The concepts of God, morality, souls, etc are beyond our concept of reason. It's silly to try to engage in a rational debate about it, because you can't describe them or prove them using reason.

9/21/2006 2:00:44 AM

true. That is why we have faith.

9/21/2006 2:02:19 AM

Problem with that is, I can accept any premises I want to on faith. There's no good reason to pick one set over another, except how it suits your tastes.

9/21/2006 2:03:25 AM

I can understand that, but faith was never meant to be easy. This is why I have struggled with my faith from time to time. It is hard to drop all notions of logic/reason and believe in something that seems earthly intangible and supernatural from a physical outlook.

This is why I have the BIble. It is the instruction book for everything I need to know.

[Edited on September 21, 2006 at 2:09 AM. Reason : .]

9/21/2006 2:08:42 AM

Yeah it is, because there becomes no more reason to believe in one set or another. That's why it'd be strangely cruel for an all loving god to damn people for not believing in something that is completely arbitrary.

9/21/2006 2:09:34 AM

don't comprehend. Faith is supposed to be easy?

9/21/2006 2:10:46 AM

I'm not saying easy, I'm saying impossible. If you have an infinite amount of equally reasonable choices ... ?

9/21/2006 2:11:22 AM

Quote :

"Islam, just like Christianity, will be mostly conquered and subdued with monetary wealth. Once you see more per-capita dough flowing through the Middle East, you'll see more worship of the mighty dolla than the mighty Allah."

This theory is negated by the fact that many of the most fervent Islamic extremists come from middle-to-upper class families. Islamic militancy doesn't spring from poverty, it springs from a fundamentally violent and intolerant doctrine of beliefs.

9/21/2006 2:11:46 AM

Quote :

"This theory is negated by the fact that many of the most fervent Islamic extremists come from middle-to-upper class families. Islamic militancy doesn't spring from poverty, it springs from a fundamentally violent and intolerant doctrine of beliefs."

Oh so it's the rich ones blowing themselves up and serving as cannon fodder then.

9/21/2006 2:12:33 AM

no offense to anyone, but i see less reason/logic in the koran than any other book. There are things in it that just completely negate the rest of it. Now, some people claim that the Bible has its parts too but I do not see this.

9/21/2006 2:13:22 AM

^^Yep. Look at the recent foiled attacks in Europe and Canada as proof. The would-be terrorists come from a wide socioeconomic strata, and yet they were united in their belief that the way to advance Islam in the world is to blow up innocent civilians.

Or just look at Osama Bin Laden. He could be a wealthy businessman right now. Instead he chose to wage a jihad against the West.

[Edited on September 21, 2006 at 2:16 AM. Reason : 2]

9/21/2006 2:14:10 AM

The Bible has plenty of contradictions. Of course if you contort around and try to reintepret everything properly, you can try to get it so it doesnt. This is called "theology".

Quote :

"Yep. Look at the recent foiled attacks in Europe as proof. Or just look at Osama Bin Laden. He could be a wealthy businessman right now. Instead he chose to wage a jihad against the West."

I'm pretty sure your regular grunt and run of the mill suicide bomber is not one of the rich ringleaders.

[Edited on September 21, 2006 at 2:15 AM. Reason : .]

9/21/2006 2:14:52 AM

theology is also "man-made"

9/21/2006 2:15:20 AM

Look if you want to accept whatever arbitrary sets of objects you want, it's impossible to have a discussion. This isn't because faith is "hard". It's quite easy to believe in a set of things that convinces you that you're going to live in bliss for eternity.

It's hard to face up to the facts that we DO know -- once we die, nothing about us is operational anymore.

9/21/2006 2:17:39 AM

^Most of the recent would-be suicide bombers have been middle-class European citizens, not dirty Palestinians living day to day.

[Edited on September 21, 2006 at 2:18 AM. Reason : 2]

9/21/2006 2:18:17 AM

How about the successful suicide bombers over the course of this entire conflict? (ie since suicide bombers have existed)

9/21/2006 2:19:22 AM

How about the numerous studies which have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities?

9/21/2006 2:22:27 AM

I'd say the guys blowing up are a subset of the radicalized muslims, and a lot of them probably aren't the ones who'd serve a better purpose staying alive.

9/21/2006 2:23:57 AM

You assume too much, but besides that you are missing the point. The bigger risk that the radicalized muslim world holds is not the crazy suicide bombers, but the threat of an Islamic caliphate united in it's intolerance and hatred of the West.

By dismissing radical islam as an offshoot of poverty, you are ignoring the obvious role that Islam and it's doctrines plays in the escalating militancy of muslim areas.

9/21/2006 2:33:42 AM

I'm not ignoring anything. I'm saying that it's easier to indoctrinate a group of poor, downtrodden people.

9/21/2006 2:34:31 AM

I'm just saying that you're wrong with respect to Al Qaeda and radical Islam.

ps here is a snippet from a study of Al Qaeda members, including those involved in 9-11:

Quote :

"Al Qaeda’s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect; and a few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee. ... So what’s in common? There’s really no profile, just similar trajectories to joining the jihad and that most of these men were upwardly and geographically mobile. Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They’re skilled in computer technology. They spoke three, four, five, six languages. Most Americans don’t know Arabic; these men know two or three Western languages: German, French, English. "

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html

[Edited on September 21, 2006 at 2:40 AM. Reason : 2]

9/21/2006 2:37:23 AM

ps dude you have to pay attention to what the fuck I'm saying, and not what you deseperately hope for me to be saying.

I understand the leaders of these movements, and even the more important members are like you said. I'm saying that the vast majority of "radicalized" followers over there are poor. It's easier to hold sway over a group of people whose only hope and light is religion, due to shitty day-to-day circumstances.

I'm not giving Islam a 100% bye here -- you need to stop trying to put words in my mouth.

9/21/2006 2:40:23 AM

I just think that you are talking out of your ass.

It is easy to assume that most suicide bombers are poor pawns with nothing to live for, but reality does not bear out this assumption, especially with respect to terrorism in the West.

The vast majority of people in 3rd world countries are poor. Just because most militant Muslims are poor does not mean that poverty drove them to believe that religion is the only way out.

Once again, I am asking you to drop your assumptions on this topic and look at the facts.

9/21/2006 2:46:18 AM

Again I don't disagree with you that important members of terrorist organizations are well educated. If you can cite something that shows that the majority of your day-to-day palestinian suicide bombers, and the people carrying out the Iraq suicide bombings are these college educated, well-off people ... then I'll of course, believe you. I just don't think that to be the case though. Something to the affect of different characters basically paying the families of suicide bombers leads me to think that many of them are poor.

9/21/2006 2:49:04 AM

Okay here -- not sure how reputable this source is, but this is what some data stacks up to:

http://www.ecaar.org/Newsletter/Nov04/saleh.htm

Quote :

"Findings from a New Database Having constructed a database of 87 suicide attackers from the Second Intifada, we discovered recurrent social and demographic patterns.3 First, Palestinian suicide bombers are between the ages of 17-53, with mean and median falling at 22 years. Second, 38 percent had completed more than 12 years of education, having been university students or graduates at the time of the attack; only 28 percent failed to finish high school. Third, the majority had many siblings; 81 percent came from households with at least eight members, with fully six or more brothers and sisters. Fourth, almost all suicide bombers are unmarried and male, though the number of female bombers is rising. Suicide bombers are better educated than average - in the Palestinian distribution of educational achievement they are clustered on the right-hand tail. In addition, two new facts have recently surfaced. We suggest that two factors, economic deprivation and human cost, generate increased incentives to participate in militant activities, and we provide quantitative evidence in the support of this argument."

Seems like they're better educated than I thought, but these guys suggest that economic deprivation generates an increased incentive.

Quote :

"Revenge and Unemployment As Table 1 shows, there is evidence that many suicide attackers included a large number of Palestinians who had a prior history violent encounters with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that resulted in an immediate family member being killed or in some cases the attacker him/herself was injured or arrested (due to space limitations only a sample of this data is included in this table). Revenge may be a significant factor in motivating Palestinians youth to volunteer; in our preliminary search we found 44 (and counting) attacks where the operators had been exposed in the past to IDF force. 11 of the 44 suicide attackers with grievances had a relative killed by the IDF; almost all were previously arrested or had had a family member arrested or injured. Combined with deteriorating economic prospects, such personal injuries may seed volunteerism among youths, making them relatively easy targets for organizational recruiters. From October 2000 through March 2004, over 2,800 Palestinian fatalities and 25,600 non-lethal injuries were attributed to the IDF. By the end of 2002, some 1,600 homes were destroyed, 14,000 damaged, and $650 million of damage done towards public infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, suicide bombers often experience personal trauma related to the Israeli force prior to their volunteering, such as the death or injury of a family member. "

[Edited on September 21, 2006 at 2:55 AM. Reason : .]

9/21/2006 2:54:30 AM

True I think when you look at Iraq and the Palestinians, poverty and bloodshed has driven a lot of muslims to extremism.

But in examining the escalating rhetoric throughout the muslim world, I worry that people don't realize how much of a threat Islam is because others are afraid to criticize the religion itself.

The religion preaches intolerance and violence. I don't see its shortcomings being remedied with money.

9/21/2006 2:55:49 AM

I'm not afraid to criticize Islam I'm accounting for why Islam has such an easy grip over these areas. I don't understand why you tried to sketch me as some apologist for Islam -- you basically made yourself look like an ass. I'm extremely critical of Islam, just like I am of all Abrahamic religions.

9/21/2006 2:57:11 AM

Quote :

"this is the time between the origination of sin (in eden) and the death of Christ... there was no real notion of salvation or redemption."

I'd argue that there was but that people didn't completely understand it. The book of Matthew is written with the agenda of using existing scripture at the time to show how Jesus was the Son of God and Savior. Jesus even said:

Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

Quote :

"The whole point of that story is to show complete loyalty and reverence to God by making yourself sacrifice everything in this world in order to please God."

This is another story or example of how the notion of salvation through the Savior was present in the OT but perhaps not understood. Think of the symbolism in the story. God sacrificed his Son. It was said that all families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham. Twelve tribes/apostles. Etc.

9/21/2006 7:45:04 AM

Quote :

"The religion preaches intolerance and violence."

Depends. It certainly doesn't have to. If anything, the Qur'an is less intolerant and violent than the Hebrew Bible. Things change. There's no reason to assume Islamic terrorism will be around forever.

9/21/2006 1:40:47 PM

^ Yes. Nothing is permanent. Not even nothing.

Quote :

"It's hard to face up to the facts that we DO know -- once we die, nothing about us is operational anymore."

1) Nothing observable.

9/21/2006 2:20:43 PM