I tend to agree with Murphy.  My respect for Muslim fundamentalists has vanished altogether while my respect for Muslim moderate apologists is wearing thinner by the day.  I’m not talking here about the Muslim laity; I’m talking about their leaders who either incite violence or, by their silence, condone it. Any person or group, whose belief system calls for the annihilation of those who do not believe, will certainly not gain my respect.  The idea of unconditional respect simply obliterates the meaning of the word.

I agree with Martin who wrote it boils down to freedom OF and FROM religion.

I think to join a religion is akin to belonging to any service club that includes a spiritual twist.

There are joiners and loners. I, personally, am a loner and wouldn’t join ANY group even at gunpoint. I loathe “groupthink” and detest the tethers that inevitably entangle a “member.” Freedom is the first basic right to be impaired when you join any group. And the longer the group has been in existence, the more your freedoms are limited. It’s just the way humans do things… “if ONE law is good, then a dozen rules and regulations must be much better,” and so on. As with governments and boards of directors, religious leaders eventually feel they must be SEEN to be doing something, so they make up laws… & “make up” is a term I chose deliberately!

I have never understood those who simply cannot function unless they’re entangled/supported by “memberships” in various organizations in their communities… the more the merrier.

The key, for me, is that we all leave one another ALONE to “do our thing.” As a loner, I have no wish whatsoever to “disentangle” the joiners from their support systems. If they choose to spend their lives in an endless parade of “obligations” then more power to them.

I just wish the “joiners/believers” would allow me the same courtesy… to get off my back, to get out of my face, to quit interfering in my life and to completely abandon attempts to rig the rules of society to suit their own views/beliefs. And therein lies the “rub.” Somewhere along the line many “fundamentalists” got the notion that it is their right and role to IMPOSE their views, beliefs and ways of doing things on everyone else… in the name of “God” of course. They always have a direct line to what God wants and what God is thinking. What hubris!

Religions, as with any club, should perhaps be granted “non-profit” status, but that’s it. Full property and other taxes should apply and no benefits should be available to churches or other places of “worship” that aren’t available to any other business or establishment in our communities.

And finally, Martin, the last thing I would want to happen is to “...drag them out of their cubicle and make them explain their belief…”. The LESS I hear about their beliefs the better. Nothing is more boring than to listen to someone trying to justify nonsense with more nonsense! When I want a dose of fiction I’ll go rent a Disney DVD.

I think it all boils down to religious freedom.  Only true freedom of and from religions will level the playing field. Humans are consumers, they should be able to choose their religion according to what works for them.  Forcing others to follow a certain religion should be considered as reprehensible and outlawed. Even between parents and kids.
Billions of people live in unspeakable misery because of religion. Their mental and spiritual health is in shatters by not allowing their nature to flourish and to explore life’s own wisdom.  These people will just start to rage if their precious belief is debunked.  Their greatest fear is that all the suffering was for nothing, for a pipe dream.
Only 10% of humans at most are seekers and truly investigate the meta-physical world. They search for truth in other religions and find a snippet here and there.  Some religions are fertile ground, others are just incomprehensible junk. And those who find their inner peace after many years of trying will not fight with believers.  It is hopeless to fight about religion. To force religions to defend their teaching will cause harm and should be avoided.
Oppressive religions wither away in freedom by themselves. And those who feel comfortable in the belief of the fathers should be left alone.  They might not be the movers and shakers of society, the big thinkers and fighters for rights, but to drag them out of their cubicle and make them explain their belief is cruel and does not help the cause of agnosis and atheism.

A. A. Murphy in #1582 wrote, in part, “I disagree that Islam—or any other religion—deserves a “respectful” analysis. Religions are ridiculous belief systems and thus unworthy of respect.”

It is not the RELIGIONS that deserve the respect, in my view, but the humans who happen, for the moment, to believe in them. Those “believers” are just as human as A. A. Murphy and are deserving of the same amount of respect as I assume “he” would desire.

Hypocritical homophobes are fond of saying “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin” when referring to gays and lesbians. Maybe this is the same kind of thing. But then, I’ve never been able to figure out exactly how to do that… how do you separate the human from his/her beliefs?

I won’t live to see it, of course, but perhaps sometime before the next millennium marker rolls around, religions will just be a footnote in the history books. However, we humans have always believed in some cockeyed superstition or other and have been waging war on our neighbors because they held differing views from our own. I have no idea why I think things might be different in future.

Christians were once thrown to the lions, which epitomized the brutality of ancient Rome.  In modern times, however, the brutality is coming from the theists, in both word and deed.  This is a clear and unambiguous threat to western civilization.  We must now throw the beliefs of Christians, Muslims and all other religions into the same ruthless maelstrom of scientific scrutiny from which the theory of evolution and other scientific theories have emerged unscathed.  The Bible, the Koran and the Torah make specific claims about the actions and properties of various natural phenomena (Noah’s flood; Joshua commanding the sun to “stand thou still upon Gibeon [and it did],” etc.).  Such claims are about how the real world works and are, accordingly, legitimate targets for rational inquiry.  If religious leaders who promulgate these claims were called before a worldwide scientific forum to substantiate them, it would be their responsibility to do so.  It would, likewise, be the responsibility of the scientific community to either accept them or to publicly discredit them.  Chances of this ever happening, of course, are vanishingly small.  Meanwhile, religious leaders the world over live daily with the astonishing contradiction of believing that anything is permissible in the name of God while warning us that without God, anything would be permissible.

My hat off to you, Mr. Zizek.  The world desperately needs more people with your intellectual grit.  Several million perhaps, for starters.

I disagree that Islam—or any other religion—deserves a “respectful” analysis. Religions are ridiculous belief systems and thus unworthy of respect.

In fact, it is that typically respectful attitude—usually stemming from fear—that has allowed religions to enslave mankind for millennia.

Priests, ministers, gurus, mullahs and others of their ilk are bullies at heart. That’s how they retain power, by making people too afraid to stand up for common sense and common decency.

Religions of all sorts deserve all the ridicule that can be heaped upon them, because it’s very likely that they will soon cause humankind to self-destruct.

I recently watched the movie, Elizabeth, the story of the beginning of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign as Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. (Not much change in the gene pool from then to now.) The movie reminded me that whenever I talk about Muslims, I should consider the religious history of Christianity, the religion of my roots.

Just like when I talk about ethnic cleansing, I should consider how the nation of which I am a citizen—the USA—was taken from the Native Americans.

And that is just the beginning of my historical considerations of how and why I enjoy the unfathomable (I feel no limits) creative freedom as a “lumpenite” ... unimaginable in any other time or place.

My simple belief is that awareness arises out of existence, not existence out of awareness.

And I worry no more or no less about fundamentalist Muslims than I do about fundamentalist Christians ... except for one important aspect: There are more fundamentalist Christians than fundamentalist Muslims in the USA.

And I do agree with the teaching attributed to Jesus, that we should take the splinter out of our own eye before we worry about the log in someone else’s.