Azaran on 13/3/2015 at 04:43
Quote Posted by Nicker
Not if you are doing it to purify souls and protect the faith. It's ok to torture someone if you are preparing them for paradise. You know, purification in fire. Did you miss that memo?
You are thinking of karma. Different superstition altogether.
In traditional religions (animism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc..) as far as I know concepts of hell were indeed based on how you acted in this life. But not in Christianity and Islam. Last time I checked, for both evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Muslims, acts don't mean anything - all that matters is faith in Jesus\Allah to the exclusion of all else, and the grace of salvation. That's what will get you into heaven. It's pretty simple really; in other words:
- An atheist who does charity work, helps the poor and downtrodden all their life, and makes the world a better place, will burn in hell forever
- A serial killer and rapist who spends his whole life committing vile and unspeakable acts against innocent victims, but who happens to repent and accept Jesus\Allah before he dies, will go to heaven
It's a system that goes against basic human values of morality and ethics
Yakoob on 13/3/2015 at 06:14
You guys are right that cultures are complex things and you can enjoy parts of them while hating the others. But I think it's still a big leap from being critical of some elements or even rioting, and tossing your whole life and degree away to move to middle east, enroll in a terrorist organization and excitedly sacrifice your life to blow up something you grew up with and enjoy numerous parts of on daily basis.
Tony_Tarantula on 13/3/2015 at 20:55
Notice that it is restricted to those two sects. There's a lot of Christian groups(the largest of which is Catholics) who believe that anyone who tries to do the right thing according to their own understanding is going to heaven. Under their system you pretty much have to make a conscious decision that fucks things up for other people in order to be going to hell, and even then it's got to be a pretty big deal(with a few notable exceptions) for you to go to hell instead of having to do penance in purgatory first.
In other words the Atheist who made charity his life's work is going to fare a lot better in the afterlife than someone who was a card carrying christian and made his money by running a human trafficking operation.
Quote:
It's like a bunch of clever online marketers got together with the sole goal of destroying the world.
Or perhaps they have help from people who have experience in engineering public opinion and media coverage, such as the intelligence agencies of OPEC members, Turkey, and western nations.
Edit: "perhaps" it's not a rhetorical question and I'm stating what is an open secret among the world's informed.
Nicker on 14/3/2015 at 02:29
Quote Posted by Azaran
In traditional religions (animism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc..) as far as I know concepts of hell were indeed based on how you acted in this life. But not in Christianity and Islam. Last time I checked, for both evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Muslims, acts don't mean anything - all that matters is faith in Jesus\Allah to the exclusion of all else, and the grace of salvation. That's what will get you into heaven. It's pretty simple really; in other words:
- An atheist who does charity work, helps the poor and downtrodden all their life, and makes the world a better place, will burn in hell forever
- A serial killer and rapist who spends his whole life committing vile and unspeakable acts against innocent victims, but who happens to repent and accept Jesus\Allah before he dies, will go to heaven
It's a system that goes against basic human values of morality and ethics
Agreed. Christianity and Islam were the variants I was referring to, where acts are irrelevant and a ticket to the after-party is all that counts.
But even in belief systems where acts determine one's fate, justifications for worldly cruelty and neglect are likely and twisted moral choices can result. For example, if the key to heaven is to die in battle, there is no hope that war will ever fall out of fashion (not that this would be likely in any case).
Hinduism uses reincarnation to rationalise the Caste system and oppressing the poor. If you were born a toilet cleaner it's because you did something wrong in your last life and deserve it...
The particulars really don't matter much. Placing more value in an afterlife devalues this one.
demagogue on 14/3/2015 at 03:10
Then again if the key to heaven is being sober and industrious then you get the industrial revolution and become global superpowers, cf. Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Azaran on 14/3/2015 at 03:13
Quote Posted by demagogue
Then again if the key to heaven is being sober and industrious then you get the industrial revolution and become global superpowers, cf. Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
For people who believe the world is about to end at any moment, they seem to care a lot about money and politics
Pyrian on 14/3/2015 at 05:13
Quote Posted by Yakoob
You guys are right that cultures are complex things and you can enjoy parts of them while hating the others.
Great. Let's work with that a second.
Quote Posted by Yakoob
But I think it's still a big leap from being critical of some elements or even rioting, and tossing your whole life and degree away to move to middle east, enroll in a terrorist organization and excitedly sacrifice your life to blow up something you grew up with and enjoy numerous parts of on daily basis.
But now you're right back to conflating. They don't see themselves as blowing up "western civilization" or whatever broad brush you're thinking of. They blew up what they saw as the largest central organizational buildings of economic hegemony (world trade center), or military hegemony (u.s. forces), or oppressive dictators (Syria), or ancient heretical "idols" (this thread's subject) - the last of which notably have precisely eff-all to do with the fruits of western civilization. And the first of which is really more about GETTING them, frankly, in a twisted logic.
It's not like they're bombing Apple factories.
