I don't know about you, but for myself I'm here to talk to people and have an actual conversation. It matters more to me to be properly understood and to have an actual exchange of ideas, than to score meaningless points or to "win". I'm not perfect. I get just as aggravated as the next person with the sillyness, but I only respond in kind to those who deserve it. Everyone else will find that they can have a rational conversation with me even in disagreement. To do that, it's important to me to be as clear as possible in my arguments.
Arcana, while i may seem to put my arguments down in a rather strong way it's because I don't enjoy typing all that much. I mean nothing personal buy it. Also we people of the male persuasion might tend to express ourselves differently than our female counterparts. Take none of it personally.
Knock yourself out. Your debating style is a lot more confrontational than mine. You do what you feel best serves your arguments and I'll keep doing what I'm doing. It works for me and I very rarely get into useless tangents as a result. You seem to enjoy those tangents, so keep on keeping on. Just know that I'll ignore you if you try to play that game with me. Or I'll just let Tommy Lee Jones do the talking for me again. :lol:
Tommy Lee is cool.
I do. I find the differences in ideology, culture and society around the world utterly fascinating.
So do I, which is why I've traveled so very much. But there is no reason why i should necessarily respect any ideology or culture. While there are many I can admire there are others where my respect might be lacking. Should i stay silent when that's the case? Yes, i think I would if I were among them because, despite what you may see here, I am a gentleman. But when the experience is complete I'll probably have an opinion, and I just might express it..
Terrorists do not deserve respect nor pity. I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. It may have something to do with the fact that you started talking about ordinary Muslims, then immediately jumped to "ideological groups" and "mayhem" and then right back again. See what I mean? Words and presentation are paramount in these sort of discussions. It's okay, though, I think I know what you meant. I just wanted to draw your attention to the way you tried to express what you meant.
I'm not a professional.
No one and nothing deserves respect without earning it. I have ZERO respect for religion in general and Islam is no exception.
I do have respect for some aspects of most religions I've encountered. Islam might be the exception.
I don't do well with the kind of organized religious brain-washing on the scale history has seen so far.
Perhaps one person's brainwashing might be another persons insight. I really don't care much about what most people believe, so long as they do no harm to others.
I do however have tons of respect for individual people who happen to be part of a religious community and again Muslims are no exception.
So do I, and I mentioned that earlier. But respecting an individual is quite different from respecting a group of ideologists. Maybe they are great people, perhaps not. There s no way of knowing for certain. Bit it's fair to say that Muslims, as a group, do not share the good reputation of, say, Buddhists, for example. Their reps are a lot iffier.
My issue is not about respect at all, Grant. My issue is with the way people consciously chose to discuss an issue knowing full well that certain words will set their opponent off and effectively end all manner of coherent debate.
But is what they are saying true? That's the point. So often we have difficulty arriving at what's real because many have decided what the truth is already, and anything deviates is offensive or dishonest. I don't buy into that at all.
This happens in this forum with the Muslim issue, but also in the abortion forum, the Middle East forum and in any thread that discusses gay marriage or gay rights. People just can't seem to help themselves and throw around words that immediately turn the discussion into a "Who can act the most retarded?" contest. It's infinitely tiresome. It really is.
I happen to be 100% for Gay Rights and marriage, believe its a womans right to choose no matter how immoral I find abortion to be personally, and find the Middle East issues too heavy, much like you do as well.
But I have no problem being critical of Muslims and Islam because they are against all those issues just mentioned, and which we support. It is a large part of who they are. Gay Rights are important to me because I have a Gay son. Women's rights are important to me because they form half of the world's people, and I have personally loved many of them myself. And this is without mentioning censorship (which I am against) or terrorism,
Well, you did come across as quite terrified at the time.
Arcana, I don't even have a fear gene.
I do know you better now and realize that is not really the case. I am absolutely not fearful of offending the majority. That's is not what this is about at all
.
I knew that. It was just a bit of cheap payback.
Do you see how difficult it is to get people to understand what one says? :lol: It's not the offending I'm concerned with. I'm concerned with the accurate expression of our ideas in order to end up discussing those ideas and not some perverted, distorted beyond recognition view of the original sentiment.
And that's part of the challenge of these debate boards. To express your ideas and opinions clearly, to anticipate the counter argument, and so on. That's why it's not such a bad hobby, if you have the time and don't take it all that personally.
You won't see me disagree on that. Some Muslims, and this time I DO mean Muslims, are generally not very clear on what freedom of speech means. This is doubly true for European Muslims, as the freedom of speech laws here are a joke. The longer they live in the West,though, the better they get at understanding that nothing is sacred for us anymore. It takes time. Those rioters you saw on the news are primarily first generation immigrants.
Yes, we'll see how succeeding generations go.. You're a greater optimist in this regard than I am, though I'm naturally hoping for your side.
I disagree. I hear moderate Muslims speak out against the radicals every day. Just take a look at the moderate Egyptian press after the Coptic church bombing the other day. Not a single one makes excuses for what happened and every one of them condemned it and called for all Egyptians to unite against terrorism. It's there, Grant. You just chose not to see it. Either that, or your media is hiding things from you. You should ask yourself why they do that.
When the Muslim press speaks out against such things threads should be started. I'd like to see more of that, though perhaps more widespread. The Egyptian press might be the exception rather than the rule.
You're asking the wrong person. I don't think any major religion has done any good in the world that did not involve furthering its own interests. If you're asking about individual religious people, then some have been truly exceptional. But the group as a whole, no. Not a single one.
My experience has been quite different, especially since I've been spending more time among quite religious people. I lost some of my jaded earlier impressions and am not as knowledgeable on the subject as I once was.
