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is it only me or has religion ruined the world?.

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h
There are tens of thousands of actual muslim terrorists and hundreds of millions who are not terrorists by themselves but support the terrorists.

Even if the whole world was as crazy as you and that were the case, there are still over a billion muslims, meaning that even by your numbers 0.1% have anything to do with them.

Could you imagine what the world would be like if we judged the world by 0.1%'s. For instance, I imagine Kim Jong Un probably made up about 0.1% of the people studying in private schools in Switzerland at the time. 100% of the current DPRK leader went to school in Switzerland, so does that mean all those who went to school in Switzerland that year are crazy dictators?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 21

champ_mc99

I think it's greed. The fact that 1% of the world population owns 75% of total wealth is pretty sad.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 22

scaredofdeath

Original post by Dheorl

I'm not fooled by the al jazeera / bbc / cnn propaganda .

I know exactly what islam is.

Reply 23

Dheorl

Original post by scaredofdeath

I'm not fooled by the al jazeera / bbc / cnn propaganda .

I know exactly what islam is.

In that case you should realise how stupid it is to judge a group by 0.1% of them.

Reply 24

MasterJack

It's simplistic to say religion ruined things as religions come in all shapes and sizes. But I'd be lying to you if I told you religions are all equally peaceful, that they don't promote anything negative. There's a LOT of cherry picking involved, whitewashing of history, etc. This is SUCH a polarising subject that I wear a helmet in anticipation of all the facepalms because of the excessive use of anecdotes, emotion vs reason, generalisations, propaganda links, cherry picking, Professor Google making appearances, etc.

A few of my acquaintances have had their lives snatched from them simply because they questioned religion in a country where the majority want them dead for apostasy or blasphemy- what amounts to victimless crime.

But this isn't solely a problem of religion, there's nationalism too. If you're referring to ideological trouble makers, the core of the issue is DOGMATISM:
unquestioning "I/we can NEVER be wrong" mentality, and when it comes to religion, there's no short supply of it, for it can never do wrong.

There are some simplistic litmus tests you can perform to see how dogmatic and potentially dangerous a person is, especially if they're religious, ask them the following:
Is there anything in your holy book or religion that is flawed, is there any act that your perfect deity or prophet ever comitted that was reprehensible?

The most dangerous ones are those that'll tell you "no, never". The moderate half and half types will make excuses for unethical behaviour. The good ones will cease to make excuses and will demand reformation. The honest ones would just leave.

To the OP:
If you're scared of death, avoid all controversy, ESPECIALLY if it involves religion!

Reply 25

username2810140

Original post by scaredofdeath

I'm not fooled by the al jazeera / bbc / cnn propaganda .

I know exactly what islam is.

Islam preaches that all life is sacred.
"He who takes one life, shall be judged as if they have destroyed all mankind"
What you are talking about is extremist islam, which is followed by relatively very very few muslims.
Islam has dozens of sects each which varied beliefs, blaming 'Islam' for anything is a stupid generalisation.
So no, clearly you know nothing about Islam.

Reply 26

ELVsLP

Female liberation exists (to an extend) in most countries because of the Muslim prophet so.... now you understand why feminists defend Islam

Reply 27

username471863

It's very simplistic to say that religion has ruined the world. It is one of many useful tools used to unite and divide people or to validate a cause but war, terrorism and other forms of violence run much deeper.

The world has never been peaceful, we just have social media now so we hear a lot more about the messed up things that happen.

Reply 28

Drunk Punx

Original post by Trinculo

I'd argue modern religion pretty much saved civilisation and made it what it is.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, we could have been in the Dark Ages for much much longer than we were - long enough to descend into a spiral of barbarity. The gaps where the Roman Empire was - the things that it filled- government, judiciary, education, law and order - these were filled by pretty much the only remaining establishment in Europe - the Catholic Church. Say what you like about it, and from a modern perspective it was a rough ride - but it got Europe through to the Renaissance period. There was no such thing as a secular science-based movement that could have stepped in. It just didn't exist, and people weren't sophisticated enough.

No organised religion - at best we'd be somewhere between the Mongols and Tudors right now.

Voltaire, Kant, and others thought that the Dark Ages lasted as long as they did due to the religious influence (ie; the suppression of reason in favour of faith).

The Catholic Church might've held the engine together with sellotape and string, but let's not deceive ourselves into thinking that it saved the car.

Reply 29

Ninja3

Original post by scaredofdeath

especially islam - isis.
They have ruined our lives with all their terror attacks.

not really i can give you an example of how it has not. Sikhs serve to people and have free langar in the guruwara and you saying religion is ruining the world

The only thing ruining the world is the media thats why you are saying that they only show the bad stuff but ignore the good stuff

Reply 30

QE2

Original post by blck&burgundy

Yh I sort of agree but does anyone else wonder if there was no such thing as religion would we have morals to begin with ? I've left Islam not that long ago and this has been on my mind for a while.

Morality long predates organised religion, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In fact, if you look at the OT and Quran, we can see that there is some other process at work determining our morality other than simply "divine revelation", otherwise, society would be far more brutal and unjust. Just consider current societies that use exclusively religious texts to determine right & wrong, good & bad (Saudi Arabia and ISIS are the obvious ones). Not good, I'm sure you'll agree.

We have an inherent human empathy, often explained simply as "the Golden Rule" (treat others as you would like to be treated, etc). We all know how it feels to be in pain, to suffer, to feel sad, etc. And we all know that we don't like it. Therefore, we know that others don't like it, so there is a natural reciprocity in "if I don't hurt him, he won't hurt me, and if I help him, he might help me".

This is confirmed by studying the behaviour of some primates (and other more primitive species) who display obvious altruistic behaviour within the community.

It was this that enabled the very first human societies to bind, elevating us from the most basic tasks of survival. Complex communities could not have even evolved without these simple concepts - don't kill without just cause, don't steal, don't lie about others. All morality stems from this. If we didn't already know that it was counter-productive to act in a socially damaging way, thousands of years before organised religion evolved, we would never have been in the position for organised religion to evolve, because it requires a fairly complex society with enough surplus to provide for unnecessary construction, sacrifice and support of non-productive people.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 31

Plagioclase

No it has not. You are using a cherry-picked, spatially and temporally confined snapshot of the world to make a grossly inaccurate judgement.

Reply 32

QE2

Original post by z33

religion has been around forever - i think the earliest we can trace it back is 250 000 BCE?
like neanderthal times
so i don't think that's it brah...

It was the move away from naturalist and animist beliefs, towards the personal, judgemental interventionist gods that caused the problems IMHO.

Reply 33

QE2

Original post by mcneill98

You lose credibility with every post mate. No wonder they've shown a correlation between low IQ and racism/sectarianism.

Repeated global surveys have shown that many millions of Muslim express support for terrorist groups and actions.
A recent survey by Pew Research showed a percentage of Muslims (in just 9 Muslim majority countries) who expressed a favourable opinion of ISIS equated to real numbers of around 50 million (the "don't knows" were more than three times that number). The list didn't include Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan (who all rank highly in surveys on extremist actions) or any North African countries, so the actual numbers will be many millions higher.
Those who viewed suicide attacks against civilians in defence of Islam as "justified" numbered around 100 million (a larger list of countries).

It is undeniable that the support for Islamist extremism is both widespread and numbers in the many millions.

Reply 34

Ladymusiclover

Religion has become a scapegoat for everything wrong in this world.

Reply 35

AH127

I wish we could have the Greek gods back in popularity, to be honest. I'd like to see an R.E. teacher explain to a class of year 3's how Zeus couldn't keep his dick in his trousers. If you're going to teach kids about ancient fairy tales, you might as well teach them the interesting ones.

Reply 36

QE2

Original post by mcneill98

Islam preaches that all life is sacred.
"He who takes one life, shall be judged as if they have destroyed all mankind"

Ah, good old verse 5:32, misquoted and used out of context, yet again.

What it actually says is...
"We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people"

"Spreading mischief" (or "fasad" in Arabic) is a vague term that includes many offences from treason and rebellion to simply "disobeying god's law".

So, we can see that the verse, when quoted in full, actually allows the killing of quite a lot of people who we would consider innocent of any crime.

Furthermore, when viewed in the context of the following verse (5:33)...
"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land"

We can see that the Quran actually authorises barbaric punishments against those opposing Islam. (The renowned classical scholar, Ibn Kathir, describes 'wage war' to include "opposition, contradiction and disbelief". His tafsir (explanation of the Quran) is the most widely used and respected in the Muslim world.

What you are talking about is extremist islam, which is followed by relatively very very few muslims.

"Extremist" Islam is simply Islam that has not been modernised and diluted by centuries of adapting to other cultures, and while it is thankfully followed by relatively few Muslims, it is not some kind of "corruption" of Islam, it is actually the Islam of modern moderates that is the "corruption" (which is why the fundamentalist Islamists regard them as apostates or munafiq and therefore liable to capital punishment).

Islam has dozens of sects each which varied beliefs, blaming 'Islam' for anything is a stupid generalisation.

The various sects (even Sunni and Shia) tend to differ very little on the fundamentals. They all read exactly the same Quran. The differences are more to do with technicalities and interpretations of applications, etc.

So no, clearly you know nothing about Islam.

I wouldn't be so quick to condemn, considering your lack of knowledge (or dishonesty) regarding 5:32.

Reply 37

QE2

Original post by ELVsLP

Female liberation exists (to an extend) in most countries because of the Muslim prophet

This comes a close second to the classic "The sun is Muslim" statement from a while ago.

Good work!

Reply 38

Good bloke

Original post by mcneill98

So no, clearly you know nothing about Islam.

Ironically, though, the one who has not read the Koran carefully is you. As has been pointed out to you, that verse is the most wrongly-quoted piece of apologia there is and is part of a passage that states the very opposite of what you claim it says.