Why do people hate religion? (3 Viewers)

[withoutaface]

People do not necessarily hate religion, they simply do not understand it. People fear what they do not understand.

I am atheist, by choice. I beleive that as individuals we should be able to chose our path and i do not like the idea that everything that happens is pre-ordained by some power. It takes personal responsibilty away from the individual, which is just plain dangerous.

I dislike religion because it turns people into murderous zealots.

Also if you believe in naturalism (essentially that all phenomena can be explained through science, and that collisions between particles have predictable outcomes), then your life is preordained. Deal with it.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

There sure is some bullshit in this thread now....

 

[$hiftyIceQueen]

There sure is some bullshit in this thread now....

that because everything has already been said

 

[Not-That-Bright]

that because everything has already been said

er yeah... of course that's it.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

As opposed to blindly believing your form of bullshit whilst denying the clear evidence against it

Evidence against it? I'm pretty aware, it's just usually trivial crap.

in truth athiesm probably requires more faith than thiest religions

Well there probably is an aspect of faith, but the thing is I want the religious to be right, I want to go to a 'heaven' when I die, I want to know my friends/family that are gone now are somehow alright... I don't care about being an atheist from some moral or philisophical stand-point, it's just that at the moment I think there is no God.

and why is it that so many famous athiests like Voltaire rush to be converted to christianity

What is the point of the question? I don't really know if there is evidence of all these 'famous atheists' converting out of fear of death, I imagine you've just been visiting too many websites. However, even if it is true, I don't see the point of bringing it up.... I am certain that there are some atheists that probably have decided to convert to christianity on their deathbed, fear of death is a very powerful thing however there are also many examples of atheists whom have been killed for their beliefs who obviously didn't back down from their non-belief.

As for the cambrian explosion, we do have many possible explanations... it's not perfect but it doesn't require a God I'm afraid.

Murderous zealots.... Like communists who are atheists?

Atheism made communists evil now? When atheists will point to the attrocities of christianity, we will not point to murders that have occured under by anyone whom believed in jesus - only those murders which were motivated by their faith. The deaths in communist nations never had anything to do with atheism.

 

[robbie1]

Murderous zealots.... Like communists who are atheists?

The problem lies not in religion, but in man.

Yes it seems withoutaface conviniently forgot to mention the attrocities committed by his mates....those who believe in nothing....against the Catholic Church and its people during WWII for example.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Waf is about as capitalist as you can get... communists are not his 'mates'.

 

[robbie1]

Waf is about as capitalist as you can get... communists are not his 'mates'.

Im generalising....just as he is.

 

[mr EaZy]

Can I ask the religious people in this thread how many of you consider yourself tolerant? and how much?

i consider myself tolerant- have friends from most religions, even had 2 jewish friends last year and 2 this year- with them i didnt really care about the stuff overseas coz it never affected me (that was back then- now ill ask about those stuff too).

The Quran says that the JEws and christians have nothing until they follow their scriptures- the same story with the muslims. dont preach something based on false piety. "let God be your judge" is what i say to myself. i had an egyptian christian friend (non-coptic) and told him"if you wanna have a religion, fine, but do it with passion (dont commit crimes and call that your religion)." and he agreed with me.


at syd uni this year at islamic awareness week- this jewish guy recognised me from unsw and came to our stall- he was the former president of Aujs and like he spent 2 hours explaining his faith to us following our questions- what surprised me was that the muslims at the stall already knew heaps on judaism and jewish words etc- the jew even said "our rabbis have said that its pretty easy for muslims to enter heaven" stressing the similarity between the faiths, (his political views on israel are pretty extreme though- saying that part of lebanon belonged to israel and he's got a map of the real israel at home- but no one questioned him about that that day)


i was at the Aujs website an hour ago, whilst i dont have anything against their faith, i dont like their outlook on politics and find their fusion of politics and religion a little too expedient given the rhetoric that is expressed. but thats a political issue

i will defend my faith if someone makes a stupid comment like "why do you hate women" im gonna make an attempt to explain the truth (that i dont hate women?). if someone wants to know about islam, ill explain it to them and give them stuff if they request it.

this credo/CBS guy once said to me: you guys are the ones who put your heads down and bums up arent you? i thought that was a bit offensive, he thought it was a joke, i should have told him that if he bothered to read the bible, thats how moses (in genesis), jeremiah (_) and jesus (in st. mathew's gospel) prayed to God, and we are just following the way of the prophets...


last year, i told people i was a muslim coz i wanted to know how people would react... i never really explained what islam was or anything (except in islamic awareness week) just let their preconceptions guide them but yeah i just wanted to see how tolerant people were to my beliefs- and generally people are pretty tolerant...incidents do occur though

my neigbours are aussie christians- but all we do is give them a plate of food every eid and just say hi. from the sidewalks.

 

[KFunk]

i will defend my faith if someone makes a stupid comment like "why do you hate women" im gonna make an attempt to explain the truth (that i dont hate women?). if someone wants to know about islam, ill explain it to them and give them stuff if they request it.

Hey, I was recently reading a book of excerpts on the concept of justice which included a part of the Quran which describes how one should act regarding monetary obligations (Baqarah 2:282 I think). I came across a passage which seemed to imply that women were inferior, or at least less capable in some respects, to men. The passage, talking about contracts, says that if a person is weak or mentally deficient then their guardian can draw up a contract for them in the presence of two witnesses, saying:

"And get two witnesses,
Out of your own men,
And if there are not two men,
Then a man and two women,
Such as ye choose,
For witnesses,
So that if one of them errs,
The other can remind her."

What I'm interested in is how you reconcile passages like this with feelings that there should be any equality between men and women.

 

[mr EaZy]

Yes, that verse is correct; although that verse 2:282 is the largest verse in the Quran, it takes up an entire page and is not restricted to those lines only.

Thanks for taking interest in my faith, (which book on justice was that anyway?)

im assuming that you construed that verse to mean "men are twice in value as women, women are inferior to men as they are half of a man" this is a misunderstanding but ill give u stuff so that you may understand it.

its easy to misunderstand foreign cultures and overlook problems in ones' own culture, but to relate it to the topic on tolerance, what you have done by questioning me is a positive thing- humans naturally inquire into what is unusual.

at any rate, the question can be resolved easily. but first, In order to understand an islamic rule, you have to understand islam- i mean you dont study blackholes without an understanding of astronomy do you?

(trust me- someone asked me how big is a star? like this small? (and made a small gesture with his hands lol) we were watching a doco on black holes sucking suns dry


firstly, place urself in my shoes. I believe that God is our creator, and by that, just like the makers of cars and computers and robots, he is best to know what is best for the human race- u get me?


a muslim by definition submits to the will of God, saying "i have no idea whats right for me, you tell me what i must do and i will do it! " thats the literal definition of a muslim


So when God says that you'll need two female witnesses to replace a male witness in the area of contracts and criminal law there must be a reason correct?
So what and where is this wisdom!?

likewise where a female witness can be replaced by two male witnesses in the more important areas of islam there must be wisdom also!
Also, where a male and female do a righteous act ; they will get equal rewards but in some cases the female will get twice the rewards. in islamic law, it is forbidden to kill women in war time, some scholars have even said this applies where a woman is carrying a weapon- attack others first unless she tries to kill you.

All this does not mean that females are better than males in islam does it? What did the human rights book say on that (if anything)?


i havent studied this in depth but ill give it a try

it seems that the answer is that islam in recognising differences in the sexes, encourages different actions for different sexes. keeping in mind that islam is applied today mainly in 3rd world countries. In 1st world countries like ours, this isnt a big problem.


alright, ive prepared you for the answer; im not gonna diverge from the original topic (PM me if you have more questions)

just keep in mind that the Quran quoted the mother of Mary as saying "the male is not the same as the female". Which is an absolute fact- so islam doesnt focus on equality between apples and oranges- it focuses on gender equity.

i mean how do you reconcile the notion that women should be afforded maternity leave and we dont with gender equality?

heres a lecture presented at an american uni to non muslims

Hamza yusuf (Greek american)- you have to scroll down his list a bit- midway

sharia - the sacred law (law lecture)
http://nadeem.lightuponlight.com/indexaudios1.html#Hamza_Yusuf

1st 30 mins: sharia - the sacred law

2nd 30 mins Q&A : see the question raised at 45 mins : one person asked the exact same question.



ingrid matteson
http://nadeem.lightuponlight.com/indexaudios3.html#Ingrid_Mattson
what is islamic law? (32nd-35th minute min)


If you need any help just ask, most people are just curious, so i understand. sorry bout the delay in response, was marking my sis' essay (shes in 3rd year commerce)

EDIT: good link: http://www.muslima.ca/woman/womaninislam.html (which answers this q directly)

http://www.soundvision.com/Info/gender/equity6.asp

cheers

Hey, I was recently reading a book of excerpts on the concept of justice which included a part of the Quran which describes how one should act regarding monetary obligations (Baqarah 2:282 I think). I came across a passage which seemed to imply that women were inferior, or at least less capable in some respects, to men. The passage, talking about contracts, says that if a person is weak or mentally deficient then their guardian can draw up a contract for them in the presence of two witnesses, saying:

"And get two witnesses,
Out of your own men,
And if there are not two men,
Then a man and two women,
Such as ye choose,
For witnesses,
So that if one of them errs,
The other can remind her."

What I'm interested in is how you reconcile passages like this with feelings that there should be any equality between men and women.

 

[withoutaface]

Im generalising....just as he is.

That's not a generalisation, that's like me saying "Robbie1's forgetting about the fact that his father is Hitler", because Hitler paid lip service to Christianity.

 

[KFunk]

Yes, that verse is correct; although that verse 2:282 is the largest verse in the Quran, it takes up an entire page and is not restricted to those lines only.

Thanks for taking interest in my faith, (which book on justice was that anyway?)

Thanks for the links, the book is called 'what is justice?' and was edited by Robert Solomon and Mark Murphy. A few comments on those sources:

- Many people seem to cite cultural context in dealing with the 'the 2 female witnesses = 1 male witness thing', claiming that women did not normally manage money, making them less experienced and necessitating the extra woman. Nowadays with things like the media, financial reports, commerce degrees etc. many women are likely to be well versed (even more so than some men) when it comes to monetary matters. While cultural context may have justified the verse when it was written it doesn't provide a good reason for why it should be followed or seen as correct conduct in the modern world - it would seem as though there are good grounds for rejecting this verse if you reason in this way.

- An alternative which is harder to argue against is that God has infinite wisdom and, taking into account the differences in male and female natures, has made the judgement that women are inferior to men in their capacity to bare witness to commercial contracts.
One paper I found which follows this argument goes on to cite psychiatric studies which make statements about female stress and mental/physical symptoms experienced in response to pregnancy and the menstrual cycle. The conclusion is that women suffer the burden of such things and require the support of another woman in case "one of them errs". A big issue with this argument is that these symptoms are not universal, it is certainly not the case that all women experience them. If it were a correct interpretation of the Quran that God only intends twice the number of women to bare witness when they suffer certain psychological burdens then it would be fairer to assess a women and determine whether she experiences such things in the first place, allowing her to bare witness as a man would if she is free of such things. Likewise, equality would require that the psychological state of a men be determined so that if they suffer from similar stresses they can take along an extra man when acting as witness.


On the count of God's wisdom you could always argue that there is some facet of female nature/biology that we are unaware of which justifies the verse. To me this seems somewhat insulting to women but if you want to take it on faith then so be it. However, you would have to assume that God's wisdom, as expressed in that verse, is universal and not context dependent - something which is quite hard, perhaps impossible, to show. Personally, I find the cultural context approach more appealing. It seems to come to a compromise where the original 'truth' of the Quran is not diminished while at the same time the possibility of updating the teachings of the Quran is left open. The verse could certainly use to be brought in line with contemporary society and, more so, modern standards of gender equality.

 

[gerhard]

i wish there were more unitarian universalist churches in sydney
i think theres only one

these guys are awesome, most of them dont even believe in god

In a survey [1] not sponsored by the UUA, Unitarian Universalists in the United States were asked which provided term or set of terms best describe their belief. Many respondents chose more than one term to describe their beliefs. The top choices were:

Humanist - 54%
Agnostic - 33%
Earth-centered - 31%
Atheist - 18%
Buddhist - 16.5%
Christian - 13.1%
Pagan - 13.1%

 

[Not-That-Bright]

In the the presence of religion, man is horrible. In the absense of religion, man is horrible. It is not religion, it is man that is horrible.

I think you may have missed a problem with your logic... It's true that even in societies where there was a lower presence of religion, attrocities were still comitted, does this take away from the attrocities that are a direct cause of religion? No, it just means that there are still problems to deal with even after you take away religion.

 

[mr EaZy]

Hi kfunk, you seem to know your stuff on this topic, which is impressive, ill try to give a reasoned response; although i dont think its necessary

A few comments on those sources:
- Many people seem to cite cultural context in dealing with the 'the 2 female witnesses = 1 male witness thing', claiming that women did not normally manage money, making them less experienced and necessitating the extra woman.

that reason has been proposed in the past, but none of the sources i posted raised that view. the various ideas that people have raised for that cultural reason appears to me that:

a) women dont have the "skills" in commercial matters as males do

http://www.muslima.ca/woman/womaninislam.html says:

A witness of a female graduate of a business school is certainly far more worthy than the witness of an illiterate male with no business education or experience.

b) male dominated societies tend to view women as backwards

so like a judge might say: "hang on, whats this woman going on about?" our judges have been known to be patriarchical but not that bad, and hopefully they too will improve- they are certainly far better than british colonial judges who in the malaya were shocked that muslim women owned their own property etc.

This point also goes against the first point, if muslim women can own property and manage their own businesses as our Prophet's wife khadijah did singlehandedly (during pre-islam), then why dont they have the skills to know commercial jargon? if Muhammad had written the quran, i dont think he would have required this rule because his own wife wrote contracts without any assistance at all, (a personal reflection).

so i guess this argument would tend to show that the rule is designed to protect women from misogynist views that say: a contract is drawn, a man and women witness its drafting and the man dies= is the contract now fair game to predators? ive had experience with my ancestry where a rich woman was ripped off by relatives when her husband died.

whilst this argument is relavant in many parts of the world today, it might not be relevant in a society where women have degrees and are independant as you have said... which is a good point. im still new at this, bear with me- i love the way these questions make me think.

you would be correct if u suggest that its a compromise to appeal to both the poorer and richer countries, but we still havent talked about islamic law in general and the flexibility within (see below and next post) there is an idea in law that if one area of government creates injustice, another area can remedy it- usually the courts did that, and when the common law failed (due to rigid precedent laws), they made the courts of chancery to deal with that

lets look at some other views:

- An alternative which is harder to argue against is that God has infinite wisdom and, taking into account the differences in male and female natures, has made the judgement that women are inferior to men in their capacity to bare witness to commercial contracts. One paper I found cites psychiatric studies: female stress and mental/physical symptoms experienced in response to pregnancy and the menstrual cycle. ........................

i dont agree with this opinion at all. some sites raise it - they say that men are inferior to women in child rearing (which is true) and in commercial contracts women are inferior (on account of the points u raised?) these are opinions of people who find ways to make sense of texts

but these studies were not available 1400 years ago to respond to someone who would question islamic rules at that time

u get me?

like the translators of the Quran in the 1800s when they came across verses that describe what we call the big bang, they just left (?) where they couldnt explain it- but thats relating to sci phenomenon and not rulings

further more, did u check out the links i gave u? it says:

." But are females the only gender that may err and need corroboration of their testimony? Definitely not, and that is why the general rule of testimony in Islamic law is to have two witnesses, even when they are both male.

so here we come across something that can be understood if you look at the religion in context:

u need two males- one forgets, the other reminds, likewise, you have two females. we'll come back to this point at the end.

also in point, islamic law is not always positive law- not codified rigid laws, they are approaches to law, and islamic judges are more flexible than common law judges in dealing with law:

which turns on to another view u mentioned:

Personally, I find the cultural context approach more appealing. It seems to come to a compromise where the original 'truth' of the Quran is not diminished while at the same time the possibility of updating the teachings of the Quran is left open. The verse could certainly use to be brought in line with contemporary society and, more so, modern standards of gender equality.

just like in inheritance issues where the family can grant gifts to the daughter to even the balance or set up trust funds the same idea applies here. the idea of a second woman can be a symbolic thing; thats my thinking of flexibility, if i was a scholar, i could push it further.

 

[mr EaZy]

However, you would have to assume that God's wisdom, as expressed in that verse, is universal and not context dependent - something which is quite hard, perhaps impossible, to show.

so your saying that theres two ways to see it: either: that the verse applies to 2nd /3rd world countries and sometimes in 1st world countries where women's rights are not upheld, and that they need some legislative protections or they can somehow be argued to be applied generally in all environments

the audio file i gave u- hamza yusufs lecture addresses the latter view

islam is not a religion of rules, it actually introduces a way of life to cover existing ways of living and cultures.


SO in criminal law where 2 women are required to replace one man, in inheritance where a daughter might get half what a son gets, or where a woman is replaced with 2 men (cant remember where), or where women get rewarded twice that of the male when it comes to transmitting the hadiths the rules are not dependant on physiology, psychology etc they are designed to promote other areas of sharia.

eg: criminal law, women are excused from the duty to testify because the law shouldnt expect them to singlehandedly testify and be cross-examined especially where their own behaviour now comes under the microscope, so islam would encourage them not to spend time testifying in criminal courts but concentrate on other matters

eg: scholarship of hadiths, not a single muslim woman has been accused of forging a hadith, and they have a good reputation for their integrity and memory in this regard. some of the present universities in africa were founded by muslim women for women and were used for the purpose of islamic scholarship and preserving the faith is seen to be more important than criminal matters, im sure the true argument lies along these lines. but listen to the audio file, he explained it better elsewhere but the audio file is what i could get and listen to myself

theres other ways i could analyse it, such as the islamic principles of sex segregation; its possible, we generally avoid having a man and woman in the same room with the door closed, the presence of a third person is required, if there is no male, then a female then.

i dont know the real answer, this is God's work and im not a scholar on this issue, but i thank you for asking me to look inside and question my own faith to reach to some logical answers.

but the whole idea that i have to stress is that the scholars of islam in the past have never said that htis verse indicates that women are inferior to men, not even in a commercial sense. the whole aim is to reach justice.... reasoning islamic law - u come across opinions- various in number- also remember that legislation is just one aspect of islamic law, you also have to see how its judged and carried out

ill just leave u with a quote from the site

One possible interpretation of the requirements related to this particular type of testimony is that in numerous societies, past and present, women generally may not be heavily involved with and experienced in business transactions. As such, they may not be completely cognizant of what is involved. Therefore, corroboration of a woman's testimony by another woman who may be present ascertains accuracy and, hence, justice. It would be unreasonable to interpret this requirement as a reflection on the worth of women's testimony, as it is the only exception discerned from the text of the Quran. This may be one reason why a great scholar like Al-Tabari could not find any evidence from any primary text (Quran or hadith) to exclude women from something more important than testimony: being herself a judge who hears and evaluates the testimony of others.

d. It must be added that unlike pure acts of worship, which must be observed exactly as taught by the Prophet (P), testimony is a means to an end, ascertaining justice as a major objective of Islamic law. Therefore, it is the duty of a fair judge to be guided by this objective when assessing the worth and credibility of a given testimony, regardless of the gender of the witness. A witness of a female graduate of a business school is certainly far more worthy than the witness of an illiterate person with no business education or experience.

the dynamics are huge; i ask God to guide us.
take care

 

[KFunk]

Wow, thanks for the hefty response. There are a couple things I'd like to say in reply:

1) The cultural stuff I was talking about isn't really a matter of first world / third world or rich and poor - it's a matter of female autonomy and liberation. A region can be relatively poor at the same time as having high standards in other areas like health and women's rights such as the state of Kerala in India. If it is the case that the 2:1 law was written in the Quran because of it's cultural relevance at the time then I feel it should be reevaluated - in particular in cultures where women have the freedom to gain knowledge of the processes of such transactions. However, you have provided other, more interesting arguments...

2) Is such a rule (2:1) the best way to create justice? I geuss that depends on how you define the term. I can't really argue against the 'wisdom of god', the best I could do is to dig up statistics showing how the rule has led to injustice - something you could simply counter by saying it was the human error in applying the rules of the quran, not the rules themselves, which led to injustice. However, another possibility is that the collection of rules for how a society should operate found in the Quran could also be culture relative, making them perfect for two millenia ago but in need of revision in order to serve the modern world.

3) Whether or not the rule is just/unjust I think it has the potential to be misinterpreted by people. There is little danger for those like you who study rigorously and think about and question things but there is something strong about the 2x = 1y statement which, I believe, could consciously or subliminally lower one's percieved status of women. I may be wrong in this, but I do believe it may lead to a damaging effect.

 

[robbie1]

I'm sure Robbie has a stance regarding how the Vatican helped sneak Ex-SS members out of Europe when the Americans were looking for them?

Yes, I do.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Yes, I do.

Is it a good one to hear?