SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

I was thinking about this question.
Is islamophobia equally immoral as is racism, sexism and homophobia?

So I thought, why is racism/sexism/homophobia immoral? well the answer is that you dont choose your race, your sex, or your sexual orientation. And discriminating someone for reasons they cant control is immoral, they dont deserve it.

That brings me to the question Can you choose to be muslim? or the wider quesiton Can you choose your faith/religion or lack of it?





I googled "choose islam" and got We choose islam and Why should anyone choose Islam as a religion and as a way of life? and a whole load of other websites that try to convince you to choose Islam.


Googling "choose jesus" gives I Choose Jesus, Reasons to choose Jesus and Why Jesus? Why Christianity? and a whole load of other websites that try to convince you to choose Christianity.


Then there are also sites like How did you choose your religion? which also suppost the view that religions are a matter of choice.



Then I also remembered Pascal's Wager, where choosing to believe in God is also discussed.
Blaise Pascal himself assumes you can choose, while one critisism of his Wager is that you cant choose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pascal%27s_Wager&oldid=302791712#Assumes_that_one_can_choose_belief



I've noticed that there seem to be at least two types of people who are relevant here.
One type is those who have been brought up in the same religion as their parents and stay that religion for their entire life. Obviously nobody chooses to which parents they will be born, but you could argue that they chose not to change religion, so their non-decision is a decision itself.

Another type is people who have converted into their current religion. It obvious to me that these people have chosen their religion.


But then theres miscellaneous instances, like in the case of an invasion, often the invaders say something like "Convert to my religion or you will be killed". So those people have converted but under duress. Have they chosen their religion?





I'd like to end with a quote I saw just now

From: Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll

“Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again. Draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

So whos right? Alice or the Queen?

Impossibility, choice, reason, logic and correctness are all interpretations of the human brain.

It's like a chipmunk trying to do algebra.

Can you choose your faith?

Yes you can chose your faith, simply put if someone tells you something you don't agree with you can either say that's bullshit or you can pretend to believe it and not really care much for it.

Faith is based 100% on one's true conscience, just because someone appears to be a christian doesn't mean they couldn't be a devil worshiper or some crazy stuff (at heart). People chose to believe what they want to insider their heads, why should it matter what appearance it is? After that's not what faith is about…

Just because you go to church doesn't mean you believe in God or Jesus or whatever… just because you don't go to church doesn't mean you don't believe.

Am I making sense?

Who is right Alice or the Queen?

Well Alice is, but the context and relation to this topic are completely irrelevant. Being 101 isn't impossible, having faith isn't impossible, and believing impossible things isn't impossible. Technically what Jesus did during his life time wasn't impossible because you have to assume he knew things that are either impossible to comprehend to the ordinary human brain or just haven't been discovered yet by our scientists. Why is that impossible to believe?

So I thought, why is racism/sexism/homophobia immoral?

EDIT:
It IS, maybe during ancient times it wasn't but people are prejudice it really has nothing to do with our religions, after all you have to remember the time in which a lot of these religions were established. If Jesus ran around talking about abortion everyone would be like "wtf is that" common seriously idk what this thread is trying to prove… or maybe I'm just not understanding its real purpose.

It all depends if you want to get off your lazy ass and bother to choose.

If you grow up and your parents tell you everyday that you need to love jesus or you are a bad person, what are you going to do?

From: Brain
If you grow up and your parents tell you everyday that you need to love jesus or you are a bad person, what are you going to do?

i agree 100% what ever you grow up with will set your morals

It depends on you actually. If you want the correct faith, you do re-search on it. Keep searching until you find one that suits you and makes sense to you.

God will guide you to the right one. :)

Well, I got 1 question.

If Jesus was a jew. Why are there so many branches of religions??? Why don't people become jewish, because everyone believes jesus was a Jew. I don't get why people don't believe thats the right religion???

Im not Jewish BTW. I wanna be %50 Buddhist, 25% christian, 25% catholic.

Wtf, u have to capitalize Buddhist for it to say its spells right but catholic/christian is ok..

Yes.

From: ZaSz
Well, I got 1 question.

If Jesus was a jew. Why are there so many branches of religions??? Why don't people become jewish, because everyone believes jesus was a Jew. I don't get why people don't believe thats the right religion???

Im not Jewish BTW. I wanna be %50 Buddhist, 25% christian, 25% catholic.

Wtf, u have to capitalize Buddhist for it to say its spells right but catholic/christian is ok..

The Romans took/made Christianity, and the Jews took Judaism.

Yes Jesus was for the jewish people, but they didnt want him. They wanted to follow another prophet I forgot who. So then Christianity was made from some jews, that then turned christians, and used Jesus as there savior.

From: kingarabian
The Romans took/made Christianity, and the Jews took Judaism.

Yes Jesus was for the jewish people, but they didnt want him. They wanted to follow another prophet I forgot who. So then Christianity was made from some jews, that then turned christians, and used Jesus as there savior.

I think Mozes*

Anyways, yes you can choose your fait.

One big note: I am currently on a programmer forum which contains a lot of people who need a fact to trust on it, no facts you got nothing to proof.

It's pretty hard to convince anyone here that GOD, Jezus and the Holy Spirit is the real religion

Alice is right cos you don't really BELIEVE impossible things, queen meant she pretended to herself that she believed it for entertainment purposes.

Did IceFire908 just say that racism/sexism/homophobia is not immoral? :eek:



I think multiple religions were made because people wanted more power. Someone else wanted a slice of that pie.



In the old testament there was a prophecy that a savior would come. Christians accepted Jesus as the savior, but Jews said he was just another false savior.
Jews are waiting for their savior, Christians say he has already come and are now waiting for his second coming.

Moses was not the savior, Jesus actually sometimes spoke of him and his laws. Jesus and Moses certainly wern't competing with each other.

(wierd how some atheists know more about christianity then some christians)

From: Brain
If you grow up and your parents tell you everyday that you need to love jesus or you are a bad person, what are you going to do?

Its certainly not impossible to change, even after that.
Of course when you're young and still living with your parents, you cant really do anything.
But I've heard of many people who became atheists when they got old enough to be independant. They normally really resent their parents for feeding them that Jesus stuff, and they often fall out with their parents because they now think he or she is the devil because he doesnt believe in Jesus.

From: J_Pizzle
i agree 100% what ever you grow up with will set your morals

you're confusing religions with morals. Actually it seems that everyone has pretty much the same morals regardless of their religion or lack of it.


Also, how do you account for people who have changed their religion?

I'll give you an example, there was once a Jew who returned to settle in Isreal, while he was there he converted to Islam. How can you say that him growing up in Russia affected his religion?

From: Yakman


Moses was not the savior, Jesus actually sometimes spoke of him and his laws. Jesus and Moses certainly wern't competing with each other.

(wierd how some atheists know more about christianity then some christians)

No, you should read the bible more cleary, the jews recall a lot of wise sentences qoutes" of Mozes he is not their savior he is just their prophet, like the person said above my first post.

The jews didn't think about heaven but about a strong savior who kicked the romans in their but and that would lead to jews having "world domination"…
Rough said*

Jezus opened the gate to heaven.

I agree, Moses was not a savior, he was a prophet and one of the things he did was told the jews about gods laws, and Jesus sometimes talked about them.
Where exactly is the disagreement?

Bytheway why do you spell Moses and Jesus with a Z ?

From: Yakman
Did IceFire908 just say that racism/sexism/homophobia is not immoral? :eek:



I think multiple religions were made because people wanted more power. Someone else wanted a slice of that pie.



In the old testament there was a prophecy that a savior would come. Christians accepted Jesus as the savior, but Jews said he was just another false savior.
Jews are waiting for their savior, Christians say he has already come and are now waiting for his second coming.

Moses was not the savior, Jesus actually sometimes spoke of him and his laws. Jesus and Moses certainly wern't competing with each other.

(wierd how some atheists know more about christianity then some christians)





Its certainly not impossible to change, even after that.
Of course when you're young and still living with your parents, you cant really do anything.
But I've heard of many people who became atheists when they got old enough to be independant. They normally really resent their parents for feeding them that Jesus stuff, and they often fall out with their parents because they now think he or she is the devil because he doesnt believe in Jesus.






you're confusing religions with morals. Actually it seems that everyone has pretty much the same morals regardless of their religion or lack of it.


Also, how do you account for people who have changed their religion?

I'll give you an example, there was once a Jew who returned to settle in Isreal, while he was there he converted to Islam. How can you say that him growing up in Russia affected his religion?

Yea I did, but I didn't mean to. What I meant to say is that it's immoral because all men were created equal. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

Some times I think one thing and type another.

Sexism/homophobia/racism are wrong, treat others the way you wish to be treated, simple as that.

Still can't believe I said that… :rolleyes:

I changed the first sentence

"It IS, maybe during ancient times it wasn't "

Maybe now it makes sense… :(

From: Yakman
I agree, Moses was not a savior, he was a prophet and one of the things he did was told the jews about gods laws, and Jesus sometimes talked about them.
Where exactly is the disagreement?

Bytheway why do you spell Moses and Jesus with a Z ?

Jew don't see him as the son of God but rather as a prophet similar to moses (if I'm not mistaken)

For fun :p

As I understand, Jews see Jesus as a false messiah, he is a fraud to them.
source: http://www.aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html


But back to the topic, do you choose your religion or not? I'd particularly like to hear from any muslims we have around here.

Well first of all Yakman, I would say this question is useless untill you have adressed the topic of free will. Though it is a good question, just like all questions gets deeper as you go.

to respond to your question about alice and the quene, they are both wrong. It is wrong of alice to be so unlogical, if the quene is that old then it is not imposible for her to be that age. there are no rules that say being 101 years old is imposible. she only thinks that way because she has never met someone of that age before. And the quene is wrong, actualy ill change that to just strange, because she thinks of things which she belives to be imposible, but the mear fact that she can think of them proves they are.

Edit:

And discriminating someone for reasons they cant control is immoral, they dont deserve it.

I would say ALL discrimination is immoral, because what exactly does it mean to have an atribute about you that you can controle? We were born into our bodies without a choice to how our mind would be meshed together. So i think as a person who is not in there head reading there thoughts it would be immoral to discriminate even for things like murderers (though it must be done to keep society functioning)

No offence but would it kill you to learn how to spell properly?

none taken, and fine:

Well first of all Yakman, I would say this question is useless until you have addressed the topic of free will. Though it is a good question, just like all questions gets deeper as you go.

to respond to your question about Alice and the queen, they are both wrong. It is wrong of Alice to be so illogical, if the queen is that old then it is not impossible for her to be that age. there are no rules that say being 101 years old is impossible. she only thinks that way because she has never met someone of that age before. And the queen is wrong, actually ill change that to just strange, because she thinks of things which she believes to be impossible, but the mere fact that she can think of them proves they are.

Edit:

And discriminating someone for reasons they cant control is immoral, they don’t deserve it.

I would say ALL discrimination is immoral, because what exactly does it mean to have an attribute about you that you can control? We were born into our bodies without a choice to how our mind would be meshed together. So I think as a person who is not in there head reading there thoughts it would be immoral to discriminate even for things like murderers (though it must be done to keep society functioning)