[glb]

Originally Posted by fitfan

interesting - thank you! (thats pretty much what i was expecting to hear)

as a former biblical scholar, and philosphy student. i find this kinda stuff fascinating!!

because you really can take the basis of what he is saying and tie it all back to some reasonable arguments - but then the culmination of point (what i deduce from that brief clip and know about such others) is just out there... what is also interesting to me is that most rational people would easily say "that guy (in thoose statements alone) is a dangerous extremist" but you could also argue that he (or any other extremist) is no more radical than.. say.. ghandi. so is it a part of built in human morality to judge violance as bad and peace good? ..or in the case of someone being wired differently, or cultural trained differently at some point the reverse is believed to be the only rightous means to end evil. and hence you get violent radicals doing the work of god... crazy world we live in huh? especailly when you consider all the bloodshed done in the name of God, and i am talking biblicaly recorded "these are the right people to slaughter" historical truths (judaic wars) as the holy actions. so fast forward a bit to the crusades and it gets a bit easier to dismiss that a catholic evil, but had thoose wars gone down in the old testament - how is it any different? and fast forward even more in time and things get even less descernable. gosh, gets confussing and makes that whole middle east thing a mess that there can be no resolution to huh...

one of my favorite quoates from one of my old testament prophesors goes something like "there is no peace until a people are conquered" fortunatly in the US we slaughtered all the indegenous people - and so we have peace here (well there was that little economic war waged around agriculture and morality) - but there are other regions of the world that do not enjoy such historical closure.

sorry for the typos =- i am in hurry!

thanks, that was interesting. I heard a lecture by Sam Harris, who says he's studied every religion, during which he stated that Islam is the only (IIRC, I don't think he said "most") violent religion; one that tells its followers to try to convert others and, if they can't be converted, to kill them.

I don't know if this is true, but Harris' other points (in areas I know more about) were correct.

again, thanks.