Can only wash with philosophy's club's pink bar of soap if you put it up your ass. That way we all share ideas that came out of our asses.

But again, the gnostic-agnostic thing doesn't even exist in philosophy of religion. It's just stupid. — darthbarracuda

Saying this is stupid is a vague expression and the words agnosticism and gnosticism, I believe, originated from academic philosophy. If it hasn't prove me wrong because I don't see everyday people using those jargon words (agnosticism and gnosticism). Probably because everyday people think the two terms are stupid to use as well.

Right but the point of the OP isn't to figure out what the colloquial terms mean. — darthbarracuda

When was I talking about colloquial terms? Because I don't see the issue you are addressing. The analogy about the trillions of dollars was an analogy to help you understand how an agnostic theist thinks. It wasn't an attempt to redefine agnosticism.

Philosophy ought not be to narrow minded in my opinion if you want to become wiser, even being ignorant of irrationality isn't the best approach. "Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge." - Alfred North Whitehead
Studying irrationality might be important for psychological research anyways. We aren't logical beings by design, we are irrational beings.

In this website where it's a minority anyways, I guess not. However, I don't think it's very objective to just dismiss a group of people for just being irrational. Because it's a possibility for people to think like this and if it's a possibility, it'll eventually happen.

Do you think these people are a good representation of actual philosophy of religion? — darthbarracuda

In terms of being rational or academic no, but that's my personal opinion. However, in terms of being realistic yes, Gnostic Theism has affected the world negatively and practically it's a real problem. Some try-hard philosophers are also Gnostic Atheists to attempt to fight back, but I think it's the wrong way to do so.

Religious people that made tons of money from publishing books, idk. Or people same age as you and me posting online. Some religious people think that knowing God exists proves more that you are holy or whatever than merely having strong faith.

But certainly nobody actually claims that they have absolute knowledge of God's existence. If they do they're a hack. — darthbarracuda

Lol, you haven't met them yet. They are called gnostics for a reason and I'm primarily against them. Both atheists and theists. Gnostic theism is what most atheists hate anyways.

But since when did absolute certainty become a requirement for belief? Why is it so important? — darthbarracuda

Absolute certainty isn't a requirement for belief, obviously...it's a requirement for actual knowledge, not the mere knowledge one can day dream about.

Nobody knows that they know God exists, but that doesn't matter at all. What matters is their belief. — darthbarracuda

Doesn't this agree that agnostic theism is a legit theological position?

If you truly do not know if God can be known to exist, then you are an agnostic, plain and simple. Nobody actually goes around denying knowledge of God and yet believing anyway. That's stupid. — darthbarracuda

Say I ask you if you think/belief if trillion of dollars is real or not? You cannot say for certain you know that trillion dollars exist because you have never seen it. Even though you can look online and see other people have trillion of dollars, something cost trillion of dollars, or the stock market shows trillion of dollars are being exchanged still isn't sufficient evidence because you can legitimately become skeptical of that. In terms of being logical and being very certain beyond doubt that trillion of dollars exist, you must have the requirement of first hand experience in seeing it physically. Therefore, you heavily believe trillions of dollars exist because of conformity, yet aren't 100% certain beyond doubt that it exists.

We are of course talking about philosophy, not practicality.

The GUs are an interesting group. They have no strong belief or disbelief themselves but they are convinced that it is possible for others to know one way or the other. — andrewk

Can you define what GU and AU is? That would help me a lot because I kinda get what GU is. AU is a group that has no strong belief or disbelief, but they are convinced that it's not possible for others to know one way or the other? Two very interesting groups imo.

It seems to me that we do not walk about carrying beliefs about what is not the case, at least if its the sort of thing which we haven't given much thought. So I could be an atheist if I were the sort of person who came across this category "atheist" and said, well, yes, that is something I do not have a belief in.

It also seems to me that a person could actively form a disbelief, or a belief that God does not exist, and so could be an atheist. — Moliere

I would consider the first example as a type of agnosticism and the later atheism. Because babies are born into this world knowing very little, they thought nothing about God or whatever it is, wouldn't it make more sense to classify babies as a type of agnostic than any other type of category? The way the majority uses the term "atheism" is obviously flawed...



If the diagram is cancer, the ethnicity systems are equally as much. People can obviously have complex minds, but that doesn't stop us to attempt to understand one another by simplifying things and breaking down a complex world into a series of simpler systems. We do this in math, science, and even philosophy. Reason why I said ethnicity systems can be cancer too is because if you have someone whose ancestors are a mix of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, and some Europeans...what category should that person identify himself or herself as? Just by the way s/he looks? Obviously the ethnicity system is more than just about looks. Just like the ethnicity system is more complex than it's actually represented as, photosynthesis is more complex than a mere teaching diagram as well. My point is, humans naturally think in a way to simplify complex things into smaller or simpler things in an attempt to understand it.

If you don't attempt to simplify things in order to understand it better, how do you expect to understand anything complex? A math teacher once told me, "Something complex is just a group of simple things."

Guessing there should be weak theism and strong theism too, since those two exist for atheism...fck philosophy...

Common Christians that believe that the soul is born before the fetus is developed don't give a shit about this explanation. Have you actually explained this to an audience of common everyday Christians in public? I'm not criticizing your intelligence or logic, but Christians that argue for pro-life almost don't even care about what's rational anymore.

You could argue that the soul is a group of zygotes or embryos and when they split up they are still one soul because they belong to each other or have the same DNA. However, I don't give a damn about outsmarting Sam Harris and the major point of my post isn't to prove him wrong, anyways.

Christians that believe in pro-life will never listen to reason such as the above example from Sam Harris because they will just not take it seriously for some reason (probably because of cognitive dissonance). Great ignorance can cause people to not listen to what's rational and only care about what agrees with their ignorance.

If you explained this to people in public man, I don't know how they will respond, but they aren't just going to immediately become enlightened and agree with you. The whole pro-life versus pro-choice is more of a cultural problem than a logical problem, in my opinion because most of these extreme pro-life folks don't listen to reason opposing their hard-coded beliefs and religions have affected our cultures in both negative and positive ways. This is just one of those negative ways.



The only cure is for the new generations to replace the old generations, in my opinion. Adults are way more stubborn than children.

Good question, in general I haven't thought about this much.

I'll say, in the perspective of observing oneself, intentions are more important than the consequences. However, in the perspective of observing others, consequences are more important than the intentions.

If you try to help someone and the consequences turn out negative, in his/her perspective it almost doesn't matter if you were trying to help him/her or not, the person may still blame you for his/her injury or misfortune. In terms of practice in this world, that's just how normal people would respond to such an event.

Ah, I gave an absolute example, so of course it's false, let me change it. Also, I had a science teacher that believed the world was 10,000 years old. Was before High School, so don't worry and she at least respected the scientific method.

...Some theists usually don't fit in very scientific fields well because usually people don't want to hire a scientist that believes the world is 10,000 years old for obvious objective and emotional reasons. Also, some scientists dislike other theistic scientists because they may think the theistic scientist lacks the desire to explore the mysteries of the universe because the theistic person might just say, "Oh God did it." — WiseMoron

What I'm trying to say is that some atheistic scientists are biased into thinking that theistic scientists aren't interested in finding scientific explanations for phenomenons due to their beliefs in God. Some atheistic scientists might even judge the intelligence of the theistic scientist and conclude s/he isn't good enough for the job. Also, if you don't believe in evolution, as for applying for a highly level scientist job, you probably can't past the interview. There are social problems between atheism and theism and they do influence the work force.

Well, if you compare humans to the universe, we are like a grain of salt. You are correct that the child's existence will most likely have no significance in this universe along with the current lives at stake on this planet. I personally can't disagree with you that there are any good legitimate reasons to produce a child if one thinks the current world isn't enough for the child (reminds me of a James Bond title :o).

James Bond - The world is not enough theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM63rhWsz4s

However, there is a flaw at play here in the way you are thinking in regards to applying this to your personal life. You say "what if there's a perfect planet and ..." Problem with this is this is just a mere probability and isn't yet a known fact. You can't determine what actions to perform merely on probabilities or possibilities. It's just not a reliable way of performing worthwhile actions. This is what ernestm and Thorongil are trying to express to you.

If you want a child, you have to overlook the cruel world and look forward to your inner world. It's a selfish desire that most of us have and like the saying goes, "It's a small world after all." However, positive inner worlds can influence the cruel world to be less of a horrible place.

Also, I read some threads and article titles in the past relating to this issue regarding that it's unethical to produce offspring into this world because one is unleashing the new person into a world of pain. I honestly don't know how to counter-argue these topics while at the same time agreeing with the assumptions and logic of the person's arguments. I usually like to use people's logic against them in arguments because then it's easier for them to realize that they are flawed and it's just a safer way to counter-argue for me.

However, if you want a personal answer in why I would produce offspring despite my selfish reasons it's because God created this universe, this world of pain, to teach us something. To teach us to become something beyond the capabilities of that of a human. If we never learn what pain is and never learn to endure it, we will never grow resistance towards it and thus will easily become manipulated or consumed by great evil if it comes. This is a theistic perspective and you are probably an atheist because the majority of very active users here are atheists and usually people with the mindset of an atheist makes posts such as this thread. There's not much wrong with your logic, to be honest. However, perhaps the assertions you are looking for on why people create offspring is related to spiritual and religious influences, and we all know the majority of people on this planet are theists. I'm not a typical theist and I lived around mostly Christians out in past school days when I was a child and in public. Christians think there's pain in this world because it has something to do with Adam and Eve, but to me I see a bigger mechanic at play than just mere punishment.

You said, "So a Christian would say that 'saving your soul' is even more important than surviving, in some respects - that, for example, if what you did in service of survival, endanged the destiny of the soul, then you ought not to do it. But that is not a matter for biology." I agree, but you are overlooking something and are looking too much into individual matters. You aren't understanding what I'm trying to explain in my original post, probably because I edited it after you replied to it.

When birds look for a mate, they don't consciously think "who has the best genes or who will make strong, healthy, and attractive offspring." They just look for a pretty bird and fuck it. Humans do the same thing, sometimes (not with birds). Even though fucking is not centered to surviving in this perspective, it plays a vital role in the survivablity of a species because it's the natural way of mixing genes, getting mutations on offspring, and increasing the population. Animals and humans do and think things for whatever the reasons are, but biology and psychology analyzes them in a different level of thinking.

Okay, now let's apply this to religions. The central point of religions obviously isn't about surviving with a bunch of sweat and blood on one's body. Religions helps people socialize, which I kept saying. People group up in churches, help each other, interact with each other, offer advice to each other, talk about the bible or whatever, offer services to each other, offer ideas about the religious texts to each other, gain knowledge about the people there such as their names, and etc. So there's obviously some objective gains in joining a church besides going to heaven or giving a damn about God. These objective reasons can influence surviving in our societies greatly. For example, having a friendly teacher that goes to my church helps out my son with his math homework (I don't have a son yet).

If someone criticizes the bible heavily, s/he will most likely be socially exiled from the church and thus won't receive any support from the people in that church. This is bad, not because s/he will go to hell or w/e, but because the person no longer has access for help from the people in that church.

Anyways, I was trying to illustrate how objectively important or impactful religions and churches can be for the social networks of societies in the social level. Now back to what you've said.

You said something like if someone did something in service of surviving, such as killing and eating a cute bunny, but is against the rules of the religion to do so and will be punished severely by going to hell (or soul is devoured, w/e), then the person will not eat the bunnies and this isn't a matter of biology. Actually it kind of is because the bunny population will most likely not be endangered due to humans. Also, if the bunnies were poisonous, people wouldn't die from eating them because they don't want to lose their souls. People may use bunnies as a religious figure for ceremonies and thus may interbreed a lot of them and use as pets. Humans are so powerful in this world that simple religious ideas can influence other species, the habitats, and even humans themselves.

A more realistic example is an oracle telling young men that their fates will be hell if they stay in their homelands and that their destinies lie beyond the waters. Thus, the men will be very inclined to travel to beyond the waters, despite how dangerous it is and how low their probability of finding land is, and search for another island or piece of land out in the large ocean somewhere.

If it wasn't for that crazy oracle, no one would have populated those empty (no human zone) islands beyond the waters. This is a huge survival advantage for the people that got to the island because then they have access to more resources, food, and land. The oracle obviously wasn't thinking, "What can I say to these morons so then they travel to those islands and give us a huge survival advantage." The oracle was probably high from smoking drugs, has a psychological disorder of some kind, was trying to scare them away because the community is low in resources, or a mixture of reasons.

Philosophical systems such as religions influence groups of people's minds so greatly that it can have such a huge impact in the world that it can end up influencing the biological parts of the world as well because humans already have a lot of power over other species on this planet.

Another example that is close to modern times is when Christians were saying only gays have HIV and that it was a creation from God to punish gays. Thus, straight people were having unsafe sex frequently and were spreading HIV like wildfire. Now we have a bunch of people with HIV now.

I don't understand what you mean exactly. If it's not about survival then what is it about? Also, what is it, this thread or being sociable? I thought this thread was about whether or not religion will beat atheism or not in the end of humanity's time. Survival seems pretty relevant here, at least to me.

The rules of survival of the fittest changed versus how our ancestors, cave men, have lived. However, socially working with people has remained a mandatory need for people.

Also, I don't see how that article is relevant to what I'm trying to explain.

Well, being social with humans is very essential for survivability. Religions or spiritual beliefs helps with that. If you aren't social enough with your pack and don't communicate well enough or have friendly relationships, you will have a hard time surviving.

Even today, being sociable is very important. Might even be more important than profound intelligence. Surviving isn't a logical process. Why else would so many religious folks exist and live happy lives while being so ignorant?

If you want religion to not win, which is related to this thread, you have to change humanity itself dramatically. In other words, make humans interact and socialize with each other in new ways that will replace the religious networks.

There are psychological reasons behind having religious or spiritual beliefs...

There's research that shows that there's a section in our brain designed for religious/spiritual beliefs or atheistic philosophies. This makes sense because we also have evidence that the very early species of humans buried their dead, which shows the possibility that they might have believed in the afterlife. Thus, beliefs in God and the afterlife must have been a "need" or evolutionary advantage in some way and we still have it. My guess in why beliefs were so important for our ancestors is that it helped them feel connected together and feel like a larger group than just random individuals put together.

Today churches are part of a social network, which is crucial to the communities, but may someday become obsolete and later replaced. Religion helps people have similar goals and in having the same goals, success is usually down the road. Do you think people sacrificed their lives just for the sake of exploration and science to be the first to populate islands far away from their homeland? No, they probably did it because they were exiled, following some prophecy, or for some religious/spiritual gain.

Also, there's typically more similarities between atheists and theists than they both dare to admit. Reason why I say this is because both atheists and theists are emotionally tied to their beliefs and ideas because they are both human, which seems kind of a "duh" thing to say, but it's true. Atheists feel connected to other atheists and theists feel connected to other theists. There are social reasons why being an atheist or a theist can be an advantage in today's societies as well. If you are a theist, being in a medical field, psychological field, or some field that interacts with people a lot, you'll usually fit in very well with the people around you. However, if you are an atheist, you might not fit in and might fit better in more scientific, technological, or mathematical fields of study. Some theists usually don't fit in very scientific fields well because usually people don't want to hire a scientist that believes the world is 10,000 years old for obvious objective and emotional reasons. Also, some scientists dislike other theistic scientists because they may think the theistic scientist lacks the desire to explore the mysteries of the universe because the theistic person might just say, "Oh God did it."

What I'm trying to say is that some atheistic scientists are biased into thinking that theistic scientists aren't interested in finding scientific explanations for phenomenons due to their beliefs in God. Some atheistic scientists might even judge the intelligence of the theistic scientist and conclude s/he isn't good enough for the job. Also, if you don't believe in evolution, as for applying for a highly level scientist job, you probably can't past the interview. There are social problems between atheism and theism and they do influence the work force. — WiseMoron

I agree, I don't entirely understand it as well...

Thanks for the information.

I just don't understand why some folks don't believe that the soul of the fetus/baby goes to heaven or reincarnate if it dies before birth. God certainly isn't unfair, so why do we have this expectation that God can't handle abortion issues on his own? Do most religious people think God needs their help to handle abortion issues? Must be a weak God if true... It's not like God is giving us a clear sign that abortion is wrong or anything. What gives us the right and power to think we understand the afterlife and to interfere in other people's personal lives, anyways?

Sorry, I can't understand your English. At least fix the misspellings and wrong word usage please. At least in the original post, there are some mistakes.

From trying to understand your post, if the humans on the planet are immune to the poison and have been living there happily while my humans and I aren't immune to the poison then producing offspring to compete with the humans who are immune to the poison is a lost cause. I rather not invade another sentient population, even if it's not within the same species, for the gain of extending the existence of my own people because it's unethical to do so. Being a good being has higher ethical expectations than a good parent, sorry. This is one reason why theists don't regard God as a mere parent.

From reading other replies and the post again, I think I understand the jest of it now. I understand your feelings and logic regarding not wanting to create a child due to this cruel current world. However, you're child could be a person to bring good to this world or make it a better place, if you think optimistic about it and are willing to be a good parent and teacher. It's intelligent that you aren't making offspring for selfish reasons such as wanting to merely raise a family, wanting company, or pleasing your wife by producing a child to just merely gain her respect. However, if you want good reasons to produce a child, you have to think outside of the box. Hope is the most important thing for children and the next generations to come and if you're going to teach your offspring to lack hope, then you shouldn't produce a child, in my opinion.

The question you should be asking yourself on whether or not to produce a child or not isn't if the environment or the world is good enough for the child, but are you good enough of a parent to raise your child right and give the child what s/he needs and wants within this reality? If you feel like you lack power in raising your child and that's why you are worried that the world isn't good enough for the child, then maybe that's a good reason to not produce offspring as well. Often bad parents blame God, the world, other people, child support, and/or school for their family problems such as having a poor relationship with his or her child. So if you truly want a child, you should be willing to change the damn world while the child exists in order for the child to fit in and appreciate life. The small world around the child shouldn't be an obstacle because you, the parent, can influence it greatly. Thinking that the current world isn't good enough for children is a lazy excuse for anything and if you truly think this, then you are too lazy to care for a child properly.

There are increasing more couples, in modern times versus the past, that marry and don't have children for objective, subjective, and financial reasons as well. So being a married couple with no children isn't a bad thing. However, both parties of the couple should form some sort of negotiation or agreement in not having or producing a child first.

One issue I see with having females playing with males is that when the game gets sour and they start to actually fight each other. Hockey or American Football for example is a very rough sport and sometimes the players break the rules and intentionally fight or harm each other. Most people will fear that the females will get hurt worse than the men because of mainly cultural reasons and may be unfair in how to judge the fight between the woman and man. Also, due to cultural reasons, people may punish men, who hurt women during sport games, too harshly when it was actually an honest unintentional penalty. Main reason why having women play with men won't work well is because of mainly how the majority of our societies think and view both females and males.

The main problem I see with Trangenderism isn't that if the person is more male than female or vice versa, but that people still don't accept its existence fairly. If a Transgender man (woman to man) plays American Football and people find out that he was born a woman. Do you really think people will try to ban him from playing American Football because he has some unfair advantage over the other men in the football games because of biological reasons? Of course not, in reality the way I know it, the football fans will want to ban the player because he just simply doesn't "fit" in for whatever the bullshit reason is such as he's too gay, he might hurt himself, he distracts the other fans with his feminine body, or he's more flexible than the other football players because he's a woman. Come on, those are bullshit reasons.

What these Sports Committees should do is develop a sincere test on whether the individual is truly a transgender or not, basically find if the individual is lying or not about his/her claim about being a transgender. If a person is honest in being a Transgender the person should be allowed to play sports in relation to the sexual group that the person feels like s/he belongs to because psychology matters more than biology when living life.

I disagree that females and males think differently; however, apparently I'm the minority or a fool. Since the majority thinks females and males think very differently, wouldn't that be a huge factor for the sport players? A Transgender man doesn't think like a woman, but a man, thus wouldn't it make more sense for him to play with other men?

Having a penis, bigger muscles, or masculine hormones don't impact a Transgender woman that much in a women's sport tournament in my opinion. What impacts more is the intelligence of the player and if s/he practices/trains in the sport well everyday. You can be a Transgender woman and be a fatass or be weaker than a professional woman who is a tennis player. There are so many factors to being a good player that these minor details in association to being a male has little to do with.

Basically, I think if a transgender woman wants to play with other women and is actually a transgender person, she should be allowed to because that's how she thinks, not because of what she is. We teach our children that the inside matters more than the outside, yet we adults judge transgenders on the outside rather than the inside in sport tournaments. Some men have bigger muscles, more hormones, or a bigger penis than other men, but we don't objectively ban them for those reasons yet we do this to transgender women.

The biggest problem in regards to accepting Transgenderism into sports is always going to be the society. The cultures of the societies needs to value transgenders equally as with females.

Also, one thing this discussion overlooks is that intersexuals have very similar social problems as transgenders. Intersexuals have parts of both male and female, yet they psychologically adapt to either thinking male or female within their society. Just something for y'all to think about as well.

You think it's fair for someone to take away your gold medal after you put so much effort into it and sincerely won? I wouldn't especially if I didn't cheat or use drugs.

Okay, discussion is dead, bye bye.

And there are TRUE BELIEVERS in every community, who can take selected texts -- religious and secular -- and make strait-jackets out of them. They are the biggest problem. — Bitter Crank

At first I didn't understand how someone can make strait-jackets out of selected texts, secularly (metaphorically of course). However, the more I think about it, I guess it could happen, but I can't think of a good example. I guess being extreme in any ideology can be a dangerous flaw.

I think the problem you're trying to describe is one of being too technical and strict to the written law (holy or secular) and basing real life solutions or arguments off of them. In a way, there is no perfect system of laws, and leniency and flexible of any law is required for a community to have both justice and collaboration.

Modernism, economics, and secular humanism have done, do, and will do to Islam what they have done to Christianity or most any other religion: They undermine it--which is generally a good thing. — Bitter Crank

Good to hear... :)

If anyone has the right to be changing anyone shouldn't it be the other way round? — Barry Etheridge

You have a point. Other societies need to adapt and become more acceptable of Muslims in order for there to be peace in the world and peace inside of Islamic societies. However, if Islamic societies have absolutely no problems, I doubt people would be complaining about them.

Like I said in my OP though, if the Muslims don't change their societies, their societies might perish and change into something entirely different.They may think there is absolutely no problems with their societies, but that's impossible because there is no perfect society in existence today, at least not by my standards.

I have said,

The best way for the Islamic societies to improve is for them to improve themselves, not other countries fixing them, since it is an internal problem. — WiseMoron

However, I see no harm in other countries maybe supporting/helping Islamic countries a little bit, but the people of the Islamic societies, themselves, are ultimately responsible for changing the society, not some other country. I feel like USA is trying to change these Islamic societies too drastically and is upholding too much responsibility in doing so. USA is a mere country and isn't the "police of this world." Another country ought to not have the ultimate responsibility for the existence of an established society and changing its cultures dramatically. We treat this principle with African tribes, why not Islamic societies? Like Star Trek would say, "It's against the prime directive."

A question. The sort you ask with a raised eyebrow. — Sapientia

Too bad we don't got an emote for that. :D It was an annoying emote, anyways.



To be honest, I feel like people on philosophical forums do try to sound smart through language and sometimes it causes misunderstanding or even heated debates. Most of the time it leads to petty arguments that could be regarded as irrelevant, such as arguing about the definition of something. Nonetheless, these people that post on philosophical forums usually aren't as well disciplined as actual philosophers of academics.

Start by holding them to the same standards as everyone else. — tom

That's obviously more of a sociological problem than a religious problem. This is one of my main points in the OP. The Islamic societies need more help and start to become more "secular" like other advanced societies.

Unless you're going to offer me an extensive bibliography, from people having done some actual research or having real life experience in these Muslim societies, on which you've based your assumptions and conclusions, I'm just going to assume you don't know what you're talking about. — Benkei

It's kind of hard doing research on Islamic societies since there's a war going on and some people would get killed for exposing information regarding Islamic societies. I honestly wish I could, but I'm unable to find accurate information of what life is like in an Islamic society in the middle east. Benkei your current demands are too high, even for a non-academic forum, but we do have our knowledge, philosophies, reflections of life, empathy, common sense, and ethics to help guide us to imagine what it's like to live in a Islamic society, sort of.

I have found a video in the past and photos of Islamic women showing signs that they want USA to leave their countries, though. Not because USA is evil, but because it's none of USA's business.

I felt like you just read I lived in the Bible Belt and didn't fully read my OP. That's why you don't know what my point is, please fully read what I wrote in the OP, instead of getting fired up over nothing.

Nazism is banned. — tom

I was sarcastic.

So yes, the Quran may indeed have some bad things in it. — tom

So how should we change the Muslims?

If we can't change the Quran or kill all Muslims, where does that lead to?
A lot of people criticize Islam and Muslims, but no one seems to be productive in regards to offering a solution.

Well, the Quran may have some bad things in it, but so do other religious texts from other religions such as the Christian Bible, which I pointed out in my post. So what is your point, exactly? That the Quran is worst than the Christian Bible and thus should be fixed? Even if that was true, which probably is, realistically the Muslims aren't going to be willing to change the Quran, which I mentioned why in my OP. If the Quran is changed, it would not only imply that the Quran is heavily flawed, but that a religion and a culture of people are flawed as well. These "flawed groups of people" don't want that sort of reputation, no one does.

Also, I think it's a bit naive that a mere change or deletion to some holy text will suddenly change a group of people, especially since they have been very influenced by the Quran. Do you really think all the problems to the Muslim people are all caused from the Quran? Do you really think the impact from the Quran is more important than sociological factors such as poverty, military - suppression, mass exploitation, environmental problems, and other problems?

Please enlighten me how changing or burning some foul book will change a group of people permanently. Or would it be much easier to just kill the Muslims for being delusional? Yeah that would be a much more realistic solution, wouldn't you agree, justified genocide at its finest?

My main point is, we can't just throw away Muslims, we have to change them. To change them through the Quran is harder than it seems to most people and I believe changing the Muslims through their actual society is more realistic and more likely ethical. Sociologically, the Muslims don't seem very advanced. The whole Quran is probably messed up since it's ancient and attempting to rewrite or edit a system that is already flawed seems very foolish to begin with, especially if the foundations of the system are flawed, which they probably are.

You may read and criticize the Quran all you want, but in the end you accomplish nothing of pragmatic significance to humanity.

I actually lived in the Bible Belt mostly my whole life and I agree there's some social problems due to how the Christian churches affect the society and politics. I didn't know "Bible Belt" was a term. I didn't understand your first paragraph that well due to me not knowing a lot about politics and economics, but I do agree that guns and money are having too strong of a voice in our world.
I do disagree that religions necessarily support different economical theories or views because economics and religions seem like two very separate categories to me. However, you might have read, learn, or see things that I haven't done to lead to those conclusions. Also, religions have integrated in most societies, so they could also influence the economics of a society as well.

So is there some important difference from pragmatism here — apokrisis

Not sure how this is relevant, but try to be more pragmatic.

There can be no formula for swimming: it must be practiced. The learning never stops: to 'know' how to swim is to be learning it, moment to moment, — StreetlightX

I like this part because it is possible to forget knowledge, which is also important to consider as well when thinking about how we gain knowledge. If you don't practice a certain activity well and long enough, you will forget the very things you have previously learned. It's the same with muscles as well. Our muscles connect to our brains in a sophisticated way in which the brain remembers and memorizes complex muscle movements; for example, batting or throwing a ball or even running in a certain way. (why do you think physical therapy exists?) Thus, if we don't train our muscles enough, both in quantity of time and quality of training, they will become lazier and forget how to operate previous complex muscle movements well. The same principles on our muscle movements can be applied similarly to how the brain learns knowledge I believe.

Thank you for the swimming analogy, StreetlightX. I don't fully understand the analogy, but at least I feel like I grasp a big part of it. I don't know anything about Plato's theories anyways.

The future of hiking while having your fat arse on a couch. Cheers!

"I think romantic love is a necessary delusion."
However, when does romantic love turn into true love then? Romantic love does come before the type of love that lasts an entire life time.

Unfortunately, I don't read much, but this discussion is really interesting to me and I have had the same kind of thoughts regarding this thread as well in the past and present.

Once when I was in elementary school, some tall man came inside the class with a holy bible on his hand. At first I was like, great he is going to preach from the bible. However, he didn't, he surprised me. He asked the class, "What is the definition of love?" We obviously failed in pleasing the man with our answers, even a dictionary didn't pleased the man. He then stated, "No book defines love (implying by holding the bible with his hand that even the holy bible fails in defining love as well)" The man was old and did seem emotionally connected to what he was trying to teach us. He seemed to have be dissatisfied with something in his past years.

However, after seeing this thread I now ask myself is love actually an existing thing or is it really something beyond what texts can teach us of it? It seems more pessimistic to say that love is just a mere word, but what if love actually exist? Maybe the hope for love being true is what truly drives people to chase after love? Maybe hope is a part of what makes love tick?

Humans are such fragile creatures compared to other species in regards to our mental health if you think about it. Sure, other mammals can experience phobias and other mental illness; however, some species can't experience mental illnesses because they simply lack the intelligence in order to achieve that experience. Therefore, our intelligence probably plays a role in how love works too. In a way, we create or imagine love as how we want it to become. Without the proper intelligence, love doesn't exist and I'm not talking about IQ or intelligence for getting good grades in school, but the intelligence related to experiencing emotions and love.

War is inevitable if the two or more parties lack understanding of each other, in my opinion. Empathy or simply the willingness to understand one another should be the key to peace. However, how do we completely understand one another if our minds are never completely connected? God gave us privacy of our thoughts or there is simply no God. In other words, we have to use all our efforts in order to completely understand one another or else we are doomed into becoming each other's enemies.

Anyways, I remembered having a discussion with college students about the the nuclear bombing of two of Japan's cities and some student said it was justice because it was payback for Pearl Harbor. However, how many non-military people died in Pearl Harbor? How many kids died in Pearl Harbor compared to the Nuclear Bombings of Japan? Military people swore oath to protect the country with their very lives and military deaths are usually inevitable in the purpose of protecting their nation.
Thinking that something is justified because of "payback" or in other words, vengeance, is what keeps wars ongoing or starts wars. The US military (more like generals) justifies the Nuclear Bombings as a tactic to destroy the gun force of Japan since the factories are so close to homes and such. However, Japan's defeat was obviously inevitable after Germany lost and USA was still strong in numbers. USA didn't even need the hydrogen bombs in order to win. I guess saving one's own soldiers is worth more than the children and civilians of the enemy force. That's what I call war ethics, folks. The OP of this discussion hates it when children die; however, in WWII, USA saw more value in their own young men than the children and civilians of Japan. The nuclear warheads could have been used on Japan's military, but it obviously wouldn't be as effective.

So you see guys, war ethics isn't the same shit as actual ethics. War ethics is just an illusion of justice and is just focused on selfish goals and vengeance. The problem is the rationality of thinking violence or war is the answer to solving a problem or best choice of justice. Any attempt regarding how to solve a war situation through force is never going to be 100% angel-like ethical. So discussing about it, is kind of pointless. History repeats itself if we don't learn from it; an old, well-known quote.

I would like to say embrace empathy and all that good jazz, but to cut the horse shit. War doesn't work like the rest of the world does and it's all about and only about winning.

The only argument that I've seen that even attempts to justify, without using vengeance, the nuclear bombing of Japan's two cities is that it'll save more Japanese lives to end the war sooner to prevent the Japanese from killing themselves since most of them thought they would be tortured if caught. The Emperor of Japan lied to his people in that the Americans would torture the Japanese if they were caught and this resulted in some Japanese men into killing their own family members. However, this is a very weak and stupid argument since the two nuclear bombs killed so many people that it doesn't matter. Even if USA defeated the Japanese without using nuclear weapons, Japan would've surrendered before they all killed themselves since the moronic Emperor had enough sense to give up after the second nuclear bombing. Come on, the Japanese aren't that stupid, people. A teacher of mine actually said this shit, my fucking god ignorance is surely fucking bliss for some folks, damn.

War zone is no place for something kiddie like ethics, folks...it's where Satan truly lives.