Power of Religion

[Zinjanthropos]

Got into a bit of an argument with a Muslim the other day.  This guy was at a gathering I attended and all day long he was going on and on about how his religion was the religion of peace. I thought maybe he felt guilty.He was married to one of the wives there. I think he bored most people and I tried to avoid him altogether. In a moment of inattention I was cornered. I listened without saying much but I must have nodded yes when I should have nodded no. It's one of the dangers of hearing but not listening. 

Regardless he starts on me about how great the imam was at his mosque and how the cleric's words are gospel, that he speaks the words of Allah and should not be disobeyed. I get pissed off and decide to end the conversation by saying, ' If your Imam ordered you to cut your wife's head off, would you do it? Now it started to get interesting because he did everything in his power to avoid answering my question. Turnabout being fair play I kept hammering him with that question. Eventually he said he would but only if the imam explained why he had to. By then a lot of people were listening in, including his wife. If looks could kill, she'd be up for murder already. 

I just said thanks for the answer and got up to leave. I just hope he doesn't include me in a conversation with his imam. The power of religion is absolutely lethal in the wrong hands.

[elte]

That story is the material of nightmares.  I wish you continued safety.

[Zinjanthropos]

One of the world's most notorious war criminals of all time once said in a comment about soldiers that 'a religion should speak a man's language '. IOW's if expressed correctly, religion has the power to make people do what they otherwise wouldn't or at least instill courage or foolhardiness depending on POV. I'm thinking there's probably some truth in that. However I'm not swayed by religion to do anything they preach so I can't honestly say how someone else is affected.

[Secular Sanity]

Personally I hate yacking about belief. Beliefs don't really bother me.

 
Come now, Zinman, where’s your tolerance?  I thought that beliefs didn’t bother you.

Don’t you believe in the equality of magical thinking?  Aren’t you a secularist cut from the same sacred cloth, religious liberty, live and let live, that sort of shit?

[Zinjanthropos]

Personally I hate yacking about belief. Beliefs don't really bother me.

 
Come now, Zinman, where’s your tolerance?  I thought that beliefs didn’t bother you.

Don’t you believe in the equality of magical thinking?  Aren’t you a secularist cut from the same sacred cloth, religious liberty, live and let live, that sort of shit?

Beliefs don't bother me but some believers do. It was like this, remember when you did something stupid as a kid because your buddy(ies) did and you got in trouble. It wasn't out of the ordinary to hear your parents say ' if so and so jumped off a cliff would you do it? That's how I phrased my question to  him. If the guy had said no then I would have been happy with that. You have to understand, the guy was an assh**e. What irked me more than anything was that he didn't give two shits about anyone else.  I was doing real good biting my tongue until he started on me. Islam was not his first choice, he recently converted from Christianity. It was bizarre, like he was in la-la land, a state of euphoric ecstasy. 

I did not question his belief, I merely asked a question, call it research. I didn't bring up the subject. 

He pretty much proved what I've always maintained, to believe in a religious doctrine then you must believe another human first. That human could be a scribe, a preacher, whomever. The most ironic part about it is that in the Abrahamic religions, humans are generally classified as sinners. So in essence, one must believe a sinner before joining the flock. History has taught us that trusting in this is not a guarantee for truth.

I don't think killing people is a belief. It's murder, a criminal act. IMHO, To use religion to kill is coldblooded premeditated thinking, a rite of passage, ceremony. The people who commit killing in the name of religion are like soldier ants in a colony of ants. 

[Secular Sanity]

I’m just yanking your chain because you left me with the impression that you’re one to humor and cater to their whims.

"It's not reasonable to expect irreligious atheists to be "indulgent" (humoring, catering to whims, yield to) religion or religious beliefs they consider false. It's also not reasonable to expect irreligious atheists to "lack opposition" to religion and religious beliefs."  [1]

Nite, Zinman.

[Zinjanthropos]

I’m just yanking your chain because you left me with the impression that you’re one to humor and cater to their whims.

Hardee-har-har.   My button gets pushed every now and then. Religious beliefs are one thing, the guys running the show are another. 

Funny thing, belief.  I don't care about any god theists wish to believe in and I am content to just let it go. Yet theists care even less about atheism and won't let it go.

[C C]

'If your Imam ordered you to cut your wife's head off, would you do it? Now it started to get interesting because he did everything in his power to avoid answering my question. Turnabout being fair play I kept hammering him with that question. Eventually he said he would but only if the imam explained why he had to. By then a lot of people were listening in, including his wife. If looks could kill, she'd be up for murder already. 

No matter how Islam abiding in the West tries to go moderate in its adaptation to the ethos of the surrounding culture / government, that undercurrent of repression and misogyny is still lurking there (and has yet to be even be placed deep in a closet back in the fatherlands). Christianity had to adapt to the results of the Enlightenment, too, but it's had much more time than Islam to incrementally diminish its abusive and violent responses and rhetoric in response to a treading upon its dictums (at least in terms of public appeasements).

Also, it's early enough that muslim populations still feel like Western morality / human-rights is trying to do an ideological version of colonialism and imperialism upon them. That they're being backed into a corner and humiliated by an intellectual gang-raping (prison style). European descendants had romped in Christianity for so long that in amnesic fashion they had come to regard that religion as their own, forgetting / downplaying its oriental, Semitic origins. Thus the West felt like the "changes" being forced upon its customs / traditions (religious and otherwise) were still "sort of" coming from its own kind rather than a cultural outsider (and rival). The humiliation and affront to ethnic pride was less.