Poll: Who's more intolerant?

[Goat Boy©]

Conversion by the sword or conversion by the sword of the mouth? Both religions have a history of using violence to coerce and control.. Here is an interesting story. St. Peter was hanging out collecting large amounts of money - after Jesus instructed people to sell their property and bring the cash over to the church. The cash was to be put in a common trust for all supposedly.

One man comes in an lies about how much he got for his place and trys to short change Peter. Peter strikes such terror into the man that he drops dead with a heart attack. Word gets out to the rest of the village and surrounding area that if you don't pay up in full that Peter will frinking kill you...I would say that this shake down done by early Christendom was a terrorist action to say the least. It was extortion under threat. No one likes to talk about the fact that when the dead guys wife comes in - Peter terrifys her also and threatens her with joining her dead spouse that the boys buried out back.

Islam is essentially at where Christianity was a few centuries ago. It will mature too. When was the last time you heard about Judaism killing people? Oldest one of the big 3, matured first.

They're all still bigoted, intolerant, violent and written in blood, it's just a matter of how much of the text the believers choose to follow.

[Goat Boy©]

Actually, I'd say the most intolerant people are non-religious. The most brutal and bloody mass murders have been comitted in the name of political, atheistic ideologies such as Communism and Nazism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naziism#Religion

Hitler did what lots of Religious folk do. Mixed a few together, and made some up to suit himself. Nazism is certainly not atheist though.

[Moonlight Graham]

Worst poll ever

I will cast a write in vote for you, for making this poll. You are the most intolerant for thinking a group of people as a whole can be intolerant. We all make our own decisions.

Agreed. What an ignorant poll.

Jerry, i probably could count on one hand how many Muslims you've had more than a 5 minute conversation with.

[WIP]

Historically, Muslims tolerated the other Abrahamic religions -- "people of the book," but since the founding of the State of Israel, all of the Arab countries have purged their Jewish populations, and Christian populations in Egypt, Palestine and (since the Iraq Invasion) Iraq are being purged from those countries as well.

Secularism has never taken hold in the Muslim World, although there were at least two attempts: Turkey and Pakistan. Turkey only remains nominally secular at the point of a gun (Islamists and other groups that threaten to change the constitution are overthrown by the military on a regular basis), and Pakistan is one step from being turned into a Taleban state.

In the Muslim World, the trend over the last half century has been for increased religious interference in government and law, not less, so looking on from the outside, it's hard to figure how they are ever going to be tolerant enough to co-exist peacefully with non-Muslims.

[Wild Bill]

In the Muslim World, the trend over the last half century has been for increased religious interference in government and law, not less, so looking on from the outside, it's hard to figure how they are ever going to be tolerant enough to co-exist peacefully with non-Muslims.

Actually, you've opened up a ray of hope! The mass emigration of Muslims to the western countries has mostly been the more educated and progressive individuals. There are certain exceptions, like some of the fanatic imams that preach in some immigrant communities but even those I suspect are fighting an uphill battle with their youth in their new countries, who for the most part are working their butts off to shed much of their parents' attitudes and to fit in to the domestic youth culture.

I know it can be a trial for us older folks but take a moment to watch a pop music song and dance artist video. Watch the background dancers and try to spot how many different cultural groups are included in the overall picture. You'll see the mainstream "white bread" dance moves but intermixed will be dancers clothed in both hiphop styles and Hindu garments, doing dance moves that stress commonalities between them. I've seen some young Chinese representation as well. The marketing "suits" have made some obvious decisions about the values of today's western youth culture.

Leaders of more primitive fundamentalist muslim cultures must be facing a challenge, even if they haven't recognized it yet. I've read Steyn's book and accept his point about population demographic changes and replacement birth rates but I wonder if he hasn't made a large enough allowance for the "rock and roll and blue jeans" factor that helped to bring down the Berlin Wall. Youth culture tends to strive to more freedom, not less. That means they would seek to shed some of their parents' values and adopt western ones in their place. "Taliban' type leaders face a drain of more tolerant citizens to western emigration, being left with an incumbent population that loses numbers to acts of violence.

I'm describing trends of course and these are only generalizations. This doesn't mean that there are NO fanatics among many of the new immigrants! There are certainly a significant number and we must be vigilant towards them but it would be a mistake to ignore what is happening with by far the larger number of more tolerant and responsible bodies.

Fanatical cultures are experiencing a drain of their better individuals, leaving them perhaps with an increasing concentration of more intolerant and for want of a better word, less sophisticated types. Using those that are left as suicide bombers doesn't help their numbers either.

If this is the case our cultures may be changed less than some of us fear, and not always in negative fashions. We just have to keep the violence under control long enough to swamp it out and smother it.

Meanwhile, as Hamas types keep destroying more than they build they obviously will end up trying to survive on nothing but rubble. They are inherently parasitical, in that they cannot produce necessities while so busy engaged in destruction. They are dependent on the rest of the world for aid. As long as their education is almost exclusively religious and anti-Israel propaganda they are never going to be able to build anything more than subsistence agriculture, let alone high tech industry. Luddites can't prosper on their own. The most they can do is rob or beg from others.

We're taking their cream while they are foolish enough to make it happen themselves!

[Rue]

I won't vote. Intolerance of other cults is the foundation of abrahamic religion. IMO they're both just as bad.

Congrats. You have responded to a question by criticizing it for being intolerant by uttering an anti-semitic slur.

By the way next time you want to slur an entire group of people try do a better job then using the phrase "abrahamic religion".

If I did not know any better I would think you used that expression to make yourself sound like a Muslim in a further effort to stir the pot.

If I were to guess I would think you are neither a Muslim or a Jew but are a member of the cult known as the "Putzites" that not so obscure cult known for its Putzim ( also referred to as putzs) who frequent many places in North America and often go skinny dipping this time of year.

pBy the way next time Please signal next time you turn into my lane on the 401 and you might want to pull up your pants because when you crouch or kneel I see the cracks in your arguement.

Edited January 3, 2009 by Rue

[daniel]

Mr. Push-Poll does it again.

[White Doors]

Congrats. You have responded to a question by criticizing it for being intolerant by uttering an anti-semitic slur.

By the way next time you want to slur an entire group of people try do a better job then using the phrase "abrahamic religion".

If I did not know any better I would think you used that expression to make yourself sound like a Muslim in a further effort to stir the pot.

If I were to guess I would think you are neither a Muslim or a Jew but are a member of the cult known as the "Putzites" that not so obscure cult known for its Putzim ( also referred to as putzs) who frequent many places in North America and often go skinny dipping this time of year.

pBy the way next time Please signal next time you turn into my lane on the 401 and you might want to pull up your pants because when you crouch or kneel I see the cracks in your arguement.

Uhh.... Isn't Christianity an Abrahamic religion too?

A little heavy on the Ant-Semetic button Rue..

[WIP]

Uhh.... Isn't Christianity an Abrahamic religion too?

A little heavy on the Ant-Semetic button Rue..

Yes it is.....they're all distant cousins.

In other news, I came across an interview with this NY Times reporter about the new Muslim televangelists who are presenting a sort of - Rick Warren or Joel Osteen version of Islam - a little lighter and friendlier than the ranting mullahs on Arab TV who make endless appeals for jihad against Israel, the United States, Europe, apostates etc. etc. etc. If you read the gloomiest Western analysts of Islam, such as Robert Spencer, Bat Ye'or and even Ibn Warraq, they paint a picture of a religious - political system that is immune to self-examination, self-criticism, and moderation. Spencer, in particular, claims that moderate Muslims are just Muslims who don't know their religion, and that the devout are fighting in Afghanistan or Gaza. They all see a dark future with a growing Muslim World that is growing more aggressive, and will eventually conquer the world or die trying.

But, assuming that Muslims in the Arab World and elsewhere have interests similar to ours, is there a possibility that a move towards moderation will win out over rigid adherence to doctrine? There is some question about just how moderate the new Muslim TV preachers like Ahmad al-Shugairi really are; his appearance and presentation seem to be much more modern than his core message....although the same thing can be said about Rick Warren. Nevertheless, the popularity of the new evangelists may be a signal that new generations of Muslims want to improve the quality of this life rather than die on a battlefield in the hope of getting a future reward.

[LesterDC]

Actually, I'd say the most intolerant people are non-religious. The most brutal and bloody mass murders have been comitted in the name of political, atheistic ideologies such as Communism and Nazism.

We could broaden the scope and say that anything which follows a doctrine dogmatically are the most intolerant people (obviously?). The Nazis, Stalinists and fundamental religious people

[daniel]

We could broaden the scope and say that anything which follows a doctrine dogmatically are the most intolerant people (obviously?). The Nazis, Stalinists and fundamental religious people

That argument has been directly addressed in The God Delusion

[scribblet]

I don't get it, how can you be a muslim of 'other religions'

Muslims of other religions

Other religions of muslims

what does it mean

[Wild Bill]

Historically, Muslims tolerated the other Abrahamic religions -- "people of the book," but since the founding of the State of Israel, all of the Arab countries have purged their Jewish populations, and Christian populations in Egypt, Palestine and (since the Iraq Invasion) Iraq are being purged from those countries as well.

Secularism has never taken hold in the Muslim World, although there were at least two attempts: Turkey and Pakistan. Turkey only remains nominally secular at the point of a gun (Islamists and other groups that threaten to change the constitution are overthrown by the military on a regular basis), and Pakistan is one step from being turned into a Taleban state.

In the Muslim World, the trend over the last half century has been for increased religious interference in government and law, not less, so looking on from the outside, it's hard to figure how they are ever going to be tolerant enough to co-exist peacefully with non-Muslims.

You know, we might ask a member of the Ba'hai faith how he or she feels about the tolerance of Muslims. Do a google. It's an eye opener!