The stuff you see in the media does not represent Islam

I agree with this in term of the collective basis for the conflict (although as others have said religion and politics will be intertwined), however for the individuals they are driven by their religious beliefs and the future rewards their actions bring. That is their justification. They will consider religion to be the most important aspect of their life.

I disagree here, as does the evidence. It is a misconception that terrorism is driven by lack of education and poor socio-ecomonic status. I suggest you read this essay by anthropologist Scott Attran on the basis of suicide terrorism. http://www.twq.com/04summer/docs/04summer_atran.pdf

Here's some snippets:

 

The problem with communism (and fascism) isn't that it was too critical of religion, it was that it was too much like religion!
The actual problem is faith-based, dogmatic, ideological thinking, it just so happens that religion is the biggest exponent of this, but it also appears in politics and conspiracy theory and denialism. The focus therefore should be on hindering the development of faith and dogmatic thinking. I don't mean remove such thinking since I think we have a natural tendency to divert to it, but rather by teaching people about critical thinking and how to reason the faith/dogma will eventually decrease and hopefully as a result the need for religion will be reduced. So I think the common assertion that "well if you get rid of religion people will just turn elsewhere/look at communalism, etc" is largely a red herring. The point is not to get rid of religion, it is to reduce the need for religion.

I wouldn't say their in no concrete instruction or 'guidance' in religion, however I agree that it is largely down to interpretation, including cherry picking that which support.

I have no doubt fundamentalists often mistreat the texts in order to further their own desires and ideologies. I also think moderate believers do this too.
Why? Because religion is essentially a projection of the believer, used to justify the individuals desires, personal beliefs, political ideologies, etc (which may come from indoctrination, the local culture, etc) by granting a special authority (god). You can easily get a moderate/liberal world view from religious texts just as you can easily get a fundamentalist worldview. You do this by being selective as to which parts to endorse or reject (which of course is those parts that correspond to the desires and beliefs which you wish to project to the religion/god).
Ever wondered why a persons god shares their personal desires and beliefs? If abortion/homoseuality/killing infidels is the issue which is most importance to you, then that is the most important issue of you god. Conversely if respect and 'getting along' is what is most important to you, then it becomes the most important issue of your god. But in my view it is simply wrong to say an opposing view cannot be drawn from the scripture and it is wrong to assert that that opposing view is "not real" or a distortion of scripture. Also, no act is ever done because god commands it, rather it is only done in the name of god... religion is simply becomes justification... so there is no valid reason to suggest the fundamentalists beliefs and actions are any more or less valid than the kind moderates. They are both using religion correctly. The best criticism therefore should not be that it is a distortion, but rather that is no longer an appropriate worldview or belief in a progressive society.

In short, religion is the stone in stone soup... the only thing of value is what people add to the pot - the stone itself doesn't do much.

Hitler called upon preexisting Christian inspired hatred of the Jew, shaped by none other than famed theologian, Martin Luther.

Here's an essay on it.

A little snipped:

 

1. Strawman. Atheism is simply not believing in god. If you don't hold a positive belief that god exists then you're an atheist.
2. Argument from ignorance. There is also not evidence for one, which I why most atheists do not believe in one.
3. Strawman/Red herring/argument from ignorance/argument from incredulity. There are various explanations for how the universe came to be; why must there be a "why"? In any case a lack of evidence is not a justification to assume god, nor is a lack of ability to understand or thinking of an answer.
4. In fact it is the only logical/rational position to take. Given the lack of evidence abstaining from belief is the rational position. It is the default position.
5. Argumentum ad populum. The amount of believers means nothing with regards to the veracity of the claim. All you can conclude from the number of believers is that there may be a evolutionary basis for religious belief (for example, religion may be adaptive)
6. Strawman. This is not atheism.
7. The burden of proof is on you. I can rationally deny your claim until sufficient proof is found.
8. All this demonstrate is that we are here. It does not prove god anymore than the PU.

Yep, this is sadly true. Here's a good analysis of the backwards direction Christianity too us:

 

I agree that they don't represent their religion (although I would say they represent a group of that religion) In fact I dislike the notion of 'representation of a whole religion' since it implies there is a true interpretation of the religion which can be represented when religion is such a individual interpretive matter that I don't see how we can determine what is or is not a representative of the whole religion, we can in my view only say this person represents a certain faction of that religion. Furthermore, the fact that religion generally changes over time (generally with the zeitgeist), there is nothing inherently 'incorrect' about a fundamentalist view ('fundamentalist' from our perspective in time) compared to the moderate viewpoint of our current zeitgeist. All we can say is the former is not appropriate for the world as it is today, not that it is somehow a erroneous.

Ditto! Anything supposedly good about religion is merely ideas stolen from secular sources/secular morality, based on the zeitgeist of the time. Then the appropriate corresponding parts of scripture is endorsed. As cloudhandz stated, they just promote human values, they projection them to their god.

The fact they were atheist is incidental (would you not agree), what matters is whether they did what they did in the name of atheism and the fact is they didn't. (In fact, I can't think of any such examples). They did it in the name of an ideology, communism which as I stated previously was a problem because it was too much like religion. Conversely, many bad things have been done by people who were religious but with those bad things not being done in the name of their religion. Hitler being an example... he was a Christian yet his religious beliefs were irrelevant to what he done, he didn't do what he done in the name of those beliefs. We do however get people who do bad things in the name of religion/god (whether religion was the cause is irrelevant, it acted as a justification) however I cannot think of an example of atheism/not believing in a god being used as a justification for a bad thing.

 

"As an Italian, Petrarch saw the Roman Empire and the classical period as expressions of Italian greatness."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages

For a more balanced view of "The Dark Ages"

 

None of that reflects in any way upon Christianity per se. Hitler merely used the anti-semitic writing of a specific person who called himself a Christian to whip up hatred for the Jewish people. Luther evidently seriously misunderstood and distorted certain aspects of Christian doctrine.

And I should think so too!

People corrupt, distort or even reverse every message and have done so since the beginning of time, but that fact does not not reflect badly on the original message, only on people.

Mencius (a student of Confucius) once stated (perhaps a little optimistically) that people were basically good, but that only ideas were pure.

 

I would agree that communism is an ideology which functions much as a religion and that it was communist ideology that justified most of the deplorable acts done under communist states. However, I think seperating out an atheistic perspective as having nothing to do with how some acts could be justified and performed is just bending over backwards to not implicate atheistic beliefs with persecution and ignoring the reality of various situations. Consider Burma for instance what is it that majoritively prevented the situation from descending into a bloodbath? Was it the presence of international scrutiny? Sure that played an important role but predominantly I would say it is the fact that most of the soldiers have great respect for Buddhism. If they had been indoctrinated that all religion was a parastic blight on society and the ethos of the controlling government had been that religion deserves no respect then we would have ended up with a situation similiar to what happened in Tibet during the cultural revolution. The notion that atheism has never been used to legitimate bad acts by say denying that the atheism of communism is not proper atheism is the same kind of argument that religious people use when they are trying to argue that true religion is never responsible for conflicts. So overall I disagree as I do believe atheism has been used to justify persecutions in the past though I would accept its certainly been less common than religious justifications.

As for Hitler we are in agreement there and I think the point you highlighted is valid. Even if Hitler was a Christian it doesn't mean I must immediately assume he did what he did because of his Christian beliefs- in fact I think it's quite clear this is not the case as Hitler seemed to use religion when it suited his purposes rather than to base his actions out of a deep religious conviction. However, there are times when this is the case and just as I think it would be silly to label Hitler as a Christian leader I think it it is equally silly to ignore say the clear religious motivations of many leaders involved with organising the crusades.

I also think jk is wrong to sweep away Martin Luther's views as an irrelevancy to true Christians... he is a deeply influential theologian and his views on Jews were not just a side issue to him so there is a need as the Lutheran Church itself has recognised to consider the implications of his views on Jews carefully. The tendency to sweep away anything negative as not true 'Christianity' or not true 'Atheism' prevents a more accurate and productive discussion wherein negative and positive aspects are recognised and can be discussed.

 

And just as none of the so-called 'communist' states bore any resemblance to the socialist utopia envisaged by Marx, nor has any supposedly 'Christian' country ever been run on remotely Christian principles.

And in a (presumably futile) attempt to get the thread vaguely back on topic, I wonder if there has ever been an 'Islamic' state since the Ummah of the Prophet and the Rightly Guided Caliphs which has been run on genuine Islamic principles? I daresay it's too much a matter of opinion to say whether or not this is the case.

 

Well this is the thing isn't it lots of people I'm sure would argue that a nation if it was properly run on Islamic principles would be a wonderful utopian society but unfortunately history and reality doesn't seem to support this view.

 

Exactly. Why is when people say "proper xtian principles" or "proper islamic principles" what they actually mean is "all the principles that I think are good and proper and not all those bad things that happen that I disagree with".

I remember ages ago asking a Muslim friend if Sharia law was a religious law (to settle a debate about religion vs culture) and he just laughed at me and said "duh, of course it is!".

 

Well lets try not to throw in a no true scotsman fallacy in trying to imply Luther was not a Christian. He was one of the foremost and influential theologians of Christianity. I wouldn't try to just dismiss his views.

The point remains that Hitler called on 2000 years of Christian fostered anti-Jewish sentiments to further his fascist ideology, all the while the Catholic Church observed and said or did nothing.

My point was that just because there is a correlation between religion and bad acts, and atheism and bad acts it doesn't not imply causation. However, based on history and the persuasion a belief in god can have, I'd wager that religion is more likely to be used to justify bad things than atheism. I didn't say the atheism of communist states was not proper atheism I'm just trying to establish whether their not believing in a god was the reason they did what they did and I've not seem anything to suggest that is the case.
As you're aware, atheism is not a belief or a worldview or a philosophy, it's just not believing in a god, sure there are often common agreements in the beliefs of atheist but there's also a lot of disagreement which is unsurprising since it isn't a unified position. The point is just that atheists may do bad things, maybe even in the name of worldviews or philosophies that do not include a god (secularism, humanism, communism, etc) but it doesn't follow that they did it because they didn't believe in a god. And I'm not saying it isn't possible, in fact I can see how not believing in a celestial cctv camera may cause someone to act in disregard to their fellow human I've just not seen an example of it (at least not on a bigger scale, I'm sure there are atheist sociopathic individuals.)

Other than that I agree with everything else you said.

Exactly. It is 'proper' if it conforms to a combination of the current social zeitgeist and the individuals desires/beliefs. As I said before you can easily get a fundamentalist and a moderate worldview from the scripture.
Even if there happens to be a true interpretation of a religions scripture it will be so well hidden within and distorted by the forgeries and mistakes made by scribes, the direction the religions forefathers chose to take the religion, and the current personal interpretation and projection it would be virtually impossible to reach that truth. And thats assuming there even is a true interpretation. I don't think religion works that way.

 

Sorry but I think that's a bit silly - Christianity has been around for some 2000 years and Martin Luther lived 500 years ago. He has only been influential within a specific strand of Christianity too - not within Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox Christianity. He clearly failed to notice that Jesus was himself Jewish and that there was nothing remotely anti-semitic in Jesus' teachings.

I can dismiss Luther's anti-semitic views in exactly the same way that the Lutheran church have.

 

Ok JK think what you will but the fact remains that Martin Luther is pretty much universally recognised as a pinnacle figure in Christian history and a hugely important figure for the reformation, the establishment of protestantism and contrary to what you suggest his views also did have a large impact on Catholicism as seen in the counter-reformation. Things like his promotion of the importance of reading scriptures in the vernacular language instead of latin, the importance he placed on internal faith and not just good works and his criticism of various church abuses have had a major impact on Christianity. In fact the prominent evangelical Christianity of America I would say owes quite a lot to Martin Luther (consider for instance the chosen name of a certain preacher interested in civil rights) and so to dismiss his views as irrelevant to the development of Christianity still smacks to me of 'sweeping anything negative under the rug as not truly Christian'.

If you consider him a marginal figure in Christian history you are in the distinct minority. Oh and the Lutheran Church have dismissed his views however were they seem to part company with you is that they have also recognised the need for Christians to consider the implications such views may have had on his influential theological views.

 

Now now, that's not strictly true... they laundered alot of Nazi gold for a start.

 

"I'd wager" doesn't really sound much like hard evidence, to me. Do you know how many Christians were killed in the last Century - many of them by atheist governments - 45,500,000.

Just to get a balanced perspective on the subject.

 

I'm actually finding this argument a little tenuous, CKava, to be honest. There is no reason at all why I should acknowledge any specific Lutheran ideas as particularly representative of Christianity. I would be perfectly at liberty to regard any or all specific views of his as heretical and unrepresentative of authentic Christian sentiment, however influential he was.

A fundamental idea of being a Christian is to be inspired by Jesus, worship God in the ways he described, and try to live by his values. If I was to be chiefly influenced by Luther, then I'd be a Lutheran.

The reason one of my favourite books on Jesus is "Jesus Before Christianity" is precisely because it attempts to strip away 2000 years of Christianity and examine what we know about what Jesus actually said and did himself.

The way I see it, the purpose of religion is to be inspired to do good things. Any time we stray from that road, we are missing the point. I think that fanatical anti-semitism of the kind associated with Luther could not be more out of step with Jesus' values. In a similar vein, a Communist leader who makes himself wealthy is not representing genuine Marxist values. Thinking of a closer-to-home example that I can relate to easily, if an MTA instructor started teaching "Tai Chi" For Health, he/she would not be representing the MTA's values and would consequently be expelled.

 

This simply ignores what I was saying - correlation doesn't imply causation. This applies to religion and atheism. Referring to the "atheist governments" (I gather you're implying they did what they did because they were atheists) you might as apply that same causation fallacy to the fact Stalin wore a moustache. Hitler also wore a moustache. So using that same argument we've established the solution violence: outlawing facial hair! The fact of the matter is Stalin didn't do what he did because it was an atheist just as Hitler didn't do what he did because he was a Christian. They did what they did because of ideology, dogmatic thinking and hatred.

What matters is not whether someone is religious or non religious, what matter is what they used to justify their actions and on the basis of history along with current events, more people have used religion to justify and further their ideology and behaviour than they have used atheism. (And religion caused someone to do what they did is irrelevant here).

As for your citation on Christian persecution. The reason this took place was due to the fascist/communist governments desire for obedience. For these governments they saw religion as a distraction to their ability to control, to gain obedience from the people so they sought to eliminate it, or rather, eliminate it then exploit the power of religion. Take Russia for example, the reason religious people were mistreated was because the Russian head of state wanted absolute obedience, absolute control of the people, and this was done by placing himself in a position of worship as a Messiah-like figure. Christopher Hitchens: "For hundreds of years, millions of Russians had been told the head of state should be a man close to God, the czar, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as absolute despot. If you're Stalin, you shouldn't be in the dictatorship business if you can't exploit the pool of servility and docility that's ready-made for you. The task of atheists is to raise people above that level of servility and credulity. No society has gone the way of gulags or concentration camps by following the path of Spinoza and Einstein and Jefferson and Thomas Paine." This applies to the likes or Nazi Germany, North Korea, etc. Religious dogma is simply replaced with political dogma and the preexisting power of religion is used to gain obedience.

 

Well plenty of Church people in Spain. had been involved in excommunicating people who voted for the Republicans in the elections ,informing and putting pressure and even helping falangist supporters to torture lefties and union members, generally supporting the Francoists, just to put things in perspective.Doesn't mean they were all involved but the churches hand were not clean in the Civil war either.

 

My whole point is that you do regard the relevance tenuous just as you regard the relevance of any unpleasant aspect of Christianitiy or the unpleasant views of any Christian as tenuously relevant. Resulting in your portrayal of Christianity as being entirely divorced from the reality of Christian history. I'm not saying you should be influenced by Luther, I am saying Luther influenced Christianity greatly, and he did I'm afraid, whether you want to recognise it or not. To elaborate without the reformation which he was a seminal part of and many of the religious values it established I sincerely doubt the form of Christianity you practice today would exist. Your decision to dismiss a figure who to an outside observer is a very significant figure in Christian history highlights the difference between what you consider Christian and what has been historically regard as Christian. The very fact that you consider such a figure as irrelevant to Christianity because of some noted negative aspects is exactly what I am criticising your view on.

It's like this say you have 'the Christian tradition' a long extremely complicated tradition made up of many different religious groups who share some common beliefs and in an abstract sense a shared history... now no doubt this tradition because of its very complexity will be responsible for good and bad things. This is the reality of the situation and is what is found in most unbiased accounts of Christianity. Conversely what you and others who engage in apologetics do is ignore all the unpleasant aspects as not true Christianity and thus are able to argue that true Christianity has never been responsible for anything unpleasant. This is a logically bad position to advance though as essentially you are saying if we ignore all the bad elements associated with Christianity then Christianity has only been responsible for good things which is true but really quite obvious and clearly flawed. I would also add it works in the converse too with people ignoring positive elements.

 

I'm interested in this point. Do you think that Luther had an effect (albeit indirectly) on any of the non-protestant Christian churches?