Karl Marx said religions are the opium of the people. He recommended cocaine (communism) instead. Billions of people are addicted and it's foolish to think they could quit cold turkey. That's why it makes much more sense to look for ways to get rid of the toxic parts of religions. Let the addicts have methadone instead of heroin.
You're making the same mistake the communists did : you're not taking human nature into account. Even you replaced the Bible with, say, comic books (which are full of idealized superhuman beings too) you'd still have people waging war and saying it's in the name of Superman, or Batman, or the Silver Surfer.
The problem isn't a religious book, it's how much bearing we give it on our lives. You can't change that by changing the book.
Besides, who gets to decide about the formula of your "methadone" ? Is there any human on Earth with a heart so pure (impartial) and a mind so rational and wise that he could know for sure which parts of a holy book would lead to violence ? I think that kind of person doesn't exist, because he'd have to be more than human.
Polygamy was a very important part of the Mormon church. Actually Joseph Smith created that religion because he desired other wives besides the one he already had.
That's exactly what I mean when I say religions are only tools we use to justify getting our way. "Look wife, I had sex with these women because God wanted me too. Says so in this book I've just written." Come on !
Here is an excellent article on the core subject of this thread and debate from that bastion of left wing liberalism: the US News & World Report.
It is not so much about the movie as it is about the course this thread has taken at times.
The effect of such smear tactics is cumulative and insidious. Particularly in the day of the Internet, where every opinion appears equally authoritative,...
Excuse me, that's just ridiculous. The man writes a big article about unfair characterization and generalization and ends it with some of his own.
If anything, THIS thread has proven him wrong : clearly at least some of us feel Gas's opinion were not authoritative enough he'd deserve to voice them.
Now I'm thinking reading this whole article was a waste of time : clearly his author sees the little dust mote in someone else's eye, but fails so see the huge brick in his own (that's a french saying, translates poorly but you get the point).
Case in point : in the second article, which is basically a huge love-letter to Sheik Ali Gomaa, the author writes :
Unless read as it was intended, Gomaa's ruling on the sinfulness of statuary could be seen as giving encouragement to the destruction of some of Egypt's greatest archaeological relics—something he explicitly did not mean but which was suggested in several misreadings of the fatwa that appeared in Egyptian newspapers.
Hello ? Do you think it's only the anti-Islamists who are going to misinterpret this fatwa ? What do you call the destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban, then ?
I'll say it again, unless you haven't experienced for yourself living with Muslims on a daily basis, you can't understand this : lie and misrepresentation are OK in the eyes of Allah as long as they are used to further the spread of Islam. In that light, it's entirely possible, even likely, that Gomaa's fatwa was actually in implicit support of the destruction of non-Islamic culture.
As long as you keep judging Islam from the standpoint of your own moral values (which is a natural reflex) you won't get it. It is a culture that is more different from yours than you can guess or assume : you really need to study it to understand. It's easier for me because it's not a reflex for me to see everyone and everything in the light of a Christian culture (I grew up in a country with Christianity has no power whatsoever, and, unlike the US, not one politician ever says God bless France)
Mr. Hammer...Mr. Charles Hammer...please pick up the nearest courtesy phone...Europe's on the line.
LOL I hadn't realized his name had been translated. Martel is old-French for Hammer.
Anyway... like Brainbox, I'm getting a little tired of this discussion. It would go easier if people didn't always forget about history, specifically European and Middle-Eastern history, but if what I hear about the state of the US education system is accurate, it's not even a case of forgetting, it's just that Americans never learned history in the first place.
I've been to America, and I'm not talking New York or the big cities only. I'm talking places like West Virginia. I've met "Joe Average" : very brave, very patriotic, very welcoming, but will stop listening to you the moment you suggest there is something America doesn't do better than any other country. Most of the Americans I know would never give any consideration to these words :
Nefastor