I'm betting you'd lose this bet. $390M of South Americans are predominantly Christian and very poor. Favelas in Sao-Paolo and Rio have despicable living conditions where tens of millions people live in extreme poverty and humiliating second-class status. We do not see freaky fundamentalist sects taking root nor, more importantly, spiritual control over there despite a very relaxed and libertarian political power regime that would be an easy target.
Give it time. It's gonna happen. Historically, Brazil has been overwhelmingly RC. If there is any redeeming feature to this brand, it's that there is a central high command to keep the doctrine moderate and uniform. The evangelical fundies are coming, and the numbers are growing. Source: sadly have in law missionaries over there. And business is good.
Also, consider another example of impoverished xians: central African republic
I'll just leave that quick link, which shows pretty superficially, Muslims are not the only people with ####ed up laws against gay people. At least 5 of those 10 countries have nothing to do with Sharia law.
As I said, Sharia is a set of ideals, not a set of laws in the strictest manner. Some countries interpret those ideals in different ways. Not all countries that follow Islamic law are the horrible cesspools you seem to think all Muslim dominant countries are.
I am sure your bias will not be sated though. People, universally, are just pretty messed up. And not just the ones who join ISIS.
I'll just leave that quick link, which shows pretty superficially, Muslims are not the only people with ####ed up laws against gay people. At least 5 of those 10 countries have nothing to do with Sharia law.
As I said, Sharia is a set of ideals, not a set of laws in the strictest manner. Some countries interpret those ideals in different ways. Not all countries that follow Islamic law are the horrible cesspools you seem to think all Muslim dominant countries are.
I am sure your bias will not be sated though. People, universally, are just pretty messed up. And not just the ones who join ISIS.
Thanks for the "top 10" list. Here's a more definitive list of countries with laws against homosexuality...
Just at a glance, it looks like about 20 of them do not have any sort of Islamic law. But I did already say that in my previous post. And for the record, Russians are nuts too.
I was just going off of your own post saying Dubai as an example of a country that proves people like me have a cultural bias against Islam.
Maybe you can share some more exprience that proves a bias exists. Or is that just your opinion?
Lol. I know several gay people in Dubai, who are openly gay. They have never had an issue.
Feel free to google gay hate crimes for North America since 2010, or even longer ago. You will find a plethora of horrible crimes perpetrated on innocent people in the wonderful US of A and Canada. Where Sharia Law does not exist.
They just aren't as sensationalized in North American media because we like to think our culture is progressive, unlike those backwards Muslims!
Our culture is progressive compared to places like Dubai. It's not some media conspiracy. The US, Canada, and other western democracies are far from perfect societies, but you can't honestly think a place like Dubai is equally as open and welcoming of forward thinking ideas. The place is a monarchy, people can't vote.
Again, there seems to be a willingness to gloss over the facts in the name of political correctness sometimes. No, not all Muslims are terrorists, every reasonable person knows that. But to say that there are no ideological connections between the religion and how many of the majority Islamic states tend to operate, is just straight up ignorance.
For the extremism to be effectively combated people need to be willing to acknowledge it, scrutinize it, and understand where its coming from, not just look the other way because they don't want to sound offensive.
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Lol. I know several gay people in Dubai, who are openly gay. They have never had an issue.
Feel free to google gay hate crimes for North America since 2010, or even longer ago. You will find a plethora of horrible crimes perpetrated on innocent people in the wonderful US of A and Canada. Where Sharia Law does not exist.
They just aren't as sensationalized in North American media because we like to think our culture is progressive, unlike those backwards Muslims!
Dubai... an enlightend monarchy where where people, especially homosexuals, are flocking to.
Kissing in public is strictly illegal and can result in deportation. Holding hands in public, even with one’s spouse, is also illegal. Homosexuality is illegal and is punishable by the death penalty.
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As in the rest of the Persian Gulf countries, during the month of Ramadan, it is illegal to publicly eat, drink, or smoke between sunrise and sunset in the UAE. Exceptions are made for pregnant women, children, and those with medical conditions that cause incapability of fasting. The law applies to both Muslims and non-Muslims, and failure to comply may result in arrest. The Islamic dress code is not compulsory, but prohibitions on wearing “indecent clothing” or revealing too much skin are aspects of the UAE to which Dubai’s visitors are expected to conform, and are encoded in Dubai’s criminal law. The UAE has enforced anti-indecency prohibitions in all public places (aside from beaches, clubs, and bars).
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The staff at our hotel are extremely friendly and helpful. Being an inquisitive traveller, I got talking to the young man who attends to my room every day. He is a native of Pakistan and had been working here for four months. He is on a two year contract and will not be home in that time. He is married with one child. He earns about €220 per month. He works ten hours a day, six days a week. This kind of exploitation is disturbing. Dubai for the most part is a fantasy playground for the rich and famous. It is a manufactured city set in the desert. Human rights organisations have heavily criticised violations of human rights in Dubai. Most notably, some of the 250,000 foreign labourers in the city have been alleged to live in conditions described by Human Rights Watch as “less than humane”.The mistreatment of foreign workers was a subject of the disputed documentary, Slaves in Dubai (2009).
There is no doubt that there is some messed up #### going on in Dubai, especially for TCN's (third country nationals), at least by Canadian standards, but this is not a Dubai only problem, or even a muslim country problem, this is a worldwide problem. And I'm not claiming Dubai is a bastion of enlightenment or anything.
But I have been there, lived there for months at a time. Talked to the people, interacted with the workers. I am giving my opinion from my experiences, not only in Dubai, but Turkey, Iraq, Kurdistan and Abu Dhabi.
The reason many Indians, Pakistanis, Phillipino's etc. flock to other countries, yes, Dubai, Iraq, Turkey, is there is no work for them back home. They are more than happy to work for what YOU consider slave wages because if they weren't working for those wages, their families would be starving and homeless. Is it an ideal situation? Hell no, but it is a reality about the world we live in, planet wide.
It is the way of the world. It was done and is being done in Canada, US and Europe.
As for Ramadan, go to any Muslim country. You will be subjected to the same rules. It's a part of life over here. And it is disrespectful to the regular folks you are working around or interacting with, to eat food, or drink water or wear revealing clothing during Ramadan. It is their holy month. You respect their rules in their country, much like you would expect foreigners to respect the rules and traditions of our nation. Dubai tailors the working hours for everyone (not just the Emirates and Expats) at Ramadan. Working hours during daylight hours are severely limited to 6 hours a day during the daylight. Most work happens after dark or early in the morning before sunrise. Companies are fined if their employees are found to be working extended hours during ramadan.
And yes, there is a heavy sensationalized western bias in many of the stories NA read, see and hear about to do with the Middle East. I can attest to this personally. I barely watch NA news outlets anymore as I find them to be over the top and ridiculous in their fact finding and portrayal of many stories. (Not that BBC is any better).
Last edited by Wastedyouth; 02-21-2015 at 09:54 PM.
Give it time. It's gonna happen. Historically, Brazil has been overwhelmingly RC. If there is any redeeming feature to this brand, it's that there is a central high command to keep the doctrine moderate and uniform. The evangelical fundies are coming, and the numbers are growing. Source: sadly have in law missionaries over there. And business is good.
Also, consider another example of impoverished xians: central African republic
The colossal difference between virtually all branches of Christianity and the ISIL brand of religion has to do with each sect's apocalyptic beliefs, and the mechanisms in place for their fulfilment. The reason why there will never be a Christian "holy war" is because even within the most literalistic interpretations of Christian scriptures, there is no armed uprising. The Christian apocalypse is not a political encounter between terrestrial forces. It is the obliteration of God's enemies by the hand of God. Apocalyptically minded Christians of all stripes anticipate victory in the last days by way of an angelic army who will fight for them against the demonic forces of evil.
Not so in Islam, whereby the apocalypse is presented as a military encounter between political powers—an actual army of actual Muslims facing off against another actual army of actual infidels.
I agree that the fundamentalist literalistic interpretations of the Bible are dangerous, but not so much that they will ever result in the projections of genocide and holy war that appear to be possible for ISIL.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
I don't think the words that appear in holy texts matter nearly as much as many here are suggesting. The people who are vulnerable to falling into literalist, fundamentalist religious movements aren't scholars who carefully parse every word for it's significances - they're a dangerous combination of angry, vulnerable, dumb, and credulous. Words in a book don't make them that way.
Cults aren't dangerous because of the tennets of the cult (which in their substance are remarkably similar from cult to cult). They're dangerous because there are people out there vulnerable enough to get sucked into them.
Would these young and angry men raised in the West stop flocking to the Middle East to become martyrs if a few words in the Koran were different? Would they suddenly became healthy, productive people integrated into the world around them?
Look at the great terrorist movement of early 20th century - Anarchism. Killed thousands with bombs and knives. Assassinated the leaders and heads of state of the most powerful countries in the world, including the USA, Russia, Austria, and Italy. They were inspired by written words of anarchist philosophers like Peter Kropotkin. For a time, it looked like the anarchists might bring down Western civilization. But they didn't. And although Kropotkin's words are still out there for anyone to read, we don't have anarchists blowing up police stations and assassinating presidents anymore. Which tells me it was never really about the words in the texts, but the conditions that make those words appealing to so many disturbed and angry young men.
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The colossal difference between virtually all branches of Christianity and the ISIL brand of religion has to do with each sect's apocalyptic beliefs, and the mechanisms in place for their fulfilment. The reason why there will never be a Christian "holy war" is because even within the most literalistic interpretations of Christian scriptures, there is no armed uprising. The Christian apocalypse is not a political encounter between terrestrial forces. It is the obliteration of God's enemies by the hand of God. Apocalyptically minded Christians of all stripes anticipate victory in the last days by way of an angelic army who will fight for them against the demonic forces of evil.
Not so in Islam, whereby the apocalypse is presented as a military encounter between political powers—an actual army of actual Muslims facing off against another actual army of actual infidels.
I agree that the fundamentalist literalistic interpretations of the Bible are dangerous, but not so much that they will ever result in the projections of genocide and holy war that appear to be possible for ISIL.
David Koresh, his posse and others of his ilk say "Hey"...I think that there are plenty more people waving a Bible and a gun working on how to accelerate the 'End of Days'.
In a perverted way they are allies of ISIS. As they have the same end goal...God help us if they ever get aligned with a ISIS narrative. Not saying there would be beheadings etc. but violent 'holy war' to kick start Jeebus' return...that I can see fairly easily happening in the US with some Christian doomsday sects.
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Last edited by Fozzie_DeBear; 02-22-2015 at 09:02 AM.
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I don't think the words that appear in holy texts matter nearly as much as many here are suggesting. The people who are vulnerable to falling into literalist, fundamentalist religious movements aren't scholars who carefully parse every word for it's significances - they're a dangerous combination of angry, vulnerable, dumb, and credulous.
This is a pretty ignorant assertion. You clearly have very limited experience with Evangelical Christianity, which accounts for the vast majority of biblicists in North America.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
...Words in a book don't make them that way.
What way is that? My argument here has been that literalism produces as a by product the sort of blind commitment to text and doctrine that is characteristic of so-called fundamentalist religious movements. Literalism does not occur because of a text, it is applied to a text, but is produced by a much more complex religious history.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Cults aren't dangerous because of the tennets of the cult (which in their substance are remarkably similar from cult to cult). They're dangerous because there are people out there vulnerable enough to get sucked into them.
So, what are you implying here? Do you consider ISIL a "cult"? Fundamentalist Christianity? By what definition?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Would these young and angry men raised in the West stop flocking to the Middle East to become martyrs if a few words in the Koran were different? Would they suddenly became healthy, productive people integrated into the world around them?
These are senseless questions that effectively trivialise the religious underpinnings and history in the ISIL crisis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
...Which tells me it was never really about the words in the texts, but the conditions that make those words appealing to so many disturbed and angry young men.
In that instance, yes. But you cannot draw the analogy from what happened in twentieth century anarchism to what is going on with ISIL. The religious roots of the conflict, and yes, the literalistic application of the Quran are absolutely integral to the conflict in Iraq and Syria.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Textcritic, I must say, no matter if I agree or oppose your arguments here or anywhere else on the forum, I always appreciate how well you present them. If only all Internet debates could be conducted at this level.
P.S. (For the record, I fully agree with your arguments in this thread).
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This is a pretty ignorant assertion. You clearly have very limited experience with Evangelical Christianity, which accounts for the vast majority of biblicists in North America.
What way is that? My argument here has been that literalism produces as a by product the sort of blind commitment to text and doctrine that is characteristic of so-called fundamentalist religious movements. Literalism does not occur because of a text, it is applied to a text, but is produced by a much more complex religious history.
So, what are you implying here? Do you consider ISIL a "cult"? Fundamentalist Christianity? By what definition?
These are senseless questions that effectively trivialise the religious underpinnings and history in the ISIL crisis.
In that instance, yes. But you cannot draw the analogy from what happened in twentieth century anarchism to what is going on with ISIL. The religious roots of the conflict, and yes, the literalistic application of the Quran are absolutely integral to the conflict in Iraq and Syria.
Literalists are never actually literal though, the bible never actually says being gay is wrong, it has a succession of 'though shalt not lie down with a man as a woman' laws, people just assume these refer to being gay, two men can happily bugger each other to a fare thee well, as long as they don't lie down the bible is fine with it, if you take a literal approach!
Literalists are never actually literal though, the bible never actually says being gay is wrong, it has a succession of 'though shalt not lie down with a man as a woman' laws, people just assume these refer to being gay, two men can happily bugger each other to a fare thee well, as long as they don't lie down the bible is fine with it, if you take a literal approach!
There are lots of more literal Bible quotes regarding homosxuality. Corinthians mentions homosexuality very literally. Even in multiple translations and languages you can miss the literal meaning. Here's a bunch...
There are lots of more literal Bible quotes regarding homosxuality. Corinthians mentions homosexuality very literally. Even in multiple translations and languages you can miss the literal meaning. Here's a bunch...
Sorry but all of those are modern translations, at no point does the bible say 'don't put your ###### in another dude' and homosexuality is an utterly modern construct as a word, the bible is all allegories, 'do not lie with' etc
The King James, itself obviously a translation, of Corinthians, itself just a letter from Paul, in no way the literal word of god, says no effeminates or abusers of themselves with mankind, all of these lend themselves to the assumption that it opposes homosexuality, but there is nothing literal.
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Sorry but all of those are modern translations, at no point does the bible say 'don't put your ###### in another dude' and homosexuality is an utterly modern construct as a word, the bible is all allegories, 'do not lie with' etc
That's not entirely accurate. The Hebrew Bible is as explicit on the subject as the language will allow. There was no expression within the ancient language—at least as far as we know—that makes the kind of specific prohibition you suggest. On the contrary, the euphemistic language and the idioms that are employed make it abundantly clear that homosexual behaviour was not tolerated among ancient Jews. The text in question from Lev 18:22 is most literally translated "Do not lie down with a male as on the bed with a wife." (The construction itself is grammatically awkward, and impossible to render directly into English). The usage of the words שָׁכַב and מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה is made explicit even to the untrained ear by the following verse, which prohibits bestiality by employing שְׁכֹבֶת, which is derived from the same root, literally rendered "bed lying," and does actually mean "sexual intercourse."
Quote:
Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
The King James, itself obviously a translation, of Corinthians, itself just a letter from Paul, in no way the literal word of god, says no effeminates or abusers of themselves with mankind, all of these lend themselves to the assumption that it opposes homosexuality, but there is nothing literal.
You should know that very few people use the King James version anymore outside of an antiquarian interest. (There are a few who insist on this translation as the only sanctioned Word of God in English, but they are an extreme minority). First off, yes, you are correct about some of the ambiguity in the words that appear in Romans and 1 Corinthians—that is to say, these are words that have something of a flexible meaning, and do not clearly correspond to "homosexuality" as we know it today. In the ancient world, there was no such thing as gender identity—people were either entirely male or female. However, the words that do appear in 1 Corinthians, μαλακος and ἀρσενοκοῖτης, carry with them the clear implication that ancient Greco-Roman "homosexuality" was in view. (The second word is actually a word introduced by Paul as a correspondence to the Hebraic expression of the same concept in Lev 18). The censure in Rom 1:26 against "their women who exchanged their natural function for what was unnatural" employs a word that was commonly understood to mean "sexual intercourse" (χρῆσις, cf. e.g. Xenophon, Symposium 8.28; Plato, Leges 8.841a; Isocrates 19.11; Pseudo Lucien Amores 25; Plutarch, Moralia 905b; P.Oxyrinchus 272.12). In other words, there was no ambiguity produced by the writers, nor among the first readers of these texts as to what was their intended meaning. With general clarity, both Judaism and by extension early Christianity were both fundamentally opposed to homosexual activity.
... If, on the other hand, your post was intended to illustrate the absurdity of literalism, then I quite agree with you. One of the fundamental flaws in hermeneutical approaches to the Bible that champions the "plain meaning" of the text is that it often ignores or glosses over critical syntactical, historical, and sociological contexts.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
David Koresh, his posse and others of his ilk say "Hey"...I think that there are plenty more people waving a Bible and a gun working on how to accelerate the 'End of Days'.
Touché.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear
In a perverted way they are allies of ISIS. As they have the same end goal...God help us if they ever get aligned with a ISIS narrative. Not saying there would be beheadings etc. but violent 'holy war' to kick start Jeebus' return...that I can see fairly easily happening in the US with some Christian doomsday sects.
I get what you are saying, but I have to disagree about the viability of such things on a larger scale than what we see within the fringes of American religion. Furthermore, those of the same ilk as the Branch Davidians derive these sorts of ideologies in large part by way of direct "revelation" by God, and not from scriptures, which in large part do not promote this brand of actively aggressive apocalypticism.
My point here is that, while it is very possible to dramatically misconstrue biblical concepts on the subject, the text as a source is not like the Quran in this regard. I will repeat: the end of days in the Quran is an actual war amongst actual human armies. The end of days in the Bible is a battle between the angelic army of God and a mixture of demonic and human adversaries. The audience in these texts is always relegated to the position of passive bystanders, and it is left to God to defend them.
I should further add that a direct correspondence between Islam and modern fundamentalist Christianity also tends to fail on the differences that exist between conceptualisations of their scriptures. For even the most literalistically minded Christians, the Bible remains conceptually the Word of God that is wrought through fairly restrictive interpretative models. However, in all streams of Islam (as far as I know), the text of the Quran is actually the Word of God. The difference here being that the Quran is in its standard Arabic form functions as the very words of Allah, while the Bible is representative of what God intends to say. It's a fine difference, but a very important one. "Biblicism" in Islam is extreme by way of comparison to all branches of Christianity, and this is something that is often construed as highly problematic in friendly dialogue that I have had with Muslims. Christian concepts of divine "inspiration" or "infallibility" are dismissed by all Muslims that I know as petty half measures.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Didn't God burn down Sodom and Gomorrah because of the gay?
It's a common misconception. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because "their sin was exceedingly heavy" (וְחַטָּאתָם כִּי כָבְדָה מְאֹד, Gen 18:20). Of course, one of the symptoms of the men of Sodom's excess was their wanton disregard for sexual propriety. But perhaps their greatest crime was their generally exceptionally poor hospitality. Lot was the only resident of Sodom to survive the divine onslaught. By no coincidence, Lot was the only man to receive the undercover divine agents of YHWH's wrath in a manner befitting travellers with means in the ancient near Eastern world.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
