Let us know what allah tells you.

Ask him, does he talk to you ?

Why do you hate Christianity so much? And why do you feel like it's ok to pick on that religion, to make fun of it constantly when you are so up in arms about people picking on Islam? If you are requiring others to be respectful of Islam because it's something you hold dear, why don't you do the same for those who believe something else?

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Because I said I find televangelists funny, I all of a sudden hate Christianity 'so much'? Come on Jordan, I've never expressed any hateful opinoins against Christianity. I could spend every waking hour running around posting faults in the Bible, and excesses and faults of Christians, but I do not. You can't even remotely compare my attitude towards Christianity with that of our resident Islam-bashers. You're being utterly ridiculous.

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If it's the same one I'm thinking of, it wasn't an Islamic preacher, it was just some Iraqi guy. I didn't find it amusing, I felt it sad.

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I'll condemn my loon you condemn yours? Why's it so important for you that I condemn anyone? I really don't get why you're so eager for it...

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My credibility has got nothing to do with who I do or don't condemn, except in the shallow minds of people like yourself.

You really have some hang up about getting Muslims to condemn other Muslims, get over it.

Yeh I don't get it sorry. I'm really at a loss to understand what you'll benefit out of constantly inciting me to criticise Muslims.

Unless we consider that you're just a mischievous little devil, who seeks to sow discord amongst believers, that's about all I can come up with.

Ok Abu, I will try and be serious for a moment and attempt to explain.

It all ties in together with the "cult" description, which you naturally don't like, and the rules in the koran to always stick up for muslims, and the claims that Islam has got a perfect unalterable message from god.

Now any functioning society needs to foster an ability for introspection, self awareness, and  criticism, constructive, or otherwise, without these qualities, then a society becomes very insulated, and self indulgent, but mostly it becomes unbearably sycophantic.

Even though I disagree with your belief that your text is a divine, and perfect revelation, even if it were, it would not preclude you from criticising those who deliberately misinterpret those texts, to vainly promote their own interests and ideas.
To challenge those people who are a blight on the world, but also a blight on your religion, you can criticise their interpretation of the koran, without disrespecting the koran, in fact I think most would see trying to uphold the true moral principles of the koran as being the ultimate way of respecting it.

We saw slave owners try and use the bible to justify their cruelty and greed, but their opponents also used the bible to attack them.
They were openly criticised, and the whole society benefited.

Most of the progress in social justice have evolved from criticisms made against previously accepted standards, so we have witnessed the positive power that criticism has to make a society evolve, and better itself.

We think Islam needs to attempt this, and until they do, they cannot expect any respect or co-operation from the rest of us.

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Well, if fellow atheists were using their lack of belief in gods to go around destroying churches and murdering people, and had a forum to explain why they thought that was OK, then I would go there and criticise them.
If I could, I would try and find out who they were and have them jailed.

The thing is, most atheists are humanists, most humanists are pacifists, most pacifists, don't hurt anyone.

So I could criticise them for not hurting anyone, but that would hardly be beneficial to society, would it?

So stop being such a wuss, stand up for the principles that you believe your book inspires, and criticise those within your religion who pervert those principle into messages of violence and hatred.

mozzaok wrote on Nov 1^st, 2008 at 10:17pm:


I agree with this- all societies, institutions etc need to critically self-reflect. especially when they are following something which has such power, like religion.

But I think you believe that because such criticism is not occurring on your terms, it is not occurring at all.

I do not believe you look for criticisms of individuals here in order to benefit the muslim community. I believe you want criticism in order to satisfy your own dislike of islam. this is probably part of the reason abu is reluctant to do it.