Islam is a religion of peace

Rob & Tom oppose the idea that Islam is a religion of peace

Who are the advocates for reason and individualism in the Islamic community? On the other hand, you get plenty of words about faith, submission, and Jihad from prominent spokespeople: Osama bin laden...

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TomWarner

Trying to locate anyone in Islam who expresses favorable ideas about individualism,or capitalism has a similar level of difficulty as finding someone within Catholicism who is against cannibalism. You know, the wafer and the wine?

Bob Robertson

As a religion, I agree. But as a culture, some of the world's top engineers and entrepreneurs come from Islamic countries. There's no reason to paint these people with the same brush. Just because a few jihadist freaks have hijacked the religion doesn't make those who have reasonable faith evil.
The cannibalism thing about Catholic ritual is amusing, because Catholic missionaries always had to deal with this symbolism when preaching to people who take everything literally.

Tom Warner

Bob,
I'm cracking up over your "reasonable faith."
Gosh I love oxymoron's.

Rob Quinn

@Bob - glad you agree.

Bob Robertson

Tom,

Faith IS reasonable. We have 2 halves of our brain. The Left brain does all the heavy lifting of calculation, fixing a plumbing leak, and intellectual analysis.

The right brain is for art, beauty, aesthetics and spirituality.
Faith is no less "reasonable" than vintage jazz.

It's always ideal to combine the two, but at times it's best to leave your right brain with free-range discovery.

This is still within my definition of "reasonable". It's our human intelligence.

Tom Warner

Bob,

#1
The fact that some one excels in one field doesn't automatically transfer that same level of expertise to another. There are Christian fundamentalist preachers that are also good physicians, but then there are good physicians that are lousy preachers. One can not draw any kind of final conclusion based on such criteria.

#2
Your words -
"Just because a few jihadist freaks have hijacked the religion doesn't make those who have reasonable faith evil."
And you say that you "hate Republicans" because of the influence of a number of right wing religious nuts?
I am having logical difficulty trying to find reasonable consistency in your some of your ideas.

Rob Quinn

@Bob -

Art, beauty, aesthetics, spirituality - all essential elements of a full human life.

Of course, it's perfectly rational to seek the uplifting, to experience powerful emotions through artistic expression, and to seek the widest, most profound spiritual meaning in your own consciousness.

But none of that requires faith as a means of trying to understand the world.

Bob Robertson

Tom:

A great vintage jazz musician is "playing on the right side of the brain". A good listener is also hearing this on his/her right brain.

Music and poetry is not part of calculation. It's coming from the soul, and even the proficiency on the keys of the instrument are instinctual reflexes, not pre-meditated chord sequences. You just let it flow...

Tom Warner

Bob,
I suppose you might easily get away with selling this kind of effluvia in a new age church somewhere, but I doubt you'll have any luck with it on this page or my own.

Rob Quinn

Well you experience music differently than I do. I tend to actually think about a lot of different aspects of the music - how different instruments support each other, the arrangement, the skill of the players, the progression, the overarching theme (if any), rhythm/tempo/time changes, the building and resolution of tension.

My left and right brain don't seem to have trouble working together in appreciating music.

Bob Robertson

Rob Quinn: Of course aesthetics does not require faith to work on our minds, because I've been an atheist all my life until recently.
Note that I use the word 'faith' instead of religion. I get my succor from the prime source, not from hierarchies of interpreters (organized religion).

Rob Quinn

Would you like fries with that?

Tom Warner

Pass the Ketchup please.

Bob Robertson

Understanding the world from scripture is a mistake. But understanding the world from God's love, is an insight to be taken into account. But I maintain that it's a PERSONAL one.

Otherwise I agree that religious busybodies should stay out of politics. God doesn't give a s**t about any of our worldly food fights.

Tom Warner

I looked out the window yesterday and noticed a midget ghost having sex with my neighbor's pet black poodle. That's how I could tell it was a ghost because of the furry black background, plus the sheet had some grass stains on it.
Any way, to make a long story short (which I' really not very good at), about that time I looked up in the neigbors big oak tree, and say a full squadron of Pizza Hut pizzas hovering among the outer limbs, and there were even smaller ghosts that were driving the pizzas ( I used my binoculars and could see the tiny little bitty steering wheels protruding above the pepperoni & sausage.
I grabbed my new Panasonic video camera to get video of it all, but just then I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom from all of the beer I had been drinking. So, when I got back to the window with my camera all of the action had stopped, and all the creatures had disbursed without a trace. I talked to my pet 6 foot rabbit Harvey about it for a while and then went to bed with a headache.
I hated the hangover I had the next morning, but I was better by noon. Damn those spirits!

Bob Robertson

Tom: The whole Republican party is not rotten, just MOST of it. Those who care should fight to bring this party to its senses, because in a few years it will be extinct.

Rob Quinn

@Tom - I suggest setting your entire post to jazz and then feeding it into Bob's right-brain. This should constitute an experience of such religiosity that he will be overcome with love and insight for our attempts at rational persuasion.

Bob Robertson

Tom: The Republican party has (at least as far as my faulty memory goes) some notions about free enterprise and less government and not doing nation-building in hostile countries.

Maybe you will have to refresh my memory, because during the Bush years, under the most right wing neo-con Republican in history, the opposite was true.

Bush made me puke. The GOP deserted me.

I didn't desert them, and if the modern symbols are Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachman, count me out permanently.

If the teabaggers and the southern religious bigots want to body-snatch this party from sanity about free enterprise, let 'em. They will lose, electorally, even in their safe districts.

The GOP is a joke, pandering to FOX News and Christians and racists, flailing in the wind with no leadership, and without a coherent program and making absolutely no sense whatever, except as the party of NO.

I'm a committed Democrat now, pushing for free enterprise. The Bush neo-cons are the socialists, doncha know?

Linda Kincheloe Echavarria

Bob, the Arab people were very brilliant race of people. They gave us our numeric system, they were brilliant engineers in the way they built their buildings. The archways that you see in so many of their buildings serve a purpose other than beauty. They create breezes through heat convection in those hot desert areas. And it is believed thatmany medical remidies were destroyed when Mohammad burned the library of Alexandria. Islam conquered 2/3rds of the world during the 7th century until the Italians drove them out of Europe. And Radical Islam wants to rule the world again. They believe it is their goal to force everyone to convert or die. It is the fastest growing religion in the world. And it has no tolerance for anything else. You either convert, become a slave or die. They have no tolerance for anything else. And what you say about engineers and brilliant people coming from Islamic countries is true. But, this is a dangerous religion and it is becoming a problem all over the world. Even Communist China & Russia are having problems with them. You should read Brigette Gabriels book, "They Must Be Stopped". She is trying to warn Americans that what happened in her country of Lebanon, a Christian nation until Islam took over. A nation of freedom and many religions. Lebanon was once considered the Oasis of the East. It was one of the most beautiful vacation spots in the East, until Islam destroyed it. Killed many members of her own family. And it started with just a few Islam immigrants, then more and more came with multiple wives and many children until there were more of them than Lebanese. Lebanon is now totally Islamic. Those Islamic countries you speak of are not Islamic by choice, but because they were forced to be through Mohammid's reign and since. Yes there are many, many good people in those countries. But, this is a religion that if allowed will try to conquer the world. It is far more dangerous than people realize and we need to pay attention to what they are doing.