Where is Liberty and freedom? Will it someday become extinct?

[Woberts]

If they feel that Christians are their enemy it is because of ignorant people like you spewing lies and stoking the fires of hate.

Yeah, because refusing to allow someone equal rights because of something that doesn't affect you whatsoever isn't something that most Christians do, it's those Liberals!

 

[Poseidon Soter]

It seems we're agreed that the Quran is NOT perfect, clear, or easy to understand?

I think if one reads it and understands it as a package, it's pretty clear.

I have heard many "Islamic Scholars" go through various forms of mental gymnastics to squeeze positive messages out of the book. (BTW, "Christian Scholars" are in a very similar boat.)

There's plenty of positive messages in the book - one doesn't have to do mental gymnastics to find them.

The problem I have with this orientation is that it doesn't scale well. For 1400 years, these attempts to "properly interpret" the scripture have led to millions of murders, endless sectarian strife, and the mostly regressive state of affairs we see throughout the Muslim world today.

Humans will do that.

So by all means, do cognitive backflips and satisfy yourself that the Quran is all cherries and rainbows

I'm not sure what you mean by that. There are certainly things in there that aren't very palatable to modern ears (palatable to modern ears! what a silly thing to say, but I think you know what I mean)

the reality is that untrained Imams indoctrinate poorly schooled Muslims (by the hundreds of millions)

Yup.

Far too often - around the world - Muslims believe WHAT THE WORDS SAY. This makes sense. If you're not a scholar with an agenda, and you read the words in the most simple and natural way. You'll walk away with a confusing, supremacist, misogynistic, anti-semitic, anti-secular, homophobic, entitled, and combative view of the world.

You have to take the whole thing as a package and understand the context. I certainly do not believe it is timeless. As I have said already it is of and for its time.

 

[Poseidon Soter]

How about in law ?

Is there something specific you want to debate?

What about taxation for non believers ?

What about it? Believers had their tax, non-believers theirs.

Or death for those on the battlefield who wouldn't convert ?

Or to put it differently, it's a battlefield, people are killing each other. But Muslims hold out the possibility of mercy if you are willing to join their side. Seems reasonable to me.

Why were there battlefields in the first place ?

People warred against each other. They still do. That's humans for you.

Who were, always, the aggressors ?

Sometimes Muslims, sometimes not.

Have you ever read what the muslims did to the Sikhs because they wouldn't convert ?

Yeah, the Muslims did some pretty terrible things to the Sikhs.

Why were they in India in the first place ?

To conquer it.

 

[oldbadger]

I am not saying anything about UK values or freedoms.

Then yiour post is pointless here.
Thread Title:-
Where is Liberty and freedom? Will it someday become extinct?
Much earlier, writing to another, I said that the UK is one of the best countries in the World for the above, and you butted in top tell me about your degree and knowledge of UK law ( ) and how you were going to post about it all....... and all I got was waffle.............

Bigotry, how is that. I simply stated that sharia courts have been authorized to deal with things that would been authorized that here would be dealt with in civil court, child custody, alimony, etc. I have also heard of, but I don't know if it is true, uniformed sharia compliance officers in parts of London, enforcing that law on practitioners of the religion of peace. I also read an article on a non muslim being told by one of these officers not to walk her dog on the public streets in one of these neighborhoods because it was "offensive", true ?Just reporting what I read. If it works for you, then go for it.

Oh I think you went further than that....... I have already told you that many religions hold their own courts and can often find solutions to civil matters which thus solve problems privately. So do many clubs!

Your reference to bigotry is interesting.How you could extrapolate that from what I posted, I haven;'t a clue.

If you think I'm going back to trawl, copy, paste your prejudices then think again.
In a thread about Liberty and Freedom you picked up on stuff about Islam, telling me about 'my' Islam etc........

But you don't actually have a clue, about our world, our criminal systems, our ways, it seems.

 

[oldbadger]

You abandoned the legal term entrapment and it's definition, to replace it with the not legal term "provocation". Isn't a courier carry a large amount of money a provocation to someone who wants to steal it ?

I was a real detective, investigating real crime, for many years. NOT a store guard that you seem to refer to as a detective.

I never referred to any store guard as a detective...... I mentioned commercial detective training.
I was a solicitor's detective about 2 days each week, and a retail investigators, commercial SO and retail SO trainer the other three days on various courses......... I am a qualified teacher as well as was a commercial detective.

Your claims simply amount to an AD HOMINEM appeal for attention, but when you write posts here it's your writiung that counts..... only.
And your writing seems to be very weal to me.

Neither I or the 42 person law enforcement agency I managed for 17 years ever had a complaint filed for racial discrimination or excessive force. The ratio of minorities and women in my dept. to males and whites far exceeded the ration in the community we served.

I was a University lecturer and had folk from your country attend my lectures. I did attend a basic academy many years ago, and many specialized ones since.

In exchanges with you in the past I have noticed your tendency to wander off topic in an accusatory fashion, and you are doing it again, here.

Oh no you don't!
You wrote to me on this thread, telling me about how good your knowledge of UK law is and how you were going to contend against my feelings about the UK.
Your pretty weak, despite all your claims about yourself.

We also had a case of a black muslim officer of Somali parents kill an unarmed white woman, what say ye ?

You alluded to an entire dept. in your country covering up numerous rapes. We haven't had anything like that here.

We have had some departments with corruption problems, like Chicago in the 1920's, or Denver in the late 1940's, but nothing on any scale for a long, long time. New Orleans has been a chronic problem because of very poor leadership, and poor training. Louisiana is a very poor state, and the culture of the city is very different from the rest of the country. Uniform standards have improved that Dept.

You need to keep in mind that the USA has a population of 350+ million people. Policing this huge population are state, county, and city police forces, many of them, with many officers. These tens of thousands go about their jobs professionally and responsibly every day, a very, very tiny percentage become bad apples, and they are very quickly weeded out.

It seems to me that you have a burning desire to turn this conversation a series of accusations about me, re being an "islamaphobe". First a phobia is an unnatural fear of something. I have no fear of muslims. Second, I think because your governments took in many millions of them for seemingly good reasons, and they are now affecting traditional British culture, you are hyper defensive of your system. I have said nothing that would lead you to any such conclusion. The problem is yours, not mine. It's your country, your laws, your population. Knock yourself out with multiculturalism if you choose, it is your choice.

We are done now. You have reached the point you always seem to reach, ad hominems and personal accusations. I shan't respond to you any further. Have a good day.

Havea good day.

Me? Ad Hominems?
That's you......

 

[icehorse]

I think if one reads it and understands it as a package, it's pretty clear.

Ok, so what are some of the main take-away ideas in this package?

There's plenty of positive messages in the book - one doesn't have to do mental gymnastics to find them.

Setting aside the oft-repeated, never demonstrated claim of Allah's mercifulness, lay some of those positive messages on us...

You have to take the whole thing as a package and understand the context

Can you summarize the proper context?

 

[shmogie]

Me? Ad Hominems?
That's you......[/QUOTE]

Yeah, because refusing to allow someone equal rights because of something that doesn't affect you whatsoever isn't something that most Christians do, it's those Liberals![/QUOT

And what rights are those that are being denied ?

 

[shmogie]

Is there something specific you want to debate?



What about it? Believers had their tax, non-believers theirs.



Or to put it differently, it's a battlefield, people are killing each other. But Muslims hold out the possibility of mercy if you are willing to join their side. Seems reasonable to me.



People warred against each other. They still do. That's humans for you.



Sometimes Muslims, sometimes not.



Yeah, the Muslims did some pretty terrible things to the Sikhs.



To conquer it.

No, there is nothing I want to debate. the koran, the hadith, and how they have been followed in the history of islam speak for themselves. There is nothing to debate, it is, what it is.

 

[godnotgod]

Seems you're using the word "freedom" in a way that doesn't bear much resemblance to how I understand the term... or how I’ve ever heard anyone besides you use it.

Have you experienced spiritual freedom?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Have you experienced spiritual freedom?

What do you mean by “spiritual?”

 

[Twilight Hue]

Of course we also have citizens arrests as well. You don't understand what legal entrapment is., A bait can isn't entrapment, nor is a female officer dressed up as a prostitute, nore, nor is buying drugs from a dealer. ENTRAPMENT exists when the specific idea to commit a crime comes from the police. A female police officer posing as a prostitute entraps when she says to a guy walking by "hey, you want to party" ? It is NOT entrapment if he walks up to her and says "hey girl, want to party?". A car sitting along side the street with the keys in it isn';t entrapment if a buffoon decides to steal it. It could only be entrapment if a cop says hey, you could get a car easily, it has the keys in it.

Your police have a specified number of hours where they can take someone into custody, and then try and make their case. If they can't, they must release before the expiration of that time.

We can't do that, we must have a prima facie case based upon probable cause before we take anybody into custody.

We can't arrest them with a period of time to curry around trying to make our case. Probable cause must exist first.

That's how I understand entrapment.

Sometimes though, it seems at times some methods go right into a legal gray area without actually being bona fide entrapment. Like having a "scripted" argument when parking the car in order to bring attention to it, hence the term bait car like wiggling the lure on a fishing line.

 

[shmogie]

That's how I understand entrapment.

Sometimes though, it seems at times some methods go right into a legal gray area without actually being bona fide entrapment. Like having a "scripted" argument when parking the car in order to bring attention to it, hence the term bait car like wiggling the lure on a fishing line.

True, but the fish never is forced to take the bait, he chooses to.

 

[godnotgod]

Have you ever read what the muslims did to the Sikhs because they wouldn't convert ? Boiled in oil, roasted over open fires, tortured for long periods, ripped into pieces while still alive. All authorized by the koran, because they weren't "the people of the Book" who could only be beheaded.

Sounds like tidbits from the Christian Hell. Muslims get you in this life; Christians get you in the next. Both are Abrahamic, both thoroughly nuts.

 

[godnotgod]

There is no ¨creeping Christianity¨ that is a figment of your paranoia and hate.

Oh yeah? Is that why Christianity is hell bent on converting India, Russia, China, and all of South America? Go ahead. Deny it.

 

[godnotgod]

True, but the fish never is forced to take the bait, he chooses to.

Bull! God KNEW that Adam and Eve had no choice but to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, having deliberately placed its succulence right in their path. But why is another story, one you Christians don't understand.

 

[godnotgod]

What do you mean by “spiritual?”

A bird raised in captivity has no knowledge of flight, and until it does, it is meaningless. I cannot explain 'spiritual' to you; it is not an experience based upon Reason. And no, I am not referring to mere belief; that is religion. But suffice it to say that the spiritual experience is the merging into one of the subject/object split in the mind, in which 'the observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation merge into a single Reality', because YOU are none other than that very Reality. IOW, you are the experience itself and not the 'experiencer of the experience'. Hope this helps.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have already told you about what the NT has to say about homosexuality. If they feel that Christians are their enemy it is because of ignorant people like you spewing lies and stoking the fires of hate.

So if homosexuals have a poor impression of Christianity, it's because of people like me who stoke fires of hatred in defense of their dignity and social equality, and not Christians themselves, who think of them as abominations?

It's never the Christians, right? The hatred is always from without.

The people still rule in a Representative Republic, and if their representatives select Supreme court justices who reflect the values of their constituents, I will tell you exactly what you would tell me if our roles were reversed, get over it.

Except that our roles are not reversed, and the Supreme Court's values were the same as mine. It's been 45 years now, and I'm just fine with it. It's people like you with their hair on fire over it that needs to get over that.

I see, so you support the idea that parents should not have a say in the education of their children,

Is your debating now reduced to this? If you had a rebuttal to what I actually wrote, you would have offered it. You preferred to attack your straw man instead. Although others are free to speculate, only you know why you felt that that was necessary.

There is no ¨creeping Christianity¨ that is a figment of your paranoia and hate.

More bad faith disputation from you. You really do aim low, don't you? Those that don't give obeisance and pay lip service to your religion must be hateful, right? This is what people call playing the Christian persecution card. People like you wave it frequently.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A bird raised in captivity has no knowledge of flight, and until it does, it is meaningless. I cannot explain 'spiritual' to you; it is not an experience based upon Reason. And no, I am not referring to mere belief; that is religion. But suffice it to say that the spiritual experience is the merging into one of the subject/object split in the mind, in which 'the observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation merge into a single Reality', because YOU are none other than that very Reality. IOW, you are the experience itself and not the 'experiencer of the experience'. Hope this helps.

No need for the condescension; people just use the word “spiritual” in many different ways, so I can’t tell what you mean by the world until you tell me which meaning you use.

But it seems you’re using the “impairment of the parts of the brain that generate our sense of self” meaning of “spirituality;” fine... but what does that have to do with freedom? Are you trying to describe these sorts of experiences as “spiritual freedom?”

 

[Poseidon Soter]

Ok, so what are some of the main take-away ideas in this package?

Here's 10 for starters:

1. One God, Creator of all things
2. Necessity of worshipping this One God
3. Series of very human Prophets around the world, all proclaiming the same universal Message
4. Importance of prayer/remembrance of God
5. Importance of fasting
6. Importance of concern for the welfare of others and charity, and of not hoarding wealth
7. Importance of justice
8. Essential equality of all people, including men and women though with differences in roles and therefore some rights and responsibilities
9. Importance of honesty
10. Importance of modesty

Setting aside the oft-repeated, never demonstrated claim of Allah's mercifulness, lay some of those positive messages on us...

See 6-10 above. I would particularly highlight 6 and 7.

Can you summarize the proper context?

Muhammad attempting to create a community of believers with the above hallmarks against a background of hostility and persecution from those seeking to uphold the status quo. Justice against a background of what was considered normal at that time (not least with regards to the often precarious position of women in society, the treatment of baby girls and orphans, and criminal punishment, which sanctions were harsh by today's standards).

 

[Poseidon Soter]

No, there is nothing I want to debate. the koran, the hadith, and how they have been followed in the history of islam speak for themselves. There is nothing to debate, it is, what it is.

Okay then.