AHC: Islamic Reformation

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Your understanding of Islam, of Christianity, and of the rejection of "weaponized religion" is quite remarkable.

The ONLY real center of peace and reason for several centuries, roughly 1250 -1450, WAS inside the borders of Islam (and behind the walls of a few monasteries). After that time the Reconquest destroyed the remarkably peaceful, urbane and educated Emirate of Granada in the Name of Christ. That was followed by additional military conquests by Christians, including the exportation of religious warfare to the Western Hemisphere.

After that, Christians tore the European continent apart in a religious war that killed ELEVEN PERCENT of the population of the European Peninsula, including roughly one-half of ALL males in the Germanic States. Having committed mass killing on a scale that would be awe inspiring with modern weapons, much less with pikes and early firearms, the group who had "de-weaponized" religion proceeded to the rest of the Western Hemisphere where they slaughtered the native population in the name of Christ, the difference now being that there were several different versions of the religion that people were being killed for in the Name of God. On the Western Coast of North America massive numbers of Native Americans were killed in the "Missionary Indian" effort (the leader of my Church just made the leader of that effort a Saint). On the East Coast the English settlers not only killed Indians, but waged war with the French, at least in part because the French were Catholics. Religions violence was so bad in England that the Colony of Maryland was specifically established to give Catholics someplace they could flee.

Dissatisfied with massacring those of other religions Christians began to accuse each other of witchcraft, with THOUSANDS executed on no proof at all, all in the Name of God. That was followed by justification of both chattal slavery and of conquest and de facto, if not de jure enslavement of millions using the Bible as justification and the Spreading of the Word of God.

The best part of this is that IT NEVER STOPPED. It is happening to this very day. A CHRISTIAN murdered three people on FRIDAY in Colorado in support of religious beliefs.

To accuse Islam of being a violent religion, without proclaiming that it is the J.V team is absurd.

No offense to you, he was making excuses for Christianity, but that's not what the topic is about. Perhaps we should not throw mud and discuss things more civilly on both sides.
 
Of course war is an important part of Islam, but it's not too good to overly focus on the terminology of the Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb.

It's almost like looking at the Dar al-Hudna, the Dar al-Ahad and the Dar al-Aman and saying that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and treaty-making.


While those are legitimate divisions, they are all built off of the major two and are as a result of the major division. They are in essence only subdivisions of the greater two, this is all in all a very clear cut issue traditionally.
 

Orsino

Banned
Your understanding of Islam, of Christianity, and of the rejection of "weaponized religion" is quite remarkable.

The ONLY real center of peace and reason for several centuries, roughly 1250 -1450, WAS inside the borders of Islam (and behind the walls of a few monasteries). After that time the Reconquest destroyed the remarkably peaceful, urbane and educated Emirate of Granada in the Name of Christ. That was followed by additional military conquests by Christians, including the exportation of religious warfare to the Western Hemisphere.

After that, Christians tore the European continent apart in a religious war that killed ELEVEN PERCENT of the population of the European Peninsula, including roughly one-half of ALL males in the Germanic States. Having committed mass killing on a scale that would be awe inspiring with modern weapons, much less with pikes and early firearms, the group who had "de-weaponized" religion proceeded to the rest of the Western Hemisphere where they slaughtered the native population in the name of Christ, the difference now being that there were several different versions of the religion that people were being killed for in the Name of God. On the Western Coast of North America massive numbers of Native Americans were killed in the "Missionary Indian" effort (the leader of my Church just made the leader of that effort a Saint). On the East Coast the English settlers not only killed Indians, but waged war with the French, at least in part because the French were Catholics. Religions violence was so bad in England that the Colony of Maryland was specifically established to give Catholics someplace they could flee.

Dissatisfied with massacring those of other religions Christians began to accuse each other of witchcraft, with THOUSANDS executed on no proof at all, all in the Name of God. That was followed by justification of both chattal slavery and of conquest and de facto, if not de jure enslavement of millions using the Bible as justification and the Spreading of the Word of God.

The best part of this is that IT NEVER STOPPED. It is happening to this very day. A CHRISTIAN murdered three people on FRIDAY in Colorado in support of religious beliefs.

To accuse Islam of being a violent religion, without proclaiming that it is the J.V team is absurd.
So after threatening to ban the O.P for claiming Islam is a violent religion you immediately claim Christianity is a violent religion? Presumably you'll be threatening yourself with a ban?

As to the specifics of your argument, whilst violence has been a feature of Christianity and violent things have been done by Christians your summary of Christianity here is polemical rather than historical.

It is ridiculous (and at least as offensive as anything the OP said) to claim that between 1250 and 1450 peace and reason only existed within the borders of Islam.

Similarly I am highly sceptical of your claim that religion was the main driving factor behind colonisation of the Americas. I can see you're very good at typing select words in ALL CAPS but what actual evidence do you present?

And suggesting that there hasn't been a fundamental change in the relationship between Christianity and violence between the medieval period and the modern day is to ignore the abolitionists, the Catholic Emancipation, the Christian Democrats, the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements, and the most recent popes. Christians do still commit violence against other religious communities in some parts of the world, but to suggest an unbroken lineage of violence between the Reconquest and the recent shooting misses much nuance.

And incidentally I'm curious about how you know the Colorado shooting was "in support of religious beliefs". The latest I'd heard was that the authorities had yet to comment on the motive, let alone prove the motive in a court of law.
 
((* - If the truth 'triggers' you, too bad---I didn't set out to offend people, you decided to be offended. Don't accuse me of bigotry without backing it up, and don't think you can shout me down or shut me up. If you disagree with me, prove me wrong. Otherwise knock it off with the accusations.))

Alright, lets go back to basics here.

First off, there is no such thing as "truth". What exists is different sets of opinions, backed up with differing amounts of evidence.

A large part of why you are accused as a bigot is because you assert an opinion - that islam is violent - that paints a very large sector of the world population with a simplified and negative brush. You treat this opinion as a given truth with little effort to actually prove it. Generally, that is the definition of bigotry: unsupported negative preconceptions about other groups. Your little aside about how you might personally be personally be "totally in favor of faith-based violence and it would not be at all relevant" is correct in the sense that you have not explicitly claimed that your belief of Islam being violent reflects negatively on the religion, but given how widespread the perception of violence as negative is within humanity as a whole this is a rather spurious point.

In order to support an argument of Islam being prone to violence, you would either need to ground it in theological arguments, or you would need to offer a detailed statistical analysis showing greater levels of violence by Islamic groups and addressing other factors (e.g political instability, lack of social cohesion, disenfranchisement) that could drive societies to violence. On the latter, you have offered nothing. On the former, you have yourself acknowledged a limited understanding of islamic theology. In that context, I have to ask you - if you do not understand what the actual ideology says, yet maintain a simplistic belief that it is violent, how can that not be a position of ignorance?

Normally, any argument that would "prove" the non-existence of something would be framed in the context of a counter to an argument that said something does exist. Since you have offered an assertion rather than an argument, it somewhat complicates the job because there are no points to counter, but nevertheless I shall give you a few arguments.

First off, if Islam was indeed a "violent" religion, iterations of it that outright condemn violence should either 1) not exist, 2) somehow not be "real" Islam, or 3) be the result of external factors acting counter to violent tendencies.

Now, #1 is patently false. You can look at the millions of Muslim citizens in Western Europe who are citizens with views not too dissimilar from their conservative christian counterparts. You can see this walking down Istanbul or Beirut, large cities with a vibrant culture that contain populations that like Paris, find themselves victims of violence and like Paris, generally come out abhorring it. Or you can look at the numerous examples offered in this thread. I do not think the existence of hundreds of millions Muslims and specifically islamic schools of thought that are as opposed to violence as your average westerner is something that you would contest, and that in itself is the most obvious counter to the argument of Islam being violent: if it was, then you would expect that rather than "violence" taking the form of small groups of people attacking civilians with guns or bombs to instead see millions of fanatics throwing themselves at each other in constant war. #2 Would also be arguably spurious, since if you were to only claim that the kind of ideology Daesh employs is "real" Islam, then you are casting away so many people who would consider themselves muslim as to make the word as inadequate a description for the religious grouping as using the word "American" to mean only the indigenous people of the Americas prior to European colonization (not to imply that native americans are somehow comparable to extremists; only that it would be a similarly overly narrow interpretation so as to be meaningless). As for #3...external factors that "suppress" Islamic thought have generally tended to make things worse in the long run. (i.e they were secular Soviet/US backed dictatorships that destroyed all moderate voices and drove more power into the hands of extremists).

A further counterpoint lies in looking at an analogue of a "control group". That is, groups of people subjected to similar conditions as those in Islamic nations, and how they have reacted as a result. Now, the conditions over the past century for the nations in question have generally been: 1) Colonization by European powers, 2) artificial divisions of states in a manner that groups together competing ethnic, religious and political groups and 3) being subject to the "Cold War" game where they faced oppressive governments (communist or nationalist) funded by a great power and/or revolutionary groups aimed at overthrowing the government via violence, funded by a great power. Generally, the regions that fulfill these criteria are Africa, The Middle East, and South-East Asia. And similar to islamic extremists, you can see a history of Christian Extremists in Uganda, Rwanda, the Congo or South Africa, Buddhist Extremists in Myanmar and Thailand and Hindu extremists in India.

Similarly, if you want a much culturally closer example of how the aftermath of violence, economic collapse and disenfranchisement can impact societies, look no closer than the 1930's and 1940's in "The west". Several Christian countries developed abominable and violent movements that were happy to co-opt religion as a way to legitimize that violence - that was not a reflection of Christianity having a tendency to violence, or even the Germans, the Italians, the Spanish or the Hungarians being "violent" cultures - social conditions just fell in a way that allowed these groups to move closer to power, and those same conditions are what the middle-east has experienced.

Now, if you want a solution as to how you can have an islamic world that is closer in terms of peace and political stability to the western world, then what you need to do is remove those very same conditions that encouraged the current situation. Less artificial countries like Iraq that group all sorts of ethnicity together. Less dictators destroying the concept of civil society, justice and peaceful change. Less cold war games that fund tomorrow's terrorists simply because they represent a chance to strike at the bad guy. Starting by preventing the utter collapse of the Ottoman empire might be a good place - the relatively tolerant centralization it was able to offer for centuries (or at the very least, the chance for a more orderly separation of arab countries from it) is a massive improvement over the alternatives. Failing that, at least having some extensive democratic and civic institution building by colonial/cold war powers, rather than relying on local elites (but this in turn might require no WW2 and/or a less successful communist movement).
 
If claiming "Islam is a violent religion" is proof-positive of my ignorance and/or racism, then I need that backed up with evidence.
You're confusing, there, religious violence (which is eventually a given for almost all established religon or structured beliefs, no matter its origin) and a religion based on violence.

Slightly missing the point of what I asked, though I could have clarified from the outset I guess---I argue the events and aftermath of the Christian Reformation led DIRECTLY to the rise of secular humanism, the social contract, the decline of absolutism, etc. I'm just exploring the possibilities of a similar situation with Islam.
That's not really obvious. Most Enlightement thinkers come out of the struggle between Protestant Reformations and Catholic Reformation, not from the former : basically, the endless struggles provided with a base for political disorders which was what most political thinkers searched to avoid.

Hobbes, for instance, pulled Leviathan in the wake of English Civil War as an argument to strengthen state whatever its nature (absolutist or not); altough it wasn't really new that strong political power was called as the answer against religious violence (see politiques of the French wars of Religion), it's the conjunction with the scientific revolution of the XVIIth century that allowed a rationalised, a "scientific" theory of politics and philosophy to blossom.

Before that, far from weakening power, different Reformations strengthened royal authority on the name of the defense of religion and more broadly, opportunistically from the different wars, kings eventually becoming ultimate arbitles in societal matters. (Valois and Tudor alike, for exemple).

Western secular philosophy may have looked differently without the Reformation, but safe entierly getting rid of scientific revolution (and the regular rationalising takes on philosophy, similarly to what you had in the XIIIth or XIXth centuries), you won't butterfly it.

I'm exploring this from a place of understanding the nature of institutional Islam via the histories of nation-states that arose from the various waves of Islamic conquest, which collectively make up the Dar-al-Islam.
That's another huge misconception (and eventually placating Westphalian conceptions anachronically and anageographically so) there : medieval Arabo-Islamic states weren't nation-states in the most broad sense of the expression : as in a sense of common cultural and stable territorial identity.

What could be closer would be the various Iranized dynasties, but even there we're talking of a much longer process.
Most generally, the basic identitarian feature of Middle-Ages are religious and/or dynastic : you'd struggle to find a political national continuity from Fatimids to Mameluks.
The first real attempt to have an islamic nation-state equivalent would be with Ottomans, and it was partially in reaction to Balkanic nationalisms.

Eventually, you're still obssessed by a Dar al-Islam formed only trough conquest, when (especially its periphery after the formative period) is often a matter of transmission : Sudan, South-Eastern Asia,

Of course, the provinces conquered in the Early Caliphates weren't massivly converted : you litteraly have to wait centuries before having muslim majorities (and in some places, its related to the contraction of Dar al-Islam, as in Spain). Again, before the VIIIth century, Islam is simply not structurated enough to pull such thing : Umayyad Caliphate was essentially an Arab Empire, rather than an Islamic one.



I agree that a more centralized Dar-al-Islam is necessary. I'm not looking for an exact parallel. On the contrary, I think a resurgent Caliphate that 'unites' the various sects stands a much better chance of achieving what I'm looking for.
That's not a centralized Caliphate you search then : all Caliphates were pretty much unified in term of religious tought. What you describes there is an hegemonic Caliphate which would somehow prevent the appearance of schools at its periphery. It seems quite utopic : no one really managed to do that, and an hegemonic Caliphate have all chances to know the same fate than Umayyads : general revolt, partially bolstered trough religious expectations.

Of course, you could argue about a Caliphate entierly focused on religious/political matter, sort of an Islamic papacy. But the latter at least beneficied from a certain balance of power to establish its own policies : giving the political, imperial nature of Caliphate tough, I don't see it being let to itself.

but by the end of the 18th century Europe had had it with religion as justification for violence.
That's a strange re-lecture : political philosophy of the XVIIth was really about social contract and prevention of social disorder. What was bankrupt was less the religion than religious policies that were to be let to sovereign bodies : either the royal power, either a parlementarian power, either assembly.

At this point, religious violence ceased to be that of a thing in Western Europe (compared to what it was in the XVI/XVIIIth centuries), but political philosophy still was a thing : eventually, the process launched with the conjunction of secularized political tought and scientific revolution went on because you had some sort of rivality between the possible recipients of sovereignty.
With the French exemple, Enlightement could as well support an elightened but dominant royal power (Voltaire) to a more parlementarian take, if not assemblies (Rousseau, altough in a weird way).

That's the difference: the Islamic world never had a similar rejection of faith-based/motivated/justified violence, even after centuries of bloodshed (because, again, violence is considered appropriate, even virtuous in Islam*).
Yes it did, especially in the wake of the XIIIth century.

The distinction between smaller Jihad and greater Jihad began to appear during this period, even if Jihad as religious conquest was more a rationalisation to what happened in the VIIth/VIIIth than its direct cause.

Jihad is eventually a rough equivalent to Christian "just war" or Crusades : not the promotion of violence, but legitimisation of violence. The difference can seems slight at first, but its decisive : it gives a lot of rules and conditions to their appearance (so much it fell into irrelevance both in Christiendom and Arabo-Islamic world).
Eventually, as CalBear pointed, religious violence in Western World, even secularized, didn't went much away at first and had to be opposed with political force (which itself did more than its part to support it, or at least ignore it).

Just because the transition did went trough a radical change with blunt opposition, doesn't meant it didn't happened.

((* - If the truth 'triggers' you, too bad
How can you say you're accepting argumentation, when you're right from the start stating that everything coming out of your post is "the truth"?
Because it's really not: it basically goes against most if not all of historicity of medieval Islam.

I didn't set out to offend people, you decided to be offended.
You decided to call an entiere human group as definied by violence. Would someone have called on Christians as defined by fanaticism, it would have been met with similar reaction.

Can it truly be said that violence is considered 'appropriate' or even 'virtuous' in Islam?
No.
It can be legitimized, or legitim, tough, as in defense of religion.

But, most of the first conquests didn't have a really obvious religious drive, but were more rationalised eventually as such, in a period where religious war came back.
Roughly, the first contractions of Dar al-Islam against Christiendom, especially Crusades, provoked a general ideological/theological answer : while Jihad was a thing, it was essentially a political thing (as in Emirs of Cordoba launching raids against Christians to establish their legitimacy).
With Crusades (and roughly up to Mongols), Jihad became legitimized, but more in a defensive context than conquest.

I am not making any moral claims.
You are, eventually : your whole post is about how having a more or less Westernized Islam, ignoring people that pointed you that a Reformation event is unlikely to happen as such, due to its very own structures, but rather as a school or branch victory over another one.

It may because of a lack of knowledge, granted, but you didn't seem to deviate from "Islam is about violence" which is just wrong.

While war and Jihad is acceptable in Islam, however there are clear limits to this and the war for personal gain (ideally) is Haram and not allowed. I could expand upon these limits later perhaps, if asked.

You have several self-agreed limits tough : while al Shâfi'î praised a really aggressive qital, it was more of a wishful thinking and never really went trough. One could argue that shâfi'îst concept of Jihad could be understood as part of Abbasid bombastic attitudes when they actually went trough a period of stablisation : or that this school is essentially present on a periphery that was islamized, not by conquest, but trough trade.

Long story short, even more "jihadist" attempts in medieval era are more about ribati establishments that are more about a defensive stance, helding firmly against impiety (as Al-Murābiṭūn/Almoravides, whom first objectives were to deal with their Islamized neighbours).

The ONLY real center of peace and reason for several centuries, roughly 1250 -1450, WAS inside the borders of Islam (and behind the walls of a few monasteries)

Allow me to depict something far less grim or simple : by 1250, the Renaissance of XIIth century already made knowledge pretty much laicized (rise of universities, for exemple), which is something that didn't really happened with Islam (even al-Qarawīīn is "only" a glorified madrasa).

Laicized knowledge existed, but largely on an individual scale, in post-classical Arabo-Islamic world. (Even before, tough, medieval knowledge can hardly being described as "behind the walls of a few monasteries")

Basically, all the difference between what was the brightest civilization of its time on Mediterranean basin, and "pre-modern utopia vs. D0rk Ages".

After that time the Reconquest destroyed the remarkably peaceful, urbane and educated Emirate of Granada in the Name of Christ.
Nasrid Granada can hardly be called "remarkably peaceful" when it was a fest of inner rebellions for most of its history, tempered by raids on Spain (less for the hell of it, than being part of a political legitimisation).
That was followed by additional military conquests by Christians, including the exportation of religious warfare to the Western Hemisphere.
 

CalBear

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So after threatening to ban the O.P for claiming Islam is a violent religion you immediately claim Christianity is a violent religion? Presumably you'll be threatening yourself with a ban?

As to the specifics of your argument, whilst violence has been a feature of Christianity and violent things have been done by Christians your summary of Christianity here is polemical rather than historical.

It is ridiculous (and at least as offensive as anything the OP said) to claim that between 1250 and 1450 peace and reason only existed within the borders of Islam.

Similarly I am highly sceptical of your claim that religion was the main driving factor behind colonisation of the Americas. I can see you're very good at typing select words in ALL CAPS but what actual evidence do you present?

And suggesting that there hasn't been a fundamental change in the relationship between Christianity and violence between the medieval period and the modern day is to ignore the abolitionists, the Catholic Emancipation, the Christian Democrats, the anti-war and nuclear disarmament movements, and the most recent popes. Christians do still commit violence against other religious communities in some parts of the world, but to suggest an unbroken lineage of violence between the Reconquest and the recent shooting misses much nuance.

And incidentally I'm curious about how you know the Colorado shooting was "in support of religious beliefs". The latest I'd heard was that the authorities had yet to comment on the motive, let alone prove the motive in a court of law.

Actually what I did was exactly what the OP was doing. I was making a rather strong point. Unlike the OP I did not hold up either Christianity or Islam as being without stain. The difficulty with the OP, with the premise of the OP and with the "lets jump up and proclaim Islam still weaponizes religion" while Christianity has somehow evolved beyond it is that it is flat out wrong. It is, at the very least ill informed and at the worst pure bigotry.

Islam is painted with a brush that represents almost no one who follows the faith. Far too many people find that to be entirely acceptable while ignoring the reality that a equally, if not vastly stronger case can be made against the West.

To state that Islam advances at the point of a sword but to ignore the fact that Christianity did the EXACT same thing is intellectually dishonest. To connect the expansion of Islam in the 9th Century to the Da'esh without equally connecting the expansion of Christianity at the point of Roman swords to the lunatics who blow up abortion clinics is intellectually dishonest. To imply that Western culture is somehow superior to others is flat bigotry. Western culture advanced and became the richest on the planet at bayonet point. It is easy to have an Enlightenment when you are stealing the rest of the Planet blind and using the labor of millions to support a few thousand. For that matter, it is bigotry to assume that the Enlightenment actually extended beyond a few of the most privileged in Western society while the vast majority of their countrymen were a bad week from starvation.

What creates Enlightenment is wealth. Period. Dot. When you are wealthy you get to play at Enlightenment and the advancement of ideals. When you are below poor and literally do not know if you will be able to keep your family from starvation that sort of thing simply doesn't matter. It will never occur to you. The 17th Century enlightenment was built on gold and furs from the Western Hemisphere, on spices from SW Asia, and on the slave labor of the conquered on at least four continents.

The West managed the Enlightenment because, for whatever reason, Western leaders were better at warfare, better at taking things that had been discovered by others and converting them to destruction than anyone else.

I happen to be a Christian, a relatively devout and active one at that. I am also able to look at history and see the warts, and God knows there are plenty of them. I am also more than will to admit that the West could, except for a few major battles that tipped in the West's way, be the culture that was and IS repressed, that it could easily be Catholics with the suicide vests if thing had gone the other way at Tours or outside Vienna or if the Mongols had rolled over Baghdad half a century later.
 

Orsino

Banned
Actually what I did was exactly what the OP was doing. I was making a rather strong point. Unlike the OP I did not hold up either Christianity or Islam as being without stain. The difficulty with the OP, with the premise of the OP and with the "lets jump up and proclaim Islam still weaponizes religion" while Christianity has somehow evolved beyond it is that it is flat out wrong. It is, at the very least ill informed and at the worst pure bigotry.
In fairness to the OP, and I grant you that his characterisation of Islam is somewhat crude, he did not claim that Christianity is without stain. And you surely accept that at certain times militant and fanatical movements in some religions are more active than in others? It is not bigotry to acknowledge differences between religions and cultures.

To imply that Western culture is somehow superior to others is flat bigotry.
So is Western culture inferior to others then? Or do you identify to an exactly equal degree with the values of all cultures? Would that include the culture and values of Ancient Rome? The culture and values of 12th century England? The culture and values of Nazi Germany?

Culture is not the same as race. Cultures are based around and propagate certain values, and we all make judgements about the values we believe are superior (in my case secularism, personal liberty, free expression and tolerance) and values we believe are inferior. To argue that making value judgements about cultures is bigotry is to argue that having values is bigotry. One can make judgements about the relative merits of cultures without condemning all people who belong to that culture.

What creates Enlightenment is wealth. Period. Dot.
If wealth alone created Enlightenment then the Mongol Empire would have been fantastically enlightened. Wealth played a part in contributing to the Enlightenment but you're ignoring a host of other factors

The West managed the Enlightenment because, for whatever reason, Western leaders were better at warfare, better at taking things that had been discovered by others and converting them to destruction than anyone else.
A few paragraphs ago you suggested that value judgements about cultures were a form of bigotry. Yet here you appear to be condemning western culture by suggesting it only takes things from others and converts them to destruction. It doesn't make sense to suggest "the West" (and I don't think it's a hugely useful term) entered the Enlightenment only because of martial prowess because for a long time Islamic powers eclipsed "the West" in terms of military power.

I happen to be a Christian, a relatively devout and active one at that. I am also able to look at history and see the warts, and God knows there are plenty of them. I am also more than will to admit that the West could, except for a few major battles that tipped in the West's way, be the culture that was and IS repressed, that it could easily be Catholics with the suicide vests if thing had gone the other way at Tours or outside Vienna or if the Mongols had rolled over Baghdad half a century later.
Christian culture is repressed in much of the Islamic world, Muslims are not repressed in most of the Western world. And whilst there are places where Christians engage in the religious oppression of others as far as I know none of the 300,000 Catholics in Iraq have blown themselves up with suicide vests. I am not a Christian and have no particular dog in this fight, but facts are facts.

None of which is to suggest that there is an inevitable or inviolable connection between Islam and fanaticism or that western pluralism is wholly divorced from GDP and standards of living. But your insistence that all cultures and religions are identical, or that relative wealth is the root of any differences, doesn't hold water. Saudi Arabia has a lot of wealth but it doesn't seem to have resulted in an outpouring of Enlightenment values.
 
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CalBear

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In fairness to the OP, and I grant you that his characterisation of Islam is somewhat crude, he did not claim that Christianity is without stain. And you surely accept that at certain times militant and fanatical movements in some religions are more active than in others? It is not bigotry to acknowledge differences between religions and cultures.


So is Western culture inferior to others then? Or do you identify to an exactly equal degree with the values of all cultures? Would that include the culture and values of Ancient Rome? The culture and values of 12th century England? The culture and values of Nazi Germany?

Culture is not the same as race. Cultures are based around and propagate certain values, and we all make judgements about the values we believe are superior (in my case secularism, personal liberty, free expression and tolerance) and values we believe are inferior. To argue that making value judgements about cultures is bigotry is to argue that having values is bigotry. One can make judgements about the relative merits of cultures without condemning all people who belong to that culture.


If wealth alone created Enlightenment then the Mongol Empire would have been fantastically enlightened. Wealth played a part in contributing to the Enlightenment but you're ignoring a host of other factors


A few paragraphs ago you suggested that value judgements about cultures were a form of bigotry. Yet here you appear to be condemning western culture by suggesting it only takes things from others and converts them to destruction. It doesn't make sense to suggest "the West" (and I don't think it's a hugely useful term) entered the Enlightenment only because of martial prowess because for a long term Islamic powers eclipsed "the West" in terms of military power.


Christian culture is repressed in much of the Islamic world, Muslims are not repressed in most of the Western world. And whilst there are places where Christians engage in the religious oppression of others as far as I know none of the 300,000 Catholics in Iraq have blown themselves up with suicide vests. I am not a Christian and have no particular dog in this fight, but facts are facts.

None of which is to suggest that there is an inevitable or inviolable connection between Islam and fanaticism or that western pluralism is wholly divorced from GDP and standards of living. But your insistence that all cultures and religions are identical, or that relative wealth is the root of any differences, doesn't hold water. Saudi Arabia has a lot of wealth but it doesn't seem to have resulted in an outpouring of Enlightenment values.

There are not superior or inferior cultures. There are elements within any culture that are abominations. Da'esh is an example, so is National Socialism.

What is an error os tou project that one culture is "superior" because it happened to win the lottery on natural resources or managed to grow wealthy at the expense of others. This is the trap of exceptionalism.

It is interesting that you mentioned the Mongols. They could have had the sort of grand leap you describe but for the fact that the leadership was effectively a cult of personality. When the great leader died the Empire would collapse. The next group of candidates for the primary spot would then fight it out, reducing the wealth before it concentrated again. That combined with the firm "horse culture" with the accompanying relative lack of permanent industrial base prevented the Mongols from being able to create long term stability.

Saudi Arabia has wealth now, rather a very limited number of Saudi citizens have obscene wealth now. That is a very recent phenomenon, not just in Saudi Arabia, throughout the region. It did not exist a century ago, if it will still exist in a century from now is an open question. What Saudi Arabia is, very clearly, is a society caught in transition between the old and the new. The region is perhaps the first to have the speed of collision between tradition and the future between the deeply traditional and Twitter. In a couple hundred years it will make for some fascinating research. Right now, for those who live there, it is something of a mess.
 
Actually what I did was exactly what the OP was doing. I was making a rather strong point. Unlike the OP I did not hold up either Christianity or Islam as being without stain. The difficulty with the OP, with the premise of the OP and with the "lets jump up and proclaim Islam still weaponizes religion" while Christianity has somehow evolved beyond it is that it is flat out wrong. It is, at the very least ill informed and at the worst pure bigotry.

Islam is painted with a brush that represents almost no one who follows the faith. Far too many people find that to be entirely acceptable while ignoring the reality that a equally, if not vastly stronger case can be made against the West.

To state that Islam advances at the point of a sword but to ignore the fact that Christianity did the EXACT same thing is intellectually dishonest. To connect the expansion of Islam in the 9th Century to the Da'esh without equally connecting the expansion of Christianity at the point of Roman swords to the lunatics who blow up abortion clinics is intellectually dishonest. To imply that Western culture is somehow superior to others is flat bigotry. Western culture advanced and became the richest on the planet at bayonet point. It is easy to have an Enlightenment when you are stealing the rest of the Planet blind and using the labor of millions to support a few thousand. For that matter, it is bigotry to assume that the Enlightenment actually extended beyond a few of the most privileged in Western society while the vast majority of their countrymen were a bad week from starvation.

What creates Enlightenment is wealth. Period. Dot. When you are wealthy you get to play at Enlightenment and the advancement of ideals. When you are below poor and literally do not know if you will be able to keep your family from starvation that sort of thing simply doesn't matter. It will never occur to you. The 17th Century enlightenment was built on gold and furs from the Western Hemisphere, on spices from SW Asia, and on the slave labor of the conquered on at least four continents.

The West managed the Enlightenment because, for whatever reason, Western leaders were better at warfare, better at taking things that had been discovered by others and converting them to destruction than anyone else.

I happen to be a Christian, a relatively devout and active one at that. I am also able to look at history and see the warts, and God knows there are plenty of them. I am also more than will to admit that the West could, except for a few major battles that tipped in the West's way, be the culture that was and IS repressed, that it could easily be Catholics with the suicide vests if thing had gone the other way at Tours or outside Vienna or if the Mongols had rolled over Baghdad half a century later.

I don't disagree with your assertion but there is little evidence that the Mongol destruction of Baghdad (or the Timurid attack of the same city) had anything to do with fundamental Islam..
 

Orsino

Banned
There are not superior or inferior cultures. There are elements within any culture that are abominations. Da'esh is an example, so is National Socialism.

What is an error os tou project that one culture is "superior" because it happened to win the lottery on natural resources or managed to grow wealthy at the expense of others. This is the trap of exceptionalism.

It is interesting that you mentioned the Mongols. They could have had the sort of grand leap you describe but for the fact that the leadership was effectively a cult of personality. When the great leader died the Empire would collapse. The next group of candidates for the primary spot would then fight it out, reducing the wealth before it concentrated again. That combined with the firm "horse culture" with the accompanying relative lack of permanent industrial base prevented the Mongols from being able to create long term stability.

Saudi Arabia has wealth now, rather a very limited number of Saudi citizens have obscene wealth now. That is a very recent phenomenon, not just in Saudi Arabia, throughout the region. It did not exist a century ago, if it will still exist in a century from now is an open question. What Saudi Arabia is, very clearly, is a society caught in transition between the old and the new. The region is perhaps the first to have the speed of collision between tradition and the future between the deeply traditional and Twitter. In a couple hundred years it will make for some fascinating research. Right now, for those who live there, it is something of a mess.
Okay, so the cultures of Europe in the 15th century (with their rigid gender roles, forced conversion, inquisitions, colonisation, religious wars, absolute monarchs and feudalism) were neither inferior or superior to the culture of the USA in 2015?

Let us try this from another angle. You acknowleged that "There are elements within any culture that are abominations." If we were to count the number and frequency of such "abominations" within a culture, and compare it with the number and frequency of "abominations" within another culture would we not have arrived at a (admittedly subjective) measure of the relative inferiority/superiority of those two cultures?

You can't escape making value judgements about cultures, you've done it the moment you condemn a cultural practice or element within the culture and if you condemned nothing you'd be inhuman.

Child marriage is wrong. Genital mutilation is wrong. "Honour killings" are wrong. I don't dismiss entirely the cultures of which these are features, and I accept that my values aren't objective but I don't hide the fact that I make value judgements about cultures.

Would you really be equally happy living in ancient Sparta or 1990s Afghanistan or 16th century Spain as you would be in a 21st century western country? I suggest you would not, and part of the reason you would not is because deep down you do believe that not all cultures are equal. Spartan culture was brutal, modern liberal western culture is much nicer.

And we were speaking of moral superiority but cultures of course can also be more or less well-suited to succeeding in the set of circumstances they find themselves in. It isn't exceptionalism to suggest that there are factors other than resources that contribute to the success of a culture. You acknowledge this point in your very next paragraph when you point out features of the Mongol culture that prevented them from consolidating their successes.

And similarly by acknowledging that the future of Saudi Arabia is in contestation and uncertain you demonstrate that you don't really believe wealth or access to resources is the only factor in determining the degree of social advancement and enlightened values. If it was then the future of Saudi Arabia would be a sure thing.

I feel you've rather ended up making my arguments for me.
 
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GdwnsnHo

Banned
Oh god, time to make a hypocrite of myself.

Actually what I did was exactly what the OP was doing. I was making a rather strong point. Unlike the OP I did not hold up either Christianity or Islam as being without stain. The difficulty with the OP, with the premise of the OP and with the "lets jump up and proclaim Islam still weaponizes religion" while Christianity has somehow evolved beyond it is that it is flat out wrong. It is, at the very least ill informed and at the worst pure bigotry.

To play devils advocate, he was originally discussing Islam in isolation, referencing Christianity only as reformation - the whole mountain of Islam vs Christianity bollocks was brought in by everyone else attacking @Draeger as a bigot. Nobody here is acting particularly well.

I know it isn't my place, but if we're going to end up in a slinging match of bigot/not-bigot (which I was hoping to nip in the bud :mad: ) involving moderators, it'd frankly be a better idea to lock the thread right now. It won't make anybody look good.

Islam is painted with a brush that represents almost no one who follows the faith. Far too many people find that to be entirely acceptable while ignoring the reality that a equally, if not vastly stronger case can be made against the West.

Islam, and Muslims are three very different things.

Islam - A Faith

Muslim - Someone who follows the faith of Islam, or Identifies as such.

If you're discussing Islam, then you aren't directly discussing the people who adhere to it, and as I said previously, it normally ends up being a twisted literalistic interpretation rather than any specific school of thought that doesn't help begin discussion, and frankly devolves into the exact sort of p*ssing match we're seeing here. If it is fine to discuss the ideas of Keynesian Economics, without seeing it as an attack on the people who think it is appropriate, then you can do it with a religion, as they are both ideologies.

This means, that in a discussion of the history of a religion, you have two very import factors to consider.

1) What does the religion espouse - this is easily checked by looking at its texts.

2) What do the adherents do - whilst this can (and has) impacted the former, until such point as it is part of the religion, it cannot be considered an action endorsed by that religion.

I CANNOT STRESS THIS MORE THAN I ALREADY HAVE. Otherwise we might as well say that every demographic in the sodding world are thieves, rapists, saints and murders - because there are plenty in every demographic, or that every political or economic philosophy is awful because awful things happen. Proper attribution of events should be applied.

To state that Islam advances at the point of a sword but to ignore the fact that Christianity did the EXACT same thing is intellectually dishonest. To connect the expansion of Islam in the 9th Century to the Da'esh without equally connecting the expansion of Christianity at the point of Roman swords to the lunatics who blow up abortion clinics is intellectually dishonest. To imply that Western culture is somehow superior to others is flat bigotry. Western culture advanced and became the richest on the planet at bayonet point. It is easy to have an Enlightenment when you are stealing the rest of the Planet blind and using the labor of millions to support a few thousand. For that matter, it is bigotry to assume that the Enlightenment actually extended beyond a few of the most privileged in Western society while the vast majority of their countrymen were a bad week from starvation.

At the very least, Daeger hasn't mention Daesh. At all, not in this thread. That has been brought in by everyone else. For pities sake, I think he has a limited and largely ignorant (in the kindest way) understanding of Islam, and its history, but he didn't conflate Daesh with the original Caliphates. If he did, I certainly missed it.

Nobody has denied that adherents of both faiths have expanded their faith at the point of the sword, but as explained above, one is the action of someone who identifies as such, and the other is a philosophy that ostensibly supports it. If it doesn't actually support it, then it isn't the fault of the philosophy that didn't encourage it. It'd be like accusing Jainism of being responsible for wife beating because some of its adherents did - despite (AFAIK) Jainism being a furiously pacifist faith.

Regarding cultural superiority, if you can't make moral and value judgements on any belief system, then we're all (supposedly bigots) on this entire board. Completely - because we think it is a better way to spend vast amounts of our time discussing this, than say, playing football. Alt-history subculture in our eyes, is superior (seemingly) to footy-culture. Intellectual snobbery at its finest. A moral judgement is the only thing I can think of that you can't objectively rank, it is always personal. It is fundamentally qualitative.

Regarding your tirade against the west? You're doing a pretty good job trying to convince everyone that Western culture is pretty awful, and as such it seems you've made a value judgement regarding the moral actions of your forefathers, suggesting that you consider your morality and culture superior to theirs. Which according to you, is bigotry. How about we stop accusing each other of bigotry, and either lock the thread, or get back on topic.

What creates Enlightenment is wealth. Period. Dot. When you are wealthy you get to play at Enlightenment and the advancement of ideals. When you are below poor and literally do not know if you will be able to keep your family from starvation that sort of thing simply doesn't matter. It will never occur to you. The 17th Century enlightenment was built on gold and furs from the Western Hemisphere, on spices from SW Asia, and on the slave labor of the conquered on at least four continents.

Again, indicative of any period of cultural advancement - the enlightenment specifically? Probably the blend of various world views that might not have been melded together without colonialism, as it is common that schools of thought tend to isolate, hence why we have different cultures. In order to conquer/rule, someone at the very least needs to learn some of the ideas. This happened with the Caliphates uniting Persian, Roman, and Arab schools of thought, it happen in Europe importing technologies and political systems. Interestingly however, in the case we were trying to discuss, the Caliphate/Dar-al-Islam met most of these criteria - Slaves from Africa/Europe, control of the spice trade, colonisation of Sub-Saharan Africa. So what are the differences? Fascinating discussion, probably relevant to how to create a similar school of though appear in such a system. What must change.

I happen to be a Christian, a relatively devout and active one at that. I am also able to look at history and see the warts, and God knows there are plenty of them. I am also more than will to admit that the West could, except for a few major battles that tipped in the West's way, be the culture that was and IS repressed, that it could easily be Catholics with the suicide vests if thing had gone the other way at Tours or outside Vienna or if the Mongols had rolled over Baghdad half a century later.

Again, prior to people bringing this in and attacking Daeger, modern terrorism wasn't part of the conversation. We can actually point to Catholics doing it - the IRA. Yes, adherents will do desperate things that they want to justify, but if it isn't justifiable in their philosophy, then the philosophy isn't responsible.

If the first thing that happens when someone starts a topic of conversation that isn't popular, but isn't explicitly hateful, is just shout bigot at them, then there isn't a chance that we can actually get a greater understanding of the topic at hand. Yeah, when Cueg called him a bigot, Draeger defended himself with what he knew - his ignorance is not bigotry. He hasn't refused to entertain ideas, he hasn't been intolerant of other peoples opinions, other than the idea that he is a bigot, he is intolerant of that idea. He's been ignorant as most are when it comes to thoughts and ideas that we never discuss. Which will not change if people fall into this trap every time.

At the moment, we're at risk of breaking, or have broken the first three rules on the forum

1) Provide a civil environment for talking about alternate - considering that being accused of being a bigot (without immediate justification) isn't exactly good manners, that rule has been explicitly broken when trying to do so about this part of history. At least from my perspective.

2) Allow the discussion of any subject that wouldn't lead to the board being overrun by nuts and other wackos. This isn't conspiracy theory, Holocause Denial, etc.

3) It's not what you say, it's how you say it - this literally lists that religious discussion is not sacred ground. Saying something wrong, factually incorrect, is part of the discussion.

Now come on people, frankly, from what I've seen of the rules, Draeger hasn't broken any, although others explicitly have without even a second glance.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Okay, so the cultures of Europe in the 15th century (with their rigid gender roles, forced conversion, inquisitions, colonisation, religious wars, absolute monarchs and feudalism) were neither inferior or superior to the culture of the USA in 2015?

Let us try this from another angle. You acknowleged that "There are elements within any culture that are abominations." If we were to count the number and frequency of such "abominations" within a culture, and compare it with the number and frequency of "abominations" within another culture would we not have arrived at a (admittedly subjective) measure of the relative inferiority/superiority of those two cultures?

You can't escape making value judgements about cultures, you've done it the moment you condemn a cultural practice or element within the culture and if you condemned nothing you'd be inhuman.

Child marriage is wrong. Genital mutilation is wrong. "Honour killings" are wrong. I don't dismiss entirely the cultures of which these are features, and I accept that my values aren't objective but I don't hide the fact that I make value judgements about cultures.

Would you really be equally happy living in ancient Sparta or 1990s Afghanistan or 16th century Spain as you would be in a 21st century western country? I suggest you would not, and part of the reason you would not is because deep down you do believe that not all cultures are equal. Spartan culture was brutal, modern liberal western culture is much nicer.

And we were speaking of moral superiority but cultures of course can also be more or less well-suited to succeeding in the set of circumstances they find themselves in. It isn't exceptionalism to suggest that there are factors other than resources that contribute to the success of a culture. You acknowledge this point in your very next paragraph when you point out features of the Mongol culture that prevented them from consolidating their successes.

And similarly by acknowledging that the future of Saudi Arabia is in contestation and uncertain you demonstrate that you don't really believe wealth or access to resources is the only factor in determining the degree of social advancement and enlightened values. If it was then the future of Saudi Arabia would be a sure thing.

I feel you've rather ended up making my arguments for me.

Actually the future of Saudi Arabia will be fascinating since it currently represents a society (not a culture, a society) built on a ruling class that bases its rights purely on heredity and has a vast imbalance of wealth. Adding in the boons and banes of modern instant technology, especially when the sole source of the general wealth is a non-renewable commodity, and the potential for a truly massive change is obvious. Equally interesting is what happens when the income begins to shrink, especially if the current rulers and current form of governance are still in place.

I would clearly prefer to live in a modern society. Sparta was both cruel and primitive (and considering an infection I got in my mid-teens would unquestionably have killed me pre "modern medicine" primitive would be sub-optimal).

That being said. Technology does not make a culture. My Social upbringing is U.S., more specifically the San Francisco Bay Area. As such I find the sorts of issues you list to be wrong. They are wrong for MY SOCIETY. I would, however, note that they exist in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West, even if not known by the same names. Is there really that much difference between clild marriage and an unmarried 13 year old mother, except in the former case the father is responsible for the child? Or a child being murdered because his father was in a gang compared his being killed because his father is Shi'a? Even the Spartan policy of leaving deformed infants to die is not vastly different from today's abortions because of profound medical condition found during pregnancy ultrasounds and other testings.We see these actions when they happen in our current society to be crimes, but in other cultures they are "just how they are/were" or something we are fortunate that we do not have to worry about.


National Socialism was wrong for its surrounding society at the time (in 4,000 BCE it wouldn't have seemed out of place). Societies, indeed cultures, evolve over time. Generally that is to the approval of those in the particular society, although it is the rare out-lying individual who is generally remembered, be they in 2015 Paris, France or in 1995 Oklahoma City, USA. If anything the Oklahoma City bombing is worse than Paris, Oklahoma City was an attack against the actual current society by a member of the majority group in a liberal democracy with all basic human rights protected, and in a robust manner.
 

Cueg

Banned
Immediate justification? The OP stated the following

"Islam = violence"

I did not take him out of context and I did not misquote him. The guy is probably, in my opinion, being a troll. Without being called a bigot, he took to defending "accusations of bigotry". If you don't believe me, you need only re-read the first page. I give him props for successfully turning it into a pissing match.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Oh god, time to make a hypocrite of myself.



To play devils advocate, he was originally discussing Islam in isolation, referencing Christianity only as reformation - the whole mountain of Islam vs Christianity bollocks was brought in by everyone else attacking @Draeger as a bigot. Nobody here is acting particularly well.

I know it isn't my place, but if we're going to end up in a slinging match of bigot/not-bigot (which I was hoping to nip in the bud :mad: ) involving moderators, it'd frankly be a better idea to lock the thread right now. It won't make anybody look good.



Islam, and Muslims are three very different things.

Islam - A Faith

Muslim - Someone who follows the faith of Islam, or Identifies as such.

If you're discussing Islam, then you aren't directly discussing the people who adhere to it, and as I said previously, it normally ends up being a twisted literalistic interpretation rather than any specific school of thought that doesn't help begin discussion, and frankly devolves into the exact sort of p*ssing match we're seeing here. If it is fine to discuss the ideas of Keynesian Economics, without seeing it as an attack on the people who think it is appropriate, then you can do it with a religion, as they are both ideologies.

This means, that in a discussion of the history of a religion, you have two very import factors to consider.

1) What does the religion espouse - this is easily checked by looking at its texts.

2) What do the adherents do - whilst this can (and has) impacted the former, until such point as it is part of the religion, it cannot be considered an action endorsed by that religion.

I CANNOT STRESS THIS MORE THAN I ALREADY HAVE. Otherwise we might as well say that every demographic in the sodding world are thieves, rapists, saints and murders - because there are plenty in every demographic, or that every political or economic philosophy is awful because awful things happen. Proper attribution of events should be applied.



At the very least, Daeger hasn't mention Daesh. At all, not in this thread. That has been brought in by everyone else. For pities sake, I think he has a limited and largely ignorant (in the kindest way) understanding of Islam, and its history, but he didn't conflate Daesh with the original Caliphates. If he did, I certainly missed it.

Nobody has denied that adherents of both faiths have expanded their faith at the point of the sword, but as explained above, one is the action of someone who identifies as such, and the other is a philosophy that ostensibly supports it. If it doesn't actually support it, then it isn't the fault of the philosophy that didn't encourage it. It'd be like accusing Jainism of being responsible for wife beating because some of its adherents did - despite (AFAIK) Jainism being a furiously pacifist faith.

Regarding cultural superiority, if you can't make moral and value judgements on any belief system, then we're all (supposedly bigots) on this entire board. Completely - because we think it is a better way to spend vast amounts of our time discussing this, than say, playing football. Alt-history subculture in our eyes, is superior (seemingly) to footy-culture. Intellectual snobbery at its finest. A moral judgement is the only thing I can think of that you can't objectively rank, it is always personal. It is fundamentally qualitative.

Regarding your tirade against the west? You're doing a pretty good job trying to convince everyone that Western culture is pretty awful, and as such it seems you've made a value judgement regarding the moral actions of your forefathers, suggesting that you consider your morality and culture superior to theirs. Which according to you, is bigotry. How about we stop accusing each other of bigotry, and either lock the thread, or get back on topic.



Again, indicative of any period of cultural advancement - the enlightenment specifically? Probably the blend of various world views that might not have been melded together without colonialism, as it is common that schools of thought tend to isolate, hence why we have different cultures. In order to conquer/rule, someone at the very least needs to learn some of the ideas. This happened with the Caliphates uniting Persian, Roman, and Arab schools of thought, it happen in Europe importing technologies and political systems. Interestingly however, in the case we were trying to discuss, the Caliphate/Dar-al-Islam met most of these criteria - Slaves from Africa/Europe, control of the spice trade, colonisation of Sub-Saharan Africa. So what are the differences? Fascinating discussion, probably relevant to how to create a similar school of though appear in such a system. What must change.



Again, prior to people bringing this in and attacking Daeger, modern terrorism wasn't part of the conversation. We can actually point to Catholics doing it - the IRA. Yes, adherents will do desperate things that they want to justify, but if it isn't justifiable in their philosophy, then the philosophy isn't responsible.

If the first thing that happens when someone starts a topic of conversation that isn't popular, but isn't explicitly hateful, is just shout bigot at them, then there isn't a chance that we can actually get a greater understanding of the topic at hand. Yeah, when Cueg called him a bigot, Draeger defended himself with what he knew - his ignorance is not bigotry. He hasn't refused to entertain ideas, he hasn't been intolerant of other peoples opinions, other than the idea that he is a bigot, he is intolerant of that idea. He's been ignorant as most are when it comes to thoughts and ideas that we never discuss. Which will not change if people fall into this trap every time.

At the moment, we're at risk of breaking, or have broken the first three rules on the forum

1) Provide a civil environment for talking about alternate - considering that being accused of being a bigot (without immediate justification) isn't exactly good manners, that rule has been explicitly broken when trying to do so about this part of history. At least from my perspective.

2) Allow the discussion of any subject that wouldn't lead to the board being overrun by nuts and other wackos. This isn't conspiracy theory, Holocause Denial, etc.

3) It's not what you say, it's how you say it - this literally lists that religious discussion is not sacred ground. Saying something wrong, factually incorrect, is part of the discussion.

Now come on people, frankly, from what I've seen of the rules, Draeger hasn't broken any, although others explicitly have without even a second glance.

You are correct. This tread is totally derailed, and I have been an active part of pulling up the track.

I apologize for allowing that to happen.

Closing it at this time.
 
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