EVEN before Muslim schoolboys desecrated a Bible with urine, spit and fire last week, a civil war was brewing inside the corridors of the East Preston Islamic College.2.Aussie should act fast to ease the religious tensions.
For months, a small group of teachers - Muslim and non-Muslim - were increasingly alarmed by what they saw as a radical stream of Islamic teaching inside the school.
"Extreme or hardline interpretations of Islam have no place in an Australian Islamic school," one angry Muslim teacher wrote to the principal, Shaheem Doutie, in May this year.
I agree with you. No surprise that people like Pauline Hanson exist. Although she appears to be an idiot at times, many of her concerns are valid.Originally posted by fymk:Most of the problems come from the middle eastern migrants or those from extremely strict islamic countries such as pakistan . I don't see much problems with the moderates .
some of them even better - they use religion or culture as an excuse to rape women as in the gang rape of the teenage girls in sydney, or molest/harass them which is a precursor to the so called racial riots in a beach in Sydney .
Sometimes - they should just go back to where they come from if they cannot integrate fully .
i dun think its always the religion. sometimes, its the culture of the people. covered in the facade called religion. the pagan ways of the people before they accept the religious teachings, and slowly the original ideals of that religion give concession to the cultural quirks those people had.Originally posted by Oriakan:It is religion that is the problem. If religion were to be eliminated, the would no tensions in the the first place.
religious tensions="2 groups of people fighting over who has the better imaginary friend" or "why don't you also talk to my imaginary friend? What you refuse?! Then you must die!"
Get rid of religion and the world will be better off.
Originally posted by Ito_^:Yes, the facade called religion gives people of different cultures yet another reason to harbour animosity against each other. Pagan or shamanic ways still falls under the category of religion.However culture and religion is intertwined.If religion were removed from the mix, things would be much better.
i dun think its always the religion. sometimes, its the culture of the people. covered in the facade called religion. the pagan ways of the people before they accept the religious teachings, and slowly the original ideals of that religion give concession to the cultural quirks those people had.
that is why we have christmas, that now we know, have nothing to do with the birth of christ but still celebrated as such.
old ways are hard to change, and sometimes, they do more than remain rooted in the hearts of people. they also corrupt and change religious values from its ideal state.
of course, that also hint how fallible religious values can be.
my opinion la hor. dun come flame me.
Getting rid of religion isn't a panacea. People will lose all sense of morals if it happens.Originally posted by Oriakan:It is religion that is the problem. If religion were to be eliminated, there would be no tensions in the the first place.
religious tensions="2 groups of people fighting over who has the better imaginary friend" or "why don't you also talk to my imaginary friend? What you refuse?! Then you must die!"
Get rid of religion and the world will be better off.
Getting rid of religion isn't a panacea. People will lose all sense of morals if it happens.You don't need religion to give you morals. People can be good for the sake of being good.
Quite right, all this so called "moral values" are jibber jabber for the weak.Originally posted by Oriakan:You don't need religion to give you morals. People can be good for the sake of being good.
Plenty of Islamic extremists in Malaysia too...some have even been found in SingaporeOriginally posted by ceecookie:i think its time Asia(with the exception of Malaysia for obvious reason) should start restricting the access of Middle East people and if possible deny all possible terrorist targets such as sch to them.
Can you perhaps back this up? This sensationalist remarks is really misleading. Maybe those people who study a certain religion are being thought and saying such things....cant you for once listen to a moderate muslim...cos i would really like to know where you got this point...Originally posted by TYING:They are all blinded by the quran lar, if you ask those people who studies religion ( dono what they are called), they will tell you a lot of things abt the quran tt will shock you.
I totally agree with you Wakus. People should really widen their vision. Be neutral.Originally posted by Wakus:Do all you very informed people have any idea what islam is all about...don't you think that it a bit weird that most of the media is very negative towards and thus misrepresents islam? has anyone tried to look at what is Islam about?
I say again the media has a tendency to show the negative and sensational to draw attention and emotion, cause honestly thats what the world of news is like today...Living in a multi religious society, have you ever tried to ask someone muslim what is islam all about? Or do you just draw your assumptions from these articles, that really does not show what is Islam?
This is a really one sided argument on your part. And TYING....
Can you perhaps back this up? This sensationalist remarks is really misleading. Maybe those people who study a certain religion are being thought and saying such things....cant you for once listen to a moderate muslim...cos i would really like to know where you got this point...
Really education is the way to go if we are to rectify this misunderstanding...
Quite right, all this so called "moral values" are jibber jabber for the weak.
If I could victimize somebody and get away with it, there is really nothing stopping me from robbing, killing and what have you not. These actions are not "good" or "evil", they are just actions. "Good" and "Evil" are arbitrary human constructs with no absolutes.
Hence if I have devised a foolproof method of breaking into Oriakan's home him and tying him up, torture his parents to death in front of him before cutting their bodies up and smearing the blood all over him, followed by killing him slowly by removing the least important body parts one at a time followed by the organsÂ… I should do so with wild abandon without worrying about all these silly things called morality.
For really, absolute morality does not exist. It is up to us to decide what's good for ourselves and if I can derive sadistic pleasure in torturing and murdering a total stranger who has done nothing to meÂ… it is something I can do, who cares about what people say. As Nietzsche has long called us, we must abandon all these silly slave mentalities to thought systems of servitute and become supermen. Power and will to act are the only things that matter in the end. And with my power and will I choose to do such a thing to Oriakan.
Chapman Cohen
The assertion that morality would never have existed for human beings without belief in a god or without a revelation from god is equal to saying that man alone should have never discovered the value of being honest and truthful or loyal. He would not even have had such terms as good and bad in his vocabulary, for the use of those words implies moral judgment, and there would have been no such thing -- at least, so we are told.
It is so glaringly absurd to say that without religion man would not know right from wrong, that it is given a very slight covering in the expression, "destroy religion and you remove all moral restraints". Restraints! That expression is indeed a revelation. To the theist morality stands for no more than a series of restraints, and restraints are unpleasant things, because they prevent a man from doing what he would like to do. It is acting in defiance of one's impulses that makes one conscious of "restraints".
A pickpocket in a crowd is restrained by the knowledge that there is a policeman at his elbow. A burglar is restrained from breaking into an house by hearing the footsteps of a policeman. Each refrains from doing as he would like to do because he is conscious of restraints. It may be god; it may be a policeman. god is an unsleeping policeman
From this point of view, what are called moral rules are treated much as one may treat the regulation that one must not buy chocolates after a certain hour in the evening. The order is submitted to because of "sanctions" that may be applied if you do not. So to the type of theist with whom we are dealing the question of right or wrong is entirely one of coercion from without. If he disobeys he may be punished, if not here, then hereafter. He asks, "Why should a man impose restraints on himself if there is no future life in which to be rewarded or punished? Why not enjoy oneself and be done with it?
But all this is quite wrong. The ordinary man is not conscious of restraint when he behaves himself in a decent manner. A mother is not conscious of restraint when she devotes herself to nursing her sick child, or goes out to work to supply it with food. A man who is left in the house of a friend is not conscious of restraint when he refrains from pocketing the silver, or when he does not steal a purse that has been left on the mantlepiece. A person sent to the bank to cash a check does not feel any restraint because he returns with the money. The man who is conscious of a restraint when he does a decent action is not a "good" man at all. He is a potential criminal who does not commit a crime only because he is afraid of being caught.
The moral problem is not how does man manage to do wrong, but how does he find out what is right?
With so many opportunities of doing the wrong thing the moral problem is how did man come to hit on the right one, and to make the treading of the right road to some extent automatic?
Nature takes no more heed of our moral rules and judgements than it does of our tastes in art or literature. A man is not blessed with good health because he is an example of lofty morality, nor is he burdened with disease because he is a criminal in thought and act. Nature is neither moral or immoral. Such terms are applicable only when there is conscious action to a given end. Nature is amoral, that is, it is without morality. The common saying that nature "punishes" us or "rewards" us for this or that is merely a picturesque way of stating certain things; it has no literal relation to actual fact. In nature there are no rewards or punishments, there are only actions and consequences. We benefit if we act in one way; we suffer if we act in another. That is the natural fact; there is no ethical quality in natural happenings. Laws of morals are human creations; they are on all fours with "laws" of science -- that is, they are generalizations from experience.
So morality existed in fact long before it was defined or described in theory. Man did not first discover the laws of physiology in order to realize the need for eating or breathing, to digest food or to inhale oxygen. Nor did the rules, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, etc., first make stealing and killing wrong. A moral law makes explicit in theory what is implicit in fact. The fact creates the rule; it is not the rule that creates the fact.
Moral rules stand to human society pretty well as laws of physiology do to the individual organism. They constitute the physiology of social life, with the distinction that whatever rules we have must be modified in form from time to time to meet changing circumstances.
Nature requires but one thing of all living creatures. This is efficiency. The "moral" quality of this efficiency does not matter in the least.
The "moral" quality of this efficiency does not matter in the least. A Church without a lightning conductor is at a disadvantage with a brothel that possesses one. A man who risks his life in a good cause has, other things equal, no advantage over a man who risks his life in a bad one. Leave on one side this matter of efficiency and there is not the slightest attention paid to anything that we consider morally worthy in the organism that survives.
Finally, efficiency in the case of living beings is to be expressed in terms of adaption to environment, a fish to water, an air-breathing animal to land, a carnivorous animal to its capacity to stalk its prey, a vegetable feeder to qualities that enable it to escape the attack of the carnivora, and so forth. An animal survives as it is able to adapt itself, or as it becomes adapted to its environment. It is well to bear in mind this principle of efficiency, because while what constitutes efficiency varies from time to time, the fact of its being the main condition determining survival remains true whether we are dealing with organic structure or with mental life.
Now if we take ethical terminology, it is plain that the language used implies a relation and one of a very definite kind. The part of the environment to which these terms are related is that of other and like individuals. Kindness, truthfulness, justice, mercy, honesty, etc., all imply this. A man by himself -- if we can picture such a thing -- could not be kind; there would be no one to whom to be kind. He could not be truthful; there would be none to whom he could tell a lie. He could not be honest, or generous, or loyal; there would be none to whom these qualities would have any application. Every moral quality implies the existence of a group of which an individual is a member. And as the group enlarges so moral qualities take on a wider application. But this cardinal fact, that ethical qualities, whether they be good or bad, have no significance apart from group life, remains constant throughout.
Now let us revert to man as a theoretically solitary animal, a condition that has nowhere existed, for the sociality of man is only a stage in advance of the gregariousness of the animal world from which man has descended. But as an animal he must develop certain habits and tastes in order to merely exist. Somehow man must usually avoid doing things that threaten his existence. Even in matters of food he must develop a taste for things which preserve life and a distaste for things that destroy it; and, as a matter of fact, there are a number of capacities developed in the body that automatically offer protection in the case of food against things that are too injurious to life. But it is quite obvious that if a man developed a taste for prussic acid, such a taste would not become hereditary.
Human life, in line with animal life in general, has to develop not merely a dislike for such things as threaten life, but also a liking for their opposite. The development of this capacity means that in the long run the actions which promote pleasure, and those which preserve life, roughly coincide.
But man never does exist as an individual only, one that is fighting for his own hand, and whose thoughts and tendencies are consciously or unconsciously concerned only with his own welfare. Man is always a member of a group, and the mere fact of living with others imposes in the individual a kind of discipline that gives a definite direction to the character of his development. The law of life is, that to live an organism must be adapted to its environment, and the important part of the environment here is that formed by one's fellow-beings. The adaption need not be perfect, any more than that the food one eats need be of the most nutritious kind. But just as the food eaten must contain enough nutrition to maintain life, so conduct must be such as to maintain some kind of harmony between and individual and the rest of the group to which he belongs. If an individual's nature is such that he will not or cannot adapt himself to his fellows then he is, in one stage of civilization, killed off, and in another he is subjected to pains and penalties, and various kinds of restraints that keep his antisocial tendencies in check. There is a selective process in all societies, and even more rigid in low societies than in the higher ones, in which those ill-adapted to the common life of the group are placed at a disadvantage even in procreating their own kind.
And side by side with this process of selection within the group there is going on another eliminative process on a larger scale in the contest of group with group. A group in which the members show little signs of a common action of loyalty to each other, is most likely to be subjugated, or wiped out and replaced by a group in which the cohesion is greater and the subordination of purely individualistic tendencies to the welfare of the whole is greater.
The nature of the process by which man becomes a moral animal is therefore given when we say that man is a social animal. Social life is in itself a kind of discipline, a training which fits a man to work with his fellows, to live with them, and to their mutual advantage. There are rules of the social game which the individual must observe if he is to live as a member of the tribe. Man is not usually conscious of the discipline he is undergoing, but neither is any animal conscious of the process of the forces which adapt it to its environment. The moralizing of man is never a conscious process, but it is a recognizable process nonetheless.
It may also be noted that the rules of this social game are enforced with greater strictness in primitive societies than is the case with later ones. It is quite a mistake to think of the live of savages as free, and that of civilized man as being bound down by social and legal rules. Quite the opposite is the case. The life of uncivilized man is bound by customs, by taboos, that leave room for but little initiative, and which to a civilized man would be intolerable.
But from the earliest times there is always going on a discipline that tends to eliminate the ill-adapted to social life. Real participation in social life means more than an abstention from injurious acts, it involves a positive contribution to the life of the whole. A type of behaviour that is not in harmony with the general social characteristics of the groups sets up an irritation much as a foreign substances does when introduced to the tissues of an organism. Thus we have on the one hand, a discipline that forces conformity with the social structure, and on the other hand a revolutionary tendency making for further improvement.
There are still other factors that have to be noted of we are properly to appreciate the forces that go to mould character and to establish a settled moral code. To a growing extent the environment to which the human being has to adapt himself is one of ideas and ideals. There are certain ideals of truthfulness, loyalty, obedience, kindness, etc., which surround one from the very moment of birth. The society which gives him the language he speaks and the stored-up knowledge it possesses, also provides him with ideals by which he is more or less compelled to guide his life.
There are endless differences in the form of these social ideals, but they are of the same mental texture, from the taboo of the savage to the "old school tie".
The last phase of this moral adaption is that which takes place between groups. From the limited family group to which moral obligations are due, we advance to the tribe, from thence to the group of tribes that constitute the nation, and then to a stage into which we are now entering that of the relations between nations, a state wherein in its complete form, there is an extension of moral duties to the whole of humanity.
But wherever and whenever we take it, the substance of morality is that of an adaption of feelings and ideas to the human group, and to the animal group so far as they can be said to enter into some form of relationship with us. There is no alteration in the fundamental character of morality. Its keynote is always, as I have said, efficiency, but it is an efficiency, the nature of which is determined by the relations existing between groups of human beings.
If what has been said is rightly apprehended, it will be understood what is meant by saying that moral laws are to the social group exactly what laws of physiology are to the individual organism. There is nothing to cause wonder or mystification about moral laws; they express the physiology of social life. It is these laws that are manifested in practice long before they are expressed in set terms. Human conduct, whether expressed in life or formulated in "laws", represents the conditions that make social life possible and profitable. It is this recognition that forms the science of morality and the creation of conditions that favour the performance of desirable actions and the development of desirable feelings constitutes the art of morality.
Finally, in the development of morality as elsewhere, nature creates very little that is absolutely new. It works up again what already exists. That is the path of all evolution. Feelings of right and wrong are gradually expanded from the group to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, and from the nation to the whole of human society. The human environment to which man has to adapt himself becomes even wider. "My neighbour" ceases to express itself in relation to those immediately surrounding me, begins to extend to all with whom I have any relations whatsoever. It is that stage we are now entering, and much of the struggle going on in the world is due to the attempts to adapt the feeling already there to its wider environment. The world is in the pangs of childbirth. Whether civilization will survive those pangs remains to be seen, but the nature of the process is unmistakable to those who understand the past, and are able to apply its lessons to the present and the future.
There is, then, nothing mysterious about the fact of morality. There is no more need for supernaturalism here than there is room for it in any of the arts and sciences. Morality is a natural fact; it is not created by the formulation of "laws"; these only express its existence and our sense of value. The moral feeling creates the moral law; not the other way about. Morality has nothing to do with god; it has nothing to do with a future life. Its sphere of application and operation is in this world; its authority is derived from the common sense of mankind and is born of the necessities of life.
Let us look at the truth about Islam:Originally posted by Wakus:Do all you very informed people have any idea what islam is all about...don't you think that it a bit weird that most of the media is very negative towards and thus misrepresents islam? has anyone tried to look at what is Islam about?
I say again the media has a tendency to show the negative and sensational to draw attention and emotion, cause honestly thats what the world of news is like today...Living in a multi religious society, have you ever tried to ask someone muslim what is islam all about? Or do you just draw your assumptions from these articles, that really does not show what is Islam?
This is a really one sided argument on your part. And TYING....
Can you perhaps back this up? This sensationalist remarks is really misleading. Maybe those people who study a certain religion are being thought and saying such things....cant you for once listen to a moderate muslim...cos i would really like to know where you got this point...
Really education is the way to go if we are to rectify this misunderstanding...
to find why muslims cant eat pork or wadever,then you should google itOriginally posted by saltedveggie:i'm not saying all muslims are like that, but when i asked a few of them about their religion, they couldn't give me a reason why they did certain things. like, why can't they eat pork? they couldn't say; they said, priest say so i follow lor.
maybe the guy isn't called a priest, but you know, someone with that ranking. i think maybe some muslims should speak up in here? so that we all can have a better understanding.
Honestly, I think thats how most lay muslims or people are. Following customs or general conventions until later when their own revelation/reasoning may come. I doubt the muslims are proud to be in that position either when its called being a muqallid - an imitator or blind follower. In Islamic jurispundence or law, the muqallid is one who accepts verdicts from authority without asking about the proof or the process/baggage in arriving to a certain conclusion.Originally posted by saltedveggie:i'm not saying all muslims are like that, but when i asked a few of them about their religion, they couldn't give me a reason why they did certain things. like, why can't they eat pork? they couldn't say; they said, priest say so i follow lor.
maybe the guy isn't called a priest, but you know, someone with that ranking. i think maybe some muslims should speak up in here? so that we all can have a better understanding.
You ought to be hung for your statement.Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:Hmmm... There should be a law allowing for summary execution of religious extremists wherever they are found.
Meanwhile we should look to be less sensitive about religion.