By the way, this little item, a copy of which hangs on my wall, was probably a sign for a prostitute's workplace.

It's also associated with Astarte.

Just to clarify, there's nothing wrong with religion or prostitution. The fact that they're both really old should give us pause. Why have they been with us for so long?

If you glance at the website I pointed to, it explains that we get insight into ancient religions by looking at the way people handled death.

You'll probably find that this is still true. Death will bring you back to your society's version of the temple.

That was disrespectful as hell...

What Tom said to you is the fact that he doesn't care about how old religion is. Prostitution is also an old profession, so what? Didn't you get the ironic tone? — javi2541997

That's true, it was disrespectful. Sorry, Tom.

I thought he was condemning religion and prostitution at the same time. That's why I asked if he had a problem with prostitution.

He answered that by asking me if I'm Catholic.

I have no idea what's going on there.

Is there something wrong with prostitution, Tom?
— Tate

Why do you ask, are you a Catholic? — Tom Storm

"Religion is old". pointing to a citation of an 8000 year old religion.

"So is prostitution"

What was your point? If you didn't have one and were just randomly mumbling like an Alzheimer's victim, that's fine. I was just asking.

Nah, he's like Streetlight in that he loses his mind if you disagree with him. Hopefully he'll grow out of it soon.

Per the NY Times, the assailant was a troubled loner.. Which is what a high percentage of us figured when we first heard about it.

Google does. I was once having an email conversation about religion with someone. When the discussion came to Islam, the emails came with delays, sometimes for several days. We concluded that the emails were filtered by Google, and that a computer program, perhaps even a person was reading them. — baker

Could be.

:up:

I disagree with pretty much everything you say except for this. Yes, Xtrix shouldn't be a moderator.

No. You'll have to keep this conversation contextualized yourself. — Hanover

It's not clear at all which community you're talking about. Really and truly. :love:

Xtrix is a good mod and I haven't noticed anything untoward in his posts. — Jamal

He was pretty maniacal before Streetlight left. Streetlight was a bad influence.

stated this the best I could, which is that my best guess is that there is not the impetus upon public condemnation within that community — Hanover

Could you specify the community you're talking about?

My suspicion is that it arises over this free speech question generally and what social expectations there are in terms of what is acceptable speech — Hanover

What free speech question?

These are just my thoughts after reading, but I could be wrong. That's why I'm having the conversation. — Hanover

You're having a conversation where you repeatedly misrepresent what others are saying. Is there a reason you feel the need to do that?

Ah, I see he's banned, so no point in continuing to explain what he was saying. :meh:

Banned Adamski for being aggressive and refusing moderation. — Jamal

really?

What was being asserted was that the attacker was this lone, crazy, knife wielding attacker suffering purely from mental illness. That, based upon the facts, is burying one's head in the sand. He acted pursuant to an ideology advanced by a religious leader held in much esteem by a large number of people. — Hanover

No one asserted that. What was commented was that we don't know. Maybe he did consider himself to be Shia. He still could have been a troubled person.

Yes, his action was obviously called for by a Muslim leader. No one denied that. Adamski was simply explaining that Islam is too fragmented to make much of that.

What I do take it to be is simply a misstatement of the facts so as to remove this question entirely from the OP by saying this has nothing to do with Rushdie's work and the Muslim animosity it engendered, but to instead suggest we're just dealing a single nut job. — Hanover

Adamski didn't say that.

Those just aren't the facts and it creates the false illusion that this has nothing to do with Islam, Shiahs, the Ayatollah, or Rushdie. It most certainly did, and that is the point of this OP. — Hanover

Well, you're so versed on the facts, what does the event and its fallout tell us about mainstream Islam?

So is prostitution. :cool: — Tom Storm

Is there something wrong with prostitution, Tom?

Since I can't every begin with most basic factual notions with you, it's hard to make progress. You've presented arguments the attacker doesn't even make for himself (that he's not even a Shia — Hanover

Wait a minute. You don't know the attacker's identity and motives better than anyone else. My guesses about the extent to which he's a faithful disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini as opposed to a troubled person are as good as yours.

You appear to be bent on taking anything anyone says as a defense of the attack or a vindication of Iran even after they've already condemned it. You've done that to at least two posters so far

Religion is really old.

That's the same guy Hanover cited earlier.

I don't think this was terrorism per se.

Which non famous Muslim clerics condemned it? Any outside the West?

I think the public would welcome a condemnation of violence from some Muslim spokesperson. But who would that be?

There isn't any organization that can detect the confusion among non-Muslims about the silence of Islamic leaders. There's no Islamic PR department in the US. Even if there was, as you point out, religious authority in Islam doesn't work the same way as it does in Judaism and Christianity.

:up:

It's like herding cats with you guys. — Hanover

Must be exhausting.

If the OP were meant just to itemize the good and bad acts of various political and religious entities so the we could announce a winner, I guess I could have done that, but such wasn't the goal. — Hanover

There's presently a public discussion going on about freedom of speech, specifically regarding the tender topic of criticising Islamic leaders without being accused of Islamophobia.

I don't trust anyone on the American right to say squat about Islamic leadership because they've stood by silently as Trump and his buddies were racist as hell. Republicans do not deserve the trust of the rest of Americans on this issue.

I understand your goal, but it's like doing forensics on an active battlefield.

I don't think you're fluent in dum-ass-demogogue. :grin:

Terrible things might happen to Trump. — Benkei

He was threatening insurrection.

So, I'd agree with the basic statement that most people are not poised to do something crazy, but I also see too much leeway given by some people when crazy people do crazy things. — Hanover

My way of dealing with it is to put aside the idea of craziness. The guy who attacked Rushdie may have been schizophrenic or something, but look at the part of it that isn't crazy.

Thomas Aquinas said that atheists should be executed. He was echoing Plato. None of those guys were crazy. It's part of who we are as a species to get murderous about sacrilege, which has many forms. I don't say that to apologize for Muslim leaders who are silent now. It's just that I need a way to understand.

I don't follow the relevance of these references. Even if a moral equivalency could be concluded (and I think the distinctions might be significant enough that it can't be (as the basis for the attacks on the FBI is an argument of abuse of power in trying to seize illegally stored documents from the former President), what difference would it make to prove we've got just as bad Christians actors as we do Muslim actors? — Hanover

Because if you point out that only a few progressive Muslims can manage to strongly condemn the attack, then what does this tell us about the guy who runs the Pakistani restaurant down the street? If we ask, he might tell us that Rushdie should have been killed a long time ago. Now what?

What's your response to that? What should we conclude about the Muslims around us?

I'm not trying to argue here who's best — Hanover

Me neither. I think we've established that all three of the "religions of the book" have histories of executing blasphemers. I would say Muslims are still doing it because they haven't evolved out that the way Christians and Jews have. They're culturally backward in some ways.

Is it part of mainstream Islam? Yes. For now.

Yeah, that’s definitely what happened and the reason why blasphemy isn’t tolerated. — Noble Dust

No doubt

That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years. — Hanover

I read a biography of Spinoza that said Jewish communities banished and assassinated members who broke their rules. Spinoza was banished, but assassination was a possibility.

In all fairness, no religion cares much for the blasphemous. — praxis

It probably goes back to that time somebody said "God sucks!" and then the crops were eaten by locusts, so they made it illegal to say things like that.

Well, just look at what we have done in the last 2000 years. In good and bad. So I guess to worry what will happen to us in the next 10,000 years is a bit grandiose. — ssu

Uh, ok.

I wonder why the term "greenhouse effect" isn't used today — ssu

We wouldn't be alive without the greenhouse effect. We just don't want to screw it up.

The future for the next 10,000 years isn't our problem. Or to put it correctly, doesn't happen because of just our generations — ssu

I don't look at it as a moral challenge. It's about the fate of a species I've come to love.

As to each one, you can click to go to that link and see what the response has been and who made it. — Hanover

You're right. That's amazing.

But, Jewish terrorist groups need to be condemned, and if they aren't, the leaders need to explain why — Hanover

Say there's a case where some Jews in Jerusalem beat the hell out of a Muslim youth and it goes viral in the world's newspapers. Who exactly is responsible for explaining the mainstream Jewish view of that? Which rabbi would do it? How many Jews would applaud it? How many would be aghast?

Islam was born out of a bloody conflict. The imprint of that is definitely on Islam, just as Jesus' pacifism is imprinted in Christianity.

What that means is that Christian clergymen would have to really strain to find a backing for violence out of the New Testament. In the same way, Muslims have to tip toe carefully around the Quran to condemn violence. The Prophet was a violent man.