Stallman's opinion of Christianity and Islam...

[Tsuroerusu]

I think that all organized big religion should be abolished in favor of altruism and the golden rule. Churches should be turned into schools and homes.

This was tried already in the Soviet Union.
<sarcasm>It was a huge success.</sarcasm>

Pat, I don't mean to be impolite or disrespectful, but did you either not have history classes in school, or did you skip out on them? Because the Soviet Union absolutely did NOT fail solely because it abolished religion!

Here's a few links with the primary causes to the USSR's collapse:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_were_the ... viet_union
http://www.conjecturer.com/weblog/?p=3720

Churches do help a lot of people believe it or not.

Maybe, but can you deny that religion has been the root cause of a ginourmous number of conflicts for thousands of years? It has also been a huge cause in the making of both unjust, and ridiculous laws, cruelty and the depriving of people's essential liberties.
Here's a few examples:

Tehran, Oct. 16 - A 13-year-old schoolgirl has been sentenced to stoning in the town of Marivan (northwestern Iran). Zhila Izadi was condemned to death by stoning after giving birth to a child in prison 2 weeks ago.

She was accused of committing ‘moral sin’ and giving birth to an ‘unholy child’. Her brother a 15-year-old boy who was also accused and is currently in prison in Tehran was given a sentence of 150 lashes, in accordance with Islamic laws.

Source: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/a ... toryid=521

Iran : A 17 year old girl is sentenced to death by hanging.

Nazanin, 17, was sentenced to death by hanging for defending herself against three rapists.

A young girl who defended herself and her chastity against three male assailants who intended to kidnap and rape her causing injury to one of them who later died in hospital was condemned to death by hanging in an Islamic court in Iran. Nazanin who has seen no more than 17 Springs, all of which under the tyrannical rule of the Mullahs is now facing execution for trying to defend herself and her honor.

No where in the world and under no law self defense is considered to be a crime, but in the tyrannical mullacracy of Iran if a woman does not resist rape she will be stoned as adulterer and if she does she will be hanged.

Source: http://www.faithfreedom.org/Announcement/601081013.htm

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

...

There has been no official government comment but parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the decision to ban the word for non-Muslims on security grounds was "unlawful".

"The term 'Allah' was used to refer to God by Arabic-speaking Christians before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed," he said.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7163391.stm

Why do atheists like to paint anybody with a shred of spirituality or religiousness as a bigot or an extremist? We're not all fundamentalists.

There are two types of atheists, those that don't believe in a supreme deity, and those that also actively tell you that you shouldn't. Also, I could ask you, why do you say that "atheists" (Which at least linguistically makes a generalization, I don't know if you meant it that way) try to make religious or semi-religious not believe what they believe? I personally don't believe in any gods, but if other people do, I'm fine with that, as long as those people keep it to themselves, and don't try to force it upon other people. Also if people ask me what I believe in, then I am gonna flat out say what I believe, and if people get offended by that, that's their problem, because they themselves asked me.

[Wally Balljacker]

Why do atheists like to paint anybody with a shred of spirituality or religiousness as a bigot or an extremist? We're not all fundamentalists.

Not all atheists think that way of religious/spiritual people. I for one, as an agnostic, doubt very much that it's even more than 50% of religious people that are bigots/extremists.

Most religious people are not extremists, but they still make the world safe for extremists by teaching faith to be a virtue. When the Koran openly states that all non-believers should be killed, and some fundamentalist Muslim takes that to heart, and murders a Christian, it's not solely his fault. After all, he is simply doing what his faith dictates. Every Muslim that advocates those teachings is partly to blame. They are creating a climate with their doctrine that breeds this kind of behavior. I point the finger at every Muslim, and go YOU helped this happen.

[Vogateer]

This was tried already in the Soviet Union.
<sarcasm>It was a huge success.</sarcasm>

Pat, I don't mean to be impolite or disrespectful, but did you either not have history classes in school, or did you skip out on them? Because the Soviet Union absolutely did NOT fail solely because it abolished religion!

I always love it when people preface a horribly insulting and disrespectful comment with "I don't mean to be disrespectful." If you don't want to be disrespectful, then simply don't be disrespectful. Don't pretend you care about showing people respect if you're not going to bother trying to do just that.

Pat never said anything about the Soviet Union failing simply because it attempt to abolish religion, he said that the Soviet Union attempted to abolish the "opiate of the people" and failed in their attempt to do so. Last time I checked the Orthodox church was still fairly strong during Soviet rule, and around a third of the people still stated they had some religious belief. But then again, I'm American, and we don't even bother with history classes in school, so I'm probably just pulling stuff out of my ass.

What Pat was saying in his post was closer to the Einstein quote, "The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."

Next time you plan to accuse others of ignorance, try taking a few deep breaths, calmly rereading the post that got you fired up, then if you're still angry, try sleeping a night on it. It truly does nobody any good to hurl such insults at others.

[Wally Balljacker]

What Pat was saying in his post was closer to the Einstein quote, "The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer."

That quote is somewhat ironic considering Einstein himself did not believe in a personal god.

[Tsuroerusu]

This was tried already in the Soviet Union.
<sarcasm>It was a huge success.</sarcasm>

Pat, I don't mean to be impolite or disrespectful, but did you either not have history classes in school, or did you skip out on them? Because the Soviet Union absolutely did NOT fail solely because it abolished religion!

I always love it when people preface a horribly insulting and disrespectful comment with "I don't mean to be disrespectful." If you don't want to be disrespectful, then simply don't be disrespectful. Don't pretend you care about showing people respect if you're not going to bother trying to do just that.

And I love it how you judge my statement without knowing my actual intent! OK, I obviously worded it the wrong way!! Because I did NOT in fact mean to sound mean (When I wrote what you regard as insulting, I had good intentions in mind), but I was actually curious about what I asked, not because I meant to be disrespectful, but because it's hard to discuss a topic which a person may know have much knowledge of (Try telling my mother about C compilers for instance!), or some huge confusions can be caused by that. I don't know what the school system in the US is like, I only know that it's quite different in some areas (Example: Here in Denmark, we don't have colleges). IF, and let me stress IF, Pat only had casual knowledge of the Soviet Union and it's fall (This is a very complicated topic, so it's good to know how much the person you're talking to knows about it), then it's handy to know how much information I might need to provide to demonstrate a claim of mine is true (Two links or 20 quite a big difference, in this area, doing more work than is needed is somewhat of a bummer).

If my wording offended Pat or anyone in here, I apologize for that and admit that the wording was not good at all, but let me be clear, my intent was not malicious.

Pat never said anything about the Soviet Union failing simply because it attempt to abolish religion, he said that the Soviet Union attempted to abolish the "opiate of the people" and failed in their attempt to do so.

Oh, I think I need glasses then, because I obviously missed a whole line or something there, because I only saw the following:

This was tried already in the Soviet Union.
<sarcasm>It was a huge success.</sarcasm>

And I still cannot see more lines up there, but obviously there must be some, I'll take your word on that since you obviously have a much superior vision than mine, including superior reading abilities.

But then again, I'm American, and we don't even bother with history classes in school, so I'm probably just pulling stuff out of my ass.

I don't know if that was meant as a joke, but if you were serious, I think that somewhat legitimizes my question for Pat (Not the wording though, having read it a few extra times now, I see how it can be disrespectful). I can't speak for the rest of Europe (Many different places, you know), but I have had obligatory history classes from 4th grade up to, and including, 9th grade of the public school system. Topics include Denmark's history, an overview of America's history (Although this is a long time ago, and I can't remember all of it, and I apologize for that), world war 1+2, the formation of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Facist Italy, and many other things.

Next time you plan to accuse others of ignorance, try taking a few deep breaths, calmly rereading the post that got you fired up, then if you're still angry, try sleeping a night on it. It truly does nobody any good to hurl such insults at others.

I will, thanks for your advice. However, I actually DID do all that, believe it or not (I'm being extremely literal here). Nothing got me fired up, or angry, at all, nor did I intend to hurl insults at anyone.


You know, maybe I ought to hire a full-time interpreter to vet everything I write, because it seems like when I have the best intentions, and try my best to write something clearly, I always end up screwing up big time. I had a case of this on my blog about a month and a half ago, and I had to write a lengthy explanation, because the person couldn't clearly understand what I wrote, because my wording was bad. Oh well, the people with the best intentions are always the ones who screw up, always helps to know one is not alone in making a mistake ....

[Vogateer]

It seems that I have judged your post too harshly. I will say that, to American ears, it sounds very much like an insult to suggest that someone didn't have history classes or that he missed classes (particularly when he was stating something that is correct). I believe that you didn't mean it as an insult, but at least when you're dealing with Americans, I wouldn't recommend questioning someone's education, and I would never bring up the "missing class" comment, since an American would interpret either of these statements as being an intentionally insulting remark. My remark about not bothering with history classes was meant to be light-hearted, but reading it again, it doesn't come across that way. Be assured that Americans are required to take history courses in high school.

Let us read Pat's post in its context, the previous post said this:

I think that all organized big religion should be abolished in favor of altruism and the golden rule.

So the context was trying to abolish religion. Now on to Pat's reply, and I'll try to be clear, because I'm pretty certain I understand what's causing confusion:

Pat DID NOT say or even suggest that the Soviet Union failed because it tried to abolish religion.
Pat did say that the Soviet Union's attempt to abolish religion failed.

So it was the attempt to abolish religion that was <sarcasm>a huge success</sarcasm>.

My suggestion for cooling down obviously wasn't needed, since you weren't angry. I do apologize for interpreting it as being an angry post when it wasn't.

[Vogateer]

because it seems like when I have the best intentions, and try my best to write something clearly, I always end up screwing up big time. I had a case of this on my blog about a month and a half ago, and I had to write a lengthy explanation, because the person couldn't clearly understand what I wrote, because my wording was bad. Oh well, the people with the best intentions are always the ones who screw up, always helps to know one is not alone in making a mistake ....

I forget how easy it can be for something in English to come across as nasty or harsh. I remember directly translating German (badly) for my wife when we were there, and I constantly had to rephrase things (after the initial translation) so they didn't sound curt. Forgive me, as it's been many years since I tried to speak or write in German, but once she made a mistake in giving the incorrect amount of change to a cashier, and the cashier said, "Das hilft mir nicht." Even the direct translation of "That doesn't help me," can sound rude to Americans, even though it's just a simple, direct statement. Of course, that's the issue. Such directness can come across as rude, depending on how you say it, since we so often preface things with softening phrases. For instance, a polite version of that phrase might be, "Oh, I'm sorry, but this isn't the correct amount of change."

I grow accustomed to what I see as your proficiency in English, and forget how our culture and lack of "directness" doesn't make sense to other cultures, and it just gets worse in the written form. I'll try to watch for that in the future.

[Tsuroerusu]

because it seems like when I have the best intentions, and try my best to write something clearly, I always end up screwing up big time. I had a case of this on my blog about a month and a half ago, and I had to write a lengthy explanation, because the person couldn't clearly understand what I wrote, because my wording was bad. Oh well, the people with the best intentions are always the ones who screw up, always helps to know one is not alone in making a mistake ....

I forget how easy it can be for something in English to come across as nasty or harsh. I remember directly translating German (badly) for my wife when we were there, and I constantly had to rephrase things (after the initial translation) so they didn't sound curt. Forgive me, as it's been many years since I tried to speak or write in German, but once she made a mistake in giving the incorrect amount of change to a cashier, and the cashier said, "Das hilft mir nicht." Even the direct translation of "That doesn't help me," can sound rude to Americans, even though it's just a simple, direct statement. Of course, that's the issue. Such directness can come across as rude, depending on how you say it, since we so often preface things with softening phrases. For instance, a polite version of that phrase might be, "Oh, I'm sorry, but this isn't the correct amount of change."

It's funny you mention German, because German is much much closer to my native language, Danish. Yet modern Danish and German still differs a lot. I've been interested in learning Japanese for a while, and I have tried doing a little bit (I do things at my own phase, I have a personal, ambitious goal to be relatively fluent in everyday spoken Japanese, not writing, by 2017). Japanese places EXTREME importance on politeness and non-directness, even the most modern Japanese you can find. Modern Danish is like the direct opposite! And I mean that literally! You don't have to be formal at all, and when you do, even a 5 year old can hear that. The example I usually use, is asking a stranger you pass on the street for directions. In German you absolutely must be polite and say "Sie" to them. Because Danish, and Denmark, was similar in the past, we still have the words for this in our language ("De" is our equivilant of "Sie"), but they aren't used much at all. So when I ask somebody for directions, I would say "Undskyld, kan du sige hvor XYZ er?", the first word, "Undskyld", means "excuse me", and then "kan du" (Meaning "can you") which in German is "kannst du" (Very impolite to say to stranger on the street in Germany, and offensive in Japanese ), "sige hvor XYZ er?" asks the question. In English the words you use are entirely different, so much so that it doesn't even sound similar, in English, it's actually a different nature of a way you ask.

I personally have various annoyances with the English language, the same way I have annoyances with a computer program, and one of them is that it's trivial to sound like a total prick, to such an extent that you can easily do it by accident. Let's face it, not everybody are linguists. Also that there's no way to efficiently distinguish between a friend that is male or female. Because if I am a guy and I say "my girl friend" it indicates a close relationship, but the Danish direct translation ("veninde") just means a friend that is female, specifically, which could be a casual friendly classmate, not any deeper relationship ("Kæreste" is the word that both guys and girls use to refer to their partner in a romantic relationship). Hopefully this will be fixed in the future, let's face it English is different today than it was 100 years ago. Languages evolve, just like everything else does.

And before anybody says something like "If you don't like English, learn something else", let me say, my native language is Danish, and will always be (Despite some things I find stupid or unfortunate (Such as the Social Democrats needing to get their shit together), I still feel we have a great society). I know a very very minimal amount of German, and one of my personal goals is to master everyday Japanese over the next decade. I was at a political round-table at school back in November, related to the recent election, and a woman from Red-Green Alliance (A socialist party) said "Setting ambitious goals, and striving towards those is what we must do.", what she meant was that once we become 10% less reliant on fossil fuels, we must not just be "happy", we should always aim for a bigger ambitious goal, because 10, 20, 30, 40 ... percent is not the goal, 100% is the goal to strive for, even though we may never be able to fully reach it, it's still the goal to strive for.

I grow accustomed to what I see as your proficiency in English

Thank you for that remark, it's really quite encouraging to hear such things.

and forget how our culture and lack of "directness" doesn't make sense to other cultures, and it just gets worse in the written form. I'll try to watch for that in the future.

I regard myself as being quite good at English, but specifically, what I am good at, is the words, grammar, pronunciation etc.
What differentiates my Danish skills and English skills, is what I call "Spinal status". If you say something to me, that I don't already know is offensive, I won't feel offended, unless I can sort of guess what you mean. In Danish, because it's my mother tongue, I can always distinguish an insult from a praise, or from something that is between the two. This is because the Danish language and the culture of the Danish language, is inherently part of me, just as the English language, and the culture of the English language, is part of most of the guys on this board. Put simply, if a person don't know what the word "bastard" means or even is about, then they likely won't feel offended by being called it.

In the case of this thread, when I said "or did you skip out on it?" I actually meant whether one skipped history by not picking it as part of your schooling (Similar as to if one didn't pick a certain topic in computer science), I did not mean it as in "not showing up".


I think one thing I can conclude, is that even if a person knows every word in a foreign language, if that person is not familiar with the culture of that language, it's inevitable to make mistakes.

[hellonorman]

In the case of this thread, when I said "or did you skip out on it?" I actually meant whether one skipped history by not picking it as part of your schooling (Similar as to if one didn't pick a certain topic in computer science), I did not mean it as in "not showing up".

Troels I think one point might be this. Your sentence basically paraphrases to "I don't mean to be rude, but are you uneducated? Because you are wrong." Uneducated could mean skip classes, chose not to take classes or too stupid to learn from the classes it really doesn't matter which one. Regardless of your exact meaning or intention, questioning another's education before presenting counter arguments reads as rude.

I don't write this to try and make you feel bad or attack you. I just think that you would probably get the same interpretation from most Americans.

[Tsuroerusu]

In the case of this thread, when I said "or did you skip out on it?" I actually meant whether one skipped history by not picking it as part of your schooling (Similar as to if one didn't pick a certain topic in computer science), I did not mean it as in "not showing up".

Troels I think one point might be this. Your sentence basically paraphrases to "I don't mean to be rude, but are you uneducated? Because you are wrong." Uneducated could mean skip classes, chose not to take classes or too stupid to learn from the classes it really doesn't matter which one. Regardless of your exact meaning or intention, questioning another's education before presenting counter arguments reads as rude.

I don't write this to try and make you feel bad or attack you. I just think that you would probably get the same interpretation from most Americans.

I understand, thank you for telling me.

What I meant was simply that I wondered exactly how familiar Pat was with the fall of the Soviet Union, because we in Denmark learn about it at school, that to me seemed like the natural source of knowledge for this. Pat's sarcastic post, to me sounded like he implied that the Soviet Union cratered either because it abolished religion or something close to that. Having understood it like that, I wondered how much he knew about it, because the Soviet Union failed not for a single reason, because of many things. Maybe that still is questioning his education, however to a Dane (Which are the people I have physical contact with every day, and have had for almost 19 years) asking that sort of question is completely logical and is actually somewhat polite, because to us it's rude to expect somebody to be 100% familiar with something hugely complex. If you translated "or did you skip out on them?" directly to Danish (I mean directly word-wise, not meaning wise), then you would get a completely logical question, I think what happened is that my brain forgot to change the context, or adapt it to English in a way that would not have been rude.

With the above I am not trying to make excuses for myself (Because it was me who ought to have put 5 more mins. into writing the reply and used a dictionary), or "cover my ass", I am simply explaining why I did what I did. Like I say it's a reason, not an excuse.

[Vogateer]

Don't worry Troels, we still love ya.

Just to make sure this is clear, too, Americans would consider "skipping" class to mean that you were supposed to be in class, but didn't show up. It can certainly be a term with negative connotations, at the extreme, it might bring to mind the kids who didn't go to class so they could do drugs. At best, it can be associated with "Senior Skip Day", where the seniors get together and decide on a day that no senior shows up to class, which is obviously more light-hearted. Useless information that's nice to know.

But seriously, I'm a little ashamed I didn't pick up on the miscommunication before, since I thought that those few months I spent in Germany would help me catch these occasional cultural differences.

Your comment did remind me of the sort of experiences I had in Germany. I remember German people just walking up to someone they had obviously never met before and making some sort of critical remark to them, and it was perfectly normal. That sort of thing doesn't go over well in the U.S. (or in England apparently, judging by the English people I met there), where you'd be told to mind your own damned business. Of course, I also remember an American who didn't look a German in the eye when we said, "Prost," and was sort of grilled by the German, asking, "Why didn't you look me in the eye?" To an American that would seem a strangely formal attitude for something you usually do while having a couple of beers.

[greggh]

Another amusing religion related post on RMS's blog today...

"Intelligent design" is the nexus between politics, religion, and stupidity.

http://www.stallman.org/archives/2007-n ... ationists)

[Tsuroerusu]

Another amusing religion related post on RMS's blog today...

"Intelligent design" is the nexus between politics, religion, and stupidity.

http://www.stallman.org/archives/2007-n ... ationists)

*cough*Mike*cough*Huckabee*cough**cough*