What kind of attitude of this? -Bashing Islam is a dangerous sign

[The_Prince]

As an atheist I'm used to hearing this sort of thing, its right in the Bible. You don't need to have a nasty agenda as a christian or twist or make anything up to say such things about atheists or muslims. I posted in this thread as a counterpoint to all the people trying to soften the message earlier in the thread. What the church said is not in the least bit un-christian. It is directly in the spirit of the bible. We, the non-christians are to be eternally punished in hellfire for not holding the Christian god as the only God and for not accepting Jesus as our only path to God. You can't soften that message without hiding what the religion is truly about.

And don't try to pretend Islam is a whole lot different in this regard. As an atheist I can see both sides of this coin.

I do agree with the point Glo made however, the sign does not say to hate muslims. It is just a warning not to become one, on a church bulletin board in a christian area (aimed more at christians than the muslims who happen to see it). Its like the threat of hell, more designed to keep believers than to attract new ones.

Islam does condemn none-Muslims, i agree, and sometimes does mock and even insult them, thats true, however so, the Q is whether those comments in the Quran are general towards ALL NONE MUSLIMS or restrictive and specific to certain types of none-Muslims? if you read the Quran with context, you will find that the Quran always has a specific group of people when making a claim, for instance some none-Muslims are called the worst of BEASTS! and its often said that this refers to ALL NONE MUSLIMS, yet within context the Quran makes itself clear that its refering to liars and hypocrites, people who intentionally lie and act as a hypocrite, and number 2, people who used to break their covenents and agreements with the Muslims in order to gain an upper hand over them etc etc.

 

[The_Prince]

People fear what they don't understand. I live in the Northwest of the USA. Most people I know do not understand the basic tenets of Islam at all. They think you are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and they cannot understand how anyone could be Muslim. They believe Israel is always 100% right and the Palestinians are 100% wrong and are either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. I believe that if the Christians I know actually knew more Muslims a lot of the problem would go away.

I know people who are atheists and others who are agnostics. They are good, ethical people. But many of the religious people I know don't understand them and think they must be tools of the devil.

Most of the posts I have read on this forum are very good, and in general I think most people here are very good people and very tolerant, trying to do the will of God. But i have also read some hate come from Muslims that has really surprised me and sickened me at times.

Sometimes I have to wonder if religion does more harm than good. If all sides would just take the time to understand each other a lot of the bashing would go away. It seems that religion can really pull people apart.

Just a few observations.

erm i suggest u go to youtube where atheists and seculars happen to be the major players and major force, and click on many of their popular users with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and video views, and just see how lovelyyyyyyyy and tolerant they are towards theists!

lastly, the biggest murders and genocide to have taken place in recent history took place in stalin russia and maoist china, two ATHEIST COMMUNIST COUNTRIES, hence plz dont blindly delude yourself by secular atheist propaganda that ohhhhhhh a world with no religion would be a much better happier place, history, RECENT HISTORY shows thats quite false.

 

[Woodrow]

People fear what they don't understand. I live in the Northwest of the USA. Most people I know do not understand the basic tenets of Islam at all. They think you are all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and they cannot understand how anyone could be Muslim. They believe Israel is always 100% right and the Palestinians are 100% wrong and are either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. I believe that if the Christians I know actually knew more Muslims a lot of the problem would go away.

I know people who are atheists and others who are agnostics. They are good, ethical people. But many of the religious people I know don't understand them and think they must be tools of the devil.

Most of the posts I have read on this forum are very good, and in general I think most people here are very good people and very tolerant, trying to do the will of God. But i have also read some hate come from Muslims that has really surprised me and sickened me at times.

Sometimes I have to wonder if religion does more harm than good. If all sides would just take the time to understand each other a lot of the bashing would go away. It seems that religion can really pull people apart.

Just a few observations.

Fear is all too often the door way to hatred.

I doubt if any non-Muslim living in the Northwestern USA has every been physically harmed by any Muslims living there. Yet, there are sizable numbers of Muslims in Seattle and Vancouver.

We do need to get to know each other and learn that the majority of either group poses no physical threat to the other.

 

[KAding]

no you cant, any fool that comes up to me saying Islam is of the devillllllllllllll and you worship a pedophile bla bla cant be my friend. hes my number 1 enemy.

furthermore if Islam is of the devil, and im a follower of Islam, then that means im a devil worshiper! so the supposed attack on my 'belief' is also an attack on me.

But these things are unavoidable. Just open up the Qu'ran and you'll see that I - as an unbeliever - get called lots of nasty things. Heck, I'm so wicked I'm supposed going to burn in Hell for it for eternity. One can hardly demand others adhere to a non-confrontational approach of not criticizing Islam if Islamic sources don't do the same.

 

[Rabi Mansur]

Fear is all too often the door way to hatred.

I doubt if any non-Muslim living in the Northwestern USA has every been physically harmed by any Muslims living there. Yet, there are sizable numbers of Muslims in Seattle and Vancouver.

We do need to get to know each other and learn that the majority of either group poses no physical threat to the other.

Ameen to that.

It is human nature to fear what is not understood.

:salaam:

 

[alcurad]

KAding, all will get what they deserve, God is not unjust.

disbelief that is not antagonistic to belief, and that is reached through personal choice is not the same as what the qur'an mostly condemns, try reading entire passages and chapters and you'll see my words are true, ie. read within context and you'll gain more understanding

 

[julesfly]

gang4 you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned their finances.

“‘Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel...the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest’ (Micah 3:9-12). Notice that the word of judgment is to the Heads, Princes, Priests, and Prophets. It is the leadership that is making merchandise of the house of God! Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17 has made a league with the ‘merchants’ and the ‘kings’ of the earth. They all love Babylon because Babylon has made them rich! She is the answer to their lust for MONEY. The apostle Paul ran into this same love for money when the makers and sellers of idols in Ephesus caused a riot among the people because Paul’s preaching put fear in their hearts that their craft of making silver idols to the Goddess Diana would dry up. Their concern was the making of MONEY, not in truth or error. You can be sure that the same concerns are in the leaders of the modern Fundamental Church. When faced with truth that doesn’t profit them financially they will suddenly grow very fervent in their fight against heresy. In truth they are seeing a financial risk in preaching things that demand the people to do more than sit in their pews and ‘Amen’ the preacher and pay their tithes and offerings. The concern is over MONEY, not heresy!
At least, to my knowledge anyway, Muslims are not asked to pay for their blessings as with these American churches who run 24hours on sattelite t.v with the message 'tis more blessed to give than to recieve'.
Unless of course you count alms to the poor!

 

[Karl]

Sometimes I have to wonder if religion does more harm than good. If all sides would just take the time to understand each other a lot of the bashing would go away. It seems that religion can really pull people apart.

Just a few observations.

You don't need a religion to be evil. Atheists tend to be the most intolerant bigots on Earth. Secularism dominates modern Western society and they are the worst for starting wars. They are chronic intolerant fascists and dictate every aspect of peoples' private lives. For one example, compulsory "education"(the euphemism for state indoctrination) :raging:

 

[Pygoscelis]

You don't need a religion to be evil. Atheists tend to be the most intolerant bigots on Earth. Secularism dominates modern Western society and they are the worst for starting wars. They are chronic intolerant fascists and dictate every aspect of peoples' private lives. For one example, compulsory "education"(the euphemism for state indoctrination) :raging:

We eat babies too. I like mine with plum sauce.

 

[Rabi Mansur]

You don't need a religion to be evil. Atheists tend to be the most intolerant bigots on Earth. Secularism dominates modern Western society and they are the worst for starting wars. They are chronic intolerant fascists and dictate every aspect of peoples' private lives. For one example, compulsory "education"(the euphemism for state indoctrination

Where I live, people believe that Muslims are the most intolerant bigots on earth. Seriously. They watch TV and see Muslims blowing the world up out of hate for the West. Radical Islam. It appears totally irrational. They have never been exposed to the other side of Islam, the peaceful side, that I have seen. They fear Islam because they don't understand it.

My experience with atheists is that they are extremely tolerant. The atheists I know personally are very ethical. In fact, I don't know any intolerant atheists. I also don't personally know any intolerant Muslims but I've seen some on the internet. Most of the Christians I know are very tolerant, but there are exceptions to that too just as I am sure there are intolerant Muslims out there and some intolerant atheists.

I have to disagree with your generalization that atheists tend to be intolerant. You are painting with too broad a brush IMHO. You really believe that atheists are more intolerant than theists? There are intolerant people of all stripes.
:wa:

 

[Rabi Mansur]

erm i suggest u go to youtube where atheists and seculars happen to be the major players and major force, and click on many of their popular users with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and video views, and just see how lovelyyyyyyyy and tolerant they are towards theists!

lastly, the biggest murders and genocide to have taken place in recent history took place in stalin russia and maoist china, two ATHEIST COMMUNIST COUNTRIES, hence plz dont blindly delude yourself by secular atheist propaganda that ohhhhhhh a world with no religion would be a much better happier place, history, RECENT HISTORY shows thats quite false.

I agree there are a lot of sick people out there. They are afraid of Islam and lashing out. I have been attacked for sympathizing with Muslims on facebook. I know there is a lot of hate out there. But it comes from all sides.

 

[Pygoscelis]

Atheists can be intolerant, sure, but not due to atheism. There is no atheist dogma telling them not to yoke themselves with the religious or that all non-atheists deserver an eternal torment of hellfire. There is no atheist church at which you will read a billboard as the one in the OP's photo.

 

[Woodrow]

Atheists can be intolerant, sure, but not due to atheism. There is no atheist dogma telling them not to yoke themselves with the religious or that all non-atheists deserver an eternal torment of hellfire. There is no atheist church at which you will read a billboard as the one in the OP's photo.

To be honest those of us who are theist have difficulty in comprehending the concept of no religion. At least I do. I know you will probably disagree with me and I do not speak for all theists, Just for myself. I see disbelief to be a religion, not an organized religion, but still a religion. I do see what I perceive to be an atheist dogma which is: "God does not exist" Like many dogmas that is an unchallengeable belief that requires no further explanation to the adherent. Just my opinion and personal view..


Now that I got that off my chest. I can not resist responding directly to this statement:

There is no atheist church at which you will read a billboard as the one in the OP's photo.

I've seen quite few blank billboards.

 

[Iris]

^I agree. Atheism is almost incomprehensible to me. How can people simply live with so many un-answered questions, beats me.

 

[Karl]

^I agree. Atheism is almost incomprehensible to me. How can people simply live with so many un-answered questions, beats me.

Atheists tend to worship the State and the religion of Political Correctness, they are a very Socialist lot. They have to do everything as a democratic collective. You would think that someone who is Godless would be totally free and self ruling e.g. Anarchist, but no the politicians (Big Brother) are their prophets and the Media is their church. They are incredibly self oppressed and have more rules and regulations than a thousand Holy Books.

 

[Supreme]

I think the main problem with atheists is the difficulty they have in accepting that there is a higher power than themselves.

 

[Karl]

I think the main problem with atheists is the difficulty they have in accepting that there is a higher power than themselves.

Exactly. That's why atheists are so self righteous, arrogant and pontificating and act as though they ARE God. It is not as if they have abandoned religion, they have merely usurped Gods' supremacy and replaced His glorious rule.
Like the godless scum that overthrew the King of France in 1789, which sent the world into a new dark age of evil anti-christ totalitarian political systems.

 

[Karl]

Where I live, people believe that Muslims are the most intolerant bigots on earth. Seriously. They watch TV and see Muslims blowing the world up out of hate for the West. Radical Islam. It appears totally irrational. They have never been exposed to the other side of Islam, the peaceful side, that I have seen. They fear Islam because they don't understand it.

My experience with atheists is that they are extremely tolerant. The atheists I know personally are very ethical. In fact, I don't know any intolerant atheists. I also don't personally know any intolerant Muslims but I've seen some on the internet. Most of the Christians I know are very tolerant, but there are exceptions to that too just as I am sure there are intolerant Muslims out there and some intolerant atheists.

I have to disagree with your generalization that atheists tend to be intolerant. You are painting with too broad a brush IMHO. You really believe that atheists are more intolerant than theists? There are intolerant people of all stripes.
:wa:

I associate atheism with intolerance because today's mainstream form of it arrogantly interferes into peoples private lives. Most atheists do not respect the maxim "A man's house is his castle". Atheist governments are bolshy and power hungry, and they are responsible for 1984 big brother government which tries to dictate more and more aspects of our private lives. They do this insidiously and chip away at our personal freedoms by attrition. They will ruthlessly stamp out anything they don't happen to like. Another very interesting thing I have noticed about atheists is that the vast majority seem to be chronic lefties and busybody global socialists. Their obnoxious Marxist intoxication has become a religion unto itself. There are many traditional rituals and practices of religion that the atheists have outlawed, and they continue to push their limits, more and more, every day. If atheists respected different cultures and religions and said "hey, you do your thing and we'll do ours", then yes I would call that tolerant, but that is NOT the case. I'm not speaking about every single atheist, just the vast majority I have observed.

 

[Supreme]

Karl, do you know who Richard Dawkins is? I know as a Christian I shouldn't hate anybody, but let's just say I strongly dislike the man's views on religion.

 

[The_Prince]

Karl, do you know who Richard Dawkins is? I know as a Christian I shouldn't hate anybody, but let's just say I strongly dislike the man's views on religion.

your not the only one.

BUT in all fairness, there are quite a few atheists who dislike him too, and disagree with his approach. then again many atheists do also support his style and approach, and even think like him!