[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

[Whipstitch]

The history of religion can easily be summarized as a bunch of assholes yelling "No true Scotsman would ever..." at one another.

[name_here]

Seeing as how most of their opponents can trace their positions back to precedent established by literally Muhammad's immediate family on how Islamic law is to be done and updated and ISIS can trace back their positions to some guy in the 18th century who decided to reject all of that, I think the other side kind of has a point.

Also, hey, quick check indicates Muhammad was kind of really big on manumission for the era. Like, he and his associates literally freed tens of thousands of slaves and imposed much stricter rules for their treatment than had previously been the case. Which ISIS has been flagrantly violating. Because selling slave girls as prostitutes is specifically forbidden.

[Korwin]

Seeing as how most of their opponents can trace their positions back to precedent established by literally Muhammad's immediate family on how Islamic law is to be done and updated and ISIS can trace back their positions to some guy in the 18th century who decided to reject all of that, I think the other side kind of has a point.

You are saying one side in an religious dispute is right the other wrong.
Which is pointless, they belive what they want to believe.

And even then you referencing Mohammeds familiy. Even for me as non muslim, it makes sense to disregard his family and look up what he actually wrote into the koran...

[name_here]

Yes, well, it's been literally over 1300 years since mainstream Islam didn't take what they thought into account. Hell, ISIS is also doing that, because they've got a Caliph, and there is nothing about selecting a Caliph anywhere in the Qur'an. It was set up by Muhammad's immediate family.

Anyways, as I have just demonstrated, five minutes on Wikipedia will get you a Qur'an verse explicitly forbidding one of the things Kaelik cites as something that ISIS is objectively correct about being one of the things the Qur'an specifically encourages. Because in this era, when someone says that their ideology is drawn solely from a plain reading of an ancient holy text, odds are extremely good they've just fucking lying. Like, the Christians who say that often have a big theory about the Antichrist, a word used in the bible only in the plural. They're counting on it being uncritically accepted by people who have not actually read the book they're referring to.

In case you're wondering, I'm not Muslim, I just have an interest in history and take a very dim view of making unjustified generalizations about very large groups merely because I do not happen to be part of them.

[Kaelik]

Seeing as how most of their opponents can trace their positions back to precedent established by literally Muhammad's immediate family on how Islamic law is to be done and updated and ISIS can trace back their positions to some guy in the 18th century who decided to reject all of that, I think the other side kind of has a point.

Yes, I'm totally sure their fiddly fucking religious points about whether filthy infidels should be put to the sword first or asked to convert then put to the sword is really fucking important. But to me, that whole putting to the sword thing is kind of the sticking point.

Anyways, as I have just demonstrated, five minutes on Wikipedia will get you a Qur'an verse explicitly forbidding one of the things Kaelik cites as something that ISIS is objectively correct about being one of the things the Qur'an specifically encourages.

Yes, I'm sure the 9 year old girl marrying Muhammad was totally giving informed consent, and that there is no reason whatsoever to think that her marriage was in any way like slavery, and she probably had a grand old time...

Look it doesn't matter if you can make up some bullshit religious justification for not being a fucking asshole, I'm not actually sure that Muhammad or his family actually existed, but the Koran is super clear about the need to conquer the world, treat apostates and infidels like shit, and totally have sex with young girls because you feel like it, and don't worry about their opinions. Also, if you feel like destroying infidels buildings for hardening people's hearts against god, just do that.

[name_here]

No. You are uncritically accepting ISIS's propaganda about what the Qur'an says. The Qur'an actually instructs people to collect extra taxes from people who aren't Muslim. They have historically preferred doing this to forcing people to convert at swordpoint. This is associated with how Islam spread rather slowly in the areas the early Caliphate controlled. Conversions at swordpoint did happen more often in India, though.

I concur that sex with nine-year-olds is not acceptable. However, Aisha's age is only mentioned in hadith and thus poses absolutely no problem for citing the Qur'an when arguing against doing it. The Qur'an does require consent for marriage, though modern views on what constitutes consent and who is capable of informed consent are considerably more restrictive.

Essentially, you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

[Kaelik]

No. You are uncritically accepting ISIS's propaganda about what the Qur'an says. The Qur'an actually instructs people to collect extra taxes from people who aren't Muslim. They have historically preferred doing this to forcing people to convert at swordpoint. This is associated with how Islam spread rather slowly in the areas the early Caliphate controlled. Conversions at swordpoint did happen more often in India, though.

I concur that sex with nine-year-olds is not acceptable. However, Aisha's age is only mentioned in hadith and thus poses absolutely no problem for citing the Qur'an when arguing against doing it. The Qur'an does require consent for marriage, though modern views on what constitutes consent and who is capable of informed consent are considerably more restrictive.

Essentially, you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

Yes, I definitely uncritically accepted the proganda of a group that didn't exist when I came to these conclusions, and yes, the hadith totally absolves all muslims of their need to kill infidels, but at the same time totally don't count for child rape. And that is why when Iran and Saudia Arabia oppose ISIS we know they are saintly angels who would never enforce slavery and subjugation of women, and call for the deaths of apostates and infidels.

[name_here]

yes, the hadith totally absolves all muslims of their need to kill infidels, but at the same time totally don't count for child rape.

Congratulations, you have discovered that different pieces of hadith are ascribed different levels of veracity and significance. Otherwise known as the most basic fucking thing about hadith. Additionally, which hadith is accepted as valid and how important any piece is varies by sect. Which is why the distinction between things in the Qur'an and things in hadith is extremely important when you are talking about Islam as a whole.

Incidentally, the tax for being an infidel instead of death is totally in the Qur'an. The hadith puts some numbers and sundry other administrative rules on it.

[RobbyPants]

Anyways, as I have just demonstrated, five minutes on Wikipedia will get you a Qur'an verse explicitly forbidding one of the things Kaelik cites as something that ISIS is objectively correct about being one of the things the Qur'an specifically encourages.

There's a difference in saying that ISIS does what they do because they're Qur'an-literalists and because they are emulating the actions of Mohammad. He said the latter.

[name_here]

Hm, yeah, you're correct as of that point. Then in the very next post he said

the Koran is super clear about the need to conquer the world, treat apostates and infidels like shit, and totally have sex with young girls because you feel like it, and don't worry about their opinions. Also, if you feel like destroying infidels buildings for hardening people's hearts against god, just do that.

so apparently I correctly interpreted what he meant.

[Username17]

While the evidence for Mohamed existing is much stronger than it is for Jesus (Jesus of the bible was probably not based on a real person, Mohamed of the Koran probably was), it's important to remember that there are no records from the period of anything that Mohamed actually said or wrote. The Koran was written down after the prophet's death, and there were several versions that were different in various ways and the third Caliph did a big Council of Nicea thing to narrow it down to a single text. Absolutely no one is basing anything at all about what they say or do on the words of Mohamed, because later texts of later authors of various levels of veracity is 100% of what actually exists.

The things that ISIS claims Islam is all about are a grab bag of ideas from early, middle, and late Islamic thinkers. There is no Koranic justification for mandatory burqas, there is no Koranic justification for selling teenage girls as slaves. There are things in the Koran that ISIS adheres to that mainstream secular Muslims ignore, but there are also things in the Koran that ISIS ignores that mainstream secular Muslims adhere to.

ISIS' interpretation of Islam is exactly as much of a buffet style religious interpretation as what all the rest of the world's Muslims have. They do not rape and murder and enslave people because it's an unavoidable or correct reading of their primary religious text, they do those things because they want to rape and murder and enslave people.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

The Qur'an dance is the exact same as the Bible dance. Exact fucking same. You can justify the (non-)adherence to any part with vague completely unresolvable arguments about whether or not there exists a pertinent context that changes the meaning and what that context might be.

That said, in the pseudo-history described by the Qur'an and its associated texts (which presumably coincides with actual history to some limited extent), forcing certain groups to convert at swordpoint is 100% a thing Muhammad did, no fucks given, and something he almost certainly expected to be a general practice going forward. The only real scholarly question is which groups he meant - the Qur'an is in some places careful to distinguish Jews and Christians from disbelievers (pagans, atheists, whatever), and the Qur'an's most violent verses are vague proclamations against disbelievers that, in context, may just be referring to pagans and the like. Of course, you shouldn't be murdering anyone for their religious beliefs, so that's not exactly much of a saving grace. And if you interpret it very specifically and stick your fingers in your ears, you can contort it to mean "no, no, Muhammad doesn't want us to convert pagans under threat of death generally. Just these specific pagans really pissed him the fuck off for some reason, what with the audacity of existing within reach of his sword arm. It was a special case, not something he would ever want his followers to do. That'd be absurd. Only hearing voices in your head justifies that kind of brutality."

tl;dr religious texts are fucking evil, but people make them say whatever the fuck they want them to say, so really it's just a question of whether or not the people reading them are fucking evil. And also a question of how much of a smokescreen and propaganda platform religious texts are for people who want to be fucking evil, which is often "a lot" no matter what the religion is. The word of god goes a long way for legitimizing genocide.

[name_here]

It's apparently believed to be reasonably accurate, in that the big compilation was from notes taken by various direct witnesses. Probably not particularly less accurate than any other speech transcript we have that isn't the script the speaker used. I mean, "compiled from multiple sources a while later" also describes our copies of Shakespeare plays, and the third Caliph by all accounts was actually there for most of it.

Anyways, Muslims in general consider the compiled version inerrant and do not extend this to hadith, so they can respond to hadith they disagree with by saying it's simply wrong without any logical inconsistency, and established systems for ranking the veracity of various pieces. Mainstream Islam pretty explicitly says that the Qur'an is inerrant but hadith and prior scholarship must be considered in order to correctly determine what it actually means. And they've been at this for a long time, and if you find something in the Qur'an that contradicts their current position there are probably a lot of books explaining that it actually doesn't, with extensive arguments and many citations. These arguments could very well be wrong, but their existence isn't theologically inconsistent.

As for the swordpoint thing, they have specific Qur'an citations and hadith that say that you should fight infidels until they submit and pay tribute. This was general policy straight back to the Caliphs who personally knew Muhammad, so it's not a recent cherrypick to fit in with modern standards.

[Blade]

When you see how many interpretations and arguments there are over things such as modern-days laws that are meant specifically to be as unambiguous as possible (though some laws are purposely vague to leave some backdoor or leeway), or over game rules, it's no wonder that texts as fucked up as many religious texts are, lead to such a mess.

[Kaelik]

Hm, yeah, you're correct as of that point. Then in the very next post he said

the Koran is super clear about the need to conquer the world, treat apostates and infidels like shit, and totally have sex with young girls because you feel like it, and don't worry about their opinions. Also, if you feel like destroying infidels buildings for hardening people's hearts against god, just do that.

so apparently I correctly interpreted what he meant.

Or alternatively, if I am accusing ISIS of emulating Muhammed, then the sort of maybe history in the Koran is what I am accusing them of emulating. It doesn't matter if Muhammed went around telling people that they should never ever kill anyone and that passive resistance is the only appropriate resistance, that would still not change the things he is described as doing which ISIS is emulating.

Also, just by the way, you are apparently super committed to this whole "you aren't supposed to kill people" thing, but like, you get that only applies to jews and christians who agree to be under muslim rule right? And I am an atheist. I am specifically on the fucking chopping block no matter what. To say nothing of apostates.

ISIS' interpretation of Islam is exactly as much of a buffet style religious interpretation as what all the rest of the world's Muslims have. They do not rape and murder and enslave people because it's an unavoidable or correct reading of their primary religious text, they do those things because they want to rape and murder and enslave people.

tl;dr religious texts are fucking evil, but people make them say whatever the fuck they want them to say, so really it's just a question of whether or not the people reading them are fucking evil. And also a question of how much of a smokescreen and propaganda platform religious texts are for people who want to be fucking evil, which is often "a lot" no matter what the religion is. The word of god goes a long way for legitimizing genocide.

I agree, I'm not claiming ISIS's interpretation is specifically "better" or "more accurate" or whatever. Just that it is on basically way more solid ground than the muslims we actually like, because they are sane non monsters, and on equal ground with the other monsters who do slightly less monstrous things but oppose ISIS.

It's apparently believed to be reasonably accurate, in that the big compilation was from notes taken by various direct witnesses. Probably not particularly less accurate than any other speech transcript we have that isn't the script the speaker used. I mean, "compiled from multiple sources a while later" also describes our copies of Shakespeare plays, and the third Caliph by all accounts was actually there for most of it.

Spoiler alert, 300 years ago Christians considered the bible to be a pretty accurate depiction of the life of Jesus. Since that is pretty much definitely false, and he probably didn't even exist as a person, I'm not going to put much faith in the generally respected tradition that the Koran is super accurate or anything. This doesn't have much effect on the rest of our conversation, but whatever.

[name_here]

Except the history as related in the Qur'an does not in fact include sleeping with a nine-year-old girl. Because it does not specify her age. The hadith setting her age at nine or ten are considered the most accurate according to Islamic tradition, but other hadith include date and relative age references such that if you take them as true the math simply does not work out. People have estimated her age as anywhere in the range of 12-24.

Likewise, no, I don't think that ISIS is a better authority on how Muhammad behaved in the history as related by the Qur'an than, say, the third Caliph.

As for the accuracy, the circumstances are quite different from Christianity. The big compilation happened twenty years later rather than centuries later. Furthermore, the Caliphate most definitely existed and kicked Byzantine ass in that time period. It's not a video record, but as historical records go it's pretty solid. Historians have worked with much worse. Take a look at one of our best sources on Scandinavian royalty.

[Kaelik]

Likewise, no, I don't think that ISIS is a better authority on how Muhammad behaved in the history as related by the Qur'an than, say, the third Caliph.

Literally no one said that.

[name_here]

Likewise, no, I don't think that ISIS is a better authority on how Muhammad behaved in the history as related by the Qur'an than, say, the third Caliph.

Literally no one said that.

It was implied by your argument.

Early Caliphs and modern secular Muslims: do not support genocide against Zoroastrians
ISIS: Does support genocide against Zoroastrians.

This is a significant policy issue where modern secular Muslims concur with early Caliphs and ISIS does not.

[Kaelik]

Likewise, no, I don't think that ISIS is a better authority on how Muhammad behaved in the history as related by the Qur'an than, say, the third Caliph.

Literally no one said that.

It was implied by your argument.

Early Caliphs and modern secular Muslims: do not support genocide against Zoroastrians
ISIS: Does support genocide against Zoroastrians.

This is a significant policy issue where modern secular Muslims concur with early Caliphs and ISIS does not.

Or alternatively:

1) ISIS believes they should be murdered.
2) modern monsters who aren't ISIS believe that they should merely be subjugated, denied basic human rights, forced to live according to islamic laws, and live as fourth class citizens.
3) People who we don't hate: Let's just all live together in harmony, and not treat people of other religions like shit. Also, this is totally what muhammed would have wanted, you can tell because it is absolutely nothing like what he did in any way.

1 and 2 are on equally solid ground saying "this is what Muhammed and Allah want" and 3 is basically completely baseless nonsense, but because they are the only sane people, we pretend the ancient maybe warlord Muhammed and his conqueror god would be totally okay with that.

[name_here]

Also historical group four: People of other religions pay an extra tax, are not subject to Islamic law unless both parties in a case agree to take it to the court, and generally get a deal only slightly worse than Muslims. This is what Muhammad wanted and I should know because I'm literally one of his fathers-in-law. Also I am responsible for creating Islamic Law.

Group 4 is on the most solid ground of any of them and much closer to 3 than 1 and 2.

[RobbyPants]

Don't know if this is political yet, or not:

Police: At least 14 people killed, 14 others injured in mass shooting in San Bernardino, California

[RobbyPants]

Two dead suspects named after mass shooting that killed 14 at California office party

[Kaelik]

Cracked recently did an article where they sarcastically answered a bunch of fake questions that people always ask them.

One was about why are their titles all so fucking dumb, and they said basically "it's hard to make titles" Sure whatever. I'm more interested in why they post articles or videos with correct descriptive titles, and then later on in the same day, change them to being complete nonsense lies.

The posted a video about how Assassin's Creed is dumb, and then 10 hours later changed the title to "How everyone's favorite videogame is dumb" What? It's a fucking video 100% about Assassin's Creed, why did you change the fucking title 10 hours after posting it to something completely fucking unhelpful when you had a helpful title?

[name_here]

I'm assuming that their specific titles get more clicks in the morning and their vague ones get more clicks later in the day, because they're incredibly consistent about doing it. Also in the morning the titles when browsing on a phone are different, every time.

[erik]

And to trick people into clicking on the same stupid article twice a day.