Dubai Virgin Radio Dj fired for offensive comments on god (16 Viewers)

[Martin]

The difference is that capitalism and democracy are not believed to be sent down by God. Islam can be practiced in its truest form if people actually read the Qur'an. If they go off what some corrupt clergy member tells them because they're illiterate and can't read the Qur'an then they're wrong in what ever they hold to be the truth.

We have the source, why not turn to it?

Yes and no. If people read the holy books for themselves and draw their own conclusions, then they aren't vulnerable to the influences of others. Granted.

But. Religion is a cultural thing, it isn't one man's idea. People aren't born with a holy book in their lap and just start reading, they learn religion in church, in temple, from clerics. This starts almost as soon humanely possible, parents are sending their kids to be taught religion WAY before the kids are in any position to reason critically about the doctrine they are being fed. This is one big problem. Secondly, most people don't read holy books at home, they go to worship with others. That's the whole reason you have these distinct religions, instead of everyone having their own one. So ultimately I don't believe you can "fix" (using the word very liberally here) religion by saying just go read the book at home, it won't do.

 

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[Il Re]

I have no idea. As an attempt to answer the question in terms of evolution I would suggest that perhaps religion evolved as a cultural, kind of inborn tendency because it had certain beneficial effects on society. It brought people together maybe, rather than fend for themselves. That's how I see it, an emergent genetic property. Of course this is just my little thought experiment.

It's kind of impossible to answer your question, how could anyone know?

yes, very hard question, i was just curious as to what your answer would be, if you had said "absolutely yes the world would be a better place" then i would have found that a little naive

when you think about it, it's an interesting thought though

 

[Martin]

because Andy hasn't answered my question i'll ask the same to you Martin... do you believe in the theory of Evolution?

Yes.

 

[Martin]

yes, very hard question, i was just curious as to what your answer would be, if you had said "absolutely yes the world would be a better place" then i would have found that a little naive

when you think about it, it's an interesting thought though

Well, anyone should be suspicious of someone who claims to know "what would have been", right? Richard Dawkins (the atheist) has a thesis that says "religion is the root of all evil". I know he's trying to be provocative, but I don't think that's a good place to start. It doesn't even make sense.

 

[icemaη]

Ahmed, kal chutti hai kya?

 

[Il Re]

realredice, stop smoking, it's not good for you!!

 

[Ahmed]

Ahmed, kal chutti hai kya?

nahi yaar, lekin neend nahi aa rahi

 

[icemaη]

Yes.

During my college days i'd done a lot of study on religion (mostly Christianity) but i've hardly done any reading on the theory of evolution... from the past coupla days a few questions have been lingering in my mind... but because none of my friends believe in the theory i couldn't find an answer from them... so here's the first of my two questions...
the theory says that life began as a single celled organism, then went to monkeys and monkeys to humans with a lot of intermediate steps... if so, then why do monkeys still exist? shouldn't all of them have been human?
(do let me know if i screwed up the theory of evolution...)

 

[Osman]

yep, another thing that people need to consider is alot of what people think is islam is actually cultural, i.e. arabic or asian, i find that some of the best muslims are converts, i have english and an italian who converted to islam and they practice islam in it's true form without the cultural rubbish, and with all of them, their lives have changed for the better.......

1000% agree.

Same here in Sweden, but also in general its easy to notice your average muslim from a country that has been muslim for ages, really mashes up their culture and the religion, saying their cultural dogmas are born from Islam, when its just cultural dogmas you just have from that part of the world, wether you are muslim, christian or something else. For example Kurds here in Sweden, Kurds of some sun worshipping pagan sect have the same archaic patriarchal honor system as Kurds who are muslim, how they treat and "discpline their "westernized" daughters etc, but the kurdish muslim who is like that will tell you they are like that because Allah says so...(Not realising the archaic patriarchal culture has little to nothing to do with the religion). Mindbogginling how everything is justified with Islam.

But regarding converts, I know alot of swedish converts here in Sweden (several of them married into my family or friends of my family). And yeah, its refreshing kind of muslims because they havent been tainted or gone through confused mix up of culture and religion (and because they really CHOSE the religion, not being conveniently born to it, and that culture and just need to pay lipservice or simply born to it to be considered one) .They strictly adhere to their teachings as they see it and discover it with open mind, and havent had the religion washed away from them in parts by family, long of generations and the inviroment who introduces mostly a shallow version of the religion to them from childhood, mainly in a very vague and skewed way of blending it with their culture (way too many muslims dont realise how irrelevant the culture and life style Islam was born from really is, that was just a way they lived 1500 years ago, and isnt really important to the religion), and I guess because for most people its too much of a hassle to find out what the religion is really about.

 

[icemaη]

realredice, stop smoking, it's not good for you!!

thats the only bad habit i have buddy... if i quit that then i'd become perfect... and nobody is supposed to become perfect...

 

[icemaη]

nahi yaar, lekin neend nahi aa rahi

losing sleep is not a good thing to do... its 6 here and at 9 a friend of mine is coming to pick me up... but I'm hooked to this thread to find out where this'll all end...

 

[Zé Tahir]

Yes and no. If people read the holy books for themselves and draw their own conclusions, then they aren't vulnerable to the influences of others. Granted.

But. Religion is a cultural thing, it isn't one man's idea. People aren't born with a holy book in their lap and just start reading, they learn religion in church, in temple, from clerics. This starts almost as soon humanely possible, parents are sending their kids to be taught religion WAY before the kids are in any position to reason critically about the doctrine they are being fed. This is one big problem. Secondly, most people don't read holy books at home, they go to worship with others. That's the whole reason you have these distinct religions, instead of everyone having their own one. So ultimately I don't believe you can "fix" (using the word very liberally here) religion by saying just go read the book at home, it won't do.

I agree that religion is cultural in the sense that it's 'fed' to you as a child, but isn't everything? I mean, you parents tell you what's wrong and what's right from a very young age and that's what you grow up to believe unless you figure out things on your own. If you were born to rich white South Africans during Apartheid you'd grow up to think that black people are second class.

The only way to avoid this is to take a child right after birth and ship it off to be raised by computers programmed to be 'normal' (what ever that may be).

 

[icemaη]

I agree that religion is cultural in the sense that it's 'fed' to you as a child, but isn't everything? I mean, you parents tell you what's wrong and what's right from a very young age and that's what you grow up to believe unless you figure out things on your own. If you were born to rich white South Africans during Apartheid you'd grow up to think that black people are second class.

The only way to avoid this is to take a child right after birth and ship it off to be raised by computers programmed to be 'normal' (what ever that may be).

i guess Martin has already started work on the computer as we speak

 

[Il Re]

I agree that religion is cultural in the sense that it's 'fed' to you as a child, but isn't everything? I mean, you parents tell you what's wrong and what's right from a very young age and that's what you grow up to believe unless you figure out things on your own. If you were born to rich white South Africans during Apartheid you'd grow up to think that black people are second class.

The only way to avoid this is to take a child right after birth and ship it off to be raised by computers programmed to be 'normal' (what ever that may be).

look you have to feed it to them as a child, look what happned to anakin skywalker, wasn't taken in young enough...BANG before you know, DARTH VADER (in relative terms terrorist)

and they didn't even listen to yoda (he's as religeous as you can get) so the bottom line is, the religeous guy was right..................FORZA YODA!

 

[sallyinzaghi]

I'm torn on this. As true as it is that freedom of speech is a direct license for trolling, as soon as you give someone the power to censor things "for our own good" you run the very real risk that they will start censoring by their own agenda. In the English speaking world the boogey man today is called child porn. You can do anything if you say that it's to stop child porn. US ISPs recently censored big parts of usenet on this pretext. There is no way they would be able to justify this if they hadn't said the magic words: child porn. Australia is now considering a directive that would enforce a wide scale internet censorship, blocking not just child porn but a bunch of other things. The tampering, if passed, would be more severe than they do in Iran.

Just as there are magical words like "god" that you can use to get people foaming at the mouth, there are other words like "child porn" or "terrorism" or "communism" that you can use to make people lose all sense of proportion and agree to the most insane things for their own "protection".


So what's more important? The free exchange of ideas or freedom from unpleasant expression?

I think the problem would be on how you express things. Say one guy in the UAE doesn't believe in God and wants to talk about it, if he wrote some sort of article on it, held forums or something, that'll be fine by me. I just do not see the need to offend and provoke somebody and parading 'freedom of speech' behind it, I still think respect for one another is pretty important in this day and age. This forum is a great example. We've had numerous great and intellectual discussions, but I particularly do not enjoy some insults being thrown at others for no particular reason, I can only see provocation. And yet people claim some people do not have a 'sense of humour' ... you don't take meat and toy with it in front of a tiger, if the tiger pounces on you, well.. you asked for it.

It's just irritating when people use 'freedom of speech' as an excuse for things they do. Same with censorship like you mentioned. I guess it's just human nature to misuse every concept and any way we go we can't run away from it.

 

[sallyinzaghi]

Actually Sally, it's been ok to joke about 911 since Rudy Giuliani wore it's significance out.

All joking aside I see what you mean. In the same way you can't expect someone to check their morals or beliefs at the door. The US doesn't have a national religion, in fact the US constitution is very much against the advocation of any particular religion, though it does protect the practice at all.

That said, the atmosphere is very different from that of the Middle East. Meaning the majority religion is Christianity. I don't expect Muslims to leave their prayer rugs and beliefs in customs when they come the states. At the same time, other countries shouldn't expect foreigners to completely assimilate to their culture. Tolerance is a two way process. A give and a take. If anything we, as a global society, should welcome controversy. Controversy breeds discussion. From discussion we evolve as a people through change.

When Imus had his Bob Dole moment, though I didn't agree with his comments or his firing, I was happy it happened. It brought race into discussion in the United States, which is a good thing because we have a race problem. The same could be said for the Middle East. While race my not be the issue, there could be something else worth changing.

That's true, but other than discussion controversy (or as I see it provocation) can also breed something else that is more dangerous. It's fine stating your opinions, but not so when you offend the general public. Someone said it's different when you do it on the internet because the internet is not a democracy etc but the internet is pretty global, I think the same rule applies. There's a difference in saying "I don't believe in god because..." and "you religious people are stupid".

But you are right, controversies spark more interest in the matter though.

 

[sallyinzaghi]

See I think what you've said is bringing us together within a short distance. What I think however, is that if something can be abused to control people, and in practice it does get abused, all the time, then it deserves to take blame for that. I mean it's like the gun thing Enron mentioned. Guns don't kill, people do. But without guns, people don't have the means (at least it takes a lot more effort). And without religion clever, power hungry bastards would not have an easy means to control people and making them dance to their tune.

Right?

EDIT: We don't like drugs because they are a powerful chemical influence on people, people do things on drugs that they wouldn't do without them. And religion is a powerful psychological influence, by which you can push people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. It's drug, in a way. A dangerous thing that can be used to improve human life or produce suffering.

But such is the nature of human beings Martin, they take everything and anything and misuse it for their own benefit. Condemning how people misuse religion, or say Islam, is fine and true, but condemning Islam straightaway with no knowledge or background on its teachings whatsoever is just ain't right to me.

Btw was it you who asked bout whose form of Islam is purer than the others? Actually there is a general consensus in that, and every Muslim knows it, that the essence of Islam is the Quran, authentic Hadith and the sunna. Funnily enough outside the Middle East us 'normal' people usually practice the same form of Islam. But people here make the mistake of equating the Middle Eastern culture with Islam. Just like how in Malaysia the Malays have Islam embedded in their stupid taboos. That's why studying the three essence of Islam is very important.

 

[Lawnchair Bes]

During my college days i'd done a lot of study on religion (mostly Christianity) but i've hardly done any reading on the theory of evolution... from the past coupla days a few questions have been lingering in my mind... but because none of my friends believe in the theory i couldn't find an answer from them... so here's the first of my two questions...
the theory says that life began as a single celled organism, then went to monkeys and monkeys to humans with a lot of intermediate steps... if so, then why do monkeys still exist? shouldn't all of them have been human?
(do let me know if i screwed up the theory of evolution...)

the theory stipulates that monkeys and humans have the same ancestors

 

[Dominic]

I agree that religion is cultural in the sense that it's 'fed' to you as a child, but isn't everything? I mean, you parents tell you what's wrong and what's right from a very young age and that's what you grow up to believe unless you figure out things on your own. If you were born to rich white South Africans during Apartheid you'd grow up to think that black people are second class.

The only way to avoid this is to take a child right after birth and ship it off to be raised by computers programmed to be 'normal' (what ever that may be).

Nah, the answer is called education.

 

[Martin]

During my college days i'd done a lot of study on religion (mostly Christianity) but i've hardly done any reading on the theory of evolution... from the past coupla days a few questions have been lingering in my mind... but because none of my friends believe in the theory i couldn't find an answer from them... so here's the first of my two questions...
the theory says that life began as a single celled organism, then went to monkeys and monkeys to humans with a lot of intermediate steps... if so, then why do monkeys still exist? shouldn't all of them have been human?
(do let me know if i screwed up the theory of evolution...)

Maybe we should wait for Andy then, cause I don't know much about evolution. It was never taught to me in school (neither was Creation) and I always hated biology anyway (boring).

But the answer to your question, from what I understand, is that first of all humans did not evolve from monkeys. Instead, the two species have a common ancestor, so at one point there was just a single species and with evolutionary mutation two different (probably a lot more than two) strands started evolving in different directions, and hence we have two species today (again, more than two). "Evolved from monkeys" is a short hand of saying it, but not accurate.