From Jeff, a.k.a. King Kool, discussing a Muslim TV executive’s murder and beheading of his wife, who with him founded a New York tlevision channel aimed at promoting better understanding and less fear of Muslims:
“…This will certainly not promote tolerance, but in its own horrible way, it might promote understanding. On the one hand, all variety of men are capable of producing the sort of person who would sooner slay their significant other to avoid the shame of divorce. In a strange way, this just says that they’re just like anyone else.
On the other hand, the misogyny that is integral to some people’s practice of the religion is something that should be held to higher scrutiny. Obviously, the vast majority of modern enlightened Muslims aren’t misogynists, but in countries where they hold greater authority, institutionalized misogyny is the norm. An atheist polemicist I watch has said that he feels women’s rights are the line that Muslims should not be allowed to cross in the Western world, no matter what. That sounds fine to me. Nowadays, the only time misogyny is acceptable in the Western world is if we’re watching “Mad Men.”
The fact is that there are Islamic scholars who talk and teach about how precisely one should beat their wife, which sounds about as relevant to the modern world as a class on leech application to relieve the foul humors. I hope that I’m a calm enough person that, if a woman was ever gracious or stupid enough to be my bride, I would never put my hands on her in anything more aggressive than tickling. But a belief system that institutionalizes domestic violence is antithetical to the progress we’ve made in the equality of the sexes. Any man who strikes his wife and is unrepentant because she ‘deserved it’ should go up on domestic violence charges, and she should be free to drop him like a hot stone and seek out a less violent mate.
Recently, I learned someone with an online video series I’ve started watching identifies as a Christian. He responded to an anti-religious comment in a comic book (“Religion has killed more people than cancer… and they try to cure cancer.”) He responded by saying, generally, the problem with deaths being blamed on religion is only when the religious take their beliefs and harm someone else because of them. He’s perfectly content with his Christian beliefs, and they give him the personal strength to not be concerned about the people who disagree with them.
I have to believe that the majority of Muslims believe something close to this, even if not explicitly. They have their beliefs, and wouldn’t dream about harming anyone just for disagreeing. Those who do should be treated like anyone else who would and condemned.
I don’t see any other realistic response to something like this than saying, “We don’t rightly care what you might believe you’re allowed to do in some far away land that’s been spinning its wheels in the mud for longer than a millennium. Your faith is immaterial, your beliefs run contrariwise to those we deem most important. In this land, you deprived your wife of rights we guarantee all people who stand on this soil, and for this, you will be incarcerated for the rest of your days.”…
Ethics Alarms 
I like most of this comment, except I 100% disagree with the sentiment that religious beliefs should be left alone in this battle. The willingness to believe untruths, the celebration of irrational behavior, and the displacement of responsibility to a figmentation make it nigh on impossible to change someone’s bad actions. You can’t argue with “God says so.” Tolerating faith for good actors makes it that much harder to argue against the bad actors. Once we give the means validation, there is no escaping the possible conclusions.
“We don’t rightly care what you might believe you’re allowed to do in some far away land that’s been spinning its wheels in the mud for longer than a millennium. Your faith is immaterial, your beliefs run contrariwise to those we deem most important. In this land, you deprived your wife of rights we guarantee all people who stand on this soil, and for this, you will be incarcerated for the rest of your days.”
The immediate response is to make a martyer out of this lunatic. “He was only doing what God said is right! You infidels are putting your silly prophet Jesus up above the one true faith and discriminating against our brother because he doesn’t follow your barbaric religion.” I’d change this to “We don’t rightly care what you might believe you’re allowed to do. Your particular faith is immaterial. You deprived your wife of rights we guarantee all people who stand on this soil, and for this, you will be incarcerated for the rest of your days just like anyone else.”
Yay! Comment of the Day! What do I win?
I’m a stone-cold agnostic, and there are days I’d like nothing more than to remove all religion from the earth the way I could strip the plastic wrap off an orange. But I also think the quickest way to lose ground in the condemnation of unacceptable behavior that stem from religious beliefs is to condemn ALL religious belief. To me, that sounds tantamount to the people who condemn the right to own a gun once someone does something inappropriate or illegal with a gun.
Even religious belief, like all technology and other things, is neutral until you use it.
Religion isn’t technology. It’s an invalid mode of determining truth. Your comparison fails.
Approving of gun ownership doesn’t lead to violence, but it does lead to gun ownership being okay. As you said, that’s a net neutral.
Approving of belief without evidence, leads to belief without evidence being okay. That’s a problem. That’s how we can have people say that there is no such thing as gay love, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Once you agree that “Godsaidit” is okay, you can never argue with “Godsaidit,” no matter what the it is.
“Thou shalt not murder.”
“Thou shalt not steal.”
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
“That shalt not bear false witness.”
Yeah, you’re right. There’s nothing whatsoever about religion that is good or ethical. No positive impact on the world at all.
Nope. None. Those things above are all “untruths.”
–Dwayne
Yeah, you’re right. There’s nothing whatsoever about religion that is good or ethical. No positive impact on the world at all.
Your strawman is not wanted here.
The reason given for your positive list is “Godsaidit.” Just like he said to murder infidels, sack cities, stone people, kill gays, experiment on jews, deny vaccinations to kids, vote republican, enslave other races, etc…
While all the results you listed are good, the process to get to them created all the results I listed. If you validate the process, you validate all the results. You can’t pick and choose the ones your want.
And this is why I prefer to treat other religions with respect before the argument starts instead of after.
And that’s exactly why we still have this problem
That “invalid mode of determining truth” is still the backbone of some people’s lives, right or wrong. If you refuse to even acknowledge it for some of its value, you have no way in to debate someone of faith, and you may have lost the favor of the more sensitive agnostics as well.
THIS is what I’m talking about. Ardent and uncompromising atheism may be useful, and it may even be correct, but in debates such as these, it’s as useless as ardent and uncompromising Islam.
That “invalid mode of determining truth” is still the backbone of some people’s lives, right or wrong. If you refuse to even acknowledge it for some of its value, you have no way in to debate someone of faith, and you may have lost the favor of the more sensitive agnostics as well.
What value does uncalled for belief have? If there was some, I’d support it.
I’m not saying that all ideas that people tie to “Godsaidit” are necessarily wrong (a handful of the 10 commandments, the mission of charity, etc…), but those aren’t based on Godsaidit, so much as, we believe it’s the right thing to do.
Their is no way to debate someone of faith about something they rely on their faith to determine. Full stop. If you want to debate them, you have to get rid of the faith first. What’s actually useless in these debates is accomodationism. The second you validate someone’s reliance on faith to get their answers, you’ve lost. You have to argue what God says and God wants, and the writings and teachings of every Religion I’ve found are so self contradicting that anything can be taken as valid, so long as the person wants to believe it.