WatchI'm no religious scholar - all I can say is that I'm no fan of either! If I had to venture a guess, I'd say Islam, but then I'm pretty biased!
I'd also guess that between Judaism and Christianity, Judaism is perhaps worse - it's a wild guess based upon the fact that the teachings of Jesus are pretty reasonable additions to what came before. I'm pretty unsure about this though.
Just to make the topic a little more specific, let's not discuss current practices - instead, let's just talk about the religions as documented by their most holy books.
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Matt.BayArea says
Wrong approach. What the "holy books" say doesn't mean squat. All that matters is what is practiced.
And what is practiced changes a lot from century to century and from culture to culture. Christianity in the Middle Ages was a lot worse than it is now. Sure it sucks now, but at least not too many priests own a Judas Cradle.
Ultimately, I'm not sure your question is particularly meaningful. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam aren't actually religions. They are families of religions. A religion is a coherent hierarchical power structure built around mysticism. It is the nature of religions to grow and fragment as different parties try to wrestle control.
For example, Christianity was once a religion. Then it split into two religions: Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox. Catholicism split into many other religions during the protestation reformation period. The Catholic Church got to keep the "Catholicism" trademark. The new religions took on new names. Similarly, Judaism and Islam grew and fractured repeatedly.
One could even make the case that Christianity was just a splinter group of Judaism originally and Islam was just a copy cat religion based on the two most popular religions at the time of its formation. So, basically, all three families of religions are just splintered power structures that have been carved out by ambitious men from the same area wanting control over others.
In any case, if your question is which original mythology is the best basis for morality, it's pretty much a question of which sucks the least. They are all ultimately derived from the same pro-slavery, anti-women, xenophobic, desert culture that dominated the Middle East and later the Greco-Roman area of south Europe and north Africa. It's not surprising that the major religions all stem from the same area, which was a major trade route and hub. But it's hardly a basis to take any of them seriously.
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They're all basically the same, which shouldn't be a surprise since they come from the same place and have the same roots in Abraham.
Islam and Christianity are basically interchangeable from a crazy shit standpoint. If Islam had taken root in the west and Christianity in the Middle East you'd see radical christian terrorists living in caves and Billy Graham (now devout muslim) would still be blaming homosexuals for it.
That said, religion was a useful tool during humanity's dark ages, when people would do all sorts of bad things if they weren't worried about being punished for it after they die.
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No one religion has a lock on being best or worst. All religions are equally as good or bad, when compared to one another, because they are practiced by people. Strip a religion down to its initial beliefs and core doctrine at the time of the religions formation and they all almost look identical.
Religion, unfortunately, is too often used as a way to divide or separate people. Typically at the birth of a religion they are very egalitarian and inclusive, profess tolerance of their fellow man and freedom of religious practice for others. Only later do they tend to split up into little sub groupings and get diluted and specific regional and cultural inclusions. Add in a dose of human fear and stupidity and you get ugly things.
This story sticks with me ...
A few days post the 9-11 attack my father was in downtown San Francisco. He witnessed some completely ignorant person shouting ugly things at a man wearing a turban. The man receiving this verbal assault was obviously a Sikh. The man shouting things at him was saying things my father wouldn't repeat, but were anti-Islamist and Arab in nature.
In America, land of the free, founded on principals of freedom of religion, and home to religious refugees, this has to stick with you. The verbal abuser was attacking a person whose religion was founded on the principals of religious freedom and actually was initially a warrior cast that stood to defend the weaker so that they could practice whatever they chose. Additionally, one must never forget who stupid and dangerous your fellow man can be. We should all seek ways to educate and mediate when things like this occur.
I like to learn about all religions, try and understand them, take what I like from them, and actually formally practice/belong to nothing. By denying all I gain everything. Very zen. ;)
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Patrick says
Maybe he means Abraham, Martin, And John, but I don't think that has anything to do with the Abraham of the Bible.
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ChristianGuy says
Don't you think it's odd for an allegedly all-good God to even ask this of somebody?
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The OP's question is rather silly. Religions arise in a time, place and context. The story of Abraham and his son is an example while looking at it from today it seems on face to be an insane demand. But in the context of the times when blood sacrifice was the rule and there was an need to impose law upon tribes to create some semblance of order it makes more sense. For those that believe that there is or was no need for religion then they should ask the question is there an inherent objective morality with in man? That is, where does /do the the guidelines of life we take for granted i.e. thou shall not kill, steal, commit adultery etc. come from? I am no defender of religion and the heinous crimes done in its name but for the masses of humanity, when not too distorted, it does provide some fame work directly or indirectly
(through laws) to keep human society marginally functional
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I do not celebrate the death sentence being issued. I celebrate when it is carried out in a timely fashion. We need to speed it up!!
Below is something or the liberal leftists to read and enjoy. Please share some comments! And to really get a feel for the case, try youtube. It might help some of you grasp reality. Maybe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom
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Except that capital punishment isn't meted out on the town square, so I'm calling bullshit on your right-wing fantasy-land. It has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the rate of crime or acts as ANY deterrent when a perpetrator makes the concious decison to commit a crime, other than that person/s scheming to actually not get caught, and somewhere before, during, or after them committing the crime.
People speed all the time, it's just a matter of whether or not they get caught doing it, so that's not an effective deterrent either.
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Patrick says
Kinda like abortion, eh? I thought you were OK with this practice.
Dan8267 says
Go here: http://www.abortionfacts.com/techniques/techniques.asp
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EightBall says
Here's a genius explaining more on the slippery slope:
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EightBall says
The issue of abortion is orthogonal to the atrocities committed by the Christian (and other) faiths throughout history. Even if Christianity is correct on the abortion issue, it fails at so many other moral issues that it's a no go.
When I get time I'll address the subject of abortion in its own thread. This weekend went way too quickly. I didn't get done half the things on my very long To Do list.
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Patrick says
Highway 61 Revisited.
Patrick says
Poor choice of words perhaps, but I think you understand what I meant.
How does that make the religions "fundamentally different"? The outcome of both martyrs was the same: Their followers decided that they had to kill or convert anyone who disagreed with them.
It certainly makes the men different, though it's hard to say much about the real Jesus, since the real man's life was poorly documented by people who mostly had favorable things to say about him, and the Church simply discarded large parts of the writing.
By the time Muhammad is as old as Jesus (~600 years to go), I wouldn't be surprised if the less positive aspects of his life are also whitewashed.
To me, the only real difference between Christianity and Islam is that Christianity absorbed European culture and Islam absorbed Arabic culture. The European culture has evolved substantially in the last thousand years, but Arabic culture is far less enlightened.
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In most cases, religion won't stand up to logical scrutiny (except Taoism, and its daughter, Zen Buddhism). And those are only logical if you allow yourself to understand paradox.
But, in fairness to the "people of the book", the Abrahamic faiths make sense to a variety of people.
Some, WANT to believe so badly that they perform logical cartwheels trying to make them appear factual and logical.
Some try to extoll the essence of these religions and make a logical error: i.e. "People have done great things as Christians, therefore Christianity has made them good."...."My friend was an alcoholic who beat women and then found Jesus and changed his life", etc.
But I think that, as stated above, the essence is mystical. It shouldn't make conventional sense.It defies logic and your instincts.
Does psychoanalysis work? Instinctively, we don't want to relive our childhood trauma, nor admit our failings to our friends or family...yet, many find relief in moving TOWARDS their pain rather than away from it, n'est-ce pas?
This is the essence of all religion, when you strip away the rites, rituals and storybooks. Understand yourself and your place in the universe---understand that you are insignificant, one of trillions, quadrillions, gazillions of organisms---that all live and all die.
Those who realize this are right-minded. The right-minded are freed from the cycles of fortune and misfortune, happiness and despair.
And by proper placement of the ego, you become wiser, happier, well-adjusted and what you were meant to be.
To quote Lennon: Who on earth do you think you are? A superstar? Well, right you are!
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ChristianGuy says
Go to any red state. You'll find lots of Christians rejoicing when someone gets the death penalty.
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Dan8267 says
Those people do not consider killing any of the following "murder":
- Anyone who isn't white.
- Anyone who isn't christian.
- Anyone who does not speak english.
- Anyone who has ever voted for a democrat.
- Anyone who has ever been convicted of any crime, regardless of questions about the trial.
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Dan8267 says
Go to any blue state and you'll find lots of people supportive of allowing little girls to obtain certain surgical procedures and specific drugs without their parents consent. Go figure - they are more concerned with complete strangers than their own children.
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Bap33 says
Yes, that is the argument, and it would be additional innocent lives beyond the original victims. If you want to kill people for committing crimes you have to be willing to execute innocent people as well. The harder you try to filter out the innocent the greater the cost. How many additional innocent lives lost makes execution no longer worth it for you?
I did notice that you did not answer the question. Are you willing to die in-order to assure the execution of a guilty person? How about 10 or 100 guilty people?
You must not be familiar with Charles Ng because he was involved with a crime much worse that your example (my gift to you is a more horrific crime to use as an example of people deserving execution). Anyway Ng is on death row in California, and his trial has cost the state somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/6_cj_inmatecost.aspx?catid=3
If Charles Ng had life in prison he would have to live about 424 years to cost the state $20 million.
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Bap33 says
Fucking racist rapists.
Bap33 says
Absolutely, but I wouldn't give my life so that 1 or 2 of them died. I certainly wouldn't give my child's life for 5 or 10 of theirs.
That's really the point here. A disturbingly large percentage of death row inmates are exonerated by DNA evidence. It is a mathematical fact that we have, as a society, murdered hundreds of innocent men in the name of serving justice.
I'm not completely against the Death Penalty, but I think the standards for such a sentence must be very high.
I also have little issue with killing a murderer just because they might be crazy; if someone is crazy, dangerous, and provides nothing for society, they should just be killed to save everyone the trouble.
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Bap33 says
Is there any other way?
"Let's hang him by the neck until he's mighty uncomfortable."
Just a thought.
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thunderlips11 says
Actually it can take a while to die when hanging by the neck.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/30/woman-accidentally-hangs-herself-at-haunted-house_n_1066259.html