Is Islam a Religion of Peace? - Debate

[brenden]

Paul are you hinting at the concept of an objective morality (which would be an entirely new debate unto itself)?
Otherwise your assertion that "morals do not change over time" is just so absurdly wrong it's funny lol.

Name something today that is not right and argue how it can be possibly considered right in the future.

Instead, try looking at the past and see if you can spot something that was once considered right and is no longer.

[thushan]

Name something today that is not right and argue how it can be possibly considered right in the future.

Gay marriage

Are you sure? OK, I think there's an issue with what we mean by "not right."

When we say "right" and "wrong" here, are we saying what society believes is right and wrong at the time? Or are we basing everything on what we believe now?

We cannot inherently say "this is right" and "that is wrong," this is impossible as we use our values today to determine that.

[paulsterio]

Gay marriage

I disagree, the moral in question here is "every person should have equal rights" - we have moved towards this moral by giving equal rights to those who are gay.

There was never a moral called "gay marriage" in the first place.

This is an example of what I was talking about before, that morals in fact, don't change, it is the world which changes and adapts so that we can achieve our moral ideals.

[pi]

Gay marriage

I disagree, the moral in question here is "every person should have equal rights" - we have moved towards this moral by giving equal rights to those who are gay.

That's not what's in question.

The moral question was/is: "Should every person have equal rights to marriage?"

100 years ago: "No"

In 100 years: "Yes" (one would assume)

Change in moral belief/consensus.

QED, morals change.

If you are asking whether the question changes, that's not my point. I'm saying the answer changes. That's those are the morals reflected by society at the time.


edit: fixed phrasing

[brenden]

we have moved towards this moral

So.... like... morals change and stuff?
It was previously considered immoral to have sex with a dude if you were a dude. Less people now think it is immoral. Please continue on how morals are constant.

[paulsterio]

Marriage isn't even a part of the question, it is, should every person have equal rights in general.

100 years ago, the answer was Yes
Today, the answer is Yes
100 years later, the answer will still be Yes

This is because it is fundamental that every person should have equal rights in general.

It is just that at some points in time, people have made exception to this rule for whatever reasons, intents or purposes.

e.g. gay marriage, slavery...etc.

However, it is still right (at that time) that every person should have equal rights, they just hadn't recognised it yet.

Hence, as soon as it is recognised, society will change in order to follow this moral ideal. This is why we've abolished slavery and started talking about gay marriage, because we see that those are SUBSETS of our moral ideals.

There are no changes in morals, we all believe that people should be given equal rights, however, yes, there is a change in consensus as people come to understand more of the SUBSETS of their moral ideals.

Hence, morals do not change.

[thushan]

What I think Paul is trying to say is that we have "morals" which we follow today, which change over time, and there are "moral ideals," which are, in effect, the correct morals (this is one approach to morals). When he says morals don't change, I assume he is talking about the "moral ideals."

[Special At Specialist]

And no, morals do not change over time, something that is right will always be right and something that is wrong will always be wrong.

I agree with everything you have said so far in this thread except for this statement. I'll give you a couple of examples of why I disagree:
1. It is morally acceptable to kill an ant, but not to kill a human
2. In a specific scenario, it could be morally acceptable to kill a human (such as if you could kill 1 person in order to save 100 people)

BUT having said that, most people abuse the second option quite a lot. They do not truly understand which scenarios are appropriate for murder and which are not. They think that "infidels" deserve to die solely for the sake of being foreign. They think that they should be allowed to rape and murder if their God tells them to, but little do they realise that their God is imaginary.

[Water]

moral ideal

How does one learn of these moral ideals, when one is not conscious of it? When does an ideal, become an ideal?  I wish to learn this philosophy.

[pi]

Marriage isn't even a part of the question, it is, should every person have equal rights in general.

100 years ago, the answer was Yes

And I'm assuming you interviewed someone from that era to ask for their opinion regarding this? You are basing the answer based on your moral code of TODAY.

[brenden]

Paul. Please answer yes or no. Are you saying there is an objective morality?

moral ideal

How does one learn of these moral ideals, when one is not conscious of it? When does an ideal, become an ideal?  I wish to learn this philosophy.

lol

[paulsterio]

1. I don't think it is morally acceptable to take another life, because it isn't morally acceptable. Sure there are those who choose to take another life, just as there are those who choose to deny homosexuals of their rights. Just because something is mainstream does not make it moral. Like I've said, people just haven't come to see all the subsets of their morals yet. They don't see the ant as a subset of what they call life, hence, they find it OK to take the ant's life.

2. I'm not getting into that debate, it's quite irrelevant to what we're talking about and really isn't about morals, but more about ethics.

What I think Paul is trying to say is that we have "morals" which we follow today, which change over time, and there are "moral ideals," which are, in effect, the correct morals (this is one approach to morals). When he says morals don't change, I assume he is talking about the "moral ideals."

Yes, this is more or less what I'm trying to say, but I wouldn't call what we follow TODAY morals, they are just BELIEFS or SUBSETS of our moral ideals.

[pi]

Look, you've said yourself that morals change. Whether you believe your "moral ideals" will change, no-one said they would. What we are saying is that answers to moral questions do change, and that's what leads to interpretation.

Now, if we are adjusting the Quran to suit what we want, then how are we following a religion. I might as well say "oh hey, I'm a Muslim, I believe in nothing the Quran says, but I'm a Muslim cause I said so" - that's taking your argument to the extreme, yes, but it is a reasonable extreme - that at some point in time, everything will have changed to a point where Islam is no longer Islam.

So can you please tell me of some Muslims that follow the Quran word-for-word? Every word please?

And if not, can you tell me if there are no real Muslims, why you are pursing whether or not it's violent? Because if no-one is really following it by Paul's Book, surely whether it's peaceful or not is largely irrelevant to modern times because no-one if following Islam now?

[Eriny]

Likewise. any holy book is just a book, it doesn't really matter what it says, what matters is how people use it/interpret it. The pages really could be blank for the amount people are sometimes inclined to read in to certain things and not others. There are so many different interpretations and so many different religious practices that it IS a "sweeping generalisation" to make a claim like "Islam is a religion of peace" or "Islam is not a religion of peace".

How can a book be open to such a wide range of interpretations. If the book says "start war on those who are not Muslims", there can only be two outcomes:

1) You don't follow the book and hence you aren't really a Muslim
2) You follow the book and you are, hence, not peaceful

So, what you're saying is that peoples actual daily practices, beliefs and personal identification with Islam doesn't matter, what matters is whether or not they strictly adhere to a bunch of rules in a book written a long time ago despite the existence of other religious sources and teachings since, none of which you really understand in the first place as (presumably) you don't know Arabic and have never lived in one of the many Islamic cultures that exist?

[thushan]

Paul, if you can't name a significant people group who follow the Quran literally, and therefore under your definition are the only Muslims, then there is zero point in debating this topic and I am going to lock it.