Phi for All

! Moderator Note Your dissatisfaction with relativity is noted. Please do NOT hijack this thread by continuing to inject non-mainstream concepts into mainstream threads.

OK, let's take some examples: Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Turkey, Albania, Lebanon and Uzbekistan are examples of countries with a majority of Muslim citizens led by a secular government. So Islam can be compatible with secularism, as long as we don't use YOUR version of it. And when we do, you've been using the Special Pleading fallacy, despite a lack of relevant differences, to claim the Muslims you're talking about are different. Gambia, Guinea, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Northern Cyprus, Palestine... again, all countries with a secular government and a majority Muslim population. There has been and continues to be secularism in Islam. The only rigid, fossil-like, unchangeable perspective I see here is yours. It's causing you to use the Guilt by Association fallacy. As many have pointed out, this is the No True Scotsman fallacy. You're redefining what it is to be a Muslim in a way that makes your argument applicable, but narrows the definition to the point of meaninglessness. Your argument then becomes, "No true Muslim would behave differently than the way I'm describing it". You don't get to be automagically right in a discussion like this. Because your definition of this entire religion is so hidebound and narrow, it forces you into some False Dilemma fallacies as well. There are more possibilities involved here, but you're focused only on two, which is obviously harming your arguments. Why on Earth would we ever take what's written on a discussion board like that seriously? It's quite obviously a place for extreme opinions and lacks critical thought processes. You don't get decent evidence to support your arguments about Islam from a site that kicks you out for bringing up Israel. If I wanted to learn about the law, I would first have to determine what kind of law and for what territory. It does me little good to learn contract law for the UK if I'm trying to defend a thief in Kosovo. I think Islam is probably practiced at least as variably as the law, so I'm loathe to throw a blanket over it all and let your site "explain all things" Islam to me.

You shouldn't blame the hammer because you smashed your thumb. Science is a tool, and is best wielded by experts. Experts who are allowed to be as rigorous as the method demands. The experts are rarely the ones rushing to market or cutting corners or covering up negative results. This type of argument attempts to take the mistakes made and focus only on dire consequences and potential harm, ignoring all the benefits. As Arete points out, without science, we wouldn't know why we need to protect the ozone layer.

! Moderator Note First, welcome to the site. We appreciate your patience and understanding. Second, your thread was NOT placed in the Trash Can, it was moved to Speculations, which, due to the IP Board software layout and a bad design on our part, looks like it's a subset of the Trash Can rather than the other way around. A note should have been placed to let you know about the move, and the special rules that govern the Speculations section. I'm very sorry for our part in this misunderstanding. We're not trying to infer anything by the proximity of the two sections. It's more like, say, getting the table next to the kitchen. It's a little off-putting but the menu is still interesting.

So far, by the criteria used, I see no reason to single Islam out for special consideration in terms of its peaceful intent. Most religions have an undercurrent of violence mixed with a message of hope, and a veiled assumption that its followers are right and all others wrong. It's the nature of religion; some people become desperate where their eternal soul is concerned, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make sure they've chosen the right deity and the right way to worship it. A small percentage are fanatics, a small percentage are followers in name only, and the rest make up the bulk of the congregation and are fairly moderate. I would caution that we should be vigilant against fundamentalism in every group. In the US, we have to be careful about our religious extremists influencing legislation over abortion (they want life to legally start at conception, which would be nightmare for the courts) and education (e.g., the teaching of Intelligent Design). We see the so-called Tea Party trying to push a religious agenda that gives a disproportionate advantage to fringe perceptions. We have to stop religion from breaching the division between Church and State by getting tax breaks AND taking taxpayer funds in the form of faith-based initiatives. And you know what, we should probably keep an eye out to make sure Islamic groups aren't planning any violence also. Not because the religion itself is inherently more violent than any other, but simply because there is that potential with any group ideology.

Hypotheses don't try to prove anything. They provide a framework for you to gather evidence that supports or refutes your idea. If you can gather enough supportive evidence, and nothing or no one can refute the idea, then the hypothesis becomes more trustworthy, and others will add to the supportive evidence as well. Eventually, people will begin to refer to this well-tested, well-observed concept as a theory, never a proof (because we want to keep testing the theory, always). Theories are so stable you can use them to predict what will happen in a certain situation, and that's one of the things that makes the scientific method so valuable to us.

Personally, I haven't been trying to compare Islam with Christianity. I bring up other religions only to show that the criteria being used to judge Islam is not exclusive to it, and is therefore suspect. You can't say one is violent because its holy book says violent things without applying that to all. The Bible has a lot more violent verses in it, but it's a much bigger document, The Quran has more violence for its size, but so what? I distrust that as a good metric, especially since Islam was formed when the Christian church was preaching peace with swords from horseback. I can see how open violence would seem more honest to early Muslims. So far, one side of this discussion seems to be focused on the literal interpretation of religious text and the actions of a fanatical splinter minority to support the allegation that Islam is inherently a violent religion. But reality shows that the majority of Muslims aren't like the rabid zealots we see helping media agendas. How is this evidence countered? So far, it's been claimed that no true Muslim would do anything other than follow the Quran literally, And that Muslims everywhere could follow a Hitler-like leader who used Islamic doctrine to unite disparate believers (the much feared jihad). Both are fallacious arguments, it's been shown to be so, yet the arguments persist, indicating that some proselytizing is going on here. Can we drop the fallacies along with the copy/paste ranting? This could be an awesome discussion but we have to be willing to drop the dogma and talk about real life, not simply push our opinions on others with no thought of critical reasoning other than to win a debate. There's no proof involved here, just evidence to support or refute our claims, so can we focus on that and stop trying to prove something? This Pew study indicates that most Muslims don't support extremism in the name of Islam. It shows the vast majority of Muslims in Pakistan, Germany and the US feel that suicide bombing of civilians is NEVER justified to defend Islam from it's detractors. I feel the only explanation I can trust at this point is that Islam has the potential, like any other ideology, to be used violently if its followers adopt a literal translation of its sacred documents. I don't see the majority doing this, so I can't trust an explanation that the religion itself is inherently violent.

! Moderator Note OK, stop making new threads on this. I'm not going to try to merge other responses. And if your theory hypothesis hasn't been tested, please put it in Speculations next time. And please be aware we have special rules for this section.

It's been pointed out in this thread that Jesus told his followers he wasn't here to change anything in the Bible, and that they were all still subject to the 600+ laws in the Torah. If you interpret any of those laws literally, you could be stoned or exiled for wearing a cotton/polyester shirt, or for not marrying your brother's wife if he dies, and you might also get to keep the virgins after you kill all the males and non-virgins in that family you beat in court. So that's common ground to all the Abrahamics. Please don't bring it up again. Literal, modern interpretation of vague, ancient texts is BAD, can we agree on that? It's UNTRUSTWORTHY. And it doesn't show that the religion is bad, it just shows it can be interpreted that way. The Hitler thing is a slippery slope argument. It may be valid but it can be fallacious, and often is. I also dislike arguments that point to the actions of religious founders from several centuries ago and try to conflate them with modern interpretation. When I read about the current Pope's interpretation of doctrine, I certainly don't expect the Spanish Inquisition (well, no one does, historically). Why would I assume that modern Islamic countries would declare war on another country that tried to move away from Islam?

It's been shown that literal interpretations of other religious texts make those religions look violent as well. Lots of raping, pillaging and murdering being condoned in all the Abrahamic churches. If you apply this argument to one, it MUST be applied to the others. Literal interpretation is NOT supporting your argument. Do you see that? And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop telling me what "so called radical Muslims" know, unless you've questioned them all. This may be the religion section, but it's a section on a science forum, and we need to be more rigorous and less general than this. Please stop trying to win the argument and just talk to us. Why do you assume a minority sets the tone for how the majority worships their deity? Isn't it much more likely that the majority fall into the broader moderate category, as is the case in most large populations? Your argument seems to say that fringe elements represent the true nature of a large group, and historically that's been shown false many times. I'm not saying that Islam is not capable of being used violently, but you're not doing a good job of supporting the claim that Islam's followers are all inherently violent because of the religion they were born into.

This statement again condemns Islam based on a universally accepted premise that you have yet to support in a meaningful way. And you won't be able to either. In your own words, "[islam] may be studied objectively and apart from how anyone else practices or chooses to interprets [sic] it." I don't think anyone could approach the study of a religion the size of Islam objectively without a focus on the practices of its followers. Your arguments are based on doing exactly what you fear Muslims are doing, taking a literal, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam's teachings. I've seen others do this with Christianity as well, pointing to grisly verses in the Bible and demanding that it be adhered to immediately or a paradox will be declared. Look, I was really hoping to rationally discuss (with other minds that aren't already completely made up) why so many people fear this religion. I knew if we dialed back the hate-speech and got rid of the generalizations and conspiracy and prejudice in our arguments that this discussion would eventually get around to something really interesting. I still see a lot of copy/paste from the haters, but I'm seeing less of that and more original thought and I like it, I really do. I can't talk to people about this who only want to win an argument; I want some real input without the rhetoric. I observe a small minority of Muslim worshipers gaining worldwide infamy through violent means, often quoting religious scripture. I've also observed that there is a great deal of misinformation spread about Islam that supports political and commercial agendas (e.g., much of the propaganda the Bush administration used to promote an attack on Iraq, naming military operations with Islamic connotations - Operation Infinite Justice). I also observe that the majority of Muslims I know and those who live in communities alongside others cultures and religions don't agree with the actions of the fundamentalists. Pointing at verses in the Quran and demanding they be interpreted literally isn't something these people do, so I have to question any stance that says this has to be the benchmark to determine if their religion is basically peaceful or not.

I've been to Unitarian Universalist churches before. They seem to focus on less of the dogma and more on the concept of faith within religion, and often have guest speakers from other religions, looking for the commonalities rather than the differences. Could people form a major church based on the concept that "something" is going to happen after you die, and how you live your life on Earth is going to prepare you for whatever "something" you'll experience after your consciousness leaves this body, and whatever that "something" is it's going to be unique to the individual believer? This has always seemed like the best way to eliminate the negative aspects and focus more on what's real to the believer.

I'll give this a bump. I'm no chemist, but I think gum's lack of solubility with water is the culprit here. The same property keeps gum from absorbing saliva and dissolving like normal food would. Thus it also resists cleaning, since you can't use water to break it down or cause it to lose its grip on porous materials like asphalt (which also has water repellent properties).

I blame ydoaPs, actually. He lives in Indiana, and they insist on setting their time zones based on whether they get their television feed from Chicago (to the west) or Cincinnati (to the east), rather than geographically the way the rest of us do it. Some counties in Indiana are further east, yet an hour behind counties to the west of them. IP Board is based in Virginia, and must see this as extremely silly, so they don't bother to make their software work for everyone. Conclusion: ydoaPs is a Glee addict, so the rest of us must suffer. [/under the bus throwing]

The appeal to the common man seems achievable, and I'm not sure you can ever rid religion of its angst, so concentrating on removing the contempt would seem most beneficial. For believers, there is usually a lot at stake (immortal soul, eternal afterlife good, eternal afterlife bad) and I think there is a basic need to know that you're worshiping the right being. That can automatically create at least some contempt for those who believe otherwise. I think there are already quite a few branches of existing religions that offer a more modern perspective on their faith. Perhaps those branches might recognize their need for unity and join together to form a new church more in keeping with modern society.

I've never looked at it that way before. I always assumed it was more laziness. The same laziness that leads some people to skip over all that tedious studying of science can sometimes lead them to inventing other people who will agree with their less than rigorous ideas.

In this case, the verb (registered) relates to its noun (this site) as a location where you've arrived, so we use "at" as a preposition to express that relationship. We might use "to" if we wanted to express motion with regard to the noun (for instance, you could say, "I gravitated to this site because I love science"). Since you have to already be at this site to register, the motion of moving here is not implied, so "at" is a better choice. The preposition "on" is normally used to express a kind of physical contact, usually as part of a surface. However, we're using "on" to describe using certain modern tools, like being "on" your computer (without being physically on top of it, or even in contact with it), or "on" the internet, so using "on" in this context is not an incorrect choice ("I registered on this site because I really love science"). Btw, your sentence here (the one I quoted) is very well punctuated. Grammar is good, too. Another way of saying this is, "Can you elaborate on why you used 'at' in the third line?" or simply, "Why did you use 'at' in the third line?" Also, I agree with iNow, reading and writing immersion is a great way to learn a language. Being here will help because you get to read and write about something you love!

This is true, and oddly enough it seems that a fundamentalist stance is usually what breaks up that relationship. In the US, at least, we have a lot of wealthy businessmen who still think evolution is "just a theory". Texas is very wealthy, but there is a large constituency that is against teaching critical thinking in the classroom because they believe it erodes their authority as parents. It's causing their children to question concepts the parents don't want questioned, mainly religion but also corporal punishment and lifestyle choices. I'm probably guilty of more leniency when it comes to Islamic followers in uneducated countries. I truly feel their lack of secular education is largely responsible for their adherence to religious fundamentals. It's all they know, it's all they're being taught, they have little else. The promise of paradise at the end of a miserable life is enticing. But when you learn that you aren't being punished by your god, that you simply need to keep your babies cleaner, and boil the water before you drink, it means you're not so much at the mercy of the unknown, you can have control of your life. Perhaps this will help them learn that violence is a poor option.

There was a gentleman from a South American country recently who came up with a cheap way to light homes in poor countries during the day that don't have windows, using plastic 2-liter bottles, some bleach and water. He didn't make any money from it but he's very proud that his invention is helping millions of people around the world. I thought that was an interesting project.

Welcome to SFN. You're doing very well, John. I made some corrections (in red) to your post; consider the following: How is it going? My name is John and I'm a new member at this site. I registered to at this site because I really love science and because i want to improve my English. Do you have some tips on how i can improve my English? Thanks in advance Punctuation helps with understanding, too.

Is that your goal?

I would also add education to the list. A secular education helps overcome much of the ignorance that fuels violence. Rational explanations of natural phenomena go a long ways to helping people understand the world around them. Education removes much of the frustration that comes with trusting your life to unknown, unseen forces.

This type of argument isn't going to help you at all. You cherry-pick one type of Christian attack, abortion clinics, and then tell me it conflates with all the bloodshed in the Middle East since the 1970s?! But it's through comparison that we see many religions have their fundamentalists, and the deeds of those fanatics are usually what the public hears about, and forms their opinions of the religion based on them. If you say Islam is an inherently violent religion based on it's teachings, then you need to examine what other religions are teaching their followers. I'm not saying everyone who follows Islam has peaceful intentions. Because I can't say that about any religion. So it seems like you're just bashing the parts of Islam you don't like, which is understandable, but you're trying to indict the whole religion to do so. Why is this? Why do you think this is acceptable logic? And you blame this all on Islam? You don't think it has anything to do with democratic reform, or the fact that many of these countries have recently undergone changes in political leadership? How much of this unrest has been engineered by the West to keep these countries from banding together? There was a study done at Texas Tech that showed, while religious beliefs themselves didn't lead to an increase in domestic violence in the home, fundamentalist Christian homes were much more likely to be violent. http://courses.ttu.edu/jkoch/Research/Koch%20Ramirez%20Religion%20and%20Partner%20Violence%20Final%20Feb%2009.pdf This supports the concept that it's fundamentalists who find violence an acceptable solution more often than others. The news, being a business, owned by other businesses, is giving lots of air time to fundamentalists all over the world. There is certainly violence out there but a great deal of the news coverage of it is sensationalized, and I don't trust it fully. Countries have been led into war using artfully placed media, and many corporations get rich from unrest. I'm not religious at all, but I would be offended at having my religion's perception tarnished by fundamentalists and the media who give them their voice. Terrorism relies on marketing, and in this business model the terrorists don't have to pay for advertising.

! Moderator Note Bump. An inappropriate response was removed, but the thread is still alive.

In a timely manner?