Only if you get to wear a funky fuzzy hat. But is it acceptable for people to have the opinion or belief that murder is a proper recourse for another's change of religion or declaration in a lack of a belief? And should people be allowed to follow through with such beliefs or opinions in actually killing someone because they have professed to either not believe or decided to join another religion? Advocating freedom does not encompass the freedom to kill someone because they want to or have changed religion. The whole notion of "death to apostates" takes away the apostate's freedom, so that they are bound to remain with one religion or set of belief through the use of force or threats to personal safety.
Advocating freedom necessarily implies freedom of religion and advocating murder for not complying with any specific religion would nullify that freedom. Furthermore, murder removes another person's freedom altogether. Thus, someone who cliams to be an advocate for freedom AND death to religious apostates is a hypocrite only interested in their OWN freedom.
SAM: Sure, but you dodged the question again. I asked you: does Islam advocate the killing of apostates? So, does it, or doesn't it? Or do you not know?
Then it is not free speech. If you punish someone for what they have said or done, then you have taken away their freedom about it. No death to terrorists? No harming or killing in self-defense? No defending your country when it is invaded? Why is that immoral and wrong? I would really like to know. It is generally not considered immoral to harm or even kill someone in self-defense or in combat, for example. What is it about apostates that makes them less than terrorists, assassins, enemy soldiers ...?
Geoff didn't say it should have consequences but simply that it does. Anything you say may have consequences. If you start calling people names in the street I bet you will feel the consequences Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Repeating your tired old lie doesn't make it any more true Sam. Give up on the Stalin thing, you've lost enough credibility here already.
SAM. You can chalk up one success. I was a reasonable live -and-let live type who only quarreled about religion when someone tried to push their, to me. unacceptable views. Reading your posts encouraged me to look for other sources of information on Islam. I am now an Islamophobe. Bring on a fatwah !
No no, I did opine that it should in a way. If it exceeds reasonability. Allow me to demonstrate on Greenberg. But free speech isn't - and should not be - the instrument by which freedom is taken away. That would be foolhardiness, and contravene the very essence of that freedom. If it were just speech, and if that were all it was about, well and good. But in political religion - of any stripe - that's never what it's about. I would hazard to guess: because they're not doing anything to anyone that requires punishment from anyone? Really, this is pretty obvious stuff. They're exercising religious choice, which should be an integral freedom anyway; who are they harming? You compare them to terrorists and assassins - how? Why?? What have they done that is so terrible? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Geoff
Ah. Yes, I agree that politicians should take responsibility for what they say. But so should other people. I wondered why Green said that as well..
What do you think of the fact that most of the top ten mass murderers in the world are atheist? You give too much importance to your opinion, mideah. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! James, I already answered that question. http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1957337&postcount=150
The fact was that Stalin had a religious upbringing. YOU have failed to make a causal link between atheism and atrocities, whereas fatwas, jihads, crusades, and inquisitions are definite products of religions. Therefore, you lose.
So an atheist who has a religious upbringing [like Dawkins] and then becomes an atheist is not a real atheist? What about Mao? Mussolini? Pol Pot? The Marxist LTTE?
It was a no, of course. I've said that ad nauseum ad infinitum. Of course, like I proved in the thread "who kills the most atheists", atheists on this forum are given to severe delusions of paranoia.
I didn't say he wasn't a 'real atheist' at all, that's a straw man argument Sam, but then you are incapable of honest debate. I said Stalin was brought up in a realigious environment, and that was probably what helped warp him. Pay attention!
It is never just about speech anyway, anywhere. I don't think it is obvious at all. Why? How do you think that the current state of planet Earth came about? All that pollution, frequent natural catastrophes, depleted natural resources, economy going down ... how did all that come about? Do you really think that the way people think has nothing to do with these things? Do you really think that the way people think has nothing to do with the way they act? Do you really think that the way one person acts has nothing to do with how things are in society and on the planet? Do you really think that people with completely incompatible belief or value systems can peacefully live side by side with one another? Surely, in the situation we have nowadays in many countries -multicultural and multireligious- it seems absurd to punish an apostate. Being an apostate to one religion or philosophy often makes one an adherent of another religion or philosophy. And as in those countries no religion or philosophy is treated as the one and only right one, it is impossible to determine who is an apostate to begin with. But in earlier societies that were more uniform in regards to religion -and many other things-, it was common to punish apostates and dissidents more or less severely. Those societies recognized how dangerous it is to tolerate enemies in their own lines. A similar phenomenon can be observed in armies on battlefields to this day. The officer in charge carries a handgun and has the order to shoot, on the spot, to death, every soldier who refuses to fight. If one soldier who decided he wouldn't fight would be let go, then all soldiers should be given this freedom too, and the battle would be lost for sure. Which is not what the army is there for in a battle. But on the whole, we nowadays generally seem to think that we can afford apostacy, internal inconsistence in society, discord, multitude of views ... Stupid of us, really.
