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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
Personally speaking, I don't know if my attempt at objectivity in this matter, or my subjectivity (that you may say is neglected) would win through. Either way, that is irrelevant to my argument. Nowhere did I say or indicate (if i indicated it was an error on my part) that I consider the West superior, even for myself. I merely prefer it. Does one consider mint ice cream superior to vanilla? That is the same kind of decision, if with somewhat less magnitude. You speak using the terms of "problem", "good", "bad", "ok", "not ok" etc. I maintain that is not useful. As hard as that is, if we are to judge another culture objectively, we cannot approach it with our own subjective morality. That's good for us of course, but we can't go round treating our own arbitrary cogitations as gospel. |
Moral preference is different from tastes - unless you happen to prefer the West simply because you find it more comfortable. You've missed that there can be a subjective view that another morality is inferior, without being inconsistant with relativism.
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
Ted Striker:
It is difficult for a Muslim cleric to speak up and be listened to, because the Sunni are a disorganized bunch, without an equivalent to our pope. You speak about Sistani, and he's a shi'a, a religion where there is a hierarchy, and a main priest (the Ayatollah).
The Sunnis don't have this kind of hirerachy - as such, any imam condemning a barbarous act (and I trust there are some) will do it in his own little corner.
For example, in France we have tried to prop up the leader of the Paris mosque as the main guy in our Muslim scene. He's an agreeable guy who defends the ideas of tolerance and integration in the French society. Whenever the TV needs a PC Muslim, he gets broadcasted. Yet, it is a purely articificial job done by the TV and the State, because this guy is no more representative of French Islam than Chicago's chief priest is representative of American christianty. |
Good point 
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cyclotron7
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Drowning in Schnitzel
Jan 2001
time: 21:35
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Just to be crystal clear, I'll rehash the argument for your benefit, Whaleboy, and maybe you'll be able to respond with something besides "BS."
- Fundamentalism means the literal interpretation of a religious text. I don't have the OED in front of me, but as far as Webster's Dictionary goes: "Fundamentalism: Religious beliefs based on a literal interpretation of the Bible."
- Obviously that definition is a bit Christian-centered, so I took the liberty of expanding "Bible" to "religious text of choice." No doubt you will agree to this, because if you don't that means you can't logically call any muslims fundamentalist at all.
- The Holy Koran is, according to Muslims, a revelation given to the Prophet Muhammad; it is the supreme revelation from God. As far as I am aware, even a "moderate" Muslim will hold that that to be true. In other words, the Koran is not a book written about God, but rather a text from God.
- The Bible, on the other hand, is held to be God's literal truth by only some Christians. Many, perhaps most, believe it to be written by men even if it was divinely inspired, and thus open to significant interpretation. I am not saying that the Koran is not interpreted, only that there is less leniency in this regard because it is universally held by believers to be stright from the big guy upstairs Himself.
- Thus, I conclude that all Muslims are fundamentalists, while only some Christians and Jews are fundamentalists.
- Fundamentalism does not mean extremism, no matter what CNN tells you.
That's about it. I'm looking forward to your rebuttal, if in fact you have more to say than "that is uninformed BS."
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Zevico
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Melbourne
Apr 2002
time: 15:35
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quote:
Interesting, you would choose to like or dislike someone based upon their opinions, not their intent to act upon them?
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Well if they in principle agree with the murder of me and my family for no other reason other than that I am Jewish, I think that is cause to dislike them. By the way, Whaleboy, I would remind you that the section of the population I am talking about- and it isn't some "small minority"- wants to kill you whether or not you are zionist, anti zionist, capitalist, communist, or what have you.
Also, if enough come together-as they have before- their intent can turn lethal even if they were 'average citizens' previously. For example, when a few Israeli army reservists drove into a town by mistake they were quite literally lynched by a mob of 'ordinary palestinians'.
Should I not dislike supporters of Nazis for wanting to kill me? What is the difference in principle here?
I do not justify in any way the killing of these Muslims by anyone, nor any ill treatment or discrimination towards them.
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Az
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MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000
time: 07:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
Needless to say, that is a non-starter. If you support such an action, then I doubt we're going to have a particularly constructive debate.
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I said that I don't support it. Who's attacking a strawman now? Adress the point.
quote:
Personally speaking, I don't know if my attempt at objectivity in this matter, or my subjectivity (that you may say is neglected) would win through. Either way, that is irrelevant to my argument. Nowhere did I say or indicate (if i indicated it was an error on my part) that I consider the West superior, even for myself. I merely prefer it. Does one consider mint ice cream superior to vanilla? That is the same kind of decision, if with somewhat less magnitude. You speak using the terms of "problem", "good", "bad", "ok", "not ok" etc. I maintain that is not useful.
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quote:
As hard as that is, if we are to judge another culture objectively, we cannot approach it with our own subjective morality. That's good for us of course, but we can't go round treating our own arbitrary cogitations as gospel.
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Umm, what I say ain't morality. It's ethics, and that's why we judge another culture, remember? That's the whole point, they are not arbitrary. we derive them logically.
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Your strawman held that I claimed that we must not help them. That is woefully in error. I am saying that we can help, according to our own morality, but our actions can only go so far and cannot force outselves upon them. The confusion is yours  .
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so, basically, if you can't force it, don't do it, no matter what? You know I can invoke that hyperbole to illustrate a point here. If you cannot force something for a greater good because of a person's or a culture's morality, Then you're limiting yourself to enforcing the law, for example, only against those that believe that what they're doing is wrong.
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Semitic God is held to be absolute, eternal, good, immortal, infinite and whatnot. Can even a nationalist say the same about their nation?
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Wait, that's an argument for religion being better? 
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The semitic religions have a (mostly) coherent moral code going for them. I don't like it myself but it does seem to work in the sociological sense.
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Well, ain't that a lot of new age bullshit!  Say, did you ever study hebrew religious law? 
quote:
A nation has self-interest, megalomania, militarism and a tendency towards self-destruction. See where I'm going with this?
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 right, and religion doesn't? Let me remind you of the religious wars of history?
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Now I'm at the atheist end of agnostic so I suspect we'd sympathise in that regard, but if you asked me what I thought did more harm, a belief in God or a belief in ones nation, I have to say the latter. I find it much more satisfying, easy and productive to discuss matters with religious people (Christians, Jews and Muslims) than nationalists who call me an "ivory tower intellectual" and the like whenever I say something that threatens their narrow-minded view. |
This is the "personal experience" fallacy.
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You strawman'd GePap by implying that he was saying it was all America's fault. Both my opinion and interpretation of his post (I cannot speak for him of course) is that it is largely America's doing, not it's fault. Fault implies direct responsibility, guilt based upon intent. America is only guilty by consequence, its intent was a harmless desire for world domination (cough), not the humiliation of Islam. |
It wasn't a serious argument. notice the smiley, and get the broom-stick out of there.
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Cruddy
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I reckon a lot of people are jealous of a religion that allows more than one wife.
The married folks actually think this is a bad idea, it's the wannabe's and hard up types that villify Islam.
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dojoboy
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Tansi (USA)
Nov 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
Upon what basis? That someone who uses Western-based ideas sees a culture that doesn't have those ideas as inferior because they are different to his? |
A religion/culture that purposely denegrates women, etc., and refuses to check its radical elements is seriously flawed. Muslims, and those who wish to marginalize this truth, are only fooling themselves if they think the Western and Asian civilizations are going to sit back and do nothing.
Christianity has had its "Dark Ages," but it has evolved to the extent that one is no longer put to death for not converting. Referring to Judaism, well,....if my people had been the target of mass genocide I'd be a little more radical myself. The Israelis at least are saying, "This is our side here, and that is your side over there."
I've heard it stated that Islam is growing faster than other religions. If so, it is because it attracts and nurtures hate, not because it provides a pathway to "heaven." Until Muslim nations take responsibility for their the radical wing of Islam, they will garner no respect from the world's nations.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:35
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quote:
Originally posted by dojoboy
Assuming I meant only America, you're statement would be accurate. Do you really believe America is the only nation behind the containment of radical Islamic fundamentalism? |
Depends on 'containment' by which means. We had 30-40 states on board for the Coalition of the Willing. That makes it at most 4/19, or 21% percent of the world's nations. Hardly a mayority. Perhaps you mean the war on terror as a whole. Last time I looked, one of our key partners in that is, guess who (accoridng at least to the latest paper from the Government), Saudi Arabia..yep, I am sure the saudi government has nothing but contempt for Islam........And then there is pakistan, a state created for the sole purpose of getting Msulims out of a Hindi Mayority India., yes, they hate Islam there!
Anyway you cut it, your statement is more a statement of personal opinion vs. islam as opposed to a statement having significant basis in fact.
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dojoboy
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Tansi (USA)
Nov 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Depends on 'containment' by which means. We had 30-40 states on board for the Coalition of the Willing. That makes it at most 4/19, or 21% percent of the world's nations. Hardly a mayority. Perhaps you mean the war on terror as a whole. Last time I looked, one of our key partners in that is, guess who (accoridng at least to the latest paper from the Government), Saudi Arabia..yep, I am sure the saudi government has nothing but contempt for Islam........And then there is pakistan, a state created for the sole purpose of getting Msulims out of a Hindi Mayority India., yes, they hate Islam there!
Anyway you cut it, your statement is more a statement of personal opinion vs. islam as opposed to a statement having significant basis in fact. |
Oh, I see my error in terminology. The generalization of Islamic nations should not have been written as such. Often when I post I don't always catch how it reads. My apologies.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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I am shocked by the immense ignorance in this thread.
for example...
quote:
The Sunnis don't have this kind of hirerachy - as such, any imam condemning a barbarous act (and I trust there are some) will do it in his own little corner. |
There are no true imams as you describe in Sunni Islam. There is no priesthood of any sort. The imam simply leads the other believers in prayer. Any muslim can serve as an imam at any time there is more than one person praying at a location. these are not priests by any means.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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quote:
The Bible, on the other hand, is held to be God's literal truth by only some Christians. Many, perhaps most, believe it to be written by men even if it was divinely inspired, and thus open to significant interpretation. |
what Christians are you speaking of? If they do not take the original texts as being literal, they are not Christians. All of Christian dogma, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, for the past two millenia, has stated that the original texts are the word of God.
The Koran on the other hand is God's word through the arch-angel gabriel, through mohammed and then unto the paper of his converts who transcribed what mohammed said (most of it was written after mohammed's death though).
quote:
I am not saying that the Koran is not interpreted, only that there is less leniency in this regard because it is universally held by believers to be stright from the big guy upstairs Himself. |
there is actually more leniency as the Koran says quite explicitly that moral Christians and Jews who follow the teachings of their faiths will have heaven. There are no doubt contradictions between the Old Testament/Torah, the Gospels, and the Koran yet God is merciful and lenient enough to allow these contradictions exist and those who subscribe to beliefs that defer from the Koran will still have paradise. Is this not more leniency than perhaps any religious faith has ever had?
Furthermore, there are numerous lines in the various surahs that hint at an interpretive nature of the Koran. There is no dogma in Sunni Islam, the individual believer interpreting the Koran himself. This may be the cause of extremism as, whereas, a religion like Catholicism will be moderate or liberal if the papal curia is moderate or liberal, Sunni Islam (and most protestant faiths) will have believers who interprete the koran in a reactionary way while others will not. the individualism of sunni islam allows for extremism.
Furthermore, many of the legal surahs (which are the basic point from which sharia originates), state such things as a sinner will be punished unless God (meaning an interpretation of God's Koran) finds a way to excuse their crime. just take a look at the surah translated "The Women", which has been often seen as very harsh on the surface, and you'll see such lines that show a very real tolerance.
thanks
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:35
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quote:
You can be a freedom fighter and a murderer at the same time - murder is a legal term, freedom fighter is a meaningless value-loaded one, that depends more on goals than methods. A terrorist is defined by methods. I'm not saying the goal is better, but rather the means are.
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In that case, we could quite easily lump soldiers in an offensive campaign in with the definition of murderer. In that sense, the definition remains entirely arbitrary, though of course, I define an offensive soldier as a potential murderer anyway.
quote:
Why the heck should we view relativism wrt societies?!
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Pacifism. At that level, they're very much reconcileable.
quote:
Anyways, I hold to the version of relativism that states that all moral statements are subjective; I just happen to be of the opinion that a more liberal society allows for a greater number of different moralities to coexist. I don't think it is objectively better.
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Agreed, but that's not required, since contextual relativism can still apply.
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Because that's your personal morality. For most of us, to stand by and watch while something like that happens is evil in itself. Since you don't want to compell other people to follow a morality, why are you trying to do so to us? Sure, try and convince us if you want, but please don't vote; you would forcing your opinion on us.
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YOu mistake my desire for what I think should happen from my will to do so if I had the ability. Now recognise that I cannot make an objective scientific statement of course, so I can only state my opinion and hope people will concur. I take an emotivist view to morality, with a cap to it. That concept is amoral in my view. To put it another way, I don't want people imposing their morality on them, which you could view as a statement of imposition myself but a more accurate term would be disposition.
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Moral preference is different from tastes - unless you happen to prefer the West simply because you find it more comfortable. You've missed that there can be a subjective view that another morality is inferior, without being inconsistant with relativism.
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Agreed, but I don't have that. You could call it first-order moral relativism as well as the second-order that we are both familiar with. Put simply, even though I prefer the West, I don't see Islamic civilisation as inferior, notwithstanding my relativism.
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It's actually literal truth. As I said, I'm not placing any value judgements on the fact that essentially all Muslims are fundamentalists. Please read the post more carefully; my guess is that you are confusing fundamentalism with extremism.
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I just find it incredible that all Muslims are fundamentalists, or take their texts literally. I know Muslims (admittedly very well educated and questioning) that do not. I am prepared to say, however, that those that are not (just like the rest of us) will think what they are told to think. Sorry about the BS  and I do understand your arguments.
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Having actually been to Islamic countries, I have no problem with Islam and actually respect it in many ways.
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quote:
Well if they in principle agree with the murder of me and my family for no other reason other than that I am Jewish, I think that is cause to dislike them. By the way, Whaleboy, I would remind you that the section of the population I am talking about- and it isn't some "small minority"- wants to kill you whether or not you are zionist, anti zionist, capitalist, communist, or what have you.
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I know many would kill me without question, but I still don't see why that's a necessary reason for them to dislike me. If they knew me in person, without knowledge of my background, and still wanted to kill me, then perhaps I would have cause to dislike, but if they choose to tar me with the same brush as everyone else, I'm not one to act AS everyone else in that regard.
quote:
I said that I don't support it. Who's attacking a strawman now? Adress the point.
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I said "if you support", not "because you support". I know that you wouldn't advocate nuclear strikes, but I'm simply highlighting that I would be difficult to get through to someone that did, due to the unreasonableness (sp?) of that position.
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Umm, what I say ain't morality. It's ethics, and that's why we judge another culture, remember? That's the whole point, they are not arbitrary. we derive them logically.
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But we do so based upon our own premises. Again I call up emotivism in this regard, and you can easily conjure up a sociological version of that. As a result, I say that at the level where ethics differ from person to person, culture to culture, they are for all intents and purpose arbitrary. We're not talking about superior and inferior logic, we're talking about logic based upon the foundations of environment and history.
quote:
so, basically, if you can't force it, don't do it, no matter what? You know I can invoke that hyperbole to illustrate a point here. If you cannot force something for a greater good because of a person's or a culture's morality, Then you're limiting yourself to enforcing the law, for example, only against those that believe that what they're doing is wrong.
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No. Sociopaths make life painfully amusing. The only circumstance where you can use force in my opinion is where force has already been used, to defend yourself or another. To clarify my point, you can act for a greater good, but not act to impose for it.
quote:
Wait, that's an argument for religion being better?
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Yep! Makes more sense to believe in something infinite than something whimsical like a nation. Remember in these matters, we're dealing with someone tying their whole identity in with something, and if I believed in God, I would rather tie my identity in with a faith in god, rather than my place of birth.
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Well, ain't that a lot of new age bullshit!
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Hardly, the Ten Commandments are coherent in their own right.
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Say, did you ever study hebrew religious law?
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If anyone ever mentions Pomegranite, I will explode (in a non-terroristic sense of course   )
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right, and religion doesn't? Let me remind you of the religious wars of history?
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You're naive if you think that they were fought on the basis of religion and not economics, using religion to justify them.
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This is the "personal experience" fallacy.
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Latterly, perhaps if it were an argument, but it was just a rhetorical example (which is very far from fallacy). Formerly, I don't see how.
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A religion/culture that purposely denegrates women, etc., and refuses to check its radical elements is seriously flawed.
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In your subjective opinion. Not in any objective sense. Furthermore, are there not elements in all cultures that do that, and you're merely picking up on theirs as a basis for attack?
quote:
The Israelis at least are saying, "This is our side here, and that is your side over there."
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Apartheid. The Jews of all people should be against that, not using our own experience to justify it! 
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Kuciwalker
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of Schmooism
Feb 2001
time: 00:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
In that case, we could quite easily lump soldiers in an offensive campaign in with the definition of murderer. |
No we can't, because only a soldier killing someone illegally would be a murderer.
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In that sense, the definition remains entirely arbitrary, though of course, I define an offensive soldier as a potential murderer anyway. |
The term murderer is meaningless and only used to as an appeal to emotion.
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Pacifism. At that level, they're very much reconcileable. |
Huh? My question was, why is the object of morality entire societies, rather than individuals?
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Agreed, but that's not required, since contextual relativism can still apply. |
Huh?
quote:
YOu mistake my desire for what I think should happen from my will to do so if I had the ability. Now recognise that I cannot make an objective scientific statement of course, so I can only state my opinion and hope people will concur. I take an emotivist view to morality, with a cap to it. That concept is amoral in my view. To put it another way, I don't want people imposing their morality on them, which you could view as a statement of imposition myself but a more accurate term would be disposition. |
If you don't want the other people doing so, but also don't want to impose your morality on them, then you shouldn't vote, as that actually is imposition of your morality.
quote:
Agreed, but I don't have that. You could call it first-order moral relativism as well as the second-order that we are both familiar with. Put simply, even though I prefer the West, I don't see Islamic civilisation as inferior, notwithstanding my relativism. |
Which shows that you prefer the West because you find it comfortable (for lack of a better word), not because you have any particular attachment to its values. Most of us do, though.
quote:
Yep! Makes more sense to believe in something infinite than something whimsical like a nation. |
Why?
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:35
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quote:
No we can't, because only a soldier killing someone illegally would be a murderer.
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Illegal according to the killer? .
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The term murderer is meaningless and only used to as an appeal to emotion.
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But you just said it was a legal term?
Murder is defined as the killing of one person by another against the will of the killed. That begs the question of justifiable murder but I maintain that is only so in defense.
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Huh? My question was, why is the object of morality entire societies, rather than individuals?
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Fundamentally, it isn't. Societies are somewhat continuous, the only real discrete thing we can deal with here are individuals. So, the individual morality of a given Muslim. My argument would seem to stand.
Simply put, while all subjectives are equally valid, we are faced with contexts in which we have to judge, and in that context some things may be more valid than another. Outside of that context, all are equally valid.
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If you don't want the other people doing so, but also don't want to impose your morality on them, then you shouldn't vote, as that actually is imposition of your morality.
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Wrong. You confuse direct imposition with environmental. If you are sitting on a bench, you are environmentally preventing me from sitting on that bench. If I walk over, pick you up and throw you 10 feet away, then I am directly impeding you.
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Which shows that you prefer the West because you find it comfortable (for lack of a better word), not because you have any particular attachment to its values. Most of us do, though.
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Fair enough, I'll go for that. I am not one to align myself with a particular value system except my own.
I would deal with a nation on a rational basis, a god would require "love" for want of a better word. That's not particularly clear so I'll clarify later if needed... I have a train to catch .
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His position is that you really shouldn't feel outraged at the intentional killing of civilians and should make an attempt to understand the cultural narrative of the people doing the killing.
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Wrong. One can feel outraged, I'm not telling anyone how they should feel about it. I'm saying one should attempt to understand it, since knowing more about people can't possibly hurt can it? (unless you're a conservative). One can take action based upon ones reaction, excluding war.
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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it is shocking how the two muslims here (Imran and myself) are ignored even though we have brought actual real knowledge of the religion that makes the matters that yall are squabbling over irrelevent. pity on you...
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:35
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whaleboy:
quote:
but I doubt that one could find a consistent series of wars whose motivations were primarilly religious. |
the early muslim conquests that conquered Persia and all of the Byzantine Empire except Greece were nothing else but religious wars, especially the campaigns against the idolatrous Persians. There is little possibility of any other motivations especially as the conquering Arabs had no real government.
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Zevico
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Melbourne
Apr 2002
time: 15:35
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quote:
I know many would kill me without question, but I still don't see why that's a necessary reason for them to dislike me. If they knew me in person, without knowledge of my background, and still wanted to kill me, then perhaps I would have cause to dislike, but if they choose to tar me with the same brush as everyone else, I'm not one to act AS everyone else in that regard.
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Firstly, whether you act as everyone else is irrelevant, as this section of the population only cares whether you're Jewish by 'blood' or whatever.
Secondly, the main point of your statement is interesting. Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying. I do not so much dislike this segment of the population as I feel absolutely disgusted by the hatred they feel and utterly incapable of understanding how such brainwashing of so many people occurred.
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30-04-2004 07:32
I know what you meant, it just didn't come out the right way.
And you're naive to think there's money to be made in crusades. War costs a lot. I'd like to see some evidence on why the crusades were started for economic reasons, and that the publicised religious reasons were just a front.
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