Islam - A religion of peace?

[Flavus Aquila]

Yes there are peaceful muslim countries

Now can you name me some western countries that haven't been at war in the last 70 or so years? I'm sure you could name many that have been in constant war

In fact isn;t it the western countries that have placed the world under the constant threat of nuclear annhilation?

The engagement in war is a departure from peace - a very marked departure. But you missed the question: are there any Muslim countries that have enjoyed a peaceful, stable society in between wars in modern history?

England has been through two world wars. But they have enjoyed many decades of stable society nevertheless.

 

[muir]

The US and Israel might be worse, they do it for money.
I wonder what Muslims do it for?

View attachment 20798

The group that have kidnapped those girls in Nigeria are called Boko Haram. they are a terror group who are controlled by the CIA who are seeking to destabilise Nigeria in order to gian control of its natural resources.

Please see my posts in this thread for more info regarding this:

http://www.infjs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28026&page=2&p=747644#post747644

The CIA work through proxy groups to hide US involvement and maintain 'plausible deniability'

The US and Israel are controlled by the banksters and oil barons who dominate their political and economic systems. They have been terrorising the middle east for decades.

In the clip below Noam Chomsky quotes a government paper which admits that the reason there is a lot of animosity towards the US in the middle east is because the US follows a policy of stopping the spread of democracy:

[video=youtube;O4YX7uhpInA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4YX7uhpInA[/video]

The oil rich muslim countries formed a group called OPEC to try and agree on prices for their oil so they could get a good deal from the west who buys their oil. OPEC countries are split into two groups: price hawks and price doves

The price hawks want to charge the west a good price because they want to get a good deal for their oil so that they can develop their countries and buy schools and hospitals and start factories and build roads and bridges etc

The west however has put puppet governments (often using violence and coups) in charge of some OPEC countries so that these countries can act as price doves and bring the prices down to secure cheap oil for the west so that it can make lots of plastic crap it doesn't need and so that it doesn't need to reform and refine its transports systems and can instead keep cramming roads full of polluting cars.

The west pays and protects MONARCHIES (royal families) who do not believe in democracy they believe in autocracy where the people are ruled with no say in matters. These corrupt monarchies are called 'the gulf monarchies' for example saudi arabia, qatar, bharain, jordan and they violently suppress any protests by their people seeking democratic reform. These protests are not covered in the western mainstream corporate news.

The US places military bases in the gulf monarchies to protect the royal families from their own people and they provide the royalist forces with hi tech weaponry. In return for this the royal families are made VERY RICH as they sell off the natural resources of their people cheaply to the foreign powers

The price hawk countries like Iraq are often attacked by the west who hate any countries that they cannot control. They particularly hate Iran because its banks are not controlled by the Rothschild lead cartel and it controls its own oil. The banksters want to invade Iran, exploit its resources, enslave its population through the debt based system it has enslaved the west under and push mcdonalds and other useless western crap onto the people at the point of a gun

When price hawk countries don't do as the west tells them to do the west invades them and bombs their infrastructure back into the stone age. They target schools, hospitals, bridges, roads, airports, factories, TV stations, water pumps, electricity stations etc

Meanwhile the corrupt price dove regimes help fund terrorist groups to fight countries who stand up against western aggression for example in Libya and Syria (the house of saud and the qatar royal families have been funding a lot of these groups)

 

[muir]

The engagement in war is a departure from peace - a very marked departure. But you missed the question: are there any Muslim countries that have enjoyed a peaceful, stable society in between wars in modern history?

England has been through two world wars. But they have enjoyed many decades of stable society nevertheless.

England has been in constant conflict for centuries

I don't know about a stable society...it has a constant cycle of boom and bust. It also had riots sweep across its cities in recent years as well as increasing industrial strike actions that are growing in numbers. also Britian is on the verge of fragmenting

Iran has been stable to name one despite the best efforts of the west to subvert it through war, coups, sanctions and threats.

If you look at the instability in other countries it is clear it has been caused by western interference so whats your point? That because the Uk has nuclear weapons and some other countries don't it is easier to cause disruption in the non nuclear countries?

 

[j654dgj7]

Speaking to exclusivity and keeping to their own, I just remembered getting a weird number about literacy and book translations for Arabic. Here's the number:

In the last 1000 years, fewer books have been translated from English to Arabic than books have been translated from English to Spanish in 1 year. Thousands of books are being translated from Arabic to English every year.

Here's the source.

Isn't that sad?

 

[muir]

Speaking to exclusivity and keeping to their own, I just remembered getting a weird number about literacy and book translations for Arabic. Here's the number:

In the last 1000 years, fewer books have been translated from English to Arabic than books have been translated from English to Spanish in 1 year. Thousands of books are being translated from Arabic to English every year.

Here's the source.

Isn't that sad?

All our books seem to do is chart the moral decline of western civilisation!

The arabs did transmit the wisdom of the greeks back into europe having treasured the knowledge themselves

However the west works mostly through TELEVISION nowadays exporting 'baywatch', 'friends' and 'x factor' to all corners of the globe

 

[j654dgj7]

All our books seem to do is chart the moral decline of western civilisation!

Really? Do you mean this? Shakespeare? Oscar Wilde? Dickens? Hans Christian Andersen? Einstein? Breathe sometimes, man.

 

[muir]

Really? Do you mean this? Shakespeare? Oscar Wilde? Dickens? Hans Christian Andersen? Einstein? Breathe sometimes, man.

What Oscar ''we're all in the gutter but some of us are staring at the stars'' wilde? That doesn't sound like a very positive view of western civilisation

As for dickens he was raised in the poor house and writes about the dehumanising conditions of the industrial revolution

Shakespeare seemed to do the empty yearning of existentialism before the existentialists:

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

I'm not sure any of these people present a postive view of christian civilisation...

It seems lost...adrift

 

[bodhireagan]

Yes, I find Islam to be a very peaceful religion. As with any religion, it is not the religion itself that is violent, but rather the people who consider themselves a follower.
I guess you could consider it similar to "guns do not kill people, people kill people" but instead something in the range of "religion by itself is non-violent, religious followers are the ones who are violent"
A Bible or a Quran sitting on a table does not commit hate crimes. Someone who reads the Bible or Quran and believes that their religion is superior and the only one that should be followed, they commit the hate crimes. (I am not trying to generalize or say all followers of a specific religion are violent, this was just for the sake of discussion.)

On a side note, I have read the Quran and I believe it to be a far more beautiful piece of literature than the Bible.

 

[Lark]

Speaking to exclusivity and keeping to their own, I just remembered getting a weird number about literacy and book translations for Arabic. Here's the number:

In the last 1000 years, fewer books have been translated from English to Arabic than books have been translated from English to Spanish in 1 year. Thousands of books are being translated from Arabic to English every year.

Here's the source.

Isn't that sad?

They arent big readers then?

Shame.

 

[Lark]

Yes, I find Islam to be a very peaceful religion. As with any religion, it is not the religion itself that is violent, but rather the people who consider themselves a follower.
I guess you could consider it similar to "guns do not kill people, people kill people" but instead something in the range of "religion by itself is non-violent, religious followers are the ones who are violent"
A Bible or a Quran sitting on a table does not commit hate crimes. Someone who reads the Bible or Quran and believes that their religion is superior and the only one that should be followed, they commit the hate crimes. (I am not trying to generalize or say all followers of a specific religion are violent, this was just for the sake of discussion.)

On a side note, I have read the Quran and I believe it to be a far more beautiful piece of literature than the Bible.

I dont think the history of secularism has been astoundingly better than that of religious hegemony either to be honest, secular ideologies produced as much slavery, violence, death and destruction as any religion but their "sacred causes" have brought almost the whole planet to the brink of extinction and its probably safe to say that most of the religious fundamentalisms in the world are mutant messages, the merging of old religion with modern methods or mentalities.

The apocalyptic thinking of key figures from scriptural times was always about ordeals to be survived and not to be welcomed and brought on by the actions of believers, there's a butt load of Jewish and Christian prayers which I know of, sorry dont know so much about islam, which pray for or upon "world without end" and dont revel in the prospect of esoteric "raptures", "end times" or being "left behind" (that stuff is all really, really, really dumb, heretical to the extreme but stupid heretical as opposed to harmful heretical).

 

[Barnabas]

Wait..you're saying he allowed the mutilation of a soldier? To have made a precise incision of the ear the soldier must hve been pinned down by jesus's followers which must have been a pretty traumatic experience for the soldier...

Then jesus stops them short of...killing the guy?

I missed the bit in your post where jesus tells them to get rid of the swords?

I always took it the Peter was just a terrible swordsmen(he was a fisherman after all), he went to cut the man from nape to sternum and instead missed and clipped the ear. At which point Jesus sighed and said "really guys".


As for what FA is saying, I don't know nearly enough about Islam to make a statement but I'd like to Add that I've seen single sets of verses or even whole pericopes have been quoted out of context and have mutilated the meaning of the passages. I think for most of us we'd need to sit down read the whole of those verses and then dig into the cultural back ground of the event and it's intended audience.


Once again, I stress that I don't know enough about this to say one way or the other on the OP, just that I urge caution and deliberation when reading a religious text for meaning because a knee jerk response is the worst approach.

 

[Lark]

I always took it the Peter was just a terrible swordsmen(he was a fisherman after all), he went to cut the man from nape to sternum and instead missed and clipped the ear. At which point Jesus sighed and said "really guys".


As for what FA is saying, I don't know nearly enough about Islam to make a statement but I'd like to Add that I've seen single sets of verses or even whole pericopes have been quoted out of context and have mutilated the meaning of the passages. I think for most of us we'd need to sit down read the whole of those verses and then dig into the cultural back ground of the event and it's intended audience.


Once again, I stress that I don't know enough about this to say one way or the other on the OP, just that I urge caution and deliberation when reading a religious text for meaning because a knee jerk response is the worst approach.

You know that kind of makes sense, I like that sort of humanised version of Jesus when I read it in peoples opinion pieces or when I first encountered it, really, in Billy Connolly's version of the crucifixion and last supper as having happened in Glasgow and Jesus having been a Glaswegian.

The thing about the soldier's injury is that I had a religious education teacher who was teaching about the amount of miracle cures in Mark and when I mentioned this incident and he'd forgotten about it and not included it he flew into a rage, everyone forgets this one but its important, just as important as the others because its the very thing Jesus teached and knew that no one was going to practice. The whole time he's told people to love their enemy, that was the difficult part, loving your friends or others who love you in return is easy. Well this was a soldier who'd come armed to take him, there was probably a brawl and a fight with swords, so it wasnt like they called around and were saying "evening guv" when Jesus' followers wigged out and suddenly cut him.

The other thing I'd say about it is that he no doubt wasnt much of a swords man, it probably wasnt much of a sword either but its clear he was swinging for the guys head, it says ear but perhaps its not as surgical an injury as most people have thought. So I figure Peter swung for the guys head and the guy dodged and got the side of his head cut and Jesus healed him when the dust settled.

A swordsman, particularly someone with a roman style short sword, isnt going to swing or slice, not even the head particularly, its made for a stabbing motion and its the stab that kills not the swipe.

 

[muir]

I always took it the Peter was just a terrible swordsmen(he was a fisherman after all), he went to cut the man from nape to sternum and instead missed and clipped the ear. At which point Jesus sighed and said "really guys".


As for what FA is saying, I don't know nearly enough about Islam to make a statement but I'd like to Add that I've seen single sets of verses or even whole pericopes have been quoted out of context and have mutilated the meaning of the passages. I think for most of us we'd need to sit down read the whole of those verses and then dig into the cultural back ground of the event and it's intended audience.


Once again, I stress that I don't know enough about this to say one way or the other on the OP, just that I urge caution and deliberation when reading a religious text for meaning because a knee jerk response is the worst approach.

A fisherman is going to have good hand eye coordination; they are practical people and used to working with their hands

he is probably well practiced at gutting fish and chopping their heads off. To screw up as monumentally as you suggest Peter did is in my opinion unlikely.

Also i'm not sure the fishermen were really fishermen; i believe they were fishing for souls. They were recruiters to Jesus's spiritual system

jesus also was not, imo, a carpenter but a 'tecton' which is a worker of stone...a temple builder. I don't mean that he literally was building temples but rather that he helped people build their own spiritual temples

He would take a person who was a spiritually lost soul and he would guide them and mould them like a stoneworker takes a rough block of stone and works it into a useful piece of shaped ashlar

Each finished stone formed part of a larger temple which was the wider spiritual community which Jesus was a part of

 

[magister343]

Considering that several disciples are described as being out in boats with nets literally catching literal fish, I think it is fair to say that they were literal fishermen before they were fishers of men.

Having good enough hand eye coordination when working with nets and short knives does not mean that he would have much skill using an unfamiliar weapon like a sword, particularly against someone also armed and trying to defend himself.

The Greek term Tekton does not mean worker of stone of temple builder. It is a very general term for a skilled laborer, regardless of the medium in which he worked. Carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, armorers, shipwrights, siege engineers, glassblowers, weavers, tailors, ect., would all qualify.

Since Jesus is only ever called a Tekton by people from his home town who did not believe he could be a prophet, it seems unlikely that they were using the term in the metaphorical sense as you imply.

 

[muir]

Considering that several disciples are described as being out in boats with nets literally catching literal fish, I think it is fair to say that they were literal fishermen before they were fishers of men.

That's kind of how myths work...they are told as a story

Having good enough hand eye coordination when working with nets and short knives does not mean that he would have much skill using an unfamiliar weapon like a sword, particularly against someone also armed and trying to defend himself.

Swords then were pretty much just long knives

Do we know the high priests servant was armed?

Taking a swipe at a person walking forward and clipping their ear is perfectly feasible....we were talking before about torture but that's not what the scenario was

The Greek term Tekton does not mean worker of stone of temple builder. It is a very general term for a skilled laborer, regardless of the medium in which he worked. Carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, armorers, shipwrights, siege engineers, glassblowers, weavers, tailors, ect., would all qualify.

And my interpretation is that he was a stone worker in a metaphorical sense

Since Jesus is only ever called a Tekton by people from his home town who did not believe he could be a prophet, it seems unlikely that they were using the term in the metaphorical sense as you imply.

You don't have to be perceived as a prophet to be seen as a metaphorical stoneworker especially if people used that term in a metaphorical sense

We also have to think about who wrote (and/or edited) the bible

 

[Matt3737]

As [MENTION=2648]magister343[/MENTION] pointed out, the best approximation for tekton in English is technician.

 

[muir]

As @magister343 pointed out, the best approximation for tekton in English is technician.

Which includes stone worker...

 

[magister343]

"Technician" is a term derived from "Tekton," but a better English translation is probably "Craftsman."

 

[Matt3737]

"Technician" is a term derived from "Tekton," but a better English translation is probably "Craftsman."

How so? Technician effectively means the same as craftsman yet holds closer to the etymological roots of tekton.

Is it the more specified manner in which it tends to be used with technology or technical sciences rather than the broader meaning of any technical skills?

tech·ni·cian
/tekˈniSHən/
noun: technician; plural noun: technicians
a person employed to look after technical equipment or do practical work in a laboratory.
an expert in the practical application of a science.
a person skilled in the technique of an art or craft.

 

[Average]

Why does your question urge otherwise? you could say any religion is a religion of peace. And that would also be correct. They're aren't any major religions that teach hate, they ALL teach LOVE. Fair enough maybe on here, where your hiding in your house all day trying stuff and keeping busy...i do hear a lot of religion is blah blah and people just dont seem to give it much value...but if we consider the majority of the WORLD...i mean the town for instance.... you realize the're are many many many of all sorts of people who follow religion....it gives them structure and purpose...its a way of life.

Having said all that, if you like to spice your life just the way you like it, the type that be in kitchen by himself cooking some hot stuff...then fair play.