worse a crime . Far worse than a lunatic throwing insults at religion . Muslims should not be proud or happy about this attack .

This problem of blasphemy in the Muslim world , and subsequent killings and executions exists in many countries . The right punishment for an individual who throws insult at religion with the aim of causing public disorder , is at maximum a small  fine .

However scholarly and objective historical study of religion should be allowed , even if it is found that it reveals mistakes or problems that contradict the official religious narratives , that are usually subject to political falsification and revisionism . Islam itself has many problems : amputations , early marriage for women , excessive prayers  and belief in the " Jin , " an inclusion of pre-Islamic fire God ! Excessive clothing for women , a product of a time , when agriculture and wealth allowed women to choose marriage partners ........

I hope a quick recovery for Mr . Rushdie . Although I dislike his Book , which is a cheap shot at Islam , in order to sell a Book . Muslims need a tolerant and scientific understanding of their religion , it's correct and incorrect points . I dislike some Iranians expressing happiness at his stabbing or likely death . Ayat . Khomeini also wrongly sentenced a lot of innocent people , socialists and democrats , to death . That was and is wrong also .


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bDe9msExUK8

Play stupid games... win stupid prizes...

The amount of fine imposed , should be proportional to the cost of any damages to property and persons and  removal of offensive material ( incitement or hate ) or persons , from illegal locations . The punishment should fit the crime . If Rush- die , lived in Islamic country , then proper fine would be : cost of removing books from sale and cost of policing any Riots or damage to property . Probably a higher fine not death sentence !


The West makes this literary " genius " into a hero with title of " sir ! " , since they see that he pokes fun at Muslims and causes Riots ! Same as Charlie Hebdo , have hate speech sold under banner of " free speech ! " or pussy Riot made into Artistic vanguard by West , not for Artistic value , but because it causes social disturbances .

They have a long history of hippocracy... if you are telling the truth but about western crimes like Assange or Snowden or Manning you are either in jail or exile... if they were Chinese or Russian or North Korean they would be on the front page of Time magazine because they are saving the world...

Crimes are not crimes when western heros are responsible... exposing real crimes and doing you civic duty is a crime in the west... in fact Assange is a more widely known criminal than the people responsible for real war crimes that he exposed that were never brought to justice...

This is the sort of corruption and double standards that Russia and China and now the growing BRICS family are fighting... ironic because the west is so moralistic and ethical you would think it would be something they were starting...

Hypocrisy is a disease of humankind . I was thinking what is the difference between Disneyland and Mickey Mouse and many religions , Churches and Mosques and Temples and parliaments today ? Someone thought about a " talking Mouse " and drew a cartoon many years ago . Of course we know that there are no such creatures in reality . But children and some adults liked it . Later they built Disneyland , full of fantastic creatures , including Mickey Mouse . They filled it with colour and noises that attract , not unlike many religious buildings and King's Castles and fancy parliament buildings we see today .

Later , when there was war and killing , they painted the picture of this talking Mouse on the planes that dropped bombs on people and killed them . Same as the Christian clergy singing the marching song " ...Onward Christian soldiers... ,  " during WWI . Or the torture and murder of even scientists and astronomers  by the Christian Church during the Spanish inquisition . Or giving the keys of " heaven " to children to walk over minefields to clear them , during Iran / Iraq war . Or the killing of socialists and democrats by " religious " ruling in Iran .


A talking Mouse or an Angel with 20,000 wings , or Ezekiel' s wheel of heaven , then turn into instruments for killing . Here these Mickey Mouse men of " God " , enjoy causing fear " ....look at you hide and fear us , we kill and enjoy killing you  ! " We kill in the name of Jesus and Moses and Muhammad and Budda and Karl Marx and Mickey Mouse !


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kCZPzHg0h80

The Taliban ( a fighting Islamist group ) now in charge of Afghanistan , have imposed " Sharia" law . Part of this law imposed restrictions on women's economic activity outside of the home . Of course in Islam there are rules , limiting inheritance for women to that of half of the men , if I am correct . But as far as I know , there are no limitations on women's economic activity outside of the home , other than this .

In Japan , for years now , there has been an increase in women's age at marriage . The last time , I looked , this was about 35 years of age ! Now the Japanese are facing a population collapse , because of low birth rates . This problem is shared in most industrialised nations , where women have become part of the modern workforce . Women then  earning just as much money as men , and having economic independence . This then resulted in late age of marriage , lower birth rates and  greater divorce rates . Economic contraceptive .

I have thought in the past , that in circumstances where there is no economic growth , and mass unemployment and hunger , that men should be given jobs in preference to women . In this way at least , the birth rate and marriage rate can increase . And the population will not disappear . This rule can be justified by social policy . There is no religious law that governs this . What do you think ? Can this be done in Japan ?

"WATCH: 5,000 Catholics just offered mass for Israel then lead a massive Eucharistic procession that spanned for BLOCKS through the heart of New York City"


https://twitter.com/dannydeurbina/status/1712638707399078369

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice


What's the difference between " martyrdom, " and human sacrifice ? The first does not aim to kill , but the deaths somehow benefit society ? The other aims to kill , but the deaths benefit a minority in power to help social control . So if they send a soldier to certain death by walking over minefield to clear it , or send troops to location where they are surely bombed and killed , or ritualistic murder of civilians by terror bombs during a religious festival and then raise them to elevated religious position , for more political and  social control , to keep  a minority in power , then it is human sacrifice ! ISIS also murdered people on religious festival . Is Shia " martyrdom , " turning into human sacrifice ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringing_rocks


So what is the point of life ? Why are we here ? What does it all mean ? Then I must say that an object can not be at the same time the subject of it's own reality ! That is what we humans and Rocks both have in common . At no point can there be objectivity , since an object is always part of the subject and remains elusive ! So we can not know the nature of the universe , because we are part of it . We can not travel beyond the boundaries of space and time and view the universe objectively . We are therefore the same as a Rock . We share the same chemical elements , electrons and protons etc ! But you say " we can speak and think , " and you are right partly . But Rocks also make a sound when struck ! Is the process any different to us humans ? At least the Rock like a sage , maintains it's silence , when asked some important questions :


What do you think about God ? And the Rock answers with " ......silence ..... "





What do you think about relativity ? And the Rock answers with ".......silence ......"


the Rock knows everything ........

There is an old argument : What relates to a reality can not be the perception itself , but a derivative or conception of reality . Both the reality being perceived and the perception itself are therefore changed from their original and are somewhat less real . Yet the perception or the conception of it , can not be our conception of it , since we need a conception of a conception of it , or a second derivative . Ad infinitum . In the limit as we reach the infinite derivative , then this concept contains zero reality . This does not negate the possibility of a reality or a uniform reality , but it negates the possibility of a knowable reality .

We dissect a Rock , and find no perception or conception , apart from the material . The same material as a human brain . When a human dies , at the point of death , there is no weight loss . Then we have to say either : Our thoughts or perceptions , although reflective of a uniform external reality , are non-existent  , a contradiction or that they are non - material and unrelated to a material reality ! In either case , we recognise our human limitations and our inability to know the real world .

nomadski wrote:So what is the point of life ?

It depends on the circumstances of each people, including their social background, class interest, historical context, limitations in their awareness, and others.

For an feudal autocrat monarch his point of life is holding as much territory as possible.

For Vatican theocratic leadership it is the Chirstian followers is being tricked and being manipulated to believe in the absolute authority of the priests and to donate a lot of money to the fund of the Church.

For a capitalist it is as much profit as possible (including by exploiting cheap labour) so that his capital accumulate fast, which is crucial for his cometitive advantages in the free market.

For a worker is that please let my wallet not being empty before receiving my salary at the end of the month.

nomadski wrote:Why are we here ?

Because our fathers and mothers create us via a biological process regulated by physical and biological laws, whether they want it or not want it.

nomadski wrote:What does it all mean ?

Depends on what is the "it" you mention. Each types of notions and objects has different meaning depends on its internal traits and the context of its own history and emergence, and the perception and subjectiv POV of the ones assess it.

I do have a guess of what the "it" you mean but, forgive my annoyance, I may need us to specify what it is for a more detailed answer.

nomadski wrote:We share the same chemical elements , electrons and protons etc !

No.

Human compostition of chemical elements is drastically different than a rock.

Both humans and rocks are made up of the same basic chemical elements like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and various minerals, but the proportions are vastly different. The arrangement of elements in humans is far more complex. Humans are made up of organic molecules like proteins, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids, which give rise to complex structures and functions. Rocks lack this level of organization.

Imagine architechture and engineering. Both a simple townhouse and a complex spaceship share the same basic chemical elements. But the way they are organized creates a vast difference in function.

nomadski wrote:We share the same chemical elements , electrons and protons etc ! But you say " we can speak and think , " and you are right partly . But Rocks also make a sound when struck !

Humans speech involves the coordinated use of our vocal cords, lungs, and diaphragm to produce a wide range of sounds with specific meanings and are intentional. When a rock is struck, it vibrates, creating sound waves. These vibrations are random and lack the specific information content of human speech.

Sound doesn't equal communication. Rocks can indeed produce sounds due to vibrations, but these sounds are not intentional or meaningful communication. The "singing" of some rocks is a result of their specific composition and shape creating a resonant frequency that sounds pleasant to human ears. It's not the rock's intention to create music.

We, as humans, tend to interpret sounds based on our own experiences. A series of clangs from a rock might sound like singing to us, but it doesn't mean the rock is actually "singing" in the same way a human does. It is us human enforce our subjective point of view on the rock to label it as singing.

https://archive.org/details/BudgeMonksKublai/page/n13/mode/2up?view=theater

So what is the point of life ?

We are the creation of chance, of perpetual repetition of processes that were imperfect and eventually the creation of star dust, which is what we are became sentient.

There was not plan, it just happened and when you look at it you live in a world of rules and restrictions that limit what you can or cannot do... you can work with others to help make things better for yourself and your family and friends and countrymen and humanity, or you can do things just for yourself. You are free to break any rules you please and sometimes there will be no consequence, but sometimes the consequences will be severe... and sometimes the consequences of things other people do will effect you.

Leading a good life following the rules wont keep you safe, bad luck and good luck come to everyone if you live long enough.

Don't expect being diagnosed with cancer will mean you win lotto, things are not related and bad guys get away with terrible things and good guys almost never get the credit they deserve, but if you can steal from others because you think you deserve what they have more than they do, you might get to endure a punishment now or you might get away with it.

Regarding what happens when you die, well a caterpillar has no eyes and no ears and just eats leaves and keeps munching away with no concept of being able to fly or what that would mean. As a natural progression of its life cycle that we can observe but it cannot possibly understand it creates a cocoon and transforms into a butterfly and gets eyes and senses that a caterpillar wouldn't understand and it can fly... but when it gets caught in a spiders web or a bird gets it and eats it... what does it think... perhaps it might think it was better off as a caterpillar eating leaves, or maybe it wouldn't trade that time in its life when it could fly.

In both cases it is running from predators while hunting for food... does the next existence mean an easy life and relaxation or will it remain a fight for life with limited resources where the first up are the best dressed and everyone else struggles alone?

If there is one thing we should learn from life is numbers matter... one person on their own does not have the knowledge or capacity to build motorways and sky scrapers and pyramids... but together we can leave the ground and reach the moon. On your own you might eek out an existence living in a hut or cave... but the next fight you have with a large animal might injure you and you die because you can't gather food, or the wound becomes infected.

The irony is that I don't need religion to tell me that killing other people is bad, yet the real irony is that I don't kill people by choice, but those religious people whose own rules say thou shalt not kill will readily kill a non believer in their religion if they get the chance... because thou shalt not kill only means thou shalt not kill someone who has the same god and the same religion and believes the same things I do... if they are a different sect or different religion or have no religion then kill them.

Instead the athiest in me says that not killing other people is not a law of god, but a rule of man that applies to all men... but people of religion say I am dangerous for having no faith in imaginary gods.

We are the creation of chance, ..

Pl. see my last 2 relevant posts here: https://www.russiadefence.net/t2539p775-ufos-extraterrestrial-life#462810

What makes you think they are not human?

For all we know those grey aliens like Paul are actually fully human and are from the year 600,000 AD.

The year they invented time travel. What they are doing now is seeding the past of their own universe to speed things up.... the first time through humans didn't happen till the universe was 50 billion years old and we had luck on our side that we evaded extinction multiple times by the hand of other alien civilisations around that the time... we barely made it to the point where we invented time travel... something no other alien race managed to achieve by that time so the humans... such as they were decided to speed things up and seed this planet which of course didn't exist in their time scale with the very basic DNA they started out with.

Obviously in their time they developed all sorts of DNA fixes but they wanted us/them to evolve naturally and so they tweaked our evolution... obviously the planet surface they grew up on was different but maybe their early history was not a lot different from the one we have... religion and communism, learning to work together instead of evil individualism that might have led to our total destruction several times over.

Obviously their intention is to predate all the alien races that dominated the universe in 50 billion years time and either take them out or domesticate them before they get dangerous.

Obviously it will be a secret programme and only a select few will actually travel in time and ensure mistakes are not made, but if they are they can fix them because they have a time machine and humans were born in a galaxy made of the dust of the dust of the dust of suns billions of light years away.

(I should write Sci Fi ).

Those from the Nibiru r superhumans the Sumerians & others called Gods & Goddesses & that evolved there or even somewhere else; but we r part evolved from ape-like hominids & part have their superhuman DNA- I see no contradiction between creationism & evolution as far as us humans r concerned.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hidden-ancient-egyptian-port-reveals-180984485/

Darwin's Theory's Reputation Was Damaged by Bad Philosophy, by Sergey Khudiev, publicist, theologian, for VZGLYAD. 09.23.2024.

To make a philosophy of life out of a scientific theory is a clear mistake. To reject a scientific theory on the grounds that some people have made a (bad) philosophy of life out of it is no less a mistake. To contrast “natural processes” such as evolution with God’s creation is both philosophically and theologically wrong.

Several well-known figures have recently spoken out against the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution in schools, reigniting a controversy that has been going on for more than a century.

To understand its context, it is worth looking at its origins. Historically, the battle between Darwinists and their opponents is an American phenomenon, arising from a specifically American cultural background, where there is, on the one hand, an influential scientific community, and on the other – until recently, no less influential biblical fundamentalists in the style of “don’t be smart, read as it is written.”

Although the conflict itself is, of course, deeper than the clash between scientific theories and simple-minded biblical literalism.

The problem is that the biological theory of evolution often came (and comes) with a certain ideological charge. What could be called "biologizing", reducing man to a purely biological creature.

Social Darwinism held that the forces of natural selection should operate among humans as among other animals, and therefore the poor should never be helped; those who lose the race for resources should be allowed to die so that their "bad" heredity can be erased from the population.

In the 19th and first half of the 20th century, it seemed self-evident to many that the obvious difference in the level of development of different peoples had biological roots and could be explained by the fact that different races were at different stages of the evolutionary process.

According to the viewpoint advanced, for example, by the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), “the differences between the minds of Goethe, Kant, Lamarck, Darwin, and the minds of representatives of the lower savage peoples – the Vedda, the Akka, the Australian Negro, or the Patagonian – are much greater than the differences between the minds of the latter and the minds of the ‘most intelligent’ anthropoid apes and even baboons, dogs, and elephants.”

Nowadays such crudely racist statements would be the preserve of the extreme fringe, but at that time it was the prevailing view in science, naturally incompatible with the biblical teaching about the unity of the human race, fallen in Adam and redeemed in Christ.

Another practice associated with evolutionary theory, as it was understood at the time, was eugenics—the effort to improve the human race by encouraging the reproduction of people with “good” heredity and discouraging the reproduction of the “feeble-minded,” “hereditarily compromised,” and other “inferior” people.

It was believed that crime and other social ills were caused by “bad heredity,” and that by sterilizing the “inferior,” a much more harmonious and happy society could be created. Under the influence of this theory, more than 60,000 people were forcibly sterilized in the United States alone.

German Nazism took this logic to its extreme by launching a program of sterilization and then extermination of the "inferior" - starting with Germans suffering from incurable diseases. The completely natural and just indignation against these crimes prompted many people to rebel against the theory of biological evolution as such.

https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/9/23/1288745.html

kvs wrote:Following the fake logic of social Darwinism, humans are like bears or other solitary animals and society is just the forest or savanna but with
only one species that eats itself.   This is utter nonsense.   This BS was contrived to justify oppression of the poor and colonial rape.

The Social Darwinism, and the Nazi eugenism BS, look at human as individuals, not as species or community. I.e. they ignore the social and interpersonal interactions between individuals which are crucial for the success of each.

Fact is that for us Homo sapiens, it is social and cultural evolution that determine our adaptability during our history, not genetics. Our life quality and adaptability today is in a whole new level, thanks to changes in social organization, labour and manufacture organization, by education, knowledge, technology, and culture, not by transforming into a brand new species. Implication: it is not nature but nurture determines personal success.

It is noteworthy to see that behavioral and cultural evolution happened in non-human animals, too. For example the regional dialects of songs for singing birds, or the ability of urban dwelling birds and mammals to develop tactics to access to human food sources and then teach their fellows the "knowledge".