Dearest Foxy,

No, not many of us do, we struggle to differentiate between ideas and people, between religion and ideology, religion and culture, etc. But what if violence is condoned, even urged on, from the pulpit ?

My understanding is that this is happening against Rohingya Muslims in Burma, with Buddhist mobs being incited to attack and destroy villages and people. If it be so, then surely we mustn't hide behind 'tolerance' and 'neutrality' and 'evenhandedness' and pretend that it isn't the case. And 'tu quoque' - 'you too' - doesn't cut it either.

Meile,

Joe

Dear Is Mise,

Honour killings and wife bashing are not mandated by the Koran, but are optional and culturally-based.
Even if you cannot change the Koran, you can still change the culture.

Phillips:

The trouble with you Phillips is that you never give up and you never admit defeat. You simply just out last everyone else. This way you can convince yourself that they have all left the argument because you are too clever. You often ask people to argue with you and prove you are wrong but they know that even when they are right they will never get the satisfaction of their arguments because you always find a way of side-stepping or changing the subject or manipulating language.

They give up not because their arguments are not good enough but because you are too dishonest to admit that they are. Ultimately it is futile to argue with you if you hope to have any satisfaction of your arguments having penetrated their target and this is why we all argue in the first place.

People argue because they want to see the truth come to the fore but you are not interested in truth. You are only interested in trying to convince yourself that you are superior. When people walk away in frustration you interpret that as being caused by your superior intellect. You never give up because you need to keep convincing yourself of your superior intellect and you think that others might interpret your walking away as a sign of a weak intellect. This is how you operate – to protect your own view of yourself as a great thinker and debater.

It is easy for you to maintain this illusion because you are the sole judge of your own intellect and debating skills. There is no independent judge who would critique your posts according to the principles of debating, reason and logic so you can safely maintain your illusion.

It is an illusion and you take advantage of the forum format to hide behind that illusion. You have found a little niche where you can hide and maintain your own fantasy and that is what matters to you more than anything else.

phanto,

It appears you addressed me instead.

Of course, if that wasn't a mistake, then feel free to provide specific examples (LEGO could use your help).

LEGO,

Take heed.

<<... you are trying something new? ... you are even agreeing with most of my post?>>

Erm, no, that’s not new. Count the amount of times I say “correct”. You’re skimming again, aren’t you?

<<I presume the reason for that is, my premises make so much sense …>>

Some of them do, yes. The ones that don’t are what bring your arguments down.

<<… you agree that everybody judges individuals by their group associations.>>

With qualifications, yes. I always have. I even linked to a previous discussion of ours’ where I had.

<<OK, the act of doing that creates a prejudgement of those individuals ...>>

Only if it’s not based on adequate information.

<<So your first double standard is your insistence that when I prejudge and stereotype, I am utterly wrong, …>>

At least it would be a double standard had you not, once again, forgotten that minor detail about the adequacy of information upon which the judgement is based.

Not necessarily “utterly” wrong, either.

<<… but when you do exactly the same thing, it is OK because your prejudgements and stereotypes are accurate.>>

No one’s prejudice or stereotyping is accurate.

<<I thank you for admitting at last that "more or less", of all three ideologies, Islam is worse ...>>

A bit of a belated thank you given that it was the second time I had agreed to that, but you’re welcome.

<<Your potty excuse is because the beliefs of Nazis and Klansmen are [universally-held] by every individual Nazi and Klansmen, …>>

At least the most central tenet, yes.

<<... but Muslims do not have universal beliefs.>>

Universally-HELD beliefs, no, and you are yet to counter this. The best you’ve done so far was to pretend that my claim included ‘on-paper’ members who did not identify with their groups, despite my earlier allusion to the importance of adopted identity.

Dipped out again, LEGO. Let’s see how attempt number fifteen goes…

Hi AJ.

I rest my case, Mlud. I have done a very good job of explaining what prejudgement and stereotyping is to our readers. I have explained how everybody judges individuals by their group associations, and there is nothing wrong with that. I have explained how no group of people, Muslims, Nazis or Klansmen, can be exempted from that principle. I think that our readers can understand the logic of what I submitted. I will leave it to the judgement of our peers as to whether they agree with me, or agree with you. I can't keep restating the obvious just for you to keep coming back at me with self evident double standards which you simply refuse to recognise. For you and I to keep at this is to just keep repeating "tis", "tisn't", "tis", "tisn't".

My own assessment is that our readers will consider my arguments are correct and sensible, while your puerile explanations for why you can do it and your opponents may not, are off with the fairies. Just like everybody else, you can keep prejudging and stereotyping the groups that you don't like, and I will do the same. But every time you do it, I am going to point out to our audience that you are doing it, and you can keep claiming that when you do it, you is not really doing it. I will leave it to our audience to judge which one of us is stupid.

Congratulations, you have proven the principle that if you keep saying that black is somehow white, sooner or later your opponents will just shake their heads in pitying wonder, throw up their hands, and give up.

Banjo, given your obsession with asserting that the "Abrahamic" religions introduced retributive justice into the world I thought I'd just drop this link to the Code of Hammurabi into the conversation which shows a fair bit of retribution and is not Abrahamic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

Wikipedia also has a handy entry referencing Roman Law.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice

And here is a link referencing Aboriginal use of "payback". https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/tribal-punishment-customary-law-payback

The facts don't back your attempt to hang the concept on Judaism and Islam.