Why do religious adherents claim that extremists aren't a part of their religion?

[LuisDantas]

At the very least the texs should be accurate of its core messages or it may as well be scrapped.

My comment was more tongue in cheek.

No it is not unreasonable as there are math and mathtext books which can be accurate with no room for confusion over say division and multiplication.

But religious texts are meant to be customizable as per the specific person's characteristics, environment and need, at least far as I understand their purpose to be. And I definitely do not mean that as a criticism of the texts, but rather of our expectations towards them.

If a text is only useful once one has attained good mental balance and religious wisdom, I don't think it can be said to hold religious significance. What good can a religion be if it does not know how to deal with actual people in a constructive way?

And if it is actually unsafe except in those privileged circunstances... well, then it is really not a good thing to have in any religion, now is it?

We also have human laws which

... are just about as good an evidence for the existence of a Devil as anyone could hope to ever meet. Or should I say that people hoping laws to further justice are that evidence instead?

supply context in when a death is murder or manslaughter. We already have texts which do not have the failures of ambiguity and contextual application.

That is either very debatable or something I emphatically deny outright, depending on what you mean exactly. I have no doubt that it is indeed impossible to have texts fulfilling a better role than that of an unavoidably limited, inherently defective crutch whenever the goal is to attain justice or religious wisdom.

To believe otherwise would be to believe that a text that is literally limited in meaning and scope and completely incapable of considering the variety and subtleties of real world situations - in fact, a text that has no cognition at all - is nonetheless still a better tool to reach or learn wisdom than the actual minds of living people.

And that, I fear, is not a belief that I can expect to ever hold or even truly respect. It is just a mythification of the most unproper and dangerous kind.

If we can do it now there is no reason why text from a God can not do the same. In fact this should be guaranteed given who God is.

That would probably be true if certain conceptions of God were accurate to reality. Such a conception would need a certain kind of power and also the desire to allow and arguably encourage static texts to be wiser than living people.

Perhaps more to the point, even then he would have to decide whether he wanted to go through the trouble of telling people outright that they should use their discernment instead of third-partying their religious responsibility to written texts.

Granted, I am not a theist. And one of the reasons why I am not is because many people seem to actually believe in such a God and even to expect to shame or scare me into believing in Him. I can't for the life of me decide whether they are being more disrespectful to me or to their own conceptions of God when they do. They expect me to feel ashamed of my disbelief and lack of desire to worship a God that is not even moderately wise by very human standards.

I expect better from both people and deities, and I see no reason why anyone would not.

People look at the OT for justification for violence. Lets not pretend there are no verses without violence. However the Bible is written as a narrative with context, the context is already present often enough. An issue is that the same figure of God command these acts of violence. The peaceful verse do not absolve the figure from promoting and command violence in the past.

Indeed. As scriptures go, the Bible is among the most troubled of all - or, perhaps, the most fortunate when we consider its acceptance as contrasted to the actual merits of the text itself. It lacks the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching or the inspirational qualities of the Gita. Worst of all, it is often understood as an authoritative guide despite failing quite utterly at that.

Abrahamic Faiths do have a problem with scriptures. A very serious problem.

I admit the position is a problem. However by accepting the fallacy maybe others will look at how ambiguous the text is and accept the fact that secondary sources are required to make sense of text which provides little to no context. Maybe there will be a shift as seen with forms of Christianity in which not everything is the literial word of God but words written by men. Demolish the religious doctrine and topple the authority figures behind this doctrine.

I will go all-out and say outright that the Abrahamic Faiths need to overcome their pride and adopt a Dharmic approach.

 

[WhatGod]

I will go all-out and say outright that the Abrahamic Faiths need to overcome their pride and adopt a Dharmic approach.

Ok, now that is some serious humble.

 

[Shad]

But religious texts are meant to be customizable as per the specific person's characteristics, environment and need, at least far as I understand their purpose to be. And I definitely do not mean that as a criticism of the texts, but rather of our expectations towards them. If a text is only useful once one has attained good mental balance and religious wisdom, I don't think it can be said to hold religious significance. What good can a religion be if it does not know how to deal with actual people in a constructive way? And if it is actually unsafe except in those privileged circunstances... well, then it is really not a good thing to have in any religion, now is it?

So those who do violence which is justified by their religion are practicing it correctly. This conflict with the claims that people are practicing it wrong. This also supports that each interpretation of the religion is equally true as any other. Hence just embrace the fallacy on an individual level. What is true for one is only true for this person. This goes back to the issue that the text is flawed as it allows people to cherry pick their own version.

... are just about as good an evidence for the existence of a Devil as anyone could hope to ever meet. Or should I say that people hoping laws to further justice are that evidence instead?

The point was that humans can create a system in which a law has parameters set, that we are capable of creating a text which is not ambiguous enough to vary between what is murder and what is manslaughter.

That is either very debatable or something I emphatically deny outright, depending on what you mean exactly. I have no doubt that it is indeed impossible to have texts fulfilling a better role than that of an unavoidably limited, inherently defective crutch whenever the goal is to attain justice or religious wisdom. To believe otherwise would be to believe that a text that is literally limited in meaning and scope and completely incapable of considering the variety and subtleties of real world situations - in fact, a text that has no cognition at all - is nonetheless still a better tool to reach or learn wisdom than the actual minds of living people.

Math is capable of provide a text in which there is no ambiguity. No room for misinterpreting addition with subtraction. Likewise if a text provides verse of peace and violence but fails to provide context one can add whatever context they wish. One can impose their interpretative context as the text has failed to provide one itself

And that, I fear, is not a belief that I can expect to ever hold or even truly respect. It is just a mythification of the most unproper and dangerous kind.

One can hold it true in isolated examples. If a sign says stop it means stop, there is no ambiguity in which someone interpretations it as go. The same with math.

That would probably be true if certain conceptions of God were accurate to reality. Such a conception would need a certain kind of power and also the desire to allow and arguably encourage static texts to be wiser than living people.
Perhaps more to the point, even then he would have to decide whether he wanted to go through the trouble of telling people outright that they should use their discernment instead of third-partying their religious responsibility to written texts.

If humans are capable of providing a a definitive meaning God can as well. We do have examples in which God lays down rules outright. Praying toward Mecca, the amount of prayers, etc.

Granted, I am not a theist. And one of the reasons why I am not is because many people seem to actually believe in such a God and even to expect to shame or scare me into believing in Him. I can't for the life of me decide whether they are being more disrespectful to me or to their own conceptions of God when they do. They expect me to feel ashamed of my disbelief and lack of desire to worship a God that is not even moderately wise by very human standards.

It just scaremongering. Many theists are held back by threats of their Gods if they even doubt or questioning it's commands. They expect others to be fearful of the same threats even those who do not believe in their God.

I expect better from both people and deities, and I see no reason why anyone would not.

As do I and this includes texts from a God.

Indeed. As scriptures go, the Bible is among the most troubled of all - or, perhaps, the most fortunate when we consider its acceptance as contrasted to the actual merits of the text itself. It lacks the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching or the inspirational qualities of the Gita. Worst of all, it is often understood as an authoritative guide despite failing quite utterly at that.

Yes an unverified authority used by it's representative authorities to keep their grip on the masses. It is a cycle in which people grant authority to people with an expertise in nonsense and the authority of nonsense.

Abrahamic Faiths do have a problem with scriptures. A very serious problem.

Yes because it deals in absolute laws which are placed on humanity. Yet these laws change suddenly when another mouth piece of God claims change. So in the end God is just a moral and cultural relativist. Which I just shows God is subjective rather than objective "truth"

I will go all-out and say outright that the Abrahamic Faiths need to overcome their pride and adopt a Dharmic approach.

Less ironfist more of a dialogue between intelligent entities.

 

[Shad]

This is completely disconnected to what we are discussing, namely violence and terrorism in the name of a religion in 2014. Yes Christians did use scripture to justify Slavery and many used it to end it and yes, many used Christian scripture to justify violence in the past but as I explained there is no justification in the NT for this and we are having to go back in time. This isn't a surprise because when a person is challenged to discuss Christian terrorism they have to delve back centuries or bring up one off nutters. We do not need to do this with Islam.

Slavery is violence against the individual and their rights. This is very relevant.

No - not my version at all but merely the fundamentals of the faith. I repeat, Christians are under the new covenant not the old. It is not my faith so please do not give in to speculation - I rejected Catholicism a long time ago because I deem it to be utter codswallop - as I do every religion for that matter.

This is your opinion. An opinion not shared by 100% of Christians.

Not the same thing at all. I am well aware of Christianities bloody past so I am not sure why you feel the need to point this out - I am also well aware of the profound role Christianity played in secularism - again please explain what relevance this has to the topic at hand

You are blasting Islam for the same crimes of Christianity. That you fail to see that the same issue could result in a transformation of Islam to one which is secular rather than politically religious. Moderates could throw out the fundamentalist radicals as Christians did with their conflicts and bloodshed against each other and others.

I see the current state of Islam entering a Reformation period in which various religious fanatics are fighting anyone opposed to their ideaology. Maybe people will remove religious figures from politics as it is this authority which is the base of power.

You will have to do better than quote George W Bush which is merely convenient to those who wish to show Christianity as still wrecking havoc or that there is nothing unique about Islamic terrorism. To think talking about George Bush and his "mission from God" allows the talk of Christian terrorism to follow is a complete non-Sequitar. Can you please explain to me how Christianities holy texts inform US policy for me. Evidence please - citing moronic statements which show a complete discordance between scripture and action will not do.

My example is one of religious rhetoric used to justify political actions. There is no need to invoke God if the cause stands on it's own merits. The use of religious rhetoric is just used as a rally crying to fool the masses that accept such drivel as justification. Jsutication which has been used repeatedly when the elite wanted to rally unwilling masses to a cause.