But aren't Muslim groups such as Al-Qaeda politically motivated? They certainly seem to be.

I think that, in many cases, religion and politics are inextricably linked. Many people use religion as tool to achieve their own personal goals. Many political conflicts are religiously motivated. For example, India was divided up into two countries (I believe one or two others split off later, though I can't remember all the details), India and Pakistan, based on the religions of its people. Pakistan was set aside for the Muslims, while India remained Hindu. The groups advocating this split were certainly political groups, but they also had a religious motivation. Al-Qaeda proclaims a religious motivation, but there has to be something in it for the leaders of the group, even if it is just a power kick.

The split was because of a lack of representation for Muslims in the Indian government, which at the time was still under British rule. Unfortunately they rushed the job and there is still unrest in the nation of Pakistan. Due of course to the Taliban's involvement in the northwest quarter.

From Wikipedia:

Why focus only on physical violence? Why not consider psychological violence and otracization just as bad? I'm sure we'd see much more physical violence at anti-gay manifestations (be it at the funeral of a known homosexual, or during an equality rally) if it wasn't for the presence of police forces and cameras.

The amount of physical violence perpetrated will vary from country to country, and from people to people, depending on the way those countries work to start with. Just look at the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, there's violence comming from both sides, not just from the muslim side.

Thank you both for pointing this out as I wanted to address it - politics and religion are no doubt very much linked/intertwined and people do use religion to justify their own actions and political goals.

I was trying to differentiate between "radical religious extremists trying to promote their religious ideology" and "terrorists with political goals/demands who happen to share a religion".

And the reason for that is that I'm interested in those specific religious principles which are able to keep those groups motivated.

For example: I think it's safe to say that there aren't many violent and radical Amish terrorists. Now, could this be because it is harder to use the Amish religious principles to justify violent behavior? And wouldn't that mean, in a sense, that their religion is a more "peaceful" one than say, religions which can be misinterpreted to justify violence and hatred?



That is all true and all violence is bad. But all acts of violence be they physical or psychological do not necessarily stem from the same source and situations. And I believe in order to discuss the roots of violence, it makes more sense to separate different types of violence and discuss them instead of focusing on global violence in general.
And so I'm talking about unlawful organized physical violence fueled by religious texts.

While it is true that it is harder to derive a code of violence from Amish religious principles, it doesn't mean that Islamic religious principles are inherently bad just because there are Islamic extremists that practice violence.

There is no major religion that practices violence. There are fundamentalists who misinterpret the religious teachings to justify violent action, but the average practitioner frowns upon the fundamentalists. I know a few Muslims who are frustrated by the bad name given to their religion by the fundamentalists. The same can be said of Christians, and probably a few other religions.

Personally, I tend to think that fundamentalists are people who would be driven to irrational action whether they had a religion to back them up or not. They simply get more attention when they have the authority of a religion behind them because, for some reason, people are more likely to justify irrationality to themselves when it is put in the context of a religion.

Well that's the difference between us then. Because I don't think this is entirely true. I am willing to bet that a large portion of "fundamentalists" are technically sane people who would otherwise function normally in society had they had other beliefs.

According to radical Islamism, blowing yourself up and tons of innocent non-believers grants you a ticket to paradise. Lots of people can be manipulated to believe this. And even if you're a perfectly sane and "good" person, being convinced that a higher power wants you to commit these deeds you sort of feel like there is no other choice.
And it's dangerous because it results in a lot of people happy and willing to take their own life along with many innocent ones as well because they regard it as a good thing. In Christianity on the other hand, killing yourself grants you a ticket to Hell, it's kind of clear. So radical Islamism, as opposed to radical Christianity seems to be able to breed more of the most dangerous kinds of people.

This is, of course, only one aspect of the whole issue I'm addressing here, but I don't want to type too much at once for now and get involved with too many sub-issues as it gets confusing.

Wicca started out as little more than falsified reconstructionism, but got serious fairly quickly when it's earliest practitioners realized they had something of value to give to the world. Nowadays, it's the fastest-growing religion in Australia and the US. Very little attention - if any - is given to worldly philosophy and more towards nature, the Gods, and the practical applications and ethics of witchcraft. It's been a self-contained belief system right from the word go, with sufficiently defined (albeit very libertarian) tenets and doctrines that vary between traditions and modes of practice.



Just correcting some of your information there: The Goddess and God are not polar forces in the same sense as yin and yang. "Goddess" and "God" in most cases refer to the wide array of male and female deities appropriated from ancient cultures as a focus for Wiccan worship. The Goddess I associate with, for example, is Brigid, the Celtic goddess of wisdom and smithcraft. Because of this, both take on many, many forms. Gods of war (Ares, Andraste, Mars), smithcraft (Vulcan, Hephaestus, Brigid), healing (Dian Cecht), love/sex/fertility (Aphrodite, Anahita, Venus, Cernunnos, Marduk), wisdom (Brigid, Athena, Minerva), etc. are all referred to as Goddess and God collectively. As for ideals, the ideals that we follow are simply our own, in line with the basic "An it harm none, do what ye will".

Any more questions, feel free to throw them at me in this thread.

Blessed be
Rev. Jim Long
Priest/Founder
Claire de Lune Society of Wicca
Tamworth, NSW, Australia

http://www.cdls.org.au

Last edited by perihelion : 11th Mar 2010 at 07:14 PM.

I would like to point out that almost every religion considers suicide sinful, Janism is the only one I found that doesn't forbid it. All the Abrahamic religions view suicide as sinful so the Islam religion views suicide as a sin which I find ironic those suicide bombers who are doing it in the name of Allah will be hell and they will get their 72 virgins but not what they had in mind . I admit till recently I only knew the Christian's view of suicide so this was worth looking into.

Another topic on this topic:

I like Shintoism for its reverence towards nature. I guess I have blended so many things I couldn't classify myself as anything anymore. I like the idea of ritual purity in that the act helps me feel something that is absent. It may be a meaningless token but it feels sometimes like the world that I carry and my thoughts need to be purged. Sometimes it is nice to disconnect and go to a quite place burn my incense and just listen to silence or the wind. I feel presence and I suppose some would could consider that a bit insane--but it puts me at ease. I some how feel a primordial connection when I sit outside and watch the animals play and I feel they are teaching me something, that they in themselves are part of a whole divinity. I have walked along fields and looked at old stones and twisted trees, fallen barns and creek beds and sometimes I feel as if there is something deeply spiritual. Being there it sometimes feels as if I am standing at a curtained window and if I could just muster myself enough I might be able to pull it back and see what was beyond my normal sight. There seems to be spirits in nature to me, stories and ideas trapped inside of them..a recording of history and a valuable lesson. When I look in the mirror sometimes I see my mothers eyes and although she has long passed I feel as if she is still about somewhere with other kin neither heaven nor hell, but beyond that curtain. I feel an affinity with shamanism in its many forms, I often wonder if we all came from one place and knew what true was at one time. I wonder as we grew into our humanity if we forgot the most important things and tried to categorize what wasn't meant to be done so, and because our little boxes don't perfectly fit anothers we know that theirs must be empty or filled with something that would harm us.

I believe in the divine spark and believe that it is many and one, mankind enjoys making things complicated so they can use it for a tool to manipulate and justify. Honestly I feel that regardless of where one is born and if nothing at all was ever spoken of the religious dogmas that a person would still have a sense of wrong and right, true and false--that I consider to be divine, just the sense of a certain personal morality.

I don't see some super czar sitting upon a throne because it is an earthly concept. I believe it is gentle energies that I will never quite fathom that tries to advance things for the better and for right reasons. I have no qualms with science because I believe it to be a gift and should be used to test the merit of things and it creates far more often than it destroys. I have no disagreement with evolution but i personally believe something 'other' natural sparked it, that it was somehow made but once it was finished it was left to bear its own fruit.

That said, about belief and not religion....
What do you think about entities? Could there be something intelligent and unseen that lives alongside man?
Do you think that there is an inborn sense of gentleness and compassion that outweighs the animal nature?
How do you feel about afterlife? Are we recycled energy or do we pass to somewhere else or do you think it all final?
Do you believe that science and spiritual faith need to be or should be at odds?

Just thought I would ask so I could see if I am indeed flaky or if there where like flakes about :P

Uh, there isn't really anything called 'Radical Islamism', it's not a religion on its own. As someone previously stated, in all the Abrahamic religions suicide grants you a one way ticket to hell - this includes Islam.

I think the reason most suicide bombers are Muslim is because of the current state of affairs in the Middle East - War and a lot of poverty make the population easy targets for manipulation. Because of the poverty and lack of education, quite a few people have a solid understanding of their religion, leaving the heads of Al-Qaeda and other such organisations with the ability to convince them suicide isn't against Islam for their own political reasons. And technically in Lebanon, Hezbollah is a political party - not a terrorist organisation.

I'm not muslim, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the whole suicide thing.

Anyway;
What do you think about entities? Could there be something intelligent and unseen that lives alongside man?
Hmm, I think it certainly may be a possibilty. That's something to think about.

Do you think that there is an inborn sense of gentleness and compassion that outweighs the animal nature?
Hahaha, no. After reading Lord of the Flies and analysing the living hell out of it, I could never ever think that again. Gentleness and compassion are developed by what we call civilisation, where we are told what is right and what is wrong and we believe it because doing otherwise is not acceptable. I believe there are some acceptions to this, but very, very few. If left alone without morals and rules, I believe animal instinct will take over: Enter survival of the fittest.

How do you feel about afterlife? Are we recycled energy or do we pass to somewhere else or do you think it all final?
I'd like to believe I live on, even if I don't remember it, re-incarnation if you will. The heaven depicted in the various holy books doesn't sound too appealing to me, and neither does the hell.

Do you believe that science and spiritual faith need to be or should be at odds?
My mother disagrees with me completely on this, as a doctor she says her work with science only makes her faith stronger. I, on the otherhand, completely disagree with this. I believe science explained what couldn't be explained, and will continue to explain what we still don't understand, thus eliminating the need of a deity in which we use to explain the unexplainable.

What do you think about entities? Could there be something intelligent and unseen that lives alongside man?

I don't think so. I have a lot of respect and something resembling reverence for nature, but I don't think it is an intelligent entity. I think that nature just is and that we have to live in accord with it.

Do you think that there is an inborn sense of gentleness and compassion that outweighs the animal nature?

I think that compassion is a natural emotion, but I don't think that it always outweighs our baser nature. I think that we are all essentially selfish, but that those who are more emotionally developed gain a sense of satisfaction from empathizing with others. I think that civilization has selected for those who are more emotionally developed and that society increases our emotional development, but there are still examples of people who lack the emotional development necessary to get along with others.

How do you feel about afterlife? Are we recycled energy or do we pass to somewhere else or do you think it all final?

I'm still uncertain about this. I don't know whether we have souls or are simply a series of biochemical reactions capable of thought. I think that our science isn't developed enough to answer that question, so I have considered both to be possibilities. If we do have souls, I think that they would have to somehow be recycled due to the law of conservation of energy, though I don't think that thoughts and personality go along with that recycling. I think that the soul would simply be a human essence that animates us and allows us conscious thought, but our life experiences are gone once we are. If we are simply a series of biochemical reactions, then everything we are goes away when we die.

I think this is why I consider the highest goal of one's life to further the human species. It is the only way to leave a positive impact after you are gone, and I think that scientific and cultural improvement are the highest goals we can strive for as a species.

Do you believe that science and spiritual faith need to be or should be at odds?

I don't think that they have to be, but I think that scientific knowledge should alway come before faith. If there is a contradiction, reality (science) should win out. I personally don't have a faith, but I can logically see how one can have faith and still accept science.



Someone beat me to the punch, but blowing yourself up is not considered a good thing in Islam. You are still talking about fundamentalists, who are people who intentionally misread the teachings of a religion. I think that fundamentalists are people who would be irrational even without religion because they are using a flawed interpretation of a religion for personal gain. Some fundamentalists may have been brainwashed into it as young, impressionable children, but I think that most saw some benefit to the irrational beliefs and chose to use them as an excuse for their actions and their hatred.

To use a different and somewhat more harmless example: look at born-again Christians. I'm talking about the kind that preaches zealously and puts off every indication of being just not totally sane. They are people who lived some other kind of life (usually a less crazy one ), but their guilt, or desire to relieve themselves of responsibility, or some other reason made becoming a born-again Christian appeal to them. There is no rationality in this action; only a wish for some type of personal gain.

Well, as for myself, I am a self-identified Heathen. It should be noted there's heathen *notice the lower case h?* which is meant to be derogatory. And then there's Heathen, which I am. Heathens are followers of the Nordic mythology.

Numerous Heathen faiths are reconstructionist, meaning they want to try to recreate practices and religion from the times of our ancestors; I myself am not, though. The most well-known Heathen faith is Asatru (well, technically, Ásatrú).

Unfortunately, Heathen faiths also carry a bad representation: Nazism. The Third Reich used Nordic symbolism, such as the Nordic runes. Since then, white supremacist have defiled even good and powerful symbols, such Mjollnir, the Hammer of Thor. Although it does have symbolism as a weapon, Mjollnir also represents strength, protection, justice, and, believe it or not, fertility.

What do you think about entities? Could there be something intelligent and unseen that lives alongside man? Who knows in this world I have no reason to think or not think that there is a supreme being which is why I am Agnostic since we not supposed to know the meaning of life but everyone has their own belief on what it is.

Do you think that there is an inborn sense of gentleness and compassion that outweighs the animal nature? Yes but not everyone has that inborn sense of kindness it is often a learned behavior same with rudeness.

How do you feel about afterlife? Are we recycled energy or do we pass to somewhere else or do you think it all final? I think a lot of people want to think their souls are going somewhere when they die weither it would heaven or re-carnation instead of rotting in the ground. I can't answer that question because I don't know nobody does and that's the mystery of life and one of things that should stay a mystery IMO. Who knows maybe where we go when we die is nothing that any of the religions said we would go.

Do you believe that science and spiritual faith need to be or should be at odds?
Ideally they shouldn't be at odds but often they are. One of my friends is a deist (believes in a supreme being but not religious) she believes in both evolution and creationism I found this view rather interesting since the mentally is either OK you either believe in evolution or creationism "pick a side" I am sure there are others like this but it doesn't seem like there is many of them.

I think I understand what your friend is talking about. I, too, am Agnostic, but I think that, if there is a God, he simply created the universe, without taking an active role in it afterwards. Meaning that there is still room for evolution because God wouldn't have created individual species, or even life itself. This may be what your friend believes.

I do believe that is the general ideology of deists, yes. I've heard of Deism before, and that what I gathered from what I was told about it.

How do you feel about afterlife? Are we recycled energy or do we pass to somewhere else or do you think it all final?

I believe that the mind and body can exist separately from each other, if that's the case, logic dictates that the mind survives when the body dies. I think the body is just a shell for our mind, after all our mind can influence our body.

Does the mind/soul go somewhere...nobody knows and that is a good thing, our lives are chaotic enough without that knowledge.

If we would know I think there would be many more suicides, a cop-out...in case the next life is better then this one.

Just my personal opinion mind you...since there is no proof for it or against it.

In a school lunchyard, somewhere, today:

"Dude... I'll trade you my leftover Bread of Affliction for your Oreos or your JuicyJuice."

Nice find. I'm something of a mix between Asatru and Wicca. I'm not a reconstructionist, but I still consider myself Heathen.

For the curious, here are the Nine Noble Virtues of Asatru (nine is a very important number in Nordic mythology and is frequently used, or divisions of nine).

1. Courage
2. Truth
3. Honor
4. Fidelity
5. Discipline
6. Hospitality
7. Industriousness
8. Self-Reliance
9. Perseverance

Hey, we went there to learn about world religions in school!


What do you think about entities? Could there be something intelligent and unseen that lives alongside man?
Could very well be. Even though I call myself Jewish, I'm skeptical about this "God" person's motives. Take the Garden of Eden, and something Ford Prefect said in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but paraphrase it slightly, because I can't remember it exactly. What kind of guy says, "Okay, have free reign of this here garden, just stay away from that fig, no matter what you do." So, considering that A & E are not the brightest bulbs yet, what do they do? Go straight for the fig, and the big G jumps out from behind a bush and yells "Gotcha!"


Do you think that there is an inborn sense of gentleness and compassion that outweighs the animal nature?
To an extent. When we are doing well, then a lot of us find ourselves compelled by compassion. However, it is all too easy to get ourselves to become savage beasts once more. That's what religion probably was, in the beginning. The King said, "Behave, or a big giant being in the sky will smite you." And the people, believing their King to know more than they did (People generally want to believe their leader has some qualification to rule that they don't), sat down and behaved, instead of running about like wild apes.

How do you feel about afterlife? Are we recycled energy or do we pass to somewhere else or do you think it all final?
The big problem with this question is that we can't answer it, as no one has come back. This is the biggest leap of faith, after believing in a higher deity. Honestly, my view is that if you live a good, honest, decent life, regardless of what scripture says, you'll be taken care of once you're gone.

Do you believe that science and spiritual faith need to be or should be at odds?
Not at all. We still don't know what triggered the Big Bang. Couldn't there have been some higher power that flipped the switch, and now watches us? Believing that, then the reason we don't get so many miracles nowadays would be because we've got science, and can fend for ourselves. Or perhaps we're a lost cause.


Yeah, I'm kind of a weirdo. I hold many views that would seem to be atheist, but I call myself Jewish, partly because it defines me as unique among those I know, and partly because everyone needs a little faith to turn to now and then, and I think that Judaism makes the most sense for me.

Mm, one of the problems of, how to put it...pagan terminology is that many terms tend to be both blanket terms, and also used with a more specific meaning.

Anyhow, yes, the word heathen dates back that far, maybe earlier. Generally, though, it's practitioners of the Germanic neopaganism that have adopted to calling themselves as "Heathen," like how you'd call yourself Christian. From what I understand, the reason for this is because the root words of "heathen" are from the northern languages.

However, it was eventually bastardized, much like other cultures, during and after the Christianization of Europe.

Anyhow, those are known as the Nine Noble Virtues, practiced in Asatru (and likely other Germanic neopagan faiths). Essentially, you are correct in respect that chivalry dealt with ethics and practices, so they are similar in that way. The idea of the Nine Noble Virtues is that they are virtues to live by.

They were gathered from the Nordic tales, such as the stories from the Prose Edda, as oftentimes, tales were written which reflected the morals and ethics of a people.

Last edited by Nekowolf : 2nd Apr 2010 at 03:53 PM.

Hmmm... Interesting, if a little simplistic.

Or maybe I just don't fit into a box.