I find your comment to be thoroughly xenophobic and unwilling to face the reality of the United States. Sure, you aren't likely to literally get attacked by Islamists with machetes in the US. But minimizing the threats of gamergate violence is completely unnecessary and unrealistic.
Is it really that difficult to imagine one of the gamergate threats to be from an individual like the UC Santa Barbara shooter or the Aurora Colorado shooter? Don't you think that's the worst fear of the women targeted by gamergate? And frankly, a legitimate fear based on events in the United State over the past 5-10 years? The United States has a huge public violence problem, it just happens to be different from the one in Bangladesh.
Place A has online death threats where people are literally hacked to death. Place B has online death threats where nobody is injured yet a lot of people get upset.
Xenophobia has nothing to do with it. It's a simple observation. Now if you followed up that observation with something like "And its because everybody who isn't in Place B are degenerate lunatics and shouldn't be trusted"? Then that's xenophobia.
Get your terms straight. Online free speech is under attack in a lot of ways: government surveillance, social peer pressure, fundamentalist religions, and so forth. I don't think trotting out terms like "racist" or "xenophobe" helps in understanding or coming to terms with the problem.
At what point do we know that the persistent death threats are just kids being obnoxious and no one is going to be hurt? At what point would you personally be comfortable if your inbox was being blasted with threats of violence?
And the only kind of xenophobia is the explicit, aggressive kind? So would you say the only kind of sexism is the kind where you must explicitly prohibit women from doing certain activities or holding certain roles? And the only kind of racism is the kind that existed in the American south prior to the late 60's?
> At what point do we know that the persistent death threats are just kids being obnoxious and no one is going to be hurt?
Well, a partial answer to that may be: you never know whether the death threats are real or not until something like what is happening in Bangladesh happens. But once bloggers actually get hacked to death, you definitely do know, for sure.
I don't think anyone would or should feel comfortable getting death threats via any medium. However, I know that I'd feel a lot less comfortable getting the same death threats in Bangladesh than in, say, Sweden, all other things being equal.
Also, please stop bringing your bias to this discussion. I understand you're passionately on the "anti-GG" side of this debate. I'm not. I really don't care for either side. I'm sure you can make your points without turning this into yet another pointless threat arguing about "SJWs vs misogynist assholes". Let's not bring this crap to HN.
I think it's important to clarify your post with one simple fact: death threats and doxxing have occurred on both sides of the GG "debate" ("debacle" perhaps more accurate). Without that pointed out, you seem extremely biased.
I wasn't taking any sides there, just making an observation about the level of violence experienced in Bangladesh vs the US.
That's fair. I actually hadn't heard of any death threats or doxxing coming from the pro-feminist side but it certainly wouldn't shock me. There's dark depths and fanaticism everywhere. But it does come off as smug and privileged to laugh off any of those threats. I can't imagine someone threatening my life and me feeling 100% comfortable that they're just doing it to intimidate me.
Yes, but different religions inspire different propensities towards violence in their hosts.
Remember the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon? I doubt the Mormons liked the play's content, but they responded to it positively. In some venues, they even took out ads in the playbill.
Do you think it would be possible for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make a similar production about the Qu'ran? Even in the US, it would be a security nightmare. Venue owners, audiences, and production staff would all fear attacks.
>Yes, but different religions inspire different propensities towards violence in their hosts.
It is more complex than that. There is no on one side "good religions" and on the other side "bad religions". It is rather a combination of social and economics factors (education, poverty, exposure to other cultures, frustration, feeling of injustice (real or imagined), corruption, etc)
I totally agree that Mormonism used to be a rather terrible and violent religion. But please notice that you had to go back over 150 years to find such an atrocity committed by the Mormons. Their religion has changed drastically since then, thanks to collisions with secularism. Christianity used to be more barbarous as well, but centuries of progress have tamed it significantly.
Let me give a more obvious example of religion's role in encouraging/discouraging violence: Jainism. The core contributor to Jainism, Mahavira, said, "All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away." It is really hard to be violent as a Jain. Jains protest by fasting. In fact, Gandhi got many of his ideas about nonviolent resistance from the Jains.
Also, you didn't answer my question. Do you honestly think there is any religion besides Islam that would raise such security concerns if mocked in a Broadway musical? I agree that culture and other factors matter, but the doctrines of religions are quite different. Some of those doctrines call for violence more than others. The sooner we admit that, the sooner we can try to fix the problem.
> Do you honestly think there is any religion besides Islam that would raise such security concerns if mocked in a Broadway musical?
In 2015, I can't think of any other. But I don't think there is something fundamentally and radically different with Islam as its core. In some country, you could not mock the official religion or the (despotic) head of state either.
I used to believe that some religions were exempt of violence, but since I learned about "Buddhism fundamentalism" I am much more circumspect.
That's just the usual faux complexity and "fair and balanced" smokescreen.
Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion". Islam is a "bad religion".
There is a fundamental difference between the violent excesses of an ideology, an ideology than almost inevitably leads to violent excesses and an ideology the prescribes violence. The Islam is all the way at the extreme end of that spectrum.
> Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion". Islam is a "bad religion".
Well, if that's what Islam calls its followers to do, it's a good job most of those followers don't pay any attention. Even Iran permits Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to worship within its borders: they are subject to discrimination and harassment, but not forced to convert to Islam under pain of death.
Also note that there are special allowances made for people of the Book, so Jews and Christians are not quite as bad off as others, theologically speaking.
Yes, I'm aware of the penalties for apostasy in Iran, and that the toleration shown to Jews and Christians is not extended to other faiths (it would seem the Bahá'í get a particularly rough time of it).
But the comment I was replying to made a blanket statement that Islam calls for the slaughter and forced conversion of those of other religions, when the facts simply don't bear that out. Yes, some Muslim individuals and groups do hold to such an extreme interpretation of Islam; and media reports do suggest that most religiously inspired killings are committed by Muslims. But most Muslims don't hold such a stance, and most Muslim countries do allow at least some measure of religious toleration -- even a theocracy like Iran.
The most notable exception, of course, is the West's ally Saudi Arabia.
Take the data from the 2013 Pew poll, which theoretically represents about 1 billion muslims.
One of the questions was about support for the death penalty for apostasy. The report doesn't come with a global average, but you can go to the annex, add some census data and do the math yourself. You'll end up with a number of ~40%.
The idea that all muslims are out to kill infidels is of course ridiculous hyperbole. Nevertheless, I consider the number I just quoted worryingly high.
> Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion". Islam is a "bad religion".
You can argue that it is discrimination, but if you consider the status of Islam and Judaism during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, you would think Christianity is a "bad religion". It is certainly true that in several areas, Islam has been hijacked by violent fundamentalists, but it does not make Islam, by nature, incompatible with other faiths.
Well, he may not know much about Islam. I don't either. But even the page you linked quotes:
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
"Jesus will come again, and at that time will (among other things) abolish jizya, will "perish all religions except Islam""
Which I would translate to simple words as: slaughter those who are different, unless they pay you. If they do, whoever is accepted as Jesus can slaughter them later anyway. In modern world that's protection racket.
PS, While it sounds harsh, that's how I understand it. If that's not the right idea, please do explain it better.
The point is that this system, while penalizing non-muslims, allowed a mostly peaceful coexistence between different belief systems in the Islamic world, thus demonstrating by example that the notion of Islam not being compatible with other religions is wrong. On the other hand, the tolerance track record of, say, the Catholic Church was fairly dismal until its influence over politics became dramatically curtailed.
Honestly, I don't think I can accept that as a "peaceful" solution. Same as mafia can't be described as peaceful when asking for money not to destroy your business.
Simple test - any other religion with the same rule wouldn't be able to coexist peacefully. It's just luck that we have only one.
Five hundred years ago, Christianity was as bad (see reformation, st bartholomew's day massacre). Things are much better now. Has "Christianity" changed that much ? The core of the faith is still the same. In my opinion, what has changed is rather all the "other factors" : i.e. when you are literate, well-fed, do not feel oppressed or unjustly treated you are less likely to hack your neighbor to death.
Does that make Christianity a good or bad religion ? Or Christianity now is good while it was bad before ?
I understand what you are saying, but I think I am interpreting events differently.
One last point, if you have a look on the last few hundreds years in Europe, you will find, and I probably miss a few religious wars :
- catholics vs Cathars and various heretical movement
- catholics vs protestants
- christians vs jews
And as the ideology changed:
- monarchists vs republicans
- marxists vs fascists
etc ad nauseam.
I do think the "Us vs Them" mentality is a constant of the human experience, and with or without religion of any sort, we will find new ways to be divided (see hooligans, is there something more stupid that dying for your team ?). And I believe that the debate around Islam is just another epiphenomena that will be replaced by something else in 50 or 100 years.
> Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion"
Christianity is a bad religion. See the genocide of Bosnian muslims by Serb christians during the Bosnian genocide. (1995 approx)
I'm interested in how you're going to contort this to say that these genocides of non-Christians by Christians is somehow different to the massacres you've mentioned.
> But I don't think it actually calls for killing people practising other religions. (In the new testament, that is) Does it?
Luke 19:27:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
As well as Matthew 10:34:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
I'm not sure why you want to split the old testament off from the new testament. When we see condemnation of homosexuals by some Christians the Christians are usually making reference to old testament quotes. (Substitute "homosexuals" for children (because some christian sects promote beating children) or women (ditto) to see other appalling behaviour defended by Christians making reference to the old testament.
It's a bit odd that I got downvotes for countering someone saying that Christians don't kill members of other religions by giving two examples - one still happening today - of exactly that; exactly Christians murdering people from a different religion purely because they were members of another religion.
Christianity has, since the 5th century, had the concept of "Just war". So, even if it's not in the Bible (but it is, there's lots of it in the old testament) it's bene part of the faith for 1500 years.
I didn't say that they don't kill, or that bible doesn't advocate it. I asked if it does.
I'm regarding the old testament differently, because I see it as a collection of crazy old stories. I don't believe it's possible to follow the word of the old testament these days without being insane. Or without getting locked up as soon as you start trying to stone prostitutes.
Anyway, my point was - does the text itself (in nt) tell you to fight anyone of different faith. The fragments you quoted say Jesus was going to do that. He didn't tell others to follow the same.
I'm not interested in this kind of dishonest contortion of facts.
GP claimed that Islam was a bad religion and pointed to a small number of Islamic extremists to prove their point.
That point is trivially countered by showing the genocides perpetrated by Christians against people from other religions -- and there is at least one genocide perpetrated by Christians that is still ongoing.
You're "only asking questions"[1] but you're ignoring inconvenient answers and refining questions in weird ways.
For example: You don't get to define which bits of the bible are relevant. The christians using the bible as a justification for murder do.
[1] "I'm only asking questions" is a troll technique. You probably want to stop that.
There is no on one side "good religions" and on the other side "bad religions".
But not all religious doctrine is equally toxic.
It is rather a combination of social and economics factors (education, poverty, exposure to other cultures, frustration, feeling of injustice (real or imagined), corruption, etc)
But ideology is part of the package. Totalitarianism has to be opposed, whether its doctrine is based on religion (eg Salafism) or secular concepts (eg Nazism).
Disgusting. Other religions are perfectly capable of inspiring similar acts.
Look at all the atrocities committed throughout history in the name of christianity: The imperial conquests of Africa and America were conducted in the name of spreading christianity and with the blessing of the church. American fundamentalists regularly murder abortion doctors in the name of religion. Breivik is a "christian warrior" defending christianity.
Second of all, Mormons?
"On Sept. 11, 1857, a group of California-bound pioneers camping in southern Utah were murdered by a Mormon militia and its Indian allies. The massacre lasted less than five minutes, but when it was over, 120 men, women and children had been clubbed, stabbed or shot at point-blank range. Their corpses, stripped of clothes and jewelry, were left to be picked apart by wolves and buzzards."
The truth is this: Humans are really not creatures of love. Murder is as natural to us as anything else, and history proves it. Killing is easy. It doesn't take much. If there's any lesson to be learned from genocides like the Rwanda massacres, civil wars like the breakup of Yugoslavia or the Nazi era, it is that a large proportion of humanity will readily become mass murderers for almost no reason at all. It really doesn't take that much.
Should we not be focusing on the current problems at hand? The inquisition was one of the darkest most disgusting things I've ever read about, I'm no proponent of Catholicism. But I don't see the value of pointing to something behind you when there is a ten ton elephant charging at you from the front.
When one shows an elephant graveyard behind them filled with all the elephants that have charged at them, I suspect the point is that this elephant charging at you is no more the problem than all the previous, but a symptom of a greater issue.
Religion is not simply another excuse it can also be a big motivational factor. It is too easy to just say "religion has nothing to do with it" or "it could have been any other religion".
If you look at the islamic doctrine and also the islamic history you will see that already Muhammad had critics of him and his religion be killed.
That's mainstream islamic knowledge and doctrine and in the islamic world people wouldn't even be ashamed to admit that as it is normal ("divine") law for them.
In the non-muslim world of course muslims don't go advertising about those part of their religion because they know that those parts aren't accepted and seen as something normal/positive.
It's then easier to say "but your religion was bad too" - but that's just a "And you are lynching negroes" kind of argument.
We don't need those kind of arguments we need a discussion for example why somebody who led his critics be killed should be seen as a role model.
Interesting you should pick the example of the Mormons, a religious organization whose founder was killed by an angry mob of seceders from his church...
Anyone that would suggest that the propensity of Islamic fundamentalists towards violence is particularly unusual amongst religious adherents has a remarkably inadequate grasp of history.
Even if historically all religions have had their share of atrocities, the point is that Islam today is like the rest of the world has been in the Middle Ages. Hopefully they'll get there in a few centuries, at least if they haven't conquered (explicitly through wars or implicitly through immigration) the West by then.
It goes against HN's commenting policy of putting arguments above insults. I also think it's not productive, does not lead to a productive discussion, and displays gratuitous negativity.
Is it so difficult to see that attitudes toward mocking political/moral systems are simply part of those political/moral systems ?
For instance, communism takes a very dim view of mocking communism. This is extremely well known, and pretty accurately describes the various communist communities' attitudes, even today. Mocking communist ideals or characters will get you at least ostracised from most of those communities. Hell, linking to other's jokes about them is dangerous at best.
By contrast, free market capitalists, their "enemy", are pretty well known for being extremely tolerant of humorous take-downs of their ideology, and engage in it themselves on a regular basis inside their communities. Of course, most leftists then criticize this as indicating they don't believe in the free market after all, which isn't true.
Christianity is relatively tolerant of criticism. Given how this religion has had it's canonical texts written by Greek philosophers, it's quite easy to understand why this is so. You will find lots of books written by saints, priests, monks, ... that criticize the church and even the faith itself. This is done mostly in self-reflection with the intent to improve matters and not absolutely not meant for wider dissemination (on occasion the wide dissemination of such texts has been fought with violation), but it certainly exists. These books have, on occasion, resulted in large shifts in attitudes within Christianity.
As an atheist ex-muslim blogger of very similar descent, I don't see how this is relevant to hacker news. I sincerely doubt it will generate any useful discussion.
To put this in some random hint of potential perspective, Sylhet is the center of the overseas Bengali community in Europe, ie. it's probably one of the most educated, wealthy and progressive parts of the country with the exception of the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh has a population of about 20 million hindus who even if the number seems huge, are a minority given that the country has a huge population.
I have been extremely fortunate to have had my dad make the sensible choice of abandoning his homeland for a job in Dubai which even if is not the best he could be doing. Is way better than being scared of your life.
Most of my rest of family moved illegally to India and managed to get an Indian passport and are living peaceful lives.
However it saddens me to see the situation in Bangladesh, since I have been there countless time and a lot of my cousins still live there. I also hold an bangladeshi passport.
I really would want to do a tech job in bangladesh if given the opportunity. I am currently finishing in undergrad in an top British University and the situation here is so much nicer.
One my goals is to one day open a research lab / company in bangladesh involving robotics.
Bangladesh suffers from a lot of political corruption / cultural disintegration / poverty / natural disasters / education / . . .
My dad sometimes worries about my online activities lol
Since I am myself an atheist but I make sure to stay anonymous.
My family due to so many problems in the past has adopted a closed mouth policy since we have lived all our lives in muslim majority countries. The only safe haven seems to be India.
In any case these types of news is much more common if you keep in touch but I am surprised to see this becoming news here.
These gruesome murders are obviously politically motivated. Aren't they inadvertently being helped by the media (not necessarily US media) who publish the grizzly photos of the victims. Just finished "Influence" by Chaldini, and I wonder if publicizing specific murders with gruesome details of death might inadvertently also be encouraging copycats.
Religion, held at any level above personal, is destructive to the larger population, in the long run. There is very little true tolerance from anyone who wishes religion to guide governing. It may be horribly violent attacks like this in Islam, but just as quickly it pushes for mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds in the U.S.
I may get downvoted, but I fail to see how religion will ever help guide the human race to a better place. You may be able to point to impoverished places where missionaries are saving lives and providing support, and yes, that is fantastic. But just as quickly it turns into imprisoning homosexuals and local government policies being driven by religious dogma.
Organized religion scares and saddens me. I wish it didn't, I'm aware there are many religious participants on HN. I do not mean to cause personal offense.
Your comment reminded me the scene from Kingdom of Heaven where religion is discussed:
I put no stock in Religion. By the word of religion, I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the "Will of God". I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness - what God desires - [pointing at his head then heart] is here and here. And what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man, [smiles] or not.
I would recognize that this is effectively restating one of the basic precepts of Christianity (do unto others ...). Islam, and any other religion, are very different (as you would expect, it's a different religion after all).
The Islamic attitude to this can be found by googling "enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil". And it very much disagrees with that statement. Loosely translated, what "God desires" in islam is that you force others - without violence if possible, with violence if necessary - to follow islam's rules, both in positive sense, and the negative sense. There is an entire legal theory around this which you can read if you like. Also, in islam, there is only one state, one law, and the state encompasses all. There is no police force in sharia, everyone is police, there is no-one without personal responsibility for following sharia, and policing others' following of sharia.
Note that in some ways - in theological theory - it is almost the opposite. A Christian should believe in Christ in his/her heart and mind, and outward appearances do not influence his relation with God. From a Muslim, on the other hand, heart and mind don't matter, nor does belief (says so in the quran), but following the rules does.
The U.S. was not founded on Judeo-Christian values. The moral code of "do not kill" and "do not steal" etc. existed long before Judaism. "Judeo-Christian" - a term coined in the 1950s - is an attempt to claim human decency and respect as a recent religious invention, and is ridiculous.
Speaking of, there's an effort to replace "Judeo-Christian" with "Abrahamic" so as to include Islam in that group - would you agree?
As for "atheist" being a religion, no it's not.[0] Reason.com is a libertarian/conservative-leaning publication that has a bias in this game. Their labeling atheism a religion is an attempt to take teeth out of the argument of religion as a social negative. Try using the actual definition instead.
That said, I'm more agnostic than atheist. I believe we can't know if there is a supreme being or beings until they reveal themselves. Since there are 270 or so "large" religious groups and any number of smaller offshoots of those, each with adherents that would tell me theirs is the one true religion, and condemn me as a non-believer with anything from pity to death, I'm going to stay agnostic for right now.
I sure hope there is a god, though. I'd hate to think that humans are the best the universe can do.
> Reason.com is a libertarian/conservative-leaning publication that has a bias in this game.
No, that was an article by one of their religious-leaning members. Other atheist-leaning members often write articles that are more friendly towards atheists/atheism, and they don't claim atheism is a religion.
Agreed that a "lack of belief" is strongly correlated with irreligious behavior. So then, when the author of the Reason article cites the religious indignity she encountered when claiming that atheism is a religion, it makes one wonder if atheists actually have an affirmative belief in no god.
Can you imagine anyone getting upset if you were to accuse them of being religious about their lack of belief in the tooth fairy? I can't. That's what a lack of belief looks like, no strong ties to any portrayal of your involvement in the idea. On the contrary, modern atheists in the Hitchens/Harris vein care very much how their beliefs are portrayed, and hold dearly to their cause of ridding the world of "religion".
Aww, you took a news item about Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh and put in a comment about gender politics in the US south. This is sure to get up-voted, because you know, Amerika is bad. But just to be sure, you put in 'I may get downvoted'. That was a cute touch. No one on HN can resist that combination.
Hey angrybits! My original plan was to spin my HN score counter down to zero by making true and blunt statements about the drivel posted on this site (which would, natch, be down voted).
Communication to me from a person identifying as a moderator suggests to me that the deplorable tone and content of this forum is managed and encouraged by moderators.
I have now lost interest in this site. I'm now hanging out lobste.rs which I find much more meaningful.
>Religion, held at any level above personal, is destructive to the larger population, in the long run.
This is simply not true. What is true is that group-think which allows people to completely disregard others in such a fashion that they are willing to murder, is destructive to the larger population.
Religion has held together many a society which would have cannibalized itself time and again, over and over. It is simply the desire to abandon morality and murder a fellow living being which must be dealt with, and Religion definitely does not have a monopoly on this facet of our social existence.
Why do you think religion is intrinsic to human culture?
Personally, I view it as a bad product sold to humanity (in the times in which most people were poor and uneducated) for the benefits of few snake oil peddlers that got incredibly rich and powerful in the process.
Look at the vast number of human civilizations and cultures. Have enough been secular to argue it's not intrinsic?
It's really an open question. Some believe that with enough prosperity, education, and safety, religion will no longer be needed. However I regularly have discussions on the earth being 6000 years old with people who have those traits in abundance.
Theistic religion is just a result of the lesser degree of knowledge of the world, the universe and our place in it that we as a species had thousdands of years ago.
It's just unfortunate that it still exists as such a comfort blanket for so many and continues to give so many other people an excuse to be shitty to one another.
The same way I do with the belief that the Sun revolves around the Earth, or that the Earth is flat. They are based off of early attempts to explain the unknown or the unexplainable (especially death), and recognized by a few as a fantastic way to hold influence and sway (and iron-fisted rule) over the general population.
We learned the Earth wasn't the center of the universe (a fact Religion had a hard time letting go of) and that the Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth. We grow as a species with knowledge we obtain. Left completely uneducated and alone, I believe religion would spring up as quickly as it did before - but now we have the benefit of vast amounts of knowledge at our fingertips.
"Destructive in the long run" is nearly empty of content. You could trivially make the same claim about the steam engine. (Industry leads to pollution leads to disaster.)
Organized anything is powerful and dangerous. Organized goverment, organized commerce, organized labor, organized rationalism, organized kittens. Animals are scary and dangerous, humans most of all.
American Mormons seem to use religion in fairly constructive ways - choose pretty much any social indicator, and they drastically outperform nearly any other group at a similar income level.
Realistically, most of the violence perpetrated by religion these days is done by a subset of Islam. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any attacks comparable to 9/11, 26/11, Baga or similar that were perpetrated by anyone besides Islamists. A quick google search finds an article on Daily Beast which purports to disagree, but can only come up with a small number of minor attacks.
How can an inanimate idea be held at fault? People use Religion to do bad things, not the other way around. Get rid of Religion and people will justify doing bad things for non-religious reasons.
You don't think people have used Science as an excuse to do evil?
Please don't take HN threads off on generic ideological tangents. This comment is the very definition of one, and has had the predictable effect.
Especially please don't conduct religious flamewars on HN. There are other places on the internet to fulminate against insert-opposite-position-about-religion-here.
I'm sure you can understand how if an article with religion at its core makes it to the front of HN, discussions about that religion are completely on topic and justified (and not at all generic).
This is not meant as a flame war or a tangent. When I say I find religion scary, it's in response to the article pointing out that a blogger who focused on the absence of religious tolerance was hacked to death with a machete by members of the very religion he stood against.
I don't think I'll come to your way of thinking about my post (no surprise) but I'm a bit confused why HN would allow an article to get to the front page if it doesn't want the contents therein discussed.
Your comment didn't discuss the particulars of the article. It went straight to generalities about religion being destructive that could have been made in any of a thousand unrelated threads. That's why I called it a generic tangent. Those reliably lead to flamewars: because they're no longer anchored in specific material, people just use the occasion to repeat grand stock responses. Your comment wasn't uncivil (which we're grateful for) but it predictably opened the floodgates for many that were.
HN doesn't "allow" articles to get to the front page. They get there on their own; sometimes they then get flagged or penalized, as this one did. This story, though horrific, wasn't off-topic per se—but HN is incapable of conducting a meaningful discussion about anything so inflammatory, so in practice it ends up being so.
Edit: We disagree, but your effort to be kind is more important than that. I appreciate it.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 179 ms ] threadVery sad that this happens anywhere in the world. Surprised? Not entirely. This is the local Bangladeshi version of Charlie Hebdo...
Is it really that difficult to imagine one of the gamergate threats to be from an individual like the UC Santa Barbara shooter or the Aurora Colorado shooter? Don't you think that's the worst fear of the women targeted by gamergate? And frankly, a legitimate fear based on events in the United State over the past 5-10 years? The United States has a huge public violence problem, it just happens to be different from the one in Bangladesh.
Xenophobia has nothing to do with it. It's a simple observation. Now if you followed up that observation with something like "And its because everybody who isn't in Place B are degenerate lunatics and shouldn't be trusted"? Then that's xenophobia.
Get your terms straight. Online free speech is under attack in a lot of ways: government surveillance, social peer pressure, fundamentalist religions, and so forth. I don't think trotting out terms like "racist" or "xenophobe" helps in understanding or coming to terms with the problem.
And the only kind of xenophobia is the explicit, aggressive kind? So would you say the only kind of sexism is the kind where you must explicitly prohibit women from doing certain activities or holding certain roles? And the only kind of racism is the kind that existed in the American south prior to the late 60's?
Well, a partial answer to that may be: you never know whether the death threats are real or not until something like what is happening in Bangladesh happens. But once bloggers actually get hacked to death, you definitely do know, for sure.
I don't think anyone would or should feel comfortable getting death threats via any medium. However, I know that I'd feel a lot less comfortable getting the same death threats in Bangladesh than in, say, Sweden, all other things being equal.
Also, please stop bringing your bias to this discussion. I understand you're passionately on the "anti-GG" side of this debate. I'm not. I really don't care for either side. I'm sure you can make your points without turning this into yet another pointless threat arguing about "SJWs vs misogynist assholes". Let's not bring this crap to HN.
I wasn't taking any sides there, just making an observation about the level of violence experienced in Bangladesh vs the US.
https://twitter.com/nero/status/506435662481219585
https://twitter.com/nero/status/513666683916255232
I recall some others were threatened too, though I don't remember exactly. Not exactly worth spending brain cells on, tbh...
Remember the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon? I doubt the Mormons liked the play's content, but they responded to it positively. In some venues, they even took out ads in the playbill.
Do you think it would be possible for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make a similar production about the Qu'ran? Even in the US, it would be a security nightmare. Venue owners, audiences, and production staff would all fear attacks.
It is more complex than that. There is no on one side "good religions" and on the other side "bad religions". It is rather a combination of social and economics factors (education, poverty, exposure to other cultures, frustration, feeling of injustice (real or imagined), corruption, etc)
The debate does not really interest me, but since you mentioned Mormon particularly, you are probably familiar with the following story : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
Let me give a more obvious example of religion's role in encouraging/discouraging violence: Jainism. The core contributor to Jainism, Mahavira, said, "All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away." It is really hard to be violent as a Jain. Jains protest by fasting. In fact, Gandhi got many of his ideas about nonviolent resistance from the Jains.
Also, you didn't answer my question. Do you honestly think there is any religion besides Islam that would raise such security concerns if mocked in a Broadway musical? I agree that culture and other factors matter, but the doctrines of religions are quite different. Some of those doctrines call for violence more than others. The sooner we admit that, the sooner we can try to fix the problem.
In 2015, I can't think of any other. But I don't think there is something fundamentally and radically different with Islam as its core. In some country, you could not mock the official religion or the (despotic) head of state either.
I used to believe that some religions were exempt of violence, but since I learned about "Buddhism fundamentalism" I am much more circumspect.
Any religion that fundamentally doesn't tolerate the existence of other religions and calls its followers to slaughter those who don't convert is "bad religion". Islam is a "bad religion".
There is a fundamental difference between the violent excesses of an ideology, an ideology than almost inevitably leads to violent excesses and an ideology the prescribes violence. The Islam is all the way at the extreme end of that spectrum.
Well, if that's what Islam calls its followers to do, it's a good job most of those followers don't pay any attention. Even Iran permits Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians to worship within its borders: they are subject to discrimination and harassment, but not forced to convert to Islam under pain of death.
Also note that there are special allowances made for people of the Book, so Jews and Christians are not quite as bad off as others, theologically speaking.
But the comment I was replying to made a blanket statement that Islam calls for the slaughter and forced conversion of those of other religions, when the facts simply don't bear that out. Yes, some Muslim individuals and groups do hold to such an extreme interpretation of Islam; and media reports do suggest that most religiously inspired killings are committed by Muslims. But most Muslims don't hold such a stance, and most Muslim countries do allow at least some measure of religious toleration -- even a theocracy like Iran.
The most notable exception, of course, is the West's ally Saudi Arabia.
One of the questions was about support for the death penalty for apostasy. The report doesn't come with a global average, but you can go to the annex, add some census data and do the math yourself. You'll end up with a number of ~40%.
The idea that all muslims are out to kill infidels is of course ridiculous hyperbole. Nevertheless, I consider the number I just quoted worryingly high.
You don't seem to know much about Islam. Let me leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya
You can argue that it is discrimination, but if you consider the status of Islam and Judaism during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, you would think Christianity is a "bad religion". It is certainly true that in several areas, Islam has been hijacked by violent fundamentalists, but it does not make Islam, by nature, incompatible with other faiths.
"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
"Jesus will come again, and at that time will (among other things) abolish jizya, will "perish all religions except Islam""
Which I would translate to simple words as: slaughter those who are different, unless they pay you. If they do, whoever is accepted as Jesus can slaughter them later anyway. In modern world that's protection racket.
PS, While it sounds harsh, that's how I understand it. If that's not the right idea, please do explain it better.
Simple test - any other religion with the same rule wouldn't be able to coexist peacefully. It's just luck that we have only one.
Does that make Christianity a good or bad religion ? Or Christianity now is good while it was bad before ?
I understand what you are saying, but I think I am interpreting events differently.
One last point, if you have a look on the last few hundreds years in Europe, you will find, and I probably miss a few religious wars : - catholics vs Cathars and various heretical movement - catholics vs protestants - christians vs jews
And as the ideology changed: - monarchists vs republicans - marxists vs fascists etc ad nauseam.
I do think the "Us vs Them" mentality is a constant of the human experience, and with or without religion of any sort, we will find new ways to be divided (see hooligans, is there something more stupid that dying for your team ?). And I believe that the debate around Islam is just another epiphenomena that will be replaced by something else in 50 or 100 years.
Christianity is a bad religion. See the genocide of Bosnian muslims by Serb christians during the Bosnian genocide. (1995 approx)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_in_the_Bosnian...
Christianity is a bad religion. See the murder of muslims by Christians in Central African Republic. (2014, ongoing) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/central-african...
I'm interested in how you're going to contort this to say that these genocides of non-Christians by Christians is somehow different to the massacres you've mentioned.
Yes, it is.
But I don't think it actually calls for killing people practising other religions. (In the new testament, that is) Does it?
Luke 19:27: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
As well as Matthew 10:34: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
I'm not sure why you want to split the old testament off from the new testament. When we see condemnation of homosexuals by some Christians the Christians are usually making reference to old testament quotes. (Substitute "homosexuals" for children (because some christian sects promote beating children) or women (ditto) to see other appalling behaviour defended by Christians making reference to the old testament.
It's a bit odd that I got downvotes for countering someone saying that Christians don't kill members of other religions by giving two examples - one still happening today - of exactly that; exactly Christians murdering people from a different religion purely because they were members of another religion.
Christianity has, since the 5th century, had the concept of "Just war". So, even if it's not in the Bible (but it is, there's lots of it in the old testament) it's bene part of the faith for 1500 years.
I'm regarding the old testament differently, because I see it as a collection of crazy old stories. I don't believe it's possible to follow the word of the old testament these days without being insane. Or without getting locked up as soon as you start trying to stone prostitutes.
Anyway, my point was - does the text itself (in nt) tell you to fight anyone of different faith. The fragments you quoted say Jesus was going to do that. He didn't tell others to follow the same.
GP claimed that Islam was a bad religion and pointed to a small number of Islamic extremists to prove their point.
That point is trivially countered by showing the genocides perpetrated by Christians against people from other religions -- and there is at least one genocide perpetrated by Christians that is still ongoing.
You're "only asking questions"[1] but you're ignoring inconvenient answers and refining questions in weird ways.
For example: You don't get to define which bits of the bible are relevant. The christians using the bible as a justification for murder do.
[1] "I'm only asking questions" is a troll technique. You probably want to stop that.
But not all religious doctrine is equally toxic.
It is rather a combination of social and economics factors (education, poverty, exposure to other cultures, frustration, feeling of injustice (real or imagined), corruption, etc)
But ideology is part of the package. Totalitarianism has to be opposed, whether its doctrine is based on religion (eg Salafism) or secular concepts (eg Nazism).
Look at all the atrocities committed throughout history in the name of christianity: The imperial conquests of Africa and America were conducted in the name of spreading christianity and with the blessing of the church. American fundamentalists regularly murder abortion doctors in the name of religion. Breivik is a "christian warrior" defending christianity.
Second of all, Mormons?
"On Sept. 11, 1857, a group of California-bound pioneers camping in southern Utah were murdered by a Mormon militia and its Indian allies. The massacre lasted less than five minutes, but when it was over, 120 men, women and children had been clubbed, stabbed or shot at point-blank range. Their corpses, stripped of clothes and jewelry, were left to be picked apart by wolves and buzzards."
The truth is this: Humans are really not creatures of love. Murder is as natural to us as anything else, and history proves it. Killing is easy. It doesn't take much. If there's any lesson to be learned from genocides like the Rwanda massacres, civil wars like the breakup of Yugoslavia or the Nazi era, it is that a large proportion of humanity will readily become mass murderers for almost no reason at all. It really doesn't take that much.
Read about King Leopolds campaign in Congo. There's no need for islam to make people into murderers. People are murderers already. Religion is simply another excuse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#King_Leopold.2...
Sure, killing is part of human nature. Just some religions motivate more to do it than others.
That has no bearing whatsoever on how we should handle totalitarian ideologies.
Should we not be focusing on the current problems at hand? The inquisition was one of the darkest most disgusting things I've ever read about, I'm no proponent of Catholicism. But I don't see the value of pointing to something behind you when there is a ten ton elephant charging at you from the front.
If you look at the islamic doctrine and also the islamic history you will see that already Muhammad had critics of him and his religion be killed. That's mainstream islamic knowledge and doctrine and in the islamic world people wouldn't even be ashamed to admit that as it is normal ("divine") law for them. In the non-muslim world of course muslims don't go advertising about those part of their religion because they know that those parts aren't accepted and seen as something normal/positive. It's then easier to say "but your religion was bad too" - but that's just a "And you are lynching negroes" kind of argument. We don't need those kind of arguments we need a discussion for example why somebody who led his critics be killed should be seen as a role model.
Has that become a regular thing? Please update Wikipedia; it gives the impression that this sort of thing is still rare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#Murders
Anyone that would suggest that the propensity of Islamic fundamentalists towards violence is particularly unusual amongst religious adherents has a remarkably inadequate grasp of history.
(Incidentally, he had a pistol and killed a few of the mob members before going down.)
For instance, communism takes a very dim view of mocking communism. This is extremely well known, and pretty accurately describes the various communist communities' attitudes, even today. Mocking communist ideals or characters will get you at least ostracised from most of those communities. Hell, linking to other's jokes about them is dangerous at best.
By contrast, free market capitalists, their "enemy", are pretty well known for being extremely tolerant of humorous take-downs of their ideology, and engage in it themselves on a regular basis inside their communities. Of course, most leftists then criticize this as indicating they don't believe in the free market after all, which isn't true.
Islam is a political and a moral system. It's attitude towards mocking is defined in writing. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Asma%27_bint_Marwan and you will get a basic idea of how it works.
Christianity is relatively tolerant of criticism. Given how this religion has had it's canonical texts written by Greek philosophers, it's quite easy to understand why this is so. You will find lots of books written by saints, priests, monks, ... that criticize the church and even the faith itself. This is done mostly in self-reflection with the intent to improve matters and not absolutely not meant for wider dissemination (on occasion the wide dissemination of such texts has been fought with violation), but it certainly exists. These books have, on occasion, resulted in large shifts in attitudes within Christianity.
and they are nasty...
This hits so close to home ( my username ),
Bangladesh has a serious problem with religious tolerance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Bangladesh_anti-Hindu_viol...
Bangladesh has a population of about 20 million hindus who even if the number seems huge, are a minority given that the country has a huge population.
I have been extremely fortunate to have had my dad make the sensible choice of abandoning his homeland for a job in Dubai which even if is not the best he could be doing. Is way better than being scared of your life.
Most of my rest of family moved illegally to India and managed to get an Indian passport and are living peaceful lives.
However it saddens me to see the situation in Bangladesh, since I have been there countless time and a lot of my cousins still live there. I also hold an bangladeshi passport.
I really would want to do a tech job in bangladesh if given the opportunity. I am currently finishing in undergrad in an top British University and the situation here is so much nicer.
One my goals is to one day open a research lab / company in bangladesh involving robotics.
Bangladesh suffers from a lot of political corruption / cultural disintegration / poverty / natural disasters / education / . . .
My dad sometimes worries about my online activities lol Since I am myself an atheist but I make sure to stay anonymous.
My family due to so many problems in the past has adopted a closed mouth policy since we have lived all our lives in muslim majority countries. The only safe haven seems to be India.
In any case these types of news is much more common if you keep in touch but I am surprised to see this becoming news here.
There are a lot a new software startups in bangladesh that look really promising. They even advertised on npm !
http://www.newscred.com/careers
I have been playing around the idea of applying for them.
I may get downvoted, but I fail to see how religion will ever help guide the human race to a better place. You may be able to point to impoverished places where missionaries are saving lives and providing support, and yes, that is fantastic. But just as quickly it turns into imprisoning homosexuals and local government policies being driven by religious dogma.
Organized religion scares and saddens me. I wish it didn't, I'm aware there are many religious participants on HN. I do not mean to cause personal offense.
Human power structures are what you should fear. A human in a powerful position will be motivated to silence voices that threaten that power.
I put no stock in Religion. By the word of religion, I've seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the "Will of God". I've seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves. And goodness - what God desires - [pointing at his head then heart] is here and here. And what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man, [smiles] or not.
The Islamic attitude to this can be found by googling "enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil". And it very much disagrees with that statement. Loosely translated, what "God desires" in islam is that you force others - without violence if possible, with violence if necessary - to follow islam's rules, both in positive sense, and the negative sense. There is an entire legal theory around this which you can read if you like. Also, in islam, there is only one state, one law, and the state encompasses all. There is no police force in sharia, everyone is police, there is no-one without personal responsibility for following sharia, and policing others' following of sharia.
Note that in some ways - in theological theory - it is almost the opposite. A Christian should believe in Christ in his/her heart and mind, and outward appearances do not influence his relation with God. From a Muslim, on the other hand, heart and mind don't matter, nor does belief (says so in the quran), but following the rules does.
http://www.godandculture.com/blog/ravi-zacharias-on-a-mormon...
I know you didn't say you were atheist, but just so we're clear: atheism is a religion as well.http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/10/atheism-is-a-religion
Speaking of, there's an effort to replace "Judeo-Christian" with "Abrahamic" so as to include Islam in that group - would you agree?
As for "atheist" being a religion, no it's not.[0] Reason.com is a libertarian/conservative-leaning publication that has a bias in this game. Their labeling atheism a religion is an attempt to take teeth out of the argument of religion as a social negative. Try using the actual definition instead.
That said, I'm more agnostic than atheist. I believe we can't know if there is a supreme being or beings until they reveal themselves. Since there are 270 or so "large" religious groups and any number of smaller offshoots of those, each with adherents that would tell me theirs is the one true religion, and condemn me as a non-believer with anything from pity to death, I'm going to stay agnostic for right now.
I sure hope there is a god, though. I'd hate to think that humans are the best the universe can do.
[0.a] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic?s=t
[0.b] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist
No, that was an article by one of their religious-leaning members. Other atheist-leaning members often write articles that are more friendly towards atheists/atheism, and they don't claim atheism is a religion.
See the range here: https://reason.com/tags/atheism
Can you imagine anyone getting upset if you were to accuse them of being religious about their lack of belief in the tooth fairy? I can't. That's what a lack of belief looks like, no strong ties to any portrayal of your involvement in the idea. On the contrary, modern atheists in the Hitchens/Harris vein care very much how their beliefs are portrayed, and hold dearly to their cause of ridding the world of "religion".
Communication to me from a person identifying as a moderator suggests to me that the deplorable tone and content of this forum is managed and encouraged by moderators.
I have now lost interest in this site. I'm now hanging out lobste.rs which I find much more meaningful.
This is simply not true. What is true is that group-think which allows people to completely disregard others in such a fashion that they are willing to murder, is destructive to the larger population.
Religion has held together many a society which would have cannibalized itself time and again, over and over. It is simply the desire to abandon morality and murder a fellow living being which must be dealt with, and Religion definitely does not have a monopoly on this facet of our social existence.
>Religion, held at any level above personal, is destructive >to the larger population, in the long run.
Personally, I view it as a bad product sold to humanity (in the times in which most people were poor and uneducated) for the benefits of few snake oil peddlers that got incredibly rich and powerful in the process.
It's really an open question. Some believe that with enough prosperity, education, and safety, religion will no longer be needed. However I regularly have discussions on the earth being 6000 years old with people who have those traits in abundance.
Here's one reference: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386533/Belief-relig...
It's just unfortunate that it still exists as such a comfort blanket for so many and continues to give so many other people an excuse to be shitty to one another.
We learned the Earth wasn't the center of the universe (a fact Religion had a hard time letting go of) and that the Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth. We grow as a species with knowledge we obtain. Left completely uneducated and alone, I believe religion would spring up as quickly as it did before - but now we have the benefit of vast amounts of knowledge at our fingertips.
Organized anything is powerful and dangerous. Organized goverment, organized commerce, organized labor, organized rationalism, organized kittens. Animals are scary and dangerous, humans most of all.
Realistically, most of the violence perpetrated by religion these days is done by a subset of Islam. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any attacks comparable to 9/11, 26/11, Baga or similar that were perpetrated by anyone besides Islamists. A quick google search finds an article on Daily Beast which purports to disagree, but can only come up with a small number of minor attacks.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/are-all-ter...
You don't think people have used Science as an excuse to do evil?
Especially please don't conduct religious flamewars on HN. There are other places on the internet to fulminate against insert-opposite-position-about-religion-here.
This is not meant as a flame war or a tangent. When I say I find religion scary, it's in response to the article pointing out that a blogger who focused on the absence of religious tolerance was hacked to death with a machete by members of the very religion he stood against.
I don't think I'll come to your way of thinking about my post (no surprise) but I'm a bit confused why HN would allow an article to get to the front page if it doesn't want the contents therein discussed.
Edit in response to Being Kinder. Be Kind http://boz.com/articles/be-kind.html
HN doesn't "allow" articles to get to the front page. They get there on their own; sometimes they then get flagged or penalized, as this one did. This story, though horrific, wasn't off-topic per se—but HN is incapable of conducting a meaningful discussion about anything so inflammatory, so in practice it ends up being so.
Edit: We disagree, but your effort to be kind is more important than that. I appreciate it.