Correlation between Religion and Athletes

[jussstin]

It's already been proven that people can easily be swayed by whatever the favorite "horse" of the leadership is. Religion just happens to be one of the many "horses" available, along with nationalism, racism, fear, indignation, etc.

True. The fact that religion is such a powerful tool for manipulating people is one of the worst things about it.

Sure, it should be taken literally. In it's time and context. It was specific directives to Israel somewhere around 1300-1500 BC in reference to how to run their soon to exist kingdom. They were to go in and root out the cannibalistic, child sacrificing, pagan inhabitants, and were not to allow those practices to take root in their own ways.

Whether or not you agree with the totality of the above passage, it's pretty obvious it can't apply beyond the situation which the passage itself lays out + the context of Deuteronomy.

If it should be taken literally, as Moses passing on the word of God, then that means God is advocating genocide. Any kind of God that would issue that kind of directive, is well, kind of a complete dick, and is not worth worshiping in my opinion. Surely a loving God would have suggested a peaceful solution?

And if it can't be applied beyond the situation, then really all it is is an interesting historical document and it possibly shouldn't be included in book which is considered by many to be a guidebook for living.

 

[hexwind]

If you believe the Koran is the word of God then you are a Muslim, correct?

Are you asking whether I'm a Muslim or not? then Yes I am a Muslim. I did embrace this religion for some reasons.

 

[skeptik]

Sweet nickname.

I hope you know why I gave you that name.

Such as? Don't bring up the Crusades or anything similar. THose were purely wealth and conquest driven, while religion was used to sway the masses.

I don't think it's fair at all to say that the Crusades were "purely wealth and conquest driven". Even with the conquest angle, the conquest was at the very least in part driven by the desire to regain sacred land to those of the faith. I'll comment a bit more on the Crusades later though.

And on the other hand, the "Golden Rules" of pretty much all belief systems ("don't kill people" etc) worldwide are now secular laws. It makes sense for a system to threaten potential criminals with punishment, whether it's hell or jail.

The concept of the Golden Rule existed in philosophical traditions before it was found in religious traditions as far as I know, or at the very least existed in philosophical traditions outside of religious sway.

It's already been proven that people can easily be swayed by whatever the favorite "horse" of the leadership is. Religion just happens to be one of the many "horses" available, along with nationalism, racism, fear, indignation, etc.



Sure, it should be taken literally. In it's time and context. It was specific directives to Israel somewhere around 1300-1500 BC in reference to how to run their soon to exist kingdom. They were to go in and root out the cannibalistic, child sacrificing, pagan inhabitants, and were not to allow those practices to take root in their own ways.

Whether or not you agree with the totality of the above passage, it's pretty obvious it can't apply beyond the situation which the passage itself lays out + the context of Deuteronomy.

For a book so supposedly filled with hidden allegory, it is potentially difficult to unravel and separate mere history lessons from guidance. Nonetheless, the fact that a god advocated the numerous counts of violence that is recorded in the Bible already says quite a bit for itself outside of the topic of the Crusades. But back to the Crusades. Again, even assuming that those in charge were entirely driven by non-religious interests, a view which I don't believe would hold up under serious scrutiny, it can't be denied that many fought in those wars driven entirely by their own religious convictions, and they believed that they were in the right to slaughter the 'enemies' of their religion in the name of their god. Religion was unquestionably a driving force behind a good deal of unnecessary violence.

Maybe you want to see the way you want it not as it actually is.
Religion is a tool that they use to justify their deeds, everyone interprets it the way they want by removing some parts of the verses when they quote them.
As i said, when it is interpreted it shouldn't go out of its context. Otherwise, it will be utter nonsense.

Who's to say which interpretation is right when even religious scholars can't agree?

I always found it pretty hypocritical that it's ok in "modern society" for men/women to fuck around, but to marry more than one person is this terrible crime.

Well, isn't marriage supposed to be a life-long commitment between two people that they will stay together and not stray for the rest of their lives? I guess it could theoretically be extended beyond two faithful people, but I can at least understand how it makes sense. I personally am not particularly interested in practicing polygamy though.

 

[cookiecutter]

Maybe you want to see the way you want it not as it actually is.
Religion is a tool that they use to justify their deeds, everyone interprets it the way they want by removing some parts of the verses when they quote them.

This is exactly my point. How can you say that religion is not hurting women in these areas when in your own words it is a "tool that they use to justify their deeds". You can't just separate that from the "good" religion.

Somewhat agree. While religion wasn't the root cause, (moreso the human drive for power and greed, as you mentioned), religion certainly made it a lot easier to get the whole shebang rolling, and thus should be at least partially to blame. It's not religion itself that's evil, rather the way humans misappropriate it.

This is an interesting point and I would also say somewhat agree to it. However it should be noted that it's not like there is this perfect thing called religion that humanity found and then proceeded to ruin. Religion is completely created by humanity and as such is what it is. Being such a pervasive concept throughout human history, it has been involved in both very good and very bad things. With this in mind I don't think you can really say that "religion" is good or evil per se.

 

[Dak]

True. The fact that religion is such a powerful tool for manipulating people is one of the worst things about it.

That is like saying a hammer is a bad thing because it can be used for bad things. It can be used to kill people or build great things for society.

If it should be taken literally, as Moses passing on the word of God, then that means God is advocating genocide. Any kind of God that would issue that kind of directive, is well, kind of a complete dick, and is not worth worshiping in my opinion. Surely a loving God would have suggested a peaceful solution?

Depending on your perspective of the historical inhabitants of that area, peace was not an option.

And if it can't be applied beyond the situation, then really all it is is an interesting historical document and it possibly shouldn't be included in book which is considered by many to be a guidebook for living.

That portion isn't a part of the Torah, which are the instructions for living.

 

[hexwind]

This is exactly my point. How can you say that religion is not hurting women in these areas when in your own words it is a "tool that they use to justify their deeds". You can't just separate that from the "good" religion.

I think religion should be judged seperatly from people's behavior. take the example of heavy metal music and its fans. If i'm a person who never listened to heavy metal yet i heard about it, and i see a guy acting in the most retard and brutal way, and then he tells me that he's a die hard metal fan, I would be mistaking if i think that he behaves that way because he listens to th tkinda of music.

 

[waif]

It's more like if you saw a bunch of scene kids fighting invisible ninjas. You'd be right in thinking they do that because of the metal, but not everyone who listens to metal does that and if they didn't have metal to fight ninjas to they'd go fight ninjas while listening to punk.

 

[Dak]

Good point WAIF

 

[hexwind]

my point is : those who beat their wives/women do so because it became a part of their culture, loooooooooong before Islam even comes, in what is now known as Saudi Arabia, some people buried their new born girls cause they were GIRLS and not boys. It's not about the religion, those people are fucked up socially, i have to admit that, it's so obvious, they interpret Quran to make it go hand in hand with their filthy deeds instead of obeying (doing the contrary of what they are used to).

 

[Mort Divine]

Being that I work in the single most Arabic concentrated part of the fucking PLANET outside of the Middle East I think I have some ability to say it is absurd just how controlling a faith Islam can be.

Fathers will allow their sons to run around the store trashing it up without saying anything, but with so much as looking at something they want the girls will be yelled at.

I once got yelled at by a customer for helping position this lady who I was taking a passport picture of because she wouldn't listen to me (or was just one of those fucking idiots who somehow got into the US without speaking English) and I guess basically the guy wanted my head because I touched his wife - on the fucking ARM.

Then again I know many Muslims who are nothing like this and I am on very good terms with those that aren't, but the ones that are like that are absolute scum.

 

[cookiecutter]

It's more like if you saw a bunch of scene kids fighting invisible ninjas. You'd be right in thinking they do that because of the metal, but not everyone who listens to metal does that and if they didn't have metal to fight ninjas to they'd go fight ninjas while listening to punk.

To continue the analogy, it doesn't matter what type of music they do it to, or that they would do it anyway, or that some don't even do it, it matters that some scene kids use metal to act like idiots. As a metal fan, you have to accept the bad parts of it.

Where this analogy fails is that, despite claims otherwise, metal does not really influence one's worldview and does not affect others. Scene kids fighting ninjas only make themselves look dumb, repressing women hurts others. As metal fans, it's easier to brush off the bad parts of metal when it's just bad music and stupid behavior. I think even intelligent, decent muslims (like our friend hexwind) should have a harder time brushing off the problems with their faith.

 

[Dak]

I don't think it's fair at all to say that the Crusades were "purely wealth and conquest driven". Even with the conquest angle, the conquest was at the very least in part driven by the desire to regain sacred land to those of the faith. I'll comment a bit more on the Crusades later though.

But back to the Crusades. Again, even assuming that those in charge were entirely driven by non-religious interests, a view which I don't believe would hold up under serious scrutiny, it can't be denied that many fought in those wars driven entirely by their own religious convictions, and they believed that they were in the right to slaughter the 'enemies' of their religion in the name of their god. Religion was unquestionably a driving force behind a good deal of unnecessary violence.

Again, the reasons given to the common soldier for a war are usually not the real reasons the leadership goes to war. The Muslims were the only real target for conquest from the Catholic Church's perspective (the only well to do "heathens" within geographical reach) so then it was merely a matter of creating a pretext for aggression.

Were the common soldiers probably under the conviction you give? Yes. Would any of them have acted this out without the prodding/management of the leadership using this to their advantage? No. It is also important to point out that if you were not a church leader you didn't even have access to the Bible during that period in history, so the populace was at the mercy of the Church, who could tell them the Bible said whatever they wanted it to say, without the common man even being able to check it out personally.

The concept of the Golden Rule existed in philosophical traditions before it was found in religious traditions as far as I know, or at the very least existed in philosophical traditions outside of religious sway.

I am interested in what secular philosophical writings predate religion in general.

For a book so supposedly filled with hidden allegory, it is potentially difficult to unravel and separate mere history lessons from guidance. Nonetheless, the fact that a god advocated the numerous counts of violence that is recorded in the Bible already says quite a bit for itself outside of the topic of the Crusades.

As I said before, if you look at the peoples inhabiting that part of the world during that time in history, these were not people you could exactly create a peace process with. I personally do not see the issue here, any more than I have a problem with capital punishment, which if I remember correctly, you also do not agree with.

As far as unraveling anything, there shouldn't be difficulty in differentiating between Torah (handed out and commanded to be followed by all Israel forever), and a instruction specifically given for that time in history. I do not have the time to pull up all the references on this unfortunately, and won't bother since no one here would care anyway.

Well, isn't marriage supposed to be a life-long commitment between two people that they will stay together and not stray for the rest of their lives? I guess it could theoretically be extended beyond two faithful people, but I can at least understand how it makes sense. I personally am not particularly interested in practicing polygamy though.

Yeah, I am not trying to promote polgamy, just pointing out what I see as a ludicrous double standard. What is better? For me to have a book full of booty calls, or for me to marry and support several women? I am not arguing that the latter situation is best.

Where this analogy fails is that, despite claims otherwise, metal does not really influence one's worldview and does not affect others. Scene kids fighting ninjas only make themselves look dumb, repressing women hurts others. As metal fans, it's easier to brush off the bad parts of metal when it's just bad music and stupid behavior. I think even intelligent, decent muslims (like our friend hexwind) should have a harder time brushing off the problems with their faith.

I disagree entirely. As a person who believes in the Bible, I have an entirely different view and application than the majority who also claim to do so. This is equivalent to having different tastes in metal, or interpreting the same bands/songs differently. This is not the fault of metal but fault in the person.

Just because some redneck likes beating his wife while listening to Primal Concrete Sledge, doesn't mean that it's Pantera's fault for the guy beating his wife, or that I even listen to Pantera at all. But we are both still "metalheads", and may both listen to some of the same bands and get entirely different things from the music.

 

[hexwind]

Being that I work in the single most Arabic concentrated part of the fucking PLANET outside of the Middle East I think I have some ability to say it is absurd just how controlling a faith Islam can be.

Fathers will allow their sons to run around the store trashing it up without saying anything, but with so much as looking at something they want the girls will be yelled at.

I once got yelled at by a customer for helping position this lady who I was taking a passport picture of because she wouldn't listen to me (or was just one of those fucking idiots who somehow got into the US without speaking English) and I guess basically the guy wanted my head because I touched his wife - on the fucking ARM.

Then again I know many Muslims who are nothing like this and I am on very good terms with those that aren't, but the ones that are like that are absolute scum.

I agree. Thanks God we have no such assholes here, or at least, they aren't big in number.
Middle east, with all its weird interpretations of religious stuff and policies and rules is one fucked up issue that needs to be wiped out and rebuilt again. oh wait.. i think the whole world needs this.

 

[damnromulans]

What weird interpretations are you talking about?

You have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. You have the right that they should not defile your bed and that they should not behave with open unseemliness. If they do, God allows you to put them in separate rooms and to beat them but not with severity. If they refrain from these things, they have the right to their food and clothing with kindness. Lay injunctions on women kindly, for they are prisoners with you having no control of their own persons.

 

[Einherjar86]

This thread became quite the hot topic, huh?

And if God is going to send me to Hell for not believing in him when he hasn't provided any decent evidence of his existence, then he can go fuck himself, because I don't want to spend and eternity around a deity who is that logically backwards anyway.

How do you verify something scientifically that would assumably happen outside the laws of the universe? I am curious.

How do the pious have certain knowledge of things that happen outside the known laws of the universe? I don't mean faith, I mean that many religious folks feel that they know for a fact god exists.

We are insane, duhr.

"In this technological perspective, ultimate goals like serving God, society, our fellows, or even ourselves no longer make sense to us."

"In the face of the totalizing tendency of the technological artwork, the earth’s resistance to total ordering shows up as a source of what Kuhn calls anomalies. What cannot be ordered up is treated as recalcitrant human beings who are deviant and must be reformed or as natural forces that have yet to be understood and mastered."

~Hubert Dreyfus

Although religion still maintains a firm and persuasive grip on today's society, we are more nihilistic than ever, and religious people are being ushered more and more into the category of the "deviants." We are moving in a logical and rational (and ultimately technological) direction at an unnerving, and possibly catastrophic speed.

And here ends my prophetic rambling (for now ).

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

I hope you know why I gave you that name.

It either has to do with a) My Former screen name, b) My Avatar, or c) The "Black Sea Rivalry" of dictators of the former Soviet Republics Of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

 

[hexwind]

What weird interpretations are you talking about?

well
Arabic is very vast language,so Quran and Hadith aren't that easy to interpret and consequently you won't get an accurate translation. Here is a verse from the Quran about this issue :

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).

- Verses 4:34-36

The underlined term is "idribuhunna" in Arabic. If you check its meaning in a dictionary you'll find out that it has more than one meaning. The root of this word is daraba: to beat, to strike, to hit, to separate, to part.
The very same term has been used in the Quran many times in different contexts, the term changes its meaning depending on the context.
That's where the confusion and the "weird interpretations" occurs. It only means leave them, or go abroad off them (wives) not beat them.
Arabs don't use Standard Arabic for their everyday's talk, they use dialect, which is derived from Standard Arabic. And many, many words are used in both dialect and Arabic yet they don't have the same meaning at all. Daraba (idribuhunna only means "beat them (femaleS)" when used in its "hit" context) is one of those words, I never used Daraba to say "leave" or "sperate" or anything, i use other terms. So basically interpreters sometimes confuse dialects with Standard Arabic.

Sorry for the poor explanation due to my poor English hehe, if you, or anybody else, wants some further explanations you can PM and i'm more than glad to argue about that

 

[metal_wrath]

well
Arabic is very vast language,so Quran and Hadith aren't that easy to interpret and consequently you won't get an accurate translation. Here is a verse from the Quran about this issue :



The underlined term is "idribuhunna" in Arabic. If you check its meaning in a dictionary you'll find out that it has more than one meaning. The root of this word is daraba: to beat, to strike, to hit, to separate, to part.
The very same term has been used in the Quran many times in different contexts, the term changes its meaning depending on the context.
That's where the confusion and the "weird interpretations" occurs. It only means leave them, or go abroad off them (wives) not beat them.
Arabs don't use Standard Arabic for their everyday's talk, they use dialect, which is derived from Standard Arabic. And many, many words are used in both dialect and Arabic yet they don't have the same meaning at all. Daraba (idribuhunna only means "beat them (femaleS)" when used in its "hit" context) is one of those words, I never used Daraba to say "leave" or "sperate" or anything, i use other terms. So basically interpreters sometimes confuse dialects with Standard Arabic.

Sorry for the poor explanation due to my poor English hehe, if you, or anybody else, wants some further explanations you can PM and i'm more than glad to argue about that

Whether or not that verse commands men to beat their wives or to leave them, which is hard to believe since it says in various places in the Quran to beat them lightly not using a big stick... There are also verses which allow and instruct on the holding of slaves or "slavegirls".

I believe the "Holy" books are not the word of God but were written by men, who received inspiration from beings that they received contact from and their own prejudices and beleifs influenced the writings. If you read about the Urantia book it is a similar case.

 

[hexwind]

Whether or not that verse commands men to beat their wives or to leave them, which is hard to believe since it says in various places in the Quran to beat them lightly not using a big stick... There are also verses which allow and instruct on the holding of slaves or "slavegirls".

Can you provide verses or just the Surah please.

I believe the "Holy" books are not the word of God but were written by men, who received inspiration from beings that they received contact from and their own prejudices and beleifs influenced the writings. If you read about the Urantia book it is a similar case.[/QUOTE]

You cannot accept it without examining. If there were no "scientific wisdom" in that book (among other stuff in it) i would never embrace Quran.

 

[cookiecutter]

I disagree entirely. As a person who believes in the Bible, I have an entirely different view and application than the majority who also claim to do so. This is equivalent to having different tastes in metal, or interpreting the same bands/songs differently. This is not the fault of metal but fault in the person.

Just because some redneck likes beating his wife while listening to Primal Concrete Sledge, doesn't mean that it's Pantera's fault for the guy beating his wife, or that I even listen to Pantera at all. But we are both still "metalheads", and may both listen to some of the same bands and get entirely different things from the music.

The difference is that a metal band/song makes no claim of trying to influence its listeners behavior, whereas religion does it in a very explicit way. A sane person is not going to listen to a metal song (even a violent one) and then believe that is acceptable behavior. A sane person could easily read that passage Krampus posted and, having been taught that it is God's word, believe that he has the right to beat his wife. Can it be boiled down to "religion's fault"? I don't think so, but religion is an extremely powerful cultural force in many people's lives, and I do think it can encourage negative behavior.

I agree. Thanks God we have no such assholes here, or at least, they aren't big in number.
Middle east, with all its weird interpretations of religious stuff and policies and rules is one fucked up issue that needs to be wiped out and rebuilt again. oh wait.. i think the whole world needs this.

I'm curious, where are you from if you don't mind me asking?