Tolerating religious intolerance
I read this yesterday and had a heated debate (well OK it was much more civilised than the debates with those fanatical Aidid Safarians) with a coupla commenters. These two are atheists of course, and one of them the writer of that blog article.
I respect that atheists don't believe in a higher power and want to discredit religion. What I don't get is, why make it personal and attack people who believe in God and the prophets and the angels and heaven and hell and even the devil? Why think of believers (of any religion) as stupid, and not seeing the blatantly obvious?
What is obvious anyway? Science and words of an atheist man that he's constantly referring to? Almost with religious fervour no less. Religion (at least the one I know) has always encouraged and supported science and scientific research. But one must remember, of all the things that science can answer, it can only do so much. There are so many WHYs that science has absolutely no answer for, and only vague guesses. There are so many things that plain old facts cannot answer and that is not satisfactory.
If you look at it from a neutral, atheistic point of view, I think it's a shame that atheists have absolutely no imagination that they cannot see the beauty of religion, the power of faith, and how it binds and brings people together. I can't speak for other religions but the beauty of mine is that under it, we are all the same, no race, no country, no politics. We are all equals.
The problem is that humans err, in that case the writer is right. And humans have fucked up translations after translations brought upon their own understanding. I mean, look what happened to the Torah and the Bible. If humans didn't mess those up those books from God, there would be no Quran.
The most interesting thing is, before giving out statements like "Books of religion were written and compiled over the ages by man" the writer should have researched a bit on the Muslim prophet pbuh. I'm not sure how an illiterate goatherd could have read up the Torah and the Bible and then came up with something so amazingly intricate and poetic like the Quran. And no, I'm not talking about the English translations of the Quran, the actual reading. Have he even it and tried to understand it?
And the Quran was memorized by the prophets friends and eventual followers and after his death it was compiled into writing and a book and the version that Muslims read now are based on only ONE memorized version of the Quran, from the prophets best friend so that it does not get influenced by dialects and other stuff and that it's exactly like how the prophet memorized it. That's a bit of history there for you. And to compare Rabindranath Tagore, some rich old dude to Muhammad (pbuh)?
If you ask me, the one that I would believe actually has true worldly wisdom is the one that didn't have the wealthy unbringing, and illiterate to boot. Because I would know that his knowledge came from a higher being and not tainted or influenced in any way by his studies and shoulder rubbing with other intellectuals. Yes, we all should think, but we should all open our hearts and mind to possibilities as well.
Believing in God does not make you close minded, not believing in a higher power is! To limit yourself to only what humankind could discover (and not discover), and then die into an emptiness, becoming food for earth worms, and not knowing all the answers and never really finding inner peace. Sad, really. Others faiths become something to mock openly about, it's a shame that some people don't seek to understand those religions instead. All they see are the bad, and not the good.
"France is perhaps one which comes close in terms of separation of church and state but still it allows religious organizations to be recognised." I'm not sure it's just about church and state, it's more about being intolerant racists and xenophobia, they have their French way of living and being, and unfortunately new religions like Islam are not tolerated, that is not exactly church and state. That is not giving freedom of choice and freedom to express (i.e. the ban of Islamic headscarves).
"When religious intolerance is encouraged and the questioning of practices are raised, then only can we as a society progress.
Religion must be allowed to Evolve." Tell me how that would work? Yes, questioning of practices need to be encouraged, but not intolerance! How is being a bigot contributing to the human evolution? How does one have an open mind when one refuses to listen or see another person's point of view or accept that other people will have their opinions and believes and will be different from us?
Just how different is our little atheist from the radical, religious bigots who murder and hurt people who don't believe the in same thing they do? Intolerance should never be tolerated!
"Being blindly led by the preachers to a non existent after life, is a waste of this one life we have". Shame, that the writer thinks us believers are blind, that we have no mind of our own. It's an even bigger shame that this writer and his fellow atheists who say that there are no afterlife, can't come up with proof of that either. And to say that you're not implying believers as idiots, implies exactly that.
What that article's writer don't understand is that, what is right for you may not be right for others. What is right for others may not appeal to you. It's a question of choice, and to take that away and destroy it and insult the people who believe it is, in his own words "an insult to the will and strength of the human race".
I wish I could find that quote that says, something along the line of: Every atheist suddenly believe in God when they are about to die. I wonder why.
I respect that atheists don't believe in a higher power and want to discredit religion. What I don't get is, why make it personal and attack people who believe in God and the prophets and the angels and heaven and hell and even the devil? Why think of believers (of any religion) as stupid, and not seeing the blatantly obvious?
What is obvious anyway? Science and words of an atheist man that he's constantly referring to? Almost with religious fervour no less. Religion (at least the one I know) has always encouraged and supported science and scientific research. But one must remember, of all the things that science can answer, it can only do so much. There are so many WHYs that science has absolutely no answer for, and only vague guesses. There are so many things that plain old facts cannot answer and that is not satisfactory.
If you look at it from a neutral, atheistic point of view, I think it's a shame that atheists have absolutely no imagination that they cannot see the beauty of religion, the power of faith, and how it binds and brings people together. I can't speak for other religions but the beauty of mine is that under it, we are all the same, no race, no country, no politics. We are all equals.
The problem is that humans err, in that case the writer is right. And humans have fucked up translations after translations brought upon their own understanding. I mean, look what happened to the Torah and the Bible. If humans didn't mess those up those books from God, there would be no Quran.
The most interesting thing is, before giving out statements like "Books of religion were written and compiled over the ages by man" the writer should have researched a bit on the Muslim prophet pbuh. I'm not sure how an illiterate goatherd could have read up the Torah and the Bible and then came up with something so amazingly intricate and poetic like the Quran. And no, I'm not talking about the English translations of the Quran, the actual reading. Have he even it and tried to understand it?
And the Quran was memorized by the prophets friends and eventual followers and after his death it was compiled into writing and a book and the version that Muslims read now are based on only ONE memorized version of the Quran, from the prophets best friend so that it does not get influenced by dialects and other stuff and that it's exactly like how the prophet memorized it. That's a bit of history there for you. And to compare Rabindranath Tagore, some rich old dude to Muhammad (pbuh)?
If you ask me, the one that I would believe actually has true worldly wisdom is the one that didn't have the wealthy unbringing, and illiterate to boot. Because I would know that his knowledge came from a higher being and not tainted or influenced in any way by his studies and shoulder rubbing with other intellectuals. Yes, we all should think, but we should all open our hearts and mind to possibilities as well.
Believing in God does not make you close minded, not believing in a higher power is! To limit yourself to only what humankind could discover (and not discover), and then die into an emptiness, becoming food for earth worms, and not knowing all the answers and never really finding inner peace. Sad, really. Others faiths become something to mock openly about, it's a shame that some people don't seek to understand those religions instead. All they see are the bad, and not the good.
"France is perhaps one which comes close in terms of separation of church and state but still it allows religious organizations to be recognised." I'm not sure it's just about church and state, it's more about being intolerant racists and xenophobia, they have their French way of living and being, and unfortunately new religions like Islam are not tolerated, that is not exactly church and state. That is not giving freedom of choice and freedom to express (i.e. the ban of Islamic headscarves).
"When religious intolerance is encouraged and the questioning of practices are raised, then only can we as a society progress.
Religion must be allowed to Evolve." Tell me how that would work? Yes, questioning of practices need to be encouraged, but not intolerance! How is being a bigot contributing to the human evolution? How does one have an open mind when one refuses to listen or see another person's point of view or accept that other people will have their opinions and believes and will be different from us?
Just how different is our little atheist from the radical, religious bigots who murder and hurt people who don't believe the in same thing they do? Intolerance should never be tolerated!
"Being blindly led by the preachers to a non existent after life, is a waste of this one life we have". Shame, that the writer thinks us believers are blind, that we have no mind of our own. It's an even bigger shame that this writer and his fellow atheists who say that there are no afterlife, can't come up with proof of that either. And to say that you're not implying believers as idiots, implies exactly that.
What that article's writer don't understand is that, what is right for you may not be right for others. What is right for others may not appeal to you. It's a question of choice, and to take that away and destroy it and insult the people who believe it is, in his own words "an insult to the will and strength of the human race".
I wish I could find that quote that says, something along the line of: Every atheist suddenly believe in God when they are about to die. I wonder why.
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