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The Forum > Article Comments > Faith, fervour and free speech > Comments

Faith, fervour and free speech : Comments

By Moira Clarke, published 25/9/2012

Instead, such outrage is reserved for a novel, a set of cartoons, or for a puerile and amateurish video ridiculing a religious military leader who died in the late seventh century.

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It is a pity that creationist Christians and Muslims do not look at and appreciate the real wonders of the universe. The time span since the first herders and farmers until now is infinitesimal compared to the age of our planet which is only one third the age of the earliest light now reaching our telescopes.
The short video at the following site is worth watching.
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/37/video/a/
Posted by Foyle, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 6:59:17 AM
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My dearest Foyle:

...The reverse could also be argued Foyle, The deeper science explores the physics of the universe, the more the mystery deepens, the more also, the complete and total insignificance of human kind must likewise dawn.

...Human ancestors were willing to draw conclusions of humanities total reliance on the physics of the universe, as it applied to their limited knowledge of the science of the universe, which varied through the course of human history, and extrapolate conclusions into a definition of religion.

...The same conclusions may just as easily be drawn by looking into the night sky with the naked eye and observing the immensity of what is “out there”, without the need to dissect their observations into finite scientific analysis.

...I think personally, scientists need to keep in touch with a reality of human frailty, in endeavours of exploration, perchance they fall victim to a misbelief that a concept of superior human intelligence trumps the omnipotence of God and his universe.
Posted by diver dan, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 10:45:41 AM
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Jay Of Melbourne. Imagree that " the temporal power of the papacy was expressed and understood quite differently to the powers of an Imam or a Rabbi. " to understand that difference one needs to distinguish between the 'political' and 'theological' aspects of the three great monotheisms. The political has to do with the organisation and running of society ie. 'power', whilst the theological deals with the underlying tennets of mans relationship with God. The exercise of this power and evolution of the various 'churches' reflected the socio/political norms of the time.

I also agree that the comparison of Nazizm and Islam is overly simplistic but, at the same time, one can readily argue that Muslims can be described as in 'thrall' and are in fact 'slaves' to the Koran. I think that you will find that Muslims are proud to be in this slavery.

to describe all those of the Umma as "willing followers of a genuinely inspired leader" is drawing a long bow to those living in the 7th 8th and 9th centuries. (and to an extent still today) They were 'willing' to the extend that having your head chopped off as the alternative.
Posted by Prompete, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 11:38:31 AM
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Cohenite. I agree that " Islamic diversity" is illusionary, in that the goal of Islam is to force, by any means necessary, the rule of Sharia and the Caliphate on the world.

However, I cannot see how " this, in fact, is the strength of islam in the modern era".

The appalling slaughter of Allawites, Shia and Sunni branches of Islam within Syria and evidenced in all those countries suffering the 'Arab spring' cannot be described as a 'strength'
Posted by Prompete, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 11:57:49 AM
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Diver Dan
They fail to realise the significance and power of religious morality juxtaposed with hypocrisy.
...One would think the experience over thousands of years with the hypocrisy of Catholicism, would be lesson enough; but it does seem that historic lessons have been lost on our modern society.

The West understands clearly the hypocrisy of the Catholic church from earlier times in our history.
Because it is our history; and we have seen what fundamentalist religions are capable of. That is why we look at the Muslim religion with horror! because we see it espousing the same ideas,that the Christian church did in centuries past.

A list of the dictates of fundamentalist religions throughout history
1. Kill the Heretics(Catholic religion). Kill the Infidel (Moslem religion)
2. Control the women and their fertility. ( both Catholic&Muslim religions.) why? Because the power base of any Religion depends on the number of believers and bums on seats. The Christian religion
still won't allow contraception but their followers today don't allow them to dictate how many children they should have.
3. Control the sex lives of everybody else with their ridiculous ideas and strange fear of anything sexual, as if sexual sin is worse than murder, torture and all kinds of other violence.

4. All those people outside of our religion aren’t pure, so we should be careful not to mix with them.The Moslems with their you’re are going to hell sign and we are not(because we are pure And holy?). Then there are the Quakers and Amish who are told not to mix with people on the outside because they are not holy or pure.
Religions are so predictable.

Maybe it is you who needs to look carefully at history and understand that the Muslim religion is exactly the same in its ideas and dictates as the earlier Catholic and Christian religion was and most other religions to boot, and understand that this the reason the West has secular government, because we know better than anyone else what we suffered at the hands of fundamentalist religions in our earlier centuries.
Posted by CHERFUL, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 10:05:23 PM
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Dear Foyle,
The main danger if kids are presented with evidence for creation is that they might stop believing in evolution. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're so worried about.

I looked at your 3 minute Youtube video on the evils of teaching creation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU&feature=player_embedded

And then I compared that video to a very similar one produced by the creationists themselves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xSi8g2ouCQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I found the creationist one more reasonable. Perhaps that's just me.

By the way, I pretty much agree with your comments above in your opening post, and the general thrust of the article. You seem to be saying that we need to challenge false ideas with free, open and informed debate. I agree with that. I just profoundly disagree with you as to which are the false ideas in need of challenging.
Posted by Dan S de Merengue, Thursday, 27 September 2012 1:28:54 AM
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